Flaubert (and his lascivious colour)--you will find
impregnated wholly with Bossuet and Massillon. It is in the study of
these authors that we shall presently find him seeking, not to
plagiarize, but to reproduce in his descriptions the thoughts and
colours employed by them. And can you believe, after all that, having
done this work with so much love for it, and with a decided purpose,
that, full of confidence in himself, and after so much study and
meditation, he would wish to throw himself immediately into the arena?
He would have done it, no doubt, had he been an unknown man, if his name
had belonged to himself in sole ownership, had he believed himself able
to dispose of it and use it as it seemed good to him; but, I repeat, he
is one of those upon whom rests the obligation of rank. His name is
Flaubert, he is the second son of M. Flaubert, and he has desired to
make a place for himself in literature, profoundly respecting the moral
and religious phases of it,--not through the notoriety of a lawsuit, for
such a purpose could not enter his thoughts--but through personal
dignity, not wishing his name to be at the head of a publication that
did not seem to some persons and to those in whom he had faith, worthy
of being published. M. Flaubert read in fragments, and even in
totality, to friends holding high places in the world of letters, the
pages which he hoped some day to print, and I assure you that not one of
them has been offended by what has just now excited such lively severity
on the part of the Government Attorney. No one even thought of it. They
simply examined and studied the literary value of the book. As to the
moral purpose, it is so evident, so written in every line in terms so
unequivocal that there was no need of raising the question.

Reassured upon the value of the book, encouraged, furthermore, by the
most eminent men of the press, M. Flaubert thought only of printing it
and giving it to the public. I repeat: everyone was unanimous in
rendering homage to its literary merit, to its style, and at the same
time to the excellent thought that pervaded it, from the first line to
the last. And when this action was brought it was not he alone who was
surprised and profoundly troubled, but, permit me to say, we, who cannot
understand the action, and I myself most of all, who had read the book
with a very lively interest as soon as it was published. But we are his
intimate friends. Heaven knows that there are s