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CBSE Class 12 English

Flamingo Book Chapter
1-The Last Lesson
Topics covered

❑ Introduction
❑ Characters
❑ Explanation
❑ Important Q/A
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INTRODUCTION
'The last lesson ' written by Alphonse Daudet
narrates about the year 1870 when the
Prussian forces under Bismarck attacked and
captured France.
The French districts of Alsace and Lorraine
went into Prussian hands. The new Prussian
rulers discontinued the teaching of French in
the schools of these two districts.
The French teachers were asked to leave. Now
M. Hamel could no longer stay in his old school.
Still he gave the last lesson to his students with
utmost devotion and sincerity as ever.

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 INTRODUCTION
One such student of M. Hamel, Franz who
dreaded French class and M. Hamel‘s iron rod,
came to the school that day thinking he would be
punished as he had not learnt his lesson on
participles.
But on reaching school he found Hamel dressed
in his fine Sunday clothes and the old people of
the village sitting quietly on the back benches.
It was due to an order from Berlin. That was the
first day when he realized for the first time that
how important French was for him, but it was his
last lesson in French.
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 INTRODUCTION
The story depicts the pathos of the
whole situation about how people
feel when they don‘t learn their own
language.

It tells us about the significance of

one‘s language in one‘s life for the
very existence of a race and how
important it is to safeguard it.

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The narrator of the story, Franz is a young school boy in the

“
French region of Alsace-Lorraine in the nineteenth century.
Franz is a dawdler when it comes to schoolwork, preferring to
spend time in the woods or by the local river over going to class.
He doesn’t like learning his French grammar lessons and, when
the story begins, is terrified that his negligence will be found out
by his teacher, the stern M. Hamel.

Franz comes to a new appreciation of his education, however,

when Prussian authorities who have occupied his home region
announce that school will no longer be taught in French, but in
German. Upon hearing this news, Franz feels a great sense of
remorse and regrets not taking his French education more
seriously while he still had the chance.
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M. Hamel was a true French man. Teaching at Alsace for forty years,
he had become a part of its people. He was an honest teacher. He did
not blame his students alone for poor learning. He also held himself
responsible for the same. He was very patriotic as he appealed to his
countrymen to hold fast to their mother tongue to be free from the
Prussians. According to him the French language was the most
beautiful, the clearest and the most logical language in the world. He
urged on his countrymen to guard it and never forget it. He was deeply
attached to the school and all his students. However, he was very
brave and strong. He was really regretful for not making sincere efforts
to teach French to his countrymen. At the end, he became so
emotional that he could not speak.

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Lesson Explanation

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 Gloss

I started for school very late

that morning and was in great
dread of a scolding, especially
because M. Hamel had said
that he would question us on
participles, and I did not know
the first word about them.

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 Gloss

For a moment I thought of

running away and spending the
day out of doors.
It was so warm, so bright! The
birds were chirping at the edge
of the woods; and in the open
field back of the sawmill the
Prussian soldiers were drilling.
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 Gloss

It was all much more

tempting than the rule
for participles, but I
had the strength to
resist, and hurried off
to school.
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 Gloss

When I passed the town hall there

was a crowd in front of the
bulletin-board.
For the last two years all our bad
news had come from there — the lost
battles, the draft, the orders of the
commanding officer — and I thought
to myself, without stopping, “What
can be the matter now?”

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 Gloss

Then, as I hurried by as fast

as I could go, the blacksmith,
Wachter, who was there, with
his apprentice, reading the
bulletin, called after me,
“Don’t go so fast, bub; you’ll
get to your school in plenty
of time!”
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 Gloss

I thought he was
making fun of me,
and reached M.
Hamel’s little garden
all out of breath.

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 Gloss

Usually, when school began, there

was a great bustle, which could be
heard out in the street, the opening
and closing of desks, lessons
repeated in unison, very loud, with
our hands over our ears to
understand better, and the teacher’s
great ruler rapping on the table.

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 Gloss

But now it was all so still! I

had counted on the
commotion to get to my
desk without being seen;
but, of course, that day
everything had to be as
quiet as Sunday morning.
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 Gloss

Through the window I saw

my classmates, already in
their places, and M. Hamel
walking up and down with
his terrible iron ruler under
his arm.

