French Heritage Festival in Ste. Genevieve
- When: Saturday, June 14, 2025, 10:30 am - 5:00 pm
- Location: 155 Market St., Ste. Genevieve, MO 63670
- Cost: Free
Celebrates 300 years of French culture and traditions! Experience living history, live traditional music and more! The festivities begin at 10:30 on the steps of the Catholic Church, where all are welcomed to the day’s events and a blessing is levied on the crowd by the head priest. From there, a promenade is formed by the local militia and various military groups and the crowd is marched to the festival grounds, where the military groups will fire off their muskets. This marks the beginning of the festival. The Centre for French Colonial Life is hosting storytellers throughout the day in the South room of the LeMeilleur House as well as their basement conference room. Among them is rockstar artist/animator Brian Hawkins, whose watercolor animations bring the folktales and traditions of our Paw Paw French to life. There will be plenty of activities for children as well, with the National Historical Park, the Felix Vallé Historic Site, and the Museum Learning Center teaming up. This will activate the NPS yard at the Jean-Baptiste Vallé House with yard games for children, colonial hat making, and storytelling. Mike Ruch, the fiddle player for La Guignolée, will also sit down and hold a lesson for people wanting to learn the chord structure and the lyrics for the traditional Guignolée which is one of the coolest traditions from our Frontier French roots. The Foundation for Restoration of Ste. Genevieve's 28th annual French Heritage Festival marks an important point in the French Heritage Calendar of Events procession in Ste. Genevieve. This year marks a turning point in the tradition as the Foundation for Restoration and the City of Ste. Gen, as well as its partners with the National Park Service, the Centre for French Colonial Life, the Felix Vallé State Historic Site, the Museum Learning Center, and even the Ste. Genevieve County Library is committing more to: 1. making it fun and engaging for a broader audience of creative people looking for a bit of romance with their history, and 2. expanding the cultural relevance to include a broader community of North American French heritage.
We're hoping to develop this festival into Ste over the next few years. Gen's version of a Frontier French Rennaissance Faire. In this year's iteration, the daytime will be filled with traditional Paw-Paw French music from Dennis Stroughmatt, colonial creole food and entertainment, and a Parisian-style market that will make use of a traditional beehive oven. The evening will stretch into a Frontier Dance in the lantern-lit garden of the centuries-old Louis Bolduc house. Tickets for the dance are available here: https://www.historicstegen.org/even.../frontier-french-dance
Music will be played from a live band, and the dances will have a caller, which means no experience is necessary to participate. Don't have the proper attire? You can rent an ensemble from Sara, at Ensembles of the Past, before the event online, or in person the Friday night before. www.ensemblesofthepast.com/french-heritage-festival
A full schedule will be posted soon. Also, we are looking for vendors who sell colonial era goods, or who don't mind dressing up to keep with the cohesiveness of the experience.
- Website: visitstegen.com
- Category: Free
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