Apres le jour

[tealin]

So ... what was up with Bastille Day this year?

I mean, not in France; obviously there were parades and fireworks and stuff. I mean in the U.S. of A. I never remember this much attention being paid to Bastille Day outside of 'Learning about the culture is just as important as learning the language' bloody useless French class. Did I just never notice it before? Is it a California thing?* Or is it, as I cynically suspect, because we have a new administration and thus it's OK to not hate France anymore so anyone with an international perspective is celebrating this by overcompensating?

*very much doubt this

Comments

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

So ... what did happen to what was left of New France during/after the Revolution? (not too long after, though, obviously...)

[ndgmtlcd.livejournal.com]

Immediately after the French revolution nothing happened in the former New France. There was a small area around New Orleans which was in Spanish hands but all of the rest was in British hands or more or less in the extremely loose control of the recently independent USA. Nothing hapened immediately because the majority of intellectuals and anybody else who might have had some sympathy for the French revolution had left New France and gone over the Ocean to France right after the seven years war.

The bulk of the ex-New France population was in Southern Ontario and Quebec and in 1788-1798 they were staunchly catholic and they didn't want to have anything to do with anti-catholic revolutionary France. This was most apparent a bit later during the war of 1812 when the British managed to raise French catholic volunteer troops (soldiering under other catholics though)in the former New France, in order to fight invading US forces (who were seen as more dangerous protestants than the British protestants) and to fight against anti-catholic Napoleon if need be. Napoleon wasn't absolutely anti-catholic since he was willing to tolerate the church up to a point but for any member of the clergy, any true believer outside France he seemed like a total atheist.

[aspectabund.livejournal.com]

I read through both ndgmtlcd's and your dad's intellectual posts and then my eyes crossed and I promptly forgot half of everything I just read. I was that impressed. XD

Kind of makes me wish I was impassioned enough about a topic to learn everything about it and be able to say something intelligent about it when it comes up. Alack, alas, I am ambivalent to the core. :I

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

As am I, which is why I usually avoid political posts of any kind,* but this seemed like an interesting enough social phenomenon that I might get some varied discussion and insights aside from the expected political side. Which I did!

*some people have a tendency to sink their teeth in and not let go ...