She was simple, not being able to adorn herself, but she was unhappy, as one out of her class; for women belong to no caste, no race, their grace, their beauty and their charm serving them in place of birth and family. Their inborn finesse, their instinctive elegance, their suppleness of wit, are their only aristocracy, making some daughters of the people the equal of great ladies.

ˈsɑ̃] ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents. The story "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat" 1880) is often accounted his masterpiece. On January 2 1892 Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat and was committed to the celebrated private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy in Paris where he died on July 6 1893.

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (French pronunciation: ​[gi d(ə) mo. 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. The story "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat" 1880) is often accounted his masterpiece.