In 1847, Maurice Sand – author George Sand’s son – began writing plays for puppets which he performed for his family and a few friends in Nohant (France).

Nous dînons chez le colonel is a “salty military” play in three tableaus (“the invitation to dinner”, “the torchlight retreat”, “the waking up, without drums or trumpets”). Using plays on words, mischievous tricks and scatological scenes, Maurice Sand makes fun of the political and military events of the time. Besides, he also plays with the names of the characters. For instance, the captains are called Vachard and Chiclair.

The play is set in Orleans in 1867. Madame Pétenvert (a widow) and Mademoiselle Euphémie are accommodating two captains – Vachard and Chiclair – for three months. They quickly fall in love with their guests and would like to marry them. However, the two captains take advantage of the situation and spend their time talking, in a light-hearted manner, about politics, the army and, at the same, about women, billiards and their love of good food.

One day, they are invited to dinner at the colonel’s house. The dinner ends with the two captains being drunk and getting the landladies’ houses mixed up. Thus, the two men being sick, captain Vachard spends the night with Mademoiselle Euphémie while captain Chiclair sleeps with Mademoiselle Pétenvert.

The following day, after leaving the houses, they both accuse each other of having disrespected them, because of the state of their slippers and of the beds. However, this conversation about honour ends up being a commentary on the night they have just spent with the two women.

The captains accuse the colonel of having treated them “too well” and the latter, in response, orders them to go back to their respective landladies and to marry them.