Page:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu/47

 ''Rondoli," "Miss Harriet," and "Clair de Lune." "Yvette," a short novel, followed and it noww becomes possible to record only the most important of the vehement author s flood of productions. Among these must certainly be included his five great realistic romances, "Bel-Ami' 1885; "Mont-Oriol," 1887; "Pierre et Jean," 1888; "Fort comme la Mort,"1889; and "Notre Cœur," 1890. In ten years he brought out more than thirty separate volumes. A life of excessive tension, and a reckless waste of energy, however, told upon his constitution. Before 1891 he had begun to fail in nervous strength, and to become subject to odd delusions. He took to life in a yacht on the Mediterranean, but without success. He was ordered to Aix-les-Bains, and then to Cannes, where his insanity asserted itself in a variety of distressing ways. Finally, on the 6th of January, 1892, he attempted to kill himself, and was with difficulty removed to Paris. There, in an asylum, and in a very painful condition, he lingered until the 6th of July, 1893, when he died. Two collections of short stories, "Lé Père Milon," 1898, and "Le Colporteur", 1900, have been published since his death, and a curious correspondence, "Amitié Amoureuse," 1897. Maupassant was a man of powerful physical frame and tempestuous passions, capable'' xxxix