How did July 14th become France's national day?
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July 14th: What's happening during France's Fête nationale this year✎
The event is known in English as Bastille Day, even though this term is not used in France where the day is known as
La fête nationale
or simply
le quatorze juillet
.
But, as the English title suggests, the date itself commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 - the day when a mob of freedom-loving Parisians stormed the hated symbol of monarchical tyranny and freed the political prisoners the king had locked up there, thus starting the French Revolution.
Well, sort of . .
It's true that the Bastille was stormed on July 14th 1789, but although the prison had in the past been used to hold political prisoners - including large numbers of protestants - by 1789 it was mostly empty.
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According to
contemporary records
, on the date it was stormed it held just seven prisoners - four counterfeiters, two 'madmen' and a nobleman accused of sexual perversion.
The early Revolutionaries may have had more practical matters in mind, as the Bastille was also a royal arsenal. They managed to seize cannons and gunpowder for the weapons that they had recently taken from Les Invalides.
The following year, the anniversary of the event
was marked
with the Fête de la Federation - this contained some elements that we would recognise, including a military parade on the Champ de Mars (nowadays the site of the Eiffel Tower) and some that we definitely wouldn't including swearing an oath of allegiance to the King.
Yes, the King and Queen were both there - a Mass was celebrated and then those assembled took an oath to the Crown, the Nation and the Law.
The threefold oath indicates the power shift that had taken place within the previously absolutist monarchy of France but revolutions can be slow-moving things and it was not until three years later that Louis XVI was executed, followed by his queen Marie Antoinette.
The July 14th event of 1790 proved to be a one-off, the Fête de la Federation was never celebrated again - perhaps because the revolutionaries were embarrassed at the royal oath-swearing, perhaps they simply had other things on their mind as the Revolution moved into its final and bloody form during the Terror.
The idea of July 14th as a 'start date' for the Revolution is something that came about more gradually as people looked back to the event itself and what came after. But it was a nice symbol and a suitably dramatic event that soon began being immortalised in paintings, poems, songs and novels.
Arguably the opening of the États généraux - the parliament that represented ordinary Frenchmen as well as nobles - in 1789 was a more significant event, but a bunch of men having a meeting is quite a boring subject for artworks.
A protester clutching a copy of a painting depicting the 1789 storming of the Bastille, at a demo in France in 2021. Photo by Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP
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It took almost 100 years before July 14th came back as a special day - it was finally enshrined as France's national day, and a public holiday, in 1880, after several years of discussion.
During the debates on the subject in parliament several other dates were suggested including May 5th (the anniversary of the opening of the Etats généreaux) and August 4th (anniversary of the abolition of hereditary privileges) - in the event July 14th was chosen but the law formalising it does not specify whether it is intended to mark the storming of the Bastille, the Fête de la federation or both.
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Since the storming of the Bastille, France had been a monarchy, a republic, a restored monarchy, an empire (under self-proclaimed emperor Napoleon) and a republic again but by 1880 it was settled into the form that it - mostly - has been in ever since; a republic with a parliamentary democracy.
A military parade took place on the first event in 1880 and has been involved in most July 14th celebrations since, although it only started being held on the Champs-Elysées in 1919, when it featured World War I veterans alongside the serving soldiers.
A more recent tradition was started by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1978 - the presidential TV interview. This doesn't happen every year, and some presidents prefer to do a speech rather than an interview, but in most years the French president speaks to their people via the TV.
The Bastille prison is no more, but the place where it once stood is in more or less the same place as Place de la Bastille. This large open space is used for various events, but it's often the site of protests or demonstrations, thus retaining its revolutionary edge.
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