Question on tenses, continued in further depth for A level

When reading literary texts, you may also come across a tense called le passe simple. Like the perfect tense, the past historic refers to an action of any duration completed in the past (as opposed to the imperfect tense, which indicates a continuing action in the past). The past historic is only used in its written form (never in everyday conversation), mainly in novels, short stories and newspaper articles. Very often, the past historic and the perfect tense share the same value and are interchangeable in that respect. Yet, when they are used in the same text, they convey a slightly nuanced difference as the past historic indicates that the event has no immediate relevance to the present while the use of perfect tense suggests that there is still a relevance to the present. For A level, you don't need to be able to form this tense, but you must be able to recognise it when reading. Most important verb forms to know: faire: je fis, tu fis, il/elle fit, nous fîmes, vous fîtes, ils/elles firent être: je fus, tu fus, il/elle fut, nuos fûmes, vous fûtes, ils/elles furent avoir: j'eus, tu eus, il/elle eut , nous eûmes, vous eûtes, ils/elles eurent