FLAUBERT, Gustave (1821-1880)

FLAUBERT, Gustave (1821-1880)

Autograph letter signed « Gus Flaubert » to Jules Sandeau
[Paris], Monday morning [14 December 1863], 1 p. in-8vo

Flaubert is keen to attend the performance of his friend Jules Sandeau’s new play

« Je ne vais pas vous voir parce que je vous suppose dans tous les embarras d’une 1^ère.
Quand a-t-elle lieu ? Est-ce demain, ou après-demain ? J’aurais besoin de savoir.
Et ma place (ou mes places) ? Comment les aurai-je ?
Bonne chance – & mille bonnes tendresses
Gus Flaubert »

Flaubert intends to attend the premiere of La Maison de Pénarvan, a comedy in 4 acts, in prose, by Jules Sandeau and Adrien Decourcelle, which took place at the Théâtre-Français on December 15, 1863. However, the play had been premiered in Compiègne on December 12, 1863, in front of their imperial majesties Napoleon III and Eugénie de Montijo. Hence the Parisian heckling.

The writer Jules Sandeau (1811-1883), was the lover of George Sand in 1831. Together they wrote a novel, Rose et Blanche, ou la Comédienne et la religieuse, which appeared in 1831 under the pseudonym Jules Sand. From this name, Aurore Dupin will keep for herself the pseudonym of Sand and will add the male name of George written in English (English literature being then fashionable) thus becoming in literature George Sand.