L'Escalade

This evening Josh and I bravely headed to Old Town Geneva to watch the Escalade parade. I say bravely because it was pouring down rain all day long until about 4 p.m. at which point we said, "Do we risk it?" and, naturally, the answer was an emphatic, "bien sur!" (of course!). Ok, maybe it wasn't that emphatic, in fact, to be quite honest both of us had sort of settled into that lazy, gray, rainy day dull-drums and didn't really feel like leaving the house...but, then we thought, "hey, this happens once a year. What if we don't get a chance to see it again?" So we went. We're both glad that we did.
So, I guess I should explain what L'escalade is. In 1602 the Duke of Savoy attacked the walled city of Geneva. His attack started the night of December 11 (technically it was December 12 because supposedly it was after midnight). They launched their attack by climbing up ladders to breach the wall - hence l'escalade, which literally means the climbing. The best part of this story is that those sneaky Savoyards were foiled by the alert citizens of Geneva. Legend has it that Mere Royaume, the mother of 14 children, saw the mercenaries scaling the wall and dropped her large cauldron of hot soup on the soldier, thus killing the first Savoyard in the battle to save Geneva. To honor her, chocolate cauldrons filled with marzipan vegetables are sold. I believe these are called Marmites. It is tradition for the youngest and oldest child in the room to smash the chocolate cauldron while yelling, ""Ainsi périssent les ennemis de la République! " (Thus perish the enemies of the Republic). Unfortunately, we didn't witness this because, well we were standing on the packed street watching a parade of 17th century clad folks marching by.
Yeah, did I mention that? Sunday evening they have this HUMONGOUS parade that winds its snake-like way through the Old town. Everyone is dressed in 17th Century costumes, there are horse-back riders, men carrying tall javelin-esque spears, Mere Royaume marches by with her cauldron of soup, kids carry poles aflame to light the procession, horses and donkeys pull various carts some loaded down with cannons and other weapons, some displaying their patriotism with flags and the swiss colors. It's a good deal of fun.
Another tradition is that kids dress up, like kids in the U.S. do at Halloween - though I'd say there are more cute animals and less scary ghost, goblins, and witches. Supposedly, the kids often go along collecting money by singing at cafes and in the streets. We did not personally witness any singing for money or otherwise, but we saw a bunch of adorable kids in costume. Most notably, the cutest little penguin ever seen! Here's a picture of my favorite little flame bearer. I just thought he was adorable! I also thought, "Man, they really trust those kids! I don' t think they could get away with 9 year old boys (I have NO idea how to judge the ages of kids) being in charge of flames with no apparent supervision!" But, hey these kids did a great job. They seemed to know exactly what was going on and what they needed to do. Impressive.

So, that's my version of L'Escalade. We enjoyed it immensely. Oh, and the parade stops at certain places and one of those fancy horsemen reads a proclamation. I have no idea what he said because it was, of course, in French. But I did hear un mille six cent deux (1602) and joyeux (joyous) and it closed with a rousing "Vive la Suisse" immediately leading into the crowds surrounding us bursting into song. I'm told it is the Geneva "anthem" which is a song about this great victory and, to me sounds like we stole the melody for our very own "My Country tis of Thee", which is written to the same tune as "God Save the Queen" so perhaps the Swiss filched it from the English or vice versa - who knows. I think it was pretty standard back in the day to have just a few melodies floating around and people making up different lyrics to them. I seem to feel as though someone musically inclined told me that when I was working at Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Then again, I could be completely out of my mind! So, don't feel you have to believe anything I say.