The ‘White Brothers’ of Saint-Malo

Extract

On the day of the Fête-Dieu or Corpus Christi in Saint-Malo and the surrounding district known locally as the Clos-Poulet, the windows of all the confectioners’ shops, large and small, are heaped with little bags of dragées or sugared almonds, known (on this occasion only) as Cornets-de-la-Saint-Jean. Till recently it was also the custom to sell them in the streets, when from early morning the cry could be heard:

‘Les cornets de la-Saint-Jean,

Pour les petits et pour les grands,

A chacun pour son argent . . .’

—and there were few who could not spare a few sous to buy them, if only to give away to the children. But as their name indicates, these cornets do not really belong to the festival at all and were only transferred to it when la-Saint-Jean fell more or less out of observance; in earlier days it was on the 24th of June that they made their appearance, and if one goes back further their origin is as interesting as it is remote. For the Cornets-de-la-Saint-Jean have a history that dates back some six hundred years, and they are all that is left to-day—these gay and gilded little ‘pokes’ of sugared almonds—of a very ancient and noble Confraternity.

It was somewhere about the year 1240 that, under the auspices and with the support of the Bishop Geoffroi, the Confraternité des Frères-Blancs de Saint-Jean was first founded at Saint-Malo; and there still exist very precise details of its earlier years in certain ancient MSS, some of which (originals or copies) are now preserved in the archives of the town.