in first with a lecherous canon (who is crushed to death by a falling church), then his former governess, a comical, sexually voracious hawker named Madame Thomas. Thomas is most notable for her size. She is ‘chargée de viande’ (lit. loaded with meat), ‘surchargée de cuisine’ (lit. overloaded with food), with a stomach so large that she can only be penetrated from behind.26 Her bawdy philosophizing in the face of her friend the canon’s death is also framed by her hearty appetite. Focused on the material present rather than the solemnity of the afterlife, the poor, cheerful Madame Thomas clearly sets out her worldview through images of food and drink:
Qui aurait dit hier au pauvre défunt : Monsieur le Chanoine, nous avons une bonne oie pour demain, mais on vous en ratisse ; vous n’en tâterez point. Il lui aurait donné le démenti, et aurait juré sa foi qu’il en mangeroit sa part. Voilà pourtant comme on se trompe tous les jours. C’est, en vérité, grand dommage ; car c’est une oie à servir à la table de la Reine …. Entre nous soit dit, vous ne perdez pas grand’chose. C’était un enjôleur de filles qui leur promettoit plus de beurre que de pain.
(Who would ’ave thought to say yesterday to the late canon that we have a great fat goose for the morrow, we do, but you won’t be gettin’ any, not a bite. He would ’ave had none of that; no, indeed, ’e’d have sworn that ’e’d have his share, for, I declare, it’s a goose worthy of a queen’s table, it is … Besides, between you and me, ’e’s not such a great loss. He cajoled the girls and promised, to tell the truth, more butter than bread.)27
Madame Thomas’ house brings with it not only a hearty dinner of goose, cheese and pudding, but also the invitation to sleep with her lover, her brawny and well-endowed gros boudin (a pet name we might literally translate as ‘big sausage’) Frère Alexis.28 His arrival while Madame Thomas is busy stuffing her goose heralds a cartoonishly erotic evening where food, drink, and animalism intertwine. The goose itself is suggestive, evoking les plaisirs de la petite oie, a colloquial term for mutual masturbation or foreplay.29 Part-way through the meal, Alexis whips out a ‘saucisson’ from his
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