Bastille Day, Saturday, July 9th, 4pm to 9pm at the Hotel de Paris in Georgetown. This annual Bastille Day Celebration welcomes visitors and locals to casually visit Hotel de Paris Museum™. The event is a fundraiser that features a silent auction and cash bar. Hosted by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Colorado. Louis Dupuy’s Hotel de Paris is the most unique and complete parcel of early Colorado history. A Site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Website Link: http://www.hoteldeparismuseum.org
Bastille Day is a holiday celebrating the storming of the Bastille—a military fortress and prison—on July 14, 1789, in a violent uprising that helped usher in the French Revolution. Besides holding gunpowder and other supplies valuable to revolutionaries, the Bastille also symbolized the callous tyranny of the French monarchy, especially King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette.
The Bastille was built in the 1300s during the Hundred Years’ War against the English, the Bastille was designed to protect the eastern entrance to the city of Paris. The formidable stone building’s massive defenses included 100-foot-high walls and a wide moat, plus more than 80 regular soldiers and 30 Swiss mercenaries standing guard.
As a prison, it held political dissidents (such as the writer and philosopher Voltaire), many of whom were locked away without a trial by order of the king. By 1789, however, it was scheduled for demolition, to be replaced by a public square.
Despite inheriting tremendous debts from his predecessor, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette continued to spend extravagantly. By the late 1780s, France’s government stood on the brink of economic disaster.
To make matters worse, widespread crop failures in 1788 brought about a nationwide famine. Bread prices rose so high that, at their peak, the average worker spent about 88 percent of his wages on just that one staple.
Unemployment was likewise a problem, which the populace blamed in part on newly reduced customs duties between France and Britain. Following a harsh winter, violent food riots began breaking out across France at bakeries, granaries and other food storage facilities.
In an attempt to resolve the crisis, Louis XVI summoned the long-dormant Estates-General, a national assembly divided by social class into three orders: clergy (First Estate), nobility (Second Estate) and commoners (Third Estate).
Though it represented about 98 percent of the population, the Third Estate could still be outvoted by its two counterparts. As a result of this inequality, its deputies immediately started clamoring for a greater voice. After making no initial headway, they then declared themselves to be a new body called the National Assembly.
The story preceding the storming of the Bastille is long and represents a brutal time when many lost their lives. In the aftermath of the storming of the Bastille, the prison fortress was systematically dismantled until almost nothing remained of it. A de facto prisoner from October 1789 onward, Louis XVI was sent to the guillotine a few years later—Marie Antoinette’s beheading followed shortly thereafter.
Much like the Fourth of July in America, Bastille Day—known in France as la Fête nationale or le 14 juillet (14 July)—is a public holiday in France, celebrated by nationwide festivities including fireworks, parades and parties.
Attendees will see France’s tricolor flag, hear the French motto Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (“liberty, equality and fraternity”) and break into singing La Marseillaise—all popular symbols of France that had their origins in the heady days of the French Revolution.
In one of the world’s oldest annual military parades, French troops have marched each year since Bastille Day of 1880 along the Champs-Elysées in Paris before French government officials and world leaders.
Hotel de Paris is a Blue Star Museum Free Admission to active military and their families on Special Days Washington, DC—The National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Star Families are pleased to announce the museums across America that will be participating in the Blue Star Museums program this summer, from May 21, 2022—Armed Forces Day—to September 5, 2022—Labor Day. This year’s list once again includes museums from all 50 states, District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Find the complete list of participating museums at arts.gov/bluestarmuseums.
he following events at the Hotel de Paris Museum that welcome blue star families:
• Friday, July 1st, 10:00 am, FREE ADMISSION: Blue Star Museums (07.2022) in Georgetown
• This August, August 1st, 10:00 am, FREE ADMISSION: Blue Star Museum (08.2022) in Georgetown
• This September, September 1st, 10:00 am, FREE ADMISSION: Blue Star Museum (09.2022) in Georgetown
Celebrate Bastille Day in an old, Norman-style inn! Cash bar, hors d’oeuvres, live music, silent auction. Proceeds help support Hotel de Paris Museum. 409 6th St., Georgetown, CO 80444 303-569-2311
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