nd of man you are
about to judge. And in order to show you, not what kind of justification
I may expect, but whether M. Flaubert has made use of lascivious colour,
and whence he got his inspiration, let me put upon your desk this book
used by him, in whose passages he found himself inspired to paint this
concupiscence, the entanglements of this woman who sought happiness in
illicit pleasures, but could not find it there, who sought again and
again and never found it. Whence has Flaubert derived his inspiration,
gentlemen? It was from this book; listen:

ILLUSION OF THE SENSES.

"Whoever, then, attaches himself to the senses, must necessarily wander
from object to object and deceive himself, so to speak, by a change of
place, as concupiscence,--that is to say, love of pleasure,--is always
changing, because its ardour languishes and dies in continuity, and it
is only change that makes it revive. Again, what is that other
characteristic of a life of the senses, that alternate movement of
appetite and disgust, of disgust and appetite, the soul floating ever
uncertain between ardour which abates and ardour which is renewed?
_Inconstantia concupiscentia_. That is what a life of the senses
is. However, in this perpetual movement, one must not allow himself to
be deceived by the image of wandering liberty."

This is what a life of the senses is. Who has said that? Who has
written these words which you are about to hear upon these excitements
and excessive ardor? What is the book which M. Flaubert perused day and
night, and which has inspired the passages that the Government Attorney
condemns? It is by Bossuet! What I shall read to you is a fragment of
Bossuet's discourse upon _Illicit Pleasures_. I shall bring you to see
that all these incriminated passages are--not plagiarized; the man who
appropriates an idea is not a plagiarist--but imitations of Bossuet. Do
you wish for another example? Here it is:

UPON SIN.

"And do not ask me, Christians, in what way this great change of
pleasure into punishment will come about. The thing is proved by the
Scriptures. It is Truth who has said it, it is the All-Powerful who has
made it so. And sometimes, if you will look at the nature of the
passions to which you abandon your heart, you will easily comprehend
that they may become an intolerable punishment. They all have in
themselves cruel pain, disgust and bitterness. They all have an infinity
which is angered by not being able to b