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July Celebrations

© Sara Dellinger

For Americans, the 4th of July is a time of celebration. Americans in France may also end up celebrating along with their French friends the birth of another important nation.

Just 13 years after the American colonies declared independence from England, the French declared the end of the French monarchy. Bastille Day, the French national holiday, symbolizes the end of royal rule and the beginning of the First Republic.

July 14, 1789 saw the storming of the Bastille. The revolutionaries' message was that power no longer resided in the King as God's representative, but in the people. Just two days later, the Revolution had succeeded. This act by the people against the power of the royalty identifies France as one of the cradles of liberty. For French citizens, the storming of the Bastille symbolizes liberty, democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen followed soon after first published on August 26 1789.

A year later, on July 14th 1790, delegates from all over the country flocked to Paris to celebrate the Fête de la Fédération and proclaim their allegiance to one national community.

The Republic was proclaimed on September 22, 1792. Louis XVI was executed in January of 1793 but the Republic did not break completely its heritage. Rejecting the idea of federalism, the country never applied the egalitarian principles of the 1793 Constitution. A centralized, dictatorial policy was enforced during what is known as the Reign of Terror under the authority of the Committee of Public Safety, dominated by Robespierre. A coup d'état in November of 1799 put an end to the period of instability that had persisted after Robespierre's assassination. Then came the First Empire under Bonaparte, one of the Republic's most brilliant generals. He was crowned Napoleon I, "Emperor of the French." The First Empire restored such monarchical forms as authority vested in the person of the ruler, and it set up a new nobility. Still, much of Napoleon's legacy was inspired by the heritage of the Revolution, which Napoleon consolidated in many areas. He set up the Civil Code in 1804, and the prefectural system, the Council of State, the Bank of France, the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Normale Supérieure. These institutions still exist today.

After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, The French monarchy was restored with Louis XVIII. Then came the Second Republic (1848-1851) and the Second Empire (1852-1870). In 1875 a republic was proclaimed for the third time and France has been a republic ever since.