In the Europe 1 program "Historically Vôtre", Stéphane Bern is interested every day in the roots of a word or a phrase of everyday life.
This Tuesday, he returns to the expression "pleuvoir comme à Gravelotte", a reference to a bloody battle between Prussia and France.
Every day in the show "Historically yours", Stéphane Bern looks back on the origins of a word that we use every day. Wednesday, he is interested in the roots of the expression "to rain like in Gravelotte", which one uses to designate a driving rain. It refers to a famous battle between France and Prussia which took place in 1870.
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"In August 1870, the Franco-Prussian conflict raged. The soldiers were fighting in Moselle, near the town of Gravelotte. In a single night, nearly 6,500 soldiers were killed, nearly 21,200 wounded and there were no less than 4,420 disappeared A massacre without a winner which nevertheless pushes the French army to abandon the land to take refuge in Metz.
A rain of steel
It is said later that during the battle, bullets and shells fell on the soldiers like a rain of steel.
The expression 'to fall as in Gravelotte' has entered the common language to designate a situation where one deplores many losses, or to evoke a driving rain.
In the United States, we say 'it's raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock', or 'it rains like a cow peeing on a flat rock'. In Welsh it is said to be raining old ladies and sticks. In Dutch, we prefer 'it's raining pipes'. Let's end with a Japanese proverb, very apt in this meteorological chronicle: 'The rain always falls harder on a pierced roof.' I, who are trying to repair old castles, know only too well. "