Part 7

MAUPASSANT, HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE (1850-1893), French novelist and poet, was born at the Château of Miromesnil in the department of Seine-Inférieure on the 5th August 1850. His grandfather, a landed proprietor of a good Lorraine family, owned an estate at Neuville-Champ-d'Oisel near Rouen, and bequeathed a moderate fortune to his son, a Paris stockbroker, who married Mademoiselle Laure Lepoitevin. Maupassant was educated at Yvetot and at the Rouen lycée. A copy of verses entitled _Le Dieu créateur_, written during his year of philosophy, has been preserved and printed. He entered the ministry of marine, and was promoted by M. Bardoux to the Cabinet de l'Instruction publique. A pleasant legend says that, in a report by his official chief, Maupassant is mentioned as not reaching the standard of the department in the matter of style. He may very well have been an unsatisfactory clerk, as he divided his time between rowing expeditions and attending the literary gatherings at the house of Gustave Flaubert, who was not, as he is often alleged to be, connected with Maupassant by any blood tie. Flaubert was not his uncle, nor his cousin, nor even his godfather, but merely an old friend of Madame de Maupassant, whom he had known from childhood. At the literary meetings Maupassant seldom shared in the conversation. Upon those who met him--Tourgenieff, Alphonse Daudet, Catulle Mendès, José-Maria de Heredia and Émile Zola--he left the impression of a simple young athlete. Even Flaubert, to whom Maupassant submitted some sketches, was not greatly struck by their talent, though he encouraged the youth to persevere. Maupassant's first essay was a dramatic piece twice given at Étretat in 1873 before an audience which included Tourgenieff, Flaubert and Meilhac. In this indecorous performance, of which nothing more is heard, Maupassant played the part of a woman. During the next seven years he served a severe apprenticeship to Flaubert, who by this time realized his pupil's exceptional gifts. In 1880 Maupassant published a volume of poems, _Des Vers_, against which the public prosecutor of Etampes took proceedings that were finally withdrawn through the influence of the senator Cordier. From Flaubert, who had himself been prosecuted for his first book, _Madame Bovary_, there came a letter congratulating the poet on the similarity between their first literary experiences. _Des Vers_ is an extremely interesting experiment, which shows Maupassant to us still hesitating in his choice of a medium; but he recognized that it was not wholly satisfactory, and that its chief deficiency--the absence of verbal melody--was fatal. Later in the same year he contributed to the _Soirées de Médan_, a collection of short stories by MM. Zola, J.-K. Huysmans, Henry Céard, Léon Hennique and Paul Alexis; and in _Boule de suif_ the young unknown author revealed himself to his amazed collaborators and to the public as an admirable writer of prose and a consummate master of the _conte_. There is perhaps no other instance in modern literary history of a writer beginning, as a fully equipped artist, with a genuine masterpiece. This early success was quickly followed by another. The volume entitled _La Maison Tellier_ (1881) confirmed the first impression, and vanquished even those who were repelled by the author's choice of subjects. In _Mademoiselle Fifi_ (1883) he repeated his previous triumphs as a _conteur_, and in this same year he, for the first time, attempted to write on a larger scale. Choosing to portray the life of a blameless girl, unfortunate in her marriage, unfortunate in her son, consistently unfortunate in every circumstance of existence, he leaves her, ruined and prematurely old, clinging to the tragic hope, which time, as one feels, will belie, that she may find happiness in her grandson. This picture of an average woman undergoing the constant agony of disillusion Maupassant calls _Une Vie_ (1883), and as in modern literature there is no finer example of cruel observation, so there is no sadder book than this, while the effect of extreme truthfulness which it conveys justifies its sub-title--_L'Humble vérité_. Certain passages of _Une Vie_ are of such a character that the sale of the volume at railway bookstalls was forbidden throughout France. The matter was brought before the chamber of deputies, with the result of drawing still more attention to the book, and of advertising the _Contes de la bécasse_ (1883), a collection of stories as improper as they are clever. _Au soleil_ (1884), a book of travels which has the eminent qualities of lucid observation and exact description, was less read than _Clair de lune_, _Miss Harriet_, _Les Soeurs Rondoli_ and _Yvette_, all published in 1883-1884 when Maupassant's powers were at their highest level. Three further collections of short tales, entitled _Contes et nouvelles_, _Monsieur Parent_, and _Contes du jour et de la nuit_, issued in 1885, proved that while the author's vision was as incomparable as ever, his fecundity had not improved his impeccable form. To 1885 also belongs an elaborate novel, _Bel-ami_, the cynical history of a particularly detestable, brutal scoundrel who makes his way in the world by means of his handsome face. Maupassant is here no less vivid in realizing his literary men, financiers and frivolous women than in dealing with his favourite peasants, boors and servants, to whom he returned in _Toine_ (1886) and in _La Petite roque_ (1886). About this time appeared the first symptoms of the malady which destroyed him; he wrote less, and though the novel _Mont-Oriol_ (1887) shows him apparently in undiminished possession of his faculty, _Le Horla_ (1887) suggests that he was already subject to alarming hallucinations. Restored to some extent by a sea-voyage, recorded in _Sur l'eau_ (1888), he went back to short stories in _Le Rosier de Madame Husson_ (1888), a burst of Rabelaisian humour equal to anything he had ever written. His novels _Pierre et Jean_ (1888), _Fort comme la mort_ (1889), and _Notre coeur_ (1890) are penetrating studies touched with a profounder sympathy than had hitherto distinguished him; and this softening into pity for the tragedy of life is deepened in some of the tales included in _Inutile beauté_ (1890). One of these, _Le Champ d'Oliviers_, is an unsurpassable example of poignant, emotional narrative. With _La Vie errante_ (1890), a volume of travels, Maupassant's career practically closed. _Musotte_, a theatrical piece written in collaboration with M. Jacques Normand, was published in 1891. By this time inherited nervous maladies, aggravated by excessive physical exercises and by the imprudent use of drugs, had undermined his constitution. He began to take an interest in religious problems, and for a while made the _Imitation_ his handbook; but his misanthropy deepened, and he suffered from curious delusions as to his wealth and rank. A victim of general paralysis, of which _La Folie des grandeurs_ was one of the symptoms, he drank the waters at Aix-les-Bains during the summer of 1891, and retired to Cannes, where he purposed passing the winter. The singularities of conduct which had been observed at Aix-les-Bains grew more and more marked. Maupassant's reason slowly gave way. On the 6th of January 1892 he attempted suicide, and was removed to Paris, where he died in the most painful circumstances on the 6th of July 1893. He is buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse. The opening chapters of two projected novels, _L'Angélus_ and _L'Ame étrangère_, were found among his papers; these, with _La Paix du ménage_, a comedy in two acts, and two collections of tales, _Le Père Milon_ (1898) and _Le Colporteur_ (1899), have been published posthumously. A correspondence, called _Amitié amoureuse_ (1897), and dedicated to his mother, is probably unauthentic. Among the prefaces which he wrote for the works of others, only one--an introduction to a French prose version of Mr Swinburne's _Poems and Ballads_--is likely to interest English readers.

