Guy de Maupassant


Guy de Maupassant was born at the Chateau de Miromesnil, near
Dieppe, on August 5th, 1850. The Maupassants were an old Lorraine
family who had settled in Normandy in the middle of the Eighteenth
Century. His father had married in 1846 a young lady of the rich
bourgeoisie, Laure Le Poittevin. With her brother Alfred, she had
been the playmate of Gustave Flaubert, the son of a Rouen surgeon,
who was destined to have a directing influence on her son's life.
She was a woman of no common literary accomplishments, very fond of
the Classics, especially Shakespeare. Separated from her husband,
she kept her two sons, Guy and his younger brother Herve.

Until he was thirteen years old Guy lived with his mother at
Etretat, in the Villa des Verguies, where between the sea and the
luxuriant country, he grew very fond of nature and out door sports;
he went fishing with the fishermen of the coast and spoke patois
with the peasants. He was deeply devoted to his mother. He first
entered the Seminary of Yvetot, but managed to have himself expelled
on account of a peccadillo of precocious poetry. From his early
religious education he conserved a marked hostility to Religion.
Then he was sent to the Rouen Lycee, where he proved a good scholar
indulging in poetry and taking a prominent part in theatricals.
The war of 1870 broke out soon after his graduation from College;
he enlisted as a volunteer and fought gallantly. After the war, in
1871, he left Normandy and came to Paris where he spent ten years
as a clerk in the Navy Department. During these ten tedious years