He has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country and abroad. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality". In Paris, he was an indifferent student and found the city distasteful. He made a few acquaintances, including Victor Hugo.
Toward the end of , he traveled in the Pyrenees and Corsica. From to , Flaubert had a relationship with the poet Louise Colet ; his letters to her survived. He did however make occasional visits to Paris and England, where he apparently had a mistress. With his lifelong friend Maxime Du Camp , he traveled in Brittany in In Beirut he contracted syphilis.
He spent five weeks in Istanbul in Flaubert did not marry or have children. In a 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 girl.
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. The s were a difficult time for Flaubert. Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the War of , and his mother died in After her death, he fell into financial difficulty due to business failures on the part of his niece's husband.
Flaubert lived with venereal diseases most of his life. His health declined and he died at Croisset of a cerebral hemorrhage in at the age of 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. His first finished work was November , a novella, which was completed in He read the novel aloud to Louis Bouilhet and Maxime Du Camp over the course of four days, not allowing them to interrupt or give any opinions.
