Madame Husson’s May King
We had just passed through Gisors, where I had been awakened by hearing the name of the place shouted by the porters, and I was falling off to sleep again, when a frightful jerk threw me on top of the fat lady in the opposite seat.
A wheel had come off the engine, which was lying across the line. The tender and the luggage van, also derailed, lay beside this wreck which panted, shuddered, whistled, snorted and spat like horses that have fallen in the street; their flanks throb, their chests quiver, their nostrils smoke, they shudder through their whole bodies but do not seem able to make the slightest effort to get up and go on again.
No one was killed or injured, only a few bruises, for the train was not yet running at full speed again. We gazed sadly at the great crippled iron body that could no longer carry us and would bar our way, perhaps for some time, for they would certainly have to send to Paris for a relief train.
It was now ten o’clock in the morning, so I decided then and there to get back to Gisors and have some lunch.
As I was walking down the line I kept saying to myself:
“Gisors, Gisors, I am sure I know someone there. But whom? Gisors? I am certain I have a friend in the town.”
Suddenly a name leapt into my mind: “Albert Marambot.” He was an old college friend whom I had not seen for twelve years at least, and who practised medicine at Gisors. He had often sent me invitations, which I always accepted but never kept. This time, however, I would use my opportunity.
I asked the first person I met:
“Do you know where Dr. Marambot lives?”
He answered immediately in the drawling accent of Normandy:
“In the Rue Dauphin.”
I saw, indeed, on the door of the house he pointed out, a big brass plate on which was engraved the name of my old friend. I rang the bell, but the maid, a girl with yellow hair and slow movements, repeated stupidly:
“He’s out, he’s out.”
I could hear the clatter of forks and glasses, so I cried out:
“Hello, Marambot!”
A door opened and a fat man with side-whiskers came out with a vexed air, carrying a napkin in his hand.
Well, I really would not have recognised him. He looked at least forty-five, and I had an instant vision of the provincial life that makes a man heavy, middle-aged and old. In a flash of thought that took less time than the action of holding out my hand, I knew his life, his manner of living, his attitude of mind and his theories about things. I guessed at the large meals to which he owed his paunch, the drowsiness after dinner in the lethargy of an overladen digestion watered with cognac, the cursory examination he gave his sick when his thoughts were on the fowl roasting on the spit in front of the fire. His conversations on cooking, on cider, brandy and wine; on the manner of cooking certain dishes, and how best to thicken certain sauces, needed no further evidence than the moist redness of his cheeks, his drooping eyelids and the dull shine of his eyes.
I said to him:
“You don’t recognise me. I am Raoul Aubertin.”
He opened his arms and nearly suffocated me. His first words were these:
“You haven’t had lunch, of course?”
“No.”
“What luck! I was just sitting down to it and there is an excellent trout.”
Five minutes later I was sitting opposite him at lunch.
I asked him:
“You are still a bachelor?”
“My goodness, yes.”
“And are you happy here?”
“I am not bored; I keep busy. I have patients and friends. I eat well, enjoy good health—can laugh and hunt. That’s good enough for me.”
“You don’t find life monotonous in this little town?”
“No, old chap—not if you know your way about. A small place is in essentials very like a large one. Events and pleasures are less varied but one notices them more; there are fewer people but one sees more of them. If you know all the windows in a street, each one of them interests and intrigues you more than a whole street in Paris.
“A little town is very amusing, you know—very amusing, most amusing. Take this one—Gisors. I have at my fingertips all there is to know about it, from its beginning to the present day. You have no idea what a quaint history it has.”
“You are a native of Gisors?”
“Me? No, I belong to Gournay—its neighbour and rival. Gournay is to Gisors what Lucullus was to Cicero. Here everyone is out for Fame; people call us the ‘arrogant people of Gisors.’ At Gournay they think of nothing but their stomachs. We call them the ‘guzzlers of Gournay.’ Gisors despises Gournay, but Gournay laughs at Gisors. This is a comic country.”
I noticed that I was eating a truly exquisite dish of soft-boiled eggs surrounded by a layer of meat jelly savoured with herbs and slightly frozen.
Smacking my lips to please him, I said to Marambot:
“This is good.”
He smiled.
“It only requires two things—a good jelly, which is hard to get, and good eggs. Oh, good eggs—how rare they are, and, with a slightly reddish yolk, how savoury! For myself, I have two weaknesses, one for eggs, the other for poultry. I feed my hens in a special way. I have my own ideas on the subject. In an egg, as in the flesh of a chicken, or in beef, or mutton, or milk, or any of these things, there is, and one ought to taste it, the juices, almost the essence, of the internal secretions of the animal. How much better one would fare if everyone realised that!”
I laughed.
“So you are a gourmand?”
“Lord! It’s only idiots who are not! One is a gourmand much as one is an artist, or a scholar, or a poet. The palate, my dear, is a delicate organ as perfectible and as worthy of respect as one’s eyes or ears. Not to have a palate is to be deprived of an exquisite faculty, the power of appreciating the quality of food, just as one can be deprived of the power to appreciate the quality of a book or a work of art. It is like being deprived of one of the primary senses—a part of man’s superiority; without it, one is relegated to the innumerable ranks of weaklings, outcasts and fools of which our race is composed. In other words, it is like having a ‘low’ tongue instead of a low mind.
“The man who cannot distinguish between a crawfish and a lobster, or a herring (an excellent fish which has in itself all the flavour and scent of the sea) and a mackerel or a whiting, between a poire crassane and a poire duchesse, is only comparable to one who confuses Balzac and Eugène Sue, or a Beethoven symphony with a bandmaster’s march, or the Belvedere Apollo with the statue of General Blanmont?”
“Who in the world is General Blanmont?”
“Oh—of course, you don’t know. It’s easy to see you don’t belong to Gisors! My dear old chap, I told you just now that the inhabitants of this town were nicknamed the ‘arrogant men of Gisors,’ and never was an epithet better applied. But let’s get on with lunch first, and I will tell you about the town while I show you around.”
He stopped talking now and then to sip a glass of wine which he looked at tenderly every time he put it down.
He was an amusing sight with his napkin tucked into his collar, his flushed cheeks and shining eyes, and whiskers spreading round his moving jaws.
He made me eat to repletion. Then, when I was thinking of getting back to the station, he seized my arm and led me into the street.
The town, which was quite a pleasant provincial city, was crowned by its fortress, the most curious monument of the military architecture of the twelfth century left in France; the fortress itself looked down over a long green valley where the clumsy Norman cows browsed and ruminated in the pastures.
The Doctor said to me:
“Gisors, a town of four thousand inhabitants on the borders of l’Eure, was first mentioned in the Commentaries of Julius Caesar: Caesaris ostium, then Caesartium, Caesortium, Gisortium, Gisors. I’ll now take you to see the place where the Roman army encamped. Their traces are still visible.”
I laughed and replied:
“It seems to me, old man, that you are suffering from a disease which you as a doctor ought to investigate. It is called parochial pride.”
He stopped short.
“Parochial pride, my friend, is only natural patriotism. I love my house and, by a natural extension of that love, my town and my province, because I find in them only the customs of my village; but, if I love my frontier, if I defend it, if I am angry when a neighbour sets foot on it, it is because I feel my house already threatened, because the frontier which I do not know is the road to my province. I myself am a Norman, a true Norman. Well, in spite of my bitterness against Germany and my desire for vengeance, I do not dislike her, I do not hate her by instinct as I hate the English, the real, hereditary and natural enemy of the Normans, because the English invaded the land occupied by my ancestors, they plundered and ravaged it twenty times, and the traditional hatred of this faithless race came to me with life itself, from my father—But here is the statue of the general.”
“What general?”
“General Blanmont! We had to have a statue. They don’t call us the arrogant men of Gisors for nothing. So we discovered General Blanmont. Look in the window of this bookshop.”
He dragged me in front of a bookshop in which about fifteen books bound in yellow, red and blue caught my eye.
When I read the titles I began to giggle idiotically. They were Gisors, Its Beginnings, Its Future, by M. X., a member of several learned societies.
History of Gisors, by the Abbé A. …
Gisors from the Time of Caesar to Our Day, by M. B., a landed proprietor.
Gisors and Its Neighbourhood, by Dr. C. D.
The Glories of Gisors, by an antiquarian.
