finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_33_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 4
part 2, chapter 4
{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-4", "summary": "It becomes clear to Julien that the de La Moles and their friends suffer from deep boredom. One of the reasons might be that they never tolerate any serious subjects in their conversation. Everything has to be about superficial amusement. It's no wonder they're bored. The only reason that people come to the de La Moles' house is because they want something from the marquis. Everyone seems to know this and it makes everything in the house seem hollow. One day, Julien asks Father Pirard whether he'd be allowed to stop eating dinner with the de La Moles, since it's so boring. Then he realizes that the marquis' daughter has been listening. He feels like he's really put his foot in it, but he doesn't realize that Mathilde feels the same way. It turns out that Mathilde has a little social group that makes fun of how boring her parents' friends are. Julien soon finds his way into this company. He's shocked, though, because he doesn't think it's appropriate to sit around insulting people behind their backs. Julien hears his rival Tanbeau talking about how a poet named Beranger should be thrown into a dungeon for ten years because he writes obscene political things. Julien thinks Tanbeau is a monster. Father Pirard beckons Julien over and tells him not to write anything political in the French language or the marquis will dislike him forever. Julien goes upstairs and burns a few things he's been writing.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XXXIV

THE HOTEL DE LA MOLE


        What is he doing here? Will he like it there? Will he
        try to please?--_Ronsard_.


If everything in the aristocratic salon of the Hotel de la Mole seemed
strange to Julien, that pale young man in his black suit seemed in his
turn very strange to those persons who deigned to notice him. Madame de
la Mole suggested to her husband that he should send him off on some
business on those days when they had certain persons to dinner.

"I wish to carry the experiment to its logical conclusion," answered
the marquis. "The abbe Pirard contends that we are wrong in crushing
the self-respect of the people whom we allow around us. _One can only
lean on what resists_. The only thing against this man is his unknown
face, apart from that he is a deaf mute."

"If I am to know my way about," said Julien to himself. "I must write
down the names of the persons whom I see come to the salon together
with a few words on their character."

He put at the head of the list five or six friends of the house who
took every opportunity of paying court to him, believing that he was
protected by a whim of the marquis. They were poor dull devils. But it
must be said in praise of this class of men, such as they are found
to-day in the salons of the aristocracy, that every one did not find
them equally tame. One of them was now allowing himself to be bullied
by the marquis, who was venting his irritation at a harsh remark which
had been addressed to him by the marquise.

The masters of the house were too proud or too prone to boredom; they
were too much used to finding their only distraction in the addressing
of insults, to enable them to expect true friends. But, except on
rainy days and in rare moments of savage boredom, they always showed
themselves perfectly polite.

If the five or six toadies who manifested so paternal an affection
towards Julien had deserted the Hotel de la Mole, the marquise would
have been exposed to long spells of solitude, and in the eyes of women
of that class, solitude is awful, it is the symbol of _disgrace_.

The marquis was charming to his wife. He saw that her salon was
sufficiently furnished, though not with peers, for he did not think his
new colleagues were sufficiently noble to come to his house as friends,
or sufficiently amusing to be admitted as inferiors.

It was only later that Julien fathomed these secrets. The governing
policy of a household, though it forms the staple of conversation in
bourgeois families, is only alluded to in families of the class of that
of the marquis in moments of distress. So paramount even in this bored
century is the necessity of amusing one's self, that even on the days
of dinner-parties the marquis had scarcely left the salon before all
the guests ran away. Provided that one did not make any jests about
either God or the priests or the king or the persons in office, or the
artists who enjoyed the favour of the court, or of anything that was
established, provided that one did not praise either Beranger or the
opposition papers, or Voltaire or Rousseau or anything which involved
any element of free speech, provided that above all that one never
talked politics, one could discuss everything with freedom.

There is no income of a hundred thousand crowns a year and no blue
ribbon which could sustain a contest against such a code of salon
etiquette.

