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! * * * * * THE DECISION