“My dear man,” replied Marambot, “not a year passes, not one, mark you, but a new history of Gisors is brought out; we have twenty-three of them already!”
“What about the glories of Gisors?” I asked.
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you all of them, I can only speak of the outstanding ones. First we had General Blanmont, then the Baron Davillier, the celebrated ceramist who explored Spain and the Balearic Islands and revealed to collectors the wonderful Moorish pottery. In literature, we have a journalist of considerable merit, now dead, Charles Brainne, and, among well-known living men, the very eminent director of the Nouvelliste de Rouen, Charles Lapierre … oh, and many more—a great many more.”
We were going down the gentle slope of a long street: the June sun warmed it from end to end and had driven the inhabitants indoors.
Suddenly a man came into sight at the other end of the road—a drunken man, reeling as he came. Head thrust forward, with arms swinging and nerveless legs, he came on in jerks of three, six or ten quick steps followed by a pause. When a short, strenuous rush had landed him in the middle of the street, he stopped short and swayed as though hesitating between a fall and a further display of energy. Then he advanced abruptly in another direction. Next he cannoned violently into a house, to which he attached himself with every appearance of wanting to enter it through the wall. Then he turned round with a sharp effort and stared ahead, his mouth open and his eyes blinking in the sun. At last, with a jerk of his hind quarters, he removed his back from the wall and set off again.
A little yellow dog, a famished mongrel, followed him, barking, stopping when he stopped and going on again when he went on.
“Look,” said Marambot, “there is Madame Husson’s May King.”
I was most astonished and asked:
“Madame Husson’s May King—whatever do you mean by that?”
The Doctor began to laugh.
“Oh, it’s just a way we have here in speaking of drunken men. It arose from an old story which has now become a legend although it is absolutely true.”
“Is it an amusing story?”
“Oh, most amusing.”
“Go ahead then.”
“Right you are. At one time there lived in this town an old lady who, being very virtuous herself, encouraged virtue in others. Her name was Madame Husson. I’m telling you the story with the real names, you know, not with made-up ones. Madame Husson spent most of her time in good works, helping the poor and rewarding the deserving. Tiny, pattering along with short rapid steps, her head surmounted by a black silk peruke, formal and polite, she was on very good terms with the good God as represented by the Abbé Malou. She had the greatest horror, an instinctive horror, of vice, and most of all for that vice which the Church calls incontinence. Premarital getting of children drove her beside herself with rage, and exasperated her until she was almost out of her wits.
“Now it was the period when May Queens were being crowned in the district round Paris, and Madame Husson was taken with the idea of having a May Queen at Gisors.
“She laid her project before the Abbé Malou, and he at once drew up a list of candidates.
“But Madame Husson was waited on by a maidservant, an old maidservant named Françoise, as uncompromising as her mistress.
“As soon as the priest had gone, the mistress called her servant and said to her:
“ ‘Listen, Françoise, here are the girls whom his Reverence suggests to me for the prize of virtue: try and find out what people about here think of them.’
“And Françoise went forth to spy out the land. She raked together all the gossip, all the tales, all the scandal, every vaguest hint. For fear that she should forget anything, she wrote it all down in her household accounts along with the items of expenditure, and handed it every morning to Madame Husson, who used to read, after she had adjusted her spectacles on her thin nose:
“ ‘Bread four cents. Milk two cents. Butter eight cents Malonia Levesque disgraced herself last year with Mathurin Poilu.
One leg of mutton twenty-five cents. Salt one cent. Rosalie Vatinel was met in the wood at Riboudet with Césarie Piénoir by Madame Onésime, the washerwoman, on the 20th of July in the twilight.
Radishes one cent. Vinegar two cents. Sorrel Salt two cents Joséphine Durdent, that nobody thinks has gone wrong, in spite of her being in correspondence with young Oportun who is employed in Rouen and who sent her a bonnet as a gift by the stagecoach.’
“Not a single girl emerged unscathed from this searching investigation. Françoise questioned everyone, neighbours, tradesmen, the schoolmaster, the nuns at the school, and gathered up the faintest rumours.
“Since there is not a girl in the universe upon whom the gossips have not looked askance, there was not found in the countryside a maiden safe from some scrap of scandal.
