Fittingly surrounded by a boulevard named after a colonel of the Battle of Austerlitz in the Napoleonic Wars, a commemorative column stands. As a carryover from paganism, Mercury flutters atop as the spirit of freedom, and more often than not, the Parisian populace gathers under its shadow to voice their grievances, reprimand the republic, and condemn the world in general. Engraved into the monument's sides the names of fallen patriots from one of the countries many revolutions are engraved. A monument was first commissioned for the country’s most famous revolution, in the form of a sculpted elephant, but to everyone’s disappointment it didn’t get past the stucco stage of production. Instead, one of the only reminders of 1789 comes from an outline of a fortress in the cobblestone. The square is named after this structure; it is the Place de la Bastille.

    This week, there will be crowds of people in the streets of Paris to celebrate the National Day of France, but let’s scroll our timeline back 236 years to the founding of the republic when the explosions were not fireworks, and hunger rather than celebrations prevailed.

    To understand the nature of the events which would transpire, we must begin with a speech given at the Palais-Royal. In part of this rousing speech Desmoulins shouted the following as described in Sir Simon Schema’s book Citizens, A Chronicle of the French Revolution:

”To arms, to arms and […] let us all take a green cockade, the color of hope.” At that moment Desmoulins thought he saw police arrive - or so he claimed. The suspicion allowed him to pose as the imminent victim of tyranny. A new Saint Bartholomew’s Eve massacre impended, he warned: a reference point that was already becoming an important cliche of Patriot rhetoric […]. Pointing to his breast with one hand and waving a pistol in the other […], Desmoulins defied the stooges of tyranny: “Yes, yes, it is I who call my brothers to freedom; I would die rather than submit to servitude.” (pg. 359)

    This period lands exactly 217 years since the body of the witness lay in the street, and so it may be interesting to note that a comparison to the St. Bartholomew’s massacre was made frequently, though with ironic consequences as a reason for the people to take up arms.

    The people first ransacked the Hôtel des Invalides and added about 30,000 firearms as well as a small cannon to their outraged participants. They had a conundrum, the guns had no gunpowder, and so they made their way to the famous prison. A fortress which they thought housed many political prisoners, torture chambers, and every dark piece of dungeon lore. When they arrived, members of the city’s government demanded gun powder. This was deliberated upon, and it was decided that the assembly would have to decide on the matter. The mob had no patience for such niceties, and after not much time began advancing. They surged into the courtyard, and breaking the chains of the drawbridge, entered the inner courtyard. At this point, it is said that the French Guards asked them not to advance further or be shot, which was mistaken for the opposite. This resulted in the inevitable, which brought forth the rumor that they had drawn them in to be massacred. Soon, rebel members of the French Guard joined in the fray, bringing cannons which were fired at the gate of the Bastille. De Launry the captain of the fort threatened to blow up the 250 barrels of gunpowder, but with his terms denied, the bluff was called, and a flag of surrender was raised.

    The second drawbridge was lowered, and the spirit of the revolution revealed. An officer who held the key opening the door for the people had his hand cut off, which was paraded around the city, and later misidentified as having aimed a cannon at the crowd, he was hanged. De Launry was beaten and insulted, and having had enough, asked for his death. After assaulting a pastry cook, he was riddled with pistol shots and every other item of vengeance. His head was sawed off with a pocketknife after the cook refused a sword. The mayor’s head soon joined the parade. Though the fortress was held by a group of old soldiers with only eight inmates, the Bastille would become a symbol of the Revolution. It was the first time the common people had made a severe impact on the Revolution, and inspired by the revolt, Louis the Sixteenth asked a duke if there had been a revolt. The duke responded with the famous, though probably apocryphal, words, “No, sire, it is a revolution”. The call of liberty, equality, and fraternity or brotherhood would now bring the Reign of Terror. The call for man’s rights brought confusion and violence. This is what we would expect as Bible students from the words of prophecy.

    The Declaration of the Rights of Man, as penned by the authors of the Revolution would unite the masses into conflict with authority. The result would be what the first vial terms “noisome and grievous sore” (Rev 16:2) on those who worship the image of the papacy, and its effects are felt to this day.

