Le Chapeau de Mitterand (The President’s Hat).
Many people are defined by their hat. Take Napoleon, for example.
Last month, on 19 November 2023, one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s black bicorne (two-cornered) hats – with a red, white, and blue cockade (the ribboned rosette of official office) – sold for a record price of nearly two million euros (USD $2.1 million) at a French auction. It was owned by French businessman Jean-Louis Noisiez, who died in 2022, and bought by a South Korean businessman.
It reminded me of a fictional book I read about French president MItterand’s hat.
Le Chapeau de Mitterand (2012) by French author Antoine Laurain was released in English in 2013, called The President’s Hat. It begins in Paris in November 1986.
Accountant Daniel Mercier is at the train station to greet his wife and son who have been on holiday in Normandy. Mercier is wearing President Francois Mitterand’s black felt Homburg hat.
The day before, he was at a restaurant and the president sat at the table next to him. When the president left, he forgot his hat. Instead of trying to return it, Mercier stole it.
The hat turns the quiet Mercier into a more confident man. Even his work colleagues notice his ‘calm demeanour, air of assurance, the extraordinary way he had of saying the unpalatable with the utmost tact … true class!’
Wearing the hat, touching the hat, and even having it close to him gives Daniel Mercier a feeling of authority and ‘immunity to the torments of everyday, life.’ It sharpened his mind and gave him the ability to make important decisions.
But one day he accidentally leaves the hat on the train. Fanny Marquant, a secretary in a regional tax office, boards the train. She is on her way to Paris for her regular meeting with a married man. It is raining and she sees the hat. Inside the hat are the initials F.M. – her initials. She wears it with her denim mini-skirt, high heels, and silver jacket. Wearing the hat makes her feel powerful, with an air of distinction.
Grey-bearded 52-year-old perfumier Pierre Aslan sees a black felt hat on a park bench. He is on his way to see his psychotherapist who is treating his depression. The smell of the hat is familiar – in fact, he can discern two scents. One scent is a man’s after-shave, and the other is a woman’s perfume: the perfume Pierre created eight years before.
Bernard Lavalliere is at a restaurant with his friends, where they argue about Francois Mitterand and politics. The cloakroom attendant gives him the wrong hat. If it weren’t for the hat, he would never have spoken to his neighbour and accepted an invitation to an art gallery exhibition. But one morning as he is buying his daily newspaper the hat is stolen right off his head.
Each story links the characters together through the president’s hat. And each person feels changed – in a positive way – just by wearing the hat; this hat; the president’s hat. ‘It had the power of destiny’ and each person’s destiny was changed – forever, and for the better.
Laurain’s writing is easily readable and wholly engaging, painting a picture of each character’s life and lifestyle as he or she undergoes a personal transformation that impacts their fate and fortune.
The intrigue dips in the middle as Daniel Mercier continues to find the hat – his hat – his lost hat. Nevertheless, the beginning and the ending are solid and enjoyable. Overall, it’s a wonderful novel about the sequence of decisions and actions that lead to important events in people’s lives. Just because of a hat.
Photographer: Martina Nicolls