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 Gloss

I had to open the door

and go in before
everybody. You can
imagine how I
blushed and how
frightened I was.
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 Gloss

But nothing happened.

M. Hamel saw me and
said very kindly, “Go to
your place quickly, little
Franz. We were
beginning without you.”
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 Gloss
I jumped over the bench and sat
down at my desk. Not till then,
when I had got a little over my
fright, did I see that our teacher
had on his beautiful green coat,
his frilled shirt, and the little
black silk cap, all embroidered,
that he never wore except on
inspection and prize days.
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 Gloss

Besides, the whole school seemed so

strange and solemn. But the thing that
surprised me most was to see, on the
back benches that were always empty,
the village people sitting quietly like
ourselves; old Hauser, with his
three-cornered hat, the former mayor,
the former postmaster, and several
others besides.

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 Gloss

Franz felt that the atmosphere in

the school was unusual and
serious. To add to it, the last
benches of the class room were
occupied by the senior village
men – Hauser, who was wearing
his three-cornered hat, the
retired mayor, postmaster, etc.
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 Gloss

Everybody looked sad; and

Hauser had brought an old
primer, thumbed at the
edges, and he held it open
on his knees with his great
spectacles lying across the
pages.
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 Gloss

While I was wondering about

it all, M. Hamel mounted his
chair, and, in the same grave
and gentle tone which he
had used to me, said, “My
children, this is the last
lesson I shall give you.
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 Gloss

The order has come from Berlin

to teach only German in the
schools of Alsace and Lorraine.
The new master comes
tomorrow. This is your last
French lesson. I want you to be
very attentive.”

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 Gloss

What a thunderclap
these words were to
me! Oh, the wretches;
that was what they
had put up at the
town-hall!
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 Gloss

My last French lesson! Why, I

hardly knew how to write! I should
never learn any more! I must stop
there, then! Oh, how sorry I was
for not learning my lessons, for
seeking birds’ eggs, or going
sliding on the Saar!

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 Gloss

My books, that had seemed

such a nuisance a while ago,
so heavy to carry, my
grammar, and my history of
the saints, were old friends
now that I couldn’t give up.

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 Gloss

And M. Hamel, too; the

idea that he was going
away, that I should never
see him again, made me
forget all about his ruler
and how cranky he was.

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 Gloss

Poor man! It was in honour of

this last lesson that he had put
on his fine Sunday clothes, and
now I understood why the old
men of the village were sitting
there in the back of the room.

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 Gloss

It was because they were

sorry, too, that they had not
gone to school more. It was
their way of thanking our
master for his forty years of
faithful service and of showing
their respect for the country
that was theirs no more.
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Gloss

While I was
thinking of all
this, I heard
my name
called.
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 Gloss

It was my turn to recite.

What would I not have given
to be able to say that
dreadful rule for the
participle all through, very
loud and clear, and without
one mistake?
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 Gloss

But I got mixed upon

the first words and
stood there, holding on
to my desk, my heart
beating, and not daring
to look up.
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 Gloss

I heard M. Hamel say to me, “I

won’t scold you, little Franz;
you must feel bad enough. See
how it is! Every day we have
said to ourselves, ‘Bah! I’ve
plenty of time. I’ll learn it
tomorrow.’ And now you see
where we’ve come out.
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 Gloss

Ah, that’s the great trouble with Alsace;

she puts off learning till tomorrow. Now
those fellows out there will have the
right to say to you, ‘How is it; you
pretend to be Frenchmen, and yet you
can neither speak nor write your own
language?’ But you are not the worst,
poor little Franz. We’ve all a great deal
to reproach ourselves with.”

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 Gloss
“Your parents were not anxious
enough to have you learn. They
preferred to put you to work on a farm
or at the mills, so as to have a little
more money. And I? I’ve been to
blame also. Have I not often sent you
to water my flowers instead of
learning your lessons? And when I
wanted to go fishing, did I not just
give you a holiday?”
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 Gloss
Then, from one thing to another, M.
Hamel went on to talk of the French
language, saying that it was the most
beautiful language in the world — the
clearest, the most logical; that we
must guard it among us and never
forget it, because when a people are
enslaved, as long as they hold fast to
their language it is as if they had the
key to their prison.
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 Gloss

Then he opened a grammar and read

us our lesson. I was amazed to see
how well I understood it. All he said
seemed so easy, so easy! I think,
too, that I had never listened so
carefully, and that he had never
explained everything with so much
patience.

