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Le Rosier de Madame Husson
Les choses ne sont pas ce qu'elles semblent. Un rosier peut en cacher un autre. La première qualité de ce livre est de mystifier le lecteur : il y a du piquant dans le titre, mais il ne vient pas de l'arbuste qu'on croit. Dans cette savoureuse histoire de chasteté récompensée, le rosier est un garçon et la fleur est d'oranger... Mieux que d'autres livres de Maupassant, ce recueil de contes se gausse ainsi de toutes les tentatives faites pour sauvegarder les apparences de la vertu.
188 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published April 20, 1990
5 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Guy de Maupassant
7,519 books3,061 followersHenri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. A protege of Flaubert, Maupassant's short stories are characterized by their economy of style and their efficient effortless dénouement. He also wrote six short novels. A number of his stories often denote the futility of war and the innocent civilians who get crushed in it - many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 25, 2022
Maupassant's "Madame Husson's Rosier" speaks so much about care in doing good for good sake. This story speaks so much and reminds the reader to do good but to do so with much thought and care. This is one of my favorites. "A good deed is never lost."
Story in short- A gentleman looks up his friend and learns about why a drunk is a Madame Husson's Rosier.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16418
We had just left Gisors, where I was awakened to hearing the name of the town called out by the guards, and I was dozing off again when a terrific shock threw me forward on top of a large lady who sat opposite me. One of the wheels of the engine had broken, and the engine itself lay across the track. The tender and the baggage car were also derailed, and lay beside this mutilated
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16421
engine, which rattled, groaned, hissed, puffed, sputtered, and resembled those horses that fall in the street with their flanks heaving, their breast palpitating, their nostrils steaming and their whole body trembling, but incapable of the slightest effort to rise and start off again. There were no dead or wounded; only a few with bruises, for the train was not going at full speed. And we looked with sorrow at the great crippled iron creature that could not draw us along any more, and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16424
that blocked the track, perhaps for some time, for no doubt they would have to send to Paris for a special train to come to our aid. It was then ten o’clock in the morning, and I at once decided to go back to Gisors for breakfast. As I was walking along I said to myself: “Gisors, Gisors — why, I know someone there! “Who is it? Gisors? Let me see, I have a friend in this town.” A name suddenly came to my mind, “Albert Marambot.” He was an old
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16429
school friend whom I had not seen for at least twelve years, and who was practicing medicine in Gisors. He had often written, inviting me to come and see him, and I had always promised to do so, without keeping my word. But at last I would take advantage of this opportunity. I asked the first passer-by: “Do you know where Dr. Marambot lives?” He replied, without hesitation, and with the drawling accent of the Normans: “Rue Dauphine.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16433
I presently saw, on the door of the house he pointed out, a large brass plate on which was engraved the name of my old chum. I rang the bell, but the servant, a yellow-haired girl who moved slowly, said with a Stupid air: “He isn’t here, he isn’t here.” I heard a sound of forks and of glasses and I cried: “Hallo, Marambot!” A door opened and a large man, with whiskers and a cross look on his face, appeared, carrying a dinner napkin in his hand.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16438
I certainly should not have recognized him. One would have said he was forty-five at least, and, in a second, all the provincial life which makes one grow heavy, dull and old came before me. In a single flash of thought, quicker than the act of extending my hand to him, I could see his life, his manner of existence, his line of thought and his theories of things in general. I guessed at the prolonged meals that had rounded out his stomach, his after-dinner naps from the torpor of a slow indigestion aided by cognac, and his
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16441
vague glances cast on the patient while he thought of the chicken that was roasting before the fire. His conversations about cooking, about cider, brandy and wine, the way of preparing certain dishes and of blending certain sauces were revealed to me at sight of his puffy red cheeks, his heavy lips and his lustreless eyes. “You do not recognize me. I am Raoul Aubertin,” I said. He opened his arms and gave me such a hug that I thought he would choke me.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16445
“You have not breakfasted, have you?” “No.” “How fortunate! I was just sitting down to table and I have an excellent trout.” Five minutes later I was sitting opposite him at breakfast. I said: “Are you a bachelor?” “Yes, indeed.” “And do you like it here?” “Time does not hang heavy; I am busy. I have patients and friends. I eat well, have good health, enjoy laughing and shooting. I get along.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16451
