n Paris.

His annual income was about 28,000 to 35,000 francs, and it kept up
for at least ten years. A table shows us that to December, 1891, the
sale of his books was as follows: short stories, 169,000; novels,
180,000; travel, 24,000; in all 373,000 volumes. Maupassant was even
for these days of swollen figures a big "seller." His mother had an
income of 5,000 francs, but she far excelled the amount in her living
expenses. Guy was an admirable son--tender, thoughtful, and generous.
He made her an allowance, and at his death left her in comfort, if not
actually wealthy. She died at Nice, December 8, 1904, his father
surviving him until 1899.

And that death was achieved by the most hideous route--insanity.
Restless, travelling incessantly, fearful of darkness, of his own
shadow, he was like an Oriental magician who had summoned malignant
spirits from outer space only to be destroyed by them. Not in Corsica
or Sicily, in Africa nor the south of France, did Guy fight off his
rapidly growing disease. He worked hard, he drank hard, but to no
avail; the blackness of his brain increased. Melancholia and
irritability supervened; he spelled words wrong, he quarrelled with
his friends, he instituted a lawsuit against a New York newspaper,
_The Star_; then the persecution craze, folie des grandeurs, frenzy.
The case was "classic" from the beginning, even to the dilated pupils
of his eyes, as far back as 1880. The 1st of January, 1892, he had
promised to spend with his mother at Villa de Ravenelles, at Nice. But
he went, instead, against his mother's wishes, to Ste.-Marguerite in
company with two sisters, society women, one of them said to have been
the heroine of Notre Coeur.

The next day he arrived, his features discomposed, and in a state of
great mental excitement. He was tearful and soon left for Cannes with
his valet, Francois. What passed during the night was never exactly
known, except that Guy attempted suicide by shooting, and with a
paper-knife. The knife inflicted a slight wound; the pistol contained
blank cartridges--Francois had suspected his master's mood, and told
the world later of it in his simple loving memoirs--and his forehead
was slightly burned. Some months previous he had told Doctor Fremy
that between madness and death he would not hesitate; a lucid moment
had shown him his fate, and he sought death. After a week, during
which two stout sailors of his yacht, _Bel Ami_, guarded him, as he
sadly walke