Pictures of the Fete de Nuit at the Chateau de Versailles in Fall of 1995. My second attempt at taking night shots and fireworks. Maybe one of these days I'll take some more.
Raoul, I cheated. I didn't know what the French called the day. So I consulted the French version of Wikipedia. It didn't sound right since they're a republic, but it was what I found.
Normally, it's simply called '14 juillet' or 'fête nationale'. It's often refered as Bastille day ou 'fête de la Bastille' refering to the takeover of the Bastille prison. But that was quite bloody, so 14 juillet is more common now.
I guess it's very close semantically to the 4th of July in the US.
I just checked wikipedia. It's the first time I hear about the Federation. Almost, truly. The Federation thing is right, but it refers as the political system that was set in place at the time or so. It really refers to an old concept. In fact, if I understand well, after 1789, they set some kind of federation, and the 1st Federation day (14 July 1790) was the original (and almost only) Fête de la Fédération. There was another one in 1792. The fédération or its concept almost died in the few years after. I think they were trying to mark the 'reunion' of France in people minds. Many regions were still quite autonomous and independant. French was probably not spoken is more than half the territory.
Thanks Raoul. This is stuff I really should know since I used to live next door to Louis XIV and walked through his house almost daily. I knew the general history, but not the semantics. Boy this really makes me want to go back for a visit.
Happy Bastille Day.
6 comments:
Lovely, Frank.
The first one espesh.
Thank you, S. It's been fun digging up these old shots and sharing them with everyone.
Psst! France is not a federation (if only!)
(that's the Canadian one)
Raoul, I cheated. I didn't know what the French called the day. So I consulted the French version of Wikipedia. It didn't sound right since they're a republic, but it was what I found.
Normally, it's simply called '14 juillet' or 'fête nationale'. It's often refered as Bastille day ou 'fête de la Bastille' refering to the takeover of the Bastille prison. But that was quite bloody, so 14 juillet is more common now.
I guess it's very close semantically to the 4th of July in the US.
I just checked wikipedia. It's the first time I hear about the Federation. Almost, truly. The Federation thing is right, but it refers as the political system that was set in place at the time or so. It really refers to an old concept.
In fact, if I understand well, after 1789, they set some kind of federation, and the 1st Federation day (14 July 1790) was the original (and almost only) Fête de la Fédération. There was another one in 1792. The fédération or its concept almost died in the few years after.
I think they were trying to mark the 'reunion' of France in people minds. Many regions were still quite autonomous and independant. French was probably not spoken is more than half the territory.
Thanks Raoul. This is stuff I really should know since I used to live next door to Louis XIV and walked through his house almost daily. I knew the general history, but not the semantics. Boy this really makes me want to go back for a visit.
Post a Comment