Emile ZOLA supports the subscription for Guy de MAUPASSANT.

Emile Zola (1840.1902)

Autographed letter signed to Jacques Normand.

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

A few weeks after the death of Guy de Maupassant, Zola became involved in the subscription launched, at 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. Suvorin [the Russian writer and publicist Alexei Suvorin] , whom I know a little. We shall see what comes of it. On Monday, in Paris, I received good news about the subscription. I am receiving donations almost daily, which I forward to the society. In October, we will have to make another concerted effort. My wife's health has forced us to stay here. And we will probably not leave until September 15th, for a short trip to London, where I am invited to a conference. Yours sincerely, Emile Zola.”

After several months of agony, Guy de Maupassant died on July 6, 1893. On the 8th, the writer was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. Zola delivered the eulogy there: “ I do not mean to say that his glory needed this tragic end, this profound resonance in people’s minds, but his memory, since he suffered this dreadful passion of pain and death, has taken on in us a certain supremely sorrowful majesty that elevates him to the legend of the martyrs of thought. Beyond his glory as a writer, he will remain as one of the happiest and most unhappy men on earth, the one in whom we most clearly feel our humanity hope and be shattered, the beloved brother, cherished, then vanished amidst tears…”

A few days after Maupassant's funeral, Zola proposed to the Société des gens de lettres (Society of Men of Letters) that a monument be erected in his memory. It was inaugurated on October 25, 1897 in the Parc Monceau.