Less Bud Light, More Moonlight

What a Bastille Day in France undid in me, after years of chaotic Fourths in California.

It’s the Fourteenth of July again.

I first wrote this one last Bastille Day, back when roughly twenty people were reading Once Upon a Castle, and I’m fairly sure half of them were related to me. It remains one of my favorite things I’ve written here, and almost nobody saw it. So today I’m setting the table again, with a lot more chairs.

Here’s what a decade of American Fourths taught me, and what one holiday on a French beach undid.

There was a time, not so long ago, when I lived in Venice Beach, California, a place where the Fourth of July arrived each year like a sunburned tidal wave of shirtless barbecues, frat-party energy, cheap beer, and more than a few loud declarations of independence. Rooftop parties blasted music. Roman candles were launched with questionable aim. Someone always ended up doing something patriotic and deeply ill-advised on a skateboard or electric scooter. It was loud, it was lawless, and it was about as subtle as a bald eagle crashing through a Monster Energy ad. Unmistakably American.

I used to brace for it every year. The endless fireworks, the gridlocked beach traffic, the terrified dogs, the babies (mine included) waking up screaming at 2am from yet another illegal explosion launched off a neighbor’s rooftop. And the day-after cleanup, which looked like a Bud Light commercial had detonated on the sidewalk.

New here? I’m Kamille, an American raising two kids in a French château and writing it all down, one holiday at a time. Come along, it’s free.

Enter: le Quatorze Juillet

Here in France, the national holiday is Bastille Day, or le Quatorze Juillet, as it’s actually called by the French. It commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 and the symbolic start of the French Revolution. Think of it as France’s version of the Fourth, only with fewer flags and considerably less shouting.

Each year, we spend it in Étretat, a stunning town on the northern coast famous for its cliffs and much less famous for its complete lack of drunk people yelling “FREEDOM!” into the night. And during our first trip there, the contrast just about knocked me over.

Start with the tone. It’s the national holiday, and nobody is dressed in French flag garb. Not one tricolor outfit, unless it happened by accident. No red-white-and-blue face paint, no truck flags, no themed sunglasses. I think we were the only people even attempting to color-coordinate (American habits die hard).

That doesn’t mean the French aren’t proud. Oh, they are. They are deeply proud to be French. They just don’t yell about it. They don’t chant it. They don’t need to. The evidence is in the lifestyle, the UNESCO-recognized cuisine, the vacation policy, the universal healthcare, and the fact that people all over the world will climb over each other to photograph a single croissant on a tiny Parisian café table. France doesn’t have to shout to prove the point.

We started that Bastille Day with an early-morning adventure, using the low tide to slip through a secret cave to a hidden beach on the far side of the cliffs. It was surreal and magical. Definitely an experience we won’t forget.

After that, a slow lunch, a hike to the top of the opposite cliff, a wander through gardens strung with art installations, ice cream, and a long lingering dinner. Then we joined the crowds gathering on the beach, not for a rave, but to watch the fireworks unfold across the sky and down into the ocean.

And when it ended?

Nothing. No chaos. No rogue fireworks. No one drunkenly lighting off M-80s at midnight. Just quiet. We went to bed. The children stayed asleep. The dogs stayed calm. Nobody’s car alarm went off. It was, hand to heart, the best night’s sleep I have ever had on a national holiday.

If a quiet holiday reads to you like a personal fantasy, you’re my people. This is what I write about every week, the loud life we left and the slower one we’re building. New essays twice a month, free.

As for the Fourth of July, we kept that one small too. We stayed home at our French farmhouse, made homemade red, white, and blue ice cream (vanilla, raspberry, and blueberry, if you’re curious), and lit a few sparklers with new neighbor friends. No flags. No frat boys. A little nostalgia, a few smiles, and an enormous sense of relief.

It’s not that I don’t love America. I do, probably more than I realized before I had this much distance from it. I just don’t miss the noise, or the 2am explosions, or waking up to a lawn that looked like the aftermath of a beer commercial.

Today it happens again. The sky over some French beach will fill up, everyone will watch, and then the whole town will simply go home and go to bed. So will we. Not a single dog will lose its mind.

Merci et à bientôt ✨
-Kamille

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If you’re new here: I’m an American writer restoring a 17th-century château in rural France with my husband and two kids, and Once Upon a Castle is where the whole muddy, magical story lives. Two free essays a month, four per month for paid subscribers. Pull up a chair.

Restack this if it made you feel something (that’s genuinely how new readers find this little corner of the internet). Or share it with someone who:

• Still has mild PTSD from rogue neighborhood fireworks

• Has always wondered what Bastille Day is actually like

• Thinks patriotism could use a rebrand

P.S. Paid subscribers get four posts a month, including Castle Diaries, the renovation journal I keep from inside the walls. And next week’s paid post is a little more personal: why we chose a life harder than the one we left, on purpose.