Perhaps the best and the worst of The Prisoners is that it is like the other de Maupassant short stories I have read. This is to say that it is finely crafted with great attention to detail and wonderful expressiveness in very few words; it is also to say that it covers more of the same ground as I have seen in other of his work. That is, it is about the Prussian invasion and occupation of France in the Franco-Prussian War, and it highlights the honor and resourcefulness – and occasional corruptness and idiocy – of the French.