Emile ZOLA supports the subscription for Guy de MAUPASSANT.

I receive donations almost daily which I pass on to society.

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Emile Zola (1840.1902)

Autograph letter signed to Jacques Normand.

Two pages in-8°. Medan. August 16, 1893.

A few weeks after the death of Guy de Maupassant, Zola got involved in the subscription launched, on his initiative, by the Society of Men of Letters for the construction of a monument in memory of the author of Bel-Ami.

“Your idea is excellent, my dear colleague, and I immediately wrote to Mr. Souvorin [the Russian writer and publicist Alexei Souvorin] whom I know a little. We'll see what that produces. Monday, in Paris, I had good news about the subscription. I receive donations almost daily which I pass on to society. In October, we will have to give it another push. My wife's health forced us to stay here. And we will probably only leave on September 15, to make a short trip to London, where I am invited to a conference. Best regards. Emile Zola. »

After several months of agony Guy de Maupassant died on July 6, 1893. On the 8th, the writer was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery. Zola delivers the funeral oration: I do not want to say that his glory needed this tragic end, a deep reverberation in minds, but his memory, since he suffered from this terrible passion of pain and of death, has taken on in us some sovereignly sad majesty which elevates it to the legend of the martyrs of thought. Apart from his glory as a writer, he will remain as one of the happiest and most unhappy men on earth, the one where we best feel our humanity hope and break, the brother adored, spoiled, then disappeared. amidst tears…”

A few days after Maupassant's burial, Zola suggested to the Society of Men of Letters that a monument be erected in his memory. This was inaugurated on October 25, 1897 at Parc Monceau.