I. A NEW FIELD 85
II. NEW FRIENDS 98
III. ADDED CARES 107
IV. SILENT HOMAGE 121
V. SMOTHERED FLAMES 126
VI. SPIRITUAL COUNSEL 138
VII. A WOMAN'S WHIMS 154
VIII. A VILLAGE FESTIVAL 165
IX. A WOODLAND IDYLL 193
X. LOVERS' VOWS 206
XI. AN EXPERIMENT AND A FAILURE 217
XII. PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT 233
XIII. DESERTED 251
XIV. RELIGIOUS FERVOR 264
XV. A NEW DELIGHT 278
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
_Domi mansit, lanam fecit:_ "He remained at home and wrote," is the
first thing that should be said of Gustave Flaubert. This trait, which
he shares with many of the writers of his generation,--Renan, Taine,
Leconte de Lisle and Dumas _fils_,--distinguishes them and distinguishes
him from those of the preceding generation, who voluntarily sought
inspiration in disorder and agitation,--Balzac and George Sand, for
instance (to speak only of romance writers), and the elder Dumas or
Eugène Sue. Flaubert, indeed, had no "outward life;" he lived only for
his art.
A second trait of his character, and of his genius as a writer, is that
of seeing in his art only the art itself--and art alone, without the
mingling of any vision of fortune or success. A competency,--which he
had inherited from the great surgeon, his father,--and moderate tastes,
infinitely more _bourgeois_ than his literature,--permitted him to shun
the great stumbling-block of the professional man of letters, which, in
our day, and doubtless in the United States as well as in France, is the
temptation to coin money with the pen. Never was writer more
disinterested than Flaubert; and the story is that _Madame Bovary_
brought him 300 francs--in debts.
A third trait, which helps not only to characterise but to individualise
him, is his subordination not only of his own existence, but of life in
general, to his conception of art. It is not enough to say that he lived
for his art: he saw nothing in the world or in life but material for
that art,--_Hostis quid aliud quam perpetua materia gloriæ?_--and if it
be true that others have died of their ambition, it could literally be
said of Flaubert that he was killed by his art.
It is this point that I should like to bring out in this
Introduction,--where we need not speak of his Norman origin, or (as his
friend Ducamp has written in his _Literary Souvenirs_ with a
disagreeable persistence, and so uselessly!) of his nervousness and
epilepsy; of his loves or his friendships, but solely of his work. We
know, in fact, to-day, that if all such details are made clear in the
biography of a great writer, in no way do they explain his work. The
author of _Gil Blas_, Alain René Lesage, was a Breton, like the author
of _Atala_; the Corneille brothers had almost nothing in common. Of all
our great writers, the one nearest, perhaps, to Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
who died a victim to delirium from persecution, was Madame Sand, who
had, without doubt, the sanest and best balanced temperament.
Other writers have sought,--for instance, our great classical authors,
Pascal, Bossuet and perhaps Corneille,--to influence the thought of
their time; some, like Molière, La Fontaine, and La Bruyère, to correct
customs. Others still,--such as our romantic writers, Hugo or De
Musset,--desired only to express their personal conception of the world
and of life. And then Balzac, whose object,--almost scientific,--was to
make a "natural history," a study and description, of the social
species, as an animal or vegetable species is described in zoology or
botany. Gustave Flaubert attempted only to work out his art, for and
through the love of art. Very early in life, as we clearly see from his
correspondence, his consideration for art was not even that of a social
but of a _sacred_ function, in which the artist was the priest. We hear
sometimes, in metaphor and not without irony, of the "priesthood" of the
artist and the "worship" of art. These expressions must be taken
literally in Flaubert's case. He was cloistered in his art as a monk in
his convent or by his discipline; and he truly lived only in meditation
upon that art, as a Mystic in contemplation of the perfections of his
God. Nothing outside of art truly interested him, neither science, nor
things political or religious, nor men, nor women, nor anything in the
world; and if, sometimes, it was his duty to occupy himself with them,
it was never in a degree greater than could benefit his art. "The
accidents of the world"--this is his own expression--appeared to him
only as things permitted _for the sake of description_, so much so that
his own existence, even, seemed to him to have no other excuse.
It is that which explains the mixture of "romanticism," "naturalism,"
and I will add, of "classicism"--which has been pointed out more than
once in Flaubert's work. _Madame Bovary_ is the masterpiece of
naturalistic romance and has not been surpassed by the studies of Zola
or the stories of De Maupassant. On the other hand, there is nothing in
Hugo, even, more romantic than _The Temptation of Saint Antony_. But it
is necessary to look for many things in romanticism; and the romanticism
of Hugo, which was one of the delights of Flaubert, did not resemble
that of De Musset, (Lord de Musset, as Flaubert called him) which he
strongly disliked. What he loved in romanticism was the "colour," and
nothing but the colour. He loved the romanticism of the Orientals, of
Hugo and Chateaubriand, that plastic romanticism, whose object is to
substitute in literature "sensations of art" for the "expression of
ideas," or even of sentiments. It is precisely here that naturalism and
romanticism--or at least French naturalism, which is very different from
that of the Russians or the English--join hands. In the one case, as in
the other, the attempt is made to "represent"--as he himself puts it;
and when one represents nothing except the vulgar, the common, the
mediocre, the everyday, commonplace, or grotesque, he is a "naturalist,"
like the author of _Madame Bovary_; but one is a "romanticist" when,
like the author of _Salammbô_, he makes this world vanish, and recreates
a strange land filled with Byzantine or Carthaginian civilization, with
its barbaric luxury, its splendour of corruption, immoderate appetites,
and monstrous deities.
We have done wrong in considering Flaubert a naturalist impeded by his
romanticism, or a romanticist impenitent, irritated with himself because
of his tendency to naturalism. He was both naturalist and romanticist.
And in both he was an artist, so much of an artist (I say this without
fear of contradiction) that he saw nothing in his art but
"representation," the telling of the truth in all its depth and
fidelity. _Les Fileuses_ and _La Reddition de Bréda_ are always by
Velasquez; but the genius of the painter has nothing in common with the
subject he has chosen or the circumstances that inspired him.
From this source proceeds that insensibility in Flaubert with which he
has so often been reproached, not without reason, and which divides his
naturalism from that of the author of _Adam Bede_ or that of the author
of _Anna Karenina_ by an abyss. Honest, as a man, a good citizen, a good
son, a good brother, a good friend, Flaubert was indifferent, as an
artist, to all that did not belong to his art. "I believe that it is
necessary to love nothing," he has written somewhere, and even
underscored it--that is to say, it is necessary to hover impartially
above all objective points. And, in fact, as nothing passed before his
eyes that he considered did not lie within the possibility of
representation, he made it a law unto himself to look nothing in the
face except from this point of view.
In this regard one may compare his attitude in the presence of his model
to that of his contemporaries, Renan, for example, or Taine, in the
presence of the object of their studies. With them also critical
impartiality resembles not only indifference but insensibility. Not only
have they refused to confound their emotions with their judgments, but
their judgments have no value in their eyes except as they separate them
from their emotions,--as they emancipate themselves from them or even
place themselves in opposition to them. In like manner did Flaubert. The
first condition of an exact representation of things is to dominate
them; and in order to dominate them, is it not necessary to begin by
detaching yourself from them? We see dimly through tears, and we are
too much absorbed in that which gives us pleasure to be good judges of
it. "An ideal society would be one where each individual performed his
duty according to his ability. Now, then, I do my duty as best I can;
I am forsaken.... No one pities my misfortunes; those of others
occupy their attention! I give to humanity what it gives to
me--_indifference!_" Is not the link between Flaubert's "indifference"
and his conception of art evident here?
But Flaubert said besides: "Living does not concern me! It is only
necessary to shun suffering." Should we not change the name of this to
"egotism" or "insensibility?" We might, indeed, did we not know that
this egotism germinated in Flaubert as a means of discipline. The object
of this discipline was to concentrate, for the profit of his art, those
qualities or forces which the ordinary man dissipates in the pursuit of
useless pleasures, or squanders in intensity of life.
We may take account at the same time of the nature of his pessimism. For
there are many ways of being a pessimist, and Flaubert's was not at all
like that of Schopenhauer or Leopardi. His pessimism, real and sincere,
proceeded neither from personally grievous experiences of life, as did
that of the recluse of Recanati, nor from a philosophic or logical view
of the conditions of existence in which humanity is placed, like the
pessimism of the Frankfort philosopher. Flaubert was rather a victim of
what Théophile Gautier, in his well-known _Emaux et Camées_, calls by
the singularly happy name of "the Luminous Spleen of the Orient." To
tell the truth, what Flaubert could not pardon in humanity was that it
did not make enough of art, and so his pessimism was a consequence of
his æstheticism. "As lovers of the beautiful," he tells us, "we are all
outlaws! Humanity hates us; we do not serve it; we hate it because it
wounds us! Let us love, then, in art, as the Mystics love their God; and
let all pale before this love."
These lines are dated 1853, before he had published anything. Therefore,
Flaubert did not express himself thus because he was not successful. His
self-love was not in question! No one had yet criticised or discussed
him. But he felt that his ideal of art, an art which he could not
renounce, was opposed to the ideal methods, if they are ideal, held by
his contemporaries; and the vision of the combats that he must face at
once exalted and exasperated him. His pessimism was of the élite, or
rather the minority of one who feels himself, or at least believes
himself to be, superior, and who, knowing well that he will always be in
the minority, fears, and rightly too, that he will not be recognised. It
is a form of pessimism less rare in our day than one would think, and
Taine, among others, said practically the same thing when he averred
that "one writes only for one or two hundred people in Europe, or in the
world." It may be that this is too individual a case! A more liberal
estimate would be that we write for all those who can comprehend us;
that style has for its first object the increase of such a number; and,
after that, if there still be those who cannot comprehend us, no reason
for despair exists on our part or on theirs.
Let us follow, now, the consequences of this principle in Flaubert's
work, and see successively all that his work means, and the dogma of
art which proceeds from it.
At first you are tempted to believe that Flaubert's work is diverse,
though inconsiderable in volume; and, primarily do not see clearly the
threads which unite the _Education Sentimentale_ with the _Tentation de
Saint Antoine_ or _Salammbô_ with _Madame Bovary_.
On the one side Christian Egypt, and on the other the France of 1848,
Madame Arnoux, Rosanette, and Frederick Moreau, the Orleanist carnival,
and the "underwood" of Fontainebleau. Here, Carthage, Hamilcar,
Hannibal, Narr' Havas, the Numidian hero, and Spendius, the Greek slave,
the lions in bondage, the pomegranate trees which they sprinkled with
silphium, the whole a strange and barbaric world; then Charles Bovary,
the chemist Homais, his son Napoléon and his daughter Athalie,
provincial life in the time of the Second Empire; _bourgeois_ adultery,
_diligences_ and notaries' clerks. Then again Herodias, Salome, Saint
Jean-Baptiste, or Saint Julien l'Hospitalier, the middle ages and
antiquity,--all, at first sight, seem far removed, one from the other.
At first one must admire, in such a contrast of subjects and colors, the
extraordinary skill, let us say the _virtuosité_, of the artist. But, if
we look more closely, we shall not be slow to perceive that no work is
more homogeneous than that of Flaubert, and that, in truth, the
_Education Sentimentale_, differs from _Salammbô_ only as a Kermesse of
Rubens, for example, or a Bacchante of Poussin differs from the
apotheoses or the Church pictures of the painters themselves. The making
is the same, and you immediately recognise the hand. The difference is
in the choice of subjects, which is of no importance, since Flaubert is
only attempting to "represent" something, and in the choice of material,
when he is "representing," he is no longer free. That is the reason why,
if one seek for lessons in "naturalism" in _Salammbô_, he will find
them, and will also find all the "romanticism" he seeks in the
_Education Sentimentale_ and in _Madame Bovary_.
From the other lessons that flow from this work, I find some in
rhetoric, in art, in invention, in composition, and two or three of
great import, eloquent in their bearing upon the history of contemporary
French literature.
A master does not mingle or engage his personality in his subject; but,
as a God creates from the height of his serenity, without passion, if
without love, so the poet or the artist expands the thing he touches,
and, on each occasion, brings to bear upon it all the faculties that are
his by toil but not innate. Nothing is demanded of the workers, and they
make no confessions or confidences. Literature and art are not, nor
should be, the expression of men's emotions, and still less the history
of their lives. That is the reason why, while from reading _René_, for
example, or _Fraziella_, _Delphine_, _Corinne_, _Adolphe_, _Indiana_,
_Volupté_, or some of the romances of Balzac--_La Muse du Departement_,
or _Un Grand Homme de Province à Paris_,--you could induct Balzac's
entire psychology, or Sainte-Beuve's, or Madame Sand's, Benjamin
Constant's, Madame de Staël's or Chateaubriand's, you would find in
_Madame Bovary_ or _Salammbô_ nothing of Flaubert, except his
temperament, his taste, and his ideals as an artist. Let us suppose
another Flaubert, who did not live at Rouen, whose life is not that
related in his correspondence, who was not the friend of Maxime Ducamp
or of Louise Colet, and the _Education Sentimentale_ or the _Tentation
de Saint Antoine_ would not be in the least different from what they are
now, nor should we see one line of change to be made. This is a triumph
in objective art. "I do not wish to consider art as an overflow of
passion," he wrote once, a little brutally. "I love my little niece as
if she were my daughter, and I am sufficiently active in her behalf to
prove that these are not empty phrases. But may I be flayed alive rather
than exploit that kind of thing in style!" It has been but a short
hundred years since, as he expressed it, romanticism "exploited its
emotions in style," and made art from the heart.
"Ah! strike upon the heart, 'tis there that genius lies!" But, for a
whole generation, _Madame Bovary_, _Salammbô_ and _Education
Sentimentale_ have been teaching the contrary. "The author in his work
should be like God in the universe, everywhere present but nowhere
visible. Art being second nature, the creator of this nature should act
through analogous procedure. He must be felt in each atom, under every
aspect, concealed but infinite; the effect upon the spectator should be
a kind of amazement." Furthermore, he remarks that this principle was
the core of Greek art. I know not, or at least I do not recall, whether
he had observed (as he should, since Anglo-Saxons have been quick to
notice it) that this "principle" underlies the art of Shakespeare.
To realize this principle in work you must proceed scientifically, and,
in this connection, we may notice that Flaubert's idea is that of
Leconte de Lisle in the preface to his _Poèmes Antiques_, and of Taine
in his lectures upon _L'Idéal dans l'art_.
Romanticism had confounded the picturesque with the anecdotal; character
with accident; colour with oddity. _Han d'Islande_, _Nôtre-Dame de
Paris_ and some romances of Balzac, the first and poorest, not signed
with his name, may serve as an example. The classic writers on their
side, had not always distinguished very profoundly the difference
between the general and the universal, the principal and the accessory,
the permanent and the superficial. We see this in the French comedies of
the eighteenth century, even in some of Molière's--in his _L'Avare_ and
his _Le Misanthrope_, for example. Flaubert believed that a means of
terminating this conflict is to be found in method; and that is the
reason why, if we confine ourselves wholly to the consideration of the
medium in his works, we shall find the _Tentation de Saint Antoine_
entirely romantic; while, as a retaliation, nothing is more classic than
_Madame Bovary_.
The reason for this is, that in his subject, whatever it was,
Carthaginian or low Norman, refined or _bourgeois_, modern or antique,
he saw only the subject itself, with the eyes and after the manner of a
naturalist, who is concerned only in knowing thoroughly the plant or the
animal under observation. There is no sentiment in botany or in
chemistry, and in them the desideratum is truth. Singleness of aim is
the primary virtue in a _savant_. Things are what they are, and we
demand of him that he show them to us as they are. We accuse him of
lying if he disguises, weakens, alters or embellishes them.
Likewise the artist! His function is ever to "represent:" and in order
to accomplish this, he should, like the savant, mirror only the facts.
After this, what do the names "romanticism" or "classicism" signify?
Their sole use is to indicate the side taken; they are, so to speak, an
acknowledgment that the writer is adorning the occurrence he is about to
represent. He may make it more universal or more characteristic than
nature! But, inversely, if all art is concentrated upon the
representation, what matters the subject? Is one animal or plant more
interesting than another to the naturalist? Does a name matter? All
demand the same attention. Art can make exception in its subjects no
more than science.
If we ask in what consists the difference between science and art, on
this basis, Flaubert, with Leconte de Lisle and with Taine, will tell us
that it is in the beauty which communicates prestige to the work, or in
the power of form.
"What I have just written might be taken for something of Paul de
Kock's, had I not given it a profoundly literary form," wrote Flaubert,
while he was at work on _Madame Bovary_; "but how, out of trivial
dialogue, produce style? Yet it is absolutely necessary! It must be
done!" He went further still, and persuaded himself that style had a
value in itself, intrinsic and absolute, aside from the subject. In
fact, if the subject had no importance of its own, and if there were no
personal motives for choosing one subject rather than another, what
reason would there be for writing _Madame Bovary_ or _Salammbô_? One
alone: and that to "make something out of nothing," to produce a work of
art from things of no import. For though everyone has some ideas, and
everyone has had experience in some kind of life, it is given to few to
be able to express their experience or their ideas in terms of beauty.
This, precisely, is the goal of art.
Form, then, is the great preoccupation of the artist, since, if he is an
artist, it is through form, and in the perfection or originality of that
form, that his triumph comes. Nothing stands out from the general
mediocrity except by means of form; nothing becomes concrete, assuming
immortality, save through form. Form in art is queen and sovereign. Even
truth makes itself felt only through the attractiveness of form. And
further, we cannot part one from the other; they are not opposed to each
other; they are at one; and art in every phase consists only in this
union. It is the end of art to give the superior life of form to that
which has it not; and finally, this superior life of form, this magic
wand of style, rhythmic as verse and terse as science, by firmly
establishing the thing it touches, withdraws it from that law of change,
constant in its inconstancy, which is the miserable condition of
existence.
All passes; art in its strength
Alone remains to all eternity;
The bust
Survives the city.
This it is that makes up the charm, the social dignity, and the lasting
grandeur of art.
This is not the place to discuss the "æsthetic" quality, and I shall
content myself with indicating briefly some of the objections it has
called forth.
Has form indeed all the importance in literature that Flaubert claimed
for it? And what importance has it in sculpture, for example, or in
painting? Let us grant its necessity. Colour and line, which are, so to
speak, the primal elements in the alphabet of painting and of sculpture,
have not in themselves determined and precise significance. Yellow and
red, green and blue are only general and confused sensations. But words
express particular sentiments and well-defined ideas, and have a value
that does not depend upon the form or the quality of the words. You
cannot, then, in using them, distinguish between significance and form,
or combine them independently of the idea they are intended to convey,
as is possible with colours and with lines, solely for the beauty that
results from combination. If literary art is a "representation," it is
also something more; and the lapse in Flaubert, as in all those who have
followed him in the letter, lies in having missed this distinction. You
cannot write merely to represent; you write also to express ideas, to
determine or to modify convictions; you write that you may act, or impel
others to act: these are effects beyond the power of painting or of
sculpture. A statue or a picture never brought about a revolution; a
book, a pamphlet, nay, a few fiery words, have overturned a dynasty.
It is no longer true, as a whole generation of writers has believed,
that art and science may be one and the same thing; or that the first,
as Taine has said, may be an "anticipation of the second." We could not
in the presence of our fellow-creatures and their suffering affect the
indifference of a naturalist before the plant or the animal he is
studying. Whatever the nature of "human phenomena" may be, we in our
quality as man can only look at them with human eyes, and could
temptation make us change our point of view, it would properly be called
inhuman.
One might add that, if it is not certain that nature was made for man,
and if, for that reason, science is wholly independent of conscience,
as we take it, it is otherwise with art. We know that man was not made
for art, but that art was made for man. We forget each time we speak of
"art for art's sake" that there is need precisely to define the meaning
of the expression and to recall that but for truth art could not have
for its object the perfecting of political institutions, the uplifting
of the masses, the correction of customs, the teachings of religion, and
that although this may lead finally to the realization of beauty, it
nevertheless remains the duty of man, and consequently, is human in its
origin, human in its development, and human in its aim.
Upon all these points, it is only necessary to think sensibly, as also
upon the question--which we have not touched upon,--of knowing under
what conditions, in what sense, and in what degree the person of the
artist can or should remain foreign to his work.
But a peculiarity of Flaubert's,--and one more personal, which even most
of the naturalists have not shared with him, neither the Dutch in their
paintings, nor the English in the history of romance (the author of _Tom
Jones_ or of _Clarissa Harlowe_), nor the Russians, Tolstoi or
Dostoiefski,--is to despise the rôle of irony in art. "My personages are
profoundly repugnant to me," he wrote, _à propos_ of _Madame Bovary_.
But they were not always repugnant to him, at least not all of them,
and, in verification of this, we find that he has not for Spendius,
Matho, Hamilcar, and Hanno, the boundless scorn that he affects for
Homais or for Bournisien, for Bouvard or for Pecuchet.
We recognise here the particular and special form of Flaubert's
pessimism. That there could be people in the world, among his
contemporaries, who were not wholly absorbed and preoccupied with art,
surpassed his comprehension, and when this indifference did not arouse
an indignation which exasperated him even to blows, it drew from him a
scornful laughter that one might call Homeric or Rabelaisian, since it
incited more to anger than to gaiety. And this is the reason why _Madame
Bovary_, _Education Sentimentale_, _Un Coeur Simple_, and _Bouvard et
Pecuchet_ would be more truly named were they called satires and not
representations.
The exaggeration of the principle here recoils upon itself. That
disinterestedness, that impartiality, that serenity which permitted him
to "hover impartially above all objects" deserted him. A satirist, or to
be more exact, a caricaturist, awoke within the naturalist. He raged at
his own characters. He railed at them and mocked them. The interest of
the representation had undergone a change. He was no longer in the
attitude of mere fidelity to facts, but in a state of scorn and violent
derision. Homais and Bournisien are no longer studies in themselves, but
a burden to Flaubert. His _Education Sentimentale_, in spite of him,
became, to use his own expression, an overflow of rancour. In _Bouvard
et Pecuchet_ he gave way to his hatred of humanity; here, as a favour,
and under the mask of irony, he brings himself into his work, and, like
a simple Madame Sand, or a vulgar De Musset, we perceive Flaubert
himself, bull-necked and ruddy, with the moustaches of a Gallic chief,
agonizing at each turn in the romance.
It is not necessary to exaggerate Flaubert's influence. In his time
there were ten other writers, none of whom equalled him,--Parnassians in
poetry, positivists in criticism, realists in romance or in dramatic
writing,--who laboured at the same work. His æstheticism is not his
alone, yet _Madame Bovary_ and _Salammbô_ shot like unexpected meteors
out of a grey sky, the dull, low sky of the Second Empire. In 1860 the
sky was not so grey or so low; and the _Poèmes Antiques_ of Leconte de
Lisle, the _Études d'histoire religieuse_ of Renan, and the _Essais de
Critique_ of Taine, are possibly not unworthy to be placed in parallel
or comparison with the first writings of Flaubert. An exquisite judge of
things of the mind, J. J. Weiss, very clearly saw at that time what
there was in common in all these works, in the glory of which he was not
deceived when he added the _Fleurs du Mai_ by Charles Baudelaire, and
the first comedies of Alexandre Dumas _fils_. But the truth is, not one
of these works was marked with signs of masterly maturity in like degree
with _Madame Bovary_.
It is, then, natural that, from day to day, Flaubert should become a
guide, and here, if we consider the nature of the lessons he gives, we
cannot deny their towering excellence.
If there was need to agitate against romanticism, _Madame Bovary_
performed the duty; and if in this agitation there was need to save what
was worth salvation, _Salammbô_ saved it. If it was fitting to recall to
poets and to writers of romance, to Madame Sand herself and Victor Hugo,
that art was not invented as a public carrier for their confidences, it
is still Flaubert who does it. He taught the school of hasty writers
that talent, or even genius, is in need of discipline,--the discipline
of a long and painful prenticehood in the making and unmaking of their
work. He has widened, and especially has he hollowed and deepened, the
notion that romanticism was born of nature, and, in doing this, has
brought art back to the fountain-head of inspiration. His rhetoric and
æstheticism brought him face to face with Nature, enabled him to see
her, a gift as rare as it is great, and to "represent" her--the proof of
the preceding. It is the artist that judges the model. Poets and
romance-writers, like painters, we value only in as much as they
represent life--by and for the fidelity, the originality, the novelty,
the depth, the distinction, the perfection with which they represent it.
It is the rule of rules, the principle of principles! And if Flaubert
had no other merit than to have seen this better than any other writer
of his age, it would be enough to assure for him a place, and a very
exalted place, in the Pantheon of French Literature.
F. BRUNETIÈRE
BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE
Gustave Flaubert was born at Rouen, December 12, 1821. His father was a
physician, who later became chief surgeon in the Hôtel Dieu of that
city, and his mother, Anne-Justine-Carline Fleuriot, was of Norman
extraction.
