Vive la France!
On July 14, 1789, an angry crowd stormed a state prison in Paris that stood as a symbol of royal tyranny. They surrounded the Bastille in order to seize the gunpowder stored inside. Troops fired on the rebels, but the people overpowered them. The bloody French Revolution had begun. The people of France have come to mark July 14 as their national holiday, the French version of the Fourth of July.
What else do you know about this celebration of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity?”
Try this quick quiz. Then sing Le Marseillaise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_8dafLxLcI&feature=related
True or False?
1. Bastille means “prison” in French.
2. France was declared a republic in 1792 and the king and queen were later executed.
3. When told that people were starving, the French queen Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake.”
4. Thousands of people were executed during the French Revolution’s “Reign of Terror.”
5. The French general Charles de Gaulle eventually took control of the Revolution.
6. The Bastille remains one of the most popular tourist attractions in Paris.
Answers
1. False. Bastille is a French word for a “strongly fortified structure.” It was built as a fortress by King Charles V in about 1370. By 1789, the Bastille held only a handful of prisoners.
2. True. Louis XVI was beheaded on the guillotine in January 1793; his wife, Marie Antoinette was guillotined in October 1793.
3. Probably false. The saying was ascribed to the queen as evidence of her disregard for the people’s welfare, but it had been recorded much earlier by the French writer Rousseau.
4. True. During the political infighting of the Revolution as many as 18,000 people were guillotined in Paris and many thousands more died elsewhere in France.
5. False. The French Revolution ended in 1799, when the brilliant general Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the government. Charles de Gaulle was the leader of the Free French who fought the Nazis during World War II.
6. False. The Bastille was torn down.
