Ernest Pinard

Pierre Ernest Pinard was born in Autun, Saône-et-Loire, on 10 October 1822.^[1] His father, who belonged to the judiciary, died in 1830, leaving a widow and three children. Ernest was the eldest.^[2] He was a brilliant and very pious student at the Petit-Séminaire of Autun.^[3] He went on to the Collège Stanislas de Paris. He studied law in Paris and became an advocate. Pinard decided to join the judiciary, and on 1 May 1849 was named deputy prosecutor at Tonnerre. On 12 December 1851 he became deputy prosecutor at Troyes, and then on 30 December 1852 at Reims. On 30 October 1853 he was appointed deputy prosecutor at the Tribunal of the Seine in Paris, where he showed his remarkable talent as an orator.^[2]

In January 1857 Pinard prosecuted Gustave Flaubert for "offense to public and religious morality and to good morals" for his 1856 novel Madame Bovary, which deals with adultery.^[4] He said that "Art that observes no rule is no longer art; it is like a woman who disrobes completely. To impose the one rule of public decency on art is not to subjugate it but to honor it".^[5] Pinard failed to win a conviction, although Flaubert was reprimanded by the court. In August 1857 Pinard prosecuted Charles Baudelaire for his 1857 collection of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal. Seven of the poems were banned due to their lesbian or sadomasochistic themes, a ban that technically remained in place until 1948.^[4]

In April 1859 Pinard was named deputy prosecutor at the imperial court, and on 3 October 1861 he was promoted to the grade of advocate-general, and appointed procureur general in Douai.^[2]