The novel begins with a striking premise: "It was while going to vote for Pompidou that Brother Grégoire encountered sin." Defying the superior of his abbey, he votes communist and then goes to live on love and fresh saint-pourçain. Nevertheless, Grégoire Quatresous, formerly an agricultural worker, does not abandon his calling: in the joyful local dialect, he celebrates the divine blessings of this world, even founding a Rabelaisian abbey. A whole rural and spirited France, resistant to the cursed progress, comes back to life. "This Trappist with a good-natured face, wrote Brassens, La Fontaine and Marcel Aymé would have loved him as a brother." So let us revisit this funny fable, this epic farce, this now-forgotten treasure of popular literature. And let us give thanks to René Fallet.
René Vallet Knihy
