Streetcar Sunday - Limoges, France

Here's a photo from around 1900 of a great intersection with trams in Limoges, France.  Limoges had tram service from 1897 until 1951.  At that time, the system was replaced by trolley buses.

The Limoges tram system was built very quickly with six lines in its first year of operation.  In 1898,  its second year of operation, the system transported four million passengers. By 1928, route extensions brought the system to its maximum coverage of 20 km.

By the 1930s, trams had lost their appeal and were being replaced by trolleybuses. In France, Paris had set the trend by removing all of its trams. Other cities, including Limoges, followed suit. There has been talk in the last few years of bringing trams back to Limoges, but the idea has yet to gain widespread political support.

The Children Have Gone Fishing

Here are some more French Poisson d'Avril  or April Fish cards. Yesterday's cards all featured lovely women; today's all feature children. As the first card explains, these children are continuing a long tradition of offering fish and flowers for the first of April.

A typical card might have a message on the back that says, "Guess who sent you this." The cards are often joking and romantic at the same time.

Here's the back of the first card, sent on April 1, 1904.

To see more Possin d'Avril cards from previous posts, click here.

April Fish

April first wouldn't be the same without some French Poisson d'Avril cards.

There are lots more Poisson d'Avril cards on this blog, but I'll repeat some of the background in case you didn't see the earlier posts.

Back in the old days in France (up until 1564), the new year was celebrated on April first, based on the Julian calendar. That was before King Charles IX came along and decided that everybody should be following the Gregorian calendar, which starts the new year on the first day of January. Not everyone welcomed this change, or so the story goes, and some people continued to celebrate April 1 as the first day of the year. Allegedly, those people were mocked and referred to as April fools. Whatever the case, it became a tradition to do things such as pasting a fish on unsuspecting people's backs on April 1, and calling them a Poisson d'Avril or an April Fish. The symbol of the fish may also have been connected with Jesus Christ.

There is another theory that the traditions were inspired by the abundance of newly-hatched fish in French rivers in the Spring. These fish, who had not yet acquired their stream smarts, were easy to catch, and referred to as Poisson d'Avril. Because of the fish, it became customary to fool people on April first. It's still a tradition to give chocolate fish as a present and at one time it was also very popular to send, often anonymously, postcards featuring fish. Somewhere along the line, these cards also became romantic, with the fish symbolizing remembrance and secret feelings.

 

Be sure to stop by Sepia Saturday for interesting photos and stories.