At Douay, down at least to
the early part of the nineteenth century, a procession took place
annually on the Sunday nearest to the seventh of July. The great
feature of the procession was a colossal figure, some twenty or
thirty feet high, made of osiers, and called "the giant," which was
moved through the streets by means of rollers and ropes worked by
men who were enclosed within the effigy. The figure was armed as a
knight with lance and sword, helmet and shield. Behind him marched
his wife and his three children, all constructed of osiers on the
same principle, but on a smaller scale. At Dunkirk the procession of
the giants took place on Midsummer Day, the twenty-fourth of June.
The festival, which was known as the Follies of Dunkirk, attracted
multitudes of spectators. The giant was a huge figure of
wicker-work, occasionally as much as forty-five feet high, dressed
in a long blue robe with gold stripes, which reached to his feet,
concealing the dozen or more men who made it dance and bob its head
to the spectators. This colossal effigy went by the name of Papa
Reuss, and carried in its pocket a bouncing infant of Brobdingnagian
proportions.
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