Aux armes, citoyens !

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé,
L'étendard sanglant est levé.
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils et vos compagnes !

Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons !
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons !

Happy Bastille Day! France is great. They've been hanging the tricolor in the streets of Aix for the past week, which is very pretty. It's nice to be able to witness another country's patriotism. The French Revolution is one of my favorite historical periods, even though it was so bloody and complicated. It's just so interesting, and I love seeing the public memory of it. In my French Revolution seminar this past winter with Professor Horowitz, I wrote my final paper on the memory of the Revolution in nineteenth-century literature, and I loved it. Unlike a lot of the country, most of Provence was very pro-Revolution. The Marseillaise is named for the volunteers from Marseille, who sang it in the streets of Paris on their way to fight the Prussian and Austrian invaders during the Revolution. (My favorite version of the anthem is when they sing it in Rick's café in Casablanca: it's beautiful. It's much more violent than the Star-Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful, but it's also much more badass.) All the villages I've visited have a Cercle républicain where the Republicans--not in the American sense--would sit and drink on Sundays while the Catholic Royalists went to mass. And I've seen so many streets named things like Boulevard de la république or Rue de la fraternité. It's a much more subtle kind of patriotism than America usually has, but it's lovely.

La Rotonde, the central fountain in Aix.

American sentiment toward France is not always very nice, and as a French major I get uneducated complaints fairly often about how weak and ungrateful and snobby people think this beautiful country is. I have never understood the need to feel better about your own country by putting down others, but people seem to think it's fun. Anyway, the NY Times published this article by David McCullough today, on the relationship between America and France. It's worth a read, even though McCullough ignores the fact that "French fries" are actually Belgian frites discovered and misnamed by American soldiers stationed in Belgium during World War II. America and France do have different temperaments, and living here I realize that constantly. Spring term of freshman year, I took a history class on the turn of the century in Paris, Vienna and Berlin. I wrote my final paper on absinthe and it was glorious. In retrospect I'm not sure why this came up, but Professor Patch pointed out that America's national holiday celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence; France's, the storming of the Bastille. As anti-revolutionaries loved to point out in the coming decades, storming the Bastille technically accomplished very little, as there were only seven prisoners in the Bastille at the time. (The mobs were really after the ammunition stored there, so take that Edmund Burke!) The Tennis Court Oath on June 20 was much more akin to America signing Declaration of Independence--or maybe the Declaration of the Rights of Man on August 26. But the Bastille represented royal authority in the heart of Paris, and the fact that the people could attack it and get away with it was significant. It also established a tragic precedent for popular violence in the Revolution (although one could also argue that it was not the first instance of popular violence). Anyway, Professor Patch's point was that America's independence day is much more about the political moment, while France's is about the symbolic. It's interesting.

So these are my Reflections on the Revolution in France. So far today I've slept in and talked to Fowler, although I should get some work done. There are fireworks at some point tonight, and apparently a ball in the streets? How fun! Tomorrow is London and my second time seeing the last Harry Potter. (It was beautiful. Yes they changed things but overall it was faithful, it told the right story, it made me cry for all the right reasons and it was everything I had wanted.)