1900
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."