Containing in his layer of frangipane a small bean with royal virtues, the galette des rois has mixed since the Middle Ages at the epiphany, a Christian feast celebrated on January 6 or the second Sunday after Christmas. It stems from a tradition of ancient Rome, observed during the Saturnal Festival, at the end of December or at the beginning of January. During these large banquets organized in honor of Saturn, the god of time, the wealthiest Roman families please upset the social hierarchy for a day, proclaiming “a day king” the slave who discovers a bean hidden in his share of cake.
The rite of “drawing the kings” was thus born and will travel the centuries. From the most modest foci to the table of King Louis XIV, we divide the galette des Rois into as many shares as there are guests. We sometimes ask the innocence of a child placed under the table to distribute them randomly. And we have fun topping the blessed who will find the bean.
“No minister will be able to celebrate the feast of kings”
Yes, but that’s it. Since the great political upheavals of 1789, at a time when the king’s figure disappears from card games, at the time when the symbols of the old regime are hunted into the names of the municipalities, the galette des rois no longer has the same flavor. In the eyes of the most radical revolutionaries, the feast of kings has become bulky and embarrassing, far too associated with royal power and this absolute monarchy which they have just dropped by weapons and blood.
Pierre-Louis Manuel, deputy of the Seine at the National Convention, goes up to the niche and suggests the scaffold. On December 30, 1792, he proposed before the Constituent Assembly “That no minister, of any worship whatsoever, will be able to celebrate parties under the name of Festival of Kings”. According to the Parliamentary archiveshis request arouses general hilarity. A large laughter takes off from the Salle du Manège, the Parisian headquarters of the National Convention, before the proposal was immediately rejected by the deputies present.
This is precisely the whole paradox of the Festival of Kings at the time of the French Revolution. The tradition of “drawing kings” challenges and arouses some reactions, but no one dares to cut the head of this custom deeply anchored in French society, for fear of putting themselves on the back a large part of the population, which sees in this practice an entertainment and an opportunity to come together, rather than a real monarchical symbol.
However, the debate returns every year. On January 6, 1794, a revolutionary committee denounced before the National Convention “Pastry chefs who sell kings cakes (…), who make bean cakes and who cannot have good intentions”. The speaker continues his tirade by suggesting, to other revolutionary committees, to monitor and “Surprise the pastry chefs and the orgies in which we celebrate and we will celebrate the shadow of the last tyrant”. Again, this administrative appeal is classified without follow -up. The proposal was immediately swept away by the members of the Convention, although it would have been, at that time, relevant to prohibit the sale of galettes of the kings for a very different reason: to fight against the shortage of flour by reserving it for bread.
The “Equality Galette”
When some seek to harm the pancake and this tradition of “drawing kings”, others are more moderate and simply suggest suppressing the monarchical allusions of this party, without raying it from the calendar.
On December 31, 1791, a decree of the commune of Paris (the municipal government of the capital, made up of revolutionaries) plans to rename the epiphany in “good neighborhood”. The following year, the vaine request of Pierre-Louis Manuel had the merit of relaunching the debate among the members of the town of Paris. In the aftermath of the unsuccessful speech of the deputy before the National Convention, the Paris revolutionary government proposed to rename this day of kings in “day of the sans-culottes”.
The idea was taken up in January 1793 by the Jacobins club, which invites you to celebrate “The feast of real sans-culottes, friends of freedom and equality, (…) This day formerly devoted to superstition and royalism”. One of the members of the revolutionary club even likes to compose a hymn in honor of the sans-culottes, intended to be sung on January 6.
The cake, itself, lacks losing its royal name. It is recommended to name it “Galette de l’equitality” and to replace its bean bearing the image of the Child Jesus with a Phrygian cap. As for the custom of “shooting the kings”, Jacques-René Hébert, the director of the newspaper Le Père Duchesne, evokes in one of his stories the hypothesis of revising the rules of this tradition. To repeal the ephemeral sovereignty conferred by the bean so that, from then on, “The Sans-Culotte elected by the chance of the beanhill will only be the one that will drive political debates between equals, each of the present sans-culottes having an identical right of speech”.
The pastry of the epiphany remains unbeatable
But these attempts to modify the symbolism of a popular festival, on behalf of the republican and liberal precepts which guide the revolutionaries, fail to meet the hoped for success. In response to the desire of the commune of Paris to make the feast of kings that of the sans-culottes, the Gazette La Chronique de Paris recalls in 1793 that January 6 was a day devoted “To that of three knee kings in front of a child who will become the chief of the sans-culottes of Jerusalem, whose propagandist missionaries went to preach everywhere the doctrine of the little ones”. In other words, the Christian worship of the epiphany rendered to the Magi Kings is, in essence, a party already celebrating revolutionary ideas.
Enough to put an end to a debate which will be definitively closed when the constitutional monarchy was again proclaimed in 1814. The galette des rois fogled during the French Revolution, but it did not sunk. Despite debates and attempts to dethrone it, no revolutionary managed to guillotine this very popular tradition, or even to change its symbolism.
Cadet brother of Louis XVI, Louis XVIII was proclaimed King of France and Navarre on April 6, 1814 and restores part of the attributes of the monarchy. The cities that changed name during the French Revolution found their name of yesteryear, the royal symbols are no longer threatened and the galette des kings can continue to flow peaceful days.