Fourth of a family of six children, as a child Flaubert exhibited marked
fondness for stories, and, with his favourite sister, Caroline, would
invent them for pastime. As a youth, he was exceedingly handsome, tall,
broad-shouldered and athletic, of independent turn of mind, fond of
study, and caring little for the luxuries of life. He attended the
college of Rouen, but showed no marked characteristic save a pronounced
taste for history. After graduating, he went to Paris to read law, at
the École de Droit. At this time disease, the nature of which he always
endeavored to conceal from the world, attacked him and compelled a
return to Rouen. The complaint, as revealed after his death by Maxime
Ducamp, was epilepsy, and the constant fear of suffering an attack in
public led Flaubert to live the life of a recluse.
The death of his father occurring at this critical period, Flaubert
abandoned the study of law, which he had begun only in obedience to the
formally expressed wish of his family. Having a comfortable income, he
turned his thoughts to literature, and from that time all other work was
distasteful. He read and wrote incessantly, although at this period he
never completed anything. Among his papers were found several fragments
written between his eighteenth and twentieth years. Some bear the stamp
of his individuality, if not in the substance, which is romantic,--at
least in the form, which is peculiarly lucid and concise,--for instance,
the slight, romantic, autobiographic sketch entitled _Novembre_.
Flaubert wrote neither for money nor for fame. To him, art was religion,
and to it he sacrificed his life. Perfection of style was his goal; and
unremitting devotion to his ideal slew him. That he was never satisfied
with what he wrote, his letters show; and all who knew him marvelled at
his laborious and pathetic application to his work. He settled first in
Croisset, near Rouen, with his family, but shortly afterwards went to
Brittany with Maxime Ducamp. On his return he planned _La Tentation de
Saint Antoine_, which grew out of a fragmentary sketch entitled _Smarh_
(a mediæval Mystery, the manuscript tells us), written in early youth.
_La Tentation_ proved a source of labor, for he never ceased revising it
until it appeared in book form in 1874. In 1847, he wrote a modern play,
entitled _Le Candidat_, produced in 1874 at the Vaudeville. It was not
his first dramatic effort, as he had already written a sort of lyric
fairy-play, _Le Château des Coeurs_, which was published in his
_Oeuvres Posthumes_.
In 1849 Flaubert visited Greece, Egypt, and Syria, again accompanied by
his friend Maxime Ducamp. After his return he planned a book of
impressions similar to _Par les Champs et par les Grèves_, which was the
result of the trip to Brittany; but the beginning only was achieved.
Still he gathered many data for his future great novel, _Salammbô_. The
year 1851 found him back in Croisset, working at _La Tentation de Saint
Antoine_, which he dropped suddenly, when half finished, for an entirely
different subject--_Madame Bovary_, a novel of provincial life,
published first in 1857 in the _Revue de Paris_. For this Flaubert was
prosecuted, on the charge of offending against public morals, but was
acquitted after the remarkable defense offered by Maître Senard.
Flaubert's fame dates from _Madame Bovary_, which was much discussed by
press and public. Many, including his friend, Maxime Ducamp, condemned
it, but Sainte-Beuve gave it his decisive and courageous approval. It
was generally considered, however, as the starting point of a new phase
in letters, frankly realistic, and intent on understanding and
expressing everything. Such success might have influenced Flaubert's
artistic inclinations but did not, for while _Madame Bovary_ was
appearing in the _Revue de Paris_, the _Artiste_ was publishing
fragments of _La Tentation de Saint Antoine_.
In 1858 Flaubert went to Tunis, visited the site of ancient Carthage,
and four years afterwards wrote _Salammbô_, a marvellous reconstitution,
more than half intuitive, of a civilisation practically unrecorded in
history. This extraordinary book did not call forth the enthusiasm that
greeted _Madame Bovary_. Flaubert, in whom correctness of detail was a
passion, was condemned, even by Sainte-Beuve, for choosing from all
history a civilisation of which so little is known. The author replied,
and a lengthy controversy ensued, but it was not a subject that could be
settled definitely in one way or another.
In _L'Education Sentimentale, roman d'un jeune homme_, published in
1869, Flaubert returns momentarily to the style which brought him such
rapid and deserved celebrity. In 1877 appeared _Trois Contes_, three
short stories written in the impersonal style of _Salammbô_, contrasting
strangely with _La Legende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier_ and
_Herodias_, wherein Flaubert shows himself supreme in the art of
word-painting.
