Scaling day (L'Escalade), Geneva, Switzerland

This festival honours the night of December 11, 1602, when the citizens routed the Savoyards, who were scaling the walls of Geneva. Shops sell chocolate bonbons representing the soup pots the women used on that night to throw hot water on the invaders. Tonight they will be enjoying masquerades and parties. Presumably the people of Savoy will not.

The term escalade means "scaling" and refers to the Savoyards' use of ladders to storm the city's walls. The attack was successfully repelled, over 200 of the enemy being slain, while 17 only Genevese perished. Filled with joy at their rescue from this attack, the citizens crowded to their cathedral, where the theologian Theodore Beza (1519 - 1605), leader of the theocracy, then 83 years of age, got them to sing the 124th Psalm which has ever since been sung on the anniversary of this great delivery.

The Escalade festival takes place from Friday through Sunday on the weekend closest to December 11, the day of the Savoyards' ill-fated invasion. Near the cathedral of St Pierre is the arsenal which now houses the historical museum, in which are preserved many relics of the Escalade, including the famous ladders.

Tagged: switzerland, folklore, customs