"Then he recited the _Misereatur_ and the _Indulgentiam_, dipped his
right thumb in the oil and began to give extreme unction. First upon the
eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then upon the nostrils,
greedy for warm breezes and amorous perfumes; then upon the mouth, that
had uttered lies, that curled with pride and cried out in lewdness; then
upon the hands, that had delighted in sensual touches, and finally upon
the soles of feet, so swift of yore when she was running to satisfy her
desires, and that now would walk no more.
"The curé wiped his fingers, threw the bit of cotton dipped in oil into
the fire, and came and sat down by the dying woman, to tell her that she
must now blend her sufferings with those of Jesus Christ, and abandon
herself to the Divine mercy.
"Finishing his exhortations, he tried to place in her hand a blessed
candle, symbol of the celestial glory with which she was soon to be
surrounded. Emma, too weak, could not close her fingers, and the taper,
but for Monsieur Bournisien, would have fallen to the ground.
"However, she was not quite so pale, and her face had an expression of
serenity as if the sacrament had cured her.
"The priest did not fail to point this out; he even explained to Bovary
that the Lord sometimes prolonged the life of persons when he thought it
meet for their salvation; and Charles remembered the day when, so near
death, she had received the communion. Perhaps there was no need to
despair, he thought."
Now, when a woman dies and the priest goes to give her extreme unction,
if one portrays that mystic scene and translates for us the sacramental
words with scrupulous fidelity, they say that he has touched upon holy
things; that he has put a rash hand on sacred matters; because to the
_deliquisti per oculos, per os, per aurem, per manus et per pedes_ he
has added the sin which each of the organs has committed. But we are not
the first to walk in this path. M. Sainte-Beuve, in a book which you
know, has also a scene of extreme unction, and here is how he expresses
it:
"Oh! yes, upon the eyes first, as the most noble and most alive of the
senses; upon those eyes for what they have seen and regarded too
tenderly, or that which was too perfidious in others' eyes, or too
mortal; for what they have read and re-read of endearment that was too
dear; for what they have poured out in vain tears over fragile goods and
faithless creatures; for the sleep which they have too often forgotten,
thinking only of the evening!
"Upon the ears also for what they have heard and allowed themselves to
hear that was too sweet, too flattering and intoxicating; for that sound
which the ear steals from deceptive words; for what it drinks in from
stolen honey!
"Then the smell, for the too subtle and voluptuous perfumes of evening
and the springtime in the depth of the woods, for flowers received in
the morning and all through the day, and breathed in with so much
pleasure!
"Upon the lips, for what they have pronounced that was too confused or
too open; for what they did not reply at certain moments or what they
have not revealed to certain persons; for what they have sung in
solitude that was too melodious and too full of tears; for their
inarticulate murmur and for their silence!
"Upon the neck, in the place of on the breast, for the ardor of desire
according to the consecrated expression (_propter ardorem libidinis_);
yes, for the grief in affection and the rivalry, for too much anguish in
human tenderness, for the tears which are suffocated in a voiceless
throat, for all that goes to wound the heart and break it!
"Upon the hands also, for having seized a hand which was not bound to
holiness; for having received too burning tears; perhaps for having
begun to write and for finishing a response not lawful!
"Upon the feet, for not having fled, for not having been satisfied with
long, solitary walks, for not having been weary soon enough in the midst
of temptations which were ever beginning anew!"
You did not prosecute that. Here are two men who, each in his own
sphere, has taken the same thing and who have, according to his own
idea, added the sin, the fault. Can it be that you make an indictment
for simply translating the formula of the ritual: _Quidquid deliquisti
per oculos, per aurem_, etc.?
