Living history in Quebec: New France Festival.

• Author: Pocock, Kate
• Position: !Ojo!

King Louis XIV needs a break. Dressed in lace and topcoat, he's been strutting and posing for over an hour in Quebec City's crowded Place Royale. He's hot under his shoulder-length curls. "Do you mind?" asks the King. As he strikes a match against his silver-buckled shoe and lights up a very 21st-century cigarette, he smiles. "Our festival may not be 100 percent authentic," he explains. "For instance, Louis XIV never visited here," he adds with a puff and a wave toward the bust of his namesake in the square. "But everyone, including the king," he reassures us, "keeps within the spirit of the time. And that, I adore."

For five days each August, Quebec City residents descend on the cobblestone streets and along their historic ramparts, dressed as peasants and priests, bourgeois and royalty. With street theater, music, costumes, parades, and a Mardi Gras-style joie de vivre, they celebrate the days when France ruled the colony: from 1608 when Samuel de Champlain planted his French flag on the rocky promontory overlooking the scenic St. Lawrence River to 1760 when British rule took over after a battle on the Plains of Abraham.

The ambiance today forgets that decisive victory in return for joyous celebration of a soulful, lively French colony. Turn a corner to come upon the coifed-and-laced, love-struck couple reciting poetry to each other, teenagers doing reels to fiddles, Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys with her secret to a healthy life (vegetable soup and eight hugs a day) and yes, King Louis XIV himself.

"It's fun to dress up and celebrate our history within the old walls at the very place where everything began almost 400 years ago," says Andre Parent, general manager of the New France Festival. "It's also very special. There is no other festival like it on the entire continent."

Indeed, most living history celebrations in North America take place in fields, not the main streets of a major city, and usually for just one or two days. Here, the unique backdrop of...