On 23 April, George Sand, an ardent republican who had taken part in the 1848 revolution, wrote "The horrible adventure continues. They ransom, they threaten, they arrest, they judge. They have taken over all the city halls, all the public establishments, they're pillaging the munitions and the food supplies." Soon after the Commune began, Gustave Flaubert wrote to Sand, "Austria did not go into Revolution after Sadowa, nor Italy after Novara, nor Russia after Sebastopol! But our good Frenchmen hasten to pull down their house as soon as the chimney takes fire..." Near the end of the Commune, Flaubert wrote to her again, "As for the Commune, which is about to die out, it is the last manifestation of the Middle Ages." On 10 June, when the Commune was finished, Flaubert wrote to Sand: