Vive la Révolution! It’s Time to Topple Down the King!

INDEPENDENCE DAY FROM BULLIES (CELEBRATING WITH BURGERS)

It’s been a tradition of mine to eat hamburgers once a year…on July 4th, our American Independence Day. This year, there hasn’t been much to celebrate, given what are serious tragedies inflicted upon the American people by their own government.

On July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted, citing a long list of grievances against King George III of Great Britain. These were the colonists’ justifications for breaking away, showing how the king had violated their rights and failed to govern justly.

And guess what? These grievances are the very same ones we have today…against…not a king, but a president, and his powerful, rich allies.

Here are the grievances as cited in the Declaration of Independence and make note of how many we can equate with what is happening in today’s America:

Abuse of Power and Tyranny

• He refused to assent to laws that were necessary for the public good.
• He dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing his invasions of colonists’ rights.
• He called legislative bodies to meet in inconvenient and distant places, making it hard to govern.
• He obstructed justice by refusing to establish judiciary powers and by making judges dependent on his will.
• He erected a multitude of new offices and sent swarms of officers to harass the people.

Violations of Legal Rights

• He kept standing armies in peacetime without the consent of the legislatures.
• He made the military superior to civil power.
• He cut off trade with the rest of the world.
• He imposed taxes without consent (e.g., Stamp Act, Townshend Acts).
• He denied trial by jury in many cases.
• He transported colonists overseas for trial on false charges.

Destruction of Self-Government

• He tried to abolish the free system of English laws in neighboring Quebec, and extended its boundaries to threaten the colonies.
• He suspended colonial legislatures and declared himself the sole law.
• He repeatedly interfered with colonial governments and altered their charters.

Use of Force and Violence

• He waged war against his own people:
• Burned towns
• Plundered seas and ravaged coasts
• Sent mercenaries (Hessians) to kill and terrorize
• Incited Native American attacks against frontier settlements

Final Provocation

• He declared the colonies out of his protection and waged war on them (after the battles of Lexington and Concord and the Prohibitory Act).
• The colonists petitioned for redress many times, but the king responded with more injury.

These grievances justified the claim that the king had violated the social contract, giving the colonies the natural right to dissolve political ties and form a new government based on the consent of the governed.

Elon Musk is speaking out now by suggesting a third political party, which he’s floated as the “America Party.” He aspires to form a competing party after breaking with the GOP over Trump’s signature “Big Beautiful Bill.”* Is he our new Thomas Jefferson? That’s a rather funny thought, but a third party is what might have to happen if the current parties don’t come to their senses.

In spite of the bad news that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill passed by the Senate with a narrow 51–50 vote on July 1st (Vice President J.D. Vance casting the tie-breaking vote) and then the Senate agreed to an amended version on July 3rd (also by a slim margin), then formally signed into law by President Trump during a ceremony on July 4th…we decided to celebrate an independence from Donald Trump by making burgers.

*Be sure to read CNN’s recent article about who stands to gain and who stands to lose from this “big, beautiful” and very ugly bill.

We cobbled together fresh ground beef, cheddar cheese, American-style bacon strips, fresh lettuce, a big beefsteak tomato, french fries and even coleslaw, plus a watermelon and feta salad, finished with Häagen-Dazs ice cream for dessert…for a delish off-diet dinner as a reminder of who we are and where we came from. Unfortunately, the conversation at the table turned to what King Trump is doing and how we must declare a new independence—the kind we created 249 years ago and never dreamed we’d have to do again—bringing down the happy-to-be-alive (in France) mood.

A week from today on July 14th (Bastille Day), we celebrate France’s independence. The date does not mark independence from a foreign power, but rather symbolizes the French people’s uprising against absolute monarchy and royal oppression. Same old story. This time, it was King Louis XVI, the privileged nobility and clergy who created a deeply unequal, hierarchical system where the majority of French citizens (the Third Estate) had no real power.

On that fateful day, a fired-up crowd of revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, an old, hulking stone fortress right in the heart of Paris. It wasn’t packed with prisoners, but that wasn’t the point. It stood as a chilling symbol of royal oppression—where the king could lock you up on a whim, no trial, no justice, just off with your rights. It was the very embodiment of absolutist tyranny. (Sounding familiar?)

So when the people took the fortress down brick by brick, they weren’t just tearing down a building—they were cracking open the door to a new France. What happened next was the abolition of the monarchy, the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and eventually, the birth of the French Republic that we know (and love) today.

So yes, Bastille Day is the French version of Independence Day—but instead of kicking out a foreign king, they toppled their own. Isn’t it time we followed suit?

Vive la Révolution!

LES ENFANTS ROUGE

The Les Enfants Rouge market (39 rue de Bretagne) is steps from my apartment and draws a formidable crowd to its food court. As a result, in all these years of passing almost daily, I hadn’t bothered to try out any of the restaurants, where it’s tough to snag a table and the hubbub can be overwhelming.

I remember when it was on the verge of being turned into a parking lot. That was about 1994 when neighborhood activists objected and successfully had it reopened in 2000 following renovation. The twice-weekly open-air market along the Square du Temple then moved their stalls into Les Enfants Rouge and it began to come alive again. It’s the oldest covered market in the city, built in 1615 at the request of King Louis XIII, originally called the “Le Petit Marché du Marais.” (My own building is almost as old.) It’s current name is as old as 1772 in honor of a nearby orphanage for “red-clad children” (the Enfants-Rouges) founded by Marguerite de Valois. In 1982, it was classified as a historic monument.

It has three entrances (rue de Bretagne, rue Charlot, rue des Oiseaux) and packs in about 20 vendor stalls to 2,000m2. It’s filled with fresh produce: fruits, veggies, flowers, cheeses, meat, fish—many stands are organic or local—and best of all are the multicultural food stalls offering quick meals: Moroccan tagine/couscous, Japanese bentos, Lebanese pitas, Italian deli, American burgers, French bistronomy. There are small seating areas on bar stools and some tables, communal and otherwise, which all stay pretty filled to the brim. The popular counters include Alain Miam-Miam (I hear is worth the wait), Les Enfants du Marché bistronomique, Taeko (bento), Lebanese (some complain about their hygene issues) and an Afro-Caribbean stand called “Corossol” that had a table or two available for lunch on Saturday.

A friend who lives just a block from me had never ventured in for lunch, like me, for the same reason. It just seemed to busy and too difficult and too noisy and too whatever to get up the courage to attack it…but we decided it was high time we did. We wandered through the activity with caution and agreed upon Corossol, largely because I declared my affection for Creole cooking—a cuisine with which I had grown up in Louisiana. We took a small table nestled among a row of others, close to our neighboring diners and having to lean in to hear each other talk. It was exactly what we might have expected, but what ensued was delicious! We ordered up the “boudin noir” (Carribean pork black pudding, 7€) and “Ailes de poulet braisées”(15€) and Assiette crudités Acrras (12€).

Now I know better and will likely venture in more often. Note: It’s open only Tuesday through Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. except Sunday when it closes at 5 p.m.

UNDER RENOVATION

Six weeks are remaining to complete the renovation of my Marais apartment as I must be out of the rental apartment no later than August 31st. Walking into it now seems like it will be impossible to complete, but I do know that most of the finishing work happens all at once and at the very end, while the foundations laid take the most time—the electrical wiring, the plumbing, the structures, the painting. The floors will then be refinished and when they are looking like new, the carpenters can come in and install the kitchen, the bathroom fixtures, the closets, bookshelves, etc.

The process for me has been emotionally stressful, as prior to the destruction of the apartment by the structural engineers who replaced the oak beams with steel, the apartment was exactly as I wanted it in every way. It took 27 years to accomplish that. Then, in a matter of moments, it was entirely destroyed. Their workers took no care in salvaging a single thing and managed to dismantle and literally throw away all of the custom-made closets, bookshelves, cabinetry and desk unit that had been installed over time and at great expense. The only thing left in the apartment was one mirrored wall. It was shocking, to say the least.

Today the apartment is a shell of its former self, but with all new electrical, all new plumbing, all new heating…all new everything. It can’t be reproduced exactly as it was and I am having to come to terms with the changes…which is the part that is emotionally disturbing and stressful. We’re having to make decisions about things that clearly can’t replace what was there before…and then I simply must learn to live with it. Some things will also be an improvement, such as the kitchen pass-through window that wasn’t there before.

Martine di Mattéo, my trusted Designer, promises to have it done in time and is doing her best to keep me happy…as for her, there is always a solution to every problem. I love that about her and I am certain that when the end of August comes and the movers come to pack us up and re-install us, that it will feel so good to be really home again.

A la prochaine…