Anyone who lives a long life will encounter weird and wacky events along the way. This is also true for countries with long histories and France has seen plenty of strange events.

Conflicts, traditions, new ideas and radical movements have shaped modern France. Add a dash of the ‘quirkiness’ in the French character (we don’t necessarily believe that) and the results can be wild.

Let’s look at 12 of these strange events:

Dancing Queen

In July 1518, in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing uncontrollably in the streets.

Within a week, over 400 people had joined her in this strange ritual.

Some danced until they collapsed from exhaustion. Some died.

The reason for this weird historical event has puzzled wise heads for centuries.

But who needs one? In more recent years, people have danced en masse to disco and techno music for no conceivable reason, either.

See more in Go Visit Strasbourg Now.

I’m Spartacus. No, I’m Spartacus

Louis-Charles de France was the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. At the age of four, he became the heir to the French throne. Happy days! But there weren’t to be many of them.

Four years later, the French Revolution made him an orphan and, from then on, he was abused, neglected, and left to live in misery. By age ten, he was dead (of tuberculosis) and buried in a mass grave in the Sainte-Marguerite Cemetery, although very few were aware of it.

In 1814, Napoleon’s fall led to a restoration of Bourbon rule, and Louis-Charles’ uncle, Louis XVIII, assumed the throne. Then, one-by-one, men pretending to be the ill-fated Louis-Charles came forward.

This trickle became a flow. By the mid-1820s, many faux Louis-Charles appeared in England, Denmark and North and South America. It was then the authorities issued a press release announcing ‘He’s dead, people. Has been for years!’

You’re bacon to me, Freda

In December 1457, in the French town of Savigny, a sow and her six piglets killed a baby. There was some flesh-eating involved. Not pretty.

The community caught the seven swine red-trottered and the authorities imprisoned and tried them. Possibly one of the weirdest of our strange events.

The judge found the sow guilty and sentenced the animal to be hanged by her hind legs, as was customary in Burgundy.

Her young progeny escaped conviction in the Juvenile Court because the prosecution couldn’t prove their involvement.

The locals charged their owner with negligence.

Spending a penny

It’s hard to believe that in the 17th century, pissoteers collected urine from public urinals and household chamber pots in Paris and other French cities. This liquid waste was actually valuable, due to its high ammonia content.

The urine underwent putrefaction to produce saltpetre, a necessary ingredient for gunpowder, and for dyeing fabrics and tanning animal hides.

As the demand for saltpetre rose, the French monarchy instituted a tax on urine collection. This gave the Crown a monopoly and steady revenues. Urine could be sold to authorised saltpetre factories (salpêtrières) or collected in public urinals near intersections for a fixed fee per bucket.

Special officers inspected chamber pots for urine and fined those who did not pay the tax. This became an intrusive enforcement issue that angered citizens. By the 17th century, Paris had over 250 public urinals and urine tax collection brought in millions of francs annually. Pissoteers became full-time urine collectors, frequently fighting among themselves over lucrative collection routes.

Ooh, dream weaver…

In 1831 the Lyon Silk Workers Revolt took place, when weavers protested against their worsening work conditions and reduced wages.

The introduction of new weaving machinery and increased competition had led to a decline in wages and, in response, the workers formed workers’ associations and trade unions to voice their concerns and negotiate with the merchants. These efforts amounted to nothing.

In November 1831, the revolt erupted into a series of bloody battles, with the workers using their looms as weapons and barriers; they even threw them from windows into the streets below.

The battles lasted for several days, resulting in significant casualties on both sides. However, the uprising ultimately failed to achieve its goals.

Daniel Boone was a man. Yes, a big man!

But François Tarrare was bigger. This fellow achieved notoriety in the 1790s because of his tendency to consume vast amounts of food, including live animals and inedible substances.

Tarrare’s unusual condition led to medical investigations and experiments as doctors sought to understand the nature of his abnormal appetite. Scientists tested him and asked him to ingest large amounts of food and even dangerous substances to observe their effects on his body. ‘Pas de problème‘, he would always say, before licking his plate clean.

