Niçard dialect
( Classical orthography), ( Mistralian orthography, ), ( , ), or () is the dialect that was historically spoken in the city of Nice, in France, and in a few surrounding communes. Niçard is generally considered a subdialect of Provençal, it ...
of
Provençal
Provençal may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Provence, a region of France
** Provençal dialect, a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the southeast of France
** ''Provençal'', meaning the whole Occitan language
* Provenca ...
) is a
folk hero
A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythology, mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in Folk music, folk songs, folk tales ...
ine of the city of
Nice
Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionTurkish invaders allied with Francis I, during the Franco-Ottoman
siege of Nice
The siege of Nice occurred in 1543 and was part of the Italian War of 1542–46 in which Francis I and Suleiman the Magnificent collaborated as part of the Franco-Ottoman alliance against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Henry VIII of ...
, in the summer of 1543.Rémy Gasiglia, « Ségurane, Catherine », in Ralph Schor (sous la direction de), Dictionnaire historique et biographique du comté de Nice, Nice, Serre, 2002 ()
At the time, Nice was part of
Savoy
Savoy (; ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Vall ...
, independent from France, and had no standing military to defend it. Most versions of the tale have Catherine Ségurane, a common washerwoman, leading the townspeople into battle. Legend has it that she knocked out a
standard-bearer
A standard-bearer, also known as a colour-bearer or flag-bearer, is a person who bears an emblem known as a standard or military colours, i.e. either a type of flag or an inflexible but mobile image, which is used (and often honoured) as ...
with her beater and took his flag.
Catherine's existence has never been definitively proven, and her heroic act is likely pure fiction or highly exaggerated; Jean Badat, a historian who stood witness to the siege, made no mention of her involvement in the defense. Historically attested defense of Nice include the townspeople's destruction of a key bridge and the arrival of an army mustered by a Charles III of Savoy. Nevertheless, the legend of Catherine Ségurane has excited the local imagination. Louis Andrioli wrote an epic poem about her in 1808, and a play dedicated to her story was written by Jean-Baptiste Toselli in 1878. In 1923, a
bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
monument to Catherine was erected near the supposed location of her feat.
In Nice, Catherine Segurane Day is celebrated annually, concurrent with St. Catherine's Day on 25 November.