Now, gentlemen, this kind of fantastic journey having displeased the editors of the Revue, it was suppressed.  This was certainly excess of reserve on the part of the Revue; and it is very certain that it is not an excess of reserve which could furnish material for a lawsuit.  You shall see now what has furnished the material.  What is not seen, what has been suppressed, comes thus to appear a very strange thing.  People imagine many things, and often those which do not exist, as you have seen from the reading of the original passage.  Heavens!  Do you know what they imagined?  Probably that there was in the suppressed passage something analogous to that which you will have the goodness to read in one of the most marvellous romances from the pen of an honorable member of the French Academy, M. Merimee.

M. Merimee, in a romance entitled The Double Mistake, describes a scene which took place in a postchaise.  It is not the locality where the carriage is that is of importance, it is, as here, in the detail of what is done in the interior.  I do not wish to abuse the audience, and will pass the book to the Public Attorney and to the court.  If we had written a half, or a quarter part of what M. Merimee wrote, I should find some embarrassment in the task that has been given me, or rather I should have to modify it; in place of saying what I have said, and what I affirm, that M. Flaubert has written a good book, an honest book, useful and moral, I should say:  literature has its rights; M. Merimee has made a very remarkable literary work, and it is not necessary to show ourselves too particular about details when the whole is irreproachable.  I take my stand there; I should acquit, and you will acquit.  Great Heavens!  It is not by omission that an author can sin in a matter of this kind.  And besides, you will have the detail of that which took place in the cab.  But as my client himself was content to make a journey, revealing what passed in the interior of the carriage only by a bare hand which appeared under the yellow silk curtains and threw out bits of torn paper which were scattered by the wind and settled down afar off like white butterflies upon a field of red clover all in flower, as my client was content with that, no one knew anything about it and everyone supposed—­from the suppression itself—­that he had at least said as much as the member of the French Academy.  You have seen that there was nothing in it.

Ah, well! this unfortunate suppression has caused the lawsuit!  That is to say, when, in the offices where they have charge, and with infinite reason, of inspecting all writings which could offend public morals, they saw this cut, they took warning.  I am obliged to declare, and, gentlemen of the Revue, allow me to state that they started the work of their scissors two words too far off; they should have begun before they got into the cab.  To cut after that was more difficult.  This cutting was indeed most unfortunate; but if you have committed the error, gentlemen of the Revue, assuredly you will atone for it to-day.