3 - Flaubert’s early work

Summary

'Louis XIII being aged only nine, Parliament gave the regency to his mother Marie de Médicis. Intrigue and ignominy were rife at the court . . .' ['Louis XIII n'ayant que neuf ans, le Parlement donna la régence ê Marie deMédicis sa mère. L'intrigue et la bassesse régnaient ê la cour . . .' (OJ 3)]. So wrote the nine-year-old Gustave Flaubert, no doubt identifying with the boy king, in a text dedicated to his own mother for her name-day on 28 July 1831. With this, the first text in the new Pléiade edition of Flaubert's early works, begins a lifelong passion for history and historiography. Encouraged from 1835 onwards by his teacher Chéruel, Flaubert devotes much of his early writing to historical subjects, with a preference for the Middle Ages, and an obvious fascination too for Ancient Rome.

Yet what strikes any reader of the early work is the sheer range of subjects and styles to which this extraordinarily precocious writer turns his pen. Alongside the historical stories and dramas, we find philosophical and moral tales, journalistic and critical essays, tales of the fantastic, mystery plays, and realist or psychological stories. To a scatological early piece on constipation, we can add the bilious humour of an 1837 sketch, owing much to Balzac, in which the young writer derides the habits and the clichés of the office clerk (Une leçon d’histoire naturelle: genre commis).