French Revolution

Ten days after July 4^th comes July 14^th – Bastille Day, which for the French serves the same purpose for their revolution as July 4^th does for ours.  Having mentioned the French one briefly in the prior blog, I’ll go into a bit more detail this time.

 Bastille Day.  When we lived in Paris, Bastille Day meant two things:  fancy military parades along the Champs Elysees in the mornings – with Mirages flying by overhead – and more important, firecrackers!!  This was the one day of the year when we could shoot them off without worrying about being hassled by the gendarmes.  We’d go off to somewhere remote, like Bagatelle, and blow off machine guns, larger ones (not M-80s or dynamite, though), and generally make lots of noise and destruction.  Immense fun.

            During the summer of 1989, 7/14/89 marked the Bicentennial.  The insanity was turned up a few notches: the Champs Elysees was a noisy war zone, and they had later night parades which we watched from the US Embassy, which looks out onto Place de la Concorde.  The Marseillaise was repeated ad infinitum.

 The Marseillaise.  The French national anthem.  I like this more than the “Star Spangled Banner”, which is kind of dull.  “KILL ‘EM ALL!!” – somewhat nastier than “bombs bursting in air”.  There are actually several verses, but typically only the first gets played (except on 7/14/89, when we heard them all).  Here it is:

 French

Allons enfants de la patrie

Le jour de gloire est arrive

Contre nous de la tyrannie

L’etendard sanglant est leve

Entendez-vous dans nos campagnes

Mugir ces feroces soldats?

Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras

Egorger vos vils, vos compagnes!

             Aux armes, citoyens

            Formez vos bataillons

            Marchons, marchons

            Qu’un sang impur

            Abreuve nos sillons

 English

Come children of the country

The day of glory has arrived

Against us tyranny’s

Bloody standard is raised

Hear in our fields

The howling of these ferocious soldiers?

They come into your arms

To cut the throats of your sons and comrades

             To arms, citizens

            Form your battalions

            March, march

            Let impure blood

            Water our furrows

 The Guillotine. But wait, that’s not all.  Beyond even the bloody Marseillaise, the guillotine is the coolest legacy of the French Revolution.  What did we have, aside from Nathan Hale  hanged saying, “I regret I have but one life to give for my country”, or Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death”?  The French had this bad-ass death machine, the Revolutionary Cuisinart.   Placed right smack in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, slicing off heads into the basket, eyes blinking for a few seconds.  Too bad now they just have the boring obelisk Napoleon brought back from Egypt.  Bring it back!!