France's "Fete Nationale": July 14th or 17th?

Every year, France commemorates the storming of the Bastille, which took place on July 14 1789. The celebration was introduced in 1880 by the Third Republic, a few years after the failure of the royalists to agree on what sort of monarchy should be installed. The significance was clear: France would henceforth be a Republic.

Next week, as the French army swings down the Champs-Elysees, commentators will talk in the revolutionary tradition about how modern France ditched royalty for liberty, equality and fraternity.

Progress, of course, required the toppling of France’s ancient monarchy, the mass execution of the revolution’s enemies, the beheading of Louis and Marie Antoinette, war, dictatorship, defeat and France’s impoverishment.

Since 1789, France has had five republics, four monarchies, three revolutions, two empires, and one unfortunate hiatus between 1940 and 1944 where France all but disappeared.

On average, in France, there has been a political rupture every 15 years. Every new system split France in the camps of supporters of the new and its detractors. Each new change brought conflicting loyalties as the heroes of Napoleon’s Empire became the enemies of Louis XVIII’s kingdom.

Which system should a Frenchman be loyal to? Should he be a “citoyen”, a “monsieur”, "a camarade", a “subject”? Should loyalties be to the Empire, the Monarchy, the republic (and if the republic, which one) or the Commune? The answer depended on who had the power - every freshly minted revolution wheeling the French back to where they started. This perpetual motion is in part still apparent today. 

Whilst France tore herself apart on a regular basis, her neighbours consolidated. In 1770, France was arguably the most powerful and most populous country on the most powerful continent. It took all the powers of the Europe’s main protagonists over a quarter of a century to defeat Revolutionary France and Napoleon’s Empire.

By 1870, however, a few weeks were enough for France to be defeated and humiliated by her neighbour, heralding in passing the arrival of a new European hegemon on the scene. Although France put up a brave and noble fight between 1914 and 1918, two decades later, in 1940, she couldn’t withstand her powerful neighbour for more than 6 weeks. Darkness descended on France once again.

The pivotal moment in France’s fall from greatness can reasonably be dated to July 14th 1789. Celebrating this day, it would seem, would be tantamount to celebrating the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in the summer of 1914. It is the celebration of the beginning of the end, of failure, instability and bloodshed.

Having just read Helen Castor’s elegant book on Joan of Arc, it struck me that a better day for French people to celebrate would be July 17th 1429.

With the crowning of the long suffering Charles VII in Reims Cathedral, the idea of a France, united, dignified and whole was resurrected.

From the ashes of perpetual warfare, sorrow and defeat that had started a hundred years before, hope rose like the phoenix, culminating in the final expulsion of the English in 1453.

In other words, the 17th of July represents the unification, in the face of an unshakable enemy, of various French factions under one flag and ultimate victory.

Furthermore, it paved the way for the creation of Europe’s superpower, which from 1429 to 1789 stood head and shoulders above her rivals in most aspects, be it artistically, linguistically, or militarily. 1429 was the year when the light at the end of the tunnel could be discerned. 1789 was the year when darkness slowly descended. Why celebrate the sunset when one can celebrate the dawn?