“Now Madame Husson desired that the May Queen, like Caesar’s wife, should be quite above suspicion, and in the face of her servant’s housekeeping book she was reduced to grief and despair.
“The circle of choice was widened to include the neighbouring villages, but they found nothing.
“The Mayor was consulted. Those that he favoured suffered shipwreck. Those of Dr. Barbesol were no more successful, for all the certitude of his scientific warranty.
“Then, one morning, Françoise, who had just returned from one of her expeditions, said to her mistress:
“ ‘Look you, Madame, if you wish to crown anyone, there is no one but Isidore in the whole district.’
“Madame Husson became deeply thoughtful.
“She knew him well, this Isidore, son of Virginie the greengrocer. His chastity, become a byword, had provided food for mirth in Gisors for many a long day, and served as an engaging subject of conversation for the town and of amusement for the girls, who delighted in teasing him. A little over twenty years of age, big, ungainly, slow and timorous, he helped his mother with her business, and passed his days, seated on a chair before the door, sorting fruit and vegetables.
“He had an unhealthy fear of petticoats, which made him lower his eyes the moment one of the women coming into the shop looked at him with a smile, and this well-known timidity of his made him the laughingstock of all the wags in the district.
“Risky words, lewd sayings, and allusions hinting at obscenity made him blush so quickly that Dr. Barbesol had nicknamed him the thermometer of modesty. Did he or did he not know? his neighbours asked themselves maliciously. Was it simply the presentiment of unknown and shameful mysteries or was it rather indignation at the loathly contacts entailed in love that seemed to move the son of the greengrocer Virginie so strongly? The message-boys of the district, when running past his shop, shouted out filthy sayings at the top of their voices, in order to see him lower his eyes; the girls passed and repassed before him, whispering sly suggestions that drove him back into the house. The more impudent provoked him openly, in order to laugh at him and amuse themselves, made assignations, suggested a thousand abominable ideas.
“So Madame Husson had become deeply thoughtful.
“In truth, Isidore was an example of quite exceptional virtue, notorious, impregnable. No one, not even the most sceptical or the most unbelieving, could have or would have dared to suspect Isidore of infringing in the smallest degree any law of morality whatever. Never once had he been seen in a café, never once met in the streets of an evening. He went to bed at eight and got up at four. He was a paragon, a pearl.
“All the same, Madame Husson still hesitated. The idea of substituting a May King for a May Queen troubled her, upset her a little, and she resolved to consult the Abbé Malou.
“The Abbé Malou replied:
“ ‘What do you desire to reward, Madame? Virtue, I take it, and nothing but virtue.
“ ‘What does it matter to you, therefore, whether virtue be in a male or a female? Virtue is eternal, of no country and of no sex: it is just virtue.’
“Thus encouraged, Madame Husson went to find the Mayor.
“He quite approved.
“ ‘We will hold a splendid festival,’ said he, ‘and another year, if we find a woman as worthy as Isidore, we will crown a woman. We shall indeed set a lofty example to Nanterre. Let us not be exclusive, let us welcome all that is worthy.’
“Isidore, told of the honour, blushed deeply and seemed content.
“The day of the ceremony was fixed for the fifteenth of August, the Festival of the Virgin Mary and of the Emperor Napoleon.
“The municipality had decided to lend an air of exceptional splendour to this solemn ceremonial, and had placed the platform on the Couronneaux, a charming continuation of the ramparts of the old fortress, to which I will shortly take you.
“By a natural reversal of public opinion, Isidore’s virtue, till then a matter for ridicule, became suddenly a matter for envy, since it was going to bring him five hundred francs, besides a little savings-book, together with unlimited esteem and glory to spare. The girls now regretted their frivolous folly, their smirks, their immodest behaviour; and Isidore, quite as modest and timorous as ever, had taken on a faint complacent air that spoke his inward satisfaction.
“With the arrival of the fifteenth of August, the whole of the Rue Dauphine was draped with flags. Ah, I’ve forgotten to tell you after what event this roadway had been called Rue Dauphine.
“It would appear that the Dauphine, I don’t know now which one, when visiting Gisors, had been kept on exhibition so long by the authorities that, in the middle of a triumphal procession through the town, she stopped the procession before one of the houses in this street and exclaimed:
“ ‘Oh, what a beautiful house, how I would like to visit it! Whose is it?’
