Penates and lares…understanding "le 14 juillet" of 2021…Legio Patria Nostra...

Dear friend,

“No, Bonne Maman, he is not celebrating le 14 juillet. He says he’s on vacation.”

Perhaps there was a confusion in the message young Liam passed on. He is, after all, just learning French. Was our gardien really taking a vacation from la Fête nationale, the anniversary of the prise de la Bastille?

If so, he was not alone. The Fête nationale, which took place this Wednesday, slipped past like a shadow on the wall of Plato’s cave. Fireworks and bals dansants were canceled in most localities. And in the nation’s capital, the Fête was reduced to its purest function –presenting the nation’s fighting forces to the president of the République in the morning, and offering a concert and fireworks to the publique in the evening.

“Guns and circuses!” exclaimed Henry, who enjoys reading about ancient Rome.

We pondered. “Not just guns and circuses, mon fils. The Romans paid homage to their penates and lares, too, the divine protectors of home and country! A country is more than military might and popular pleasures.” It must have its gods and myths.

Courtomer was quiet. As one of our neighbors remarked, “our” fête is the First of August, not the 14th of July. Then, the commune organizes a brocante and les feux d’artifices. Courtomerois set up tables along the road past the church and display the contents of their grandparents’ attic and their own garage to tempt the passing buyer. We partake of hot boudin and onions on a baguette, with judicious amounts of local cider. The bold melodies of traditional sonneurs and their trompes de chasse fill the air. With enthusiasm, we honor the penates and lares of Courtomer.

But we are delighted the Fête nationale is being celebrated in Paris. Except for the Occupation in World War II, when the very existence of the Republic was in doubt, and last year, with fear of infection, the Fête has gone on since its date was formally fixed in 1880.

And this is somewhat remarkable, given the circumstances. The year 1880 saw radical changes: the legislature closed all church-run schools, expelled the Jesuits from France, and eliminated Sunday as a national day of rest. On July 14, the Revolutionary and Republican motto “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” appeared above the front entrance of every public institution. A new set of penates and lares, as it were, took place of honor.

These radical changes were not greeted with universal enthusiasm. Nor was the choice of Bastille Day for the date of the Fête nationale. This excerpt from the debate in the Senate on June 29, 1880 captures the moment:


Senator Henri Martin (a famous 19th-century historian of France):
“Alas! in great historical events, progress has been gained by pain and sorrow, by much blood. Let us hope the future will not be thus!”

Cries from the Left: “Very good!”

Sarcasm from the Right: “Yes, let’s hope not!”

Henri Martin:
"We can but hope. But do not forget that after the first 14 July, when the victory of our New Era over the Old Regime was achieved by armed struggle, do not forget that after the Day of 14 July 1789 there was the day of 14 July 1790!"

From the Left: “Very good!”


The Day of 14 July 1789 was, of course, the capture of the Bastille by an armed mob. It was the bloody beginning of the much bloodier end of the Ancien Régime. Three days later, on July 17, 1789, the king pinned the blue, white and red cocarde des patriotes to his hat. Three and half years later, he was no longer able to wear a hat!

The Day of 14 July 1790 was the happy Fête de la Fédération. This conciliatory and unifying ceremony was sanctified with a Christian mass. The king and queen swore allegiance to the Nation and its new laws in the presence of delegates from all parts of France. Intentionally, the setting was an arena created for the event; the circular format would eliminate all appearances of the old hierarchy, with its elaborate etiquette of precedence. Egalité was visible.

Massacres, civil war, the Terror, and the bloody, expensive and fleeting conquest of Europe followed this optimistic moment. Instead of fusing into a new whole, the elements in opposition broke apart. The high ideals of the Revolution ended with Napoleon’s authoritarian rule. Decades of political instability ensued.

Establishing a Fête nationale on the Day of 14 July, almost a hundred years after the first Bastille Day, hardly seemed auspicious.

Nevertheless, the Third Republic would endure for 70 years…and le 14 juillet continues to be celebrated, with more or less enthusiasm and nuance. One of our neighbors calls it “la fête républicaine,” rather than “nationale”…a distinction that recalls the republic’s founding rather than that of the nation. We hesitate, so far, to probe his views…no doubt he honors his own penates and lares!

