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                      CHEFS D'OEUVRE
                            DU
                    ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN

                         REALISTS




[Illustration: Chapter XXI

_Jupillon was a true Parisian: he loved to fish with a pole and line._

_And when summer came they stayed there all day, at the foot of the
garden, on the bank of the stream--Jupillon on a laundry board resting
on two stakes, pole in hand, and Germinie sitting, with the child in her
skirts, under the medlar tree that overhung the stream._]




                       BIBLIOTHEQUE
                    DES CHEFS-D'OEUVRE
                         DU ROMAN
                       CONTEMPORAIN



                   _GERMINIE LACERTEUX_



               EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT


              PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY
             GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PHILADELPHIA




                    GERMINIE LACERTEUX




PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION


We must ask pardon of the public for offering it this book, and give it
due warning of what it will find therein.

The public loves fictitious novels! this is a true novel.

It loves books which make a pretence of introducing their readers to
fashionable society: this book deals with the life of the street.

It loves little indecent books, memoirs of courtesans, alcove
confessions, erotic obscenity, the scandal tucked away in pictures in a
bookseller's shop window: that which is contained in the following pages
is rigidly clean and pure. Do not expect the photograph of Pleasure
_decolletee_: the following study is the clinic of Love.

Again, the public loves to read pleasant, soothing stories, adventures
that end happily, imaginative works that disturb neither