“Is not life very monotonous in this little town?” “No, my dear boy, not when one knows how to fill in the time. A little town, in fact, is like a large one. The incidents and amusements are less varied, but one makes more of them; one has fewer acquaintances, but one meets them more frequently. When you know all the windows in a street, each one of them interests you and puzzles you more than a whole street in Paris. “A little town is very amusing, you know, very amusing, very
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16455
amusing. Why, take Gisors. I know it at the tips of my fingers, from its beginning up to the present time. You have no idea what queer history it has.” “Do you belong to Gisors?” “I? No. I come from Gournay, its neighbor and rival. Gournay is to Gisors what Lucullus was to Cicero. Here, everything is for glory; they say ‘the proud people of Gisors.’ At Gournay, everything is for the stomach; they say ‘the chewers of Gournay.’ Gisors despises Gournay,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16458
but Gournay laughs at Gisors. It is a very comical country, this.” I perceived that I was eating something very delicious, hard-boiled eggs wrapped in a covering of meat jelly flavored with herbs and put on ice for a few moments. I said as I smacked my lips to compliment Marambot: “That is good.” He smiled. “Two things are necessary, good jelly, which is hard to get, and good eggs. Oh, how rare good eggs are, with the yolks slightly reddish,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16463
and with a good flavor! I have two poultry yards, one for eggs and the other for chickens. I feed my laying hens in a special manner. I have my own ideas on the subject. In an egg, as in the meat of a chicken, in beef, or in mutton, in milk, in everything, one perceives, and ought to taste, the juice, the quintessence of all the food on which the animal has fed. How much better food we could have if more attention were paid to this!” I laughed as I said: “You are a gourmand?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16478
He stopped talking every now and then while he slowly drank a glass of wine which he gazed at affectionately as he replaced the glass on the table. It was amusing to see him, with a napkin tied around his neck, his cheeks flushed, his eyes eager, and his whiskers spreading round his mouth as it kept working. He made me eat until I was almost choking. Then, as I was about to return to the railway station, he seized me by the arm and took me through the streets. The town, of a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16482
pretty, provincial type, commanded by its citadel, the most curious monument of military architecture of the seventh century to be found in France, overlooks, in its turn, a long, green valley, where the large Norman cows graze and ruminate in the pastures.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16487
“My dear friend, it seems to me that you are affected with a special malady that, as a doctor, you ought to study; it is called the spirit of provincialism.” He stopped abruptly. “The spirit of provincialism, my friend, is nothing but natural patriotism,” he said. “I love my house, my town and my province because I discover in them the customs of my own village; but if I love my country, if I become angry when a neighbor sets foot in it, it is because I feel that my home is in danger, because the frontier that I do not know is the high road to my province. For
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16492
instance, I am a Norman, a true Norman; well, in spite of my hatred of the German and my desire for revenge, I do not detest them, I do not hate them by instinct as I hate the English, the real, hereditary natural enemy of the Normans; for the English traversed this soil inhabited by my ancestors, plundered and ravaged it twenty times, and my aversion to this perfidious people was transmitted to me at birth by my father. See, here is the statue of the general.” “What general?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16506
We were traversing along street with a gentle incline, with a June sun beating down on it and driving the residents into their houses. Suddenly there appeared at the farther end of the street a drunken
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16508
man who was staggering along, with his head forward his arms and legs limp. He would walk forward rapidly three, six, or ten steps and then stop. When these energetic movements landed him in the middle of the road he stopped short and swayed on his feet, hesitating between falling and a fresh start. Then he would dart off in any direction, sometimes falling against the wall of a house, against which he seemed to be fastened, as though he were trying to get in through the wall. Then he would suddenly turn
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16511
round and look ahead of him, his mouth open and his eyes blinking in the sunlight, and getting away from the wall by a movement of the hips, he started off once more. A little yellow dog, a half-starved cur, followed him, barking; stopping when he stopped, and starting off when he started. “Hallo,” said Marambot, “there is Madame Husson’s ‘Rosier’. “Madame Husson’s ‘Rosier’,” I exclaimed in astonishment. “What do you mean?” The doctor began to laugh.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Madame Husson looks to reward a pious young girl but finds none that would deserve the honor but a young man receives it and after a party with has him given alcohol and gifts of money, the taste of wine turns him into a drunkard for life. It is apparent that certain rewards can be the downfall especially when certain behaviors are not do to being good for good sakes but from lack of opportunities.
