In spring 2007, the regional and national press revealed the story of Lydia Gouardo, raped and tortured for twenty-eight years by her father, by whom she bore six children. In this village outside Paris, this incest was common knowledge to all, in the hubbub of gossip, without anyone intervening. The journalists expressed their indignation at those inhabitants who “knew” but said nothing. Based on a year-long study in the village, this article proposes observations on how gossip is inscribed in local life and on the effects of a stuctural breakdown caused by national media and collective indignation, on the consideration of incest, representations of oneself and the other, as well as on modalities of knowledge.‪