 |
| Congregating in the Salon d'Hercule at Versailles, June 18, 2007. Photo: JH. |
 |
|
|
| Monday, July 14, 2014. A sunny, warm weekend; humid but not so bad with storm clouds gathering and threatening to stop by. The weatherman says they will bring cooler temperatures. If and when. Today is Bastille Day in France, or La Fete Nationale (French National Day), a day that marks the (eventual) beginning of the nation’s century-long transformation from monarchy to republic. It is the 225th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789, now regarded as the official beginning of The French Revolution which brought down the Monarchy of the Bourbons, including the beheading of the King Louis XVI and his Queen Marie-Antoinette three years later. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Bastille – official name Bastille Saint-Antoine – is an ironic symbol of political revolution, as for more than three centuries before it had been a bastion of political (monarchical) repression. It was originally a 14th century fortress that was, for much of its existence, from the 15th century onwards, used by the Kings of France as a state prison. Louis XIV, the Sun King, used it as a receptacle of punishment for members of the upper classes who annoyed or infuriated him. Later it was also used by Louis to imprison Protestants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict, which was signed by Louis XIV’s grandfather Henry IV, was an agreement of religious tolerance granting certain human and political rights of the Calvinist Protestants (non-Catholics) in a pro-Roman Catholic country. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Louis XIV revoked his grandfather’s Edict 87 years later. As many as 900,000 of French Protestants (Huguenots) left France over the next two decades (Louis was still king). Many immigrated to America and distinguished themselves by their prosperity, such as Eleuthere Irenee du Pont de Nemours, founder of the great chemical company (“better things for better living, through chemistry”).
By July 1789, all was not well in the state of France. The monarchy of the Divine Right of Kings was under pressure on all sides, and fraught with accumulating financial corruption all around itself. The problem that would not go away and continued to worsen was a common one: Debt. The government’s (the monarchy) was so massive that eventually it began to claw away at the supplies of the essentials. In 1788, the crisis was exacerbated by a very bad harvest -- for not only the great unwashed (and they were unwashed) but for the political enemies of the government as well. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Among the solutions the government put forward was the printing of the assignat, which was a bill, a piece of official paper, identified as currency. It was not the first time in history that a government sought to relieve debt by printing money – Nero did the same (but he coined rather than printed) back in the ancient days of Rome – nor would it be the last. Alas for poor Louis XVI, not to mention Marie-Antoinette. The problem was a long time in the making. The misdirected and mismanaged finances of the monarchy began almost a century before with Louis XIV. After him came Louis XV (age five when he inherited the throne). Between the building (and constant refurbishing) of the chateau at Versailles and several other chateaux, and the wars that ran for decades, and the expense of the aristocracy (who did not pay much in the way of taxes, and naturally didn’t think they should have to – being aristocracy and all that), by the 1780s too much of a good thing had turned into a bad thing for the French people. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| In 1776, the year of the beginning of the American Revolution, Louis XVI appointed Jacques Neckerdirector-general of finances. Necker was a Swiss, a prosperous banker in Paris. He could not have the official title of “controller” under the King, because he was Protestant, but he had the power. During that time he approved and encouraged the loans to the American revolutionary parties that amounted to about $2 billion in today’s currency. He also raised interest rates and encouraged borrowing. Later, when the finances of the government began to come apart, Necker was blamed for the enormous loans to the Americans.
Necker in turn failed to be present at one of the king’s speeches. His absence was looked on as a failure (one of many at this point) of the King. Necker, after all, was the “savior” in the minds of many. The revolutionaries who attacked the Bastille on July 14, 1789 did it three days after Necker’s dismissal. Having been (mis)perceived as the savior of France’s finances and economy, the revolutionaries used that as a reason to attack the Bastille. They freed the seven prisoners, but not before the battle between the soldiers defending the prison, and the attackers, caused 98 deaths – mainly the attackers and the officer who presided over the prison, as well as three others from his staff. The incident, now celebrated as the spark that ignited the French Revolution, was witnessed by no more than 300 people that summer day in Paris, and almost a third of them did not live to tell about it. Without modern communication, the general population of Paris had little or no idea. It was made known, however, to the powers that be, including the King. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Conscious of the protestation against Necker’s firing, five days later, the King tried ameliorating by re-hiring him. Jacques Necker had triumphed. But he was on a fool’s errand: the natural forces of economics and finance had long before moved away from a managed solution. There was no turning back. And so, on this day in 1789, the first blow came with the Bastille.