“They told her the owner’s name; he was sought out, found and brought, embarrassed but covered with glory, before the princess.
“She stepped down from her carriage, entered the house, pretended to look over it from top to bottom, and even remained shut up for some moments alone in one of the rooms.
“When she came out again, the people, flattered by the honour shown to a citizen of Gisors, shouted out:
“ ‘Long live the Dauphine.’
“But a little song was made up by some wag, and the street took the name of her Royal Highness, because:
La princesse très pressée,
Sans cloche, prêtre ou bedeau,
L’avait, avec un peu d’eau,
Baptisée.28
“But let me return to Isidore.
“Flowers had been strewn all along the route of the procession, just as is customary at the procession of the Holy Sacrament, and the National Guard was called out, under the orders of its Chief, Commandant Desbarres, a stout old warrior of the Grande Armée, who proudly displayed, beside a frame holding the Cross of Honour bestowed by the Emperor himself, a Cossack’s beard, cut at a single sabre-stroke from its owner’s chin by the Commandant, during the retreat from Russia.
“The corps that he commanded was, in addition, a corps of picked men famous throughout the province, and his company of grenadiers from Gisors was in demand at all the important festivals within a radius of fifteen or twenty leagues. The story is told that King Louis-Philippe, when reviewing the troops from Eure, stopped in wonder before the company from Gisors and cried out:
“ ‘Oh, who are these fine grenadiers?’
“ ‘Men from Gisors,’ replied the General.
“ ‘I might have known it,’ murmured the King.
“The Commandant Desbarres set out with his men, headed by the band, to seek out Isidore in his mother’s shop.
“After a brief tune had been played beneath his windows, the May King himself appeared upon the threshold.
“He was clad from head to foot in white ducks and wore a straw hat, which bore, like a cockade, a small bunch of orange blossom.
“This question of dress had given Madame Husson much anxiety. She hesitated for a long time between the black garment worn by those taking their first Communion and the full vesture of white. But Françoise, her adviser, decided her in favour of the full white by showing her that the May King would have the appearance of a swan.
“Behind him appeared his protectress, his godmother, the triumphant Madame Husson. She took his arm, ready for the start, and the Mayor took up his position on the other side of the May King. The drums began to beat. Commandant Desbarres gave the command:
“ ‘Present arms!’
“The procession set off on its march towards the church, in the midst of a great crowd of people assembled from all the neighbouring villages. After a short Mass and a touching address from the Abbé Malou, the procession headed for the Couronneaux where the feast was set out in readiness under a tent.
“Before sitting down at table, the Mayor made a speech. Here are his exact words. I learnt them off by heart, for it was a fine speech:
“ ‘Young man, a lady of wealth, beloved by the poor and respected by the rich, Madame Husson, to whom I here render thanks on behalf of the whole country, conceived the idea, the happy and kindly idea, of establishing in the town a prize for virtue which should be a worthy inducement to the inhabitants of this beautiful countryside.
“ ‘You are, young man, the first to be chosen, the first to be crowned in this royal line of wisdom and chastity. Your name will always stand at the head of this roll of the most worthy; and it is demanded of you that your life—make no mistake about it—that your whole life should be in harmony with this happy beginning. Today, in the presence of this noble woman who rewards your conduct, in the presence of these citizen-soldiers who have taken up their arms in your honour, in the presence of this deeply moved throng, gathered together to acclaim you, or rather to acclaim Virtue in your person, you are entering into a solemn covenant with the town, with us all, to preserve until the day of your death the magnificent promise of your youth.
“ ‘Always bear this in mind, young man. You are the first seed sown in the field of hope, and we look to you to bring forth those fruits expected of you.’
“The Mayor took three steps, opened his arms and clasped the sobbing Isidore to his heart.
“He sobbed, the May King, without knowing why, with mixed emotion, with pride, with vague and pleasant sentiment.
“Then the Mayor placed in one of his hands the silk purse in which the gold chinked, five hundred francs in gold! … and in the other a little savings-book. And in a solemn voice he pronounced:
“ ‘Honour, glory and riches to virtue.’
