picturesque and charming. In the quiet of evening, on an
island, in the Seine, beneath poplars instead of the Neapolitan cypresses
dear to the friends of Boccaccio, amid the continuous murmur of the
valley, and no longer to the sound of the Pyrennean streams that murmured
a faint accompaniment to the tales of Marguerite's cavaliers, the master
and his disciples took turns in narrating some striking or pathetic
episode of the war. And the issue, in collaboration, of these tales in
one volume, in which the master jostled elbows with his pupils, took on
the appearance of a manifesto, the tone of a challenge, or the utterance
of a creed.

In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they had
confined themselves, beneath the trees of Medan, to deciding on a general
title for the work. Zola had contributed the manuscript of the "Attaque
du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five young men gave
in their contributions. Each one read his story, Maupassant being the
last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a spontaneous impulse,
with an emotion they never forgot, filled with enthusiasm at this
revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous words, acclaimed him
as a master.

He undertook to write the article for the Gaulois and, in cooperation
with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are familiar,
amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste for
mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential point, he
said, is to "unmoor" criticism.

It was unmoored. The following day Wolff wrote a polemical dissertation
in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume was a brilliant
success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty, the honesty of
effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the other stories.
Relegated to the second rank, they passed without notice. From his first
battle, Maupassant was master of the field in literature.

At once the entire press took him up and said what was appropriate
regarding the budding celebrity. Biographers and reporters sought
information concerning his life. As it was very simple and perfectly
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 t