FRENCH

On 14th July 1789, when the Bastille in Paris was stormed, it only housed seven old prisoners, none of which were politically important.  There were even plans to close the prison down because it was very costly to maintain.  The regular garrison that was posted there consisted of a bunch of veteran soldiers who were no longer seen as fit for battle. 

King Louis XVI didn’t even know about this event until the next day and while 90 attackers died in the battle, only one defender died before the surrender. To him it was as insignificant event. 

So why is the Storming of the Bastille seen as such an important event, celebrated every 14th of July in France?

The main reason why the rebel Parisians stormed the Bastille was not to free the prisoners but to get ammunition and arms.  At the time, over 30,000 pounds of gunpowder were stored inside the fortress. It allowed them the possibility of a successful offensive attack.  To them, it was also a symbol of the monarchy’s tyranny.  This event was the start of the French Revolution and the eventual fall of the French monarchy.

Bonjour tout le monde,

I hope you had 'des super vacances' (great holidays). 

• This Term, the Preps are starting a new topic, breakfast food (le petit-déjeûner = breakfast or, literally 'small lunch'). When the students are back to school next week, they will play games in class to continue memorising the vocabulary that they recorded last Term during remote learning (farm animals).

• In Years 1 and 2, we are doing game competitions online ( including 'Four in a row') to memorise vocabulary about school items:

• Students in Years 3 and 3/4 have just finished their portfolio task and know all about the storming of 'La Bastille' and the 14th of July celebrations in France.

• In Years 4/5 and 5/6, the students are working on their portfolio task. They are using their knowledge of conjugating regular verbs to write full sentences about a new video of the series 'Minuscules'. They have also completed a crosswords to memorise the vocabulary that they need to describe the scenes.

Our song of the week is not in French but it is from the movie 'Les Misérables' which is about the French revolution. This scene shows the angry commoners ready to start the revolution:

That's it for this week. Passez un bon weekend (Have a nice weekend) and I will talk to you in a couple of weeks.

Take good care of yourselves.

Au revoir,

Delphine