Three months after the Bastille, on October 5, 1789, there was a march on Versailles by several thousand women from the marketplace in Paris. The demonstration was entirely not unplanned. The idea had been moving through various circles of citizens in Paris. It was a well known possibility by the time it happened. Precautions were taken at the palace at Versailles for protecting the royal family. Additional soldiers were brought in. On October 1st, there was a banquet welcoming the soldiers, set up in the palace’s opera house. It was a king’s banquet and the soldiers partook of the abundance including the wines and champagne. The party went on into the early hours of the next day. Within a day or so, it was reported in one of the Paris papers and referred to as a lavish orgy. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The idea that the King and Queen could entertain their guards so lavishly while the “people” were starving, took flight. So it was on that morning of October 5th, a young woman in the market place of Paris, standing on the edge of a crowd of market-women, struck a marching drum. Soon after the bells of a nearby church tolled. And it began, and in driving rain. Traipsing the 12 or 13 miles through rain and mud in some places, the market women were protesting the high price and scarcity of bread. The crowd had grown by thousands by the time they reached Versailles. There was an audience with the King for a small committee of marchers. He was accommodating and impressive to those with whom he met. He offered to return to Paris to be closer to his people. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| On the advice of the Marquis de Lafayette, the King appeared on a balcony to address the crowd. It was favorable. He was followed by the Queen and her children, and that was not unfavorable also. The following early morning, however, a group of protestors found an unguarded gate to get into the palace. Two guards attempted to face down the crowd. One of the guard’s head was cut off and put on pike. Soon another guard was beheaded. Eventually Lafayette brought some calm to the situation. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| In the early afternoon, the royal party got into their carriages and with the National Guard and an estimated 60,000 people escorting them, they were transported to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where their lives moved into the beginning of the end. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Less than two years later, in June 1791, the King and Queen made a botched plan to flee from Paris, and France. They were caught, and returned to the Tuileries where they remained until they were both arrested and imprisoned after the monarchy was abolished in September 1792. The following year, on January 21, 1793, Louis was guillotined in the Place de la Revolution (now the Place de la Concorde). Nine months later, on October 16th, Marie Antoinette was guillotined. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Over the next nine months, about 16,000 people were guillotined across France in a period known in history as The Terror. More than a half million were imprisoned and 10,000 died before coming to trial. Political chaos ensued along with the wholesale murders. One of the heroes who eventually emerged from this melee of the people against the people was a Captain Napoleon Bonaparte, who within a little more than a decade would crown himself Emperor of France. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
During the final period when the royal family was at the Tuileries, Jacques Necker had continued in his role as director of the finances. But matters had only grown worse, and beyond his control. Soon he was no longer regarded as the hero saving France. In 1790, with his reputation forever tarnished by the continuing failure of the economy to revive, with Mme. Necker and his daughter Germaine, Jacques Necker had narrowly escaped the fate of the King and Queen and the revolutionary turmoil, by fleeing to Switzerland where he remained safely until his death in 1804.
Napoleon’s “edict” toward Madame de Stael did not hold of course. After his second exile to St. Helena, she resumed residence in Paris where her “salon,” like her mother’s, was highly frequented by people of literary influence and political power. She died on this day, July 14, 1817, 28 years after the fall of the Bastille. And dear old France, after the Revolution, then briefly a republic, then an Imperial monarchy, followed by a restoration of the throne; then a second Empire, another republic and then two more, remains powerfully French. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Contact DPC here. |