« L’Ostrogoth »

Dargaud’s idea of publishing an illustrated triptych devoted to Georges Simenon, the creator of Commissaire Maigret, was an excellent one: three volumes retracing the biography of the master of the detective novel, his prodigious activity and extraordinary writing speed, his taste for adventure, and his daily life shared with the charismatic artist Régine, known as Tigy. As in Simenon’s own novels, the treatment is remarkable, transforming the real and the everyday into unique and vivid moments.

The work takes its title from what might sound like one of Captain Haddock’s oaths: “L’Ostrogoth.” In fact, it was the name of a sturdy cutter that Simenon had built at the Fécamp shipyards. Once delivered, he moored it at the Square du Vert-Galant in Paris and had it blessed in April 1929 by the parish priest of Notre-Dame. Georges Simenon and Tigy sailed north through Europe aboard the boat until 1931 — time enough for the prolific Belgian writer to flood publishers with pulp tales and novels written under pseudonyms, but above all to invent, during a forced stopover at Delfzijl in the Netherlands, the figure of Commissaire Maigret. Back in France, he moored L’Ostrogoth at Morsang, and the first novel he wrote there was Un crime en Hollande, in which Maigret investigates precisely at Delfzijl — a knowing nod from Simenon to his hero. L’Ostrogoth remained his writing place for the following novels until November 1930, when he decided to part with it. Of the twelve Maigret novels written by then, eight had been written aboard L’Ostrogoth.

This plate 78 is the last of the first volume, which ends precisely with the blessing of L’Ostrogoth and the celebration that follows.