Well everyone, contrarily to many monarchists, I celebrate my national holiday. Let me tell you why.
I know some of my favorite bloggers, notably the Mad Monarchist, abolutely detest our national holiday, which Anglos are so insistent on calling Bastille Day. For those of a legitimist persuasion, the anger and the disdain is understandable if you take into account these people's basic mistake when it comes to the 14th of July:
The 14th of July holiday does not actually commemorate the taking of the Bastille.
The idea that it does is such a well received idea in Anglophone nations, and even in France, that no one bothers to look it up - my own father included. However, do not be mistaken it should not be mistaken for a royalist-positive celebration.
The original "Bastille Day" was a spontaneous series of celebrations on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, which is an event rightly criticized by monarchists, or any right-thinking people. However, the spirit of this celebration is something to be taken into account. These first "Bastille Days", collectively known as "The Celebration of the Federation" marked the occasion of the establishment of the new constitutional monarchy under Louis XVI - The Kingdom of the French. Kingdom which possessed a tricolor flag, red, white, and blue.
The spirit of the National Celebration is Unity. It was to mark the end of turbulence and violence, what people thought was the end of the Revolution, the return to peace between Frenchmen, between monarch and people, between past and future.
I may return to add thoughts to this later.
