"LA DÉCENTE" WAS A WILD CORTEGE THAT SWEPT DOWN FROM BELLEVILLE TO PARIS'S CITY HALL ON ASH WEDNESDAY
AT DAWN
(FROM THE 1820'S TO THE EARLY 1860'S)
That is, from underclass outskirts to the heart of the bourgeois town, in defiance of Church demand for penance.
Plan of 1756 / zoom (please scroll down)
Yellow arrows show where things are, red arrows walking-tour routes, as on the next page.
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| Descent from la Courtille by Charles Nanteuil, 1842 / zoom |
The Carnavalet Museum has not exhibited the work since the renovation that focusses on elites.
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At its origin were custom duties on wares coming into town, obtained by building a new city wall. In the impoverished east that led to taverns springing up outside the its gates, which sold untaxed wine.
The Belleville Toll Gate by J.-L.-G.-B. Palaiseau, toward 1790, zoom
The Ramponeau Cabaret in Lower Courtille toward 1761, anonymous / zoom
The tavern where wine was cheapest
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They brought a counter-culture that the cancan and the cortège expressed:
- Called the "dance of the barriers,"* the cancan is the only French dance that women lead. Its exuberant sexuality and steps that taunt authority made it forbidden in Paris: For an example of its provocation, please click and scroll down.
*Barrières: toll gates- A best-selling novel of 1848 shows its transgression and implicitly that of the culture behind it:
The Mystères or Paris by Eugène Sue, 1848
Dancers warm up before going to a southern barrière (near today's Saint-Jacques métro) to watch two women be guillotined. When the"cannibals" rush off to the execution, the hero, a prince on horseback, breaks up their crowd.
- The "Descent from la Courtille"* was another mocking challenge. Residents celebrated in the taverns all night and at dawn, costumed and drunk, marched down the hill to Paris. Slumming party-goers joined the cortège, or rented windows to watch it pass.
*Courtille: a small court in front of a farm, the original name of the Belleville crossroads.
The Bibliothèque historique de Paris,
Facebook, with no more information
The procession reveals class hostility long before conflict breaks out:
- Lent, six weeks before the Resurrection, is for Christians a time of fasting and abstinence. It begins with a priest drawing a cross with ashes on the foreheads of the faithful as a sign of penitence, on Ash Wednesday.
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| Strasbourg, 2014 / zoom |
- Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday") takes place just before Ash Wednesday. The license tolerated then contrasts with the austerity to come.
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| New Orleans, 2011 / zoom |
By taking place not on Mardi Gras but in the first hours of Ash Wednesday, La Descente provoked the Church, ally of the elite. In 1860 the State moved the city limits to the distant fortifications. That brought the turbulent outskirts under its control, for example by letting the police arrest rebels who took refuge there.
Adapted from Fortifications of Paris and its Environs, 1841, zoom
The Good Town of Paris and its New Children by Charles Vernier, 1850 /
zoom
The benevolent Government scrubs La Villette (where the take-over had been particularly resisted) while Belleville wipes his nose with his hand and Bercy, where wine was stored, drinks straight from the bottle.
Only the well-dressed girl from Batignolles, in the prosperous west, behaves properly.
Moving the toll barriers ended the taverns and so La Descente.
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Industrialisation would have ended it in any case
because it gave the poor less leisure and less pay,
but pushing back the toll gates hastened its demise.
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