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Bastille Day is the common name given in English-speaking countries to the national day of France, which is celebrated on 14 July each year. It is referred to, both legally^[3] and commonly, as le 14 juillet (French: [lə katɔʁz(ə) ʒɥijɛ]) in French, though la fête nationale is also used in the press.

French National Day is the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789,^[1]^[2] a major event of the French Revolution,^[4] as well as the Fête de la Fédération that celebrated the unity of the French people on 14 July 1790. Celebrations are held throughout France. One that has been reported as “the oldest and largest military parade in Europe”^[5] is held on 14 July on the Champs-Élysées in Paris in front of the President of France, along with other French officials and foreign guests.^[6]^[7]

History

In 1789, tensions rose in France between reformist and conservative factions as the country struggled to resolve an economic crisis.

In May, the Estates General legislative assembly was revived, but members of the Third Estate broke ranks, declaring themselves to be the National Assembly of the country, and on 20 June, vowed to write a constitution for the kingdom.

On 11 July, Jacques Necker, the finance minister of Louis XVI, who was sympathetic to the Third Estate, was dismissed by the King, provoking an angry reaction among Parisians. Crowds formed, fearful of an attack by the royal army or by foreign regiments of mercenaries in the King’s service and seeking to arm themselves.

Early on 14 July, a crowd besieged the Hôtel des Invalides for firearms, muskets, and cannons stored in its cellars.^[8] That same day, another crowd stormed the Bastille, a fortress-prison in Paris that had historically held people jailed on the basis of lettres de cachet (literally “signet letters”), arbitrary royal indictments that could not be appealed and did not indicate the reason for the imprisonment, and was believed to hold a cache of ammunition and gunpowder. As it happened, at the time of the attack, the Bastille held only seven inmates, none of great political significance.^[9]

The crowd was eventually reinforced by the mutinous Régiment des Gardes Françaises (“Regiment of French Guards”), whose usual role was to protect public buildings. They proved a fair match for the fort’s defenders, and Governor de Launay, the commander of the Bastille, capitulated and opened the gates to avoid a mutual massacre.

According to the official documents, about 200 attackers and just one defender died before the capitulation. However, possibly because of a misunderstanding, fighting resumed. In this second round of fighting, de Launay and seven other defenders were killed, as was Jacques de Flesselles, the prévôt des marchands (“provost of the merchants”), the elected head of the city’s guilds, who under the French monarchy had the responsibilities of a present-day mayor.^[10]

Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, late in the evening of 4 August, after a very stormy session of the Assemblée constituante, feudalism was abolished. On 26 August, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen) was proclaimed.^[11]

Fête de la Fédération

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As early as 1789, the year of the storming of the Bastille, preliminary designs for a national festival were underway. These designs were intended to strengthen the country’s national identity through the celebration of the events of 14 July 1789.^[12] One of the first designs was proposed by Clément Gonchon, a French textile worker, who presented his design for a festival celebrating the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille to the French city administration and the public on 9 December 1789.^[13] There were other proposals and unofficial celebrations of 14 July 1789, but the official festival sponsored by the National Assembly was called the Fête de la Fédération.^[14]

The Fête de la Fédération on 14 July 1790 was a celebration of the unity of the French nation during the French Revolution. The aim of this celebration, one year after the Storming of the Bastille, was to symbolize peace. The event took place on the Champ de Mars, which was located far outside of Paris at the time. The work needed to transform the Champ de Mars into a suitable location for the celebration was not on schedule to be completed in time. On the day recalled as the Journée des brouettes (“The Day of the Wheelbarrow”), thousands of Parisian citizens gathered together to finish the construction needed for the celebration.^[15]

The day of the festival, the National Guard assembled and proceeded along the boulevard du Temple in the pouring rain, and were met by an estimated 260,000 Parisian citizens at the Champ de Mars.^[16] A mass was celebrated by Talleyrand, bishop of Autun. The popular General Lafayette, as captain of the National Guard of Paris and a confidant of the king, took his oath to the constitution, followed by King Louis XVI. After the end of the official celebration, the day ended in a huge four-day popular feast, and people celebrated with fireworks, as well as fine wine and running nude through the streets in order to display their freedom.^[17]

Origin of the current celebration

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Claude Monet, *Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of 30 June 1878*

On 30 June 1878, a feast was officially arranged in Paris to honour the French Republic (the event was commemorated in a painting by Claude Monet).^[18] On 14 July 1879, there was another feast, with a semi-official aspect. The day’s events included a reception in the Chamber of Deputies, organised and presided over by Léon Gambetta^[19] (a military reviewer at Longchamp), and a Republican Feast in the Pré Catelan.^[20] All throughout France, Le Figaro wrote, “people feasted much to honour the storming of the Bastille”.^[21]

In 1880, the government of the Third Republic wanted to revive the 14 July festival. The campaign for the reinstatement of the festival was sponsored by the notable politician Léon Gambetta and scholar Henri Baudrillant.^[22] On 21 May 1880, Benjamin Raspail proposed a law, signed by sixty-four members of government, to have “the Republic adopt 14 July as the day of an annual national festival”.

There were many disputes over which date to be remembered as the national holiday, including 4 August (the commemoration of the end of the feudal system), 5 May (when the Estates-General first assembled), 27 July (the fall of Robespierre), and 21 January (the date of Louis XVI‘s execution).^[23]

The government decided that the date of the holiday would be 14 July, but that was still somewhat problematic. The events of 14 July 1789 were illegal under the previous government, which contradicted the Third Republic’s need to establish legal legitimacy.^[24] French politicians also did not want the sole foundation of their national holiday to be rooted in a day of bloodshed and class-hatred as the day of storming the Bastille was.

Instead, they based the establishment of the holiday as both the celebration of the Fête de la Fédération, a festival celebrating the anniversary of the Republic of France on 14 July 1789, and the storming of the Bastille.^[25] The Assembly voted in favor of the proposal on 21 May, and 8 June. The law was approved on 27 and 29 June. The celebration was made official on 6 July 1880.^[26]

In the debate leading up to the adoption of the holiday, Senator Henri Martin, who wrote the National Day law,^[25] addressed the chamber on 29 June 1880:

Do not forget that behind this 14 July, where victory of the new era over the Ancien Régime was bought by fighting, do not forget that after the day of 14 July 1789, there was the day of 14 July 1790 (…) This [latter] day cannot be blamed for having shed a drop of blood, for having divided the country. It was the consecration of the unity of France (…) If some of you might have scruples against the first 14 July, they certainly hold none against the second. Whatever difference which might part us, something hovers over them, it is the great images of national unity, which we all desire, for which we would all stand, willing to die if necessary.

— Henri Martin, 1880^[27]