Jean

In the quiet hours after midnight, the narrow streets of Saint‑Antoine are brushed by a silvery moon that seems to light every corner of the world. Inside a modest shop‑turned‑bedroom, François Durand, a forty‑year‑old herbalist, wakes to his servant’s frantic cries: his wife, Félicité, is in labor. The scene is painted with the scent of drying roots and the cluttered shelves of medicinal plants, hinting at Durand’s lifelong devotion to nature’s secrets.

As he scrambles to summon a midwife, Durand reflects on the odd timing of the birth—night rather than day—and on the contrast between the predictable laws of herbs and the unpredictable rhythm of human life. His quiet, scholarly world is suddenly thrust into the urgent, chaotic reality of impending parenthood, setting the stage for a story that blends Parisian street life, familial duty, and the subtle humor of a man more at home among plants than in the throes of emotion.