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.