TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: In the plain text version text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_), small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS and words in bold are represented as in =bold=. A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept. Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected. The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added to the public domain. * * * * * [Illustration: =Guy de Maupassant=] SHORT-STORY MASTERPIECES VOLUME I--FRENCH DONE INTO ENGLISH AND WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY J. BERG ESENWEIN _EDITOR OF LIPPINCOTT’S MAGAZINE_ THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL Springfield, Massachusetts 1912 Copyright 1911 and 1912--J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY Copyright 1912--THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS VOLUME I PAGE General Introduction: The French Short-Story 3 François Coppée and His Work 21 Story: The Substitute 33 Guy de Maupassant, Realist 53 Story: Moonlight 61 Alphonse Daudet, Man and Artist 71 Story: The Pope’s Mule 85 Prosper Mérimée, Impersonal Analyst 101 Story: The Taking of the Redoubt 113 Pierre Loti, Colorist 123 Story: The Marriage to the Sea 137 THE FRENCH SHORT-STORY In zest, movement, and airy charm, in glittering style, precise characterization, and compressed vividness, the French short-story is unsurpassed. German writers have excelled in the fantastic and legendary tale; Russians, in both mysticism and in unrestrained naturalism; British, in those subtle moral distinctions which reveal character under crucial stress; Americans, more or less in all these phases; but no nation has ever developed a school of story-tellers who say so much in so few words, and, withal, say it so artistically and pungently as do the French. There is a real distinction between a short-story in French and a French short-story. The latter implies a national genre, and indeed this implication is sustained by an examination of French shorter fiction.