# Père Rouault — Madame Bovary character guide

> Père Rouault in Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Old Rouault, Monsieur Rouault, Theodore Rouault

**First appearance:** 0003-part-i-ii

## Snapshot

A weathered Les Bertaux farmer whose broken leg brings a young doctor to his door—and whose daughter Emma becomes the doctor's wife.

## Who they are

Rouault is a prosperous, plainspoken Norman farmer who pays Charles Bovary seventy-five francs and a turkey for setting his leg, then quietly steers the widowed doctor back toward his household. His grief over his dead wife, told in the fields with a stick striking the earth, reveals a man who endures rather than dramatizes—a temperament Emma will inherit nothing of. He matters because he launches the marriage plot: without his farm, his convalescence, and his daughter's convent education, there is no Madame Bovary.

## Relationships

### [Charles Bovary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/characters/charles_bovary)

_family_

Rouault is Charles's father-in-law, a farmer whose initial approval of Charles turns to pity after Emma's death.

### [Emma Bovary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/characters/emma_bovary)

_family_

Rouault is Emma's doting father, whose simple peasant life she rejects in favor of her romantic fantasies.

### [Emma Bovary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/characters/emma_bovary)

_family_

Rouault is Emma's doting father, whose simple peasant life she rejects in favor of her romantic fantasies.

### [Charles Bovary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/characters/charles_bovary)

_family_

Rouault is Charles's father-in-law, a farmer whose initial approval of Charles turns to pity after Emma's death.

### [Emma Bovary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/characters/emma_bovary)

_family_

Rouault is Emma's doting father, whose simple peasant life she rejects in favor of her romantic fantasies.

## In the story

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/chapters/part-i-ii)

The patient with a broken leg. His comfortable farm and status as a well-to-do farmer are established.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/chapters/part-i-iii)

Consoles Charles and pragmatically encourages the match with Emma, seeing it as a way to offload a daughter unsuited for farm life and settle his own debts.

### [The Wedding](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/chapters/part-i-iv)

Emma's father; hosts the wedding, wears a new silk hat, gives his arm to Madame Bovary senior, stops a crude prank, and is left feeling dreary and nostalgic after seeing his daughter depart.

### [Emma's Education in Illusion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/chapters/part-i-vi)

Takes Emma to town to place her in the convent and later retrieves her when her enthusiasm for religious life wanes.

### [The Funeral](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/chapters/part-iii-x)

Rides frantically to Yonville after a vague letter; devastated by his daughter's death; leaves after the funeral, turning back for a final look.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/characters/pere_rouault
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/madame_bovary_se/characters