FLAUBERT decides not to publish Salammbô opposite Les Misérables.

Gustave Flaubert (1821.1880)

Autographed letter signed to Paule Sandeau

Four octavo pages on blue paper.

[Croisset]. October 21 [1861]

"It seems to me very presumptuous and rather stupid to want to attract public attention for the entire duration of Les Misérables' run."

Superb letter from Flaubert on the verge of completing the writing of Salammbô, which he did not wish to see published at the same time as Hugo's masterpiece announced for the beginning of 1862.

Speaking of the completion of his novel, Flaubert reveals his conception of creation and literary art: " Success is not my concern. It is that of chance and the wind that blows." and dreams of travel: " My redskin blood (...) begins to boil as soon as I find myself in the open air."

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“What a kind letter you wrote me! It’s impossible to read anything more amiable and charming. I was delighted and touched. Everything you say about my book is very encouraging and very good. But what will come of it? I’m starting my last chapter tomorrow, which I expect to finish towards the end of January. As for publication, it’s quite likely (between us) that it will be postponed until next autumn or the following one; unless my publisher (I don’t know which one) wants to risk it anyway. But it seems to me very presumptuous and rather foolish to want to attract public attention for the entire time Les Misérables is being published. Now, if the eight volumes appear every month, two at a time, starting in February, it will be a four-month affair, which throws me into June, a dreadful time. There you have it.”

I was counting on a little money this summer to get away. It's only in that respect that things bother me. For I have absolutely no typographical woes – as soon as I finish a book, it becomes completely foreign to me, having left the sphere of ideas that inspired me to begin it – so when Salammbô is copied – and corrected again – I'll stuff it in the bottom of a cupboard and forget about it , quite happy to immediately devote myself to other exercises. Come what may! Success is not my concern. It's a matter of chance and the wind that blows.

I only take intentions into account. That's why I value myself, mine being high and noble. And that's why I defended gentle Vacquerie. If he lacks talent—is that his fault? decent things or even a cretin from Valais to some ordinary gentleman. Not everyone is capable of being ridiculous. Are you quite sure that in twenty-five years, Camaraderie , or Calumny ^* , will be more admired than The Funeral of Honor  ^** ? Let's talk about something else; the subject isn't cheerful.

I have just been reading medical texts on thirst and hunger—and I read, among other things, the thesis of Doctor Savigny, the physician on the raft of the Medusa. Nothing is ^more  dramatic, atrocious, terrifying. What is the providential meaning of all these tortures? But I know something far more distressing for humanity. It is Jessie by Monsieur Mocquard . ^Tell me a little about it. What ideas! What language! What a conception! Words fail me to express my horror. You are quite right to love travel. It is the most amusing way to be bored—that is to say, to live—that there is in the world. This taste, when one indulges in it, soon becomes a vice—an insatiable thirst. How many hours in my life have I wasted dreaming by my fireside, long days spent on horseback across the plains of Tartary or South America? – My Native American blood (you know I'm descended from a Natchez or an Iroquois) starts to boil as soon as I find myself in the open air, in an unknown land. I've had a few times – (and the last one, among others, was three years ago, near Constantine) moments of freedom where I ended up shouting aloud, intoxicated by the Blue, the Solitude, and the Space. – and yet I lead a secluded and monotonous life, an almost cellular and monastic existence. Which way does my calling lie?

I congratulate you on having had a happy holiday – regarding your dear son, whom "I love in you," as the church people would say. Write me very long letters in which you say everything that comes to mind. The more there are, the better. I think of you very often and very deeply – and I long to see you again. I kiss your hands. G. ^Flaubert .

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^* La Calomnie and La Camaraderie ou la courte échelle are two plays by Eugène Scribe performed at the Théâtre-Français.

^** The Funeral of Honor , a drama by Auguste Vacquerie performed at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin).

^*** Jean-Baptiste-Henri Savigny, Observations on the effects of hunger and thirst experienced after the shipwreck of the king's frigate "La Méduse" in 1816.

^**** Jessie, novel by Jean-François-Constant Mocquard.

Flaubert Correspondence. Pléiade. Volume III, pp. 185 to 187. (The said volume mistakenly indicates the date of November 28, 1861).