in Bourges, town criers have (de) proclaimed love with a capital A

In general, if you don’t know how to say it, we advise you to say it with flowers, but this weekend, to declare your love, the merchants of Bourges had an original initiative: to bring two street criers. Saturday, February 12, throughout the afternoon, Julien Jobert and Caroline Figuiera from the Cie des Écorchés, read and declaimed the messages of love from the Berruyers and the least we can say is that love sometimes takes unexpected forms!

Marshmallow, mockingbird or cow: three shades of love

From one place to another, Julien and Caroline move their small individual platforms, ring their bells and launch into great declarations of love. Words written by berruyers, for berruyers. Sometimes love smells like marshmallow: “We’ve always known it, it’s extraordinary to love!”. Sometimes love wants to mock: “You are my oxygen bottle, a little heavy, and always on my back! But essential to my survival”. Sometimes, finally, love is downright, let’s face it, very bad: “I just wanted to tell you that when I look at you, everything falls apart around me… and I want to vomit!”.

From one place to another, Julien Jobert and Caroline Figuiera settle on two small platforms, ring their bells and launch into great declarations of love! © Radio France
Delphine Marion Boulle

“It’s love in all its forms with more or less metaphors, violence and passion” Julian analysis. “At the same time, that’s a bit like love, it can be a bit rough, sometimes it can hurt, sometimes it’s completely passionate” entrusts his partner, Caroline.

We can proclaim love, we can shout love but it can be funny, that’s the main thing to remember! (Emilie, a passerby)

For a few minutes, passers-by stop and listen. Frédérique came especially to listen to them. “it feels good !” launches this berruyère. She smiles at certain words, laughs at others and ticks, too, on Roger’s message (“everything is collapsing around me, and I want to vomit”): “there was one earlier, it was.. with slightly harsh undertones! I don’t know if the person recognized themselves” she wonders. She is not the only one, the statement also made Emilie laugh: “She’s very quirky. We can proclaim love, we can cry out for love, but it can be fun, that’s the main thing to remember!” she explains.

For a moment, passers-by stop and listen!
For a moment, passers-by stop and listen! © Radio France
Delphine Marion Boulle

The initiative of shopkeepers does not fail, on its own, to make passers-by talk, like Marie-Paule: “it’s nice, it’s full of humor with messages of love, personal messages. It’s a good thing that we can relive or re-hear things like that, spontaneous, without go through a very elaborate technology”. “It’s not common, it’s really funny and for Valentine’s Day it lends itself very well!” confides for his part Bruno who knows well some of the berruyers hiding under the messages.

A down jacket, an oxygen bottle and the coronavirus

The actors of the Company of flayed have necessarily had, too, crushes in all these little words. Julien, he was marked by two metaphors, one comparing love to a down jacket “which keeps you warm”, the other referring to “an oxygen bottle”. Caroline, she has retained a message that is not addressed to a valentine but who wants to be much more universal and echoes the funny period that we have known for almost two years now. “It’s a person who says that she wants to meet people to touch them, to kiss them, because here we are in a somewhat difficult period where we no longer kiss each other, where we keep our distance. This message touched me!”

To complete their series of declamations, the two criers agree on a definition, thrown around by Julien: “a definition of love: five letters, three vowels, two consonants and above all… two idiots!”


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