Editing Gustave Flaubert (section)

===Personal life===
From 1846 to 1854, Flaubert had a relationship with the poet [[Louise Colet]]; [[Flaubert's letters|his letters]] to her survived.<ref name=EB1911/> After leaving Paris, he returned to Croisset, near the [[Seine]], close to Rouen, and lived there for the rest of his life. He did however make occasional visits to Paris and England, where he apparently had a mistress.

Politically, Flaubert described himself as a "romantic and liberal old dunce" ({{lang|fr|vieille ganache romantique et libérale}}),<ref>{{cite book |title=The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.169388 |date=1921 |publisher=Boni and Liveright |page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.169388/page/n328 284]}}</ref> an "enraged [[liberalism|liberal]]" ({{lang|fr|libéral enragé}}), a hater of all despotism, and one who celebrated every protest of the individual against power and monopolies.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weisberg |first1=Richard H. |title=The Failure of the Word: The Protagonist as Lawyer in Modern Fiction |date=1984 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=89}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Séginger |first1=Gisèle |title=Le Roman de la Momie et Salammbô. Deux romans archéologiques contre l'Histoire |journal=Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé |date=2005 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=135–151|doi=10.3406/bude.2005.3651 }}</ref>

With his lifelong friend [[Maxime Du Camp]], he traveled in [[Brittany]] in 1846.<ref name=EB1911/> In 1849–50 he went on a long journey to the Middle East, visiting [[Greece]] and Egypt. In [[Beirut]] he contracted [[syphilis]]. He spent five weeks in [[Istanbul]] in 1850. He visited [[Carthage]] in 1858 to conduct research for his novel ''[[Salammbô]]''.

Flaubert did not marry or have children. In a 1852 letter to Colet, he explained his reasons for not wanting children, saying he would "transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence".

Flaubert was very open about his sexual activities with prostitutes in his travel writings. He suspected that a [[chancre]] on his penis was from a [[Maronite]] or a [[Turkish people|Turkish]] girl.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJE5-qdSFT4C&pg=PR2|title=Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary: a reference guide|author=Laurence M. Porter, Eugène F. Gray|year=2002|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|page=xxiii|isbn=0-313-31916-2|access-date=7 August 2010}}</ref> He also engaged in intercourse with male prostitutes in Beirut and Egypt; in one of his letters, he describes a "pockmarked young rascal wearing a white turban".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/flaubertinegypts00flau|url-access=registration|title=Flaubert in Egypt: a sensibility on tour : a narrative drawn from Gustave Flaubert's travel notes & letters|author=Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmüller|year=1996|publisher=Penguin Classics|page=[https://archive.org/details/flaubertinegypts00flau/page/203 203]|isbn=0-14-043582-4|access-date=7 August 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofgustave0001flau|url-access=registration|title=The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830–1857|author=Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmüller|year=1980|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofgustave0001flau/page/121 121]|isbn=0-674-52636-8|access-date=7 August 2010}}</ref>

According to his biographer Émile Faguet, his affair with Louise Colet was his only serious romantic relationship.<ref>{{cite book | title=The desert and the dancing girls | year=2005 | last=Flaubert | first=Gustave | publisher = [[Penguin books]] | isbn=0-14-102223-X| pages=10–12}}</ref>

Flaubert was a diligent worker and often complained in his letters to friends about the strenuous nature of his work. He was close to his niece, Caroline Commanville, and had a close friendship and correspondence with [[George Sand]]. He occasionally visited Parisian acquaintances, including [[Émile Zola]], [[Alphonse Daudet]], [[Ivan Turgenev]], and [[Edmond de Goncourt|Edmond]] and [[Jules de Goncourt]].

The 1870s were a difficult time for Flaubert. Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the [[Franco-Prussian War|War of 1870]], and his mother died in 1872. After her death, he fell into financial difficulty due to business failures on the part of his niece's husband. Flaubert lived with [[sexually transmitted disease|venereal diseases]] most of his life. His health declined and he died at Croisset of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1880 at the age of 58. He was buried in the family vault in the cemetery of Rouen. A monument to him by [[Henri Chapu]] was unveiled at the museum of Rouen.<ref name=EB1911/>