is the most satisfying: it is here that the distinctive
products of his genius are to be sought; and it is on these stories, with
a few from later collections, and on "Tartarin de Tarascon," that his
claim to immortality will finally rest. It is here that we find several of
his most excellent stories: "Le Secret de maitre Cornille", "La Chevre de
M. Seguin", "La Mule du pape", "Le Cure de Cucugnan", "L'Elixir du
reverend pere Gaucher" and others.

[Footnote 1: Daudet did not live in the mill which he has made famous, but
he spent there "de longues journees"; he never owned it, but the deed
which serves so picturesquely as preface to his book is not entirely
apocryphal. See "Trente Ans de Paris," p. 164.]

In 1865, at the death of Morny, he gave up his secretaryship and applied
himself exclusively to literature.

In 1866 he met Julie Allard, and early the next year they were married. To
his wife, a lady of exquisite taste, Daudet owed unfailing encouragement
and competent, sympathetic criticism.

"Le Petit Chose," his first long work, had been begun in 1866 during his
stay in Provence; it was published in 1868. The first part, which is of
great interest, is largely autobiographical and covers the childhood and
youth of the writer up to his first years in Paris; the second part is a
colorless romance of no particular merit. Daudet himself confessed that
the work had been written too soon and with too little reflection. "I wish
I had waited," he said; "something good might have been written on my
youth".[1]

[Footnote 1: See "Trente Ans de Paris," pp. 75, 85, and Sherard, "Alphonse
Daudet," p. 301.]

"Tartarin de Tarascon" was written in 1869.

Success and happiness had crowned Daudet's efforts. He was spending his
time in all tranquility, now at Paris, now at Champrosay, where he
occupied the house of the painter Delacroix. Suddenly in July, 1870, the
war cloud burst. Daudet lay stretched out on his bed fretfully nursing a
broken leg. On his recovery he shouldered his gun and joined in the
hopeless defense of Paris.

It was the war that killed the old Daudet and brought into existence the
new. Before the war, Daudet himself confesses it, he had lived free from
care, singing and trifling, heedless of the vexing problems of society and
the world, his heart aglow with the fire of the sun of his native
Provence. The war awakened in our sensitive poet a seriousness of purpose
which harmonized but little with his nativ