During the war of 1870, ten travellers leave Prussian-occupied Rouen in the same stagecoach: local worthies, two nuns, a democrat and a prostitute nicknamed Boule de Suif. She is the only one who shares her food. But at an inn, a Prussian officer detains them and sets his conditions.
This is the story that made Maupassant famous: with irony, he shows what fine principles are worth when everyone is thinking of themselves. Around it, the volume gathers eleven other stories about money, marriage and little middle-class arrangements.
Short and lively, they can be read one by one in the language you are learning.
