I was spending the Spring at Sienna. Occupied all day long with meticulous researches among the city archives, I used after supper to take an evening walk along the wild road leading to Monte Oliveto, where I would encounter in the twilight huge white oxen under ponderous yokes dragging a rustic wain with wheels of solid timberÑall unchanged since the times of old Evander. The church bells knelled the peaceful ending of the day, while the purple shades of night descended sadly and majestically on the low chain of neighbouring hills. The black squadrons of the rooks had already sought their nests about the city walls, but relieved against the opalescent sky a single sparrow-hawk still hung floating with motionless wings above a solitary ilex tree. I moved forward to confront the silence and solitude and the mild terrors that lowered before me in the growing dusk. The tide of darkness rose by imperceptible degrees and drowned the landscape. The infinite of starry eyes winked in the sky, while in the gloom below the fireflies spangled the bushes with their trembling love-lights. These living sparks cover all the Roman Campagna and the plains of Umbria and Tuscany, on May nights. I had watched them in former days on the Appian Way, round the tomb of C¾cilia MetellaÑtheir playground for two thousand years; now I found them dancing the selfsame dance in the land of St. Catherine and of Pia de' Tolomei, at the gates of Sienna, that most melancholy and most fascinating of cities. All along my path they quivered in the bents and brushwood, chasing one another, and ever and anon, at the call of desire, tracing above the roadway the fiery arch of their darting flight. On the white ribbon of the road, in these clear Spring nights, the only person I used to encounter was the Reverend Father Adone Doni, who at the time was, like myself, working in the old Academydegli Intronati. I had taken an instant liking for the Cordelier in question, a man who, grown grey in study, still preserved the cheerful, facile humour of a simple, unlettered countryman. He was very willing to converse; and I greatly relished his bland speech, his cultivated yet artless way of thought, his look of old Silenus purged at the baptismal font, the play of his passions at once keen and refined, the strange, alluring personality that informed the whole man. Assiduous at the library, he was also a frequent visitor to the marketplace, halting for choice in front of the peasant girls who sell oranges, and listening to their unconventional remarks. He was learning, he would say, from their lips the trueLingua Toscana.

I Jean Servien was born in a back-shop in the Rue Notre-Dame des Champs. His father was a bookbinder and worked for the Religious Houses. Jean was a little weakling child, and his mother nursed him at her breast as she sewed the books, sheet by sheet, with the curved needle of the trade. One day as she was crossing the shop, humming a song, in the words of which she found expression for the vague, splendid visions of her maternal ambition, her foot slipped on the boards, which were moist with paste. Instinctively she threw up her arm to guard the child she held clasped to her bosom, and struck her breast, thus exposed, a severe blow against the corner of the iron press. She felt no very acute pain at the time, but later on an abscess formed, which got well, but presently reopened, and a low fever supervened that confined her to her bed. There, in the long, long evenings, she would fold her little one in her one sound arm and croon over him in a hot, feverish whisper bits of her favourite ditty: The fisherman, when dawn is nigh, Peers forth to greet the kindling sky…. Above all, she loved the refrain that recurred at the end of each verse with only the change of a word. It was her little Jean's lullaby, who became, at the caprice of the words, turn and turn about, General, Lawyer, and ministrant at the altar in her fond hopes.

Winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize for Literature, Anatole France was a French poet, journalist and novelist, whose works were celebrated for their nobility of style and profound human sympathy. For the first time in publishing history, this comprehensive eBook presents France’s complete fictional works, with numerous illustrations, many rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to France’s life and works * Concise introductions to the novels and other texts * ALL 16 novels, with individual contents tables * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * All the novels, including all four volumes of A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES, available in no other collection * Excellent formatting of the texts * All the shorter fiction, with rare tales appearing here for the first time in digital print * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry and the short stories * Easily locate the poems or short stories you want to read * Includes France’s seminal historical study of Joan of Arc * Special criticism section, with 8 essays and articles evaluating France’s contribution to literature * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: The Novels THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN HONEY-BEE THAÏS AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PÉDAUQUE THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD THE RED LILY A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES I: THE ELM-TREE ON THE MALL A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES II: THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES III: THE AMETHYST RING A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES IV: MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS A MUMMER’S TALE THE WHITE STONE PENGUIN ISLAND THE GODS ARE ATHIRST THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS The Shorter Fiction JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT BALTHASAR AND OTHER WORKS MOTHER OF PEARL THE WELL OF SAINT CLARE CLIO CRAINQUEBILLE, PUTOIS, RIQUET AND OTHER PROFITABLE TALES THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNEBROCHE THE SEVEN WIVES OF BLUEBEARD AND OTHER MARVELLOUS TALES CHILD LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY MISCELLANEOUS STORIES The Short Stories LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Plays CRAINQUEBILLE THE COMEDY OF A MAN WHO MARRIED A DUMB WIFE COME WHAT MAY The Poetry LIST OF POETICAL WORKS The Non-Fiction THE LIFE OF JOAN OF ARC The Criticism ANATOLE FRANCE — 1904 by Joseph Conrad ANATOLE FRANCE by Arnold Bennett HOMAGE TO ANATOLE FRANCE by John Galsworthy ANATOLE FRANCE by John Cowper Powys ANATOLE FRANCE by Robert Lynd THE WISDOM OF ANATOLE FRANCE by John Middleton Murry ANATOLE FRANCE by George Brandes ANATOLE FRANCE by Winifred Stephens Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles