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Paul Déroulède was a very unusual guy.  First of all, just the fact of having the same name as the late vengeful, villainous wrecker of the Commune of 1871 is, in itself, is a challenge.  Add to that his outstanding abilities as an inventor of genius and his crazy love for Casanis, (that nectar so appreciated during the long days of a heat wave) and you have a sketched image of this character. (At le Mouching we hope that the Casanis company, to whom we have rendered a lovely homage, will think about sending us the promised check, thank you).

That day at the Bar Mitzva, Paul was already on his 12th glass when he hailed me, quite decent number for him at 6:30 pm.

“Fleche, my good friend, come over here and sit with me for a moment, I have a story of capital importance to tell you.”

You can imagine that you don’t have to ask me twice when there is a story to glean; I quickly sat down and ordered, from the friendly waitress Gisele, a glass of “Guigal” Cotes-du Rhone, white, 2010.

On serving his 13th glass of Casanis, Paul said, “It’s no big secret that one of your many passions is fishing.  Well, it happens that I recently consulted a work that specializes in that field and I learned that the largest fish feed only after sundown.

“Assuredly, that is often the case!”

“Then to arm yourself with a flashlight that one can find in any shop is a simple thing, but dear Fleche, why do “simple” when one can do “complicated”?

“Voila that’s the kind of reasoning that I like!”

“Good. Cultivated as you appear to be, I am certain that you know all about the famous fireflies, which are also called lightening bugs or glowworms. I know that I’m not telling you anything, but this bug is not a worm, it is a coleoptere, an insect of the Lampyridae family, which is in the sub-family Lampyrinae, which comes from the greek “to shine”.   It’s the females of these glowworms that one finds easily on summer nights thanks to their brilliant posteriors.”

“My dear Paul, not a day passes that I fail to hear talk of the exciting luminous posterior of these animals!”

“Well then! The idea came to me to capture a good 50 of them with butterfly nets, which is a simple task and put them in a bottle that has a cord attached to its neck. Voila, an economical flashlight that will permit you to walk without falling down the riverbanks in the dark of night.”

Ah! Paul this idea is marvelous. How can it be that no one has thought of this before?”

“Contemporary laziness, a real curse… but hold on, my dear Fleche, the story isn’t finished, far from it.”

“After having found the right spot, it suffices to attach one of these charming beetles to your hook for the lusting fish to precipitate on them, like an asteroid on a ukranian. I can hear the brave trout saying in their fish language, finally we can see what we’re eating. What progress.

At this point in the conversation, Paul was on his 17th Casanis and I thought that it was time for me to slip away.