TO EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT.
Croisset, May, 1860.
I must tell you of the pleasure I had in reading your two books. I found them charming, full of new details and having an excellent style, showing at the same time nervous power and lofty imagination. That is history, it seems to me, and original history.
One sees in them always the soul within the body; the abundance of details does not stifle the psychological side. The moral is revealed beneath the facts, without declamation or digression. It lives,—a rare merit.
The portrait of Louis XV., that of Bachelier, and above all, that of Richelieu, seem to me to be products of the most finished art.
How much you make me love Madame de Mailly! She actually excites me! “She was one of those beauties ... like the divinities of a bacchante!” Heavens! You certainly write like angels!
I know of nothing in the world that has interested me more than the finale of Madame de Châteauroux.
Your judgment of the Pompadour will rest without appeal, I fancy. What could anyone say after you?
That poor Du Barry! How you love her, do you not? I love her, too, I must confess. How fortunate you are, to be able to occupy yourselves with all that sort of thing, instead of diving into nothingness, or working upon nothingness, as I must work.
It is altogether charming of you to send me the book, to have so much talent, and to love me a little!
I clasp your four hands as warmly as possible, and am ever your
G. Flaubert,
Friend of Franklin and of Marat; factionist, and anarchist of the first order, and for twenty years a disorganiser of despotism on two hemispheres!!!