Not surprisingly, there were consequences. Tarrare remained emaciated and suffered from severe digestive problems. Eventually, his health deteriorated, and he was no longer able to ‘perform’.

Convicted cats

In a Paris printing shop in 1730, apprentice workers decided to take revenge on their boss by killing the shop’s cats. The workers held a trial, accused the cats of witchcraft, and proceeded to torture and kill them in a grotesque manner. Apparently, the relationship between these workers and their boss was somewhat strained.

In other similar instances, cats weren’t even given the benefit of a trial. Some were accused of causing the plague and sent to their deaths immediately. That’s when the real culprits – the rats – really got to work.

Bulldust or sawdust?

The Affair of the Sausages occurred in Lyon during the early years of the Protestant Reformation.

During Lent in 1537, a group of Protestant reformers decided to challenge the Catholic Church’s prohibition on eating meat in Lent by openly consuming sausages.

This act of defiance led the Church to take drastic action against the ‘heretics’.

The trial began, and several of the reformers were accused of heresy and violating the religious laws. The defendants probably pleaded the unavailability of plant-based meat substitutes on the market.

Whatever the case, no one was executed or punished severely; perhaps the bangers were more sawdust than bulldust anyway.

A whale of a time

In 1808, a dead sperm whale washed ashore near Etaples, in northern France. As sperm whales were rare in those waters, this caused great curiosity and excitement. Local authorities decided to transport the massive carcass to Paris, the hub of scientific and intellectual activity.

Crowds flocked to see such an unusual specimen, estimated to be around 18 metres (59 feet) long. The decomposing carcass was displayed in a makeshift museum in the Jardin des Plantes, one of France’s most important natural history centres.

Decomposition of the whale continued, producing large amounts of methane gas. Eventually, the pressure inside the whale became too great and the mammal exploded with tremendous force, sending body parts and debris flying across the city.

Fortunately, and quite remarkably, the airborne blubber neither killed nor injured anyone. Next time a dead whale washed up on French shores, though, they definitely didn’t cart it to Paris.

Citric acid

In 1801 there was a dispute over an orange tree in the town of (we kid you not) Orange.

This town was historically associated with the House of Orange-Nassau, a Dutch dynasty.

During the Napoleonic era, many territorial disputes and rearrangements were occurring in Europe. When a French officer, Lieutenant Colonel Francois de Chabot, visited Orange, he noticed a flourishing orange tree in the garden of the local Dutch-born prince, William VI of Orange-Nassau. Asserting that the town was part of French territory, Chabot ordered the tree removed and confiscated.

Prince William was deeply offended by this affront and appealed to the King of Spain, Charles IV, to whom he was related. The Spanish king, perhaps seeing an opportunity to strengthen ties with the House of Orange-Nassau and broaden Spanish influence, agreed to support his Dutch relative.

The ensuing conflict was far from a conventional war. The actual fighting was minimal, and there were no significant battles or casualties. Nevertheless, a treaty was needed to end the War of the Oranges and the French maintained control over the town and the tree. Presumably, the oranges were tasty.

Battle for the booze

One of the strange events occurred outside the French borders, but it involved French troops. In 1788, during the Austro-Turkish War, Austrian and French forces were playing on the same team. However, they clashed in what became known as the Battle of Karánsebes.

The skirmish reportedly started when soldiers began to fight over alcohol. One soldier was heard to exclaim ‘I’d kill for a drink’. He probably did and the violence escalated to the point where several hundred were killed or injured.

Perhaps not the best preparation for battling the Ottomans, who arrived two days later to find the Austrian and French forces in disarray. Needless to say, they easily defeated them.

The bicycle face scare

The rise of cycling in the 1890s sparked concerns and moral panic among some doctors and moralists, who propagated the notion of ‘bicycle face’. This was a term used to describe the supposed facial distortions that women would develop if they indulged in excessive cycling.

It was suggested that the exertion and strain of pushing pedals would lead to a variety of facial disfigurements, including a permanently flushed complexion, strained and distorted facial muscles, and even possible infertility.

Some people will believe anything.

Strange events indeed!

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