It seems concerns about “moral values” are even seeping into “old Europe.” A report that appeared in Le Monde a few days ago detailed a bit of moral outrage over the resting place of Victor Noir in the graveyard of P�re-Lachaise in Paris. Noir was a journalist who was fatally wounded on 10 January 1870 in a duel with Pierre Bonaparte, an impulsive cousin of the then Emperor Napoleon III. Noir was just 22 when he died and he was elevated to martyr status by the anti-monarchists in France. (They actually didn’t have to wait too long: the Emperor was forced to abdicate following his ill-judged war against Prussia later that year.)When Noir’s body was transferred to P�re-Lachaise in 1891, his grave was graced by a striking sculpture by Am�d�e-Jules Dalou, which captures the young man just moments after receiving his lethal wound. If you look at a photo of the statue (see here, for example), you might notice a feature that Le Monde delicately describes as “Sa braguette est gonfl�e par un membre turgescent” (his fly is swollen by a tumescent member). As anyone who has read Melville’s Billy Budd might remember, sudden death can leave you rigid in unexpected ways.The reason why poor Noir’s crotch seems so burnished is that for over the last one hundred years, women who want to conceive a child or just improve their sex life have been rubbing Noir’s “membre turgescent” for good luck. (It helps that the romantic legend says that Noir married the night before the duel.) Other cemetery vistors have become scandalised by these furtive caresses, and the authorities have now erected (pun intended) an iron fence around the statue, along with a warning that “frottements ind�cents” (indecent rubbing) will be prosecuted. If you can’t engage in a bit of indecent frottements in a Paris graveyeard, what is the world coming to?