Twenty years ago this week I visited Paris for 5 nights. I timed my visit to coincide with Bastille Day (or, La Fête Nationale - The National Festival) on July 14th.
This French holiday commemorates the Storming of the Bastille on July 14th 1789, a key event at the beginning of the French Revolution. The revolutionaries attacked the Bastille fortress-prison in order to get ammunition and gunpowder. The prison was also known to hold political prisoners, although it only held 7 prisoners at the time of the attack.
The French Revolution is a complicated story. I think most people are aware that the French monarchy was out of touch with the common people and had shamefully neglected the country. Perhaps few tears should be shed over the corrupt aristocracy losing their heads. But the Revolution degenerated into a Reign of Terror, an orgy of bloodletting from which nobody was safe.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy in France was seen as complicit with the aristocracy in neglecting the country. The Church was the largest landowner in France and imposed a 10% tithe on the general population. It's also a fact that the general level of education and training of priests at the parish level was poor.
But many of the so-called Enlightenment thinkers supporting the Revolution hated Christianity and encouraged a ferocious attack on the Church. Churches were desecrated and looted, monasteries and convents attacked, nuns raped and forced into prostitution, and many priests, religious and faithful lay people were martyred through beheading, shooting or torture and starvation on prison ships.
There's an old proverb that goes, You've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. One definition of this expression I've found is that 'in order to achieve something it is necessary or inevitable that something be destroyed.'
This proverb is often used to justify the destructiveness of revolutions like those in France and Russia. My own view of the French (and Russian) Revolution is negative. However, some people I greatly respect, such as the great Christian writer G. K. Chesterton, have commented positively on the French Revolution. So there you go.
Some gargoyles on the Notre Dame Cathedral.
The domed building on the hilltop in the distance
is the Sacré-Cœur Basilica on Montmartre.
The hotel I stayed at in July 1993 was a few minutes'
walk from there.
My first ever visit to Paris was a day trip in October 1991. The photos I took on that first visit were more interesting and it's from those you see in this post.
I have many memories of my week in Paris in July 1993. I spent a lot of time walking around the residential areas of Paris not visited by tourists. Paris is a city of parks and tree-lined streets and cafés and small shops. It's a lovely city. Of course I spent time in the museums and well-known tourist sites. The Paris metro system is very convenient.
Parisians have a reputation for being arrogant and unwelcoming to foreign visitors. Unfortunately, I found that to be generally true. I had studied French in high school and had taken a couple of evening courses in French (at the Air Force base where I was stationed in England at that time). But my French was terrible and most Parisians I encountered were not encouraging. One exception was at a pizzeria somewhere off the beaten tourist path. I had been taking a long walk through some pretty neighborhoods and got hungry. I walked into a pizzeria that was completely empty of customers. Maybe it was the time of day, I don't know. The place was run by some north Africans, probably Algerian. I tried to use my limited French. They smiled and were very pleasant and the older man (father or uncle to the other two men apparently) even complimented me on my French.
(Many French people regard Parisians as rude and uppity, just like Americans think of New Yorkers. This was confirmed directly to me years later by a French woman who taught English for one year in Katowice. Cécile's desk was next to mine in the teachers' room. She had a friendly personality and a quiet sense of humor. She had studied American literature at university and liked America. She was from somewhere in rural France where her parents owned a cattle ranch - I wish I could remember where.)
On the morning of July 14th there is a large military parade in Paris (the largest military parade in Europe). While I was watching the parade, a French woman asked me the time. We of course had learned to say the time in French class and I had no problems with it. But when that woman asked me the time my tongue froze and I ended up sticking my hand out to show her the watch on my wrist. I felt like an idiot.
Another memory I have is the evening of July 14th when I went to watch the fireworks display near the Eiffel Tower. The day had been hot and I had drunk quite a lot of water. Suddenly, I had to pee really badly. I searched and searched and could not find a public toilet that wasn't locked up. So as the fireworks exploded overhead I walked quickly to the nearest metro station. In the station I fidgeted and leaned on one leg and then the other. A train finally arrived and I took it to the Champs-Élysées, where I rushed into a MacDonald's to use their toilet. What a relief that was! While in Paris I purposely avoided fast-food outlets like MacDonald's, but after using their remarkably clean toilet I did buy a lemon aid.
I could go on and on with my memories of that trip, like watching Jaws on TV in my hotel room one night. The movie was dubbed in French and I remember the scene of the bikini-clad woman running up the beach screaming Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!
There's a lot of antagonism between Americans and French people. We detest the defeatism they've sometimes displayed and their lack of cooperation with our foreign policy at times. They think we're loud, belligerent and uncultured. The truth is that both Americans and French are pretty chauvinistic about our own countries.
And frankly I think we both have some right to be so. Some things about France and the French annoy me. But all in all I admire and love France. I think they have a genius for living well. If somebody offered me a trip to France right now, I'd be packed in 20 minutes.
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