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 place of doing as some classic authors have done, (as
the Public Attorney knows full well, but whom he forgot when he wrote
his address) a few pages of whose writings I have with me here, (not to
read to you but for you to run through in Court--and I might quote a few
lines here presently), in place of doing as our great classic authors,
our great masters have done, who never hesitate at description when they
have come to the scene of a union of the senses between man and woman,
M. Flaubert contents himself with a word. All his descriptive power
disappears, because his thought is chaste; because where he might write
in his own manner and with the magic of his style, he feels that there
are some things that should not be described or even touched upon. The