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Le Père Milon
Rare Book
- GenresShort StoriesFrance
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1880
1 person is currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
Guy de Maupassant
7,566 books3,070 followersHenri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer. He is one of the fathers of the modern short story. A protege of Flaubert, Maupassant's short stories are characterized by their economy of style and their efficient effortless dénouement. He also wrote six short novels. A number of his stories often denote the futility of war and the innocent civilians who get crushed in it - many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 25, 2023
4.25⭐
AKA: Old Milon, Père Milon, Le père Milon
The family Milon is dining outside under the shade of a giant pear tree in the courtyard of their Normandy farm, and they notice that their “Father’s vine” above the front door is already budding, which probably signifies a good year to come. They recall how and why their father had been shot there by the occupying Prussian forces during the 1870 war, where the vine had been planted afterwards in his memory. The old peasant had killed sixteen enemy soldiers during an occupation, avenging his father and son's deaths. He was eventually caught, confessed, and executed, showing no remorse for his actions.
AKA: Old Milon, Père Milon, Le père Milon
The family Milon is dining outside under the shade of a giant pear tree in the courtyard of their Normandy farm, and they notice that their “Father’s vine” above the front door is already budding, which probably signifies a good year to come. They recall how and why their father had been shot there by the occupying Prussian forces during the 1870 war, where the vine had been planted afterwards in his memory. The old peasant had killed sixteen enemy soldiers during an occupation, avenging his father and son's deaths. He was eventually caught, confessed, and executed, showing no remorse for his actions.
August 7, 2025
Le Pere Milon by Guy de Maupassant
Revenge and valor
Guy de Maupassant was a very important French writer.
In the Summing up, Somerset Maugham talks about Maupassant, who had a marvelous mentor: Gustave Flaubert.
Together with Marcel Proust, Flaubert may be the greatest author of the French, and perhaps Universal Literature.
Gustave Flaubert has prevented Maupassant from publishing his first works for a few years, and this is a very commendable attitude. Maugham wished he had someone like Flaubert to watch over his debut as an author, somebody who would advise him to wait before sending to the printer lesser works.
While in France, Maugham was reading Guy de Maupassant, who was a very respectable and appreciated author. Somerset Maugham evaluates him better than his counterparts over the Channel.
This is a tale about the French- Prussian war.
In Le Pere Milon we have a terrible situation during the French – Prussian war. Soldiers keep disappearing and there is no trace of them.
Le Pere Milon shows up with a scar and the suspicion is aroused.
The French man not only confesses quickly but takes pride in giving the gory details:
- He has cut the head off of the first Prussian soldier
- With his uniform, he attacked and killed another fifteen soldiers, in horrible circumstances
One thing I hated about Milon, to my shame, perhaps even more than the killing of human adversaries, was the gorging of the poor innocent horses.
Why the hell did he have to do that?
The soldiers were the enemy and we learn that the Pere Milon had lost both his father and a son in conflicts with this enemy. But the horses? What did they do to him?
We still treat animals like they have no right to be on the planet and most of all are just meat to fill our bellies. My view is that this attitude will be regarded (many) years from now as repellant.
What the slave owners and merchants were doing- not knowing any better, most of them, is what the majority of humans does today: eating creatures who have the same right to live as we do.
Yea, we have been hunters for thousands of years.
But we have been brainless animals for even moiré than that.
We have changed and evolved?
Haven’t we?
We are civilized people. Or so we like to think.
Pere Milon pays for the killing of humans and horses. I will let you find out how.
He spits twice in the face of the Prussian officer, who was offering some kind of way out.
However, I still think of those horses, even if I must say that one knocked me out so hard, that I never got in the saddle ever since.
Revenge and valor
Guy de Maupassant was a very important French writer.
In the Summing up, Somerset Maugham talks about Maupassant, who had a marvelous mentor: Gustave Flaubert.
Together with Marcel Proust, Flaubert may be the greatest author of the French, and perhaps Universal Literature.
Gustave Flaubert has prevented Maupassant from publishing his first works for a few years, and this is a very commendable attitude. Maugham wished he had someone like Flaubert to watch over his debut as an author, somebody who would advise him to wait before sending to the printer lesser works.
While in France, Maugham was reading Guy de Maupassant, who was a very respectable and appreciated author. Somerset Maugham evaluates him better than his counterparts over the Channel.
