Some little-known facts about Bastille Day...

[msfledermaus]

1: The French Revolution started a little bit before Bastille day, but not by too much.
2: The Bastille is not, in fact, made out of cake.
3: No beheadings occured at the Bastille conflict. Those came a little later on...
4: The howling mobs refrained from throwing cheese at de Launay when they took over the Bastille, even though he had all the good breakfast rolls.
5: No Middle Eastern Terrorists were involved in Bastille day as far as I can tell.
6: French Fries are not actually French at all--the French blame the Belgians for them...

Isn't education fun, kids?

Comments

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Where does Cosette belong in all of this? And Marius, and Jean ValJean? (wink)

[msfledermaus.livejournal.com]

*chuckle*

There's an Englishman frantically scribbling down info on them about a hundred years later or so:) And there's still no dang French Fries for them:P

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

Can you tell me a Bastille Day story, Mademoiselle Maus?

Why sure!!!

[msfledermaus.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time there were loads of hungry people and a handful of snooty bigshots that ate all the good stuff and occasionally threw stale baguettes and empty wine bottles at the poor. The poor were a little irritated by this and when the financial advisor who was supposed to fix all the folderol got the sack by the snooty richies, they revolted; starting the stock joke about "The Peasants are Revolting." One of the starving lawyers was a non-snooty guy named Camille Desmoulins, and he jumped up on a table near a public park and yelled, "Dammit, I'm freakin' hungry, LET'S GO GIVE THEM POWDERED-WIG PEOPLE WHAT FOR!!!" And there was much cheering and yelling and stampeding, wearing chestnut leaves because they tasted terrible. But to protect themselves from the King's Borrowed Guards in their Fancy-Dancy Pantsuits, they needed ammo, and this was before Soldier of Fortune magazine...so they all trooped off to the Bastille, where the warden had lots and lots of gunpowder and breakfast rolls and old tired guys guarding the walls. The warden said, "Nono, No gunpowder for you revolting peasant-types, I'm keeping my breakfast rolls to myself!" And much revolting ensued, and the mobs stormed the prison and beat the stuffing out of the guards and set all the prisoners free....all 7 of them, most of whom wanted to go back to their cells where they'd hidden all their pastry...

And I wish I could say they all lived happily ever after, but the Reign of Terror was not long after, and lots of people including Camille and Marie Antoinette and King Louis and most of Paris got their heads cut off. So apparently keeping your head is all about mind over batter....
*rim shot*


So there you are...

Re: Why sure!!!

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

*wild cheers and applause*
You're the BEST!!

[msfledermaus.livejournal.com]

And let this be a lesson to us: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, and Pastrie!!!

[specificocean.livejournal.com]

My daughter's in Paris right now....:-)

[serendipity.livejournal.com]

7. My parents got married at age 18 on Bastille Day, 1946.

[serendipity.livejournal.com]

Oops - that's age 19.