Lettres de mon moulin: reading level, length and free edition

Name: Lettres de mon moulin
Author: Alphonse Daudet

Lettres de mon moulin by Alphonse Daudet is a short stories in French. Our team rates it B2. It runs to 49,509 words with 7,997 different word forms, about 4–8.5 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Project Gutenberg.

By the Readlang Mobile team (an independent app, not affiliated with readlang.com). Updated 31 October 2026.

Author: Alphonse Daudet
Language: French
Level: B2
Form: short stories
Words: 49,509
Different word forms: 7,997
Forms for 95% / 98%: 5,522 / 7,007
Reading time: 4–8.5 h
Free edition: Project Gutenberg

Recueil de contes et chroniques provençales pleins de tendresse et d’humour.

Is Lettres de mon moulin right for your level?

To recognise 95% of the running words in Lettres de mon moulin, you need its 5,522 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 7,007. The median French B2 book in our table needs 5,364 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is typical for its level: number 6 of 8, easiest first.

A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.

Which words should you know before you start?

These are the words that Lettres de mon moulin uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 37 French books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.

moulin 61
mule 44
loup 22
élixir 18
berger 18
juif 18
phare 17
brume 16
tambour 15
prieur 15
cervelle 14
révérend 14
provençal 13
pins 13
cloches 12

How does it begin?

L’ ART de conter est un art essentiellement français et nulle région de France n’a produit plus de conteurs exquis que le pays des Troubadours, et parmi les conteurs provençaux nul n’est comparable à Alphonse Daudet, et parmi les contes de Daudet nulle œuvre ne surpasse les Lettres de mon Moulin .

From the Project Gutenberg edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.

How long does it take to read?

Hours to read *Lettres de mon moulin* (49,509 words) at four reading speeds.
Words	100 wpm	150 wpm	200 wpm	250 wpm
49,509	8.5 h	5.5 h	4 h	3.5 h

Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?

Where can you read it for free?

The free edition is Project Gutenberg eBook #36780. Project Gutenberg publishes books that are in the public domain in the United States, as EPUB, Kindle and plain text, free and without an account. Copyright terms differ by country: if you live outside the United States, check that the book is out of copyright where you are before you download it.

To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.