finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_15_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 21-23
chapters 21-23
{"name": "Chapters 21-23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-2123", "summary": "The marquis prepares Julien for his role as scribe and spy. Julien will accompany the marquis to a meeting of a group of ultras, where he will take notes on the conversation, condense them with the help of the marquis, memorize the contents, and, inconspicuously dressed, start out on a mission to London. On the way to the meeting, Julien recites a page from the newspaper to the marquis to demonstrate his photographic memory. At the place of rendezvous, the room gradually fills with the plotters. Julien sharpens numerous quills waiting for further orders. The marquis introduces Julien to the conspirators, and Julien demonstrates to them his prodigious memory. The twelve conspirators would plot means of strengthening the ultras' position against the ever-increasing threat of liberalism, or, as it was termed, Jacobinism. The question is whether to ask England to intervene in order to strengthen the ultra monarchy. The marquis is of the opinion that England will help only if the French help themselves by galvanizing their ultra supporters at every level of society. He would recommend severe curtailment of the liberty of the press in an effort to control public opinion. A cardinal supports the proposal of the marquis, adding the necessity of relying on the power of the Church, whose 50,000 priests have the ear of the people. He suggests that the cabinet minister, M. de Nerval, resign since he is compromising their cause. Nerval, present among the conspirators, presents himself as favoring the ultra cause against the liberal monarchy. The discussion becomes heated and lasts until three in the morning. The minister leaves, then the Bonapartist, and the remaining conspirators conjecture that the Bonapartist might betray them in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the minister. Later, Julien and the marquis edit the notes, which Julien memorizes, and the next morning Julien departs on his mission. Stopping at an inn near Metz, Julien encounters the Italian singer Geronimo, who informs Julien that their innkeeper has detained them in order to find a spy who must be apprehended. Julien awakens to find the Jesuit leader of the Besancon Congregation searching his effects. It is Geronimo who is suspected of being the spy. The singer has been drugged, having fallen into the trap that Julien has avoided. Arriving in London, Julien finally succeeds in meeting the Duke of Wellington, to whom he recites the message in the secrecy of a shabby inn. Julien follows the duke's instructions to go to Strasbourg, then return within twelve days. Julien arrives in Strasbourg, eluding the watchful Jesuits.", "analysis": "The mission to which Stendhal has previously alluded is conveniently introduced to create suspense, of course, but also to separate the lovers in order to reverse their roles. Upon his return, Julien will take the offensive. The transition between what preceded and the spy episode was constituted by Mathilde's musings on Julien's future. Julien has definitely replaced Norbert as a son worthy of the Marquis de la Mole, and for the first time, the marquis explicitly states this preference. Freudians would see in this a disavowal by Stendhal of his own father and a legitimization of his view of himself as one of the \"happy few.\" Julien gains admittance to the inner sanctum of reactionary power, but he is still an outsider, a role to which he is condemned. He is made painfully aware of this role of outsider-inside by his isolation, obvious only to himself, before the meeting begins. His embarrassment, which he aggravates by endlessly sharpening quills, aptly characterizes Julien as a very self-conscious being. The presence of the Bishop of Agde serves to remind the reader again of the distance covered by our hero since Julien was also in the role of messenger when the bishop appeared in Verrieres. The affair of the secret note affords another insight into the manner in which Stendhal utilizes actual happenings as a basis for fiction. Although the novel is set in 1830, at the end of the autocratic reign of Charles X, this episode is based upon incidents that took place during the reign of Louis XVIII , the more liberal brother of Charles. The memory of Napoleon's One Hundred Days in 1815 and Louis' liberalism actually caused the ultras to plot with foreign powers in an effort to re-establish the reactionary spirit of the \"ancien regime.\" Stendhal's conspirators are speaking \"historically,\" without naming him, of Louis XVIII, although they are \"living\" under the reign of Louis' successor, Charles X. The \"Ordonnances de Juillet\" by which Charles X attempted to revoke the Charter embodying the principles of the Revolution of '89 and to stifle freedom of the press precipitated the July Revolution of 1830, which hailed the \"bourgeois king,\" Louis-Philippe, who re-established liberalism and reigned until 1848. This incident and others of political inspiration in the novel were added by Stendhal after the July Revolution. He could hardly have included them with impunity before that date. Stendhal has a predilection for the mystery of clandestine operations, of spy intrigue, including secret rendezvous to which only the initiated are admitted. It is at once related to his own adventures  and simply an indication of the exclusiveness of the \"happy few,\" the elite of whom Stendhal counted himself as one. Although Julien has definite republican sympathies, he is in the service of legitimists. Aside from aptly describing this social pariah -- the idealist who champions the revolutionary cause but who traffics with the enemy out of necessity -- Julien's paradoxical position betrays the political ambiguities of Stendhal himself. Defender of liberalism and, at the same time, aspiring to the good old days of the monarchy, Stendhal nonetheless abhorred the idea of a democracy. Stendhal's apology for inclusion of the political discussion should not be taken too seriously by the reader. Furthermore, the political and social substrata of the novel are the context in which Julien's individual adventure is realized. This is the most illustrious role that Julien will play as an individual subservient to others. His next brief \"position\" will seem to grant him a momentary social independence. The power hierarchy, so ubiquitous in the novel, is apparent even in this assemblage of the summit. Some are deferential to others, some can be outspoken and ironic, others must be silent. It should be noted that Stendhal limits the narration strictly to Julien's perception and comprehension of the mysterious proceedings. The reader has the impression that he, too, is an outsider privileged to eavesdrop. We are rarely told any more than Julien knows. When Julien is excluded briefly during the course of the meeting, the reader is also excluded. And we take our cues from Julien, who takes his from interpreting the facial expressions and tone of voice of the Marquis de la Mole. Three minor characters have reappeared in these chapters: Castanede, Agde, Geronimo. Their reappearance reminds us of Julien's progress: He is now the very successful protege of the Marquis de la Mole, and he fulfills his mission without a hitch."}
CHAPTER LI

THE SECRET NOTE


        I have seen everything I relate, and if I may have made
        a mistake when I saw it, I am certainly not deceiving
        you in telling you of it.
                                      _Letter to the author_.


