It happened on 17 September
The sale of the King’s grapes in the park
Fontainebleau Castle has its own vineyard. La Treille du Roi, a Chasselas vine trained along the walls in the park, the harvest of which was sold in batches each year.
In 1926, the auction took place on Friday 17 September. The Bee The announcement the day before, in a single line: it’s tomorrow, in Fontainebleau Park. Two years later, the same auction will take place on the 14th and will feature forty lots. The date was determined by the grape harvest calendar, not by the almanacs.
Four days after the Chasselas from Thomery, the château’s grape. September was the month when this region harvested its grapes.
The day the United States adopted its Constitution
After a whole summer of discussions, the Philadelphia Convention met for the last time on 17 September 1787. The delegates sign the text of the Constitution. The meeting was adjourned at four o’clock in the afternoon.
Two hundred and thirty-nine years on, the text remains the same. Americans celebrate it as Constitution Day every 17 September.
Champollion and the ‘phantom’ date of 17 September
Many historical calendars date Champollion’s decipherment of the hieroglyphs to 17 September 1822. The document, however, says something else.
La Letter to Mr Dacier is dated «Paris, 22 September 1822», and a note states that an extract from it was read out at the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres 27 September.
On 17 September, however, he doesn’t appear anywhere. We don’t know where he’s come from. All we know is that it has been copied by hand for two centuries.