Death came to him on May 8, 1880, as he was writing the last chapters of
a new work, _Bouvard et Pecuchet_, which was published in part after he
died and later appeared in book form (1881).
At the age of twenty-five, Flaubert met the only woman who in any way
entered his sentimental life. She was an author, the wife of Lucien
Colet, and the "Madame X" of the Correspondence. Their friendship lasted
eight years and ended unpleasantly, Flaubert being too absorbed by his
worship for art to let passion sway him.
He remained unmarried because his love for his mother and family made
calls upon him that he would not neglect. He was indifferent to women,
treated them with paternal indulgence, and often avowed that "woman is
the undoing of the just." Yet a warm friendship existed between him and
George Sand, and many of his letters are addressed to her, touching upon
various questions in art, literature, and politics.
The misanthropy which haunted Flaubert, of which so much has been said,
was not innate, but was acquired through the constant contemplation of
human folly. It was natural for him to be cheerful and kind-hearted,
and of his generosity and disinterestedness not enough can be said. At
the close of his life financial difficulties assailed him, for he had
given a great part of his fortune to the support of a niece, restricting
his own expenses and living as modestly as possible. In 1879, M. Jules
Ferry, then Minister of Public Instruction, offered him a place in the
Bibliothèque Mazarine, but the appointment was not confirmed.
Flaubert's method of production was slow and laborious. Sometimes weeks
were required to write a few pages, for he accumulated masses of notes
and, it must be said, so much erudition as at times to impede action. He
thought no toil too great, did it but aid him in his pursuit of literary
perfection, and when the work that called for such expenditure of
strength and thought was finished, he looked for no reward save that of
a satisfied soul. Alien to business wisdom, he believed that to set a
price upon his work disparaged it.
In Flaubert, a Romanticist and a Naturalist at first were blended. But
the latter tendency was fostered and acknowledged, while the former was
repressed. He was an ardent advocate of the impersonal in art, declaring
that an author should not in a page, a line, or a word, express the
smallest part of an opinion. To him a writer was a mirror, but a mirror
that reflected life while adding that divine effulgence which is Art. Of
him a French Romanticist still living says:
"Imagination was espoused by Unremitting-Toil-in-Faith and bore
Flaubert. France fed the child, but Art stepped in and gave him to
the Nations as a Beacon for the worshippers of
Truth-in-Letters-and-in-Life."
The city of Rouen reared a monument to Flaubert's memory, but on the
spot where he breathed his last are reared the chimneys and the
buildings of a factory, a tribute--possibly unconscious--to reality in
life.
Before writing _Madame Bovary_ Flaubert had tested himself, and an idea
of the scope and variety of his ideas may be gained from the following
list of inedited and unfinished fragments:
HISTORICAL
The Death of the Due de Guise, 1835
Norman Chronicle of the Tenth Century, 1836
Two Hands on a Crown, or, During the Fifteenth Century, 1836.
Essay on the Struggle between Priesthood and Empire, 1838.
Rome and the Cæsars, 1839.
TRAVELS
Various notes on Travels to the Pyrenean Mountains, Corsica,
Spain and the Orient, from 1840 to 1850.
TALES AND NOVELS
The Plague in Florence, 1836
Rage and Impotence, 1836
The Society Woman, fantastic verses, 1836
Bibliomania, 1836
An Exquisite Perfume, or, The Buffoons, 1836.
Dreams of the Infernal Regions, 1837
Passion and Chastity, 1837
The Funeral of Dr. Mathurin, or, During the XVth Century, 1839.
Frenzy and Death, 1843
Sentimental Education (not the novel published under same title).
1843.
PLAYS
Louis XI, Drama, 1838
Discovery of Vaccination, a parody of tragic style; one act only
was written.
CRITICISMS
On Romantic Literature in France
MISCELLANY
Quidquid volueris? A psychological study, 1837.
Agony (Sceptical Thoughts), 1838
Art and Commerce, 1839.
Several nameless sketches.
Unfortunately, nearly all the works of Flaubert's youth were mere
sketches, laid aside by him. Their publication would have added nothing
to his fame. Still, the loss of some would have been deplorable, to wit,
such gems as _Novembre_, _The Dance of Death_, _Rabelais_, and the
travels, _Over Strand and Field_. These sketches will be found in this
edition.
ROBERT ARNOT
MADAME BOVARY