On This Day in History: July 14

Bastille Day

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The roots of the French Revolution began in a far-off land called Mississippi. Capitalism funded empires, and private companies in Europe set out to conquer the world with the blessings of their governments. However, the French Mississippi Company was a financial fuckup of epic proportions that destroyed the French economy and led to a guillotine-o-rama of those deemed responsible.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: July 14, 1789--

The Mississippi Company had friends in the court of King Louis XV, and in 1717 sold shares on the Paris Stock Exchange to fund its colonization of the Mississippi Valley, because it’s not like anyone else was using it (genocidal sarcasm font). The company did this thing called “marketing,” which involves describing a land of alligators and swamps as one of amazing abundance and opportunity. Those French who had anything of value to invest shrieked, “Take my money!” The stock price soared.

But then some realized the stock was overvalued, and began a sell-off, creating a cascade of dumping shares that nuked the price. It was called the Mississippi Bubble, and it was one of the largest financial crashes in history. Many investors lost everything, and some said fuck it and shoved a musket in their mouth to bid the world adieu.

The French financial system couldn’t recover; much of its empire was taken by the British. It was made worse by the French giving costly aid to the Americans in their revolution, coupled with a regressive tax system. Meanwhile, the French crown was doing the 18th-century equivalent of getting high-interest cash advances from Visa to pay the Mastercard bill. By 1789, half the annual budget went toward paying just the interest on loans.

In June 1789, the middle class said these nobles are dipshits and they keep fucking us over, so we’re creating a National Assembly and gonna make an actual for-real constitution so we can be proper capitalists. This prompted conservative elements of the aristocracy to seize control of the finance ministry on July 11, leading to growing unrest. The shitfuckery culminated in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, mostly because they saw the fortress as a symbol of royal tyranny. It only had seven prisoners in it at the time, four of whom were in for the heinous crime of forgery.

Thus began the French Revolution, not one of hungry poor, but of ambitious middle classes. It didn’t go well. The country convulsed like a headless snake for decades before becoming a proper democracy. Now, July 14 is celebrated as France’s National Day, with fireworks and wine and the whole bit.

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