M. Flaubert has done just what M. Sainte-Beuve did, without
plagiarizing. He has made use of a right which belongs to any writer,
to add to what another has said and complete the subject. The last
scene of the romance of _Madame Bovary_ has been made a complete study
of this kind from religious documents. M. Flaubert has taken the scene
of the extreme unction from a book which a venerable ecclesiastic, one
of his friends, lent to him; this same friend has read the scene and
been moved to tears, not imagining that the majesty of religion was in
any way offended. The book is entitled: _An historic, dogmatic, moral,
liturgical and canonical explanation of the catechism, with an answer to
the objections drawn from science against religion, by the Abbé Ambroise
Guillois, curate of Nôtre-Dame-du-Pré, 6th edition, etc_., a work
approved by His Eminence the Cardinal Gousset, N.N.S.S. the Bishops and
Archbishops of Mans, of Tours, of Bordeaux, of Cologne, etc., vol. III.,
printed at Mans, by Charles Monnoyer, 1851. Now, you shall see in this
book, as you saw just now in Bossuet's, the principles, and, in a
certain way, the text of the passages which the Government has
condemned. It is no longer M. Sainte-Beuve, an artist, a literary
rhapsodist, whom I am quoting; we now listen to the Church itself:
"Extreme unction can give back health to the body if it be useful to the
glory of God" ... and the priest says that this often happens. Now, here
is the extreme unction:
"The priest addresses the sick with a short exhortation, if he is in a
state to hear it, in order to dispose him worthily to receive the
sacrament which is to be administered to him.
"The priest then passes the unction upon the sick person with the
stiletto or the extremity of his right thumb, which he dips each time in
the oil. This unction should be made especially upon the five parts of
the body which nature has given to man as the organs of sensation,
namely: the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the mouth and the hands."
"As the priest makes the unctions [we have followed from point to point
the ritual which we have copied], he pronounces the words which
correspond to them.
"_To the eyes, upon the closed eyeball_: Through this holy unction and
His divine pity, may God pardon all the sins that you have committed
through sight. The sick person should at this moment have a new hatred
of all the sins committed through sight: such as indiscreet looks,
criminal curiosity, and reading what has caused to be born in him a host
of thoughts contrary to faith or morals."
What has M. Flaubert done? He has put in the mouth of the priest, by
uniting the two parts, what should be in his thoughts and also those of
the sick person. He has copied purely and simply.
"_To the ears_: Through this holy unction and through His divine pity,
may God pardon all the sins that you have committed through the sense of
hearing. The sick person should, at this moment, detest anew all the
errors of which he is guilty from listening with pleasure to slander,
calumny, proposed dishonesty and obscene songs.
"_To the nostrils_: Through this holy unction and His divine pity, may
the Lord pardon all the sins that you have committed through the sense
of smell. At this moment the sick person should detest anew all the
sins that he has committed through the sense of smell, his refined and
voluptuous search for perfumes, all his sensibilities, all that he has
breathed in of iniquitous odors.
"_To the mouth, upon the lips_: Through this holy unction and through
His great pity, may the Lord pardon you all the sins that you have
committed by the sense of taste and words. The sick man at this moment
should detest anew all the sins that he has committed in oaths and
blaspheming ... in eating and drinking to excess....
"_Upon the hands_: Through this holy unction and through His great pity,
may the Lord pardon all the sins that you have committed through the
sense of touch. The sick man ought to detest at this moment all the
larcenies, the injustice of which he has been guilty, all the liberties,
more or less criminal, which he has allowed himself. The priest receives
the unction on his hands from without because he has already received it
from within at the time of his ordination, and the sick person receives
it within.
"_Upon the feet_: Through this holy unction and His great pity, may God
pardon all the sins that you have committed in your walks. The sick man
ought, at this moment, to detest anew all the steps that he has taken in
the path of iniquity, such as scandalous walks, and criminal
interviews.... The unction of the feet is made upon the top or on the
sole, according to the convenience of the sick person, and according to
the custom of the diocese where it takes place. The most common practice
seems to be to make it on the soles of the feet.
"And finally upon the breast. [M. Sainte-Beuve has copied this; we have
not, because it was concerned with the breast of a woman.] _Propter
ardorem libidinis,_ etc.
"_On the breast_: Through this holy unction and His great pity, may the
Lord pardon all the sins which have been committed from the ardour of
the passions. The sick man ought, at this moment, to detest anew all the
bad thoughts to which he has abandoned himself, all sentiments of
hatred, or vengeance that he has nourished in his heart."
And following the ritual, we could have spoken of something more than
the breast, but God knows what holy anger would have been aroused in the
Public Attorney's office, if we had spoken of the loins!
"_To the loins_: Through this holy unction and His great pity, may the
Lord pardon all the sins that you have committed by irregular impulses
of the flesh."
If we had said that, what a thunderbolt you would have had with which to
attempt to crush us, Mr. Attorney! and nevertheless, the ritual adds:
"The sick man ought, at this moment, to detest anew all illicit
pleasures, carnal delights, etc...."
This is the ritual; and you have seen the condemned article. It has
nothing of raillery in it, but is serious and earnest. And I repeat to
you that he who lent my client this book, and saw my client make the use
of it that he has, has taken him by the hand with tears in his eyes. You
see, then, Mr. Government Attorney, how rash--not to use an expression
which in order to be exact is not too severe--is your accusation of our
touching upon holy things. You see now that we have not mingled the
profane with the sacred when, at each sense we indicated the sin
committed by that sense, since it is the language of the Church itself.
I insist now upon mentioning the other details of the charge of outrage
against religion. The Public Minister said to me: "It is no longer
religion but the morals of all time that you have outraged; you have
insulted death!" How have we insulted death? Because at the moment when
this woman dies, there passes in the street a man whom she had met more
than once, to whom she had given alms from her carriage as she was going
to her adulterous meetings; a blind man whom she was accustomed to see,
who sang his song walking along slowly by the side of her carriage, to
whom she threw a piece of money, but whose countenance made her shiver?
This man was passing in the street; and at the moment when Divine pity
pardoned, or promised pardon, to the unfortunate woman who was expiating
the faults of her life by a frightful death, human raillery appeared to
her in the form of the song under her window. Great Heavens! you find
an outrage in this! But M. Flaubert has only done what Shakespeare and
Goethe have done, who, at the supreme moment of death, have not failed
to make heard some chant, or perhaps plaint, or it might be raillery,
which recalls to him who is passing to eternity some pleasure which he
will never more enjoy, or some fault to be atoned. Let us read:
"In fact, she looked around her slowly, as one awakening from a dream;
then in a distinct voice she asked for her looking-glass, and remained
some time bending over it, until the big tears fell from her eyes. Then
she turned away her head with a sigh and fell back upon the pillows."
I could not read it, I am like Lamartine: "The punishment seems to me to
go beyond truth...." I should not consider that I was doing a bad deed,
Mr. Attorney, in reading these pages to my married daughters, honest
girls who have had a good example and good teaching, and who would
never, never go away from the straight path for indiscretion, or away
from things that could and ought to be understood.... It is impossible
for me to continue this reading and I shall hold myself rigorously to
the condemned passages:
"As the death-rattle became stronger [Charles was by her side, the man
whom you did not see but who is admirable] the priest prayed faster; his
prayers mingled with Bovary's stifled sobs, and sometimes all seemed
lost in the muffled murmur of the Latin syllables that tolled like a
passing bell.
"Suddenly on the pavement was heard a loud noise of clogs, and the
clattering of a stick; and a voice, a raucous voice, sang:
"'Maids in the warmth of a summer day,
Dream of love and of love alway;
The wind is strong this summer day,
Her petticoat is blown away.'"
Emma raised herself like a galvanized corpse, her hair undone, her eyes
fixed, staring.
"Where the sickle blades have been,
Nannette, gathering ears of corn,
Passes bending down, my queen,
To the earth where they were born."
"'The blind man!" she cries.
"And Emma began to laugh, an atrocious, frantic, despairing laugh,
thinking she saw the hideous face of the poor wretch that stood out
against the eternal night like a menace.
"She fell back upon the mattress in a convulsion. They all drew
near. She was dead."
