Le Petit Chose (part 1) Histoire d'un Enfant   By: Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897)

Siepmann's Advanced French Series

General Editors { OTTO SIEPMANN { EUGÈNE PELLIASSIED

LE PETIT CHOSE

(HISTOIRE D'UN ENFANT)

PAR

ALPHONSE DAUDET

PART I LE PETIT CHOSE EN PROVINCE

ADAPTED AND EDITED BY S. TINDALL, M.A. ASSISTANT MASTER OF BRADFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1921

COPYRIGHT

First Edition April 1911

PREFATORY NOTE

In this volume appear two new appendices, which will also be added to all others of our Series: (1) Questionnaires , which are not meant to usurp the teacher's freedom in viva voce practice of the language, but to select for attention certain questions, so that their answers may be carefully prepared by the pupils after the portions of the text to which they refer have been read through. If this is done the viva voce practice will gain in definiteness and precision without in the least preventing spontaneous questions being asked ad libitum . (2) Sujets de Rédaction , which are intended to offer something better than the usual subjects set for "Free Composition," and have the supreme advantage of being connected with the work in hand. Sufficient guidance is given to enable every pupil to deal with the topic in a sensible manner; but at the same time there remains ample scope for the exercise of ingenuity and imagination, and the effort of composition cannot fail to test and to cultivate a faculty for giving expression to whatever knowledge the pupil has gathered in his reading. Whether these subjects are to be handled viva voce or in writing must be left to the decision of the teacher.

CONTENTS PAGE

INTRODUCTION... ix

TEXT... 1

NOTES... 105

APPENDICES BY THE GENERAL EDITORS

I. WORDS AND PHRASES FOR VIVA VOCE DRILL... 133

II. QUESTIONNAIRE... 142

III. SENTENCES ON SYNTAX AND IDIOMS FOR VIVA VOCE PRACTICE... 156

IV. PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION INTO FRENCH... 169

V. SUJETS DE RÉDACTION... 177

INTRODUCTION

Alphonse Daudet was born at Nîmes on May 13, 1840. The Daudets were of lowly origin. Alphonse's grandfather, a simple peasant, had in 1789 settled at Nîmes as a weaver. His business prospered so much that he died leaving a small fortune; Vincent Daudet, his fourth son, and a young man of great ambition, was determined to rise out of the class in which he was born and acquire for himself and family a high social status. In 1830 he married, greatly against the wishes of her parents, Adeline Reynaud, whose father owned the largest silk manufactory in the town.

His affairs were fairly flourishing when he was suddenly ruined by the Revolution of 1848. Unable to meet his liabilities, he sold his business and removed to Lyons with his wife and children. He was, however, anxious that his sons, of whom Alphonse was the third, should have the best education his scanty means would allow, and Alphonse and his elder brother Ernest the "mère Jacques" of Le Petit Chose and his lifelong companion were first sent to the monastic school of St. Pierre, and then to the Lyons Lycée.

Young Alphonse, who from his birth had been rather delicate, was not a model boy. He loved to play truant, and it was only through his brother Ernest, who, to get him out of many a scrape, wrote notes to his teacher signed in his father's name, that he escaped punishment. But he showed signs of great promise. He learned his lessons in half the time that his school fellows did, was always at the top of his class, and was gifted with a marvellous power of observation. He composed several poems amongst others La Vierge à la Crèche and Les Petits Enfants , also a novel, all of which were declared by his master to have been amazing productions for a boy of his age.