On this day in 1821, Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen, France. In our Art of the Novella series, you can find his story A Simple Heart, which was originally included in Three Tales (Trois Contes). It’s one of his most achingly beautiful, most concise, pieces of writing — meant as an homage to his dear friend Georges Sand, with whom he’d had an argument, but who died before having a chance to read the just-finished manuscript.

However, Flaubert is best known for his masterpiece on adultery and desire, Madame Bovary (1857), which still puts prim gentleman and ladies in tizzies a century and a half after its publication.

In Le Dictionnaire des idées reçues, Flaubert writes that coffee induces wit, and that “drinking it without sugar is very smart; it gives the impression that you have lived in the East.”

So raise a cup of black coffee today in honor of the French satirist and master of letters, Mr. Flaubert.