In France, July means two things: The Tour de France (and Lance Armstrong’s quest for a historic seventh win) and the celebration of Bastille Day. For both events, passion and patriotism run deep.
Bastille Day is July 14, the symbolic kickoff date of the French Revolution. In small French towns, local firefighter units sponsor dances in the town squares. The festivities include fireworks, as they do for our Fourth of July.
In Paris, Bastille Day is one big, rollicking party, beginning the night before at the city square called Place de la Bastille. The morning of July 14, a grand military parade fills the Champs-Elysees, the wide boulevard crowned by the famous Arc de Triomphe. Bastille Day ends with a bang at midnight, when a fireworks display lights up the nearby Eiffel Tower.
With all this pomp and pageantry, you might think the square where the Revolution started, Place de la Bastille, is a worthy sight to visit. But virtually nothing remains here from that time. Subtle brick outlines on the pavement mark the foundations of the Bastille Prison, stormed by Parisians on July 14, 1780. By releasing its seven prisoners, they unleashed the revolution that so irrevocably changed France.
The Bastille prison, with eight towers and 100-foot-high walls, once stood in the center of the city, dominating the Parisian skyline. Like prisons throughout history, it was both a tool for government and a powerful symbol of oppression. With the Revolution came emancipation, and the Bastille was dismantled stone by stone.
A prison that does survive from that time is the gloomy Conciergerie, where France’s final queen, Marie-Antoinette, was held. Located next to the courthouse, the Conciergerie was the last stop for 2,780 victims of the guillotine – considered a modern and more humane way to execute people at the time.
At the Conciergerie, Marie-Antoinette’s recreated cell shows where the queen spent her last days. Mannequins and period furniture set the scene of a woman separated from her 10-year-old son and very recently widowed. The King had already been executed. On Oct. 16, 1793, the queen walked the corridor, stepped onto the cart that transported prisoners, and was slowly carried to Place de la Concorde for her execution.
To see more of French history in action, visit the Carnavalet Museum (near Place de la Bastille), where the story of the revolution unfolds through its impressive collection of paintings and drawings. A sketch by Jacques-Louis David (called “The Oath of the Jeu-de-Paume”) shows the people, tired of being outvoted by the clergy and nobility, forming the National Assembly. Its members vowed to stick together until a new constitution was written. The large painting “La Fete de la Federation” shows the happy result of their efforts: People from every social class hugging, kissing and mingling in joy and exuberance in a newly freed nation.
Of course, no story is ever that simple. The French Revolution held the full range of human emotions and actions: bloodshed, martyrdom, daring speeches, murdered priests, emancipated women, back-stabbing former friends – all done in the name of government “by, for and of the people.” The Reign of Terror followed an initial rush of freedom. The Carnavalet Museum holds portraits of key players in the macabre spectacle that followed, as well as the rise of an ambitious young Corsican with a fondness for big, pointy hats – Napoleon Bonaparte.
Within time, “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” would become an emblematic slogan of France. Today, the revolution is remembered on commemorative plates and knickknacks, and within the hearts of the French every July, as fireworks take flight in the summer sky to commemorate Bastille Day.
Rick Steves of Edmonds (425-771-8303, www.ricksteves.com) is the author of 30 European travel guidebooks including “Europe Through the Back Door” (published by Avalon), and is the host of the public television series “Rick Steves’ Europe,” airing weeknights at 7 p.m. on KCTS. This week’s schedule:
Monday: The best of Sicily
Tuesday: Travel Skills (Part 1)
Wednesday: Travel Skills (Part 2)
Thursday: Travel Skills (Part 3)
Friday: Amsterdam
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