“To the friends that time takes away; far from mortals under other skies; we are the last escort; we are saying goodbye. " The words of the song of Charitables de Saint-Éloi resound as silhouettes draped in black and wearing bicornuate leaves the forecourt of Saint-Vaast church in Béthune. Slowly, with dignity, they walk. Framing a cart on which rests a coffin, a "CC" badge sewn on the reverse of long coats with pleated collars on their backs, the men set off in the streets of the historic city center. A white bow tie surrounding their necks is placed on a sort of bright blue flap bordered with white.
As the surprising procession marches past the red brick walls with white streaks of the rue de l'Égalité, their steps echo on the asphalt and the cobblestones like echoes of History. Here, in the flat country, straddling the Flanders plain and the first slopes of the Artois hills, in this city of 25,000 inhabitants
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