You see, gentlemen, in this supreme moment, a recalling of her sin, and
with it remorse and all that goes with it of poignancy and fear. It is
not alone the whim of an artist wishing only to make a contrast without
a purpose or a moral; she hears the blind man in the street singing the
frightful song he had sung when she was returning all in a perspiration
and hideous from an adulterous meeting; it is the same blind man whom
she saw at each of those meetings; the blind man who pursued her with
his song and his importunity; it is he who comes now to personify human
rage at the instant when Divine pity comes to her and follows her to the
supreme moment of death! And this is called an outrage against public
morals! But I say, on the contrary, that it is an homage to public
morals, that there is nothing more moral than this; I say that in this
book the vice of education is awake, that it is taken from the true,
from the living flesh of our society, and that at each stroke the author
places before us this question: "Have you done what you ought for the
education of your daughters? Is the religion you have given them such as
will sustain them in the tempests of life, or is it only a mass of
carnal superstitions which leaves them without support when the storm
rages? Have you taught them that life is not the realization of
chimerical dreams, that it is something prosaic to which it is necessary
to accommodate oneself? Have you taught them that? Have you done what
you ought for their happiness? Have you said to them: Poor children,
outside the route I have pointed out to you, in the pleasures you may
pursue, only disgust awaits you, trouble, disorder, dilapidation,
convulsions, and execution...." And you will see that if anything were
lacking in the picture, the sheriff's officer is there; there, too, is
the Jew who has seized and sold her furniture to satisfy the caprices of
this woman; and the husband is still ignorant of this. Nothing remains
for the unfortunate woman, except death!
But, said the Public Minister, her death is voluntary; this woman died
in her own time.
But how could she live? Was she not condemned? Had she not drunk to the
last dregs her shame and baseness?
Yes, upon our stage we show women who have strayed (and I cannot say
what they have done) as happy, charming and smiling. _Questam corpore
facerant_. I limit myself to this remark: When they show them to us
happy, charming, enveloped in muslin, presenting a gracious hand to
counts, marquises and dukes, often responding themselves to the name of
countess or duchess, you call that respecting public morals. But the man
who depicts the adulterous woman dying a shameful death, commits an
outrage against public morals!
Now, I do not wish to say it is not your opinion that you have
expressed, since you have expressed it, but you have yielded to a
prejudice. No, it cannot be you, the husband, the father of a family,
the man who is there, it is not you, that is not possible; without the
prejudice of the speech of the prosecution and a preconceived idea, you
would never say that M. Flaubert was the author of a bad book! Surely,
left to your inspirations, your appreciation would be the same as
mine. I do not speak from a literary point of view; but from a moral and
religious standard, as you understand it and I understand it, you and I
could not differ.
They have said, furthermore, that we have brought upon the scene a
materialistic curate. We took the curate as we took the husband. He is
not an eminent ecclesiastic, but an ordinary priest, a country
curate. And as we have insulted no one, expressed no thought or
sentiment that could be injurious to a husband, so we have insulted no
ecclesiastic. I have only a word to say beyond this. Do you wish to
read books in which ecclesiastics play a deplorable rôle? Take _Gil
Blas_, _The Canon_ (of Balzac), _Nôtre-Dame de Paris_ of Victor Hugo. If
you wish to read of priests who are the shame of the clergy, seek them
elsewhere, for you will not find them in _Madame Bovary_. What have we
shown? A country curate, who in his function of country curate is, like
M. Bovary, an ordinary man. Have I represented him as a gourmand, a
libertine, or a drunkard? I have not said a word of that kind. I have
represented him fulfilling his ministry, not with elevated intelligence,
but as his nature allowed him to fulfill it. I have put in contact with
him, and in an almost continual state of discussion, a type which
lives--as the creatures of M. Prudhomme live--as all other creations of
our time will live who are taken from truth and which it is not possible
for one to forget, and that is the country pharmacist, the Voltairean,
the sceptic, the incredulous man, who is in a perpetual quarrel with the
curate. But in these quarrels, who is it that is beaten, buffeted, and
ridiculed? It is Homais; to him is the most comic rôle given, because he
is the most true, because he best paints our sceptical epoch, a fury
whom we call a priest-hater. Permit me still to read to you page 206. It
is the good woman of the inn who offers something to her curate:
"'What can I do for you, Monsieur le Curé?' asked the landlady, as she
reached down from the chimney one of the copper candlesticks placed with
their candles in a row. 'Will you take something? A thimbleful of
_cassis_? A glass of wine?'
