Introduction

This study proposes to show that there is a mystery play in Madame Bovary. Based on the Bible, it should not be read or performed. It is by way of Proust that I come to Madame Bovary. The narrator of À la recherche du temps perdu explains to Albertine that in any lengthy novel scenes would be repeated. This repetition might not be confined to a single work. As I read Flaubert’s oeuvre, from the writings of his adolescence to the posthumous Bouvard et Pécuchet, its religious imagery commanded my attention. When I considered the studies on language dedicated to Madame Bovary, its categorization as a document of realism and the portrayal of Flaubert as a realist, I found that readers had generally ignored the novel’s extensive religious discourse.1 A recent encyclopedia devoted to Flaubert makes no mention of Madame Bovary under the rubric for the Bible.2 Yet the relation of sacred scripture to the mystery play is the subject of conversation in the first reported exchange between the pharmacist and the pastor of Yonville-l’Abbaye. I want to show that, beyond the argument that engages the two characters, Flaubert has inscribed a mystery play throughout this cornerstone of the modern novel whose often forgotten subtitle is Moeurs de province, provincial customs and morals. At the end of the second part of Madame Bovary, Father Bournisien and Homais discuss the comparative merits of music and literature. The pharmacist approached the topic with the pastor when he noted the priest’s silence regarding the suggestion that Charles take Emma to the opera in Rouen. The pastor felt that music was less dangerous than literature. It is then that Homais takes up the defense, not of novels or of poetry, but of the theatre as he expands on its moral value as well as its ability to present virtue in a pleasing manner. He

1 With Emma’s story, according to Peter Gay, Flaubert’s precise documentation “was serving the Reality principle, intent on faithfully capturing the debased romantic tastes that would help encompass the ruin of his hapless heroine” (74). Howard Moss observes that to cast Flaubert “eternally [...] a ‘realist’ when he was drawn to the epical and the exotic is one of literature’s ironies” (56). 2 See Laurence M. Porter, editor, A Gustave Flaubert Encyclopedia. 16 The Mystery Play in Madame Bovary explains himself: “Castigat ridendo mores, Monsieur Bournisien ! Ainsi, regardez la plupart des tragédies de Voltaire ; elles sont semées habilement de réflexions philosophiques qui en font pour le peuple une véritable école de morale et de diplomatie” (335). Recommending Voltaire as an example of a writer who offers a moral education is quite a proposition for the pastor to hear, especially since most of his works were on the Catholic index of forbidden books. The priest’s reaction to the mention of Voltaire does not silence Homais, who argues that even though a particular work may not be excellent this is no reason to condemn all plays. Bournisien insists that the theatre is a place of temptation. Madame Bovary mère had already protested that Emma was reading “de mauvais livres, des ouvrages qui sont contre la religion et dans lesquels on se moque des prêtres par des discours tirés de Voltaire” (219). Flaubert is leavening his mystery play with contrasting opinions on the use of Voltaire, but an opinion about one book will unite priest and pharmacist. Homais does not understand why the Church excommunicates actors since they performed in the mystery plays that were once an integral part of the liturgy: “Oui, on jouait, on représentait au milieu du chœur des espèces de farces, appelées mystères, dans lesquelles les lois de la décence souvent se trouvaient offensées” (336). The pastor reacts with a groan, but Homais reveals that he also finds indecency in a collection of sacred texts: “— C’est comme dans la Bible ; il y a…, savez-vous…, plus d’un détail… piquant, des choses… vraiment… gaillardes !” (336).3 Anti-clerical Homais proves himself to be an attentive reader of the Bible. Besides the linkage that he makes between sacred word and religious performance, he is the one to interrogate the priest and inform him about biblical details and the contribution of actors to the liturgy. The word “piquant” is a pun: it also means piercing. The priest had shown his fondness for puns at other times but he does not catch this one or prefers to make no comment. Bournisien’s reaction excludes any reference to a pierced Savior when he responds unexpectedly: “— Mais ce sont les protestants, et non pas nous, s’écria l’autre impatienté, qui

3 In the 1845 Éducation sentimentale Flaubert humorously signals the close relation between scenery and action at the Opera and what takes place in churches with the same people attending or performing (O 1, 359).