Prologue: Rouen

The surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu

The cynosure of all eyes

School days

Stories and histories

First love

The grand tour

A fortunate fall

Deaths in the family

Louis, Louise, and Max

1848

Voyage en Orient: Egypt

Voyage en Orient: after Egypt

The perfect hostages

Madame Bovary

On trial

An island of his own

Entering middle age

Imperial society

L'Éducation sentimentale

War years

Orphanhood

"We are all of us émigrés, left over from another age"

A fruitful intermission

The unraveling.