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!!!
TO EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT.
Croisset, July 3, 1860.