subsides, he even ventures to offer to George Sand the anodyne of
his old philosophical despair: "Why are you so sad? Humanity offers
nothing new. Its irremediable misery has filled me with sadness ever
since my youth. And in addition I now have no disillusions. I
believe that the crowd, the common herd will always be hateful. The
only important thing is a little group of minds always the same--
which passes the torch from one to another."

There we must leave Flaubert, the thinker. He never passes beyond
that point in his vision of reconstruction: a "legitimate
aristocracy" established in contempt of the average man--with the
Academy of Sciences displacing the Pope.

George Sand, amid these devastating external events, is beginning to
feel the insidious siege of years. She can no longer rally her
spiritual forces with the "bright speed" that she had in the old
days. The fountain of her faith, which has never yet failed of
renewal, fills more slowly. For weeks she broods in silence, fearing
to augment her friend's dismay with more of her own, fearing to
resume a debate in which her cause may be better than her arguments
and in which depression of her physical energy may diminish her
power to put up a spirited defence before the really indomitable
"last ditch" of her position. When Flaubert himself makes a
momentary gesture towards the white flag, and talks of retreat, she
seizes the opportunity for a short scornful sally. "Go to live in
the sun in a tranquil country! Where? What country is going to be
tranquil in this struggle of barbarity against civilization, a
struggle which is going to be universal?" A month later she gives
him fair warning that she has no intention of acknowledging final
defeat: "For me, the ignoble experiment that Paris is attempting or