Fête de la Fédération
The Federation Festival ( Fête de la Fédération ) is a famous festival in the Campus Martius ( Champ de Mars) in Paris, which was held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1790. It is one of the most important festivals of the Revolution French Revolution. 60,000 delegates from 83 departments gathered for the celebrations. Louis XVI. of France swore this oath to the Constitution.
Prehistory
It was modeled regional Federation celebrations of the National Guard, which were held in the South of France in August 1789 and came up throughout France. The proposal of the Paris city council, in Paris to hold a national Federation party, the Parliamentary Assembly agreed to the Constituent Assembly. The commander of the National Guard of Paris La Fayette then began planning a national federation festival in Paris to commemorate the storming of the Bastille on the first anniversary of the event. However, because of the small remaining time until then became the preparations as the celebration itself to improvisation.
In 1790, Parliament declared the first memorial service for 14 July 1789 celebration of reconciliation and the unity of all Frenchmen. The idea was to an extent the legitimacy of King Louis XVI. not deny the other hand, express the general desire for harmony and national reconciliation demonstrative. Jean -Sylvain Bailly, French astronomer and the first mayor of Paris, suggested that the planned festive gathering should apply by July 14, the commitment to freedom. On the day you should put on the preservation and defense of the freedom of an oath according to Bailly's proposal. Charon, the President of the Paris Commune, shouting slogans such as " French, we are free! Frenchmen, we are brothers! "
Preparations for the Field of Mars
The Champ de Mars, which was at that time far outside Paris, was built for the planned celebrations and military parades. In the middle of the altar of the country was built. At the end faces a triumphal arch for the march through the parade troops and on the opposite the tent of the king was built at one end. On the long sides earthworks were piled up, were drafted into the stepwise elevated platforms for spectators. Overall, the stand held about 400,000 spectators. These stands were still up to the Second Empire in the second half of the 19th century into it.
On July 1, 1790 1,200 workers began with the earthworks. Although they were fed, but poorly paid. When they were accused under the time pressure of the remaining two weeks slow work, they threatened to cease further construction. It therefore appealed to the goodwill of Paris, who then participated in large numbers in the preparations with voluntary unpaid work.
As a model dedicated to the senior society representatives. Louis XVI. came up from Saint -Cloud and swung the pickaxe. The Paris La Fayette commander toiled in shirtsleeves as a worker. Immediately resembled the Mars field a bustling human anthill, where the workers worked in the Faubourg Saint -Antoine in addition to the nobles, the monks next to the commoners, and where the courtesans the ladies from the fine city have hand expressed. The Köhler, the butcher and the printer came with their trikoloregeschmückten guild banners. Joyful singing to the Ça ira and other patriotic songs. Soldiers mingled with the National Guard. The Paris brought about 50,000 coming from the province Federalists under with him. In the new military school, the families of the parliamentarians lived.
The Federation Festival
The festival was then held on July 14, 1790, on the day exactly one year after the storming of the Bastille. At four clock in the morning the festivities began in heavy rain that would continue throughout the day.
The audience settled down on the erected around the deployment area ranks, Louis XVI. built for him in the pavilion in front of the Ecole Militaire. The fair held Talleyrand, under the Ancien Régime Bishop of Autun. La Fayette rode in on a white horse in Gala and climbed onto the podium. Louis XVI swore to the nation and law, the amount of the said oath after and you agreed to a Te Deum, then they went back apart under Hugs and Vivatrufen, many of them on Louis XVI.
14,000 Federalists came from the provinces, each department of the National Guard sent two hundred men. They marched under the banner of their departments and with their drums into 83 groups.
With the permission of the Constituent Assembly, a delegation of the United States of America participated in the Federation festival, with John Paul Jones, Thomas Paine, James Swan, Joel Barlow and others. On this occasion, for the first time flew the Stars and Stripes outside of the young American republic.
Even abroad, was celebrated in many cities, including Hamburg, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille as a festival of freedom.
Effects and representations
Another Federation festival took place on 14 July 1792 but were the concord and the momentum of the first celebration by then, already growing mistrust. During the rule of the Hundred Days in 1815 an attempt was made in Paris and in Brittany a revival, but in vain.
At the suggestion of the deputy Benjamin Raspail and in Memory of the Federation Festival July 14 was officially declared a French national holiday on July 6, 1880.
The authored by Marie -Joseph Chénier and François Joseph Gossec Song of July 14, they sang in the Écoles Normal until the Second World War.
The Federation feast was manifold shown in the picture, such as in the paintings of Hubert Robert and Charles Thévenin.
The Arch of Federation celebration of Hubert Robert.
Commemorative medal.
Of sight behind the tent of the king on the Federation Festival.
Extract of Federation celebrations.
Announcement of the Federation festival in a newspaper ad with the prediction of more frequent heavy rain showers throughout the day.
Swell
- Jules Michelet: Histoire de la Révolution française, Paris, Chamerot, 1847, Volume II, Book III, Chapter XI: " De la nouvelle religion. Fédérations ( juillet 89 juillet - 90) " and Chapter XII: " De la nouvelle religion. Fédération générale ( 14 juillet 1790) ', pp. 161-195.
- Edgar Quinet: La Révolution, Paris, A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Cie, 1866, Volume 1, Book Seven: " Varennes ", Chapter 1: " Fédération ', pp. 251-253.
- Adolphe Thiers: Histoire de la révolution française, Bruxelles, JP Meline, 1834, Volume 1, Chapter V, pp. 167-175.
- Mona Ozouf: La fête revolutionnaire, 1789-1799, Paris, Gallimard, 1976, Chapter II: "La fête de la Fédération: le modèle et les réalités ".