The marquis summoned him; M. de la Mole looked rejuvenated, his eye was
brilliant.

"Let us discuss your memory a little," he said to Julien, "it is said
to be prodigious. Could you learn four pages by heart and go and say
them at London, but without altering a single word?"

The marquis was irritably fingering, the day's _Quotidienne_, and was
trying in vain to hide an extreme seriousness which Julien had never
noticed in him before, even when discussing the Frilair lawsuit.

Julien had already learned sufficient manners to appreciate that he
ought to appear completely taken in by the lightness of tone which was
being manifested.

"This number of the _Quotidienne_ is not very amusing possibly, but if
M. the marquis will allow me, I shall do myself the honour to-morrow
morning of reciting it to him from beginning to end."

"What, even the advertisements?"

"Quite accurately and without leaving out a word."

"You give me your word?" replied the marquis with sudden gravity.

"Yes, monsieur; the only thing which could upset my memory is the fear
of breaking my promise."

"The fact is, I forgot to put this question to you yesterday: I am
not going to ask for your oath never to repeat what you are going to
hear. I know you too well to insult you like that. I have answered for
you. I am going to take you into a salon where a dozen persons will he
assembled. You will make a note of what each one says.

"Do not be uneasy. It will not be a confused conversation by any means.
Each one will speak in his turn, though not necessarily in an orderly
manner," added the marquis falling back into that light, subtle manner
which was so natural to him. "While we are talking, you will write out
twenty pages and will come back here with me, and we will get those
twenty pages down to four, and those are the four pages you will recite
to me to-morrow morning instead of the four pages of the _Quotidienne_.
You will leave immediately afterwards. You must post about like a
young man travelling on pleasure. Your aim will be to avoid attracting
attention. You will arrive at the house of a great personage. You will
there need more skill. Your business will then be to take in all his
entourage, for among his secretaries and his servants are some people
who have sold themselves to our enemies, and who spy on our travelling
agents in order to intercept them.

"You will have an insignificant letter of introduction. At the moment
his Excellency looks at you, you will take out this watch of mine,
which I will lend you for the journey. Wear it now, it will be so much
done; at any rate give me yours.

"The duke himself will be good enough to write at your dictation the
four pages you have learnt by heart.

"Having done this, but not earlier, mind you, you can, if his
Excellency questions you, tell him about the meeting at which you are
now going to be present.

"You will be prevented from boring yourself on the journey between
Paris and the minister's residence by the thought that there are people
who would like nothing better than to fire a shot at M. the abbe Sorel.
In that case that gentleman's mission will be finished, and I see a
great delay, for how are we to know of your death, my dear friend? Even
your zeal cannot go to the length of informing us of it.

"Run straight away and buy a complete suit," went on the marquis
seriously. "Dress in the fashion of two years ago. To-night you must
look somewhat badly groomed. When you travel, on the other hand, you
will be as usual. Does this surprise you? Does your suspiciousness
guess the secret? Yes, my friend, one of the venerable personages you
are going to hear deliver his opinion, is perfectly capable of giving
information as the result of which you stand a very good chance of
being given at least opium some fine evening in some good inn where you
will have asked for supper."

"It is better," said Julien, "to do an extra thirty leagues and not
take the direct road. It is a case of Rome, I suppose...." The marquis
assumed an expression of extreme haughtiness and dissatisfaction which
Julien had never seen him wear since Bray-le-Haut.

"That is what you will know, monsieur, when I think it proper to tell
you. I do not like questions."

"That was not one," answered Julien eagerly. "I swear, monsieur, I was
thinking quite aloud. My mind was trying to find out the safest route."

"Yes, it seems your mind was a very long way off. Remember that an
emissary, and particularly one of your age should not appear to be a
man who forces confidences."

Julien was very mortified; he was in the wrong. His vanity tried to
find an excuse and did not find one.

"You understand," added monsieur de la Mole, "that one always falls
back on one's heart when one has committed some mistake."

An hour afterwards Julien was in the marquis's ante-chamber. He looked
quite like a servant with his old clothes, a tie of a dubious white,
and a certain touch of the usher in his whole appearance. The marquis
burst out laughing as he saw him, and it was only then that Julien's
justification was complete.

"If this young man betrays me," said M. de la Mole to himself, "whom is
one to trust? And yet, when one acts, one must trust someone. My son
and his brilliant friends of the same calibre have as much courage and
loyalty as a hundred thousand men. If it were necessary to fight, they
would die on the steps of the throne. They know everything--except
what one needs in emergency. Devil take me if I can find a single one
among them who can learn four pages by heart and do a hundred leagues
without being tracked down. Norbert would know how to sell his life as
dearly as his grandfathers did. But any conscript could do as much."

The marquis fell into a profound reverie. "As for selling one's life
too," he said with a sigh, "perhaps this Sorel would manage it quite as
well as he could.

"Let us get into the carriage," said the marquis as though to chase
away an unwanted idea.

"Monsieur," said Julien, "while they were getting this suit ready for
me, I learnt the first page of to-days _Quotidienne_ by heart."

The marquis took the paper. Julien recited it without making a single
mistake. "Good," said the marquis, who this night felt very diplomatic.
"During the time he takes over this our young man will not notice the
streets through which we are passing."

They arrived in a big salon that looked melancholy enough and was
partly upholstered in green velvet. In the middle of the room
a scowling lackey had just placed a big dining-table which he
subsequently changed into a writing-table by means of an immense green
inkstained tablecloth which had been plundered from some minister.

The master of the house was an enormous man whose name was not
pronounced. Julien thought he had the appearance and eloquence of a
man who ruminated. At a sign from the marquis, Julien had remained at
the lower end of the table. In order to keep himself in countenance,
he began to cut quills. He counted out of the corner of his eye seven
visitors, but Julien could only see their backs. Two seemed to him
to be speaking to M. de la Mole on a footing of equality, the others
seemed more or less respectful.

A new person entered without being announced. "This is strange,"
thought Julien. "People are not announced in this salon. Is this
precaution taken in my honour?" Everybody got up to welcome the new
arrival. He wore the same extremely distinguished decoration as three
of the other persons who were in the salon. They talked fairly low. In
endeavouring to form an opinion of the new comer, Julien was reduced to
seeing what he could learn from his features and his appearance. He was
short and thick-set. He had a high colour and a brilliant eye and an
expression that looked like a malignant boar, and nothing else.

Julien's attention was partly distracted by the almost immediate
arrival of a very different kind of person. It was a tall very thin
man who wore three or four waistcoats. His eye was caressing, his
demeanour polite.

"He looks exactly like the old bishop of Besancon," thought Julien.
This man evidently belonged to the church, was apparently not more than
fifty to fifty-five years of age, and no one could have looked more
paternal than he did.

The young bishop of Agde appeared. He looked very astonished when,
in making a scrutiny of those present, his gaze fell upon Julien. He
had not spoken to him since the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. His look of
surprise embarrassed and irritated Julien. "What!" he said to himself,
"will knowing a man always turn out unfortunate for me? I don't feel
the least bit intimidated by all those great lords whom I have never
seen, but the look of that young bishop freezes me. I must admit that I
am a very strange and very unhappy person."

An extremely swarthy little man entered noisily soon afterwards and
started talking as soon as he reached the door. He had a yellow
complexion and looked a little mad. As soon as this ruthless talker
arrived, the others formed themselves into knots with the apparent
object of avoiding the bother of listening to him.

As they went away from the mantelpiece they came near the lower end
of the table where Julien was placed. His countenance became more and
more embarrassed, for whatever efforts he made, he could not avoid
hearing, and in spite of all his lack of experience he appreciated
all the moment of the things which they were discussing with such
complete frankness, and the importance which the high personages whom
he apparently had under his observation must attach to their being kept
secret.

Julien had already cut twenty quills as slowly as possible; this
distraction would shortly be no longer available. He looked in vain at
M. de la Mole's eyes for an order; the marquis had forgotten him.

"What I am doing is ridiculous," he said to himself as he cut his
quills, "but persons with so mediocre an appearance and who are
handling such great interests either for themselves or for others must
be extremely liable to take offence. My unfortunate look has a certain
questioning and scarcely respectful expression, which will doubtless
irritate them. But if I palpably lower my eyes I shall look as if I
were picking up every word they said."

His embarrassment was extreme, he was listening to strange things.





CHAPTER LII

THE DISCUSSION


        The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice
        everything for the public welfare, there are thousands
        and millions who think of nothing except their
        enjoyments and their vanity. One is requested in Paris
        by reason of the qualities not of one's self but of
        one's carriage.
                                        --NAPOLEON, Memorial.


The footman rushed in saying "Monsieur the duke de ----"

"Hold your tongue, you are just a fool," said the duke as he entered.
He spoke these words so well, and with so much majesty, that Julien
could not help thinking this great person's accomplishments were
limited to the science of snubbing a lackey. Julien raised his
eyes and immediately lowered them. He had so fully appreciated the
significance of the new arrival that he feared that his look might be
an indiscretion.

The duke was a man of fifty dressed like a dandy and with a jerky
walk. He had a narrow head with a large nose and a face that jutted
forward; it would have been difficult to have looked at the same time
more insignificant. His arrival was the signal for the opening of the
meeting.

Julien was sharply interrupted in his physiognomical observations by
de la Mole's voice. "I present to you M. the abbe Sorel," said the
Marquis. "He is gifted with an astonishing memory; it is scarcely an
hour ago since I spoke to him of the mission by which he might be
honoured, and he has learned the first page of the _Quotidienne_ by
heart in order to give proof of his memory."

"Ah! foreign news of that poor N--" said the master of the house. He
took up the paper eagerly and looked at Julien in a manner rendered
humorous by its own self-importance. "Speak, monsieur," he said to him.

The silence was profound, all eyes were fixed on Julien. He recited
so well that the duke said at the end of twenty lines, "That is
enough." The little man who looked like a boar sat down. He was the
president, for he had scarcely taken his place before he showed Julien
a card-table and signed to him to bring it near him. Julien established
himself at it with writing materials. He counted twelve persons seated
round the green table cloth.

"M. Sorel," said the Duke, "retire into next room, you will be called."

The master of the house began to look very anxious. "The shutters
are not shut," he said to his neighbour in a semi-whisper. "It is no
good looking out of the window," he stupidly cried to Julien--"so
here I am more or less mixed up in a conspiracy," thought the latter.
"Fortunately it is not one of those which lead to the Place-de-Greve.
Even though there were danger, I owe this and even more to the marquis,
and should be glad to be given the chance of making up for all the
sorrow which my madness may one day occasion him."

While thinking of his own madness and his own unhappiness he regarded
the place where he was, in such a way as to imprint it upon his memory
for ever. He then remembered for the first time that he had never heard
the lackey tell the name of the street, and that the marquis had taken
a fiacre which he never did in the ordinary way. Julien was left to
his own reflections for a long time. He was in a salon upholstered in
red velvet with large pieces of gold lace. A large ivory crucifix was
on the console-table and a gilt-edged, magnificently bound copy of M.
de Maistre's book _The Pope_ was on the mantelpiece. Julien opened it
so as not to appear to be eavesdropping. From time to time they talked
loudly in the next room. At last the door was opened and he was called
in.

"Remember, gentlemen," the president was saying "that from this moment
we are talking in the presence of the duke of ----. This gentleman,"
he said, pointing to Julien, "is a young acolyte devoted to our sacred
cause who by the aid of his marvellous memory will repeat quite easily
our very slightest words."

"It is your turn to speak, Monsieur," he said pointing to the paternal
looking personage who wore three or four waistcoats. Julien thought it
would have been more natural to have called him the gentleman in the
waistcoats. He took some paper and wrote a great deal.

(At this juncture the author would have liked to have put a page of
dots. "That," said his publisher, "would be clumsy and in the case of
so light a work clumsiness is death."

"Politics," replies the author, "is a stone tied round the neck of
literature which submerges it in less than six months. Politics in the
midst of imaginative matter is like a pistol shot in the middle of a
concert. The noise is racking without being energetic. It does not
harmonise with the sound of any instrument. These politics will give
mortal offence to one half of the readers and will bore the other half,
who will have already read the ideas in question as set out in the
morning paper in its own drastic manner."

"If your characters don't talk politics," replied the publisher, "they
cease to be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book is no longer a mirror as
you claim?")

Julien's record ran to twenty-six pages. Here is a very diluted
extract, for it has been necessary to adopt the invariable practice of
suppressing those ludicrous passages, whose violence would have seemed
either offensive or intolerable (see the _Gazette des Tribunaux_).

The man with the waistcoats and the paternal expression (he was perhaps
a bishop) often smiled and then his eyes, which were surrounded with
a floating forest of eyebrows, assumed a singular brilliance and an
unusually decided expression. This personage whom they made speak first
before the duke ("but what duke is it?" thought Julien to himself) with
the apparent object of expounding various points of view and fulfilling
the functions of an advocate-general, appeared to Julien to fall into
the uncertainty and lack of definiteness with which those officials
are so often taxed. During the course of the discussion the duke went
so far as to reproach him on this score. After several sentences of
morality and indulgent philosophy the man in the waistcoats said,

"Noble England, under the guiding hand of a great man, the immortal
Pitt, has spent forty milliards of francs in opposing the revolution.
If this meeting will allow me to treat so melancholy a subject with
some frankness, England fails to realise sufficiently that in dealing
with a man like Buonaparte, especially when they have nothing to
oppose him with, except a bundle of good intentions there is nothing
decisive except personal methods."

"Ah! praising assassination again!" said the master of the house
anxiously.

"Spare us your sentimental sermons," cried the president angrily. His
boarlike eye shone with a savage brilliance. "Go on," he said to the
man with the waistcoats. The cheeks and the forehead of the president
became purple.

"Noble England," replied the advocate-general, "is crushed to-day:
for each Englishman before paying for his own bread is obliged to pay
the interest on forty milliards of francs which were used against the
Jacobins. She has no more Pitt."

"She has the Duke of Wellington," said a military personage looking
very important.

"Please, gentlemen, silence," exclaimed the president. "If we are still
going to dispute, there was no point in having M. Sorel in."

"We know that monsieur has many ideas," said the duke irritably,
looking at the interrupter who was an old Napoleonic general. Julien
saw that these words contained some personal and very offensive
allusion. Everybody smiled, the turncoat general appeared beside
himself with rage.

"There is no longer a Pitt, gentlemen," went on the speaker with all
the despondency of a man who has given up all hope of bringing his
listeners to reason. "If there were a new Pitt in England, you would
not dupe a nation twice over by the same means."

"That's why a victorious general, a Buonaparte, will be henceforward
impossible in France," exclaimed the military interrupter.

On this occasion neither the president nor the duke ventured to get
angry, though Julien thought he read in their eyes that they would
very much like to have done so. They lowered their eyes, and the duke
contented himself with sighing in quite an audible manner. But the
speaker was put upon his mettle.

"My audience is eager for me to finish," he said vigorously, completely
discarding that smiling politeness and that balanced diction that
Julien thought had expressed his character so well. "It is eager for
me to finish, it is not grateful to me for the efforts I am making to
offend nobody's ears, however long they may be. Well, gentlemen, I will
be brief.

"I will tell you in quite common words: England has not got a sou with
which to help the good cause. If Pitt himself were to come back he
would never succeed with all his genius in duping the small English
landowners, for they know that the short Waterloo campaign alone cost
them a milliard of francs. As you like clear phrases," continued the
speaker, becoming more and more animated, "I will say this to you: Help
yourselves, for England has not got a guinea left to help you with,
and when England does not pay, Austria, Russia and Prussia--who will
only have courage but have no money--cannot launch more than one or two
campaigns against France.

"One may hope that the young soldiers who will be recruited by the
Jacobins will be beaten in the first campaign, and possibly in the
second; but, even though I seem a revolutionary in your prejudiced
eyes, in the third campaign--in the third campaign I say--you will have
the soldiers of 1794 who were no longer the soldiers enlisted in 1792."

At this point interruption broke out simultaneously from three or four
quarters.

"Monsieur," said the president to Julien, "Go and make a precis in the
next room of the beginning of the report which you have written out."

Julien went out to his great regret. The speaker was just dealing
with the question of probabilities which formed the usual subject
for his meditations. "They are frightened of my making fun of them,"
he thought. When he was called back, M. de la Mole was saying with a
seriousness which seemed quite humorous to Julien who knew him so well,

"Yes, gentlemen, one finds the phrase, 'is it god, table or tub?'
especially applicable to this unhappy people. '_It is god_' exclaims
the writer of fables. It is to you, gentlemen, that this noble and
profound phrase seems to apply. Act on your own initiative, and noble
France will appear again, almost such as our ancestors made her, and as
our own eyes have seen her before the death of Louis XVI.

"England execrates disgraceful Jacobinism as much as we do, or at any
rate her noble lords do. Without English gold, Austria and Prussia
would only be able to give battle two or three times. Would that be
sufficient to ensure a successful occupation like the one which M. de
Richelieu so foolishly failed to exploit in 1817? I do not think so."

At this point there was an interruption which was stifled by the hushes
of the whole room. It came again from the old Imperial general who
wanted the blue ribbon and wished to figure among the authors of the
secret note.

"I do not think so," replied M. de la Mole, after the uproar had
subsided. He laid stress on the "I" with an insolence which charmed
Julien.

