THE LAST LESSON

[Alphonse Daudet, A celebrated French writer of the présent day. Born

at Nîmes in 1840. His literary fanie rests chiefly on his novels — Lettres

de mon Moulin, Contes du Lundi (from which this story is taken), Jack,

Tartarin de Tarascon, etc. He is also knovi^n as a dramatist].

La dernière Classe is the story of an Alsatian boy who describes the last day

of school under the French master who had been ordered to leave in order to

make room for the German master sent by the (^erman Government on the

cession of Alsatia to Germany after the war of 1870. The object of the aulhor

is to stir the patriotism of his French readers.