The french masters, p.242
The French Masters, page 242
Et il s’inclina profondément devant le cardinal en homme qui dit:
«Seigneur, que votre volonté soit faite!»
Le cardinal s’approcha de la table, et, sans s’asseoir, écrivit quelques lignes sur un parchemin dont les deux tiers étaient déjà remplis et y apposa son sceau.
«Ceci est ma condamnation, dit d’Artagnan; il m’épargne l’ennui de la Bastille et les lenteurs d’un jugement. C’est encore fort aimable à lui.»
«Tenez, monsieur, dit le cardinal au jeune homme, je vous ai pris un blanc-seing et je vous en rends un autre. Le nom manque sur ce brevet: vous l’écrirez vous-même.»
D’Artagnan prit le papier en hésitant et jeta les yeux dessus.
C’était une lieutenance dans les mousquetaires.
D’Artagnan tomba aux pieds du cardinal.
«Monseigneur, dit-il, ma vie est à vous; disposez-en désormais; mais cette faveur que vous m’accordez, je ne la mérite pas: j’ai trois amis qui sont plus méritants et plus dignes…
— Vous êtes un brave garçon, d’Artagnan, interrompit le cardinal en lui frappant familièrement sur l’épaule, charmé qu’il était d’avoir vaincu cette nature rebelle. Faites de ce brevet ce qu’il vous plaira. Seulement rappelez-vous que, quoique le nom soit en blanc, c’est à vous que je le donne.
— Je ne l’oublierai jamais, répondit d’Artagnan. Votre Éminence peut en être certaine.»
Le cardinal se retourna et dit à haute voix:
«Rochefort!»
Le chevalier, qui sans doute était derrière la porte entra aussitôt.
«Rochefort, dit le cardinal, vous voyez M. d’Artagnan; je le reçois au nombre de mes amis; ainsi donc que l’on s’embrasse et que l’on soit sage si l’on tient à conserver sa tête.
Rochefort et d’Artagnan s’embrassèrent du bout des lèvres; mais le cardinal était là, qui les observait de son oeil vigilant.
Ils sortirent de la chambre en même temps.
«Nous nous retrouverons, n’est-ce pas, monsieur?
— Quand il vous plaira, fit d’Artagnan.
— L’occasion viendra, répondit Rochefort.
— Hein?» fit Richelieu en ouvrant la porte.
Les deux hommes se sourirent, se serrèrent la main et saluèrent
Son Éminence.
«Nous commencions à nous impatienter, dit Athos.
— Me voilà, mes amis! répondit d’Artagnan, non seulement libre, mais en faveur.
— Vous nous conterez cela?
— Dès ce soir.»
En effet, dès le soir même d’Artagnan se rendit au logis d’Athos, qu’il trouva en train de vider sa bouteille de vin d’Espagne, occupation qu’il accomplissait religieusement tous les soirs.
Il lui raconta ce qui s’était passé entre le cardinal et lui, et tirant le brevet de sa poche:
«Tenez, mon cher Athos, voilà, dit-il, qui vous revient tout naturellement.»
Athos sourit de son doux et charmant sourire.
«Amis, dit-il, pour Athos c’est trop; pour le comte de La Fère, c’est trop peu. Gardez ce brevet, il est à vous; hélas, mon Dieu! vous l’avez acheté assez cher.»
D’Artagnan sortit de la chambre d’Athos, et entra dans celle de
Porthos.
Il le trouva vêtu d’un magnifique habit, couvert de broderies splendides, et se mirant dans une glace.
«Ah! ah! dit Porthos, c’est vous, cher ami! comment trouvez-vous que ce vêtement me va?
— À merveille, dit d’Artagnan, mais je viens vous proposer un habit qui vous ira mieux encore.
— Lequel? demanda Porthos.
— Celui de lieutenant aux mousquetaires.
D’Artagnan raconta à Porthos son entrevue avec le cardinal, et tirant le brevet de sa poche:
«Tenez, mon cher, dit-il, écrivez votre nom là-dessus, et soyez bon chef pour moi.
Porthos jeta les yeux sur le brevet, et le rendit à d’Artagnan, au grand étonnement du jeune homme.
«Oui, dit-il, cela me flatterait beaucoup, mais je n’aurais pas assez longtemps à jouir de cette faveur. Pendant notre expédition de Béthune, le mari de ma duchesse est mort; de sorte que, mon cher, le coffre du défunt me tendant les bras, j’épouse la veuve. Tenez, j’essayais mon habit de noce; gardez la lieutenance, mon cher, gardez.»
Et il rendit le brevet à d’Artagnan.
Le jeune homme entra chez Aramis.
Il le trouva agenouillé devant un prie-Dieu, le front appuyé contre son livre d’heures ouvert.
