The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters Book

Certainly not a page turner, yet I could not resist continuing to read letter after letter, date after date, intertwining event after event among the lives all of the friends and family of the brilliant, humorous, entertaining, well-educated Marie Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné. In a time where written letters are unknown, their place in a gentile society not understood, it would be difficult for our millennials to imagine a world where letters were the only manner of communication at a distance. In addition, the demand at that time for a society of very polite, regimented, enforced, rigid manners of seventeenth century France would be completely misunderstood. In fact, one can only enjoy this book if one is willing to enter into this (literally) foreign manner of living, in order to recreate in one's mind, or even better, to inform the visiting of historical France: Paris (including the Hôtel Carnavalet, a private residence used by the Marquise, now converted into a museum about the city of Paris, having the honored address on the Rue de Sévigné), Versailles, Les Roches in Brittany (the family estate of the Sévigné's), the Château of Grignan (the estate of the Marquise's son-in-law, that her daughter brought to gorgeous, but ruinous fruition.) [I have personally only visited the first two, the second two being far out of the usual tourist route; since I had read this book over 20 years ago, it is not until this second reading that I am challenged to go beyond my usual travel plans, bolstered by 20 more years of studying French!]

I am not a fast reader, but it seemed to me I was exceptionally slow in reading this book. Upon reflection I wondered whether it was the effect of the letters themselves, which were meant to be a treasure to savor, to read repeatedly, to be shared with friends, to be kept for safe-keeping--all representing the essence of the time and manners in which the letters were written. (Perhaps I have only been influenced by the spirited romanticism of the Madame's world view, but it is a preferable opinion to just believing that I am just slowing down with age!)

The Madame savored her life experience, finding a way to see the positive through the difficulties of life, in addition to savoring all of the lovely aspects of France at that time. Here is a selection that I found engaging: "I have managed so well that spring is here in all its beauty! Everything is green. It was no easy task to see to it that all those buds unfurled, that the red all turned to green. When I finished with all those elms, I had to go on to the beeches, then to the oaks. That is what gave me to most trouble, and I still have another week to go before I can claim to have made a perfect job of it. I begin to enjoy all the pains to which I went, and I really think that not only did I not interfere with all that beauty , but--in a pinch--I would know how to manage a springtime, on my own, so carefully did I observe, so critical an examination did I make of this one, something I had never done so meticulously before. It is my great leisure I have to thank for this opportunity and, in truth, my dear bonne [the affectionate phase that she used for her beloved daughter], it has been the most delightful experience imaginable," (p 427.)

You must persist to the end of this beloved epistolatory biography to find out how miraculous it was that these letters were ever published. In the end, it was due to the granddaughter of the Marquise, Pauline de Simiane, who inherited the actual letters that had been lovingly sequestered by her mother, Madame Françoise-Marguerite de Grignan, daughter of the Marquise. The authorized first volumes were published in 1734, thirty-eight years after her death. The reproduction of the letters was highly edited, and many of the amusing, controversial, intrusive observations, comments and opinions were eliminated. Unauthorized previous publications had begun to appear in 1725, but the origin of those letters is not known. Most of the original letters were destroyed because of the promise of Pauline de Simiane's son-in-law--on his death bed, he remembered his promise to his mother-in-law and called his cousin to bring the letters to him, where they were lit at his bedside. The only remaining letters to have survived are to Madame Guitaut, in the Archives of her Château d'Époisses, in Burgundy. Finally, in 1872 six volumes of copies of the original letters was found in a bookstore in Dijon, and bought by a professor of law, named Capmas. Consulting Sévigné scholars, they were deemed to be true copies of the original, and became the foundation for understanding how the letters had been edited over time, and could now be restored to their originator's true voice.

Needless to say, I am entranced with the history of these letters, from the inimical written gift of the author, through all of the volumes published, to this revealing biography, which includes the true historical facts of a country who soul is much beloved--that of France, itself, without which none of this histoire would exist.