de Maupassant, Guy

de Maupassant was born of upper-middle-class parents in Normandy. He lived with his motehr at Etretat, a newly fashionable seaside resort. Having enrolled as a law student in 1869, he was called up after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and served as a quartermaster's clerk in Rouen. Following the war he left the army and eventually secured a post as a minor civil servant.