Bonne Fête nationale! Or more familiarly, C’est le quatorze juillet! To the English-speaking world, July 14 is Bastille Day.
In the heart of la Place de la République, atop an enormous monument, stands Marianne. Who is Marianne? Born out of the French Revolution, she is the personification of the French Republic. Unlike Uncle Sam, who almost always looks the same, Marianne has been depicted in various ways by artists from Eugène Delacroix to Shepard Fairey; from having anonymous every-woman features, to those of well-known French women.
This monument, inaugurated 14 July 1883, represents the winning design in a competition to honor the 90th anniversary of the French Revolution and has some notable symbolic features. The coat of arms for the city of Paris is emblazoned at the top of the pedestal with a dedication inscription below it that reads, A LA GLOIRE DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE La Ville de Paris 1883 (“To the glory of the French Republic, the City of Paris 1883”). Three allegorical figures, Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité, who, along with Marianne, represent the values of the French Republic, surround the base. At the very bottom stands a bronze lion protecting them and that of a representation of a ballot box inscribed with the date 1789.
With one hand holding an olive branch and the other on la Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen de 1789, a document of human civil rights, Marianne graces one of the largest squares in Paris that has not changed very much over the centuries, as the embodiment of France. Which may be why—along with the fact that it’s a straight shot—so many demonstrations often begin at Place de la République and end, fittingly, at Place de la Bastille!