R.S.V.P. : <i> Ooo, La La</i> : Everybody in L.A. Is Getting Ready to Celebrate <i> La Bastille</i>

While Paris shoots off fireworks in honor of the 200th birthday of Bastille Day, in Los Angeles Consul General Gerard Coste will open the Bicentenaire de la Revolution Francaise on Friday evening with the Bal Populaire at Perloff Quad at UCLA. Traditional French 18th-Century dancing and music will mix with a midnight laser fireworks show ($10).

The same evening, Elizabeth Carr Tierney chairs the Newport Harbor Art Museum’s “Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!” fete ($85) at Newport Beach’s Le Meridien.

And, next Sunday, 20 French restaurants stage a cuisine/wine salute at Hollywood Park. Dora Fourcade of L’Ermitage restaurant is turning the infield into a French street scene for 10,000 with a race for waiters, dancing and games (tickets are $5 in advance--call Teresa Morris at L’Ermitage--or $7 at the gate).

Citrus Restaurant’s Michel Richard is fashioning a 42-foot (wood reinforced) sponge cake with strawberries, and the cost, we hear, through Jean-Louis Rysto, deputy consul general, will be $10,000, somewhat less than the $50,000 Richard estimated for the 72-foot cake (steel reinforced) he wanted to have to break Guinness records.

More: A French night for the young at Vertigo on Thursday ($15).

IN SWING: The debutante tradition has been in full swing. The prominent Las Madrinas (of Childrens Hospital) hosted tea at the home of Kathleen McCarthy, with president Sally Keon and tea chairwoman Susan Hull introducing Las Madrinas debutantes chosen to be presented in December.

President Julie Condon and tea chairwoman Beth Rettig, for the San Marino Area Chapter, National Charity League, welcomed 400 at another tea in the Crystal Room of the Biltmore, introducing 23 who will receive gold medallions Dec. 23.

The San Fernando chapter of the National Charity League took on Victorian inspiration with pink and lavender nosegays with satin streamers for a tea for 11 debs who will bow Nov. 25 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire.

And, in Montecito, 300 Music Academy of the West supporters applauded amid trumpet fanfare as 19 young women in fluffy white ball gowns bowed on the steps of Miraflores. The academy’s chairman, Royal E. Peterson, presented the debs whose families are expected to make a significant contribution to the Scholarship Fund, which enables the majority of the school’s 150 students to attend a rigorous eight-week summer session. The presentees: Carmen Alexander, Catherine Allen, Jaime Kirsten Araujo, Andrea Lee Baird, Kristen Battaglia, Michelle Berti, Julie Chackel, Dsara Duggan, Jennifer Gillon, Wendy Jackson, Jennifer Jaques, Meagan Lontz, Amanda Maertz, Shauna McMahon, Damian Peckham, Kristin Schurmer, Jennifer Terry, Lisa Woodworth and Elaine Zimmerman.

TRIBUTES: James Stewart, co-chairman of the Albert Schweitzer Leadership Awards Dinner onOct. 19 at the Beverly Hilton, has announced that the coveted tributes presented by the Hugh O’Brian Youth Foundation will go to Robert Erburu, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Times Mirror, and his wife, Lois, and to Nancy and Henry Kissinger.

KUDOS: To the newly elected board of governors of the Bachelors--Walter James Wilson, president; Sean Conway McCarthy, vice president and ball chairman; Hugh Durst Bateman, secretary; William Patrick Bessolo, treasurer; and Scott Albrecht, John Alphson, David Brittain, John Corby, Casey Griffin, Samuel Halle II, Arthur Rasmussen Jr. and James Stuart Jr.

PAST PERFECT: Lucy and James Bonorris hosted dinner at the Bistro to honor Conde Nast president Bernard Laser and executive vice president John Brunelle. Among the intimate: Rose Marie Bravo, Mary and Charles Skouras, and Joni and Clark Smith. Lucy sent them off with Baccarat crystal eggs. . . .

Alyce Williamson had a luncheon at the Valley Hunt Club to introduce her new daughter-in-law-to-be, Robin Ferrante. The same day, Ada Watson held a drop-in luncheon in her pretty San Marino garden.

WHAT’S COOKING? The American Cancer Society sponsors its very special gourmet gala, California Spirit, hosted by Wolfgang Puck, next Sunday. (Cameron Harper Lazarus Puck, the son born May 30 to Wolfgang Puck and his wife, Barbara Lazaroff, remains long and skinny, like his mother, Wolfgang tells us. Wait until he starts eating Spago pizza.)

For the gala, Sherry Lansing and Beverly Petal are combining the talents of major Los Angeles chefs including George Morrone of Hotel Bel-Air, Jerry Comfort of Checkers, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken of City and Border Grill and John Sola of the Grill for a night of dining and dancing. Ann Jillian is special guest--all at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Birndorf. . . .

Nordstrom brings designer Louis Dell’Olio to town for a reception and the West Coast premiere of his fall collection to benefit the Santa Monica Westside Charity League on Thursday at the Biltmore. . . .

The new Performing Tree Junior Benefit Committee, brainchild of Beth Lowe, premiered at “An Evening at the Loft” planned by Pam Fleck and Catherine Ruffing. Involved: Darcie Dickerson, Scott Edel, Brian Hall, Mike and Sam Halle and Noelle Montgomery.