Ah, well! this unfortunate suppression has caused the lawsuit! That is to say, when, in the offices where they have charge, and with infinite reason, of inspecting all writings which could offend public morals, they saw this cut, they took warning. I am obliged to declare, and, gentlemen of the _Revue_, allow me to state that they started the work of their scissors two words too far off; they should have begun before they got into the cab. To cut after that was more difficult. This cutting was indeed most unfortunate; but if you have committed the error, gentlemen of the _Revue_, assuredly you will atone for it to-day. They said in the inspecting office: Take heed of what is to follow, and when the following number appeared, they made war on it to the syllable. The people in the office are not obliged to read all; and when they saw that some one had written about a woman removing all her clothing, they were startled enough without going further. It is true that, differing from our great masters, Flaubert has not taken the trouble to describe the alabaster of her bare arms, throat, etc. He has not said, as did a poet whom we love: I see her alabaster limbs ardent and pure, Smooth as ebony, like the lily, coral, roses, veins of azure, Such indeed, as in former times thou showedst to me Of nudity embellished and adorned; When nights slipped by, and pillows soft Saw thee from my kisses waking and sleeping oft. He has said nothing like this of André Chénier's. But he finally said: "She abandoned herself.... Her clothing fell from her." She abandoned herself! Why not? Is all description to be prohibited? But when one makes an incriminating charge, he should read the whole, and the Government Attorney has not read the whole. The passage he makes the charge against does not stop where he stopped; it has a corrective, and here it is: "Nevertheless, there was upon this brow covered with cold drops, upon these stammering lips, in these bewildered eyes, in the clasp of these arms something extreme, something vague and lugubrious which seemed to Léon to glide between them in some subtle fashion, as if to separate them." In the office they did not read that. The Government Attorney just now did not notice it. He only saw this: "Then, with a single gesture, she allowed all her clothes to fall from her." And then he cries out: An outrage to public morals! Surely, it is too easy to accuse with a system like this. God forbid that the authors of dictionaries fall under the Government Attorney's hand! Who could escape condemnation if, by means of cutting, not of phrases, but of words, one is to be informed of a list he has made that might offend morals or religion?