Who He Is
The fabric merchant who sells on credit to Emma Bovary and collects the debt that leads her to seizure. He is the character who decides the outcome, and he never discusses morals. He is presented as helpful and patient.
Trajectory
In Chapter 5 of Part II he appears for the first time as a character in his own right, not just as a traveling companion: he enters with the green box, displays embroidered collars and Algerian stoles and, when Emma refuses to buy, does not insist.
- A trifle - he replied - a trifle, but there is no hurry; whenever you wish, we are not Jews!
At the agricultural show in Chapter 8 of Part II he accompanies Rodolphe Boulanger and Emma on the walk, tries to join the conversation, and is dismissed by Rodolphe.
In Chapter 12 of Part II he takes charge of the order for the wooden leg that Emma offers to Hippolyte, paid for by Charles, and brings from Rouen the penknife she wants to give Rodolphe; the next day he presents the bill, and Emma ends up paying with the money that Derozerays sent Charles.
In Chapter 2 of Part III he appears at home during the mourning for Charles Bovary's father and suggests to Emma that her husband give her a power of attorney. In Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 of Part III he sells her curtains and a carpet, brokers the sale of a plot of land in Barneville, and has her sign bills of exchange, trading part of the debt for cash that pays for the Thursdays in Rouen. In Chapter 6 of Part III the summons for eight thousand francs in twenty-four hours arrives, and he shuts the door on Emma's pleas.
Lheureux answers Emma's pleas by shutting the door and saying:
I have no more reason to worry about that!
The escalation has four steps, in four chapters: the power of attorney in Chapter 2, the curtains and carpet on credit in Chapter 4, the Barneville plot and the bills of exchange in Chapter 5, and the summons for eight thousand francs in Chapter 6, rising at the same pace as the boredom of adultery advances.
In Chapter 7 of Part III the bailiff Hareng comes to inventory the house, and Lheureux's calculation can be read as the first of the outside calculations that ruin Charles after Emma's death.
and her life, down to its most intimate corners, was, like a corpse undergoing autopsy, laid open wide to the gaze of those three men.
Themes Embodied
The standard themes running through him are Money and wealth and Desire. In Chapters 9 to 15 of Part II, his credit can be read as the same promise as Rodolphe's speech: nothing costs anything now, everything is settled later, with interest.
Lheureux finances both of Emma's adulteries from start to finish: he is at the show where Rodolphe's seduction begins, sells the penknife she gives to Rodolphe, and it is his bills of exchange that sustain Emma's life during the Thursdays with Léon in Rouen, when she almost always covers the expense that Léon cannot pay alone.
Relationships
- Emma Bovary: the client and debtor.
- Charles Bovary: the husband who yields to the power of attorney without understanding what he yields, and inherits the debts.
- Rodolphe Boulanger: the one who dismisses him at the show, and for whom Emma buys the whip.
- Léon: the lover whose meetings his money finances.
- Hippolyte: the recipient of the wooden leg whose order passes through him.