The Rougiers
An old, ragged couple in the narrator's hotel who sold postcards on the Boulevard St Michel in sealed packets, as pornography. The photographs inside were of chateaux on the Loire, and the buyers never complained.
Enough for the next drink. In Orwell's account they spend a hundred francs a week and are still half starved, and the one thing they are shown actively pursuing is another glass in the bistro.
The book
At a glance
- The Hôtel des Trois Moineaux, rue du Coq d'Or
- Selling postcards on the Boulevard St Michel
- About a hundred francs a week
- Chapter I, among the hotel's eccentrics
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeThe Rougiers were an old couple who lodged at the Hôtel des Trois Moineaux, the cheap hotel in the rue du Coq d'Or where George Orwell was living when the Paris half of the book begins. He introduces them first among the hotel's eccentrics, as evidence for the claim he has just made: that poverty releases people from ordinary standards of behaviour the way money releases people from work.
Their trade was postcards, sold on the Boulevard St Michel in sealed packets and presented as pornographic. The photographs inside were of chateaux on the Loire. Orwell notes that buyers did not find out until too late and, of course, never complained. The two of them earned about a hundred francs a week, and by strict economy managed to be, in his phrase, always half starved and half drunk.
The filth of their room could be smelled on the floor below. Madame F., who kept the hotel, told Orwell that neither of the Rougiers had taken off their clothes for four years. They reappear once more, on the Saturday drinking nights in the bistro at the foot of the hotel, wandering in and out to cadge drinks and to press on anyone who would listen a long, involved story about someone who had once cheated them over a bedstead.
How the book draws them
- How the book describes themAn old, ragged, dwarfish couple, in the sentence that introduces their trade. Orwell gives them nothing else, and never describes one of them without the other.
- The postcardsSold sealed on the Boulevard St Michel, priced as pornography and containing photographs of chateaux on the Loire. The fraud was safe because no buyer would report it.
- The economyAbout a hundred francs a week between them, and strict economy applied to it. Orwell's summary is that they managed to be permanently half starved and half drunk.
- The roomBad enough that the smell reached the floor below. Madame F., the hotel's patronne, said neither of them had taken their clothes off in four years.
- In the bistroThey drifted in and out on Saturday nights, cadging drinks and trying to tell a rambling story about a man who had once cheated them over a bedstead.