Step-siblings, not kin
Today is Bastille Day, sort of the French July Fourth. This is the day that the French take a day off from being unemployed to celebrate their superior lifestyle. On this day French people everywhere can take pride in wearing black socks with white tennis shoes, eating a salad after already eating a whole meal, watching Woody Allen movies, and avoiding daily showers.
So what is Bastille Day really about? After genocide, mass killings, and totalitarianism dressed up as intellectual coffee shop smoking, the French state controled everything. And by everything, I mean everything. This wasn’t the type of royal totalitarian government France had before. After all, much of the royalty were beheaded or drowned. See the Vendee, for example, who were cleansed in a way that would make some African despots blush. Tens of thousands were slaughtered during the Revolution so the state could come out on top.
Bloodshed is always part of any revolution, and as our own Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Yet Bastille Day wasn’t about that. It was the day the French threw off the yoke of their aristocratic superiors in favor of government bureaucrats.
Or as Edmund Burke said, “The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man’s pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.” Napoleon Bonaparte, one government actor who certainly benefited from the Revolution, aptly put it this way: “Vanity made the [French] Revolution; liberty was only a pretext.”
After Bastille Day, no aspect of life was beyond the reach of politics and bureaucracy. The state could – and did – destroy institutions and traditions that had served France well for ages. Not that those traditions are worth celebrating either, though. Take the complete French military history for example, full of plenty of cowardly retreats and humiliating losses.
From Caesar to the Germans it seems like every nation/culture has got in on the France raiding act. And true to form, the French folded every time. Even to this day the fastest way to get a table at a French restaurant is to say something in German. Perhaps the French love Bastille Day so much because it’s their only “victory” (by fighting themselves a Frenchman has to be the winner).
Bastille Day reprsents the dawning of a government more different from our own than many realize. The French and American revolutions are not kin, they are step-siblings. Our idea of political utopia is to keep politics out of human life as much as possible. For the French, a bureaucrat can always rationalize a government action when its ends are for le peuple. That kind of Revolution is no more worth celebrating than cheese or nasty cigarettes. I think I’ll settle for our July 4th fireworks and a big fat angus burger.
5 Responses to “Step-siblings, not kin”
Pass the butter. He’s on a roll!
Absolutely delicious post.
Excellent post, Josh, though a nod to Vercingetorix, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, William I, Phillip II Augustus, Louis XIV, and, erm, Napoleon would have nicely balanced out your presentation of the very real phenomenon of French cowardice and martial incompetance.
Also, strings of military victories does not necessarily a civilization make. Allow, and defend, yes. Let us not, however, forget the many contributions of the French, as friends and enemies, to English-speaking civilization.
To begin with, the French military history was an incidental part of the post, and not really related to the larger thesis.
France has had some notable military achievements (far less than Britain, Germany, Italy, or Spain), but I wouldn’t count Vercingetorix as something for the French to boast about. He managed to pull off a couple battles through luck and Roman carelessness, but Caesar made short work of him quite handily. Also, Godfrey of Bouillon wasn’t a much of a model of success either.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, let us not forget the massive heaping of silliness and good-natured humor that was part of this day’s feature. Far too many readers it seems have taken this more seriously than it is intended.
All your points are well-taken. Especially the one about Vercingetorix. I will note that I had to pick my brain quite a bit to come up with that handful of decent leaders, and the only ones that are even really ‘French’ are Phillip II and the Sun King – and we’re talking about two thousand years of history!
Yes I have a Question…
Can anyone tell me what is the name of the Parisian Newspaper article who wrote this
…What follows is a Paris newspaper account of the fall of the Bastille.
* * * * *
First, the people tried to enter this fortress by the Rue St.—Antoine, this fortress, which no one has ever penetrated against the wishes of this frightful despotism and where the monster still resided. The treacherous governor had put out a flag of peace. So a confident advance was made; a detachment of French Guards, with perhaps five to six thousand armed bourgeois, penetrated the Bastille’s outer courtyard, but as soon as some six hundred persons had passed over the first drawbridge, the bridge was raised and artillery fire mowed down several French Guards and some soldiers; the cannon fired on the town, and the people took fright; a large number of individuals were killed or wounded; but then they rallied and took shelter from the fire . . . meanwhile, they tried to locate some cannon; they attacked from the water’s edge through the gardens of the arsenal, and from there made an orderly siege; they advanced from various directions, beneath a ceaseless round of fire….