LITTLE FRENCH MASTERPIECES [Illustration: PROSPER MÉRIMÉE From an etching] Prosper Mérimée’s Short Stories Carmen The Taking of the Redoubt The Venus of Ille, etc. Translated by George Burnham Ives With an Introduction by Grace King G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1909 COPYRIGHT, 1903 BY G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS The Knickerbocker Press, New York Contents PAGE PROSPER MÉRIMÉE ix CARMEN 3 THE TAKING OF THE REDOUBT 137 MATEO FALCONE 151 THE VENUS OF ILLE 181 Introduction Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870) The stories here presented are a selection from that brilliant series which shine like a constellation in French literature of the last century, blazoning Mérimée’s name across it. Each one has been tested and judged by successive generations of readers and critics. The authoritative appraisers of literary values, French and English, have been pronouncing upon them from the time of their publication until now, when they are still pronouncing upon them, as upon new productions. Their interest, nevertheless, is still fresh, their charm as attractive as ever, and inexplicable, as charm must be. The prediction that was made in their day having been fulfilled so far, it does not seem hazardous to renew it, at our own risk, that they may be placed alongside of those classics of fiction that meet so natural a soil in the human mind that we can no more foresee their ceasing to give pleasure to readers in course of time than we can foresee the flowers in the gardens ceasing to give pleasure to lovers of flowers. _Carmen_, with which the book begins, was the last one written of the series. It might, however, be said to antedate them all, for the first impulsive, perhaps instinctive, love of Mérimée’s imagination was for the passionate drama of Spain, and his first production, _The Plays of Clara Gazul_, was so vivid an imitation of it that it mystified the critics of the time, who had yet to learn the extreme susceptibility of Mérimée’s mind to exotic influences; a susceptibility that the author indulged, if he did not foster, throughout life.