Long before the reign of King Louis XIII, the sheriffs of Paris were wont, on Saint-Jean's Eve, to cause huge piles of sticks of all dimensions, with thorn bushes and small twigs quick to ignite, to be constructed on Place de Grève, whither the king would come, in solemn state, to set fire to that enormous mass with his own hand.
In 1471, Louis XI followed the example of his predecessors and presided at that ceremony, which eventually came to be attended with fêtes and entertainments to which the good people of Paris always looked forward with impatience.
The Fire of Saint-Jean in 1573 was a magnificent ceremony, so it is said. A mast about sixty feet in height had been erected on Place de Grève, with many wooden crossbars, to which an enormous quantity of fagots and bundles of brushwood was attached. A number of loads of wood and countless bundles of straw were heaped about the base of this structure. The whole was decorated, or rather disguised, by wreaths and garlands. Bouquets were distributed to the king and his suite, to the notables of the city, and to the magistrates. Fireworks also were placed under the fagots. A hundred and twenty archers from the city, a hundred bowmen, and a hundred arquebusiers kept order. Lastly, they hung on the mast a large basket containing two dozen cats and a fox. This last then was, no doubt, the ne plus ultra of the fête. Poor cats! poor foxes! We leave you in peace now when we have public rejoicings; and to say the truth, I am persuaded that they are none the less attractive for that reason.
Under Cardinal de Richelieu, the ceremony of the Fire of Saint-Jean had lost much of its brilliancy; cats were no longer burned, as it was natural that they should not be, the first minister having a deep affection for those animals, by which he loved to be surrounded.
However, the ceremony continued to take place, and still attracted a goodly number of sightseers, idlers, students, young girls, and even young gentlemen, who came thither in search of adventures, or to play tricks on rustics.
A few weeks after the events we have narrated, the Place de Grève was adorned by a pile of combustibles, which, while it could not be compared with those which we have described, was very presentable none the less.
When the night began to fall, there was a large number of people assembled on the square; but that was a mere nothing, for every moment thereafter the quays or the narrow streets leading into the square poured forth a constant stream of bourgeois parties, bands of young clerks of the Basoche, young men arm in arm, people of the lower classes, esquires, pages, and elegant young gentlemen carefully enveloped in their cloaks, beneath which they tried to conceal the richness of their costumes, but always betrayed it by the too gorgeous plumes that adorned their hats or the magnificence of the spurs attached to their boots.
By the time that it was quite dark, the square was crowded, and one could not move without difficulty, especially in the direction of the pile. But what life! what animation! what a fusillade of voices! what a din of remarks and questions bandied about in all directions! It was an incessant humming sound.
Many people reflected aloud, in order to be overheard by everybody within earshot; for at all times there have been plenty of those fine talkers, those pretentious personages who deem themselves called upon to declaim, to put themselves forward, and who often put forward nothing but their folly or their conceit!
"This way, father; let us go this way; I promise you that we shall have a much better place to see the fire!" said a tall, fine-looking girl, in whom we meet once more a pleasant acquaintance from Rue Saint-Jacques.