“I am very serious also, I assure you, I think
that a jury...”
“Composed of whom? Of men of the world,
I suppose?”
“And what does this Julot do?”
“Oh! really, Duchess, you force me to speak
of persons and things, which ...”
“Yes, yes, I force you to; we understand that.
But tell me! Bluntly, without mincing matters,
if necessary. You know that I have no objection
to that sort of thing, so go on. Do not keep me
in suspense like this. I am burning with curiosity.
What does Julot do?”
“Very well, little volunteer, if you insist
on knowing, I will tell you. Julot, generally
called Fine-Gueule, is a trier of women.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I will explain it to you. There are a
few of us old amateurs in Paris, who are too old and
impatient to hunt for truffles, but who want them of
such and such a flavor, exactly to our taste.
Now, Julot knows our tastes, our various fancies,
and he undertakes ...”
“Capital! Capital!”
He had been registered under the names of Jean Marie
Mathieu Valot, but he was never called anything but
Mademoiselle. He was the idiot of the
district, but not one of those wretched, ragged idiots
who live on public charity. He lived comfortably
on a small income which his mother had left him, and
which his guardian paid him regularly, and so he was
rather envied than pitied. And then, he was not
one of those idiots with wild looks, and the manners
of an animal, for he was by no means an unpleasing
object, with his half-open lips and smiling eyes, and
especially in his constant make-up in female dress.
For he dressed like a girl, and showed by that, how
little he objected to being called Mademoiselle.
And why should he not like the nickname which his
mother had given him affectionately, when he was a
mere child, and so delicate and weak, with such a
fair complexion, a poor little diminutive lad, that
he was not as tall as many girls of the same age?
It was in pure love that, in his earlier years, his
mother whispered that tender Mademoiselle to
him, while his old grandmother used to say jokingly:
“The fact is, that as for the tip-cat
he has got, it is really not worth mentioning in a
Christian. No offense to God in saying so.”
And his grandfather who was equally fond of a joke,
used to add: “I only hope he will not lose
it, as he grows bigger, like tadpoles do their tails!”
And they treated him as if he had really been a girl
and coddled him, the more so as they were very prosperous,
and did not require a man to keep things together.
When his mother and grandparents were dead, Mademoiselle
was almost as happy with his paternal uncle, an unmarried
man, who had carefully attended the idiot, and who
had grown more and more attached to him by dint of
looking after him; and the worthy man continued to
call Jean Marie Mathieu Valot, Mademoiselle.
