# Bitard

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The **Bitard** is a [fabulous animal](/source/Fabulous_animal). It is the symbol of the **Ordre du Vénéré Bitard (Loué Soit-Il !)** or Order of the Venerated Bitard (May He be Blessed!), a [student association](/source/Student_association) of [University of Poitiers](/source/University_of_Poitiers) (France) created in the 1920s. The members themselves are also called **Bitards** and in some occasions they wear a cape colored according to their rank in the Order, along with a [faluche](/source/Faluche), the traditional French [Student cap](/source/Student_cap). The Bitards' faluche has the particularity of being decorated with a [chevron](/source/Chevron_(insignia)) and having its own code for the signification of insignias. The folklore of the Order refers to [François Rabelais](/source/Fran%C3%A7ois_Rabelais) as the word **bitard** appears twice in hunting outcomes in *[Pantagruel](/source/Gargantua_and_Pantagruel)*.[1]

Each year, the Order organizes a one-week festival, called the **69e Semaine estudiantine** (69th Students' Week). Various festive activities happen during this week, including a procession,[2] drinking events and a Bitard hunting. There is also a fresco depicting the hunting of the Bitard on an interior wall of the Roche-d'Argent university restaurant (located in downtown Poitiers, near the Saint-Jean baptistery). A concrete statue of a phallus, called "quéquette" or "blanche verge et les sept mains", erected by the Order of the Bitard in 1976 on the Poitiers campus, is a folk symbol for Poitiers students. The sculpture accidentally destroyed, during construction, in October 2015, was rebuilt, in April 2016.[3]

## Notes and references

1. Escarmant, C & Le Quellec, JL (2006). ["La chasse au Bitard des étudiants poitevins: Panurge bachelier"](http://rupestre.on-rev.com/page0/page3/assets/EtudesRabel_2006.pdf) (PDF) (in French). *Études rabelaisiennes*

1. [*L'ordre du bitard à Poitiers*](http://www.ina.fr/economie-et-societe/education-et-enseignement/video/RXF05005382/l-ordre-du-bitard-a-poitiers.fr.html) (in French). Institut national de l'audiovisuel. 1968.

1. [Les Bitards entre "deuxième sec" et "nouvelle quéquette"](http://www.centre-presse.fr/article-454666-les-bitards-entre-deuxieme-sec-et-nouvelle-quequette.html), Centre Presse, 25 avril 2016

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