The slightest live idea appeared a crudity. In spite of the prevailing
good form, perfect politeness, and desire to please, _ennui_ was
visible in every face. The young people who came to pay their calls
were frightened of speaking of anything which might make them suspected
of thinking or of betraying that they had read something prohibited,
and relapsed into silence after a few elegant phrases about Rossini and
the weather.

Julien noticed that the conversation was usually kept alive by two
viscounts and five barons whom M. de la Mole had known at the time of
the emigration. These gentlemen enjoyed an income of from six to eight
hundred thousand francs. Four swore by the _Quotidienne_ and three
by the _Gazette de France_. One of them had every day some anecdote
to tell about the Chateau, in which he made lavish use of the word
_admirable_. Julien noticed that he had five crosses, the others as a
rule only had three.

By way of compensation six footmen in livery were to be seen in the
ante-room, and during the whole evening ices or tea were served every
quarter-of-an-hour, while about midnight there was a kind of supper
with champagne.

This was the reason that sometimes induced Julien to stay till the
end. Apart from this he could scarcely understand why any one could
bring himself to take seriously the ordinary conversation in this
magnificently gilded salon. Sometimes he would look at the talkers to
see if they themselves were not making fun of what they were saying.
"My M. de Maistre, whom I know by heart," he thought, "has put it a
hundred times better, and all the same he is pretty boring."

Julien was not the only one to appreciate this stifling moral
atmosphere. Some consoled themselves by taking a great quantity of
ices, others by the pleasure of saying all the rest of the evening, "I
have just come from the Hotel de la Mole where I learnt that Russia,
etc."

Julien learnt from one of the toadies that scarcely six months ago
madame de la Mole had rewarded more than twenty years of assiduous
attention by promoting the poor baron Le Bourguignon, who had been a
sub-prefect since the restoration, to the rank of prefect.

This great event had whetted the zeal of all these gentlemen.
Previously there were few things to which they would have objected,
now they objected to nothing. There was rarely any overt lack of
consideration, but Julien had already caught at meals two or three
little short dialogues between the marquis and his wife which were
cruel to those who were seated near them. These noble personages did
not conceal their sincere contempt for everyone who was not sprung
from people who were entitled to ride in the carriages of the king.
Julien noticed that the word crusade was the only word which gave their
face an expression of deep seriousness akin to respect. Their ordinary
respect had always a touch of condescension. In the middle of this
magnificence and this boredom Julien was interested in nothing except
M. de la Mole. He was delighted to hear him protest one day that he
had had nothing to do with the promotion of that poor Le Bourguignon,
it was an attention to the marquise. Julien knew the truth from the
abbe Pirard.

The abbe was working in the marquis's library with Julien one morning
at the eternal de Frilair lawsuit.

"Monsieur," said Julien suddenly, "is dining every day with madame la
marquise one of my duties or a special favour that they show to me?"

"It's a special honour," replied the scandalised abbe. "M. the
Academician, who has been cultivating the family for fifteen years, has
never been able to obtain so much for his M. Tanbeau."

"I find it, sir, the most painful part of my employment. I was less
bored at the seminary. Some times I see even mademoiselle de la Mole
yawn, and yet she ought to be accustomed to the social charms of the
friends of the house. I am frightened of falling asleep. As a favour,
obtain permission for me to go and get a forty sous' dinner in some
obscure inn."

The abbe who was a true snob, was very appreciative of the honour of
dining with a great lord. While he was endeavouring to get Julien to
understand this point of view a slight noise made them turn round.
Julien saw mademoiselle de la Mole listening. He reddened. She had come
to fetch a book and had heard everything. She began to entertain some
respect for Julien. "He has not been born servile," she thought, "like
that old abbe. Heavens, how ugly he is."

At dinner Julien did not venture to look at mademoiselle de la Mole
but she was kind enough to speak to him. They were expecting a lot
of visitors that day and she asked him to stay. The young girls of
Paris are not at all fond of persons of a certain age, especially when
they are slovenly. Julien did not need much penetration to realise
that the colleagues of M. le Bourguignon who remained in the salon
had the privilege of being the ordinary butt of mademoiselle de la
Mole's jokes. On this particular day, whether or not by reason of some
affectation on her part, she proved cruel to bores.

