Maurice Sand – author George Sand’s son – began writing puppet plays in 1847 to perform them for his family and a few friends in Nohant (France). Le Flageolet was played under the title Le Danger des malles à cadenas (The Hazard of padlocked trunks) in April 1863 in Nohant. It is the first play published in the collection Le Théâtre des marionnettes (1890) which gathered a small selection of plays written for this theatre. A handwritten copy is kept in the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (Fonds Maurice Sand, H334).

Le Flageolet shows comic characters competing to marry Dorothée, the daughter of the innkeeper. Arthur Graboyos, a flageolet player, is willing to do anything to marry the young woman.

In Jeu-Maloches, a village in the French department of Indre, flageolet player Arthur Graboyos became a waiter at the inn Hôtel du Veau Qui Désire Téter (Hotel of the Calf That Wants To Suckle) in order to grow closer to Dorothée – the daughter of the innkeeper Friturin. Arthur and Dorothée both want to marry each other, but Friturin refuses to let an artist marry his daughter. Arthur is expecting a donation from an uncle in America. Bidet – the postman – brings a letter of marriage proposal to Friturin. Bidet himself would also like to marry Dorothée; however, she rejects him. The shipowner Chandelle, who sent Friturin the letter to offer his nephew to Dorothée, arrives at the hotel with an enormous trunk filled with pepper.

Friturin dismisses Arthur after they quarrel. The latter comes back disguised as a cook and hides in Chandelle’s trunk to abduct Dorothée during the night. But the trunk snaps shut on him with a padlock. Several misunderstandings and quarrels happen one after another – Dorothée believes that Chandelle is Arthur in disguise, Friturin mistakes Chandelle for Arthur and Chandelle does not understand that Arthur is his nephew because he assumed the name Graboyos for his career as a musician.

Arthur comes out of the trunk and makes himself recognised. All the misunderstandings are clarified and Chandelle gifts Arthur forty thousand French francs so that he can marry Dorothée.