The Last Lesson, Chapter 3 — Alphonse Daudet

Monsieur Hamel began to speak to us of the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world, the clearest and the most logical; that we must keep it among us and never forget it, because when a people fall into slavery, so long as they hold fast to their language, it is as if they held the key to their prison. Then he took a grammar and read us our lesson. I was amazed to see how well I understood it. All he said seemed easy, so easy. I believe I had never listened so well, and that he had never explained with so much patience.

After the grammar we had a lesson in writing. For that day Monsieur Hamel had prepared new copies, on which were written in a fine round hand: France, Alsace, France, Alsace. They looked like little flags floating about the schoolroom. How everyone worked, and in what silence! Nothing could be heard but the scratching of the pens upon the paper. Even the littlest ones laboured at their strokes as if these too were French. On the roof the pigeons cooed softly, and I said to myself, as I listened, 'Will they make those birds sing in German as well?' From time to time, when I lifted my eyes from my page, I saw Monsieur Hamel sitting motionless in his chair and gazing at one thing and then another, as if he wished to fix in his mind how everything looked in that little schoolroom. Think of it! For forty years he had been there in the same place, with his garden outside the window and his class before him. How it must have broken his heart to leave it all.

I was still thinking of this when I heard my name called. It was my turn to recite. But I got mixed up at the first words, and stood there holding my desk, my heart beating, not daring to lift my head. I heard Monsieur Hamel speaking to me. 'I will not scold you, little Franz; you feel bad enough. Every day we say to ourselves, "I have plenty of time. I will learn it tomorrow." And now you see where we have come. But you are not the worst, poor Franz. We have all a great deal to reproach ourselves with.' And all the while the lesson went on. The little ones chanted their ba, be, bi, bo, bu. There in the back of the room old Hauser had put on his spectacles, and, holding his spelling book in both hands, he spelled the letters with them. I could see that he, too, was crying; his voice trembled with emotion, and it was so strange to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and to cry. Ah, how well I shall remember that last lesson! All at once the church clock struck twelve, and then the bells of noon. At the same moment the trumpets of the Prussians, returning from drill, sounded under our windows. Monsieur Hamel stood up, very pale, in his chair. Never had he seemed to me so tall. 'My friends,' said he, 'my friends, I — I —' But something choked him. He could not finish the sentence. Then he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and, pressing on with all his might, he wrote as large as he could: 'Vive la France!' Then he stopped, and leaned his head against the wall, and, without a word, he made a gesture to us with his hand: 'That is all. You may go.'