Escalade: the night a pot of soup defended Geneva

An army at the walls. A mother with soup.

2,000 Savoyard soldiers, ladders against the walls, a sleeping city, and by morning 18 dead on the Geneva side and 54 on the Savoyard side. For more than 400 years Geneva has celebrated that night with torches and cannon fire, and since 1881 with a chocolate pot that gets smashed. Here is when, where and what in 2026.

🗺️ ConvivaPlus Escalade Planner ↓

Escalade 2026: Friday 11 to Sunday 13 December

Geneva celebrates around 12 December an attack that, by today's calendar, took place on 22 December: in 1602 the city still used the Julian calendar. The date has stayed for 424 years. In 2026, following the Compagnie's pattern, the memorial procession falls on Friday 11 December, and the Friday belongs to the dead.

The festival has no fixed date; it is held on the weekend around 12 December, the morning after the attack. The Compagnie de 1602 spreads it over three days, each with its own procession. If you only have one day, take the Saturday: it carries 27 of the 36 programme items, and in the evening you walk in the lantern parade yourself. Alongside it, the Geneva Christmas market runs on the Quai.

Escalade programme: what, when, where

36 programme items in the old town, and in the middle a cannon called Falco that, in the 2025 programme, fired every half hour on Saturday.

The ConvivaPlus Escalade hour index counts, hour by hour, how many programme items run at the same time. On Saturday the peak runs from 14:00 to 16:00, with 17 items each hour. From 21:00 only one remains: Passage de Monetier – ouvert une fois par année. The planner below shows you what is still to come after you arrive.

Escalade procession: the grand historical procession on Sunday

800 people in costumes of 1602, on foot and on horseback, and not one of them is paid.

The procession is the heart of the Escalade: authorities, judges, clergy, townspeople, peasants from Jussy and Peney with a hay cart, pikemen, arquebusiers and the petardier who was meant to blow up the gate in 1602. It starts at 5 pm in Parc des Bastions and ends around 7.30 pm in Cour Saint-Pierre (2025 times). The proclamation is read at 5 places. Yet the festival almost turned into a carnival: by the end of the 19th century it had nearly lost its historical character, and it was the 300th anniversary in 1902 that brought back the procession in costume. According to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland it has been held regularly since 1919, and the Escalade is now on the list of living traditions of Switzerland, which counts 13 entries for the Canton of Geneva. The Compagnie de 1602, founded on 31 March 1926, has more than 2,000 members. The route runs through the Vieille-Ville, the oldest part of the city; the rest of the canton is covered in our Canton of Geneva overview.

Times from the Compagnie de 1602's 2025 programme, the 2026 programme will follow.

Lantern parade: the one you walk in yourself

The shortest procession of the weekend, a good half hour from rue de l'Evêché to the cathedral, is the one the Compagnie explicitly opens to everyone: here you do not watch, you walk.

Lanterns are on sale from 6.30 pm in Cour Saint-Pierre. The parade leaves 1 rue de l'Evêché at 7.45 pm and is back in Cour Saint-Pierre at 8.20 pm (2025 times). A good half hour, short enough for children. In German-speaking Switzerland lanterns belong to November and to children, in the turnip lantern parades. In Geneva it is December, with a lantern, and anyone can walk.

Escalade marmite: why Geneva smashes a pot every year

Since 1881, chocolate pots have been sold for the Escalade, to be smashed, in memory of a real pot that was a weapon in 1602.

Tradition has it that Catherine Cheynel, the Mère Royaume, poured her boiling vegetable soup over a Savoyard on the night of the attack. The chocolate marmite with the Geneva coat of arms is filled with marzipan vegetables and sweets. It is traditionally smashed by the youngest and the oldest at the table together, while speaking a formula. The Compagnie smashes one in public on Saturday at 6 pm in the Ancien Arsenal (2025 time). Even the Confederation immortalised the soup: the Swiss Mint's 5-franc commemorative coin «Escalade 1602–2002» shows the Mère Royaume's vegetables on its ring. More Advent customs, from candle dipping to Sunday shopping, are in the season calendar.

Et qu'ainsi périssent les ennemis de la République !

The formula, in the original · Roughly: and thus may the enemies of the Republic perish.

Escalade 1602: the night of 11 to 12 December

2,000 attackers against a sleeping city, and the gate the main army was meant to pour through stayed shut.

Duke Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy wanted to make Geneva his capital north of the Alps and put an end to Calvinism. On one of the darkest nights of the year his troops advanced to Plainpalais, and a commando climbed the wall near the Corraterie with ladders. The target was the Porte Neuve, to be blown up so the main army could pour in. The vanguard, two to three hundred men according to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, was already over the wall when the alarm was raised.

It never happened. A patrol raised the alarm, and Isaac Mercier dropped the portcullis of the Porte Neuve, the gate stayed shut. By morning the Savoyards had left 54 soldiers behind; Geneva counted 18 dead, about 3 fallen attackers for every Genevan. The city then gathered in its churches, led by Theodore Beza.

Cé qu'è lainô: Geneva's anthem with 68 verses

Geneva's anthem has 68 verses, is written in patois, and its tune is very close to "God Save the Queen".

Several authors, probably students, wrote it a few days after the attack, before 18 December 1602, in Genevan Arpitan. The title means, in French, «Celui qui est en haut», the one on high: God, who was believed to have led the battle. It was not the only song, more than 150 Escalade songs are recorded between 1602 and about 1860.

Escalade soup and what else there is to eat

On Escalade weekend the old town eats like it is 1602: spit-roast wild boar, lentils with bacon, spiced wine and mead. According to the ConvivaPlus analysis of the 2025 programme, 9 of the 36 items are about food and drink.

The group from Jussy roasts wild boar the old way on the Promenade de la Treille and pours hypocras and mead. At the Ancien Arsenal: bread, cheese and the Mère Royaume's soup, at the Marché Peneysan pear rissoles and apple tarts. Mulled wine is everywhere; at the Passage de Monetier it is handed out at the exit. More winter markets, with dates and opening hours, are in the Swiss Christmas market calendar.

Course de l'Escalade: running through the old town in costume

Only 7 years after the first race was running in costume officially recognised. Today it has its own category, named after the chocolate pot: «La Marmite».

Since 1978, the Course de l'Escalade has been the festival's fun run, a week before the procession. The costume category has existed since 1991. Under the rule "the weekend before the procession", it probably falls on 5 and 6 December 2026. Only the organiser confirms the date and registration.

Saturday, 5 December 2026 – Sunday, 6 December 2026

Written by

Jana Meier

ConvivaPlus Editor · Family & Day Trips

Writes about day trips, family and local life – honestly assessing what's worth it.

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Researched & sourced · for Switzerland

Profile & all articles →·Our editorial teamUpdated 10/07/2026