[1351] Julleville, Les Com. 92, 204, 247.
[1352] F. Guérard, Les Fous de Saint-Germain, in Mélanges d’Hist. et d’Arch. (Amiens, 1861), 17. On the Saturday before the first Sunday in May children in the rue St. Germain carry boughs, singing
‘Saint Germain, coucou,
Ch’est l’fette d’chés fous, &c.’
In the church they used to place a bottle crowned with yellow primroses, called ‘coucous.’ The dwellers in the parish are locally known as ‘fous,’ and an historical myth is told to account for this. Probably May-day has here merged with St. Germain’s Day (May 2) in a ‘fête des fous.’ Payments for decking the church appear in old accounts.
[1353] Guérard, op. cit. 46.
[1354] Leber, x. 125, from Mercure de France for April, 1726; Gasté, 46.
[1355] ‘ludunt ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae ... faciunt podia, choreas et choros ... et reliqua sicut in natalibus.’
[1356] Leber, ix. 261.
[1357] Julleville, Les Com. 233, quotes a decree of the municipality of Amiens in 1450, ‘Il a esté dit et declairié qu’il semble que ce sera tres grande recreacion, considéré les bonnes nouvelles que de jour en jour en disoit du Roy nostre sire, et que le ducée de Normendie est du tout reunye en sa main, de fere la feste du Prince des Sots.’