Date and place of writing from Flaubert's "Correspondence" (Paris : Gallimard, 1973).
Envelope postmarked and addressed: Madame / Colet, rue de Sèvres 21. / Paris.
Forms part of a collection of 15 letters from Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet (see MA 14427.1-15).
Flaubert is returning from Trouville to Croisset and is glad to be getting back to both the sadness and joys of writing. He is dismayed that nothing by Bouilhet is in either of two editions of La revue [de Paris], nor is he happy with what is written about Leconte [de Lisle]. He says that the sight of a literary journal, and of La revue in particular, makes him physically ill. He goes on to speak of the nature of travel (including descriptions of a trip with Alfred de Vigny and another by boat during which two women were singing songs by Loisa Puget) memory, and time and mentions that he is going to return to work furiously on Madame Bovary. He asks Colet if her stomach ailment is better and advises her to drink wine rather than water. Flaubert criticizes Lamartine and his Histoire de la Restauration. Even Dumas or Chateaubriand would have done a better job. Flaubert describes an epileptic fit he had in 1844.