Paris and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe in
1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous trial
known as the _proces d'avril_.

See Chambers's _Book of Days_; Grimm's _Geschichte der deutschen
Sprache_. Cap. "Monate"; also APRIL-FOOLS' DAY.

APRIL-FOOLS' DAY, or ALL-FOOLS' DAY, the name given to the 1st of April
in allusion to the custom of playing practical jokes on friends and
neighbours on that day, or sending them on fools' errands. The origin of
this custom has been much disputed, and many ludicrous solutions have
been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of Christ being
sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to
Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken
place about the 1st of April. What seems certain is that it is in some
way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the
vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of
March, ended on the 1st of April. This view gains support from the fact
that the exact counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an
immemorial custom in India. The festival of the spring equinox is there
termed the feast of Huli, the last day of which is the 31st of March,
upon which the chief amusement is the befooling of people by sending
them on fruitless errands. It has been plausibly suggested that Europe
derived its April-fooling from the French. They were the first nation to
adopt the reformed calendar, Charles IX. in 1564 decreeing that the year
should begin with the 1st of January. Thus the New Year's gifts and
visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April
became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked
the change were fair butts for those wits who amused themselves by
sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st
of April. Though the 1st of April appears to have been anciently
observed in Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not
until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools
was a common custom. In Scotland the custom was known as "hunting the
gowk," i.e. the cuckoo, and April-fools were "April-gowks," the cuckoo
being there, as it is in most lands, a term of contempt. In France the
person befooled is known as _poisson d'avril_. This has been explained
from the association of ideas arising from the fact that