straightforward, they resorted to invention. And thus it is that at the
present day Maupassant appears to us like one of those ancient heroes
whose origin and death are veiled in mystery.

I will not dwell on Guy de Maupassant's younger days. His relatives, his
old friends, he himself, here and there in his works, have furnished us
in their letters enough valuable revelations and touching remembrances of
the years preceding his literary debut. His worthy biographer, H. Edouard
Maynial, after collecting intelligently all the writings, condensing and
comparing them, has been able to give us some definite information
regarding that early period.

I will simply recall that he was born on the 5th of August, 1850, near
Dieppe, in the castle of Miromesnil which he describes in Une Vie. . . .

Maupassant, like Flaubert, was a Norman, through his mother, and through
his place of birth he belonged to that strange and adventurous race,
whose heroic and long voyages on tramp trading ships he liked to recall.
And just as the author of "Education sentimentale" seems to have
inherited in the paternal line the shrewd realism of Champagne, so de
Maupassant appears to have inherited from his Lorraine ancestors their
indestructible discipline and cold lucidity.

His childhood was passed at Etretat, his beautiful childhood; it was
there that his instincts were awakened in the unfoldment of his
prehistoric soul. Years went by in an ecstasy of physical happiness. The
delight of running at full speed through fields of gorse, the charm of
voyages of discovery in hollows and ravines, games beneath the dark
hedges, a passion for going to sea with the fishermen and, on nights when
there was no moon, for dreaming on their boats of imaginary voyages.