M. Boursin

M. Boursin is a court supplier whose plans for the captive sea people turn them into specimens to be assessed and meat to be served. Nervous about spoilage, eager for royal favor, and insistent on the value of his presentation, he repeatedly presses for a chance to butcher them. His role exposes the practical and culinary logic that competes with Marie-Josèphe’s attempts to protect Sherzad and the King’s eventual decision to spare her.

Identity and first appearance

When Louis XIV arrives to inspect the captive sea monster, M. Boursin comes in with the royal entourage carrying an old book. The narration marks him as nervous and physically distinctive: white lace at his collar and cuffs frames his prominent Adam’s apple, bony wrists, and skeletal hands. His entrance is not that of a detached observer. Before the cage is opened, he is already anxious that the creature may be dead or spoiled, and says he should have butchered it the previous day while it was still fat. He describes the possibility of losing it as ruinous, establishing the specimen’s value to him as both an opportunity and a perishable resource.

The King’s arrival places Boursin among people whose judgments matter. Count Lucien, Yves, and the Academy gentlemen bow; the gout-stricken Louis XIV struggles from his wheeled chair with help from the Chevalier de Lorraine and Count Lucien. Boursin carries his book into this assembly, where his practical proposal will receive royal attention. His anxiety does not keep him from seeking that attention: once the sea woman is visible, he presents his plans to the King as a discovery of perfection, and Louis XIV responds with approval.

Plans for the sea monster

Boursin’s proposal combines display with consumption. At the King’s request, he asks Marie-Josèphe to throw a fish into the water so the sea woman will leap and he can estimate her. He watches her greedily, while Marie-Josèphe looks at him and the King in disbelief. The scene makes clear that Boursin’s interest is not simply whether the captive can be shown to visitors. He wants to assess her as material for a royal dish.

To support butchering, Boursin invokes the Church’s classification of sea monsters as fish and their supposed suitability for Fridays. He also argues that the flesh is said to be succulent like meat, proposing a small pâté for the King’s supper. The argument turns classification into permission: if the captive is a fish, Boursin can present her as acceptable food, while her perceived rarity makes her a dish fit for the monarch. His proposed menu makes the royal audience and the animal’s body part of the same project of presentation.

Boursin also considers how the meat should be prepared. When Monsieur produces something that provokes Marie-Josèphe’s sneezing, Boursin asks to take the creature, explaining that the meat must hang or it will taste gamy. Count Lucien challenges the premise of immediate slaughter. If the sea monster is not human, he argues, it is a beast; Boursin himself has raised the Church’s judgment that sea monsters are fish, and killing it that day would leave the flesh spoiled before the King’s banquet. Boursin’s practical concern with hanging the meat thus meets a rival calculation: the banquet schedule makes slaughter a poor way to serve the King.

The promise of a banquet

Boursin’s pursuit of a sea-person dish becomes more urgent when Sherzad is being taken toward the water. He runs ungainly down the Green Carpet, calling for permission to butcher her. Marie-Josèphe refuses, insisting that Sherzad has until midnight. Boursin protests that the King promised him a thousand louis if his presentation surpassed Charlemagne’s banquet. The reward is conditional on impressing the King, and Boursin treats the approaching deadline as a threat to both his proposed feast and his promised payment.

Marie-Josèphe answers that Sherzad has promised the King something greater: treasure in exchange for freedom. Boursin does not accept that these aims must be alternatives. He suggests that Louis XIV may want both the treasure and the meat. The remark captures his effort to preserve his own plan even as the King’s promise to Sherzad gives her a claim to life. When Boursin presses for her immediate delivery, Marie-Josèphe says she has nowhere to go because she cannot walk and can only swim. He sets a precise demand for her return, insisting on midnight and then one minute past, before leaving with the workmen and their slings, nets, and staves.

Reversal at the royal banquet

The dispute returns before the banquet, when Sherzad sings her death song and Marie-Josèphe cannot stop the sound. Louis XIV calls for Boursin and orders him to take and butcher the creature. Boursin, however, points out that the banquet is almost beginning and there is no time to prepare the dish. Earlier he had feared losing the specimen through spoilage; now the King’s command arrives too late for the meal he had proposed. His repeated anxiety about timing gives his scenes a pointed reversal: he has urged slaughter when there was time to plan, but cannot make the dish ready when royal authority finally orders it.

The balance changes when the treasure is presented. Louis XIV closes his hand around the Aztec gemstones and Spanish gold, then declares that the sea monster will keep her life. He begins to address Count Lucien before correcting himself and telling Boursin that he will reward him as promised and that he may retire. The ending separates Boursin’s promised reward from the fate of the captive: the King can honor his commitment to the supplier without granting him the body he sought to serve.

Character and narrative role

Boursin’s scenes are organized around a collision between appetite, schedule, and royal favor. His old book and claim to have found perfection lend his proposal the form of a plan, but its practical details repeatedly return to estimation, spoilage, preparation, and payment. He does not control the outcome; he must persuade the King, compete with Lucien’s objections, and contend with Marie-Josèphe’s insistence that Sherzad’s reprieve be respected.

His characterization is consequently defined less by a sustained account of his private life than by the changing terms on which he approaches the captive. He first fears that a dead or spoiled specimen will ruin him; later he hurries after Sherzad because the King’s reward depends on a successful presentation; finally, he cannot prepare the dish in time and leaves the throne room after Louis XIV chooses the treasure and Sherzad’s survival. Boursin’s brisk commercial calculations sharpen the contrast between treating a sea person as food and recognizing her claim to freedom. His retreat does not resolve that conflict in general, but it marks the defeat of his particular plan.