By Mary McAuliffe
Yes, today is July 14, the day of national celebration in France known as la Fête Nationale (the national holiday) or, more informally, le quatorze juillet (the fourteenth of July). Here in America, we simply call it Bastille Day.
Whatever one calls it, though, it’s a date that summons up images of the French Revolution. Odd, then, isn’t it, that the French didn’t even get around to making it a national holiday until 1880, almost a full century after the storming of the Bastille?
Why 1880, and why so long in coming? The answer to this multi-pronged question lies in the century of French history between 1789 and 1880, and the particular circumstances that at last allowed the French in 1880 to embrace their dramatic heritage.
Remember that the revolutionary overthrow of the monarchy and all that it stood for did not permanently establish France as a republic. Far from it. Plunging from revolution into empire (Napoleon Bonaparte), and from Waterloo into a restored monarchy followed by a couple more revolutions, a coup d’état, and a Second Empire (under Bonaparte’s nephew, Napoleon III), France for a century had been whiplashed between revolution and reaction, with the ever-elusive goal of a republic often seeming beyond reach.
Even after France went down in defeat to Bismarck’s Germany (1870–71) and Napoleon III scuttled for safety in England, the prospects for a republic remained iffy. The French established one, to be sure—the Third Republic—but its chances for survival seemed slim. Monarchists and Bonapartists steadily worked to undermine it, and those in favor of a republic (“republicans” with a small “r”) splintered into numerous fractious groups.
Why such staunch opposition to a republic? Fearing another uprising of the masses such as the Commune uprising of 1871 or the dreaded Terror itself, monarchists and conservatives of all stripes sought the stability and reassurance of a firm hand, especially one with their interests in mind. For this powerful group, all memories and images of the French Revolution and the First Republic—including and especially the fall of the Bastille—were dangerous and to be suppressed. Even singing the Marseillaise was not allowed.
But by the end of the 1870s, those favoring a republic at last attained a national legislative majority. They passed a law making July 14 a national holiday, which was first celebrated, with gusto, in 1880. They also restored the Marseillaise as France’s national anthem. Henceforth, all reminders of the French Revolution and what it signified could be, and were, publicly embraced by the French. Moreover, French everywhere could bellow the Marseillaise to their hearts’ content.
You may wish to join them today, in Bastille Day celebrations throughout America.
Mary McAuliffe is author of Dawn of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011).
Comments