Mademoiselle de la Mole was the centre of a little knot which used to
form nearly every evening behind the marquise's immense arm-chair.
There were to be found there the marquis de Croisenois, the comte
de Caylus, the vicomte de Luz and two or three other young officers,
the friends of Norbert or his sister. These gentlemen used to sit
down on a large blue sofa. At the end of the sofa, opposite the part
where the brilliant Mathilde was sitting, Julien sat in silence on a
little, rather low straw chair. This modest position was envied by all
the toadies; Norbert kept his father's young secretary in countenance
by speaking to him, or mentioning him by name once or twice in the
evening. On this particular occasion mademoiselle de la Mole asked him
what was the height of the mountain on which the citadel of Besancon
is planted. Julien had never any idea if this mountain was higher or
lower than Montmartre. He often laughed heartily at what was said in
this little knot, but he felt himself incapable of inventing anything
analagous. It was like a strange language which he understood but could
not speak.

On this particular day Matilde's friends manifested a continuous
hostility to the visitors who came into the vast salon. The friends of
the house were the favoured victims at first, inasmuch as they were
better known. You can form your opinion as to whether Julien paid
attention; everything interested him, both the substance of things and
the manner of making fun of them.

"And there is M. Descoulis," said Matilde; "he doesn't wear a wig any
more. Does he want to get a prefectship through sheer force of genius?
He is displaying that bald forehead which he says is filled with lofty
thoughts."

"He is a man who knows the whole world," said the marquis de
Croisenois. "He also goes to my uncle the cardinal's. He is capable of
cultivating a falsehood with each of his friends for years on end, and
he has two or three hundred friends. He knows how to nurse friendship,
that is his talent. He will go out, just as you see him, in the worst
winter weather, and be at the door of one of his friends by seven
o'clock in the morning.

"He quarrels from time to time and he writes seven or eight letters
for each quarrel. Then he has a reconciliation and he writes seven or
eight letters to express his bursts of friendship. But he shines most
brilliantly in the frank and sincere expansiveness of the honest man
who keeps nothing up his sleeve. This manoeuvre is brought into play
when he has some favour to ask. One of my uncle's grand vicars is very
good at telling the life of M. Descoulis since the restoration. I will
bring him to you."

"Bah! I don't believe all that, it's professional jealousy among the
lower classes," said the comte de Caylus.

"M. Descoulis will live in history," replied the marquis. "He brought
about the restoration together with the abbe de Pradt and messieurs de
Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo."

"That man has handled millions," said Norbert, "and I can't conceive
why he should come here to swallow my father's epigrams which are
frequently atrocious. 'How many times have you betrayed your friends,
my dear Descoulis?' he shouted at him one day from one end of the table
to the other."

"But is it true that he has played the traitor?" asked mademoiselle de
la Mole. "Who has not played the traitor?"

"Why!" said the comte de Caylus to Norbert, "do you have that
celebrated Liberal, M. Sainclair, in your house. What the devil's he
come here for? I must go up to him and speak to him and make him speak.
He is said to be so clever."

"But how will your mother receive him?" said M. de Croisenois. "He has
such extravagant, generous and independent ideas."

"Look," said mademoiselle de la Mole, "look at the independent man who
bows down to the ground to M. Descoulis while he grabs hold of his
hand. I almost thought he was going to put it to his lips."

"Descoulis must stand better with the powers that be than we thought,"
answered M. de Croisenois.

"Sainclair comes here in order to get into the academy," said Norbert.
"See how he bows to the baron L----, Croisenois."

"It would be less base to kneel down," replied M. de Luz.

"My dear Sorel," said Norbert, "you are extremely smart, but you come
from the mountains. Mind you never bow like that great poet is doing,
even to God the Father."

"Ah there's a really witty man, M. the Baron Baton," said mademoiselle
de la Mole, imitating a little the voice of the flunkey who had just
announced him.

"I think that even your servants make fun of him. What a name Baron
Baton," said M. de Caylus.

