No wonder the French are regarded as the most romantic people in the world. Legend has it that a Frenchman was the first person to send a Valentine’s Day card—all the way back in 1415. This romantic Romeo was none other than Charles the Duke of Orleans who sent a love note to his wife from a cell in the Tower of London after being captured by the British at the Battle of Agincourt.
In fact, the French are so romantic that they’ve even dedicated a town to love—named Saint Valentin—located in the heart of Loire valley. And every year between February 12th and 14th its residents hold a Valentine’s festival. Visitors travel from near and far to renew marriage vows, pin love notes to the Tree of Vows and even have letters stamped with the St. Valentin postmark. Yet, although this festival d’amour holds strong today there is one French tradition whose flame of love has long ago been fanned—the Lottery of Love. (So much so that the French government even made this curious custom illegal.)
Believed to have originated in ancient Rome, the Lottery of Love entailed single men and women calling at their neighbors’ doors on Valentine’s Day to find a dating partner. But when the love turned sour, these newly-single women would build a large bonfire to burn pictures of the men who had hurt them. (They’d even curse and hurl abuse at the men, too—un-ladylike behavior that likely led to the outlawing of the Lottery of Love in the first place!)