“Be it known, that this data, moral without doubt in principle, must be completed in its development by a certain severity of language and by a reserve directed especially towards that which touches the exposition of the pictures and situations which the author has employed in placing it before the eyes of the public;

“Be it known, that it is not allowed, under pretext of painting character or local colour, to reproduce the facts, words, and gestures of the digressions of the personages which a writer gives himself the mission to paint; that a like system, applied to works of the mind as well as to productions of the fine arts, would lead to a realism which would be the reverse of the beautiful and the good, and which, bringing forth works equally offensive to the eye and to the mind, would commit a continual outrage against public morals and good manners;

“Be it known, that there are limits which literature, even the lightest, should not pass, and of which Gustave Flaubert and the co-indicted have not taken sufficient account;

“Be it known, that the work of which Flaubert is the author, is a work which appears to be long and seriously elaborated, from a literary point of view and as a study of character; that the passages coming under the ordinance for dismissal, as reprehensible as they may be, are few in number as compared with the extent of the work; that these passages, either in the ideas they expose, or in the situations they represent, bring out as a whole the characters which the author wished to paint, although exaggerated and impregnated with a vulgar realism often shocking;

“Be it known, that Gustave Flaubert affirms his respect for good manners, and all that attaches itself to religious morals; that it does not appear that his book has been written like certain other books, with the sole aim of giving satisfaction to the sensual passions, to a spirit of license and debauch, or of ridiculing things which should be held in the respect of all;

“That he has done wrong only in losing sight of the rules which every writer who respects himself ought never to lose sight of, or forget:  that literature, like art, in order to accomplish the good which it is expected to produce ought only to be chaste and pure in its form and expression;

“In the circumstances, be it known, that it is not sufficiently proven that Pichat, Gustave Flaubert and Pillet are guilty of the misdemeanor with which they are charged;

“The Court acquits them of the indictment brought against them, and decrees a dismissal without costs.”