This is a tale about the French- Prussian war.
In Le Pere Milon we have a terrible situation during the French – Prussian war. Soldiers keep disappearing and there is no trace of them.
Le Pere Milon shows up with a scar and the suspicion is aroused.
The French man not only confesses quickly but takes pride in giving the gory details:
- He has cut the head off of the first Prussian soldier
- With his uniform, he attacked and killed another fifteen soldiers, in horrible circumstances
One thing I hated about Milon, to my shame, perhaps even more than the killing of human adversaries, was the gorging of the poor innocent horses.
Why the hell did he have to do that?
The soldiers were the enemy and we learn that the Pere Milon had lost both his father and a son in conflicts with this enemy. But the horses? What did they do to him?
We still treat animals like they have no right to be on the planet and most of all are just meat to fill our bellies. My view is that this attitude will be regarded (many) years from now as repellant.
What the slave owners and merchants were doing- not knowing any better, most of them, is what the majority of humans does today: eating creatures who have the same right to live as we do.
Yea, we have been hunters for thousands of years.
But we have been brainless animals for even moiré than that.
We have changed and evolved?
Haven’t we?
We are civilized people. Or so we like to think.
Pere Milon pays for the killing of humans and horses. I will let you find out how.
He spits twice in the face of the Prussian officer, who was offering some kind of way out.
However, I still think of those horses, even if I must say that one knocked me out so hard, that I never got in the saddle ever since.
September 7, 2025
He leído la versión en español de la web Elejandría. Siempre me gusta leer libros o relatos antiguos.
Visité la web y el título me llamó la atención «El viejo Milon» ¿Qué tiene que contar ese anciano? Empecé a escuchar «En la Oscuridad» de John Valent, y comencé a leer esta historia y esa melodía fue un gran aporte para la lectura.
Me pareció una historia muy buena, enseguida te pones en la situación, viendo el cielo azul, las granjas, la vid pegada a la casa y la crudeza de un tiempo pasado rodeado de los vestigios de una guerra. Una corta y fascinante historia de venganza. Sin duda, un gran descubrimiento.
Visité la web y el título me llamó la atención «El viejo Milon» ¿Qué tiene que contar ese anciano? Empecé a escuchar «En la Oscuridad» de John Valent, y comencé a leer esta historia y esa melodía fue un gran aporte para la lectura.
Me pareció una historia muy buena, enseguida te pones en la situación, viendo el cielo azul, las granjas, la vid pegada a la casa y la crudeza de un tiempo pasado rodeado de los vestigios de una guerra. Una corta y fascinante historia de venganza. Sin duda, un gran descubrimiento.
January 10, 2024
The story asks us one simple question
"Is all fair in war, even murder?"
Very well written, short concise and to the point. Evocative of the times
"Is all fair in war, even murder?"
Very well written, short concise and to the point. Evocative of the times
June 17, 2021
Didn't the French invade Prussia in 1806-7? And didn't France start the Franco-Prussian war by declaring war on Prussia in 1870, then invading? There's no hypocrisy like French hypocrisy.
March 21, 2023
Guy de Maupassant's "Father Milon"is a war is a short story about the deaths of many Prussian soldiers in village and mystery behind it all.
There is another slightly different translation in his short story “No Quarter".
"At last he says: “Father’s vine is budding early this year. Perhaps we may get something from it.” The woman then turns round and looks, without saying a word.
This vine is planted on the spot where their father had been shot. It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were occupying the whole country. General Faidherbe, with the Northern Division of the army, was opposing them. The Prussians had established their headquarters at this farm. The old farmer to whom it belonged, Father Pierre Milon, had received and quartered them to the best of his ability. For a month the German vanguard had been in this village. The French remained motionless, ten leagues away; and yet, every night, some of the Uhlans disappeared."
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌Spoiler alert ❌❌❌❌❌❌❌
Father Milon has been found injured and finally he tells how he killed the soldiers by using an uniform of the first dead Prussian. He does not want sympathy for his dead father and his dead son, he looks to his own death after killing 16 men.
"The country was terrorized. Farmers were shot on suspicion, women were imprisoned; children were frightened in order to try and obtain information. Nothing could be ascertained. But, one morning, Father Milon was found stretched out in the barn, with a sword gash across his face. Two Uhlans were found dead about a mile and a half from the farm. One of them was still holding his bloody sword in his hand. He had fought, tried to defend himself. A court-martial was immediately held in the open air, in front of the farm. The old man was brought before it."
