She went to see him during the summer of 1866.  They visited the historic streets and old parts of Rouen together.  She was both charmed and surprised.  She could not believe her eyes, as she had never imagined that all that existed, and so near Paris, too.  She stayed in that house at Croisset in which Flaubert’s whole life was spent.  It was a house with wide windows and a view over the Seine.  The hoarse, monotonous sound of the chain towing the heavy boats along could be heard distinctly within the rooms.  Flaubert lived there with his mother and niece.  To George Sand everything there seemed to breathe of tranquillity and comfort, but at the same time she brought away with her an impression of sadness.  She attributed this to the vicinity of the Seine, coming and going as it does according to the bar.

“The willows of the islets are always being covered and uncovered,” she writes; “it all looks very cold and sad."(52)

     (52) Correspondance: To Maurice Sand, August 10, 1866.

She was not really duped, though, by her own explanation.  She knew perfectly well that what makes a house sad or gay, warm or icy-cold is not the outlook on to the surrounding country, but the soul of those who inhabit it and who have fashioned it in their own image.  She had just been staying in the house of the misanthropist.

When Moliere put the misanthropist on the stage with his wretched-looking face, he gave him some of the features which remind us so strongly of Flaubert.  The most ordinary and everyday events were always enough to put Alceste into a rage.  It was just the same with Flaubert.  Everyday things which we are philosophical enough to accept took his breath away.  He was angry, and he wanted to be angry.  He was irritated with every one and with everything, and he cultivated this irritation.  He kept himself in a continual state of exasperation, and this was his normal state.  In his letters he described himself as “worried with life,” “disgusted with everything,” “always agitated and always indignant.”  He spells hhhindignant with several h’s.  He signs his letters, “The Reverend Father Cruchard of the Barnabite Order, director of the Ladies of Disenchantment.”  Added to all this, although there may have been a certain amount of pose in his attitude, he was sincere.  He “roared” in his own study, when he was quite alone and there was no one to be affected by his roaring.  He was organized in a remarkable way for suffering.  He was both romantic and realistic, a keen observer and an imaginative man.  He borrowed some of the most pitiful traits from reality, and recomposed them into a regular nightmare.  We agree with Flaubert that injustice and nonsense do exist in life.  But he gives us Nonsense itself, the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of the Apocalypse.  He sees this beast everywhere, it haunts him and blocks up every avenue for him, so that he cannot see the sublime beauties of the creation nor the splendour of human intelligence.