“Guide the Future by the Past”

A common sentiment among critics of the French is that on this day, 216 years ago, they embarked on a major revolution, throwing off the chains of the monarchy, but for what real purpose? Josh’s post is a ready example of this idea: the French overthrew the noble oppressors, who have been replaced by bureaucratic oppressors. The French are doomed by fate, God, karma, and/or their own complacency to be ruled and destroyed by others, not to rule and destroy. I hate to steal Josh’s thunder, but Canadian rock band Rush said it all quite well in 1975’s aptly titled “Bastille Day.” Maybe the song’s about tripping on acid, maybe about Satan, but at the very least it is about the French not learning from their blue-blooded predecessors’ failings:

There’s no bread, let them eat cake
There’s no end to what they’ll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth
But they’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Free the dungeons of the innocent
The king will kneel and let his kingdom rise
Bloodstained velvet, dirty lace
Naked fear on every face
See them bow their heads to die
As we would bow as they rode by
And we’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Sing, oh choirs of cacophony
The king has kneeled, to let his kingdom rise
Lessons taught but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mould was cast
For they marched up to Bastille Day
La guillotine claimed her bloody prize
Hear the echoes of the centuries
Power isn’t all that money buys