Saint Cloud

This weekend marked the 3 day festival of my Village, Badefols d'Ans. The Fete Saint Cloud has been celebrated here before records were kept right up until today. The church here is l'eglise de St. Cloud and was built around 1100 ad as well as the donjon of the Chateau which is connected to it. I have tried to find references to St. Cloud and the only thing I can find is the legend that he was the one of the grandsons of the Merovingian King, Clovis, who converted to Christianity around 500 ad.

The sons of Clovis all became kings and inherited their own kingdoms which were hewn out of the conquests of Clovis. The sons, Theudebert, Childebert, Chlodemer and Chlothar have all made their mark on history and their feuds and alliances have been well recorded by Gregory of Tours. In the course of their feuds, about 523 ad, the sons of Chlodomer were murdered by Childebert, to consolodate his power. The one son who was spared was Cloud.

St. Cloud was spared and his royal long hair was cut off and he was forced to be raised as a monk. He wandered through France founding monastaries and one of his monastaries was on the hill top that is now Badefols d'Ans.

He is comemorated by a traditional pilgimage to his Church, here and in the neighboring hilltop village, Chatres.

The Fete seems to have its origins as a continuation of an ancient Gallic harvest festival, so you might surmise that the Fete de St. Cloud has been celebrated here on the hilltop since prehistory. Perhaps, there was never a real St. Cloud and he exists only as a reason to give some kind of christian disguise to the pagan past. The name though, is likely a Merovingian name that has been obcured by the layers of Occitan merging into French and the inevitable creative spelling.

It evolved into a 3 day event with dances, markets and feasts. Now it commences with trucks hauling carnival rides into town, wiring up loudspeakers and decorating the streets with garlands and paper flowers.

Saturday, there was a big dance and fire works at the chateau to kick it off, today, Sunday, there was the annual Defilee de Chars! A parade of floats pulled by tractors.

Before you get too excited, this is a small village and there were only 4 tractors. There was a group of Portuguese folk dancers and musicians singing and dancing and playing music who led the march and gave a little performance.

There was a crowd of around 200 spectators and every one had a good time. I took some pictures for you...It is very reassuriing that people can still have such simple innocent pleasure takiing part in a ritual that has always marked the changing of the seasons.

The farmer driving the tractor with the giant duck figure was one of the mainstays of the festival and he stopped his tractor a few times to sing some bawdy songs for every one.

Tomorrow, there will be a traditional market selling garlics, onions, pumpkins and squashes and in the upper village, there will be the traditional auction of veal calves and milk cows.

Finally, after the auction, a huge dinner is served in a big tent.

Enjoy the pics, The giant Sponge Bob was pretty surreal!