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The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters

Translated by A.L. McKenzie (1921)

Introduction by Stuart Sherman





PREFATORY NOTE

This translation of the correspondence between George Sand and
Gustave Flaubert was undertaken in consequence of a suggestion by
Professor Stuart P. Sherman. The translator desires to acknowledge
valuable criticism given by Professor Sherman, Ruth M. Sherman, and
Professor Kenneth McKenzie, all of whom have generously assisted in
revising the manuscript.

A. L. McKenzie



INTRODUCTION

The correspondence of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert, if
approached merely as a chapter in the biographies of these heroes of
nineteenth century letters, is sufficiently rewarding. In a
relationship extending over twelve years, including the trying
period of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, these
extraordinary personalities disclose the aspects of their diverse
natures which are best worth the remembrance of posterity. However
her passionate and erratic youth may have captivated our
grandfathers, George Sand in the mellow autumn of her life is for us
at her most attractive phase. The storms and anguish and hazardous
adventures that attended the defiant unfolding of her spirit are
over. In her final retreat at Nohant, surrounded by her affectionate
children and grandchildren, diligently writing, botanizing, bathing
in her little river, visited by her friends and undistracted by the
fiery lovers of the old time, she shows an unguessed wealth of
maternal virtue, swift, comprehending sympathy, fortitude, sunny
resignation, and a goodness of heart that has ripened into wisdom.
For Flaubert, too, though he was seventeen years her junior, the
flamboyance of youth was long since past; in 1862, when the
correspondence begins, he was firmly settled, a shy, proud, grumpy
toiling hermit of forty, in his family seat at Croisset, beginning
his seven years' labor at L'Education Sentimentale, master of his
art, hardening in his convictions, and conscious of increasing
estrangement from the spirit of his age. He, with his craving for
sympathy, and she, with her inexhaustible supply of it, meet; he
pours out his bitterness, she her consolation; and so with equal
candor of self-revelation they beautifully draw out and strengthen
each the other's characteristics, and help one another grow old.

But there is more in these letters than a satisfaction for the
biographical appetite, which, indeed, finds ITS account rather in
the earlier chapters of the correspondents' history. What impresses
us here is the banquet spread for the reflective and critical
faculties in this intercourse of natural antagonists. As M. Faguet
observes in a striking paragraph of his study of Flaubert:

"It is a curious thing, which does honor to them both, that Flaubert
and George Sand should have become loving friends towards the end of
their lives. At the beginning, Flaubert might have been looked upon
by George Sand as a furious enemy. Emma [Madame Bovary] is George
Sand's heroine with all the poetry turned into ridicule. Flaubert
seems to say in every page of his work: 'Do you want to know what is
the real Valentine, the real Indiana, the real Lelia? Here she is,
it is Emma Roualt.' 'And do you want to know what becomes of a woman
whose education has consisted in George Sand's books? Here she is,
Emma Roualt.' So that the terrible mocker of the bourgeois has
written a book which is directly inspired by the spirit of the 1840
bourgeois. Their recriminations against romanticism 'which
rehabilitates and poetises the courtesan,' against George Sand, the
Muse of Adultery, are to be found in acts and facts in Madame
Bovary."

Now, the largest interest of this correspondence depends precisely
upon the continuance, beneath an affectionate personal relationship,
of a fundamental antagonism of interests and beliefs, resolutely
maintained on both sides. George Sand, with her lifelong passion for
propaganda and reformation, labors earnestly to bring Flaubert to
her point of view, to remould him nearer to her heart's desire. He,
with a playful deference to the sex and years of his friend,
addresses her in his letters as "Dear Master." Yet in the essentials
of the conflict, though she never gives over her effort, he never
budges a jot; he has taken his ground, and in his last unfinished
work, Bouvard and Pecuchet, he dies stubbornly fortifying his
position. To the last she speaks from a temperament lyrical,
sanguine, imaginative, optimistic and sympathetic; he from a
temperament dramatic, melancholy, observing, cynical, and satirical.
She insists upon natural goodness; he, upon innate depravity. She
urges her faith in social regeneration; he vents his splenetic
contempt for the mob. Through all the successive shocks of
disillusioning experience, she expects the renovation of humanity by
some religious, some semi-mystical, amelioration of its heart; he
grimly concedes the greater part of humanity to the devil, and can
see no escape for the remnant save in science and aristocratic
organization. For her, finally, the literary art is an instrument of
social salvation--it is her means of touching the world with her
ideals, her love, her aspiration; for him the literary art is the
avenue of escape from the meaningless chaos of existence--it is his
subtly critical condemnation of the world.

The origins of these unreconciled antipathies lie deep beneath the
personal relationship of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert; lie deep
beneath their successors, who with more or less of amenity in their
manners are still debating the same questions today. The main
currents of the nineteenth century, with fluent and refluent tides,
clash beneath the controversy; and as soon as one hears its "long
withdrawing roar," and thinks it is dying away, and is become a part
of ancient history, it begins again, and will be heard, no doubt, by
the last man as a solemn accompaniment to his final contention with
his last adversary.

George Sand was, on the whole, a natural and filial daughter of the
French Revolution. The royal blood which she received from her
father's line mingled in her veins with that of the Parisian
milliner, her mother, and predestined her for a leveller by
preparing in her an instinctive ground of revolt against all those
inherited prejudices which divided the families of her parents. As a
young girl wildly romping with the peasant children at Nohant she
discovered a joy in untrammeled rural life which was only to
increase with years. At the proper age for beginning to fashion a
conventional young lady, the hoyden was put in a convent, where she
underwent some exalting religious experiences; and in 1822 she was
assigned to her place in the "established social order" by her
marriage at seventeen to M. Dudevant. After a few years of rather
humdrum domestic life in the country, she became aware that this
gentleman, her husband, was behaving as we used to be taught that
all French husbands ultimately behave; he was, in fact, turning from
her to her maids. The young couple had never been strongly united--
the impetuous dreamy girl and her coarse hunting mate; and they had
grown wide apart. She should, of course, have adjusted herself
quietly to the altered situation and have kept up appearances. But
this young wife had gradually become an "intellectual"; she had been
reading philosophy and poetry; she was saturated with the writings
of Rousseau, of Chateaubriand, of Byron. None of the spiritual
masters of her generation counselled acquiescence in servitude or
silence in misery. Every eloquent tongue of the time-spirit urged
self-expression and revolt. And she, obedient to the deepest
impulses of her blood and her time, revolted.

At the period when Madame Dudevant withdrew her neck from the
conjugal yoke and plunged into her literary career in Paris, the
doctrine that men are created for freedom, equality and fraternity
was already somewhat hackneyed. She, with an impetus from her own
private fortunes, was to give the doctrine a recrudescence of
interest by resolutely applying it to the status of women. We cannot
follow her in detail from the point where she abandons the domestic
sewing-basket to reappear smoking black cigars in the Latin Quarter.
We find her, at about 1831, entering into competition with the
brilliant literary generation of Balzac, Hugo, Alfred de Musset,
Merimee, Stendhal, and Sainte-Beuve. To signalize her equality with
her brothers in talent, she adopts male attire: "I had a sentry-box
coat made, of rough grey cloth, with trousers and waist-coat to
match. With a grey hat and a huge cravat of woolen material, I
looked exactly like a first-year student." In the freedom of this
rather unalluring garb she entered into relations Platonic,
fraternal, or tempestuously passionate with perhaps the most
distinguished series of friends and lovers that ever fluttered about
one flame. There was Aurelien de Seze; Jules Sandeau, her first
collaborator, who "reconciled her to life" and gave her a nom de
guerre; the inscrutable Merimee, who made no one happy; Musset--an
encounter from which both tiger-moths escaped with singed wings; the
odd transitional figure of Pagello; Michel Euraed; Liszt; Chopin,
whom she loved and nursed for eight years; her master Lamennais; her
master Pierre Leroux; her father-confessor Sainte-Beuve; and Gustave
Flaubert, the querulous friend of her last decade.

As we have compressed the long and complex story of her personal
relationships, so we must compress the intimately related history of
her works and her ideas. When under the inspiration of Rousseau, the
emancipated George Sand began to write, her purposes were but
vaguely defined. She conceived of life as primarily an opportunity
for unlimited self-expansion, and of literature as an opportunity
for unrestricted self-expression. "Nevertheless," she declares, "my
instincts have formed, without my privity, the theory I am about to
set down,--a theory which I have generally followed unconsciously.
... According to this theory, the novel is as much a work of poetry
as of analysis. It demands true situations, and characters not only
true but real, grouped about a type intended to epitomize the
sentiment or the main conceptions of the book. This type generally
represents the passion of love, since almost all novels are love-
stories. According to this theory (and it is here that it begins)
the writer must idealize this love, and consequently this type,--and
must not fear to attribute to it all the powers to which he inwardly
aspires, or all the sorrows whose pangs he has observed or felt.
This type must in no wise, however, become degraded by the
vicissitude of events; it must either die or triumph."

In 1831, when her pen began its fluent course through the lyrical
works of her first period--Indiana, Valentine, Lelia, Jacques, and
the rest--we conceive George Sand's culture, temper, and point of
view to have been fairly comparable with those of the young Shelley
when, fifteen years earlier, he with Mary Godwin joined Byron and
Jane Clairmont in Switzerland--young revoltes, all of them,
nourished on eighteenth century revolutionary philosophy and Gothic
novels. Both these eighteenth century currents meet in the work of
the new romantic group in England and in France. The innermost
origin of the early long poems of Shelley and the early works of
George Sand is in personal passion, in the commotion of a romantic
spirit beating its wings against the cage of custom and circumstance
and institutions. The external form of the plot, whatever is
fantastic and wilful in its setting and its adventures, is due to
the school of Ann Radcliffe. But the quality in Shelley and in
George Sand which bewitched even the austere Matthew Arnold in his
green and salad days is the poetising of that liberative eighteenth
century philosophy into "beautiful idealisms" of a love emancipated
from human limitations, a love exalted to the height of its gamut by
the influences of nature, triumphantly seeking its own or shattered
in magnificent despair. In her novels of the first period, George
Sand takes her Byronic revenge upon M. Dudevant. In Indiana and its
immediate successors, consciously or unconsciously, she declares to
the world what a beautiful soul M. Dudevant condemned to sewing on
buttons; in Jacques she paints the man who might fitly have matched
her spirit; and by the entire series, which now impresses us as
fantastic in sentiment no less than in plot, she won her early
reputation as the apologist for free love, the adversary of
marriage.

In her middle period--say from 1838 to 1848--of which The Miller of
Aginbault, Consuelo, and The Countess of Rudolstadt are
representative works, there is a marked subsidence of her personal
emotion, and, in compensation, a rising tide of humanitarian
enthusiasm. Gradually satiated with erotic passion, gradually
convinced that it is rather a mischief-maker than a reconstructive
force in a decrepit society, she is groping, indeed, between her
successive liaisons for an elusive felicity, for a larger mission
than inspiring Musset's Alexandrines or Chopin's nocturnes. It is
somewhat amusing, and at the same time indicative of her vague but
deep-seated moral yearnings, to find her writing rebukingly to
Sainte-Beuve, as early as 1834, apropos of his epicurean Volupte:
"Let the rest do as they like; but you, dear friend, you must
produce a book which will change and better mankind, do you see? You
can, and therefore should. Oh, if poor I could do it! I should lift
my head again and my heart would no longer be broken; but in vain I
seek a religion: Shall it be God, shall it be love, friendship, the
public welfare? Alas, it seems to me that my soul is framed to
receive all these impressions, without one effacing another ... Who
shall paint justice as it should, as it may, be in our modern
society?"

To Sainte-Beuve, himself an unscathed intellectual Odysseus, she
declares herself greatly indebted intellectually; but on the whole
his influence seems to have been tranquillizing. The material for
the radical program, economic, political, and religious, which, like
a spiritual ancestor of H. G. Wells, she eagerly sought to
popularize by the novels of her middle years, was supplied mainly by
Saint-Simon, Lamennais, and Leroux. Her new "religion of humanity,"
a kind of theosophical socialism, is too fantastically garbed to
charm the sober spirits of our age. And yet from the ruins of that
time and from the emotional extravagance of books grown tedious,
which she has left behind her, George Sand emerges for us with one
radiant perception which must be included in whatever religion
animates a democratic society: "Everyone must be happy, so that the
happiness of a few may not be criminal and cursed by God."

One of George Sand's French critics, M. Caro, a member of the
Academy, who deals somewhat austerely with her religiose enthusiasms
and with her Utopian projects for social reformation, remarks
gravely and not without tenderness:

"The one thing needful to this soul, so strong, so rich in
enthusiasm, is a humble moral quality that she disdains, and when
she has occasion to speak of it, even slanders,--namely resignation.
This is not, as she seems to think, the sluggish virtue of base
souls, who, in their superstitious servitude to force, hasten to
crouch beneath every yoke. That is a false and degrading
resignation; genuine resignation grows out of the conception of the
universal order, weighed against which individual sufferings,
without ceasing to be a ground of merit, cease to constitute a right
of revolt. ... Resignation, in the true, the philosophical, the
Christian sense, is a manly acceptance of moral law and also of the
laws essential to the social order; it is a free adherence to order,
a sacrifice approved by reason of a part of one's private good and
of one's personal freedom, not to might nor to the tyranny of a
human caprice, but to the exigencies of the common weal, which
subsists only by the concord of individual liberty with obedient
passions."

Well, resigned in the sense of defeated, George Sand never became;
nor did she, perhaps, ever wholly acquiesce in that scheme of things
which M. Caro impressively designates as "the universal order." Yet
with age, the abandonment of many distractions, the retreat to
Nohant, the consolations of nature, and her occupation with tales of
pastoral life, beginning with La Mare au Diable, there develops
within her, there diffuses itself around her, there appears in her
work a charm like that which falls upon green fields from the level
rays of the evening sun after a day of storms. It is not the charm,
precisely, of resignation; it is the charm of serenity--the serenity
of an old revolutionist who no longer expects victory in the morning
yet is secure in her confidence of a final triumph, and still more
secure in the goodness of her cause. "A hundred times in life," she
declares, "the good that one does seems to serve no immediate
purpose; yet it maintains in one way and another the tradition of
well wishing and well doing, without which all would perish." At the
outset of her career we compared her with Shelley. In her last
phase, she reminds us rather of the authors of Far from the Madding
Crowd and The Mill on the Floss, and of Wordsworth, once, too, a
torch of revolution, turning to his Michaels and his leech-gatherers
and his Peter Bells. Her exquisite pictures of pastoral life are
idealizations of it; her representations of the peasant are not
corroborated by Zola's; to the last she approaches the shield of
human nature from the golden side. But for herself at least she has
found a real secret of happiness in country life, tranquil work, and
a right direction given to her own heart and conscience.

It is at about this point in her spiritual development that she
turns towards Gustave Flaubert--perhaps a little suspiciously at
first, yet resolved from the first, according to her natural
instinct and her now fixed principles, to stimulate by believing in
his admirable qualities. Writing from Nohant in 1866 to him at
Croisset, she epitomises her distinction as a woman and as an author
in this playful sally: "Sainte-Beuve, who loves you nevertheless,
pretends that you are dreadfully vicious. But perhaps he sees with
eyes a bit dirty, like that learned botanist who pretends that the
germander is of a DIRTY yellow. The observation was so false that I
could not help writing on the margin of his book: 'IT IS YOU, WHOSE
EYES ARE DIRTY.'"

We have spoken of George Sand as a faithful daughter of the French
Revolution; and by way of contrast we may speak of Flaubert as a
disgruntled son of the Second Empire. Between his literary advent
and hers there is an interval of a generation, during which the
proud expansive spirit and the grandiose aspirations imparted to the
nation by the first Napoleon dwindled to a spirit of mediocrity and
bourgeois smugness under a Napoleon who had inherited nothing great
of his predecessor but his name. This change in the time-spirit may
help to explain the most significant difference between Flaubert and
George Sand. He inherited the tastes and imagination of the great
romantic generation; but he inherited none of its social and
political enthusiasm. He was disciplined by the romantic writers;
yet his reaction to the literary culture of his youth is not ethical
but aesthetic; he finds his inspiration less in Rousseau than in
Chateaubriand. He is bred to an admiration of eloquence, the poetic
phrase, the splendid picture, life in the grand style; with
increasing disgust he finds himself entering a society which, he
feels, neither understands nor values any of these things, and which
threatens their destruction. Consequently, we find him actuated as a
writer by two complementary passions--the love of splendor and the
hatred of mediocrity--two passions, of which the second sometimes
alternates with the first, sometimes inseparably fuses with it, and
ultimately almost extinguishes it.

The son of an eminent surgeon of Rouen, Gustave Flaubert may have
acquired from his father something of that scientific precision of
observation and that cutting accuracy of expression, by which he
gained his place at the head of modern French realism and won the
discipleship of the Goncourts, Daudet, Zola, and Maupassant and the
applause of such connoisseurs of technique as Walter Pater and Henry
James. From his mother's Norman ancestry he inherited the physique
of a giant, tainted with epilepsy; a Viking countenance, strong-
featured with leonine moustaches; and a barbaric temper, habitually
somewhat lethargic but irritable, and, when roused, violent and
intolerant of opposition. He had a private education at Rouen, with
wide desultory reading; went to Paris, which he hated, to study law,
which he also hated; frequented the theatres and studios; travelled
in Corsica, the Pyrenees, and the East, which he adored, seeing
Egypt, Palestine, Constantinople, and Greece; and he had one, and
only one, important love-affair, extending from 1846 to 1854--that
with Mme. Louise Colet, a woman of letters, whose difficult
relations with Flaubert are sympathetically touched upon in Pater's
celebrated essay on "Style." When by the death of his father, in
1845, he succeeded to the family-seat at Croisset, near Rouen, he
settled himself in a studious solitude to the pursuit of letters,
which he followed for thirty-four years with anguish of spirit and
dogged persistence.

Flaubert probably loved glory as much as any man; but he desired to
receive it only on his own terms. He profoundly appeals to writers
endowed with "the artistic conscience" as "the martyr of literary
style." In morals something of a libertine, in matters of art he
exhibited the intolerance of weakness in others and the remorseless
self-examination and self-torment commonly attributed to the
Puritan. His friend Maxime Du Camp, who tried to bring him out and
teach him the arts of popularity, he rebuffed with deliberate
insult. He developed an aversion to any interruption of his work,
and such tension and excitability of nerves that he shunned a day's
outing or a chat with an old companion, lest it distract him for a
month afterward. His mistress he seems to have estranged by an ill-
concealed preference to her of his exacting Muse. To illustrate his
"monkish" consecration to his craft we cannot do better than
reproduce a passage, quoted by Pater, from his letters to Madame
Colet:

"I must scold you for one thing, which shocks, scandalises me, the
small concern, namely, you show for art just now. As regards glory
be it so--there I approve. But for art!--the one thing in life that
is good and real--can you compare with it an earthly love?--prefer
the adoration of a relative beauty to the cultus of the true beauty?
Well! I tell you the truth. That is the one thing good in me: the
one thing I have, to me estimable. For yourself, you blend with the
beautiful a heap of alien things, the useful, the agreeable, what
not?

"The only way not to be unhappy is to shut yourself up in art, and
count everything else as nothing. Pride takes the place of all
beside when it is established on a large basis. Work! God wills it.
That, it seems to me, is clear.

"I am reading over again the Aeneid, certain verses of which I
repeat to myself to satiety. There are phrases there which stay in
one's head, by which I find myself beset, as with those musical airs
which are forever returning, and cause you pain, you love them so
much. I observe that I no longer laugh much, and am no longer
depressed. I am ripe, you talk of my serenity, and envy me. It may
well surprise you. Sick, irritated, the prey a thousand times a day
of cruel pain, I continue my labour like a true working-man, who,
with sleeves turned up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his
anvil, never troubling himself whether it rains or blows, for hail
or thunder. I was not like that formerly."

The half-dozen works which Flaubert beat out on his "anvil," with an
average expenditure of half-a-dozen years to each, were composed on
a theory of which the prime distinguishing feature was the great
doctrine of "impersonality." George Sand's fluent improvisations
ordinarily originated, as we have noted, in an impulse of her
lyrical idealism; she began with an aspiration of her heart, to
execute which she invented characters and plot so that she is always
on the inside of her story. According to Flaubert's theory, the
novel should originate in a desire to present a certain segment of
observed life. The author is to take and rigorously maintain a
position outside his work. The organ with which he collects his
materials is not his heart but his eyes, supplemented by the other
senses. Life, so far as the scientific observer can be sure of it,
and so far as the artist can control it for representation, is a
picture or series of pictures, a dramatic scene or a concatenation
of dramatic scenes. Let the novelist first, therefore, with
scrupulous fidelity and with minute regard for the possible
significance of every observable detail, fill his notebooks, amass
his materials, master his subject. After Flaubert, a first-rate
sociological investigator is three-fourths of a novelist. The rest
of the task is to arrange and set forth these facts so that they
shall tell the truth about life impressively, in scene and dramatic
spectacle, the meaning of which shall be implicit in the plot and
shall reach the reader's consciousness through his senses.

Critics have spent much time in discussing the conflict of
"romantic" and "realistic" tendencies in Flaubert's works. And it is
obviously easy, so far as subject-matter is concerned, to group his
books in two divisions: on the one hand, The Temptation of St.
Anthony, Salammbo, and two of the Trois Contes; on the other hand,
Madame Bovary, L'Education Sentimentale, and the incomplete Bouvard
and Pecuchet. We may call the tales in the first group romantic,
because the subject-matter is remote in time and place, and because
in them Flaubert indulges his passion for splendor--for oriental
scenery, for barbaric characters, the pomp of savage war and more
savage religion, events strange, terrible, atrocious. We may call
the stories in the other group realistic, because the subject-matter
is contemporary life in Paris and the provinces, and because in them
Flaubert indulges his hatred for mediocrity--for the humdrum
existence of the country doctor, the apothecary, the insipid clerk,
the vapid sentimental woman, and the charlatans of science. But as a
matter of fact, ALL his books are essentially constructed on the
same theory: all are just as "realistic" as Flaubert could make
them.

Henry James called Madame Bovary a brilliantly successful
application of Flaubert's theory; he pronounced L'Education
Sentimentale "elaborately and massively dreary"; and he briefly
dismissed Salammbo as an accomplished work of erudition. Salammbo is
indeed a work of erudition; years were spent in getting up its
archaeological details. But Madame Bovary is also a work of
erudition, and Bouvard and Pecuchet is a work of enormous erudition;
a thousand volumes were read for the notes of the first volume and
Flaubert is said to have killed himself by the labor of his
unfinished investigations. There is no important distinction to be
made between the method or the thoroughness with which he collected
his facts in the one case or the other; and the story of the war of
the mercenaries against the Carthaginians is evolved with the same
alternation of picture and dramatic spectacle and the same hard
merciless externality that distinguish the evolution of Emma
Bovary's history.

We may go still farther than that towards wiping out the distinction
between Flaubert's "romantic" and his "realistic" works; and by the
same stroke what is illusory in the pretensions of the realists,
namely, their aspiration to an "impersonal art."

If we were seeking to prove that an author can put NOTHING BUT
HIMSELF into his art, we should ask for no more impressive
illustions than precisely, Madame Bovary and Salammbo. These two
masterpieces disclose to reflection, no less patently than the works
of George Sand, their purpose and their meaning. And that purpose
and meaning are not a whit less personal to Flaubert than the
purpose and meaning of Indiana, let us say, are personal to George
Sand. The "meaning" of Madame Bovary and Salammbo is, broadly
speaking, Flaubert's sense of the significance--or, rather, of the
insignificance--of human life; and the "purpose" of the books is to
express it. The most lyrical of idealists can do no more to reveal
herself.

The demonstration afforded by a comparison of Salammbo and Madame
Bovary is particularly striking because the subject-matters are
superficially so unlike. But take any characteristic series of
pictures or incidents from Salammbo: take the passing of the
children through the fire to Moloch, or the description of the
leprous Hanno, or the physical surrender of the priestess to her
country's enemy, or the following picture of the crucified lion:

"They were marching through a wide defile, hedged in by two chains
of reddish hillocks, when a nauseous odor struck their nostrils, and
they believed that they saw something extraordinary at the top of a
carob tree; a lion's head stood up above the foliage.

"Running towards it, they found a lion attached to a cross by its
four limbs, like a criminal; his enormous muzzle hung to his breast,
and his forepaws, half concealed beneath the abundance of his mane,
were widely spread apart, like a bird's wings in flight; under the
tightly drawn skin, his ribs severally protruded and his hind legs
were nailed together, but were slightly drawn up; black blood had
trickled through the hairs, and collected in stalactites at the end
of his tail, which hung straight down the length of the cross. The
soldiers crowded around the beast, diverting themselves by calling
him 'Consul!' and 'Citizen of Rome!' and threw pebbles into his eyes
to scatter the swarming gnats."

And now take any characteristic series of pictures or incidents from
Madame Bovary: take Bovary's bungling and gruesome operations on the
club-footed ostler's leg, with the entire village clustering agape;
take the picture of the eyeless, idiotic beggar on the road to
Rouen; or the scene in which Emma offers herself for three thousand
francs to Rodolphe; or the following bit, only a bit, from the
detailed account of the heroine's last hours, after the arsenical
poisoning:

"Emma's head was turned towards her right shoulder, the corner of
her mouth, which was open, seemed like a black hole at the lower
part of her face; her two thumbs were bent into the palms of her
hands; a kind of white dust besprinkled her lashes, and her eyes
were beginning to disappear in that viscous pallor that looks like a
thin web, as if spiders had spun it over. The sheet sunk in from her
breast to her knees, and then rose at the tips of her toes, and it
seemed to Charles that infinite masses, an enormous load, were
weighing upon her.

"The church clock struck two. They could hear the loud murmur of the
river flowing in the darkness at the foot of the terrace. Monsieur
Bournisien from time to time blew his nose noisily and Homais' pen
was scratching over the paper."

In these two detached pictures--the one from a so-called "romantic,"
the other from a so-called "realistic" book--one readily observes
the likeness in the subjects, which are of a ghastly repulsiveness;
the same minuteness of observation--e.g., the lion's hind legs
"slightly drawn up," the woman's thumbs "bent into the palms of her
hands"; the same careful notation of effect on the several senses;
the same rhetorical heightening--e.g., the "stalactites at the end
of his tail," the web in the woman's eyes "as if spiders had spun it
over"; and finally, that celebrated detachment, that air as of a
medical examiner, recording the results of an autopsy. What can we
know of such an author? All, or nearly all, that he knew of himself,
provided we will searchingly ask ourselves what sort of mind is
steadily attracted to the painting of such pictures, to the
representation of such incidents, and what sort of mind expresses a
lifetime of brooding on the significance of life in two such books
as Madame Bovary and Salammbo.

At its first appearance, Madame Bovary was prosecuted, though
unsuccessfully, as offensive to public morals. In derision of this
famous prosecution, Henry James with studious jauntiness, asserts
that in the heat of his first admiration he thought what an
excellent moral tract it would make. "It may be very seriously
maintained," he continues, "that M. Flaubert's masterpiece is the
pearl of 'Sunday reading.'" As a work of fiction and recreation the
book lacks, in his opinion, one quite indispensable quality: it
lacks charm. Well, there are momentary flashes of beauty and grace,
dazzling bits of color, haunting melancholy cadences in every
chapter of Flaubert; but a charming book he never wrote. A total
impression of charm he never gave--he never could give; because his
total impression of life was not charming but atrocious. It is
perhaps an accident, as has been suggested, that one can so readily
employ Madame Bovary to illustrate that text on the "wages of sin."
Emma, to be sure, goes down the easy and alluring path to disgrace
and ruin. But that is only an incident in the wider meaning of
Flaubert's fiction, a meaning more amply expressed in Salammbo,
where not one foolish woman alone but thousands on thousands of men,
women, and children, mingled with charging elephants and vipers,
flounder and fight in indescribable welters of blood and filth, and
go down to rot in a common pit. If I read Flaubert's meaning right,
all human history is there; you may show it by painting on broad
canvas a Carthaginian battle-scene or by photographing the details
of a modern bedroom: a brief brightness, night and the odor of
carrion, a crucified lion, a dying woman, the jeering of ribald
mercenaries, the cackle of M. Homais. It is all one. If Flaubert
deserved prosecution, it was not for making vice attractive, but for
expressing with invasive energy that personal and desperately
pessimistic conception of life by which he was almost overwhelmed.

That a bad physical regimen, bad habits of work in excessive
quantities, and the solitude of his existence were contributory to
Flaubert's melancholy, his exacerbated egotism, and his pessimism is
sufficiently obvious in the letters. This Norman giant with his
aching head buried all day long in his arms, groping in anguish for
a phrase, has naturally a kindly disposition towards various
individuals of his species--is even capable of great generosity; but
as he admits with a truth and pathos, deeply appealing to the
maternal sympathies of his correspondent, he has no talent for
living. He has never been able, like richer and more resourceful
souls, to reconcile being a man with being an author. He has made
his choice; he has renounced the cheerful sanities of the world:

"I pass entire weeks without exchanging a word with a human being;
and at the end of the week it is not possible for me to recall a
single day nor any event whatsoever. I see my mother and my niece on
Sundays, and that is all. My only company consists of a band of rats
in the garret, which make an infernal racket above my head, when the
water does not roar or the wind blow. The nights are black as ink,
and a silence surrounds me comparable to that of the desert.
Sensitiveness is increased immeasurably in such a setting. I have
palpitations of the heart for nothing.

"All that results from our charming profession. That is what it
means to torment the soul and the body. But perhaps this torment is
our proper lot here below."

To George Sand, who wrote as naturally as she breathed and almost as
easily, seclusion and torment were by no means the necessary
conditions of literary activity. Enormously productive, with a
hundred books to his half-a-dozen, she has never dedicated and
consecrated herself to her profession but has lived heartily and a
bit recklessly from day to day, spending herself in many directions
freely, gaily, extravagantly. Now that she has definitely said
farewell to her youth, she finds that she is twenty years younger;
and now that she is, in a sense, dissipating her personality and
living in the lives of others, she finds that she is happier than
ever before. "It can't be imperative to work so painfully"--such is
the burden of her earlier counsels to Flaubert; "spare yourself a
little, take some exercise, relax the tendons of your mind, indulge
a little the physical man. Live a little as I do; and you will take
your fatigues and illnesses and occasional dolours and dumps as
incidents of the day's work and not magnify them into the
mountainous overshadowing calamities from which you deduce your
philosophy of universal misery." No advice could have been more
wholesome or more timely. And with what pictures of her own busy
felicity she reenforces her advice! I shall produce three of them
here in order to emphasize that precious thing which George Sand
loved to impart, and which she had the gift of imparting, namely,
joy, the spontaneous joyousness of her own nature. The first passage
is from a letter of June 14, 1867:

"I am a little remorseful to take whole days from your work, I who
am never bored with loafing, and whom you could leave for whole
hours under a tree, or before two lighted logs, with the assurance
that I should find there something interesting. I know so well how
to live OUTSIDE OF MYSELF. It hasn't always been like that. I also
was young and subject to indignations. It is over! Since I have
dipped into real nature, I have found there an order, a system, a
calmness of cycles which is lacking in mankind, but which man can,
up to a certain point, assimilate when he is not too directly at
odds with the difficulties of his own life. When these difficulties
return, he must endeavor to avoid them; but if he has drunk the cup
of the eternally true, he does not get too excited for or against
the ephemeral and relative truth."

The second passage is of June 21:

"I love everything that makes up a milieu, the rolling of the
carriages and the noise of the workmen in Paris, the cries of a
thousand birds in the country, the movement of the ships on the
waters. I love also absolute, profound silence, and, in short, I
love everything that is around me, no matter where I am."

The last passage gives a glimpse of the seventeenth of January,
1869, a typical day in Nohant:

"The individual named George Sand is well: he is enjoying the
marvellous winter which reigns in Berry, gathering flowers, noting
interesting botanical anomalies, making dresses and mantles for his
daughter-in-law, costumes for the marionettes, cutting out scenery,
dressing dolls, reading music, but above all spending hours with the
little Aurore, who is a marvellous child. There is not a more
tranquil or a happier individual in his domestic life than this old
troubadour retired from business, who sings from time to time his
little song to the moon, without caring much whether he sings well
or ill, provided he sings the motif that runs in his head, and who,
the rest of the time, idles deliciously.... This pale character has
the great pleasure of loving you with all his heart, and of not
passing a day without thinking of the other old troubadour, confined
in his solitude of a frenzied artist, disdainful of all the
pleasures of the world."

Flaubert did "exercise" a little--once or twice--in compliance with
the injunctions of his "dear master"; but he rather resented the
implication that his pessimism was personal, that it had any
particular connection with his peculiar temperament or habits. He
wished to think of himself as a stoic, quite indifferent about his
"carcase." His briefer black moods he might acknowledge had
transitory causes. But his general and abiding conceptions of
humanity were the result of dispassionate reflections. "You think,"
he cries in half-sportive pique, "that because I pass my life trying
to make harmonious phrases, in avoiding assonances, that I too have
not my little judgments on the things of this world? Alas! Yes! and
moreover I shall burst, enraged at not expressing them." And later:
"Yes, I am susceptible to disinterested angers, and I love you all
the more for loving me for that. Stupidity and injustice make me
roar,--and I howl in my corner against a lot of things 'that do not
concern me.'" "On the day that I am no longer in a rage, I shall
fall flat as the marionette from which one withdraws the support of
the stick."

So far as Flaubert's pessimism has an intellectual basis, it rests
upon his researches in human history. For Salammbo and The
Temptation of St. Anthony he ransacked ancient literature, devoured
religions and mythologies, and saturated himself in the works of the
Church Fathers. In order to get up the background of his Education
Sentimentale he studied the Revolution of 1848 and its roots in the
Revolution of 1789. He found, shall we say? what he was looking for-
-inexhaustible proofs of the cruelty and stupidity of men. After
"gulping" down the six volumes of Buchez and Roux, he declares: "The
clearest thing I got out of them is an immense disgust for the
French.... Not a liberal idea which has not been unpopular, not a
just thing that has not caused scandal, not a great man who has not
been mobbed or knifed. 'The history of the human mind is the history
of human folly,' as says M. Voltaire. ... Neo-Catholicism on the one
hand, and Socialism on the other, have stultified France." In
another letter of the same Period and similar provocation: "However
much you fatten human cattle, giving them straw as high as their
bellies, and even gilding their stable, they will remain brutes, no
matter what one says. All the advance that one can hope for, is to
make the brute a little less wicked. But as for elevating the ideas
of the mass, giving it a larger and therefore a less human
conception of God, I have my doubts."

In addition to the charges of violence and cruelty, which he brought
against all antiquity as well as against modern times, much in the
fashion of Swift or the older Mark Twain, Flaubert nursed four grave
causes of indignation, made four major charges of folly against
modern "Christian" civilization.  In religion, we have substituted
for Justice the doctrine of Grace. In our sociological
considerations we act no longer with discrimination but upon a
principle of universal sympathy. In the field of art and literature
we have abandoned criticism and research for the Beautiful in favor
of universal puffery. In politics we have nullified intelligence and
renounced leadership to embrace universal suffrage, which is the
last disgrace of the human spirit.

It must be acknowledged that Flaubert's arraignment of modern
society possesses the characteristics commended by the late Barett
Wendell: it is marked in a high degree by "unity, mass, and
coherence." It must be admitted also that George Sand possessed in a
high degree the Pauline virtue of being "not easily provoked," or
she never could have endured so patiently, so sweetly, Flaubert's
reiterated and increasingly ferocious assaults upon her own master
passion, her ruling principle. George Sand was one whose entire life
signally attested the power of a "saving grace," resident in the
creative and recuperative energies of nature, resident in the
magical, the miracle-working, powers of the human heart, the powers
of love and sympathy. She was a modern spiritual adventurer who had
escaped unscathed from all the anathemas of the old theology; and
she abounded, like St. Francis, in her sense of the new dispensation
and in her benedictive exuberance towards all the creatures of God,
including not merely sun, moon, and stars and her sister the lamb
but also her brother the wolf. On this principle she loves
Flaubert!--and archly asserts her arch-heresy in his teeth. He
complains that her fundamental defect is that she doesn't know how
to "hate." She replies, with a point that seems never really to have
pierced his thick casing of masculine egotism:

"Artists are spoiled children and the best are great egotists. You
say that I love them too well; I like them as I like the woods and
the fields, everything, everyone that I know a little and that I
study continually. I make my life in the midst of all that, and as I
like my life, I like all that nourishes it and renews it. They do me
a lot of ill turns which I see, but which I no longer feel. I know
that there are thorns in the hedges, but that does not prevent me
from putting out my hands and finding flowers there. If all are not
beautiful, all are interesting. The day you took me to the Abbey of
Saint-Georges I found the scrofularia borealis, a very rare plant in
France. I was enchanted; there was much----in the neighborhood where
I gathered it. Such is life!

"And if one does not take life like that, one cannot take it in any
way, and then how can one endure it? I find it amusing and
interesting, and since I accept EVERYTHING, I am so much happier and
more enthusiastic when I meet the beautiful and the good. If I did
not have a great knowledge of the species, I should not have quickly
understood you, or known you or loved you."

Two years later the principles and tempers of both these
philosophers were put to their severest trial. In 1870, George Sand
had opportunity to apply her doctrine of universal acceptance to the
Prussians in Paris. Flaubert had opportunity to welcome scientific
organization in the Prussian occupation of his own home at Croisset.
The first reaction of both was a quite simple consternation and
rage, in which Flaubert cries, "The hopeless barbarism of humanity
fills me with a black melancholy," and George Sand, for the moment
assenting, rejoins: "Men are ferocious and conceited brutes." As the
war thickens around him and the wakened militancy of his compatriots
presses him hard, Flaubert becomes more and more depressed; he
forebodes a general collapse of civilization--before the century
passes, a conflict of races, "in which several millions of men kill
one another in one engagement." With the curiously vengeful
satisfaction which mortals take in their own misery when it offers
occasion to cry "I told you so," he exclaims: "Behold then, the
NATURAL MAN. Make theories now! Boast the progress, the
enlightenment and the good sense of the masses, and the gentleness
of the French people! I assure you that anyone here who ventured to
preach peace would get himself murdered."

George Sand in her fields at Nohant--not "above" but a little aside
from the conflict--turns instinctively to her peasant doggedly,
placidly, sticking at his plow; turns to her peasant with a kind of
intuition that he is a symbol of faith, that he holds the keys to a
consolation, which the rest of us blindly grope for: "He is
imbecile, people say; no, he is a child in prosperity, a man in
disaster, more of a man than we who complain; he says nothing, and
while people are killing, he is sowing, repairing continually on one
side what they are destroying  on the other." Flaubert, who thinks
that he has no "illusions" about peasants or the "average man,"
brings forward his own specific of a quite different nature: "Do you
think that if France, instead of being governed on the whole by the
crowd, were in the power of the mandarins, we should be where we are
now? If, instead of having wished to enlighten the lower classes, we
had busied ourselves with instructing the higher, we should not have
seen M. de Keratry proposing the pillage of the duchy of Baden."

In the great war of our own time with the same foes, our
professional advocates of "preparedness," our cheerful chemists, our
scientific "intellectuals"--all our materialistic thinkers hard-
shell and soft-shell,--took the position of Flaubert, just
presented; reproached us bitterly for our slack, sentimental
pacificism; and urged us with all speed to emulate the scientific
spirit of our enemy. There is nothing more instructive in this
correspondence than to observe how this last fond illusion falls
away from Flaubert under the impact of an experience which
demonstrated to his tortured senses the truth of the old Rabelaisian
utterance, that "science without conscience is the ruin of the
soul."

"What use, pray," he cries in the last disillusion, "is science,
since this people abounding in scholars commits abominations worthy
of the Huns and worse than theirs, because they are systematic,
cold-blooded, voluntary, and have for an excuse, neither passion nor
hunger?" And a few months later, he is still in mad anguish of
desolation:

"I had some illusions! What barbarity! What a slump! I am wrathful
at my contemporaries for having given me the feelings of a brute of
the twelfth century! I'm stifling in gall! These officers who break
mirrors with white gloves on, who know Sanskrit, and who fling
themselves on the champagne; who steal your watch and then send you
their visiting card, this war for money, these civilized savages
give me more horror than cannibals. And all the world is going to
imitate them, is going to be a soldier! Russia has now four millions
of them. All Europe will wear a uniform. If we take our revenge, it
will be ferocious in the last degree; and, mark my word, we are
going to think only of that, of avenging ourselves on Germany."

Under the imminence of the siege of Paris, Flaubert had drilled men,
with an out-flashing of the savage fighting spirit of his ancestors,
of which he was more than half ashamed. But at heart he is more
dismayed, more demoralized, more thoroughly prostrated than George
Sand. He has not fortitude actually to face the degree of depravity
which he has always imputed to the human race, the baseness with
which his imagination has long been easily and cynically familiar.
As if his pessimism had been only a literary pigment, a resource of
the studio, he shudders to find Paris painted in his own ebony
colors, and his own purely "artistic" hatred of the bourgeois,
translated into a principle of action, expressing itself in the
horrors of the Commune, with half the population trying to strangle
the other half. Hatred, after all, contempt and hatred, are not
quite the most felicitous watchwords for the use of human society.
Like one whose cruel jest has been taken more seriously than he had
intended and has been turned upon his own head, Flaubert considers
flight: "I cherish the following dream: of going to live in the sun
in a tranquil country." As a substitute for a physical retreat, he
buries himself in a study of Buddhism, and so gradually returns to
the pride of his intellectual isolation. As the tumult in his senses
subsides, he even ventures to offer to George Sand the anodyne of
his old philosophical despair: "Why are you so sad? Humanity offers
nothing new. Its irremediable misery has filled me with sadness ever
since my youth. And in addition I now have no disillusions. I
believe that the crowd, the common herd will always be hateful. The
only important thing is a little group of minds always the same--
which passes the torch from one to another."

There we must leave Flaubert, the thinker. He never passes beyond
that point in his vision of reconstruction: a "legitimate
aristocracy" established in contempt of the average man--with the
Academy of Sciences displacing the Pope.

George Sand, amid these devastating external events, is beginning to
feel the insidious siege of years. She can no longer rally her
spiritual forces with the "bright speed" that she had in the old
days. The fountain of her faith, which has never yet failed of
renewal, fills more slowly. For weeks she broods in silence, fearing
to augment her friend's dismay with more of her own, fearing to
resume a debate in which her cause may be better than her arguments
and in which depression of her physical energy may diminish her
power to put up a spirited defence before the really indomitable
"last ditch" of her position.  When Flaubert himself makes a
momentary gesture towards the white flag, and talks of retreat, she
seizes the opportunity for a short scornful sally. "Go to live in
the sun in a tranquil country! Where? What country is going to be
tranquil in this struggle of barbarity against civilization, a
struggle which is going to be universal?" A month later she gives
him fair warning that she has no intention of acknowledging final
defeat: "For me, the ignoble experiment that Paris is attempting or
is undergoing, proves nothing against the laws of the eternal
progression of men and things, and, if I have gained any principles
in my mind, good or bad, they are neither shattered nor changed by
it. For a long time I have accepted patience as one accepts the sort
of weather there is, the length of winter, old age, lack of success
in all its forms." But Flaubert, thinking that he has detected in
her public utterances a decisive change of front, privately urges
her in a finely figurative passage of a letter which denounces
modern republicanism, universal suffrage, compulsory education, and
the press--Flaubert urges her to come out openly in renunciation of
her faith in humanity and her popular progressivistic doctrines. I
must quote a few lines of his attempt at seduction:

"Ah, dear good master, if you could only hate! That is what you
lack, hate. In spite of your great Sphinx eyes, you have seen the
world through a golden colour. That comes from the sun in your
heart; but so many shadows have risen that now you are not
recognizing things any more. Come now! Cry out! Thunder! Take your
great lyre and touch the brazen string: the monsters will flee.
Bedew us with drops of the blood of wounded Themis."

That summons roused the citadel, but not to surrender, not to
betrayal. The eloquent daughter of the people caught up her great
lyre--in the public Reponse a un ami of October 3, 1871. But her
fingers passed lightly over the "brazen string" to pluck again with
old power the resonant golden notes. Her reply, with its direct
retorts to Flaubert, is not perhaps a very closely reasoned
argument. In making the extract I have altered somewhat the order of
the sentences:

"And what, you want me to stop loving? You want me to say that I
have been mistaken all my life, that humanity is contemptible,
hateful, that it always has been and always will be so? ... What,
then, do you want me to do, so as to isolate myself from my kind,
from my compatriots, from the great family in whose bosom my own
family is only one ear of corn in the terrestrial field? ... But it
is impossible, and your steady reason puts up with the most
unreasonable of Utopias. In what Eden, in what fantastic Eldorado
will you hide your family, your little group of friends, your
intimate happiness, so that the lacerations of the social state and
the disasters of the country shall not reach them? ... In vain you
are prudent and withdraw, your refuge will be invaded in its turn,
and in perishing with human civilization you will be no greater a
philosopher for not having loved, than those who threw themselves
into the flood to save some debris of humanity. ... The people, you
say! The people is yourself and myself. It would be useless to deny
it. There are not two races. ... No, no, people do not isolate
themselves, the ties of blood are not broken, people do not curse or
scorn their kind. Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is composed
of love, and not to love is to cease to live."

This is, if you please, an effusion of sentiment, a chant of faith.
In a world more and more given to judging trees by their fruits, we
should err if we dismissed this sentiment, this faith, too lightly.
Flaubert may have been a better disputant; he had a talent for
writing. George Sand may have chosen her side with a truer instinct;
she had a genius for living. This faith of hers sustained well the
shocks of many long years, and this sentiment made life sweet.

STUART P. SHERMAN




I. TO GEORGE SAND
1863

Dear Madam,

I am not grateful to you for having performed what you call a duty.
The goodness of your heart has touched me and your sympathy has made
me proud. That is the whole of it.

Your letter which I have just received gives added value to your
article [Footnote:  Letter about Salammbo, January, 1863, Questions
d'art et de litterature.] and goes on still further, and I do not
know what to say to you unless it be that _I_ QUITE FRANKLY LIKE
YOU.

It was certainly not I who sent you in September, a little flower in
an envelope. But, strange to say, at the same time, I received in
the same manner, a leaf of a tree.

As for your very cordial invitation, I am not answering yes or no,
in true Norman fashion. Perhaps some day this summer I shall
surprise you. For I have a great desire to see you and to talk with
you.

It would be very delightful to have your portrait to hang on the
wall in my study in the country where I often spend long months
entirely alone. Is the request indiscreet? If not, a thousand thanks
in advance. Take them with the others which I reiterate.




II. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 15 March, 1864

Dear Flaubert,

I don't know whether you lent me or gave me M. Taine's beautiful
book. In the uncertainty I am returning it to you. Here I have had
only the time to read a part of it, and at Nohant, I shall have only
the time to scribble for Buloz; but when I return, in two months, I
shall ask you again for this admirable work of which the scope is so
lofty, so noble.

I am sorry not to have said adieu to you; but as I return soon, I
hope that you will not have forgotten me and that you will let me
read something of your own also.

You were so good and so sympathetic to me at the first performance
of Villemer that I no longer admire only your admirable talent, I
love you with all my heart.

George Sand



III. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, 1866

Why of course I am counting on your visit at my own house. As for
the hindrances which the fair sex can oppose to it, you will not
notice them (be sure of it) any more than did the others. My little
stories of the heart or of the senses are not displayed on the
counter. But as it is far from my quarter to yours and as you might
make a useless trip, when you arrive in Paris, give me a rendezvous.
And at that we shall make another to dine informally tete-a-tete.

I sent your affectionate little greeting to Bouilhet.

At the present time I am disheartened by the populace which rushes
by under my windows in pursuit of the fatted calf. And they say that
intelligence is to be found in the street!



IV. To M. Flobert (Justave) M.
of Letters Boulevard du Temple, 42, Paris Paris, 10 May, 1866

[The postage stamp bears the mark Palaiseau 9 May, '66.]

M. Flobaire, You must be a truly dirty oaf to have taken my name and
written a letter with it to a lady who had some favors for me which
you doubtless received in my place and inherited my hat in place of
which I have received yours which you left there. It is the lowness
of that lady's conduct and of yours that make me think that she
lacks education entirely and all those sentiments which she ought to
understand. If you are content to have written Fanie and Salkenpeau
I am content not to have read them. You mustn't get excited about
that, I saw in the papers that there were outrages against the
Religion in whose bosom I have entered again after the troubles I
had with that lady when she made me come to my senses and repent of
my sins with her and, in consequence if I meet you with her whom I
care for no longer you shall have my sword at your throat. That will
be the Reparation of my sins and the punishment of your infamy at
the same time. That is what I tell you and I salute you.

Coulard

At Palaiseau with the Monks

They told me that I was well punished for associating with the girls
from the theatre and with aristocrats.



V. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
1866

Sir,

After the most scrupulous combined searches I found at last the body
of my beloved brother. You are in belles-lettres and you would have
been struck by the splendor of that scene. The corpse which was a
Brother extended nonchalantly on the edge of a foul ditch. I forgot
my sorrow a moment to contemplate he was good this young man whom
the matches killed, but the real guilty one was that woman whom
passions have separated in this disordered current in which our
unhappy country is at the moment when it is more to be pitied than
blamed for there are still men who have a heart. You who express
yourself so well tell that siren that she has destroyed a great
citizen. I don't need to tell you that we count on you to dig his
noble tomb. Tell Silvanit also that she can come notwithstanding for
education obliges me to offer her a glass of wine. I have the honor
to salute you.

I also have the honor to salute Silvanit for whom I am a brother
much to be pitied.

Goulard the elder

Have the goodness to transmit to Silvanit the last wishes of my poor
Theodore. [Footnote: Letter written by Eugene Lambert.]



VI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Palaiseau 14 May, 1866

This is not a letter from Goulard. He is dead! The false Goulard
killed him by surpassing him in the real and the comic. But this
false Goulard also does not deny himself anything, the rascal!

Dear friend, I must tell you that I want to dedicate to you my novel
which is just coming out. But as every one has his own ideas on the
subject--as Goulard would say--I would like to know if you permit me
to put at the head of my title page simply: to my friend Gustave
Flaubert. I have formed the habit of putting my novels under the
patronage of a beloved name. I dedicated the last to Fromentin.

I am waiting until it is good weather to ask you to come to dine at
Palaiseau with Goulard's Sirenne, and some other Goulards of your
kind and of mine. Up to now it has been frightfully cold and it is
not worth the trouble to come to the country to catch a cold.

I have finished my novel, and you?

I kiss the two great diamonds which adorn your face.

Jorje Sens

The elder Goulard is my little Lambert, it seems to me that he is
quite literary in that way.



VII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Palaiseau, Wednesday, 16 May, 1866

Well, my dear friend, since you are going away, and as in a
fortnight, I am going to Berry for two or three months, do try to
find time to come tomorrow Thursday. You will dine with dear and
interesting Marguerite Thuillier who is also going away.

Do come to see my hermitage and Sylvester's. By leaving Paris, gare
de Sceaux, at I o'clock, you will be at my house at 2 o'clock, or by
leaving at 5, you will be there at 6, and in the evening you could
leave with my strolling players at 9 or 10. Bring the copy.
[Footnote:  This refers to Monsieur Sylveitre, which had just
appeared.] Put in it all the criticisms which occur to you. That
will be very good for me. People ought to do that for each other as
Balzac and I used to do. That doesn't make one person alter the
other; quite the contrary, for in general, one gets more determined
in one's moi, one completes it, explains it better, entirely
develops it, and that is why friendship is good, even in literature,
where the first condition of any worth is to be one's self.

If you can not come--I shall have a thousand regrets, but then I am
depending upon you Monday before dinner. Au revoir and thank you for
the fraternal permission of dedication.

G. Sand



VIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, 17 or 18 May, 1866

Don't expect me at your house on Monday. I am obliged to go to
Versailles on that day. But I shall be at Magny's.

A thousand fond greetings from your

G. Flaubert



IX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 31 July, 1866

My good dear comrade,

Will you really be in Paris these next few days as you led me to
hope? I leave here the 2nd. What good luck if I found you at dinner
on the following Monday. And besides, they are putting on a play
[Footnote: Les Don Juan de village.] by my son and me, on the 10th.
Could I possibly get along without you on that day? I shall feel
some EMOTION this time because of my dear collaborator. Be a good
friend and try to come! I embrace you with all my heart in that
hope.

The late Goulard,
G. Sand.



X. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 4 Aug., 1866

Dear friend, as I'm always out, I don't want you to come and find
the door shut and me far away. Come at six o'clock and dine with me
and my children whom I expect tomorrow. We dine at Magny's always at
6 o'clock promptly. You will give us 'a sensible pleasure' as used
to say, as would have said, alas, the unhappy Goulard. You are an
exceedingly kind brother to promise to be at Don Juan. For that I
kiss you twice more.

G. Sand

Saturday evening.



XI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

It is next THURSDAY,

I wrote you last night, and our letters must have crossed.

Yours from the heart,

G. Sand

Sunday, 5 August, 1866.



XII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, Wednesday evening, 22 August, 1866

My good comrade and friend, I am going to see Alexandre at Saint-
Valery Saturday evening. I shall stay there Sunday and Monday, I
shall return Tuesday to Rouen and go to see you. Tell me how that
strikes you. I shall spend the day with you if you like, returning
to spend the night in Rouen, if I inconvenience you as you are
situated, and I shall leave Wednesday morning or evening for Paris.
A word in response at once, by telegraph if you think that your
answer would not reach me by post before Saturday at 4 o'clock.

I think that I shall be all right but I have a horrid cold. If it
grows too bad, I shall telegraph that I can not stir; but I have
hopes, I am already better.

I embrace you.

G. Sand



XIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Saint-Valery, 26 August, 1866 Monday, 1 A.M.

Dear friend, I shall be in Rouen on Tuesday at 1 o'clock, I shall
plan accordingly. Let me explore Rouen which I don't know, or show
it to me if you have the time. I embrace you. Tell your mother how
much I appreciate and am touched, by the kind little line which she
wrote to me.

G. Sand



XIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Paris, 31 August, 1866

First of all, embrace your good mother and your charming niece for
me. I am really touched by the kind welcome I received in your
clerical setting, where a stray animal of my species is an anomaly
that one might find constraining. Instead of that, they received me
as if I were one of the family and I saw that all that great
politeness came from the heart. Remember me to all the very kind
friends. I was truly exceedingly happy with you. And then, you, you
are a dear kind boy, big man that you are, and I love you with all
my heart. My head is full of Rouen, of monuments and queer houses.
All of that seen with you strikes me doubly. But your house, your
garden, your CITADEL, it is like a dream and it seems to me that I
am still there.

I found Paris very small yesterday, when crossing the bridges.

I want to start back again. I did not see you enough, you and your
surroundings; but I must rush off to the children, who are calling
and threatening me. I embrace you and I bless you all.

G. Sand

Paris, Friday.

On going home yesterday, I found Couture to whom I said on your
behalf that HIS portrait of me was, according to you, the best that
anyone had made. He was not a little flattered. I am going to hunt
up an especially good copy to send you.

I forgot to get three leaves from the tulip tree, you must send them
to me in a letter, it is for something cabalistic.



XV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 2 September, 1866

Send me back the lace shawl. My faithful porter will forward it to
me wherever I am. I don't know yet. If my children want to go with
me into Brittany, I shall go to fetch them, if not I shall go on
alone wherever chance leads me. In travelling, I fear only
distractions. But I take a good deal on myself and I shall end by
improving myself. You write me a good dear letter which I kiss.
Don't forget the three leaves from the tulip tree. They are asking
me at the Odeon to let them perform a fairy play: la Nuit de Noel
from the Theatre de Nohant, I don't want to, it's too small a thing.
But since they have that idea, why wouldn't they try your fairy
play? Do you want me to ask them? I have a notion that this would be
the right theatre for a thing of that type. The management, Chilly
and Duquesnel, wants to have scenery and MACHINERY and yet keep it
literary. Let us discuss this when I return here.

You still have the time to write to me. I shall not leave for three
days yet. Love to your family.

G. S.

Sunday evening

I forgot! Levy promises to send you my complete works, they are
endless. You must stick them on a shelf in a corner and dig into
them when your heart prompts you.



XVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 21 September, 1866

I have just returned from a twelve days trip with my children, and
on getting home I find your two letters. That fact, added to the joy
of seeing Mademoiselle Aurore again, fresh and pretty, makes me
quite happy. And you my Benedictine, you are quite alone in your
ravishing monastery, working and never going out? That is what it
means TO HAVE ALREADY gone out too much. Monsieur craves Syrias,
deserts, dead seas, dangers and fatigues! But nevertheless he can
make Bovarys in which every little cranny of life is studied and
painted with mastery. What an odd person who can also compose the
fight between the Sphinx and the Chimaera! You are a being quite
apart, very mysterious, gentle as a lamb with it all. I have had a
great desire to question you, but a too great respect for you has
prevented me; for I know how to make light only of my own
calamities, while those which a great mind has had to undergo so as
to be in a condition to produce, seem to me like sacred things which
should not be touched roughly nor thoughtlessly.

Sainte-Beuve, who loves you all the same, claims that you are
horribly vicious. But perhaps he may see with somewhat unclean eyes,
like this learned botanist who asserts that the germander  is of
DIRTY yellow color. The observation was so false, that I could not
refrain from writing on the margin of his book: IT IS BECAUSE YOU
HAVE DIRTY EYES.

I suppose that a man of intelligence may have great curiosity.  I
have not had it, lacking the courage. I have preferred to leave my
mind incomplete, that is my affair, and every one is free to embark
either on a great ship in full sail, or on a fisherman's vessel. The
artist is an explorer whom nothing ought to stop, and who does
neither good nor ill when turning to the right or to the left. His
end justifies all.

It is for him to know after a little experience, what are the
conditions of his soul's health. As for me, I think that yours is in
a good condition of grace, since you love to work and to be alone in
spite of the rain.

Do you know that, while there has been a deluge everywhere, we have
had, except a few downpours, fine sunshine in Brittany? A horrible
wind on the shore, but how beautiful the high surf! and since the
botany of the coast carried me away, and Maurice and his wife have a
passion for shellfish, we endured it all gaily. But on the whole,
Brittany is a famous see-saw.

However, we are a little fed up with dolmens and menhirs and we have
fallen on fetes and have seen costumes which they said had been
suppressed but which the old people still wear. Well! These men of
the past are ugly with their home-spun trousers, their long hair,
their jackets with pockets under the arms, their sottish air, half
drunkard, half saint. And the Celtic relics, uncontestably curious
for the archaeologist, have naught for the artist, they are badly
set, badly composed, Carnac and Erdeven have no physiognomy. In
short, Brittany shall not have my bones! I prefer a thousand times
your rich Normandy, or, in the days when one has dramas in his HEAD,
a real country of horror and despair. There is nothing in a country
where priests rule and where Catholic vandalism has passed, razing
monuments of the ancient world and sowing the plagues of the future.

You say US a propos of the fairy play. I don't know with whom you
have written it, but I still fancy that it ought to succeed at the
Odeon under its present management. If I was acquainted with it, I
should know how to accomplish for you what one never knows how to do
for one's self, namely, to interest the directors. Anything of yours
is bound to be too original to be understood by that coarse Dumaine.
Do have a copy at your house, and next month I shall spend a day
with you in order to have you read it to me. Le Croisset is so near
to Palaiseau!--and I am in a phase of tranquil activity, in which I
should love to see your great river flow, and to keep dreaming in
your orchard, tranquil itself, quite on top of the cliff. But I am
joking, and you are working. You must forgive the abnormal
intemperance of one who has just been seeing only stones and has not
perceived even a pen for twelve days.

You are my first visit to the living on coming out from the complete
entombment of my poor Moi. Live! There is my oremus and my
benediction and I embrace you with all my heart.

G. Sand



XVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, 1866

I a mysterious being, dear master, nonsense! I think that I am
sickeningly platitudinous, and I am sometimes exceedingly bored with
the bourgeois which I have under my skin. Sainte-Beuve, between
ourselves, does not know me at all, no matter what he says. I even
swear to you (by the smile of your grandchild) that I know few men
less vicious than I am. I have dreamed much and have done very
little. What deceives the superficial observer is the lack of
harmony between my sentiments and my ideas. If you want my
confession, I shall make it freely to you. The sense of the
grotesque has restrained me from an inclination towards a disorderly
life. I maintain that cynicism borders on chastity. We shall have
much to say about it to each other (if your heart prompts you) the
first time we see each other.

Here is the program that I propose to you. My house will be full and
uncomfortable for a month. But towards the end of October or the
beginning of November (after Bouilhet's play) nothing will prevent
you, I hope, from returning here with me, not for a day, as you say,
but for a week at least. You shall have "your little table and
everything necessary for writing." Is it agreed?

As for the fairy play, thanks for your kind offers of service. I
shall get hold of the thing for you (it was done in collaboration
with Bouilhet). But I think it is a trifle weak and I am torn
between the desire of gaining a few piasters and the shame of
showing such a piece of folly.

I think that you are a little severe towards Brittany, not towards
the Bretons who seem to me repulsive animals. A propos of Celtic
archaeology, I published in L'Artiste in 1858, a rather good hoax on
the shaking stones, but I have not the number here and I don't
remember the month.

I read, straight through, the 10 volumes of Histoire de ma vie, of
which I knew about two thirds but only fragmentarily. What struck me
most was the life in the convent. I have a quantity of observations
to make to you which occurred to me.



XVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 28 September, 1866

It is agreed, dear comrade and good friend. I shall do my best to be
in Paris for the performance of your friend's play, and I shall do
my fraternal duty there as usual; after which we shall go to your
house and I shall stay there a week, but on condition that you will
not put yourself out of your room. To be an inconvenience distresses
me and I don't need so much bother in order to sleep. I sleep
everywhere, in the ashes, or under a kitchen bench, like a stable
dog. Everything shines with spotlessness at your house, so one is
comfortable everywhere. I shall pick a quarrel with your mother and
we shall laugh and joke, you and I, much and more yet. If it's good
weather, I shall make you go out walking, if it rains continually,
we shall roast our bones before the fire while telling our heart
pangs. The great river will run black or grey under the window
saying always, QUICK! QUICK! and carrying away our thoughts, and our
days, and our nights, without stopping to notice such small things.

I have packed and sent by EXPRESS a good proof of Couture's picture,
signed by the engraver, my poor friend, Manceau. It is the best that
I have and I have only just found it. I have sent with it a
photograph of a drawing by Marchal which was also like me; but one
changes from year to year. Age gives unceasingly another character
to the face of people who think and study, that is why their
portraits do not look like one another nor like them for long. I
dream so much and I live so little, that sometimes I am only three
years old. But, the next day I am three hundred, if the dream has
been sombre. Isn't it the same with you? Doesn't it seem at moments,
that you are beginning life without even knowing what it is, and at
other times don't you feel over you the weight of several thousand
centuries, of which you have a vague remembrance and a sorrowful
impression? Whence do we come and whither do we go? All is possible
since all is unknown.

Embrace your beautiful, good mother for me. I shall give myself a
treat, being with you two. Now try to find that hoax on the Celtic
stones; that would interest me very much. When you saw them, had
they opened the galgal of Lockmariaker and cleared away the ground
near Plouharnel?

Those people used to write, because there are stones covered with
hieroglyphics, and they used to work in gold very well, because very
beautifully made torques [Footnote: Gallic necklaces.] have been
found.

My children, who are, like myself, great admirers of you, send you
their compliments, and I kiss your forehead, since Sainte-Beuve
lied.

G. Sand

Have you any sun today? Here it is stifling. The country is lovely.
When will you come here?



XIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Saturday evening, ... 1866

Good, I have it, that beautiful, dear and famous face! I am going to
have a large frame made and hang it on my wall, being able to say,
as did M. de Talleyrand to Louis Philippe: "It is the greatest honor
that my house has received"; a poor phrase, for we two are worth
more than those two amiable men.

Of the two portraits, I like that of Couture's the better. As for
Marchal's he saw in you only "the good woman," but I who am an old
Romantic, find in the other, "the head of the author" who made me
dream so much in my youth.



XX. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Saturday evening, 1866

Your sending the package of the two portraits made me think that you
were in Paris, dear master, and I wrote you a letter which is
waiting for you at rue des Feuillantines.

I have not found my article on the dolmens. But I have my manuscript
(entire) of my trip in Brittany among my "unpublished works." We
shall have to gabble when you are here. Have courage.

I don't experience, as you do, this feeling of a life which is
beginning, the stupefaction of a newly commenced existence. It seems
to me, on the contrary, that I have always lived! And I possess
memories which go back to the Pharaohs. I see myself very clearly at
different ages of history, practising different professions and in
many sorts of fortune. My present personality is the result of my
lost personalities. I have been a boatman on the Nile, a leno in
Rome at the time of the Punic wars, then a Greek rhetorician in
Subura where I was devoured by insects. I died during the Crusade
from having eaten too many grapes on the Syrian shores, I have been
a pirate, monk, mountebank and coachman. Perhaps also even emperor
of the East?

Many things would be explained if we could know our real genealogy.
For, since the elements which make a man are limited, should not the
same combinations reproduce themselves? Thus heredity is a just
principle which has been badly applied.

There is something in that word as in many others. Each one takes it
by one end and no one understands the other. The science of
psychology will remain where it lies, that is to say in shadows and
folly, as long as it has no exact nomenclature, so long as it is
allowed to use the same expression to signify the most diverse
ideas. When they confuse categories, adieu, morale!

Don't you really think that since '89 they wander from the point?
Instead of continuing along the highroad which was broad and
beautiful, like a triumphal way, they stray off by little sidepaths
and flounder in mud holes. Perhaps it would be wise for a little
while to return to Holbach. Before admiring Proudhon, supposing one
knew Turgot? But le Chic, that modern religion, what would become of
it!

Opinions chic (or chiques): namely being pro-Catholicism (without
believing a word of it) being pro-Slavery, being pro-the House of
Austria, wearing mourning for Queen Amelie, admiring Orphee aux
Enfers, being occupied with Agricultural Fairs, talking Sport,
acting indifferent, being a fool up to the point of regretting the
treaties of 1815. That is all that is the very newest.

Oh! You think that because I pass my life trying to make harmonious
phrases, in avoiding assonances, that I too have not my little
judgments on the things of this world? Alas! Yes! and moreover I
shall burst, enraged at not expressing them.

But a truce to joking, I should finally bore you.

The Bouilhet play will open the first part of November. Then in a
month we shall see each other.

I embrace you very warmly, dear master.



XXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, Monday evening, 1 October, 1866

Dear friend,

Your letter was forwarded to me from Paris. It isn't lost. I think
too much of them to let any be lost. You don't speak to me of the
floods, therefore I think that the Seine did not commit any follies
at your place and that the tulip tree did not get its roots wet. I
feared lest you were anxious and wondered if your bank was high
enough to protect you. Here we have nothing of that sort to be
afraid of; our streams are very wicked, but we are far from them.

You are happy in having such clear memories of other existences.
Much imagination and learning--those are your memories; but if one
does not recall anything distinct, one has a very lively feeling of
one's own renewal in eternity. I have a very amusing brother who
often used to say "at the time when I was a dog. ..." He thought
that he had become man very recently. I think that I was vegetable
or mineral. I am not always very sure of completely existing, and
sometimes I think I feel a great fatigue accumulated from having
lived too much. Anyhow, I do not know, and I could not, like you,
say, "I possess the past."

But then you believe that one does not really die, since one LIVES
AGAIN? If you dare to say that to the Smart Set, you have courage
and that is good. I have the courage which makes me pass for an
imbecile, but I don't risk anything; I am imbecile under so many
other counts.

I shall be enchanted to have your written impression of Brittany, I
did not see enough to talk about. But I sought a general impression
and that has served me for reconstructing one or two pictures which
I need. I shall read you that also, but it is still an unformed
mass.

Why did your trip remain unpublished? You are very coy. You don't
find what you do worth being described. That is a mistake. All that
issues from a master is instructive, and one should not fear to show
one's sketches and drawings. They are still far above the reader,
and so many things are brought down to his level that the poor devil
remains common. One ought to love common people more than oneself,
are they not the real unfortunates of the world? Isn't it the people
without taste and without ideals who get bored, don't enjoy anything
and are useless? One has to allow oneself to be abused, laughed at,
and misunderstood by them, that is inevitable. But don't abandon
them, and always throw them good bread, whether or not they prefer
filth; when they are sated with dirt they will eat the bread; but if
there is none, they will eat filth in secula seculorum.

I have heard you say, "I write for ten or twelve people only." One
says in conversation, many things which are the result of the
impression of the moment; but you are not alone in saying that. It
was the opinion of the Lundi or the thesis of that day. I protested
inwardly. The twelve persons for whom you write, who appreciate you,
are as good as you are or surpass you. You never had any need of
reading the eleven others to be yourself. But, one writes for all
the world, for all who need to be initiated; when one is not
understood, one is resigned and recommences. When one is understood,
one rejoices and continues. There lies the whole secret of our
persevering labors and of our love of art. What is art without the
hearts and minds on which one pours it? A sun which would not
project rays and would give life to no one.

After reflecting on it, isn't that your opinion? If you are
convinced of that, you will never know disgust and lassitude, and if
the present is sterile and ungrateful, if one loses all influence,
all hold on the public, even in serving it to the best of one's
ability, there yet remains recourse to the future, which supports
courage and effaces all the wounds of pride. A hundred times in
life, the good that one does seems not to serve any immediate use;
but it keeps up just the same the tradition of wishing well and
doing well, without which all would perish.

Is it only since '89 that people have been floundering? Didn't they
have to flounder in order to arrive at '48 when they floundered much
more, but so as to arrive at what should be? You must tell me how
you mean that and I will read Turgot to please you. I don't promise
to go as far as Holbach, ALTHOUGH HE HAS SOME GOOD POINTS, THE
RUFFIAN!

Summon me at the time of Bouilhet's play. I shall be here, working
hard, but ready to run, and loving you with all my heart. Now that I
am no longer a woman, if the good God was just, I should become a
man; I should have the physical strength and would say to you: "Come
let's go to Carthage or elsewhere." But there, one who has neither
sex nor strength, progresses towards childhood, and it is quite
otherwhere that one is renewed; WHERE? I shall know that before you
do, and, if I can, I shall come back in a dream to tell you.



XXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 19 October

Dear friend, they write me from the Odeon that Bouilhet's play is on
the 27th. I must be in Paris the 26th. Business calls me in any
event. I shall dine at Magny's on that day, and the next, and the
day after that. Now you know where to find me, for I think that you
will come for the first performance. Yours always, with a full
heart,

G. Sand



XXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 23 October, 1866

Dear friend, since the play is on the 29th I shall give two more
days to my children and I leave here the 28th. You have not told me
if you will dine with me and your friend on the 29th informally, at
Magny's at whatever hour you wish. Let me find a line at 97 rue des
Feuillantines, on the 28th.

Then we shall go to your house, the day you wish. My chief talk with
you will be to listen to you and to love you with all my heart. I
shall bring what I have "ON THE STOCKS." That will GIVE ME COURAGE,
as they say here, to read to you my EMBRYO. If I could only carry
the sun from Nohant. It is glorious.

I embrace and bless you.

G. Sand



XXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 10 November, 1866

On reaching Paris I learn sad news. Last evening, while we were
talking--and I think that we spoke of him day before yesterday--my
friend Charles Duveyrier died, a most tender heart and a most naive
spirit. He is to be buried tomorrow. He was one year older than I
am. My generation is passing bit by bit. Shall I survive it? I don't
ardently desire to, above all on these days of mourning and
farewell. It is as God wills, provided He lets me always love in
this world and in the next.

I keep a lively affection for the dead. But one loves the living
differently. I give you the part of my heart that he had. That
joined to what you have already, makes a large share. It seems to me
that it consoles me to make that gift to you. From a literary point
of view he was not a man of the first rank, one loved him for his
goodness and spontaneity. Less occupied with affairs and philosophy,
he would have had a charming talent. He left a pretty play, Michel
Perrin.

I travelled half the way alone, thinking of you and your mother at
Croisset and looking at the Seine, which thanks to you has become a
friendly GODDESS. After that I had the society of an individual with
two women, as ordinary, all of them, as the music at the pantomime
the other day. Example: "I looked, the sun left an impression like
two points in my eyes." HUSBAND: "That is called luminous points,"
and so on for an hour without stopping.

I shall do all sorts of errands for the house, for I belong to it,
do I not? I am going to sleep, quite worn out; I wept unrestrainedly
all the evening, and I embrace you so much the more, dear friend.
Love me MORE than before, because I am sad.

G. Sand

Have you a friend among the Rouen magistrates? If you have, write
him a line to watch for the NAME Amedee Despruneaux. It is a civil
case which will come up at Rouen in a few days. Tell him that this
Despruneaux is the most honest man in the world; you can answer for
him as for me. In doing this, if the thing is feasible, you will do
me a personal favor. I will do the same for any friend of yours.



XXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
11 November, 1866

I send you my friend Despruneaux in person. If you know a judge or
two,--or if your brother could give him a word of support, do
arrange it, I kiss you three times on each eye.

G. Sand

Five minutes' interview and that's all the inconvenience. Paris,
Sunday



XXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday night

You are sad, poor friend and dear master; it was you of whom I
thought on learning of Duveyrier's death. Since you loved him, I am
sorry for you. That loss is added to others. How we keep these dead
souls in our hearts. Each one of us carries within himself his
necropolis.

I am entirely UNDONE since your departure; it seems to me as if I
had not seen you for ten years. My one subject of conversation with
my mother is you, everyone here loves you. Under what star were you
born, pray, to unite in your person such diverse qualities, so
numerous and so rare?

I don't know what sort of feeling I have for you, but I have a
particular tenderness for you, and one I have never felt for anyone,
up to now. We understood each other, didn't we, that was good.

I especially missed you last evening at ten o'clock. There was a
fire at my wood-seller's. The sky was rose color and the Seine the
color of gooseberry sirup. I worked at the engine for three hours
and I came home as worn out as the Turk with the giraffe.

A newspaper in Rouen, le Nouvelliste, told of your visit to Rouen,
so that Saturday after leaving you I met several bourgeois indignant
at me for not exhibiting you. The best thing was said to me by a
former sub-prefect: "Ah! if we had known that she was here ... we
would have ... we would have ..." he hunted five minutes for the
word; "we would have smiled for her." That would have been very
little, would it not?

To "love you more" is hard for me--but I embrace you tenderly. Your
letter of this morning, so melancholy, reached the BOTTOM of my
heart. We separated at the moment when many things were on the point
of coming to our lips. All the doors between us two are not yet
open. You inspire me with a great respect and I do not dare to
question you.



XXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Paris, 13 November, 1866 Night from Tuesday to Wednesday

I have not yet read my play. I have still something to do over.
Nothing pressing. Bouilhet's play goes admirably well, and they told
me that my little friend Cadol's [Footnote: Edward Cadol, a dramatic
author and a friend of Maurice Sand.] play would come next. And, for
nothing in the world, do I want to step on the body of that child.
That puts me quite a distance off and does not annoy me--NOR INJURE
ME AT ALL. What style! Luckily I am not writing for Buloz.

I saw your friend last evening in the foyer at the Odeon. I shook
hands with him. He had a happy look. And then I talked with
Duquesnel about the fairy play. He wants very much to know it. You
have only to present yourself when ever you wish to busy yourself
with it. You will be received with open arms.

Mario Proth will give me tomorrow or next day the exact date on the
transformation of the journal. Tomorrow I shall go out and buy your
dear mother's shoes. Next week I am going to Palaiseau and I shall
hunt up my book on faience. If I forget anything, remind me of it.

I have been ill for two days. I am cured. Your letter does my heart
good. I shall answer all the questions quite nicely, as you have
answered mine. One is happy, don't you think so, to be able to
relate one's whole life? It is much less complicated than the
bourgeois think, and the mysteries that one can reveal to a friend
are always the contrary of what indifferent ones suppose.

I was very happy that week with you: no care, a good nesting-place a
lovely country, affectionate hearts and your beautiful and frank
face which has a somewhat paternal air. Age has nothing to do with
it. One feels in you the protection of infinite goodness, and one
evening when you called your mother "MY DAUGHTER," two tears came in
my eyes. It was hard to go away, but I hindered your work, and
then,--and then,--a malady of my old age is, not being able to keep
still. I am afraid of getting too attached and of wearying others.
The old ought to be extremely discreet. From a distance I can tell
you how much I love you without the fear of repetition. You are one
of the RARE BEINGS remaining impressionable, sincere, loving art,
not corrupted by ambition, not drunk with success. In short you will
always be twenty-five years of age because of all sorts of ideas
which have become old-fashioned according to the senile young men of
today. With them, I think it is decidedly a pose, but it is so
stupid! If it is a weakness, it is still worse. They are MEN OF
LETTERS and not MEN. Good luck to the novel! It is exquisite; but
oddly enough there is one entire side of you which does not betray
itself in what you do, something that you probably are ignorant of.
That will come later, I am sure of it.

I embrace you tenderly, and your mother too, and the charming niece!
[Footnote: Madame Caroline Commanville.] Ah! I forgot, I saw Couture
this evening; he told me that in order to be nice to you, he would
make your portrait in crayon like mine for whatever price you wish
to arrange. You see I am a good commissioner, use me.



XXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
16 November, 1866

Thanks, dear friend of my heart, for all the trouble that I gave you
with my Berrichon Despruneaux. They are friends from the old
country, a whole adorable family of fine people, fathers, children,
wives, nephews, all in the close circle at Nohant. He must have been
MOVED at seeing you. He looked forward to it, all personal interest
aside. And I who am not practical, forgot to tell you that the
judgment would not be given for a fortnight. That in consequence any
preceding within the next two weeks would be extremely useful. If he
gains his suit relative to the constructions at Yport, he will
settle there and I shall realize the plan formed long since of going
every year to his house; he has a delicious wife and they have loved
me a long time. You then are threatened with seeing me often
scratching at your gate in passing, giving you a kiss on the
forehead, crying courage for your labor and running on.  I am still
awaiting our information on the journal. It seems that it is a
little difficult to be exact for '42. I have asked for the most
scrupulous exactitude.

For two days I have been taking out to walk my Cascaret, [Footnote:
Francis Laur.] the little engineer of whom I told you. He has become
very good looking, the ladies lift their lorgnons at him, and it
depends only on him to attain the dignity of a negro "giraffier,"
but he loves, he is engaged, he has four years to wait, to work to
make himself a position, and he has made a vow. You would tell him
that he is stupid, I preach to him, on the contrary, my old
troubadour doctrine.

Morality aside, I don't think that the children of this day have
sufficient force to manage at the same time, science and
dissipation, cocottes and engagements. The proof is that nothing
comes from young Bohemia any longer. Good night, friend, work well,
sleep well. Walk a little for the love of God and of me. Tell your
judges who promised me a smile, to smile on my Berrichon.



XXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
16 November, 1866

Don't take any further steps. Contrary to all anticipations,
Despruneaux has gained his suit during the session.

Whether you have done it or not, he is none the less grateful about
it and charges me to thank you with all his good and honest heart.

Bouilhet goes from better to better. I have just seen the directors
who are delighted.

I love you and embrace you.

Think sometimes of your old troubadour. Friday

G. Sand



XXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
18 November (?), 1866

I think that I shall give you pleasure and joy when I tell you that
La Conjuration d'Ambroise, thus says my porter, is announced as a
real money-maker. There was a line this evening as at Villemer, and
Magny which is also a barometer, shows fair weather.

So be content, if that keeps up, Bouilhet is a success. Sunday

G. S.



XXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Palaiseau, 22 November, 1866

I think that it will bring me luck to say good evening to my dear
comrade before starting to work.

I am QUITE ALONE in my little house. The gardener and his family
live in the pavilion in the garden and we are the last house at the
end of the village, quite isolated in the country, which is a
ravishing oasis. Fields, woods, appletrees as in Normandy; not a
great river with its steam whistles and infernal chain; a little
stream which runs silently under the willows; a silence ... ah! it
seems to me that I am in the depths of the virgin forest: nothing
speaks except the little jet of the spring which ceaselessly piles
up diamonds in the moonlight. The flies sleeping in the corners of
my room, awaken at the warmth of my fire. They had installed
themselves there to die, they come near the lamp, they are seized
with a mad gaiety, they buzz, they jump, they laugh, they even have
faint inclinations towards love, but it is the hour of death and
paf! in the midst of the dance, they fall stiff. It is over,
farewell to dancing!

I am sad here just the same. This absolute solitude, which has
always been vacation and recreation for me, is shared now by a dead
soul [Footnote: Alexandre Manceau, the engraver,  a friend of
Maurice Sand.] who has ended here, like a lamp which is going out,
yet which is here still. I do not consider him unhappy in the region
where he is dwelling; but the image that he has left near me, which
is nothing more than a reflection, seems to complain because of
being unable to speak to me any more.

Never mind! Sadness is not unhealthy. It prevents us from drying up.
And you dear friend, what are you doing at this hour? Grubbing also,
alone also; for your mother must be in Rouen. Tonight must be
beautiful down there too. Do you sometimes think of the "old
troubadour of the Inn clock, who still sings and will continue to
sing perfect love?" Well! yes, to be sure! You do not believe in
chastity, sir, that's your affair. But as for me, I say that SHE HAS
SOME GOOD POINTS, THE JADE!

And with this, I embrace you with all my heart, and I am going to,
if I can, make people talk who love each other in the old way.

You don't have to write to me when you don't feel like it. No real
friendship without ABSOLUTE liberty.

In Paris next week, and then again to Palaiseau, and after that to
Nohant. I saw Bouilhet at the Monday performance. I am CRAZY about
it. But some of us will applaud at Magny's. I had a cold sweat
there, I who am so steady, and I saw everything quite blue.



XXXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Tuesday

You are alone and sad down there, I am the same here.

Whence come these attacks of melancholy that overwhelm one at times?
They rise like a tide, one feels drowned, one has to flee. I lie
prostrate. I do nothing and the tide passes.

My novel is going very badly for the moment. That fact added to the
deaths of which I have heard; of Cormenin (a friend of twenty-five
years' standing), of Gavarni, and then all the rest, but that will
pass. You don't know what it is to stay a whole day with your head
in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find
a word. Ideas come very easily with you, incessantly, like a stream.
With me it is a tiny thread of water. Hard labor at art is necessary
for me before obtaining a waterfall. Ah! I certainly know THE
AGONIES OF STYLE.

In short I pass my life in wearing away my heart and brain, that is
the real TRUTH about your friend.

You ask him if he sometimes thinks of his "old troubadour of the
clock," most certainly! and he mourns for him. Our nocturnal talks
were very precious (there were moments when I restrained myself in
order not to KISS you like a big child).

Your ears ought to have burned last night. I dined at my brother's
with all his family. There was hardly any conversation except about
you, and every one sang your praises, unless perhaps myself, I
slandered you as much as possible, dearly beloved master.

I have reread, a propos of your last letter (and by a very natural
connection of ideas), that chapter of father Montaigne's entitled
"some lines from Virgil." What he said of chastity is precisely what
I believe. It is the effort that is fine and not the abstinence in
itself. Otherwise shouldn't one curse the flesh like the Catholics?
God knows whither that would lead. Now at the risk of repetition and
of being a Prudhomme, I insist that your young man is wrong.
[Footnote: Refers to Francis Laur.] If he is temperate at twenty
years old, he will be a cowardly roue at fifty. Everything has its
compensations. The great natures which are good, are above
everything generous and don't begrudge the giving of themselves. One
must laugh and weep, love, work, enjoy and suffer, in short vibrate
as much as possible in all his being.

That is, I think, the real human existence.



XXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Palaiseau, 29 November, 1866

One need not be spiritualist nor materialist, you say, but one
should be a naturalist. That is a great question.

My Cascaret, that is what I call the little engineer, will decide it
as he thinks best. He is not stupid and he will have many ideas,
deductions and emotions before realizing the prophecy that you make.
I do not catechise him without reserve, for he is stronger than I am
on many points, and it is not Catholic spiritualism that stifles
him. But the question by itself is very serious, and hovers above
our art, above us troubadours, more or less clock-bearing or
clockshaped.

Treat it in an entirely impersonal way; for what is good for one
might be quite the reverse for another. Let us ask ourselves in
making an abstract of our tendencies or of our experiences, if the
human being can receive and seek its own full physical development
without intellectual suffering. Yes, in an ideal and rational
society that would be so. But, in that in which we live and with
which we must be content, do not enjoyment and excess go hand in
hand, and can one separate them or limit them, unless one is a sage
of the first class? And if one is a sage, farewell temptation which
is the father of real joys.

The question for us artists, is to know if abstinence strengthens us
or if it exalts us too much, which state would degenerate into
weakness,--You will say, "There is time for everything and power
enough for every dissipation of strength." Then you make a
distinction and you place limits, there is no way of doing
otherwise. Nature, you think, places them herself and prevents us
from abusing her. Ah! but no, she is not wiser than we who are also
nature.

Our excesses of work, as our excesses of pleasure, kill us
certainly, and the more we are great natures, the more we pass
beyond bounds and extend the limits of our powers.

No, I have no theories. I spend my life in asking questions and in
hearing them answered in one way or another without any victoriously
conclusive reply ever being given me. I await the brilliance of a
new state of my intellect and of my organs in a new life; for, in
this one, whosoever reflects, embraces up to their last
consequences, the limits of pro and con. It is Monsieur Plato, I
think, who asked for and thought he held the bond. He had it no more
than we. However, this bond exists, since the universe subsists
without the pro and con, which constitute it, reciprocally
destroying each other. What shall one call it in material nature?
EQUILIBRIUM, that will do, and for spiritual nature? MODERATION,
relative chastity, abstinence from excess, whatever you want, but
that is translated by EQUILIBRIUM; am I wrong, my master?

Consider it, for in our novels, what our characters do or do not do,
rests only on that. Will they or will they not possess the object of
their ardent desires? Whether it is love or glory, fortune or
pleasure, ever since they existed, they have aspired to one end. If
we have a philosophy in us, they walk right according to us; if we
have not, they walk by chance, and are too much dominated by the
events which we put in the way of their legs. Imbued by our own
ideas and ruled by fatality, they do not always appear logical.
Should we put much or little of ourselves in them? Shouldn't we put
what society puts in each one of us?

For my part, I follow my old inclination, I put myself in the skin
of my good people. People scold me for it, that makes no difference.
You, I don't really know if by method or by instinct, take another
course. What you do, you succeed in; that is why I ask you if we
differ on the question of internal struggles, if the hero ought to
have any or if he ought not to know them.

You always astonish me with your painstaking work; is it a coquetry?
It does not seem labored. What I find difficult is to choose out of
the thousand combinations of scenic action which can vary
infinitely, the clear and striking situation which is not brutal nor
forced. As for style, I attach less importance to it than you do.

The wind plays my old harp as it lists. It has its HIGH NOTES, its
LOW NOTES, its heavy notes--and its faltering notes, in the end it
is all the same to me provided the emotion comes, but I can find
nothing in myself. It is THE OTHER who sings as he likes, well or
ill, and when I try to think about it, I am afraid and tell myself
that I am nothing, nothing at all. But a great wisdom saves us; we
know how to say to ourselves, "Well, even if we are absolutely
nothing but instruments, it is still a charming state and like no
other, this feeling oneself vibrate."

Now, let the wind blow a little over your strings. I think that you
take more trouble than you need, and that you ought to let THE OTHER
do it oftener. That would go just as well and with less fatigue.

The instrument might sound weak at certain moments, but the breeze
in continuing would increase its strength. You would do afterwards
what I don't do, what I should do. You would raise the tone of the
whole picture and would cut out what is too uniformly in the light.

Vale et me ama.



XXXIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday morning

Don't bother yourself about the information relative to the
journals. That will occupy little space in my book and I have time
to wait. But when you have nothing else to do, jot down on paper
whatever you can recall of '48. Then you can develop it in talking.
I don't ask you for copy of course, but to collect a little of your
personal memories.

Do you know an actress at the Odeon who plays Macduff in Macbeth?
Dugueret? She would like to have the role of Nathalie in Mont-
reveche. She will be recommended to you by Girardin, Dumas and me. I
saw her yesterday in Faustine, in which she showed talent. My
opinion is that she has intelligence and that one could profit by
her.

If your little engineer has made a VOW, and if that vow does not
cost him anything, he is right to keep it; if not, it is pure folly,
between you and me. Where should liberty exist if not in passion?

Well! no, IN MY DAY we didn't take such vows and we loved! and
swaggeringly. But all participated in a great eclecticism and when
one strayed FROM LADIES it was from pride, in defiance of one's
self, and for effect. In short, we were Red Romantics, perfectly
ridiculous to be sure, but in full bloom. The little good which
remains to me comes from that epoch.



XXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Palaiseau, 30 November, 1866

There would be a good deal to say on all that, my comrade. My
Cascaret, that is to say, the fiance in question, keeps himself for
his fiancee. She said to him, "Let us wait till you have
accomplished certain definite work," and he works. She said to him,
"Let us keep ourselves pure for each other," and he keeps himself
pure. It is not that he is choked by Catholic spiritualism; but he
has a high ideal of love, and why counsel him to go and lose it when
his conscience and his honor depend on keeping it?

There is an equilibrium which Nature, our ruler, herself puts in our
instincts, and she sets the limit to our appetites. Great natures
are not the most robust. We are not developed in all our senses by a
very logical education. We are compressed in every way, and we
thrust out our roots and branches when and how we can. Great artists
are often weak also, and many are impotent. Some too strong in
desire are quickly exhausted. In general I think that we have too
intense joys and sorrows, we who work with our brains. The laborer
who works his land and his wife hard by day and night is not a
forceful nature. His brain is very feeble. You say to develop one's
self in every direction? Come, not all at the same time, not without
rest.

Those who brag of that, are bluffing a bit, or IF THEY DO
everything, do everything ill. If love for them is a little bread-
and-butter and art a little pot-boiler, all right; but if their
pleasure is great, verging on the infinite, and their work eager,
verging on enthusiasm, they do not alternate these as in sleeping
and waking.

As for me, I don't believe in these Don Juans who are Byrons at the
same time. Don Juan did not make poems and Byron made, so they say,
very poor love. He must have had sometimes--one can count such
emotions in one's life--a complete ecstasy of heart, mind and
senses. He knew enough about them to be one of the poets of love.
Nothing else is necessary for the instrument of our vibration. The
continual wind of little appetites breaks them.

Try some day to write a novel in which the artist (the real artist)
is the hero, you will see what great, but delicate and restrained,
vigor is in it, how he will see everything with an attentive eye,
curious and tranquil, and how his infatuations with the things he
examines and delves into, will be rare and serious. You will see
also how he fears himself, how he knows that he can not surrender
himself without exhaustion, and how a profound modesty in regard to
the treasures of his soul prevents him from scattering and wasting
them.

The artist is such a fine type to do, that I have never dared really
to do him. I do not consider myself worthy to touch that beautiful
and very complicated figure; that is aiming too high for a mere
woman. But if it could certainly tempt you some day, it would be
worth while.

Where is the model? I don't know, I have never REALLY known any one
who did not show some spot in the sunlight, I mean some side where
the artist verged on the Philistine. Perhaps you have not that spot;
you ought to paint yourself. As for me I have it. I love
classifications, I verge on the pedagogue. I love to sew and to care
for children, I verge on the servant. I am easily distracted and
verge on the idiot. And then I should not like perfection; I feel it
but I shouldn't know how to show it.

But one could give him some faults in his nature. What ones? We
shall hunt for them some day. That is not really what you are
working on now and I ought not to distract you from it.

Be less cruel to yourself. Go ahead and when the afflatus shall have
produced everything you must elevate the general tone and cut out
what ought not to come down front stage. Can't that be done? It
seems to me that it can. What you do appears so easy, so abundant!
It is a perpetual overflow, I do not understand your anguish.  Good
night, dear brother, my love to all yours. I have returned to my
solitude at Palaiseau, I love it. I leave it for Paris, Monday. I
embrace you warmly. Good luck to your work.

G. Sand



XXXVI. Monsieur Gustave Flobert at Croisset,
Rouen [The postage stamp bears the mark, Paris, 4, December, 1866]

Sir the noise that you make in literature by your distinguished
talent I also made in my day in the manner that my means permitted
me I began in 1804 under the auspices of the celebrated Madame Saqui
and bore off palms and left memories in the annals of the tight-rope
and coregrafie balancer in all countries where I have been there
appreciated by generals and other officers of the Empire by whom I
have been solicited up to an advanced age so that wives of prefects
and ministers could not have been complimented about it I have read
your distinguished works notably Madame Bovarie of which I think I
am capable of being a model to you when she breaks the chains of her
feet to go where her heart calls her. I am well preserved for my
advanced age and if you have a repugnance for an artist in
misfortune, I should be content with your ideal sentiments. You can
then count on my heart not being able to dispose of my person being
married to a man of light character who squandered my wax cabinet
wherein were all figures of celebrities, kings, emperors, ancient
and modern and celebrated crimes, which if I had had your permission
about it you would have been placed in the number I had then a place
in the railroad substation to have charge of the cabinets which the
jealousy of my rival made me lose, it is in these sentiments that I
write you if you deign to write the history of my unhappy life you
alone would be worthy of it and would see in it things of which you
would be worthy of appreciating I shall present myself at your house
in Rouen whose address I had from M. Bouilhet who knows me well
having come to see me in his youth he will tell you that I have the
phthisic still agreeably and always faithful to all who knew me
whether in the civil or in the military and in these sentiments for
life your affectionate

Victoire Potelet

called Marengo Lirondelle widow Dodin
Rue Lanion, 47, Belleville.



XXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday night, 5th December, 1866

Oh! how lovely the letter of Marengo the Swallow is! Seriously, I
think it a masterpiece, not a word which is not a word of genius. I
have laughed aloud many times. I thank you very dear master, you are
as good as can be.

You never tell me what you are doing. How far has the play gone?

I am not at all surprised that you don't understand my literary
agonies. I don't understand them myself. But they exist
nevertheless, and violent ones.

I don't in the least know how to set to work to write, and I begin
by expressing only the hundredth part of my ideas after infinite
gropings. Not one who seizes the first impulse, your friend, no! not
at all! Thus for entire days I have polished and re-polished a
paragraph without accomplishing anything. I feel like weeping at
times. You ought to pity me!

As for our subject under discussion (a propos of your young man),
what you write me in your last letter is so my way of thinking, that
I have not only practised it but preached it. Ask Theo. However, let
us understand one another. Artists (who are priests) risk nothing in
being chaste; on the contrary. But the bourgeois, what is the use in
it for them? Of course there must be certain ones among humanity who
stick to chastity. Happy indeed those who don't depart from it.

I don't agree with you that there is anything worth while to be done
with the character of the IDEAL ARTIST; he would be a monster. Art
is not made to paint the exceptions, and I feel an unconquerable
repugnance to putting on paper something from out of my heart. I
even think that a novelist HASN'T THE RIGHT TO EXPRESS HIS OPINION
on any subject whatsoever. Has the good God ever uttered it, his
opinion? That is why there are not a few things that choke me which
I should like to spit out, but which I swallow. Why say them, in
fact! The first comer is more interesting than Monsieur Gustave
Flaubert, because he is more GENERAL and therefore more typical.

Nevertheless, there are days when I consider myself below
imbecility. I have still a globe of goldfish and that amuses me.
They keep me company while I dine. Is it stupid to be interested in
such simple things? Adieu, it is late, I have an aching head.

I embrace you.



XXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT,
at Paris December, 1866

"Not put one's heart into what one writes?" I don't understand at
all, oh! not at all! As for me, I think that one can not put
anything else into it. Can one separate one's mind from one's heart?
Is it something different? Can sensation itself limit itself? Can
existence divide itself? In short, not to give oneself entirely to
one's work, seems to me as impossible as to weep with something else
than one's eyes, and to think with something else than one's brain.

What was it you meant? You must tell me when you have the time.



XXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 8 December, 1866

You ask me what I am doing? Your old troubadour is content this
evening. He has passed the night in re-doing a second act which did
not go properly and which has turned out well, so well that my
directors are delighted, and I have good hopes of making the end
effective--it does not please me yet, but one must pull it through.
In short, I have nothing to tell you about myself which is very
interesting. When one has the patience of an ox and the wrist broken
from crushing stones well or badly, one has scarcely any unexpected
events or emotions to recount. My poor Manceau called me the ROAD-
MENDER, and there is nothing less poetic than those beings.

And you, dear friend, are you experiencing the anguish and labors of
childbirth? That is splendid and youthful. Those who want them don't
always get them!

When my daughter-in-law brings into the world dear little children,
I abandon myself to such labor in holding her in my arms that it
reacts on me, and when the infant arrives, I am sicker than she is,
and even seriously so. I think that your pains now react on me, and
I have a headache on account of them. But alas! I cannot assist at
any birth and I almost regret the time when one believed it hastened
deliverances to burn candles before an image.

I see that that rascal Bouilhet has betrayed me; he promised me to
copy the Marengo letter in a feigned hand to see if you would be
taken in by it. People have written to me seriously things like
that. How good and kind your great friend is. He is adored at the
Odeon, and this evening they told me that his play was going better
and better. I went to hear it again two or three days ago and I was
even more delighted with it than the first time.

Well, well, let's keep up our heart, whatever happens, and when you
go to rest remember that someone loves you. Affectionate regards to
your mother, brother and niece.

G. Sand



XL. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Saturday night

I have seen Citizen Bouilhet, who had a real ovation in his own
country. His compatriots who had absolutely ignored him up to then,
from the moment that Paris applauded him, screamed with enthusiasm.-
-He will return here Saturday next, for a banquet that they are
giving him,--80 covers, at least.

As for Marengo the Swallow, he kept your secret so well, that he
read the letter in question with an astonishment which duped me.

Poor Marengo! she is a figure! and one that you ought to put in a
book. I wonder what her memoirs would be, written in that style?--
Mine (my style) continues to give me no small annoyance. I hope,
however, in a month, to have crossed the most barren tract. But at
the moment I am lost in a desert; well, by the grace of God, so much
the worse for me! How gladly I shall abandon this sort of thing,
never to return to it to my dying day! Depicting the modern French
bourgeois is a stench in my nostrils! And then won't it be time
perhaps to enjoy oneself a bit in life, and to choose subjects
pleasant to the author?

I expressed myself badly when I said to you that "one should not
write from the heart." I meant to say: not put one's personality
into the picture. I think that great art is scientific and
impersonal. One should, by an effort of mind, put oneself into one's
characters and not create them after oneself. That is the method at
least; a method which amounts to this: try to have a great deal of
talent and even of genius if you can. How vain are all the poetic
theories and criticisms!--and the nerve of the gentlemen who compose
them sickens me. Oh! nothing restrains them, those boneheads!

Have you noticed that there is sometimes in the air a current of
common ideas? For instance, I have just read my friend Du Camp's new
novel: Forces Perdues. It is very like what I am doing, in many
ways. His book is very naive and gives an accurate idea of the men
of our generation having become real fossils to the young men of
today. The reaction of '48 opened a deep chasm between the two
Frances.

Bouilhet told me that you had been seriously ill at one of the
recent Magny's, although you do pretend to be a "woman of wood." Oh!
no you are not of wood, dear good great heart! "Beloved old
troubadour," would it not perhaps be opportune to rehabilitate him
at the Theatre Almanzor? I can see him with his toque and his guitar
and his apricot tunic howling at the black-gowned students from the
top of a rock. The talk would be fine. Now, good night; I kiss you
on both cheeks tenderly.



XLI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 7 December, 1866

Something like a week ago someone came to my house in the morning to
ask me the address of the bootmaker, my maid did not want to awaken
me, and it was not until noon that I read the letter; the bearer
said he came from the Hotel Helder on the rue Helder. I answered at
once that Simonin lived at 15 rue Richelieu, I wrote to your mother
thinking that it was she who wrote to me. I see that she did not
receive my note and I don't understand about it, but it is not my
fault.

Your old Troubadour is sick as a dog again today, but it will not
prevent him from going to Magny's this evening. He could not die in
better company; although he would prefer the edge of a ditch in the
spring.

Everything else goes well and I leave for Nohant on Saturday.  I am
trying hard to push the entomological work which Maurice is
publishing. It is very fine.

I am doing for him what I have never done for myself. I am writing
to the newspaper men.

I shall recommend Mademoiselle Bosquet to whom I can, but that
appeals to another public, and I don't stand in as well with the
literary men as I do with the scholars. But certainly Marengo the
Swallow MUST BE DONE and the apricot troubadour also. All that was
of the Cadios of the revolution who began to be or who wanted to be
something, no matter what. I am of the last comers and you others
born of us, you are between the illusions of my time and the crude
deception of the new times. It is quite natural that Du Camp should
go parallel with you in a series of observations and ideas, that
does not mean anything. There will be no resemblance.

Oh no! I have not found a title for you, it is too serious, and then
I should need to know everything. In any case I am no good today to
do anything except to draw up my epitaph. Et in Arcadia ego, you
know, I love you, dear friend brother, and bless you with all my
heart.

G. Sand
Monday.



XLII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Paris, 9 January, 1867

Dear comrade,

Your old troubadour has been tempted to bite the dust. He is still
in Paris. He should have left the 25th of December; his trunk was
strapped; your first letter was awaiting him every day at Nohant. At
last he is all ready to leave and he goes tomorrow with his son
Alexandre [Footnote: Alexandre Dumas fils.] who is anxious to
accompany him.

It is stupid to be laid on one's back and to lose consciousness for
three days and to get up as enfeebled as if one had done something
painful and useful. It was nothing after all, except temporary
impossibility of digesting anything whatever. Cold, or weakness, or
work, I don't know. I don't think of it any longer. Sainte-Beuve is
much more disquieting, somebody have written you about it. He is
better also, but there will be serious trouble, and on account of
that, accidents to look out for. I am very saddened and anxious
about it.

I have not worked for two weeks; so my task has not progressed very
much, and as I don't know if I am going to be in shape very soon, I
have given the Odeon A VACATION. They will take me when I am ready.
I think of going a little to the south when I have seen my children.
The plants of the coast are running through my head. I am
prodigiously uninterested in anything which is not my little ideal
of peaceful work, country life, and of tender and pure friendship. I
really think that I am not going to live a long time, although I am
quite cured and well. I get this warning from the great calm,
CONTINUALLY CALMER, which exists in my formerly agitated soul. My
brain only works from synthesis to analysis, and formerly it was the
contrary. Now, what presents itself to my eyes when I awaken is the
planet; I have considerable trouble in finding again there the MOI
which interested me formerly, and which I begin to' call YOU in the
plural. It is charming, the planet, very interesting, very curious
but rather backward, and as yet somewhat unpractical; I hope to pass
into an oasis with better highways and possible to all. One needs so
much money and resources in order to travel here! and the time lost
in order to procure. these necessaries is lost to study and to
contemplation. It seems to me that there is due me something less
complicated, less civilized, more naturally luxurious, and more
easily good than this feverish halting-place. Will you come into the
land, of my dreams, if I succeed in finding the road? Ah! who can
know?

And the novel, is it getting on? Your courage has not declined?
Solitude does not weigh on you? I really think that it is not
absolute, and that somewhere there is a sweetheart who comes and
goes, or who lives near there. But there is something of the
anchorite in your life just the same, and if envy your situation. As
for me, I am too alone at Palaiseau, with a dead soul; not alone
enough at Nohant, with the children whom I love too much to belong
to myself,--and at Paris, one does not know what one is, one forgets
oneself entirely for a thousand things which are not worth any more
than oneself. I embrace you with all my heart, dear friend; remember
me to your mother, to your dear family, and write me at Nohant, that
will do me good.

The cheeses? I don't know at all, it seems to me that they spoke to
me of them, but I don't remember at all. I will tell you that from
down there.



XLIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Saturday night

No, dear master, you are not near your end. So much the worse for
you perhaps. But you will live to be old, very old, as giants live,
since you are of that race: only you MUST rest. One thing astonishes
me and that is that you have not died twenty times over, having
thought so much, written so much and suffered so much. Do go then,
since you have the desire, to the Mediterranean. Its azure sky
quiets and invigorates. There are the Countries of Youth, such as
the Bay of Naples. Do they make one sadder sometimes? I do not know.

Life is not easy! What a complicated and extravagant affair! I know
something about that. One must have money for everything! So that
with a modest revenue and an unproductive profession one has to make
up one's mind to have but little. So I do! The habit is formed, but
the days that work does not go well are not amusing. Yes indeed! I
would love to follow you into another planet. And a propos of money,
it is that which will make our planet uninhabitable in the near
future, for it will be impossible to live here, even for the rich,
without looking after one's property; one will have to spend several
hours a day fussing over one's INCOME. Charming! I continue to fuss
over my novel, and I shall go to Paris when I reach the end of my
chapter, towards the middle of next month.

And whatever you suspect, no "lovely lady" comes to see me. Lovely
ladies have occupied my mind a good deal, but have taken up very
little of my time. Applying the term anchorite to me is perhaps a
juster comparison than you think.

I pass entire weeks without exchanging a word with a human being,
and at the end of the week it is not possible for me to recall a
single day nor any event whatsoever. I see my mother and my niece on
Sundays, and that is all. My only company consists of a band of rats
in the garret, which make an infernal racket above my head, when the
water does not roar or the wind blow. The nights are black as ink,
and a silence surrounds me comparable to that of the desert.
Sensitiveness is increased immeasurably in such a setting. I have
palpitations of the heart for nothing.

All that results from our charming profession. That is what it means
to torment the soul and the body. But perhaps this torment is our
proper lot here below?

I told you, didn't I, that I had reread Consuelo and the Comtesse de
Rudolstadt; it took me four days. We must discuss them at length,
when you are willing. Why am I in love with Siverain? Perhaps
because I am of both sexes.



XLIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT at Croissset
Nohant, 15 January, 1867

Here I am at home, fairly strong except for several hours during the
evening. Yet, THAT WILL PASS. THE EVIL OR HE WHO ENDURES IT, my old
cure used to say, CAN NOT LAST. I received your letter this morning,
dear friend of my heart. Why do I love you more than most of the
others, even more than old and well-tried friends? I am asking, for
my condition at this hour, is that of being

THOU WHO GOEST SEEKING,
AT SUNSET,
FORTUNE! ...

Yes, intellectual fortune, LIGHT! Oh well, here it is: one gets,
being old, at the sunset of life,--which is the most beautiful hour
of tones and reflections,--a new idea of everything and of affection
above all.

In the age of power and of personality, one tests one's friends as
one tests the earth, from the point of view of reciprocity. One
feels oneself solid, one wants to find that which bears one or leads
one, solid. But, when one feels the intensity of the moi fleeing,
one loves persons and things for what they are in themselves, for
what they represent in the eyes of one's soul, and not at all for
what they add further to one's destiny. It is like the picture or
the statue which one would like to own, when one dreams at the same
time of a beautiful house of one's own in which to put it.

But one has passed through green Bohemia without gathering anything
there; one has remained poor, sentimental and troubadourish. One
knows very well that it will always be the same, and that one will
die without a hearth or a home. Then one thinks of the statue, of
the picture which one would not know what to do with and which one
would not know where to place with due honor, if one owned it. One
is content to know that they are in some temple not profaned by cold
analysis, a little far from the eye, and one loves them so much the
more. One says: I will go again to the country where they are. I
shall see again and I shall love always that which has made me love
and understand them. The contact of my personality will not have
changed them, it will not be myself that I shall love in them.

And it is thus, truly, that the ideal which one does not dream of
grasping, fixes itself in one because it remains ITSELF. That is all
the secret of the beautiful, of the only truth, of love, friendship,
of art, of enthusiasm, and of faith. Consider it, you will see.

That solitude in which you live would be delicious to me in fine
weather. In winter I find it stoical, and am forced to recall to
myself that you have not the moral need of locomotion AS A HABIT. I
used to think that was another expenditure of strength during this
season of being shut in;--well, it is very fine, but it must not
continue indefinitely; if the novel has to last longer, you must
interrupt it, or vary it with distractions. Really, my dear friend,
think of the life of the body, which gets upset and nervous when you
subdue it too much. When I was ill in Paris, I saw a physician, very
mad, but very intelligent, who said very true things on that
subject. He said that I SPIRITUALIZED myself in a disquieting
manner, and when I told him, exactly, a propos of you, that one
could abstract oneself from everything except work, and have more
rather than less strength, he answered that the danger was as great
in accumulating as in losing, and a propos of this, many excellent
things which I wish I could repeat to you.

Besides, you know them, but you never pay any attention to them.
Then this work which you abuse so in words, is a passion, and a
great one! Now, I shall tell you what you tell me. For our sake and
for the sake of your old troubadour, do SPARE yourself a little.

Consuelo, La Comtesse de Rudolstadt, what are they? Are they mine? I
don't recall a single word in them. You are reading that, you? Are
you really amused? Then I shall read them one of these days and I
shall love myself if you love me.

What is being hysterical? I have perhaps been that also, I am
perhaps; but I don't know anything about it, never having profoundly
studied the thing, and having heard of it without having studied it.
Isn't it an uneasiness, an anguish caused by the desire of an
impossible SOMETHING OR OTHER? In that case, we are all attacked by
it, by this strange illness, when we have imagination; and why
should such a malady have a sex?

And still further, there is this for those strong in anatomy: THERE
IS ONLY ONE SEX. A man and a woman are so entirely the same thing,
that one hardly understands the mass of distinctions and of subtle
reasons with which society is nourished concerning this subject. I
have observed the infancy and the development of my son and my
daughter. My son was myself, therefore much more woman, than my
daughter, who was an imperfect man.

I embrace you. Maurice and Lina who have tasted your cheese, send
you their regards, and Mademoiselle Aurore cries to you, WAIT, WAIT,
WAIT! That is all that she knows how to say while laughing like a
crazy person; for, at heart she is serious, attentive, clever with
her hands as a monkey and amusing herself better with games she
invents, than with those one suggests to her. I think that she will
have a mind of her own.

If I do not get cured here, I shall go to Cannes, where some friends
are urging me to come. But I can not yet mention it to my children.
When I am with them it is not easy to move. There is passion and
jealousy. And all my life has been like that, never my own! Pity
yourself then, you who belong to yourself!



XLV. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday evening

I have followed your counsel, dear master, I have EXERCISED!!! Am I
not splendid; eh?

Sunday night, at eleven o'clock, there was such lovely moonlight
along the river and on the snow that I was taken with an itch for
movement, and I walked for two hours and a half imagining all sorts
of things, pretending that I was travelling in Russia or in Norway.
When the tide came in and cracked the cakes of ice in the Seine and
the thin ice which covered the stream, it was, without any
exaggeration, superb. Then I thought of you and I missed you.

I don't like to eat alone. I have to associate the idea with someone
with the things that please me. But this someone is rare. I too
wonder why I love you. Is it because you are a great man or a
charming being? I don't know. What is certain is that I experience a
PARTICULAR sentiment for you and I cannot define it.

And a propos of this, do you think (you who are a master of
psychology), that one can love two people in the same way and that
one can experience two identical sensations about them? I don't
think so, since our individuality changes at every moment of its
existence.

You write me lovely things about "disinterested affection." That is
true, so is the opposite! We make God always in our own image. At
the bottom of all our loves and all our admirations we find
ourselves again: ourselves or something approaching us. What is the
difference if the OURSELVES is good!

My moi bores me for the moment. How this fool weighs on my shoulders
at times! He writes too slowly and is not bluffing at all when he
complains of his work. What a task! and what a devil of an idea to
have sought such a subject! You should give me a recipe for going
faster: and you complain of seeking a fortune! You! I have received
a little note from Saint-Beuve which reassures about his health, but
it is sad. He seemed to me depressed at not being able to haunt the
dells of Cyprus.  He is within the truth, or at least within his own
truth, which amounts to the same thing. I shall be like him perhaps,
when I am his age. However, I think not. Not having had the same
youth, my old age will be different.

That reminds me that I once dreamed a book on Saint Perrine.
Champfleury treated that subject badly. For I don't see that he is
comic: I should have made him atrocious and lamentable. I think that
the heart does not grow old; there are even people whose hearts grow
bigger with age. I was much drier and more bitter twenty years ago
than now. I am feminized and softened by wear, as others get harder,
and that makes me INDIGNANT. I feel that I am becoming a COW, it
takes nothing to move me; everything troubles and agitates me,
everything is to me as the north wind is to the reed.

A word from you, which I remembered, has made me reread now the Fair
Maid of Perth. It is a good story, whatever one says about it. That
fellow decidedly had an imagination.

Well, adieu. Think of me. I send you my best love.



XLVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 1867

Bah! zut! troulala! Well! well! I am not sick any more, or at least
I am only half sick. The air of the country restores me, or
patience, or THE OTHER person, the one who wants to work again and
to produce. What is my illness? Nothing. Everything is all right,
but I have something that they call anemia, an effect without a
tangible cause, a breakdown which has been threatening for several
years, and which became noticeable at Palaiseau, after my return
from Croisset. An emaciation that is too rapid to be within reason,
a pulse too slow, too feeble, an indolent or capricious stomach,
with a sensation of stifling and a fondness for inertia. I was not
able to keep a glass of water on my poor stomach for several days,
and that brought me so low that I thought I was hardly curable; but,
all is getting on, and I have even been working since yesterday.

You, dear, you go walking in the night, in the snow. That is
something which for an exceptional excursion, is rather foolish and
might indeed make you ill also. Good Heavens! It is not the moon, it
is the sun that I advise; we are not owls, OBVIOUSLY! We have just
had three spring days. I wager that you have not climbed up to my
dear orchard which is so pretty and which I love so much. If it was
only in remembrance of me, you ought to climb up every fine day at
noon. Your work would flow more abundantly afterward and you would
regain the time you lost and more too.

Then you are worrying about money? I don't know what that is, since
I have not a sou in the world. I live by my day, work as does the
proletarian; when I can no longer do my day's work, I shall be
packed up for the other world, and then I shall have no more need of
anything. But you must live. How can you live by your pen if you
always let yourself be duped and shorn? It is not I who can teach
you how to protect yourself But haven't you a friend who knows how
to act for you? Alas, yes, the world is going to the devil in that
respect; and I was talking of you, the other day, to a very dear
friend, while I was showing him the artist, a personage become so
rare, and cursing the necessity of thinking of the material side of
life. I send you the last page of his letter; you will see that you
have in him a friend whom you did not suspect, and whose name will
surprise you.

No, I shall not go to Cannes, in spite of a strong temptation!
Imagine, I received a little box filled with flowers gathered out-
doors, five or six days ago; for the package followed me to Paris
and to Palaiseau. Those flowers are adorably fresh, they smell
sweetly, they are as pretty as anything.--Ah! to go, go at once to
the country of the sun. But I have no money, and besides I have no
time. My illness has delayed me and put me off. Let us stay here. Am
I not well? If I can't go to Paris next month, won't you come to see
me here? Certainly, it is an eight hours' journey. You can not see
this ancient nook. You owe me a week, or I shall believe that I love
a big ingrate who does not pay me back.

Poor Sainte-Beuve! More unhappy than we, he who has never had any
great disappointments and who has no longer any material worries. He
bewails what is the least regrettable and the least serious in life
understood as he understood it! And then very proud, having been a
Jansenist, his heart has cooled in that direction. Perhaps the
intelligence was developed, but that does not suffice to make us
live, and does not teach us how to die. Barbes, who has expected for
a long time that a stroke would carry him off, is gentle and
smiling. It does not seem to him, and it does not seem to his
friends, that death will separate him from us. He who quite goes
away, is he who believes he ends and does not extend a hand so that
anyone can follow him or rejoin him.

And good-night, dear friend of my heart. They are ringing for the
performance. Maurice regales us this evening with marionettes. They
are very amusing, and the theatre is so pretty! A real artist's
jewel. Why aren't you here? It is horrid not to live next door to
those one loves.



XLVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday

I received yesterday your son's book. I shall start it when I have
gotten rid of less amusing readings, probably. Meanwhile, don't
thank him any the less, dear master.

First, let's talk of you; "arsenic." I am sure of it! You must drink
iron, walk, and sleep, and go to the south, no matter what it costs,
there! Otherwise the WOODEN WOMAN will break down. As for money, we
shall find it; and as for the time, take it. You won't do anything
that I advise, of course. Oh! well, you are wrong, and you hurt me.

No, I have not what you call worries about money; my revenues are
very small, but they are sure. Only, as it is your friend's habit to
anticipate them he finds himself short at times, and he grumbles "in
the silence of his closet," but not elsewhere. Unless I have
extraordinary reverses, I shall have enough to feed me and warm me
until the end of my days. My heirs are or will be rich (for it is I
who am the poor one of the family). Then, zut!

As for gaining money by my pen, that is an aspiration that I have
never had, recognizing that I was radically incapable of it.

I have to live as a small retired countryman, which is not very
amusing. But so many others who are worth more than I am not having
the land, it would be unfair for me to complain. Accusing Providence
is, moreover a mania so common, that one ought to refrain from it
through simple good taste.

Another word about money and one that shall be quite between
ourselves. I can, without being inconvenienced at all, as soon as I
am in Paris, that is to say from the 20th to the 23rd of the present
month, lend you a thousand francs, if you need them in order to go
to Cannes. I make you this proposition bluntly, as I would to
Bouilhet, or any other intimate friend. Come, don't stand on
ceremony!

Between people in society, that would not be correct, I know that,
but between troubadours many things are allowable.

You are very kind with your invitation to go to Nohant. I shall go,
for I want very much to see your house. I am annoyed not to know it
when I think of you. But I shall have to put off that pleasure till
next summer. Now I have to stay some time in Paris. Three months are
not too long for all I want to do there.

I send you back the page from the letter of your friend Barbes,
whose real biography I know very imperfectly. All I know of him is
that he is honest and heroic. Give him a hand-shake for me, to thank
him for his sympathy. Is he, BETWEEN OURSELVES, as intelligent as he
is good?

I feel the importance now, of getting men of that class to be rather
frank with me. For I am going to start studying the Revolution of
'48. You have promised me to hunt in your library at Nohant for (1)
an article of yours on faience; (2) a novel by father X---, a
Jesuit, on the Holy Virgin.

But what sternness for the father Beuve who is neither Jesuit nor
virgin! He regrets, you say, "what is the least regrettable,
understood as he understood it." Why so? Everything depends upon the
intensity that one puts on the thing.

Men always find that the most serious thing of their existence is
enjoyment.

Woman for us all is the highest point of the infinite. That is not
noble, but that is the real depth of the male. They exaggerate that
unmercifully, God be thanked, for literature and for individual
happiness also.

Oh! I have missed you so much. The tides are superb, the wind
groans, the river foams and overflows. It blows from the ocean,
which benefits one.



XLVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 8 February, 1867

No, I am not Catholic, but I reject monstrosities. I say that the
hideous old man who buys young girls does not make love and that
there is in it neither death nor birth, nor infinity, nor male nor
female. It is a thing against nature; for it is not desire that
drives the young girl into the arms of the ugly old man, and where
there is not liberty nor reciprocity there is an attack against holy
nature. Therefore that which he regrets is not regrettable, unless
he thinks that his little cocottes will regret his person, and I ask
you if they will regret anything else than their dirty wages? That
was the gangrene in this great and admirable mind, so lucid and so
wise on all other subjects. One pardons everything in those one
loves, when one is obliged to defend them from their enemies. But
what we say between ourselves is buried, and I can tell you that
vice has quite spoiled my old friend.

We must believe that we love one another a great deal, dear comrade,
for we both had the same thought at the same time. You offer me a
thousand francs with which to go to Cannes; you who are as hard up
as I am, and, when you wrote to me that you WERE BOTHERED about
money matters, I opened my letter again, to offer you half of what I
have, which still amounts to about two thousand francs; it is my
reserve. And then I did not dare. Why? It is quite stupid; you were
better than I, you came straight to the point. Well, I thank you for
that kind thought and I do not accept. But I would accept, be sure
of it, if I did not have other resources. Only I tell you that if
anyone ought to lend to me, it is Buloz who has bought chateaux and
lands with my novels. He would not refuse me, I know. He even offers
it to me. I shall take from him then, if I have to. But I am not in
a condition to leave, I have had a relapse these last few days. I
slept thirty-six hours together, exhausted. Now I am on my feet
again, but weak. I confess to you that I have not the energy TO WISH
TO LIVE. I don't care about it; moving from where I am comfortable,
to seek new fatigues, working like a dog to renew a dog's life, it
is a little stupid, I think, when it would be so sweet to pass away
like that, still loving, still loved, at strife with no one, not
discontent with oneself and dreaming of the wonders of other worlds-
-this assumes that the imagination is still fresh. But I don't know
why I talk to you of things considered sad, I have too much the
habit of looking at them pleasantly. I forget that they appear
afflicting to those who seem in the fulness of life. Don't let's
talk about them any longer and let spring do the work, spring which
perhaps will breathe into me the desire to take up my work again. I
shall be as docile to the interior voice that tells me to walk as to
that telling me to sit down.

It is not I who promised you a novel on the Holy Virgin. At least I
don't think so. I can not find my article on faience. Do look and
see if it was printed at the end of one of my volumes to complete
the last sheet. It was entitled Giovanni Freppa ou les Maioliques.

Oh! what luck! While writing to you it has come back to me that
there is a corner where I have not looked. I hasten there, I find
it! I find something better than my article, and I send you three
works which will make you as learned as I am. That of Passeri is
charming.

Barbes has intelligence, certainly! but he is a sugar loaf. Brain on
a lofty scale, head of an Indian, with gentle instincts, almost
impossible to find; all for metaphysical thought which becomes an
instinct and a passion that dominates everything. Add to that a
character that one can only compare to Garibaldi. A creature of
incredible sanctity and perfection. Immense worth without immediate
application in France. The setting of another age or another country
is what this hero needs. And now good-night,--O God, what a CALF I
am! I leave you the title of COW, which you give yourself in your
days of weariness. Never mind, tell me when you are to be in Paris.
It is probable that I shall have to go there for a few days for one
thing or another. We must embrace each other and then you shall come
to Nohant this summer. It is agreed, it must be!

My affectionate regards to your mother and to your lovely niece.

Please acknowledge the receipt of the three pamphlets; they would be
a loss.



XLIX. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear master,

You really ought to go to see the sun somewhere; it is foolish to be
always suffering; do travel; rest; resignation is the worst of the
virtues.

I have need of it in order to endure all the stupidities that I
hear! You can not imagine to what a degree they have reached. France
which has been sometimes taken with St. Vitus dance (as under
Charles VI), seems to me now to have a paralysis of the brain. They
are mad with fear. Fear of the Prussians, fear of the strikes, fear
of the Exposition which does not go well, fear of everything. We
have to go back to 1849 to find such a degree of imbecility.

There was at the last Magny such inane conversation that I swore to
myself never to put foot inside the place again. The only subjects
under discussion all the time were Bismarck and the Luxembourg. I
was stuffed with it! For the rest I don't find it easy to live. Far
from becoming blunted my sensibilities are sharper; a lot of
insignificant things make me suffer. Pardon this weakness, you who
are so strong and tolerant.

The novel does not go at all well. I am deep in reading the
newspapers of '48. I have had to make several (and have not yet
finished) journeys to Sevres, to Creil, etc.

Father Sainte-Beuve is preparing a discourse on free thought which
he will read at the Senate a propos of the press law. He has been
very shrewd, you know.

You tell your son Maurice that I love him very much, first because
he is your son and secundo because he is he. I find him good,
clever, cultivated, not a poseur, in short charming, and "with
talent."



L. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 4 March, 1867

Dear good friend, the friend of my heart, the old troubadour is as
well as ten thousand men--who are well, and he is gay as a finch,
because the sun shines again and copy is progressing.

He will probably go to Paris soon for the play by his son Dumas, let
us try to be there together.

Maurice is very proud to be declared COCK by an eagle. At this
moment he is having a spree with veal and wine in honor of his
firemen.

The AMERICAN [Footnote: Henry Harrisse.] in question is charming. He
has, literally speaking, a passion for you, and he writes me that
after seeing you he loves you more, that does not surprise me.

Poor Bouilhet! Give him this little note enclosed here. I share his
sorrow, I knew her.

Are you amused in Paris? Are you as sedentary there as at Croisset?

In that case I shall hardly see you unless I go to see you.

Tell me the hours when you do not receive the fair sex, and when
sexagenarian troubadours do not incommode you.

Cadio is entirely redone and rewritten up to the part I read to you,
it is less offensive.

I am not doing Montreveche. I will tell you about that. It is quite
a story. I love you and I embrace you with all my heart.

Your old George Sand

Did you receive my pamphlets on the faience? You have not
acknowledged them. They were sent to Croisset the day after I got
your last letter.



LI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
14 March, 1867

Your old troubadour is again prostrate. Every moment his guitar
threatens to be broken. And then he sleeps forty-eight hours and is
cured--but feeble, and he can not be in Paris on the 16th as he had
intended. Maurice went alone a little while ago, I shall go to join
him in five or six days.

Little Aurore consoles me for this mischance. She twitters like a
bird along with the birds who are twittering already as in full
spring time.

The anemone Sylvia which I brought from the woods into the garden
and which I had a great deal of trouble in acclimating is finally
growing thousands of white and pink stars among the blue periwinkle.
It is warm and damp. One can not break one's guitar in weather like
this. Good-bye, dear good friend.

G. Sand



LII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Friday, 22 March, 1867

Your old troubadour is here, not so badly off. He will go to dine on
Monday at Magny's, we shall agree on a day for both of us to dine
with Maurice. He is at home at five o'clock but not before Monday.

He is running around!

He embraces you.



LIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
1867 (?)

Then Wednesday, if you wish, my dear old fellow. Whom do you want to
have with us? Certainly, the dear Beuve if that is possible, and no
one if you like.

We embrace you.

G. S. Maurice Saturday evening.



LIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 11 April, 1867

Here I am back again in my nest, and almost cured from a bad fever
which attacked me in Paris, the day before my departure.

Really your old troubadour has had ridiculous health for six months.
March and April have been such stupid months for him. It makes no
difference, however, for he is recovering again, and is seeing once
more the trees and the grass grow, it is always the same thing and
that is why it is beautiful and good. Maurice has been touched by
the friendship that you have shown him; you have seduced and
ravished him, and he is not demonstrative.

He and his wife,--who is not at all an ordinary woman,--desire
absolutely that you come to our house this year, I am charged to
tell you so very seriously and persistently if need be  And is that
hateful grip gone? Maurice wanted to go to get news of you; but on
seeing me so prostrated by the fever, he thought of nothing except
packing me up and bringing me here like a parcel. I did nothing
except sleep from Paris to Nohant and I was revived on receiving the
kisses of Aurore who knows now how to give great kisses, laughing
wildly all the while; she finds that very funny.

And the novel? Does it go on its way the same in Paris as in
Croisset? It seems to me that everywhere you lead the same
hermitlike existence. When you have the time to think of friends,
remember your old comrade and send him two lines to tell him that
you are well and that you don't forget him.



LV. TO GEORGE SAND

I am worried at not having news from you, dear master. What has
become of you? When shall I see you?

My trip to Nohant has fallen through. The reason is this: my mother
had a little stroke a week ago. There is nothing left of it, but it
might come on again. She is anxious for me, and I am going to hurry
back to Croisset. If she is doing well towards the month of August,
and I am not worried, it is not necessary to tell you that I shall
rush headlong towards your home.

As regards news, Sainte-Beuve seems to me very ill, and Bouilhet has
just been appointed librarian at Rouen.

Since the rumours of war have quieted down, people seem to me a
little less foolish. My nausea caused by the public cowardice is
decreasing.

I went twice to the Exposition; it is amazing. There are splendid
and extraordinary things there. But man is made to swallow the
infinite. One would have to know all sciences and all arts in order
to be interested in everything that one sees on the Champ de Mars.
Never mind; someone who had three entire months to himself, and went
every morning to take notes, would save himself in consequence much
reading and many journeys.

One feels oneself there very far from Paris, in a new and ugly
world, an enormous world which is perhaps the world of the future.
The first time that I lunched there, I thought all the time of
America, and I wanted to speak like a negro.



LVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 9 May, 1867

Dear friend of my heart,

I am well, I am at work, I am finishing Cadio. It is warm, I am
alive, I am calm and sad, I hardly know why. In this existence so
even, so tranquil, and so gentle as I have here, I am in an element
that weakens me morally while strengthening me physically; and I
fall into melancholies of honey and roses which are none the less
melancholy. It seems to me that all those I love forget me, and that
it is justice, because I live a selfish life having nothing to do
for any one of them.

I have lived with tremendous attachments which overwhelmed me, which
exceeded my strength and which I often used to curse. And it happens
that having nothing more to carry them on with, I am bored by being
well. If the human race went on very well or very ill, one would
reattach oneself to a general interest, would live with an idea,
wise or foolish. But you see where we are now, you who storm so
fiercely against cowards. That disappears, you say? But only to
recommence! What kind of a society is it that becomes paralyzed in
the midst of its expansions, because tomorrow can bring a storm? The
thought of danger has never produced such demoralizations. Have we
declined to such an extent that it is necessary to beg us to eat,
telling us at the same time that nothing will happen to disturb our
digestion? Yes, it is silly, it is shameful. Is it the result of
prosperity, and does civilization involve this sickly and cowardly
selfishness?

My optimism has had a rude jolt of late. I worked up a joy, a
courage at the idea of seeing you here. It was like a cure that I
carefully contrived, but you are worried about your dear, old
mother, and certainly I can not protest.

Well, if, before your departure from Paris, I can finish Cadio, to
which I am bound under pain of having nothing wherewith to pay for
my tobacco and my shoes, I shall go with Maurice to embrace you. If
not, I shall hope for you about the middle of the summer. My
children, quite unhappy by this delay, beg to hope for you also, and
we hope it so much the more because it would be a good sign for the
dear mother.

Maurice has plunged again into Natural History; he wants to perfect
himself in the MICROS; I learn on the rebound. When I shall have
fixed in my head the name and the appearance of two or three
thousand imperceptible varieties, I shall be well advanced, don't
you think so? Well, these studies are veritable OCTOPUSES, which
entwine about you and which open to you I don't know what infinity.
You ask if it is the destiny of man to DRINK THE INFINITE; my
heavens, yes, don't doubt it, it is his destiny, since it is his
dream and his passion.

Inventing is absorbing also; but what fatigue afterwards! How empty
and worn out intellectually one feels, when one has scribbled for
weeks and months about that animal with two legs which has the only
right to be represented in novels! I see Maurice quite refreshed and
rejuvenated when he returns from his beasts and his pebbles, and if
I aspire to come out from my misery, it is to bury myself also in
studies, which in the speech of the Philistines, are not of any use.
Still it is worth more than to say mass and to ring the bell for the
adoration of the Creator.

Is it true what you tell me of G----? Is it possible? I can not
believe it. Is there in the atmosphere which the earth engenders
nowadays, a gas, laughing or otherwise, which suddenly seizes the
brain, and carries it on to commit extravagances, as there was under
the first revolution a maddening fluid which inspired one to commit
cruelties? We have fallen from the Hell of Dante into that of
Scarron.

Of what are you thinking, good head and good heart, in the midst of
this bacchanal? You are wrathful, oh very well, I like that better
than if you were laughing at it; but when you are calmer and when
you reflect?

Must one find some fashion of accepting the honor, the duty, and the
fatigue of living? As for me, I revert to the idea of an everlasting
journey through worlds more amusing, but it would be necessary to go
there quickly and change continually. The life that one fears so
much to lose is always too long for those who understand quickly
what they see. Everything repeats itself and goes over and over
again in it.

I assure you that there is only one pleasure: learning what one does
not know, and one happiness: loving the exceptions. Therefore I love
you and I embrace you tenderly.

Your old troubadour G. Sand

I am anxious about Sainte-Beuve. What a loss that would be! I am
content if Bouilhet is content. Is it really a good position?



LVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, Friday morning

I am returning to my mother next Monday, dear master. I have little
hope of seeing you before then!

But when you are in Paris, what is to prevent you from pushing on to
Croisset where everyone, including myself, adores you? Sainte-Beuve
has finally consented to see a specialist and to be seriously
treated. And he is better anyway. His morale is improving.

Bouilhet's position gives him four thousand francs a year and
lodging. He now need not think of earning his living, which is a
real luxury.

No one talks of the war any more, they don't talk of anything.

The Exposition alone is what "everybody is thinking about," and the
cabmen exasperate the bourgeois.

They were beautiful (the bourgeois) during the strike of the
tailors. One would have said that SOCIETY was going to pieces.

Axiom: Hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of virtue. But I
include in the word bourgeois, the bourgeois in blouses as well the
bourgeois in coats.

It is we and we alone, that is to say the literary men, who are the
people, or to say it better: the tradition of humanity.

Yes, I am susceptible to disinterested angers and I love you all the
more for loving me for that. Stupidity and injustice make me roar,--
and I HOWL in my corner against a lot of things "that do not concern
me."

How sad it is not to live together, dear master, I admired you
before I knew you. From the day I saw your lovely and kind face, I
loved you. There you are.--And I embrace you warmly.

Your old

Gustave Flaubert

I shall have the package of pamphlets about faience sent to the rue
des Feuillantines. A good handshake to Maurice. A kiss on the four
cheeks of Mademoiselle Aurore.



LVIII. TO GEORGE SAND

I stayed thirty-six hours in Paris at the beginning of this week, in
order to be present at the Tuileries ball. Without any exaggeration,
it was splendid. Paris on the whole turns to the colossal. It is
becoming foolish and unrestrained. Perhaps we are returning to the
ancient Orient. It seems to me that idols will come out of the
earth. We are menaced with a Babylon.

Why not? The INDIVIDUAL has been so denied by democracy that he will
abase himself to a complete effacement, as under the great
theocratic despotisms.

The Tsar of Russia displeased me profoundly; I found him a rustic.
On a parallel with Monsieur Floquet who cries without any danger:
"Long live Poland!" We have chic people who have had themselves
registered at the Elysee. Oh! what a fine epoch!

My novel goes piano. The further I get on the more difficulties
arise. What a heavy cart of sandstone to drag along! And you pity
yourself for a labor that lasts six months!

I have enough more for two years, at least (OF MINE). How the devil
do you find the connection between your ideas? It is that that
delays me. Moreover this book demands tiresome researches. For
instance on Monday; I was at the Jockey Club, at the Cafe Anglais,
and at a lawyer's in turn.  Do you like Victor Hugo's preface to the
Paris-Guide? Not very much, do you? Hugo's philosophy seems to me
always vague.

I was carried away with delight, a week ago, at an encampment of
Gypsies who had established at Rouen. This is the third time that I
have seen them and always with a new pleasure.  The great thing is
that they excite the hatred of the bourgeois, although they are as
inoffensive as sheep.

I appeared very badly before the crowd because I gave them a few
sous, and I heard some fine words a la Prudhomme. That hatred
springs from something very profound and complex.  One finds it
among all orderly people.

It is the hatred that one feels for the bedouin, for the heretic,
the philosopher, the solitary, the poet; and there is a fear in that
hate. I, who am always for the minority, am exasperated by it. It is
true that many things exasperate me. On the day that I am no longer
outraged, I shall fall flat as the marionette from which one
withdraws the support of the stick.

Thus, THE STAKE that has supported me this winter, is the
indignation that I had against our great national historian, M.
Thiers, who had reached the condition of a demi-god, and the
pamphlet Trochu, and the everlasting Changarnier coming back over
the water. God be thanked that the Exposition has delivered us
momentarily from these GREAT MEN.



LIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 30 May, 1867

Here you are at home, old friend of my heart, and I and Maurice must
go to embrace you. If you are still buried in work, we shall only
come and go. It is so near to Paris, that you must not hesitate to
tell us. I have finished Cadio, hurray! I have only to POLISH it a
little. It is like an illness, carrying this great affair for so
long in one's HEAD. I have been so interrupted by real illnesses
that I have had great trouble in setting to work again at it. But I
am wonderfully well since the fine weather and I am going to take a
bath of botany.

Maurice will take one of entomology. He walks three leagues with a
friend of like energy in order to hunt in a great plain for an
animal which has to be looked at with a magnifying glass. That is
happiness! That is being really infatuated. My gloom has disappeared
in making Cadio; at present I am only fifteen years old, and
everything to me appears for the best in the best possible of
worlds. That will last as long as it can. These are the intervals of
innocence in which forgetfulness of evil compensates for the
inexperience of the golden age.

How is your dear mother? She is fortunate to have you again near
her! And the novel? Good heavens! it must get on! Are you walking a
little? Are you more reasonable?

The other day, some people not at all stupid were here who spoke
highly of Madame Bovary, but with less zest of Salammbo. Lina got
into a white heat, not being willing that those wretches should make
the slightest objection to it; Maurice had to calm her, and moreover
he criticised the work very well, as an artist and as a scholar; so
well that the recalcitrants laid down their arms. I should like to
have written what he said. He speaks little and often badly; but
that time he succeeded extraordinarily well.

I shall then not say adieu, but au revoir, as soon as possible. I
love you much, much, my dear old fellow, you know it. My ideal would
be to live a long life with a good and great heart like yours. But
then, one would want never to die, and when one is really OLD, like
me, one must hold oneself ready for anything.

I embrace you tenderly, so does Maurice. Aurore is the sweetest and
the most ridiculous person. Her father makes her drink while he
says: Dominus vobiscum! then she drinks and answers: Amen! How she
is getting on! What a marvel is the development of a little child!
No one has ever written about that. Followed day by day, it would be
precious in every respect. It is one of those things that we all see
without noticing.

Adieu again; think of your old troubadour who thinks unceasingly of
you.

G. Sand



LX. TO Gustave Flaubert
Nohant, 14 June, 1867

Dear friend of my heart, I leave with my son and his wife the 20th
of the month to stay two weeks in Paris, perhaps more if the revival
of Villemer delays me longer. Therefore your dear good mother, whom
I do not want to miss, has all the time she needs to go to see her
daughters. I shall wait in Paris until you tell me if she has
returned, or rather, if I make you a real visit, you shall tell me
the time that suits you best.

My intention, for the moment, was quite simply to go to pass an hour
with you, and Lina was tempted to accompany me; I should have shown
her Rouen, and then we should have embraced you in time to return in
the evening to Paris; for the dear little one has always her ear and
her heart listening when she is away from Aurore, and her holidays
are marked by a continual uneasiness which I quite understand.
Aurore is a treasure of gentleness which absorbs us all. If it can
be arranged, we shall then go on the run to grasp your hands. If it
can not, I shall go alone later when your heart says so, and, if you
are going south, I shall put it off until everything can be arranged
without disturbing whatever may be the plans of your mother or
yourself. I am very free. So, don't disturb yourself, and arrange
your summer without bothering about me.

I have thirty-six plans also, but I don't incline to any one; what
amuses me is what seizes me and takes me off suddenly. It is with a
journey as with a novel: those who travel are those who command.
Only when one is in Paris, Rouen is not a journey, and I shall
always be ready when I am there, to respond to your call. I am a
little remorseful to take whole days from your work, I who am never
bored with loafing, and whom you could leave for whole hours under a
tree, or before two lighted logs, with the assurance that I should
find there something interesting. I know so well how to live OUTSIDE
OF MYSELF! It hasn't always been like that. I also was young and
subject to indignations. It is over!

Since I have dipped into real nature, I have found there an order, a
system, a calmness of cycles which is lacking in mankind, but which
man can, up to a certain point, assimilate when he is not too
directly at odds with the difficulties of his own life. When these
difficulties return he must endeavor to avoid them; but if he has
drunk the cup of the eternally true, he does not get too excited for
or against the ephemeral and relative truth.

But why do I say this to you? Because it comes to my pen-point; for
in considering it carefully, your state of overexcitement is
probably truer, or at least more fertile and more human than my
SENILE tranquillity. I would not like to make you as I am, even if
by a magical operation I could. I should not be interested in myself
if I had the honor to meet myself. I should say that one troubadour
is enough to manage and I should send the other to Chaillot.

A propos of gypsies, do you know that there are gypsies of the sea?
I discovered in the outskirts of Tamaris, among the furthest rocks,
great boats well sheltered, with women and children, a coast
settlement, very restricted, very tanned; fishing for food without
trading; speaking a language that the people of the country do not
understand; living only in these great boats stranded on the sand,
when the storms troubled them in their rocky coves; intermarrying,
inoffensive and sombre, timid or savage; not answering when any one
speaks to them. I don't even know what to call them. The name that I
have been told has escaped me but I could get some one to tell me
again. Naturally the country people hate them and that they have no
religion; if that is so they ought to be superior to us. I ventured
all alone among them. "Good day, sirs." Response, a slight bend of
the head. I looked at their encampment, no one moved. It seemed as
if they did not see me. I asked them if my curiosity annoyed them. A
shrug of the shoulders as if to say, "What do we care?" I spoke to a
young man who was mending the meshes in a net very cleverly; I
showed him a piece of five francs in gold. He looked the other way.
I showed him one in silver. He deigned to look at it. "Do you want
it?" He bent his head on his work. I put it near him, he did not
move. I went away, he followed me with his eyes. When he thought
that I could not see him any longer, he took the piece and went to
talk with a group. I don't know what happened. I fancy that they put
it in the common exchequer. I began botanizing at some distance
within  sight to see if they would come to ask me something or to
thank me. No one moved. I returned as if by chance towards them; the
same silence, the same indifference. An hour later, was at the top
of the cliff, and I asked the coast-guard who those people were who
spoke neither French, nor Italian, nor patois. He told me their
name, which I have not remembered.

He thought that they were Moors, left on the coast since the time of
the great invasions from Provence, and perhaps he is not mistaken.
He told me that he had seen me among them from his watch tower, and
that I was wrong, for they were a people capable of anything; but
when I asked him what harm they did he confessed to me that they had
done none. They lived by their fishing and above all on the things
cast up by the sea which they knew how to gather up before the most
alert. They were an object of perfect scorn. Why? Always the same
story. He who does not do as all the world does can only do evil.

If you go into the country, you might perhaps meet them at the end
of the Brusq. But they are birds of passage, and there are years
when they do not appear at all. I have not even seen the Paris
Guide. They owe me a copy, however; for I gave something to it
without receiving payment. It is because of that no doubt that they
have forgotten me.

To conclude, I shall be in Paris from the 20th of June to the 5th of
July. Send me a word always to 97 rue des Feuillantines. I shall
stay perhaps longer, but I don't know. I embrace you tenderly, my
splendid old fellow. Walk a little, I beg of you. I don't fear
anything for the novel; but I fear for the nervous system taking too
much the place of the muscular system. I am very well, except for
thunder bolts, when I fall on my bed for forty-eight hours and don't
want any one to speak to me. But it is rare and if I do not relent
so that they can nurse me, I get up perfectly cured.

Maurice's love. Entomology has taken possession of him this year; he
discovers marvels. Embrace your mother for me, and take good care of
her. I love you with all my heart.

G. Sand



LXI. To GUSTAVE FLATUBERT
Nohant, 24 July, 1867

Dear good friend, I spent three weeks in Paris with my children,
hoping to see you arriving or to receive a line from you which would
tell me to come and embrace you. But you were HEAD OVER HEELS and I
respect these crises of work; I know them! Here am I back again in
old Nohant, and Maurice at Nerac terminating by a compromise the
law-suit which keeps him from his inheritance. His agreeable father
stole about three hundred thousand francs from his children in order
to please his cook; happily, although Monsieur used to lead this
edifying life, I used to work and did not cut into my capital. I
have nothing, but I shall leave the daily bread assured.

They write me that Villemer goes well. Little Aurore is as pretty as
anything and does a thousand gracious tricks. My daughter Lina is
always my real daughter The OTHER is well and is beautiful, that is
all that I ask of her.

I am working again; but I am not strong. I am paying for my energy
and activity in Paris. That does not make any difference, I am not
angry against life, I love you with all my heart. I see, when I am
gloomy, your kind face, and I feel the radiant power of your
goodness. You are a charm in the Indian summer of my sweet and pure
friendships, without egoisms, and without deceptions in consequence.

Think of me sometimes, work well and call me when you are ready to
loaf. If you are not ready, never mind. If your heart told you to
come here, there would be feasting and joy in the family. I saw
Sainte-Beuve, I am content and proud of him.

Good night, friend of my heart. I embrace you as well as your
mother.

G. Sand



LXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 6 August, 1867

When I see how hard my old friend has to work in order to write a
novel, it discourages my facility, and I tell myself that I write
BOTCHED literature. I have finished Cadio; it has been in Buloz'
hands a long time. I am writing another thing,[Footnote:
Mademoiselle Merquem.] but I don't see it yet very clearly; what can
one do without sun and without heat? I ought to be in Paris now, to
see the Exposition again at my leisure, and to take your mother to
walk with you; but I really must work, since I have only that  to
live on. And then the children; that Aurore is a wonder. You really
must see her, perhaps I shall not see her long, If I don't think I
am destined to grow very old; I must lose no time in loving!

Yes, you are right, it is that that sustains me. This hypocritical
fit has a rough disillusionment in store for it, and one will lose
nothing by waiting. On the contrary, one will gain. You will see
that, you who are old though still quite young. You are my son's
age. You will laugh together when you see this heap of rubbish
collapse.

You must not be a Norman, you must come and see us for several days,
you will make us happy; and it will restore the blood in my veins
and the joy in my heart.

Love your old troubadour always and talk to him of Paris; a few
words when you have the time.

Outline a scene for Nohant with four or five characters, we shall
enjoy it. We embrace you and summon you.

G. Sand



LXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 18 August, 1867

Where are you, my dear old fellow? If by chance you should be in
Paris, during the first few days of September, let us try to see
each other. I shall stay there three days and I shall return here.
But I do not hope to meet you there. You ought to be in some lovely
country, far from Paris and from its dust. I do not know even if my
letter will reach you. Never mind, if you can give news of yourself,
do so. I am in despair. I have lost suddenly, without even knowing
that he was ill, my poor dear, old friend, Rollinat, an angel of
goodness, of courage, of devotion. It is a heavy blow for me. If you
were here you would give me courage; but my poor children are as
overwhelmed as I am. We adored him, all the countryside adored him.

Keep well, and think sometimes of your absent friends. We embrace
you affectionately. The little one is very well, she is charming.



LXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, August, 1867

I bless you, my dear old fellow, for the kind thought that you had
of coming; but you were right not to travel while you were ill. Ah!
my God, I dream of nothing but illness and unhappiness: take care of
yourself, my old comrade. I shall go to see you if I can pull myself
together; for, since this new dagger-thrust, I am feeble and crushed
and I have a sort of fever. I shall write you a line from Paris. If
you are prevented, you must answer me by telegram. You know that
with me there is no need of explanation: I know every hindrance in
life and I never blame the hearts that I know.--I wish that, right
away, if you have a moment to write, you would tell me where I
should go for three days to see the coast of Normandy without
striking the neighborhood where "THE WORLD" goes. In order to go on
with my novel, I must see a countryside near the Channel, that all
the world has not talked about, and where there are real natives at
home, peasants, fisherfolk, a real village in a corner of the rocks.
If you are in the mood we will go there together. If not, don't
bother about me. I go everywhere and I am not disturbed by anything.
You told me that the population of the coasts was the best in the
country, and that there were real dyed-in-the-wool simple-hearted
men there. It would be good to see their faces, their clothes, their
houses, and their horizons. That is enough for what I want to do, I
need only accessories; I hardly want to describe; SEEING it is
enough in order not to make a false stroke. How is your mother? Have
you been able to take her to walk and to distract her a little?
Embrace her for me as I embrace you.

G. Sand

Maurice embraces you; I shall go to Paris without him: he is drawn
on the jury for the 2 September till...no one knows. It is a
tiresome task. Aurore is very cunning with her arms, she offers them
to you to kiss; her hands are marvels and they are incredibly clever
for her age.

Au revoir, then, if I can only pull myself out of the state I am now
in. Insomnia is the devil; in the daytime one makes a lot of effort
not to sadden others. At night one falls back on oneself.



LXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 10 September, 1867

Dear old fellow,

I am worried at not having news of you since that illness of which
you spoke. Are you well again? Yes, we shall go to see the rollers
and the beaches next month if you like, if your heart prompts you.
The novel goes on apace; but I shall besprinkle it with local color
afterwards.

While waiting, I am still here, stuck up to my chin in the river
every day, and regaining my strength entirely in this cold and shady
stream which I adore, and where I have passed so many hours of my
life reviving myself after too long sessions in company with my ink-
well. I go definitely to Paris, the 16th; the 17th at one o'clock, I
leave for Rouen and Jumieges, where my friend Madame Lebarbier de
Tinan awaits me at the house of M. Lepel-Cointet, the landowner; I
shall stay there the 18th so as to return to Paris the 19th. Will it
be inconvenient if I come to see you? I am sick with longing to do
so; but I am so absolutely forced to spend the evening of the 19th
in Paris that I do not know if I shall have the time. You must tell
me. I can get a word from you the 16th in Paris, 97 rue des
Feuillantines. I shall not be alone; I have as a travelling
companion a charming young literary woman, Juliette Lamber. If you
were lovely, lovely, you would walk to Jumieges the 19th. We would
return together so that I could be in Paris at six o'clock in the
evening at the latest. But if you are even a little bit ill still,
or are PLUNGED in ink, pretend that I have said nothing, and prepare
to see us next month. As for the WINTER walk on the Norman coast,
that gives me a cold in my back, I who plan to go to the Gulf of
Juan at that time.

I have been sick over the death of my friend Rollinat. My body is
cured, but my soul! I should have to stay a week with you to refresh
myself in your affectionate strength; for cold and purely
philosophical courage to me, is like cauterizing a wooden leg.

I embrace you and I love you (also your mother). Maurice also, what
French! One is happy to forget it, it is a tiresome thing.

Your troubadour

G. Sand



LXVI. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear master,

What, no news?

But you will answer me since I ask you a service. I read this in my
notes: "National of 1841. Bad treatments inflicted on Barbes, kicks
on his breast, dragged by the beard and hair in order to put him in
an in-pace. Consultation of lawyers signed: E. Arago, Favre,
Berryer, to complain of these abominations."

Find out from him if all that is true; I shall be obliged.



LXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Paris, Tuesday, 1st October, 1867

Dear friend, you shall have your information. I asked Peyrat last
evening, I am writing today to Barbes who will answer directly to
you.

Where do you think I have come from? From Normandy. A charming
opportunity took me there six days ago. I had been enchanted with
Jumieges. This time I saw Etretat, Yport, the prettiest of all the
villages, Fecamp, Saint-Valery, which I knew, and Dieppe, which
dazzled me; the environs, the chateau d'Arques, Limes, what a
country! And I went back and forth twice within two steps of
Croisset and I sent you some big kisses; always ready to return with
you to the seaside or to talk with you at your house when you are
free. If I had been alone, I should have bought an old guitar and
should have sung a ballad under your mother's window. But I could
not take a large family to you.

I am returning to Nohant and I embrace you with all my heart.

G. Sand

I think that the Bois-Dore is going well, but I don't know anything
about it. I have a way of my own of being in Paris, namely, being at
the seaside, which does not keep me informed of what is going on.
But I gathered gentians in the long grass of the immense Roman fort
of Limes where I had quite a STUNNING view of the sea. I walked out
like an old horse, but I am returning quite frisky.



LXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND

At last, at last, I have news of you, dear master, and good news,
which is doubly agreeable.

I am planning to return to my home in the country with Madame Sand,
and my mother hopes that will be the case. What do you say? For,
with all that goes on, we never see each other, confound it!

As for my moving, it is not that I lack the desire of being free to
move about. But I should be lost if I stirred before I finish my
novel. Your friend is a man of wax; everything gets imprinted on
him, is encrusted on him, penetrates him. If I should visit you, I
should think of nothing but you and yours, your house, your country,
the appearance of the people I had met, etc. I require great efforts
to gather myself together; I always tend to scatter myself. That is
why, dear adored  master, I deprive myself of going to sit down to
dream aloud in your house. But, in the summer or autumn of 1869, you
shall see what a fine commercial traveller I am, once let loose to
the open air. I am abject, I warn you.

As to news, there is a quiet once more since the Kerveguen incident
has died its beautiful death. Was it not a farce? and silly?

Sainte-Beuve is preparing a lecture on the press law. He is better,
decidedly. I dined Tuesday with Renan. He was marvellously witty and
eloquent, and artistic! as I have never seen him. Have you read his
new book? His preface causes talk. My poor Theo worries me. I do not
think him strong.



LXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 12 October, 1867

I have sent your letter to Barbes; it is fine and splendid, as you
are. I know that the worthy man will be glad of it. But as for me, I
want to throw myself out of the window; for my children are
unwilling to hear of my leaving so soon. Yes, it is horrid to have
seen your house four times without going to see you. But I am
cautious to the point of fear. To be sure the idea of summoning you
to Rouen for twenty minutes did occur to me. But you are not, as I
am, on tiptoe, all ready to start off. You live in your dressing
gown, the great enemy of liberty and activity. To force you to
dress, to go out, perhaps in the middle of an absorbing chapter, and
only to see someone who does not know how to say anything quickly,
and who, the more he is content, the stupider he is,--I did not dare
to. Here I am obliged to finish something which drags along, and
before the final touch I shall probably go to Normandy. I should
like to go by the Seine to Honfleur. It will be next month, if the
cold does not make me ill, and I shall try this time to carry you
away in passing. If not, I shall see you at least, and then I shall
go to Provence.

Ah! if I could only take you there! And if you could, if you would,
during the second week in October when you are going to be free,
come to see me here! You promised, and my children would be so happy
if you would! But you don't love us enough for that, scoundrel that
you are! You think that you have a lot of better friends: you are
very much mistaken; it is always one's best friends whom one
neglects or ignores.

Come, a little courage; you can leave Paris at a quarter past nine
in the morning, and get to Chateauroux at four, there you would find
my carriage and be here at six for dinner. It is not bad, and once
here, we all laugh together like good-natured bears; no one dresses;
there is no ceremony, and we all love one another very much. Say
yes!

I embrace you. And I too have been bored at not seeing you, FOR A
YEAR.

Your old troubadour



LXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 27 October, 1867

I have just made a resume in a few pages of my impressions as a
landscape painter, gathered in Normandy: it has not much importance,
but I was able to quote three lines from Salammbo, which seemed to
me to depict the country better than all my phrases, and which had
always struck me as a stroke from a master brush. In turning over
the pages to find these lines, I naturally reread almost all, and I
remain convinced that it is  one of the most beautiful books that
have been made since they began to make books.

I am well, and I am working quickly and much, so as to live on my
INCOME this winter in the South. But what will be the delights of
Cannes and where will be the heart to engage in them? My spirits are
in mourning while thinking that at this hour people arc fighting for
the pope. Ah! ISIDORE! [Footnote: Name applied to Napoleon III.]

I have tried in vain this month to go again to see ma Normandie,
that is to say, my great, dear heart's friend. My  children have
threatened me with death if I leave them so soon.  Just at present
friends are coming. You are the only one who  does not talk of
coming on. Yet, that would be so fine! Next month I shall move
heaven and earth to find you wherever you are, and meanwhile I love
you tremendously. And you. Your work? your mother's health? I am
worried at not having news of you.

G. Sand



LXXI. TO GEORGE SAND
1st November, 1867

Dear master,

I was as much ashamed as touched, last evening, when I received your
"very nice" letter. I am a wretch not to have answered the first
one. How did that happen? For I am  usually prompt.

My work does not go very well. I hope that I shall finish my second
part in February. But in order to have it all finished in two years,
I must not budge from my arm-chair till then. That is why I am not
going to Nohant. A week of recreation means three months of revery
for me. I should do nothing but think of you, of yours in Berry, of
all that I saw. My  unfortunate spirit would navigate in strange
waters. I have so little resistance.

I do not hide the pleasure that your little word about SALAMMBO
gives me. That old book needs to be relieved from a few inversions,
there are too many repetitions of ALORS, MAIS and ET. The labor is
too evident.

As for the one I am doing, I am afraid that the idea is defective,
an irremediable fault; will such weak characters be interesting?
Great effects are reached only through simple means, through
positive passions. But I don't see simplicity anywhere in the modern
world.

A sad world! How deplorable and how lamentably grotesque are affairs
in Italy! All these orders, counter-orders of  counter-orders of the
counter-orders! The earth is a very inferior planet, decidedly.

You did not tell me if you were satisfied with the revivals at the
Odeon. When shall you go south? And where shall you go in the south?

A week from today, that is to say, from the 7th to the 10th of
November, I shall be in Paris, because I have to go  sauntering in
Auteuil in order to discover certain little nooks. What would be
nice would be for us to come back to Croisset together. You know
very well that I am very angry at you for your two last trips in
Normandy.

Then, I shall see you soon? No joking? I embrace you as I love you,
dear master, that is to say, very tenderly.

Here is a bit that I send to your dear son, a lover of this sort of
fluff:

"One evening, expected by Hortense,
Having his eyes fixed on the clock,
And feeling his heart beat with eager throbs,
Young Alfred dried up with impatience."
(Memoires de l'Academie de Saint-Quentin.)



LXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 5 December, 1867

Your old troubadour is no good, I admit it. He has been working like
an ox to have the money to go away with this winter to the gulf of
Juan, and at the moment of leaving he would like to stay behind. He
is worried at leaving his children and the little Aurore, but he
suffers with the cold, he fears anemia, and he thinks he is doing
his duty in going to find a land which the snow does not render
impracticable, and a sky under which one can breathe without having
dagger-thrusts in one's lungs.

So you see.

He has thought of you, probably much more than you think of him; for
he has stupid and easy work, and his thoughts run elsewhere very far
from him, and from his task, when his hand is weary of writing. As
for you, you work for truth, and you become absorbed, and you have
not heard my spirit, which more than once has TAPPED at your study
door to say to you: "It is I." Or else you have said: "It is a
spirit tapping let him go to the devil!"

Aren't you coming to Paris? I am going there between the 15th and
the 20th. I shall stay there only a few days, and then flee to
Cannes. Will you be there? God grant it! On the whole I am pretty
well; I am furious with you for not wanting to come to Nohant; I
won't reproach you for I don't know how. I have scribbled a lot; my
children are always good and kind to me in every sense of the word.
Aurore is a love.

We have RAVED politically; now we try not to think of it any more
and to have patience. We often speak of you and we love you. Your
old troubadour especially who embraces you with all his heart, and
begs to be remembered to your good mother.

G. Sand



LXXIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday night

Dear master, dear friend of the good God, "let us talk a little of
Dozenval," let us roar at M. Thiers! Can a more triumphant imbecile,
a more abject dabster, a more stercoraceous bourgeois be found! No,
nothing can give the idea of the puking with which this old
diplomatic idiot inspires me in piling up his stupidity on the dung-
hill of bourgeoisie! Is it possible to treat philosophy, religion,
peoples, liberty, the past and future, history, and natural history,
everything and more yet, with an incoherence more inept and more
childish! He seems to me as everlasting as mediocrity! He overwhelms
me!

But the fine thing is the brave national guards whom he stuffed in
1848, who are beginning to applaud him again! What infinite madness!
That proves that everything consists of temperament. Prostitutes,--
like France,--always have a weakness for old buffoons.

Furthermore, I shall try in the third part of my novel (when I reach
the reaction that followed the days of June) to insert a panegyric
about him a propos of his book: De la propriete, and I hope that he
will be pleased with me.

What form should one take to express occasionally one's opinion on
the things of this world, without the risk of passing later for an
imbecile? It is a tough problem. It seems to me that the best thing
is simply to depict the things which exasperate one. To dissect is
to take vengeance. Well! it is not he with whom I am angry, nor with
the others but with OURS.

If they had paid more attention to the education of the SUPERIOR
classes, delaying till later the agricultural meetings; in short, if
the head had been put above the stomach, should we have been likely
to be where we are now?

I have just read, this week, Buchez' Preface to his Histoire
parlementaire. Many inanities which burden us today come from that
among other things.

And now, it is not good of you to say that I do not think of "my old
Troubadour"; of whom then, do I think? perhaps of my wretched book?
but that is more difficult and less agreeable.

How long do you stay at Cannes?

After Cannes shan't you return to Paris? I shall be their towards
the end of January.

In order to finish my book in the spring of 1869, I must not give
myself a week of holiday; that is why I do not go to Nohant. It is
always the story of the Amazons. In order to draw the bow better
they crushed their breast. It is a fine method after all.

Adieu, dear master, write to me, won't you?

I embrace you tenderly.



LXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 31 December, 1867

I don't agree with you at all that it is necessary to destroy the
breast to draw a bow. I have quite a contrary belief which I follow,
and I think that it is good for many others, probably for the
majority. I have just developed my idea on that subject in a novel
which has been sent to the Revue and will appear after About's. I
think that the artist ought to live according to his nature as much
as possible. To him who loves struggle, warfare; to him who loves
women, love; to an old fellow like me who loves nature, travel and
flowers, rocks, fine landscapes, children also, the family, all that
stirs the emotions, that combats moral anemia.

I think that art always needs a palette overflowing with soft or
striking colors according to the subject of the picture; the artist
is an instrument on which everything ought to play before he plays
on others; but all that is perhaps not applicable to a mind like
yours which has acquired much and now has only to digest. I shall
insist on one point only, that the physical being is necessary to
the moral being and that I fear for you some day a deterioration of
health which will force you to suspend your work and let it grow
cold.

Well, you are coming to Paris the beginning of January and we shall
see each other; for I shall not go until after the New Year. My
children have made me promise to spend that day with them, and I
could not resist, in spite of the great necessity of moving. They
are so sweet! Maurice has an inexhaustible gaiety and invention. He
has made for his marionette theatre, marvelous scenery, properties,
and machinery and the plays which they give in that ravishing box
are incredibly fantastic.

The last one was called 1870. One sees in it, Isidore with Antonelli
commanding the brigands of Calabria, trying to regain his throne and
to re-establish the papacy. Everything is in the future; at the end
the widow Euphemia marries the Grand Turk, the only remaining
sovereign. It is true that he is a former DEMOCRAT and is recognized
as none other than the great tumbler Coquenbois when unmasked. These
plays last till two o'clock in the morning and we are crazy on
coming out of them. We sup till five o'clock. There is a performance
twice a week, and the rest of the time they make the properties, and
the play continues with the same characters, going through the most
incredible adventures.

The public is composed of eight or ten young people, my three great
nephews, and sons of my old friends. They get excited to the point
of yelling. Aurore is not admitted; the plays are not suited to her
age. As for me, I am so amused that I become exhausted. I am sure
that you would be madly amused by it also; for there is a splendid
fire and abandon in these improvisations; and the characters done by
Maurice have the appearance of living beings, of a burlesque life
that is real and impossible at the same time; it seems like a dream.
That is how I have been living for the ten days that I have not been
working.

Maurice gives me this recreation in my intervals of repose that
coincide with his. He brings to it as much ardor and passion as to
his science. He has a truly charming nature and one never gets bored
with him. His wife is also charming, quite large just now, always
moving, busying herself with everything, lying down on the sofa
twenty times a day, getting up to run after her child, her cook, her
husband, who demands a lot of things for his theatre, coming back to
lie down again; crying out that she feels ill and bursting into
shrieks of laughter at a fly that circles about; sewing layettes,
reading the papers with fervor, reading novels which make her weep;
weeping also at the marionettes when there is a little sentiment,
for there is some of that too. In short a personality and a type:
she sings ravishingly, she gets angry, she gets tender, she makes
succulent dainties TO SURPRISE US WITH, and every day of our
vacation there is a little fete which she organizes.

Little Aurore promises to be very sweet and calm, understanding in a
marvelous manner what is said to her and YIELDING TO REASON at two
years of age. It is very extraordinary and I have never seen it
before. It would be disquieting if one did not feel a great serenity
in that little brain.

But how I am gossiping with you! Does all this amuse you? I should
like this chatty letter to substitute for one of those suppers of
ours which I too regret, and which would be so good here with you,
if you were not a stick-in-the-mud, who won't let yourself be
dragged away to LIFE FOR LIFE'S SAKE. Ah! when one is on a vacation,
how work, logic, reason seem strange CONTRASTS! One asks whether one
can ever return to that ball and chain.

I tenderly embrace you, my dear old fellow, and Maurice thinks your
letter so fine that he is going to put the phrases and words at once
in the mouth of his first philosopher. He bids me embrace you for
him.

Madame Juliette Lambert [Footnote: Afterwards, Madame Edmond Adam.]
is really charming; you would like her a great deal, and then you
have it 18 degrees above zero down there, and here we are in the
snow. It is severe; moreover, I rarely go out, and my dog himself
doesn't want to go out. He is not the least amazing member of
society. When he is called Badinguet, he lies on the ground ashamed
and despairing,  and sulks all the evening.



LXXV. TO GEORGE SAND
1st January, 1868

It is unkind to sadden me with the recital of the amusements  at
Nohant, since I cannot share them. I need so much time to do so
little that I have not a minute to lose (or gain), if I want to
finish my dull old book by the summer of 1869.

I did not say it was necessary to suppress the heart, but to
restrain it, alas! As for the regime that I follow which is contrary
to the laws of hygiene, I did not begin yesterday. I am accustomed
to it. I have, nevertheless, a fairly seasoned sense of fatigue, and
it is time that my second part was finished, after which I shall go
to Paris. That will be about the end of the month. You don't tell me
when you return from Cannes.

My rage against M. Thiers is not yet calmed, on the contrary!  It
idealizes itself and increases.



LXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 12 January, 1868

No, it is not silly to embrace each other on New Year's day: on the
contrary, it is good and it is nice. I thank you for having thought
of it and I kiss you on your beautiful big eyes. Maurice embraces
you also. I am housed here by the snow and the cold, and my trip is
postponed. We amuse ourselves madly at home so as to forget that we
are prisoners, and I am prolonging  my holidays in a ridiculous
fashion. Not an iota of work from morning till night. What luck if
you could say as much!--But what a fine winter, don't you think so?
Isn't it lovely, the moonlight on the trees covered with snow? Do
you look at that at night while you are working?--If you are going
to Paris the end of the month, I shall still have a chance to meet
you.

From far, or from near, dear old fellow, I think of you and I love
you from the depth of my old heart which does not know the flight of
years.

G. Sand

My love to your mother always. I imagine that she is in Rouen during
this severe cold.



LXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 10 May, 1868

Yes, friend of my heart, am I not in the midst of terrible things;
that poor little Madame Lambert [Footnote: Madame Eugene Lambert,
the wife of the artist] is severely threatened.

I saw M. Depaul today. One must be prepared for anything!--If the
crisis is passed or delayed, for there is question of bringing on
the event, I shall be happy to spend two days with my old
troubadour, whom I love tenderly.

G. Sand.



LXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 11 May, 1868

If you were to be at home Wednesday evening, I should go to chat an
hour alone with you after dinner in your quarters. I despair
somewhat of going to Croisset; it is tomorrow that that they decide
the fate of my poor friend.

A word of response, and above all do not change any plan. Whether I
see you or not, I know that two old troubadours love each other
devotedly!

G. Sand Monday evening.



LXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 17 May, 1868

I have a little respite, since they are not going to bring on the
confinement. I hope to go to spend two days at that dear Croisset.
But then don't go on Thursday, I am giving a dinner for the prince
[Footnote: Prince Jerome Napoleon.] at Magny's and I told him that I
would detain you by force. Say yes, at once. I embrace you and I
love you.

G. Sand



LXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

I shall not go with you to Croisset, for you must sleep, and we talk
too much. But on Sunday or Monday if you still wish it; only I
forbid you  to inconvenience yourself. I know Rouen, I know that
there are carriages at the railway station and that one goes
straight to your house without any trouble.

I shall probably go in the evening.

Embrace your dear mamma for me, I shall be happy to her again.

G. Sand

If those days do not suit you, a word, and I shall communicate with
you again. Have the kindness to put the address on the ENCLOSED
letter and to put it in the mail.



LXXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 21 Thursday--May, 1868

I see that the day trains are very slow, I shall make a great effort
and shall leave at eight o'clock Sunday, so as to lunch with you; if
it is too late don't wait for me, I lunch on two eggs made into an
omelet or shirred, and a cup of coffee. Or dine on a little chicken
or some veal and vegetables.

In giving up trying to eat REAL MEAT, I have found again a strong
stomach. I drink cider with enthusiasm, no more champagne! At
Nohant, I live on sour wine and galette, and since I am not trying
any more to THOROUGHLY NOURISH myself, no more anemia; believe then
in the logic of physicians!

In short you must not bother any more about me than about the cat
and not even so much. Tell your little mother, just that. Then I
shall see you at last, all I want to for two days. Do you know that
you are INACCESSIBLE in Paris? Poor old fellow,  did you finally
sleep like a dormouse in your cabin? I would like to give you a
little of my sleep that nothing, not even a cannon, can disturb.

But I have had bad dreams for two weeks about my poor Esther, and
now at last, here are Depaul, Tarnier, Gueniaux and Nelaton who told
us yesterday that she will deliver easily and very well, and that
the child has every reason to be superb. I breathe again, I am born
anew, and I am going to embrace you so hard that you will be
scandalised. I shall see you on Sunday then, and don't inconvenience
yourself.

G. Sand



LXXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 26 May, 1868

Arrived while dozing. Dined with your delightful and charming
friend Du Camp. We talked of you, only of you and your mother, and
we said a hundred times that we loved you. I am going to sleep so as
to be ready to move tomorrow morning.

I am charmingly located on the Luxembourg garden.

I embrace you, mother and son, with all my heart which is entirely
yours.

G. Sand Tuesday evening, rue Gay-Lussac, 5.



LXXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 28 May, 1868

My little friend gave birth this morning after two hours of labor,
to a boy who seemed dead but whom they handled so well that he is
very much alive and very lovely this evening. The mother is very
well, what luck!

But what a sight! It was something to see. I am very tired, but very
content and tell you so because you love me.

G. Sand

Thursday evening. I leave Tuesday for Nohant.



LXXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 21 June, 1868

Here I am again, BOTHERING you for M. Du Camp's address which you
never gave me, although you forwarded a letter for me to him, and
from WHOM I never thought of asking for it when I dined with him in
Paris. I have just read his Forces Perdues; I promised to tell him
my opinion and I am keeping my word. Write the address, then give it
to the postman and thank you.

There you are alone at odds with the sun in your charming villa!

Why am I not the...river which cradles you with its sweet MURMURING
and which brings you freshness in your den! I would chat discreetly
with you between two pages of your novel, and I would make that
fantastic grating of the chain [Footnote:  The chain of the tug-boat
going up or coming down the Seine.] which you detest, but whose
oddity does not displease me, keep still. I love everything that
makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the
workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the
movement of the ships on the waters; I love also absolute, profound
silence, and in short, I love everything that is around me, no
matter where I am; it is AUDITORY IDIOCY, a new variety. It is true
that I choose my milieu and don't go to the Senate nor to other
disagreeable places.

Everything is going on well at our house, my troubadour. The
children are beautiful, we adore them; it is warm, I adore that. It
is always the same old story that I have to tell you and I love you
as the best of friends and comrades. You see that is not new. I have
a good and strong impression of what you read to me; it seemed to me
so beautiful that it must be good. As for me, I am not sticking to
anything. Idling is my dominant passion. That will pass, what does
not pass, is my friendship for you.

G. Sand

Our affectionate regards.



LXXXV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Sunday, 5 July, 1868

I have sawed wood hard for six weeks. The patriots won't forgive me
for this book, nor the reactionaries either! What do I care! I write
things as I feel them, that is to say, as I think they are. Is it
foolish of me? But it seems to me that our unhappiness comes
exclusively from people of our class. I find an enormous amount of
Christianity in Socialism.  There are two notes which are now on my
table.

"This system (his) is not a system of disorder, for it has its
source in the Gospels, and from this divine source, hatred, warfare,
the clashing of every interest, CAN NOT PROCEED! for the doctrine
formulated from the Gospel, is a doctrine of peace, union and love."
(L. Blanc).

"I shall even dare to advance the statement that together with the
respect for the Sabbath, the last spark of poetic fire has been
extinguished in the soul of our rhymesters. It has been said that
without religion, there is no poetry!" (Proudhon).

A propos of that, I beg of you, dear master, to read at the end of
his book on the observance of the Sabbath, a love-story entitled, I
think, Marie et Maxime. One must know that to have an idea of the
style of les Penseurs. It should be placed on a level with Le Voyage
en Bretagne by the great Veuillot, in Ca et La. That does not
prevent us from having friends who are great admirers of these two
gentlemen.

When I am old, I shall write criticism; that will console me, for I
often choke with suppressed opinions. No one understands better than
I do, the indignation of the great Boileau against bad taste: "The
senseless things which I hear at the Academy hasten my end." There
was a man!

Every time now that I hear the chain of the steam-boats, I think of
you, and the noise irritates me less, when I say to myself that it
pleases you. What moonlight there is tonight on the river!



LXXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 31 July, 1868

I am writing to you at Croisset in any case, because I doubt if you
are in Paris during this Toledo-like heat; unless the shade of
Fontainebleau has kept you. What a lovely forest, isn't it? but it
is especially so in winter, without leaves, with its fresh moss,
which has chic. Did you see the sand of Arbonne? There is a little
Sahara there which ought to be lovely now.

We are very happy here. Every day a bath in a stream that is always
cold and shady; in the daytime four hours of work, in the evening,
recreation, and the life of Punch and Judy. A TRAVELLING THEATRICAL
COMPANY came to us; it was part of a company from the Odeon, among
whom were several old friends to whom we gave supper at La Chatre,
two successive nights with all their friends, after the play;--
songs, laughter, with champagne frappe, till three o'clock in the
morning to the great scandal of the bourgeois, who would have
committed any crime to have been there. There was a very comic
Norman, a real Norman, who sang real peasant songs to us, in the
real language. Do you know that they have quite a Gallic wit and
mischief? They contain a mine of master-pieces of genre. That made
me love Normandy still more. You may know that comedian. His name is
Freville. It is he who is charged in the repertory with the parts of
the dull valets, and with being kicked from behind. He is
detestable, impossible, but out of the theatre, he is as charming as
can be. Such is fate!

We have had some delightful guests at our house, and we have had a
joyous time without prejudice to the Lettres d'un Voyageur in the
Revue, or to botanical excursions in some very surprising wild
places. The little girls are the loveliest thing about it all.
Gabrielle is a big lamb, sleeping and laughing all day; Aurore, more
spiritual, with eyes of velvet and fire, talking at thirty months as
others do at five years, and adorable  in everything. They are
keeping her back so that she shall not get ahead too fast.

You worry me when you tell me that your book will blame the patriots
for everything that goes wrong. Is that really so? and then the
victims! it is quite enough to be undone by one's own fault without
having one's own foolishness thrown in one's teeth. Have pity! There
are so many fine spirits among them just the same! Christianity has
been a fad and I confess that in every age it is a lure when one
sees only the tender side of it; it wins the heart. One has to
consider the evil it does in order to get rid of it. But I am not
surprised that a generous  heart like Louis Blanc dreamed of seeing
it purified and restored to his ideal. I also had that illusion; but
as soon as one takes a step in this past, one sees that it can not
be revived,  and I am sure that now Louis Blanc smiles at his dream.
One should think of that also.

One must remind oneself that all those who had intelligence have
progressed tremendously during the last twenty years and that it
would not be generous to reproach them with what they probably
reproach themselves.

As for Proudhon, I never thought him sincere. He is a rhetorician of
GENIUS, as they say. But I don't understand him. He is a specimen of
perpetual antithesis, without solution.  He affects one like one of
the old Sophists whom Socrates made fun of.

I am trusting you for GENEROUS sentiments. One can say a word more
or less without wounding, one can use the lash without  hurting, if
the hand is gentle in its strength. You are so  kind that you cannot
be cruel.

Shall I go to Croisset this autumn? I begin to fear not, and to fear
that Cadio is not being rehearsed. But I shall try to escape from
Paris even if only for one day.

My children send you their regards. Ah! Heavens! there was a fine
quarrel about Salammbo; some one whom you do not know, went so far
as not to like it, Maurice called him BOURGEOIS, and to settle the
affair, little Lina, who is high tempered, declared that her husband
was wrong to use such a word, for he ought to have said IMBECILE.
There you are. I am well as a Turk. I love you and I embrace you.

Your old Troubadour,

G. Sand



LXXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Dieppe, Monday

But indeed, dear master, I was in Paris during that tropical heat
(trop picole, as the governor of the chateau of Versailles says),
and I perspired greatly. I went twice to Fontainebleau, and the
second time by your advice, saw the sands of Arboronne. It is so
beautiful that it made me almost dizzy.

I went also to Saint-Gratien. Now I am at Dieppe, and Wednesday I
shall be in Croisset, not to stir from there for a long time, the
novel must progress.

Yesterday I saw Dumas: we talked of you, of course, and as I shall
see him tomorrow we shall talk again of you.

I expressed myself badly if I said that my book "will blame the
patriots for everything that goes wrong." I do not recognize that I
have the right to blame anyone. I do not even think that the
novelist ought to express his own opinion on the things of this
world. He can communicate it, but I do not like him to say it. (That
is a part of my art of poetry.) I limit myself, then, to declaring
things as they appear to me, to expressing what seems to me to be
true. And the devil take the consequences; rich or poor, victors or
vanquished, I admit none of all that. I want neither love, nor hate,
nor pity, nor anger. As for sympathy, that is different; one never
has enough of that. The reactionaries, besides, must be less spared
than the others, for they seem to be more criminal.

Is it not time to make justice a part of art? The impartiality  of
painting would then reach the majesty of the law,--and the precision
of science!

Well, as I have absolute confidence in your great mind, when my
third part is finished, I shall read it to you, and if there is in
my work, something that seems MEAN to you, I will remove it.

But I am convinced beforehand that you will object to nothing.

As for allusions to individuals, there is not a shadow of them.

Prince Napoleon, whom I saw at his sister's Thursday, asked for news
of you and praised Maurice. Princess Matilde told me that she
thought you "charming," which made me like her better than ever.

How will the rehearsals of Cadio prevent you from coming to see your
poor old friend this autumn? It is not impossible. I know Freville.
He is an excellent and very cultivated man.



LXXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Wednesday evening, 9 September, 1868

Is this the way to behave, dear master? Here it is nearly two months
since you have written to your old troubadour! you in Paris, in
Nohant, or elsewhere? They say that Cadio is now being rehearsed at
the Porte Saint-Martin (so you have fallen out with Chilly?) They
say that Thuillier will make her re-appearance in your play. (But I
thought she was dying). And when are they to play this Cadio? Are
you content? etc., etc.

I live absolutely like an oyster. My novel is the rock to which I
attach myself, and I don't know anything that goes on in the world.

I do not even read, or rather I have not read La Lanterne! Rochefort
bores me, between ourselves. It takes courage to venture to say even
hesitatingly, that possibly he is not the first writer of the
century. O Velches! Velches! as M. de Voltaire would sigh (or roar)!
But a propos of the said Rochefort, have they been somewhat
imbecilic? What poor people!

And Sainte-Beuve? Do you see him? As for me, I am working
furiously. I have just written a description of the forest of
Fontainebleau that made me want to hang myself from one of its
trees. As I was interrupted for three weeks, I am having terrible
trouble in getting back to work. I am like the camels, which can't
be stopped when they are in motion, nor started when they are
resting. It will take me a year to finish the book. After that I
shall abandon the bourgeois definitely. He is too difficult and on
the whole too ugly. It will be high time to do something beautiful
and that I like.

What would please me well for the moment, would be to embrace you.
When will that be? Till then, a thousand affectionate  thoughts.



LXXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Paris, 10 September, 1868

Just at present, dear friend, there is a truce to my correspondence.
On all sides I am reproached, WRONGLY, for not answering letters. I
wrote you from Nohant about two weeks ago that I was going to Paris,
on business about Cadio:--and now, I am returning to Nohant tomorrow
at dawn to see my Aurore. I have written during the last week, four
acts of the play, and my task is finished until the end of the
rehearsals which will be looked after by my friend and collaborator,
Paul Meurice. All his care does not prevent the working out of the
first part from being a horrible bungle. One needs to see the
putting-on of a play in order to understand that, and if one is not
armed with humor and inner zest for the study of human nature in the
actual individuals whom the fiction is to mask, there is much to
rage about. But I don't rage any more, I laugh; I know too much of
all that to get excited about it, and I shall tell you some fine
stories about it when we meet.

However, as I am an optimist just the same, I look at the good side
of things and people; but the truth is that everything is bad and
everything is good in this world.

Poor Thuillier has not sparkling health; but she hopes to carry the
burden of the work once more. She needs to earn her living, she is
cruelly poor. I told you in my lost letter that Sylvanie [Footnote:
Madame Arnould-Plessy.] had been several days at Nohant. She is more
beautiful than ever and quite well again after a terrible illness.

Would you believe that I have not seen Sainte-Beuve? That I have had
only the time here to sleep a little, and to eat in a hurry? It is
just that. I have not heard anyone whatsoever talked about outside
of the theatre and of the players. I have had mad desires to abandon
everything and to go to surprise you for a couple of hours; but I
have not been a day without being kept at FORCED LABOR.

I shall return here the end of the month, and when they play Cadio,
I shall beg you to spend twenty-four hours here for me. Will you do
it? Yes, you are too good a troubadour to refuse me. I embrace you
with all my heart, and your mother too. I am happy that she is well.

G. Sand



XC. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 18 September, 1868

It will be, I think, the 8th or 10th of October. The management
announces it for the 26th of September. But that seems impossible to
everyone. Nothing is ready; I shall be advised, I shall advise you.
I have come to spend the days of respite that my very conscientious
and very devoted collaborator allows me. I am taking up again a
novel on the THEATRE, the first part of which I had left on my desk,
and I plunge every day in a little icy torrent which tumbles me
about and makes me sleep like a top. How comfortable one is here
with these two little children who laugh and chatter from morning
till night like birds, and how foolish it is to go to compose and to
put on MADE UP THINGS when the reality is so easy and so fine! But
one gets accustomed to regarding all that as a military order, and
goes to the front without asking oneself if it means wounds or
death. Do you think that that bothers me? No, I assure you; but it
does not amuse me either. I go straight ahead, stupid as a  cabbage
and patient as a Berrichon. Nothing is interesting in my life except
OTHER PEOPLE. Seeing you soon in Paris will be more of a pleasure
than my business will be an annoyance to me. Your novel interests me
more than all mine. Impersonality, a sort of idiocy which is
peculiar to me, is making a noticeable progress. If I were not well,
I should think that it was a  malady. If my old heart did not become
each day more loving, I should think it was egotism; in short, I
don't know what it is, and there you are. I have had trouble
recently. I told you of it in the letter which you did not receive.
A person whom you know, whom I love greatly, Celimene, [Footnote:
Madame Arnould-Plessy.] has become a religious  enthusiast, oh!
indeed, an ecstatic, mystic, molinistic religious enthusiast, I
don't know what, imbecile! I have exceeded my limits. I have raged,
I have said the hardest things to her, I have laughed at her.
Nothing made any difference, it was all the same to her. Father
Hyacinthe replaces for her every friendship, every good opinion; can
you understand that? Her very noble mind, a real intelligence, a
worthy character! and there you are! Thuillier is also religious,
but without being changed; she does not like priests, she does not
believe in the devil, she is a heretic without knowing it. Maurice
and Lina are furious against THE OTHER. They don't like her at all.
As for me, it gives me much sorrow not to love her any more.

We love you, we embrace you.

I thank you for coming to see Cadio.

G. Sand



XCI. TO GEORGE SAND

Does that astonish you, dear master? Oh well! it doesn't me! I told
you so but you would not believe me.

I am sorry for you. For it is sad to see the friends one loves
change. This replacement of one soul by another, in a body that
remains the same as it was, is a distressing sight. One feels
oneself betrayed! I have experienced it, and more than once.

But then, what idea have you of women, O, you who are of the third
sex? Are they not, as Proudhon said, "the desolation of the Just"?
Since when could they do without delusions? After love, devotion; it
is in the natural order of things. Dorine has no more men, she takes
the good God. That is all.

The people who have no need of the supernatural, are rare.
Philosophy will always be the lot of the aristocrats. However much
you fatten human cattle, giving them straw as high as their bellies,
and even gilding their stable, they will remain brutes, no matter
what one says. All the advance that one can hope for, is to make the
brute a little less wicked. But as for elevating the ideas of the
mass, giving it a larger and therefore a less human conception of
God, I have my doubts.

I am reading now an honest book (written by one of my friends, a
magistrate), on the Revolution in the Department of Eure. It is full
of extracts from writings of the bourgeois of the time, simple
citizens of the small towns. Indeed I assure you that there is now
very little of that strength! They were literary and fine, full of
good sense, of ideas, and of generosity.

Neo-catholicism on the one hand, and Socialism on the other, have
stultified France. Everything moves between the Immaculate
Conception and the dinner pails of the working people.

I told you that I did not flatter the democrats in my book. But I
assure you that the conservatives are not spared. I am now writing
three pages on the abominations of the national guard in June, 1848,
which will cause me to be looked at favorably  by the bourgeois. I
am rubbing their noses in their own dirt as much as I can. But you
don't give me any details about Cadio. Who are the actors, etc.? I
mistrust your novel about the theatre. You like those people too
much! Have you known any well who love their art? What a quantity of
artists there are who are only bourgeois gone astray!

We shall see each other in three weeks at the latest. I shall be
very glad of it and I embrace you.

And the censorship? I really hope for you that it will make some
blunders. Besides, I should be distressed if it was wanting in its
usual habits.

Have you read this in the paper? "Victor Hugo and Rochefort,  the
greatest writers of the age." If Badinguet now is not avenged, it is
because he is hard to please in the matter of punishments.



XCII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

The halcyons skim over the water and are common every where. The
name is pretty and sufficiently well known.

I embrace you.

Your troubadour.

Paris, Friday evening, 28 August or 4 September, 1868. In October,
yes, I will try!



XCIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday evening

I received your two notes, dear master. You send me "halcyon" to
replace the word, "dragonfly." Georges Pouchet suggested  gerre of
the lakes (genus, Gerris). Well! neither the one nor the other suits
me, because they do not immediately make a picture for the ignorant
reader.

Must I then describe that little creature? But that would retard the
movement! That would fill up all the landscape I shall put "insects
with large feet" or "long insects." That would be clear and short.

Few books have gripped me more than Cadio, and I share entirely
Maxime's [Footnote: Maxime Du Camp.] admiration.

I should have told you of it sooner if my mother and my niece had
not taken my copy. At last, this evening, they gave it back to me;
it is here on my table, and I am turning the pages as I write you.

In the first place, it seems to me as if IT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN THE
WAY IT IS! It is plain, it gets you and thrills you. How many people
must be like Saint-Gueltas, like Count de Sauvieres,  like Rebec!
and even like Henri, although the models are rarer. As for the
character of Cadio, which is more of an invention than the others,
what I like best in him is his  ferocious anger. In it is the
special truth of the character. Humanity turned to fury, the
guillotine become mystic, life only a sort of bloody dream, that is
what must take place in such heads. I think you have one
Shakespearean scene: that of the delegate to the Convention with his
two secretaries, is of an incredible strength. It makes one cry out!
There is one also which struck me very much at the first reading:
the scene where Saint-Gueltas and Henri each have the pistols in
their pockets: and many others. What a fine page (I open by chance)
is page 161!

In the play won't you have to give a longer role to the wife of the
good Saint-Gueltas? The play ought not to be very hard to cut. It is
only a question of condensing and shortening it. If it is played,
I'll guarantee a terrific success. But the censorship?

Well, you have written a masterpiece, that's true! and a very
amusing one. My mother thinks it recalls to her stories that she
heard while a child. A propos of Vendee, did you know that her
paternal grandfather was, after M. Lescure, the head of the Vendee
army? The aforesaid head was named M. Fleuriot d'Argentan. I am not
any the prouder for that; besides the thing is doubtful, for my
grandfather, a violent republican, hid his political antecedents.

My mother is going in a few days to Dieppe, to her grandchild's.  I
shall be alone a good part of the summer, and I plan to grub.

"I labor much and shun the world.
It is not at balls that the future is founded."
(Camilla Doucet.)

But my everlasting novel bores me sometimes in an incredible
manner! These tiny details are stupid to bother with! Why annoy
oneself about such a miserable subject?

I would write you at length about Cadio; but it is late and my eyes
are smarting.

So, thank you, very kindly, my dear master.



XCIV. To M. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Paris, end of September, 1868

Dear friend,

It is for Saturday next, 3rd October. I am at the theatre every
evening from six o'clock till two in the morning. They talk of
putting mattresses behind the scenes for the actors who are not in
front. As for me, as used to wakefulness as you are, I experience no
fatigue; but I should be very much bored if I had not the resource
that one has always, of thinking of other things. I am sufficiently
accustomed to it to be writing another play while they are
rehearsing, and there is something quite  exciting in these great
dark rooms where mysterious characters move, talking in low tones,
in unexpected costumes; nothing is more like a dream, unless one
imagines a conspiracy of patients escaped from Bicetre.

I don't at all know what the performance will be. If one did not
know the prodigies of harmony and of vim which occur at the last
moment, one would judge it all impossible, with thirty-five or forty
speaking actors of whom only five or six speak well. One spends
hours over the exits and entrances of the characters in blue or
white blouses who are to be the soldiers or the peasants, but who,
meanwhile perform incomprehensible manoeuvres. Still the dream. One
has to be a madman to put on these things. And the frenzy of the
actors, pale and worn out, who drag themselves to their place
yawning, and suddenly start like crazy people to declaim their
tirade; continually the assembling of insane people.

The censorship has left us alone as regards the manuscript; tomorrow
these gentlemen will inspect the costumes, which perhaps will
frighten them.

I left my dear world very quiet at Nohant. If Cadio succeeds,  it
will be a little DOT for Aurore; that is all my ambition. If it does
not succeed, I shall have to begin over again, that is all.

I shall see you. Then, in any case, that will be a happy day. Come
to see me the night before, if you arrive the night before, or even
the same day. Come to dine with me the night before or the same day;
I am at home from one o'clock to five. Thank you; I embrace you and
I love you.

G. Sand



XCV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 5 October, 1868

Dear good friend, I recommend again to your good offices, my friend
Despruneaux, so that you will again do what you can to be of use to
him in a very just suit which has already been judged in his favor.

Yours,

G. Sand



XCVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 15 October, 1868

Here I am "ter hum" where, after having hugged my children and my
grandchildren, I slept thirty-six hours at one stretch. You must
believe that I was tired and did not notice it. I am waking from
that animal-hibernation and you are the first person  to whom I want
to write. I did not thank you enough for coming to Paris for my
sake, you who go about so little: and I did not see you enough
either; when I knew that you had supped with Plauchut, [Footnote:
Edmond Plauchut, a writer and a friend of George Sand.] I was angry
at having stayed to take care of my sickly Thuillier, to whom I was
of no use, and who was not particularly pleased about it.  Artists
are spoiled children and the best are great egoists. You say that I
like them too well; I like them as I like the woods and the fields,
everything, every one that I know a little and that I study
continually. I make my life in the midst of all that, and as I like
my life I like all that nourishes it and renews it. They do me a lot
of ill turns which I see, but which I no longer feel. I know that
there are thorns in the hedges, but that does not prevent me from
putting out my hands and finding flowers there. If all are not
beautiful, all are  interesting. The day you took me to the Abbey of
Saint-Georges I found the scrofularia borealis, a very rare plant in
France. I was enchanted; there was much...in the neighborhood where
I gathered it. Such is life!

And if one does not take life like that, one cannot take it in any
way, and then how can one endure it? I find it amusing and
interesting, and since I accept EVERYTHING, I am so much happier and
more enthusiastic when I meet the beautiful and the good. If I did
not have a great knowledge of the species, I should not have quickly
understood you, or known you or loved you. I can have an enormous
indulgence, perhaps banal, for I have had to practice it so much;
but appreciation is quite  another thing, and I do not think that it
is entirely worn out in your old troubadour's mind.

I found my children still very good and very tender, my two little
grandchildren still pretty and sweet. This morning I dreamed, and I
woke up saying this strange sentence: "There is always a youthful
great first part in the drama of life. First part in mine: Aurore."
The fact is that it is impossible not to idolize that little one.
She is so perfect in intelligence and goodness, that she seems to me
like a dream.

You also, without knowing it, YOU ARE A DREAM ... like that.
Plauchut saw you once, and he adored you. That proves that he is not
stupid. When he left me in Paris, he told me to remember him to you.

I left Cadio in doubt between good and average receipts. The cabal
against the new management relaxed after the second day. The press
was half favorable, half hostile. The good weather is against it.
The hateful performance of Roger is also against it. So that we
don't know yet if we shall make money or not. As for me, when money
comes, I say, "So much the better," without excitement, and if it
does not come, I say, "So much the worse," without any chagrin.
Money not being the aim, ought not to be the preoccupation. It is,
moreover, not the real proof of success, since so many vapid or poor
things make money.

Here I am with another play already underway, so as to keep my hand
in. I have a novel also on the stocks, on the STROLLING PLAYERS. I
have studied them a good deal this time without learning anything
new. I already had the plot. It is not complicated and is very
logical.

I embrace you tenderly as well as your little mother. Give me some
sign of life. Does the novel get on?

G. Sand



XCVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday evening

I am remorseful for not having answered at length your last letter,
my dear master. You told me of the "ill turns" that people did you.
Did you think that I did not know it? I  confess to you even
(between ourselves), that I was hurt on account of them more because
of my good taste, than because of my affection for you. I did not
think that several of your friends were warm enough towards you. "My
God! my God! how mean literary men are!" A bit out of the
correspondence of the first Napoleon. What a nice bit, eh? Doesn't
it seem to you that they belittle him too much?

The infinite stupidity of the masses makes me indulgent to
individualities, however odious they may be. I have just gulped down
the first six volumes of Buchez and Roux. The clearest thing I got
out of them is an immense disgust for the French. My Heavens! Have
we always been bunglers in this fair land of ours? Not a liberal
idea which has not been unpopular, not a just thing that has not
caused scandal, not a great man who has not been mobbed or knifed!
"The history of the human mind is the history of human folly!" as
says M. de Voltaire.

And I am convinced more and more of this truth: the doctrine  of
grace has so thoroughly permeated us that the sense of justice has
disappeared. What terrified me so in the history of '48 has quite
naturally its origins in the Revolution, which had not liberated
itself from the middle ages, no matter what they say. I have re-
discovered in Marat entire fragments of Proudhon (sic) and I wager
that they would be found again in the preachers of the League.

What is the measure that the most advanced proposed after Varennes?
Dictatorship and military dictatorship. They close the churches, but
they raise temples, etc.

I assure you that I am becoming stupid with the Revolution. It is a
gulf which draws me in.

However, I work at my novel like a lot of oxen. I hope on New Year's
Day not to have over a hundred pages more to write, that is to say,
still six good months of work. I shall go to Paris as late as
possible. My winter is to pass in complete solitude, good way of
making life run along rapidly.



XCVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 20 November, 1868

You say to me, "When shall we see each other?" About the 15th of
December, we are baptizing here our two little girls as Protestants.
It is Maurice's idea; he was married before the pastor, and does not
want the persecution and influence of the Catholic church about his
children. Our friend Napoleon is the godfather of Aurore, and I am
the godmother. My nephew is the godfather of the other. All that
takes place just among ourselves, in the family. You must come,
Maurice wants you to, and if you say no, you will disappoint him
greatly. You shall bring your novel, and in a free moment, you shall
read it to me; it will do you good to read it to one who listens
well. One gets a perspective and judges one's work better. I know
that. Say yes to your old troubadour, he will be EXCEEDINGLY
GRATEFUL to you for it.

I embrace you six times if you say yes.

G. Sand



XCIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday

Dear master,

You cannot imagine the sorrow you give me! In spite of the  longing
I have, I answer "no." Yet I am distracted with my desire to say
"yes." It makes me seem like a gentleman who cannot be disturbed,
which is very silly. But I know myself: if I go to your house at
Nohant, I shall have a month of dreaming about my trip. Real
pictures will replace in my brain the fictitious pictures which I
compose with great difficulty. All my house of cards will topple
over.

Three weeks ago because I was foolish enough to accept an invitation
to dinner at a country place nearby, I lost four days (sic). What
would it be on leaving Nohant? You do not understand  that, you
strong Being! I think that you will be a little vexed with your old
troubadour for not coming to the baptism of the two darlings of his
friend Maurice? The dear master must write to me if I am wrong, and
to give me the news!

Here is mine! I work immoderately and am absolutely ENCHANTED by the
prospect of the end which begins to be visible.

So that it may arrive more quickly, I have made the resolution to
live here all winter, probably until the end of March. Even
admitting that everything goes perfectly, I shall not have finished
all before the end of May. I don't know anything that goes on and I
read nothing, except a little of the French Revolution,  after my
meals, to aid digestion. I have lost my former good habit of reading
every day in Latin. Therefore I don't know a word of it any more! I
shall polish it up again when I am freed from my odious bourgeois,
and I am nowhere near it.

My only excitement consists in going to dine on Sundays at Rouen
with my mother. I leave at six o'clock, and I am home at ten. Such
is my life.

Did I tell you that I had a visit from Tourgueneff? How you would
love him!

Sainte-Beuve gets along. Anyway, I shall see him next week when I am
in Paris for two days, to get necessary information What is the
information about? The national guard!!!

Listen to this: le Figaro not knowing with what to fill its columns,
has had the idea of saying that my novel tells the life of
Chancellor Pasquier. Thereupon, fear of the aforesaid family, which
wrote to another part of the same family living in Rouen, which
latter has been to find a lawyer from whom my brother received a
visit, so that ... in short, I was very stupid not to "get some
benefit from the opportunity." Isn't it a fine piece of idiocy, eh?



C. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, AT CEOISSET
Nohant, 21 December, 1868

Certainly, I am cross with you and angry with you, not from
unreasonableness nor from selfishness, but on the contrary, because
we were joyous and HILARIOUS and you would not distract yourself and
amuse yourself with us. If it was to amuse yourself  elsewhere, you
would be pardoned in advance; but it was to shut yourself up, to get
all heated up, and besides for a work which you curse, and which--
wishing to do and being obliged to do anyhow,--you ought to be able
to do at your ease and without becoming too absorbed in it.

You tell me that you are like that. There is nothing more to say;
but one may well be distressed at having an adored friend, a captive
in chains far away, whom one may not free. It is perhaps a little
coquettish on your part, so as to make yourself pitied and loved the
more. I, who have not buried myself alive in literature, have
laughed and lived a great deal during these holidays, but always
thinking of you and talking  of you with our friend of the Palais
Royal, [Footnote: Jerome Napoleon.]  who would have been happy to
see you and who loves you and appreciates you a great deal.
Tourgueneff has been more fortunate than we, since he was able to
snatch you from your ink-well. I know him personally very little,
but I know his work by heart. What talent! and how original and
polished! I think that the foreigners do better than we do. They do
not pose, while we either put on airs or grovel: the Frenchman has
no longer a social milieu, he has no longer an intellectual milieu.

I except you, you who live a life of exception, and I except myself,
because of the foundation of careless unconventionally which was
bestowed upon me; but I, I do not know how to be "careful" and to
polish, and I love life too much, and I am amused too much by the
mustard and all that is not the real "dinner," to ever be a
litterateur. I have had flashes of it, but they have not lasted.
Existence where one ignores completely one's "moi" is so good, and
life where one does not play a role is such a pretty performance to
watch and to listen to! When I have to give of myself, I live with
courage and resolution, but I am no longer amused.

You, oh! fanatical troubadour, I suspect you of amusing yourself at
your profession more than at anything in the world. In spite of what
you say about it, art could well be your sole passion, and your
shutting yourself up, at which I mourn like the silly that I am,
your state of pleasure. If it is like that then, so much the better,
but acknowledge it to console me.

I am going to leave you in order to dress the marionettes, for the
plays and the laughter have been resumed with the bad weather, and
that will keep us busy for a part of the winter, I fancy. Behold!
here I am, the imbecile that you love, and that you call MASTER. A
fine master who likes to amuse himself better than to work!

Scorn me profoundly, but love me still. Lina tells me to tell you
that you are not much, and Maurice is furious too; but we love you
in spite of ourselves and embrace you just the same. Our friend
Plauchut wants to be remembered to you; he adores you too.

Yours, you huge ingrate,

G. Sand

I had read the hoax of le Figaro and had laughed at it. It turns out
to have assumed grotesque proportions. As for me, they gave me a
grandson instead of two granddaughters, and a Catholic baptism
instead of a Protestant. That does not make any difference. One
really has to lie a little to divert oneself.



CI. TO GEORGE SAND
Saint Sylvester's night, one o'clock, 1869

Why should I not begin the year of 1869 in wishing to you and to
yours "Happy New Year and many of them"? It is rococo, but it
pleases me. Now, let us talk.

No, I don't get into a heat, for I have never been better. They
thought me, in Paris, "fresh as a young girl," and those people who
don't know my life attributed that appearance of health to the air
of the country. That is what conventional ideas are. Every one has
his system. For my part, when I am not hungry, the only thing I can
eat is dry bread. And the most indigestible food, such as apples in
sour cider, and bacon, are what cure me of the stomach-ache. And so
on. A man who has no common sense ought not to try to live according
to common-sense rules.

As for my frenzy for work, I will compare it to an attack of herpes.
I scratch myself while I cry. It is both a pleasure and a torture at
the same time. And I am doing nothing that I want to! For one does
not choose one's subjects, they force themselves on one. Shall I
ever find mine? Will an idea fall from Heaven suitable to my
temperament? Can I write a book to which I shall give myself heart
and soul? It seems to me in my moments of vanity, that I am
beginning to catch a glimpse of what a novel ought to be. But I
still have three or four of them to write before that one (which is,
moreover, very vague), and at the rate I am going, if I write these
three or four, that will be the most I can do. I am like M.
Prudhomme, who thinks that the most beautiful church would be one
which had at the same time the spire of Strasbourg, the colonnade of
Saint Peter's, the portico of the Parthenon, etc. I have
contradictory ideals. Thence embarrassment, hesitation, impotence.

As to whether the "claustration" to which I condemn myself may be a
"state of joy," no. But what can I do? To get drunk with ink is more
worth while than to get drunk with brandy. The muse, cross-grained
as she is, gives less trouble than a woman. I cannot harmonize the
one with the other. I must choose. My choice was made a long time
ago. There remains the matter of the senses. They have always been
my servants. Even at the time of my earliest youth, I did exactly as
I wanted with them. I have reached my fiftieth year, and it is not
their ardor that troubles me.

This regime is not amusing, I agree to that. There are moments of
empty and horrible boredom. But they become more and more rare in
proportion as one grows older. In short, LIVING seems to me a
business for which I was not made, and yet...!

I stayed in Paris for three days, which I made use of in hunting up
information, and in doing errands about my book. I was so worn out
last Friday, that I went to bed at seven o'clock in the evening.
Such are my mad orgies at the capital.

I found the Goncourts in a frenzied (sic) admiration over a book
entitled Histoire de ma vie by George Sand. Which proves more good
taste than learning on their part. They even wanted to write to you
to express all their admiration. (In return I found ***** stupid. He
compares Feydeau to Chateaubriand, admires very much the Lepreux de
la cite d'Aoste, finds Don Quichotte tedious, etc.).

Do you notice how rare literary sense is? The knowledge of language,
archeology, history, etc., all that should be useful however! Well!
well! not at all! The so-called enlightened people are becoming more
and more incompetent in the matter of art. Even what art means
escapes them. The glosses for them are more important than the text.
They pay more attention to the crutches than to the legs themselves.



CII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
1st January, 1869

It is one o'clock, I have just embraced my children. I am tired from
having spent the night in making a complete costume for a large doll
for Aurore; but I don't want to turn in without embracing you also,
my great friend, and my dear, big child. May '69 be easy for you,
and may it see the end of your novel. May you keep well and be
always yourself! I don't know anything better, and I love you.

G. Sand

I have not the address of the Goncourts. Will you put the enclosed
answer in the mail?



CIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 17 January, 1869

The individual named George Sand is well: he is enjoying the
marvelous winter which reigns in Berry, gathering flowers, noting
interesting botanical anomalies, making dresses and mantles for his
daughter-in-law, costumes for the marionettes, cutting out scenery,
dressing dolls, reading music, but above all spending hours with the
little Aurore who is a marvelous child. There is not a more tranquil
or a happier individual in  his domestic life than this old
troubadour retired from business, who sings from time to time his
little song to the moon, without caring much whether he sings well
or ill, provided he sings the motif that runs in his head, and who,
the rest of the time, idles deliciously. It has not always been as
nice as this. He had the folly to be young; but as he did no evil
nor knew evil passions, nor lived for vanity, he is happy enough to
be peaceful and to amuse himself with everything.

This pale character has the great pleasure of loving you with all
his heart, and of not passing a day without thinking of the other
old troubadour, confined in his solitude of a frenzied artist,
disdainful of all the pleasures of this world, enemy of the
magnifying glass and of its attractions. We are, I think, the two
most different workers that exist; but since we like each other that
way, it is all right. The reason each of us  thinks of the other at
the same hour, is because each of us has a need of his opposite; we
complete ourselves, in identifying ourselves at times with what is
not ourselves.

I told you, I think, that I had written a play on returning from
Paris. They liked it; but I don't want them to play it in the
spring, and the end of the winter is filled up, unless the play they
are rehearsing fails. As I do not know how to WISH my colleagues ill
luck, I am in no hurry and my manuscript is on the shelf. I have the
time. I am writing my little annual novel, when I have one or two
hours a day to get to work on it; I am not sorry to be prevented
from thinking of it. That develops it. Always before going to sleep,
I have an agreeable quarter of an hour to continue it in my head;
there you have it.

I know nothing, nothing at all of the Sainte-Beuve incident. I get a
dozen newspapers, whose wrappers I respect to such an extent that
without Lina, who tells me the chief news from time to time, I would
not know if Isidore were still among us.

Sainte-Beuve is very high tempered, and, as regards opinions, so
perfectly skeptical, that I should never be astonished at anything
he did, in one sense or the other. He was not always like that, at
least not so much so. I have known him to be more credulous and more
republican than I was then. He was thin and pale, and gentle; how
people change! His talent, his knowledge, his mind have increased
enormously, but I used to like his character better. Just the same,
there is still much good in him. There is still love and reverence
for letters--and he will be the last of the critics. Criticism
rightly so-called, will disappear. Perhaps there is no longer any
reason for its existence. What do you think about it?

It appears that you are studying the boor (pignouf). As for me, I
avoid him. I know him too well. I love the Berrichon  peasant who is
not, who never is, a boor, even when he is of no great account; the
word pignouf has its depths; it was created exclusively for the
bourgeois, wasn't it? Ninety out of a hundred provincial middle-
class women are boorish (pignouf lardes) to a high degree, even with
pretty faces that ought to give evidence of delicate instincts. One
is surprised to find a basis of gross self-sufficiency in these
false ladies. Where is the woman now? She is becoming a freak in
society.

Good night, my troubadour: I love you, and I embrace you warmly;
Maurice also.

G. Sand



CIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Tuesday, 2 February, 1869

My dear master,

You see in your troubadour a worn-out man. I have spent a week in
Paris, looking up wearisome information (from seven to nine hours in
fiacres every day, which is a fine way to make money out of
literature). Oh, well!

I have just reread my outline. All that I have still to write
horrifies me, or rather disgusts me, so that I want to vomit. It is
always so, when I get to work. It is then that I am bored, bored,
bored! But this time exceeds all others. That is why I dread so much
interruptions in the daily grind. I could not do otherwise, however.
I dragged about at funerals at Pere-Lachaise, in the valley of
Montmorency, through shops of religious objects, etc.

In short, I have enough material for four or five months now. What a
big "Hooray" I shall utter, when it is finished, and when I am not
in the midst of remaking the bourgeois! It is high time that I
enjoyed life.

I saw Sainte-Beuve and the Princess Mathilde, and I know thoroughly
the story of their break, which seems to me irrevocable. Sainte-
Beuve was outraged against Dalloz and has gone to le Temps. The
princess begged him not to do anything about it. He did not listen
to her. That is all. My opinion on it, if you wish to know it, is
this. The first wrong was done by the princess, who was hasty; but
the second and the worst was by pere Beuve, who did not behave as a
courteous man. If one has a friend, a rather good fellow, and that
friend has given one thirty thousand francs a year income, one owes
him some consideration. It seems to me that in Sainte-Beuve's place
I should have said, "That displeases you, let us talk no more about
it." He lacked manners and poise. What disgusted me a little,
between ourselves, was the way he praised the emperor to me! yes, he
praised Badinguet, to me!--And we were alone!

The princess had taken the thing too seriously from the beginning.
I wrote to her, saying that Sainte-Beuve was right; he, I am sure,
found me rather cold. It was then, in order to justify himself to
me, that he made these protestations of isidorian love, which
humiliated me a little; for it was as if he took me for a complete
imbecile.

I think that he is preparing for a funeral like Beranger's, and that
Hugo's popularity makes him jealous. Why write for the papers, when
one can make books, and when one is not perishing of hunger? He's no
sage, Sainte-Beuve. Not like you!

Your strength charms me and amazes me. I mean the strength of your
entire being, not only that of your brain.

You speak of criticism in your last letter to me, telling me that it
will soon disappear. I think, on the contrary, that it is, at most,
only at its dawning. They are on a different tack from before, but
nothing more. At the time of La Harpe, they were grammarians; at the
time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, they are historians. When will
they be artists, only artists, but really artists? Where do you know
a criticism? Who is there who is anxious about the work in itself,
in an intense way? They analyze very keenly the setting in which it
was written, and the causes that produced it; but the UNCONSCIOUS
poetic expression? Where it comes from? its composition,  its style?
the point of view of the author? Never.

That criticism would require great imagination and great  sympathy.
I mean a faculty of enthusiasm that is always  ready, and then
TASTE, a rare quality, even among the best, so  much so that one
does not talk about it any longer.

What irritates me every day, is to see a master-piece and a
disgrace put on the same level. They exalt the little, and they
lower the great, nothing is more imbecile nor more immoral.

At Pere-Lachaise I was seized with a profound and sorrowful  disgust
for humanity. You can not imagine the fetichism  of the tombs. The
real Parisian is more of an idolater than  a negro is! It made me
long to lie down in one of the graves.

And the PROGRESSIVES think that there is nothing better than to
rehabilitate Robespierre! Note Hamel's book! If the Republic
returned they would bless the liberty poles out of policy and
believing that measure strong.

When shall I see you? I plan to be in Paris from Easter to  the end
of May, This spring I shall go to see you at Nohant,  I swear it.



CV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 11 February, 1869

While you are running around to get material for your novel, I am
inventing all sorts of pretexts not to write mine. I let myself be
distracted by guilty fancies, something I am reading fascinates me
and I set myself to scribbling on paper that will  be left in my
desk and bring me no return. That has amused me, or rather that has
compelled me, for it would be in vain for me to struggle against
these caprices; they interrupt me and force me...you see that I have
not the strength of mind that you think.

As for our masculine friend, he is ungrateful, while our feminine
friend is too exacting. You were right; they are both wrong and it
is not their fault, it is the social machinery which insists on it.
The kind of recognition, that is to say, submission that she exacts,
depends on a tradition that the present time still profits by (there
lies the evil); but does not accept any longer as a duty. The
notions of the obliged are changed, those of the obliger ought to
change also. It must be said that one does not buy moral liberty by
any kindness,--and as for him, he should have foreseen that he would
be considered  enchained. The simplest thing would have been not to
care about having thirty thousand francs a year. It is so easy to do
without it. Let him extricate himself. They won't entangle us in it:
we aren't so foolish!

You say very good things about criticism. But in order to do as you
say, there must be artists, and the artist is too much occupied with
his own work, to forget himself in estimating that of others.

Heavens, what fine weather! Don't you enjoy it, at least from your
window? I'll wager that the tulip tree is in bud. Here, the peaches
and the apricots are in flower. It is said that they will be ruined;
that does not stop them from being pretty and not tormenting
themselves about it.

We have had our family carnival: my niece, my grandchildren,  etc.
We all put on fancy dress; it is not difficult here, one only has to
go to the wardrobe and one comes down again as Cassandra, Scapin,
Mezzetin, Figaro, Basile, etc., all that is very pretty. The pearl
was Lolo as a little Louis XIII in crimson satin, trimmed with white
satin fringed and laced with silver. I spent three days in making
this costume, which was very chic; it was so pretty and so funny on
that little girl of three years, that we were all amazed in looking
at her.

Then we played charades, had supper, and frolicked till daylight.
You see that banished to a desert, we keep up a good  deal of
vitality. And that I delay all I can, the trip to Paris and the
chapter of business. If you were there, I would not need to be
urged. But you are going there the end of March if and I can not
afford to wait till then. To conclude, you swear  to come this
summer and we count on it absolutely. Sooner than not have you come
I shall go to drag you here by the hair.  I embrace you most warmly
on this good hope.

G. Sand



CVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 24 February, 1869

I am all alone at Nohant as you are all alone at Croisset. Maurice
and Lina have gone to Milan, to see Calamatta who is dangerously
ill. Should they have the misfortune to lose him, they will have to
go to Rome to settle his estate, an irksome task added to a sorrow,
it is always like that. That sudden separation was sad, my poor Lina
weeping at leaving her daughters and weeping at not being with her
father. They left me the care of the children whom I rarely leave
and who only let me work when they sleep; but I am happier at having
this care on my shoulders to console me. I have, every day, in two
hours news from Milan by telegram. The patient is better; my
children are only as far as Turin today and do not know yet what I
know. How this telegraph changes one's idea of life, and when the
formalities and formulas are still more simplified, how full
existence will be of facts and how free from uncertainties.

Aurore, who lives on adorations in the lap of her father and  mother
and who weeps every day when I am away, has not asked a single time
where they are. She plays and laughs, then she stops; her great eyes
stare, she says: MY FATHER? another time she says: MAMMA? I distract
her, she thinks no more of it, and then she begins again. They are
very mysterious, children! They think without understanding. Only
one sad word is needed to bring out their sorrow. She carries it
unconsciously. She looks in my eyes to see if I am sad or anxious; I
laugh and she laughs, I think that we must keep her sensitiveness
asleep as long as possible, and that she never would weep for me if
they did not speak of me.

What is your advice, you who have brought up an intelligent and
charming niece? Is it wise to make them loving and affectionate
early? I thought so formerly: I was afraid when I saw Maurice too
impressionable and Solange too much the opposite, and resisting
affection. I would like little ones to be shown only the sweet and
the good of life, until the time when reason can help them to accept
or to fight the bad. What do you say?

I embrace you and ask you to tell me when you are going to Paris, my
trip is delayed as my children may be absent a month; I shall be
able, perhaps, to meet you in Paris.

Your old solitary,

G. Sand

What an admirable definition I rediscover with surprise in the
fatalist Pascal!

"Nature acts progressively, itus et reditus. It goes on and returns,
then it goes still further, then half as far, then further than
ever."  [Footnote: George Sand had copied this and fastened it over
her work table at Nohant.]

What a way of speaking, eh? How the language turns, is twisted, made
supple, is condensed under this grandiose "hand."



CVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday night

What do I say about it, dear master? Should one excite or repress
the sensitiveness of children? It seems to me that one should not
have any set rule about it. It is according as they have a tendency
to too much or too little. Moreover, the basis  isn't changed. There
are tender natures and hard natures, irremediably so. And then the
same sight, the same lesson can produce opposite effects. Could
anything have hardened me more than having been brought up in a
hospital and having  played, as a child, in a dissecting
amphitheatre? But no one is more sensitive than I am to physical
suffering. It is true  that I am the son of an extremely humane man,
sensitive in the true meaning of the word. The sight of a suffering
dog made tears come to his eyes. He did his surgical operations none
the less well, and he invented some dreadful ones.

"Show little ones only the sweet and the good of life until the time
when reason can help them to accept or to fight the bad." Such is
not my opinion. For then something terrible, an infinite
disenchantment is bound to be produced in their hearts. And then,
how could reason form itself, if it does not apply itself (or if one
does not apply it daily) to distinguish good from evil? Life ought
to be a continual education; one must learn everything--from talking
to dying.

You tell me very true things about the unconsciousness of children.
He who could read clearly in these little brains would grasp in them
the roots of the human race, the origin of the gods, the sap which
produces actions later on, etc. A negro who talks to his idol, and a
child who talks to her doll seem to me close together.

The child and the savage (the primitive) do not distinguish the real
from the fantastic. I remember very clearly that at five or six
years of age I wanted to "send my heart" to a little girl with whom
I was in love (I mean my material heart). I could see it in the
middle of straw, in a basket, an oyster basket.

But no one has been so far as you in these analyses. There are some
infinitely profound pages about it in the Histoire de ma vie. What I
say is true, since minds quite opposite to yours have been amazed at
them. For instance, the Goncourts.

The good Tourgueneff ought to be in Paris at the end of March. What
would be fine, would be for us all three to dine together.

I am thinking again of Sainte-Beuve. Without doubt one can get along
without thirty thousand francs a year. But there is something easier
yet: that is, when one has them, not to launch into abuse, every
week, in the papers. Why doesn't he write books, since he is rich
and has talent?

I am just now reading Don Quichotte again. What a tremendous  old
book! Is there any more beautiful?



CVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 7 March, 1869

Still alone with my grandchildren; my nephews and friends come to
spend two out of every three days with me, but I miss Maurice and
Lina. Poor Calamatta is at the last gasp.

Give me the address of the Goncourts, you have never given it to me.
Shall I never know it? My letter is still waiting there for them.

I love you and embrace you. I love you much, much, and I embrace you
very warmly.

G. Sand



CIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 12 March, 1869

Poor Calamatta died the 9th, my children are coming back. My Lina
must be distressed. I have news from them only by telegraph. From
Milan here in an hour and a half. But there are no details, and I am
anxious. I embrace you tenderly,

G. Sand

Thank you for the address.



CX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 2 April, 1869

Dear friend of my heart, here we are once more calm again. My
children returned to me very exhausted. Aurore has been a little
ill. Lina's mother has come to get into touch with her about their
affairs. She is a loyal and excellent woman, very artistic, and very
amiable. I too have had a bad cold, but everything is getting better
now, and our charming little girls console their little mother. If
it were less bad weather, and I had a less bad cold, I would go at
once to Paris, for I want to see you there. How long do you stay
there? Tell me quickly.

I shall be very glad to renew my acquaintance with Tourgueneff,
whom I knew a little without having read him, and whom I have since
read with a whole-hearted admiration. You seem to me to love him a
great deal; then I love him too, and I wish when your novel is
finished, that you would bring him to our house. Maurice also knows
him and appreciates him greatly, he who likes whatever does not
resemble anything else.

I am working at my novel about TRAVELING ACTORS [Footnote: Pierre
qui roule.] like a convict. I am trying to have it amusing and to
explain art; it is a new form for me and amuses me. Perhaps it will
not have any success. The taste of the day is for marquises and
courtesans; but what difference does that make?--You must find me a
title, which is a resume of that idea: THE MODERN ROMAN COMIQUE.

My children send you affectionate greetings; your old troubadour
embraces his old troubadour.

G. Sand

Answer quickly how long you expect to stay in Paris. You say that
you are paying bills and that you are vexed. If you have need of
quibus, I have at the moment a few sous I can lend you. You know
that you offered once to lend me some. If I had been in a hole I
would have accepted. Give all my regards to Maxime Du Camp and thank
him for not forgetting me.



CXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 17 April, 1869

I am well, I am finishing (today, I hope) my modern Roman  comique
which will be called I don't know what. I am a little  tired, for I
have done a lot of other things. But I am going to Paris in eight or
ten days to rest, to embrace you, to talk of you, of your work, to
forget mine, God be thanked! and to love you as always very much and
very tenderly.

G. Sand

Regards from Maurice and his wife.



CXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Monday, 26 April, 1869

I arrived last night, I am running around like a rat, but  every day
at 6 o'clock one is sure of finding me at Magny's,  and the first
day that you are free, come to dine with your old  troubadour who
loves you and embraces you.

Send word ahead to me, however, so that by an exceptional chance, I
do not have the ill luck to miss you.

Monday.



CXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday evening, 29 April, 1869

I am back from Palaiseau and I find your letter. Saturday I am not
sure of being free; I have to read my play with Chilly on account of
some objections of detail, and I had told you so. But I see him
tomorrow evening, and I shall try to get him to give me another day.
I shall write you then, tomorrow evening, Friday, and if he frees
me, I shall go to your house about three o'clock on Saturday so that
we can read before and after dinner; I dine on a little fish, a
chicken wing, an ice and a cup of coffee, never anything else, by
which means my stomach keeps well. If I am kept by Chilly, we shall
postpone till next week after Friday.

I sold Palaiseau today to a master shoemaker who has a LEATHER
plaster on his right eye, and who calls the sumachs of the garden,
the schumakre.

Then Saturday morning you shall have word from your old comrade.

G. Sand



CXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
30 April, 1869

No way of going out today. This slavery to one's profession  is
horrid, isn't it? Between now and Friday I shall write to you so
that we can again settle on a day. I embrace you, my old beloved
troubadour.

G. Sand



CXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
3 May, 1869

They are encroaching upon my time more and more. All my days are
full until and including next Sunday.--Tell me quickly if you want
me Monday, a week from today--or if it is another day. Let us fix it
for it is a fact that I don't really know whom to listen to.

Your troubadour who does not want THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS to continue!

G. Sand

Monday.



CXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 4 May, 1869

On Monday then, and if I have an hour free I shall try to embrace my
troubadour before that. But don't disturb yourself,  I know very
well that one does nothing here that one would like to do. Anyway,
on Monday between three and four, clear out your windpipe so as to
read me a part before dinner.

G. Sand

Tues. evening.



CXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Sunday, 9 May, 1869

Tomorrow, your reverence, I shall go to dine at your house. I shall
be at home every day at five o'clock, but you might meet some guys
whom you dislike. You would much better come to Magny's where you
would find me alone, or with Plauchut, or with friends who are also
yours.

I embrace you. I received today the letter which you wrote to me at
Nohant.

G. Sand



CXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 18 May, 1869

I saw Levy today, I tested him at first; I saw that he would not
give up his contract at any price. I then said to him many good
things about the book and made the remark that he had gotten it very
cheap. But he said to me, if the book is in two volumes, it will be
20,000 francs, that is agreed. So I suppose that you will have two
volumes, won't you?

However, I persisted and he said to me: If the book is a success,  I
shall not begrudge two or three thousand francs more. I said that
you would not demand anything, that it was not your way of acting,
but that for MY PART, I should insist for you without your
knowledge, and he left me saying: Be easy, I don't say no. Should
the book succeed I will make the author profit by it.

That is all that I have been able to do now, but I will take it up
again at the proper time and place. Leave that to me, I will return
your contract. What day next week will you dine with me at Magny's?
I am a little weary.

You would be very kind to come to read at my house, we should be
alone and one evening will be enough for the rest. Set the day, and
AT SIX THIRTY if that does not bother you. My stomach is beginning
to suffer a little from Paris habits. Your troubadour who loves you,

G. Sand

The rest of the week will finish up Palaiseau, but Sunday if you
like, I am free. Answer if you want Sunday at Magny's at half past
six.



CXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Then Monday, I count on you, at half past six; but as I am going to
Palaiseau, I may be a few minutes late or early. The first one at
Magny's must wait for the other. I am looking forward with pleasure
to hearing THE REST. Don't forget the manuscript.

Your troubadour Thursday evening, 20 May, 1869.



CXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 29 May, 1869

Yes, Monday, my dear good friend, I count on you and I embrace you.

G. Sand

I am off for Palaiseau AND IT IS TEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!



CXXI. TO GEORGE SAND

My prophecy is fulfilled; My friend X----has gained only ridicule
with his candidacy. That serves him right. When a man of style
debases himself to practical life, he loses caste and should be
punished. And then, is it a question of politics, now! The citizens
who are excited for or against the Empire or the Republic seem to me
as useful as those who discuss efficacious or efficient grace.
Politics are as dead as theology! They have had three hundred years
of existence, that is quite enough.

Just now I am lost in the Church Fathers. As for my novel
l'Education sentimentale, I am paying no more attention to it, God
be thanked! It is recopied. Other hands have gone over it. So, the
thing is no longer mine. It does not exist any longer, good night. I
have taken up again my old hobby of Saint Antoine. I have reread my
notes, I am making another new plan and I am devouring the
ecclesiastical memoirs of the Nain de Tillemont. I hope to succeed
in finding a logical connection  (and therefore a dramatic interest)
between the different hallucinations of the Saint. This extravagant
setting pleases me and I am absorbed in it, there you are!

My poor Bouilhet bothers me. He is in such a nervous state that they
have advised him to take a little trip to the south of France. He is
overwhelmed by an unconquerable melancholy. Isn't it queer! He who
was so gay, formerly!

My Heavens! What a beautiful and farcical thing is the life of the
desert Fathers! But without doubt they were all Buddhists. That is a
stylish problem to work at, and its solution would be more important
than the election of an academician. Oh! ye men of little faith!
Long live Saint Polycarp!

Fangeat, who has reappeared recently, is the citizen who, on the
25th day of February, 1848, demanded the death of Louis-Philippe
"without a trial." That is the way one serves the cause of progress.



CXXII. TO GEORGE SAND

What a good and charming letter was yours, adored master! There is
no one but you! upon my word of honor! I am ending by believing it.
A wind of stupidity and folly is now blowing over the world. Those
who stand up firm and straight against it are rare.

This is what I meant when I wrote that the times of politics were
over. In the 18th century the chief business was diplomacy.  "The
secrecy of the cabinets" really existed. The peoples still were
sufficiently amenable to be separated and to be combined. That order
of things seems to me to have said its last word in 1815. Since
then, one has hardly done anything except dispute about the external
form that it is fitting to give the fantastic and odious being
called the State.

Experience proves (it seems to me) that no form contains the best in
itself; orleanism, republic, empire do not mean anything anymore,
since the most contradictory ideas can enter into each one of these
pigeon holes. All the flags have been so soiled with blood and with
filth that it is time not to have any at all. Down with words! No
more symbols nor fetiches! The great moral of this reign will be to
prove that universal suffrage is as senseless as the divine right
although a little less odions!

The question is then out of place. One is concerned no longer with
dreaming of the best form of government, since all are equal, but
with making science prevail. That is the most important. The rest
will follow inevitably. Purely intellectual men have rendered more
service to the human race than all the Saint Vincent de Pauls in the
world! And politics will be an everlasting folly so long as it is
not subordinate to science. The government of a country ought to be
a section of the Institute, and the last section of all.

Before concerning yourself with relief funds, and even with
agriculture, send to all the villages in France, Robert Houdins to
work miracles! The greatest crime of Isidore is the wretched
condition in which he leaves our beautiful country. Dixi.  I admire
Maurice's occupations and his healthy life. But I am not capable of
imitating him. Nature, far from fortifying me, drains my strength.
When I lie on the grass I feel as if I am already under the earth
and that the roots of green things are beginning to grow in my
belly. Your troubadour is naturally an unhealthy man. I do not like
the country except when travelling, because then the independence of
my individuality causes me to rise above the knowledge of my
nothingness.



CXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 6 August, 1869

Well, dear good friend, here it is August, and you have promised to
come. We don't forget it, we count on it, we dream of it, and we
talk of it every day. You were to take a trip to the seashore first
if I am not mistaken. You must need to shake up your gloom. That
does not dispel it, but it does force it to live with us and not be
too oppressive. I have thought a great deal about you lately, I
would have hastened to see you if I had not thought I should find
you surrounded by older and better friends than I am. I wrote you at
the same time that you wrote me, our letters crossed.

Come to see us, my dear old friend, I shall not go to Paris this
month, I do not want to miss you. My children will be happy to spoil
you and to try to distract you. We all love you, and I love you
PASSIONATELY, as you know.



CXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 14 August, 1869

Your change of plans distresses us, dear friend, but we do not dare
to complain in the face of your anxieties and sorrows. We ought to
wish you to do what would distract you the most, and take the least
out of you. I am in hopes of finding you in Paris, as you are
staying there some time and I always have business there. But it is
so hard to see friends in Paris and one is so overwhelmed by so many
tedious duties! Well, it is a real sorrow to me not to have to
expect you any more at our house, where each one of us would have
tried to love you better than the others and where you would have
been at home; sad when you wanted to be, busy if you liked. I resign
myself on condition that you will be better off somewhere else and
that you will make it good to us when you can.

Have you at least arranged your affairs with Levy? Is he paying you
for two volumes? I would like you to have something on which to live
independently and as master of your time. Here there is repose for
the mind in the midst of the exuberant activities of Maurice, and of
his brave little wife who sets herself to love all he loves and to
help him eagerly in all he undertakes. As for me, I have the
appearance of incarnate idleness in the midst of this hard work. I
botanize and I bathe in a little icy torrent. I teach my servant to
read, I correct proof and I am well. That is my life and nothing
bores me in this world where I think that AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED
all is for the best. But I am afraid of becoming more of a bore than
I used to be. People don't like such as I am very much. We are too
inoffensive. However, love me still a little, for I feel by the
disappointment of not seeing you, that it would have gone hard with
me if you had meant to break your word.

And I embrace you tenderly, dear old friend.

G. Sand



CXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday

I know nothing either of Chilly or la petite Fadette. In a few days
I am going to make a tour of Normandy. I shall go through Paris. If
you want to come around with me,--oh! but no, you don't travel
about; well, we shall see each other in passing. I have certainly
earned a little holiday. I have worked like a beast of burden. I
need too to see some blue, but the blue of the sea will do, and you
would like the blue of the artistic and literary firmament over our
heads. Bah! that doesn't exist. Everything is prose, flat prose in
the environment in which mankind has settled itself. It is only in
isolating oneself a little that one can find in oneself the normal
being again.

I am resuming my letter interrupted for two days by my wounded hand
which inconveniences me a good deal. I am not going to Normandy at
all, my Lamberts whom I was going to see in Yport came back to Paris
and my business calls me there too. I shall then see you next week
probably, and I shall embrace you as if you were my dear big child.
Why can't I put the rosy, tanned face of Aurore in the place of
mine! She is not what you would call pretty, but she is adorable and
so quick in comprehending that we all are astonished. She is as
amusing in her chatter as a person,--who might be amusing. So I am
going to be forced to start thinking about my business! It is the
one thing of which I have a horror and which really troubles my
serenity. You must console me by joking with me a little when you
have the time.

I shall see you soon, have courage in the sickening work of proof-
reading. As for me I hurry over it quickly and badly, but you must
not do as I do.

My children send you their love and your troubadour loves you.

G. Sand

Saturday evening

I have just received news from the Odeon. They are at work putting
on my play and do not speak of anything else.



CXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 6 September, 1869

They wrote me yesterday to come because they wanted me at the Opera-
Comique. Here I am rue Gay-Lussac. When shall we meet? Tell me. All
my days, are still free.

I embrace you.

G. Sand



CXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 8 September, 1869

I send you back your handkerchief which you left in the carriage. It
is surely tomorrow THURSDAY that we dine together?  I have written
to the big Marchal to come to Magny's too.

Your troubadour

G. Sand

Wednesday morning.



CXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, Tuesday, 5 October, 1869

Where are you now, my dear troubadour? I am still writing to you at
the boulevard du Temple, but perhaps you have taken possession of
your delightful lodgings. I don't know the address although I have
seen the house, the situation and the view.--I have been twice in
the Ardennes and in a week or ten days, if Lina or Maurice does not
come to Paris, as they have a slight desire to do, I shall leave
again for Nohant.

We must then meet and see each other. Here am I a little sfogata
(eased) from my need for travel, and enchanted with what I have
seen. Tell me what day except tomorrow, Wednesday,  you can give me
for dinner at Magny's or elsewhere with or without Plauchut, with
whomever you wish provided I see you and embrace you.

Your old comrade who loves you.

G. Sand



CXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear good adored master,

I have wanted for several days to write you a long letter in which I
should tell you all that I have felt for a month. It is funny. I
have passed through different and strange states. But I have neither
the time nor the repose of mind to gather myself together enough.

Don't be disturbed about your troubadour. He will always have "his
independence and his liberty" because he will always do as he has
always done. He has left everything rather than submit to any
obligation whatsoever, and then, with age, one's needs lessen. I
suffer no longer from not living in the Alhambra.

What would do me good now, would be to throw myself furiously into
Saint-Antoine, but I have not even the time to read.

Listen to this: in the very beginning, your play was to come after
Aisse; then it was agreed that it should come BEFORE. Now Chilly and
Duquesnel want it to come after, simply and solely "to profit by the
occasion," to profit by my poor Bouilhet's death. They will give you
a "sort of compensation." Well, I am the owner and the master of
Aisse just as if I were the author, and I do not want that. You
understand, I do not want you to inconvenience yourself in anything.

You think that I am as sweet as a lamb! Undeceive yourself, and act
as if Aisse had never existed; and above all no sensitiveness?  That
would offend me. Between simple friends, one needs manners and
politenesses; but between you and me, that would not seem at all
suitable; we do not owe each other anything at all except to love
each other.

I think that the directors of the Odeon will regret Bouilhet in
every way. I shall be less easy than he was at rehearsals. I should
very much like to read Aisse to you so as to talk a little about it;
some of the actors whom they propose are, to my way of thinking,
impossible. It is hard to have to do with uneducated people.



CXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Wednesday evening, 13 October, 1869

Our poor friend is not to be buried till the day after tomorrow,
they will let me know where and when we ought to be there, I shall
tell you by telegram.

I have seen the directors twice. It was agreed this morning with
Duquesnel that they should make an attempt with de la T(our) Saint-
Y(bars). I yielded my turn to Aisse. I was not to come till March. I
went back there this evening, Chilly IS UNWILLING, and Duquesnel,
better informed than this morning, regards the step as useless and
harmful. I then quoted my contract, my right. What a fine thing, the
theatre! M. Saint-Ybars' contract antedates mine. They had thought
le Batard would last two weeks and it will last forty days longer.
Then La Tour Saint-Ybars precedes us [Footnote: This refers to
l'Affranchi.] and I can not give up my turn to Aisse without being
postponed till next year, which I'll do if you want me to; but it
would do me a good deal of harm, for I have gotten into debt with
the Revue and I must refill my purse.--Are directors rascals in all
that? No, but incompetents who are always afraid of not having
enough plays, and accept too many, foreseeing that they will have
failures.--When they are successful, if the authors contracted for
are ANGRY they have to go to court. I have no taste for disputes and
the scandals of the side-scenes and the newspapers; and neither have
you. What would be the result? Inadequate compensation and a deal of
uproar for nothing. One needs patience in any event, I have it, and
I tell you again if you are really upset at this delay, I am ready
to sacrifice myself.

With this I embrace you and I love you.

G. Sand



CXXXI. TO GEORGE SAND
14 October, 1869

Dear master,

No! no sacrifices! so much the worse! If I did not look at
Bouilhet's affairs as mine absolutely, I should have at once
accepted your proposition. But: (1) it is my affair, (2) the dead
must not hurt the living.

But I am angry at these gentlemen, I do not hide it from you, for
not having said anything to us about Latour Saint-Ybars. For the
aforesaid Latour was engaged a long time ago. Why did we not know
anything about him?

In short, let Chilly write me the letter on which we agreed
Wednesday, and let there be no more discussion about it.

It seems to me that your play can be given the 15th of December, if
l'Affranchi begins about the 20th of November. Two and a half months
are about fifty performances; if you go beyond that, Aisse will not
be presented till next year.

Then, it is agreed, since we can not suppress Latour Saint-Ybars;
you shall go after him and Aisse next, if I think it suitable.

We shall meet Saturday at poor Sainte-Beuve's funeral. How the
little band diminishes! How the few survivors of the Medusa's raft
are disappearing!

A thousand affectionate greetings.



CXXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 20 or 21 October, 1869

Impossible, dear old beloved. Brebant is too far, I have so little
time. And then I have made an engagement with Marchal and Berton at
Magny's to say farewell. If you can come, I shall be very happy and
on the other hand if it is going to make you ill, don't come, I know
very well that you love me and shall not be angry with you about
anything.

G. Sand



CXXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 15 Nov., 1869

What has become of you, my dear old beloved troubadour? are you
correcting proof like a galley slave, up to the last minute? For the
last two days they have been announcing your book FOR TOMORROW. I am
looking for it with impatience, for you are not going to forget me,
are you? You will be praised and condemned; you expect that. You are
too truly superior not to arouse envy and you don't care, do you?
Nor I either for you. You have the strength to be stimulated by what
discourages others. There will certainly be a rumpus; your subject
will be quite opportune in this time of REVOLUTIONISTS. The good
progressives, the true democrats will approve of you. The idiots
will be furious, and you will say: "Come weal, come woe!"  I am also
correcting proof of Pierre qui roule and I have half finished a new
novel which will not make much of a stir; that is all that I ask for
at the moment. I work alternately on MY novel, the one that I like,
and on the one that the Revue does not dislike as much, but which I
like very little. It is arranged that way; I don't know if I am
making a mistake. Perhaps those which I like are the worst. But I
have stopped worrying about myself, so far as I have ever done so.
Life has always taken me out of myself, and so it will to the end.
My heart is always affected to the detriment of my head. At present
it is my little children who devour all my intellect; Aurore is a
jewel, a nature before which I bow in admiration; will it last like
that?

You are going to spend the winter in Paris, and I, I don't know when
I shall go. The success of le Batard continues; but I am not
impatient, you have promised to come as soon as you are free, at
Christmas at the very latest, to keep revel with us. I think only of
that, and if you break your word we shall be in despair here. With
this I embrace you with a full heart as I love you.

G. Sand



CXXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 30 November, 1869

Dear friend of my heart, I wanted to reread your book [Footnote:
l'Education sentimentale.]; my daughter-in-law has read it too, and
some of my young people, all readers in earnest and of the first
rank and not stupid at  all. We are all of the same opinion, that it
is a beautiful book, equal in strength to the best ones of Balzac
and truer, that is to say more faithful to the truth from one end to
the other.

One needs the great art, the exquisite form and the severity of your
work to do without flowers of fancy. However, you throw poetry with
a full hand on your picture, whether your characters understand it
or not. Rosanette at Fontainebleau does not know on what grass she
walks and nevertheless she is poetic.

All that issues from a master's hand, and your place is well won for
always. Live then as calmly as possible in order to last a long time
and to produce a great deal.

I have seen two short articles which did not seem to me to rebel
against your success; but I hardly know what is going on, politics
seems to me to absorb everything.

Keep me posted. If they did not do justice to you I should be angry
and should say what I think. It is my right.

I don't know exactly when, but during the month, I shall go without
doubt to embrace you and to get you, if I can pry you loose from
Paris. My children still count on it, and all of us send you our
praises and our affectionate greetings.

Yours, your old troubadour

G. Sand



CXXXV. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear good master,

Your old troubadour is vehemently slandered by the papers. Read the
Constitutionnel of last Monday, the Gaulois of this morning, it is
blunt and plain. They call me idiotic and common. Barbey
d'Aurevilly's article (Constitutionnel) is a model of this
character, and the good Sarcey's, although less violent, is in no
way behind it. These gentlemen object in the name of morality and
the Ideal! I have also been annihilated in le Figaro and in Paris,
by Cesana and Duranty. I most profoundly don't care a fig! but that
does not make me any the less astonished by so much hatred and bad
faith.

La Tribune, le Pays and l'Opinion nationale on the other hand have
highly praised me...As for the friends, the persons who received a
copy adorned by my hand, they have been afraid of compromising
themselves and have talked to me of
other things. The brave are few. The book is selling very well
nevertheless, in spite of politics, and Levy appears satisfied.

I know that the bourgeois of Rouen are furious with me "because of
pere Roque and the cancan at the Tuileries." They think that one
ought to prevent the publication of books like that (textual), that
I lend a hand to the Reds, that I am capable of inflaming
revolutionary passions, etc., etc. In short, I have received very
few laurels, up to now, and no rose leaf hurts me.

I told you, didn't I, that I was working over the fairy play? I am
doing now a description of the races and I have cut out all that
seemed to me hackneyed. Raphael Felix didn't seem to me eager to
become acquainted with it. Problem!

All the papers cite as a proof of my depravity, the episode of the
Turkish woman, which they misrepresent, naturally; and Sarcey
compares me to Marquis de Sade, whom he confesses he has not read!

All that does not upset me at all. But I wonder what use there is in
printing my book?



CXXXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday, 4 o'clock, 7 December, 1869

Dear master,

Your old troubadour is being jumped on in an unheard of manner.
Those people who have read my novel are afraid to talk to me of it
lest they compromise themselves or out of pity for me. The more
indulgent declare I have made only pictures and that both
composition and plan are quite lacking.

Saint-Victor, who puffs the books of Arsene Houssaye, won't write
articles on mine, finding it too bad. There you are. Theo is away,
and no one, absolutely no one takes my defense.

Another story: yesterday Raphael and Michel Levy listened to the
reading of the fairy play. Applause, enthusiasm. I saw the moment
during the reading in which the contract was going to be signed.
Raphael so well understood the play that he gave me two or three
EXCELLENT criticisms. I found him in other ways a charming boy. He
asked me until Saturday to give me a definite answer. Then a little
while ago, a letter (very polite) from the aforesaid Raphael in
which he declares that the fairy play would entail expenses that
would be too much for him.

Ditched again. I must look elsewhere. Nothing new at the Odeon.

Sarcey has published a second article against me.

Barbey d'Aurevilly claims that I dirty a stream by washing myself in
it (sic). All that does not bother me at all.



CXXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday, two o'clock in the morning, December 9, 1869

My comrade, it is finished, the article shall go tomorrow. I address
it to whom? Answer by telegram. I have a mind to send it to
Girardin. But perhaps you have a better idea, I really don't know
the importance and the credit of the various papers. Send me a
suitable name and ADDRESS by telegram; I have Girardin's.

I am not content with my prose, I have had the fever and a sort of
sprain for two days. But we must make haste. I embrace you.

G. Sand



CXXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
10 December, Friday, 10 o'clock in the evening, 1869

Dear master, good as good bread,

I have just sent you by telegraph this message: "To Girardin." La
Liberte will publish your article, at once. What do you think of my
friend Saint-Victor, who has refused to write an article about it
because he finds "the book bad"? you have not such a conscience as
that, have you?

I continue to be rolled in the mud. La Gironde calls me Prudhomme.
That seems new to me.

How shall I thank you? I feel the need of saying affectionate
things to you. I have so many in my heart that not one comes to the
tips of my fingers. What a splendid woman you are and what a
splendid man! To say nothing of all the other things!



CXXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, Friday to Saturday during the night, 10 to 11 December, 1869

I have rewritten my article [Footnote: The article, Sur l'Education
sentimentale, de Flaubert, was printed in the Questions d'art et de
litterature, Calmann-Levy, p. 415.] today and this evening, I am
better, it is clearer. I am expecting your telegram tomorrow. If you
do not put your veto on it, I shall send the article to Ulbach, who
begins his paper the 15th of this month; he wrote to me this morning
to beg me urgently for any article I would send him. I think this
first number will be widely read, and it would be good publicity.
Michel Levy would be a better judge than we as to what is the best
to do: consult him.

You seem astonished at the ill will. You are too simple. You do not
know how original your book is, and how many personal feelings must
be offended by the force it contains. You think you are doing things
that will pass as a letter in the mail; ah! well, yes!

I have insisted on the PLAN of your book; that is what they
understand the least and it is what is the most important. I tried
to show the ordinary people how they should read; for it is the
ordinary people who make successes. The clever ones don't like the
successes of others. I don't pay attention to the malicious; it
would honor them too much.

G. S.

My mother has your telegram and is sending her manuscript to
Girardin.

4 o'clock in the afternoon.

Lina



CXL. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 14 December, 1869

I do not see my article coming out, but others are appearing which
are bad and unjust. One's enemies are always better served than
one's friends. And then, when one frog begins to croak, all the
others follow suit. After a certain reverence has been violated
every one tries to see who can best jump on the shoulders of the
statue; it is always like that. You are undergoing the disadvantages
of having a style that is not yet familiar through repetition, and
all are making idiots of themselves so as not to see it.

ABSOLUTE IMPERSONALITY is debatable, and I do not accept it
ABSOLUTELY; but I wonder that Saint-Victor who has preached it so
much and has criticised my plays because they were not IMPERSONAL,
should abandon you instead of defending you. Criticism is in a sad
way; too much theory!

Don't be troubled by all that and keep straight on. Don't attempt a
system, obey your inspiration.

What fine weather, at least with us, and we are getting ready for
our Christmas festivals with the family at home. I told Plauchut to
try to carry you off; we are expecting him. If you can't come with
him, come at least for the Christmas Eve revels and to escape from
Paris on New Year's day; it is so boring there then!

Lina charges me to say to you that you are authorized to wear your
wrapper and slippers continually. There are no ladies, no strangers.
In short you will make us very happy and you have promised for a
long time.

I embrace you and I am still more angry than you at these attacks,
but I am not overcome, and if I had you here we should stimulate
each other so well that you would start off again at once on the
other leg to write a new novel.

I embrace you.

Your old troubadour,

G. Sand



CXLI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 17 December, 1869

Plauchut writes us that YOU PROMISE to come the 24th. Do come the
23d in the evening, so as to be rested for the night of the 24th to
the 25th and join in our Christmas Eve revels. Otherwise you will
arrive from Paris tired and sleepy and our follies will not amuse
you. You are coming to the house of children, I warn you, and as you
are kind and affectionate, you love children. Did Plauchut tell you
to bring a wrapper and slippers, for we do not want to sentence you
to dressing up? I add that I am counting on your bringing some
manuscript.  The FAIRY PLAY re-done, Saint-Antoine, whatever you
have finished. I hope indeed that you are in the mood for work.
Critics are a challenge that stimulates.

Poor Saint-Rene Taillandier is as asininely pedantic as the Revue.
Aren't they prudish in that set? I am in a pet with Girardin. I know
very well that I am not strong in letters; I am not sufficiently
cultivated for these gentlemen; but the good public reads me and
listens to me all the same.

If you did not come, we should be unhappy and you would be a big
ingrate. Do you want me to send a carriage for you to Chateauroux on
the 23d at four o'clock? I am afraid that you may be uncomfortable
in that stage-coach which makes the run, and it is so easy to spare
you two and a half hours of discomfort!

We embrace you full of hope. I am working like an ox so as to have
my novel finished and not to have to think of it a minute when you
are here.

G. Sand



CXLII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 19 December, 1869

So women are in it too? Come, forget that persecution here, at a
hundred thousand leagues from Parisian and literary life, or rather
come be glad of it, for these great slatings are the sure proof of
great worth. Tell yourself indeed that those who have not gone
through that are GOOD FOR THE ACADEMY.

Our letters crossed. I begged you and I beg you again not to come
Christmas Eve, but the night before so as to join in the revels the
next night, the Eve, that is to say, the 24th. This is the program:
we dine promptly at six o'clock, we have the Christmas tree and the
marionettes for the children, so, that they can go to bed at nine
o'clock. After that we chatter, and sup at midnight. But the
diligence gets here at the earliest at half past six, and we should
not dine till seven o'clock, which would make impossible the great
joy of our little ones who would be kept up too late. So you must
start Thursday 23d at nine o'clock in the morning, so that everyone
may be perfectly comfortable, so that everyone may have time to
embrace everyone else, and so that no one may be interrupted in the
joy of your arrival on account of the imperious and silly darlings.

You must stay with us a very long time, a very long time, we shall
have some more follies for New Year's day, and for Twelfth Night.
This is a crazy happy house and it is the time of holiday after
work. I am finishing tonight my year's task.  Seeing you, dear old
well-beloved friend, would be my recompense: do not refuse me.

G. Sand

Plauchut is hunting today with the prince, and perhaps will not
return till Tuesday. I am writing him to wait for you till Thursday,
you will be less bored on the way. I have just written to Girardin
to complain.



CXLIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
31 December, 1869

We hoped to have a word from you this morning. This sudden cold is
so severe, I dreaded it for your trip. We know you got to
Chateauroux all right. But did you find a compartment, and didn't
you suffer on the way? Reassure us.

We were so happy to have you with us that we should be distressed if
you had to suffer for this WINTER escapade. All goes well here and
all of us adore one another. It is New Year's Eve. We send your
share of the kisses that we are giving one another.

G. Sand



CXLIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 9 January, 1870

I have had so much proof to correct that I am stupefied with it. I
needed that to console me for your departure, troubadour of my
heart, and for another departure also, that of my drudge of a
Plauchmar--and still another departure, that of my grand-nephew
Edme, my favorite, the one who played the marionettes with Maurice.
He has passed his examinations for collector and goes to Pithiviers-
-unless by pull, we could get him as substitute at La Chatre.

Do you know M. Roy, the head of the management of the domains? If by
chance the princess knew him and would be willing to say a word to
him in favor of young Simonnet? I should be happy to owe her this
joy for his family and this economy for his mother who is poor. It
appears that it is very easy to obtain and that no rule opposes it.
But one must HAVE PULL; a word to the princess, a line from M. Roy
and our tears would change to joy.

That child is very dear to me. He is so loving and so good! They had
hard work to bring him up, he was always ill, always dandled on the
knees and always gentle and sweet. He has a great deal of
intelligence and he works well at La Chatre, where his chief the
collector adores him and mourns for him also. Well, do what you can,
if you can do anything at all.

They continue to damn your book. That doesn't prevent it from being
a fine and good book. Justice will come later, JUSTICE IS ALWAYS
DONE. Apparently it did not come at the right moment, or rather it
came too soon. It has demonstrated too well the disorder that reigns
in people's minds. It has rubbed the open wound, people recognize
themselves too well in it.

Everyone adores you here and our consciences are too pure to be
upset at the truth: we talk of you every day. Yesterday, Lina said
to me that she admired very much all you do, but that she preferred
Salammbo to your modern descriptions. If you had been in a corner,
this is what you would have heard from her, from me, and from THE
OTHERS:

"He is taller and larger than the average person. His mind is like
him, beyond ordinary proportions. In that he is like Victor Hugo, at
least as much as like Balzac, but he has the taste and discernment
that Hugo lacks, and he is an artist which Balzac was not.--Is he
then more than both? Chi lo sa?--He hasn't let himself out yet. The
enormous volume of his brain troubles him. He doesn't know if he is
a poet or a realist; and the fact that he is both, hinders him.--He
must get straightened out in his different lines of effort. He sees
everything and wants to grasp everything at once.--He is not the cut
of the public that wants to eat in little mouthfuls, whom large
pieces choke. But the public will go to him, just the same, when it
understands.--It will even go rather quickly if the author
CONDESCENDS to be willing to be quite understood.--For that, perhaps
there will have to be asked some concessions to the indolence of its
mind. One ought to reflect before daring to give this advice."

That sums up what we said. It is not useless to know the opinion of
good people and of young people. The youngest say that l'Education
sentimentale made them sad. They did not come across themselves in
it, they who have not yet lived; but they have illusions and they
say: "Why does this man, so good, so kind, so gay, so simple, so
sympathetic, wish to discourage us from living?" What they say is
poorly reasoned out, but as it is instinctive, perhaps it ought to
be taken into account.

Aurore talks of you and still cradles her baby in her lap; Gabrielle
calls Punch, HER LITTLE ONE, and will not eat her dinner unless he
is opposite her. They are our continual idols, these brats.

Yesterday, I received, after your letter of the day before, a letter
from Berton, who thinks that they will not play l'Affranchi longer
than the 18th or the 20th. Wait for me, since you can delay your
departure a little. It is too bad weather to go to Croisset; it is
always an effort for me to leave my dear nest to go to attend to my
miserable profession; but the effort is less when I hope to find you
in Paris.

I embrace you for myself and for all my brood.

G. Sand



CXLV. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday afternoon.

Dear master,

Your commission was done yesterday at one o'clock. The princess in
my presence took some notes on what you wanted, in order to look
after it at once. She seemed to me very glad to do you a service.

People talk of nothing but the death of Noir! The general sentiment
is fear, nothing else!

Into what miserable ways we are plunged! There is so much imbecility
in the air that one gets ferocious. I am less indignant than
disgusted! What do you think of these gentlemen who come to confer
armed with pistols and sword canes! And of this person, of this
prince, who lives in the midst of an arsenal and makes use of it?
Pretty! Pretty!

What a sweet letter you wrote me day before yesterday! But your
friendship blinds you, dear good master. I do not belong to the
tribe you mention. I am acquainted with myself,  I know what I lack!
And I am enormously lacking.

In losing my poor Bouilhet, I lost my midwife, it was he who saw
into my thought more clearly than I did myself. His death has left a
void that I notice more each day. What is the use of making
concessions? Why force oneself? I am quite resolved, on the
contrary, to write in future for my personal  satisfaction, and
without any constraint. Come what may!



CXLVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 15 January, 1870

L'Affranchi is for Tuesday. I am working hurriedly to finish my
corrections and I leave Tuesday morning. Come to dine with me at
Magny's at six o'clock. Can you? If not, am I to keep a seat for you
in my box? A word during the day of Tuesday, to my lodgings. You
won't be forced to swallow down the entire performance if it bores
you.

I love you and I embrace you for myself and for my brood. Thank you
for Edme.

G. Sand



CXLVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 19 January, 1870

Dear friend of my heart, I did not see you in the theatre. The play
applauded and hissed, more applauded than hissed. Barton very
beautiful, Sarah very pretty, but no interest in the characters and
too many second-rate actors, not good.--I do not think that it is a
success.

I am better. Yet I am not bold enough to go to your house Saturday
and to return from such a distance in this severe cold. I saw Theo
this evening, I told him to come to dine with us both on Saturday at
Magny's. Do say yes, it is I who invite you, and we shall have a
quiet private room. After that we will smoke at my place.

Plauchut would not be able to go to you. He was invited to the
prince's.

A word if it is NO. Nothing if it is yes. So I don't want you to
write to me. I saw Tourgueneff and I told him all that I think of
him. He was as surprised as a child. We spoke ill of you.

Wednesday evening.



CXLVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The 5th or the 6th February, 1870

(On the back of a letter from Edme Simonnet)

I don't see you, you come to the Odeon and when they tell me that
you are there, I hurry and don't find you. Do set a day then when
you will come to eat a chop with me. Your old exhausted troubadour
who loves you.



CXLIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 15 February, 1870

My troubadour, we are two old rattle traps. As for me, I have had a
bad attack of bronchitis and I am just out of bed. Now I am
recovered but not yet out of my room. I hope to resume my work at
the Odeon in a couple of days.

Do get well, don't go out, at least unless the thaw is not very bad.
My play is for the 22d. [Footnote: This refers to L'Autre.] I hope
very much to see you on that day. And meanwhile, I kiss you and I
love you,

G. Sand

Tuesday evening



CL. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Sunday evening, 20th February, 1870

I went out today for the first time, I am better without being well.
I am anxious at not having news about that reading of the fairy
play. Are you satisfied? Did they understand? L'Autre will take
place on Thursday, or Friday at the latest.

Will your nephew and niece go to the gallery or the balcony seats?
Impossible to have a box. If yes, a word and I will send these seats
out of my allotment--which, as usual, will not be grand.

Your old troubadour.



CLI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, February, 1870

It is for Friday. Then I am disposing of the two seats that I
intended for your niece.

If you have a moment free, and come to the Odeon that night, you
will find me in the manager's box, proscenium, ground floor. I am
heavy-hearted about all you tell me. Here you are again in gloom,
sorrow and chagrin. Poor dear friend! Let us continue to hope that
you will save your patient, but you are ill too, and I am very
anxious about you, I was quite overwhelmed by it this evening, when
I got your note, and I have no more heart for anything.

A word when you can, to give me news.

G. Sand



CLII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 2d March, 1870

Poor dear friend, your troubles distress me, you have too many blows
in quick succession, and I am going away Saturday morning leaving
you in the midst of all these sorrows! Do you want to come to Nohant
with me, for a change of air, even if only for two or three days? I
have a compartment, we should be alone and my carriage is waiting
for me at Chateauroux.  You could be sad without constraint at our
house, we also have mourning in the family. A change of lodging, of
faces, of habits, sometimes does physical good. One does not forget
one's sorrow, but one forces one's body to endure it.

I embrace you with all my soul. A word and I expect you. Wednesday
evening.



CLIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 11 March, 1870

How are you, my poor child? I am glad to be here in the midst of my
darling family, but I am unhappy all the same at having left you
melancholy, ill and upset. Send me news, a word at least, and be
assured that we all are unhappy over your troubles and sufferings.

G. Sand



CLIV. TO GEORGE SAND
17 March, 1870

Dear master,

I received a telegram yesterday evening from Madame Cornu containing
these words: "Come to me, urgent business." I therefore hurried to
her today, and here is the story.

The Empress maintains that you made some very unkind allusions to
her in the last number of the Revue! "What about me, whom all the
world is attacking now! I should not have believed that! and I
wanted to have her nominated for the Academy! But what have I done
to her? etc., etc."  In short, she is distressed, and the Emperor
too! He is not indignant  but prostrated (sic). [Footnote: Malgre
tout, Calmann-Levy, 1870.]

Madame Cornu explained to her that she was mistaken and that you had
not intended to make any allusion to her.

Hereupon a theory of the manner in which novels are written.

--Oh well, then, let her write in the papers that she did not intend
to wound me.

--But she will not do that, I answered.

--Write to her to tell you so.

--I will not allow myself to take that step.

--But I would like to know the truth, however! Do you know someone
who...then Madame Cornu mentioned me.

--Oh, don't say that I spoke to you of it!

Such is the dialogue that Madame Cornu reported to me.

She wants you to write me a letter in which you tell me that the
Empress was not used by you as a model. I shall send that letter to
Madame Cornu who will have it given to the Empress.

I think that story stupid and those people are very sensitive! Much
worse things than that are told to us.

Now dear master of the good God, you must do exactly what you
please.

The Empress has always been very kind to me and I should not be
sorry to do her a favor. I have read the famous passage.  I see
nothing in it to hurt her. But women's brains are so queer!

I am very tired in mine (my brain) or rather it is very low for the
moment! However hard I work, it doesn't go! Everything irritates me
and hurts me; and since I restrain myself before people, I give way
from time to time to floods of tears when it seems to me as if I
should burst. At last I am experiencing an entirely new sensation:
the approach of old age. The shadow invades me, as Victor Hugo would
say.

Madame Cornu has spoken to me enthusiastically of a letter you wrote
her on a method of teaching.



CLV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 17 March, 1870

I won't have it, you are not getting old. Not in the crabbed and
MISANTHROPIC sense. On the contrary, when one is good, one becomes
better, and, as you are already better than most others, you ought
to become exquisite.

You are boasting, moreover, when you undertake to be angry against
everyone and everything. You could not. You are weak before sorrow,
like all affectionate people. The strong are those who do not love.
You will never be strong, and that is so much the better. You must
not live alone any more; when strength returns you must really live
and not shut it up for yourself alone.

For my part, I am hoping that you will be reborn with the
springtime. Today we have rain which relaxes, tomorrow we shall have
the animating sun. We are all just getting over illnesses, our
children had very bad colds, Maurice quite upset by lameness with a
cold, I taken again by chills and anemia: I am very patient and I
prevent the others as much as I can from being impatient, there is
everything in that; impatience with evil always doubles the evil.
When shall we be WISE as the ancients understood it? That, in
substance, meant being PATIENT, nothing else. Come, dear troubadour,
you must be a little patient, to begin with, and then you can get
accustomed to it; if we do not work on ourselves, how can we hope to
be always in shape to work on others?

Well, in the midst of all that, don't forget that we love you and
that the hurt you give yourself hurts us too.

I shall go to see you and to shake you as soon as I have regained my
feet and my will, which are both backward; I am  waiting, I know
that they will return.

Affectionate greetings from all our invalids. Punch has lost only
his fiddle and he is still smiling and well gilded. Lolo's baby has
had misfortunes, but its clothes dress other dolls.  As for me, I
can flap only one wing, but I kiss you and I love you.

G. Sand



CLVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 19 March, 1870

I know, my friend, that you are very devoted to her. I know that she
[Footnote: Letter written about the rumour current, that George Sand
had meant to depict the Empress in one of the chief characters of
her novel, Malgre tout; the letter was sent by Flaubert to Madame
Cornu, god-child of Queen Hortense, and foster-sister of Napoleon
III.] is very kind to unfortunates who have been recommended to her;
that is all that I know of her private life. I have never had any
revelation nor document about her, NOT A WORD, NOT A DEED, which
would authorize me to depict her. So I have drawn only a figure of
fancy, I swear it, and those who pretended to recognize her in a
satire would be, in any case, bad servants and bad friends.

But I don't write satires: I am ignorant even of the meaning of the
word. I don't write PORTRAITS either; it is not my style. I invent.
The public, who does not know in what invention consists, thinks it
sees everywhere models. It is mistaken and it degrades art.

This is my SINCERE answer, I have only enough time to mail it.

G. Sand



CLVII. To MADAME HORTENSE CORNU

Your devotion was alarmed wrongly, dear madame, I was sure of it!
Here is the answer that came to me by return mail.

People in society, I reiterate, see allusions where there are none.
When I did Madame Bovary I was asked many times: "Is it Madame X.
whom you meant to depict?" and I received letters from perfectly
unknown people, among others one from a gentleman in Rheims who
congratulated me on HAVING AVENGED HIM! (against a faithless one).

Every pharmacist in Seine-Inferieure recognizing himself in Homais,
wanted to come to my house to box my ears. But the best (I
discovered it five years later) is that there was then in Africa the
wife of an army doctor named Madame Bovaries who was like Madame
Bovary, a name I had invented by altering that of Bouvaret.

The first sentence of our friend Maury in talking to me about
l'Education sentimentale was this: "Did you know X, an Italian, a
professor of mathematics? Your Senecal is his physical and moral
portrait! Everything is exact even to the cut of his hair!"

Others assert that I meant to depict in Arnoux, Bernard Latte (the
former editor), whom I have never seen, etc., etc.

All that is to tell you, dear madame, that the public is mistaken in
attributing to us intentions which we do not have.

I was very sure that Madame Sand had not intended to make any
portrait; (1) because of her loftiness of mind, her taste, her
reverence for art, and (2) because of her character, her feeling for
the conventions--and also FOR JUSTICE.
I even think, between ourselves, that this accusation has hurt her a
little. The papers roll us in the dirt every day without our ever
answering them, we whose business it is, however, to wield the pen,
and they think that in order to MAKE AN EFFECT, to be applauded, we
are going to attack such and such a one.

Oh! no! not so humble! our ambition is higher, and our courtesy
greater.--When one thinks highly of one's mind one does not choose
the necessary means to please the crowd. You understand me, don't
you?

But enough of this. I shall come to see you one of these days.
Looking forward to that with pleasure, dear madame, I kiss your
hands and am entirely yours,

Gustave Flaubert

Sunday evening.



CLVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
March, 1870

Dear master,

I have just sent your letter (for which I thank you) to Madame
Cornu, enclosing it in a letter from your troubadour, in which I
permitted myself to give bluntly my conception of things.

The two letters will be placed under the eyes of the LADY and will
teach her a little about aesthetics.

I saw l'Autre last evening, and I wept several times. It did me
good, really! How tender and exalting it is! What a charming work
and how they love the author! I missed you. I wanted to give you a
kiss like a little child. My oppressed heart is easier, thank you. I
think that it will get better! There were a lot of people there.
Berton and his son were recalled twice.



CLIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 3 April, 1870

Your old troubadour has passed through cruel anguish, Maurice has
been seriously, dangerously ill.[Footnote: With diptheria.] Favre,
MY OWN doctor, the only one in whom I have confidence, hastened to
us in time. After that Lolo had violent attacks of fever, other
terrors! At last our savior went off this morning leaving us almost
tranquil and our invalids went out to walk in the garden for the
first time.--But they still want a great deal of care and oversight,
and I shall not leave them for two or three weeks. If then you are
awaiting me in Paris, and the sun calls you elsewhere, have no
regret about it. I shall try to go to see you in Croisset from Paris
between the dawn and the dusk sometime.

At least tell me how you are, what you are doing, if you are on your
feet in every way.

My invalids and my well ones send you their affectionate regards,
and I kiss you as I love you; it is not little.

G. Sand

My friend Favre has quite a FANCY for you and wants to know you. He
is not a physician who seeks practice, he only practices for his
friends, and he is offended if they want to pay him. YOUR
PERSONALITY interests him, that is all, and I have promised to
present him to you, if you are willing. He is something more than a
physician, I don't know what exactly, A SEEKER--after what?--
EVERYTHING. He is amusing, original and interesting to the utmost
degree. You must tell me if you want to see him, otherwise I shall
manage for him not to think of it any more. Answer about this
matter.



CLX. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday morning, 11 o'clock

I felt that something unpleasant had happened to you, because I had
just written to you for news when your letter was brought to me this
morning. I fished mine back from the porter; here is a second one.

Poor dear master! How uneasy you must have been and Madame Maurice
also. You do not tell me what he had (Maurice). In a few days before
the end of the week, write to confirm to me that everything has
turned out well. The trouble lies, I think, with the abominable
winter from which we are emerging! One hears of nothing but
illnesses and funerals! My poor servant is still at the Dubois
hospital, and I am distressed when I go to see him. For two months
now he has been confined to his bed suffering horribly.

As for me, I am better. I have read prodigiously. I have overworked,
but now I am almost on my feet again. The mass of gloom that I have
in the depths of my heart is a little larger, that is all. But, in a
little while, I hope that it will not be noticed. I spend my days in
the library of the Institute. The Arsenal library lends me books
that I read in the evening, and I begin again the next day. I shall
return home to Croisset the first of May. But I shall see you before
then. Everything will get right again with the sun.

The lovely lady in question made to me, for you, the most proper
excuses, asserting to me that "she never had any intention  of
insulting genius."

Certainly, I shall be glad to meet M. Favre; since he is a friend of
yours I shall like him.



CLXI. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday morning

Dear master,

It is not staying in Paris that wears me out, but the series of
misfortunes that I have had during the last eight months! I am not
working too much, for what would become of me without  work?
However, it is very hard for me to be reasonable. I am overwhelmed
by a black melancholy, which returns a propos of everything and
nothing, many times a day. Then, it passes and it begins again.
Perhaps it is because it is too long since I have written anything.
Nervous reservoirs are exhausted. As soon as I am at Croisset, I
shall begin the article about my poor Bouilhet, a painful and sad
task which I am in a hurry to finish, so as to set to work at Saint-
Antoine. As that is an extravagant subject, I hope it will divert
me.

I have seen your physician, M. Favre, who seemed to me very strange
and a little mad, between ourselves. He ought to like me for I let
him talk all the time. There are high lights in his talk, things
which sparkle for a moment, then one sees not a ray.



CLXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, Thursday

M. X.----sent me news of you on Saturday: so now I know that
everything is going well with you, and that you have no more
uneasiness, dear master. But you, personally, how are you? The two
weeks are almost up, and I do not see you coming.

My mood continues not to be sportive. I am still given up to
abominable readings, but it is time that I stopped for I am
beginning to be disgusted with my subject.

Are you reading Taine's powerful book? I have gobbled it down, the
first volume with infinite pleasure. In fifty years perhaps that
will be the philosophy that will be taught in the colleges.

And the preface to the Idees de M. Aubray?

How I long to see you and to jabber with you!



CLXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 16 April, 1870

What ought I to say to Levy so that he will take the first steps?
Tell me again how things are, for my memory is poor. You had sold
him one volume for ten thousand;--there are two, he himself told me
that that would be twenty thousand. What has he paid you up to now?
What words did you exchange at the time of this payment?

Answer, and I act.

Things are going better and better here, the little ones well again,
Maurice recovering nicely, I tired from having watched so much and
from watching yet, for he has to drink and wash out his mouth during
the night, and I am the only one in the house who has the faculty of
keeping awake. But I am not ill, and I work a little now and then
while loafing about. As soon as I can leave, I shall go to Paris. If
you are still there, it will be A PIECE OF GOOD LUCK, but I do not
dare to wish you to prolong your slavery there, for I can see that
you are still ill and that you are working too hard.

Croisset will cure you if you consent to take care of yourself.

I embrace you tenderly for myself and for all the family which
adores you.

G. Sand



CLXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 20 May, 1870

It is a very long time since I have had news of my old troubadour.
You must be in Croisset. If it is as warm there as it is here, you
must be suffering; here it is 34 degrees in the shade, and in the
night, 24. Maurice has had a bad relapse of sore throat, without
membranes this time, and without danger. But the inflammation was so
bad that for three days he could hardly swallow even a little water
and wine. Bouillon did not go down. At last this excessive heat has
cured him, it suits us all here, for Lina went to Paris this morning
vigorous and strong. Maurice gardens all day. The children are gay
and get prettier while you look at them. As for me, I am not
accomplishing anything; I have too much to do taking care of and
watching my boy, and now that the little mother is away, the little
children absorb me. I work, however, planning and dreaming. That
will be so much done when I can scribble.

I am still ON MY FEET, as Doctor Favre says. No old age yet, or
rather normal old age, the calmness ... OF VIRTUE, that thing that
people ridicule, and that I mention in mockery, but that corresponds
by an emphatic and silly word, to a condition of forced
inoffensiveness, without merit in consequence, but agreeable and
good to experience. It is a question of rendering it useful to art
when one believes in that, to the family and to friendship when one
cares for that; I don't dare to say how very simple and primitive I
am in this respect. It is the fashion to ridicule it, but let them.
I do not want to change.

There is my SPRING examination of my conscience, so as not to think
all summer about anything except what is not myself.

Come, you, your health first? And this sadness, this discontent that
Paris has left with you, is it forgotten? Are there no longer any
painful external circumstances? You have been too much shaken also.
Two of your dearest friends gone one after the other. There are
periods in life when destiny is ferocious to us. You are too young
to concentrate on the idea of REGAINING your affections in a better
world, or in this world made better. So you must, at your age (and
at mine I still try to), become more attached to what remains. You
wrote that to me when I lost Rollinat, my double in this life, the
veritable friend whose feeling for the differences between the sexes
had never hurt our pure affection, even when we were young. He was
my Bouilhet and more than that; for to my heart's intimacy was
joined a religious reverence for a real type of moral courage, which
had undergone all trials with a sublime SWEETNESS. I have OWED him
everything that is good in me, I am trying to keep it for love of
him. Is there not a heritage that our beloved dead leave us?

The despair that would make us abandon ourselves would be a treason
to them and an ingratitude. Tell me that you are calm and soothed,
that you are not working too much and that you are working well. I
am not without some anxiety because I have not had a letter from you
for a long time. I did not want to ask for one till I could tell you
that Maurice was quite well again; he embraces you, and the children
do not forget you. As for me, I love you.

G. Sand



CLXV. TO GEORGE SAND

No, dear master! I am not ill, but I have been busy with moving from
Paris and with getting settled in Croisset. Then my mother has been
very much indisposed. She is well now; then I have had to set in
order the rest of my poor Bouilhet's papers, on whom I have begun
the article. I wrote this week nearly six pages, which was very good
for me; this work is very painful in every way. The difficulty is in
knowing what not to say. I shall console myself a little in blurting
out two or three dogmatic opinions on the art of writing. It will be
an opportunity to express what I think; a sweet thing and one I am
always deprived of.

You say very lovely and also good things to me to restore my
courage. I have hardly any, but I am acting as if I had, which
perhaps comes to the same thing.

I feel no longer the need of writing, for I used to write especially
for one person alone, who is no more. That is the truth! And yet I
shall continue to write. But I have no more liking for it; the
fascination is gone. There are so few people who like what I like,
who are anxious about what I am interested in! Do you know in this
Paris, which is so large, one SINGLE house where they talk about
literature? And when it happens to be touched on incidentally, it is
always on its subordinate and external sides, such as the question
of success, of morality, of utility, of its timeliness, etc. It
seems to me that I am becoming a fossil, a being unrelated to the
surrounding world.

I would not ask anything better than to cast myself on some new
affection. But how? Almost all my old friends are married officials,
thinking of their little business the entire year, of the hunt
during vacation and of whist after dinner. I don't know one of them
who would be capable of passing an afternoon with me reading a poet.
They have their business; I, I have none. Observe that I am in the
same social position that I was at eighteen. My niece whom I love as
my daughter, does not live with me, and my poor good simple mother
has become so old that all conversation with her (except about her
health) is impossible. All that makes an existence which is not
diverting.

As for the ladies, "my little locality" furnishes none of them, and
then,--even so! I have nevver been able to put Venus an Apollo in
the same coop. It is one or the other, being a man of excess, a
gentleman entirely given over to what he does.

I repeat to myself the phrase of Goethe: "Go forward beyond the
tombs," and I hope to get used to the emptiness, but nothing more.

The more I know you, yourself, the more I admire you; how strong you
are!

Aside from a little Spinoza and Plutarch, I have read nothing since
my return, as I am quite occupied by my present work. It is a task
that will take me up to the end of July. I am in a hurry to be
through with it, so as to abandon myself to the extravagances of the
good Saint-Antoine, but I am afraid of not being SUFFICIENTLY IN THE
MOOD.

That is a charming story, Mademoiselle Hauterive, isn't it? This
suicide of lovers to escape misery ought to inspire fine moral
phrases from Prudhomme. As for me, I understand it. What they did is
not American, but how Latin and antique it is! They were not strong,
but perhaps very sensitive.



CLXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
Sunday, 26 June, 1870

You forget your troubadour who has just buried another friend! From
the seven that we used to be at the beginning of the dinners at
Magny's, we are only three now! I am gorged with coffins like an old
cemetery! I am having enough of them, frankly.

And in the midst of all that I keep on working! I finished
yesterday, such as it is, the article on my poor Bouilhet. I am
going to see if there is not some way of reviving one of his
comedies in prose. After that I shall set to work on Saint-Antoine.

And you, dear master, what is happening to you and all your family?
My niece is in the Pyrenees, and I am living alone with my mother,
who is becoming deafer and deafer, so that my existence lacks
diversion absolutely. I should like to go to sleep on a warm beach.
But for that I lack time and money. So I must push on my scratches
and grub as hard as possible.

I shall go to Paris at the beginning of August. Then I shall spend
all the month of October there for the rehearsals of Aisse. My
vacation will be confined to a week spent in Dieppe towards the end
of August. There are my plans.

It was distressing, the funeral of Jules Goncourt. Theo wept buckets
full.



CLXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 27 June, 1870

Another grief for you, my poor old friend. I too have a great one, I
mourn for Barbes, one of my religions, one of those beings who make
one reconciled with humanity. As for you, you miss poor Jules
[Footnote: De Goncourt.] and you pity the unhappy Edmond. You are
perhaps in Paris, so as to try to console him. I have just written
him, and I feel that you are struck again in your affections. What
an age! Every one is dying, everything is dying, and the earth is
dying also, eaten up by the sun and the wind. I don't know where I
get the courage to keep on living in the midst of these ruins. Let
us love each other to the end. You write me very little, I am
worried about you.

G. Sand



CLXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday evening, 2 July, 1870

Dear good master,

Barbes' death has saddened me because of you. We, both of us, have
our mourning. What a succession of deaths during a year! I am as
dazed by them as if I had been hit on the head with a stick. What
troubles me (for we refer everything to ourselves), is the terrible
solitude in which I live. I have no longer anyone, I mean anyone
with whom to converse, "who is interested today in eloquence and
style."

Aside from you and Tourgueneff, I don't know a living being to whom
to pour out my soul about those things which I have most at heart;
and you live far away from me, both of you!

However, I continue to write. I have resolved to start at my Saint-
Antoine tomorrow or the day after. But to begin a protracted effort
I need a certain lightness which I lack just now. I hope, however,
that this extravagant work is going to get hold of me. Oh! how I
would like not to think any more of my poor Moi, of my miserable
carcass! It is getting on very well, my carcass. I sleep
tremendously! "The coffer is good," as the bourgeois say.

I have read lately some amazing theological things, which I have
intermingled with a little of Plutarch and Spinoza. I have nothing
more to say to you.

Poor Edmond de Goncourt is in Champagne at his relatives'. He has
promised to come here the end of this month. I don't think that the
hope of seeing his brother again in a better world consoles him for
having lost him in this one.

One juggles with empty words on this question of immortality, for
the question is to know if the moi persists. The affirmative seems
to me a presumption of our pride, a protest of our weakness against
the eternal order. Has death perhaps no more secrets to reveal to us
than life has?

What a year of evil! I feel as if I were lost in the desert, and I
assure you, dear master, that I am brave, however, and that I am
making prodigious efforts to be stoical. But my poor brain is
enfeebled at moments. I need only one thing (and that is not given
me), it is to have some kind of enthusiasm!

Your last letter but one was very sad. You also, heroic being, you
feel worn out! What then will become of us!

I have just reread the conversations between Goethe and Eckermann.
There was a man, that Goethe! But then he had everything on his
side, that man.



CLXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 29 June, 1870

Our letters are always crossing, and I have now the feeling that if
I write to you in the evening I shall receive a letter from you the
next morning; we could say to each other:

"You appeared to me in my sleep, looking a little sad."

What preoccupies me most about poor Jules' (de Goncourt) death, is
the survivor. I am sure that the dead are well off, that perhaps
they are resting before living again, and that in all cases they
fall back into the crucible so as to reappear with what good they
previously had and more besides. Barbes only suffered all his life.
There he is now, sleeping deeply. Soon he will awaken; but we, poor
beasts of survivors, we see them no longer. A little while before he
died, Duveyrier, who seemed to have recovered, said to me: "Which
one of us will go first?" We were exactly the same age. He
complained that those who went first could not let those who were
left know that they were happy, and that they remembered their
friends. I said, WHO KNOWS? Then we promised each other that the
first one to die should appear to the survivor, and should at least
try to speak to him.

He did not come, I have waited for him, he has said nothing to me.
He had one of the tenderest hearts, and a sincere good will. He was
not able to; it was not permitted, or perhaps, it was I; I did not
hear or understand.

It is, I say, this poor Edmond who is on my mind. That life lived
together, quite ended. I cannot think why the bond was broken,
unless he too believes that one does not really die.

I would indeed like to go to see you; apparently you have COOL
WEATHER in Croisset since you want to sleep ON A WARM BEACH. Come
here, you will not have a beach, but 36 degrees in the shade and a
stream cold as ice, is not to be despised. I go there to dabble in
it every day after my work; for I must work, Buloz advances me too
much money. Here I am DOING MY BUSINESS, as Aurore says, and not
being able to budge till autumn. I was too lazy after my fatigues as
sick-nurse. Little Buloz recently came to stir me up again. Now here
I am hard at it.

Since you are to be in Paris in August, you must come to spend
several days with us. You did laugh here anyhow; we will try to
distract you and to shake you up a bit. You will see the little
girls grown and prettier; the little one is beginning to talk.
Aurore chatters and argues. She calls Plauchut, OLD BACHELOR. And a
propos, accept the best regards of that fine and splendid boy along
with all the affectionate greetings of the family.

As for me, I embrace you tenderly and beg you to keep well.

G. Sand



CLXX. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Wednesday evening...1870

What has become of you, dear master, of you and yours? As for me, I
am disheartened, distressed by the folly of my compatriots. The
hopeless barbarism of humanity fills me with a black melancholy.
That enthusiasm which has no intelligent motive makes me want to
die, so as not to see it any longer.

The good Frenchman wants to fight: (1) because he thinks he is
provoked to it by Prussia; (2) because the natural condition of man
is savagery; (3) because war in itself contains a mystic element
which enraptures crowds.

Have we returned to the wars of races? I fear so. The terrible
butchery which is being prepared has not even a pretext. It is the
desire to fight for the sake of fighting.

I bewail the destroyed bridges, the staved-in tunnels, all this
human labor lost, in short a negation so radical.

The Congress of Peace is wrong at present. Civilization seems to me
far off. Hobbes was right: Homo homini lupus.

I have begun Saint-Antoine, and it would go perhaps rather well, if
I did not think of the war. And you?

The bourgeois here cannot contain himself. He thinks Prussia was too
insolent and wants to "avenge himself." Did you see that a gentleman
has proposed in the Chamber the pillage of the duchy of Baden! Ah!
why can't I live among the Bedouins!



CLXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 26 July, 1870

I think this war is infamous; that authorized Marseillaise, a
sacrilege. Men are ferocious and conceited brutes; we are in the
HALF AS MUCH of Pascal; when will come the MORE THAN EVER!

It is between 40 and 45 degrees IN THE SHADE here. They are burning
the forests; another barbarous stupidity! The wolves come and walk
into our court, and we chase them away at night, Maurice with a
revolver and I with a lantern. The trees are losing their leaves and
perhaps their lives. Water for drinking is becoming scarce; the
harvests are almost nothing; but we have war, what luck!

Farming is going to nought, famine threatens, poverty is lurking
about while waiting to transform itself into Jacquerie; but we shall
fight with the Prussians. Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre!

You said rightly that in order to work, a certain lightness was
needed; where is it to be found in these accursed times?

Happily, we have no one ill at our house. When I see Maurice and
Lina acting, Aurore and Gabrielle playing, I do not dare to complain
for fear of losing all.

I love you, my dear old friend, we all love you.

Your troubadour,

G. Sand



CLXXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Wednesday, 3 August, 1870

What! dear master, you too are demoralized, sad? What will become of
the weak souls?

As for me, my heart is oppressed in a way that astonishes me, and I
wallow in a bottomless melancholy, in spite of work, in spite of the
good Saint-Antoine who ought to distract me. Is it the consequence
of my repeated afflictions? Perhaps. But the war is a good deal
responsible for it. I think that we are getting into the dark.

Behold then, the NATURAL MAN. Make theories now! Boast the progress,
the enlightenment and the good sense of the masses, and the
gentleness of the French people! I assure you that anyone here who
ventured to preach peace would get himself murdered. Whatever
happens, we have been set back for a long time to come.

Are the wars between races perhaps going to begin again? One will
see, before a century passes, several millions of men kill one
another in one engagement. All the East against all Europe, the old
world against the new! Why not? Great united works like the Suez
Canal are, perhaps, under another form, outlines and preparations
for these monstrous conflicts of which we have no idea.

Is Prussia perhaps going to have a great drubbing which entered into
the schemes of Providence for reestablishing European equilibrium?
That country was tending to be hypertrophied like France under Louis
XIV and Napoleon. The other organs are inconvenienced by it. Thence
universal trouble. Would formidable bleedings be useful?

Ah! we intellectuals! Humanity is far from our ideal! and our
immense error, our fatal error, is to think it like us and to want
to treat it accordingly.

The reverence, the fetichism, that they have for universal suffrage
revolts me more than the infallibility of the pope (which has just
delightfully missed its point, by the way). Do you think that if
France, instead of being governed on the whole by the crowd, were in
the power of the mandarins, we should be where we are now? If,
instead of having wished to enlighten the lower classes, we had
busied ourselves with instructing the higher, we should not have
seen M. de Keratry proposing the pillage of the duchy of Baden, a
measure that the public finds very proper!

Are you studying Prudhomme now? He is gigantic! He admires Musset's
Rhin, and asks if Musset has done anything else. Here you have
Musset accepted as the national poet and ousting Beranger! What
immense buffoonery is...everything! But a not at all gay buffoonery.

Misery is very evident. Everyone is in want, beginning with myself!
But perhaps we were too accustomed to comfort and tranquillity. We
buried ourselves in material things. We must return to the great
tradition, hold no longer to life, to happiness, to money nor to
anything; be what our grandfathers were, light, effervescing people.

Once men passed their life in starving. The same prospect is on the
horizon. What you tell me about poor Nohant is terrible. The country
has suffered less here than with you.



CLXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset.
Nohant, 8 August, 1870

Are you in Paris in the midst of all this torment? What a lesson the
people are getting who want absolute masters! France and Prussia are
cutting each other's throats for reasons that they don't understand!
Here we are in the midst of great disasters, and what tears at the
end of it all, even should we be the victors! One sees nothing but
poor peasants mourning for their children who are leaving.

The mobilization takes away those who were left with us and how they
are being treated to begin with! What disorder, what disarray in
that military administration, which absorbed everything and had to
swallow up everything! Is this horrible experience going to prove to
the world that warfare ought to be suppressed or that civilization
has to perish?

We have reached the point this evening of knowing that we are
beaten. Perhaps tomorrow we shall know that we have beaten, and what
will there be good or useful from one or the other?

It has rained here at last, a horrible storm which destroyed
everything.

The peasant is working and ploughing his fields; digging hard
always, sad or gay. He is imbecile, people say; no, he is a child in
prosperity, a man in disaster, more of a man than we who complain;
he says nothing, and while people are killing, he is sowing,
repairing continually on one side what they are destroying from the
other. We are going to try to do as he, and to hunt a bubbling
spring fifty or a hundred yards below ground. The engineer is here,
and Maurice is explaining to him the geology of the soil.

We are trying to dig into the bowels of the earth to forget all that
is going on above it. But we cannot distract ourselves from this
terror!

Write me where you are; I am sending this to you on the day agreed
upon to rue Murillo. We love you, and we all embrace you.

G. Sand

Nohant, Sunday evening.



CLXXIV. TO GEORGE SAND.
Croisset, Wednesday, 1870

I got to Paris on Monday, and I left it again on Wednesday. Now I
know the Parisian to the very bottom, and I have excused in my heart
those most ferocious politics of 1793. Now, I understand them! What
imbecility! what ignorance! what presumption! My compatriots make me
want to vomit. They are fit to be put in the same sack with Isidore!

This people deserves to be chastised, and I fear that it will be.

It is impossible for me to read anything whatever, still more so to
write anything. I spend my time like everyone else in waiting for
news. Ah! if I did not have my mother, I would already be gone!



CLXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset.
Nohant, 15 August, 1870

I wrote to you to Paris according to your instructions the 8th.
Weren't you there then? Probably so: in the midst of all this
confusion, to publish Bouilhet, a poet! this is not the moment. As
for me, my courage is weak. There is always a woman under the skin
of the old troubadour. This human butchery tears my poor heart to
pieces. I tremble too for all my children and friends, who perhaps
are to be hacked to pieces.

And YET, in the midst of all that, my soul exults and has ecstasies
of faith; these terrific lessons which are necessary for us to
understand our imbecility, must be of use to us. We are perhaps
making our last return to the ways of the old world. There are sharp
and clear principles for everyone today that ought to extricate them
from this torment. Nothing is useless in the material order of the
universe. The moral order cannot escape the law. Bad engenders good.
I tell you that we are in the HALF AS MUCH of Pascal, so as to get
TO THE MORE THAN EVER! That is all the mathematics that I
understand.

I have finished a novel in the midst of this torment, hurrying up so
as not to be worn out before the end. I am as tired as if I had
fought with our poor soldiers.

I embrace you. Tell me where you are, what you are thinking.

We all love you.

What a fine St. Napoleon we have!

G. Sand



CLXXVI. TO GEORGE SAND.
Saturday, 1870

Dear master,

Here we are in the depths of the abyss! A shameful peace will
perhaps not be accepted! The Prussians intend to destroy Paris! That
is their dream.

I don't think the siege of Paris is very imminent. But in order to
force Paris to yield, they are going to (1) terrify her by the sight
of cannon, and (2) ravage the surrounding country.

We expect the visit of these gentlemen at Rouen, and as I have been
(since Sunday) lieutenant of my company, I drill my men and I am
going to Rouen to take lessons in military tactics.

The most deplorable thing is that opinions are divided, some for
defence to the utmost, and others for peace at any price.

I AM DYING OF HUMILIATION. What a house mine is! Fourteen persons
who sigh and unnerve me! I curse women! It is because of them that
we perish.

I expect that Paris will have the fate of Warsaw, and you distress
me, you with your enthusiasm for the Republic. At the moment when we
are overcome by the plainest positivism, how can you still believe
in phantoms? Whatever happens, the people who are now in power will
be sacrificed, and the Republic will follow their fate. Observe that
I defend that poor Republic; but I do not believe in it.

That is all that I have to say to you. Now I should have many more
things to say, but my head is not clear. It is as if cataracts,
floods, oceans of sadness, were breaking over me. It is not possible
to suffer more. Sometimes I am afraid of going mad. The face of my
mother, when I turn my eyes toward her, takes away all my strength.

This is where our passion for not wanting to see the truth has taken
us! Love of pretence and of flap-doodle. We are going to become a
Poland, then a Spain. Then it will be the turn of Prussia who will
be devoured by Russia.

As for me, I consider myself a man whose career is ended. My brain
is not going to recover. One can write no longer when one does not
think well of oneself. I demand only one thing, that is to die, so
to be at rest.



CLXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Sunday evening

I am still alive, dear master, but I am hardly any better, for I am
so sad! I didn't write you any sooner, for I was waiting, for news
from you. I didn't know where you were.

Here it is six weeks that we have been expecting the coming of the
Prussians from day to day. We strain our ears, thinking we can hear
the sound of the cannon from a distance. They are surrounding Seine-
Inferieure in a radius of from fourteen to twenty leagues. They are
even nearer, since they are occupying Vexin, which they have
completely destroyed. What horrors! It makes one blush for being a
man!

If we have had a success on the Loire, their appearance will be
delayed. But shall we have it? When the hope comes to me, I try to
repel it, and yet, in the very depths of myself, in spite of all, I
cannot keep myself from hoping a little, a very little bit.

I don't think that there is in all France a sadder man than I am!
(It all depends on the sensitiveness of people.) I am dying of
grief. That is the truth, and consolations irritate me. What
distresses me is: (1) the ferocity of men; (2) the conviction that
we are going to enter upon a stupid era. People will be utilitarian,
military, American and Catholic! Very Catholic! You will see! The
Prussian War ends the French Revolution and destroys it.

But supposing we were conquerors? you will say to me. That
hypothesis is contrary to all historical precedents. Where did you
ever see the south conquer the north, and the Catholics dominate the
Protestants? The Latin race is agonizing. France is going to follow
Spain and Italy, and boorishness (pignouflism) begins!

What a cataclysm! What a collapse! What misery! What abominations!
Can one believe in progress and in civilization in the face of all
that is going on? What use, pray, is science, since this people
abounding in scholars commits abominations worthy of the Huns and
worse than theirs, because they are systematic, cold-blooded,
voluntary, and have for an excuse, neither passion nor hunger?

Why do they abhor us so fiercely? Don't you feel overwhelmed by the
hatred of forty millions of men? This immense infernal chasm makes
me giddy.

Ready-made phrases are not wanting: France will rise again! One must
not despair! It is a salutary punishment! We were really too
immoral! etc. Oh! eternal poppycock! No! one does not recover from
such a blow! As for me, I feel myself struck to my very marrow!

If I were twenty years younger, I should perhaps not think all that,
and if I were twenty years older I should be resigned.

Poor Paris! I think it is heroic. But if we do find it again, it
will not be our Paris any more! All the friends that I had there are
dead or have disappeared. I have no longer any center. Literature
seems to me to be a vain and useless thing! Shall I ever be in a
condition to write again?

Oh! if I could flee into a country where one does not see uniforms,
where one does not hear the drum, where one does not talk of
massacres, where one is not obliged to be a citizen! But the earth
is no longer habitable for the poor mandarins.



CLXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday

I am sad no longer. I took up my Saint-Antoine yesterday. So much
the worse, one has to get accustomed to it! One must accustom
oneself to what is the natural condition of man, that is to say, to
evil.

The Greeks at the time of Pericles made art without knowing if they
should have anything to eat the next day. Let us be Greeks. I shall
confess to you, however, dear master, that I feel rather a savage.
The blood of my ancesters, the Natchez or the Hurons, boils in my
educated veins, and I seriously, like a beast, like an animal, want
to fight!

Explain that to me! The idea of making peace now exasperates me, and
I would rather that Paris were burned (like Moscow), than see the
Prussians enter it. But we have not gotten to that; I think the wind
is turning.

I have read some soldiers' letters, which are models. One can't
swallow up a country where people write like that. France is a
resourceful jade, and will be up again.

Whatever happens, another world is going to begin, and I feel that I
am very old to adapt myself to new customs.

Oh! how I miss you, how I want to see you!

We have decided here to all march on Paris if the compatriots of
Hegel lay siege to it. Try to get your Berrichons to buck up. Call
to them: "Come to help me prevent the enemy from drinking and eating
in a country which is foreign to them!"

The war (I hope) will make a home thrust at the "authorities."

The individual, disowned, overwhelmed by the modern world, will he
regain his importance? Let us hope so!



CLXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND.
Tuesday, 11 October, 1870

Dear master,

Are you still living? Where are you, Maurice, and the others?

I don't know how it is that I am not dead, I have suffered so
atrociously for six weeks.

My mother has fled to Rouen. My niece is in London. My brother is
busy with town affairs, and, as for me, I am alone here, eaten up
with impatience and chagrin! I assure you that I have wanted to do
right; what misery! I have had at my door today two hundred and
seventy-one poor people, and they were all given something. What
will this winter be?

The Prussians are now twelve hours from Rouen, and we have no
commands, no orders, no discipline, nothing, nothing! They hold out
false hopes to us continually with the army of the Loire. Where is
it? Do you know anything about it? What are they doing in the middle
of France? Paris will end by being starved, and no one is taking her
any aid!

The imbecilities of the Republic surpass those of the Empire. Are
they playing under all this some abominable comedy? Why such
inaction?

Ah! how sad I am. I feel that the world is going by.



CLXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset.
Le Chatre, 14 October, 1870

We are living at Le Chatre. Nohant is ravaged by smallpox with
complications, horrible. We had to take our little ones into the
Creuse, to friends who came to get us, and we spent three weeks
there, looking in vain for quarters where a family could stay for
three months. We were asked to go south and were offered
hospitality; but we did not want to leave the country where, from
one day to another, one can be useful, although one hardly knows yet
in what way to go at it.

So we have come back to the friends who lived the nearest to our
abandoned hearth; and we are awaiting events. To speak of all the
peril and trouble there is in establishing the Republic in the
interior of our provinces would be quite useless. There can be no
illusion: everything is at stake, and the end will perhaps be
ORLEANISM. But we are pushed into the unforeseen to such an extent
that it seems to me puerile to have anticipations; the thing to do
is to escape the next catastrophe.

Don't let's say that it is impossible; don't let's think it. Don't
let's despair about France. She is going through expiation for her
madness, she will be reborn no matter what happens. We shall perhaps
be carried away, the rest of us. To die of pneumonia or of a bullet
is dying just the same. Let's die without cursing our race!

We still love you, and we all embrace you.

G. Sand



CLXXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset.
Nohant, 4 February, 1871.

Don't you receive my letters, then? Write to me I beg you, one word
only: I AM WELL. We are so worried!

They are all well in Paris.

We embrace you.

G. Sand



CLXXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT.
Nohant, 22 February, 1871

I received your letter of the 15th this morning; what a cruel thorn
it takes from my heart! One gets frantic with anxiety now when one
does not receive answers. Let us hope that we can talk soon and tell
all about our ABSENCE from each other. I too have had the good
fortune not to lose any of my friends, young or old. That is all the
good one can say. I do not regret this Republic, it has been the
greatest failure of all! the most unfortunate for Paris, the most
unsuitable in the provinces. Besides, if I had loved it, I should
not regret anything; if only this odious war might end! We love you
and we embrace you affectionately. I shall not hurry to go to Paris.
It will be pestilential for some time to come.

Yours.



CLXXXIII. TO GEORGE SAND.
Dieppe, 11 March, 1871

When shall we meet? Paris does not seem amusing to me. Ah! into what
sort of a world are we going to enter! Paganism, Christianity,
idiotism, there are the three great evolutions of humanity! It is
sad to find ourselves at the beginning of the third.

I shall not tell you all I have suffered since September. Why didn't
I die from it? That is what surprises me! No one was more desperate
than I was. Why? I have had bad moments in my life, I have gone
through great losses. I have wept a great deal. I have undergone
much anguish. Well! all these pangs accumulated together, are
nothing in comparison to that. And I cannot get over them! I am not
consoled! I have no hope!

Yet I did not see myself as a progressivist and a humanitarian. That
doesn't matter. I had some illusions! What barbarity! What a slump!
I am wrathful at my contemporaries for having given me the feelings
of a brute of the twelfth century! I'M STIFLING IN GALL! These
officers who break mirrors with white gloves on, who know Sanskrit
and who fling themselves on the champagne, who steal your watch and
then send you their visiting card, this war for money, these
civilized savages give me more horror than cannibals. And all the
world is going to imitate them, is going to be a soldier! Russia has
now four millions of them. All Europe will wear a uniform. If we
take our revenge, it will be ultra-ferocious, and observe that one
is going to think only of that, of avenging oneself on Germany! The
government, whatever it is, can support itself only by speculating
on that passion. Wholesale murder is going to be the end of all our
efforts, the ideal of France!

I cherish the following dream: of going to live in the sun in a
tranquil country!

Let us look for new hypocrisies: declamations on virtue, diatribes
on corruption, austerity of habits, etc. Last degree of pedantry!

I have now at Croisset twelve Prussians. As soon as my poor dwelling
(of which I have a horror now) is emptied and cleaned, I shall
return there; then I shall go doubtless to Paris, despite its
unhealthfulness! But I don't care a hang for that.



CLXXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset.
Nohant, 17 March, 1871

I received your letter of the 11th yesterday.

We have all suffered in spirit more than at any other time of our
lives, and we shall always suffer from that wound. It is evident
that the savage instinct tends to take the upper hand; but I fear
something worse; it is the egoistic and cowardly instinct; it is the
ignoble corruption of false patriots, of ultra-republicans who cry
out for vengeance, and who hide themselves; a good pretext for the
bourgeois who want a STRONG reaction. I fear lest we shall not even
be vindictive,--all that bragging, coupled with poltroonery, will so
disgust us and so impel us to live from day to day as under the
Restoration, submitting to everything and only asking to be let
alone.

There will be an awakening later. I shall not be here then, and you,
you will be old! Go to live in the sun in a tranquil country! Where?
What country is going to be tranquil in this struggle of barbarity
against civilization, a struggle which is going to be universal? Is
not the sun itself a myth? Either he hides himself or he burns you
up, and it is thus with everything on this unhappy planet. Let us
love it just the same, and accustom ourselves to suffering on it.

I have written day by day my impressions and my reflections during
the crisis. The Revue des Deux Mondes is publishing this diary. If
you read it, you will see that everywhere life has been torn from
its very foundations, even in the country where the war has not
penetrated.

You will see too, that I have not swallowed, although very greedy,
party humbugs. But I don't know if you are of my opinion, that full
and entire liberty would save us from these disasters and restore us
to the path of possible progress again. The abuses of liberty give
me no anxiety of themselves; but those whom they frighten always
incline towards the abuse of power. Just now M. Thiers seems to
understand it; but can he and will he know how to preserve the
principle by which he has become the arbiter of this great problem?

Whatever happens, let us love each other, and do not keep me in
ignorance of what concerns you. My heart is full to bursting and the
remembrance of you eases it a little from its perpetual disquiet. I
am afraid lest these barbarous guests devastate Croisset; for they
continue in spite of peace to make themselves odious and disgusting
everywhere. Ah! how I should like to have five billions in order to
chase them away! I should not ask to get them back again.

Now, do come to us, we are so quiet here; materially, we have been
so always. We force ourselves to take up our work again, we resign
ourselves; what is there better to do? You are beloved here, we live
here in a continual state of loving one another; we are holding on
to our Lamberts, whom we shall keep as long as possible. All our
children have come out of the war safe and sound. You would live
here in peace and be able to work; for that must be, whether one is
in the mood or not! The season is going to be lovely. Paris will
calm itself during that time. You are looking for a peaceful spot.
It is under your nose, with hearts which love you!

I embrace you a thousand times for myself and for all my brood. The
little girls are splendid. The Lamberts' little boy is charming.



CLXXXV. TO GEORGE SAND.
Neuville near Dieppe, Friday, 31 March, 1871

Dear master,

Tomorrow, at last, I resign myself to re-enter Croisset! It is hard!
But I must! I am going to try to make up again my poor Saint-Antoine
and to forget France.

My mother stays here with her grandchild, till one knows where to go
without fear of the Prussians or of a riot.

Some days ago I went from here with Dumas to Brussels from where I
thought to go direct to Paris. But "the new Athens" seems to me to
surpass Dahomey in ferocity and imbecility. Has the end come to the
HUMBUGS? Will they have finished with hollow metaphysics and
conventional ideas? All the evil comes from our gigantic ignorance.
What ought to be studied is believed without discussion. Instead of
investigating, people make assertions.

The French Revolution must cease to be a dogma, and it must become
once more a part of science, like the rest of human things. If
people had known more, they would not have believed that a mystical
formula is capable of making armies, and that the word "Republic" is
enough to conquer a million of well disciplined men. They would have
left Badinguet on the throne EXPRESSLY to make peace, ready to put
him in the galleys afterward. If they had known more, they would
have known what the volunteers of '92 were and the retreat of
Brunswick gained by bribery through Danton and Westermann. But no!
always the same old story! always poppycock! There is now the
Commune of Paris which is returning to the real Middle Ages! That's
flat! The question of leases especially, is splendid! The government
interferes in natural rights now, it intervenes in contracts between
individuals. The Commune asserts that we do not owe what we owe, and
that one service is not paid for by another. It is an enormity of
absurdity and injustice.

Many conservatives who, from love of order, wanted to preserve the
Republic, are going to regret Badinguet and in their hearts recall
the Prussians. The people of the Hotel de Ville have changed the
object of our hatred. That is why I am angry with them. It seems to
me that we have never been lower.

We oscillate between the society of Saint-Vincent de Paul and the
International. But this latter commits too many imbecilities to have
a long life. I admit that it may overcome the troops at Versailles
and overturn the government, the Prussians will enter Paris, and
"order will reign" at Warsaw. If, on the contrary, it is conquered,
the reaction will be furious and all liberty will be strangled.

What can one say of the socialists who imitate the proceedings of
Badinguet and of William: requisitions, suppressions of newspapers,
executions without trial, etc.? Ah! what an immoral beast is the
crowd! and how humiliating it is to be a man!

I embrace you!



CLXXXVI. TO GEORGE SAND.
Croisset, Monday evening, two o'clock.

Dear master,

Why no letters? Haven't you received mine sent from Dieppe? Are you
ill? Are you still alive? What does it mean? I hope very much that
neither you (nor any of yours) are in Paris, capital of arts,
cornerstone of civilization, center of fine manners and of urbanity?

Do you know the worst of all that? IT IS THAT WE GET ACCUSTOMED TO
IT. Yes! one does. One becomes accustomed to getting along without
Paris, to worrying about it no longer, and almost to thinking that
it exists no longer.

As for me, I am not like the bourgeois; I consider that after the
invasion there are no more misfortunes. The war with Prussia gave me
the effect of a great upheaval of nature, one of those cataclysms
that happen every six thousand years; while the insurrection in
Paris is, to my eyes, a very clear and almost simple thing.

What retrogressions! What savages! How they resemble the people of
the League and the men in armor! Poor France, who will never free
herself from the Middle Ages! who labors along in the Gothic idea of
the Commune, which is nothing else than the Roman municipality. Oh!
I assure you that my heart is heavy over it!

And the little reaction that we are going to have after that? How
the good ecclesiastics are going to flourish again!

I have started at Saint-Antoine once more, and I am working
tremendously.



CLXXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset.
Nohant, 28 April, 1871

No, certainly I do not forget you! I am sad, sad, that is to say,
that I am stunned, that I watch the spring, that I am busy, that I
talk as if there were nothing; but I have not been able to be alone
an instant since that horrible occurrence without falling into a
bitter despair. I make great efforts to prevent it; I do not want to
be discouraged; I do not want to deny the past and dread the future;
but it is my will, it is my reason that struggles against a profound
impression unsurmountable up to the present moment.

That is why I did not want to write to you before feeling better,
not that I am ashamed to have crises of depression, but because I
did not want to increase your sadness already so profound, by adding
the weight of mine to it. For me, the ignoble experiment that Paris
is attempting or is undergoing, proves nothing against the laws of
the eternal progression of men and things, and, if I have gained any
principles in my mind, good or bad, they are neither shattered nor
changed by it. For a long time I have accepted patience as one
accepts the sort of weather there is, the length of winter, old age,
lack of success in all its forms. But I think that partisans
(sincere) ought to change their formulas or find out perhaps the
emptiness of every a priori formula.

It is not that which makes me sad. When a tree is dead, one should
plant two others. My unhappiness comes from pure weakness of heart
that I don't know how to overcome. I cannot sleep over the suffering
and even over the ignominy of others. I pity those who do the evil!
while I recognize that they are not at all interesting, their moral
state distresses me. One pities a little bird that has fallen from
its nest; why not pity a heap of consciences fallen in the mud? One
suffered less during the Prussian siege. One loved Paris unhappy in
spite of itself, one pities it so much the more now that one can no
longer love it. Those who never loved get satisfaction by mortally
hating it. What shall we answer? Perhaps we should not answer at
all. The scorn of France is perhaps the necessary punishment of the
remarkable cowardice with which the Parisians have submitted to the
riot and its adventurers. It is a consequence of the acceptance of
the adventurers of the Empire; other felons but the same cowardice.

But I did not want to talk to you of that, you ROAR about it enough
as it is! one ought to be distracted; for if one thinks too much
about it, one becomes separated from one's own limbs and lets
oneself undergo amputation with too much stoicism.

You don't tell me in what state you found your charming nest at
Croisset. The Prussians occupied it; did they ruin it, dirty it, rob
it? Your books, your bibelots, did you find them all? Did they
respect your name, your workshop? If you can work again there, peace
will come to your spirit. As for me, I am waiting till mine gets
well, and I know that I shall have to help myself to my own cure by
a certain faith often shaken, but of which I make a duty.

Tell me whether the tulip tree froze this winter, and if the poppies
are pretty.

I often take the journey in spirit; I see again your garden and its
surroundings. How far away that is! How many things have happened
since! One hardly knows whether one is a hundred years old or not!

My little girls bring me back to the notion of time; they are
growing, they are amusing and affectionate; it is through them and
the two beings who gave them to me that I feel myself still of the
world; it is through you too, dear friend, whose kind and loving
heart I always feel to be good and alive. How I should like to see
you! But I have no longer a way of going and coming.

We embrace you, all of us, and we love you.

G. Sand



CLXXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND

I am answering at once your questions that concern me personally.
No! the Prussians did not loot my house. They HOOKED some little
things of no importance, a dressing case, a bandbox, some pipes; but
on the whole they did no harm. As for my study, it was respected. I
had buried a large box full of letters and hidden my voluminous
notes on Saint-Antoine. I found all that intact.

The worst of the invasion for me is that it has aged my poor, dear,
old mother by ten years! What a change! She can no longer walk
alone, and is distressingly weak! How sad it is to see those whom
one loves deteriorate little by little!

In order to think no longer on the public miseries or on my own, I
have plunged again with fury into Saint-Antoine, and if nothing
disturbs me and I continue at this pace, I shall have finished it
next winter. I am very eager to read to you the sixty pages which
are done. When we can circulate about again on the railroad, do come
to see me for a little while. Your old troubadour has waited for you
for such a long time! Your letter of this morning has saddened me.
What a proud fellow you are and what immense courage you have!

I am not like a lot of people whom I hear bemoaning the war of
Paris. For my part, I find it more tolerable than the invasion,
there is no more despair possible, and that is what proves once more
our abasement. "Ah! God be thanked, the Prussians are there!" is the
universal cry of the bourgeois. I put messieurs the workmen into the
same pack, and would have them all thrust together into the river!
Moreover they are on the way there, and then calm will return. We
are going to become a great, flat industrial country like Belgium.
The disappearance of Paris (as center of the government) will render
France colorless and dull. She will no longer have a heart, a
center, nor, I think, a spirit.

As for the Commune, which is about to die out, it is the last
manifestation of the Middle Ages. The very last, let us hope!

I hate democracy (at least the kind that is understood in France),
that is to say, the exaltation of mercy to the detriment of justice,
the negation of right, in a word, antisociability.

The Commune rehabilitates murderers, quite as Jesus pardoned
thieves, and they pillage the residences of the rich, because they
have been taught to curse Lazarus, who was not a bad rich man, but
simply a rich man. "The Republic is above every criticism" is
equivalent to that belief: "The pope is infallible!" Always
formulas! Always gods!

The god before the last, which was universal suffrage, has just
shown his adherents a terrible farce by nominating "the murderers of
Versailles." What shall we believe in, then? In nothing! That is the
beginning of wisdom. It was time to have done with "principles" and
to take up science, and investigation. The only reasonable thing (I
always come back to that) is a government by mandarins, provided the
mandarins know something and even that they know many things. The
people is an eternal infant, and it will be (in the hierarchy of
social elements) always in the last row, since it is number, mass,
the unlimited. It is of little matter whether many peasants know how
to read and listen no longer to their cure, but it is of great
matter that many men like Renan or Littre should be able to live and
be listened to! Our safety is now only in a LEGITIMATE ARISTOCRACY,
I mean by that, a majority that is composed of more than mere
numbers.

If they had been more enlightened, if there had been in Paris more
people acquainted with history, we should not have had to endure
Gambetta, nor Prussia, nor the Commune. What did the Catholics do to
meet a great danger? They crossed themselves while consigning
themselves to God and to the saints. We, however, who are advanced,
we are going to cry out, "Long live the Republic!" while recalling
what happened in '92; and there was no doubt of its success, observe
that. The Prussian existed no longer, they embraced one another with
joy and restrained themselves from running to the defiles of the
Argonne where there are defiles no longer; never mind, that is
according to tradition. I have a friend in Rouen who proposed to a
club the manufacture of lances to fight against the breech-loaders!

Ah! it would have been more practical to keep Badinguet, in order to
send him to the galleys once peace was made! Austria did not have a
revolution after Sadowa, nor Italy after Novara, nor Russia after
Sebastopol! But the good French hasten to demolish their house as
soon as the chimney has caught fire.

Well, I must tell you an atrocious idea; I am AFRAID that the
destruction of the Vendome column is sowing the seeds of a third
Empire! Who knows if in twenty or in forty years, a grandson of
Jerome will not be our master?

For the moment Paris is completely epileptic. A result of the
congestion caused by the siege. France, on the whole, has lived for
several years in an extraordinary mental state. The success of la
Lanterne and Troppman have been very evident symptoms of it. That
folly is the result of too great imbecility, and that imbecility
comes from too much bluffing, for because of lying they had become
idiotic. They had lost all notion of right and wrong, of beautiful
and ugly. Recall the criticism of recent years. What difference did
it make between the sublime and the ridiculous? What lack of
respect; what ignorance! what a mess! "Boiled or roasted, same
thing!" and at the same time, what servility for the opinion of the
day, the dish of the fashion!

All was false! False realism, false army, false credit, and even
false harlots. They were called "marquises," while the great ladies
called themselves familiarly "cochonnettes." Those girls who were of
the tradition of Sophie Arnould, like Lagier, roused horror. You
have not seen the reverence of Saint-Victor for la Paiva. And this
falseness (which is perhaps a consequence of romanticism,
predominance of passion over form, and of inspiration over rule) was
applied especially in the manner of judging. They extolled an
actress not as an actress, but as a good mother of a family! They
asked art to be moral, philosophy to be clear, vice to be decent,
and science to be within the range of the people.

But this is a very long letter. When I start abusing my
contemporaries, I never get through with it.



CLXXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Sunday evening, 10 June, 1871

Dear master,

I never had a greater desire or a greater need to see you than now.
I have just come from Paris and I don't know to whom to talk. I am
choking. I am overcome, or rather, absolutely disheartened.

The odor of corpses disgusts me less than the miasmas of egotism
that exhale from every mouth. The sight of the ruins is as nothing
in comparison with the great Parisian inanity. With a very few
exceptions it seemed to me that everybody ought to be tied up.

Half the population wants to strangle the other half, and VICE
VERSA. This is clearly to be seen in the eyes of the passers-by.

And the Prussians exist no longer! People excuse them and admire
them. The "reasonable people" want to be naturalized Germans. I
assure you it is enough to make one despair of the human race.

I was in Versailles on Thursday. The excesses of the Right inspire
fear. The vote about the Orleans is a concession made to it, so as
not to irritate it, and so as to have the time to prepare against
it.

I except from the general folly, Renan who, on the contrary, seemed
to me very philosophical, and the good Soulie who charged me to give
you a thousand affectionate messages.

I have collected a mass of horrible and unpublished details which I
spare you.

My little trip to Paris has troubled me extremely, and I am going to
have a hard time in getting down to work again.  What do you think
of my friend Maury, who kept the tricolor over the Archives all
during the Commune? I think few men are capable of such pluck.

When history clears up the burning of Paris, it will find several
elements among which are, without any doubt: (1) the Prussians, and
(2) the people of Badinguet; they have NO LONGER ANY written proof
against the Empire, and Haussman is going to present himself boldly
to the elections of Paris.

Have you read, among the documents found in the Tuileries last
September, a plot of a novel by Isidore? What a scenario!



CXC. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
[FOOTNOTE: Evidently an answer to a lost letter.] Nohant, 23 July,
1871

No, I am not ill, my dear old troubadour, in spite of the sorrow
which is the daily bread of France; I have an iron constitution and
an exceptional old age, abnormal even, for my strength increases at
the age when it ought to diminish. The day that I resolutely buried
my youth, I grew twenty years younger. You will tell me that the
bark undergoes none the less the ravages of time. I don't care for
that, the heart of the tree is very good and the sap still runs as
in the old apple trees in my garden, which bear fruit all the better
the more gnarly they are. Thank you for having worried over the
illness which the papers have bestowed upon me. Maurice thanks you
also and embraces you. He is still mingling with his scientific,
literary, and agricultural studies, beautiful marionette shows. He
thinks of you every time and says that he would like to have you
here to note his progress, for he continually improves.

In what condition are we, according to your opinion?

In Rouen, you no longer have any Prussians at your back, that's
something, and one would say that the bourgeois Republic wants to
impose itself. It will be foolish. You foretold that, and I don't
doubt it; but after the inevitable rule of the Philistines, life
will extend and spread on all sides. The filth of the Commune shows
us dangers which were not sufficiently foreseen and which enforce a
new political life on everybody, carrying on one's affairs oneself
and forcing the charming proletariat created by the Empire to know
what is possible and what is not. Education does not teach honesty
and disinterestedness overnight. The vote is immediate education.
They have appointed Raoul Rigault and company. They know how much
people like that cost now by the yard; let them go on and they will
die of hunger. There is no other way to make them understand in a
short time.

Are you working? Is Saint-Antoine going well? Tell me what you are
doing in Paris, what you are seeing, what you are thinking. I have
not the courage to go there. Do come to see me before you return to
Croisset. I am blue from not seeing you, it is a sort of death.

G. Sand



CXCI. TO GEORGE SAND
25 July, 1871

I find Paris a little less mad than in June, at least on the
surface. They are beginning to hate Prussia in a natural manner,
that is to say, they are getting back into French tradition. They no
longer make phrases in praise of her civilizations. As for the
Commune, they expect to see it rise again later, and the
"established order" does absolutely nothing to prevent its return.
They are applying old remedies to new woes, remedies that have never
cured (nor prevented) the least ill. The reestablishment of credit
seems to me colossally absurd. One of my friends made a good speech
against it; the godson of your friend Michel de Bourges, Bardoux,
mayor of Clermont-Ferrand.

I think, like you, that the bourgeois republic can be established.
Its lack of elevation is perhaps a guarantee of stability. It will
be the first time that we have lived under a government without
principles. The era of positivism in politics is about to begin.

The immense disgust which my contemporaries give me throws me back
on the past, and I am working on my good Saint-Antoine with all my
might. I came to Paris only for it, for it is impossible for me to
get in Rouen the books that I need
now; I am lost in the religions of Persia. I am trying to get a
clear idea of the God Horn, and it isn't easy. I spent all the month
of June in studying Buddhism, on which I already had many notes. But
I wanted to get to the bottom of the subject as soon as possible.
And I also did a little Buddha that I consider charming. Don't I
want to read you that book (mine)!

I am not going to Nohant, for I don't care to go further I away from
my mother now. Her society afflicts me and unnerves me, my niece
Caroline takes turns with me in carrying on the dear and painful
burden.

In a fortnight I shall be back in Croisset. Between the 15th and the
20th of August I am expecting the good Tourgueneff there. It would
be very kind of you to come after him, dear master. I say come
after, for we have only one decent room since the visit of the
Prussians. Come, make a good effort. Come in September.

Have you any news of the Odeon? I can't get any response whatsoever
from de Chilly. I have been to his house several times and I have
written three letters to him: not a word! Those gay blades behave
towards one like great lords, which is charming.  I don't know if he
is still director, or if the management has been given to the
Berton, Laurent, Bernard company, do you?

Berton wrote to me to recommend him (and them) to d'Osmoy, deputy
and president of the dramatic commission, but since then I have not
heard anything mentioned.



CXCII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, August, 1871

You want to see me, and you need me, and you don't come see me! That
is not nice; for I too, and all of us here, sigh for you. We parted
so gaily eighteen months ago, and so many atrocious things have
happened in the meantime! Seeing each other would be the consolation
DUE us. For my part, I cannot stir, I have not a penny, and I have
to work like a negro. And then I have not seen a single Prussian,
and I would like to keep my eyes pure from that stain. Ah! my
friend, what years we are going through! We cannot go back again,
for hope departs with the rest.

What will be the reaction from the infamous Commune? Isidore or
Henry V. or the kingdom of incendiaries restored by anarchy? I who
have had so much patience with my species and who have so long
looked on the bright side, now see nothing but darkness. I judge
others by myself. I had improved my real character, I had
extinguished useless and dangerous enthusiasms, I had sowed grass
and flowers that grew well on my volcanoes, and I imagined that all
the world could become enlightened, could correct itself, or
restrain itself; that the years passed over me and over my
contemporaries could not be lost to reason and experience: and now I
awaken from a dream to find a generation divided between idiocy and
delirium tremens! Everything is possible at present.

However, it is bad to despair. I shall make a great effort, and
perhaps I shall become just and patient again; but today I cannot. I
am as troubled as you, and I don't dare to talk, nor to think, nor
to write, I have such a fear of touching the wounds open in every
soul.

I have indeed received your other letter, and I was waiting for
courage to answer it; I would like to do only good to those I love,
especially to you, who feel so keenly. I am no good at this moment.
I am filled with a devouring indignation and a disgust which is
killing me.

I love you, that is all I know. My children say the same. Embrace
your good little mother for me.

G. Sand



CXCIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 6 September, 1871

Where are you, my dear old troubadour?

I don't write to you, I am quite troubled in the depths of my soul.
But that will pass, I hope; but I am ill with the illness of my
nation and my race. I cannot isolate myself in my reason and in my
own IRREPROACHABILITY. I feel the great bonds loosened and, as it
were, broken. It seems to me that we are all going off, I don't know
where. Have you more courage than I have? Give me some of it?

I am sending you the pretty faces of our little girls. They remember
you, and tell me I must send you their pictures. Alas! they are
girls, we raise them with love like precious plants. What men will
they meet to protect them and continue our work? It seems to me that
in twenty years there will be only hypocrites and blackguards!

Give me news of yourself, tell me of your poor mother, your family,
of Croisset. Love us still, as we love you.

G. Sand



CXCIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Wednesday, 6 September

Well, dear master, it seems to me that you are forgetting your
troubadour, aren't you? Are you then quite overwhelmed with work!
How long a time it is since I saw your good firm writing! How long
it is since we have talked together! What a pity that we should live
so far from each other! I need you very much.

I don't dare to leave my poor mother! When I am obliged to be away,
Caroline comes to take my place. If it were not for that, I should
go to Nohant. Shall you stay there indefinitely? Must we wait till
the middle of the winter to embrace each other?

I should like very much to read you Saint-Antoine, which is half
done, then to stretch myself and to roar at your side.

Some one who knows that I love you and who admires you brought me a
copy of le Gaulois in which there were parts of an article by you on
the workmen, published in le Temps. How true it is! How just and
well said! Sad! Sad! Poor France! And they accuse me of being
skeptical.

But what do you think of Mademoiselle Papevoine, the incendiary,
who, in the midst of a barricade, submitted to the assaults  of
eighteen citizens! That surpasses the end of l'Education
sentimentale where they limit themselves to offering flowers.

But what goes beyond everything now, is the conservative party,
which is not even going to vote, and which is still in a panic! You
cannot imagine the alarm of the Parisians. "In six months, sir, the
Commune will be established everywhere" is the answer or rather the
universal groan.

I do not look forward to an imminent cataclysm because nothing that
is foreseen happens. The International will perhaps triumph in the
end, but not as it hopes, not as they dread. Ah! how tired I am of
the ignoble workmen, the incompetent bourgeois, the stupid peasant
and the odious ecclesiastic!

That is why I lose myself as much as I can in antiquity. Just now I
am making all the gods talk in a state of agony. The subtitle of my
book could be The Height of Insanity. And the printing of it
withdraws further and further into my mind. Why publish? Who pray is
bothering about art nowadays? I make literature for myself as a
bourgeois turns napkin rings in his garret. You will tell me that I
had better be useful. But how? How can I make people listen to me?

Tourgueneff has written me that he is going to stay in Paris all
winter beginning with October. That will be some one to talk to. For
I can't talk of anything whatever with anyone whatever.

I have been looking after the grave of my poor Bouilhet today; so
tonight I have a twofold bitterness.



CXCV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, 8 September, 1871

Ah! how sweet they are! What darlings! What fine little heads so
serious and sweet! My mother was quite touched by it, and so was I.
That is what I call a delicate attention, dear master, and I thank
you very much for it. I envy Maurice, his existence is not arid as
mine is.  Our two letters crossed again. That proves beyond a doubt
that we feel the same things at the same time in the same degree.

Why are you so said?  Humanity offers nothing new.  Its irremediable
misery has filled me with sadness ever since my youth.  And in
addition I now have no disillusions.  I believe that the crowd, the
common herd will always be hateful.  The  only important thing is a
little group of minds--always the same--which passed the torch from
one to another.

As long as we do not bow to mandarins, as long as the Academy of
Sciences does not replace the pope, politics as a whole and society,
down to its very roots, will be nothing but collection of
disheartening humbugs. We are floundering in the after-birth of the
Revolution, which was an abortion, a failure,  a misfire, "whatever
they say." And the reason is that it proceeded from the Middle Ages
and Christianity. The idea of equality (which is all the modern
democracy) is an essentially Christian idea and opposed to that of
justice. Observe how mercy predominates now. Sentiment is
everything, justice is nothing. People are now not even indignant
against murderers, and the people who set fire to Paris are less
punished than the calumniator of M. Favre.

In order for France to rise again, she must pass from inspiration to
science, she must abandon all metaphysics, she must enter into
criticism, that is to say into the examination of things.

I am persuaded that we shall seem extremely imbecile to posterity.
The words republic and monarchy will make them laugh, as we on our
part, laughed, at realism and nominalism. For I defy anyone to show
me an essential difference between those two terms. A modern
republic and a constitutional monarchy are identical. Never mind!
They are squabbling about that, they are shouting, they are
fighting!

As for the good people, "free and compulsory" education will do it.
When every one is able to read le Petit Journal and le Figaro, they
won't read anything else, because the bourgeois and the rich man
read only these. The press is a school of demoralization, because it
dispenses with thinking. Say that, you will be brave, and if you
prevail, you will have rendered a fine service.

The first remedy will be to finish up with universal suffrage, the
shame of the human mind. As it is constituted, one single element
prevails to the detriment of all the others: numbers dominate over
mind, education, race and even money, which is worth more than
numbers.

But society (which always needs a good God, a Saviour), isn't it
perhaps capable of taking care of itself? The conservative party has
not even the instinct of the brute (for the brute at least knows how
to fight for its lair and its living). It will be divided by the
Internationals, the Jesuits of the future. But those of the past,
who had neither country nor justice, have not succeeded and the
International will founder because it is in the wrong. No ideas,
nothing but greed!

Ah! dear, good master, if you only could hate! That is what you
lack, hate. In spite of your great Sphinx eyes, you have seen the
world through a golden color. That comes from the sun in your heart;
but so many shadows have arisen that now you are not recognizing
things any more. Come now! Cry out! Thunder! Take your great lyre
and touch the brazen string: the monsters will flee. Bedew us with
the drops of the blood of wounded Themis.

Why do you feel "the great bonds broken?" What is broken? Your bonds
are indestructible, your sympathy can attach itself only to the
Eternal.

Our ignorance of history makes us slander our own times. Man has
always been like that. Several years of quiet deceived us. That is
all. I too, I used to believe in the amelioration of manners. One
must wipe out that mistake and think of oneself no more highly than
they did in the time of Pericles or of Shakespeare, atrocious epochs
in which fine things were done. Tell me that you are lifting your
head and that you are thinking of your old troubadour, who cherishes
you.



CXCVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 8 September, 1871

As usual our letters have crossed; you should receive today the
portraits of my little grandchildren, not pretty at this period of
their growth, but with such beautiful eyes that they can never be
ugly.

You see that I am as disheartened as you are and indignant, alas!
without being able to hate either the human race or our poor, dear
country. But one feels too much one's helplessness to pluck up one's
heart and spirit. One works all the same, even if only turning
napkin rings, as you say: and, as for me, while serving the public,
I think about it as little as possible. Le Temps has done me the
service of making me rummage in my waste basket. I find there the
prophecies that the conscience of each of us has inspired in him,
and these little returns to the past ought to give us courage; but
it is not at all so. The lessons of experience are of no use until
too late.

I think that without subvention, the Odeon will be in no condition
to put on well a literary play such as Aisse, and that you should
not let them murder it. You had better wait and see what happens. As
for the Berton company, I have no news of it; it is touring the
provinces, and those who compose it will not be reengaged by Chilly,
who is furious with them.

The Odeon has let Reynard go, an artist of the first rank, whom
Montigny had the wit to engage. There really is no one left at the
Odeon, as far as I know. Why don't you consider the Theatre
Francais?

Where is the Princess Mathilde? At Enghien, or in Paris, or in
England? I am sending you a note which you must enclose in the first
letter that you have occasion to write to her.

I cannot go to see you, dear old man, and yet I had earned one of
those happy vacations; but I cannot leave the HOME, for all sorts of
reasons too long to tell and of no interest, but inflexible. I do
not know even if I shall go to Paris this winter. Here am I so old!
I imagine that I can only bore others and that people cannot endure
me anywhere except at home. You absolutely must come to see me with
Tourgueneff, since you are planning to go away this winter; prepare
him for this abduction. I embrace you, as I love, and my world does
too.

G. Sand



CXCVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
14 September, 1871, Nohant
[Footnote: Appeared in le Temps, 3 October, 1871, under the title,
Reponse a un ami, and published in Impressions et Souvenirs, p. 53.]

And what, you want me to stop loving? You want me to say that I have
been mistaken all my life, that humanity is contemptible, hateful,
that it has always been and always will be so? And you chide my
anguish as a weakness, and puerile regret for a lost illusion? You
assert that the people has always been ferocious, the priest always
hypocritical, the bourgeois always cowardly, the soldier always
brigand, the peasant always stupid? You say that you have known all
that ever since your youth and you rejoice that you never have
doubted it, because maturity has not brought you any disappointment;
have you not been young then? Ah! We are entirely different, for I
have never ceased to be young, if being young is always loving.

What, then, do you want me to do, so as to isolate myself from my
kind, from my compatriots, from my race, from the great family in
whose bosom my own family is only one ear of corn in the terrestrial
field? And if only this ear could ripen in a sure place, if only one
could, as you say, live for certain privileged persons and withdraw
from all the others!

But it is impossible, and your steady reason puts up with the most
unrealizable of Utopias. In what Eden, in what fantastic Eldorado
will you hide your family, your little group of friends, your
intimate happiness, so that the lacerations of the social state and
the disasters of the country shall not reach them? If you want to be
happy through certain people--those certain people, the favorites of
your heart, must be happy in themselves. Can they be? Can you assure
them the least security?

Will you find me a refuge in my old age which is drawing near to
death? And what difference now does death or life make to me for
myself? Let us suppose that we die absolutely, or that love does not
follow into the other life, are we not up to our last breath
tormented by the desire, by the imperious need of assuring those
whom we leave behind all the happiness possible? Can we go
peacefully to sleep when we feel the shaken earth ready to swallow
up all those for whom we have lived? A continuous happy life with
one's family in spite of all, is without doubt relatively a great
good, the only consolation that one could and that one would enjoy.
But even supposing external evil does not penetrate into our house,
which is impossible, you know very well, I could not approve of
acquiescing in indifference to what causes public unhappiness.

All that was foreseen. ... Yes, certainly, I had foreseen it as well
as anyone! I saw the storm rising. I was aware, like all those who
do not live without thinking, of the evident approach of the
cataclysm. When one sees the patient writhing in agony is there any
consolation in understanding his illness thoroughly? When lightning
strikes, are we calm because we have heard the thunder rumble a long
time before?

No, no, people do not isolate themselves, the ties of blood are not
broken, people do not curse or scorn their kind. Humanity is not a
vain word. Our life is composed of love, and not to love is to cease
to live.

The people, you say! The people is yourself and myself. It would be
useless to deny it. There are not two races, the distinction of
classes only establishes relative and for the most part illusory
inequalities. I do not know if your ancestors were high up in the
bourgeoisie; for my part, on my mother's side my roots spring
directly from the people, and I feel them continually alive in the
depth of my being. We all have them, even if the origin is more or
less effaced; the first men were hunters and shepherds, then farmers
and soldiers. Brigandage
crowned with success gave birth to the first social distinctions.
There is perhaps not a title that was not acquired through the blood
of men. We certainly have to endure our ancestors when we have any,
but these first trophies of hatred and of violence, are they a glory
in which a mind ever so little inclined to be philosophical, finds
grounds for pride? THE PEOPLE ALWAYS FEROCIOUS, you say? As for me,
I say, the nobility always savage!

And certainly, together with the peasants, the nobility is the class
most hostile to progress, the least civilized in consequence.
Thinkers should congratulate themselves on not being of it, but if
we are bourgeois, if we have come from the serf, and from the class
liable to forced labor, can we bend with love and respect before the
sons of the oppressors of our fathers? Whoever denies the people
cheapens himself, and gives to the world the shameful spectacle of
apostasy. Bourgeoisie, if we want to raise ourselves again and
become once more a class, we have only one thing to do, and that is
to proclaim ourselves the people, and to fight to the death against
those who claim to be our superiors by divine right. On account of
having failed in the dignity of our revolutionary mandate, of having
aped the nobility, of having usurped its insignia, of having taken
possession of its playthings, of having been shamefully ridiculous
and cowardly, we count for nothing; we are nothing any more: the
people, which ought to unite with us, denies us, abandons us and
seeks to oppress us.

The people ferocious? No, it is not imbecile either, its real
trouble is in being ignorant and foolish. It is not the people of
Paris that has massacred the prisoners, destroyed the monuments, and
tried to burn the town. The people of Paris is all who stayed in
Paris after the siege, since whoever had any means hastened to
breathe the air of the provinces and to embrace their absent
families after the physical and moral sufferings of the siege. Those
who stayed in Paris were the merchant and the workman, those two
agents of labor and of exchange, without whom Paris would exist no
longer. Those are what constitutes positively the people of Paris;
it is one and the same family, whose political blunders cannot
restore their relationship and solidarity. It is now recognized that
the oppressors of that torment were in the minority. Then the people
of Paris was not disposed to fury, since the majority gave evidence
only of weakness and fear. The movement was organized by men already
enrolled in the ranks of the bourgeoisie, who belong no longer to
the habits and needs of the proletariat. These men were moved by
hatred, disappointed ambition, mistaken patriotism, fanaticism
without an ideal, sentimental folly or natural maliciousness--there
was all that in them--and even certain doctrinaire points of honor,
unwilling to withdraw in the face of danger. They certainly did not
lean on the middle class, which trembled, fled or hid itself. They
were forced to put in action the real proletariat which had nothing
to lose. Well, the proletariat even escaped them to a great degree,
divided as it was by various shades of opinion, some wanting
disorder to profit by it, others dreading the consequences of being
drawn in, the most of them not reasoning at all, because the evil
had become extreme and the lack of work forced them to go to war at
thirty sous a day.

Why should you maintain that this proletariat which was shut up in
Paris, and was at most eighty thousand soldiers of hunger and
despair, represented the people of France? They do not even
represent the people of Paris, unless you desire to maintain the
distinction between the producer and the trader, which I reject.

But I want to follow you up and ask on what this distinction rests.
Is it on more or less education? The limit is incomprehensible if
you see at the top of the bourgeoisie, cultivated and learned
people, if you see at the bottom of the proletariat, savages and
brutes, you have none the less the crowd of intermediaries which
will show to you, here intelligent and wise proletarians, there
bourgeois who are neither wise nor intelligent. The great number of
civilized citizens dates from yesterday and many of those who know
how to read and write, have parents still living who can hardly sign
their names.

Would it then be only more or less wealth that would classify men
into two distinct parties? The question then is where the people
begins and where it ends, for each day competencies shift, ruin
lowers one, and fortune raises another; roles change, he who was a
bourgeois this morning is going to become again a proletarian this
evening, and the proletarian of just now, may turn into a bourgeois
in a day, if he finds a purse, or inherits from an uncle.

You can well see that these denominations have become idle and that
the work of classifying, whatever method one desired to use, would
be impracticable.

Men are only over or under one another because of more or less
reason or morality. Instruction which develops only egoistic
sensuality is not as good as the ignorance of the proletarian,
honest by instinct or by custom. This compulsory education which we
all desire through respect for human rights, is not, however, a
panacea whose miracles need to be exaggerated. Evil natures will
find there only more ingenious and more hidden means to do evil. It
will be as in all the things that man uses and abuses, both the
poison and the antidote. It is an illusion that one can find an
infallible remedy for our woes. We have to seek from day to day, all
the means immediately possible, we must think of nothing else in
practical life except the amelioration of habits and the
reconciliation of interests. France is agonizing, that is certain;
we are all sick, all corrupt, all ignorant, all discouraged: to say
that it was WRITTEN, that it had to be so, that it has always been
and will always be, is to begin again the fable of the pedagogue and
the child who is drowning. You might as well say at once.

It is all the same to me; but if you add: That does not concern me,
you are wrong. The deluge comes and death captures us. In vain you
are prudent and withdraw, your refuge will be invaded in its turn,
and in perishing with human civilization you will be no greater a
philosopher for not having loved, than those who threw themselves
into the flood to save some debris of humanity. The debris is not
worth the effort, very good! They will perish none the less, that is
possible. We shall perish with them, that is certain, but we shall
die while in the fulness of life. I prefer that to a hibernation in
the ice, to an anticipated death. And anyway, I could not do
otherwise. Love does not reason. If I asked why you have the passion
for study, you would not explain it to me any better than those who
have a passion for idleness can explain their indolence.

Then you think me upset, since you preach detachment to me? You tell
me that you have read in the papers some extracts from my articles
which indicate a change of ideas, and these papers which quote me
with good will, endeavor to believe that I am illuminated with a new
light, while others which do not quote me believe that perhaps I am
deserting the cause of the future. Let the politicians think and say
what they want to. Let us leave them to their critical
appreciations. I do not have to protest, I do not have to answer,
the public has other interests to discuss than those of my
personality. I wield a pen, I have an honorable position of free
discussion in a great paper; if I have been wrongly interpreted, it
is for me to explain myself better when the occasion presents
itself. I am reluctant to seize this opportunity of talking of
myself as an isolated individual; but if you judge me converted to
false notions, I must say to you and to others who are interested in
me: read me as a whole, and do not judge me by detached fragments; a
spirit which is independent of party exactions, sees necessarily the
pros and cons, and the sincere writer tells both without busying
himself about the blame or the approbation of partizan readers. But
every being who is not mad maintains a certain consistency, and I do
not think that I have departed from mine. Reason and sentiment are
always in accord in me to make me repulse whatever attempts to make
me revert to childhood in politics, in religion, in philosophy, in
art. My sentiment and my reason combat more than ever the idea of
factitious distinctions, the inequality of conditions imposed as a
right acquired by some, as a loss deserved by others. More than ever
I feel the need of raising what is low, and of lifting again what
has fallen. Until my heart is worn out it will be open to pity, it
will take the part of the weak, it will rehabilitate the slandered.
If today it is the people that is under foot, I shall hold out my
hand to the people--if it is the oppressor and executioner, I shall
tell it that it is cowardly and odious. What do I care for this or
that group of men, these names which have become standards, these
personalities which have become catchwords? I know only wise and
foolish, innocent and guilty. I do not have to ask myself where are
my friends or my enemies. They are where torment has thrown them.
Those who have deserved my love, and who do not see through my eyes,
are none the less dear to me. The thoughtless blame of those who
leave me does not make me consider them as enemies. All friendship
unjustly withdrawn remains intact in the heart that has not merited
the outrage. That heart is above self-love, it knows how to wait for
the awakening of justice and affection.

Such is the correct and easy role of a conscience that is not
engaged in the party interests through any personal interest. Those
who can not say that of themselves will certainly have success in
their environment, if they have the talent to avoid all that can
displease them, and the more they have of this talent, the more they
will find the means to satisfy their passions. But do not summon
them in history to witness the absolute truth. From the moment that
they make a business of their opinion, their opinion has no value.

I know sweet, generous and timorous souls, who in this terrible
moment of our history, reproach themselves for having loved and
served the cause of the weak. They see only one point in space, they
believe that the people whom they have loved and served exist no
longer, because in their place a horde of bandits followed by a
little army of bewildered men has occupied momentarily the theatre
of the struggle.

These good souls have to make an effort to say to themselves that
what good there was in the poor and what interest there was in the
disinherited still exists, only it is no longer in evidence and the
political disturbance has sidetracked it from the stage. When such
dramas take place, those who rush in light-heartedly are the vain or
the greedy members of the family, those who allow themselves to be
pulled in are the idiots.

There is no doubt that there are greedy souls, idiots, and vain
persons by the thousands in France; but there are as many and
perhaps more in the other states. Let an opportunity present itself
similar to too frequent opportunities which put our evil passions in
play, and you will see whether other nations are any better than we
are. Wait till the Germanic race gets to work, the race whose
disciplinary aptitudes we admire, the race whose armies have just
shown us brutal appetites in all their barbarous simplicity, and you
will see what will be its license! The people of Paris will seem
sober and virtuous by comparison.

That ought not to be what is called a crumb of comfort, we shall
have to pity the German nation for its victories as much as
ourselves for our defeats, because this is the first act of its
moral dissolution. The drama of its degradation has begun, and as
this is being worked out by its own hands it will move very quickly.
All these great material organizations in which right, justice, and
the respect for humanity are not recognized, are colossi of clay, as
we have found to our cost. Well! the  moral abasement of Germany is
not the future safety of France, and if we are called upon to return
to her the evil that has been done us, her collapse will not give us
back our  life. It is not in blood that races are re-invigorated and
rejuvenated. Vital exhalations can issue still from the corpse of
France, that of Germany will be the focus of the pestilence of
Europe. A nation that has lost its ideals does not survive itself.
Its death fertilizes nothing and those who breathe its fetid
emanations are struck by the ill that killed it. Poor Germany! the
cup of the wrath of the Eternal is poured out on you quite as much
as on us, and while you rejoice and become intoxicated, the
philosophic spirit is weeping over you and prepares your  epitaph.
This pale and bleeding, wounded thing that is called France, holds
still in its tense hands, a fold of the starry mantle of the future,
and you drape yourself in a soiled flag, which will be your winding
sheet. Past grandeurs have no longer a place to take in the history
of men. It is all over with kings who exploit the peoples; it is all
over with exploited   peoples who have consented to their own
abasement.

That is why we are so sick and why my heart is broken.

But it is not in scorn of our misery that I regard the extent of it.
I do not want to believe that this holy country, that this cherished
race, all of whose chords I feel vibrate in me, both harmonious and
discordant,--whose qualities and whose defects I love in spite of
everything, all of whose good or bad responsibilities I consent to
accept rather than to detach  myself from them through disdain; no,
I do not want to believe that my country and my race are struck to
death, I feel it in my suffering, in my mourning, in my hours of
pure dejection even, I love, therefore I live; let us love and live.

Frenchmen, let us love one another, my God! my God! 1et us love one
another or we are lost. Let us destroy, let us deny, let us
annihilate politics, since it divides us and arms us against one
another; let us ask from no one what he was and what he wanted
yesterday. Yesterday all the world was mistaken, let us know what we
want today. If it is not liberty for all and fraternity towards all,
do not let us attempt to solve the problem of humanity, we are not
worthy of defining it, we are not capable of comprehending it.
Equality is a thing that does not impose itself, it is a free plant
that grows only on fertile lands, in salubrious air. It does not
take root on barricades, we know that now! It is immediately trodden
under the foot of the conqueror, whoever he may be. Let us desire to
establish it in our customs, let us be eager to consecrate it in our
ideas. Let us give it for a starting point, patriotic charity, love!
It is the part of a madman to think that one issues from a battle
with respect for human rights. All civil war has brought forth and
will bring forth great crime....

Unfortunate International, is it true that you believe in the lie
that strength is superior to right? If you are as numerous, as
powerful as one fancies, is it possible that you profess destruction
and hatred as a duty? No, your power is a phantom of death. A great
number of men of every nationality would not, could not, deliberate
and act in favor of an iniquitous principle. If you are the
ferocious party of the European people, something like the
Anabaptists of Munster, like them you will destroy yourself with
your own hands. If, on the contrary, you are a great and legitimate
fraternal association, your duty is to enlighten your adherents and
to deny those who cheapen and compromise your principles. I hope
still that you include in your bosom, humane and hard-working men in
great numbers, and that they suffer and blush at seeing bandits take
shelter under your name. In this case your silence is inept and
cowardly. Have you not a single member capable of protesting against
ignoble attacks, against idiotic principles, against furious
madness? Your chosen chiefs, your governors, your inspirers, are
they all brigands and idiots? No, it is impossible; there are no
groups, there is no club, there are no crossroads where a voice of
truth could not make itself heard. Speak then, justify yourself,
proclaim your gospel. Dissolve yourself in order to make yourself
over if the discord is in your own midst. Make an appeal to the
future if you are not an ancient invasion of Barbarians. Tell those
who still love the people what they ought to do for them, and if you
have nothing to say, if you cannot speak a word of life, if the
iniquities of your mysteries are sealed by fear, renounce noble
sympathies, live on the scorn of honest folk, and struggle between
the jailer and the police.

All France has heard the word of your destiny which might have been
the word of hers. She has waited for it in vain. I too, simple, I
waited. While blaming the means I did not want to prejudice the end.
There has always been one in revolutions, and the revolutions that
fail are not always those with the weakest basis. A patriotic
fanaticism seems to have been the first sentiment of this struggle.
These lost children of the democratic army were going perhaps to
subscribe to an inevitable peace that they judged shameful: Paris
had sworn to bury herself under her ruins.

The democratic people were going to force the bourgeois to keep
their word. They took possession of the cannon, they were going to
turn them on the Prussians, it was mad, but it was grand.... Not at
all. The first act of the Commune is to consent to the peace, and in
all the course of its management, it does not have an insult, not a
threat for the enemy, it conceives and commits the remarkable
cowardice of overturning under the eyes of the enemy the column that
recalls his defeats and our victories. It is angry against the
powers emanating from universal suffrage, and yet it invokes this
suffrage in Paris to constitute itself. It is true that this was not
favorable to it; it dispenses with the appearance of legality that
it intended to give itself and functions by brute force, without
invoking any other right than that of hate and scorn for all that is
not itself. It proclaims POSITIVE SOCIAL SCIENCE of which it calls
itself the sole depository, but about which it does not let a word
escape in its deliberations and in its decrees.  It declares that it
is going to free man from his shackles and his prejudices, and at
that very instant, it exercises a power without control and
threatens with death whoever is not convinced of its infallibility.
At the same time it pretends to take up the tradition of the
Jacobins, it usurps the papal social authority and assumes the
dictatorship. What sort of a republic is that? I see nothing vital
in it, nothing rational, nothing constituted, nothing constitutable.
It is an orgy of false reformers who have not one idea, not one
principle, not the least serious organization, not the least
solidarity with the nation, not the least outlook towards the
future. Ignorance, cynicism and brutality, that is all that emanates
from this false social revolution. Liberation of the lowest
instincts, impotence of bold ambitions, scandal of shameless
usurpations. That is the spectacle which we have just seen.
Moreover, this Commune has inspired the most deadly disgust in the
most ardent political men, men most devoted to the democracy. After
useless essays, they have understood that there was no
reconciliation possible where there were no principles; they
withdrew from it with consternation, with sorrow, and, the next day,
the Commune declared them traitors, and decreed their arrest. They
would have been shot if they had remained in its hands.

And you, friend, you want me to see these things with a stoic
indifference? You want me to say: man is made thus, crime is his
expression, infamy is his nature?

No, a hundred times no. Humanity is outraged in me and with me. We
must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation which is one
of the most passionate forms of love. We must make great efforts in
behalf of brotherhood to repair the ravages of hate. We must put an
end to the scourge, wipe out infamy with scorn, and inaugurate by
faith the resurrection of the country.

G. Sand



CXCVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 16 September, 1871

Dear old friend,

I answered you day before yesterday, and my letter took such
proportions that I sent it as an article to le Temps for my next
fortnightly contribution; for I have promised to give them two
articles a month. The letter a un ami does not indicate you by even
an initial, for I do not want to argue against you in public. I tell
you again in it my reasons for suffering and for hoping still. I
shall send it to you and that will be talking with you again. You
will see that my chagrin is a part of me, and that believing
progress to be a dream does not depend on me. Without this hope no
one is good for anything. The mandarins do not need knowledge and
even the education of a limited number of people has no longer
reason for existing unless there is hope of influence on the masses;
philosophers have only to keep silent and those great minds on whom
the need of your soul leans, Shakespeare, Moliere, Voltaire, etc.
have no reason for existing and for expressing themselves.

Come, let me suffer! That is worth more than viewing INJUSTICE WITH
A SERENE COUNTENANCE, as Shakespeare says. When I have drained my
cup of bitterness, I shall feel better. I am a woman, I have
affections, sympathies, and wrath. I shall never be a sage, nor a
scholar.

I received a kind little note from the Princess Mathilde. Is she
then again settled in Paris? Has she anything to live on from the
effects of M. Demidoff, her late and I think unworthy husband? On
the whole it is brave and good of her to return near to her friends,
at the risk of new upsets.

I am glad that these little faces of children pleased you. I embrace
you very much, you are so kind, I was sure of it. Although you are a
mandarin, I do not think that you are like a Chinaman at all, and I
love you with a full heart.

I am working like a convict.

G. Sand



CXCIX. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear master, I received your article yesterday, and I should answer
it at length if I were not in the midst of preparations for my
departure for Paris. I am going to try to finish up with Aisse.

The middle of your letter made me SHED A TEAR, without converting
me, of course. I was moved, that was all, without being persuaded.

I look vainly in your article for one word: "justice," and all our
ill comes from forgetting absolutely that first notion of morality,
which to my way of thinking composes all morality. Humanitarianism,
sentiment, the ideal, have played us sufficiently mean tricks for us
to try righteousness and science.

If France does not pass in a short time to the crisis, I believe
that she will be irrevocably lost. Free compulsory education will do
nothing but augment the number of imbeciles. Renan has said that
very well in the preface to his Questions contemporaines. What we
need most of all, is a natural, that is to say, a legitimate
aristocracy. No one can do anything without a head, and universal
suffrage as it exists is more stupid than divine right. You will see
remarkable things if they let it keep on! The masses, the numbers,
are always idiotic. I have few convictions, but I have that one
strongly. But the masses must be respected, however inept they may
be, because they contain the germs of an incalculable fecundity.
Give it liberty but not power.

I believe no more than you do in class distinction. Castes belong to
archeology. But I believe that the poor hate the rich, and that the
rich are afraid of the poor. It will be so forever. It is as useless
to preach love to the one as to the other. The most important thing
is to instruct the rich, who, on the whole, are the strongest.
Enlighten the bourgeois first, for he knows nothing, absolutely
nothing. The whole dream of democracy is to elevate the proletarian
to the level of the imbecility of the bourgeois. The dream is partly
accomplished. He reads the same papers and has the same passions.

The three degrees of education have shown within the last year what
they can accomplish: (1) higher education made Prussia win; (2)
secondary education, bourgeois, produced the men of the 4th of
September; (3) primary education gave us the Commune. Its minister
of public instruction was the great Valles, who boasted that he
scorned Homer!

In three years every Frenchman can know how to read. Do you think
that we shall be the better off? Imagine on the other hand that in
each commune, there was ONE bourgeois, only one, who had read
Bastiat, and that this bourgeois was respected, things would change.

However I am not discouraged as you are, and the present government
pleases me, because it has no principle, no metaphysics, no humbug.
I express myself very badly. Moreover you deserve a different
response, but I am much hurried.

I hear today that the mass of the Parisians regrets Badinguet. A
plebiscite would declare for him, I do not doubt it, universal
suffrage is such a fine thing.



CC. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 10 October, 1871

I am answering your post scriptum, if I had answered Flaubert I
should not have ... ANSWERED, knowing well that your heart does not
always agree with your mind, a discordance into which we all
moreover are continually compelled to fall. I answered a part of a
letter of some friend whom no one knows, no one can recognize, since
I address myself to a part of your reasoning that is not you
entirely.

You are a troubadour all the same, and if I had to write to you
PUBLICLY the character would be what it ought to be. But our real
discussions ought to remain between ourselves, like caresses between
lovers, and even sweeter, since friendship also has its mysteries
without the storms of personality.

That letter that you wrote me in haste, is full of well expressed
truths against which I do not protest. But the connection and
agreement between your truths of reason and my truths of sentiment
must be found. France, alas! is neither on your side nor my side;
she is on the side of blindness, ignorance and folly. Oh! that I do
not deny, it is exactly that over which I despair.

Is this a time to put on Aisse? You told me it was a thing of
distinction, delicate like all that HE did, and I hear that the
public of the theatres is more THICKHEADED than ever. You would do
well to see two or three plays, no matter which, in order to
appreciate the literary condition of the Parisian. The provinces
will contribute less than in the past. The little fortunes are too
much cut down to permit frequent trips to Paris.

If Paris offered, as in my youth, an intelligent and influential
nucleus, a good play would perhaps not have a hundred performances,
but a bad play would not have three hundred. But this nucleus has
become imperceptible and its influence is swamped. Who then will
fill the theatres? The shopkeepers of Paris, without a guide, and
without good criticism? Well, you are not the master in the matter
of Aisse. There is an heir who is impatient, probably.--They write
me that Chilly is very; seriously ill, and that Pierre Berton is
reengaged.

You must be very busy; I will not write a long letter to you.

I embrace you affectionately, my children love you and ask to be
remembered to you.

G. Sand



CCI. TO GEORGE SAND

Never, dear good master, have you given such a proof of your
inconceivable candor! Now, seriously, you think that you have
offended me! The first page is almost like excuses! It made me laugh
heartily! Besides, you can always say everything to me, to me!
everything! Your blows will be caresses to me.

Now let us talk again! I continually repeat my insistence on
justice! Do you see how they are denying it everywhere? Has not
modern criticism abandoned art for history? The intrinsic value of a
book is nothing in the school of Sainte-Beuve and Taine. They take
everything into consideration there except talent. Thence, in the
petty journals, the abuse of personality, the biographies, the
diatribes. Conclusion: lack of respect on the part of the public.

In the theatre, the same thing. They don't bother about the play,
but the lesson to be preached. Our friend Dumas dreams the glory of
Lacordaire, or rather of Ravignan! To prevent the tucking up of
petticoats has become with him obsession. We can not have progressed
very far since all morality consists for women, in not committing
adultery, and for men in abstaining from theft! In short, the first
injustice is practised by literature; it has no interest in
esthetics, which is only a higher justice. The romantics will have a
fine account to render with their immoral sentimentality. Do you
recall a bit of Victor Hugo in la Legende des siecles, where a
sultan is saved because he had pity on a pig? it is always the story
of the penitent thief blessed because he has repented! To repent is
good, but not to do evil is better. The school of rehabilitations
has led us to see no difference between a rascal and an honest man.
I became enraged once before witnesses, against Sainte-Beuve, while
begging him to have as much indulgence for Balzac as he had for
Jules Lecomte. He answered me, calling me a dolt! That is where
BREADTH OF VIEW leads you.

They have so lost all sense of proportion, that the war council at
Versailles treats Pipe-en-Bois more harshly than M. Courbet,
Maroteau is condemned to death like Rossel! It is madness! These
gentlemen, however, interest me very little. I think that they
should have condemned to the galleys all the Commune, and have
forced these bloody imbeciles to clear up the ruins of Paris, with a
chain on their necks, like ordinary convicts. But that would have
wounded HUMANITY. They are kind to the mad dogs, and not at all to
the people whom the dogs have bitten.

That will not change so long as universal suffrage is what it is.
Every man (as I think), no matter how low he is, has a right to ONE
voice, his own, but he is not the equal of his neighbor, who may be
worth a hundred times more. In an industrial enterprise (Societe
anonyme), each holder votes according to the value of his
contribution. It ought to be so in the government of a nation. I am
worth fully twenty electors of Croisset. Money, mind, and even race
ought to be reckoned, in short every resource. But up to the present
I only see one! numbers! Ah! dear master, you who have so authority,
you ought to take the lead. Your articles in le Temps, which have
had a great success, are widely read and who knows? You would
perhaps do France a great service?

Aisse keeps me very busy, or rather provokes me. I have not seen
Chilly, I have had to do with Duquesnel. They are depriving me
definitely of the senior Berton and proposing his son. He is very
nice, but he is not at all the type conceived by the author. The
Theatre Francais perhaps would ask nothing better than to take
Aisse! I am very perplexed, and it is going to be necessary for me
to decide. As for waiting till a literary wind arises, as it will
never arise in my lifetime, it is better to risk the thing at once.

These theatrical affairs disturb me greatly, for I was in great
form. For the last month I was even in an exaltation bordering on
madness!

I have met the unavoidable Harrisse, a man who knows everyone, and
who is a judge of everything, theatre, novels, finances, politics,
etc. What a race is that of enlightened men!!! I have seen Plessy,
charming and always beautiful. She asked me to send you a thousand
friendly messages.

For my part, I send you a hundred thousand affectionate greetings.

Your old friend



CCII. TO GEORGE SAND
14 November, 1871

Ouf! I have just finished MY GODS, that is to say the mythological
part of my Saint-Antoine, on which I have been working since the
beginning of June. How I want to read it to you, dear master of the
good God!

Why did you resist your good impulse? Why didn't you come this
autumn? You should not stay so long without seeing Paris. I shall be
there day after tomorrow, and I shall have no amusement there at all
this winter, what with Aisse, a volume of verse to be printed (I
should like to show you the preface), and Heaven knows what else. A
lot of things that are not at all diverting.

I did not receive the second article that was announced. Your old
troubadour has an aching head. My longest nights these three months
have not exceeded five hours. I have been grubbing in a frantic
manner. Furthermore, I think I have brought my book to a pretty
degree of insanity. The idea of the foolish things that it will make
the bourgeois utter sustains me, or rather I don't need to be
sustained, as such a situation pleases me naturally.

The good bourgeois is becoming more and more stupid! He does not
even go to vote! The brute beasts surpass him in their instinct for
self-preservation. Poor France! Poor us!

What do you think I am reading now to distract myself? Bichat and
Cabanis, who amuse me enormously. They knew how to write books then.
Ah! how far our doctors of today are from those men!

We suffer from one thing only: Absurdity. But it is formidable and
universal. When they talk of the brutishness of the plebe, they are
saying an unjust, incomplete thing. Conclusion: the enlightened
classes must be enlightened. Begin by the head, which is the
sickest, the rest will follow.

You are not like me! You are full of compassion. There are days when
I choke with wrath, I would like to drown my contemporaries in
latrines, or at least deluge their cockscombs with torrents of
abuse, cataracts of invectives. Why? I wonder myself.

What sort of archeology is Maurice busy with? Embrace your little
girls warmly for me.

Your old friend



CCIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 23 November, 1871

I hear from Plauchut that you won't let yourself be abducted for our
Christmas Eve REVELS. You say you have too much to do. That is so
much the worse for us, who would have had such pleasure in seeing
you.--You were at Ch. Edmond's successful play, you are well, you
have a great deal to do, you still detest the silly bourgeois; and
with all that, is Saint-Antoine finished and shall we read it soon?

I am giving you an easy commission to do, this is it: I have had to
aid a respectable and interesting person [Footnote:  Mademoiselle de
Flaugergues.] to whom the Prussians have left for a bed and chair,
only an old garden bench. I sent her 300 francs, she needed 600. I
begged from kind souls. They sent me what was necessary, all except
the Princess Mathilde, from whom I asked 200 francs. She answered me
the 19th of this month: HOW SHALL I SEND THIS TO YOU?

I replied the same day; simply by mail. But I have received nothing.
I do not insist, but I fear that the money may have been stolen or
lost, and I am asking you to clear up the affair as quickly as
possible.

With this, I embrace you, and Lolo, AURORE EMBRACES YOU TOO and all
the family which loves you.

G. Sand

[The words 'Aurore embraces you too' were written by the little girl
herself.]



CCIV. TO GEORGE SAND
1 December

Your letter which I have just found again, makes me remorseful, for
I have not yet done your errand to the princess. I was several days
without knowing where the princess was. She was to have come to get
settled in Paris, and send me word of her arrival. Today at last I
learn that she is at Saint-Gratien where I shall go on Sunday
evening probably. Anyway your commission shall be done next week.

You must forgive me, for I have not had for the last two weeks ten
minutes of freedom. The revival of Ruy Blas which was going to be
put ahead of Aisse had to be PUT OFF (it was a hard job). Well, the
rehearsals are to begin on Monday next. I read the play to the
actors today, and the roles are to be verified tomorrow. I think it
will go well. I have had Bouilhet's volume of verse printed, the
preface of which I re-wrote. In short I am worn out! and sad! sad
enough to croak. When I have to get into action I throw myself into
it head first. But my heart is breaking in disgust. That is the
truth.

I have seen none of our friends except Tourgueneff, whom I have
found more charming than ever. Give a good kiss to Aurore for her
sweet message, and let her kiss you for me.

Your old friend



CCV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 7 December, 1871

The money was stolen, I did not receive it, and it can not be
claimed, for the sender would be liable to a suit. Thank the
princess just the same for me, and for poor Mademoiselle de
Flaugergues whom by the way, the minister is aiding with 200 francs.
Her pension is 800.

You are in the midst of rehearsals, I pity you, and yet I imagine
that in working for a friend one puts more heart in it, more
confidence and much more patience. Patience, there is everything in
that, and that is acquired.

I love you and I embrace you, how I would like to have you at
Christmas! You can not, so much the worse for us. We shall drink you
a toast and many speaches [sic].

G. Sand



CCVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 4 January, 1872

I want to embrace you at the first of the year and tell you that I
love my old troubadour now and always, but I don't want you to
answer me, you are in the thick of theatrical things, and you have
not the time and the calmness to write. Here we called you at the
stroke of midnight on Christmas, we called your name three times,
did you hear it at all?

We are all getting on well, our little girls are growing, we speak
of you often; my children embrace you also. May our affection bring
you good luck!

G. Sand



CCVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Sunday, January, 1872

At last I have a moment of quiet and I can write to you. But I have
so many things to chat with you about, that I hardly know where to
begin: (1) Your little letter of the 4th of January, which came the
very morning of the premiere of Aisse, moved me to tears, dear well-
beloved master. You are the only one who shows such delicacies of
feeling.

The premiere was splendid, and then, that is all. The next night the
theatre was almost empty. The press, in general, was stupid and
base. They accused me of having wanted to advertise by INSERTING an
incendiary tirade! I pass for a Red (sic). You see where we are!

The management of the Odeon has done nothing for the play! On the
contrary. The day of the premiere it was I who brought with my own
hands the properties for the first act! And on the third performance
I led the supernumeraries.

Throughout the rehearsals they advertised in the papers the revival
of Ruy Blas, etc., etc. They made me strangle la Baronne quite as
Ruy Blas will strangle Aisse. In short, Bouilhet's heir will get
very little money. Honor is saved, that is all.

I have had Dernieres Chansons printed. You will receive this volume
at the same time as Aisse and a letter of mine to the Conseil
municipal de Rouen. This little production seemed too violent to le
Nouvelliste de Rouen, which did not dare to print it; but it will
appear on Wednesday in le Temps, then at Rouen, as a pamphlet.

What a foolish life I have been leading for two and a half months!
How is it that I have not croaked with it? My longest nights have
not been over five hours. What running about! What letters! and what
anger!--repressed--unfortunately! At last, for three days I have
slept all I wanted to, and I am stupefied by it.

I was present with Dumas at the premiere of Roi Carotte. You can not
imagine such rot! It is sillier and emptier than the worst of the
fairy plays of Clairville. The public agreed with me absolutely.

The good Offenbach has had another failure at the Opera-Comique with
Fantasio. Shall one ever get to hating piffle? That would be a fine
step on the right path.

Tourgueneff has been in Paris since the first of December. Every
week we have an engagement to read Saint-Antoine and to dine
together. But something always prevents and we never meet. I am
harassed more than ever by life and am disgusted with everything,
which does not prevent me from being in better health than ever.
Explain that to me.



CCVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 18 January, 1872

You must not be sick, you must not be a grumbler, my dear old
troubadour. You must cough, blow your nose, get well, say that
France is mad, humanity silly, and that we are crude animals; and
you must love yourself, your kind, and your friends above all. I
have some very sad hours. I look at MY FLOWERS, these two little
ones who are always smiling, their charming mother and my wise
hardworking son whom the end of the world will find hunting,
cataloguing, doing his daily task, and gay withal AS PUNCH, in the
RARE moments when he is resting.

He said to me this morning: "Tell Flaubert to come, I will take a
vacation at once. I will play the marionettes for him, I will make
him laugh."

Life in a crowd forbids reflection. You are too much alone. Come
quickly to our house and let us love you.

G. Sand



CCIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Friday, 19 January, 1872

I did not know about all that affair at Rouen and I now understand
your anger. But you are too angry, that is to say too good, and too
good for them. With a BITTER and vindictive man these louts would be
less spiteful and less bold. You have always called them brutes, you
and Bouilhet, now they are avenging themselves on the dead and on
the living. Ah! well, it is indeed that and nothing else.

Yesterday I was preaching the calmness of disdain to you. I see that
this is not the moment, but you are not wicked, strong men are not
cruel! With a bad mob at their heels, these fine men of Rouen would
not have dared what they have dared!

I have the Chansons, tomorrow I shall read your preface, from
beginning to end.

I embrace you.



CCX. TO GEORGE SAND

You will receive very soon: Dernieres Chansons, Aisse and my Lettre
au Conseil municipal de Rouen, which is to appear tomorrow in le
Temps before appearing as a pamphlet.

I have forgotten to tell you something, dear master. I have used
your name. I have COMPROMISED you in citing you among the
illustrious people who have subscribed to the monument for Bouilhet.
I found that it looked well in the sentence. An effect of style
being a sacred thing with me, don't disavow it.

Today I am starting again my metaphysical readings for Saint-
Antoine. Next Saturday, I shall read a hundred and thirty pages of
it, all that is finished, to Tourgueneff. Why won't you be there!

I embrace you.

Your old friend



CCXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 25 January, 1872

You were quite right to put me down and I want to CONTRIBUTE too.
Put me down for the sum you would like and tell me so that I may
have it sent to you.

I have read your preface in le Temps: the end of it is very
beautiful and touching. But I see that this poor friend was, like
you, one who DID NOT GET OVER HIS ANGER, and at your age I should
like to see you less irritated, less worried with the folly of
others. For me, it is lost time, like complaining about being bored
with the rain and the flies. The public which is accused often of
being silly, gets angry and only becomes sillier; for angry or
irritated, one becomes sublime if one is intelligent, idiotic if one
is silly.

After all, perhaps this chronic indignation is a need of your
constitution; it would kill me. I have a great need to be calm so as
to reflect and to think things over. At this moment I am doing THE
USEFUL at the risk of your anathemas. I am trying to simplify a
child's approach to culture, being persuaded that the first study
makes its impression on all the others and that pedagogy teaches us
to look for knots in bulrushes. In short, I am working over A
PRIMER, do not EAT ME ALIVE.

I have ONLY ONE regret about Paris: it is not to be a third with
Tourgueneff when you read your Saint-Antoine. For all the rest,
Paris does not call me at all; my heart has affections there that I
do not wish to hurt, by disagreement with their ideas. It is
impossible not to be tired of this spirit of party or of sect which
makes people no longer French, nor men, nor themselves. They have no
country, they belong to a church. They do what they disapprove of,
so as not to disobey the discipline of the school. I prefer to keep
silent. They would find me cold or stupid; one might as well stay at
home.

You don't tell me of your mother; is she in Paris with her
grandchild? I hope that your silence means that they are well.
Everything has gone wonderfully here this winter; the children are
excellent and give us nothing but joy. After the dismal winter of
'70 to '71, one ought to complain of nothing.

Can one live peaceably, you say, when the human race is so absurd? I
submit, while saying to myself that perhaps I am as absurd as every
one else and that it is time to turn my mind to correcting myself.

I embrace you for myself and for all mine.

G. Sand



CCXII. TO GEORGE SAND

No! dear master! it is not true. Bouilhet never injured the
bourgeois of Rouen; no one was gentler to them, I add even more
cowardly, to tell the truth. As for me, I kept apart from them, that
is all my crime.

I find by chance just today in Nadar's Memoirs du Geant, a paragraph
on me and the people of Rouen which is absolutely exact. Since you
own this book, look at page 100.

If I had kept silent they would have accused me of being a coward. I
protested naively, that is to say brutally. And I did well.

I think that one ought never begin the attack; but when one answers,
one must try to kill cleanly one's enemy. Such is my system.
Frankness is part of loyalty; why should it be less perfect in blame
than in praise?

We are perishing from indulgence, from clemency, from COWISHNESS and
(I return to my eternal refrain) from lack of JUSTICE!

Besides, I have never insulted any one, I have kept to
generalities,--as for M. Decorde, my intentions are for open
warfare;--but enough of that! I spent yesterday, a fine day, with
Tourgueneff to whom I read the hundred and fifteen pages of Saint-
Antoine that are finished. After which, I read to him almost half of
the Dernieres Chansons. What a listener! What a critic! He dazzled
me by the depth and the clearness of his judgment. Ah! if all those
who attempt to judge books had been able to hear, what a lesson!
Nothing escapes him. At the end of a passage of a hundred lines, he
remembers a weak epithet! he gave me two or three suggestions of
exquisite detail for Saint-Antoine.

Do you think me very silly since you believe I am going to blame you
for your primer? I have enough philosophic spirit to know that such
a thing is very serious work.

Method is the highest thing in criticism, since it gives the means
of creating.



CCXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 28 January, 1872

Your preface is splendid and the book [Footnote: Dernieres Chansons,
by Louis Bouilhet.] is divine! Mercy! I have made a line of poetry
without realizing it, God forgive me. Yes, you are right, he was not
second rank, and ranks are not given by decree, above all in an age
when criticism undoes everything and does nothing. All your heart is
in this simple and discreet tale of his life. I see very well now,
why he died so young; he died from having lived too extensively in
the mind. I beg of you not to absorb yourself so much in literature
and learning. Change your home, move about, have mistresses or
wives, whichever you like, and during these phases, must change the
end that one lights.  At my advanced age I throw myself into
torrents of far niente; the most infantile amusements, the silliest,
are enough for me and I return more lucid from my attacks of
imbecility.

It was a great loss to art, that premature death. In ten years there
will not be one single poet. Your preface is beautiful and well
done. Some pages are models, and it is very true that the bourgeois
will read that and find nothing remarkable in it. Ah! if one did not
have the little sanctuary, the interior little shrine, where,
without saying anything to anyone, one takes refuge to contemplate
and to dream the beautiful and the true, one would have to say:
"What is the use?"

I embrace you warmly.

Your old troubadour.



CCXIV. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear good master,

Can you, for le Temps, write on Dernieres Chansons? It would oblige
me greatly. Now you have it.

I was ill all last week. My throat was in a frightful state. But I
have slept a great deal and I am again afloat. I have begun anew my
reading for Saint-Antoine.

It seems to me that Dernieres Chansons could lend itself to a
beautiful article, to a funeral oration on poetry. Poetry will not
perish, but its eclipse will be long and we are entering into the
shades.

Consider if you have a mind for it and answer by a line.



CCXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 17 February

My troubadour, I am thinking of what you asked me to do and I will
do it; but this week I must rest. I played the fool too much at the
carnival with my grandchildren and my great-nephews.

I embrace you for myself and for all my brood.

G. Sand



CCXVI. TO GEORGE SAND

What a long time it is since I have written to you, dear master. I
have so many things to say to you that I don't know where to begin.
Oh! how horrid it is to live so separated when we love each other.

Have you given Paris an eternal adieu? Am I never to see you again
there? Are you coming to Croisset this summer to hear Saint-Antoine?

As for me, I can not go to Nohant, because my time, considering my
straitened purse, is all counted; but I have still I a full month of
readings and researches in Paris. After that I am going away with my
mother: we are in search of a companion for her. It is not easy to
find one. Then, towards Easter I shall be back at Croisset, and
shall start to work again at the manuscript. I am beginning to want
to write.

Just now, I am reading in the evening, Kant's Critique de la raison
pure, translated by Barni, and I am freshening up my Spinoza. During
the day I amuse myself by looking over bestiaries of the middle
ages; looking up in the "authorities" all the most baroque animals.
I am in the midst of fantastic monsters.

When I have almost exhausted the material I shall go to the Museum
to muse before real monsters, and then the researches for the good
Saint-Antoine will be finished.

In your letter before the last one you showed anxiety about my
health; reassure yourself! I have never been more convinced that it
was robust. The life that I have led this winter was enough to kill
three rhinoceroses, but nevertheless I am well. The scabbard must be
solid, for the blade is well sharpened; but everything is converted
into sadness! Any action whatever disgusts me with life! I have
followed your counsels, I have sought distractions! But that amuses
me very little. Decidedly nothing but sacrosanct literature
interests me.

My preface to the Dernieres Chansons has aroused in Madame Colet a
pindaric fury. I have received an anonymous letter from her, in
verse, in which she represents me as a charlatan who beats the drum
on the tomb of his friend, a vulgar wretch who debases himself
before criticism, after having "flattered Caesar"! "Sad example of
the passions," as Prudhomme would say.

A propos of Caesar, I can not believe, no matter what they say, in
his near return. In spite of my pessimism, we have not come to that!
However, if one consulted the God called Universal Suffrage, who
knows?...Ah! we are very low, very low!

I saw Ruy Blas badly played except for Sarah. Melingue is a sleep-
walking drain-man, and the others are as tiresome. As Victor Hugo
had complained in a friendly way that I had not paid him a call, I
thought I ought to do so and I found him ...charming! I repeat the
word, not at all "the great man," not at all a pontiff! This
discovery greatly surprised me and did me worlds of good. For I have
the bump of veneration and I like to love what I admire. That is a
personal allusion to you, dear, kind master.

I have met Madame Viardot whom I found a very curious temperament.
It was Tourgueneff who took me to her house.



CCXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, from the 28 to the 29 February 1872. Night of Wednesday to
Thursday, three o'clock in the morning.

Ah! my dear old friend, what a dreadful twelve days I have spent!
Maurice has been very ill. Continually these terrible sore throats,
which in the beginning seem nothing, but which are complicated with
abscesses and tend to become membranous. He has not been in danger,
but always IN DANGER OF DANGER, and he has had cruel suffering, loss
of voice, he could not swallow; every anguish attached to the
violent sore throat that you know well, since you have just had one.
With him, this trouble continually tends to get worse, and his
mucous membrane has been so often the seat of the same illness that
it lacks energy to react. With that, little or no fever, almost
always on his feet, and the moral depression of a man used to
continual exercise of body and mind, whom the mind and body forbids
to exercise. We have looked after him so well that he is now, I
think, out of the woods, although, this morning, I was afraid again
and sent for Doctor Favre, our USUAL savior.

Throughout the day I have been talking to him, to distract him,
about your researches on monsters; he had his papers brought so as
to hunt among them for what might be useful you; but he has found
only the pure fantasies of his own invention. I found them so
original and so funny that I have encouraged him to send them to
you. They will be of no use to you except to make you burst out
laughing in your hours recreation.

I hope that we are going to come to life again without new relapses.
He is the soul and the life of the house. When he is depressed we
are dead; mother, wife, and children. Aurore says that she would
like to be very ill in her father's place We love each other
passionately, we five, and the SACROSANCT LITERATURE as you call it,
is only secondary in my life. I have always loved some one more than
it and my family more than that some one.

Pray why is your poor little mother so irritable and desperate, in
the very midst of an old age that when I last saw her was still so
green and so gracious? Is her deafness sudden? Did she entirely lack
philosophy and patience before these infirmities? I suffer with you
because I understand what you are suffering.

Another old age which is worse, since it is becoming malicious, is
that of Madame Colet. I used to think that all her hatred was
directed against me, and that seemed to me a bit of madness; for I
had never done or said anything against her, even after that vile
book in which she poured out all her fury WITHOUT cause. What has
she against you now that passion has become ancient history?
Strange! strange! And, a propos of Bouilhet, she hated him then, him
too this poor poet? She is mad.

You may well think that I was not able to write an iota for these
twelve days. I am going, I hope, to start at work as soon as I have
finished my novel which has remained with one foot in the air at the
last pages. It is on the point of being published but has not yet
been finished. I am up every night till dawn; but I have not had a
sufficiently tranquil mind to be distracted from my patient.

Good night, dear good friend of my heart.

Heavens! don't work nor sit up too much, as you also have sore
throats. They are terrible and treacherous illnesses. We all love
you, and we embrace you. Aurore is charming; she learns all that we
want her to, we don't know how, without seeming to notice it.

What kind of a woman do you want as a companion for your mother?
Perhaps I know of such a one. Must she converse and read aloud? It
seems to me that the deafness is a barrier to that. Isn't it a
question of material care and continual diligence? What are the
stipulations and what is the compensation?

Tell me how and why father Hugo did not have one single visit after
Ruy Blas? Did Gautier, Saint-Victor, his faithful ones, neglect him?
Have they quarreled about politics?



CCXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
March, 1872

Dear master,

I have received the fantastic drawings, which have diverted me. Is
there perhaps profound symbolism hidden in Maurice's work? But I did
not find it. ... Revery!

There are two very pretty monsters: (1) an embryo in the form of a
balloon on four feet; (2) a death's head emanating from an
intestinal worm.

We have not found a companion yet. It seems difficult to me, we must
have someone who can read aloud and who is very gentle; we should
also give her some charge of the household. She would not have much
bodily care to give, as my mother would keep her maid.

We must have someone who is kind above all, and perfectly honest.
Religious principles are not objected to! The rest is left to your
perspicacity, dear master! That is all.

I am uneasy about Theo. I think that he is getting strangely old. He
must be very ill, doubtless with heart trouble, don't you think so?
Still another who is preparing to leave me.

No! literature is not what I love most in the world, I explained
myself badly (in my last letter). I spoke to you of distractions and
of nothing more. I am not such a pedant as to prefer phrases to
living beings. The further I go the more my sensibility is
exasperated. But the basis is solid and the thing goes on. And then,
after the Prussian war there is no further great annoyance possible.

And the Critique de la raison pure of the previously mentioned Kant,
translated by Barni, is heavier reading than the Vie Parisienne of
Marcelin; never mind! I shall end by understanding it.

I have almost finished the scenario of the last part of Saint
Antoine. I am in a hurry to start writing. It is too long since I
have written. I am bored with style!

And tell me more about you, dear master! Give me at once news of
Maurice, and tell me if you think that the lady you know would suit
us.

And thereupon I embrace you with both arms.

Your old troubadour always agitated, always as wrathful as Saint
Polycarp.



CCXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
17 March, 1872

No, dear friend, Maurice is almost well again but I have been tired,
worn out with URGENT work: finishing my novel, and correcting a mass
of proof from the beginning. And then unanswered letters, business,
no time to breathe! That is why I have not been able to write the
article on Bouilhet, and as Nanon has begun, as they are publishing
five numbers a week in le Temps, I don't see where I shall publish
that article very soon.

In the Revue des Deux Mondes, they don't want me to write criticism;
whoever is not, or was not of their circle, has no talent, and they
do not give me the right to say the contrary.

There is, to be sure, a new review wide open to me, which is
published by very fine people, but it is more widely read in other
countries than in France, and you will find perhaps that an article
in that would not excite comment. It is the Revue universelle
directed by Amedee Marteau. Discuss that with Charles Edmond. Ask
him if, in spite of the fact that Nanon is being published, he could
find me a little corner in the body of the paper.

As for the companion, you may rest assured that I am looking for
her. The one whom I had in view is not suitable, for she could not
read aloud, and I am not sure enough of the others to propose them.
I thought that your poor mother was too deaf to listen to reading,
and to converse, and that it would be enough for her to have some
one very gentle, and charming, to care for her, and to stay with
her.

That is all, my dear old friend, it is not my fault, I embrace you
with all my heart. For the moment that is the only thing that is
functioning. My brain is too stupefied.

G. Sand



CCXX. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset

Here I am, back again here, dear master, and not very happy; my
mother worries me. Her decline increases from day to day, and almost
from hour to hour. She wanted me to come home although the painters
have not finished their work, and we are very inconveniently housed.
At the end of next week, she will have a companion who will relieve
me in this foolish business of housekeeping.

As for me, I have quite decided not to make the presses groan for
many years, solely not to have "business" to look after, to avoid
all connection with publishers, editors and papers, and above all
not to hear of money.

My incapacity, in that direction, has developed to frightful
proportions. Why should the sight of a bill put me in a rage? It
verges on madness. Aisse has not made money. Dernieres Chansons has
almost gotten me into a lawsuit. The story of la Fontaine is not
ended. I am tired, profoundly tired, of everything.

If only I do not make a failure also of Saint-Antoine. I am going to
start working on it again in a week, when I have finished with Kant
and Hegel. These two great men are helping to stupefy me, and when I
leave them I fall with eagerness upon my old and thrice great
Spinoza. What genius, how fine a work the Ethics is!



CCXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
9 April, 1872

I am with you all day and all night, and at every instant, my poor
dear friend. I am thinking of all the sorrow that you are in the
midst of. I would like to be near you. The misfortune of being tied
here distresses me. I would like a word so as to know if you have
the courage that you need. The end of that noble and dear life has
been sad and long; for from the day that she became feeble, she
declined and you could not distract her and console her. Now, alas!
the incessant and cruel task is ended, as the things of this world
end, anguish after struggle! What a bitter achievement of rest! and
you are going to miss this anxiety, I am sure of that. I know the
sort of dismay that follows the combat with death.

In short, my poor child, I can only open a maternal heart to you
which will replace nothing, but which is suffering with yours, and
very keenly in each one of your troubles.

G. Sand



CCXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 14 April, 1872

My daughter-in-law has been staying several days with our friends,
at Nimes, to stop a bad case of WHOOPING-COUGH that Gabrielle was
suffering with, to separate her from Aurore, from fear of contagion,
and to recuperate, for she has not been well for some time. As for
me, I am well again. That little illness and this departure suddenly
resolved upon and accomplished, have upset my plans somewhat. I had
to look after Aurore so that she might be reconciled to it, and I
have not had a moment to answer you. I am wondering too if you don't
like it better to be left to yourself these first few days. But I
beguile the need I feel of being near you at this sad time, by
telling you over and over again, my poor, dear friend, how much I
love you. Perhaps, too, your family has taken you to Rouen or to
Dieppe, so as not to let you go back at once into that sad house. I
don't know anything about your plans, in case those which you made
to absorb yourself in work are changed. If you have any inclination
to travel, and the sinews of war are lacking, I have ready for you a
few sous that I have just earned, and I put them at your disposal.
Don't feel constrained with me any more than I would with you, dear
child. They are going to pay me for my novel in five or six days at
the office of le Temps; you need only to write me a line and I shall
see that you get it in Paris. A word when you can, I embrace you,
and so does Maurice, very tenderly.



CCXXIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday, 16 April, 1872

Dear good master,

I should have answered at once your first, very kind letter.  But I
was too sad. I lacked physical strength.

At last, today, I am beginning to hear the birds singing and to see
the leaves growing green. The sun irritates me no longer, which is a
good sign. If I could feel like working again I should be all right.

Your second letter (that of yesterday) moved me to tears! You are so
good! What a splendid creature you are! I do not need money now,
thank you. But if I did need any, I should certainly ask you for it.

My mother has left Croisset to Caroline with the condition that I
should keep my apartments there. So, until the estate is completely
settled, I stay here. Before deciding on the future, I must know
what I have to live on, after that we shall see.

Shall I have the strength to live absolutely alone in solitude?  I
doubt it, I am growing old. Caroline cannot live here now. She has
two dwellings already, and the house at Croisset is expensive. I
think I shall give up my Paris lodging. Nothing calls me to Paris
any longer. All my friends are dead, and the last one, poor Theo, is
not for long, I fear. Ah! it is hard to grow a new skin at fifty
years of age!

I realized, during the last two weeks, that my poor dear, good
mother was the being that I have loved the most! It is as if someone
had torn out a part of my vitals.



CCXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 28 April, 1872

I hold my poor Aurore, who has a terrible case of whooping-cough,
day and night in my arms. I have an important piece of work that I
must finish, and which I shall finish in spite of everything. If I
have not already done the article on Bouilhet, rest assured it is
because it is IMPOSSIBLE. I shall do it at the same time as that on
l'Annee terrible. I shall go to Paris between the 20th and 25th of
May, at the latest. Perhaps sooner, if Maurice takes Aurore to Nimes
where Lina and the littlest one are. I shall write to you, you must
come to see me in Paris, or I will go to see you.

I thirst too to embrace you, to console you--no, but to tell you
that your sorrows are mine. Good-bye till then, a line to tell me if
your affairs are getting settled, and if you are coming out on top.

Your old G. Sand



CCXXV. TO GEORGE SAND

What good news, dear master! In a month and even before a month, I
shall see you at last!

Try not to be too hurried in Paris, so that we may have the time to
talk. What would be very nice, would be, if you came back here with
me to spend several days. We should be quieter than there; "my poor
old mother" loved you very much, would be sweet to see you in her
house, when she has been gone only such a short time.

I have started work again, for existence is only tolerable when one
forgets one's miserable self.

It will be a long time before I know what I have to live on. For all
the fortune that is left to us is in meadowland, and in order to
divide it, we have to sell it all.

Whatever happens, I shall keep my apartments at Croisset. That will
be my refuge, and perhaps even my only habitation. Paris hardly
attracts me any longer. In a little while I shall have no more
friends there. The human being (the eternal feminine included)
amuses me less and less.

Do you know that my poor Theo is very ill? He is dying from boredom
and misery. No one speaks his language anymore! We are like fossils
who subsist astray in a new world.



CCXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 18 May, 1872

Dear friend of my heart, your inability does not disturb me at all,
on the contrary. I have the grippe and the prostration that follows
it. I cannot go to Paris for a week yet, and shall be there during
the first part of June. My little ones are both in the sheepfold. I
have taken good care of and cured the eldest, who is strong. The
other is very tired, and the trip did not prevent the whooping-
cough. For my part, I have worked very hard in caring for my dear
one, and as soon as my task was over, as soon as I saw my dear world
reunited and well again, I collapsed. It will be nothing, but I have
not the strength to write. I embrace you, and I count on seeing you
soon.

G. Sand



CCXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, Monday, 3 June, 1872, Rue Gay Lussac, 5

I am in Paris, and for all this week, in the horror of personal
business. But next week will you come? I should like to go to see
you in Croisset, but I do not know if I can. I have taken Aurore's
whooping-cough, and, at my age, it is severe. I am, however, better,
but hardly able to go about. Write me a line, so I can reserve the
hours that you can give me. I embrace you, as I love you, with a
full heart.

G. Sand



CCXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
1872

The hours that I could give you, dear Master! Why, all the hours,
now, by and by, and forever.

I am planning to go to Paris at the end of next week, the 14th or
the 16th. Shall you be there still? If not, I shall go earlier.

But I should like it much better if you came here. We should be
quieter, without callers or intruders! More than ever, I should like
to have you now in my poor Croisset.

It seems to me that we have enough to talk about without stopping
for twenty-four hours. Then I would read you Saint-Antoine, which
lacks only about fifteen pages of being finished. However, don't
come if your cough continues. I should be afraid that the dampness
would hurt you.

The mayor of Vendome has asked me "to honor with my presence" the
dedication of the statue of Ronsard, which occurs the 23rd of this
month: I shall go. And I should even like to deliver an address
there which would be a protest against the universal modern flap-
doodle. The occasion is good. But for the production of a really
appropriate little gem, I lack the snap and vivacity.

Hoping to see you soon, dear master, your old troubadour who
embraces you.



CCXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
7 June, 1872

Dear friend,

Your old troubadour has such a bad cough that a little bit more
would be the last straw. On the other hand, they cannot get on
without me at our house, and I cannot stay longer than next week,
that is to say, the 15th or the 16th. If you could come next
Thursday, the 13th, I should reserve the 13th, the 14th, even the
15th, to be with you at my house for the day for dinner, for the
evening, in short, just as if we were in the country, where we could
read and converse. I would be supposed to have gone away.

A word at once, I embrace you as I love you.

G. Sand



CCXXX. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear master,

Have you promised your support to the candidacy of Duquesnel? if
not, I should like to beg you to use to the utmost your influence to
support my friend, Raymond Deslandes, as if he were

Your old troubadour,

G. Flaubert

Thursday, three o'clock, 13 June, 1872.

Answer me categorically, so that we may know what you will do.



CCXXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
..Nohant, 5 July, 1872

I must write to you today. Sixty-eight years old. Perfect health in
spite of the cough, which lets me sleep now that I am plunging daily
in a furious little torrent, cold as ice. It boils around the
stones, the flowers, the great grasses in a delicious shade. It is
an ideal place to bathe.

We have had some terrible storms: lightning struck in our garden;
and our stream, the Indre, has become like a torrent in the
Pyrenees. It is not unpleasant. What a fine summer! The grain is
seven feet high, the wheat fields are sheets of flowers. The peasant
thinks that there are too many; but I let him talk, it is so lovely!
I go on foot to the stream, I jump, all boiling hot, into the icy
water. The doctor says that is madness. I let him talk, too; I am
curing myself while his patients look after themselves and croak. I
am like the grass of the fields: water and sun, that is all I need.

Are you off for the Pyrenees? Ah! I envy you, I love them so! I have
taken frantic trips there; but I don't know Luchon. Is it lovely,
too? You won't go there without seeing the Cirque of Gavarnie, and
the road that leads there, will you? And Cauterets and the lake of
Gaube? And the route of Saint-Sauveur? Heavens! How lucky one is to
travel and to see the mountains, the flowers, the cliffs! Does all
that bore you?

Do you remember the editors, the theatrical managers, the readers
and the public when you are running about the country! As for me, I
forget everything as I do when Pauline Viardot is singing.

The other day we discovered, about three leagues from here, a
wilderness, an absolute wilderness of woods in a great expanse of
country, where not one hut could be seen, not a human being, not a
sheep, not a fowl, nothing but flowers, butterflies and birds all
day. But where will my letter find you? I shall wait to send it to
you till you give me an address!



CCXXXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Bagneres de Luchon, 12th July, 1872

I have been here since Sunday evening, dear master, and no happier
than at Croisset, even a little less so, for I am very idle. They
make so much noise in the house where we are that it is impossible
to work. Moreover, the sight of the  bourgeois who surround us is
unendurable. I am not made for travelling. The least inconvenience
disturbs me. Your old troubadour is very old, decidedly! Doctor
Lambron, the  physician of this place, attributes my nervous
tendencies to the excessive use of tobacco. To be agreeable I am
going to smoke less; but I doubt very much if my virtue will cure
me!

I have just read Dickens's Pickwick. Do you know that? There are
superb passages in it; but what defective composition!  All English
writers are the same; Walter Scott excepted, all lack a plot. That
is unendurable for us Latins.

Mister ***** is certainly nominated, as it seems. All the people who
have had to do with the Odeon, beginning with you, dear master, will
repent of the support that they have given him. As for me, who,
thank Heaven, have no more connection with that establishment, I
don't give a whoop.

As I am going to begin a book which will exact much reading,  and
since I don't want to ruin myself in books, do you know of any
dealer in Paris who would rent me all the books that I designated?

What are you doing now? We saw each other so little and so
inconveniently the last time.

This letter is stupid. But they are making such a noise over my head
that it is not clear (my head).

In the midst of my bewilderment, I embrace you and yours also. Your
old blockhead who loves you.



CCXXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 19 July, 1872

Dear old troubadour,

We too are going away, but without knowing yet where we are going;
it doesn't make any difference to me. I wanted to take my brood to
Switzerland; they would rather go in the opposite direction, to the
Ocean; the Ocean will do! If only we travel and bathe, I shall be
out of my mind with joy.  Decidedly our two old troubadourships are
two opposites. What bores you, amuses me; I love movement and noise,
and even the tiresome things about travelling find favor in my eyes,
provided they are a part of travelling. I am much more sensible to
what disturbs the calm of sedentary life, than to that which is a
normal and necessary disturbance in the life of motion.

I am absolutely like my grandchildren, who are intoxicated
beforehand without knowing why. But it is curious to see how
children, while loving the change, want to take with them their
surroundings, their accustomed playthings, when they go out into the
world. Aurore is packing her dolls' trunk, and Gabrielle, who likes
animals better, intends to take her rabbits, her little dog, and a
little pig that she is taking care of until she eats it. SUCH IS
LIFE [sic].

I believe that, in spite of your bad temper, this trip will do you
good. It will make you rest your brain, and if you have to smoke
less, so much the better! Health above all. I hope that your niece
will make you move around a bit; she is your child; she ought to
have some authority over you, or the world would be turned upside
down.

I cannot refer you to the bookshop that you need for borrowing
books. I send for such things to Mario Proth, and I don't know where
he finds them. When you get back to Paris, tell him from me to
inform you. He is a devoted fellow, as obliging as possible. He
lives at 2 rue Visconti. It occurs to me that Charles Edmond, too,
might give you very good information; Troubat, [Footnote: Sainte-
Beuve's secretary.] also.

You are surprised that spoken words are not contracts; you are very
simple; in business nothing holds except written documents. We are
Don Quixotes, my old troubadour; we must resign ourselves to being
trimmed by the innkeepers. Life is like that, and he who does not
want to be deceived must go to live in a desert. It is not living to
keep away from all the evil of this nether-world. One must swallow
the bitter with the sweet.

As to your Saint-Antoine, if you let me, I shall see about finding
you a publisher or a review on my next trip to Paris, but we ought
to talk about it together and you ought to read it to me. Why
shouldn't you come to us in September? I shall be at home until
winter.

You ask me what I am doing now: I have done, since I left Paris, an
article on Mademoiselle de Flaugergues, which will appear in
l'Opinion nationale with a work by her; an article for le Temps on
Victor Hugo, Bouilhet, Leconte de Lisle and Pauline Viardot. I hope
that you will be pleased with what I said about your friend; I have
done a second fantastic tale for the Revue des Deux Mondes, a tale
for children. I have written about a hundred letters, for the most
part to make up for the folly or to soften the misery of imbeciles
of my acquaintance. Idleness is the plague of this age, and life is
passed in working for those who do not work. I do not complain. I am
well! every day I plunge into the Indre and into its icy cascades,
my sixty-eight years and my whooping-cough. When I am no longer
useful nor agreeable to others, I want to go away quietly without
saying OUF! or at least, not saying anything except that against
poor mankind, which is not worth much, but of which I am part, not
being worth perhaps very much myself.

I love you and I embrace you. My family does too, Plauchut included.
He is going to travel with us.

When we are SOMEWHERE FOR SEVERAL DAYS I shall write to you for
news.

G. Sand



CCXXXIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Thursday

Dear master,

In the letter I received from you at Luchon a month ago, you told me
that you were packing up, and then that was all. No more news! I
have permitted myself to assume, as the good Brantome would say,
that you were at Cabourg! When do you return? Where do you go then?
To Paris or to Nohant? A question.

As for me, I am not leaving Croisset. From the 1st to the 20th or
25th of September I shall have to go about a bit on business. I
shall go to Paris. Write then to rue Murillo.

I should like very much to see you: (1) to see you; (2) to read you
Saint-Antoine, then to talk to you about another more important
book, etc., and to talk about a hundred other things privately.



CCXXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 31 August, 1872

My old troubadour,

Here we are back again at home, after a month passed, just as you
said, at Cabourg, where chance more than intention placed us. We all
took wonderful sea baths, Plauchut, too. We often talked of you with
Madame Pasca who was our neighbor at table, and had the room next
us. We have returned in splendid health, and we are glad to see our
old Nohant again, after having been glad to leave it for a little
change of air.

I have resumed my usual work, and I continue my river baths, but no
one will accompany me, it is too cold. As for me, I found fault with
the sea for being too warm. Who would think that, with my appearance
and my tranquil old age, I would still love EXCESS? My dominant
passion on the whole is my Aurore. My life depends on hers. She was
so lovely on the trip, so gay, so appreciative of the amusements
that we gave her, so attentive to what she saw, and curious about
everything with so much intelligence, that she is real and
sympathetic company at every hour. Ah! how UNLITERARY I am! Scorn me
but still love me.

I don't know if I shall find you in Paris when I go there for my
play. I have not arranged with the Odeon for the date of its
performance. I am waiting for Duquesnel for the final reading.--And
then I expect Pauline Viardot about the 20th of September, and I
hope Tourgueneff too, won't you come also? it would be so nice and
so complete!

In this hope which I will not give up, I love you and I embrace you
with all my soul, and my children join me in loving you and
summoning you.

G. Sand



CCXXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 25 October, 1872

Your letters fall on me like a rain that refreshes, and develops at
once all that is germinating in the soil; they make me want to
answer your reasons, because your reasons are powerful and inspire a
reply.

I do not assume that my replies will be strong too; they are
sincere, they issue from the roots of my being, like the plants
aforesaid. That is why I have just written a paper on the subject
that you raise, addressing myself this time TO A WOMAN FRIEND, who
has written me also in your vein, but less well than you, of course,
and a little from an aristocratically intellectual point of view, to
which she has not ALL THE RIGHTS SHE DESIRES.

My roots, one can't extirpate them, and I am astonished that you ask
me to make tulips come from them when they can answer you by
producing only potatoes. Since the beginning of my intellectual
blooming, when, studying quite alone at the bedside of my paralyzed
grandmother, or in the fields at the times when I entrusted her to
Deschartres, I asked myself the most elementary questions about
society; I was no more advanced at seventeen than a child of six,
not as much! thanks to Deschartres, my father's teacher, who was a
contradiction from his head to his feet, much learning and little
sense; thanks to the convent, into which they stuck me, God knows
why, as they believed in nothing; thanks also to a purely
Restoration surrounding in which my grandmother, a philosopher, but
dying, breathed her last without resisting further the monarchical
current.

Then I read Chateaubriand, and Rousseau; I passed from the Gospels
to the Contrat social. I read the history of the Revolution written
by the pious, the history of France, written by philosophers; and,
one fine day, I made all that agree like light proceeding from two
lamps, and I had PRINCIPLES. Don't laugh, very candid, childish
principles which have remained with me through all, through Lelia
and the romantic epoch, through love and doubt, enthusiasm and
disenchantments. To love, to make sacrifices, only to reconsider
when the sacrifice is harmful to those who are the object of it, and
to sacrifice oneself again in the hope of serving a real cause,
love.

I am not speaking here of personal passion, but of love of race, of
the widening sentiment of self-love, of the horror of THE ISOLATED
MOI. And that ideal of JUSTICE of which you speak, I have never seen
it apart from love, since the first law on which the existence of a
natural society depends, is that we shall serve each other mutually,
like the bees and the ants. This concurrence of all to the same end,
we have agreed to call instinct among beasts, and it does not
matter, but among men, the instinct is love; he who withdraws
himself from love, withdraws himself from truth, from justice.

I have experienced revolutions, and I have seen the principal actors
near to; I have seen the depth of their souls, I should say the
bottom of their bag: NO PRINCIPLES! and no real intelligence, no
force, nor endurance. Nothing but means and a personal end. Only one
had principles, not all of them good, but in comparison with their
integrity, he counted his personality for nothing: Barbes.

Among artists and literary men, I have found no depth. You are the
only one with whom I have been able to exchange other ideas than
those of the profession. I don't know if you were at Magny's one day
when I said to them that they were all GENTLEMEN. They said that one
should not write for ignoramuses. They spurned me because I wanted
to write only for them, as they are the only ones who need anything.
The masters are provided for, are rich, satisfied. Imbeciles lack
everything, I am sorry for them. Loving and pitying are not to be
separated. And there you have the uncomplicated mechanism of my
thought.

I have the passion for goodness and not at all for prejudiced
sentimentality. I spit with all my might upon him who pretends to
hold my principles and acts contrary to them. I do not pity the
incendiary and the assassin who fall under the hand of the law; I do
pity profoundly the class which a brutal, degenerate life without
upward trend and without aid, brings to the point of producing such
monsters. I pity humanity, I wish it were good, because I cannot
separate myself from it; because it is myself; because the evil it
does strikes me to the heart; because its shame makes me blush;
because its crimes gnaw at my vitals, because I cannot understand
paradise in heaven nor on earth for myself alone.

You ought to understand me, you who are goodness from head to foot.

Are you still in Paris? It has been such fine weather that I have
been tempted to go there to embrace you, but I don't dare to spend
the money, however little it may be, when there is so much poverty.
I am miserly because I know that I am extravagant when I forget, and
I continually forget. And then I have so much to do!...I don't know
anything and I don't learn anything, for I am always forced to learn
it over again. I do very much need, however, to see you again, for a
little bit; it is a part of myself which I miss.

My Aurore keeps me very busy. She understands too quickly and we
have to take her at a hard gallop. To understand fascinates her, to
know repels her. She is as lazy as monsieur, her father, was. He has
gotten over it so well that I am not impatient. She promises me to
write you a letter soon. You see that she does not forget you.
Titite's Punch has lost his head, literally, because he has been so
embraced and caressed. He is loved as much without his head; what an
example of fidelity in misfortune! His stomach has become a
receptacle where playthings are put.

Maurice is deep in his archeological studies, Lina is always
adorable, and all goes well except that the maids are not clean.
What a road the creatures have still to travel who do not keep
themselves clean!

I embrace you. Tell me how you are getting on with Aisse, the Odeon
and all that stuff you are busy about. I love you; that is the end
of all my discourses.

G. Sand



CCXXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear master,

In your last letter, among the nice things that you say to me, you
praise me for not being "haughty"; one is not haughty with what is
high. Therefore, in this aspect, you cannot know me. I object.

Although I consider myself a good man, I am not always an agreeable
gentleman, witness what happened to me Thursday last. After having
lunched with a lady whom I had called "imbecile," I went to call on
another whom I had said was "ninny"; such is my ancient French
gallantry. The first one had bored me to death with her
spiritualistic discourses and her pretensions to ideality; the
second outraged me by telling me that Renan was a rascal. Observe
that she confessed to me that she had not read his books. There are
some subjects about which I lose patience, and, when a friend is
slandered before my very face, the savage in my blood returns, I see
red. Nothing more foolish! for it serves no purpose and hurts me
frightfully.

This vice, by the way, BETRAYING ONE'S FRIENDS IN PUBLIC, seems to
me to be taking gigantic proportions!



CCXXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 26 October, 1872

Dear friend,

Here is another chagrin for you; a sorrow foreseen, but none the
less distressing. Poor Theo! I pity him deeply, not because he is
dead, but because he has not been really living for twenty years;
and if he had consented to live, to exist, to act, to forget a bit
his intellectual personality so as to conserve his material
personality, he could have lived a long time yet, and have renewed
his resources which he was too much inclined to make a sterile
treasure. They say that he suffered greatly from hardship during the
siege. I understand it, but afterward? why and how?

I am worried at not having had news from you for a long time. Are
you at Croisset? You must have been in Paris for the funeral of this
poor friend. What cruel and repeated separations! I am angry with
you for becoming savage and discontented with life. It seems to me
that you regard happiness too much as a possible thing, and that the
absence of happiness which is our chronic state, angers you and
astonishes you too much. You shun friends, you plunge into work, and
reckon ass lost the time you might employ in loving or in being
loved. Why didn't you come to us with Madame Viardot and
Tourgueneff? You like them, you admire them, you know that you are
adored here, and you run away to be alone. Well, how about getting
married? Being alone is odious, it is deadly, and it is cruel also
for those who love you. All your letters are unhappy and grip my
heart. Haven't you any woman whom you love or by whom you would be
loved with pleasure? Take her to live with you. Isn't there anywhere
a little urchin whose father you can believe you are? Bring him up.
Make yourself his slave, forget yourself in him.

What do I know? To live in oneself is bad. There is intellectual
pleasure only in the possibility of returning to it when one has
been out for a long time; but to live always in this Moi which is
the most tyrannical, the most exacting, the most fantastic of
companions, no, one must not.--I beg you, listen to me! You are
shutting up an exuberant nature in a jail, you are making out of a
tender and indulgent heart, a deliberate misanthrope,--and you will
not make a success of it. In short, I am worried about you, and I am
saying perhaps some foolishness to you; but we live in cruel times
and we must not undergo them with curses. We must rise above them
with pity. That's it! I love you, write to me.

I shall not go to Paris until after a month's time to put on
Mademoiselle La Quintinie. Where shall you be?



CCXXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday night, 28 October, 1872

You have guessed rightly, dear master, that I had an increase of
sorrow, and you have written me a very tender, good letter, thanks;
I embrace you even more warmly than usual.

Although expected, the death of poor Theo has distressed me. He is
the last of my intimates to go. He closes the list. Whom shall I see
now when I go to Paris? With whom shall I talk of what interests me?
I know some thinkers (at least people who are called so), but an
artist, where is there any? For my part, I tell you he died from the
"putrescence of modern times." That is his word, and he repeated it
to me this winter several times: "I am dying of the Commune," etc.

The 4th of September has inaugurated an order of things in which
people like him have nothing more in the world to do. One must not
demand apples of orange trees. Artisans in luxury are useless in a
society dominated by plebeians. How I regret him! He and Bouilhet
have left an absolute void in me, and nothing can take their place.
Besides he was always so good, and no matter what they say, so
simple. People will recognize later (if they ever return seriously
to literature), that he was a great poet. Meanwhile he is an
absolutely unknown author. So indeed is Pierre Corneille.

He hated two things: the hate of the Philistines in his youth, that
gave him his talent; the hate of the blackguards in his riper years,
this last killed him. He died of suppressed fury, of wrath at not
being able to say what he thought. He was OPPRESSED by Girardin, by
Fould, by Dalloz, and by the first Republic. I tell you that,
because _I_ HAVE SEEN abominable things and I am the only man
perhaps to whom he made absolute confidences. He lacked what was the
most important thing in life for him and for others: CHARACTER. That
he failed of the Academy was to him a dreadful chagrin. What
weakness! and how little he must have esteemed himself! To seek an
honor no matter what, seems to me, besides, an act of
incomprehensible modesty.

I was not at his funeral owing to the mistake of Catulle Mendes, who
sent me a telegram too late. There was a crowd. A lot of scoundrels
and buffoons came to advertise themselves as usual, and today,
Monday, the day of the theatrical paper, there must be bits in the
bulletins, THAT WILL MAKE COPY. To resume, I do not pity him, I ENVY
HIM. For, frankly, life is not amusing.

No, I don't think that HAPPINESS IS POSSIBLE, but certainly
tranquillity. That is why I get away from what irritates me. A trip
to Paris is for me now, a great business. As soon as I shake the
vessel, the dregs mount and permeate all. The least conversation
with anyone at all exasperates me because I find everyone idiotic.
My feeling of justice is continually revolted. They talk ONLY of
politics and in what a fashion! Where is there a sign of an idea?
What can one get hold of? What shall one get excited about?

I don't think, however, that I am a monster of egoism. My Moi
scatters itself in books so that I pass whole days without noticing
it. I have bad moments, it is true, but I pull myself together by
this reflection: "No one at least bothers me." After that, I regain
my balance. So I think that I am going on in my natural path; am I
right?

As for living with a woman, marrying as you advise me to do that is
a prospect that I find fantastic. Why? I don't know. But it is so.
Explain the riddle. The feminine being has never been included in my
life; and then, I am not rich enough, and then, and then--...I am
too old, and too decent to inflict forever my person on another.
There is in me an element of the ecclesiastical that people don't
know. We shall talk about that better than we can write of it.

I shall see you in Paris in December, but in Paris one is disturbed
by others. I wish you three hundred performances for Mademoiselle La
Quintinie. But you will have a lot of bother with the Odeon. It is
an institution where I suffered horribly last winter. Every time
that I attempted to do anything they dished me. So, enough! enough!
"Hide thy life," maxim of Epictetus. My whole ambition now is to
flee from bother, and I am sure by that means never to cause any to
others, that is much.

I am working like a madman, I am reading medicine, metaphysics,
politics, everything. For I have undertaken a work of great scope,
which will require a lot of time, a prospect that pleases me.

Ever since a month ago, I have been expecting Tourgueneff from week
to week. The gout is delaying him still.



CCXL. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 22 November, 1872

I don't think that I shall go to Paris before February. My play is
postponed on account of the difficulty of finding the chief actor. I
am content about it, for the idea of leaving Nohant, my occupations,
and the walks that are so lovely in this weather, didn't look good
to me at all; what a warm autumn and how good for old people! Two
hours distant from here, we have a real wilderness, where, the next
day after a rain, it is as dry as in a room, and where there are
still flowers for me, and insects for Maurice. The little children
run like rabbits in the heather which is higher than they are.
Heavens! how good it is to be alive when all one loves is living and
scurrying around one. You are the only BLACK SPOT in my heart-life,
because you are sad and don't want to look at the sun. As for those
about whom I don't care, I don't care either about the evils or the
follies they can commit against me or against themselves. They will
pass as the rain passes. The eternal thing is the feeling of beauty
in a good heart. You have both, confound it! you have no right not
to be happy.--Perhaps you ought to have had in your life the
INCLUSION OF THE FEMININE SENTIMENT which you say you have defied.--
I know that the feminine is worth nothing; but, perhaps, in order to
be happy, one must have been unhappy.

I have been, and I know enough about it; but I forget so well. Well,
sad or gay, I love you and I am still waiting for you, although you
never speak of coming to see us, and you cast aside the opportunity
emphatically; we love you here just the same, we are not literary
enough for you here, I know that, but we love, and that gives life
occupation.

Is Saint-Antoine finished, that you are talking of a work of great
scope? or is it Saint-Antoine that is going to spread its wings over
the entire universe? It could, the subject is immense.  I embrace
you, shall I say again, my old troubadour, since you have resolved
to turn into an old Benedictine? I shall remain a troubadour,
naturally.

G. Sand

I am sending you two novels for your collection of my writings: you
are not OBLIGED to read them immediately, if you are deep in serious
things.



CCXLI. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday evening, eleven o'clock, 25 November, 1872

The postman just now, at five o'clock, has brought your two volumes
to me. I am going to begin Nanon at once, for I am very curious
about it.

Don't worry any more about your old troubadour (who is becoming a
silly animal, frankly), but I hope to recover. I have gone through,
several times, melancholy periods, and I have come out all right.
Everything wears out, boredom with the rest.

I expressed myself badly: I did not mean that I scorned "the
feminine sentiment." But that woman, materially speaking, had never
been one of my habits, which is quite different. I have LOVED more
than anyone, a presumptuous phrase which means "quite like others,"
and perhaps even more than average person. Every affection is known
to me, "the storms of the heart" have "poured out their rain" on me.
And then chance, force of circumstances, causes solitude to increase
little by little around me, and now I am alone, absolutely alone.

I have not sufficient income to take unto myself a wife, nor even to
live in Paris for six months of the year: so it is impossible for me
to change my way of living.

Do you mean to say that I did not tell you that Saint-Antoine had
been finished since last June? What I am dreaming of just now, is
something of greater scope, which will aim to be comic. It would
take too long to explain to you with a pen. We shall talk of it when
we meet.

Adieu, dear good, adorable master, yours with his best affection,

Your old friend.

Always as indignant as Saint Polycarp.

Do you know, in all history, including that of the Botocudos,
anything more imbecile than the Right of the National Assembly?
These gentlemen who do not want the simple and frivolous word
Republic, who find Thiers too advanced!!! O profoundness! problem,
revery!



CCXLII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 27 November, 1872

Maurice is quite happy and very proud of the letter you wrote him;
there is no one who could give him as much pleasure and whose
encouragement counts more with him. I thank you too, for my part;
for I agree with him.

What! you have finished Saint-Antoine? Well, should I find a
publisher, since you are not doing so? You cannot keep it in your
portfolio. You don't like Levy, but there are others; say the word,
and I will act as if it were for myself.

You promise me to get well later, but in the mean time you don't
want to do anything to jolt yourself. Come, then, to read Saint-
Antoine to me, and we will talk of publishing it. What is coming
here from Croisset, for a man? If you won't come when we are gay and
having a holiday, come while it is quiet an I am alone.  All the
family embraces you.

Your old troubadour

G. Sand



CCXLIII. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear master,

Here it is a night and a day that I have spent with you. I had
finished Nanon at four o'clock in the morning, and Francia at three
o'clock in the afternoon. All of it is still dancing around in my
head. I am going to try to gather my ideas together to talk about
these excellent books to you. They have done me good. So thank you,
dear, good master. Yes, they were like a great whiff of air, and,
after having been moved, I feel refreshed.

In Nanon, in the first place I was charmed with the style, with a
thousand simple and strong things which are included in the web of
the work, and which make it what it is; for instance: "as the burden
seemed to me enormous, the beast seemed to me beautiful." But I did
not pay any attention to any thing, I was carried away, like the
commonest reader. (I don't think that the common reader could admire
it as much as I do.) The life of the monks, the first relations
between Emilien and Nanon, the fear caused by the brigands and the
imprisonment of Pere Fructueux which could be commonplace and which
it is not at all. What a fine page is 113! and how difficult it was
to stay within bounds! "Beginning with this day, I felt happiness in
everything, and, as it were, a joy to be in the world."

La Roche aux Fades is an exquisite idyll. One would like to share
the life of those three fine people.

I think that the interest slackens a little when Nanon gets the idea
of becoming rich. She becomes too strongminded, too intelligent! I
don't like the episode of the robbers either. The reappearance of
Emilien with his arm cut off, stirred me again, and I shed a tear at
the last page over the portrait of the Marquise de Francqueville in
her old age.

I submit to you the following queries: Emilien seems to me very much
up in political philosophy; at that period did people see as far
ahead as he? The same objection applies to the prior, whom I think
otherwise charming, in the middle of the book especially. But how
well all that is brought in, how well sustained, how fascinating,
how charming! What a creature you are! What power you have!

I give you on your two cheeks, two little nurse's kisses, and I pass
to Francia! Quite another style, but none the less good. And in the
first place I admire enormously your Dodore. This is the first time
that anyone has made a Paris gamin real; he is not too generous, nor
too intemperate, nor too much of a vaudevillist. The dialogue with
his sister, when he consents to her becoming a kept woman, is a
feat. Your Madame de Thievre, with her shawl which she slips up and
down over her fat shoulders, isn't she decidedly of the Restoration!
And the uncle who wants to confiscate his nephew's grisette! And
Antoine, the good fat tinsmith so polite at the theatre! The Russian
is a simple-minded, natural man, a character that is not easy to do.

When I saw Francia plunge the poignard into his heart, I frowned
first, fearing that it might be a classic vengeance that would spoil
the charming character of that good girl. But not at all! I was
mistaken, that unconscious murder completed your heroine.

What strikes me the most in the book is that it is very intelligent
and exact. One is completely in the period.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this twofold reading. It
has relaxed me. Everything then is not dead. There is still
something beautiful and good in the world.



CCXLIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 29 November, 1872

You spoil me! I did not dare to send you the novels, which were
wrapped up addressed to you for a week. I was afraid of interrupting
your train of thought and of boring you. You stopped everything to
read Maurice first, and then me. We should be remorseful if we were
not egoists, very happy to have a reader who is worth ten thousand
others! That helps a great deal; for Maurice and I work in a desert,
never knowing, except from each other, if a thing is a success or a
mess, exchanging our criticisms, and never having relations with
accredited JUDGES.

