3-028-203 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Shrove Tuesday procession of the Fat Ox at the Tuileries, Paris, 1870. 'The letter of our Paris Correspondent last week gave a pretty full account of the annual festive procession of the Boeuf Gras, which took place on the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, being a sort of Carnival before Lent. The four prize oxen - named Le Tremblaye, Le Normand, Port Said, and Amurath IV. - conveyed through the streets, with the sacrificial Roman augurs, upon low cars hung with drapery, flags, and evergreens, were on this occasion accompanied not only by the triumphal car of Clodoche and the usual masqueraders, but also by an Egyptian galley, filled with people in the costumes of all nations, to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. Our Illustration shows the scene in the courtyard of the Tuileries Palace, about three o'clock on the Tuesday, when this fantastic array came to present itself to the eyes of Napoleon III., the Empress Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial, who looked down upon it from a balcony of the Tour de l'Horloge. The Imperial party is seen to the left hand of the Engraving'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.