One of the first questions in the Guy de Maupassant reading challenge was Political backdrop to “The Lancer's Wife” (Franco-Prussian War)?. After I was unable to find the story in French, it turned out that the English translator had actually attributed a story by Jean Richepin to Guy de Maupassant. This led to a new question: Which short stories are falsely attributed to Guy de Maupassant, and why? The stories listed there were by Jean Richepin, René Maizeroy or Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (who is best known for, uh, stuff that has nothing to do with literature).
Since Guy de Maupassant was born in 1850 and Richepin in 1849, they were contemporaries. Both contributed to the literary periodical Gil Blas and both contributed a preface to La grande Bleue by Maizeroy (published in 1888). However, is there any evidence that they met each other?