her mind or
heart. Then she is represented, in the place of following the destiny
which would be hers naturally, instead of being brought up for the farm
or in some analogous place in which she ought to live, she is
represented as under the short-sighted authority of a father who thinks
he must have his daughter educated in a convent, this girl born on a
farm, who should marry a farmer, or a man of the country. She is then
taken to a convent, outside her sphere. As there is nothing that does
not have weight in the Public Attorney's speech, we must leave nothing
without a response. Ah! you spoke of her little sins, and in quoting
from the first number, you said:

"When she went to confession, she invented little sins, in order that
she might stay there longer, kneeling in the shadow ... beneath the
whisperings of the priest." You have gravely deceived yourself in regard
to my client's meaning. He has not committed the fault with which you
reproach him; the error is wholly on your side, in the first place upon
the age of the girl. As she entered the convent at thirteen, it is
evident that she must have been fourteen when she went to
confession. She was not then a child of ten years, as it has pleased you
to say, and you were materially deceived on that point. But I am not so
sure of the unlikelihood of a child of ten years liking to remain at the
confessional "under the whisperings of the priest."

All that I desire is that you read the lines which precede, and that is
not easy, I agree. And here appears the inconvenience of not having a
pamphlet memoir at hand; with such an aid, we should not have to search
through six volumes!

I have called your attention to this passage in order to recall it to
_Madame Bovary_ and her true character. Will you permit me to say, what
seems to me very important, that M. Flaubert has fully comprehended this
point and put it in bold relief. There is a kind of religion which is
generally spoken of to young girls, which is the worst of all
religion. There may be in this regard a difference of opinion. As for
me, I declare clearly that I know nothing more beautiful, or useful, or
necessary to sustain, not only women in the ways of life but men
themselves, who sometimes have the most difficult trials to overcome, I
know nothing so useful, so necessary, as the religious sentiment, but a
serious religious sentiment, and permit me to add, severe.

I wish my children to believe in one God, not