“What is knowledge?  What is glory?  Wouldst thou refresh thine eyes under the humid jasmines?  Wouldst thou feel thy body sink itself, as in a wave, in the sweet flesh of swooning women?”

Ah! well! here is the same colour, the same strength of the brush, the same vivacity of expression!

To resume.  I have analyzed the book, I have related the story without forgetting a page, I have then made the charge, which was the second part of my task.  I have exhibited some of the portraits, I have shown Madame Bovary in repose, by the side of her husband, in contact with those whom she could not tempt, and I have pointed out to you the lascivious colour of that portrait!  Then I have analyzed some of the great scenes:  the fall with Rodolphe, the religious transition, the meetings with Leon, the death scene, and in all this I find the double count of offense against public morals and against religion.

I had need of but two scenes:  Do you not see the moral outrage in the fall with Rodolphe?  Do you not see the glorification of adultery in it?  And then, the religious outrage, which I find in the drawing of the confession, in the religious transition, and finally, the scene of death.

You have before you, gentlemen, three guilty ones:  M. Flaubert, the author of the book, M. Pichat who accepted it, and M. Pillet, who printed it.  In this matter, there is no misdemeanor without publicity, and all those concerned in the publicity should be equally blamed.  But we hasten to say that the manager of the Revue and the printer are only in the second rank.  The principal offender is the author, M. Flaubert; M. Flaubert who admonished by a note from the editor, protested against the suppression which had been made in his work.  After him comes M. Laurent Pichat, from whom you will demand a reason, not for the suppression which he has made, but of that which he should have made; and finally comes the printer, who is a sentinel at the door of scandal.  M. Pillet, besides, is an honourable man against whom I have nothing to say.  We ask but one thing of you, which is to apply the law to him.  Printers should read; when they do not read or have read what they print, it is at their own risk and peril.  Printers are not machines; they have a privilege, they take an oath, they are in a special situation and they are responsible.  Again, they are, if you will permit the expression, like an advanced guard; if they allow a misdemeanor to pass, it is like allowing the enemy to pass.  Make the penalty as mild as you will for Pillet, be as indulgent as you like with the manager of the Revue; but as for Flaubert, the principal culprit, it is for him you should reserve your severities!

My task is accomplished; we await the objections on the part of the defense.  The general objection will be:  But after all the romance is moral on the whole, for is not adultery punished?

To this objection there are two replies:  I believe that in a hypothetically moral work, a moral conclusion cannot be reached by the presentation of the lascivious details we find here.  And again I say:  that the work is not moral at the foundation.