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The drawing depicts a cook standing in front of a lottery office, holding a grocery basket, while counting on her fingers. The legend reads: \u201c5sous <\/sup>sus l\u2019poisson\u2026 10sous <\/sup>sus l\u2019dinde\u2026 ma mise ne s\u2019ra pas cons\u00e9quente\u201d [5 sous on the fish\u2026 10 sous on the turkey\u2026 my stake will not be of consequence\u201d All translations into English are my own.]. We see her trying to figure out how much she can take off her grocery expenses without being caught stealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A poster to the left seemingly advertising for a \u201cCaisse d\u2019\u00c9pargne\u201d, a savings bank, provides a significant historical and sociological marker here. Established in 1818 by liberal, philanthropic bankers, who sought to procure the modest classes with a way to escape poverty, the institution of the savings bank was presented as the antithesis of the lottery, as a more secure investment of one\u2019s savings. This new institution lacked, however, the seductive power of the lottery, with its promise of sudden, exuberant wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This difference in lustre is the topic of Maz\u00e8res and Romieu\u2019s 1823 vaudeville-comedy Le Bureau de loterie <\/em>[The Lottery Office], in which the cook Jos\u00e9phine scorns the savings bank and dreams of nothing but winning the lottery: \u00ab Chut. Parlez-moi de la loterie.. ! Voil\u00e0 une bonne chose.. ! Au lieu que votre caisse d\u2019\u00e9pargne\u2026 \u00bb[2]<\/a> [Hush. Talk to me about the lottery! There is a good thing! Whereas your savings bank\u2026] Jos\u00e9phine also steals from her employer, in order to \u201cnourish\u201d four numbers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jos\u00e9phine: \u201cVous savez bien que depuis long-temps je nourris quatre num\u00e9ros.[3]<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Loquet : \u201cOui\u2026 ; et pour les nourrir vous prenez sur le d\u00eener de vos ma\u00eetres\u2026 vous enflez le m\u00e9moire\u2026 et les quaternes passent sur le beurre et les l\u00e9gumes\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Jos\u00e9phine : \u201cYou know that I have for a long time been nourishing four numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Loquet: \u201cYes\u2026; and to nourish them you take from the dinner of your masters\u2026 you inflate the budget\u2026 and the quaterne <\/em>[the four numbers] go from the butter and the vegetables.\u201d]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n The expression \u201cnourrir des num\u00e9ros\u201d, to nourish the numbers, had become a common expression in the era of the French national lottery, to describe the practice of repeatedly playing a set of favourite numbers. In this comedy, the expression joins with the commonplace of the thieving cook to form the pun of Jos\u00e9phine\u2019s interlocutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The character of the cook appears not only on stage and in visual form, but also in prose fiction, as a representative of the modest classes playing the lottery and dreaming of a better life. She is, more often than not, depicted with sympathy and humour, despite her tendency to take money from her employers to play. In a short story written by the prolific feuilletoniste <\/em>Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Souli\u00e9, \u201cLa Ni\u00e8ce de Vaugelas\u201d [Vaugelas\u2019s niece], the narrator\u2019s cook also represents the modest aspirations of the common people, whose dreams are restricted by their own social horizon. The short story references the abolition of the French Loterie Royale, killing the dreams and illusions of the players:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Car ils nous l\u2019ont tu\u00e9e, notre loterie ; ils nous l\u2019ont tu\u00e9e \u00e0 nous tous, \u00e0 moi, \u00e0 vous, \u00e0 lui, et \u00e0 ma cuisini\u00e8re aussi, \u00e0 Rosalie, qui ne r\u00eave ni ch\u00e2teaux, ni parcs, ni \u00e9quipages, mais qui r\u00eave qu\u2019elle aura une cuisini\u00e8re et que cette cuisini\u00e8re ne volera pas. Nobles illusions, je vous dis adieu pour elle et pour moi ![4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [For they killed it, our lottery; they killed it for of all of us, for me, for you, for him, and for my cook also, for Rosalie, who dreams neither of palaces, nor parks, nor carriages, but who dreams of having a cook and that this cook will not steal. Noble illusions, I bid you farewell from her and from me!]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Not only is Rosalie dreaming primarily of having someone else cook for her, but she also, somewhat ironically perhaps, hopes that her cook doesn\u2019t <\/em>steal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A final example of an author taking an interest in the commonplace of the lottery-playing cook is the great sociological observer, Honor\u00e9 de Balzac. He references the figure in two novels, in both cases discussing the effect of the abolition of the lottery, and its relationship to the savings bank. The first occurrence is in the 1837 novel La Maison Nucingen <\/em>[The Firm of Nucingen], in which the character Blondet deplores an abolition that has not solved the problem of domestic theft, only aggravated it: \u201cVous supprimez stupidement la Loterie, les cuisini\u00e8res n\u2019en volent pas moins leurs ma\u00eetres, elles portent leurs vols \u00e0 une Caisse d\u2019\u00c9pargne, et la mise est pour elles de deux cent cinquante francs au lieu d\u2019\u00eatre de quarante sous\u201d [You stupidly abolish the Lottery, the cooks do no less steal from their masters, they carry their thefts to the Savings Bank, and the stake is for them at a hundred and fifty francs instead of forty sous][5]<\/a>. Balzac develops the image and the argument further in the novel La Cousine Bette <\/em>(1846-1847):<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dans tous les m\u00e9nages, la plaie des domestiques est aujourd\u2019hui la plus vive de toutes les plaies financi\u00e8res. [\u2026] L\u00e0 o\u00f9 ces femmes [les cuisini\u00e8res] cherchaient autrefois quarante sous pour leur mise \u00e0 la loterie, elles prennent aujourd\u2019hui cinquante francs pour la caisse d\u2019\u00e9pargne. Et les froids puritains qui s\u2019amusent \u00e0 faire en France des exp\u00e9riences philanthropiques, croient avoir moralis\u00e9 le peuple ![6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [In every household, the plague of servants is today the most lively of all financial plagues [\u2026] Where these women [the cooks] used to look for forty sous for their stake at the lottery, they take today fifty francs for the savings bank. And the cold puritans who amuse themselves by doing philanthropic experiments in France, they believe that they have moralised the people!]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The figure of the cook, as we see her in Midy\u2019s drawing, on stage, or in prose fiction, thus appears both as intimately linked to the historical phenomenon of the lottery and stretching beyond it, always seeking somewhere or something in which to invest her dreams of a different life. All these examples attest, nonetheless, to the cook being, in the early nineteenth century, an emblematic figure for the lottery, a representative for the modest player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> See https:\/\/www.museedelaloterie.be\/collection\/la-cuisini\u00e8re<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> Edouard-Joseph-Ennemond Maz\u00e8res and Auguste Romieu, Le Bureau de loterie, com\u00e9die-vaudeville en un acte<\/em> (Paris: J.-N. Barba, Libraire, 1823), scene V, p. 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> Le Bureau de loterie, <\/em>scene V, p. 11\u201312.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a> Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Souli\u00e9, \u201cLa Ni\u00e8ce de Vaugelas\u201d, in Un \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 Meudon <\/em>(Brussels: J.P. Meline, 1836), p. 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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