CONFERENCE
THE inn of the Golden Cross—two wooden galleries at the sides on the first floor, with projecting balcony; main building at the bottom; café on the ground floor, dining-room, billiard-room; the doors and the windows are open.
Crowd: people of rank, ordinary folk.
Bouvard: “The first thing to do is to demonstrate the utility of our project; our studies entitle us to pronounce an opinion.”
Discourse by Pécuchet of a pedantic description.
Follies of the government and of the administration. Too much taxation. Two economies to be practised: the suppression of the religious and of the military budget.
He is accused of atheism.
“Quite the contrary; but there is need of a religious renovation.”
Foureau appears on the scene, and insists on dissolving the meeting.
Bouvard excites a laugh at the mayor’s expense by recalling his idiotic bounties for owls. Objection to this.