That exquisite little piece survived long the youthful volume of 'Les Amoureuses.' In those days, when Coquelin's monologues and _saynetes_ were yet unknown, the brothers Lionnet, then in the height of their vogue, delighted the drawing-rooms with the miniature masterpiece. Still, those who had prophesied the advent of a new poet were doomed to disappointment. Every one knows what Sainte-Beuve once said about the short-lived existence, in most of us, of a poet whom the real man is to survive. Shall we say that this was the case with Daudet, who never, as far as the world knows, wrote verses after twenty-five? No; the poet was not to die in him, but lived on and lives still to this day. Only he has always written in prose. After his successful debut, Daudet felt his way in different directions. In collaboration with M. Ernest Lepine, who has since made a reputation under the name of Quatrelles, he had a drama, 'The Last Idol' performed at the Odeon theatre,--at that same Odeon which in his first days of Paris seems to have been the centre of his life and of his ambitions. But he more frequently appeared before the public as a journalist and a humorist, a writer of light articles and short stories. Nothing can give a more true, more vivacious, and on the whole more favorable impression of the Daudet of the period than the 'Lettres de Mon Moulin' (Letters from My Windmill). They owe their title to an old deserted windmill where Alphonse Daudet seems to have lived some time in complete seclusion, forgetting, or trying to forget, the excitement of Parisian life. The preface, most curiously disguised under the form of a mock contract which is supposed to transfer the ownership from the old proprietor to the poet, and professes to give the _etat de lieux_ or description of the place, is an amusing parody of legal jargon. The next chapter describes the installation of the new master in the same happy vein, with all the odd circumstances attending it.