The Horse Without a Head by Paul Berna

First published:Le Cheval sans tete, 1955 (English translation, A Hundred Million Francs, 1957, 1959)

Type of work: Mystery

Themes: Friendship, poverty, crime, and animals

Time of work: Post-World War II

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Louvigny, a suburb of Paris, France

Principal Characters:

• Gaby Joye, the gang’s leader, who is fun-loving and somewhat reckless
• Marion Fabert, a loving, intuitive girl, who cares for and wins the loyalty of all the stray dogs in the neighborhood
• Fernand Douin, the young owner of the wooden horse
• Criquet Larique, ,
• Amelie Babin, ,
• Zidore Loche, ,
• Tatave, ,
• BonBon Louvrier, ,
• Juan Gomez, and
• Berthe Gedeon, the seven other children in the gang
• Inspector Sinet, the shrewd police inspector, who first distrusts and later befriends the children
• Roublot, the sallow, dishonest stallkeeper

The Story

The Horse Without a Head is a mystery adventure that examines childhood loyalties and delights, as well as childhood frustrations. The natural playfulness and curiosity of children is well conveyed through the child characters. Their frustrations focus primarily on the attitudes adults have toward children: They either are condescending or treat the children as if their concerns were unimportant. The twists and turns of the story unfold through the eyes of the young protagonists, beginning with Fernand Douin, the proud owner of a headless wooden horse on wheels. Rescued from the dump, the horse’s hollow body is still sturdy enough for all ten children in the group to ride. They take turns coasting wildly down a sloping street in the center of their poor, working-class neighborhood.

The children are led by the impetuous twelve-year-old Gaby Joye, who is the eldest. An important member is Marion Fabert, whose kindness has earned for her the devotion of every stray dog in the neighborhood and the deep respect of her friends. Other members, such as Criquet Larique, the African, and Juan Gomez from Spain, add ethnic and cultural diversity to the group, and reveal Paul Berna’s intent to comment on children’s natural acceptance of people who are different.

The horse is badly smashed in a mishap one day; Fernand leaves it propped by his front door while the children go to the Thursday market to buy sweets. There, they notice that Roublot, the crooked stallkeeper, is uncharacteristically nervous; they also notice Inspector Sinet following two other men. This chance sighting piques the children’s interest and is followed by an encounter the next day: The children spy Roublot meeting two thugs in a cafe; Inspector Sinet is not far behind. It appears that an investigation is taking place.

Fernand’s father returns from the welder’s with the repaired horse. He is troubled because a rough-looking stranger on the street offered him first five thousand, then ten thousand, francs for it. The children are angered yet intrigued, and they vow to protect their possession at all costs. A series of confrontations follow in which the two thugs, Ugly and Pepe, repeatedly try to buy, cajole, and steal the horse away from the children. Marion even sets her dogs upon the men in an attempt to scare them away. Meanwhile, the children puzzle over why the horse could be of such value to the men.

Finally, however, the thieves succeed in snatching the horse from a moving truck. Crushed and forlorn, the children seek justice from Inspector Sinet, who reluctantly agrees to see them. He is preoccupied by a case of grand theft from the Paris-Ventimillia express, and is both bored and bemused by this tale of a wooden play horse with no head. He listens indifferently until Gaby mentions the thugs and their offers of money. It is then that Inspector Sinet agrees to help the children, even though his real interest does not lie in the horse.

Soon afterward, Roublot breaks into Fernand’s house one evening, rifles the drawers and cupboards, and demands to know what was found inside the horse. Then Inspector Sinet mysteriously walks in the door just after Roublot has bolted and demands to know what Roublot was after. Fernand is frightened and confused.

When the children meet in their hideaway to try to figure it out, Fernand recalls the night his father emptied the horse’s belly before taking it to the welder’s for repair. Pressed by his friends for a list of the belly’s contents, he remembers one item in particular: a rusty iron key. The key turns out to belong to an abandoned factory where carnival trinkets and props were made. Littered with masks, streamers, and fireworks, the factory warehouse is a perfect playground for the children, who meet there each night to explore the contents and revel in the costumes.

Pepe, Ugly, and Roublot discover their secret place and also know about the key that will let them in. The climax of the story finds the children in the factory strewn with confetti and gags, fighting off the entrance of the thieves, still wondering what the men are after. As the thieves break down the last set of inner doors, the children hurl smoke bombs from behind a barricade, and Marion arrives with her dogs, who are set upon the thieves. An alarmed Inspector Sinet, who had been following the men, walks into the battle. Roublot and the others are soon subdued by his officers. Sinet searches the factory and, in a small storeroom, finds what the thieves had previously hidden: one hundred million francs from the Paris-Ventimillia express. Ironically, the children thought the cash was play money, a carnival gag. As it turns out, one of the men had hidden the key in the horse’s belly as it lay upon Fernand’s doorstep, in a frantic attempt to conceal the whereabouts of the cash while he was being pursued by Inspector Sinet.

In the end, the children become local heroes and the best of friends with Inspector Sinet. Best of all, their horse is discovered along with its head in the same scrapyard from which it had originally been saved.

Context

Paul Berna has written some twenty novels for children and young adults. The Horse Without a Head won France’s Grand Prix Litteraire du Salon de l’Enfance in 1955 and is still considered by many to be his best book. Many of his stories are mysteries or cleverly plotted suspense stories. The Horse Without a Head is both, and a good example of his work. It has fast action, a slowly unfolding riddle, and numerous characters, many of whom are children with adult qualities. Berna’s child characters are drawn with an apparently vast respect for the integrity and intelligence of young people. Marion is one such example of a near-adolescent whose childhood innocence lingers, yet whose sensitivity and forthrightness in her dealings with others marks her as having a maturity with which children her age are rarely credited. Most critics laud Berna’s excellent characterizations: the credibility and individuality of his child portraits. The Horse Without a Head, with its ten children ranging in age from preschoolers to twelve-year-olds, provides one such example.