This year, we watched the Fête on television. La Patrouille de France opened the ceremony, spreading an ephemeral banner of blue, white and red in the grey skies. Once, we came upon the “repetitions” – practice sessions – of these Alpha jets while driving up through the Loire Valley. We pulled over to watch, silent with a kind of proud awe at this spectacle of plummeting descents and swift turns skyward. Today, the display of aerial skill was more sober.

Absent was the tightening of the throat that accompanied the aerial feats we’d seen by chance, over the highway and the fields. Those manœuvres seemed daring and heroic; they brought to mind the famous pilot Saint Exupéry, who disappeared while on a reconnaissance flight in the World War II, and who wrote,

“L’homme se découvre quand il se mesure à l’obstacle.”

Man discovers himself in confronting an obstacle.

But there was a twist this year for La Patrouille -- the French you-tubers McFly and Carlito were in one of the planes. The pair had garnered 10 million viewers for a social distancing campaign, thus winning an interview with the president and a tour of the Elysée Palace. The French group Ultra Vomit performed a heavy metal version of Une souris verte, “the green mouse.”

This is a nursery song every French child and his mother knows by heart -- and perhaps it is no coincidence that President Macron’s popularity rating with la jeunesse rose the following month by 8 points when the whole experience went up on YouTube.

Was this just entertainment…or an attempt at a new kind of myth of connection between power and le peuple?

Back to the parade.

In motorcade and on horseback, the Garde républicaine escorted President Macron and his chef d’Etat Major as they arrived before the assembled chiefs of the armies. Then he and the Première Dame sat on folding chairs at the Place de l’Etoile to watch the défilé begin. In the background was Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe, decorated with the battles and dates of the Emperor’s victorious swathe through Europe.

But these are different times…The honor of leading the parade belonged to a contingent of la Task Force Takuba, the panEuropean military force on active duty in the old French colony of Mali.

Next, the infantry and armored divisions, including a drone launcher, the navy, the air force, the gendarmes, the firemen and the police filed along the Champs Elysée.

Notable was an almost complete absence of pageantry. Nothing resembling the picturesque penates and lares of the old Roman legions.

The long wave of blue and black, with an occasional glint of gold, stripe of red, or mottled camouflage, was a display of technocratic and military preparedness. It was smoothly professional and resolutely modern, like the pink-cheeked President himself.

But then, the band struck up a different tune. It was the French Foreign Legion. Pacing gravely, in the distinctive cadence inherited from the armies of 18th- and 19th-century Europe, the Légion étrangère closed the parade. Their march, “Le Boudin,” was composed on their departure to the Mexican Campaign in 1861.

Au cours de nos campagnes lointaines,
Affrontant la fièvre et le feu,
Oublions avec nos peines,
La mort qui nous oublie si peu.
 
In our distant campaigns,
Affronting fever and fire,
Let us forget, with our sufferings, 
The death that remembers us too well.

 “Is that why they walk so slowly?” asked young Liam, as we started to get up from the sofa. 
 
It is true, we answered, that in one battle in Mexico, the Legion was reduced to five men carrying bayonets. Their narrative is one of dogged deeds and heroic perseverance. 
 
“You see that flag they carry?” added his uncle, who had been invited to attend the défilé du 14 juillet one year with a school friend, the son of a colonel.  “It says “Legio patria nostra.” In Latin, that means “the Legion is my country”.”
 
As we watch the corps wheel to the left in front of the president and the Arc de Triomphe, the “pas légion” links the corps of men into a unified entity. Heirs to a particular history and particular myths, carrying the emblem of their own penates and lares, they stand out from the lines of quick-cadenced blue uniforms that preceded them up the Champs Elysée.
 
 A country is many things, as the story of la Fête nationale itself suggests. Its penates and lares remind us that the future is always grounded in what has gone before.

Bonne fête...et à bientôt!

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PPS. We are taking reservations for the Chateau and the newly restored and decorated Farmhouse for 2022 and 2023. Some dates are available for this year, too. Please write to Heather or Béatrice (both are bilingual in English and French), or, of course to me, at info@chateaudecourtomer.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!