Guy de MAUPASSANT (1850-1893). Autograph manuscript, Mont-Oriol, [1886]; 313 folio leaves (29 x 19 to 32.5 x 20.5cm) mounted on tabs, bradel cream vellum binding with overlaps (remnants of binding cords), red fillets on boards, painted title on smooth spine, untrimmed (Pagnant). Complete manuscript of the third of Maupassant's six novels, with numerous erasures and corrections. Mont-Oriol is the third of Maupassant's six novels. Written in Antibes and Châtelguyon in 1885-1886, Mont-Oriol was published in Gil Blas from December 23, 1886 to February 6, 1887, then immediately in bookshops by Victor Havard in February 1887. The novel was inspired by Maupassant's cures at Châtelguyon in the summers of 1883, 1885 and 1886. The spa town, renamed Mont-Oriol, was the setting for the novel, as were the Auvergne landscapes: Enval, Château de Tournoël, Gour de Tazenat, Royat, the Chaîne des Puys, the Limagne plain... In August 1885, from Châtelguyon, Maupassant wrote to his mother: "I'm doing nothing but slowly preparing my novel. It will be a fairly short and simple story set in this great calm landscape". And on March 2, 1886, he confided to Hermine Lecomte du Noüy: "I'm doing a story of very exalted passion, very ardent and very poetic. It changes me - and embarrasses me. The sentimental chapters are much rougher than the others. [...] I'm afraid it will convert me to the love genre"... In an interview with Le Temps on February 12 1887, he declared: "It's a book I wanted to be all tenderness and sweetness. I wrote it almost in spite of myself, after a month of daydreaming through Limagne, in a land of extraordinary gentleness that enveloped, softened and softened me. I took pleasure in dreaming of Mont Oriol, lying in the woods, on this fragrant earth, with the blue horizons of Limagne unfurling at my feet. I tried to put into my book this background of sky, this perfume of earth". The novel is the story of a city of waters, of financial speculation, and of a passionate love affair. Jewish businessman William Andermatt has brought his wife Christiane to Enval, a small spa town in the Auvergne. Local farmer Father Oriol's discovery of a new spring spurs Andermatt to speculate on launching a major spa. Meanwhile, Andermatt's wife Christiane is seduced by Paul de Brétigny, a friend of her brother Gontran, and falls head over heels in love. By the following summer (part 2 of the novel), Mont-Oriol has become a fashionable spa town, attracting a wealthy clientele and interested doctors. To expand his business, Andermatt wants to secure ownership of all Father Oriol's land, and urges his brother-in-law Gontran de Ravenel to marry one of the Oriol daughters. Christiane, who is pregnant, despairs as Paul, disgusted by the pregnancy, distances himself from her. Seduced by the youngest of the Oriol daughters, whom Gontran has abandoned for the eldest, Paul is to marry Charlotte Oriol. The news brings about Christiane's painful childbirth, and she gives birth to a daughter on whom she will devote all her affection. This is the broad outline of a lavish novel, featuring the Marquis de Ravenel, who has sold his daughter Christiane to restore his reputation, his girl-chasing, spendthrift son Gontran, cunning peasants, wealthy spa-goers, hotel and casino staff, and a series of (cruelly caricatured) doctors. The manuscript, in black ink on large sheets, with a margin on the left for corrections and additions, features numerous erasures and corrections. It was used to compose the text, and bears the names of the typesetters in blue pencil in the margins, with the number of lines composed in pencil. Like the book, it is divided into two parts: the first, paginated 1 to 153, with 2 additional leaves (46 bis and 47 bis), comprises eight chapters; the second, paginated 1 to 159, comprises six chapters. The present manuscript is based on preparatory work, in particular notebooks written by a secretary (from drafts, or dictated by Maupassant, who had serious eye problems at the time) and corrected by him (Yale, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Marlo Johnston, Guy de Maupassant, Fayard 2012, p. 612-613 and notes). The work on the present manuscript is extensive. Some pages also show crossed-out original pagination, showing that certain episodes have been moved. Passages have been crossed out: for example (p.69), at the beginning of chapter V, a paragraph concerning the organization of the feast is crossed out: "On this very occasion, the Theatre had fraternized with the Ég