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 Gloss

It seemed almost as if
the poor man wanted to
give us all he knew
before going away, and
to put it all into our
heads at one stroke.
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 Gloss
After the grammar, we
had a lesson in writing.
That day M. Hamel had
new copies for us,
written in a beautiful
round hand — France,
Alsace, France, Alsace.
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 Gloss
They looked like little flags
floating everywhere in the
school-room, hung from the rod
at the top of our desks. You
ought to have seen how
everyone set to work, and how
quiet it was! The only sound
was the scratching of the pens
over the paper.
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 Gloss

Once some beetles flew

in; but nobody paid any
attention to them, not
even the littlest ones, who
worked right on tracing
their fish-hooks, as if that
was French, too.
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 Gloss

On the roof the pigeons

cooed very low, and I
thought to myself, “Will
they make them sing in
German , even the
pigeons?”
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 Gloss
Whenever I looked up from my
writing I saw M. Hamel sitting
motionless in his chair and
gazing first at one thing, then at
another, as if he wanted to fix in
his mind just how everything
looked in that little
school-room.

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 Gloss
Fancy! For forty years he
had been there in the
same place, with his
garden outside the
window and his class in
front of him, just like
that.
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 Gloss

Only the desks and benches

had been worn smooth; the
walnut-trees in the garden
were taller, and the hopvine
that he had planted himself
twined about the windows
to the roof.
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 Gloss

How it must have broken

his heart to leave it all,
poor man; to hear his
sister moving about in the
room above, packing their
trunks! For they must
leave the country next day.
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 Gloss

But he had the courage to

hear every lesson to the
very last. After the writing,
we had a lesson in history,
and then the babies chanted
their ba, be bi, bo, bu.

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 Gloss
Down there at the back
of the room old Hauser
had put on his
spectacles and, holding
his primer in both hands,
spelled the letters with
them.
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 Gloss

You could see that he, too,

was crying; his voice
trembled with emotion, and it
was so funny to hear him
that we all wanted to laugh
and cry. Ah, how well I
remember it, that last lesson!

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Gloss

All at once the

church-clock
struck twelve.
Then the
Angelus.
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Gloss
At the same moment
the trumpets of the
Prussians, returning
from drill, sounded
under our windows. M.
Hamel stood up, very
pale, in his chair. I never
saw him look so tall.

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 Gloss
“My friends,” said he, “I—I—”
But something choked him.
He could not go on. Then he
turned to the blackboard, took
a piece of chalk, and, bearing
on with all his might, he wrote
as large as he could — “Vive
La France!”

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 Gloss

Then he stopped and

leaned his head against
the wall, and, without a
word, he made a gesture
to us with his hand —
“School is dismissed —
you may go.”
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 Question 1.
What did the French
teacher tell his students in
his last French lesson? What
impact did it have on them?
Why?
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 Answer
M. Hamel told his students that a new order from Berlin has declared
that all schools of Alsace and Lorraine would teach only German so this
was going to be their last French lesson. This new order aroused
patriotic feelings in him and he, in turn, wanted to arouse similar
patriotism in his students and the village elders. He made them
conscious of the glory and value of the French language and told them
to safeguard it among themselves and keep it alive at all costs as it was
the key to their unity and liberation. Everyone listened to him sadly but
with rapt attention and respect. Even little Franz listened to his teacher’s
words with a new-found interest. He felt sorry that he had neglected
learning French. Everyone from the village assembled in the class to
thank Mr. Hamel for his forty years of faithful service to the community.
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 Question 2. How
different from usual
was the atmosphere
at school on the day
of the last lesson?
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 Answer
Acquiring power over the Alsacians made the Prussians so dominating
that they even imposed their language on them. This way the Prussians
intended to dominate the hearts and minds of the Alsacians and wanted
them to even think in their language and thereby lose their complete
identity. An order had been received from Berlin that only German
would be taught in schools of Alsace and Lorraine. So there was
something unusual about the school on the last day of the French
lesson. The usual hustle and bustle was missing. Everything was
‘strange and solemn’ as on a Sunday morning. The village elders were
seated on the back desks.

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M.Hamel, who had been teaching French at the school for
the last forty years, was wearing his formal suit in honour of
the last French lesson. While delivering the last lesson, he
called upon his students and the village elders to guard the
French language among themselves and never forget it,
declaring French to be the most beautiful language in the
world. Franz developed a sudden fascination for school and
the French language and a sudden respect for M.Hamel. He
wanted his teacher to stay and felt very guilty for having
neglected his French lessons as now he was being deprived
of the opportunity of learning his language.

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 Question 3.
Everybody during
the last lesson is
filled with regret.
Comment.
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 Answer
The one common feeling that fills each and every person who is present
in the last French lesson is an acute sense of regret. M. Hamel
reproaches himself for putting off his students’ learning till the next day
and sending them to water his flowers instead of learning their lessons.
He also gave his students a holiday when he wanted to go fishing. Franz
felt sorry for not learning his lessons and escaping school. He wished
he had attended his classes more often and even the thought of losing
his teacher saddened him. The village elders occupied the back
benches of the class to atone for their guilt and express their regret for
not having attended school regularly. They were now showing their
respect for the country that was theirs no more.

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Question 4. Our language is
part of our culture and we
are proud of it. Describe
how regretful M.Hamel and
the village elders are for
having neglected their
native language, French.
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 Answer
The feeling of regretfulness for having neglected their native language,
French comes quite late to M. Hamel and the village elders. They realise
rather late that their language is part of their culture and they should be
proud of it. It is only after they have been deprived of learning their
language that they understand its value. The imposition of German
language made them suddenly realise the authority of their captors and
they felt a loss of freedom. So on the day of the last French lesson the
village elders are seated on the back desks and M. Hamel, who had been
teaching French at the school for the last forty years, was wearing his
formal suit as a mark of respect for the last French lesson.

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M. Hamel expressed how they all had a great deal to
reproach themselves for as most of the people of Alsace
could neither speak nor write French. Parents preferred to
put their children to work on farms or mills.

M. Hamel regretfully said how he himself sometimes sent

his students to water his flowers instead of learning their
language lessons. While delivering the last lesson M. Hamel
called upon his students and the village elders to guard the
French language among themselves, declaring it to be the
most beautiful language tn the world. Each one of them felt
guilty for having ignored the French lessons.
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Question 5. Our native language
is part of our culture and we are
proud of it. How does the
presence of village elders in the
classroom and M.Hamel’s last
lesson show their love for
French?
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 Answer
Acquiring power over the French made the Prussians so dominating
that they decided to impose even their language on them. So on the day
of the last French lesson the village elders were seated on the back
seats of the classroom. They felt sad and sorry for not having gone to
school more often. Their presence was also their way of thanking their
master, M.Hamel for his forty years of faithful service. M.Hamel himself
had put on his fine Sunday clothes in honour of the last French lesson.
Assuming the role of mentor he advised the class to safeguard and
preserve their language among themselves and never forget it. He
called French the most beautiful and logical language in the world. By
the end of the class M.Hamel was so choked with emotion and could
not speak so he took a piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard
“Vive la France!” (Long Live France)69 and then dismissed the class.
Question 6. Describe
the atmosphere in
the class on the day
of the last lesson.
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 Answer
On the day of the last French lesson the atmosphere in the class was
strange and solemn. The school was as quiet as if it was a Sunday
morning. The teacher (M.FIamel) moving in the class with his ruler
under his arm was wearing his special dress for the last class. The
elders of the village were sitting on the backbenches of the classroom.
All the students were studying with complete attention and the teacher
was teaching with full dedication. All this was due to an order from
Berlin that from the next day German would be taught instead of French
by a new teacher. While delivering the last lesson, the teacher called
upon his students and the village elders to guard the French language
among themselves and never forget it, declaring French to be the most
beautiful language in the world.
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 THANKS!

Any questions?
You can find me at
[email protected]

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THANK
YOU
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