"As you know (but who knows yet?) The first" February 17 "did not take place on 17 but 25, the publication of the Letters Patent, signed by Carlo Alberto 17, was postponed for a few days for reasons of public order. The cultural and political climate in which they were enacted laws that discriminated against minorities concerned - Waldensians and Jews - is the most excited you can imagine. We must not forget, in '48 (and "do a 48 remained until today synonymous with disorder, noise): the year of popular petitions, processions of citizens in ways that beset the peaceful but energetic royal palaces to request a new political system where the people are represented. This disintegration of the political system earlier, what is usually called the Ancien Régime, even the small world Valdese is involved: it is still of traumatic events, not routine. Of those memorable days we have the valuable testimony of two young people who have lived Waldensians: Jean-Jacques Parander, help the pastor Bert embassy in Prussia in Turin, which went on the night of Feb. 24 the news of the valleys (...) and Antoine Monastier (...) The day was of course gran festa, e si comprende, ed ebbe i suoi momenti chiave nel culto di ringraziamento in chiesa, nel corteo, nei banchetti e, la sera, nei fuochi: forme di comunicazione dell’epoca romantica. Il Te Deum (dalle parole d’inizio del canto: Te Deum laudamus , Ti lodiamo Signore), servizio religioso solenne a Dio per un evento eccezionale (una vittoria, una liberazione) appartiene alla tradizione; altrettanto tradizionale è il fuoco (…) Molto meno tradizionale – anzi innovativo – è invece il corteo, classica espressione di una coscienza civile moderna: nel 1789 è il popolo in marcia verso la Bastiglia, nel 1848 la folla che chiedeva the Constitution "
- Giorgio Tourn, in:
Giorgio Tourn - Bruna Peyrot, Brief History of the Feast of the seventeenth February , monographs published on the occasion of February 17, XVII February 1994, pp. 40.
The quotation is from p. 5.
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