What is the author's tone in Mateo Falcone by Prosper Merimee?

There is a tone of both romanticism and bitter realism. "Mateo Falcone" (1829) illustrates the cruel toll exacted on a Corsican family by the code of vendetta, or feud. Falcone kills his own son, Fortunato, because the son has betrayed a man to the authorities. Two concerns govern Merimee's style in "Mateo Falcone." The first is geographical and ethnological verisimilitude; the second is narrative minimalism, so that, for most of the story, Merimee's style can be described as spare and laconic.