Parisian Points of View

To most American readers of fiction M. Ludovic Halévy is known chiefly, if not solely, as the author of that most charming of French novels, The Abbé Constantin. The novel had the rare good fortune of pleasing at once the broad public of indiscriminate readers of fiction and the narrower circle of real lovers of literature. Halévy had a very real gift -- and this collection, like The Abbé Constantin -- shows it in full flower, including such delightful Halévy tales as "Only a Waltz," "The Dancing-Master," "The Circus Charger," "Blacky," "The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris," "The Story of a Ball-Dress," "The Insurgent," "The Chinese Ambassador," and "In the Express."