Visages de ­l’histoire dans la nouvelle du xix^e siècle

In the nineteenth-century French novella, history is evoked either through the account of an imaginary story which makes use of historical characters, most often placed in distant places or ancient times, or by the narration of history (above all military), with fictional characters elevated to the level of the protagonists of real events. It can also be evoked by allusion to the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. Like the novel, the novella of the nineteenth century reports on the history of its day.