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THE JERSEY & GUERNSEY LAW REVIEW 2015 POSTSCRIPT Leaking information 1 Jersey still has its Visite Royale, when the perambulatory Royal Court inspects the public roads.1 In Guernsey a similar, triennial, inspection was the Chevauchée du Roi. The latter is first recorded in a document of 1324.2 It has not been undertaken in any serious sense for very many years. Its traditions are recorded. Indeed the nineteenthcentury folklorists were enthusiastic in describing the event, reporting its route, its prescribed meals, the costumes of participants, the boon claimed by the pions (footmen) of kissing women encountered in the procession’s path, and so on. 2 George S Syvret was a Jerseyman who elected to live in Guernsey, where he was a clerk of the Royal Court. He too left us an essay on the Chevauchée, in a work published in 1832. This description, like those of the Victorians who succeeded him, emphasizes the picturesque. He departs from them however in the following passage, describing a reenactment of 1825: “De la Ville au Roi, la Chevauchée s’en fut à Jerbourg, en la Paroisse de Saint Martin, où elle s’arrêta à la terre appelée le Feugré, aujourd’hui en Jaonière, là tous les cavaliers descendirent de cheval pour quelques instants, comme d’ancienneté, mais on a omis la cérémonie qui se pratiquoit autrefois, car c’étoit là où jadis, toute la procession Pi…oit à qui mieux mieux.”3 viz: “From the Ville au Roi, the cavalcade went to Jerbourg in the parish of St Martin, where it stopped at the place called the Feugré, today a furzebrake, where all the riders dismounted for an instant, as traditional, but omitted the ceremony which was See Bailhache, “The Visite Royale and other humbler visits” (1998) 2 Jersey Law Rev 124. 2 La Société Jersiaise (ed), Cartulaire des Iles Normandes (Jersey, 1924), at 197. 3 G Syvret, Chroniques des îles de Jersey, Guernsey, Auregny et Serk (Guernsey, 1832), at 207. 1 230 POSTSCRIPT once practised, because it was once there that all the procession pi…ed, each to outdo the other.” 3 Now that Syvret’s learning has been exposed, we wonder if and when the Chevauchée is to be re-enacted, as occasionally it has been, whether in the interests of historical accuracy this part of the tradition will be revived.4 And if so whether this Review might have particularly picturesque prosecutions to report. A friend confirms: “As one who participated as a pion (i.e. mere footslogger) in the re-enactment of the Chevauchée in 1966, I can say with some authority that this aspect of the ceremony had fallen into desuetude. The pions left their memory wheresoever they went, particularly impressing the young ladies encountered en route who were subject to our awful attentions, pour perpétuer et encourager les coutumes de l’Île”. 4 231
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