8. Charles Brainne … Charles Lapierre: These two witty and powerful newspapermen married the two extremely sought-after daughters of H. Rivoire, former editor of the Mémorial de Rouen. The paper later became the Nouvelliste de Rouen to which Maupassant was a frequent contributor.

9. Rose King: The tradition of choosing a Rose Queen, like the English May Queen, dates from very early times and the most famous celebrations of this event in France were traditionally those held at Nanterre. These celebrations endured well into the 1960s in many places, including Saint-Denis, Hay-les-Roses, etc. The irony lost on Madame Husson, not to mention the abbé, is that they are clearly pagan in origin.

10. Madame Husson: In real life the name of a friend of Flaubert.

11. Fête Dieu: Feast of the Holy Sacrament instituted in 1264 by Pope Urban IV and celebrated on the Thursday following the Whitsun octave.

12. grande armée: The army of Napoleon.

13. Henry Monnier: Henri Monnier (1805–77), writer and caricaturist, creator of Joseph Prudhomme, the prosperous, self-satisfied and pompous exemplar of the petty bourgeoisie under the July Monarchy.

14. Bouffé, the stained-glass artist: The important Gisors figures that Marambot is shocked to find his old schoolfriend has not heard of become increasingly obscure as Maupassant develops his parody of provincial pride.

ENCOUNTER

First published in 1884 as ‘Rencontre’ and dedicated to Edouard Rod, a Swiss critic and novelist linked with the naturalist movement.

1. coupé: In this context, a first-class railway carriage usually unconnected by corridor to the rest of the train.

2. ‘How triumphant are the mornings of the young!’, as the poet has it: A line by Oliver Goldsmith which appears to approximate ‘Quand on est jeune on a des matins triomphants,’ a quotation from Victor Hugo’s Booz endormi, part of his collection of epic poems, La légende des siècles, and cited more than once in Maupassant’s work.

HAPPINESS

First published in 1885 as ‘Le bonheur’.

A BIT OF THE OTHER

First published in 1885 as ‘Imprudence’.

1. cabaret: In expressing her desire to go to a real cabaret, Henriette, like many a bourgeois wife in Maupassant’s fiction, hopes to experience the thrill of s’encanailler – slumming or mixing with raffish Bohemia. In Montmartre particularly, a number of these establishments were in full swing.

2. a massive mirror … its clear glass: The place to which her husband in fact takes her is based on the Café Riche in one of whose rooms there was just such a mirror the surface of which was crazed with names, dates and messages scratched by the diamonds of the many women once reflected in it.

LOVE

First published in 1886 as ‘Amour’.

HAUTOT & SON

First published in 1889 as ‘Hautot père et fils’.

1. tilbury: A light, two-wheeled open carriage for two passengers.