ms:

"_Be it known_, that Laurent-Pichat, Gustave Flaubert and Pillet are
charged with having committed the misdemeanor of an outrage against
public and religious morals and established customs; the first as
author, in publishing in the periodical publication entitled the _Revue
de Paris_ of which he is the manager-proprietor, and in the numbers of
the 1st and 15th of October, the 1st and 15th of November and the 1st
and 15th of December, 1856, a romance entitled _Madame Bovary_, Gustave
Flaubert and Pillet as accomplices, the one for furnishing the
manuscript, and the other for printing the said romance;

"_Be it known_, that the particularly marked passages of the romance
with which we have to do, which include nearly 300 pages, are contained,
according to the terms of the ordinance of dismissal before the Court of
Correction, in pages 73, 77 and 78 (of the number of the 1st of
December), and 271, 272, 273 (of the 15th of December number, 1856);

"_Be it known_, that the incriminated passages, viewed abstractively and
isolatedly, present effectively either expressions, or images, or
pictures which good taste reproves and which are of a nature to make an
attack upon legitimate and honorable susceptibilities;

"_Be it known_, that the same observations can justly be applied to
other passages not defined by the ordinance of dismissal, and which, in
the first place seem to present an exposition of theories which would at
least be contrary to the good customs and institutions which are the
basis of our society, as well as to a respect for the most august
ceremonies of divine worship;

"_Be it known_, that, from these diverse titles, the work brought before
the Court merits severe blame, since the mission of literature should be
to ornament and recreate the mind by raising the intelligence and
purifying manners, rather than by showing the disgust of vice in
offering a picture of disorder which may exist in our society;

"_Be it known_, that the defendants, and particularly Gustave Flaubert,
energetically denied the charge brought against them, setting forth that
the romance submitted to the judgment of the Court had an eminently
moral aim; that the author had principally in view the exposing of
dangers which result from an education not appropriate to the sphere in
which one lives, and that, pursuant to this idea, he has shown the
woman, the principal personage in the romance, aspiring towards the
world and a society