Bastille Day

Bastille Day is the French national holiday, celebrated on 14 July each year. It is called Fête Nationale (National Holiday) in France. It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the Fête de la Fédération was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French "nation," and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution.

History of the celebration

On 30 June 1878, a feast had been set in Paris by official decision to honour the Republic (the event was immortalised by a painting by Claude Monet). On the 14 July 1879, another feast took place, with a semi-official aspect; the events of the day included a military review in Longchamp, a reception in the Chambre of Deputies, organised and presided by Léon Gambetta, and a Republican Feast in the pré Catelan with Louis Blanc and Victor Hugo. All through France, as Le Figaro wrote on the 16, "people feasted a lot to honour the Bastille".

Related Topics:
30 June - 1878 - Claude Monet - Léon Gambetta - Louis Blanc - Victor Hugo - Le Figaro

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On the 21 May 1880, Benjamin Raspail presented a law proposal to have "the Republic choose the 14 July as a yearly national holiday". The Assembly voted the text on 21 May and 8 June. The Senate approved on 27 and 29 June, favouring 14 July against 4 August (honouring the end of the feudal system on 4 August 1789). The law was made official on 6 July 1880, and the Ministry of the Interior recommended to the prefects that the day should be "celebrated with all the brilliance that the local ressources allow". Indeed, the celebrations of the new holiday in 1880 were particularly magnificent.

Related Topics:
21 May - 1880 - Benjamin Raspail - 8 June - 27 - 29 June - 14 July - 4 August - End of the feudal system - 6 July

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Discourse by Henri Martin to the Senate

Discourse by Henri Martin, Chairman of the Senate, 29 June 1880

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: (...) Do not forget that behind this 14 July, where victory of the new era over the ancien régime was bought by fighting, do not forget that after the day of 14 July 1789, there was the day of 14 July 1790.

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: This day cannot be blamed for having shed a drop of blood, for having divided the country. It was the consecration of unity of France. Yes, it consecrated what the old monarchy had prepared.

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: The old monarchy had, one could say, been the essence of France, and we did not forget it; Revolution, on this day of the 14 July 1790, made, I shall not say the soul of France—None but God holds the soul of France—but Revolution gave France the counsciousness of itself. It revealed its own soul to France. Remember then that on this day, the most beautiful and the purest of our history, from one end of the country to the other, from the Pyrenees to Alps and Rhine, all the French were holding hands. Remember that, from all parts of the national territory, delegations of the National Guard and of the Army came to Paris to celebrate the deeds of '89. Remember what was in that Paris: a whole People, without distinctions of age nor sex, of rank not wealth, was associated from all its heart, had participated with its own hands to the fantastic preparations of the Fête de la Fédération; Paris had worked to erect around the Champ-de-Mars this truly sacred amphitheatre which was razed by the Second Empire.

Related Topics:
Pyrenees - Alps - Rhine - National Guard - Champ-de-Mars - Second Empire

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: (...)

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: If some of you might have scruples against the first 14 July, they certainly hold none aginst the second. Whatever difference which might part us, something hovers over them, it is the great images of national unity, which we all desire, for which we would all stand, willing to die if necessary.

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