What’s the history of Bastille Day?

The Fête Nationale on 14th July is the day on which French people remember and celebrate the overthrow of the tyrant kings who ruled their country for centuries.

King Louis XIV, his hated wife Marie-Antoinette, and their court lived in luxury whilst levying high taxes on the poor peasants, who lived often on the edge of starvation.

On that day in 1789, the Paris mob, angered by food shortages and the soaring price of bread, stormed the city’s royal fortress called the Bastille and set the prisoners free. The prison cells in the dungeons of the Bastille prison were the symbol of the injustices of royal rule.

les feux d’artifice à la Tour

Eiffel

The fall of the Bastille marked the beginning of the French Revolution. French people everywhere realised that the king was not all-powerful. Within a few months, the old regime had completely collapsed all over France.

The 14 July is a national holiday in France and is often celebrated with firework displays. In Paris there is a great military parade of troops, tanks and guns down the Champs Elysées.

The motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” originated from the French Revolution and became the symbol of the French Republic.