A celebrated novella set during the Franco-Prussian War. A group of travellers flees occupied Rouen by coach, among them respectable merchants, nobles, nuns and a kind-hearted prostitute nicknamed Boule de Suif, meaning roughly Ball of Fat. When the coach is held up by a Prussian officer, the passengers face a moral test, and the supposedly virtuous show how selfish they can be. The story made Maupassant famous. It is a short, ironic study of hypocrisy, patriotism and class, and is often named among the finest stories in the language.