"That's a pretty piece of acting," he said to himself, as he made his
pen almost keep pace with the marquis' words.

M. de la Mole annihilated the twenty campaigns of the turncoat with a
well turned phrase.

"It is not only on foreign powers," continued the marquis in a more
even tone, "on whom we shall be able to rely for a new military
occupation. All those young men who write inflammatory articles
in the _Globe_ will provide you with three or four thousand young
captains among whom you may find men with the genius, but not the good
intentions of a Kleber, a Hoche, a Jourdan, a Pichegru."

"We did not know how to glorify him," said the president. "He should
have been immortalized."

"Finally, it is necessary for France to have two parties," went on M.
de la Mole; "but two parties not merely in name, but with clear-cut
lines of cleavage. Let us realise what has got to be crushed. On
the one hand the journalists and the electors, in a word, public
opinion; youth and all that admire it. While it is stupefying itself
with the noise of its own vain words, we have certain advantages of
administrating the expenditure of the budget."

At this point there was another interruption.

"As for you, monsieur," said M. de la Mole to the interrupter, with an
admirable haughtiness and ease of manner, "you do not spend, if the
words chokes you, but you devour the forty thousand francs put down to
you in the State budget, and the eighty thousand which you receive from
the civil list."

"Well, monsieur, since you force me to it, I will be bold enough to
take you for an example. Like your noble ancestors, who followed Saint
Louis to the crusade, you ought in return for those hundred and twenty
thousand francs to show us at any rate a regiment; a company, why, what
am I saying? say half a company, even if it only had fifty men, ready
to fight and devoted to the good cause to the point of risking their
lives in its service. You have nothing but lackeys, who in the event of
a rebellion would frighten you yourselves."

"Throne, Church, Nobility are liable to perish to-morrow, gentlemen,
so long as you refrain from creating in each department a force of
five hundred devoted men, devoted I mean, not only with all the French
courage, but with all the Spanish constancy.

"Half of this force ought to be composed of our children, our nephews,
of real gentlemen, in fact. Each of them will have beside him not a
little talkative bourgeois ready to hoist the tricolor cockade, if 1815
turns up again, but a good, frank and simple peasant like Cathelineau.
Our gentleman will have educated him, it will be his own foster brother
if it is possible. Let each of us sacrifice the fifth of his income in
order to form this little devoted force of five hundred men in each
department. Then you will be able to reckon on a foreign occupation.
The foreign soldier will never penetrate even as far as Dijon if he
is not certain of finding five hundred friendly soldiers in each
department.

"The foreign kings will only listen to you when you are in a position
to announce to them that you have twenty thousand gentlemen ready to
take up arms in order to open to them the gates of France. The service
is troublesome, you say. Gentlemen, it is the only way of saving our
lives. There is war to the death between the liberty of the press and
our existence as gentlemen. Become manufacturers, become peasants, or
take up your guns. Be timid if you like, but do not be stupid. Open
your eyes.

"'_Form your battalions_,' I would say to you in the words of the
Jacobin songs. Some noble Gustavus Adolphus will then be found who,
touched by the imminent peril of the monarchical principle, will make
a dash three hundred leagues from his own country, and will do for
you what Gustavus did for the Protestant princes. Do you want to go
on talking without acting? In fifty years' time there will be only
presidents or republics in Europe and not one king, and with those
three letters R. O. I. you will see the last of the priests and the
gentlemen. I can see nothing but candidates paying court to squalid
majorities.

"It is no use your saying that at the present time France has not
a single accredited general who is universally known and loved,
that the army is only known and organised in the interests of the
throne and the church, and that it has been deprived of all its old
troopers, while each of the Prussian and Austrian regiments count fifty
non-commissioned officers who have seen fire.

"Two hundred thousand young men of the middle classes are spoiling for
war--"

"A truce to disagreeable truths," said a grave personage in a pompous
tone. He was apparently a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, for M.
de la Mole smiled pleasantly, instead of getting angry, a circumstance
which greatly impressed Julien.

"A truce to unpleasant truths, let us resume, gentlemen. The man who
needs to have a gangrened leg cut off would be ill advised to say to
his surgeon, 'this disease is very healthy.' If I may use the metaphor,
gentlemen, the noble duke of ---- is our surgeon."

"So the great words have at last been uttered," thought Julien. "It is
towards the ---- that I shall gallop to-night."





CHAPTER LIII

THE CLERGY, THE FORESTS, LIBERTY


        The first law of every being, is to preserve itself and
        live. You sow hemlock, and expect to see ears of corn
        ripen.--_Machiavelli_.


The great personage continued. One could see that he knew his subject.
He proceeded to expound the following great truths with a soft and
tempered eloquence with which Julien was inordinately delighted:--

"1. England has not a guinea to help us with; economy and Hume are
the fashion there. Even the saints will not give us any money, and M.
Brougham will make fun of us.

"2. The impossibility of getting the kings of Europe to embark on more
than two campaigns without English gold; two campaigns will not be
enough to dispose of the middle classes.

"3. The necessity of forming an armed party in France. Without this,
the monarchical principle in Europe will not risk even two campaigns.

"The fourth point which I venture to suggest to you, as self-evident,
is this:

"The impossibility of forming an armed party in France without the
clergy. I am bold enough to tell you this because I will prove it to
you, gentlemen. You must make every sacrifice for the clergy.

"Firstly, because as it is occupied with its mission by day and by
night, and guided by highly capable men established far from these
storms at three hundred leagues from your frontiers----"

"Ah, Rome, Rome!" exclaimed the master of the house.

"Yes, monsieur, Rome," replied the Cardinal haughtily. "Whatever more
or less ingenious jokes may have been the fashion when you were young,
I have no hesitation in saying that in 1830 it is only the clergy,
under the guidance of Rome, who has the ear of the lower classes.

"Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day appointed by
their chiefs, and the people--who after all provide soldiers--will be
more touched by the voices of its priests than by all the versifying in
the whole world." (This personality provoked some murmurs.)

"The clergy has a genius superior to yours," went on the cardinal
raising his voice. "All the progress that has been made towards this
essential point of having an armed party in France has been made by
us." At this juncture facts were introduced. "Who used eighty thousand
rifles in Vendee?" etc., etc.

"So long as the clergy is without its forests it is helpless. At
the first war the minister of finance will write to his agents that
there is no money to be had except for the cure. At bottom France
does not believe, and she loves war. Whoever gives her war will be
doubly popular, for making war is, to use a vulgar phrase, the same as
starving the Jesuits; making war means delivering those monsters of
pride--the men of France--from the menace of foreign intervention."

The cardinal had a favourable hearing. "M. de Nerval," he said, "will
have to leave the ministry, his name irritates and to no purpose."

At these words everybody got up and talked at the same time. "I will be
sent away again," thought Julien, but the sapient president himself had
forgotten both the presence and existence of Julien.

All eyes were turned upon a man whom Julien recognised. It was M. de
Nerval, the prime minister, whom he had seen at M. the duc de Retz's
ball.

The disorder was at its height, as the papers say when they talk of the
Chamber. At the end of a long quarter of an hour a little quiet was
established.

Then M. de Nerval got up and said in an apostolic tone and a singular
voice:

"I will not go so far as to say that I do not set great store on being
a minister.

"It has been demonstrated to me, gentlemen, that my name will double
the forces of the Jacobins by making many moderates divide against
us. I should therefore be willing to retire; but the ways of the Lord
are only visible to a small number; but," he added, looking fixedly
at the cardinal, "I have a mission. Heaven has said: 'You will either
loose your head on the scaffold or you will re-establish the monarchy
of France and reduce the Chambers to the condition of the parliament of
Louis XV.,' and that, gentlemen, I shall do."

He finished his speech, sat down, and there was a long silence.

"What a good actor," thought Julien. He made his usual mistake of
ascribing too much intelligence to the people. Excited by the debates
of so lively an evening, and above all by the sincerity of the
discussion, M. de Nerval did at this moment believe in his mission.
This man had great courage, but at the same time no sense.

During the silence that followed the impressive words, "I shall do it,"
midnight struck. Julien thought that the striking of the clock had in
it a certain element of funereal majesty. He felt moved.

The discussion was soon resumed with increasing energy, and above all
with an incredible naivety. "These people will have me poisoned,"
thought Julien at times. "How can they say such things before a
plebian."

They were still talking when two o'clock struck. The master of the
house had been sleeping for some time. M. de la Mole was obliged to
ring for new candles. M. de Nerval, the minister, had left at the
quarter to two, but not without having repeatedly studied Julien's face
in a mirror which was at the minister's side. His departure had seemed
to put everybody at their ease.

While they were bringing new candles, the man in the waistcoats,
whispered to his neighbour: "God knows what that man will say to the
king. He may throw ridicule upon us and spoil our future."

"One must own that he must possess an unusual self-assurance, not to
say impudence, to put in an appearance here There were signs of it
before he became a minister; but a portfolio changes everything and
swamps all a man's interests; he must have felt its effect."

The minister had scarcely left before the general of Buonaparte closed
his eyes. He now talked of his health and his wounds, consulted his
watch, and went away.

"I will wager," said the man in the waistcoats, "that the general is
running after the minister; he will apologise for having been here and
pretend that he is our leader."

"Let us now deliberate, gentlemen," said the president, after the
sleepy servants had finished bringing and lighting new candles. "Let us
leave off trying to persuade each other. Let us think of the contents
of the note which will be read by our friends outside in forty-eight
hours from now. We have heard ministers spoken of. Now that M. de
Nerval has left us, we are at liberty to say 'what we do care for
ministers.'"

The cardinal gave a subtle smile of approval.

"Nothing is easier it seems to me than summing up our position," said
the young bishop of Agde, with the restrained concentrated fire of the
most exalted fanaticism. He had kept silent up to this time; his eye,
which Julien had noticed as being soft and calm at the beginning, had
become fiery during the first hour of the discussion. His soul was now
bubbling over like lava from Vesuvius.

"England only made one mistake from 1806 to 1814," he said, "and that
was in not taking direct and personal measures against Napoleon. As
soon as that man had made dukes and chamberlains, as soon as he had
re-established the throne, the mission that God had entrusted to him
was finished. The only thing to do with him was to sacrifice him.
The scriptures teach us in more than one place how to make an end of
tyrants" (at this point there were several Latin quotations).

"To-day, gentlemen, it is not a man who has to be sacrificed, it
is Paris. What is the use of arming your five hundred men in each
department, a hazardous and interminable enterprise? What is the good
of involving France in a matter which is personal to Paris? Paris alone
has done the evil, with its journals and it salons. Let the new Babylon
perish.

"We must bring to an end the conflict between the church and Paris.
Such a catastrophe would even be in the worldly interests of the
throne. Why did not Paris dare to whisper a word under Buonaparte? Ask
the cannon of Saint-Roch?"

Julien did not leave with M. de la Mole before three o'clock in the
morning.

The marquis seemed tired and ashamed. For the first time in his life
in conversation with Julien, his tone was plaintive. He asked him for
his word never to reveal the excesses of zeal, that was his expression,
of which chance had just made him a witness. "Only mention it to our
foreign friend, if he seriously insists on knowing what our young
madmen are like. What does it matter to them if a state is overthrown,
they will become cardinals and will take refuge in Rome. As for us, we
shall be massacred by the peasants in our chateaus."

The secret note into which the marquis condensed Julien's full report
of twenty-six pages was not ready before a quarter to five.

"I am dead tired," said the marquis, "as is quite obvious from the lack
of clearness at the end of this note; I am more dissatisfied with it
than with anything I ever did in my whole life. Look here, my friend,"
he added, "go and rest for some hours, and as I am frightened you might
be kidnapped, I shall lock you up in your room."

