La Fête Nationale

Today, there’s two blog posts! The first is my usual blog and the second is in honor of the 14th of July!! Joyeux  Le 14 Juillet!

La Fête Nationale, more commonly called Le 14 Juillet (or Bastille Day outside of France), is a day that commemorates the Storming of the Bastille, a turning point of the French Revolution, as well as the Fête de la Fédération which celebrated the unity of the French people. The senate chose the 14th of July over the 4th of August, which would have commemorated the end of the feudal system. However, La Fête Nationale is a day to not only remember the beginning of the French Revolution but also celebrate French pride.

I said in an earlier post that I was going to come back to the storming of the Bastille. Many consider the storming of the Bastille to be the start of the French Revolution. To catch you up on what had been happening right before this: the recent wars (Seven Year’s War and American Revolutionary War) left the French bankrupt, a highly inefficient tax system screwed over the poor, years of bad harvests lead to increased food prices, malnutrition, and hunger, and the rich couldn’t give a damn about the majority of France’s problems. Cool, we’re caught up again. The Bastille, a medieval fortress of a prison that dominated over Paris with its eight 30-meter-high towers, had become a symbol of the monarchy’s dictatorial rule and storming the Bastille became one of the defining moments of the Revolution. The French, sick of all the BS, gathered around the Bastille, demanding the surrender of the prison, as well as the release of the arms and ammunition being kept there (over 30,000 lbs of gun powder). At this point, the Bastille was nearly empty (there was only 7 unimportant prisoners) and it was honestly more money than it was worth. The defenders of the Bastille tried to negotiate with the crowd for several hours. A small group from the crowd sneaked into the inner courtyard and broke the chains of the drawbridge, lowering it down. Soldiers called out for the crowd to back down but through the noise and confusion, the crowd misheard an invite to enter. Thinking the crowd was intentionally going against their orders, the soldiers starting shooting at the invading crowd. The crowd thinking they’ve been lured into a trap soon became an angry mob and the event became violent. Eventually the mob won and King Louis XVI found out about it the following day. There’s some really cool art about the storming of the Bastille, feel free to check it out here.

How do people celebrate the 14th of July? It’s mostly celebrated in Paris. Traditionally, there are barbecues on the night of the 13th with singing and dancing. Then the morning of the 14th, every year since 1880, on the Champs Elysées in Paris, they hold a parade in honor of the French military. A lot of people like to go picnicking at the park today. In the evening, they finish the day with firework displays. Outside of France, most people see this as day to celebrate French culture and food.

A highlight of today’s parade:

And the fireworks (30 mins long – they’re pretty cool):

VIVE LA FRANCE!!!!!

490 thoughts on “La Fête Nationale”

  1. Just want to say your article is as astounding. The clearness to your put up is just nice and i could think you are knowledgeable on this subject.
    Fine together with your permission allow me to seize your
    feed to keep updated with drawing close post.
    Thanks 1,000,000 and please continue the gratifying work.

  2. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I have truly enjoyed
    surfing around your blog posts. After all I’ll
    be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again soon!

  3. Nice post. I used to be checking continuously this blog and I am impressed!
    Very helpful info particularly the last part 🙂 I take care of
    such info a lot. I was seeking this particular information for a long time.

    Thank you and best of luck.

  4. Have you ever considered publishing an ebook or guest authoring on other blogs?
    I have a blog based on the same subjects you discuss and would love to have you
    share some stories/information. I know my audience would value your work.
    If you are even remotely interested, feel free to send me an e mail.

  5. After I originally commented I seem to have clicked the -Notify
    me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now on whenever a comment is added I recieve four emails with the same comment.
    There has to be a way you can remove me from that service?
    Appreciate it!

  6. With havin so much written content do you ever run into any
    issues of plagorism or copyright violation? My site has a lot of completely unique content
    I’ve either created myself or outsourced but it seems a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my permission.
    Do you know any ways to help protect against content from being ripped off?
    I’d definitely appreciate it.

  7. Having read this I thought it was really informative.

    I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this information together.

    I once again find myself personally spending a lot of time both reading and leaving comments.
    But so what, it was still worth it!

  8. Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles?
    I mean, what you say is valuable and all. Nevertheless imagine if you added some great visuals or videos to give your posts more,
    “pop”! Your content is excellent but with images and clips, this site could
    definitely be one of the most beneficial in its niche. Excellent blog!

  9. Great blog here! Also your website loads up very fast!
    What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host?
    I wish my website loaded up as quickly as yours lol

  10. Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem
    to be running off the screen in Internet explorer.
    I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue
    or something to do with web browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know.
    The style and design look great though! Hope you get
    the problem fixed soon. Thanks

  11. I have been browsing online more than three hours today, yet I never
    found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me.
    Personally, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the net will
    be much more useful than ever before.

  12. Thank you for any other wonderful post. The place else may just
    anyone get that type of info in such a perfect manner of
    writing? I’ve a presentation next week, and I’m on the
    search for such info.

  13. Magnificent items from you, man. I have take note your stuff
    prior to and you’re just extremely fantastic.
    I really like what you have got here, certainly like what you are saying and
    the best way in which you are saying it. You’re
    making it entertaining and you still care for to stay it wise.
    I can not wait to read much more from you. This is actually a
    great web site.

  14. You’re so awesome! I don’t suppose I have read through
    a single thing like that before. So nice to discover someone with original thoughts
    on this issue. Seriously.. thanks for starting this
    up. This site is something that is required on the internet,
    someone with a little originality!

  15. You’ve made some decent points there. I looked on the internet for more information about the issue and
    found most individuals will go along with your views on this website.

  16. Hello i am kavin, its my first time to commenting anyplace, when i read this
    paragraph i thought i could also create comment due
    to this sensible article.

  17. With havin so much written content do you ever
    run into any issues of plagorism or copyright violation? My
    site has a lot of completely unique content
    I’ve either created myself or outsourced but it seems a lot of it is popping
    it up all over the web without my permission. Do you know any ways to help protect against content from being stolen? I’d certainly appreciate it.

  18. I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own weblog and was curious what all is required to get setup?
    I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?
    I’m not very internet smart so I’m not 100% positive.
    Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.
    Thank you

  19. Hello I am so delighted I found your blog, I really found you by error, while I was searching on Aol for
    something else, Anyhow I am here now and would just like to say thanks for a marvelous post and a
    all round entertaining blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t
    have time to go through it all at the minute but
    I have saved it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I
    have time I will be back to read a lot more, Please do keep up the great b.

  20. Right here is the right web site for anybody who would like to
    understand this topic. You know a whole lot its almost tough to
    argue with you (not that I really will need to…HaHa).
    You definitely put a brand new spin on a topic which has been discussed for decades.
    Great stuff, just wonderful!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *