The Blog

Let’s take a moment and join our French friends in observing their national holiday, which we refer to as Bastille Day in English, but is known as the Fête Nationale or (more commonly) quatorze juillet to the natives.

Bastille Day dates back to 1790 and the Fête de la Fédération, which commemorated the storming of the Bastille a year earlier on July 14, 1789. That uprising symbolized the birth of the modern French nation, and the reconciliation of all the French within the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution.

(Let’s also take a moment to cheer for the French participants in the Tour de France, who try to win stages of the race today, in honor of their country. Tomorrow, you can go back to rooting for your special favorites if you’re following the race at all.)

While the infamous tripartite motto, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” was not the official call-to-arms for Bastille Day, it is probably the most well-known such motto to come from the period, and it seems appropriate on this day to celebrate the tenets of Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood (Sisterhood), no matter where we live.

Posted by Melissa in World Issues |

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 3:50 pm and is filed under World Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.