7.37 Flaubert — Madame Bovary II — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the most famous chapter of Madame Bovary : the agricultural show at Yonville , where Rodolphe seduces Emma while an official makes a speech. Follow a scene built on counterpoint, in which two voices alternate and comment on each other. Recognise Flaubert's satire of political rhetoric and of romantic cliches, and see that they are the same language. Understand the place of the old servant, Catherine Leroux, at the end of the scene. Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English Il portait, ce jour-là, un col encore plus haut que de coutume That day he wore a collar even higher than usual Jamais il n’y avait eu pareil déploiement de pompe ! Never had there been such a display of pomp! devant l’église, une espèce de bombarde devait signaler l’arrivée de M. le préfet et le nom des cultivateurs lauréats. in front of the church, a sort of small cannon was to announce the arrival of the prefect and the names of the prizewinning farmers. Comme une rivalité subsistait entre le percepteur et le colonel, As a rivalry persisted between the tax collector and the colonel, Alors ils parlèrent de la médiocrité provinciale, des existences qu’elle étouffait, des illusions qui s’y perdaient. Then they talked of provincial mediocrity, of the lives it stifled, of the illusions lost there. Vous sentez le besoin de faire à cette personne la confidence de votre vie, de lui donner tout, de lui sacrifier tout ! You feel the need to confide your life to this person, to give them everything, to sacrifice everything to them! Prerequisites : 7.36 — this reading continues 7.36 Reading . Between the two, Emma has married Charles, moved with him to the small market town of Yonville-l'Abbaye , had a daughter, and grown bored. Rodolphe Boulanger, a rich landowner and experienced seducer, has noticed her. About this text Chapter eight of the second part takes place on the day of the comices agricoles , the annual agricultural show of the district. The whole town is there: Homais the pharmacist, Lheureux the shopkeeper, Binet the tax collector at the head of the firemen, and a councillor sent by the prefect, M. Lieuvain, who makes the official speech. Rodolphe takes Emma to the empty council room above the square, and from its window, as the speech goes on below, he makes his declaration. Flaubert wrote to his friend Louise Colet that if the effects of a symphony had ever been put into a book, it would be here. This lesson gives about 3,300 words from the chapter, about half of it: the opening, Rodolphe and Emma's walk, and most of the scene at the window, to the award of a medal to an old servant. Omissions are marked […] . The text is that of the Œuvres complètes published in Paris by Louis Conard in 1910, as transcribed in French Wikisource. Reading the counterpoint Two speeches. In the second half of the scene, paragraphs in quotation marks are the councillor's speech, paragraphs with a dash are Rodolphe. Read only the speech, then only Rodolphe: each makes sense alone. Read them together and each mocks the other. The councillor praises duty, order and moderation; Rodolphe attacks duty and praises passion. Both are made of ready-made phrases. The prize list. At the climax the voices alternate line by line: Rodolphe's Comme je resterais ce soir, demain, les autres jours, toute ma vie ! is answered by the president's À M. Caron, d'Argueil, une médaille d'or ! , and his promise to carry her memory with him by Pour un bélier mérinos… The word Fumiers , manure, falls between two declarations of love. Flaubert never comments; the juxtaposition is the comment. Rodolphe's cliches. Rodolphe speaks the language of the novels Emma read in 7.36 Reading : lonely souls, the cemetery by moonlight, two rivers that flow together, fate. He does not believe a word of it. The reader knows this; Emma does not. Catherine Leroux. The scene ends with an old farm servant who receives a silver medal worth twenty-five francs for fifty-four years of work. Flaubert describes her hands, hardened by dust and washing, and calls her ce demi-siècle de servitude . She is the only real thing in the chapter, and the only one not described with irony. Reading it a second time, part by part The festival. The town decorates itself; the national guard of a neighbouring town and the firemen parade; the peasants come in their best clothes. The walk. Rodolphe escapes from Homais and Lheureux with Emma; he flirts with her about daisies and love. Provincial life. Walking among the animals, they agree that the provinces stifle everything fine; Rodolphe plays the melancholy, lonely man. The window. In the empty council room, Rodolphe speaks of passion and fate while the councillor praises the King, order and agriculture. The prizes. As the prizes are read out, Rodolphe takes Emma's hand, and she does not withdraw it. The old servant. Catherine Leroux, frightened by the crowd, receives her medal and says she will give it to her priest for masses; Homais calls this fanaticism. Full translation An English translation of the whole text, made for this course and kept close to the original. The numbers are the paragraph numbers of the original text, so you can move between the two. Madame Bovary And so it came at last, the famous agricultural show! From the morning of the great day, all the inhabitants stood at their doors talking about the preparations; the pediment of the town hall had been hung with garlands of ivy; a tent had been put up in a meadow for the banquet, and in the middle of the square, in front of the church, a sort of small cannon was to announce the arrival of the prefect and the names of the prizewinning farmers. The national guard of Buchy (there was none at Yonville) had come to join the company of firemen, whose captain was Binet. That day he wore a collar even higher than usual; and, strapped into his tunic, he held his upper body so stiff and still tha