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