Mademoiselle Fifi

The Project BookishMall.com EBook of Mademoiselle Fifi, by Guy de Maupassant (#21 in our series by Guy de Maupassant)

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Title: Mademoiselle Fifi

Author: Guy de Maupassant

Release Date: December, 2003 [EBook #4788] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 19, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT BookishMall.com EBOOK, MADEMOISELLE FIFI ***

Typed by Brett Fishburne Proofed by Reina Hosier and Kestrel.

Mademoiselle Fifi

By Guy de Maupassant

Contents

                           Page
Preface . . . . . . . 7
Mademoiselle Fifi . . . . 11
Boule de Suif . . . . . 33

Preface

Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was born at the Chateau de Miromesnil, near Dieppe, on August 5th, 1850. The Maupassants were an old Lorraine family who had settled in Normandy in the middle of the Eighteenth Century. His father had married in 1846 a young lady of the rich bourgeoisie, Laure Le Poittevin. With her brother Alfred, she had been the playmate of Gustave Flaubert, the son of a Rouen surgeon, who was destined to have a directing influence on her son's life. She was a woman of no common literary accomplishments, very fond of the Classics, especially Shakespeare. Separated from her husband, she kept her two sons, Guy and his younger brother Hervé.

Until he was thirteen years old Guy lived with his mother at Etretat, in the Villa des Verguies, where between the sea and the luxuriant country, he grew very fond of nature and out door sports; he went fishing with the fishermen of the coast and spoke patois with the peasants. He was deeply devoted to his mother. He first entered the Seminary of Yvetot, but managed to have himself expelled on account of a peccadillo of precocious poetry. From his early religious education he conserved a marked hostility to Religion. Then he was sent to the Rouen Lycée, where he proved a good scholar indulging in poetry and taking a prominent part in theatricals. The war of 1870 broke out soon after his graduation from College; he enlisted as a volunteer and fought gallantly. After the war, in 1871, he left Normandy and came to Paris where he spent ten years as a clerk in the Navy Department.