A few weeks ago, this blog was about the guillotine that came into prominence during the French Revolution. Today is July 14th, and a day for celebration. Why do we celebrate a good beheading or an angry mob? Back on July 14, 1789, the commoners in France were none too pleased and their actions created the original Bastille Day.
So what was this Bastille anyway? The Bastille was a state prison on the east side of Paris — built in the 1300s during the Hundred Years’ War against the English. It was built to protect the eastern entrance to the city of Paris.
By 1789, it had become a symbol of the monarchy’s dictatorial rule and when it was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob, the event became one of the defining moments in the Revolution that followed.
On July 14, 1789, the revolutionaries decided to make a huge statement and storm the Bastille, where political prisoners of the regime were being held. It turns out that on that day, there were only 7 prisoners in the Bastille — 4 counterfeiters, 2 mentally ill people, and 1 count who was sent to prison by his own family. So much for liberating political prisoners.
So was the attack on the Bastille worth it? Actually, the attack was symbolic, but there was a practical reason for the invasion, too. The revolutionaries had managed to loot and steal thousands of firearms, including some cannons. But those things were useless without gunpowder. and guess where a lot of gunpowder was stored? Yep — in the Bastille.
Before the attack, the Bastille Was actually scheduled to be torn down and replaced by a public square — today only a few stone foundations from the original structure exist. But Marquis de LaFayette, a commander of the French national guard ,and a good buddy of George Washington, sent the the key to the Bastille to Washington — it is on display at Mount Vernon.
So the storming of the Bastille symbolically marked the beginning of the French Revolution — the monarchy was overthrown and a republic set up… based on the ideas of liberty, equality and brotherhood.
After the revolution, in 1880, France’s senate decided that their country should have a national holiday. July 14th was highly contentious — conservatives considered the storming of the Bastille to be too violent and bloody of a day to commemorate. Other possible choices included August 4th, the day the country’s feudal system was finally abolished, September 21st, the anniversary of the first French republic and February 24th, the start of the second republic. But July 14th won out — it not only marked the storming of the Bastille, but also the Fête de la Fédération, which the country celebrated one year later, on July 14, 1790. That day a huge celebration was held on the site that the Eiffel Tower now stands. The day represented the changes that France had seen in the past year — rather than divisiveness and political turmoil, the country was now relatively calm.
When the law declaring July 14th a national holiday was passed, the law was deliberately ambiguous. It didn’t say which 14 July was being celebrated. Of course, today everyone just thinks of it as Bastille Day.
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