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."