Read "The Queen Pedauque" by Anatole France online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
My name is Elme Laurent Jacques Menetrier. My father, Leonard Menetrier, kept a cookshop at the sign of _Queen Pedauque,_ who, as everyone knows, wag web-footed like the geese and ducks.
His penthouse was opposite Saint Benoit le Betourne between Mistress Gilles the haberdasher at the _Three Virgins_ and M. Blaizot, the bookseller at the sign of _Saint Catherine,_ not far from the _Little Bacchus,_ the gate of which, decorated with vine branches, was at the corner of the Rue des Cordiers. He loved me very much, and when, after supper, I lay in my little bed, he took my hand in his, lifted one after the other of my fingers, beginning with the thumb, and said: