The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Notably: Well, we missed it again, though at least now we know where Sally Hunt had probably been hiding: the Carnival of Binches was earlier this month, between Feb. 11 and 13, in Binche, Belgium, that little town to the west of Charleroi, not far from the French border. It is the ultimate street festival, declared a World Heritage by UNESCO, which tells us: “With roots dating back to the Middle Ages, Binche’s famed celebration ranks as one of Europe’s oldest surviving street carnivals. Since the beginning of January, an atmosphere of merry industriousness pervades the town as thousands of Binchois produce lavish costumes and participate in drum rehearsals and themed balls. On Shrove Sunday, which marks the official beginning of the carnival, Binche’s streets and cafés come alive with roving hordes of masqueraded merrymakers. The Mam’selles, men dressed in extravagant female attire, are particularly prominent on this day. The carnival culminates on Mardi Gras, when the legendary Gille characters make their appearance. After an elaborate ceremonial dressing rite, several hundred Gilles sporting red, yellow and black costumes, replete with ostrich-feather hats, wooden clogs, bells and wax masks with small spectacles, parade through the town to the beat of the drum. Pierrots, harlequins and peasants follow the processions, intermingling with costumed revellers and local brass and clarinet bands. Dancers, stirred by traditional tunes played on the viola and drum, perform an assortment of steps including the perennial favourite, fittingly called the pas de Gille. The day’s events reach a climax with the Gilles’ dancing in the Grand Place under fireworks.” Next time, we’ll head for Knokke le Zoute.

—P.T.

 

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Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their religious worship, they recollected, that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and cast to the lions. ” Edward Gibbon,

–From Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, vol. 2.

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