Sixty Million Frenchmen Must Be Wrong
When Henry Kissinger asked Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai what he thought the meaning of the French Revolution was, Zhou replied that it was too soon to tell. Today, July 14, is Bastille Day, and on this day of French national commemoration InTheAgora.com wishes to reevaluate some of the latter-day consequences of that revolution, and particularly of the current French government.
Like many national holidays and pageants, the modern celebration of Bastille Day was an invention of late nineteenth-century nationalists, akin to the American Pledge of Allegiance or the British royal jubilees. During the twentieth century, French intellectuals and politicians played an outsized role in world politics and thought. But France today is part of the world’s most self-consciously twenty-first century political institutions, the European Union, and its leaders are constantly hectoring the rest of the world to shed their petty attachments to…well, whatever it is the French elites don’t like the rest of us to be attached to. (That the French elites are a different species from the French populace is a story pretty well told by the fate of the European constitution in France’s referendum several weeks ago.)
In the entries that follow, ITA contributors examine different aspects of the French culture, state and society. In keeping with the genial rivalry between the French and the American peoples (genial in America, at least), we’ve decided to entitle this special Bastille Day edition of the site “Sixty Million Frenchmen Must Be Wrong.”
- “Step-siblings, not kin” by Joshua Claybourn
- “The Language of a Counter Power” by Zach Wendling
- “About Nuclear Weapons” by Paul Musgrave
- “Guide the Future by the Past” by Adam Packer
- “I’m unemployed, but at least I’m in France” by Jonathan Bunch
- “Bienvenue *cough* a la *cough* France *wheeze*” by Eric Seymour
- “France and the Distortion of Secularism” by Ed Brayton
- “The Wrath of Jose” by Michael Drazer
- “Trouble in the Vineyard” by Adam Packer
Like many national holidays and pageants, the celebration of Bastille Day was an invention of late nineteenth-century nationalists, akin to the American Pledge of Allegiance or the British royal jubilees.
Unless you qualify this statement somewhat further, I am afraid it is quite incorrect. Bastille Day was openly celebrated with pageantry and ceremony during the era of the Revolution.
As a historian of France, I am certain I will have many other commentaries on these posts. And while I know that it’s tr
Jason,
Eric Hobsbawm says you’re wrong–he gives the date of the invention of the public ceremony of Bastille Day as 1880 (in The Invention of Tradition, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870-1914,” p. 271).
Perhaps “le jour de la Bastille” in just so many words had not existed before. But the marketing and commemoration of the event began before the prison was even fully destroyed. See Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, pp 404 and forward.
Here is a useful timeline that also backs up my point:
http://www.blakeneymanor.com/timeline.html
Now quite arguably our modern idea of Bastille Day dates to the late 19th century, but the French were certainly celebrating on July 14, 1790, and onward through the Revolution.
This is about a silly as the “sixty million americans must be idiots” who voted for GWbush headline in the British tabloids. And I’m sure that the Brit tabloid headline was the fount of this. But, what the Brit tabloids has to do with the French, I’m not completely sure.
Get a clue, raj:
http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/f/fiftymillionfrenchmencantbewrong.shtml
Your trackback seems broken, but I’ve posted a reply:
http://www.positiveliberty.com/2005/07/things-to-celebrate-on-bastille-day.html
Paul at July 14, 2005 10:50 AM |
Paul, I am very familiar with those lyrics. The most recent issue, though, was the headlines from the London tabloids regarding the US 2004 elections.
Which, I can assure you, played no role in the titling of this post.
The Daily Impromptu
Apparently adulterers need greeting cards too.
How about expanding this line to other “nontraditional” greeting card topics? For instance, we need greeting cards with messages like:
I’m Sorry I Knocked Up Your Sister
You Were The B…
Did anything good come from the French Revolution?
The French need a holiday that actually has something to do with liberty, and not that wretched conflict that replaced one tyranny with another.
I’ll come out of my hibernation long enough to say that on the whole the collection of entries is one of the most xenophobic pieces of crap and stereotyping I have ever read at ITA.
For seventeen years, I had a French pen pal from whom I learned much, and not a single one of you is anywhere close to her league of either sophistication, wit or grace. What is written here for the most part reflects the Northern editorial thinking against Southerners that made reconciliation so difficult for decades after the Civil War ended.
At the moment, there is no genial rivalry between France and the United States. We’ve simply been encouraged to hate each other.
Finally, I don’t detect any sense of Christian love of neighbor in most of the entries, so I’ll leave that element out of my comment as well.
And now back to my cave.
Paul at July 14, 2005 10:50 AM |
As you wish. I’m familiar with the 50 million frenchmen song reference. It’s from my childhood. Actually, it predates my childhood, and I’m probably a heck of a lot older than you are.
French bashing seems to be a cottage industry among the American Anglophiles. It really is hilarious. Considering that, without French assistance during the war of independence, it is highly likely that the US of A would still be speaking the Queen’s English.
Get a grip, Joel. You seem to have entirely missed the tongue-in-cheek intent of the day’s theme. And the individual posts offered well-researched critiques that were quite a bit more reasonable than much of the anti-Americanism coming from continental Europe.
Next time you venture out of that cave, leave the sanctimony there.
I’m really quite shocked at the lost sense of humor among some of ITA’s readers. A surprisingly large amount have missed the good natured humor and silliness with it all. There are legitimate criticisms of France, and we’ve presented some, but we’ve also thrown up tonque-in-cheek jokes.
As I said to Ed, we may very well have to devote a day during basketball season to bashing Kentucky or Duke. But that doesn’t mean we don’t respect their accomplishments
I’m just glad I didn’t go with my original idea for a post: “Why we should invade France, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”
(And if anyone doesn’t get that joke, I’m going to give up blogging forever.)
That’s just the type of francophobia I’d expect from you, Paul.
Just for the record, I’d like to retract my earlier statement that I respect Kentucky and Duke’s accomplishments. Thanks.
If the posts were intended as being tongue-in-cheek they should have been accompanied by the html tag “/tic”
I’m being tongue in cheek, of course. On the other hand, on other web sites that I have posted on, we have adopted html extensions such as /tic, /sarcasm and so forth. The intent being obvious.
Eric,
Josh,
So you’re the irritating bat that’s been flying around in my cave.
I’ll send you a new supply of Sears magazines for your typical Indiana outhouse. Or do you just need a new shovel for the pit?
“On the other hand, on other web sites that I have posted on, we have adopted html extensions such as /tic, /sarcasm and so forth. The intent being obvious.”
Ah, yes, just like the title of Jonathan Swift’s famous essay: “A Modest Proposal [/sarcasm]“.
LoL
I’ll be interesting in seeing whether y’all ITF folk engage in a bit of Germany bashing on 9/11, the anniversary of the date that the Berlin wall fell (I do the European date transposition–it’s 9 Nov). Europe will probably muddle through. One wonders, though, how many of you will end up being greeters at Wal-Mart stores.
Paul at July 15, 2005 12:02 PM
Ah, yes, just like the title of Jonathan Swift’s famous essay: “A Modest Proposal [/sarcasm]“.
When Swift posts his essay on the internet, I’ll be interested in knowing whether he uses the /sarcasm line. I doubt that he’ll be posting on the internet any time soon, since he’s been dead for decades.