 Gustave discovered a certain Jean-Baptiste Maupassant, "conseiller-secrétaire" to the King, who was ennobled in 1752.He then obtained from the "Tribunal Civil" of Rouen by decree dated 9 July 1846 the right to style himself "de Maupassant" instead of "Maupassant" and this was his surname at the birth of his son Guy in 1850.When Maupassant was 11 and his brother Hervé was five, his mother, an independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace to obtain a legal separation from her husband, who was violent towards her.