I always save a pack of mortars from Independence Day for Bastille Day on the 14th. I’m no francophile or anything, but it’s one of those days worth marking off. I never much understood our love of the British and hatred for the French. The French may be a bunch of filthy surrender monkeys, but at least they don’t proudly refer to themselves as “subjects”. They handled their whole monarchy problem. That’s more than the Canadians, Australians, or British can say.
The French made a go of it. They may have been able to pull it off if they weren’t stuck back in the old world when they tried. Their revolution was less intellectual and more mob-driven, sure, but there is still an idealogical kinship that I would dare say is deeper than we had for England. So I tip my hat to the Marquis de Lafayette, along with Thomas Paine and my man Thomas Jefferson; I’m sure they all would have considered it a day of remembrance. Viva la France!
