Sans confession

Just finished re-reading the Maigret short story at reference 1, with the reading yesterday leaving me puzzled about what the point of it was. With the answer being in two parts. First, to paint a portrait of a policeman who doesn't get on, who is grumpy and who has lots of bad luck. Including a bad tempered wife. A policeman  who is actually a very good policeman and for whom Maigret feels sorry. Second, to explain how much what Maigret really likes doing is tramping around some quartier in Paris, soaking up a crime and its context. Not the sort of thing a senior policeman ought to be doing at all. But in this case, Maigret feels so sorry for Inspector Grumpy that he almost leaves him to get on with it, rather than taking it over, which is what he really wants to do.

Two new expressions.

First, 'sourd comme un pot'. Which I now think translates directly to the English phrase 'deaf as a post'. I had been confused by a pot now being a pot or container. Quite possibly the pot used to make soup (potage), quite possibly with vegetables from the vegetable garden (potager). With poteau being post as in goal post and poste being more or less the rest of the meanings for the English 'post'. Confused to the extent of thinking that it was a funny coincidence that the French talked about being as deaf as a pot while we talked about being as deaf as a pot. Whereas the story actually seems to be that the French phrase uses the old version of poteau.

Second, 'donner [someone] le bon Dieu sans confession'. Which can often simply be rendered as trusting someone. While being an allusion to the fact that you are not supposed to meet God, that is to say take Holy Communion, if you are not in a state of grace, which usually meant you need a cleansing confession first. But if you looked as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, looked like the picture of innocence, maybe one could take a chance and skip the confession bit.

Bing turned up an example, in translation, from a speech by Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport–Montmorency–Côte-de-Beaupré–Île-d'Orléans, BQ [Bloc Québécois]) during a debate in the Canadian House of Commons: 'The minister is being very naive. We almost want to give him communion without confession, as people used to say when I was young and folks still used those expressions derived from our Judeo-Christian tradition. We would almost be tempted to do so. I would also like him to think about that'. Doesn't sound that different from the sort of nonsense you get in our own House of Commons.

PS: clear from both Bing and Google that this confession phrase is widely used in France and that I have failed to properly grasp the full range of its meaning. With Google turning up this bar in a sea-side town in Brittany called Saint-Quay-Portrieux.

Reference 1: Maigret et l'Inspecteur Malgracieux - Simenon - 1946. Volume XII of the collected works.

Reference 2: Les Nouvelles Enquêtes de Maigret. Published by Edito-Service of Geneva. Printed in Italy. With the present story being in the fifth of six smart, orange covered paperbacks. A collection of short stories sandwiched between the more substantial pre-war Maigrets and post-war Maigrets. Bought when I failed to find Volume IX of the collected works on eBay, with which there is considerable overlap.

Reference 3: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/37-1/house/sitting-198/hansard.