It's Bastille Day, Here Are 10 Badass French People
By Ty Duffy
July 14th is Bastille Day, the French equivalent of America’s Independence Day. To celebrate, here are 10 badass French people. Before you retort with the “Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys” joke, remember. There are college students younger than it.
Napoleon Bonaparte: Conquered Europe from Madrid to Moscow. Made landmark, lasting reforms in law, education and public health. Took typhoid, dysentery, hubris, British intransigence and a spot of horrific weather to bring him down.
Joan of Arc: Donned men’s clothes and led French armies to victory, at a time when common folk were disenfranchised and women were property or, if uppity like Joan, witches.
Voltaire: Writer, philosopher, exile and scourge of the entrenched and powerful. He could be viewed, in many ways, as the founder of modern thought. His blogging game would have been savage.
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas: Mixed-race son of a Haitian slave. General D’Armee in the French Revolutionary Army. Nicknamed “Schwarzer Teufel” (Black Devil) by the Germans. Fathered famous author.
Edouard Manet: Seminal figure in the development of modern art. Didn’t paint over the darkness. Enjoyed shocking polite society and tweaking the hell out of the pretentious and self-important.
Serge Gainsbourg: Popular musician. Best remembered for sleeping with attractive women and looking cool and pensive while smoking a cigarette. When you have that mastered, what else is there?
Zinedine Zidane: Practical enough to win everything. Graceful enough to be featured in an art film. There are worse ways to go down then headbutting a jackass.
Marie Curie: First woman to win the Nobel Prize. Did so twice, in Physics and Chemistry. Carried around radioactive isotopes in pockets. Her papers remain radioactive.
Albert Camus: Writer, philosopher, journalist, resistance fighter and human rights activist. Promising soccer career was derailed by TB.
Francois Joseph Paul De Grasse: French Naval Commander. Blockaded Cornwallis. Held firm in the Battle of the Chesapeake. Won the American Revolution.
[Photos via Getty]