Plots, massacres, assassinations, seem to some people a trivial price for obtaining a revolution. A cheap, bloodless reformation, a guiltless liberty, appear flat and vapid to their taste,” wrote Edmund Burke, viewing the destruction of the established order in France by a curious alliance of intellectuals, slum-dwellers, soldiers and affluent young aristocrats turning against their elders. The French had launched into the first phase of a revolutionary cycle that shows little sign of abating even today.
This summer, their most recent autocrat safely off stage again, Parisians can be expected to celebrate the beginning of it all with special zest. Bastille Day, July 14, 1970, ought to be a memorable one.
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