"What's in a name?" he said to us the other day, went on Matilde.
"Imagine the Duke de Bouillon announced for the first time. So far as I
am concerned the public only need to get used to me."

"Julien left the vicinity of the sofa."

Still insufficiently appreciative of the charming subtleties of a
delicate raillery to laugh at a joke, he considered that a jest ought
to have some logical foundation. He saw nothing in these young peoples'
conversation except a vein of universal scandal-mongering and was
shocked by it. His provincial or English prudery went so far as to
detect envy in it, though in this he was certainly mistaken.

"Count Norbert," he said to himself, "who has had to make three drafts
for a twenty-line letter to his colonel would be only too glad to have
written once in his whole life one page as good as M. Sainclair."

Julien approached successively the several groups and attracted no
attention by reason of his lack of importance. He followed the Baron
Baton from a distance and tried to hear him.

This witty man appeared nervous and Julien did not see him recover
his equanimity before he had hit upon three or four stinging phrases.
Julien thought that this kind of wit had great need of space.

The Baron could not make epigrams. He needed at least four sentences of
six lines each, in order to be brilliant.

"That man argues, he does not talk," said someone behind Julien. He
turned round and reddened with pleasure when he heard the name of the
comte Chalvet. He was the subtlest man of the century. Julien had often
found his name in the _Memorial of St. Helena_ and in the portions of
history dictated by Napoleon. The diction of comte Chalvet was laconic,
his phrases were flashes of lightning--just, vivid, deep. If he talked
about any matter the conversation immediately made a step forward; he
imported facts into it; it was a pleasure to hear him. In politics,
however, he was a brazen cynic.

"I am independent, I am," he was saying to a gentleman with three
stars, of whom apparently he was making fun. "Why insist on my having
to-day the same opinion I had six weeks ago. In that case my opinion
would be my master."

Four grave young men who were standing round scowled; these gentlemen
did not like flippancy. The comte saw that he had gone too far. Luckily
he perceived the honest M. Balland, a veritable hypocrite of honesty.
The count began to talk to him; people closed up, for they realised
that poor Balland was going to be the next victim.

M. Balland, although he was horribly ugly and his first steps in the
world were almost unmentionable, had by dint of his morals and his
morality married a very rich wife who had died; he subsequently married
a second very rich one who was never seen in society. He enjoyed, in
all humility, an income of sixty thousand francs, and had his own
flatterers. Comte Chalvet talked to him pitilessly about all this.
There was soon a circle of thirty persons around them. Everybody was
smiling, including the solemn young men who were the hope of the
century.

"Why does he come to M. de la Mole where he is obviously only a
laughing stock?" thought Julien. He approached the abbe Pirard to ask
him.

M. Balland made his escape.

"Good," said Norbert, "there is one of the spies of my father gone;
there is only the little limping Napier left."

"Can that be the key of the riddle?" thought Julien, "but if so, why
does the marquis receive M. Balland?"

The stern abbe Pirard was scowling in a corner of the salon listening
to the lackeys announcing the names.

"This is nothing more than a den," he was saying like another Basil, "I
see none but shady people come in."

As a matter of fact the severe abbe did not know what constitutes
high society. But his friends the Jansenites, had given him some very
precise notions about those men who only get into society by reason
of their extreme subtlety in the service of all parties, or of their
monstrous wealth. For some minutes that evening he answered Julien's
eager questions fully and freely, and then suddenly stopped short
grieved at having always to say ill of every one, and thinking he was
guilty of a sin. Bilious Jansenist as he was, and believing as he did
in the duty of Christian charity, his life was a perpetual conflict.

"How strange that abbe Pirard looks," said mademoiselle de la Mole, as
Julien came near the sofa.

Julien felt irritated, but she was right all the same. M. Pirard was
unquestionably the most honest man in the salon, but his pimply face,
which was suffering from the stings of conscience, made him look
hideous at this particular moment. "Trust physiognomy after this,"
thought Julien, "it is only when the delicate conscience of the abbe
Pirard is reproaching him for some trifling lapse that he looks so
awful; while the expression of that notorious spy Napier shows a pure
and tranquil happiness." The abbe Pirard, however, had made great
concessions to his party. He had taken a servant, and was very well
dressed.

Julien noticed something strange in the salon, it was that all eyes
were being turned towards the door, and there was a semi silence. The
flunkey was announcing the famous Barron Tolly, who had just become
publicly conspicuous by reason of the elections. Julien came forward
and had a very good view of him. The baron had been the president of
an electoral college; he had the brilliant idea of spiriting away
the little squares of paper which contained the votes of one of the
parties. But to make up for it he replaced them by an equal number of
other little pieces of paper containing a name agreeable to himself.
This drastic manoeuvre had been noticed by some of the voters, who had
made an immediate point of congratulating the Baron de Tolly. The good
fellow was still pale from this great business. Malicious persons had
pronounced the word galleys. M. de la Mole received him coldly. The
poor Baron made his escape.

"If he leaves us so quickly it's to go to M. Comte's,"[1] said Comte
Chalvet and everyone laughed.

Little Tanbeau was trying to win his spurs by talking to some silent
noblemen and some intriguers who, though shady, were all men of wit,
and were on this particular night in great force in M. de la Mole's
salon (for he was mentioned for a place in the ministry). If he had not
yet any subtlety of perception he made up for it as one will see by the
energy of his words.

"Why not sentence that man to ten years' imprisonment," he was saying
at the moment when Julien approached his knot. "Those reptiles should
be confined in the bottom of a dungeon, they ought to languish to death
in gaol, otherwise their venom will grow and become more dangerous.
What is the good of sentencing him to a fine of a thousand crowns? He
is poor, so be it, all the better, but his party will pay for him. What
the case required was a five hundred francs fine and ten years in a
dungeon."

"Well to be sure, who is the monster they are speaking about?" thought
Julien who was viewing with amazement the vehement tone and hysterical
gestures of his colleague. At this moment the thin, drawn, little face
of the academician's nephew was hideous. Julien soon learnt that they
were talking of the greatest poet of the century.

"You monster," Julien exclaimed half aloud, while tears of generosity
moistened his eyes. "You little rascal," he thought, "I will pay you
out for this."

"Yet," he thought, "those are the unborn hopes of the party of which
the marquis is one of the chiefs. How many crosses and how many
sinecures would that celebrated man whom he is now defaming have
accumulated if he had sold himself--I won't say to the mediocre
ministry of M. de Nerval--but to one of those reasonably honest
ministries which we have seen follow each other in succession."

The abbe Pirard motioned to Julien from some distance off; M. de la
Mole had just said something to him. But when Julien, who was listening
at the moment with downcast eyes to the lamentations of the bishop,
had at length got free and was able to get near his friend, he found
him monopolised by the abominable little Tanbeau. The little beast
hated him as the cause of Julien's favour with the marquis, and was now
making up to him.

"_When will death deliver us from that aged rottenness_," it was in
these words of a biblical energy that the little man of letters was
now talking of the venerable Lord Holland. His merit consisted in an
excellent knowledge of the biography of living men, and he had just
made a rapid review of all the men who could aspire to some influence
under the reign of the new King of England.

The abbe Pirard passed in to an adjacent salon. Julien followed him.

"I warn you the marquis does not like scribblers, it is his only
prejudice. Know Latin and Greek if you can manage it, the history of
the Egyptians, Persians, etc., he will honour and protect you as a
learned man. But don't write a page of French, especially on serious
matters which are above your position in society, or he will call you
a scribbler and take you for a scoundrel. How is it that living as you
do in the hotel of a great lord you don't know the Duke de Castries'
epigram on Alembert and Rousseau: 'the fellow wants to reason about
everything and hasn't got an income of a thousand crowns'!"

"Everything leaks out here," thought Julien, "just like the seminary."
He had written eight or six fairly drastic pages. It was a kind of
historical eulogy of the old surgeon-major who had, he said, made a man
of him. "The little note book," said Julien to himself, "has always
been locked." He went up to his room, burnt his manuscript and returned
to the salon. The brilliant scoundrels had left it, only the men with
the stars were left.

