King's Ball
Coordinates: 37°58′37″N 90°02′55″W / 37.97696°N 90.048672°W
The King's Ball - La fête des rois (or Festival of the [Three] Kings - Twelfth-Night)
The 250-year-old tradition of the King’s Ball was brought to the New World by Catholic émigrés, who measured the passing of time in two ways – by agricultural cycles, and the Church’s religious calendar. Lent, the weeks preceding Easter, had special importance for them as a period of repentance and atonement.
For the settlers of New France, however, even the onset of so solemn a season was a good excuse for a party. The colonial residents of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri – habitants, Indians, and even slaves, literally had themselves a ball the last weekend before Lent.
As early as the first half of the 16th century, French records tell of a ball that was the social event of the year. The event included boisterous ceremonies in which a temporary monarch was selected by chance.
Early diarists recorded that the good citizens of Ste. Genevieve began preparations days before the ball – cleaning, baking, and cooking. Bouillabaise simmered over wood fires, and the heady scent of decanting wine filled the houses in Le Vieux Village (the Old Town).
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