Les compagnons de la marguerite (1967)

The narrator, Flamand, tells the story of his colleague Matouzec, known as Matou, a manuscript restorer at the National Library who can imitate any handwriting for his work. Matou can no longer stand his wife, from whom he is different in every way—and she feels the same about him. A chance occurrence gives him the idea of finding a couple who are “complementary” to his own and falsifying the civil registers so that the husbands and wives can be swapped without getting divorced. He places an advertisement to find such a couple and sets the meeting on a tower of Notre-Dame, with a daisy in his buttonhole. The “customs and traditions police,” sensing a big case, sends Inspector Leloup. Leloup plays along with Matou in order to catch him, only to end up married to the former Mme Matouzec, while his own wife becomes the new Mme Matouzec. The epidemic spreads, beginning with Leloup’s superior, who becomes the husband of his colleague Papin’s wife. Papin, in turn, is delighted to inherit his own widowhood and leaves the police force. Requests pour in, and “Master Matou” becomes the leader of a secret society, the “Companions of the Daisy,” who scour town halls to form better-matched couples than the dreadful marriages already in place. Leloup and his colleagues, in all kinds of disguises, try for a long time to catch Matou in the act. They eventually succeed, but before his trial Matou manages to erase from the civil registers the existence of the only witness for the prosecution: Leloup. Since Leloup’s testimony is not legally on record, it has no value. To the cheers of a courtroom packed with the swapped spouses, who owe their happiness to him, Matou is set free.