After the failure of his parents' marriage he lived with his mother at Étretat, a newly fashionable seaside resort. Having enrolled as a law student in 1869, he was called up after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and served as a quartermaster's clerk in Rouen. Following the war he left the army and eventually secured a post as a minor civil servant His favourite pastimes were womanizing and boating, especially at Argenteuil on the Seine, which was also a favourite haunt of the Impressionists. Flaubert, whom he knew through his mother, encouraged his literary activities and shaped both his style and his pessimistic outlook on life. Through Flaubert he came to know the leading figures in Parisian cultural life, notably Émile Zola, who recruited him to his new 'Naturalist' school of writing. Boule de Suif , his short story about a prostitute during the Franco-Prussian War, was hailed as a masterpiece by both Flaubert and the reading public. A leading figure in fashionable society and artistic circles, Maupassant wrote prolifically and was soon the bestselling author in France after Zola.
