“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
