"Whoever, then, attaches himself to the senses, must necessarily wander
from object to object and deceive himself, so to speak, by a change of
place, as concupiscence,--that is to say, love of pleasure,--is always
changing, because its ardour languishes and dies in continuity, and it
is only change that makes it revive. Again, what is that other
characteristic of a life of the senses, that alternate movement of
appetite and disgust, of disgust and appetite, the soul floating ever
uncertain between ardour which abates and ardour which is renewed?
_Inconstantia concupiscentia_. That is what a life of the senses
is. However, in this perpetual movement, one must not allow himself to
be deceived by the image of wandering liberty."
This is what a life of the senses is. Who has said that? Who has
written these words which you are about to hear upon these excitements
and excessive ardor? What is the book which M. Flaubert perused day and
night, and which has inspired the passages that the Government Attorney
condemns? It is by Bossuet! What I shall read to you is a fragment of
Bossuet's discourse upon _Illicit Pleasures_. I shall bring you to see
that all these incriminated passages are--not plagiarized; the man who
appropriates an idea is not a plagiarist--but imitations of Bossuet. Do
you wish for another example? Here it is: