May 13, 1840

From Daudet's notes of random inspiration, for books he might write, which his wife collected after his death, and published as Notes on Life, we find:

'Title for a book: Without Dissimulation....

'ANGER of the Midi; a debauchery of violence. Father F — comes in from hunting, fagged out, gameless, hungry, raging. Tempest in the kitchen of his country house; he abuses the servants, who move quickly and in silence and bend over the flame where the tardy pot is boiling. While the demoniac roars and perorates, a chicken comes in from the yard, making its little " pioo, pioo " gaily, confidently. Rage of the goodman, who with a kick sends the little chick rolling over the door-stone, half dead. The cat, passing, pounces on the chicken. Father F — more and more exasperated, darts forward: "Miserable cat, will you — " and seeing the cat run off without heeding him, the chick in its teeth, he takes the gun he had put down in a corner, fires on the cat, bowls it over, and stands exhausted and sobered before the bodies of his two pet animals, killed in an instant, because the soup was late. The emotion it gives him sets his blood surging again; he cannot eat, and goes to bed with a brew of vervain.'

Alphonse Daudet, (May 13, 1840 to December 16, 1897) was a writer ignored by the Academie Francaise, syphilitic, antisemitic, and not completely forgotten.