"Deux amis" or "Two Friends" is a short story by the French author Guy de Maupassant, published in 1882. The story is set in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, when the city lay under siege. The story examines French bravery, German stereotypes and, unusually for Maupassant, discusses the nature and justification of war in the form of a conversation between the two protagonists. Algirdas Julien Greimas has famously analysed the text's semiotic features in Maupassant (1976). Plot The story opens in Paris in January 1871, at the height of the Siege of Paris, and introduces the main character, Monsieur Morissot, a watchmaker who has enrolled in the National Guard. Morissot, who is bored, hungry and depressed, is walking along the boulevard when by chance he bumps into an old friend, Monsieur Sauvage, a draper from the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, with whom he used to go fishing before the war. The two old friends reminisce over several glasses of absinthe in a café, gained a laissez-passer from their officer, walk along the river to Argenteuil, a few miles west of the city, in the no man's land between the French and Prussian lines. The two start fishing and when they see the nearby fortress of Mont-Valérien firing at the Prussians, they start discussing the war, which turns into a friendly debate at the end of which they both agree that the war is a tragedy for both France and Prussia, and that as long as there are governments, there will be wars. At this point, the two friends turn round to see four Prussian soldiers pointing their rifles at them. The two are captured and taken to a nearby island, where a Prussian officer makes them an offer: he explains that he can legally shoot them on the spot as spies, but that he will spare their lives and let them return to Paris if they give him the password they used to get through their own defense lines. The two heroically refuse to give him the password, even when the officer reminds them that their deaths will cripple their families. Realizing that they will not give him the password, the officer lines up his men into a firing squad. The two friends shake hands and exchange a tearful farewell before they are executed. The German officer orders their bodies thrown into the river, and without showing any sign of emotion, orders