Sunday, July 14 was Bastille Day, the national holiday in France commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille, the fortress-like prison in Paris.
The Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach hung this sign Sunday over the I-5 in downtown San Diego.
Vive La Resistance!
Oh, you don’t recall what happened on Bastille Day?
July 14th: Viva Bastille Day! Viva la France! Viva Revolution! Viva the modern world!
July 14th is Frances’ July 4th -a national holiday, as it commemorates the storming of the hated Bastille – a fortress like prison in Paris – in 1789. The date celebrates the victory of the French people in their revolution that overthrew the king and feudal system. The storming of the prison is seen as a symbol of the uprising of the first modern nation and the beginning of a constitutional government for France.
In France, it is formally called La Fête Nationale (National Celebration) and commonly le quatorze juillet (the fourteenth of July). …
On 5 May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates-General to hear their grievances. The deputies of the Third Estate representing the common people (the two others were the Catholic Church and nobility) decided to break away and form a National Assembly.
On 20 June the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, swearing not to separate until a constitution had been established. They were gradually joined by delegates of the other estates; Louis started to recognize their validity on 27 June. The assembly re-named itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July, and began to function as a legislature and to draft a constitution.
… the people of Paris, fearful that they and their representatives would be attacked by the royal military, and seeking to gain ammunition and gunpowder for the general populace, stormed the Bastille, a fortress-prison in Paris which had often held people jailed on the basis of lettres de cachet, arbitrary royal indictments that could not be appealed. Besides holding a large cache of ammunition and gunpowder, the Bastille had been known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government, and was thus a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy. As it happened, at the time of the siege in July 1789 there were only seven inmates, none of great political significance.
When the crowd—eventually reinforced by mutinous gardes françaises [led by Napoleon, a young artillery officer]—proved a fair match for the fort’s defenders, …the commander of the Bastille, capitulated and opened the gates to avoid a mutual massacre. However, possibly because of a misunderstanding, fighting resumed. Ninety-eight attackers and just one defender died in the actual fighting, but in the aftermath, (the governor) and seven other defenders were killed, as was the … mayor….
The storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than a practical act of defiance.
Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, on 4 August feudalism was abolished and on 26 August, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaimed. (History from wikipedia)
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