Les Bals des Victimes

Les Bals des Victimes, or The Victim's Balls were macabre balls hosted and attended exclusively by those who had a close relative or spouse who had been executed during the Revolution, and papers proving their right to enter needed to be given at the door. These balls took place after 9 Thermidor and were first mentioned in writing in 1797. The purpose of these soirees was to express the harsh emotions felt at the death of the loved one and at the Revolution in general. Attendees showed this by wearing red ribbons round their necks, cutting their hair short a la victime (meant to imitate the way prisoners hair was cut before their execution), and by jerking there heads down in place of a graceful bow to imitate the moment of death. Some say guests would wear mourning clothes, others Greco-Roman attire with naught but ribbons tied around the feet of the women, while others still suggested that they were scantily clad as a result of being impoverished. Unfortunately, scholars suggest the the balls themselves might have been total fiction based on rumors, but even if the their actual occurance is suspicious they still make for a nice story!

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