Complementary Days
Five extra days – six in leap years – were national holidays at the end of every year. These were originally known as les sans-culottides (after sans-culottes), but after year III (1795) as les jours complémentaires:
- 1st complementary day: La Fête de la Vertu, "Celebration of Virtue", on 17 or 18 September
- 2nd complementary day: La Fête du Génie, "Celebration of Talent", on 18 or 19 September
- 3rd complementary day: La Fête du Travail, "Celebration of Labour", on 19 or 20 September
- 4th complementary day: La Fête de l'Opinion, "Celebration of Convictions", on 20 or 21 September
- 5th complementary day: La Fête des Récompenses, "Celebration of Honors (Awards)", on 21 or 22 September
- 6th complementary day: La Fête de la Révolution, "Celebration of the Revolution", on 22 or 23 September (on leap years only)
Read more about this topic: French Republican Calendar
Famous quotes containing the word days:
“The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest; and this is one cause, no doubt, of the frequent fires in Maine, of which we hear so much on smoky days in Massachusetts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)