Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-10
DE MAUPASSANT'S INSANITY.
THE FAMOUS FRENCH AUTHOR's AT.
TEMPT AT SUICIDE.
A Cannes Reporters Vivid Description oi
the AffaIr-The Novelist May Yet Re
cover-His Rapid Rise and as Speedy
Fall-A Story With a Moral,

A Cannes Reporters Vivid Description OF
the AfaIr-The Novelist May Yet Re-
cover-His Rapid Rise and as Speedy
Fall-A Story With a Moral.
rBY CABLE TO THE DIsPATcH.l
LONDON, Jan. 9.-There seems to be little
doubt that Guy de Maupassant is hopelessly
insane, although DIR. Blanche, the noted
specialist in lunacy, in whose private asylum
the demented novelist is, says there is a
possibility of his ultimate recovery. De
Maupassant, who only yesterday became calm
after his attempt to commit suicide at
Cannes, on the previous Saturday, has long
INDUCED himself in morphine and hashish
eating, and recently has taken to the con-
sumption of darge quantities OF ether.
Aside from the terrible effects of these
drugs on the brain there is hereditary In
huence to be taken into account, his father
having died in an insane asylum, and his
mother, who still lives, not being In her
right mind.
1t was found necessary to bring de Maui
passant in straight waistcoat from Cannes
to Paris, and upon his being set free from
it, in DR.. Blsnche's hospital, he made
violent assault upon the attendants, and it
required seven men to restrain him. Yes
terday, however, he became calm and was
induced to eat
The Authors Attempted Suicide.
A Cannes newspaper gives the following
particulars of the suicidal attempt:
At 10 O'Clock on Saturday evening he sat
down at his desk intending to resume the
writing OF his new novel. 81 Angelus, which
he had discontinued for some days. But all
efforts to concentrate his thoughts proved
unavailing, and in an hour or SO he sprang
from n hair in
brought his fist heavily down on his writing
table, and exclaimed, Another man over
board! Nothing left now but to die" He
fetched a razor from his dressing room
and gashed his throat. The noise made
by his body falling brought mis- valet and
the sailing master of his yacht. 1nclplent
paralysis and that peculiar mania described
as ia folie des grandeurs" are the chief
symptoms of his disease, which leave but
small hope of recovery. Up to the day on
which he attempted his life he wrote
rational letters to friends in Paris, but com.
planned therein OF intolerable pains. 1t is
affirmed that having possibly presenti-
ment of his coming affliction the novelist
short time ago summoned solicitor from
Paris and made his will.
Work on His Literary Testament.
De Maupassant told his friends that
'I'Angelus'' was the finest thing he had
ever attempted, and was to be his literary
testament. ''Mv other works may disap-
pear" he said, ''but this, please God, will
not" De Maupassant was also preparing
volume of studies on Flaubert Tfourguenieff
and Dostoievskv. For two or three months
before his attempt at suicide he had been at
Cannes under the supervision of devoted
relatives and friends, but he has not been
able to breathe freely or to sleep, and has
passed most of his nights on his yacht on
the Mediterranean.
1t is onlv within little more than year
that the novelist, at the beginning of this
period young, famous and rich, has been
transformed from gay bon vivant into
misanthrope, and finally into homicidal
lunatic.