Madame Bovary Easter Egg - Flaubert Himself Hidden in the Novel

Is this really an easter egg? Or could Flaubert just have taken some of the inspiration for Bovary from this woman that he met?

Hmmm have to agree, not sure if this is a real easter egg. Flaubert religiously and meticulously researched all of his books and often included details of his own, or his family's life story in his work. For example, just from one short story, "un Coeur Simple": 1) Pont-l'Evêque, where the story is set, is the town of Flaubert's mother's birth. 2) Mme Aubain is actually a straight portrayal of his mother's older cousin. 3) The two children in the story, Paul and Virginie, are in fact Flaubert himself and his younger sister Caroline. And so on...... so I'm not sure that you can really count one instance of Flaubert appearing in Madame Bovary as an easter egg, more a sort of repeated motif.

This is incorrect. In an interview later in his life, Flaubert was asked who Emma Bovary actually was, and his response was that she was himself at a younger age. Flaubert was a romantic idealist as a young man, just like Emma Bovary, but he grew out of it, realizing that it was ultimately a futile way of looking at the world. This is one of the themes of _Madame Bovary_, that the romantic philosophy only leads to pain and disappointment.