Seven or eight very aristocratic ladies, very devout, very affected,
and of from thirty to thirty-five years of age, were grouped round
the table that the servants had just brought in ready served. The
brilliant marechale de Fervaques came in apologising for the lateness
of the hour. It was more than midnight: she went and sat down near
the marquise. Julien was deeply touched, she had the eyes and the
expression of madame de Renal.

Mademoiselle de la Mole's circle was still full of people. She was
engaged with her friends in making fun of the unfortunate comte de
Thaler. He was the only son of that celebrated Jew who was famous for
the riches that he had won by lending money to kings to make war on the
peoples.

The Jew had just died leaving his son an income of one hundred thousand
crowns a month, and a name that was only too well known. This strange
position required either a simple character or force of will power.

Unfortunately the comte was simply a fellow who was inflated by all
kinds of pretensions which had been suggested to him by all his toadies.

M. de Caylus asserted that they had induced him to make up his mind to
ask for the hand of mademoiselle de la Mole, to whom the marquis de
Croisenois, who would be a duke with a hundred thousand francs a year,
was paying his attentions.

"Oh, do not accuse him of having a mind," said Norbert pitifully.

Will-power was what the poor comte de Thaler lacked most of all. So
far as this side of his character went he was worthy of being a king.
He would take council from everybody, but he never had the courage to
follow any advice to the bitter end.

"His physiognomy would be sufficient in itself," mademoiselle de la
Mole was fond of saying, "to have inspired her with a holy joy." It
was a singular mixture of anxiety and disappointment, but from time to
time one could distinguish gusts of self-importance, and above all that
trenchant tone suited to the richest man in France, especially when he
had nothing to be ashamed of in his personal appearance and was not yet
thirty-six. "He is timidly insolent," M. de Croisenois would say. The
comte de Caylus, Norbert, and two or three moustachioed young people
made fun of him to their heart's content without him suspecting it, and
finally packed him off as one o'clock struck.

"Are those your famous Arab horses waiting for you at the door in this
awful weather?" said Norbert to him.

"No, it is a new pair which are much cheaper," said M. de Thaler. "The
horse on the left cost me five thousand francs, while the one on the
right is only worth one hundred louis, but I would ask you to believe
me when I say that I only have him out at night. His trot you see is
exactly like the other ones."

Norbert's remark made the comte think it was good form for a man like
him to make a hobby of his horses, and that he must not let them get
wet. He went away, and the other gentleman left a minute afterwards
making fun of him all the time. "So," thought Julien as he heard them
laugh on the staircase, "I have the privilege of seeing the exact
opposite of my own situation. I have not got twenty louis a year and I
found myself side by side with a man who has twenty louis an hour and
they made fun of him. Seeing a sight like that cures one of envy."


[1] celebrated conjuror.






Part 2, Chapter 4
It becomes clear to Julien that the de La Moles and their friends suffer from deep boredom. One of the reasons might be that they never tolerate any serious subjects in their conversation. Everything has to be about superficial amusement. It's no wonder they're bored. The only reason that people come to the de La Moles' house is because they want something from the marquis. Everyone seems to know this and it makes everything in the house seem hollow. One day, Julien asks Father Pirard whether he'd be allowed to stop eating dinner with the de La Moles, since it's so boring. Then he realizes that the marquis' daughter has been listening. He feels like he's really put his foot in it, but he doesn't realize that Mathilde feels the same way. It turns out that Mathilde has a little social group that makes fun of how boring her parents' friends are. Julien soon finds his way into this company. He's shocked, though, because he doesn't think it's appropriate to sit around insulting people behind their backs. Julien hears his rival Tanbeau talking about how a poet named Beranger should be thrown into a dungeon for ten years because he writes obscene political things. Julien thinks Tanbeau is a monster. Father Pirard beckons Julien over and tells him not to write anything political in the French language or the marquis will dislike him forever. Julien goes upstairs and burns a few things he's been writing.