“Father Milon, since we have been here we have only had praise for you. You have always been obliging and even attentive to us. But to-day a terrible accusation is hanging over you, and you must clear the matter up. How did you receive that wound on your face?” The peasant answered nothing."
"He was allowed to go and come as he pleased, because he had shown himself so humble, submissive and obliging to the invaders. Each night he saw the outposts leave. One night he followed them, having heard the name of the village to which the men were going, and having learned the few words of German which he needed for his plan through associating with the soldiers."
“You have nothing else to say?” “Nothing more; I have finished my task; I killed sixteen, not one more or less.”
“Do you know that you are going to die?” “I haven’t asked for mercy.” “Have you been a soldier?” “Yes, I served my time. And then, you had killed my father, who was a soldier of the first Emperor. And last month you killed my youngest son, Francois, near Evreux. I owed you one for that; I paid. We are quits.”
“Eight for my father, eight for the boy — we are quits. I did not seek any quarrel with you. I don’t know you. I don’t even know where you come from. And here you are, ordering me about in my home as though it were your own. I took my revenge upon the others. I’m not sorry.”
"The colonel, furious, raised his hand, and for the second time the man spat in his face. All the officers had jumped up and were shrieking orders at the same time. In less than a minute the old man, still impassive, was pushed up against the wall and shot, looking smilingly the while toward Jean, his eldest son, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, who witnessed this scene in dumb terror."
There is another slightly different translation in his short story “No Quarter".
"At last he says: “Father’s vine is budding early this year. Perhaps we may get something from it.” The woman then turns round and looks, without saying a word.
This vine is planted on the spot where their father had been shot. It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were occupying the whole country. General Faidherbe, with the Northern Division of the army, was opposing them. The Prussians had established their headquarters at this farm. The old farmer to whom it belonged, Father Pierre Milon, had received and quartered them to the best of his ability. For a month the German vanguard had been in this village. The French remained motionless, ten leagues away; and yet, every night, some of the Uhlans disappeared."
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌Spoiler alert ❌❌❌❌❌❌❌
Father Milon has been found injured and finally he tells how he killed the soldiers by using an uniform of the first dead Prussian. He does not want sympathy for his dead father and his dead son, he looks to his own death after killing 16 men.
"The country was terrorized. Farmers were shot on suspicion, women were imprisoned; children were frightened in order to try and obtain information. Nothing could be ascertained. But, one morning, Father Milon was found stretched out in the barn, with a sword gash across his face. Two Uhlans were found dead about a mile and a half from the farm. One of them was still holding his bloody sword in his hand. He had fought, tried to defend himself. A court-martial was immediately held in the open air, in front of the farm. The old man was brought before it."
“Father Milon, since we have been here we have only had praise for you. You have always been obliging and even attentive to us. But to-day a terrible accusation is hanging over you, and you must clear the matter up. How did you receive that wound on your face?” The peasant answered nothing."
"He was allowed to go and come as he pleased, because he had shown himself so humble, submissive and obliging to the invaders. Each night he saw the outposts leave. One night he followed them, having heard the name of the village to which the men were going, and having learned the few words of German which he needed for his plan through associating with the soldiers."
“You have nothing else to say?” “Nothing more; I have finished my task; I killed sixteen, not one more or less.”
“Do you know that you are going to die?” “I haven’t asked for mercy.” “Have you been a soldier?” “Yes, I served my time. And then, you had killed my father, who was a soldier of the first Emperor. And last month you killed my youngest son, Francois, near Evreux. I owed you one for that; I paid. We are quits.”
“Eight for my father, eight for the boy — we are quits. I did not seek any quarrel with you. I don’t know you. I don’t even know where you come from. And here you are, ordering me about in my home as though it were your own. I took my revenge upon the others. I’m not sorry.”
"The colonel, furious, raised his hand, and for the second time the man spat in his face. All the officers had jumped up and were shrieking orders at the same time. In less than a minute the old man, still impassive, was pushed up against the wall and shot, looking smilingly the while toward Jean, his eldest son, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, who witnessed this scene in dumb terror."
November 14, 2015
I loved it, and would have loved to see so much more done with this character.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews