By Debbie Bulloch
Tomorrow is Bastille Day, the French national holiday celebrated each year on July 14. In France, Bastille Day is formally called La Fête Nationale (National Celebration) or more commonly referred as “le Quatorze Juillet” (the fourteenth of July). Bastille Day commemorates the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789.
The attack on the Bastille, a fortress-prison in Paris, is widely seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French nation and the beginning of the French Revolution. Official festivities are held on the morning of July 14, on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris in front of the President of the Republic.
Of course, the French Revolution did not start on July 14. The social, economic, political, philosophical and even environmental factors that gave birth to the French Revolution can be traced to a few years back, before the actual storming of the Bastille.
Economic factors included widespread famine and malnutrition, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a 4-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789). As discussed in a previous blog post, the Little Ice Age that fell upon most of Europe following the eruption in southern Iceland of the Laki volcanic fissure during an eight-month period from June 1783 to February 1784, led to the destruction of crops and a steep rise in food prices, including bread. (See
Iceland’s Volcano Affects All Of Europe) Malnutrition among French citizens increased the likelihood of disease and death and even intentional starvation in the most destitute segments of the population in the months immediately before the Revolution.
(History records that when Marie Antoinette, the wife of King Louis XVI, was told that starving French peasants could not even afford to buy bread, she infamously replied: “Let them eat cake!” Soon after making that remark, Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI were both beheaded, using a new invention called “the guillotine.”)
Another cause of the Revolution was France's near bankruptcy as a result of the many wars fought by Louis XV and in particular the financial strain caused by French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The national debt amounted to almost two billion livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the monarchy's ineptitude, and the lack of social services for war veterans. The inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something that was both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation.
(If I may be allowed a brief digression at this point, there are two valuable lessons that Americans can learn from the events leading up to the French Revolutio. First, we Americans should be reminded of the immense debt of gratitude that we owe the people of France. I often overhear comments about how “ungrateful” the French people are, especially after we saved their butt during World War II. Well, had the French government not lent their support to a rag tag team of American revolutionaries, America may have never been able to win its independence from the British Empire. Without France’s help, there may not have been an America to go to the rescue of France when France was being overrun by German Panzer units. So before we make dumb remarks about the ungrateful French, let us remember how we needed their help to become the nation that we are today.
The second lesson that we can learn from the events leading up to the French Revolution has to do with the folly of runaway government deficit spending such as the ones now facing the American public. As it was true in the years prior to the French Revolution it is also true now: a nation cannot long survive when its government spends more than it takes. A government cannot shift massive amounts of debt to future generation thus saddling our children and grandchildren with debt that they will never be able to pay. We would do well to look to Canada and borrow a few lessons from its economic model that, according to many financial experts, is now the envy of the industrialized world.
OK, now back to the French Revolution…)Meanwhile the conspicuous consumption of the noble class, especially the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at Versailles continued despite the financial burden on the populace. High unemployment and high bread prices caused more money to be spent on food and less in other areas of the economy. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest landowner in the country, levied a tax on crops known as the dîme or tithe. While the dîme lessened the severity of the monarchy's tax increases, it worsened the plight of the poorest who faced a daily struggle with malnutrition.
There were also social and political factors, many of which involved the social aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These social and political factors included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by the ambitious middle class (including professional and mercantile classes) towards the privileges and dominance enjoyed by the nobility. Many of France’s professional classes were familiar with the lives of their peers in commercial cities in the Netherlands and Great Britain; they resented the control that the nobility exerted over French life. There was also resentment by peasants, wage-earners, and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigniorial privileges possessed by nobles. Finally, there was resentment of clerical advantage (anti-clericalism) and aspirations for freedom of religion. In pre-revolutionary France, the Catholic church wielded undue control and influence on institutions of all aspects of French life.
All of these factors were the precursors to the eventual storming of the Bastille. On May 5, 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates-General to hear the populace’s 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.
In the wake of the July 11 dismissal of Jacques Necker, the people of Paris, fearful that they and their representatives would be attacked by the royal military stormed the Bastille, a fortress-prison. Besides holding a large cache of ammunition and gunpowder, which the revolutionaries needed in order to protect themselves against an attack by royal forces, 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.
When the crowd—eventually reinforced by mutinous gardes françaises—proved a fair match for the fort's defenders, Governor de Launay, the commander of the Bastille, capitulated and opened the gates to avoid a mutual massacre. Due to a possible misunderstanding, however, fighting resumed. Ninety-eight attackers and just one defender died in the actual fighting, but in the aftermath, de Launay and seven other defenders were killed, as was the 'prévôt des marchands' (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles.
On August 4, 1789, shortly after the storming of the Bastille, feudalism was abolished and on August 26, the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaimed.
From the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens (inspired by our own Declaration of Independence) the phrase:
liberte, egalite, fraternite (freedom, equality, fraternity) entered into the world’s consciousness.
Sadly, the political excesses and bloodshed that followed the initial glory days of the French Revolution managed to wipe out many of the ideals held by the promise of: liberte, egalite, fraternite. Eventually, however, the French nation was able to overcome its initial growing pains to become a world-leader.
To my French brothers and sisters (and especially to Monsieur Arcabulle Odriscoll, cyclist sans pareil) I wish you all a happy Bastille Day.
