Origins – Part 4

The Ceremony of the Wheat

Since the 1930s, each winter a sheaf of wheat is reverently placed before the Sacred Soil Markers, carrying out the wishes of Gaston Deblaize as expressed in his memoir “Le Grand Souvenir”:

“From now on, tradition will dictate that each year at harvest time, the good wheat ripening at the foot of the Boundary Stone of Meures be gathered into golden sheaves, to be piously placed before the Boundary Stones of Arlington, Les Invalides, Le Guernic, Cinq-Mars, Ajaccio (and Bois-le-Prêtre), thus perpetuating, through this gesture of Peace, the Great and Beautiful Lesson of the Dead.”

According to newspaper accounts of the 1930’s, for several years, wheat sheaves harvested at the Marker in Meures were indeed sent to Arlington, along with the other marker sites.

Today, the practice continues at the surviving Markers sites throughout France.  In Paris, the Friends of Renée and Gaston Deblaize organizes a ceremony before the Marker at the Saint-Louis Cathedral, inside Les Invalides.

Local associations hold similar ceremonies at many of the other Markers. It is the hope of the organizers of this project that this practice will be revived at the restored Sacred Soil Marker at Arlington with the help of the Souvenir Francais delegation in the United States and other local partners.