The marquis took Julien on the following day to a lonely chateau at a
good distance from Paris. There were strange guests there whom Julien
thought were priests. He was given a passport which was made out in a
fictitious name, but indicated the real destination of his journey,
which he had always pretended not to know. He got into a carriage alone.

The marquis had no anxiety on the score of his memory. Julien
had recited the secret note to him several times but he was very
apprehensive of his being intercepted.

"Above all, mind you look like a coxcomb who is simply travelling to
kill time," he said affectionately to him when he was leaving the
salon. "Perhaps there was more than one treacherous brother in this
evening's meeting."

The journey was quick and very melancholy. Julien had scarcely got
out of the marquis's sight before he forgot his secret note and his
mission, and only thought about Mathilde's disdain.

At a village some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came and told him
that there were no horses. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Julien
was very annoyed and asked for supper. He walked in front of the door
and gradually without being noticed passed into the stable-yard. He did
not see any horses there.

"That man looked strange though," thought Julien to himself. "He was
scrutinizing me with his brutal eyes."

As one sees he was beginning to be slightly sceptical of all he heard.
He thought of escaping after supper, and in order to learn at any rate
something about the surrounding country, he left his room to go and
warm himself at the kitchen fire. He was overjoyed to find there the
celebrated singer, signor Geronimo.

The Neopolitan was ensconced in an armchair which he had had brought
near the fire. He was groaning aloud, and was speaking more to himself
than to the twenty dumbfounded German peasants who surrounded him.

"Those people will be my ruin," he cried to Julien, "I have promised to
sing to-morrow at Mayence. Seven sovereign princes have gone there to
hear me. Let us go and take the air," he added, meaningly.

When he had gone a hundred yards down the road, and it was impossible
to be overheard, he said to Julien:

"Do you know the real truth, the postmaster is a scoundrel. When I went
out for a walk I gave twenty sous to a little ragamuffin who told me
everything. There are twelve horses in the stable at the other end of
the village. They want to stop some courier."

"Really," said Julien innocently.

Discovering the fraud was not enough; the thing was to get away, but
Geronimo and his friends could not succeed in doing this.

"Let us wait for daybreak," said the singer at last, "they are
mistrustful of us. It is perhaps you or me whom they suspect. We will
order a good breakfast to-morrow morning, we will go for a walk while
they are getting it ready, we will then escape, we will hire horses,
and gain the next station."

"And how about your luggage?" said Julien, who thought perhaps Geronimo
himself might have been sent to intercept him. They had to have supper
and go to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep when he was woken
up with a start by the voices of two persons who were speaking in his
room with utmost freedom.

He recognised the postmaster armed with a dark lantern. The light was
turned on the carriage-seat which Julien had had taken up into his
room. Beside the postmaster was a man who was calmly searching the open
seat. Julien could see nothing except the sleeves of his coat which
were black and very tight.

"It's a cassock," he said to himself and he softly seized the little
pistol which he had placed under his pillow.

"Don't be frightened of his waking up, cure," said the postmaster, "the
wine that has been served him was the stuff prepared by yourself."

"I can't find any trace of papers," answered the cure. "A lot of linen
and essences, pommades, and vanities. It's a young man of the world
on pleasure bent. The other one who effects an Italian accent is more
likely to be the emissary."

The men approached Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat.
He felt very tempted to kill them for thieves. Nothing could be safer
in its consequences. He was very desirous of doing so.... "I should
only be a fool," he said to himself, "I should compromise my mission."
"He is not a diplomatist," said the priest after searching his coat. He
went away and did well to do so.

"It will be a bad business for him," Julien was saying to himself, "if
he touches me in my bed. He may have quite well come to stab me, and I
won't put up with that."

The cure turned his head, Julien half opened his eyes. He was
inordinately astonished, he was the abbe Castanede. As a matter of
fact, although these two persons had made a point of talking in a
fairly low voice, he had thought from the first that he recognised one
of the voices. Julien was seized with an inordinate desire to purge the
earth of one of its most cowardly villains; "But my mission," he said
to himself.

The cure and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour afterwards
Julien pretended to have just woken up. He called out and woke up the
whole house.

"I am poisoned," he exclaimed, "I am suffering horribly!" He wanted an
excuse to go to Geronimo's help. He found him half suffocated by the
laudanum that had been contained in the wine.

Julien had been apprehensive of some trick of this character and had
supped on some chocolate which he had brought from Paris. He could not
wake Geronimo up sufficiently to induce him to leave.

"If they were to give me the whole kingdom of Naples," said the singer,
"I would not now give up the pleasure of sleeping."

"But the seven sovereign princes?"

"Let them wait."

Julien left alone, and arrived at the house of the great personage
without other incident. He wasted a whole morning in vainly soliciting
an audience. Fortunately about four o'clock the duke wanted to take
the air. Julien saw him go out on foot and he did not hesitate
to ask him for alms. When at two yards' distance from the great
personage he pulled out the Marquis de la Mole's watch and exhibited
it ostentatiously. "_Follow me at a distance_," said the man without
looking at him.

At a quarter of a league's distance the duke suddenly entered a little
_coffee-house_. It was in a room of this low class inn that Julien had
the honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished
he was told to "_start again and go more slowly_."

The prince took notes. "Reach the next posting station on foot. Leave
your luggage and your carriage here. Get to Strasbourg as best you can
and at half-past twelve on the twenty-second of the month (it was at
present the tenth) come to this same coffee-house. Do not leave for
half-an-hour. Silence!"

These were the only words which Julien heard. They sufficed to inspire
him with the highest admiration. "That is the way," he thought, "that
real business is done; what would this great statesman say if he were
to listen to the impassioned ranters heard three days ago?"

Julien took two days to reach Strasbourg. He thought he would have
nothing to do there. He made a great detour. "If that devil of an abbe
Castanede has recognised me he is not the kind of man to loose track
of me easily.... And how he would revel in making a fool of me, and
causing my mission to fail."

