the Castle
Vaubyessard.

There was an old duke there who had had, they said, relations with the
queen, and towards whom all eyes were turned. And when this young woman
found herself thus transported into the midst of the world, thus
realizing all the fantastic dreams of her youth, can you wonder at the
intoxication of it? And you accuse her of being lascivious! Better
accuse the waltz itself; that dance of our great modern balls where,
said a late author writing about it, the woman "leans her head upon the
shoulder of her partner whose limbs embrace her." You find Madame Bovary
lascivious in Flaubert's description, but there is not a man, and I will
not except you, who, having taken part in a ball like that and seen that
sort of waltz, has not had in mind the wish that his wife or his
daughter refrain from this pleasure which has in it so much of the
untamed. If, counting upon the chastity which enveloped this young
woman, we allow her sometimes to give herself up to this pleasure which
the world sanctions, it is necessary to count very much upon that
envelope of chastity and, however much one may count upon it, it is not
unheard of to express the impressions which M. Flaubert has expressed in
the name of morals and chastity.

Here she is at the Castle Vaubyessard, observed by the old duke, noticed
favorably by all, and you cry out: What details! What does it mean?
Details are everywhere, although we cite but a single passage.

"Madame Bovary noticed that many ladies had not put their gloves in
their glasses.

"But at the upper end of the table, alone among all those women, bent
over his full plate, with his napkin tied round his neck like a child,
an old man sat eating, letting drops of gravy drip from his mouth. His
eyes were bloodshot, and he wore a little queue tied with a black
ribbon. He was the Marquis's father-in-law, the old Duke de Laverdiere,
once on a time favorite of the Count d'Artois, in the days of the
Vaudreuil hunting-parties at the Marquis de Conflans', and had been, it
was said, the lover of Queen Mari-Antoinette between Monsieur de Coigny
and Monsieur de Lauzun."

Defend the queen, defend her especially before the scaffold, say that
because of her title she had the right of respect, but suppress your
accusations when one contents himself with saying that he had been, it
was said, the lover of the queen. Can that be so serious that you
reproach us with having insulted the memory of that unfortu