"The priest declined very politely. He had come for his umbrella, that
he had forgotten the other day at the Ernemont convent, and after asking
Madame Lefrançois to have it sent to him at the presbytery in the
evening, he left for the church, from which the Angelus was ringing.
"When the chemist no longer heard the noise of his boots along the
square, he thought the priest's behavior just now very unbecoming. This
refusal to take any refreshment seemed to him the most odious hypocrisy;
all priests tippled on the sly, and were trying to bring back the days
of the tithe.
"The landlady took up the defense of her curé.
"'Besides, he could double up four men like you over his knee. Last year
he helped our people to bring in the straw; he carried as many as six
trusses at once, he is so strong.'
"'Bravo!' said the chemist. 'Now just send your daughters to confess to
fellows with such a temperament! I, if I were the Government, I'd have
the priests bled once a month. Yes, Madame Lefrançois, every month--a
good phlebotomy, in the interests of the police and morals.'
"'Be quiet, Monsieur Homais. You are an infidel; you've no religion.'
"The chemist answered: 'I have a religion, my religion, and I even have
more than all these others with their mummeries and their juggling. I
adore God, on the contrary. I believe in the Supreme Being, in a
Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us here below
to fulfill our duties as citizens and fathers of families; but I don't
need to go to church to kiss silver plates, and fatten, out of my
pocket, a lot of good-for-nothings who live better than we do. For one
can know him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contemplating the
eternal vault like the ancients. My God! mine is the God of Socrates,
of Franklin, of Voltaire, and Béranger! I am for the profession of faith
of the 'Savoyard Vicar,' and the immortal principles of '89! And I can't
admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane
in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies
uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd
in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws,
Which proves to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in
torpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them.'
"He ceased looking round for an audience, for in his bubbling over the
chemist had for a moment fancied himself in the midst of the town
council. But the landlady no longer heeded him; she was listening to a
distant rolling."
What is this? A dialogue, a scene such as occurred each time that Homais
had occasion to speak of priests.
There is something better in the last passage of page 271:
"Public attention was distracted by the appearance of Monsieur
Bournisien, who was going across the market with the holy oil.
"Homais, as we due to his principles, compared priests to ravens
attracted by the odour of death. The sight of an ecclesiastic was
personally disagreeable to him, for the cassock made him think of the
shroud, and he detested the one from some fear of the other."
Our old friend, he who lent us the catechism, was very happy over this
phrase; he said to us: "It is a true hit; it is indeed the portrait of a
_priestophobe_ whom the cassock makes think of a shroud, and who holds
one in execration from a little fear of the other." He was impious, and
he profaned the cassock a little through impiety, perhaps, but much more
because he was made to think of a shroud.
Permit me to make a _résumé_ of all this. I am defending a man who, if
he had met a literary criticism upon the form of his book, or upon
certain expressions, or on too much detail, upon one point or another,
would have accepted that literary criticism with the best heart in the
world. But to find himself accused of an outrage against morals and
religion! M. Flaubert has not recovered from it; and he protests here
before you with all the astonishment and all the energy of which he is
capable against such an accusation.
You are not of the sort to condemn books upon certain lines, you are of
the sort to judge after reflection, to judge of the way of putting a
work, and you will put this question with which I began my plea and with
which I shall end it: Does the reading of such a book give a love of
vice, or inspire a horror of it? Does not a punishment so terrible drive
one to virtue and encourage it? The reading of this book cannot produce
upon you an impression other than it has produced upon us, namely: that
the work is excellent as a whole, and that the details in it are
irreproachable. All classic literature authorizes the painting of
scenes like these we are passing upon.
With this understanding, we might have taken one for a model, which we
have not done; we have imposed upon ourselves a sobriety which we ask
you to take into account. If, as is possible, M. Flaubert has
overstepped the bound he placed for himself, in one word or another, I
have only to remind you that this is a first work, but I should then
have to tell you that his error was simply one of self-deception, and
was without damage to public morals. And in making him come into
Court--him, whom you know a little now by his book, him whom you already
love a little and will love more, I am sure, when you know him
better--is enough of a punishment, a punishment already too cruel. And
now it is for you to decide. You have already judged the book as a whole
and in its details; it is not possible for you to hesitate!
* * * * *