[105.]--14. tretous. A dialectic survival of an Old French form (in Old French trestot, trestout, etc., are at times used for tout, etc.; the word is derived from très and tout).
28. qu'il était. The uneducated are fond of introducing que in phrases where it is unnecessary. Other dialectic peculiarities in this paragraph which have not been noted are: pu de chinquante for plus de cinquante, the Picard dialect resembles the Italian in the pronunciation of the soft c, on the other hand the French ch is pronounced in the Picard dialect as hard c (k), vache becoming vaque; itou is another instance of a dialectic survival of an Old French word (in Old French itel, "such, similarly, also," occurred, formed on analogy with icel=celui; itel and tel, icel and cel were used without difference of meaning, i is a relic of the Latin ecce originally added to the word for the sake of emphasis); li is for lui. The following errors in syntax occur in this passage: The first sentence should read, Je revenais un soir, alors qu'il était peut-être dix heures, le lendemain après que vous étiez venus (or arrivés) ici. After the phrase, Je me dis, read, Autant de fois qu'ils me prendront vingt écus, autant de fois je leur revaudrai ça. De sorte or a similar phrase should be supplied before qu'il n'entendit, also before qu'il n'a pas seulement dit.
[109.]--2. pu, pus. Both stand for plus, the spelling of the latter form represents the frequent pronunciation of s in plus when it stands before a pause.
8. l'Empereur premier. For Napoléon Premier.
16. où que. Que is superfluous; after chez mé (l. 17), insert de sorte or de telle façon.
27. le vieux. See note to p. 93, l. 4.
32. toute coupée. In this construction tout does not take the feminine form if the following adjective begins with a vowel (tout ancienne, etc.).
ALPHONSE DAUDET
Nîmes, 1840--Paris, 1897
Daudet has given the impressions and the experiences of his early life in the two volumes with which he established his reputation: Le Petit Chose and Lettres de Mon Moulin; in the former he describes the struggles of his boyhood, and in the latter the customs and legends of his native Provence. The books which he published later are of a different character, marked by the influence of the Naturalistic School, but unlike the other members of this school, he was endowed with a spontaneous, sympathetic nature, which enabled him to feel what he described. Thus while de Maupassant describes with the greatest art what he observes, Daudet sympathetically describes what he observes and feels. He had too much originality ever to come completely under the influence of the Naturalists. His short stories usually deal with some incident of the Franco-Prussian War (Le Siège de Berlin, La Dernière Classe, La Vision du Juge de Colmar, etc.) or with life in the Midi (Lettres de Mon Moulin). Le Curé de Cucugnan and Le Sous-Préfet aux Champs are taken from Lettres de Mon Moulin (1869), the remaining three stories of the collection are taken from Contes du Lundi (1873). His best novels are given in the following list; in these he has often been compared with Dickens and Thackeray.