# Maître Hauchecorne — Short Fiction character guide

> Maître Hauchecorne in Short Fiction by Guy de Maupassant.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Hauchecorne

**First appearance:** 0003-short-fiction

## Snapshot

A Normandy peasant whose reputation is destroyed by a pocketbook he never picked up.

## Who they are

Maître Hauchecorne is a small, careful man of the Norman countryside, the sort whose good name is his only capital. When a pocketbook is found and he is accused of having taken it, his protests, his gestures, and his very way of telling the truth become evidence against him. The story follows the slow, grinding machinery of gossip and suspicion as it closes around a man who has done nothing — and cannot make anyone believe it.

## In the story

### [The String](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/the-string)

The protagonist, a peasant from Bréauté, who picks up a piece of string and is falsely accused of theft, leading to his obsession with proving his innocence and his tragic death.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/characters/maitre_hauchecorne
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/characters