Or rather, happy day after Bastille Day, since July 14 is the time to celebrate the day in 1789 when an angry mob stormed the prison and released scads of prisoners–well, 7 anyway. It was officially declared a national holiday on July 6, 1880. It’s a good excuse to spend your weekend drinking champagne, eating wonderfully unhygenic cheese, wearing berets, and listening to “La vie en rose” over and over (it’s MY excuse, anyway, though really every day is a good day for champagne and Piaf!)
To help you get your celebration in order, here are a few links to give you some party pointers and a few quotes to inspire you. 🙂
Fun party drinks (they mostly appear to be sticky-sweet concoctions made from things like cherry brandy, but I think the Marie Antoinette sounds sort of yummy…)
Fun party menus (though with drinks like the Montmartre, who needs food???)
Official stuff from the French Embassy
“France has more need of me than I have need of France” –Napoleon
“It’s true that the French have a certain obsession with sex, but it’s a particularly adult obsession. France is the thriftiest of all nations; to a Frenchman sex provides the most economical way to have fun. The French are a logical race.” –Anita Loos
“In America, only the successful writer is important; in France all writers are important; in England no writer is important; and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is” —
Geoffrey Cottrell
“I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.” –Charles de Gaulle
“Boy, those French. They have a different word for everything.” –Steve Martin
“Paris is always a good idea.” –Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina
“To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.” –Victor Hugo
“Frenchmen are like gunpowder, each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed!” –Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Vive la France!
Yes, vive la France!
It was amazing to me when I lived in England to learn of the continuing grudges between the two nations. One of my British coworkers insisted that “the only thing good about the French is their wine”. When I ventured to mention cuisine he dismissed it, saying “all they know is how to make sauces.”
Part of my job was to oversee a British company that subcontracted to a French company. I found it so much easier when I could deal with the French directly.
And with their delicious accents, they could even make software development sound cool. 🙂
Here’s a classic bit of francophobia which has stuck with me for many years. I read somewhere that only one in seven French people owned a toothbrush.
“Mon dieu, eet ees Wednesday. My turn to use ze toothbrush…” And so on.
Vive la France!
Janet
I love the quotes, Amanda!
Well, French-bashing is not restricted to the English–Freedom Fries, anyone? That has to count very high on the list of Extremely Irrelevant Acts of Congress. (Especially since the fries actually originated in Belgium.)
Of course, the French tend to be rather suspicious and resentful of Americans, as well, so I guess it cuts both ways. Sigh.
Todd-who-likes-a-nicely-spiced-curly-Belgian-fry-and-that-really-sounds-like-it-ought-to-be-a-double-entendre-(as-the-French-would-say)
BTW, I’ve just been reading “Paris to the Moon” by Adam Gopnik, about his experiences living in Paris in the late 90’s–so this post is very a propos!
Wait, a minute, that was in French! Oh, la la, I can’t stop it! Sacré bleu!
Vive-le-Todd