INTRODUCTION

ANDRE Theuriet is stiU living, now in his seventyfourth year. His literary activity has received the best appreciation of his countrymen, winning him a seat in the French Academy. He possesses the gift, rare, though strangely so, of making books out of very simple elements — ordinary people leading transparent lives in the midst of quiet surroundings, usually in the country. The complex, noisy life of crowded centers of population, social upheavals, or the extreme and abnormal of any sort are not necessary for his effects. There is no better way of introducing the reader to him and what is most distinctive in him than to quote a few passages from some of his friendly critics.

Jules Lemaitre {Les Contemporains ^ Vol. V) in a

very sympathetic appreciation of Theuriet writes:

«Je ne sache pas de livres qui, plus souvent

que ceux de M. Theuriet, aient ravivé en moi les

chères impressions d'enfance.*

«Mais M. André Theuriet est assurément le meilleur peintre, le plus exact et le plus cordial à la fois, de la petite bourgeoisie française, mi-citadine et mi-paysanne; et comme cette classe sociale est la