Story in short- A gentleman looks up his friend and learns about why a drunk is a Madame Husson's Rosier.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16418
We had just left Gisors, where I was awakened to hearing the name of the town called out by the guards, and I was dozing off again when a terrific shock threw me forward on top of a large lady who sat opposite me. One of the wheels of the engine had broken, and the engine itself lay across the track. The tender and the baggage car were also derailed, and lay beside this mutilated
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16421
engine, which rattled, groaned, hissed, puffed, sputtered, and resembled those horses that fall in the street with their flanks heaving, their breast palpitating, their nostrils steaming and their whole body trembling, but incapable of the slightest effort to rise and start off again. There were no dead or wounded; only a few with bruises, for the train was not going at full speed. And we looked with sorrow at the great crippled iron creature that could not draw us along any more, and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16424
that blocked the track, perhaps for some time, for no doubt they would have to send to Paris for a special train to come to our aid. It was then ten o’clock in the morning, and I at once decided to go back to Gisors for breakfast. As I was walking along I said to myself: “Gisors, Gisors — why, I know someone there! “Who is it? Gisors? Let me see, I have a friend in this town.” A name suddenly came to my mind, “Albert Marambot.” He was an old
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16429
school friend whom I had not seen for at least twelve years, and who was practicing medicine in Gisors. He had often written, inviting me to come and see him, and I had always promised to do so, without keeping my word. But at last I would take advantage of this opportunity. I asked the first passer-by: “Do you know where Dr. Marambot lives?” He replied, without hesitation, and with the drawling accent of the Normans: “Rue Dauphine.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16433
I presently saw, on the door of the house he pointed out, a large brass plate on which was engraved the name of my old chum. I rang the bell, but the servant, a yellow-haired girl who moved slowly, said with a Stupid air: “He isn’t here, he isn’t here.” I heard a sound of forks and of glasses and I cried: “Hallo, Marambot!” A door opened and a large man, with whiskers and a cross look on his face, appeared, carrying a dinner napkin in his hand.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16438
I certainly should not have recognized him. One would have said he was forty-five at least, and, in a second, all the provincial life which makes one grow heavy, dull and old came before me. In a single flash of thought, quicker than the act of extending my hand to him, I could see his life, his manner of existence, his line of thought and his theories of things in general. I guessed at the prolonged meals that had rounded out his stomach, his after-dinner naps from the torpor of a slow indigestion aided by cognac, and his
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16441
vague glances cast on the patient while he thought of the chicken that was roasting before the fire. His conversations about cooking, about cider, brandy and wine, the way of preparing certain dishes and of blending certain sauces were revealed to me at sight of his puffy red cheeks, his heavy lips and his lustreless eyes. “You do not recognize me. I am Raoul Aubertin,” I said. He opened his arms and gave me such a hug that I thought he would choke me.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16445
“You have not breakfasted, have you?” “No.” “How fortunate! I was just sitting down to table and I have an excellent trout.” Five minutes later I was sitting opposite him at breakfast. I said: “Are you a bachelor?” “Yes, indeed.” “And do you like it here?” “Time does not hang heavy; I am busy. I have patients and friends. I eat well, have good health, enjoy laughing and shooting. I get along.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16451
“Is not life very monotonous in this little town?” “No, my dear boy, not when one knows how to fill in the time. A little town, in fact, is like a large one. The incidents and amusements are less varied, but one makes more of them; one has fewer acquaintances, but one meets them more frequently. When you know all the windows in a street, each one of them interests you and puzzles you more than a whole street in Paris. “A little town is very amusing, you know, very amusing, very
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16455
amusing. Why, take Gisors. I know it at the tips of my fingers, from its beginning up to the present time. You have no idea what queer history it has.” “Do you belong to Gisors?” “I? No. I come from Gournay, its neighbor and rival. Gournay is to Gisors what Lucullus was to Cicero. Here, everything is for glory; they say ‘the proud people of Gisors.’ At Gournay, everything is for the stomach; they say ‘the chewers of Gournay.’ Gisors despises Gournay,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16458
but Gournay laughs at Gisors. It is a very comical country, this.” I perceived that I was eating something very delicious, hard-boiled eggs wrapped in a covering of meat jelly flavored with herbs and put on ice for a few moments. I said as I smacked my lips to compliment Marambot: “That is good.” He smiled. “Two things are necessary, good jelly, which is hard to get, and good eggs. Oh, how rare good eggs are, with the yolks slightly reddish,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16463
