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"Deux amis" or "Two Friends" is a short story by the French author
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...
, published in 1882. The story is set in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
during the
Franco-Prussian War, when the city lay under siege. The story examines French bravery, German stereotypes and, unusually for Maupassant, discusses the nature and justification of war in the form of a conversation between the two protagonists.
Algirdas Julien Greimas
Algirdas Julien Greimas (; born ''Algirdas Julius Greimas''; 9 March 1917 – 27 February 1992) was a Lithuanian literary scientist who wrote most of his body of work in French while living in France. Greimas is known among other things for th ...
has famously analysed the text's semiotic features in ''Maupassant'' (1976).
Plot
The story opens in Paris in January 1871, at the height of
the Siege of Paris, and introduces the main character, Monsieur Morissot, a
watchmaker who has enrolled in the
National Guard. Morissot, who is bored, hungry and depressed, is walking along the boulevard when by chance he bumps into an old friend, Monsieur Sauvage, a
draper from the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, with whom he used to go fishing before the war. The two old friends reminisce over several glasses of
absinthe
Absinthe (, ) is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from several plants, including the flowers and leaves of ''Artemisia absinthium'' ("grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. Historical ...
in a café, gain a ''
laissez-passer'' from their officer, and walk along the river to
Argenteuil
Argenteuil () is a Communes of France, commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, center of Paris. Argenteuil is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise Departments of France, ...
, a few miles west of the city, in the
no man's land
No man's land is waste or unowned land or an uninhabited or desolate area that may be under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dump ...
between the French and
Prussian lines. The two start fishing and when they see the nearby fortress of
Mont-Valérien firing at the Prussians, they start discussing the war, which turns into a friendly debate at the end of which they both agree that the war is a tragedy for both France and Prussia, and that as long as there are governments, there will be wars.
At this point, the two friends turn round to see four Prussian soldiers pointing their rifles at them. The two are captured and taken to a nearby island, where a Prussian officer makes them an offer: he explains that he can legally shoot them on the spot as spies, but that he will spare their lives and let them return to Paris if they give him the password they used to get through their own defense lines. The two heroically refuse to give him the password, even when the officer reminds them that their deaths will cripple their families. Realizing that they will not give him the password, the officer lines up his men into a
firing squad
Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French ''fusil'', rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are us ...
. The two friends shake hands and exchange a tearful farewell before they are executed. The German officer orders their bodies thrown into the river, and without showing any sign of emotion, orders a soldier to cook the two friends' fish, and returns to his chair to smoke his pipe.
Themes
Unlike Maupassant's other stories set during the war, "Deux Amis" is set in Paris rather than the provinces, where Maupassant spent the war. The tension between Paris and the provinces is hinted at in the story – Maupassant describes how Paris is starving, but that its inhabitants are simply sitting around drinking, unlike the inhabitants of the provinces who have to put up with the war, and the occupying Germans, on a daily basis.
The two French characters are portrayed heroically as brave, stoic Frenchmen who are bitterly opposed to the war. Maupassant uses the characters as mouthpieces for alternative political views – Monsieur Sauvage complains bitterly that the
Third Republic would never have declared war and that the war is the result of
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
's meddling, to which Monsieur Morissot replies that Napoleon's government saw war abroad, while the Republic sees war at home, reflecting the opposing Imperial and Republican political factions of France during the Franco-Prussian War. Maupassant also uses the characters as a mouthpiece for his views on the futility of the war; the characters' sadness on seeing Mont-Valérien shelling German soldiers reflects this, mourning the pointless loss of life in both countries, and that countless girlfriends, wives, mothers, and children in both France and Prussia will weep for the loss of their loved ones in a pointless war.
Despite mourning the loss of Prussian soldiers, Maupassant maintains his stereotyping of German soldiers in this story. While Maupassant is careful to develop the individual characters of Morissot and Sauvage, he portrays the German soldiers who capture the two as faceless men who do not count as individual human beings, but simply as stereotyped representatives of the German race. The officer, like German officers in Maupassant's other works, is portrayed as a cold-hearted, unfeeling
automaton
An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...
. He feels no compassion for the two men he has executed, and seems unable to empathise with them. The fact that he orders the fish to be fried alive, and that he returns calmly to smoking his pipe after the execution, enhances the image of a cold, inhuman barbarian, the
antithesis
Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together f ...
of the heroic Frenchmen who refuse to betray their fellow countrymen, and pay the ultimate price for their patriotism.
External links
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1882 short stories
Short stories by Guy de Maupassant
Franco-Prussian War fiction