Happy Bastille Day. Resist austerity.

What is past is prologue.

too violent and war like!

I'm trying to imagine the Klingons having such an anthem... but no, more likely the Romulans...

Considering that the Bastille held only seven prisoners at the time, the storming of the Bastille was more a symbolic victory than any great military triump. But symbols are sometimes more important than any concrete reality.

So Happy Bastille Day!

Pretty gruesome!

The Parisians were after a cache of weapons and gunpowder after learning that royal troops were surrounding the city. Earlier in the year, King Louis had been forced to make concessions to the Third Estate and even recognize the National Assembly after he failed to break it up. The troop maneuvers were seen as a threat to the assembly.

Of course, the Parisians could have taken the cache without tearing down the fortress. That is where the symbols came into play. It was a symbol of the tyranny of the landed aristocracy. Thus, the fortress was torn down, the few prisoners it held were freed and the governor of the Bastille was dragged through the streets, killed and beheaded, with his head stuck on a pike and paraded though Paris.

The King was told the news in Versailles, which was at the time seen as something near Paris but not part of it. He had been hunting that day and failed to bag anything. The King was unconcerned about the events in Paris that day. His entry into his diary for July 14, 1789, referred only to his hunting that day with a single word: Rien (Nothing).

because you can sit sooner...


The foundations of the Liberté Tower of the Bastille, rediscovered during excavations for the Métro in 1899

My favorite version is the one from Casablanca and if I had any computer expertize I would post it here. Sorry.

Mon arrangement préféré a été composée par Hector Berlioz.
Les politiciens ont peur de leur peuple en France
(comme il se doit!)

La Marseillaise