and with a good flavor! I have two poultry yards, one for eggs and the other for chickens. I feed my laying hens in a special manner. I have my own ideas on the subject. In an egg, as in the meat of a chicken, in beef, or in mutton, in milk, in everything, one perceives, and ought to taste, the juice, the quintessence of all the food on which the animal has fed. How much better food we could have if more attention were paid to this!” I laughed as I said: “You are a gourmand?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16478
He stopped talking every now and then while he slowly drank a glass of wine which he gazed at affectionately as he replaced the glass on the table. It was amusing to see him, with a napkin tied around his neck, his cheeks flushed, his eyes eager, and his whiskers spreading round his mouth as it kept working. He made me eat until I was almost choking. Then, as I was about to return to the railway station, he seized me by the arm and took me through the streets. The town, of a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16482
pretty, provincial type, commanded by its citadel, the most curious monument of military architecture of the seventh century to be found in France, overlooks, in its turn, a long, green valley, where the large Norman cows graze and ruminate in the pastures.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16487
“My dear friend, it seems to me that you are affected with a special malady that, as a doctor, you ought to study; it is called the spirit of provincialism.” He stopped abruptly. “The spirit of provincialism, my friend, is nothing but natural patriotism,” he said. “I love my house, my town and my province because I discover in them the customs of my own village; but if I love my country, if I become angry when a neighbor sets foot in it, it is because I feel that my home is in danger, because the frontier that I do not know is the high road to my province. For
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16492
instance, I am a Norman, a true Norman; well, in spite of my hatred of the German and my desire for revenge, I do not detest them, I do not hate them by instinct as I hate the English, the real, hereditary natural enemy of the Normans; for the English traversed this soil inhabited by my ancestors, plundered and ravaged it twenty times, and my aversion to this perfidious people was transmitted to me at birth by my father. See, here is the statue of the general.” “What general?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16506
We were traversing along street with a gentle incline, with a June sun beating down on it and driving the residents into their houses. Suddenly there appeared at the farther end of the street a drunken
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16508
man who was staggering along, with his head forward his arms and legs limp. He would walk forward rapidly three, six, or ten steps and then stop. When these energetic movements landed him in the middle of the road he stopped short and swayed on his feet, hesitating between falling and a fresh start. Then he would dart off in any direction, sometimes falling against the wall of a house, against which he seemed to be fastened, as though he were trying to get in through the wall. Then he would suddenly turn
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 16511
round and look ahead of him, his mouth open and his eyes blinking in the sunlight, and getting away from the wall by a movement of the hips, he started off once more. A little yellow dog, a half-starved cur, followed him, barking; stopping when he stopped, and starting off when he started. “Hallo,” said Marambot, “there is Madame Husson’s ‘Rosier’. “Madame Husson’s ‘Rosier’,” I exclaimed in astonishment. “What do you mean?” The doctor began to laugh.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Madame Husson looks to reward a pious young girl but finds none that would deserve the honor but a young man receives it and after a party with has him given alcohol and gifts of money, the taste of wine turns him into a drunkard for life. It is apparent that certain rewards can be the downfall especially when certain behaviors are not do to being good for good sakes but from lack of opportunities.
January 12, 2026
(Fre) Une histoire épique de patience et de vengeance.
March 9, 2019
Сборник рассказов. Все рассказы получились очень разными, некоторые забавные, некоторые наивные, некоторые с моралью. Все рассказы - этакие зарисовки из жизни, городской или деревенской, героями которых часто выступают самые обыкновенные люди. Вывод, который напрашивается сам собой по прочтению этой книги - времена изменились, а люди остались совершенно такими же, нами всё так же руководят те же страсти и мораль тоже осталась такой же.
May 17, 2025
3.82⭐
Le Rosier de Madame Husson 3.5⭐
AKA: Madame Husson’s "Rosier"; Madam Husson’s Rose-King; Madam Husson’s May King; An Enthusiast
The narrator, Raoul Aubertin stops off unexpectedly at the ancient town of Gisors in Normandy when his train breaks down just after passing it on its way to Rouen and calls upon an old friend Albert Marambot who lives there. Albert has become obese being a gourmand and is now excessively proud of his adopted town. After a very gastronomic lunch they visit the historic town and came upon a middle-aged man in the last stages of inebriety. Albert then colorfully recounts the story of the origin of the Rose King.
