A Far, Far Better Tale

By Marcel Strigberger

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a time of wisdom, it was a time of foolishness, it was a time of similarity, it was a time of contrast. Edmonton Alberta was a strange place in the nineteen sixties.

But this tale is about France, in the late 1700’s. It was a time of oppression. The nobility called all the shots, trampling on the peasants. Those were the seventeen eighties; the twentieth century had not yet arrived in France.

Dr. Monette was in the Bastille. He was a plastic surgeon and dermatologist sentenced to twenty years at hard labour for allegedly starting the great dandruff epidemic of the 1770’s. The epidemic spared no one. All of France was scratching.

Now a word about the Bastille. It was like a jail. It was built to hold 350 prisoners but in 1789 it held only 28; nobody wanted to go there. It was a veritable fortress, indestructible. It withstood even the great fire of London in 1666.

Meanwhile back in England. Ahhh England. Sidney Barton was a prominent barrister, a champion of the underdog. He pleaded many of his cases for no fee; he did them on Legal Aid Certificates. It was said that not one of his clients ever went to the guillotine.

Fifteen years ago Sidney Barton was afflicted by boils on his scalp. This made wearing a wig in court very cumbersome. He would always have to start his trials by asking leave of the court pursuant to Rule 187 of the Rules of Court to dispense with the wearing of a wig.

British medical doctors were baffled by the disease, unable to find a cure. The great dermatologist, Sir Geoffrey of Chester said of Sidney Barton. “I wouldn’t want him to marry my daughter.”

Sidney Barton visited Sir Geoffrey’s office frequently and Sir Geoffrey would say to his secretary, “Is he gone yet?”

And how did Sidney Barton overcome this affliction? Dr. Monette of course. In the year 1777 Sidney was making one of his frequent visits to Paris to commit suicide. This time he intended to go through with it. He decided to jump into the icy Seine River. Suddenly he came across Dr. Monette who was relieving himself under the Pont Neuf. The good doctor shouted, “Non! Don’t do eet.”

Sidney decided not to jump into the water for now. Instead he reached for his pistol but he realized that he must have dropped it in the taxi on route to the Seine. Dr. Monette rushed up to Sidney Barton and introduced himself.

The two chatted for a few minutes and they become immediate friends. Dr. Monette offered to treat Sidney at his clinic. After six weeks, voila, the boils were gone

Upon Sidney’s return to court, at the start of his first case, the presiding judge, Lord Levine, asked Sidney, “So, you’re not asking for relief under Rule 187 today?”

Meanwhile the situation in France deteriorated rapidly. Queen Mary Antoinette told the people of France to eat cake. They did.

After six months the average Frenchman put on some ten kilos. Tooth decay was rampant.

One day Gavroche, a Paris sewer maintenance inspector, came down with an awful toothache after a steady diet of brioches and jam.

He could take it no longer and he gathered a mob near Place de la Vendome. Within hours he and about 25,000 other obese people stormed the Bastille and the French Revolution was on.

The revolutionaries were ruthless. They grabbed the warden of the Bastille and stuffed buttered croissants into each of his ears. The prison guards were pelted with cinnamon buns.

The mob proceeded to release the prisoners of the Bastille. When Gavroche himself came across Dr. Monette and heard that he was a doctor he was ecstatic. Suddenly he gave the doctor a good whack across the face; he was disappointed that the doctor did not turn out to be a dentist!

The Revolution continued. The nobility were harassed where ever they traveled, especially on the roads. The police hid behind billboards along all roads and whenever a big shot or his associate drove by, they would stop him and give him a traffic summons.

The blue bloods would be charged with the usual traffic offences including speeding, careless driving, impaired driving and making love in a carriage parked in the vicinity of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

At times the police would outdo themselves. One Maurice de la Filet, a cousin of Louis XV, was charged with the latter offence and he was caught doing it in Marseilles.

He was found guilty and fined 500 francs plus 12,800 francs for towing.

The traffic courts were bursting at the seams with aristocratic traffic charges. Pretty soon the justice system broke down and trials become a mockery. Mobs would jam the body of the court and cheer and jeer as if the proceedings were a sporting event.

The mob was usually taunted by that vixen Madame Lefarge, a proletarian. She and her husband Mario had once owned a local tavern and house of pleasure.

She had good reason to hate the nobility. One night her house or “la maison” as it was called was frequented by the gluttonous Baron de Knack.

The Baron fell asleep in one of the rooms but in his excitement he forgot to extinguish his cigar. Naturally the whole place burned to the ground. When Madame Lafarge tried to make a claim against her insurance she was denied coverage.

The insurance company, Royale Insurance, was owned by Louis XVI. The claims’ adjuster pointed out a specific exemption clause in the insurance policy which read, “No insurance paid for a fire caused by spontaneous combustion.” The insurance company insisted that the Baron just suddenly ignited.

Madam Lafarge was beside herself. She could not afford the exorbitant fees lawyers usually charge in order to sue that wealthy, monstrous, callous and heartless insurance company and so she let it go after that. She decided to take up knitting instead. She also started hating lawyers at that time, even people who looked like lawyers.

ack in the courtrooms the verdict in each case was obvious. The writing was on the wall. One day Marquis St. Zotique, brother-in-law of His Majesty, was convicted after a five minute trial of speeding in a school zone and the judge had not yet even entered the court room!

When the Marquis protested, he was also held responsible for the writing on the wall and fined another 500 francs.

Then one day it happened. Dr. Monette while driving his carriage in a suburb of Paris was stopped by the police and charged with tailgating another carriage.

“But monsieur la police” he protested, “there is no carriage in sight in front of me.”

”Of course not monsieur le docteur,” replied monsieur la police, “you chased heem away.”

It may be useful at this point to advise that the doctor was Baron de Knack’s personal dermatologist and the policeman was none other than Monsieur Lafarge. After la maison was lost he eventually joined the police morality squad.

Dr. Monette was summoned to court to face trial on the charge. He knew what a conviction would mean. He would be fined fifty francs and then he would be forced to undergo the tortuous driver improvement course.

He knew that at the course the likes of Madame Lefarge would gather to laugh at him while he would be made to practice his driving skills in a simulation vehicle, namely, a team of wooden horses. The mob would laugh while he would have to pull at the reins and shout:

“Yip, yip, voila, yip, yip voila. Whoa.”

Dr. Monette was tried, convicted, sentenced and remanded in custody.

Sidney Barton heard about the doctor’s plight. He knew how this degrading experience would upset the doctor and accordingly he decided to act.

He had a plan. The doctor was 75 years old and Sidney was 47. The doctor was tall and skinny and Sidney was short and stout. The doctor also had acne. Sidney’s plan was to travel to Paris, sneak into the jail and switch places with Dr. Monette. Foolproof, oui?

The next day Sidney Barton secretly arrived in Paris. The doctor was to be given “the horse,” as it was called in a couple of hours. Sidney arrived at the jail and convinced the guard Jacques that he was Dr. Monette’s lawyer.

Unfortunately, Jacques delayed Sidney for over an hour asking for advice about his own matrimonial problems. Sidney did not know the first thing about French law but he did what any first-year law student would do; he proceeded to give legal advice. At the conclusion, Jacques asked, “What is adultery?”

Sidney Barton entered the cell of Dr. Monette together with his assistant Ehrlick. Ehrlick was a weightlifter from Liverpool. The plan was to knock Dr. Monette out with a chloroform soaked handkerchief, have Sidney Barton and the doctor exchange clothing and have Ehrlick remove the doctor from the jail. All did not go as planned. The doctor momentarily turned around and Ehrlick clubbed him on the head with his fists. It seems that Sidney forgot his chloroform bottle in the taxi on route to the jail. An old habit.

The clothing switch was made and Ehrlick carried the doctor out of the jail. As they passed the guards one of them asked, “Who is the guy with the acne?”

Jacques replied, “That’s my lawyer. By the way what is adultery?”

Back at the cell Sidney Barton was proud of himself. At last he could repay the debt owed to dear friend Dr. Monette.

A special team of guards came to pick up Sidney Barton and he was taken by carriage to Place de la Bastille. He thought to himself, “It is a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done before.”

Dr. Monette was well on his way to England by now, where he would wake up soon with a big headache.

Sidney Barton was strapped to the horse. The test was about to start when Madame Lefarge suddenly shouted, “This is not Dr. Monette, he looks like a lawyer. He must be a lawyer.”

“And what of it madame,” said Sidney Barton.

“You thought it was a far far better thing you did now didn’t you?” shouted the madame. “Proceed with the test anyway.”

The guards put Sidney Barton through the test. The mob laughed and cheered as Sidney shouted at the wooden horses. “Yip, yip, voila. Yip, yip, voila. Whoa.”

He passed the test with a mark of ninety-four, better than most French drivers.

He was subsequently charged with impersonating a plastic surgeon and dermatologist and his penalty was banishment from France. He was ordered to be put on a ferry boat bound for Dover without food or water. The captain of the boat was told to navigate very very slowly so that it would hurt.

As the boat left the harbour at Calais a gentleman ran out on the dock and tossed a pistol and a bottle at Sidney Barton.

“This must be yours,” he shouted.

It was a taxi driver who had found Sidney’s pistol and a bottle of chloroform.

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© 2007 Marcel Strigberger. This article CANNOT be copied or reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the Author.