Maupassant began as a follower of Flaubert and of M. Zola, but, whatever the masters may have called themselves, they both remained essentially _romantiques_. The pupil is the last of the "naturalists": he even destroyed naturalism, since he did all that can be done in that direction. He had no psychology, no theories of art, no moral or strong social prejudices, no disturbing imagination, no wealth of perplexing ideas. It is no paradox to say that his marked limitations made him the incomparable artist that he was. Undisturbed by any external influence, his marvellous vision enabled him to become a supreme observer, and, given his literary sense, the rest was simple. He prided himself in having no invention; he described nothing that he had not seen. The peasants whom he had known as a boy figure in a score of tales; what he saw in Government offices is set down in _L'Héritage_; from Algiers he gathers the material for Maroca; he drinks the waters and builds up _Mont-Oriol_; he enters journalism, constructs _Bel-ami_, and, for the sake of precision, makes his brother, Hervé de Maupassant, sit for the infamous hero's portrait; he sees fashionable society, and, though it wearied him intensely, he transcribes its life in _Fort comme la mort_ and _Notre coeur_. Fundamentally he finds all men alike. In every grade he finds the same ferocious, cunning, animal instincts at work: it is not a gay world, but he knows no other; he is possessed by the dread of growing old, of ceasing to enjoy; the horror of death haunts him like a spectre. It is an extremely simple outlook. Maupassant does not prefer good to bad, one man to another; he never pauses to argue about the meaning of life, a senseless thing which has the one advantage of yielding materials for art; his one aim is to discover the hidden aspect of visible things, to relate what he has observed, to give an objective rendering of it, and he has seen so intensely and so serenely that he is the most exact transcriber in literature. And as the substance is, so is the form: his style is exceedingly simple and exceedingly strong; he uses no rare or superfluous word, and is content to use the humblest word if only it conveys the exact picture of the thing seen. In ten years he produced some thirty volumes. With the exception of _Pierre et Jean_, his novels, excellent as they are, scarcely represent him at his best, and of over two hundred _contes_ a proportion must be rejected. But enough will remain to vindicate his claim to a permanent place in literature as an unmatched observer and the most perfect master of the short story.

See also F. Brunetière, _Le Roman naturaliste_ (1883); T. Lemaître, _Les Contemporains_ (vols. i. v. vi.); R. Doumic, _Ecrivains d'aujourd'hui_ (1894); an introduction by Henry James to _The Odd Number_ ... (1891); a critical preface by the earl of Crewe to _Pierre and Jean_ (1902); A. Symons, _Studies in Prose and Verse_ (1904). There are many references to Maupassant in the _Journal des Goncourt_, and some correspondence with Marie Bashkirtseff was printed with _Further Memoirs_ of that lady in 1901. (J. F. K.)

MAUPEOU, RENÉ NICOLAS CHARLES AUGUSTIN (1714-1792), chancellor of France, was born on the 25th of February 1714, being the eldest son of René Charles de Maupeou (1688-1775), who was president of the parlement of Paris from 1743 to 1757. He married in 1744 a rich heiress, Anne de Roncherolles, a cousin of Madame d'Épinay. Entering public life, he was his father's right hand in the conflicts between the parlement and Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, who was supported by the court. Between 1763 and 1768, dates which cover the revision of the case of Jean Calas and the trial of the comte de Lally, Maupeou was himself president of the parlement. In 1768, through the protection of Choiseul, whose fall two years later was in large measure his work, he became chancellor in succession to his father, who had held the office for a few days only. He determined to support the royal authority against the parlement, which in league with the provincial magistratures was seeking to arrogate to itself the functions of the states-general. He allied himself with the duc d'Aiguillon and Madame du Barry, and secured for a creature of his own, the Abbé Terrai, the office of comptroller-general. The struggle came over the trial of the case of the duc d'Aiguillon, ex-governor of Brittany, and of La Chalotais, procureur-général of the province, who had been imprisoned by the governor for accusations against his administration. When the parlement showed signs of hostility against Aiguillon, Maupeou read letters patent from Louis XV. annulling the proceedings. Louis replied to remonstrances from the parlement by a _lit de justice_, in which he demanded the surrender of the minutes of procedure. On the 27th of November 1770 appeared the _Édit de règlement et de discipline_, which was promulgated by the chancellor, forbidding the union of the various branches of the parlement and correspondence with the provincial magistratures. It also made a strike on the part of the parlement punishable by confiscation of goods, and forbade further obstruction to the registration of royal decrees after the royal reply had been given to a first remonstrance. This edict the magistrates refused to register, and it was registered in a _lit de justice_ held at Versailles on the 7th of December, whereupon the parlement suspended its functions. After five summonses to return to their duties, the magistrates were surprised individually on the night of the 19th of January 1771 by musketeers, who required them to sign yes or no to a further request to return. Thirty-eight magistrates gave an affirmative answer, but on the exile of their former colleagues by _lettres de cachet_ they retracted, and were also exiled. Maupeou installed the council of state to administer justice pending the establishment of six superior courts in the provinces, and of a new parlement in Paris. The _cour des aides_ was next suppressed.

Voltaire praised this revolution, applauding the suppression of the old hereditary magistrature, but in general Maupeou's policy was regarded as the triumph of tyranny. The remonstrances of the princes, of the nobles, and of the minor courts, were met by exile and suppression, but by the end of 1771 the new system was established, and the Bar, which had offered a passive resistance, recommenced to plead. But the death of Louis XV. in May 1774 ruined the chancellor. The restoration of the parlements was followed by a renewal of the quarrels between the new king and the magistrature. Maupeou and Terrai were replaced by Malesherbes and Turgot. Maupeou lived in retreat until his death at Thuit on the 29th of July 1792, having lived to see the overthrow of the _ancien régime_. His work, in so far as it was directed towards the separation of the judicial and political functions and to the reform of the abuses attaching to a hereditary magistrature, was subsequently endorsed by the Revolution; but no justification of his violent methods or defence of his intriguing and avaricious character is possible. He aimed at securing absolute power for Louis XV., but his action was in reality a serious blow to the monarchy.

The chief authority for the administration of Maupeou is the _compte rendu_ in his own justification presented by him to Louis XVI. in 1789, which included a dossier of his speeches and edicts, and is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale. These documents, in the hands of his former secretary, C. F. Lebrun, duc de Plaisance, formed the basis of the judicial system of France as established under the consulate (cf. C. F. Lebrun, _Opinions, rapports et choix d'écrits politiques_, published posthumously in 1829). See further _Maupeouana_ (6 vols., Paris, 1775), which contains the pamphlets directed against him; _Journal hist. de la révolution opérée ... par M. de Maupeou_ (7 vols., 1775); the official correspondence of Mercy-Argenteau, the letters of Mme d'Épinay; and Jules Flammermont, _Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements_ (1883).

MAUPERTUIS, PIERRE LOUIS MOREAU DE (1698-1759), French mathematician and astronomer, was born at St Malo on the 17th of July 1698. When twenty years of age he entered the army, becoming lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry, and employing his leisure on mathematical studies. After five years he quitted the army and was admitted in 1723 a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1728 he visited London, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1736 he acted as chief of the expedition sent by Louis XV. into Lapland to measure the length of a degree of the meridian (see EARTH, FIGURE OF), and on his return home he became a member of almost all the scientific societies of Europe. In 1740 Maupertuis went to Berlin on the invitation of the king of Prussia, and took part in the battle of Mollwitz, where he was taken prisoner by the Austrians. On his release he returned to Berlin, and thence to Paris, where he was elected director of the Academy of Sciences in 1742, and in the following year was admitted into the Academy. Returning to Berlin in 1744, at the desire of Frederick II., he was chosen president of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1746. Finding his health declining, he repaired in 1757 to the south of France, but went in 1758 to Basel, where he died on the 27th of July 1759. Maupertuis was unquestionably a man of considerable ability as a mathematician, but his restless, gloomy disposition involved him in constant quarrels, of which his controversies with König and Voltaire during the latter part of his life furnish examples.

The following are his most important works: _Sur la figure de la terre_ (Paris, 1738); _Discours sur la parallaxe de la lune_ (Paris, 1741); _Discours sur la figure des astres_ (Paris, 1742); _Éléments de la géographie_ (Paris, 1742); _Lettre sur la comète de 1742_ (Paris, 1742); _Astronomie nautique_ (Paris, 1745 and 1746); _Vénus physique_ (Paris, 1745); _Essai de cosmologie_ (Amsterdam, 1750). His _Oeuvres_ were published in 1752 at Dresden and in 1756 at Lyons.

MAU RANIPUR, a town of British India in Jahnsi district, in the United Provinces. Pop. (1901), 17,231. It contains a large community of wealthy merchants and bankers. A special variety of red cotton cloth, known as _kharua_, is manufactured and exported to all parts of India. Trees line many of the streets, and handsome temples ornament the town.

MAUREL, ABDIAS (d. 1705), Camisard leader, became a cavalry officer in the French army and gained distinction in Italy; here he served under Marshal Catinat, and on this account he himself is sometimes known as Catinat. In 1702, when the revolt in the Cévennes broke out, he became one of the Camisard leaders, and in this capacity his name was soon known and feared. He refused to accept the peace made by Jean Cavalier in 1704, and after passing a few weeks in Switzerland he returned to France and became one of the chiefs of those Camisards who were still in arms. He was deeply concerned in a plot to capture some French towns, a scheme which, it was hoped, would be helped by England and Holland. But it failed; Maurel was betrayed, and with three other leaders of the movement was burned to death at Nîmes on the 22nd of April 1705. He was a man of great physical strength; but he was very cruel, and boasted he had killed 200 Roman Catholics with his own hands.

MAUREL, VICTOR (1848- ), French singer, was born at Marseilles, and educated in music at the Paris Conservatoire. He made his début in opera at Paris in 1868, and in London in 1873, and from that time onwards his admirable acting and vocal method established his reputation as one of the finest of operatic baritones. He created the leading part in Verdi's _Otello_, and was equally fine in Wagnerian and Italian opera.

MAURENBRECHER, KARL PETER WILHELM (1838-1892), German historian, was born at Bonn on the 21st of December, 1838, and studied in Berlin and Munich under Ranke and Von Sybel, being especially influenced by the latter historian. After doing some research work at Simancas in Spain, he became professor of history at the university of Dorpat in 1867; and was then in turn professor at Königsberg, Bonn and Leipzig. He died at Leipzig on the 6th of November, 1892.

Many of Maurenbrecher's works are concerned with the Reformation, among them being _England im Reformationszeitalter_ (Düsseldorf, 1866); _Karl V. und die deutschen Protestanten_ (Düsseldorf, 1865); _Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der Reformationszeit_ (Leipzig, 1874); and the incomplete _Geschichte der Katholischen Reformation_ (Nördlingen, 1880). He also wrote _Don Karlos_ (Berlin, 1876); _Gründung des deutschen Reiches 1859-1871_ (Leipzig, 1892, and again 1902); and _Geschichte der deutschen Königswahlen_ (Leipzig, 1889). See G. Wolf, _Wilhelm Maurenbrecher_ (Berlin, 1893).

MAUREPAS, JEAN FRÉDÉRIC PHÉLYPEAUX, COMTE DE (1701-1781), French statesman, was born on the 9th of July 1701 at Versailles, being the son of Jérôme de Pontchartrain, secretary of state for the marine and the royal household. Maurepas succeeded to his father's charge at fourteen, and began his functions in the royal household at seventeen, while in 1725 he undertook the actual administration of the navy. Although essentially light and frivolous in character, Maurepas was seriously interested in scientific matters, and he used the best brains of France to apply science to questions of navigation and of naval construction. He was disgraced in 1749, and exiled from Paris for an epigram against Madame de Pompadour. On the accession of Louis XVI., twenty-five years later, he became a minister of state and Louis XVI.'s chief adviser. He gave Turgot the direction of finance, placed Lamoignon-Malesherbes over the royal household and made Vergennes minister for foreign affairs. At the outset of his new career he showed his weakness by recalling to their functions, in deference to popular clamour, the members of the old parlement ousted by Maupeou, thus reconstituting the most dangerous enemy of the royal power. This step, and his intervention on behalf of the American states, helped to pave the way for the French revolution. Jealous of his personal ascendancy over Louis XVI., he intrigued against Turgot, whose disgrace in 1776 was followed after six months of disorder by the appointment of Necker. In 1781 Maurepas deserted Necker as he had done Turgot, and he died at Versailles on the 21st of November 1781.

Maurepas is credited with contributions to the collection of facetiae known as the _Étrennes de la Saint Jean_ (2nd ed., 1742). Four volumes of _Mémoires de Maurepas_, purporting to be collected by his secretary and edited by J. L. G. Soulavie in 1792, must be regarded as apocryphal. Some of his letters were published in 1896 by the _Soc. de l'hist. de Paris_. His _éloge_ in the Academy of Sciences was pronounced by Condorcet.