The fellow is called a ’Rosier’ (rose-king) because of a contest a very virtuous and strict leading lady of the town had organized to honor a ’Rosière’ (rose-queen), the town’s purest and most irreproachable young girl, with roses and the sizeable prize of 500 francs. However not a single girl in the town turned out to be above suspicion of having faulted, so they awarded the prize to a very timid and chaste 20-year-old boy who thus became Madame Husson’s ’Rosier’. However, the celebration didn’t turn out as expected since he took his reward and went off to Paris and became a drunkard.
Also included in this edition:
Un Échec [A Failure] 4⭐
Enragée? [Rabid] 4.5⭐
Le Modèle [The Model] 3.5⭐
La Baronne [The Baroness] 4.25⭐
Une Vente [A Sale] 3⭐
L'Assassin [The Assassin] 3.25⭐
La Martine [Martine] 4⭐
Une Soirée [A Queer Night in Paris] 4⭐
La Confession [The Confession #2] 3.5⭐
Divorce 4⭐
La Revanche [Revenge] 5⭐
L'odyssée d'une Fille [The Odyssey of a Street Girl] 3.5⭐
La Fenêtre [The Window] 3.5⭐
Le Rosier de Madame Husson 3.5⭐
AKA: Madame Husson’s "Rosier"; Madam Husson’s Rose-King; Madam Husson’s May King; An Enthusiast
The narrator, Raoul Aubertin stops off unexpectedly at the ancient town of Gisors in Normandy when his train breaks down just after passing it on its way to Rouen and calls upon an old friend Albert Marambot who lives there. Albert has become obese being a gourmand and is now excessively proud of his adopted town. After a very gastronomic lunch they visit the historic town and came upon a middle-aged man in the last stages of inebriety. Albert then colorfully recounts the story of the origin of the Rose King.
The fellow is called a ’Rosier’ (rose-king) because of a contest a very virtuous and strict leading lady of the town had organized to honor a ’Rosière’ (rose-queen), the town’s purest and most irreproachable young girl, with roses and the sizeable prize of 500 francs. However not a single girl in the town turned out to be above suspicion of having faulted, so they awarded the prize to a very timid and chaste 20-year-old boy who thus became Madame Husson’s ’Rosier’. However, the celebration didn’t turn out as expected since he took his reward and went off to Paris and became a drunkard.
Also included in this edition:
Un Échec [A Failure] 4⭐
Enragée? [Rabid] 4.5⭐
Le Modèle [The Model] 3.5⭐
La Baronne [The Baroness] 4.25⭐
Une Vente [A Sale] 3⭐
L'Assassin [The Assassin] 3.25⭐
La Martine [Martine] 4⭐
Une Soirée [A Queer Night in Paris] 4⭐
La Confession [The Confession #2] 3.5⭐
Divorce 4⭐
La Revanche [Revenge] 5⭐
L'odyssée d'une Fille [The Odyssey of a Street Girl] 3.5⭐
La Fenêtre [The Window] 3.5⭐
July 3, 2017
Didn't really understand it, which sadly is an indicator of how badly I've slacked off with my french studies than to the book itself. Didn't understand why it was so important for the drunk man to be virtuous, but I won't worry too much on that.
Read
July 19, 2023I only read "Enragée ? / Rabies?". What a unique short story! A recently wed woman on her honeymoon, and her relationship with her dog and her husband. This story feels very modern and unconventional and I've never read a plot like this one.
May 27, 2025
De las colecciones de cuentos de Maupassant este es en el que los temas sobre los que giran las narraciones son más escabrosos. La locura que acompañaria los dias finales del bueno de Guy parece estar ya anidando en la mente del artista.
April 12, 2018
Amusing story of a small town's self-appointed judge of morality, whose attempt to honor the town's most "virtuous" citizen backfires, and instead introduces him to excess.
July 20, 2023
Je le recommande vivement 😌👌🏻
September 5, 2024
Britten did it better
June 18, 2021
De mauvais goût.
January 19, 2017
Etonnant comme les sujets et le langage franc, mais pas obscène, dominent cette collection de contes sur la sexualité des gens. Plutôt utilisant la comédie ironique pour accueillir sa publique, Maupassant a créé quelques histoires hallucinantes et très divertissantes.
August 28, 2025
What is it that you want to reward? It is virtue, is it not, nothing else? What does it matter to you, then, whether it is male or female? Virtue is immortal, it knows neither country nor sex; it is simply Virtue.
Not as good as Boule de Suif, though it still has a unique framing device.
Not as good as Boule de Suif, though it still has a unique framing device.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews