This being the result of the second reading of the story at reference 1 in the course of December, 2022. A story which had probably been read twice before in the course of the first readings around 2017. 154 pages, 9 chapters, just over 17 pages to the chapter, on average. In which it is much like an Agatha Christie story; the sort of thing one could read right through in an afternoon or in the course of a train journey. Except that I take rather longer, my French not being that clever, despite Simenon keeping his French fairly simple.
The diagram reproduced above is the sort of thing I sometimes produce (in Microsoft’s Powerpoint) when I am in danger of losing my grip on a murder mystery, which happens quite often these days.
The story is framed by Maigret being out of area, just visiting his friend Chabot, the examining magistrate of a small town. Top left, in green. So Maigret has no authority and no powers, but he is nevertheless allowed to poke around a bit. He is the famous detective from Paris and everyone knows who he is.
Then we have the three murder victims in pale blue right, in descending order of occurrence.
The action of the story centres on the Vernoux family, a family which became rich in fairly short order by dealing in livestock, land and farms. Part of the town’s small top tier. A family which is tainted in various ways. Red bars for marriage, short vertical bars for immediate paternity, dashed for more remote and longer horizontal bars for siblings.
Black edges for those who die before the story gets going.
Themes
I noticed a number of themes which crop up quite a lot in Maigret stories.
Maigret being out of area is a device used in a number of the Maigret stories. To some extent, looking in from the outside, rather than being on the inside.
Middle aged men approaching retirement wondering what the future holds. Nostalgia for what has gone before. Perhaps for the smell of one’s office or the curious habits of one’s office clock. Simenon, around 50 when he wrote this story, seems a bit young for this one – but maybe he knows his audience.
That said, I think Simenon misses the point slightly when he comments on old men who need to keep up appearances vis à vis others, who go to a lot of bother to be well turned out. I think they do it to convince themselves that they are still up be and running, not just to convince others.
Lots of people are not terribly happy in, terribly pleased with their lives. But some of them build little corners where they can be happy for an hour or so each day, or perhaps each week. Perhaps an hour in your regular pub on the way home. Perhaps you have a shed in the back garden where you can potter. Perhaps you play golf.
The process of waking up. The various modules of consciousness coming back online. The games one plays with one’s eyes. Perhaps towards the end of a train journey, perhaps in a hotel room, perhaps in a hospital perhaps at home. Reference 3, for example, has quite a lot on this. While reference 4, one of the small number of Simenon’s other work that I have read, has even more.
Other things that seem to matter
I think Simenon, himself a successful, self-made man, was rather amused by the way that the old county families were being replaced by the new men, perhaps rough men who have made it good by dint of talent and hard work. Some of whom might exude power but who are also rather unpleasant – to say the least of it. Old county families which are broke and settle for marrying into the rich new families – which they might more or less openly despise.
On the other hand, he seems to actively dislike trade unionists, agitators and other people from the lower middle classes who stir up trouble. To be rather afraid of the way that small towns can get into the grip of vigilantes who have got some public order or public safety issue between their teeth. And, as it happens, the town where this story is set – Fontenay-le-Comte in the Vendée – is the town where he spent a year in the early part of the occupation, before retreating deeper into the countryside. He had made a lot of money from a German film company and maybe flaunting that money at the big house – where he rented a large ground floor apartment – and entertaining all and sundry – including German officers – made him the enemies which saw him out of France in the summer of 1945. Not helped by his younger brother being a proper collaborator who escaped by joining the Foreign Legion.
I also wonder whether there was more of this sort of thing when people were poorer, spent more time gossiping on doorsteps and in cafés and had no televisions to distract them.
In something in the same way, Maigret is afraid of what happens when a small town is out for blood and picks on the wrong person, perhaps unpopular for other reasons, particularly when it is a person without the protection of friends, acquaintances and connections, something of a loner. When public opinion, energised by said agitators, pushes magistrates into arresting and possibly charging the wrong person. Or when a small town policeman roughs up the wrong person. With the fear of what might happen to Louise, the slummy mistress, being the ‘peur’ of the title. And what he feared came to pass: she was banged up and rather roughly handled – with even worse sequellae.
Vocabulary
Page 190. Jamais de pétard? In the context of talking about the town drunk, doesn’t get into rows? or perhaps doesn’t ever kick off? Neither Littré nor Linguee offered this particular meaning, sticking more or less to firecrackers. While Larousse did – quite often better for Simenon populisms than the other two.
Page 245. Vigilantes on the streets. Chaps with gourdins. A word for a short, thick stick: a cosh, club, bludgeon. Derivation uncertain with there also being dégourdir, engourdir and gourd. Gourd seeming to be paralysed, immobilised, stuck. While a gourde is a gourd, the sort of thing sometimes used to hold liquids. Mixed up with perclus, said to come from the non-existent Latin perclusus.
Page 249. Aux yeux très cernés. From cerne, a ring. Also ‘yeux battus’, not ‘hit’ as literally, rather tired and red ringed.
Page 205. Qui ne paie pas de mine. A bit run down. Doesn’t look like much from the outside. Larousse best on this one, Littré longest.
Page 216. Des piétinements. Steps, jostling, trampling. Stamping up and down. Seemingly more something which one hears rather than sees. A word for which we don’t have a good English equivalent.
Page 261. Veulerie. Noun from the adjective veule. Feeble, weak, usually of people. Also animals and plants. A weak stem, a weak trunk. Nothing to do with vouloir, to want.
Page 263. Goguenard. Adjective qualifying a bit of fun, usually a bit malicious. At someone else’s expense.
Conclusions
A decent yarn. No trouble sticking it to the end, twice over.
PS: a rather unsavoury detail from reference 2. It seems that around the time of writing, perhaps a few years previously, the rabbit test was the pregnancy test of choice. This involved injecting the rabbit with a sample from the lady in question, then, a few days later, dissecting the rabbit to inspect the state of its entrails. All rather Roman – but apparently fairly reliable.
References
Reference 1: Maigret à peur – Georges Simenon – 1953. Volume XVII of the collected works.
Reference 2: Maigret se trompe – Georges Simenon – 1953. Volume XVII of the collected works.
Reference 3: Maigret et le Clochard – Georges Simenon – 1962. Volume XXII of the collected works.
Reference 4: Les Anneaux de Bicêtre – Georges Simenon – 1963.
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