Trivia

French novelist.

Was the best friend of Ivan Turgenev

First in his philosophy class at the College Royal.

At school he led an angry protest against a substitute teacher.

As a schoolboy, he was ordered to copy 1,000 lines of poetry as a punishment. He not only refused to do it, he passed a petition to protest it. The head of the school was not amused, and Flaubert and two others who signed his petition were expelled for their impertinence.

He once wandered into a hotel dining room and found a table laid for a meal. Thinking it was for him, he sat down and ate everything. The hotel management was aghast, and told him that the meal had been prepared for a party of four that had just arrived.

A noted gourmand.