Gustave Flaubert
LOVE, HAPPINESS AND ART
Translation and Introduction
by
Francis
Steegmuller
In the body of Flaubert's writings the letters he addressed to
his friend s occupy a place of special importance, with regard both to
quantity and to content. Almost a dozen volumes of them have been
published in France, with several more yet to appear, and Andre Gide
was but one of numerous literary men who have made them their
livre
de chevet.
In them, the great artist who imposed the severest discipline
on himself in his novels lets himself go: the style is flowing and free,
and, more interestingly, he reveals a great clarity of self-analysis and
of insight into social forces which shaped his period and which are
visible in their full import only today.
Of the hundreds of letters, the most revelatory are those to Louise
Colet, of which 267 are in print in French. Thanks to the work of
Aimee
L.
McKenzie, Flaubert's later correspondence with George Sand
is accessible to the English-speaking world; but of these earlier letters,
written to the only woman with whom he seems to have had, at least
for a short time, a complete physical and intellectual relationship,
only a small fraction have ever been translated. The following pages
contain a few hitherto untranslated passages from the series. All were
written between the ages of 25 and
33~before
the completion of
Madame Bovary
and in part before that book was even conceived.
Never afterwards did Flaubert attain such a degree of self-expres–
sion; never again did he employ such freedom and frankness toward
himself and toward his correspondent. Especially in the earliest letters
he seems to be riding on the high hope of having found a woman
with whom he can have not only a satisfactory physical relation but
also complete intellectual communion. When he met Louise Colet, a
handsome woman and fashionable poet, eleven years older than him–
self, he interpreted her promiscuity as true emancipation and felt that
he could safely commit himself in his emotions without fear of slipping
into bondage. After a very brief period he was disappointed, for Louise
began to make the usual demands. Flaubert fought her off for some
time, trying to convert her to his point of view. When he became con-
