show us that this woman, after meeting scorn, abandonment,
and ruin of her house, comes to a frightful death. In a word, I can only
repeat what I said at the beginning of this plea, that M. Flaubert is
the author of a good book, a book which aims at the excitation of virtue
by arousing a horror of vice.

I will now look into his outrage against religion. An outrage against
religion committed by M. Flaubert! And in what respect, if you please?
The Government Attorney has thought he found in him a sceptic. I can
assure the Government Attorney that he is deceived. I am not here to
make a profession of faith, I am here only to defend a book, and for
that reason I shall limit myself to a simple word. Now as to the book, I
defy the Government Attorney to find in it anything that resembles an
outrage against religion. You have seen how religion was introduced in
Emma's education, and how this religion, false in a thousand ways, could
not hold Emma from the bent that carried her astray. Would you know in
what kind of language M. Flaubert speaks of religion? Listen to some
lines that I take from the first number, pages 231, 232 and 233:

"One evening when the window was open, and she, sitting by it, had been
watching Lestiboudois, the beadle, trimming the box, she suddenly heard
the Angelus ringing.

"It was the beginning of April, when the primroses are in bloom, and a
warm wind blows over the flower-beds newly turned, and the gardens, like
women, seem to be getting ready for the summer fetes. Through the bars
of the arbour and away beyond, the river could be seen in the fields,
meandering through the grass in wandering curves. The evening vapors
rose between the leafless poplars, touching their outlines with a violet
tint, paler and more transparent than a subtle gauze caught athwart
their branches. In the distance cattle moved about; neither their steps
nor their lowing could be heard; and the bell, still ringing through the
air, kept up its peaceful lamentation.

"With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young woman lost
themselves in old memories of her youth and school-days. She remembered
the great candlesticks that rose above the vases full of flowers on the
altar, and the tabernacle with its small columns. She would have liked
to be once more lost in the long line of white veils, marked off here
and there by the stiff black hoods of the good sisters bending over
their prie-Dieu."

This is the language in wh