CONTENTS
A PIECE OF BREAD By Francois Coppee
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE By Honore De Balzac
THE AGE FOR LOVE By Paul Bourget
MATEO FALCONE By Prosper Merimee
MY NEPHEW JOSEPH By Ludovic Halevy
A FOREST BETROTHAL By Erckmann-Chatrian
ZADIG THE BABYLONIAN By Francois Marie Arouet De Voltaire
ABANDONED By Guy De Maupassant
JEAN MONETTE By Eugene Francois Vidocq
SOLANGE—DR. LEDRU’S STORY OF THE REIGN OF TERROR By Alexandre Dumas
THE BIRDS IN THE LETTER-BOX By Rene Bazin
JEAN GOURDON’S FOUR DAYS By Émile Zola
BARON DE TRENCK By Clemence Robert
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA By Henry Murger
THE WOMAN AND THE CAT By Marcel Prevost
GIL BLAS AND DR. SANGRADO By Alain Rene Le Sage
A FIGHT WITH A CANNON By Victor Hugo
THE LAST LESSON By Alphonse Daudet
CROISILLES By Alfred De Musset
THE VASE OF CLAY By Jean Aicard
The young Duc de Hardimont happened to be at Aix in Savoy, whose waters he hoped would benefit his famous mare, Perichole, who had become wind-broken since the cold she had caught at the last Derby,—and was finishing his breakfast while glancing over the morning paper, when he read the news of the disastrous engagement at Reichshoffen.
He emptied his glass of chartreuse, laid his napkin upon the restaurant table, ordered his valet to pack his trunks, and two hours later took the express to Paris; arriving there, he hastened to the recruiting office and enlisted in a regiment of the line.
In vain had he led the enervating life of a fashionable swell—that was the word of the time—and had knocked about race-course stables from the age of nineteen to twenty-five. In circumstances like these, he could not forget that Enguerrand de