“Commandant Desbarres cried out:
“ ‘Bravo.’
“The grenadiers cheered; the people applauded.
“Madame Husson too dried her eyes.
“Then they sat down at their places around the table where the banquet was spread.
“It was never-ending and sumptuous: yellow cider and red wine fraternised in glasses, side by side, and mingled in the stomach. The rattle of plates, voices and music playing in muffled tones made a deep, ceaseless murmur, dying away in the clear sky where the swallows flew. Every now and then Madame Husson adjusted her wig of black silk, awry over one ear, and talked with the Abbé Malou. The Mayor, in high spirits, talked politics with Commandant Desbarres, and Isidore ate, Isidore drank, as he had never before eaten and drunk! He helped himself again and again to everything, finding out for the first time that it is sweet to feel one’s belly full of good things that please the palate before they please the stomach. He had adroitly loosened the buckle of his trousers, which tightened with the increasing pressure of his abdomen, and in silence, a little disturbed, however, by a stain of wine fallen on his cotton vest, he ceased to chew in order to lift the glass to his mouth and keep it there as long as possible, while he took slow sips of wine.
“The time for toasts came round. They were many and much applauded. The evening came: they had been at table since midday. Now there floated in the valley a thin, milky mist, the light vesture of night upon the streams and meadows: the sun dipped below the horizon: the cows lowed afar off in the mists of the pasture land. It was over: they returned towards Gisors. The procession, broken up now, marched helter-skelter. Madame Husson had taken Isidore’s arm and was giving him much counsel, urgent and sound.
“They stopped before the greengrocer’s door and the May King was left with his mother.
“She had not come home. Invited by her family to take part in the celebration of her son’s triumph, she had lunched with her sister, after having followed the procession to the banqueting tent.
“So Isidore remained alone in the shop, into which darkness was penetrating.
“He sat down in a chair, flushed with wine and pride, and looked around him. The carrots, cabbages and onions filled the closed room with their strong vegetable smell, a rude, earthy odour, with which was mingled the sweet, penetrating smell of strawberries and the delicate, evasive perfume of a basket of peaches.
“The May King took one and ate it with big bites, though his belly was round as a pumpkin. Then suddenly, delirious with joy, he began to dance; and something rattled in his gown.
“He was surprised, and plunged his hands into his pockets and drew out the purse with the five hundred francs, which he had forgotten in his drunken joy. Five hundred francs! What a fortune! He poured out the luis on the counter and spread them out with a slow, caressing movement of his great open palm in order to see them all at once. There were twenty-five, twenty-five round coins, in gold! all in gold. They shone on the wood in the deep gloom, and he counted them over and over again, placing his finger on each one and murmuring:
“ ‘One, two, three, four, five—a hundred; six, seven eight, nine, ten—two hundred.’
“Then he put them back in the purse, which he replaced in his pocket.
“Who could know and who could describe the terrible conflict waged in the May King’s soul between good and evil, the tumultuous onset of Satan, the subtle tricks, the temptations that he hurled against this timid, virgin heart? What suggestions, what imaginings, what covetous desires did the Evil One invent to provoke and destroy this chosen soul? Madame Husson’s elect seized his hat, the hat that still bore the little bunch of orange blossom, and, going out by the little lane at the back of the house, disappeared into the night. …
“Virginie, the greengrocer, warned that her son had returned, came back almost at once and found the house empty. She waited, without any qualms at first: then, at the end of a quarter of an hour, she made enquiries. Her neighbours in the Rue Dauphine had seen Isidore come in but had not seen him go out again. Then they went to look for him, but they did not find a trace of him. The greengrocer, dismayed, ran to the Town Hall: the Mayor knew nothing, except that he had left the May King at the door of his home. Madame Husson had just gone to bed when she was informed that her protégé had disappeared. She put on her wig again, got up and went herself to the greengrocer’s. Virginie, whose simple soul was easily moved, was weeping copiously in the middle of her cabbages, carrots and onions.
“An accident was feared. But what? Commandant Desbarres informed the police, who made a round of the town; and on the way to Pontoise they found the little bunch of orange blossom. It was laid on a table around which the authorities held counsel. The May King must have been the victim of some ruse, some trick of jealousy: but how? What means had been employed to carry off this innocent, and to what end?