Michel never tells us until after a year or two if a book has SOLD.
As for Buloz, if it is with him we have to do, he tells us
invariably that the thing is bad or poor. It is only Charles Edmond
who encourages us by asking us for copy. We write without
consideration for the public; that is perhaps not a bad idea, but we
carry it too far. And praise from you gives us the courage which
does not depart from us, but which is often a sad courage, while you
make it sparkling and gay, and healthful for us to breathe.

I was right then in not throwing Nanon into the fire, as I was ready
to do, when Charles Edmond came to tell me that it was very well
done, and that he wanted it for his paper. I thank you then, and I
send you back your good kisses, for Francia especially, which Buloz
only put in with a sour face and for lack of something better: you
see that I am not spoiled, but I never get angry at all that and I
don't talk about it. That is how it is, and it is very simple. As
soon as literature is a merchandise, the salesman who exploits it,
appreciates only the client who buys it, and if the client
depreciates the object, the salesman declares to the author that his
merchandise is not pleasing. The republic of letters is only a
market in which one sells books. Not making concession to the
publisher is our only virtue; let us keep that and let us live in
peace, even with him when he is peevish, and let us recognize, too,
that he is not the guilty one. He would have taste if the public had
it.

Now I've emptied my bag, and don't let us talk of it again except to
advise about Saint-Antoine, meanwhile telling ourselves that the
editors will be brutes. Levy, however, is not, but you are angry
with him. I should like to talk of all that with you; will you come?
or wait until my trip to Paris? But when shall I go? I don't know.

I am a little afraid of bronchitis in the winter, and I do not leave
home unless I absolutely have to for business reasons.

I don't think that they will play Mademoiselle La Quintinie. The
censors have declared that it is a MASTERPIECE OF THE MOST ELEVATED
AND HEALTHIEST MORALITY, but that they could not TAKE UPON
THEMSELVES to authorize the performance. IT WILL HAVE TO BE TAKEN TO
HIGHER AUTHORITIES, that is to say, to the minister who will send it
to General Ladmirault; it is enough to make you die laughing. But I
don't agree to all that, and I prefer to keep quiet till the new
administration. If the NEW administration is the clerical monarchy,
we shall see strange things. As for me, I don't care if they stand
in my way, but how about the future of our generation?...



CCXLV. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday, 4th December, 1872

Dear master,

I notice a phrase in your last letter: "The publisher would have
taste if the public had it...or if the public forced him to have
it." But that is asking the impossible. They have LITERARY IDEAS,
rest assured, and so have messieurs the managers of the theatre.
Both insist that they are JUDGES IN THAT RESPECT, and their
estheticism mingling with their commercialism makes a pretty result.

According to the publishers, one's last book is always inferior to
the preceding one. May I be hung if that is not true. Why does Levy
admire Ponsard and Octave Feuillet more than father Dumas and you?
Levy is academic. I have made more money for him than Cuvillier-
Fleury has, haven't I? Well, draw a parallel between us two, and you
will see how you will be received. You know that he did not want to
sell more than 1200 copies of the Dernieres Chansons, and the 800
which were left over, are in my niece's garret, rue de Clichy! That
is very narrow of me, I agree to that; but I confess that the
proceeding has simply enraged me. It seems to me that my prose might
have been more respected by a man for whom I have turned a penny or
two.

Why publish, in these abominable times? Is it to get money? What
mockery! As if money were the recompense for work, or could be! That
will be when one has destroyed speculation, till then, no! And then
how measure work, how estimate the effort? The commercial value of
the work remains. For that one would be obliged to suppress all
intermediaries between the producer and the purchaser, and even
then, that question in itself permits of no solution. For I write (I
speak of an author who respects himself) not for the reader of
today, but for all the readers who can present themselves as long as
the language lives. My merchandise, therefore, cannot be consumed,
for it is not made exclusively for my contemporaries. My service
remains therefore indefinite, and in consequence, unpayable.

Why publish then? Is it to be understood, applauded? But yourself,
YOU, great George Sand, you confess your solitude. Is there at this
time, I don't say, admiration or sympathy, but the appearance of a
little attention to works of art? Who is the critic who reads the
book that he has to criticise? In ten years they won't know,
perhaps, how to make a pair of shoes, they are becoming so
frightfully stupid! All that is to tell you that, until better times
(in which I do not believe), I shall keep Saint-Antoine in the
bottom of a closet.

If I publish it, I would rather that it should be at the same time
as another entirely different book. I am working now on one which
will go with it. Conclusion: the wisest thing is to keep calm.

Why does not Duquesnel go to find General Ladmirault, Jules Simon,
Thiers? I think that the proceeding concerns him. What a fine thing
the censorship is! Let us be reassured, it will always exist, for it
always has! Our friend Alexandre Dumas fils, to make an agreeable
paradox, has boasted of its advantages in the preface to the Dame
aux Camelias, hasn't he?

And you want me not to be sad! I think that we shall soon see
abominable things, thanks to the inept stubbornness of the Right.
The good Normans, who are the most conservative people in the world,
incline towards the Left very strongly.

If they consulted the bourgeoisie now, it would make father Thiers
king of France. If Thiers were taken away, it would throw itself in
the arms of Gambetta, and I am afraid it will do that soon! I
console myself by thinking that Thursday next I shall be fifty-one
years old.

If you are not to come to Paris in February, I shall go to see you
at the end of January, before going back to the Pan Monceau; I
promise.

The princess has written me to ask if you were at Nohant. She wants
to write to you.

My niece Caroline, to whom I have just given Nanon to read, is
enchanted with it. What struck her was the "youth" of the book. The
criticism seems true to me. It is a real BOOK while Francia,
although more simple, is perhaps more finished; more irreproachable
as a work.

I read last week the Illustre Docteur Matheus, by Erckmann-Chatrian.
How very boorish! There are two nuts, who have very plebeian souls.

Adieu, dear good master. Your old troubadour embraces you,

I am always thinking of Theo. I am not consoled for his loss.



CCXLVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 8 December, 1872

Oh! well, then, if you are in the realm of the ideal about this, if
you have a future book in your mind, if you are accomplishing a task
of confidence and conviction, no more anger and no more sadness, let
us be logical.

I myself arrived at a philosophical state of very satisfactory
serenity, and I did not OVERSTATE the matter when I said to you that
all the ill any one can do me, or all the indifference that any one
can show me, does not affect me really any more and does not prevent
me, not only from being happy outside of literature, but also from
being literary with pleasure, and from working with joy.

You were pleased with my two novels? I am repaid, I think that they
are SATISFACTORY, and the silence which has invaded my life (it must
be said that I have sought it) is full of a good voice that talks to
me and is sufficient to me. I have not mounted as high as you in my
ambition. You want to write for the ages. As for me, I think that in
fifty years, I shall be absolutely forgotten and perhaps unkindly
ignored. Such is the law of things that are not of first rank, and I
have never thought myself in the first rank. My idea has been rather
to act upon my contemporaries, even if only on a few, and to share
with them my ideal of sweetness and poetry. I have attained this end
up to a certain point; I have at least done my best towards it, I do
still, and my reward is to approach it continually a little nearer.

That is enough for myself, but, as for you, your aim is greater, I
see that clearly, and success is further off. Then you ought to put
yourself more in accord with yourself, by being still calmer and
more content than I am. Your momentary angers are good. They are the
result of a generous temperament, and, as they are neither malicious
nor hateful, I like them, but your sadness, your weeks of spleen, I
do not understand them, and I reproach you for them. I have
believed, I do still, that there is such a thing as too great
isolation, too great detachment from the bonds of life. You have
powerful reasons to answer me with, so powerful that they ought to
give you the victory.

Search your heart, think it over, and answer me, even if only to
dispel the fears that I have often on your account; I don't want you
to exhaust yourself. You are fifty years old, my son is the same or
nearly. He is in the prime of his strength, in his best development,
you are too, if you don't heat the oven of your ideas too hot. Why
do you say often that you wish you were dead? Don't you believe then
in your own work? Do let yourself be influenced then by this or that
temporary thing? It is possible, we are not gods, and something in
us, something weak and unimportant sometimes, disturbs our theodicy.
But the victory every day becomes easier, when one is sure of loving
logic and truth. It gets to the point even of forestalling, of
overcoming in advance, the subject of ill humor, of contempt or of
discouragement.

All that seems easy to me, when it is a question of self control:
the subjects of great sadness are elsewhere, in the spectacle of the
history that is unrolling around us; that eternal struggle of
barbarity against civilization is a great bitterness for those who
have cast off the element of barbarity and find themselves in
advance of their epoch. But, in that great sorrow, in these secret
angers, there is a great stimulant which rightly raises us up, by
inspiring in us the need of reaction. Without that, I confess, for
my part, that I would abandon everything.

I have had a good many compliments in my life, in the time when
people were interested in literature. I have always dreaded them
when they came to me from unknown people; they made me doubt myself
too much. I have made enough money to be rich. If I am not, it is
because I did not care to be; I have enough with what Levy makes for
me. What I should prefer, would be to abandon myself entirely to
botany, it would be for me a Paradise on earth. But it must not be,
that would be useful only to myself, and, if chagrin is good for
anything it is for keeping us from egoism, one must not curse nor
scorn life. One must not use it up voluntarily; you are enamoured of
JUSTICE, begin by being just to yourself, you owe it to yourself to
conserve and to develop yourself.

Listen to me; I love you tenderly, I think of you every day and on
every occasion: when working I think of you. I have gained certain
intellectual benefits which you deserve more than I do, and of which
you ought to make a longer use. Consider too, that my spirit is
often near to yours, and that it wishes you a long life and a
fertile inspiration in true joys.

You promise to come; that is a joy and a feast day for my heart, and
in my family.

Your old troubadour



CCXLVII. TO GEORGE SAND
12 December 1872

Dear good master,

Don't take seriously the exaggerations about my IRE. Don't believe
that I am counting "on posterity, to avenge me for the indifference
of my contemporaries." I meant to say only this: if one does not
address the crowd, it is right that the crowd should not pay one. It
is political economy. But, I maintain that a work of art (worthy of
that name and conscientiously done) is beyond appraisal, has no
commercial value, cannot be paid for. Conclusion: if the artist has
no income, he must starve! They think that the writer, because he no
longer receives a pension from the great, is very much freer, and
nobler. All his social nobility now consists in being the equal of a
grocer. What progress! As for me, you say to me "Let us be logical";
but that's just the difficulty.

I am not sure at all of writing good things, nor that the book of
which I am dreaming now can be well done, which does not prevent me
from undertaking it. I think that the idea of it is original,
nothing more. And then, as I hope to spit into it the gall that is
choking me, that is to say, to emit some truths, I hope by this
means to PURGE MYSELF, and to be henceforward more Olympian, a
quality that I lack entirely. Ah! how I should like to admire
myself!

Mourning once more: I headed the procession at the burial of father
Pouchet last Monday. That gentle fellow's life was very beautiful,
and I mourned him.

I enter today upon my fifty-second year, and I insist on embracing
you today: I do it affectionately, since you love me so well.



CCXLVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 8 January, 1873

Yes, yes, my old friend, you must come to see me. I am not thinking
of going to Paris before the end of the winter, and it is so hard to
see people in Paris. Bring me Saint-Antoine.  I want to hear it, I
want to live in it with you. I want to embrace you with all my soul,
and Maurice does too.

Lina loves you too, and our little ones have not forgotten you. I
want you to see how interesting and lovely my Aurore has become. I
shall not tell you anything new about myself. I live so little in
myself. This will be a good reason for you to talk about what
interests me more, that is to say, about yourself. Tell me ahead so
that I can spare you that horrid coach from Chateauroux to Nohant.
If you could bring Tourgueneff, we should be happy, and you would
have the most perfect travelling companion. Have you read Peres et
Enfants? How good it is!

Now, I hope for you really this time, and I think that our air will
do you good. It is so lovely here!

Your old comrade who loves you,

G. SAND

I embrace you six times for the New Year.



CCXLIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday evening, 3 February, 1873

Dear master,

Do I seem to have forgotten you and not to want to make the journey
to Nohant? Not at all! But, for the last month, every time I go out,
I am seized anew with the grippe which gets worse each time. I cough
abominably, and I ruin innumerable pocket-handkerchiefs! When will
it be over?

I have sworn not to step beyond my doorsill till I am completely
well again, and I am still awaiting the good will of the members of
the commission for the Bouilhet fountain! For nearly two months, I
have not been able to get together in Rouen six citizens of Rouen!
That is the way friends are! Everything is difficult, the least
undertaking demands great efforts.

I am reading chemistry now (which I don't understand a bit), and the
Raspail theory of medicine, not to mention the Potager moderne of
Gressent and the Agriculture of Gasparin. In this connection,
Maurice would be very kind, to compile his agronomical
recollections, so that I may know what mistakes he made and why he
made them.

What sorts of information don't I need, for the book that I am
undertaking? I have come to Paris this winter with the idea of
collecting some; but if my horrible cold continues, my stay here
will be useless! Am I going to become like the canon of Poitiers, of
whom Montaigne speaks, who for thirty years did not leave his room
"because of his melancholic infirmity," but who, however, was very
well "except for a cold which had settled on his stomach." This is
to tell you that I am seeing very few people. Moreover whom could I
see? The war has opened many abysses. I have not been able to get
your article on Badinguet. I am planning to read it at your house.

As regards reading, I have just swallowed ALL the odious Joseph de
Maistre. They have saddled us enough with this gentleman! And the
modern socialists who have praised him beginning with the saint-
simonians and ending with A. Comte. France is drunk with authority,
no matter what they say. Here is a beautiful idea that I find in
Raspail, THE PHYSICIANS OUGHT to be MAGISTRATES, so they could
force, etc.

Your romantic and liberal old dunce embraces you tenderly.



CCL. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 5 February, 1873

I wrote to you yesterday to Croisset, Lina thinking that you had
returned there. I asked you the little favor which you have already
rendered me, namely, to ask your brother to give his patronage to my
friend Despruneaux in his suit which is going to be appealed. My
letter will probably be forwarded to you in Paris, and reach you as
quickly as this one. It is only a question of writing a line to your
brother, if that does not bother you.

Pray, what is this obstinate cough? There is only one remedy, a
minimum dose, a half-centigram of acetate of morphine taken every
evening after digesting your dinner, for a week at least. I do
nothing else and I always get over it, I cure all my family the same
way, it is so easy to do and so quickly done! At the end of two or
three days one feels the good effect. I am awaiting your cure with
impatience, for your sake first, and second for myself, because you
will come and because I am hungry and thirsty to see you.

Maurice is at a loss to know how to answer your question. He has not
made any mistake in his experiments, and knows indeed those that
others make or could make; but he says that they vary infinitely and
that each mistake is a special one for the conditions in which one
works. When you are here and he understands really what you want, he
can answer you for everything that concerns the center of France,
and the general geology of the planet, if there is any opportunity
to generalize. His reasoning has been this: not to make innovations,
but to push to its greatest development what exists, in making use
always of the method established by experience. Experience can never
deceive, it may be incomplete, but never mendacious. With this I
embrace you, I summon you, I await you, I hope for you, but will not
however torment you.

But we love you, that is certain; and we would like to infuse in you
a little of our Berrichon patience about the things in this world
which are not amusing, we know that very well! But why are we in
this world if it is not to learn patience.

Your obstinate troubadour who loves you.

G. Sand



CCLI. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday, March 12, 1873

Dear master,

If I am not at your house, it is the fault of the big Tourgueneff. I
was getting ready to go to Nohant, when he said to me: "Wait, I'll
go with you the first of April." That is two weeks off. I shall see
him tomorrow at Madame Viardot's and I shall beg him to go earlier,
as I am beginning to be impatient. I am feeling the NEED of seeing
you, of embracing you, and of talking with you. That is the truth.

I am beginning to regain my equilibrium again. What is it that I
have had for the past four months? What trouble was going on in the
depths of my being? I don't know. What is certain, is, that I was
very ill in an indefinable way. But now I am better. Since the end
of January, Madame Bovary and Salammbo have belonged to me and I can
sell them. I am doing nothing about it, preferring to do without the
money other than to exasperate my nerves. Such is your old
troubadour.

I am reading all sorts of books and I am taking notes for my big
book which will take five or six years to write, and I am thinking
of two or three others. There will be dreams for a long time, which
is the principal thing.

Art continues to be "in the marasmus," as M. Prudhomme says, and
there is no longer any place in this world for people with taste.
One must, like the rhinoceros, retire into solitude and await one's
death.



CCLII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 15 March, 1873

Well, my old troubadour, we can hope for you very soon. I was
worried about you. I am always worried about you. To tell the truth,
I am not happy over your ill tempers, and your PREJUDICES. They last
too long, and in effect they are like an illness, you recognize it
yourself. Now, forget; don't you know how to forget? You live too
much in yourself and get to consider everything in relation to
yourself. If you were an egoist, and a conceited person, I would say
that it was your normal condition; but with you who are so good and
so generous, it is an anomaly, an evil that must be combated. Rest
assured that life is badly arranged, painful, irritating for
everyone, but do not neglect the immense compensations which it is
ungrateful to forget.

That you get angry with this or that person, is of little importance
if it is a comfort to you; but that you remain furious, indignant
for weeks, months, almost years, is unjust and cruel to those who
love you, and who would like to spare you all anxiety and all
deception.

You see that I am scolding you; but while embracing you, I shall
think only of the joy and the hope of seeing you flourishing again.
We are waiting for you with impatience, and we are counting on
Tourgueneff whom we adore also.

I have been suffering a good deal lately with a series of very
painful hemorrhages; but they have not prevented me from amusing
myself writing tales and from playing with my LITTLE CHILDREN. They
are so dear, and my big children are so good to me, that I shall
die, I believe, smiling at them. What difference does it make
whether one has a hundred thousand enemies if one is loved by two or
three good souls? Don't you love me too, and wouldn't you reproach
me for thinking that of no account? When I lost Rollinat, didn't you
write to me to love the more those who were left? Come, so that I
may OVERWHELM you with reproaches; for you are not doing what you
told me to do.

We are expecting you, we are preparing a mid-Lent fantasy; try to
take part. Laughter is a splendid medicine. We shall give you a
costume; they tell me that you were very good as a pastry cook at
Pauline's! If you are better, be certain it is because you have
gotten out of your rut and have distracted yourself a little. Paris
is good for you, you are too much alone yonder in your lovely house.
Come and work, at our house; how perfectly easy to send on a box of
books!

Send word when you are coming so that I can have a carriage at the
station at Chateauroux.



CCLIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Thursday, 20 March, 1873

Dear master,

The gigantic Tourgueneff is at this moment leaving here and we have
just sworn a solemn oath. You will have us at dinner the 12th of
April, Easter Eve.

It has not been a small job to get to that point, it is so difficult
to succeed in anything, no matter what.

For my part nothing would prevent me from going tomorrow But our
friend seems to me to enjoy very little liberty and I myself have
engagements the first week in April.

I am going this evening to two costume balls! Tell me after that
that I am not young.

A thousand affectionate greetings from your old troubadour who
embraces you.

Read as an example of modern fetidness, in the last number of the
Vie Parisienne, the article on Marion Delorme. It ought to be
framed, if, however, anything fetid can be framed. But nowadays
people don't look so closely.



CCLIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 23 March, 1873

No, that giant does not do as he likes, I have noticed that. But he
is one of the class that finds its happiness in being ruled and I
can understand it, on the whole. Provided one is in good hands,--and
he is.

Well, we are hoping still, but we are not absolutely counting on
anyone but you. You can not give me a greater pleasure than by
telling me that you are going out among people, that you are getting
out of a rut and distracting yourself, absolutely necessary, in
these muddled days.

On the day when a little intoxication is no longer necessary for
self-preservation, the world will be getting on very well. We
haven't come to that yet.

That FETID thing is not worth the trouble of reading, I didn't
finish it, one turns away from such things, one does not spoil one's
sense of smell by breathing them. But I do not think that the man to
whom one offers that in a censer would be satisfied with it.

Do come with the swallows and bring Saint-Antoine. It is Maurice who
is going to be interested in that! He is more of a scholar than I
am, I who will appreciate, thanks to my ignorance about many things,
only the poetic and great side of it. I am sure of it, I know
already that it is there.

Keep on going about, you must, and above all continue to love us as
we love you.

Your old troubadour,

G. Sand



CCLV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 7th April, 1873

I am writing to my friend General Ferri Pisani, whom you know, who
HAS CHARGE at Chateauroux, to reserve you a carriage  which will be
waiting for you on the 12th, at the station, at twenty minutes past
three. You must leave Paris at ten minutes past nine o'clock by the
EXPRESS. Otherwise the trip is too long and stupid. I hope that the
general will come with you, if there is any decision contrary to
your promise send him a telegram to Chateauroux so that he shall not
wait for you. He usually comes on horseback.

We are looking forward IMPATIENTLY to seeing you.

Your old troubadour

G. Sand


CCLVI. TO GEORGE SAND
23 April, 1873

It is only five days since we parted, and I am missing you like the
devil. I miss Aurore and all the household down to Fadette. Yes,
that is the way it is, one is so happy at your house! you are so
good and so interesting.

Why can't we live together, why is life always so badly arranged?
Maurice seems to me to be the type of human happiness. What does he
lack? Certainly, he is no more envied by anyone than by me.

Your two friends, Tourgueneff and Cruchard philosophized about that
from Nohant to Chateauroux, very comfortably borne along in your
carriage at a smart pace by two horses. Hurrah for the postillions
of La Chatre! But the rest of the trip was horrid because of the
company we had in our car. I was consoled for it by strong drink, as
the Muscovite had a flask full of excellent brandy with him. We both
felt a little heavy hearted. We did not talk, we did not sleep.

We found here the barodetien folly in full flower again.  On the
heels of this affair has developed during the last three days,
Stoppfel! another bitter narcotic! Oh! Heavens! Heavens! what a bore
to live in such times! How wise you are live so far from Paris!

I have begun my readings again, and, in a week I shall begin my
excursions hereabouts to discover a countryside that may serve for
my two good men. After which, about the 12th or the 15th, I shall
return to my house at the water-side. I want very much, this summer,
to go to Saint Gervais, to bleach my nose and to strengthen my
nerves. For ten years I have been finding a pretext for doing
without it. But it is high time to beautify myself, not that I have
any pretensions at pleasing and seducing by my physical graces, but
I hate myself too much when I look in my mirror. The older one
grows, the more care one should take of oneself.

I shall see Madame Viardot this evening, I shall go early and we
will talk of you.

When shall we meet again, now? How far Nohant is from Croisset!

Yours, dear good master, all my affection.

Gustave Flaubert

otherwise called the R. P. Cruchard of the Barnabites, director of
the Ladies of Disillusion.



CCLVII. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear master,

Cruchard should have thanked you sooner for sending him your last
book; but his reverence is working like ten thousand negroes, that
is his excuse. But it did not hinder him from reading "Impressions
et Souvenirs." I already knew some of it, from having read it in le
Temps (a pun). [Footnote: "Dans de temps" means also, "some time
ago."]

This is what was new to me and what struck me: (1) the first
fragment; (2) the second in which there is a charming and just page
on the Empress. How true is what you say of the proletariat! Let us
hope that its reign will pass like that of the bourgeois, and for
the same causes, as a punishment for the same folly and a similar
egoism.

The "Reponse a un ami" I knew, as it was addressed to me.

The "Dialogue avec Delacroix" is instructive; two curious pages on
what he thought of father Ingres.

I am not entirely of your opinion as regards the punctuation. That
is to say that I would shock you by my exaggeration in that respect;
but I do not lack, naturally, good reasons to defend my point of
view.

"J'allume le fagot," etc., all of this long article charmed me.

In the "Idees d'un maitre d'ecole," I admire your pedagogic spirit,
dear master, there are many pretty a b c phrases.

Thank you for what you say of my poor Bouilhet!

I adore your "Pierre Bonin." I have known people like him, and as
these pages are dedicated to Tourgueneff it is the moment to ask you
if you have read "I'Abandonnee"? For my part, I find it simply
sublime. This Scythian is an immense old fellow.

I am not at such high-toned literature now. Far from it! I am
hacking and re-hacking "le Sexe faible." I wrote the first act in a
week. It is true that my days are long. I spent, last week, one of
eighteen hours, and Cruchard is as fresh as a young girl, not tired,
no headache. In short, I think that I shall be through that work in
three weeks. After that, God knows what!

It would be funny if Carvalho's fantasticality was crowned with
success!

I am afraid that Maurice has lost his wager, for I want to replace
the three theological virtues by the face of Christ appearing in the
sun. What do you think about it? When the correction is made and I
have strengthened the massacre at Alexandria and clarified the
symbolism of the fantastic beasts, "Saint-Antoine" will be finished
forever, and I shall start at my two good fellows who were set aside
for the comedy.

What a horrid way of writing is required for the stage! The
ellipses, the delays, the questions and the repetitions have to be
lavish, if movement is desired, and all that in itself is very ugly.

I am perhaps blinding myself, but I think that I am now writing
something very quick and easy to play. We shall see.

Adieu, dear master, embrace all yours for me.

Your old good-for-nothing Cruchard, friend of Chalumeau. Note that
name. It is a gigantic story, but it requires one to toe the mark to
tell it suitably.



CCLVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 4 July, 1873

I don't know where you are at present, Cruchard of my heart. I am
addressing this to Paris whence I suppose it will be forwarded to
you. I have been ill, your reverence, nothing except a stupid
anemia, no legs, no appetite, continual sweat on the forehead and my
heart as jumpy as a pregnant woman; it is unfair, that condition,
when one gets to the seventies, I begin my seventieth spring
tomorrow, cured after a half score of river baths. But I find it so
comfortable to rest that I have not yet done an iota of work since I
returned from Paris, and until I opened my ink-well again to write
to you today. We reread your letter this morning in which you said
that Maurice had lost his wager. He insists that he has won it as
you are taking out the vertus theologales.

As for me, bet or no bet, I want you to keep the new version which
is quite in the atmosphere, while the theological virtues are not.--
Have you any news of Tourgueneff? I am worried about him. Madame
Viardot wrote me, several days ago, that he had fallen and hurt his
leg.--Yes, I have read l'Abandonnee, it is very beautiful as is all
that he does. I hope that his injury is not serious! such a thing is
always serious with gout.

So you are still working frantically? Unhappy one! you don't know
the ineffable pleasure of doing nothing! And how good work will seem
to me after it! I shall delay it however as long as possible. I am
getting more and more of the opinion that nothing is worth the
trouble of being said!

Don't believe a word of that, do write lovely things, and love your
old troubadour who always cherishes you.

G. Sand

Love from all Nohant.



CCLIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Thursday

Why do you leave me so long without any news of yourself, dear good
master? I am cross with you, there!

I am all through with the dramatic art. Carvalho came here last
Saturday to hear the reading of le Sexe faible, and seemed to me to
be satisfied with it. He thinks it will be a success. But I put so
little confidence in the intelligence of all those rascals, that for
my part, I doubt it.

I am exhausted, and I am now sleeping ten hours a night, not to
mention two hours a day. That is resting my poor brain.

I am going to resume my readings for my wretched book, which I shall
not begin for a full year.

Do you know where the great Tourgueneff is now?

A thousand affectionate greetings to all and to you the best of
everything from your old friend.



CCLX. TO GEORGE SAND
Sunday ...

I am not like M. de Vigny, I do not like the "sound of the horn in
the depth of the woods." For the last two hours now an imbecile
stationed on the island in front of me has been murdering me with
his instrument. That wretched creature spoils my sunlight and
deprives me of the pleasure of enjoying the summer. For it is lovely
weather, but I am bursting with anger. I should like, however, to
talk a bit with you, dear master.

In the first place, congratulations on your seventieth year, which
seems more robust to me than the twentieth of a good many others!
What a Herculean constitution you have! Bathing in an icy stream is
a proof of strength that bewilders me, and is a mark of a "reserve
force" that is reassuring to your friends. May you live long. Take
care of yourself for your dear grandchildren, for the good Maurice,
for me too, for all the world, and I should add: for literature, if
I were not afraid of your superb disdain.

Ha! good! again the hunting horn! The man is mad. I want to go and
find the rural guard.

As for me, I do not share your disdain, and I am absolutely ignorant
of, as you say, "the pleasure of doing nothing." As soon as I no
longer hold a book, or am not dreaming of writing one, A LAMENTABLE
boredom seizes upon me. Life, in short seems tolerable to me only by
legerdemain. Or else one must give oneself up to disordered pleasure
... and even then!

Well, I have finished with le Sexe faible, which will be played, at
least so Carvalho promises, in January, if Sardou's l'Oncle Sam is
permitted by the censorship; if otherwise, it will be in November.

As I have been accustomed during the last six weeks to seeing things
from a theatrical point of view, to thinking in dialogue, here I am
starting to build the plot of another play! It will be called le
Candidat. My written plot is twenty pages long. But I haven't anyone
to show it to. Alas! I shall therefore leave it in a drawer and
start at my old book. I am reading l'Histoire de la Medecine by
Daremberg, which amuses me a great deal, and I have finished l'Essai
sur les facultes de l'entendement by Gamier, which I think very
silly. There you have my occupations. THINGS seem to be getting
quieter. I breathe again.

I don't know whether they talk as much of the Shah in Nohant as they
do around here. The enthusiasm has been immense. A little more and
they would have proclaimed him Emperor. His sojourn in Paris has
had, on the commercial shop-keeping and artisan class, a monarchical
effect which you would not have suspected, and the clerical
gentlemen are doing very well, very well indeed!

On the other side of the horizon, what horrors they are committing
in Spain! So that the generality of humanity continues to be
charming.



CCLXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 30 August, 1873

Where are you to be found now? where are you nestled? As for me, I
have just come from Auvergne with my whole household, Plauchut
included. Auvergne is beautiful, above all it is pretty. The flora
is always rich and interesting, the walking rough, the living
accommodations poor. I got through it all very well, except for the
elevation of two thousand meters at Sancy, which combining an icy
wind with a burning sun, laid me flat for four days with a fever.
After that I got into the running again, and I am returning here to
resume my river baths till the frost.

There was no more question of any work, of any literature at all,
than if none of us had ever learned to read. The LOCAL POETS pursued
me with books and bouquets. I pretended to be dead and was left in
peace. I am square with them now that I am home, by sending a copy
of something of mine, it doesn't matter what, in exchange. Ah! what
lovely places I have seen and what strange volcanic combinations,
where we ought to have heard your Saint-Antoine in a SETTING worthy
of the subject! Of what use are these pleasures of vision, and how
are these impressions transformed later? One does not know ahead,
and, with time and the easy ways of life, everything is met with
again and preserved.

What news of your play? Have you begun your book? Have you chosen a
place to study? Do tell me what is becoming of my Cruchard, the
Cruchard of my heart. Write to me even if only a word! Tell me that
you still love us as I love you and as all of us here love you.

G. Sand



CCLXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Friday, 5th September, 1873

On arriving here yesterday, I found your letter, dear good master.
All is well with you then, God be praised!

I spent the month of August in wandering about, for I was in Dieppe,
in Paris, in Saint-Gratien, in Brie, and in Beauce, hunting for a
certain country that I had in mind, and I think that I have found it
at last in the neighborhood of Houdan. But, before starting at my
terrifying book, I shall make a last search on the road that goes
from Loupe to Laigle. After that, good night.

The Vaudeville begins well. Carvalho up to now has been charming.
His enthusiasm is so strong even that I am not without anxieties.
One must remember the good Frenchmen who cried "On to Berlin," and
then received such a fine drubbing.

Not only is the aforesaid Carvalho content with the le Sexe faible,
but he wants me to write at once another comedy, the scenario of
which I have shown him, and which he would like to produce a year
from now. I don't think the thing is quite ready to be put into
words. But on the other hand, I should like to be through with it
before undertaking the story of my good men. Meanwhile, I am keeping
on with my reading and note-taking.

You are not aware, doubtless, that they have forbidden Coetlogon's
play formally, BECAUSE IT CRITICISED THE EMPIRE. That is the
censorship's answer. As I have in the le Sexe faible a rather
ridiculous general, I am not without forebodings. What a fine thing
is Censorship! Axiom: All governments curse literature, power does
not like another power.

When they forbade the playing of Mademoiselle La Quintinie, you were
too stoical, dear master, or too indifferent. You should always
protest against injustice and folly, you should bawl, froth at the
mouth, and smash when you can. If I had been in your place with your
authority, I should have made a grand row. I think too that Father
Hugo was wrong in keeping quiet about le Roi s'amuse. He often
asserts his personality on less legitimate occasions.

At Rouen they are having processions, but the effect is completely
spoiled, and the result of it is deplorable for fusion! What a
misfortune! Among the imbecilities of our times, that (fusion) is
perhaps the greatest. I should not be surprised if we should see
little Father Thiers again! On the other hand many Reds, from fear
of the clerical reaction, have gone over to Bonapartism. One needs a
fine dose of simplicity to keep any political faith.

Have you read the Antichrist? I find that indeed a beautiful book,
aside from some faults of taste, some modern expressions applied to
ancient things. Renan seems to me on the whole to have progressed. I
passed all one evening recently with him and I thought him adorable.



CCLXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 3d October, 1873

The existence of Cruchard is a beautiful poem, so much in keeping,
that I don't know if it is a fictitious biography or the copy for a
real article done in good faith. I had to laugh a bit after the
departure of all the Viardots (except Viardot) and the big
Muscovite, who was charming although very much indisposed from time
to time. He left very well and very gay, but regretting not to have
been to see you. The truth is that he was ill just then. He has had
a disordered stomach, like me, for some time. I get well by being
moderate, and he does not! I excuse him; after these crises one is
famished, and if it is because of an empty stomach that one has to
fill up, he must be terribly famished. What a kind, excellent and
worthy man! And what modest talent! Everyone adores him here and I
give them the example. We adore you too, Cruchard of my heart. But
you love your work better than your friends, and in that you are
inferior to the real Cruchard, who at least adored our holy
religion.

By the way, I think that we shall have Henry V. They tell me that I
am seeing the dark side of things; I don't see anything, but I
perceive the odor of sacristies that increases. If that should not
last a long time, I should like our clerical bourgeois to undergo
the scorn of those whose lands they have bought and whose titles
they have taken. It would be a good thing.

What lovely weather in our country! I still go every day to dip into
the cold rush of my little river and I feel better. I hope to resume
tomorrow my work that has been absolutely abandoned for six months.
Ordinarily, I take shorter holidays; but the flowering of the meadow
saffron always warns me that it is time to begin grubbing again.
Here it is, let us grub. Love me as I love you.

My Aurore, whom I have not neglected, and who is world: well, sends
you a big kiss. Lina, Maurice send affection.

G. Sand



CCLXIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Thursday

Whatever happens, Catholicism will receive a terrible blow, and if I
were a devotee, I should spend my time before a crucifix saying:
"Maintain the Republic for us, O my God!"

But THEY ARE AFRAID of the monarchy. Because of itself and because
of the reaction which would follow. Public opinion is absolutely
against it. The reports of messieurs the prefects are disquieting;
the army is divided into Bonapartists and Republicans; the body of
big business in Paris has pronounced against Henry V. Those are the
bits of information that I bring back from Paris, where I have spent
ten days. In a word, dear master, I think now that THEY will be
swamped! Amen!

I advise you to read the pamphlet by Cathelineau and the one by
Segur also. It is curious! The basis is clearly to be seen. Those
people think they are in the XIIth century.

As for Cruchard, Carvalho asked him for some changes which he
refused. (You know that sometimes Cruchard is not easy.) The
aforesaid Carvalho finally realized that it was impossible to change
anything in le Sexe faible without distorting the real idea of the
play. But he is asking to play le Candidat first, it is not finished
but it delights him--naturally. Then when the thing is finished,
reviewed and corrected, perhaps he won't want it. In short, if after
l'Oncle Sam, le Candidat is finished, it will be played. If not, it
will be le Sexe faible.

However, I don't care, I am so eager to start my novel which will
take me several years. And moreover, the theatrical style is
beginning to exasperate me. Those little curt phrases, this
continual scintillation irritates like seltzer water, which is
pleasing at first but shortly seems like nasty water. Between now
and January I am going to compose dialogues in the best manner
possible, after that I am coming back to serious things.

I am glad to have diverted you a little with the biography of
Cruchard. But I find it is hybrid and the character of Cruchard is
not consistent! A man with such an executive ability does not have
so many literary preoccupations. The archeology is superfluous. It
belongs to another kind of ecclesiastics. Perhaps there is a
transition that is lacking. Such is my humble criticism.

They had said in a theatrical bulletin that you were in Paris; I had
a mistaken joy about it, dear good master whom I adore and whom I
embrace.



CCLXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Your poor old troubadour, just getting well from a cruel attack of
rheumatism, during which he could not lie down, nor eat, nor dress
without aid, is at last up again. He suffered liver trouble,
jaundice, rash, fever, in short he was fit to be thrown out on a
pile of rubbish.

Here he is up again, very feeble, but able to write a few lines and
to say with you AMEN to the buried catholic dictatorships; it is not
even Catholics that they should be  called, those people are not.
They are only clericals.

I note today in the papers that they have played l'Oncle Sam. I hear
that it is bad, but it may very well be a success all the same. I
think that your play is surely postponed and Carvalho seems as
capricious too, to me, as hard to put your finger on as other
theatrical managers.

All Nohant embraces you and I embrace you even more, but I cannot
write any more.

G. Sand Monday

Hard work? When indeed can I start at it? I am NO GOOD.



CCLXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
January, 1874

As I have a quiet moment, I am going to profit by it by talking a
little with you, dear good master! And first of all, embrace for me
all your family and accept all my wishes for a Happy New Year!

This is what is happening now to your Father Cruchard.

Cruchard is very busy, but serene and very calm, which surprises
everybody. Yes, that's the way it is. No indignations, no boiling
over. The rehearsals of le Candidat have begun, and the thing will
be on the boards the first of February. Carvalho seems to me very
satisfied with it! Nevertheless he has insisted on my combining two
acts in one, which makes the first act inordinately long.

I did this work in two days, and Cruchard has been splendid! He
slept seven hours in all, from Thursday morning (Christmas Day) to
Saturday, and he is only the better for it.

Do you know what I am going to do to complete my ecclesiastical
character? I am going to be a godfather. Madame Charpentier in her
enthusiasm for Saint-Antoine came to beg me to give the name Antoine
to the child that she is expecting! I refused to inflict on this
young Christian the name of such an agitated man, but I had to
accept the honor that was done me. Can you see my old top-knot by
the baptismal font, beside the chubby-cheeked baby, the nurse and
the relatives? O civilization, such are your blows! Good manners,
such are your exactions!

I went on Sunday to the civic funeral of Francois-Victor Hugo. What
a crowd! and not a cry, not the least bit of disorder! Days like
that are bad for Catholicism. Poor father Hugo (whom I could not
help embracing) was very broken, but stoical.

What do you think of le Figaro, which reproached him for wearing at
his son's funeral, "a soft hat"?

As for politics, a dead calm. The Bazaine trial is ancient history.
Nothing shows better the contemporary demoralization than the pardon
granted to this wretched creature! Besides, the right of pardon if
one departs from theology is a denial of justice. By what right can
a man prevent the accomplishment of the law?

The Bonapartists should have let this alone; but not at all: they
defended him bitterly, out of hatred for the 4th of September. Why
do all the parties regard themselves as having joint interests with
the rascals who exploit them? It is because all parties are
execrable, imbecile, unjust, blind! An example: the history of Azor
(what a name!). He robbed the ecclesiastics. Never mind! the
clericals consider themselves attacked.

As regards the church. I have read in full (which I never did
before) Lamennais' Essai sur l'indifference. I know now, and
thoroughly, all the great buffoons who had a disastrous influence on
the XIXth century. To establish common sense or the prevailing mode
and custom as the criterion of certitude, that is preparing the way
for universal suffrage, which is, to my way of thinking, the shame
of human kind.

I have just read also, la Chretienne by the Abbe Bautain. A curious
book for a novelist. It smacks of its period of modern Paris. I
gulped a volume by Garcin de Tassy on Hindustani literature, to get
clean. One can breathe, at least, in that.

You see that your Father Cruchard is not entirely stupefied by the
theatre. However, I haven't anything to complain of in the
Vaudeville. Everyone there is polite and exact! How different from
the Odeon!

Our friend Chennevieres is now our superior, since the theatres are
in his division. The theatrical people are enchanted.

I see the Muscovite every Sunday. He is very well and like him
better and better.

Saint-Antoine will be in galley proof at the end of January.

Adieu, dear master! When shall we meet? Nohant is very far away! and
I am going to be, all this winter, very busy.



CCLXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
January, 1874

I am seized with a headache, but, although perfectly imbecile, I
want to embrace you and thank you for having written to me on New
Year's day. All Nohant loves you and smacks you, as they say in the
country.

We wish you a magnificent success and we are glad that it is not to
be at the cost of annoyances. However, that is hardly the way of the
actors whom I have known, and at the Vaudeville I have found only
those who were good natured. Have you a part for my friend Parade?
And for Saint-Germain, who seemed to you idiotic one day when
perhaps he had lunched too well, but who nevertheless is a fine
addlepate, full of sympathy and spirit. And with real talent!

I am not reading all these horrid things that you feed on so as to
sense better apparently the good things with which you sandwich
them. I have stopped laughing at human folly, I flee it and try to
forget it. As for admiration, I am always ready, it is the
healthiest regime by far, and too, I am glad to know that I shall
soon read Saint-Antoine again.

Keep in touch with your play and don't get ill this hateful winter.

Your old troubadour who loves you.

G. Sand



CCLXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday evening, 7th February, 1874

I have at last a moment to myself, dear master; now let us talk a
little.

I knew through Tourgueneff that you were doing very well. That is
the main thing. Now I am going lo give you some news about that
excellent Father Cruchard.

Yesterday I signed the final proof for Saint-Antoine. ...But the
aforesaid old book will not be published until the first of April
(like an April fool trick?) because of the translations. It is
finished, I am not thinking any more about it! Saint-Antoine is
relegated, as far as I am concerned, to the condition of a memory!
However I do not conceal from you that I had a moment of great
sadness when I looked at the first proof. It is hard to separate
oneself from an old companion!

As for le Candidat, it will be played, I think, between the 2oth and
the 25th of this month. As that play gave me very little trouble and
as I do not attach great importance to it, I am rather calm about
the results of it.

Carvalho's leaving irritated and disturbed me for several days. But
his successor Cormon is full of zeal. Up to now I have nothing but
praise for him, as for all the others in fact. The people at the
Vaudeville are charming. Your old troubadour, whom you picture
agitated and always angry, is gentle as a lamb and even good
natured! First I made all the changes that THEY wanted, and then
THEY put back the original text. But of my own accord I have cut out
what seemed to me too long, and it goes well, very well. Delannoy
and Saint-Germain have excellent wigs and play like angels. I think
it will be all right.

One thing vexes me. The censorship has ruined the role of a little
legitimist ragamuffin, so that the play, conceived in the spirit of
strict unpartisanship, has now to flatter the reactionaries: a
result that distresses me. For I don't want to please the political
passions of anyone, no matter who it may be, having, as you know, an
essential hatred of all dogmatism, of all parties.

Well, the good Alexander Dumas has made the plunge! Here he is an
Academician! I think him very modest. He must be to think himself
honored by honors.



CCLXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 15 February, 1874

Everything is going well, and you are satisfied, my troubadour. Then
we are happy here over your satisfaction and we are praying for
success, and we are waiting impatiently Saint-Antoine so as to read
it again. Maurice has had a cold which attacks him every other day.
Lina and I are well, little girls superlatively so. Aurore learns
everything with admirable facility and docility; that child is my
life and ideal. I no longer enjoy anything except her progress. All
my past, all that I have been able to acquire or to produce, has no
value in my eyes unless it can profit her. If a certain portion of
intelligence and goodness was granted to me, it is so that she may
have a greater share. You have no children, be therefore a
litterateur, an artist, a master; that is logical, that is your
compensation, your happiness, and your strength. And do tell us that
you are getting on, that seems to us the main thing in life.--And
keep well, I think that these rehearsals which make you go to and
fro are good for you.

We all embrace you fondly.

G. Sand



CCLXX. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday evening, 28 February, 1874

Dear master,

The first performance of le Candidat is set for next Friday, unless
it is Saturday, or perhaps Monday the 9th? It has been postponed by
Delannoy's illness and by l'Oncle Sam, for we had to wait until the
said Sam had come down to under fifteen hundred francs.

I think that my play will be very well given, that is all. For I
have no idea about the rest of it, and I am very calm about the
result, a state of indifference that surprises me greatly. If I were
not harassed by people who ask me for seats, I should forget
absolutely that I am soon to appear on the boards, and to expose
myself, in spite of my great age, to the derision of the populace.
Is it stoicism or fatigue?

I have been having and still have the grippe, the result of it for
your Cruchard, is a general lassitude accompanied by a violent (or
rather a profound) melancholy. While spitting and coughing beside my
fire, I muse over my youth. I dream of all my dead friends, I wallow
in blackness! Is it the result of a too great activity for the past
eight months, or the radical absence of the feminine element in my
life? But I have never felt more abandoned, more empty, more
bruised. What you said to me (in your last letter) about your dear
little girls moved me to the depths of my soul! Why haven't I that?
I was born with all the affections, however! But one does not make
one's destiny, one submits to it. I was cowardly in my youth, I had
a fear of life! One pays for everything.

Let us speak of other things, it will be gayer.

H. M. the Emperor of all the Russias does not like the Muses. The
censorship of the "autocrat of the north" had formally forbidden the
transportation of Saint-Antoine, and the proofs were returned me
from Saint Petersburg, last Sunday; the French edition even will be
prohibited. That is quite a serious money loss to me. It would have
taken very little for the French censorship to forbid my play. Our
friend Chennevieres gave me a good boost. Except for him I should
not be played. Cruchard does not please the temporal powers. Isn't
it funny, this simple hatred of authority, of all government
whatever, for art!

I am reading now books on hygiene. Oh! but they are comic! What
assurance physicians have! what effrontery! what asses for the most
part! I have just finished the Gaule poetique of Marchangy (the
enemy of Beranger). This book gave me hysterics.

So as to retemper myself in something stronger, I reread the great,
the most holy, the incomparable Aristophanes. There is a man, that
fellow! What a world in which such work were produced!



CCLXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, March, 1874

Our two little girls cruelly ill with the grippe have taken up all
my time, but I am following, in the papers, the course of your play.
I would go to applaud it, my cherished Cruchard, if I could leave
these dear little invalids. So it is on Wednesday that they are
going to judge it. The jury may be good or stupid, one never knows!

I have started grubbing again after having rested from the long and
successful novel published by the Revue. I shall send it to you when
it is published in book form.

Don't you delay to give me the news on Thursday, I don't need to
tell you that success and the lack of it prove nothing, and that it
is a ticket in a lottery. It is agreeable to succeed; to a
philosophical spirit it ought not to be very distressing to fail. As
for me, without knowing the play, I predict a success on the first
day. As for its continuance, that is always unknown and unforeseen
from day to day.

We all embrace you very affectionately.

G. Sand



CCLXXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Thursday, one o'clock, 12 March, 1874

Speaking of FROSTS, this is one! People who want to flatter me
insist that the play will do better before the real public, but I
don't think so! I know the defects of my play better than anyone. If
Carvalho had not, for a month, bored me to death with corrections
that I have cut out, I would have made  re-touches or perhaps
changes which would perhaps have modified the final issue. But I was
so disgusted with it that I would not have changed a line for a
million francs. In a word, I am dished.

It must be said too that the hall was detestable, all fops and
students who did not understand the material sense of the words.
They made jokes of the poetical things. A poet says: "I am of 1830,
I learned to read in Hernani, and I wanted to be Lara." Thereupon a
burst of ironical laughter, etc.

And moreover I have fooled the public in regard to the title. They
expected another Rabagas! The conservatives have been vexed because
I did not attack the republicans. Similarly the communists would
have liked some insults against the legitimists.

My actors played superbly, Saint-Germain among others; Delannoy who
carries all the play, is distressed, and I don't know what to do to
soften his grief. As for Cruchard, he is calm, very calm! He had
dined very well before the performance, and after it he supped even
better. Menu: two dozen oysters from Ostend, a bottle of champagne
frappe, three slices of roast beef, a truffle salad, coffee and a
chaser. Religion and the stomach sustain Cruchard.

I confess that I should have liked to make some money, but as my
fall involves neither art nor sentiment I am profoundly unconcerned.

I tell myself: "well, it's over!" and I experience a feeling of
freedom. The worst of it all is the scandal about the tickets.
Observe that I had twelve orchestra seats and a box! (Le Figaro had
eighteen orchestra seats and three boxes.) I did not even see the
chief of the claque. One would say that the management of the
Vaudeville had arranged for me to fail. Its dream is fulfilled.

I did not give away a quarter of the seats that I needed and I
bought a great many for people who slandered me eloquently in the
lobbies. The "bravos" of a devoted few were drowned at once by the
"hushes." When they mentioned my name at the end, there was applause
(for the man but not for the work) accompanied by two beautiful cat-
calls from the gallery gods. That is the truth.

La Petite Presse of this morning is polite. I can ask no more of it.
Farewell, dear good master, do not pity me, for I don't feel
pitiable.

P. S.--A nice bit from my servant when he handed me your letter this
morning. Knowing your handwriting, he said sighing: "Ah! the best
one was not there last evening!" That is just what I think.



CCLXXIII TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday, April, 1874

Thank you for your long letter about le Candidat. Now here are the
criticisms that I add to yours: we ought to have: (1) lowered the
curtain after the electoral meeting and put the entire half of the
third act into the beginning of the fourth; (2) cut out the
anonymous letter, which is unnecessary, since Arabelle informs
Rousselin that his wife has a lover; (3) inverted the order of the
scenes in the fourth act, that is to say, beginning with the
announcement of the tryst between Madame Rousselin and Julien and,
making Rousselin a little more jealous. The anxieties of his
election turn him aside from his desire to go to entrap his wife.
Not enough is made of the exploiters. There should be ten instead of
three. Then, he gives his daughter. The end was there, and at the
instant that he notices the blackguardism, he is elected. Then his
dream is accomplished, but he feels no joy over it. In that manner
there would have been moral progress.

I think, whatever you say about it, that the subject was good, but
that I have spoiled it. Not one of the critics has shown me in what.
But I know, and that consoles me. What do you think of La Rounat,
who in his page implores me, "in the name of our old friendship,"
not to have my play printed, he thinks it so "silly and badly
written"! A parallel between me and Gondinet follows.

The theatrical mystery is one of the funniest things of this age.
One would say that the art of the theatre goes beyond the limits of
human intelligence, and that it is a secret reserved for those who
write like cab drivers. The QUESTION OF IMMEDIATE SUCCESS leads all
others. It is the school of demoralization. If my play had been
sustained by the management, it could have made money like another.
Would it have been the better for that?

The Tentation is not doing badly. The first edition of two thousand
copies is exhausted. Tomorrow the second will be published. I have
been torn in pieces by the petty journals and praised highly by two
or three persons. On the whole nothing serious has appeared yet, nor
will appear, I think. Renan does not write any more (he says) in the
Debats, and Taine is busy getting settled at Annecy.

I have been EXECRATED by the Messrs. Villemessant and Buloz, who
will do all they can to be disagreeable to me. Villemessant
reproaches me for not "having been killed by the Prussians." All
that is nauseous!

And you beg me not to notice human folly, and to deprive myself of
the pleasure of depicting it! But the comic is the only consolation
of virtue. There is, moreover, a manner of taking it which is
elevated; that is what I am aiming at with two good people. Don't
fear that they are too realistic! I am afraid, on the contrary, that
it may seem beyond the bounds of possibility, for I shall push the
idea to the limit.  This little work that I shall start in six weeks
will keep me busy for four or five years!



CCLXXIV. TO GEORGE SAND
April, 1874

As it would have necessitated a STRUGGLE, and as Cruchard has
lawsuits in horror, I have withdrawn my play on the payment of five
thousand francs, so much the worse! I will not have my actors
hissed! The night of the second performance when I saw Delannoy come
back into the wings with his eyes wet, I felt myself a criminal and
said to myself: "Enough." (Three persons affect me: Delannoy,
Tourgueneff and my servant!) In short, it is over. I am printing my
play, you will get it towards the end of the week.

I am jumped on on all sides! le Figaro and le Rappel; it is
complete! Those people to whom I lent money or for whom I did favors
call me an idiot. I have never had less nerves. My stoicism (or
pride) surprises myself even, and when I look for the causes, I ask
myself, dear master, if you are not one of them.

I recall the first night of Villemer, which was a triumph, and the
first night of Don Juan de Village, which was a failure. You do not
know how much I admired you on those two occasions! The dignity of
your character (a thing rarer still than genius) edified me! and I
formulated within myself this prayer: "Oh! how I wish I could be
like her, on a similar occasion." Who knows, perhaps your example
has sustained me? Forgive the comparison! Well, I don't bat an eye-
lid. That is the truth.

But I confess to regretting the THOUSANDS OF FRANCS which I should
have made. My little milk-jug is broken. I should have liked to
renew the furniture at Croisset, fooled again!

My dress rehearsal was deadly! Every reporter in Paris! They made
fun of it all. I shall underline in your copy, all the passages that
they seized on. Yesterday and the day before they did not seize on
them any more. Oh! well, so much the worse! It is too late. Perhaps
the PRIDE of Cruchard has killed it.

And they have written articles on MY dwellings, my SLIPPERS, my DOG.
The chroniclers have described my apartment where they saw "on the
walls, pictures and bronzes." But there is nothing at all on the
walls! I know that one critic was enraged because I did not go to
see him; and a third person came to tell me so this morning, adding:
"What do you want me to tell him?...But Messieurs Dumas, Sardou and
even Victor Hugo are not like you.--Oh! I know it!--Then you are not
surprised, etc."

Farewell, dear good adored master, friendly regards to yours. Kisses
to the dear little girls, and all my love to you.

P.S. Could you give me a copy or the original of Cruchard's
biography; I have no draft of it and I want to reread it to freshen
up MY IDEAL.



CCLXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 10 April, 1874

Those who say that I do not think Saint-Antoine beautiful! and
excellent, lie about it, I do not need to tell you. Let me ask you
how I could have confided in the Levy clerks whom I do not know! I
remember, as for Levy himself, saying to him last summer, that I
found the thing superb and first class.

I would have done an article for you if I had not already refused
Maurice recently, to do one about Hugo's  Quatre-vingt-treize. I
said that I was ill. The fact is, that I do not know how to DO
ARTICLES, and I have done so many of them for Hugo that I have
exhausted my subject. I wonder why he has never done any for me;
for, really, I am no more of a journalist than he is, and I need his
support much more than he needs mine.

On the whole, articles are not of any use, now, no more than are
friends at the theatre. I have told you that it is the struggle of
one against all, and the mystery, if there is one, is to turn on an
electric current. The subject then is very important in the theatre.
In a novel, one has time to win the reader over. What a difference!
I do not say as you do that there is nothing mysterious in that.
Yes, indeed, there is something very mysterious in one respect:
namely that one can not judge of one's effect beforehand, and that
the shrewdest are mistaken ten times out of fifteen. You say
yourself that you have been mistaken. I am at work now on a play; it
is not possible to know if I am mistaken or not. And when shall I
know? The day after the first performance, if I have it performed,
which is not certain. There is no fun in anything except work that
has not been read to any one. All the rest is drudgery and
PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS, a horrible thing. So make fun of all this
GOSSIP; the guiltiest ones are those who report it to you. I think
it is very odd that they say so much against you to your friends. No
one indeed ever says anything to me: they know that I would not
allow it. Be valiant and CONTENT since Saint-Antoine is doing well
and selling better. What difference does it make if they cut you up
in this or that paper? In former times it meant something; in these
days, nothing. The public is not the public of other days, and
journalism has not the least literary influence. Every one is a
critic and forms his own opinions. They never write articles about
my novels. That doesn't make any difference to me.

I embrace you and we love you.

Your old troubadour.



CCLXXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
Friday evening, 1st May, 1874

Things are progressing, dear master, insults are accumulating! It is
a concerto, a symphony in which each one is intent on his own
instrument. I have been cut up beginning le Figaro up to la Revue
des Deux Mondes, including la Gazette de France and le
Constitutionnel. And THEY have not finished yet! Barbey d'Aurevilly
has insulted me personally, and the good Saint-Rene Taillandier, who
declares me "unreadable," attributes ridiculous words to me. So much
for printing. As for speech, it is in accord. Saint-Victor (is it
servility towards Michel Levy) rends me at the Brabant dinner, as
does that excellent Charles Edmond, etc. On the other hand I am
admired by the professors of the Faculty of Theology at Strasbourg,
by Renan, and by the cashier at my butcher's! not to mention some
others. There is the truth.

What surprises me, is that under several of these criticisms there
is a HATRED against me, against me personally, a deliberate
slandering, the cause of which I am seeking. I do not feel hurt, but
this avalanche of foolishness saddens me. One prefers inspiring good
feelings to bad ones. As for the rest, I am not thinking any more
about Saint-Antoine. That is over with!

I shall start, this summer, another book of about the same calibre;
after that I shall return to the novel pure and simple. I have in my
head two or three to write before I die. Just now I am spending my
days at the Library, where I am accumulating notes. In a fortnight,
I shall return to my house in the fields. In July I shall go to get
rid of my congestion on the top of a Swiss mountain, obeying the
advice of Doctor Hardy, the man who called me "a hysterical woman,"
a saying that I consider profound.

The good Tourgueneff is leaving next week for Russia, his trip will
forcibly interrupt his frenzy for pictures, for our friend never
leaves the auction rooms now! He is a man with a passion, so much
the better for him!

I missed you very much at Madame Viardot's a fortnight ago. She sang
Iphigenie en Aulide. I can not tell you how beautiful it was, how
transporting, in short how sublime. What an artist that woman is!
What an artist! Such emotions console one for life.

Well! and you, dear good master, that play that they talk about, is
it finished? You are going to fall back into the theatre! I pity
you! After having put dogs on the boards at the Odeon, perhaps they
are going to ask you to put on horses! That is where we are now!

And all the household, from Maurice to Fadet, how is it?

Kiss the dear little girls for me and let them return it to you from
me.

Your old friend.



CCLXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 4th May, 1874

Let them say what they like, Saint-Antoine is a masterpiece, a
magnificent book. Ridicule the critics, they are blockheads. The
present century does not like lyricism. Let us wait for the
reaction, it will come for you, and a splendid one. Rejoice in your
insults, they are great promises for the future.

I am working still on my play, I don't at all know if it is worth
anything and don't worry about it. I shall be told that when it is
finished, and if it does not seem interesting I shall lock it up. It
will have amused me for six weeks, that is the most certain thing
for us about our profession.

Plauchut is the joy of the salons! happy old man! always content
with himself and with others; that makes him as good as an angel, I
forgive him all his graces.

You were happy at hearing the Diva Paulita, we had her, with
Iphigenie, for two weeks in Nohant last autumn. Ah! yes, there is
beauty and grandeur! Try to come to see us before going to Croisset,
you would make us happy.

We all love you and all my dear world embraces you with a GREAT GOOD
HEART.

Your old troubadour always,

G. Sand



CCLXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Tuesday, 26th March, 1874

Dear good master,

Here I am back again in my solitude! But I shall not remain in it
long, for, in a short month, I shall go to spend three weeks on the
Righi, so as to breathe a bit, to relax myself, to deneurasthenize
myself! It is a long time since I took the air, I am tired. I need a
little rest. After that I shall start at my big book which will take
at least four years. It will have that good quality!

Le Sexe faible which was accepted at the Vaudeville Carvalho, was
returned to me by the said Vaudeville and returned also by Perrin,
who thinks the play off-color and unconventional. "Putting a cradle
and a nurse on the French stage!" Think of it! Then, I took the
thing to Duquesnel who has not yet (naturally) given me any answer.
How far the demoralization which the theatres bring about extends!
The bourgeois of Rouen, my brother included, have been talking to me
of the failure of le Candidat in hushed voices (sic) and with a
contrite air, as if I had been taken to the assizes under an
accusation of forgery. NOT TO SUCCEED IS A CRIME and success is the
criterion of well doing. I think that is grotesque in a supreme
degree.

Now explain to me why they put mattresses under certain falls and
thorns under others? Ah! the world is funny, and it seems chimerical
to me to want to regulate oneself according to its opinion.

The good Tourgueneff must be now in Saint Petersburg; he sent me a
favorable article on Saint-Antoine from Berlin. It is not the
article, but he, that has given me pleasure. I saw him a great deal
this winter, and I love him more and more. I saw a good deal of
father Hugo who is (when the political gallery is absent) a
charming, good fellow.

Was not the fall of the Broglie ministry pleasing to you? Very much
so to me! but the next! I am still young enough to hope that the
next Chamber will bring us a change for the better. However?

Ah, confound it! how I want to see you and talk a long time with
you! Everything is poorly arranged in this world. Why not live with
those one loves? The Abbey of Theleme  [Footnote: Cf. Rabelais'
Gargantua.] is a fine dream, but nothing but a dream. Embrace warmly
the dear little girls for me, and entirely yours.

R. P. Cruchard

More Cruchard than ever. I feel like a good-for-nothing, a cow,
damned, antique, deliquescent, in short calm and moderate, which is
the last term in decadence.



CCLXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Kalt-Bad. Righi. Friday, 3d July, 1874

Is it true, dear master, that last week you came to Paris? I went
through it to go to Switzerland, and I read "in a sheet" that you
had been to see les Deux Orphelines, had taken a walk in the Bois de
Boulogne, had dined at Magny's, etc.; all of which goes to prove
that, thanks to the freedom of the Press, one is not master of one's
own actions. Whence it results that Father Cruchard is wrathful with
you for not having advised him of your presence in the "new Athens."
It seems to me that people are sillier and flatter there than usual.
The state of politics has become drivel! They have tickled my ears
with the return of the Empire. I don't believe in it! However...We
should have to expatriate ourselves then. But how and where?

Is it for a play that you came? I pity you for having anything to do
with Duquesnel! He had the manuscript of le Sexe faible returned to
me by an agent of the theatrical management, without a word of
explanation, and in the ministerial envelope was a letter from an
underclerk, which is a gem! I will show it to you. It is a
masterpiece of impertinence! People do not write in that way to a
Carpentras urchin, offering a skit to the Beaumarchais theatre.

It is that very play le Sexe faible that, last year, Carvalho was so
enthusiastic about! Now no one wants it any more for Perrin thinks
it unconventional to put on the boards of the Theatre Francais, a
nurse and a cradle. Not knowing what to do with it, I have taken it
to the Cluny Theatre.

Ah! my poor Bouilhet did well to die! But I think that the Odeon
could show more respect for his posthumous work.

Without believing in an Holbachic conspiracy, I think that they have
been knocking me a bit too much of late; and they are so indulgent
towards certain others.

The American Harrisse maintained to me the other day that Saint-
Simon wrote badly. At that I burst out and talked to him in such a
way that he will never more before me belch his idiocy. It was at
dinner at the Princess's; my violence cast a chill.

You see that your Cruchard continues not to listen to jokes on
religion! He does not become calm! quite the contrary!

I have just read la Creation naturelle by Haeckel, a pretty book,
pretty book! Darwinism seems to me to be better expounded there than
in the books of Darwin himself.

The good Tourgueneff has sent me news from the depths of Scythia. He
has found the information he wanted for a book that he is going to
do. The tone of his letter is frivolous, from which I conclude that
he is well. He will return to Paris in a month.

A fortnight ago I made a little trip to Lower Normandy, where I have
found at last a neighborhood suitable to place my two good men. It
will be between the valley of the Orne and the valley of the Auge. I
shall have to return there several times.

Beginning with September, then, I shall start that hard task! it
makes me afraid, and I am overwhelmed by it in advance.

As you know Switzerland, it is useless for me to talk to you of it,
and you would scorn me if I were to tell you that I am bored to
extinction here. I came here obediently because they ordered me to,
for the purpose of bleaching my face and calming my nerves! I don't
think that the remedy will be efficacious; anyhow it has been deadly
boring to me. I am not a man of nature, and I do not understand
anything in a country where there is no history. I would give all
these glaciers for the Vatican Museum. One can dream there. Well, in
three weeks I shall be glued to my green table! in a humble refuge,
where it seems to me you never want to come!



CCLXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 6th July, 1874 (Yesterday, seventy years.)

I was in Paris from the 30th of May to the 10th of June, you were
not there. Since my return here, I have been ill with the grippe,
rheumatic, and often absolutely deprived of the use of my right arm.
I have not the courage to stay in bed: I spend the evening with my
children and I forget my little miseries which will pass; everything
passes. That is why I was not able to write to you, even to thank
you for the good letter which you wrote to me about my novel. In
Paris I was overwhelmed by fatigue. That is the way I am growing
old, and now I am beginning to feel it; I am not more often ill,
now, illness PROSTRATES me more. That is nothing, I have not the
right to complain, being well loved and well cared for in my nest. I
urge Maurice to go about without me, since my strength is not equal
to going with him. He leaves tomorrow for Cantal with a servant, a
tent, a lamp, and a quantity of utensils to examine the MICROS of
his entomological DIVISION I am telling him that you are bored on
the Righi. He cannot understand it.

The 7th

I am taking up my letter again, begun yesterday; I still find it
very hard to move my pen, and even at this moment, I have a pain in
my side, and I cannot...

Till tomorrow.

The 8th

At last, I shall be able perhaps today: for I am furious to think
that perhaps you are accusing me of forgetting you, when I am
prevented by weakness that is entirely physical,  in which my
affections count for nothing. You tell me that they KNOCK you too
much. I read only le Temps and it is a good deal for me even to open
a paper to see about what it is talking. You ought to do as I do and
IGNORE criticism when it is not serious, and even when it is. I have
never been able to see what good it is to the author criticised.
Criticism always starts from a personal point of view, the authority
of which the artist does not recognize. It is because of that
usurpation of powers in the intellectual order of things, that
people get to discussing the Sun and the Moon; but that does
not prevent them in the least from showing us their good tranquil
faces.

You do not want to be a man of nature, so much the worse for you!
therefore you attach too much importance to the details of human
things, and you do not tell yourself that there is in you a NATURAL
force that defies the IFS and the BUTS of human prattle. We are of
nature, in nature, by nature, and for nature. Talent, will, genius,
are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the
wind, the star, the cloud. What man dabbles in is pretty or ugly,
ingenious or stupid; what he gets from nature is good or bad; but it
is, it exists and subsists. One should not ask from the jumble of
appreciation called CRITICISM, what one has done and what one wants
to do. Criticism does not know anything about it; its business is to
gossip.

Nature alone knows how to speak to the intelligence in a language
that is imperishable, always the same, because it does not depart
from the eternally true, the absolutely beautiful. The hard thing,
when one travels, is to find nature, because man has arranged it
everywhere and has almost spoiled it everywhere; probably it is
because of that that you are bored, it is because it is disguised
and travestied everywhere. However, the glaciers are still intact, I
presume.

But I cannot write further, I must tell you quickly that I love you,
that I embrace you affectionately. Give me news of yourself. I hope
to be on my feet in a few days. Maurice is waiting until I am robust
before he goes: I am hurrying as much as I can! My little girls
embrace you, they are superb. Aurore is devoted to mythology (George
Cox, Baudry translation). You know that? An adorable work for
children and parents. Enough, I can no more. I love you; don't have
black ideas, and resign yourself to being bored if the air is good
there.



CCLXXXI. TO GEORGE SAND
Righi, 14 July, 1874;

What? ill? poor, dear master! If it is rheumatism, do as my brother
does, who in his character of physician, scarcely believes in
medicine. Last year he went to the baths at Aix in Savoy, and in two
weeks he was cured of the pains that had tormented him for six
years. But to do that you would have to move, to resign your habits,
Nohant and the dear little girls. You will remain at home and YOU
WILL BE WRONG. You ought to take care of yourself ... for those who
love you.

And as regard this, you send me, in your last letter, a horrid
thing. Could I, for my part, suspect you of forgetting Cruchard!
Come now, I have, first of all, too much vanity and next, too much
faith in you.

You don't tell me how your play is getting on at the Odeon.

Speaking of plays, I am going again to expose myself to insults of
the populace and the penny-a-liners. The manager of the Cluny
Theatre, to whom I took le Sexe faible, has written me an admiring
letter and is disposed to put on that play in October. He is
reckoning on a great money success. Well, so be it! But I am
recalling the enthusiasm of Carvalho, followed by an absolute chill!
and all that increases my scorn for the so-called shrewd people who
pretend to know all about things. For, in short, there is a dramatic
work, declared by the managers of the Vaudeville and the Cluny
"perfect," by the Theatre Francais "unplayable," and by the manager
of the Odeon "in need of rewriting from one end to the other." Draw
a conclusion now! and listen to their advice! Never mind, as these
four gentlemen are the masters of your destinies because they have
the money, and as they have more mind than you, never having written
a line, you must believe them and submit to them.

It is a strange thing how much pleasure imbeciles find in
floundering about in the work of another! in cutting it,  correcting
it, playing the pedagogue! Did I tell you that I was, because of
that, very much at odds with a certain *****. He wanted to make
over, sometime ago, a novel that I had recommended to him, which was
not very good, but of which he is incapable of turning the least
phrase. And I did not hide from him my opinion about him; inde irae.
However, it is impossible for me to be so modest as to think that
that good Pole is better than I am in French prose. And you want me
to remain calm! dear master! I have not your temperament! I am not
like you, always soaring above the miseries of this world. Your
Cruchard is as sensitive as if he were divested of skin. And
imbecility, self-sufficiency, injustice exasperate him more and
more. Thus the ugliness of the Germans who surround me shuts off the
view of the Righi!!! Zounds! What mugs!

God be thanked, "of my horrible sight I purge their States."



CCLXXXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday, 26 September, 1874

Then, after having been bored like an ass on the top of the Righi, I
returned home the first of August and started my book. The beginning
was not easy, it was even "direful," and "methought" I should die of
despair; but now things are going, I am all right, come what may!
But one needs to be absolutely mad to undertake such a book. I fear
that, by its very conception, it is radically impossible. We shall
see, Ah! supposing I should carry it out well ... what a dream.

You doubtless know that once more I am exposing myself to the storms
of the footlights (pretty metaphor) and that "braving the publicity
of the theatre" I shall appear upon the boards of Cluny, probably,
towards the end of December. The manager of that "little theatre" is
enchanted with le Sexe faible. But so was Carvalho, which did not
prevent him ... You know the rest.

Of course every one blames me for letting my play be given in such a
joint. But since the others do not want that play and since I insist
that it shall be presented to make a few sous for the Bouilhet
heirs, I am forced to pass that over. I am keeping two or three
pretty anecdotes about this to tell you when we meet. Why is the
theatre such a general cause of delirium? Once one is on that
ground, ordinary conditions are changed. If one has had the
misfortune (slight) not to succeed, friends turn from one. They are
very inconsiderate of one. They never salute one! I swear to you on
my word of honor that that happened to me on account of le Candida.
I do not believe in Holbachic conspiracies, but all that they have
done to me since March amazes me. But, I decidedly don't bat an
optic, and the fate of le Sexe faible disturbs me less than the
least of the phrases of my novel.

Public intelligence seems to me to get lower and lower! To what
depth of imbecility shall we descend? Belot's last book sold eight
thousand copies in two weeks. Zola's Conquete de Plassans, seventeen
hundred in six months, and there was an article about it. All the
Monday-morning idiots have just been swooning away about M. Scribe's
Une Chaine. France is ill, very ill, whatever they say; and my
thoughts are more and more the color of ebony.

However, there are some pretty comic elements: (1) the Bazaine
escape with the episode of the sentinel; (2) l'Histoire d'un Diamant
by Paul de Musset (see the Revue des Deux Mondes for September); (3)
the vestibule of the former  establishment of Nadar near Old England
[sic], where one can contemplate a life-size photograph of Alexander
Dumas.

I am sure that you are finding me grouchy and that you are going to
answer me: "What difference does all that make?" But everything
makes a difference, and we are dying of humbug, of ignorance, of
self-confidence, of scorn of grandeur, of love of banality, and
imbecile babble.

"Europe which hates us, looks at us and laughs," said Ruy Blas. My
Heavens, she has a right to laugh.



CCLXXXIII TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 5th November, 1874

What, my Cruchard, you have been ill? That is what I feared, I who
live in the woes of indigestion and yet hardly work at all, I am
disquieted at your kind of life, the excess of intellectual
expenditure and the seclusion. In spite of the charm that I have
proved and appreciated at Croisset, I fear for you that solitude
where you have no longer anyone to remind you that you must eat,
drink and sleep, and above all walk. Your rainy climate makes you
keep to the house. Here, where it does not rain enough, we are at
least hustled out of doors by the beautiful warm sun and that
Phoebus invigorates us, while our Phoebus-Apollo murders us.

But I am always talking to you as to a Cruchard philosophic and
detached from his personality, to a Cruchard fanatical about
literature and drunk with production. When, then, shall you be able
to say to yourself: Lo! this is the time for rest, let us taste the
innocent pleasure of living for life's sake, of watching with
amazement the agitations of others and of not giving to them
anything except the excess of our overflow. It does one good to
ruminate over what one has assimilated in life, sometimes without
attention and without discrimination.

Old friendships sustain us and all at once they distress us. I have
just lost my poor blind Duvernet, whom you have seen at our house.
He expired very quietly without suspecting it and without suffering.
There is another great void about us and my nephew, the substitute,
has been nominated for Chateauroux. His mother has followed him.

So we are all alone. Happily we love one another so much that we can
live like that, but not without regret for the absent ones. Plauchut
left us yesterday to return at  Christmas. Maurice is already at
work preparing a splendid performance of marionettes for us. And
you, if you are in Paris, won't you come to keep the Christmas Eve
revels with us? You will have finished your rehearsals, you will
have had a success, perhaps you will be in the mood to return to
material life, eating truffles?

Tell us about yourself, do not be ill, always love your old
troubadour and his people who love you too.

G. Sand



CCLXXXIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday, 2nd December, 1874

I am having remorse about you. It is a crime to let so long a time
elapse without answering such a letter as your last. I was waiting
to write to you until I had something definite to tell you about le
Sexe faible. What is definite is that I took it away from the Cluny
a week ago. The cast that Weinschenk proposed to me was odiously
stupid and he did not keep the promises that he made. But, God be
thanked, I withdrew in time. At present my play has been offered to
the Gymnase. No news up to now from Montigny.

I am worrying like five hundred devils about my book, asking myself
sometimes if I am not mad to have undertaken it. But, like Thomas
Diafoirus, I am stiffening myself against the difficulties of
execution which are frightful. I need to learn a heap of things
about which I am ignorant. In a month I hope to finish with the
agriculture and the gardening, and I shall only then be at the
second third of my first chapter.

Speaking of books, do read Fromont et Risler, by my friend Daudet,
and les Diaboliques, by my enemy Barbey d'Aurevilly. You will writhe
with laughter. It is perhaps owing to the perversity of my mind,
which likes unhealthy things, but the latter work seemed to me
extremely amusing; it is the last word in the involuntary grotesque.
In other respects, dead calm, France is sinking gently like a rotten
hulk, and the hope of salvage, even for the staunchest, seems
chimerical. You need to be here, in Paris, to have an idea of the
universal depression, of the stupidity, of the decrepitude in which
we are floundering.

The sentiment of that agony penetrates me and I am sad enough to
die. When I am not torturing myself about my work, I am groaning
about myself. That is the truth. In my leisure moments, all I do is
to think of the dead, and I am going to say a very pretentious thing
to you. No one understands me; I belong to another world. The men of
my profession are so little of my profession! There is hardly anyone
except Victor Hugo with whom I can talk of what interests me. Day
before yesterday he recited by heart to me from Boileau and from
Tacitus. That was like a gift to me, the thing is so rare. Moreover,
the days when there are not politicians at his house, he is an
adorable man.


CCLXXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 8th December, 1874

Poor dear friend,

I love you all the more because you are growing more unhappy. How
you torment yourself, and how you disturb yourself about life! for
all of which you complain, is life; it has never been better for
anyone or in any time. One feels it more or less, one understands it
more or less, one suffers with it more or less, and the more one is
in advance of the age one lives in, the more one suffers. We pass
like shadows on a background of clouds which the sun seldom pierces,
and we cry ceaselessly for the sun which can do no more for us. It
is for us to clear away our clouds.

You love literature too much; it will destroy you and you will not
destroy the imbecility of the human race. Poor dear! imbecility,
that, for my part, I do not hate, that I regard with maternal eyes:
for it is a childhood and all childhood is sacred. What hatred you
have devoted to it! what warfare you wage on it!

You have too much knowledge and intelligence, you forget that there
is something above art: namely, wisdom, of which art at its apogee
is only the expression. Wisdom comprehends all: beauty, truth,
goodness, enthusiasm, in consequence. It teaches us to see outside
of ourselves, something more elevated than is in ourselves, and to
assimilate it little by little, through contemplation and
admiration.

But I shall not succeed in changing you. I shall not even succeed in
making you understand how I envisage and how I lay hold upon
HAPPINESS, that is to say, the acceptation of life whatever it may
be! There is one person who could change you and save you, that is
father Hugo; for he has one side on which he is a great philosopher,
while at the same time he is the great artist that you require and
that I am not. You must see him often. I believe that he will quiet
you: I have not enough tempest in me now for you to understand me.
As for him, I think that he has kept his thunderbolts and that he
has all the same acquired the gentleness and the compassion of age.

See him, see him often and tell him your troubles, which are great,
I see that, and which turn too much to spleen. You think too much of
the dead, you think that they have too soon reached their rest. They
have not. They are like us, they are searching. They labor in the
search.

Every one is well, and embraces you. As for me, I do not get well,
but I have hopes, well or not, to keep on still so as to bring up my
grandchildren, and to love you as long as I have a breath left.

G. Sand



CCLXXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 16th January, 1875

I too, dear Cruchard, embrace you at the New Year, and wish that you
may have a tolerable one, since you do not care to hear the myth
happiness spoken of. You admire my serenity; it does not come from
my depths, it comes from my necessity of thinking only of others.
There is but a little time left, old age creeps on and death is
pushing me by the shoulders.

I am as yet, if not necessary, at least extremely useful, and I
shall go on as long as I have a breath, thinking, talking, working
for them.

Duty is the master of masters, it is the real Zeus of modern times,
the son of Time, and has become his master. It is that which lives
and acts outside of all the agitations of the world. It does not
reason, does not discuss. It examines without fear, it walks without
looking behind it; Cronos, the stupid, swallowed stones, Zeus breaks
them with the lightning, and the lightning is the will. I am not a
philosopher, I am a servant of Zeus, who takes away half of their
souls from slaves, but who leaves them entire to the brave.

I have no more leisure to think of myself, to dream of discouraging
things, to despair of human-kind, to look at my past sorrows and
joys and to summon death.

Mercy! If one were an egoist, one would see it approach with joy; it
is so easy to sleep in nothingness, or to awaken in a better life!
for it opens these two hypotheses, or to express it better, this
antithesis.

But, for the one who must continue working, death must not be
summoned before the hour when exhaustion opens the doors of liberty.
You have had no children. It is the punishment of those who wish to
be too independent; but that suffering is nevertheless a glory for
those who vow themselves to Apollo. Then do not complain for having
to grub, and describe your martyrdom to us; there is a fine book to
be written about that.

You say that Renan is despairing; for my part, I don't believe that:
I believe that he is suffering as are all those who look high and
far ahead; but he ought to have strength in proportion to his
vision. Napoleon shares his ideas, he does well if he shares them
all. He has written me a very wise and good letter. He now sees
relative safety in a wise republic, and I, too, think it still
possible. It will be very bourgeois and not very ideal, but one has
to begin at the beginning. We artists have no patience at all. We
want the Abbey of Theleme at once; but before saying, "Do what you
want!" one must go through with "Do what you can!" I love you and I
embrace you with all my heart, my dear Polycarp. My children large
and small join with me.

Come now, no weakness! We all ought to be examples to our friends,
our neighbors, our fellow citizens. And how about me, don't you
think that I need help and support in my long task that is not yet
finished? Don't you love anyone, not even your old troubadour, who
still sings, and often weeps, but who conceals himself when he
weeps, as cats do when they die?



CCLXXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, Saturday evening

Dear master,

I curse once more THE DRAMATIC MANIA and the pleasure that certain
people have in announcing remarkable news! Someone had told me that
you were VERY ill. Your good handwriting came to reassure me
yesterday morning, and this morning I have received the letter from
Maurice, so the Lord be praised!

What to tell you about myself? I am not stiff, I have ... I don't
know what. Bromide of potassium has calmed me and given me eczema on
the middle of my forehead.

Abnormal things are going on inside me. My psychic depression must
relate to some hidden cause. I feel old, used up, disgusted with
everything, and others bore me as I do myself.

However, I am working, but without enthusiasm: as one does a stint,
and perhaps it is the work that makes me ill, for I have undertaken
a senseless book.

I lose myself in the recollections of my childhood like an old man
... I do not expect anything further in life than a succession of
sheets of paper to besmear with black. It seems to me that I am
crossing an endless solitude to go I don't know where. And it is I
who am at the same time the desert, the traveller, and the camel.

I spent the afternoon today at the funeral of Amedee Achard. The
Protestant ceremonies were as inane as if they had been Catholic.
ALL PARIS and the reporters were there in force!

Your friend, Paul Meurice, came a week ago to ask me to "do the
Salon" in le Rappel. I declined the honor, for I do not admit that
anyone can criticise an art of which he does not know the technique!
And then, what use is so much criticism!

I am reasonable. I go out every day, I exercise, and I come home
tired, and still more irritated, that is the good I get out of it.
In short, your troubadour (not very troubadourish) has become a sad
bonehead.

It is in order not to bore you with my complaints that I write so
rarely to you now, for no one has a livelier sense than I of my
unbearableness.

Send me Flamarande; that will give me a little air.

I embrace you all, and especially you, dear master, so great, so
strong, and so gentle. Your Cruchard, who is more and more cracked,
if cracked is the right word, for I perceive that the contents are
escaping.



CCLXXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
20th February

Then you are quite ill, dear old fellow? I am not worried about it,
since it concerns only nerves and rheumatisms, and I have lived
seventy years with all that nuisance in my body, and I am still
healthy. But I am sad to know that you are bored, suffering, and
your spirit turned to darkness as it necessarily is when one is ill.

I was sure that a moment would come when someone would prescribe
walking to you. All your illness comes from the lack of exercise, a
man of your strength and your complexion ought to have lived an
athletic life.

Don't sulk then about the very wise order that condemns you to an
hour's walk each day.

You fancy that the work of the spirit is only in the brain, you are
very much mistaken, it is also in the legs.

Tell me that two weeks of this regime has cured you. It will happen,
I am sure of it.

I love you, and I embrace you, as does every one of my brood.

Your old troubadour



CCLXXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 25th March, 1875

Don't be worried about me, my Polycarp. I have nothing serious, a
little grippe, and this right arm which hardly moves but which
electricity will cure. One thinks that it is an effort.

I am much more worried about you, although you are ten times as
strong as I am, but your morale is affected whereas mine takes what
comes, in a cowardly way, if you like, but there is perhaps a
philosophy in knowing how to be cowardly rather than angry.

Do write to me, tell me that you are going out of doors, that you
are walking, that you are better.--I have finished going over the
proofs of Flamarande. That is the most boring part of the task.

I shall send you the book when it is published. I know that you do
not like to read bit by bit.

I am a little tired; however, I want to begin something else. Since
it is not warm enough to go out, I get bored with not having
anything on the stocks. Everything is going well in the nest, except
for a few colds. Spring is so peevish this year! At last the pale
sun will become the dear Phoebus-Appolo with the shining hair, and
all will go well.

Aurore is getting so big that one is surprised to hear her laugh and
play like a child, always good, and tender, the other is always very
funny and facetious.

Tell us of yourself and always love us as we love you.

Your old troubadour



CCXC. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 7th May, 1875

You leave me without news of you? You say that you prefer to be
forgotten, rather than to complain ceaselessly, as it is very
useless and since you will not be forgotten; complain then, but tell
us that you are alive and that you still love us.

As you are much nicer, the more surly you are, I know that you are
not rejoicing over the death of poor Michel. For me, it is a great
loss in every way, for he was absolutely devoted to me and proved it
all the time by his care and services without number.

We are all well here. I am better since it is not cold any more, and
I am working a great deal. I am also doing many water colors, I am
reading the Iliad with Aurore, who does not like any translation
except Leconte de Lisle's, insisting that Homer is spoiled by
approximate renderings.

The child is a singular mixture of precocity and childishness. She
is nine years old and so large that one would think her twelve. She
plays dolls with passion, and she is as LITERARY as you or I,
meanwhile learning her own language which she does not yet know.

Are you still in Paris in this lovely weather? Nohant is now
STREAMING with flowers, from the tips of the trees to the turf;
Croisset must be even prettier, for it is cool, and we are
struggling with a drought that has now become chronic in Berry. But
if you are still in Paris, you have that beautiful Pare Monceau
under your eyes where you are walking, I hope, since you have to.
Life is at the price of walking!

Won't you come to see us? Whether you are sad or gay, we love you
the same here, and we wish that affection meant something to you,
but we shall give it to you, and we give it to you without
conditions.

I am thinking of going to Paris next month, shall you be there?

G. Sand



CCXCI. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, 10th May, 1875

A wandering gout, pains that go all over me, an invincible
melancholy, the feeling of "universal uselessness" and grave doubts
about the book that I am writing, that is what is the matter with
me, dear and valiant master. Add to that worries about money with
melancholic recollections of the past, that is my condition, and I
assure you that I make great efforts to get out of it. But my will
is tired. I cannot decide about anything effective! Ah! I have eaten
my white bread first, and old age is not announcing itself under gay
colors. Since I have begun hydrotherapy, however, I feel a little
less like a COW, and this evening I am going to begin work without
looking behind me.

I have left my apartment in the rue Murillo, and I have taken a
larger one which is next to the one that my niece has just reserved
on the Boulevard Reine Hortense. I shall be less alone next winter,
for I cannot endure solitude.

Tourgueneff seemed to me, however, to be very well pleased with the
two first chapters of my frightful book. But Tourgueneff loves me
too much, perhaps to judge impartially. I am not going to leave my
house for a long time now, for I WILL get ahead in my task, which
weighs on my chest like a burden of a million pounds. My niece will
come to spend all the month of June here. When she has gone away, I
shall make a little archeological and geological excursion in
Calvados, and that will be all.

No, I do not rejoice at Michel Levy's death, and I even envy him
that death so quiet. Just the same, that man did me a great deal of
harm. He wounded me deeply. It is true that I am endowed with an
absurd sensitiveness; what scratches others tears me to pieces. Why
am I not organized for enjoyment as I am for suffering!

The bit you sent me about Aurore who is reading Homer, did me good.
That is what I miss: a little girl like that! But one does not
arrange one's own destiny, one submits to it. I have always lived
from day to day, without plans for the future and pursuing my end
(one alone, literature) without looking to the right or to the left.
Everything that was around me has disappeared, and now I find I am
in a desert. In short, the element of distraction is absolutely
lacking to me. One needs a certain vivacity to write good things!
What can one do to get it again? How can one proceed, to avoid
thinking continually about one's miserable person? The sickest thing
in me is my humor: the rest doubtless would go well. You see, dear,
good master, that I am right to spare you my letters. Nothing is as
imbecile as the whiners.



CCXCII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday morning, 10th June, 1875

We are leaving, Lina and I, on Saturday morning, and up to   then we
shall be on the move. If you wanted to come to dine with us Friday
at Magny's at six o'clock, at least we could say farewell. You
should be free at nine o'clock, for we go to bed with the chickens
in order to leave early the next day. What do you say?

I love you with all my heart.



CCXCIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Friend, I shall come at your call as soon as you say to me, "I have
finished."

I love you, and I embrace you.

G. Sand



CCXCIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 15 August

My poor, dear, old fellow,

I learn only today in a letter from that dear, lazy soul of a
Tourgueneff, about the misfortune which has come to your niece. Is
it then irreparable? Her husband is very young and intelligent,
can't he begin over again, or take a position that will give him a
living? They have no children, they do not need millions to live on,
young and well as they both are. Tourgueneff tells me that your
property has been affected by this failure. If it is AFFECTED MERELY
you will bear this serious annoyance philosophically. You have no
vices to satisfy, nor ambitions to appease. I am sure that you will
accommodate your life to your resources. The hardest thing for you
to bear, is the chagrin of that young woman who is as a daughter to
you. But you will give her courage and consolation, it is the moment
to be above your own worries, in order to assuage those of others. I
am sure that as I write, you have calmed her mind and soothed her
heart. Perhaps, too, the disaster is not what it seems at the first
moment. There will be a change for the better, a new way will be
found, for it is always so, and the worth of men is measured
according to their energy, to the hopes which are always a sign of
their force and intelligence. More than one has risen again bravely.
Be sure that better days will come and tell them so continually, for
it is true. Your moral and physical welfare must not be shaken by
this rebuff. Think of healing those whom you love, and forget
yourself. We shall be thinking of you, and we shall be suffering for
you; for I am keenly affected at seeing that you have a new subject
of sadness amidst your spleen.

Come, dear splendid old fellow, cheer up, do us a new successful
novel, and think of those who love you, and whose hearts are
saddened and torn by your discouragements. Love them, love us, and
you will find once more your strength and your enthusiasm.

We all embrace you very tenderly. Do not write if it bores you, say
to us only, "I am well, and I love you."

G. Sand



CCXCV. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday

Will you forgive my long delay, dear master? But I think that I must
bore you with my eternal jeremiads. I repeat myself like a dotard! I
am becoming too stupid! I am boring everybody. In short, your
Cruchard has become an intolerable old codger, because he has been
intolerant. And as I cannot do anything that I ought to do, I must,
out of consideration for others, spare them the overflow of my bile.

For the last six months, especially, I don't know what has been the
trouble with me, but I feel dreadfully ill, without being able to
get to the root of the matter, and I know many people are in the
same condition. Why? Perhaps we are suffering from the illness of
France; here in Paris, where her heart beats, people feel better
than at her extremities, in the provinces.

I assure you that every one now is suffering with some
incomprehensible trouble. Our friend Renan is one of the most
desperate, and Prince Napoleon feels exactly the way he does. But
they have strong nerves. But, as for me, I am attacked by a well
defined melancholia. I should be resigned to it, and I am not.

I work all the more, so as not to think about myself. But since I
have undertaken a book that has absurd difficulties in its
execution, the feeling of my powerlessness adds to my chagrin.

Don't tell me again that imbecility is sacred like childhood, for
imbecility contains no germ. Let me believe that the dead do not
"search any more," and that they are at rest. We are sufficiently
tormented on earth to be at rest when we are beneath it! Ah! How I
envy you, how I long to have your serenity! To say nothing of the
rest! and your two dear little girls, whom I embrace as tenderly as
I do--you.



CCXCVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 7th September, 1875

You are distressed, you are discouraged, you distress me too. That
is all right, I would rather have you complain than keep silent,
dear friend. And I don't want you to stop writing to me.

I also have great and frequent sorrows. My old friends are dying
before I do. One of the dearest, the one who brought up Maurice and
whom I was expecting to help me to bring up my grandchildren, has
just died, almost in an instant. That is a deep sorrow. Life is a
succession of blows at one's heart. But duty is there: we must go on
and do our tasks without saddening those who suffer with us.

I ask you absolutely to WILL, and not to be indifferent to the
griefs which we are sharing with you. Tell us that calm has   come
and that the horizon has cleared.

We love you, sad or gay.

Give us news of yourself.

G. Sand



CCXCVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 8th October, 1875

Well, well, your health has come back in spite of you, since you are
sleeping all night. The sea air forces you to live and   you have
made progress, you have given up a work that would not have made a
success. Do something more of earth earthy, which would reach
everybody. Tell me what price they would sell Croisset for if they
are obliged to sell it. Is it a house and garden, or is there a farm
and grounds! If it is not beyond my means I might buy it and you
should spend the rest of your life there. I have no money, but I
should try to shift a little capital. Answer me seriously, I beg of
you; if I can do it, it shall be done.

I have been ill all the summer, that is to say, that I have suffered
continually, but I have worked all the more not to think of it. In
fact they are to put on Villemer and Victorine at the Theatre
Francais again. But there is nothing now in preparation.  I do not
know at what time in the autumn or winter I shall have to go to
Paris. I shall find you there ready and courageous, shan't I? If you
have made, through goodness and devotion, as I think, a great
sacrifice for your niece, who, in truth, is your real daughter, you
will forget all about it and will begin your life again as a young
man. Is one old when one does not choose to be? Stay at the seaside
as long as you can. The important thing is to patch up the physical
machine. Here with us it is as warm as in midsummer. I hope that you
still have the sun down there. Study the life of the mollusc! They
are creatures better endowed than one thinks, and, for my part, I
should love to take a walk with Georges Pouchet! Natural history is
the inexhaustible source of agreeable occupations for even those who
seek only amusement in it, and if you actually attacked it you would
be saved. But you must by all means save yourself, for you are
somebody, and you cannot drop out of the running, as can a mere
ruined grocer. We all embrace you with our best love.

G. Sand



CCXCVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 15 November, 1875

So you are there in Paris, and have you left your apartment at the
rue Murillo? You are working? Good luck and good courage! The old
man is coming to the top again! I know that they are rehearsing
Victorine at the Theatre Francais; but I don't know whether I shall
go to see that revival. I have been so ill all the summer and I am
still suffering so much with intestinal trouble, that I do not know
if I shall ever be strong enough to move in winter. Well, we shall
see. The hope of finding you there will give me courage; that is not
what will be lacking, but, since I passed my seventieth birthday, I
have been very much upset, and I do not yet know if I shall get over
it. I cannot walk any more, I who used to love to be on my feet so
much, without risking atrocious pains. I am patient with these
miseries, I work all the more, and I do water-colors in my hours of
recreation.

Aurore consoles and charms me; I should like to live long enough to
get her married. But God disposes, and one must   take death and
life as He wills.

Well, this is just to say to you that I shall go to embrace you
unless the thing is ABSOLUTELY impossible. You shall read me what
you have begun. Meanwhile, give me news of yourself; for I shall not
stir until the last rehearsals. I know my cast, I know that they
will all do well, according to their capabilities, and, besides,
that Perrin will look after them.

We all KISS you very tenderly, and we love you, Cruchard or not.

G. Sand



CCXCIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, 11 December, 1875

Things are going a little better, and I am profiting by the occasion
to write to you, dear, good, adorable master.

You know that I have abandoned my big novel in order to write a
little MEDIEVAL bit of nonsense, which won't run to more  than
thirty pages. It puts me in a more decent setting than that of
modern times, and does me good. Then I am hunting for a contemporary
novel, but I am hesitating among several embryonic ideas; I should
like to do something concise and violent. The string of the necklace
(that is to say, the main idea) is still to seek.

Externally my life is scarcely changed: I see the same people, I
receive the same visits. My faithful ones on Sunday are first of
all, the big Tourgueneff, who is nicer than ever, Zola, Alphonse
Daudet, and Goncourt. You have never spoken to me of the first two.
What do you think of their books?

I am not reading anything at all, except Shakespeare, whom am going
through from beginning to end. That tones you up and puts new air
into your lungs, just as if you were on a high mountain. Everything
appears mediocre beside that prodigious felow.

As I go out very little, I have not yet seen Victor Hugo. However,
this evening I am going to resign myself to putting on my boots, so
that I can go to present my compliments to him. His personality
pleases me infinitely, but his court! ... mercy!

The senatorial elections are a subject of diversion to the public of
which I am a part. There must have occurred, in the corridors of the
Assembly, dialogues incredibly grotesque and base. The XlXth century
is destined to see all religions perish. Amen! I do not mourn any of
them.

At the Odeon, a live bear is going to appear on the boards. That is
all that I know about literature.



CCC. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 18th and 19th December, 1875

At last I discover my old troubadour who was a subject of chagrin
and serious worry to me. Here you are yourself again, trusting in
the very natural luck of external events, and discovering in
yourself the strength to control them, whatever they may be, by
effort. What is it that you call some one in HIGH FINANCE? For my
part, I don't know; I am in relations with Victor Borie. He will do
me a favor if he sees it to his interest. Must I write him?

Then you are going to start grubbing again? So am I; for since
Flamarande I have done nothing but mark time, while waiting for
something better. I was so ill all summer! but my strange and
excellent friend Favre has cured me wonderfully, and I am taking a
new lease on life.

What's our next move? For you, of course, DESOLATION, and, for me,
consolation. I do not know on what our destinies depend; you see
them pass, you criticise them, you abstain from a literary
appreciation of them, you limit yourself to depicting them, with
deliberate meticulous concealment of your personal feelings.
However, one sees them very clearly through your narrative, and you
make the people sadder who read you. As for me, I should like to
make them less sad. I cannot forget that my personal victory over
despair was the work of my will and of a new way of understanding
which is entirely opposed to what I had before.

I know that you criticise the intervention of the personal doctrine
in literature. Are you right? Isn't it rather a lack of conviction
than a principle of esthetics? One cannot have a philosophy in one's
soul without its appearing. I have no literary advice to give you, I
have no judgment to formulate on the author friends of whom you
speak. I, myself have told the Goncourts all my thought; as for the
others, I firmly believe that they have more education and more
talent than I have. Only I think that they, and you especially, lack
a definite and   extended vision of life. Art is not merely
painting. True painting, moreover, is full of the soul that wields
the brush. Art is not merely criticism and satire: criticism and
satire depict only one side of the truth.

I want to see a man as he is, he is not good or bad, he is good and
bad. But he is something more ... nuance. Nuance which is for me the
purpose of art, being good and bad, he has an internal force which
leads him to be very bad and slightly good,--or very good and
slightly bad.

I think that your school is not concerned with the substance, and
that it dwells too much on the surface. By virtue of seeking the
form, it makes the substance too cheap! it addresses  itself to the
men of letters. But there are no men of letters, properly speaking.
Before everything, one is a man. One wants to find man at the basis
of every story and every deed. That was the defect of l'Education
sentimentale, about which I have so often reflected since, asking
myself why there was so general a dislike of a work that was so well
done and so solid. This defect was the absence of ACTION of the
characters on themselves. They submitted to the event and never
mastered it. Well, I think that the chief interest in a story is
what you did not want to do. If I were you, I would try the
opposite; you are feeding on Shakespeare just now, and you are doing
well! He is the author who puts men at grips with events; observe
that by them, whether for good or for ill, the event is always
conquered. In his works, it is crushed underfoot.

Politics is a comedy just now. We have had tragedy, shall we end
with the opera or with the operetta? I read my paper conscientiously
every morning; but aside from that moment, it is impossible for me
to think of it or to be interested in it. All of it is absolutely
void of any ideal whatsoever, and therefore I cannot get up any
interest in any of the persons concerned in that scullery. All of
them are slaves of fact because they have been born slaves of
themselves.

My dear little girls are well. Aurore is a well-set-up girl, a
beautiful upright soul in a strong body. The other one is grace and
sweetness. I am always an assiduous and a patient teacher, and very
little time is left to me to write PROFESSIONALLY, seeing that I
cannot keep awake after midnight and that I want to spend all my
evening with my family; but this lack of time stimulates me and
makes me find a true pleasure in digging away; it is like a
forbidden fruit that I taste in secret.

All my dear world embraces you and rejoices to hear that you are
better. Did I send you Flamarande and the pictures of my little
girls? If not, send me a line, and I send you both.

Your old troubadour who loves you,

G. Sand

Embrace your charming niece for me. What a good and lovely letter
she wrote me! Tell her that I beg her to take care of herself and to
please get well quickly.

What do you mean! Littre a senator? It is impossible to believe it
when one knows what the Chamber is. All the same it must be
congratulated for this attempt at self-respect.



CCCI. TO GEORGE SAND
December, 1875

Your good letter of the 18th, so maternally tender, has made me
reflect a great deal. I have reread it ten times, and I shall
confess to you that I am not sure that I understand it. Briefly,
what do you want me to do? Make your instructions exact.

I am constantly doing all that I can to enlarge my brain, and I work
in the sincerity of my heart. The rest does not depend on me.

I do not enjoy making "desolation," believe me, but I cannot change
my eyes! As for my "lack of convictions," alas! I choke with
convictions. I am bursting with anger and restrained indignation.
But according to the ideal of art that I have, I think that the
artist should not manifest anything of his own feelings, and that
the artist should not appear any more in his work than God in
nature. The man is nothing, the work is everything! This method,
perhaps mistakenly conceived, is not easy to follow. And for me, at
least, it is a sort of permanent sacrifice that I am making to good
taste. It would be agreeable to me to say what I think and to
relieve Mister Gustave Flaubert by words, but of what importance is
the said gentleman?

I think as you do, dear master, that art is not merely criticism and
satire; moreover, I have never tried to do intentionally the one nor
the other. I have always tried to go into the soul of things and to
stick to the greatest generalities, and I have purposely turned
aside from the accidental and the dramatic. No monsters and no
heroes!

You say to me: "I have no literary advice to give you; I have no
judgments to formulate on the authors, your friends, etc." Well?
indeed! but I implore advice, and I am waiting for your judgments.
Who, pray, should give them, and who, pray, should formulate them,
if not you?

Speaking of my friends, you add "my school." But I am ruining my
temperament in trying not to have a school! A priori, I spurn them,
every one. The people whom I see often and whom you designate
cultivate all that I scorn and are indifferently disturbed about
what torments me. I regard as very secondary, technical detail,
local exactness, in short the historical and precise side of things.
I am seeking above all for beauty, which my companions pursue but
languidly. I see them insensible when I am ravaged with admiration
or horror. Phrases make me swoon with pleasure which seem very
ordinary to them. Goncourt is very happy when he has seized upon a
word in the street that he can stick in a book, and I am well
satisfied when I have written a page without assonances or
repetitions. I would give all the legends of Gavarni for certain
expressions and master strokes, such as "the shade was NUPTIAL,
august and solemn!" from Victor Hugo, or this from Montesquieu: "the
vices of Alexander were extreme like his virtues. He was terrible in
his wrath. It made him cruel."

In short, I try to think well, IN ORDER TO write well. But writing
well is my aim, I do not deny it.

"I lack a well-defined and extended vision of life." You are right a
thousand times over, but by what means could it be otherwise? I ask
you that. You do not enlighten my darkness with metaphysics, neither
mine nor that of others. The words religion or Catholicism on the
one hand; progress, fraternity, democracy on the other, do not
correspond to the spiritual needs of the moment. The entirely new
dogma of equality which radicalism praises is experimentally denied
by physiology and history. I do not see the means of establishing
today a new principle, any more than of respecting the old ones.
Therefore I am hunting, without finding it, that idea on which all
the rest should depend.

Meanwhile I repeat to myself what Littre said to me one day: "Ah! my
friend, man is an unstable compound, and the earth an inferior
planet."

Nothing sustains me better than the hope of leaving it soon, and of
not going to another which might be worse. "I would rather not die,"
as Marat said. Ah! no! enough, enough weariness!

I am writing now a little silly story, which a mother can permit her
child to read. The whole will be about thirty pages, I shall have
two months more at it. Such is my energy, I shall send it to you as
soon as it appears (not my energy, but the little story).



CCCII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 12th January, 1876

My cherished Cruchard,

I want to write to you every day; time is lacking absolutely. At
last here is a free moment; we are buried under the snow; it is the
sort of weather that I adore: this whiteness is like general
purification, and the amusements of the house seem more intimate and
sweeter. Can anyone hate the winter in the country? The snow is one
of the most beautiful sights of the year!

It appears that I am not clear in my sermons; I have that much in
common with the orthodox, but I am not of them; neither in my idea
of equality, nor of authority, have I any fixed plan. You seem to
think that I want to convert you to a doctrine. Not at all, I don't
think of such a thing. Everyone sets off from a point of view, the
free choice of which I respect. In a few words, I can give a resume
of mine: not to place oneself behind an opaque glass through which
one can see only the reflection of one's own nose. To see as far as
possible the good, the bad, about, around, yonder, everywhere; to
perceive the continual gravitation of all tangible and intangible
things towards the necessity of the decent, the good, the true, the
beautiful.

I don't say that humanity is on the way to the heights. I believe it
in spite of everything; but I do not argue about it, it is useless
because each one judges according to his own personal vision, and
the general aspect is for the moment poor and ugly. Besides, I do
not need to be sure of the safety of the planet and its inhabitants
in order to believe in the necessity of the good and the beautiful;
if the planet departs from that law it will perish; if the
inhabitants discard it they will be destroyed. Other stars, other
souls will pass over their bodies, so much the worse! But, as for
me, I want to gravitate up to my last breath, not with the certitude
nor the need of finding elsewhere a GOOD PLACE, but because my sole
joy is in keeping myself with my family on an upward road.

In other words, I am fleeing the sewer, and I am seeking the dry and
the clean, certain that it is the law of my existence. Being a man
amounts to little; we are still near the monkey from which they say
we proceed. Very well! a further reason for separating ourselves
still more from it and for being at least at the height of the
relative truth that our race has been admitted to comprehend; a very
poor truth, very limited, very humble! well, let us possess it as
much as we can and not permit anyone to take it from us. We are, I
think, quite agreed; but I practice this simple religion and you do
not practice it, since you let yourself become discouraged; your
heart has not been penetrated with it, since you curse life and
desire death like a Catholic who yearns for compensation, were it
only the rest eternal. You are no surer than another of this
compensation. Life is perhaps eternal, and therefore work is
eternal. If this is so, let us do our day's work bravely. If it is
otherwise, if the MOI perishes entirely, let us have the honor of
having done our stated task, it is our duty; for we have evident
duties only toward ourselves and our equals. What we destroy in
ourselves, we destroy in them. Our abasement lowers them, our falls
drag them down; we owe it to them to remain erect so that they shall
not fall. The desire for an early death, as that for a long life, is
therefore a weakness, and I do not want you to admit any longer that
it is a right. I thought that had it once; I believed, however, what
I believe today; but I lacked strength, and like you I said: "I
cannot help it." I lied to myself. One can help everything. One has
the strength that one thinks one has not, when one desires ardently
to GRAVITATE, to mount a step each day, to say to oneself: "The
Flaubert of tomorrow must be superior to the one of yesterday, and
the one of day after tomorrow more steady and more lucid still."

When you feel you are on the ladder, you will mount very quickly.
You are about to enter gradually upon the happiest and most
favorable time of life: old age. It is then that art reveals itself
in its sweetness; as long as one is young, it manifests itself with
anguish. You prefer a well-turned phrase to all metaphysics. I also,
I love to see condensed into a few words what elsewhere fills
volumes; but these volumes, one must have understood them completely
(either to admit them or to reject them) in order to find the
sublime resume which becomes literary art in its fullest expression;
that is why one should not scorn the efforts of the human mind to
arrive at the truth.

I tell you that, because you have excessive prejudices AS TO WORDS.
In truth, you read, you dig, you work much more than I and a crowd
of others do. You have acquired learning that I shall never attain.
Therefore you are a hundred times richer than all of us; you are a
rich man, and you complain like a poor man. Be charitable to a
beggar who has his mattress full of gold, but who wants to be
nourished only on well-turned phrases and choice words. But brute,
ransack your own mattress and eat your gold. Nourish yourself with
the ideas and feelings accumulated in your head and your heart; the
words and the phrases, THE FORM to which you attach so much
importance, will issue by itself from your digestion. You consider
it as an end, it is only an effect. Happy manifestations proceed
only from an emotion, and an emotion proceeds only from a
conviction. One is not moved at all by the things that one does not
believe with all one's heart.

I do not say that you do not believe: on the contrary, all your life
of affection, of protection, and of charming and simple goodness,
proves that you are the most convinced individual in the world. But,
as soon as you handle literature, you want, I don't know why, to be
another man, one who should disappear, one who destroys himself, who
does not exist! What an absurd mania! what a false rule of GOOD
TASTE! Our work is worth only what we are worth.

Who is talking about putting yourself on the stage? That, in truth,
is of no use, unless it is done frankly by way of a chronicle. But
to withdraw one's soul from what one does, what is that unhealthy
fancy? To hide one's own opinion about the characters that one puts
on the stage, to leave the reader therefore uncertain about the
opinion that he should have of them, that is to desire not to be
understood, and from that moment, the reader leaves you; for if he
wants to understand the story that you are telling him, it is on the
condition that you should show him plainly that this one is a strong
character and that one weak.

L'Education sentimentale has been a misunderstood book, as I have
told you repeatedly, but you have not listened to me. There should
have been a short preface, or, at a good opportunity, an expression
of blame, even if only a happy epithet to condemn the evil, to
characterize the defect, to signalize the effort. All the characters
in that book are feeble and come to nothing, except those with bad
instincts; that is what you are reproached with, because people did
not understand that you wanted precisely to depict a deplorable
state of society that encourages these bad instincts and ruins noble
efforts; when people do not understand us it is always our fault.
What the reader wants, first of all, is to penetrate into our
thought, and that is what you deny him, arrogantly. He thinks that
you scorn him and that you want to ridicule him. For my part, I
understood you, for I knew you. If anyone had brought me your book
without its being signed, I should have thought it beautiful, but
strange, and I should have asked myself if you were immoral,
skeptical, indifferent or heart-broken. You say that it ought to be
like that, and that M. Flaubert will violate the rules of good taste
if he shows his thought and the aim of his literary enterprise. It
is false in the highest degree. When M. Flaubert writes well and
seriously, one attaches oneself to his personality. One wants to
sink or swim with him. If he leaves you in doubt, you lose interest
in his work, you neglect it, or you give it up.

I have already combated your favorite heresy, which is that one
writes for twenty intelligent people and does not care a fig for the
rest. It is not true, since the lack of success irritates you and
troubles you. Besides, there have not been twenty critics favorable
to this book which was so well written and so important. So one must
not write for twenty persons any more than for three, or for a
hundred thousand.

One must write for all those who have a thirst to read and who can
profit by good reading. Then one must go straight to the most
elevated morality within oneself, and not make a mystery of the
moral and profitable meaning of one's book. People found that with
Madame Bovary. If one part of the public cried scandal, the
healthiest and the broadest part saw in it a severe and striking
lesson given to a woman without conscience and without faith, to
vanity, to ambition, to irrationality. They pitied her; art required
that, but the lesson was clear, and it would have been more so, it
would have been so for everybody, if you had wished it, if you had
shown more clearly the opinion that you had, and that the public
ought to have had, about the heroine, her husband, and her lovers.

That desire to depict things as they are, the adventures of life as
they present themselves to the eye, is not well thought out, in my
opinion. Depict inert things as a realist, as a poet, it's all the
same to me, but, when one touches on the emotions of the human
heart, it is another thing. You cannot abstract yourself from this
contemplation; for man, that is yourself, and men, that is the
reader. Whatever you do, your tale is a conversation between you and
the reader. If you show him the evil coldly, without ever showing
him the good he is angry. He wonders if it is he that is bad, or if
it is you. You work, however, to rouse him and to interest him; you
will never succeed if you are not roused yourself, or if you hide it
so well that he thinks you indifferent. He is right: supreme
impartiality is an anti-human thing, and a novel ought to be human
above everything. If it is not, the public is not pleased in its
being well written, well composed and conscientious in every detail.
The essential quality is not there: interest. The reader breaks away
likewise from a book where all the characters are good without
distinctions and without weaknesses; he sees clearly that that is
not human either. I believe that art, this special art of narration,
is only worth while through the opposition of characters; but, in
their struggle, I prefer to see the right prevail. Let events
overwhelm the honest men, I agree to that, but let him not be soiled
or belittled by them, and let him go to the stake feeling that he is
happier than his executioners.

15th January, 1876

It is three days since I wrote this letter, and every day I have
been on the point of throwing it into the fire; for it is long and
diffuse and probably useless. Natures opposed on certain points
understand each other with difficulty, and I am afraid that you will
not understand me any better today than formerly. However, I am
sending you this scrawl so that you can see that I am occupied with
you almost as much as with myself.

You must have success after that bad luck which has troubled you
deeply. I tell you wherein lie the certain conditions for your
success. Keep your cult for form; but pay more attention to the
substance. Do not take true virtue for a commonplace in literature.
Give it its representative, make honest and strong men pass among
the fools and the imbeciles that you love to ridicule. Show what is
solid at the bottom of these intellectual abortions; in short,
abandon the convention of the realist and return to the time
reality, which is a mingling of the beautiful and the ugly, the dull
and the brilliant, but in which the desire of good finds its place
and its occupation all the same.

I embrace you for all of us.

G. Sand



CCCIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 6th March, 1876

I am writing to you in a hurry this morning because I have just
received news from M. Perrin of the first performance of the revival
of the Mariage de Victorine, a play of mine, at the Theatre
Francais.

I have neither the time to go there, nor the wish to leave like that
at a moment's notice, but I should have liked to send some of my
friends there, and he does not offer me a single seat for them. I am
writing him a letter that he will receive tomorrow, and I am asking
him to send you at least one orchestra seat. If you do not get it,
please understand that it was not my fault. I shall have to say the
same thing to five or six other people.

I embrace you therefore in a hurry, so as not to lose the post.

Give me news of your niece and embrace her for me.

G. Sand



CCCIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 8th March, 1876

You scorn Sedaine, you great profane soul! That is where the
doctrine of form destroys your eye! Sedaine is not a writer, that is
true, although he falls but little short of it, but he is a man,
with a heart and soul, with the sense of moral truth, the direct
insight into human feelings. I don't mind his out-of-date reasonings
and dry phraseology! The right thought is always there, and it
penetrates you deeply!

My dear old Sedaine! He is one of my well-beloved papas, and I
consider le Philosophe sans le savior far superior to Victorine; it
is such a distressing drama and so well carried out! But you only
look for the well-turned phrase, that is one thing--only one thing,
it is not all of art, it is not even half of it, it is a quarter at
most, and if three-quarters are beautiful, one overlooks the part
that is not.

I hope that you will not go to seek for your country-side before the
good weather; here, we have been pretty well spared; but for the
past three days there has been a deluge, and it makes me ill. I
should not have been able to go to Paris. Your niece is better, God
be praised! I love you and I embrace you with all my soul.

G. Sand

Do tell M. Zola to send me his book. I shall certainly read it with
great interest.



CCCV. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday, 9th March, 1876

COMPLETE SUCCESS, dear master. The actors were recalled after each
act, and warmly applauded. The public was pleased and from time to
time cries of approval were heard. All your friends who had come at
your summons were sorry that you were not there.

The roles of Antoine and Victorine were especially well played.
Little Baretta is a real treasure.

How were you able to make Victorine from le Philosophe sans le
savoir? That is beyond me. Your play charmed me and made me weep
like an idiot, while the other bored me to death, absolutely bored
me to death; I longed to get to the end. What language! the good
Tourgueneff and Madame Viardot made saucer-eyes, comical to behold.
In your work, what produced the greatest effect is the scene in the
last act between Antoine and his daughter. Maubant is too majestic,
and the actor who plays Fulgence is inadequate. But everything went
very well, and this revival will have a long life.

The gigantic Harrisse told me that he was going to write to you
immediately. Therefore his letter will arrive before mine. I should
have started this morning for Pont-l'Eveque and Honfleur to see a
bit of the country that I have forgotten, but the floods stopped me.

Read, I beg of you, the new novel by Zola, Son Excellence Rougon: I
am very anxious to know what you think of it.

No, I do not SCORN Sedaine, because I do not scorn what I do not
understand. He is to me, like Pindar, and Milton, who are absolutely
closed to me; however, I quite understand that the citizen Sedaine
is not exactly of their calibre.

The public of last Tuesday shared my error, and Victorine,
independently of its real worth, gained by contrast. Madame Viardot,
who has naturally good taste, said to me yesterday, in speaking of
you: "How was she able to make one from the other?" That is exactly
what I think.

You distress me a bit, dear master, by attributing esthetic opinions
to me which are not mine. I believe that the rounding of the phrase
is nothing. But that WRITING WELL is everything, because "writing
well is at the same time perceiving well, thinking well and saying
well" (Buffon). The last term is then dependent on the other two,
since one has to feel strongly, so as to think, and to think, so as
to express.

All the bourgeois can have a great deal of heart and delicacy, be
full of the best sentiments and the greatest virtues, without
becoming for all that, artists. In short, I believe that the form
and the matter are two subtleties, two entities, neither of which
can exist without the other.

This anxiety for external beauty which you reproach me with is for
me a METHOD. When I discover a bad assonance or a repetition in one
of my phrases, I am sure that I am floundering in error; by dint of
searching, I find the exact expression which was the only one and
is, at the same time, the harmonious one. The word is never lacking
when one possesses the idea.

Note (to return to the good Sedaine) that I share all his opinions
and I approve his tendencies. From the archeological point of view,
he is curious and from the humanitarian point of view very
praiseworthy, I agree. But what difference does it make to us today?
Is it eternal art? I ask you that.

Other writers of his period have formulated useful principles also,
but in an imperishable style, in a more concrete and at the same
time more general manner.

In short, the persistence of the Comedie Francais in exhibiting that
to us as "a masterpiece" had so exasperated me that, having gone
home in order to get rid of the taste of this milk-food, I read
before going to bed the Medea of Euripides, as I had no other
classic handy, and Aurora surprised Cruchard in this occupation.

I have written to Zola to send you his book. I shall tell Daudet
also to send you his Jack, as I am very curious to have your opinion
on these two books, which are very different in composition and
temperament, but quite remarkable, both of them.

The fright which the elections caused to the bourgeois has been
diverting.



CCCVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 15th March, 1876

I should have a good deal to say about the novels of M. Zola, and it
would be better to say it in an article than in a letter, because
there is a general question there which must be formulated with a
refreshed brain. I should like to read M. Daudet's book first, the
book you spoke of to me, the title of which I cannot recall. Have
the publisher send it to me collect, if he does not want to give it
to me; that is very simple. On the whole, the thing that I shall not
gainsay, meanwhile making a PHILOSOPHICAL criticism of the method,
is that Rougon is a STRONG book, as you say, and worthy of being
placed in the first rank.

That does not change anything in my way of thinking, that art ought
to be the search for the truth, and that truth is not the picture of
evil. It ought to be the picture of good and evil. A painter who
sees only one is as false as he who sees only the other. Life is not
crammed with monsters only. Society is not formed of rascals and
wretches only. The honest people are not the minority, since society
exists in a certain order and without too many unpunished crimes.
Imbeciles dominate, it is true, but there is a public conscience
which weighs on them and obliges them to respect the right. Let
people show up and chastise the rascals, that is good, it is even
moral, but let them tell us and show us the opposite; otherwise the
simple reader, who is the average reader, is discouraged, saddened,
horrified, and contradicts you so as not to despair.

How are you? Tourgueneff wrote me that your last work was very
remarkable: then you are not DONE FOR, as you pretend?

Your niece continues to improve, does she not? I too am better,
after cramps in my stomach that made me blue, and continued with a
horrible persistence. Physical suffering is a good lesson when it
leaves one freedom of spirit. One learns to endure it and to conquer
it. Of course one has some moments of discouragement when one throws
oneself on the bed; but, for my part, I always think of what my old
cure used to say to me, when he had the gout: THAT WILL PASS, OR I
SHALL PASS. And thereupon he would laugh, content with his joke.

My Aurore is beginning history, and she is not very well pleased
with these killers of men whom they call heroes and demigods. She
calls them horrid fellows.

We have a confounded spring; the earth is covered with flowers and
snow, one gets numb gathering violets and anemones.

I have read the manuscript of l'Etrangere. It is not as DECADENT as
you say. There are diamonds that sparkle brightly in this
polychrome. Moreover, the decadences are transformations. The
mountains in travail roar and scream, but they sing beautiful airs,
also.

I embrace you and I love you. Do have your legend published quickly,
so that we may read it.

Your old troubadour,

G. Sand



CCCVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
30th March, 1876

Dear Cruchard,

I am enthusiastic about Jack, and I beg you to send my thanks to M.
Daudet. Ah, yes! He has talent and heart! and how well all that is
done and SEEN!

I am sending you a volume of old things that have just been
collected. I embrace you, and I love you.

Your old troubadour,

G. Sand



CCCVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday evening, 3rd April, 1876

I have received your volume this morning, dear master. I have two or
three others that have been loaned to me for a long time; I shall
send them off, and I shall read yours at the end of the week, during
a little two-days' trip that I am forced to take to Pont-l'Eveque
and to Honfleur for my Histoire d'un coeur simple, a trifle now "on
the stocks," as M. Prudhomme would say.

I am very glad that Jack has pleased you. It is a charming book,
isn't it? If you knew the author you would like him even better than
his book. I have told him to send you Risler and Tartarin. I am sure
in advance that you would thank me for the opportunity of reading
these two books.

I do not share in Tourgueneff's severity as regards Jack, nor in the
immensity of his admiration for Rougon. The one has charm, the other
force. But neither one is concerned ABOVE ALL else with what is for
me the end of art, namely, beauty. I remember having felt my heart
beat violently, having felt a fierce pleasure in contemplating a
wall of the Acropolis, a perfectly bare wall (the one on the left as
you go up to the Propylaea). Well! I wonder if a book independently
of what it says, cannot produce the same effect! In the exactness of
its assembling, the rarity of its elements, the polish of its
surface, the harmony of its ensemble, is there not an intrinsic
virtue, a sort of divine force, something eternal as a principle? (I
speak as a Platonist.) Thus, why is a relation necessary between the
exact word and the musical word? Why does it happen that one always
makes a verse when one restrains his thought too much? Does the law
of numbers govern then the feelings and the images, and is what
seems to be the exterior quite simply inside it? If I should
continue a long time in this vein, I should blind myself entirely,
for on the other side art has to be a good fellow; or rather art is
what one can make it, we are not free. Each one follows his path, in
spite of his own desire. In short, your Cruchard no longer knows
where he stands.

But how difficult it is to understand one another! There are two men
whom I admire a great deal and whom I consider real artists,
Tourgueneff and Zola. Yet they do not admire the prose of
Chateaubriand at all, and even less that of Gautier. Phrases which
ravish me seem hollow to them. Who is wrong? And how please the
public when one's nearest friends are so remote? All that saddens me
very much. Do not laugh.



CCCIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Sunday evening... 1876

You OUGHT to call me inwardly, dear master, "a confounded pig,"--for
I have not answered your last letter, and I have said nothing to you
about your two volumes, not to mention a third that I received this
morning from you. But I have been, for the last two weeks, entirely
taken up by my little tale which will be finished soon. I have had
several errands to do, various readings to finish up with, and a
thing more serious than all that, the health of my poor niece
worries me extremely and, at times, disturbs my brain, so that I do
not know at all what I am doing! You see that my cup is bitter! That
young woman is anemic to the last degree. She is wasting away. She
has been obliged to leave off painting, which is her sole
distraction. All the usual tonics do no good. Three days ago, by the
orders of another physician, who seems to me more learned than the
others, she began hydrotherapy. Will he succeed in making her digest
and sleep? in building up her strength? Your poor Cruchard takes
less and less pleasure in life, and he even has too much of it,
infinitely too much. Let us speak of your books, that will be
better.

They have amused me, and the proof is that I have devoured with one
gulp and one after another, Flamarande and the Deux Freres. What a
charming woman is Madame Flamarande, and what a man is M. Salcede.
The narrative of the kidnapping of the child, the trip in the
carriage, and the story of Zamora are perfect passages. Everywhere
the interest is sustained and at the same time progressive. In
short, what strikes me the most in these two novels (as in all
yours, moreover), is the natural order of the ideas, the talent, or
rather the genius for narrative. But what an abominable wretch is
your M. Flamarande! As for the servant who tells the story and who
is evidently in love with Madame, I wonder why you did not show more
plainly his personal jealousy.

Except for the count, all are virtuous persons in that story, even
extraordinarily virtuous. But do you think them really true to life?
Are there many like them? It is true that while reading, one accepts
them because of the cleverness of the execution; but afterwards?

Well, dear master, and this is to answer your last letter, this is,
I think what separates us essentially. You, on the first bound, in
everything, mount to heaven, and from there you descend to the
earth. You start from a priori, from the theory, from the ideal.
Thence your pity for life, your serenity, and to speak truly, your
greatness.--I, poor wretch, I am stuck on the earth as with soles of
lead; everything disturbs me, tears me to pieces, ravages me, and I
make efforts to rise. If I should take your manner of looking at the
whole of life I should become laughable, that is all. For you preach
to me in vain. I cannot have another temperament than my own; nor
another esthetics than what is the consequence of it. You accuse me
of not letting myself go, according to nature. Well, and that
discipline? that virtue? what shall we do with it? I admire M.
Buffon putting on cuffs when he wrote. This luxury is a symbol. In
short I am trying simply to be as comprehensive as possible. What
more can one exact?

As for letting my personal opinion be known about the people I put
on the stage: no, no, a thousand times no! I do not recognize the
right to that. If the reader does not draw from a book the moral
that should be found there, the reader is an imbecile or the book is
false from the point of view of accuracy. For, the moment that a
thing is true, it is good. Obscene books likewise are immoral only
because they lack truth. Things are not "like that" in life.

And observe that I curse what they agree to call realism, although
they make me one of its high priests; reconcile all that.

As for the public, its taste disgusts me more and more. Yesterday,
for instance, I was present at the first night of the Prix Martin, a
piece of buffoonery that, for my part, I think full of wit. Not one
of the witty things in the play produced a laugh, and the
denouement, which seems out of the ordinary, passed unperceived.
Then to look for what can please seems to me the most chimerical of
undertakings. For I defy anyone to tell me by what means one
pleases. Success is a consequence and must not be an end. I have
never sought it (although I desire it) and I seek it less and less.

After my little story, I shall do another,--for I am too deeply
shaken to start on a great work. I had thought first of publishing
Saint-Julien in a periodical, but I have given the plan up.



CCCX. TO GEORGE SAND
Friday evening...1876

Ah! thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear master! You have
made me pass an exquisite day, for I have read your last volume, la
Tour de Percemont.--Marianne only to-day; as I had many things to
finish, among others my tale of Saint-Julien, I had shut up the
aforesaid volume in a drawer so as not to succumb to the temptation.
As my little story was finished last night, I rushed upon your book
when morning came and devoured it.

I find it perfect, two jewels! Marianne moved me deeply and two or
three times I wept. I recognized myself in the character of Pierre.
Certain pages seemed to me fragments of my own memoirs, supposing I
had the talent to write them in such a way! How charming, poetic and
true to life all that is! La Tour de Percemont pleased me extremely.
But Marianne literally enchanted me. The English think as I do, for
in the last number of the Athenaeum there is a very fine article
about you. Did you know that? So then, for this time, I admire you
completely and without the least reserve.

There you are, and I am very glad of it. You have never done
anything to me that was not good; I love you tenderly!



CCCXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Sunday, Nohant, 5th April, 1876.

Victor Borie is in Italy, what must I write him? Are you the man to
go to find him and explain the affair to him? He is somewhere near
Civita-Vecchia, very much on the go and perhaps not easy to catch up
with.

I am sure that he would receive you with open arms, for, although a
financier to his finger-tips he has remained very friendly and nice
to us. He does not tell us if he is on his mountain of alum for
long. Lina is writing to him and will know soon, shall she tell him
that you are disposed to go to meet him, or that you will wait until
his return to Paris? anyway until the 20th of May he will get
letters addressed to him at the Hotel Italy in Florence. We shall
have to be on the watch, for he writes AT LONG INTERVALS.

I have not the time to say any more to you today. People are coming
in. I have read Fromont et Risler; I charge you to thank M. Daudet,
to tell him that I spent the night in reading it and that I do not
know whether I prefer Jack or Risler; it is interesting, I might
almost say GRIPPING.

I embrace you and I love you, when will you give me some Flaubert to
read?

G. Sand



CCCXII. To GEOBGE SAND
Monday evening

Dear master,  Thanks to Madame Lina's kind note, I betook myself to
V. Borie's yesterday and was most pleasantly received. My nephew
went to carry him the documents today. Borie has promised to look
after the affair; will he do it?

I think that he is in just the position to do me indirectly the
greatest service that any one could do me. If my poor nephew should
get the capital which he needs in order to work, I could get back a
part of what I have lost and live in peace the rest of my days.

I presented myself to Borie under your recommendation, and it is to
you that I owe the cordiality of his reception. I do not thank you
(of course) but you can tell him that I was touched by his kind
reception (and stimulate his zeal if you think that may be useful).

I have been working a great deal lately. How I should like to see
you so as to read my little medieval folly to you! I have begun
another story entitled Histoire d'un coeur simple. But I have
interrupted this work to make some researches on the period of Saint
John the Baptist, for I want to describe the feast of Herodias.

I hope to have my readings finished in a fortnight, after which I
shall return to Croisset from which spot I shall not budge till
winter,--my long sessions at the library exhaust me. Cruchard is
weary.

The good Tourgueneff leaves this evening for Saint Petersburg. He
asks me if I have thanked you for your last book? Could I be guilty
of such an oversight?  You will see by my Histoire d'un coeur simple
where you will recognize your immediate influence, that I am not so
obstinate as you think. I believe that the moral tendency, or rather
the human basis of this little work will please you!

Adieu, dear good master. Remembrances to all yours.

I embrace you very tenderly.

Your old Gustave Flaubert



CCCXIII. To MAURICE SAND
Tuesday evening, 27th

All I can say to you, in the first place, my dear friend, is, that
your book has made me pass a sleepless night. I read it instantly,
at one fell swoop, only stopping to fill my good pipe from time to
time and then to resume my reading.

When the impression is a little less fresh I shall take up your book
again to find the flaws in it. But I think that there are very few.
You must be content? It ought to please? It is dramatic and as
amusing as possible!

Beginning with the first page I was charmed with the sincerity of
the description. And at the end I admired the composition of the
whole, the logical way the events were worked out and the characters
related.

Your chief character, Miss Mary, is too hateful (to my taste) to be
anything but an exact picture. That is one of the choicest parts of
your book, together with the homelife, the life in New York?

Your good savage makes me laugh out loud when he is at the Opera.

I was struck by the house of the missionaries (Montaret's first
night). You make it seem real.  Naissa scalping, and then wiping her
hands on the grass, seemed to me especially well done. As well as
the disgust that she inspires in Montaret,

I venture a timid observation: it seems to me that the flight of
father Athanasius and of Montaret, when they escape from their
prison, is not perfectly clear? Is not the material explanation of
the event too short?

I do not care for, as language, two or three ready-made locutions,
such as "break the ice." You can see that I have read you
attentively! What a pedagogue I make, eh! I am telling you all that
from memory, for I have lent your book, and it has not been returned
to me yet. But my recollection of it is of a thing very well done.

Don't you agree with me that a play of very great effect could be
made from it for a boulevard theatre?

By the way, how is Cadio going?

Tell your dear mamma that I adore her.

Harrisse, from whom I have received a letter today, charges me to
remember him to her, and, for my part, I charge you to embrace her
for me.

And I grasp your two hands heartily and say "bravo" to you again,
and faithfully yours.

Gustave Flaubert



CCCXIV. To MADAM MAURICE SAND
Thursday evening, 25th May, 1876

Dear Madam,

I sent a telegram to Maurice this morning, asking for news of Madam
Sand.

I was told yesterday that she was very ill, why has not Maurice
answered me?

I went to Plauchut's this morning to get details. He is in the
country, at Le Mans, so that I am in a state of cruel uncertainty.

Be good enough to answer me immediately and believe me, dear madam,

Your very affectionate,

Gustave Flaubert

4 rue Murillo, Parc Monceau



CCCXV. To MADAM LINA SAND

Dear Madam,

Your note of this morning reassures me a little. But that of last
night had absolutely upset me.

I beg you to give me very frequent news of your dear mother-in-law.

Embrace her for me and believe that I am

Your very devoted

Gustave Flaubert

Beginning with the middle of next week, about Wednesday or Thursday,
I shall be at Croisset.

Saturday morning, 3d June, 1876.



CCCXVI. To MAURICE SAND
Croisset, Sunday, 24 June, 1876

You had prepared me, my dear Maurice, I wanted to write to you, but
I was waiting till you were a little freer, more alone. Thank you
for your kind thought.

Yes, we understood each other, yonder! (And if I did not remain
longer, it is because my comrades dragged me away.) It seemed to me
that I was burying my mother the second time. Poor, dear, great
woman! What genius and what heart! But she lacked nothing, it is not
she whom we must pity.

What is to become of you? Shall you stay in Nohant? That good old
house must seem horribly empty to you! But you, at least, are not
alone! You have a wife...a rare one! and two exquisite children.
While I was with you, I had, over and above my grief, two desires:
to run off with Aurore and to kill M. Marx.[Footnote: A reporter for
le Figaro.] There you have the truth, it is unnecessary to make you
see the psychology of the thing. I received yesterday a very
sympathetic letter from good Tourgueneff. He too loved her. But
then, who did not love her? If you had seen in Paris the anguish of
Martine![Footnote: George Sand's maid.] That was distressing.

Plauchut is still in Nohant, I suppose. Tell him that I love him
because I saw him shed so many tears.

And let yours flow, my dear friend, do all that is necessary not to
console yourself,--which would, moreover, be impossible. Never mind!
In a short time you will feel a great joy in the idea alone that you
were a good son and that she knew it absolutely. She used to talk of
you as of a blessing.

And when you shall have rejoined her, when the great-grand-children
of the grandchildren of your two little girls shall have joined her,
and when for a long time there shall have been no question of the
things and the people that surround us,--in several centuries,--
hearts like ours will palpitate through hers! People will read her
books, that is to say that they will think according to her ideas
and they will love with her love. But all that does not give her
back to you, does it? With what then can we sustain ourselves if
pride desert us, and what man more than you should have pride in his
mother!

Now dear friend, adieu! When shall we meet now? How I should feel
the need of talking of her, insatiably!

Embrace Madam Maurice for me, as I did on the stairway at Nohant,
and your little girls.

Yours, from the depths of my heart,

Your Gustave Flaubert



CCCXVII. To MAURICE SAND
Croisset, Tuesday, 3rd October, 1876

Thank you for your kind remembrance, my dear friend. Neither do I
forget, and I dream of your poor, dear mamma in a sadness that does
not disappear. Her death has left a great emptiness for me. After
you, your wife and the good Plauchut, I am perhaps the one who
misses her most! I need her.

I pity you the annoyances that your sister causes you. I too have
gone through that! It is so easy moreover to be good! Besides that
causes less evil. When shall we meet? I want so much to see you,
first just to see you--and second to talk of her.

When your business is finished, why not come to Paris for some time?
Solitude is bad under certain conditions. One should not become
intoxicated with one's grief, however much attraction one finds in
doing so.

You ask me what I am doing. This is it: this year I have written two
stories, and I am going to begin another so as to make the three
into one volume that I want to publish in the spring. After that I
hope to resume the big novel that I laid aside a year ago after my
financial disaster. Matters are improving in that direction, and I
shall not be forced to change anything in my way of living. If I
have been able to start at work again, I owe it partly to the good
counsel of your mother. She had found the best way to bring me back
to respect myself.

In order to get the quicker at work, I shall stay here till New
Year's Day,--perhaps later than that. Do try to put off your visit
to Paris.

Embrace your dear little girls warmly for me, my respects to Madam
Maurice, and-sincerely yours, ex imo.

Gustave Flaubert



CCCXVIII. To MAURICE SAND
Saint-Gratien par Sannois, 20th August, 1877

Thank you for your kind remembrance, my dear Maurice. Next winter
you will be in Passy, I hope,--and from time to time we can have a
good chat. I even count on seeing myself at your table by the side
of your friends whose "idol" I am.

You speak to me of your dear and illustrious mamma! Next to you I do
not think that any one could think of her more often than I do! How
I miss her! How I need her!

I had begun un coeur simple solely on account of her, only to please
her. She died while I was in the midst of this work. Thus it is with
our dreams.

I still continue not to find diversion in existence. In order to
forget the weight of it, I work as frantically as possible.

What sustains me is the indignation that the Imbecility of the
Bourgeois affords me! Summed up at present by the large party of law
and order, it reaches a dizzy height!

Has there been anything in history more inept than the 16th of May?
Where is there an idiot comparable to the Bayard of modern times?

I have been in Paris, or rather at Saint-Gratien, for three days.
Day after tomorrow I leave the princess, and in a fortnight I shall
make a little trip to Lower Normandy for the sake of literature.
When we meet I shall talk a long time with you, if you are
interested, about the terrible book that I am in the process of
concocting. I shall have enough work in it to take me three or four
years. Not less!

Don't leave me so long without news. Give a long look for me at the
little corner of the holy ground!...My regards to your dear wife,
embrace the dear little girls and sincerely yours, my good Maurice,

Your old friend

Gustave Flaubert



CCCXIX. To MAURICE SAND
Tuesday morning, April, 1880

My dear Maurice,

No! Erase Cruchard and Polycarp and replace those words by what you
like.

The Public ought not to have all of us,--let us reserve something
for ourselves. That seems to me more decent (quod decet). You do not
speak of a COMPLETE EDITION? Ah! your poor dear mamma! How often I
think of her! And what need I have of her! There is not a day when I
do not say: "If she were there, I should ask her advice."

I shall be at Croisset till the 8th or the 10th of May. So, my old
fellow, when you wish to come there, you will be welcome. I embrace
you all from the oldest to the youngest.

Cruchard for you,

Polycarp for the human race,

Gustave Flaubert for Literature



THE END OF THE GEORGE SAND-GUSTAVE FLAUBERT LETTERS