Happy Day for the Wise

What a lot of hay (as they say in Paris), what a lot of commotion! The city was in an uproar. Traffic was at a standstill near the Opera. Police were helpless. Was it another strike? Was it the Communist coup which panicky rumors had predicted for days? Nothing of the kind. The "Catherinettes" were on the march.

For centuries, France's spinsters (technically all unmarried women over 25) have cut loose once a year on the day of their saint (who was a spinster herself). Last week, according to custom, the procession of "Catherinettes" (composed largely of midinettes in crazy headgear) stampeded to the saint's statue on the garish Boulevard St.-Denis. An old tradition permitted all men to kiss any spinster they encountered on St. Catherine's Day, but this was outlawed by some busybody reformers in 1933; last week, as usual, the 1933 prohibition was roundly ignored.

In the center of Paris, the pilgrims were joined by a shock troop of art students in weird disguises (see cut). In the afternoon, the proprietors of all the Paris dress houses threw parties for their midinettes (Christian Dior gave his on the first platform of the Eiffel Tower). The spirit of the occasion was best summarized by one reveler who threw a Camembert, in just the right state of decomposition, up to the ceiling; there it stuck, slowly dripping cheese on the gaiety below.

Turning from France's political crisis, Paris' Franc Tireur wrote gravely: "It was a happy day for those wise individuals who, in this epoch, still take the time to breathe and know how to combine with grace the futile and the agreeable."

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