Appetizers

A Year and a Day

Every day, we learn of a pearl necklace lost or found on the public highway. Pearl necklaces are of the nomadic nature of umbrellas, though they are less useful and proportionally less numerous. But, given the proportion of pearl necklaces to umbrellas, on the one hand, and the proportion of lost pearl necklaces to sold pearl necklaces, on the other, it seems that careless ladies lose their necklaces just as easily as absent-minded gentlemen scatter their umbrellas.
One of two things: either ladies don't care at all for their pearl necklaces; or pearl necklaces don't stay put at all around their owners' necks.
The first hypothesis stems from an element of feminine psychology: the more violently and ardently a woman has desired a person or an object, the more disdain and contempt she feels for that object once she has obtained it; She then drops the guy or object; the guy picks himself up, and usually someone is found to pick up the object... Now, of all objects, it is a pearl necklace that a woman desires most violently, until she has it.
In the second hypothesis, one might be surprised that modern science, assisted by industry, has not yet invented a trick, a system of fence or perfected padlock to secure the necklace to the neck... For finally, science, assisted by industry, has invented systems of clasps, laces, and garters so ingenious that a lady never loses her stockings, pants, or brassiere in public, unless she puts great effort into it. Perhaps we could discover the secret of this ingenious medieval clasp, the model of which is deposited in the Cluny Museum, and thanks to which, during the long period of the Crusades, no chastity belt was ever deposited at the lost and found office. From another perspective, pearl necklaces allow us to appreciate not only the selflessness of the people who lose them, but also the honesty of the people who find them.
We shouldn't say, "One is either honest or one is not." For, without being absolutely honest, one can be relatively honest, half-honest. There are many people like that...
There was, like that, the lady who, on March 18, 1924, found a necklace of 302 pearls on Rue de la Tour, lost by an American woman, and who, the day before yesterday, June 26, 1925, brought it to Mr. Labat, the police commissioner.
This lady had reversed the rule according to which a found object must be immediately entrusted to the police and, after a year and a day, returns to the finder, if it is not claimed by the person who lost it. Upside down... that is, in the right direction... Indeed, he who has lost something deserves to be punished for his carelessness. He who has found something deserves to be rewarded for his vigilance and perspicacity.
Therefore, the regulation should be understood as follows:
Any half-honest lady who finds a pearl necklace on the public highway will have the right to adorn herself with it for a year and a day. After which, she must return the necklace to its rightful owner. Any half-honest gentleman who finds a wallet on the public highway will have the right to use its contents for a year and a day, and to try his luck in order to make his fortune. If he succeeds, once the period has expired, he must return the sum to the rightful owner, plus interest... Of course, there are risks associated with gambling, women, and bankers. But the wallet runs the same risks in the hands of its rightful owner. And the legitimate owner, by scattering his wallet on the public highway, ran the much more serious risk that this wallet, instead of being found by a half-honest person, would be picked up by a not-so-honest person.
All reservations made for a project that I would like to submit in a friendly manner to Mr. Caillaux, which would deposit into the state coffers the contents of lost wallets and the proceeds from the sale of pearl necklaces lost daily by American women.
(The fact of losing something on the public highway should be considered a voluntary contribution or an anonymous effort at restitution.)
And then, after all, this project would only generalize the system applied to punters, or more precisely, to the outcasts of the racecourse.
Indeed, everything we lose at the races ends up, without hope of recovery, falling into the leaky state basket.

G. de la Fouchardière.