Why are lily of the valley offered on May 1?

May 1st, International Workers’ Day, is also “Lily of the Valley Festival”. Every year, the tradition is to offer small sprigs of this flower to loved ones, purchased from a florist or from one of the many stands that occupy the public highway especially for the occasion (a tolerated practice, provided that certain rules are respected). But where does this custom come from?

Roots that go back to Antiquity

The history of this habit goes back a long way. In ancient Rome, flowering was already celebrated around the end of April and the beginning of May. THE Celts had a comparable festival, Beltainewhich marked the transition from the dark season to the light season.

Several historical anecdotes date the tradition back to the time of Charles IX. On May 1, 1560, the king was offered a sprig of lily of the valley during a visit to Dauphiné. He would have appreciated the gesture so much that he would have decided to take up this idea to offer, every spring, a sprig of lily of the valley to the ladies of the court. Although difficult to verify, this episode is often reported in stories around Charles IX, such as the novel Charly 9by Jean Teulé, published in 2011.

During the Revolution, lily of the valley was linked not to May 1 but to the “Republican Day” of Floréal 7 (April 26) in the Fabre d’Eglantine calendar. It is then the red wild rose which is associated with May 1st, and which will be associated with workers for a long time.

A hundred years later, for the first International Workers’ Day, in 1889, demonstrators wore a red triangle, quickly replaced by the red wild rose. A tribute to Fabre d’Eglantine, but not only that. The flower is widely cultivated in the north of France, where large worker gatherings take place. One of them, on May 1, 1891 in Fourmies, was violently repressed, leaving nine demonstrators dead and thirty-five injured. The red wild rose also symbolizes this spilled blood.

A return of lily of the valley at the end of the 19th century

The lily of the valley gradually returned to favor from the end of the 1800s. The singer Félix Mayol is said to have received one from his Parisian friend Jenny Cook in 1895 and to have worn it on the lapel of his jacket during his premiere on stage at the Parisian Concert. This performance having been a success, he kept his sprig of lily of the valley, which would have contributed to reviving the custom, as the person relates in his memoirs.

The great French fashion designers also contributed to this return to favor at the same time by offering sprigs of lily of the valley to their employees and clients. Christian Dior also made the flower the emblem of his brand.

But it was not until 1941, under Marshal Pétain, that lily of the valley was officially associated with “day of labor and social harmony” established by the head of the Vichy regime. The latter in fact prefers the white flower to the red wild rose, the latter being too associated with the left and communism for his taste.

Like the name ” labor Day “the tradition which associates lily of the valley with May 1st therefore partly draws its roots from the Vichy regime.

Decoders

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