Who He Is
The notary of Yonville, employer of Léon, who is a clerk in his office, and the man from whom Emma Bovary asks money after the seizure, in Chapter 7 of Part III. The text describes him always absorbed in his work, with gold-rimmed spectacles and red side-whiskers, understanding nothing of the delicacies of the spirit.
Trajectory
He first appears in Chapter 2 of Part II as the notary whose clerk Léon is, and at the end of Chapter 3 of Part II as the boss about whom Léon complains, alone in the Pasture.
He lamented living in that village, with Homais as a friend and Guillaumin as a boss.
In Chapter 6 of Part II it is in his carriage that Léon leaves for Rouen.
Powers of attorney pass through him. In Chapter 2 of Part III, where Emma brings Charles the model of the first power of attorney, when he asks where she got it she answers "It was from Guillaumin," and adds, right after, that she does not trust him. After the mother-in-law burns that power of attorney, the second is drawn up at his office, in Chapter 5 of Part III, and the notary gives Charles's weakness a flattering excuse.
I understand perfectly, said the notary. A man of science cannot be bothered with the details of practical life.
In Chapter 7 of Part III, between Léon's failed promise and the refusal of Rodolphe Boulanger, it is Félicité who suggests that Emma go to him. The narrator warns that he already knew the debt from the inside, for being secretly tied to Lheureux.
Doctor Guillaumin already knew her, as he was secretly tied to the fabric merchant, at whose house he always found capital for the mortgage loans he was commissioned to arrange.
He receives Emma at lunch, regrets not having managed her money in speculations, takes her hand and, when she insists on the money, gives way "to the outburst of a desire too strong": he says yes, drags himself on his knees to her, and seizes her by the waist. She refuses.
You take advantage of my distress with impunity! I am to be pitied, not to be sold!
Alone, he consoles himself by thinking that the slippers he wears were a gift of love and that an adventure of that kind would drag him too far. Emma, after passing by Binet's house, goes to La Huchette to ask Rodolphe for the money she did not accept from Guillaumin.
Themes Embodied
The standard theme running through him is Money and wealth. The reading of Chapter 7 of Part III that links his scene to Rodolphe's:
The phrase of refusal to Guillaumin is the exact mirror of what Rodolphe will say a few pages later, but in reverse: she refuses to sell her body, he will refuse to lend the money.
Relationships
- Emma Bovary: whom he harasses and by whom he is refused.
- Léon: the clerk in his office in Chapter 2 of Part II; in Chapter 7 of Part III, the failed promise that comes before Emma's visit.
- Charles Bovary: the husband whose second power of attorney is drawn up in his office.
- Lheureux: the merchant with whom he is secretly tied in mortgage loans.
- Rodolphe Boulanger: the next refusal; in Chapter 7 of Part III, Emma's refusal of Guillaumin can be read as an inverted mirror of Rodolphe's refusal of her.