Love in the car, from Flaubert to Proust5 reading minutes

Since Flaubert, love scenes in carriages have become a classic of French literature. Proust's use of this device to describe sexual relations shows both the interest and the limits of the famous fiacre scene.

Madame Bovary is undoubtedly one of Flaubert's most significant works, thanks to his perfect mastery of the poetic tools of prose. However, the text is now most famous for the trial it brought its author. The main thrust of the authorities' indictment was the licentious nature of the work. Today, one scene continues to symbolize the novel's transgressive vocation in the collective imagination: the moment when Emma Bovary - a provincial bourgeois dreaming of escaping the mediocrity of her existence - has carnal relations with one of her lovers in the back of a carriage.