Emily In France Exclusive 🇫🇷 3 Ways to Celebrate July 14 in Paris

Step 1: Don't call it Bastille Day

Tomorrow is American Independence Day; we’ll need to wait another ten days before celebrating the French equivalent. But there are a lot of things people get wrong about le 14 juillet, chief among them calling it Bastille Day. No French person would ever call it anything other than le 14 juillet or la fête nationale – in part because the holiday technically celebrates, not the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789, but rather the first Fête de la Fédération celebrated one year later, on July 14, 1790. “Bastille Day” technically only became a holiday in 1880, 91 years after the storming of the prison of the same name, an event that set off the first French Revolution.

Aside from rectifying your vocabulary around this summer holiday, here are three fantastically French ways to celebrate.

1. Do a historic 14 juillet jaunt.

If you’re in Paris, there are a few destinations worth visiting on the 14th of July, and the Place de la Bastille is just the beginning (or, if you follow this little route, the end).

I’d recommend beginning in the Tuileries, at the Jeu de Paume. This sister of the more-famous Orangerie was once a handball court and is now a museum dedicated to ever-changing exhibits of contemporary photography. For our purposes, it was here that the events that would lead to the Revolution kicked off on June 20, 1789. Members of the Tiers Etat – those who were neither nobility nor clergy – met here to demand the establishment of a constitution.

Things hit a fever pitch in July of the same year, following increasing unrest and exponentially growing prices of bread, which reached their highest since the reign of Louis XIV. Head next to the gardens of the Palais-Royal, where, on July 12, 1789, lawyer and journalist Camille Desmoulins climbed onto a chair at Palais-Royal’s café de Foye and gave a rousing speech inviting the people to “take up arms against the government of the king.”

A number of different outbursts took place in the days that ensued, including one in the Tuileries Gardens. But the one that remains anchored in our memory is undoubtedly the prise de la Bastille, considered to be the turning point transforming a hodgepodge of Parisian rebellions into a true Revolution.

On July 14, rumors had spread that the Bastille prison was stockpiling both grain and gunpowder, and at 10:30am, a delegation went to the building to attempt peaceful negotiations. But soon thereafter, the crowds became antsy, and at 1:30pm, the 32 Swiss soldiers and 82 wounded war vets tasked with defending the prison opened fire on the masses. During the 3 1/2-hour siege that followed, about 100 people were killed before the crowd ultimately took control of the Bastille, pillaged the archives of the lieutenant of the Paris police, and released the seven prisoners held inside, including the attempted assassin of Louis XV, a man who had been imprisoned for insanity, and four forgers.

Today, the Bastille is no longer, but to the southern side of the square, markers lay out where it once stood.

2. Go to a bal des pompiers.

Bals des pompiers are firemen’s balls, and these free events have been a tradition in France for nearly 200 years, allowing visitors to discover firehouses, contribute financially to the wellbeing of the firefighters and their families, and flirt with hot firemen.

The tradition is rooted in the Napoleonic Era. After the 1804 ban of Federation Day celebrations, the first bal des pompiers was inaugurated to celebrate the feast of Saint-Napoléon on August 15, 1806. When finally Federation Day celebrations were restored following the fall of the Empire, bals des pompiers became associated with the 14th of July instead.

I’ve admittedly never attended these balls, so I tapped firefighter expert, former podcast guest, and culinary tour guide Marie Alicia DeGross to share the best in the capital – and she more than delivered.