Diary of a Chambermaid

A Chambermaid's Diary, by Octave Mirbeau

A French chambermaid, who has served in Paris, in the houses of the nobility, the bourgeois, and professional people, finally enters the service of a rich couple living in the country, and there begins to keep a diary. In describing the events of her daily life and the people about her, she is frequently reminded of episodes in her past, and digresses to relate them. Thus her diary becomes a piquant panorama of social life and institutions. It is a terrific social exposure, a grim social satire, crammed with humor, bitterness, and truth. It has been described by a French critic as "an attempt to show that nearly all the masters are low-lived wretches, and that nearly all the servants are as near like them as they know how to be."