Considered an early masterpiece, "Madame de Mauves" is the first of Henry James's 'international contrasts'. It recounts the story of an American girl, Euphemia Cleve, through the eyes of her fellow countryman Longmore. Euphemia marries an impoverished French aristocrat, the Baron de Mauves, in the belief that he is the ideal of all her girlhood fancies. Longmore is the admiring spectator of her disillusionment. Is she really so unhappy as he imagines? What is, if any, the essential difference between an American idealist and a French man of the world? - Summary by Gemma L Myers