The party is in full swing when, suddenly, the idea arises to formalize this promise by an original pact, emancipated from the traditional ceremonial. Far from their Norman home of Caen, the two promised execute and put their alliance on paper. A double promise. Their hosts do the same. Everything is sealed in a magnum of wine. Wax cap as a seal guaranteeing secrecy.
A secret that has lasted twenty years
What did they say to each other, wrote, promised the two young lovers and their friends? Twenty years later, no one knows it. Not even the two interested, always engaged. The most beautiful thing is that since then, the mystery has been circulating from hand to hand. Because the game does not stop there: each year, a "bottle keeper" inherits the precious treasure and guarantor 365 days before passing the relay and so on. Twenty years that this little game, quickly declined in Normandy, remains. Home stretch.
Last straight because it was understood from the outset that an ultimate ceremony would come to close this beautiful story, twenty years to the day after the inaugural date: August 15, 2020. Only, it is not said that the two lovebirds decide to break the mystery.
"A priori, it is not their intention," says Thierry Kerserho, a publisher from Caen regularly embarked on this kind of crazy adventure, like with The Banalyse, myth revived by his care four years ago, by a prodigious monograph of 608 pages … It traces the occult effervescence of intellectuals who kill time taking the risk of attacking the banal, for example while waiting for trains in the middle of nowhere.
The poetry of the institutions
This parallel with "banalysis" is not neutral. Because "If the preciousness of the case" remains the nectar keeping this story in suspense in addition to its secret dimension, the form prevails as much, if not more than the bottom (of the bottle). Explanations: followers of what they call "The poetry of institutions", the members of this secret and open circle (from 35 initially, it has increased to a few hundred members) have, from the first reunion, one year after the engagement, surrounded by the pact of a deep protocol.
For twenty years, each anniversary date falls within a strict framework, consisting of rites, regulations, provisions, and a whole ceremonial. During each transition of the "precious", that we know of fragile nature, testimonials are added to the growing register (40 envelopes) of the "passages montluriens", all put in a suitcase made-to-measure.
The envelopes are sealed with wax, the formalities numerous, all under the high authority of the "head of the Service oaths and testimonies of the Administration of the Montagne de Lure".
On October 5, Montluriennes and Montluriens met one last time before maturity between the old stones of the cemetery of Quatre-Nations, close to the Jardin des Plantes de Caen. Two hours of ceremony, five speeches and some 30 people for the ultimate bottle run. "Starting from nothing, this oath ended up raising very heavy issues", says Thierry Kerserho very seriously. From Mont-Pincon to the lighthouse of Granville, to Marseille, the famous magnum will not stop traveling from hand to hand.
"What's playing in this story is the urge to play and keep the playing conditions alive." Everything was not always simple: the writing of the regulation required a year of reflection, a bottle guard resigned along the way … But history has resisted "The unpredictable erosion of time". August 15, 2020, provided that "The opening procedure of the bottle" surrounded as expected by a magnificent sunset on Mount Ventoux, the porcelain wedding will honor the brilliance of twenty years of engagement.
Under the seal of a secret oath, history will have held all his promises ». At the top of the Lure, Giono would have probably agreed that surrounded by friendship, love is a precious beverage heard to last.
