The practise of the tumult seems very popular, in the country of Nice, in period of Carnival, as well as texts found by the historian Ch-A Fighiéra testify of it: the municipal edicts of 1539 and 1612 give very precise details of the organization of the tumults by the Abbots of the Madmen (cf. In. Sidro, " The Carnival of Nice and his (her) Madmen ", ed. Serre).
This custom, which was often practised in Europe, during the cycle of Carnival-Lent, took place also outside this period (on the occasion of the remarriage of the widowers), either for reasons of moral or administrative corruption.
The rite is always the same: it is a question of going under the windows of the elected victim and of provoking a din, a tumult " to wake a dead man ". And so picturesque stories evoke tumults, in the Old - Nice, in the last century for example.
" From then on, one saw coming from all the streets men, women and children, knocking on any sorts of household stuff, in the sound of the sea conches and the little spherical bells of mules, melodious, hissing, breaking pots and other old vases, throwing stones to doors and to windows. " (J.B. Toselli, History of Nice).
A practise which persisted more in the villages of the high country of Nice than in the streets of Old - Nice. But on corsi, one maintained the tradition of the whistled language (close to the satire), where masks enjoyed "mocking ("hunting for antiques") the passer-by, called "to their victims " on their "misdemeanours", by whistling to them with a falsetto voice " Va que ti connouissi ".