“The Venus of Ille” the author thought to be his best story. It is notable--as all of Mérimeé’s stories are--for its perfect local color, as well as for its subtle air of the weird. It is one of the classic “ghost” stories of the world--a tale of supreme distinction. It is also, structurally, the author’s most perfect short-story. M. de Peyrehorade unearths a bronze statue of a woman, which is thereafter known as The Venus of Ille. From the beginning this statue is feared by the peasantry, for when it was dug up it fell upon and broke the leg of a workman. Peyrehorade’s son Alphonse is betrothed to a wealthy girl. On their wedding day, while playing tennis, he removes from his hand the bride’s diamond ring and places it on the finger of the statue. On arriving at the home of the bride-to-be, he discovers the absence of the ring, but replaces it with another, without mentioning the incident. After the wedding he returns with his bride to his father’s home and tries to remove the ring from the hand of the Venus; but her fingers are now bent and he cannot. That night the terrified bride hears the Venus enter their bed-chamber and lie down beside her. Thinking it to be her husband, she makes no comment. But presently the husband does come in and lies down upon the bed. Whereupon the bronze Venus crushes him to death in her embrace and then moves away as she came. In “Arsene Guillot” (1844), Mérimée’s masterpiece of pathos, he has given freer rein to his sympathies, and the result is a tenderly moving tale illustrating the virtue of tolerance. In early manhood Mérimée spent long stretches in Spain, there absorbing rich material for his stories. “Carmen”--the story on which Bizet founded his opera--is the greatest of these. It was published in 1845, and in length is almost a novelette. Don José Lizzarrabengoa, Navarrese, and corporal in a cavalry regiment, meets at Seville the gypsy, Carmen. While taking her to prison for a murderous assault on another woman, he is induced to connive at her escape, and is punished by being reduced to the ranks. Through jealous infatuation for her, he kills his lieutenant, and joins a band of smugglers of which Carmen is the leading spirit. In a duel with Garcia, her _rom_, or husband, Don José kills Garcia, and becomes in his turn the _rom_ of the fascinating gypsy. Jealous of every man who sees her, Don José offers to forget everything if she will go with him to America. She refuses--for the sake of another lover, as he believes--and he threatens to kill her if she persists. She answers that it is so written, and that she has long known it, but that “free Carmen has been, and free she will always be.” Don José does kill her, buries her in the woods, and rides to Cordova, where he delivers himself to the authorities. But it is now time to look particularly at one of Mérimée’s earlier tales--written when he was but twenty-six--“The Taking of the Redoubt.”