that in his opinion no man can be a good husband unless he has sown his wild oats before marriage. In Kernanigous's view, before marrying, a young man should have been on intimate terms with three distinct categories of the opposite sex: chambermaids, demi-mondaines and married women. Unknown to his adoring mother, Gaston has already attended to the first two of the items on Kernanigous' list – having slept with his mother's maid, Toinette, and moved on to Aurélie de Villecouteuse – and he is looking forward to engaging in the third. Kernanigous' attractive wife Diane seems to him an ideal subject. She, having discovered her husband's relationship with Amélie, is disposed to take her revenge by a liaison with Gaston. Gaston and a friend are being coached for the legal profession by an eccentric tutor called Pétillon. When he should be lecturing, he encourages his students and their girlfriends to dance a cancan of the wildest kind. The Baron suddenly makes an appearance to demand what is the meaning of the music. The women are bundled out of sight and Pétillon convinces the Baron that he has discovered "une méthode mnémotechnique", an infallible way of cramming legal facts into the heads of his students: he has set the legal code to music, and he gives the Baron an example, singing some dry legal dictums to the tunes of popular songs. Gaston's exploits lead to a frantic farcical sequence in Hennequin's customary manner: the characters rush in and out, hide, and are mistaken for others. Finally it turns out that Aurélie is Pétillon's estranged wife, and he is delighted to find that her infidelities mean that he can discontinue his ruinous maintenance payments to her. The Baron reproaches his erring son when the latter's affairs are revealed, but Gaston successfully bids his father remember his own misspent youth, and all is forgiven. Kernanigous gives his consent to Gaston's marriage with Mathilde. Reception Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique noted the enthusiastic reception, and welcomed a real success for the Gymnase after a prolonged series of failures. The Paris correspondent of the London theatrical paper The Era wrote that the play "deserves a niche in the Panthéon of dramatic works alongside those already assigned to the Procès Veauradieux and the Dominos Roses, as one of the most laughter-provoking pieces ever placed on the stage". The critic singled out the