Bastille Day

Day off!

Today is la fête nationale or le quatorze juillet, but we tend to think of it as 'Bastille Day' - a day to celebrate the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789. According to Wikipedia [so make up your own minds], the prison only contained seven prisoners, none of them political. The commander of the Bastille, seeing the strength of the crowd, opened the gates [make of that what you will!] to 'avoid a mutual massacre'. Didn't stop 99 attackers and eight defenders later being killed.

Again, according to Wikipedia "The storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than a practical act of defiance." Shows a nice sense of irony don't you think?

Anyways, today is a jour férié so the builders get a day off, and more importantly, I get a day off!

I slept in till 8 am, so the Night Nurse was worth it [drug of choice for those of us who don't like taking sleeping tablets], and I even managed a three-hour nap this afternoon. Hopefully, getting 15 hours sleep in the last 24 will mean I'm up to the challenges of the rest of the month. I've already decided that if the bathroom floor has to be dug up again, that will happen, so my resolve is stronger, and after my nap I don't feel at all tearful. Hurrah!

Which points to my diagnosis of "tired" as being pretty accurate.

[Off topic: whereas I think of a nap as "going bo-boes" in baby talk, the French refer to it as "do-dos" [like the bird], and "bo-bos" in French are "boo-boos" or "poorlies", especially the ones that need a plaster & kissing better.]

As my mind is now a lot more refreshed, and not totally full of building work, and it is Bastille Day, it seems a good occasion to discuss what I've noticed about 'equality'.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

["Ou la Mort" was dropped as being a bit strong.]

Equality is enshrined in the modern French psyche, but I'm learning that there's a very strong hierarchy that must be followed in the building trade.

In England, my builder was known as "Bob" [yes!], and I was known as "Maria"; not too difficult, those were our names. [In the 'good old days', my builder was known as "dad", and I was known as "Fonzie" (because I was "coool"!), and I would give everything I own to have that back, but that's not possible.] My dentist is known as "Paul", the postman is known as "Mick", and the Chief Operating Officer of David's company is known as "Mike". Maria, Bob and Mick are Working Class [although it could be argued that Maria has become Middle Class by virtue of marriage/white collar work], and David, Paul and Mike are Middle Class.

When I was younger, the lady I cleaned for was known as "Mrs Roper", but that was because she was of an older generation, not because she was Upper Class [which she was]; "Mrs Lillie" was Mrs Roper's full-time cleaning lady, and I can't even remember if I knew her given name. Again she was known as "Mrs Lillie" because of being an older lady and I was a teenager. All my grandma's friends were "Mrs Somebody-or-other". But that's a long time ago.

I don't know if that's different now with children/young adults, but I certainly call all the elderly neighbours I've known in London by their first names.

In France [our part, at least], the boss of a firm is called "M. Family-name", and his workers are "M. Given-name". I'm not sure what we are called, because our surnames cause enough problems even to Jean-Marie even after nearly four years, and no-one else even refers to our names apart from M. Mekki, who calls me Maria. I think that's because he's of non-French origin, and needs to call me something. I vastly prefer that to "madame" which makes me feel old, and is close enough to "madam" to make me feel as though I'm difficult! Neither do I like "Mrs Family-name", because it makes me feel like my mother.

[Another aside: I kept my family name on marriage - if it's good enough for the Queen and Elizabeth Taylor, it's good enough for me. This does confuse some people, but it's not really difficult: I was Maria B*** and I am now Maria B***; simples!]

We know enough about French culture to know that we have to wait to be asked to call people by their given names, and we are building up a circle of Sergines/Lydies/Laurents etc, but I still find it odd that equality is something we know we don't have in England, but treat people as though we do, and something enshrined in French tradition but in practice doesn't seem to exist.

Happy Bastille Day!