We felt very sad on leaving Combourg, and besides, the end of our journey was at hand.  Soon this delightful trip which we had enjoyed for three months would be over.  The return, like the leave-taking, produces an anticipated sadness, which gives one a proof of the insipid life we lead.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  Gustave Flaubert was twenty-six years old when he started on this journey.  He travelled on foot and was accompanied by M. Maxime Ducamp.  When they returned, they wrote an account of their journey.  It is by far the most important of the unpublished writings, for in it the author gives his personal genius full sway and it abounds in picturesque descriptions and historical reflections.]

[Footnote 2:  Founder of the abbey of Fontevrault, in 1099.]

[Footnote 3:  He strangled his mistress whose mutilated body was found floating in a sack on a pond. (See Causes Celebres.)]

[Footnote 4:  A contraction of Poulbeuzanneval, the swamp where the beast was drowned.]

[Footnote 5:  Josselin Frotet, sieur de La Lanbelle, at whose place the rebels congregated before the escalade. (Note on the manuscript of G.F.)]

[Footnote 6:  D’Argentre, Hist. de Bretagne. p. 62.]