Les Deux Nigauds

Two country children learn the hard way that the city of their dreams is not the paradise they imagined. Innocent and Simplicie Gargilier, aged fourteen and twelve, live comfortably in Brittany but pester their parents endlessly to be allowed to go to Paris. Exasperated, Monsieur Gargilier decides to grant their wish for a single season, certain that a taste of the capital will teach them to appreciate the pleasant rural life they take for granted. Innocent is to board at a school while his sister stays with their formidable aunt, Madame Bonbeck, and their devoted maid Prudence accompanies them. From the first leg of the journey, mishaps pile up, and along the way they cross paths with two impoverished but kindly former Polish soldiers who help them out of scrapes. Naive, vain, and ill-prepared, the pair make themselves ridiculous at every turn in a city that exposes their faults without mercy. Written for children by the Comtesse de Segur, the story is a humorous and pointedly moral tale in praise of country virtues, ending with two chastened children only too happy to go home.