A Life (1883), the first of Maupassant's six completed novels, tells the story of Jeanne de Lamare, the only daughter of wealthy Norman aristocrats. From the day she leaves convent school, her head full of innocent hopes for the future, to the moment twenty-nine years later when she becomes a grandmother under very changed circumstances, Jeanne slowly discovers that her reality does not resemble romantic fiction. Despite a handsome husband, two lovely children, and a fine chateau by the sea, her life is beset by treachery and disillusion.