ome shades of meaning
that might escape us in our easy-going habits which never could escape
women of great intelligence, of great purity and unquestioned
chastity. These are not names which can be pronounced in this audience,
but if I could tell you what has been said to Flaubert, what has been
said to me, even, by mothers of families who have read this book, if I
could tell you their astonishment, after receiving from that reading an
impression so good that they believed they should thank the author for
it, if I could tell you their astonishment, their grief, when they
learned that this book was thought to oppose public morals and religious
faith, the faith of their whole life, God knows there would be in the
sum of this appreciation sufficient to fortify me, had I need of being
fortified for this combat with the Public Attorney.

However, in the midst of all the appreciative voices of contemporaneous
literature there is one which I wish to mention to you. There is one who
is not only respected by reason of a grand and beautiful character, who,
in the midst of adversity, of suffering even, has struggled courageously
each day; who is not only great by virtue of many deeds useless to
recall here, but great through his literary works which must be recalled
because here he is an authority; great especially through the purity
which exists in all his works, through the chastity of all his writings:
Lamartine.

Lamartine did not know my client; he did not know that he
existed. Lamartine, at his home in the country, read _Madame Bovary_ in
each number of the _Revue de Paris_, and Lamartine found there such
power that it recurred to him again and again, as I am going to tell
you.

After some days, Lamartine returned to Paris, and the next day informed
himself where M. Gustave Flaubert lived. He sent to the _Revue_ to learn
where M. Gustave Flaubert lived, who had published in the magazine some
articles under the title of _Madame Bovary_. He then directed his
secretary to go and present his compliments to M. Flaubert, to express
for him the satisfaction he had found in reading his book, and also his
desire to see the new author who revealed himself in an essay of that
order.

My client went to Lamartine's house; and he found in him not only a man
who encouraged him, but who said to him:

"You have made the best book I have read in twenty years."

In a word, his praise was such that, in his modesty, my client scarcely
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