July 14 - Geezer's Blog - Bastille Day & National Nude Day

The Bottom Line: Learn more about the French Revolution.

The Full Story:

  • Anywhere between 18,000 and 40,000 people were beheaded at the Guillotine during the revolution ensuing what was called “The Reign of Terror.”
  • While peasants had to pay taxes to their noble, the King, and the Church, the nobility were exempt from paying most taxes
  • Thomas Jefferson was a U.S Minister to France during the French Revolution
  • Charles Dickens’ book “A Tale of Two Cities” is set during the French Revolution
  • The Victor Hugo novel “Les Miserables,” which has been turned into a Broadway musical and film is set during the French Revolution.
  • When the prison of The Bastille was stormed there were only seven prisoners inside, but revolutionaries were after the arms and powder stocked within the walls.
  • Revolutionaries had their own decimal calendar. A week had ten days, a day had ten hours, an hour had 1000 minutes, and a minute had 100 seconds.
  • King Louis XVI was executed in January of 1793
  • It is believed that Marie Antoinette gave her executioner a purse full of gold coins to ensure the blade of the Guillotine was sharp, to make sure her 1791 death was quick and clean. Word is, it wasn’t.

Source: This Is France

Bastille Day

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