adultery for you, in order to arrive later with the
_Deus ex machina_; no, you are carried too quickly on to the last
page. Adultery with him is only a series of torments, remorse and
regret; and then he arrives at the final, frightful expiation. It is
excessive. If M. Flaubert sins, it is through excess; and I will show
you presently what is meant by this. The expiation is not allowed to
wait, and it is that which makes the book eminently moral and useful. It
does not promise the young woman some beautiful years at the end of
which she can say: after this, one is willing to die. No! from the
second day there is bitterness and disillusion. The conclusion for
morality is found in each line of the book.

This book is written with a power of observation to which the Government
Attorney has rendered justice. And it is here that I would call your
attention to it, because if the accusation is without foundation, it
must fall. This book is written with a power truly remarkable for
observing the smallest details. An article in the _Artiste_, signed
Flaubert, has served as yet another text for the accusation. Let the
Government Attorney note, first that this article is foreign to the
indictment; then, that we will hold him innocent and moral in the eyes
of this tribunal on one condition, which is, that he will have the
goodness to read the entire article from the place of the cutting.

The most noticeable thing in M. Flaubert's book is what some accounts
have called a fidelity wholly Daguerreian in the reproduction of the
type of things, and in the intimate nature of the thought of the human
heart;--and this reproduction becomes more powerful still by the magic
of his style. Now notice, that if he had applied this fidelity only to
the scenes of degradation, you could say with reason: the author has
been pleased to paint the scenes of degradation with that power of
description which is peculiarly his own. From the first to the last page
of his book, he keeps close to all the facts in Emma's life, without any
kind of reserve, from her infancy in her father's house, to her
education in the convent, sparing nothing. And those of us who have read
the book from beginning to end can say--and this is a notable point
which should put him in a favorable light with you, not only bringing
him acquittal, but removing from him every kind of misunderstanding--that
when he comes to the difficult parts, precisely at the time of
degradation, in