Bastille Day in France (July 14)

Bastille Day is the national holiday in France equivalent to the American 4^th of July. Today is the 225^th anniversary of the mob’s attack on the Bastille prison, a medieval fortress in Paris converted to a prison by the 18^th century. The storming of the Bastille freed only a single, aged prisoner, but it launched what became the French revolution.

The Bastille was dismantled and a column erected where the prison once stood. It was a pleasant little plaza in 1878:

Today, it’s a fairly soulless expanse of concrete with lots of cars around it.

On Bastille Day the French Air Force flies over at low altitude. I know, because I was staying close-by when visiting Paris one Bastille Day and nearly got shaken out of bed by the flyover.

The French national anthem is the Marseillaise, itself a product of the French revolution when republican France was fighting the combined monarchical powers of Europe. It’s a bloodthirsty song, its final stanza saying “may their impure blood water the furrows of our fields.” Here is Mireille Mathieu singing all 18 verses (well, only 6 or 7) at the Eiffel Tower:

French football teams sing it after victories. Here’s the 2006 French team singing it (sort of…do you get the feeling that athletes often don’t know the words to their national anthems?) after the Word Cup final against Italy:

If you want it translated, here it is with English subtitles:

Finally, here is the iconic version of it in America, from the movie “Casablanca” where Viktor Lazlo leads the entire café in singing in respond to the German singing earlier on a commandeered piano.

I’ve included the wonderful scene of Captain Reneau telling Rick that he’s “shocked, shocked, to discover that there’s gambling here!” just before the croupier delivers the Captain’s winnings to him.

The song that the Germans are singing in this scene from “Casablanca” is not a Nazi marching song like “Horst Wessel,” but a 19^th-century patriotic song, “Wacht am Rhein” (Watch on the Rhine). I’ve discussed “Wacht am Rhein” at the end of another post, where you can listen to the whole song and see it in English translation.