Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
A fairly easy text for practice reading French, although it does involve a nice array of past tenses (simple past, pluperfect, and imperfect). From Jules Verne’s Vingt mille lieues sous la mer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
Le bon petit Henri (Nouveaux contes de fées)
Sophie Rostopchine (aka the Countess of Ségur) is at her moralistic best in this story about a brave little boy who will stop at nothing to save his sick mother. Luckily for him, he has the Fairy Bienfaisante to help him on his way.
Une Visite médicale
A humorous dialogue that skewers the French haute-bourgeoisie and also makes fun of a certain kind of French doctor.
Berlioz vs. Cherubini
The amazing story of how the famous composer Berlioz was, before he was famous, chased around a library table by the at the time much more famous Cherubini. With glosses to the French text and English translation.
First Holy Communion and First Musical Experience
In the first chapter of his Mémoires, Berlioz amusingly relates the experience of his First Communion, which was also the occasion of an early appreciation of the opposite sex and a first memorable musical impression: mystic, erotic, and melodic all in one.
