These poems, overflowing with sensuality, where the hymn to the Earth
describes the transports of physical possession, where the impatience of
love expresses itself in loud melancholy appeals like the calls of
animals in the spring nights, are valuable chiefly inasmuch as they
reveal the creature of instinct, the fawn escaped from his native
forests, that Maupassant was in his early youth. But they add nothing to
his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules Lemaitre
said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the strictest
laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his aim. Following
the example of one of his comrades of Medan, being readily carried away
by precision of style and the rhythm of sentences, by the imperious rule
of the ballad, of the pantoum or the chant royal, Maupassant also desired
to write in metrical lines. However, he never liked this collection that
he often regretted having published. His encounters with prosody had left
him with that monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel
after a period in the riding school, or a bout with the foils.

Such, in very broad lines, is the story of Maupassant's literary
apprenticeship.

The day following the publication of "Boule de Suif," his reputation
began to grow rapidly. The quality of his story was unrivalled, but at
the same time it must be acknowledged that there were some who, for the
sake of discussion, desired to place a young reputation in opposition to
the triumphant brutality of Zola.

From this time on, Maupassant, at the solicitation of the entire press,
set to work and wrote story after story. His talent, free from all
influences, his individuality, are not disputed for a moment. With a
quick step, steady and alert, he advanced to fame, a fame of which he