Fortunately the abbe Castanede, who was chief of the congregational
police on all the northern frontier had not recognised him. And the
Strasbourg Jesuits, although very zealous, never gave a thought to
observing Julien, who with his cross and his blue tail-coat looked
like a young military man, very much engrossed in his own personal
appearance.






Chapters 21-23
The marquis prepares Julien for his role as scribe and spy. Julien will accompany the marquis to a meeting of a group of ultras, where he will take notes on the conversation, condense them with the help of the marquis, memorize the contents, and, inconspicuously dressed, start out on a mission to London. On the way to the meeting, Julien recites a page from the newspaper to the marquis to demonstrate his photographic memory. At the place of rendezvous, the room gradually fills with the plotters. Julien sharpens numerous quills waiting for further orders. The marquis introduces Julien to the conspirators, and Julien demonstrates to them his prodigious memory. The twelve conspirators would plot means of strengthening the ultras' position against the ever-increasing threat of liberalism, or, as it was termed, Jacobinism. The question is whether to ask England to intervene in order to strengthen the ultra monarchy. The marquis is of the opinion that England will help only if the French help themselves by galvanizing their ultra supporters at every level of society. He would recommend severe curtailment of the liberty of the press in an effort to control public opinion. A cardinal supports the proposal of the marquis, adding the necessity of relying on the power of the Church, whose 50,000 priests have the ear of the people. He suggests that the cabinet minister, M. de Nerval, resign since he is compromising their cause. Nerval, present among the conspirators, presents himself as favoring the ultra cause against the liberal monarchy. The discussion becomes heated and lasts until three in the morning. The minister leaves, then the Bonapartist, and the remaining conspirators conjecture that the Bonapartist might betray them in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the minister. Later, Julien and the marquis edit the notes, which Julien memorizes, and the next morning Julien departs on his mission. Stopping at an inn near Metz, Julien encounters the Italian singer Geronimo, who informs Julien that their innkeeper has detained them in order to find a spy who must be apprehended. Julien awakens to find the Jesuit leader of the Besancon Congregation searching his effects. It is Geronimo who is suspected of being the spy. The singer has been drugged, having fallen into the trap that Julien has avoided. Arriving in London, Julien finally succeeds in meeting the Duke of Wellington, to whom he recites the message in the secrecy of a shabby inn. Julien follows the duke's instructions to go to Strasbourg, then return within twelve days. Julien arrives in Strasbourg, eluding the watchful Jesuits.
The mission to which Stendhal has previously alluded is conveniently introduced to create suspense, of course, but also to separate the lovers in order to reverse their roles. Upon his return, Julien will take the offensive. The transition between what preceded and the spy episode was constituted by Mathilde's musings on Julien's future. Julien has definitely replaced Norbert as a son worthy of the Marquis de la Mole, and for the first time, the marquis explicitly states this preference. Freudians would see in this a disavowal by Stendhal of his own father and a legitimization of his view of himself as one of the "happy few." Julien gains admittance to the inner sanctum of reactionary power, but he is still an outsider, a role to which he is condemned. He is made painfully aware of this role of outsider-inside by his isolation, obvious only to himself, before the meeting begins. His embarrassment, which he aggravates by endlessly sharpening quills, aptly characterizes Julien as a very self-conscious being. The presence of the Bishop of Agde serves to remind the reader again of the distance covered by our hero since Julien was also in the role of messenger when the bishop appeared in Verrieres. The affair of the secret note affords another insight into the manner in which Stendhal utilizes actual happenings as a basis for fiction. Although the novel is set in 1830, at the end of the autocratic reign of Charles X, this episode is based upon incidents that took place during the reign of Louis XVIII , the more liberal brother of Charles. The memory of Napoleon's One Hundred Days in 1815 and Louis' liberalism actually caused the ultras to plot with foreign powers in an effort to re-establish the reactionary spirit of the "ancien regime." Stendhal's conspirators are speaking "historically," without naming him, of Louis XVIII, although they are "living" under the reign of Louis' successor, Charles X. The "Ordonnances de Juillet" by which Charles X attempted to revoke the Charter embodying the principles of the Revolution of '89 and to stifle freedom of the press precipitated the July Revolution of 1830, which hailed the "bourgeois king," Louis-Philippe, who re-established liberalism and reigned until 1848. This incident and others of political inspiration in the novel were added by Stendhal after the July Revolution. He could hardly have included them with impunity before that date. Stendhal has a predilection for the mystery of clandestine operations, of spy intrigue, including secret rendezvous to which only the initiated are admitted. It is at once related to his own adventures  and simply an indication of the exclusiveness of the "happy few," the elite of whom Stendhal counted himself as one. Although Julien has definite republican sympathies, he is in the service of legitimists. Aside from aptly describing this social pariah -- the idealist who champions the revolutionary cause but who traffics with the enemy out of necessity -- Julien's paradoxical position betrays the political ambiguities of Stendhal himself. Defender of liberalism and, at the same time, aspiring to the good old days of the monarchy, Stendhal nonetheless abhorred the idea of a democracy. Stendhal's apology for inclusion of the political discussion should not be taken too seriously by the reader. Furthermore, the political and social substrata of the novel are the context in which Julien's individual adventure is realized. This is the most illustrious role that Julien will play as an individual subservient to others. His next brief "position" will seem to grant him a momentary social independence. The power hierarchy, so ubiquitous in the novel, is apparent even in this assemblage of the summit. Some are deferential to others, some can be outspoken and ironic, others must be silent. It should be noted that Stendhal limits the narration strictly to Julien's perception and comprehension of the mysterious proceedings. The reader has the impression that he, too, is an outsider privileged to eavesdrop. We are rarely told any more than Julien knows. When Julien is excluded briefly during the course of the meeting, the reader is also excluded. And we take our cues from Julien, who takes his from interpreting the facial expressions and tone of voice of the Marquis de la Mole. Three minor characters have reappeared in these chapters: Castanede, Agde, Geronimo. Their reappearance reminds us of Julien's progress: He is now the very successful protege of the Marquis de la Mole, and he fulfills his mission without a hitch.