"... je vous assure qu'elle est honorable. Si nous échouons à l'Odéon c'est une affaire flambée..."

Autograph letter dated and signed by Gustave Flaubert to Philippe de Chennevières, 16 lines in black ink, Usual folding crease.

A dismayed Flaubert desperately tries to create his play Le sexe faible at the Odéon Theatre: "... je vous assure qu'elle est honorable. Si nous échouons à l'Odéon c'est une affaire flambée..." [ I assure you it is honorable. If we fail at the Odéon this affair is a bust...]

Gustave Flaubert expresses concern over the director of the Odéon Theatre Félix Duquesnel’s apparent lack of interest in staging his play Le sexe faible. This play was the unfinished work of Louis Bouilhet, Flaubert’s close friend. Flaubert revised it in 1872–1873, only to face rejections from several Parisian theatre directors unwilling to stage the work. "Duquesnel, malgré sa promesse de le lire promptement, n'a pu en huit jours que parcourir les deux premiers actes..." [Duquesnel, despite assuring me he would read it quickly, only read two acts in 8 days...] He thus asks his correspondent, Philippe de Chennevières, whether M. Victor Arthur Rousseau de Beauplan might intervene on his behalf: "Ne serait-pas utile pour le bien de la cause que Mr de Beauplan lui recommandât ladite oeuvre ?" [Wouldn't it be useful for the good of the cause to ask for Mr de Beauplan to recommend the aforementioned play?]