Guy De Maupassant

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French author of vivid and brutal short stories that made him popular to his readers. Writing with a terse, biting and impersonal style, he was richly dramatic in effect. Maupassant's novels include "A Life, Pierre and Jean" and "Bel Ami." Emile Zola described him as one of the happiest, and one of the unhappiest, men in the world. In the 1870s he was a happy, penniless civil servant enjoying girls, fun-loving friends and boating on the Seine. Maupassant was a broad-shouldered, stocky man, with wiry chestnut hair and regular features. His sexual appetite was prodigious; inevitably he contracted syphilis, possibly in 1874. By 1878 his eyesight was badly affected; he was subject to fits of melancholia and violent migraines. Maupassant refused to acknowledge his syphilis and blamed his symptoms on everything from overwork to the humid air of Normandy. In spite of his denial, he attempted suicide twice. On New Year's day in 1892 he visited his mother in Nice. She was shocked by his appearance and begged him on her knees to not return to Cannes but stay and rest. He refused and returned to his cottage where his valet bled him and gave him chamomile tea. In the morning he attempted to cut his throat with a paper knife, fearing that he was going mad from the illness he so vehemently denied. On January 7th, he was taken to a luxurious mental institution near Paris. His male servant was allowed to accompany him, but no women visitors were allowed. Sex continued to obsess him during his final 18 months. In his madness he became paranoid, accusing Francois of stealing his money. He would howl like a dog, and lick the walls of his room. Aware of when his attacks were coming on, he would ask for a strait jacket. In late June, after a violent convulsion, he fell into a coma and died of insanity from syphilis on 7/07/1893. Link to Wikipedia biography