“She grew provoked at the doctrines of religion; the arrogance of the polemic writings displeased her by their inveteracy in attacking people she did not know; and the secular stories, relieved with religion, seemed to her written in such ignorance of the world, that they insensibly estranged her from the truths for whose proof she was looking.”

This is the language of M. Flaubert.  Now, if you please, we come to another scene, that of the extreme unction.  Oh!  Mr. Government Attorney, how you have deceived yourself when, stopping at the first words, you accuse my client of mingling the sacred with the profane; when he has been content to translate the beautiful formulas of extreme unction, at the moment when the priest touches the organs of sense, at the moment where, according to the ritual, he says:  Per istam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quid-quid deliquisti!

You said it was not necessary to touch upon holy things.  With what right do you misinterpret these holy words: 

“May God, in His holy pity, pardon you for all the sins that you have committed through sight, taste, hearing, etc.?”

Wait, I am going to read the condemned passage, and that will be all my vengeance.  I dare say vengeance, because the author has need of being avenged!  Yes, it is necessary for M. Flaubert to go out of here not only acquitted, but avenged!  You will see from what kind of reading he has been nourished.  The condemned passage is on page 271 of the December 15th number, and runs thus: 

“Pale as a statue, and with eyes red as fire, Charles, not weeping, stood opposite her at the foot of the bed, while the priest bending one knee, was muttering words in a low voice.”

This whole picture is magnificent, and the wording of it irresistible.  But be quiet, and I will not prolong it beyond measure.  Now here is the condemnation!

“She turned her face slowly, and seemed filled with joy on seeing suddenly the violet stole, no doubt finding again, in the midst of a temporary lull in her pain, the lost voluptuousness of her first mystical transports, with the visions of eternal beatitude that were beginning.

“The priest rose to take the crucifix:  then she stretched forward her neck as one who is athirst, and gluing her lips to the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with all her expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that she had ever given.”

The extreme unction has not yet begun; but we are reproached for this kiss.  I am not going to search in the history of Saint Theresa whom you perhaps know, but the memory of whom is too far away, I am not going to seek in Fenelon for the mysticism of Madame Guyon, nor in more modern mysticisms, in which I find much reason.  I only wish to ask of those schools which you designate as belonging to sensual Christianity, the explanation of this kiss; it is Bossuet, Bossuet himself, of whom I would ask it: