Bastille Day
The "Fête de la Fédération"on 14 July 1790 was a celebration of the unity of the French nation during the French Revolution. The aim of this celebration, one year after the Storming of the Bastille, was to symbolise peace. The event took place on the Champ de Mars, which was located far outside of Paris at the time. The work needed to transform the Champ de Mars into a suitable location for the celebration was not on schedule to be completed in time. On the day recalled as the Journée des brouettes ("The Day of the Wheelbarrow"), thousands of Parisian citizens gathered together to finish the construction needed for the celebration.
Champ de Mars
This place witnessed the spectacle and pageantry of some of the best-remembered festivals of the French Revolution. On 14 July 1790 the first "Federation Day" celebration ("fête de la Fédération"), now known as Bastille Day, was held on the Champ de Mars, exactly one year after the storming of the prison. The following year, on 17 July 1791, the massacre on the Champ de Mars took place. Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first mayor of Paris, became a victim of his own revolution and was guillotined there on 12 November 1793.