The French Republic's new year began with Vendémiaire, which happened to be grape harvest season.
People's hopes for a good harvest mattered more to them than the Julian Calendar. Before the Julian Calendar was invented, the Romans used a lunar calendar. Under that system, ordinary years had 355 days and leap years had 377, averaging 366 and a quarter days per year.
The calendar had originally been intended to match the movements of the Sun, but because the addition of leap months was decided by Roman priests themselves, there could be long periods during wars or when other religious activities had fallen into neglect when no leap year could be declared. As a result, the calendar drifted far from the Sun's actual cycle. At the same time, information traveled poorly in those days. Residents living far from the city-states sometimes never even learned of the priests' leap-year proclamations, leaving many people completely unaware of the date.
The problem had become quite serious by Caesar's time in power, so Caesar decided to reform the calendar, bringing it in line with the Sun's movements and freeing it from the effects of war, religion, and other human factors.
By November 1, it was still late autumn by the calendar, though it already felt like deep winter. The underworld seemed as though it ought to be like this.
Napoleoni had unexpectedly learned about the god Dis. Later, when he mentioned The Gallic War and Caesar, she understood.
Halloween was supposed to be this chaotic and mad. That was why people built bonfires: to find a little light in the darkness, to use light to drive away the confusion and terror brought by darkness. For that very reason, when she heard the church choir singing, she did not find it unpleasant.
Rouen's library stood beside