Il lui raconta son entrevue avec le cardinal, et tirant pour la troisième fois son brevet de sa poche:
«Vous, notre ami, notre lumière, notre protecteur invisible, dit- il, acceptez ce brevet; vous l’avez mérité plus que personne, par votre sagesse et vos conseils toujours suivis de si heureux résultats.
— Hélas, cher ami! dit Aramis, nos dernières aventures m’ont dégoûté tout à fait de la vie d’homme d’épée. Cette fois, mon parti est pris irrévocablement, après le siège j’entre chez les lazaristes. Gardez ce brevet, d’Artagnan, le métier des armes vous convient, vous serez un brave et aventureux capitaine.»
D’Artagnan, l’oeil humide de reconnaissance et brillant de joie, revint à Athos, qu’il trouva toujours attablé et mirant son dernier verre de malaga à la lueur de la lampe.
«Eh bien, dit-il, eux aussi m’ont refusé.
— C’est que personne, cher ami, n’en était plus digne que vous.»
Il prit une plume, écrivit sur le brevet le nom de d’Artagnan, et le lui remit.
«Je n’aurai donc plus d’amis, dit le jeune homme, hélas! plus rien, que d’amers souvenirs…»
Et il laissa tomber sa tête entre ses deux mains, tandis que deux larmes roulaient le long de ses joues.
«Vous êtes jeune, vous, répondit Athos, et vos souvenirs amers ont le temps de se changer en doux souvenirs!»
ÉPILOGUE
La Rochelle, privée du secours de la flotte anglaise et de la division promise par Buckingham, se rendit après un siège d’un an. Le 28 octobre 1628, on signa la capitulation.
Le roi fit son entrée à Paris le 23 décembre de la même année. On lui fit un triomphe comme s’il revenait de vaincre l’ennemi et non des Français. Il entra par le faubourg Saint-Jacques sous des arcs de verdure.
D’Artagnan prit possession de son grade. Porthos quitta le service et épousa, dans le courant de l’année suivante, Mme Coquenard, le coffre tant convoité contenait huit cent mille livres.
Mousqueton eut une livrée magnifique, et de plus la satisfaction, qu’il avait ambitionnée toute sa vie, de monter derrière un carrosse doré.
Aramis, après un voyage en Lorraine, disparut tout à coup et cessa d’écrire à ses amis. On apprit plus tard, par Mme de Chevreuse, qui le dit à deux ou trois de ses amants, qu’il avait pris l’habit dans un couvent de Nancy.
Bazin devint frère lai.
Athos resta mousquetaire sous les ordres de d’Artagnan jusqu’en 1633, époque à laquelle, à la suite d’un voyage qu’il fit en Touraine, il quitta aussi le service sous prétexte qu’il venait de recueillir un petit héritage en Roussillon.
Grimaud suivit Athos.
D’Artagnan se battit trois fois avec Rochefort et le blessa trois fois.
«Je vous tuerai probablement à la quatrième, lui dit-il en lui tendant la main pour le relever.
— Il vaut donc mieux, pour vous et pour moi, que nous en restions là, répondit le blessé. Corbleu! je suis plus votre ami que vous ne pensez, car dès la première rencontre j’aurais pu, en disant un mot au cardinal, vous faire couper le cou.»
Ils s’embrassèrent cette fois, mais de bon coeur et sans arrière- pensée.
Planchet obtint de Rochefort le grade de sergent dans les gardes.
M. Bonacieux vivait fort tranquille, ignorant parfaitement ce qu’était devenue sa femme et ne s’en inquiétant guère. Un jour, il eut l’imprudence de se rappeler au souvenir du cardinal; le cardinal lui fit répondre qu’il allait pourvoir à ce qu’il ne manquât jamais de rien désormais.
En effet, le lendemain, M. Bonacieux, étant sorti à sept heures du soir de chez lui pour se rendre au Louvre, ne reparut plus rue des Fossoyeurs; l’avis de ceux qui parurent les mieux informés fut qu’il était nourri et logé dans quelque château royal aux frais de sa généreuse Éminence.
FIN
MADAME BOVARY by Gustave Flaubert
Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
Widely considered to be his masterpiece, Flaubert began writing Madame Bovary in 1851, completing the novel in 1856 for serial publication in La Revue de Paris. It tells the story of doctor’s wife Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the monotony and emptiness of her provincial life. At the time, the novel was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors, resulting in a famous trial in January 1857. After acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became an instant bestseller when published in book format in April 1857.
The novel takes place in provincial northern France, near the town of Rouen in Normandy. The story begins and ends with Charles Bovary, a stolid, kindhearted man without much ability or ambition. As the novel opens, Charles is a shy, oddly-dressed teenager arriving at a new school amidst the ridicule of his new classmates. Later, Charles struggles his way to a second-rate medical degree and becomes an officier de santé in the Public Health Service. His mother chooses a wife for him, an unpleasant but supposedly rich widow, and Charles sets out to build a practice in the village of Tostes.
The character Emma played on screen by actress Jennifer Jones
Emma played on screen by Isabelle Huppert
An original illustration of the 1905 edition
Another original illustration
CONTENTS
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part II
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part III
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
This text was taken from our comprehensive collection:
Buy at www.delphiclassics.com
The original manuscript
The title page of the first edition
A dedication written by Flaubert on a copy of the novel
The 1933 film adaptation
The 1949 film adaptation
The 1991 film adaptation
Part I
Chapter One
We were in class when the head-master came in, followed by a “new fellow,” not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those who had been asleep woke up, and every one rose as if just surprised at his work.
The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then, turning to the class-master, he said to him in a low voice —
“Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend to your care; he’ll be in the second. If his work and conduct are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper classes, as becomes his age.”
The “new fellow,” standing in the corner behind the door so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of about fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was cut square on his forehead like a village chorister’s; he looked reliable, but very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, his short school jacket of green cloth with black buttons must have been tight about the arm-holes, and showed at the opening of the cuffs red wrists accustomed to being bare. His legs, in blue stockings, looked out from beneath yellow trousers, drawn tight by braces, He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hob-nailed boots.
We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all his ears, as attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even to cross his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two o’clock the bell rang, the master was obliged to tell him to fall into line with the rest of us.
When we came back to work, we were in the habit of throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our hands more free; we used from the door to toss them under the form, so that they hit against the wall and made a lot of dust: it was “the thing.”
But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not dare to attempt it, the “new fellow,” was still holding his cap on his knees even after prayers were over. It was one of those head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton night-cap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile’s face. Oval, stiffened with whalebone, it began with three round knobs; then came in succession lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin separated by a red band; after that a sort of bag that ended in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated braiding, from which hung, at the end of a long thin cord, small twisted gold threads in the manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its peak shone.
“Rise,” said the master.
He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He stooped to pick it up. A neighbor knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once more.
“Get rid of your helmet,” said the master, who was a bit of a wag.
There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which so thoroughly put the poor lad out of countenance that he did not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave it on the ground, or put it on his head. He sat down again and placed it on his knee.
“Rise,” repeated the master, “and tell me your name.”
The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an unintelligible name.
“Again!”
The same sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned by the tittering of the class.
“Louder!” cried the master; “louder!”
The “new fellow” then took a supreme resolution, opened an inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the top of his voice as if calling someone in the word “Charbovari.”
A hubbub broke out, rose in crescendo with bursts of shrill voices (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated “Charbovari! Charbovari”), then died away into single notes, growing quieter only with great difficulty, and now and again suddenly recommencing along the line of a form whence rose here and there, like a damp cracker going off, a stifled laugh.
However, amid a rain of impositions, order was gradually re-established in the class; and the master having succeeded in catching the name of “Charles Bovary,” having had it dictated to him, spelt out, and re-read, at once ordered the poor devil to go and sit down on the punishment form at the foot of the master’s desk. He got up, but before going hesitated.
“What are you looking for?” asked the master.
“My c-a-p,” timidly said the “new fellow,” casting troubled looks round him.
“Five hundred lines for all the class!” shouted in a furious voice stopped, like the Quos ego*, a fresh outburst. “Silence!” continued the master indignantly, wiping his brow with his handkerchief, which he had just taken from his cap. “As to you, ‘new boy,’ you will conjugate ‘ridiculus sum’** twenty times.”
Then, in a gentler tone, “Come, you’ll find your cap again; it hasn’t been stolen.”
*A quotation from the Aeneid signifying a threat.
**I am ridiculous.
Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the “new fellow” remained for two hours in an exemplary attitude, although from time to time some paper pellet flipped from the tip of a pen came bang in his face. But he wiped his face with one hand and continued motionless, his eyes lowered.
In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens from his desk, arranged his small belongings, and carefully ruled his paper. We saw him working conscientiously, looking up every word in the dictionary, and taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the willingness he showed, he had not to go down to the class below. But though he knew his rules passably, he had little finish in composition. It was the cure of his village who had taught him his first Latin; his parents, from motives of economy, having sent him to school as late as possible.
His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolome Bovary, retired assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812 in certain conscription scandals, and forced at this time to leave the service, had taken advantage of his fine figure to get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand francs that offered in the person of a hosier’s daughter who had fallen in love with his good looks. A fine man, a great talker, making his spurs ring as he walked, wearing whiskers that ran into his moustache, his fingers always garnished with rings and dressed in loud colours, he had the dash of a military man with the easy go of a commercial traveller.
Once married, he lived for three or four years on his wife’s fortune, dining well, rising late, smoking long porcelain pipes, not coming in at night till after the theatre, and haunting cafes. The father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant at this, “went in for the business,” lost some money in it, then retired to the country, where he thought he would make money.
But, as he knew no more about farming than calico, as he rode his horses instead of sending them to plough, drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting-boots with the fat of his pigs, he was not long in finding out that he would do better to give up all speculation.
