Gustave Flaubert, the fury to write: death of the writer at 58

Portrait of Signora Morrocchi by Antonio Puccinelli, 1859 AKG Images / De Agostini Picture Lib./G.Nimatallah

May 8, 1880. At his desk, Flaubert stretches out to try to relax his back.

How tired of these "

two idiots

" he has been picking on for four years!

The chapters on magnetism, philosophy, the turntables and nihilism were a real torment.

Why on earth has everyone become a spiritualist in this century of “

democrassery

”?

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He got up and goes to lie down on the couch because he feels tired, liquefied "

like an old Camembert

".

A little later, he will take a bath.

In the meantime, he wants to evoke happy memories.

For example, the Easter feasts, which brought together at Croisset Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, this brilliant "

little rascal

" whom he loves like a son, Alphonse Daudet and Emile de Goncourt.

Or the dinner for Saint-Polycarpe, which Charles and Valérie Lapierre gave at the end of April for the second year in a row.

Flaubert received that evening nearly thirty fanciful letters of homage sent from different parts of the world!

And three telegrams!

Not to mention the gifts: a pair of silk socks, a scarf, a crown, the portrait of the Bishop of Smyrna and as a relic, one of his teeth!

The menu consisted of dishes that each bore the name of one of his works or one of his characters, such as Homais chicken and Salammbô ice cream.

The Lapierre have surpassed themselves!

Gustave was very moved by so much attention.

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Gustave Flaubert, the fury to write

To hide it, he multiplied antics.

Ah friends!

How they struggled to get him the post of honorary assistant librarian at the Mazarine, with a pension of three thousand francs.

Friendship and literature are the two great fervors of his life.

Tomorrow, he is going to Paris and will find his little world there.

He will stay there until the end of June.

As always, he will receive his close friends on Sundays in his apartment, will go to one or the other, but will no longer go to the Magny dinners who have moved to Brébant, the restaurant owner's son-in-law.

Now there are too many "

obnoxious hoes

" around the table.

Gustave prefers dinners with whistled authors as he himself was with his play The Candidate.

A memorable oven!

He was hurt by it.

He consoled himself by eating a belly of oysters and truffles.

This evocation makes him smile, but something worries him.

Its limbs are contracted.

For years he had not had an epileptic seizure, but the sad Commanville affair woke up his nervous illness.

A relapse is always to be feared, as said his doctor, the good Dr Fortin.

Ask Suzanne to go get him?

Gustave prefers to wait.

Rest a little more then go to take a bath.

But he won't have lunch.

No appetite this morning.

And all because of

Bouvard and Pécuchet

, his two lads, his two "

woodlice

" who bring together all the stupidity in the world!

“His sight suddenly becomes cloudy.

“I see it yellow!

all yellow!

Flaubert still has the strength to grab a bottle of ether and rub it on his forehead and temples, then falls back on the cushions.

"

Irina de Chikoff

It is almost ten o'clock when Flaubert gets up from his couch.

He's probably dozed off a bit.

He comes out of his study to wash himself.

When he returns, he is seized with uneasiness.

He rings Suzanne.

She runs up.

He tells her to go get Dr. Fortin then changes his mind, but asks her to stay with him and talk.

If he is to have a seizure, he needs to hear a voice.

Hang on to it like a buoy.

His sight suddenly becomes cloudy.

“

I see it yellow!

all yellow!

Flaubert still has the strength to grab a bottle of ether and rub it on his forehead and temples, then falls back on the cushions.

Suzanne rushes to see Dr Fortin, who lives not far from Croisset.

He can only note the death of his friend.

In Paris, Maupassant receives a telegram warning him of Flaubert's death.

He immediately goes to the station to catch a train that will take him to Rouen.

Gustave had recently written to him that he was working very hard, but was afraid that we would see the end of the man before the end of the book.

Guy had laughed.

Tonight her eyes are drowned in tears.

This article is from the

Figaro Hors-Série: Flaubert, la fureur d'être

.

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Portrait of Signora Morrocchi by Antonio Puccinelli, 1859 AKG Images / De Agostini Picture Lib./G.Nimatallah