Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (French pronunciation: [ɡi
də mopasɑ̃]; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-
century French writer and considered one of the fathers of the
modern short story. A protégé of Flaubert, Maupassant's stories
are characterized by their economy of style and efficient,
effortless dénouement. Many of the stories are set during the
Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s and several describe the
futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught in the
conflict, emerge changed. He also wrote six short novels. In his
later years he developed a constant desire for solitude, an
obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death and crazed
paranoia of persecution, that came from the syphilis he had
contracted in his early days. On January 2, in 1892, Maupassant
tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat and was committed
to the celebrated private asylum of Dr. Esprit Blanche at Passy,
in Paris, where he died on July 6, 1893. Guy De Maupassant
penned his own epitaph: "I have