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Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880

"Madame Bovary"


*A devotion said at morning, noon, and evening, at the sound
of a bell. Here, the evening prayer.
Charles could not go on like this. Madame Bovary took strong steps.
Ashamed, or rather tired out, Monsieur Bovary gave in without a
struggle, and they waited one year longer, so that the lad should take
his first communion.
Six months more passed, and the year after Charles was finally sent to
school at Rouen, where his father took him towards the end of October,
at the time of the St. Romain fair.
It would now be impossible for any of us to remember anything about him.
He was a youth of even temperament, who played in playtime, worked in
school-hours, was attentive in class, slept well in the dormitory,
and ate well in the refectory. He had in loco parentis* a wholesale
ironmonger in the Rue Ganterie, who took him out once a month on Sundays
after his shop was shut, sent him for a walk on the quay to look at
the boats, and then brought him back to college at seven o'clock before
supper.


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