The Key to the Bastille

Today, July 14 is observed in France, and elsewhere, as a holiday. Here in the United States we call it “Bastille Day” I understand in France they simply referred to as 14 July. Like so many other events in France, especially after the late 18th Century, the day has a checkered history there.

That day is popularly regarded as the onset of the French Revolution in which the monarchy of the old regime was overthrown and a republic established. Much like the Russian Revolution of 1917, however, this one quickly got out of hand. It began as a movement to establish a limited monarchy in which the people, here meaning the Third Estate which primarily were the bourgeois — middle-class merchant, tradesmen and artisans — would have the primary say in governance of the nation. Because of the power vacuum created, the movement deteriorated into the mob rule known as the Reign of Terror. King Louis XVI and his wife were executed along with numerous aristocrats and some of the senior clergy. After that Terror burned itself out, the subsequent governments frequently changed a number of times. For the next 150 years, France had a restored monarchy, two Empires, and five republics — they are in the Fifth Republic— as forms of government. Accordingly, any observance of the day the Bastille fell, brings forth different sentiments among the French.

Not so in America. Though we have had our share of tribulations and internal controversies, the Republic established here the same year the Bastille fell has survived its essential form. To the extent that it symbolizes liberty and the end of despotism, Bastille Day is one of our holidays too.

One aristocrat who survived, and took an important role in Revolution, and later French governments, was none other than Marquis the Lafayette, who earlier had supported and aided the American war of independence from Great Britain. Shortly after the Bastille fell, Lafayette obtained a one pound, three ounce wrought iron key to the demolished fortress. He entrusted the key to Thomas Paine, who played a part in both the American and French Revolutions. Paine brought the key to America and in the late summer of 1790 it was presented to the new President of the United States, George Washington. Upon leaving the Presidency in 1797, Washington brought the key to his home at Mount Vernon where the key to the Bastille remains displayed to this day.