Henceforth Juliette lived in the hope of that promised winter visit to Bruyères. But before her southern flight in November, she was to see a great deal of her friend in Paris. In September they went together to Rouen and Jumièges.[149] They dined together in town. Once at Mme. Sand’s favourite restaurant, the famous Magny’s, on the left bank,[150] Juliette met for the first time an illustrious quartette of whom she was to see much later: Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Gustave Flaubert and Dumas _fils_. The friendship between Juliette and Flaubert, which dates from that evening, endured until the novelist’s death. With Flaubert’s family Mme. Adam has continued intimate, and the opening weeks of this year (1917) she spent with Flaubert’s niece at her country house in the department of Var. The talk, _chez_ Magny, that evening[151] was lively and frank, to say the least of it. The youth, the beauty, the charm of Mme. Sand’s new friend, provoked Dumas to scoff at the idea of her becoming a writer and a _bas bleu_. He, like Michel Lévy of old,[152] believed, as he put it, that she had something better to do. “_Il faut aimer, aimer, aimer_,” he cried. And Flaubert and the de Goncourts repeated, “_Il faut aimer_.” “To learn that, gentlemen, I have not waited for your words of wisdom,” replied Juliette. “I love to love whom I love, and he, whom I love, loves to see me write.” * * * * * “The fool,” cried Dumas. “What an extraordinary idea,” exclaimed Mme. Sand, “to attempt to prove in my presence that a woman who is a writer cannot love.” “There is truth in it all the same,” said Edmond de Goncourt. “Never,” protested George Sand. “The reproach which may be brought against women writers is precisely that they have loved too much. _Et la preuve, dedans moi-même, je la treuve_,” she added, relapsing into _patois_. “You,” cried Dumas, “why you have never loved anything but the prefigurings of the heroes of your future novels, something like the marionettes,[153] whom you have rigged out to repeat your play. Can that be called loving?” “Come,” said Flaubert. “Now, we four are writers of some standing. Can we be called great lovers?” “I don’t know and I don’t care,” replied Mme. Sand. “But, to confine oneself to recent examples, it is absurd to maintain that Mme. de Staël, Mme. d’Agoult, Mme. de Girardin and I have not been passionate lovers. Indeed, on the contrary, what remains to be proved is the possibility of a pretty woman writer, who is really gifted, continuing a simple, loving, faithful wife like any other woman.” “Yes, that is an interesting problem,” said Jules de Goncourt. That evening Mme. Sand talked more than usual. Generally she preferred to listen, delighting to emphasise some witty remark, which she relished more than any one by a frank outburst of laughter or a brief exclamation.