The Trial

Serialized in the Revue de Paris in late 1856, the novel led to Flaubert's prosecution and trial in early 1857, when the French government charged him with offenses against public morality and religion. The charge focused on the novel's sympathetic treatment of adultery and its refusal to punish Emma with a tidy moral lesson.

Flaubert was acquitted, and the trial made the book famous. His defense argued that its very realism served a moral purpose — showing the cost of romantic delusion more powerfully than any sermon. The verdict opened space for artistic freedom: it cleared the way for every later novel that depicted wrongdoing honestly rather than preaching about it.