The story is about a group of French residents fleeing Rouen, a place occupied by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian war.

A book written to convey a moral message rather than to tell a story. This, combined with the fact it's a 19th century French text full of unfamiliar vocab, and that the introduction tells you what happens, meant it took me a very long time to read a story not really long enough to constitute a book. It was nonetheless an interesting read with much food for thought.