“Weary of the vain search, the authorities retired to bed. Virginie, all alone, lay awake in tears.
“Now, the following evening, when the coach from Paris passed through on its way back, the town of Gisors heard with amazement that its May King had stopped the vehicle two hundred yards out of the town, had got in, and paid for his seat with a louis for which he had received the change, and that he had quietly left the coach in the heart of the great city.
“Feeling ran very high in the district. Letters were exchanged between the Mayor and the Chief of the Paris police, but resulted in no discovery.
“Day followed day, the week ran out.
“Then, one morning, Dr. Barbesol noticed, sitting on the threshold of a door, a man clad in dirty linen, who slept with his head against the wall. He approached and recognised Isidore. He tried to waken him, and was unable to do so. The ex-May King was in a deep, disquieting sleep that nothing could break, and the Doctor, surprised, went in search of help to carry the young man to Boucheval, the chemist’s. When they lifted him up, an empty bottle appeared, hidden under him; the Doctor sniffed it and declared that it had contained brandy. It was a hint as to the remedies required. They succeeded. Isidore was drunk, drunk and besotted by eight days of debauchery, drunk and so disgusting that a ragpicker wouldn’t have touched him. His beautiful vesture of white linen was all rags and tatters, dirty, yellow, greasy, muddy, torn, beggarly; and his person smelt of all the odours of the sewer, the gutter and vice.
“He was washed, preached at, locked up, and, for four days, did not stir out of the house. He seemed ashamed and penitent. They couldn’t find on him the purse with five hundred francs, nor the little savings-book, nor even his silver watch, a sacred heirloom bequeathed to him by his father the fruiterer.
“On the fifth day, he ventured into the Rue Dauphine. Many curious glances followed him, and he went past the houses with head bent down and furtive eyes. He vanished from sight at the point where the country opens out into the valley; but two hours later he reappeared, hiccuping and reeling against the walls. He was drunk, dead drunk.
“Nothing could cure him.
“Forced to it by his mother, he became a carter and drove the coal wagons for the firm of Pougrisel, which is in existence still.
“His reputation as a drunkard was so bad and extended so far that, even at Evreux, they speak of Madame Husson’s May King, and the drunken scoundrels of the district have preserved this nickname.
“A good action is never wasted.”
Dr. Marambot rubbed his hands together at the end of his story. I asked him:
“Did you know the May King personally?”
“Oh, yes, I had the honour of closing his eyes.”
“What did he die of?”
“From an attack of delirium tremens, of course!”
We had arrived by this time at the old fortress, a pile of ruined walls surmounted by the high tower of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, and the tower called the Prisoner’s Tower.
Marambot told me the story of this prisoner who, by means of a nail, covered the walls of his cell with sculpture, following the movements of the sun through the narrow cleft of a loophole.
Then I learned that Clotaire II had given the patrimony of Gisors to his cousin Saint Romain, that Gisors ceased to be the capital of all Vexin after the Treaty of Saint-Claire-sur-Epte, that the town was the salient strategic point of the whole of this part of France, and that by reason of this natural advantage it had been captured and recaptured times without number. By order of Guillaume le Roux, the celebrated engineer Robert de Belesme constructed there a strong fortress, later attacked by Louis le Gros, then by the Norman barons, defended by Robert de Candos, yielded finally to Louis le Gros by Geoffrey Plantagenet, retaken by the English through the Templars’ treachery, quarrelled over by Philippe Auguste and Richard Coeur de Lion, burned by Edward III of England, who could not take the castle, rebuilt by the English in 1419, surrendered later to Charles VII by Richard de Marbury, taken by the Duke of Calabria, occupied by the League, lived in by Henry IV, etc., etc.
And Marambot, with deep conviction, roused almost to eloquence, repeated:
“What beggarly rascals the English are! What drunken scoundrels, my dear; May Kings, every one of them, the hypocrites!”
He was silent, then stretched his arm towards the thread of river gleaming in the meadow.
“Do you know that Henry Monnier was one of the people who fished regularly on the banks of the Epte?”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“And Bouffé, my dear, Bouffé made stained glass here.”
“Well, I never!”
“He did. You can’t get away from facts like that.”