The French national holiday commemorates the storming of the Bastille, which took place on 14 July 1789 and marked the beginning of the French Revolution. The Bastille was a prison and a symbol of the absolute and arbitrary power of Louis the 16th's Ancient Regime. By capturing this symbol, the people signaled that the king's power was no longer absolute power should be based on the Nation and be limited by a separation of powers.

The ostensible cause of the revolution was a French financial crisis, the nation was bankrupt due to the wars of the Louis XIV between June and November 1789 the bourgeoisie, aided by uprisings from the people of Paris, were able to gain control over the state and institute reforms. During the "moderate stage" of the revolution, the bourgeoisie abolished the special privileges of the aristocracy and clergy, drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, subordinated the church to the state, reformed the country's administrative and judicial systems and drew up a constitution creating a parliament and limiting the king's power.

Between 1792 and 1794 came the "radical stage" of the revolution. Three issues propelled the revolution in this direction. First, the urban poor or sans-culottes, wanted the revolutionary government to do something about about their poverty as well as counter-revolutionaries. Second, the clergy and aristocracy had mounted a counter-revolution to undue the reforms of the revolution. Finally, France had gone to war with European powers that sought to check French expansion and to stifle the revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality.

Louis XVI was dethroned and a republic established in 1792. In January of the following year, Louis met his fate at the guillotine. The republic was now faced with internal insurrection and foreign invasion. In June 1793 the Jacobins took power and mobilized the defenses of the nation. To deal with counter-revolutionaries, the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror under the supervision of Maximilien Robespierre. The Terror was responsible for the death of 20-40,000 people, many of them innocent. When moderate Jacobins found themselves in control in the summer of 1794, Robespierre himself fell victim to the Terror and was guillotined.

At the end of the 19th century the French considered the enduring gains of the Revolution to be the idea of the nation, one and indivisible, based on a voluntary union and incorporating the principles of human rights and national sovereignty, the rule of law and a republican form of government. As they are associated with France, these concepts are symbolized by the "Marseillaise," the anthem to national unity composed in 1792 by Rouget de Lisle. Except for the period between 1815 and 1830, the tricolour flag has represented France since the Revolution; it marries blue and red, the colours of the city of Paris, with the royal colour of white. Bastille Day, 14 July, was officially proclaimed the national holiday in 1880 and the motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" was restored in 1848.

The French Declaration of 1789 is not simply a copy of the American Declaration of Independence, it takes as a starting point the the reflexions of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and in particular of authors like Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau. Admittedly, the US document had a great influence on the French. But the originality of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was conceived to recognize eternal and universal values. It thus had, after its publication, a great repercussion on the Western thought.

Moreover, the powerful aspiration to equality, inherited from the Enlightenment philosophy of Rousseau, stands out as the most resonant principle of the Declaration and following revolutionary movements. Unfortunately, because of the troubles during the Reformation and its repression supported by the Catholic powers, the "enlightened ones" had in France an anti-religious fervor. Never-the-less "equality" is the most enduring, original characteristic of the French Revolution, within the great sweep of political change which first radiated from the shores of the United States. In the 19th century, the ideals and reforms of the French Revolution spread in waves across Europe. In country after country, the ancien regime was challenged by the ideals of liberty and equality. Not only that, the ancien regime was also challenged by history itself, a history the French Revolution helped to create.