SHORT STORY CLASSICS
Reading edition
(FOREIGN)
VOLUME FOUR FRENCH I
EDITED BY William Patten
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
P. F. COLLIER & SON NEW YORK
Copyright 1907 By P. F. Collier & Son The use of the copyrighted translations in this collection has been authorized by the authors or their representatives. The translations made especially for this collection are covered by the general copyright
CONTENTS—VOLUME IV
PAGE
THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE Honoré de Balzac 1007
THE PRICE OF A LIFE Augustin Eugène Scribe 1049
NAPOLEON AND POPE PIUS VII Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny 1067
CLAUDE GUEUX Victor Marie Hugo 1083
A BAL MASQUÉ Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie Dumas 1105
HOW THE REDOUBT WAS TAKEN Prosper Mérimée 1121
THE VENDEAN MARRIAGE Jules Gabriel Janin 1131
THE MARQUISE George Sand 1149
THE BEAUTY-SPOT Alfred Louis Charles de Musset 1185
THE MUMMY’S FOOT Théophile Gautier 1237
CIRCÉ Octave Feuillet 1257
THE HANGING AT LA PIROCHE Alexandre Dumas, Fils 1269
THE DEAN’S WATCH Erckmann-Chatrian 1289
AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE Alphonse Daudet 1319
BOUM-BOUM Jules Claretie 1327
THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE
BY HONORÉ DE BALZAC
“The Unknown Masterpiece” is considered not only one of the finest of Balzac’s tales, but he himself considered it a valuable addition to his “Philosophical Studies.” Balzac, born at Tours, 1799, died at Paris, 1850, gives one the impression of father confessor to unfortunate women of the world and of the demi-monde—a Samuel Richardson, but with far deeper, broader sympathies. In Paris he lived a life of privation, writing volumes of unsuccessful things. The first novel that appeared under his own name was “The Last Chouan,” 1827; his first success “The Ass’s Skin,” 1830.
The idea of combining under the general title of “Comédie Humaine” that long series of great novels, which rose to their highest level in “Eugénie Grandet,” did not occur to him until later.
