Illustration by Rachel Harris
Fourteen years ago, Leigh Leonard and Noel Stasiak climbed into a canoe at the bottom of the Arch steps. He was dressed as French explorer Clement DeLore de Treget; she was his Native American guide. They pushed off and followed the Mississippi River to Bellerive Park—with a Coast Guard escort, of course—for Rendezvous Carondelet, a reenactment of that city’s founding in 1767. DeLore called the village Louisburg, after King Louis IX, but its nickname was Vide Poche—empty pocket—because, the story goes, everyone loved to gamble so much.
“We thought about Bastille Day at that time, but it was such a fixture in Soulard. They’d done it forever,” says Leonard, who lives in the neighborhood and now helps organize Carondelet Bastille Day. “We’re always looking for projects to promote the community. And we thought, ‘We’re going to have our own hand at Bastille Day, because we were our own little French city.’”
The inaugural year was 2010; the Carondelet Business Association scheduled it the weekend before Soulard’s event and rented its guillotine. Last year, Carondelet built one of its own. That means St. Louis is now a “two-guillotine town,” Leonard says, laughing.
But to be clear, one of those guillotines is mothballed. Soulard last celebrated the holiday in 2010 (perhaps because of a German invasion—its Oktoberfest is arguably now the largest in the city). Now, Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI get executed in South St. Louis Square Park instead of Soulard Market Square, though oddly, the park once had an open-air market like Soulard’s. The market is gone, and the park is now the site of the stone Anton Schmitt House, built in 1859 near the River des Peres and moved in 1992 to save it from demolition. It’s now a museum—and a prop for Bastille Day.
“We actually put the king and queen in there, and the peasants go in there and drag them out and yell, ‘Off with their heads!’” Stasiak explains. “I portray the executioner, and I chop their heads off not once, not twice, but three times—we’re going to do 12, 2, and 4 p.m. this year.” (Last year, it was only at noon and 2 p.m.)
Local Renaissance reenactors in full garb portray the peasants. So far, Marie Antoinette has been cast from a pool of well-known Carondeletians, including Leonard and Sister Mary Ann Nestel of the Carondelet Business Association. This year, she’ll be played by either Mary Lopinot of Schaller Realty or Carolyn George, president of the Susan E. Blow Foundation. Louie is played by Don Rhea.
“He is a friend of Sister Mary Ann, and he has the most elaborate costume and makeup,” Leonard says. “He gets so hot, poor man, because it’s July. But he said he used to be in parades and roller-skate when he was younger, so he toughs it out, and he loves to act the part. He strolls the park and is very disdainful of the peasants. Well, not just the peasants. He is disdainful of whoever is there.”
The town crier is played by Carondelet Business Association president Jim Meyer, president of pasta company Italgrani USA, Carondelet’s largest business. His task is to “stir up hostility within the peasants,” Leonard says.
“He’s the CEO of rabble-rousers,” Stasiak says. “And he keeps everyone on task.” The task being, in this case, chopping heads off.
As for Marie Antoinette, Stasiak would love to see some sort of contest to pick the actress portraying the queen, and he says she wouldn’t have to live in Carondelet to qualify.
“She could be from anywhere,” he says, grinning. “We could take some obscure person…and make them a star!”
Granted, she’ll be a star that will lose her head—but that’s half the fun.
Carondelet Bastille Day takes place July 14 from 11 a.m.–4 p.m., with a flea market starting at 6 a.m. and a barbecue taste sponsored by Iron Barley. Admission is free. South St. Louis Square Park, 7700 S. Broadway, 314-540-6472, sbmastlouis.com.
