u do not choose Madeleine. It is very much in
fashion just now."

But Madame Bovary, senior, cried out loudly against this name of a
sinner. As to Monsieur Homais, he had a preference for all those that
recalled some great man, an illustrious fact, or a generous idea, and it
was on this system that he baptized his four children. Thus Napoleon
represented glory and Franklin liberty; Irma was perhaps a concession to
romanticism, but Athalie was a homage to the greatest masterpiece of the
French stage. For his philosophical convictions did not interfere with
his artistic tastes; in him the thinker did not stifle the man of
sentiment; he could make distinctions, make allowances for imagination
and fanaticism. In this tragedy, for example, he found fault with the
ideas, but admired the style; he detested the conception, but applauded
all the details, and loathed the characters while he grew enthusiastic
over their dialogue. When he read the fine passages he was transported,
but when he thought that mummers would get something out of them for
their show, he was disconsolate; and in this confusion of sentiments in
which he was involved he would have liked at once to crown Racine with
both his hands and argue with him for a good quarter of an hour.

At last Emma remembered that at the chateau of Vaubyessard she had heard
the Marchioness call a young lady Berthe; from that moment this name was
chosen; and as old Rouault could not come, Monsieur Homais was requested
to stand godfather. His gifts were all products from his establishment,
to wit: six boxes of jujubes, a whole jar of racahout, three cakes of
marsh-mallow paste, and six sticks of sugar-candy, into the bargain,
that he had come across in a cupboard. On the evening of the ceremony
there was a grand dinner; the cure was present; there was much
excitement. Monsieur Homais toward liqueur-time began singing "Le Dieu
des bonnes gens." Monsieur Leon sang a barcarolle, and Madame Bovary,
senior, who was godmother, a romance of the time of the Empire; finally,
M. Bovary, senior, insisted on having the child brought down, and began
baptizing it with a glass of champagne that he poured over its head.
This mockery of the first of the sacraments made the Abbe Bournisien
angry; old Bovary replied by a quotation from "La Guerre des Dieux;" the
cure wished to leave; the ladies implored, Homais interfered; and they
succeeded in making the priest sit down again, and he quietly went on