    The Roman family resemblance can be identified not only by the Gothic Notre Dame Cathedral and enmity with the English, but also by the Huguenot and Protestant blood that had freely flowed across its streets and through its canals. French conflict with the witnesses of God is described in the eleventh chapter of Revelation as the dead bodies of the witness lying in the street of the great city (Revelation 11:8). This street began its entanglement with the false prophet not at the time of the republics when they would arise from the earth to take the political heavens, but at the fall of the Roman Empire.

    Just over 800 meters from the pillar of liberty with the pagan goddess surrounded by cafes, theatre, restaurants, and opera lies the Siene, a reminder of the marshland which once had defined the capital of the country. The marshland gained the barbarian tribes of the region the symbolic representation of a frog. This was before being dubbed by His Holiness as “The Eldest Son of the Church”.

    Edward Gibbon writes in Vol. II of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire concerning the baptism of the Frankish king Le Roy Clovis,

“On the memorable day when Clovis ascended from the baptismal font, he alone in the Christian world deserved the name and prerogatives of a catholic king. The emperor Anastasius entertained some dangerous errors concerning the nature of the divine incarnation; and the barbarians of Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul were involved in the Arian heresy. The eldest, or rather the only son of the church, was acknowledged by the clergy as their lawful sovereign or glorious deliverer; and the arms of Clovis were strenuously supported by the zeal and favor of the catholic faction.” (pg. 45)

    Thirteen centuries later along with the melting of crucifixes, church bells, and church images, another symbol was cast into cannon. The symbolism of monarchy and privilege. One such icon, at times its outline still visible on once affluent, but now antiquated buildings, is the fleur-de-lis. The fleur-de-lis was adopted by Clovis, according to legend, at his conversion in the place of frogs, usually paired together in a group of three.

    The frog, like the lion of Britain, was synonymous with the nation of France. With the adoption of the fleur-de-lis at the nations baptism it is interesting that the frog is primarily used of the nation in its pagan form. The only use of frogs in the Apocalypse is to describe the French spirit which will bring the nations to fight in the place of the Hebrew tongue against the Lamb.

Revelation 16:13-14 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

    It is interesting to note that the ideology of the French, or frog peoples, came from the pouring out of the first vial. The ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, spirits of madness and chaos, are not restricted to the masses of the earth, but are seen coming from the highest authorities

Psalm 105:30 “Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings”.

    The spirit of France would not be an isolated event, but would ultimately reach every edge of the planet, assisted by the largely European socialist east, the nationalist west, and the papacy. As a result, the Bastille is a favourite comparison for the modern-day Hong Kong protests, Yellow Vests riots, Arab Spring, Russian Revolution, throughout the African uprisings, and the modern protest movement in general.

    The issue with a desire for things of liberty, equality, and brotherhood is that it is a program to lift the self up by the arm of self. The only result is the pride of man, and an adoption of the mind of an agnostic.

Psalm 10:1-4 “For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.”

    Even this week we saw the result of the frog spirit from the podium of the republic.Marcon said on the eve of Bastille Day as reported by France 24 News,

″Since 1945, freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously […] To be free in this world we must be feared. To be feared we must be powerful”.

    The celebrations would include, as documented by Le Monde, a parade designed as a 'true military operation' including a record of 7,000 personnel. It can be no mistake that the celebration of the birthplace of the frog spirits come with the flex of the arm of man, historically the largest in western Europe.

    Ultimately, this spirit will unite the nations to rise in the pride of man against the King of the Earth. Graham Pierce in Babylon and Jerusalem states the following.

“With these great changes there has come a developing tide of godlessness; education, science, invention, industrial development has given man a sense of great importance, and a feeling of self-sufficiency. He does not want God. When Christ is back in the earth, and demands the submission of Europe to his righteous laws, he will be met with defiance. A vast image of human power will be formed against him - that Image of Nebuchadnezzar of the latter days - and the nations will confederate against him” (pg. 48-49)

    This spirit of liberty, equality, and fraternity has instigated into the populace of the globe, not peace on earth, but the pride of man. We will conclude with a passage that Bro. Graham references taken from the second Psalm.

Psalm 2:2-3, 6, 10-11 “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. [...] Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. [...] Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.”

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250713-watch-live-french-president-macron-army-new-defence-targets-russia-nato-military

Bastille Day: Pictures of a parade designed as a 'true military operation'