🔥 ➡️ The Last Lesson By Alphonse Daudet - Short Story - Full Audiobook
Originally published in 1880, The Last Lesson By Alphonse Daudet is a poignant short story set in an unnamed town in Alsace during the early days of the Prussian occupation, around 1873.
00:00the last lesson by alphonse daudet i started for school very late that morning and was in great dread of a scolding especially because m hamel had said that he would question us on participles
00:18and i did not know the first word about them for a moment i thought of running away and spending the day out of doors it was so warm so bright the birds were chirping at the edge of the woods and in the open field back of the sawmill the prussian soldiers were drilling
00:37it was all much more tempting than the rule of participles but i had the strength to resist and hurried off to school when i passed the town hall there was a crowd in front of the bulletin board
00:51for the last two years all our bad news had come from there the lost battles the draft the orders of the commanding officer and i thought to myself without stopping what can be the matter now
01:05then as i hurried by as fast as i could go the blacksmith wachtner who was there with his apprentice reading the bulletin called after me don't go so fast bub you'll get to your school in plenty of time
01:21i thought he was making fun of me and reached m hamel's little garden all out of breath usually when school began there was a great bustle which could be heard out in the street
01:32the opening and closing of desks lessons repeated in unison very loud with our hands over our ears to understand better and the teacher's great ruler rapping on the table
01:44but now it was all so still i had counted on the commotion to get to my desk without being seen but of course that day everything had to be as quiet as sunday morning
01:57through the window i saw my classmates already in their places and m hamel walking up and down with his terrible iron ruler over his arm i had to open the door and go in before everybody you can imagine how i blushed and how frightened i was
02:14but nothing happened m hamel saw me and said very kindly go to your place quickly little franz we were beginning without you
02:24i jumped over the bench and sat down at my desk not until then when i had got a little over my fright did i see that our teacher had on his beautiful green coat his frilled shirt and the little black silk cap
02:40all embroidered that he never wore except on inspection and prize days besides the whole school seemed so strange and solemn but the thing that surprised me most was to see on the back benches that were always empty
02:58the village people sitting quietly like ourselves old hawser with his three-quartered hat the former mayor the former postmaster and several others besides
03:09everybody looked sad and hawser had brought an old primer thumbed at the edges and he held it open on his knees with his great spectacles lying across the pages
03:21while i was wondering about it all m hamel mounted his chair and in the same grave and gentle tone which he had used with me said
03:31my children this is the last lesson i shall give you the order has come from berlin to teach only german in the schools of alsace and lorraine the new master comes to-morrow this is your last french lesson i want you to be very attentive
03:51what a thunderclap these words were to me oh the wretches that is what they had put up at the town hall my last french lesson why i hardly knew how to write i should never learn any more i must stop there then
04:07oh how sorry i was for not learning my lessons for seeking birds eggs or going sliding on the tsar my books which had seemed such a nuisance a while ago so heavy to carry my grammar and my history of the saints were all old friends now and i couldn't give them up
04:26and m hamel too the idea that he was going away that i should never see him again made me forget all about his ruler and how cranky he was
04:37poor man it was in honor of this last lesson that he had put on his fine sunday clothes and now i understood why the old men of the village were sitting there in the back of the room
04:50it was because they were sorry too that they had not gone to school more it was their way of thanking our master for his forty years of faithful service and of showing their respect for the country that was theirs no more
05:05while i was thinking of all this i heard my name called it was my turn to recite what would i not have given to be able to say that dreadful rule for the participle all through very loud and clear and without one mistake
05:22but i got mixed up on the first words and stood there holding on to my desk my heart beating and not daring to look up i heard m hamel say to me i won't scold you little franz you must feel bad enough
05:38see how it is every day we have to say to ourselves bah i've plenty of time i'll learn it to-morrow and now you see where we've come out
05:48ah that's the great trouble with alsace she puts off learning until to-morrow now those fellows out there will have the right to say to you how is it you pretend to be frenchmen and yet you can neither speak nor write your own language
06:05but you are not the worst poor little franz we've all a great deal to reproach ourselves with your parents were not anxious enough to have you learn they preferred to put you to work on a farm or at the mills so as to have a little more money
06:22and i i've been to blame also have i not often sent you to water my flowers instead of learning your lessons and when i wanted to go fishing did i not just give you a holiday
06:35then from one thing to another m hamel went on to talk of the french language saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world the clearest the most logical that we must guard it amongst us and never forget it
06:51because when a people are enslaved as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison then he opened a grammar and read us our lesson
07:03i was amazed to see how well i understood it all he said seemed so easy so easy i think too that i had never listened so carefully and that he had never explained everything with so much patience
07:19it seemed almost as if the poor man wanted to give us all he knew before going away and to put it all into our heads in one stroke
07:30after the grammar we had a lesson in writing that day m hamel had two new copies for us written in a beautiful round hand france alsace france alsace
07:45they looked like little flags floating everywhere in the schoolroom hung from a rod at the top of our desks you ought to have seen how everyone set to work and how quiet it was
07:58the only sound was the scratching of the pens over the paper once some beetles flew in but nobody paid any attention to them not even the littlest one who worked right on tracing their fish hooks as if that was french too
08:13on the roof the pigeons cooed very low and i thought to myself will they make them sing in german even the pigeons
08:24whenever i looked up from my writing i saw m hamel sitting motionless in his chair and gazing first at one thing then at another as if he wanted to fix in his mind just how everything looked in that little schoolroom
08:38fancy for forty years he had been there in the same place with his garden outside the window and his class in front of him just like that
08:49only the desks and benches had been worn smooth the walnut trees in the garden were taller and the hop-vine which he had planted himself twined about the window to the roof
09:01how it must have broken his heart to leave it all poor man to hear his sister moving about in the room above packing their trunks for they must leave the country next day
09:14but he had the courage to hear every lesson to the last after the writing we had a lesson in history and then the babies chanted their ba-bee-bye-bo-boo
09:26down there at the back of the room old hawser had put on his spectacles and holding his primer in both hands spelled the letters with them you could see that he too was crying his voice trembled with emotion and it was so funny to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and cry
09:45ah how well i remember it that last lesson all at once the church clock struck twelve then the angelus
09:56at the same moment the trumpets of the prussians returning from drill sounded under our windows m hamel stood up very pale in his chair i never saw him look so tall
10:11my friends he said i-i but something choked him he could not go on then he turned to the blackboard took a piece of chalk and bearing on it with all his might he wrote as large as he could vive la france
10:28then he stopped leaned his head against the wall and without a word he made a gesture to us with his hand school is dismissed you may go
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