Joyeuses Pâques ! Happy Easter!
Today is Lundi de Pâques in France and it is a bank holiday. Children have been told that the bells from Rome flew all the way to France to deliver chocolate eggs and they are now happily hunting chocolates in their gardens.
France is traditionally Catholic and church bells don’t ring between Good Friday, Vendredi Saint and Easter Sunday, Dimanche de Pâques, to commemorate the death of Christ and his resurrection.
Our grandparents, parents and now myself tell our children that the bells are flying to Rome during that time to be blessed by the Pope, and then come back from this trip loaded with chocolates. They randomly drop these treats in gardens and parks.
Read more about Easter’s traditions in France in this informative blog post by Camille Chevalier-Karfis.
Le chocolat, miam !
Being a Catholic myself, I did not eat chocolate during Lent, le Carême for exactly 40 days. Lent is this time of the year before Easter when many Christians commit to fasting, as well as “giving up” certain luxuries in order to “replicate” the sacrifice of Jesus Christ’s journey into the desert for 40 days.
So yesterday, we had a decadent chocolate cake, gâteau au chocolat which we savored!
And here is “an old” story (from the January French Challenge) about le gâteau au chocolat. You will acquire:
elle adore = she loves
elle mange = she eats
trop = too much
Do you eat too much chocolate, trop de chocolat ? Make sure to leave a comment below this post or on Youtube.
La Résurrection du Christ
Easter resonates to me because there is Hope, there is Eternal Life! So I want to share two beautiful paintings with you:
Both are entitled La Résurrection du Christ and both were painted by French artists: Noël Coypel and Charles Le Brun.
One of my French learner told me (which I did not know) that the painting on the left by Noël Coypel is in the US, Indiana, Notre Dame!
On the painting on the right by Charles Le Brun, can you spot two French Kings: Louis XIV and Louis IX, also known as Saint Louis?
Happy French acquisition et Joyeuses Pâques !
P.S. Got friends, family, colleagues or clients who want to become fluent in French? Share this with them, they’ll thank you for it 🙂