Les aventures d'Arsène Lupin
By: adapted from short stories by Maurice Leblanc ; edited in basic French by Bruno Braunrot and Lester G. Crocker.
Contributors: Leblanc, Maurice, 1864-1941.; Crocker, Lester G., joint author.
Series: The Scribner French series
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 1976
Place of publication: New York
Language: fre
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 140
Subjects: French language -- Readers.; Adventure stories, French.; Lupin, Arsène (Fictitious character) -- Fiction.; Burglars -- Fiction.
First sentence: La fortune de madame Imbert1
CHAPITRE I "L'attaque nocturne"
Il est trois heures du matin.2 Dans la nuit et le silence, Paris est un désert. Mais un certain nombre d'automobiles sont encore stationnées devant une des maisons du boulevard Berthier: une réception, probablement.
5 Soudain, la porte de la maison s'ouvre. Un groupe d'invités (guests) sort, s'installe dans les automobiles et s'éloigne [drives off) rapidement. Monsieur Ludovic Imbert, un des invités, reste seul sur le boulevard. La nuit est calme et pure. Les taxis, à trois heures du matin, sont rares. Il décide donc de 3 rentrer à pied (to walk home).
Mais se promener la (at) nuit dans la capitale est une entreprise dangereuse, et dix minutes plus tard monsieur Imbert a l'impression désagréable d'être suivi.3 Quand il se retourne,   il  voit  la  silhouette   d'un  homme   qui  disparaît
; furtivement. Surpris, monsieur Imbert commence à accélérer le pas (his step). L'homme aussi commence à courir. Inquiet, monsieur Imbert décide de faire face à (to face) son adversaire, et de tirer son revolver.
Mais quand il tire son revolver il est trop tard (too late),
 car l'homme se précipite sur lui et l'assaille avec une extrême
1 We urge the student to read "Note to the Student" (pp. xiii-xiv) and the material provided in Appendix B before attempting to read this story.
2 II est trois heures du matin.    It is three o'clock in the morning.
3 d'être suivi    of being followed
Description: This text has been written for the purpose of providing high school and college students who are beginning the study of French with a reader which can be used for outside reading almost immediately and independently of the teaching that takes place in the classroom. It is truly a beginner's book, written in basic French with a minimum vocabulary and with simple sentence structures. It starts with a core of about a hundred words (composed chiefly of articles, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, etc.) which are assumed to be known by the student; thereafter, new words are introduced very gradually and repeated as often as the context permits. The book is so designed that the student can read it on his own, thus allowing the instructor to devote his time in the classroom to the teaching and practice of other aspects of the language.
The aim of this reader is to teach the student to read simple French at sight with a fair degree of ease and understanding, very much as he reads English, and thereby to acquire good reading habits. It aims at nothing more than to teach the mechanics of reading which at that early stage is an aim sufficient in itself. We have chosen deliberately a series of purely imaginative stories, hoping that they will hold the student's interest and make him want to read.
Our text, although freely edited to minimize linguistic difficulties, closely follows that of five short stories by Maurice Leblanc. It is our hope that in their present form these tales, somewhat comparable in their appeal to the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, remain sufficiently entertaining to elicit the interest of the student and make reading the stimulating experience it ought to be.
In order to facilitate reading, a supplement for each chapter has been added at the end of the book. It includes:
i. a Vocabulary Section dealing with the study of idiomatic expressions and words such as synonyms, words with different meanings, and related words;
2. a Verb Section in which a systematic study of irregular verbs is undertaken from the recognition point of view.