Monsieur Fenouillard (Agénor), a Parisian businessman now happily retired to Saint-Rémy-sur-Deule, was dying to see the Exhibition. Unfortunately, so was his wife. Now that he nothing much to do, Monsieur Fenouillard, though a good fellow at heart, was becoming insufferable. Thus, to Madame Fenouillard’s initial overtures he responded with a sharp and categorical refusal. His poor young daughters began clucking away like turkeys, but canny Madame Fenouillard mused to herself, “He’ll come around.” Indeed, eight days later, that fine lady had so cunningly manipulated him that both she and her daughters (Artémise and Cunégonde) found themselves installed aboard an excursion train, accompanied by Monsieur Fenouillard. Grunting, fuming and grouchy, he was still bent on dismissing everything as idiotic, though secretly not believing a word he was saying.
          They had been traveling for two hours when an enormous bundle fell from the luggage rack onto Monsieur Fenouillard’s sleeping head.

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CHRISTOPHE (pseudonym of Georges Colomb, 1856-1945) was one of France’s earliest and foremost cartoonists. His trio of masterpieces, La Famille Fenouillard, Le Sapeur Camember and Le Savant Cosinus are still available from the French publisher Armand Colin.

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François Caradec - Introducing The Fenouillard Family

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