Joan of Arc Postscript

Well, the last few weeks I feel that I am either working or on vacation. There hasn’t been much in between. Here’s a rundown of our activities.

Back in May, we visited the Joan of Arc festival (about the only reason to visit Orleans as a tourist, the other Joan related things here, house, museum, are tired and only for hardcore history buffs). The festival had activities all week long, but we picked the things that were most interesting to us. On a Thursday night there was a film with music that was projected on to the side of the cathedral. We weren’t entirely clear on what was happening where, so we ended up with a lousy angle from the side of the cathedral. The crowd was huge, filling the main streets. We were in a good spot to see the local politicians march out from the government office building to give their speeches. The spectacle was quite impressive, despite our poor choice of viewing locations; using a medieval cathedral as a projection screen is creative. We couldn’t understand much of the speeches, but it was something along the lines of “in these difficult times the spirit of Jeanne d’Arc is still important….etc.”

The next Friday was a holiday so we went downtown for the parade. This time we were able to get a spot against the fence guarding the main road toward the cathedral. Again there was a huge crowd, creating a nice atmosphere with the flags flying from the buildings. Before the parade started there were more long speeches. I got a laugh out of an older French lady when I made a snoring noise. It’s the same everywhere, windbag politicians talk too much. The parade was led by Joan on a horse leading a group in medieval costume, various marching bands, and general fanfare. Eventually the parade included more modern groups as it seemed that every government group had a contingent: police, hospital, army, navy, air force, various other military groups, but the biggest cheers were for the fireman.