finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_21_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 22
part 1, chapter 22
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 22", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-22", "summary": "Julien reaches Verrieres on his two-week vacation. The first thing he does is visit Father Chelan and build him some bookshelves. On his third day of vacation, Julien gets a visit from a guy named Monsieur de Maugiron who wants to lure Julien away from the de Renals so he can teach de Maugiron's children. Julien is surprised at one point by an invitation to lunch with Monsieur Valenod. Julien would rather beat the man with a stick than lunch with him. But he goes anyway. A bunch of city officials come to lunch, too. They yell for some nearby poor people to shut up and stop singing before settling into their luxurious meals. Julien is understandably disgusted by their upper class behavior. The crowd asks Julien to demonstrates his knowledge of the Bible. He repeats his old performance of reciting from memory any passage the guests start reading. They're all super impressed, which only makes Julien more resentful of them. When he's had enough, he gets up and excuses himself from lunch. He knows that one day, he'll explode and tell these kinds of people what he really thinks of them. Nonetheless, he goes to lots of parties and makes nice with the upper crust of Verrieres because Madame de Renal has told him this is a smart thing to do. One day, he wakes up with a pair of hands covering his eyes. It's Madame de Renal, who is visiting him with her children. While the group lunches, Monsieur de Renal walks in with a gloomy face. He feels like his children are starting to like Julien more than him. Then he leaves to attend some business meetings. The chapter closes by mentioning Monsieur de Renal's insecurity about his reputation as a cheapskate. Mr. Valenod, on the other hand, is famous for giving a lot of money to charity.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XXII

MANNERS OF PROCEDURE IN 1830


     Speech has been given to man to conceal his thought.
                                             _R.P. Malagrida_.


Julien had scarcely arrived at Verrieres before he reproached himself
with his injustice towards Madame de Renal. "I should have despised
her for a weakling of a woman if she had not had the strength to go
through with her scene with M. de Renal. But she has acquitted herself
like a diplomatist and I sympathise with the defeat of the man who is
my enemy. There is a bourgeois prejudice in my action; my vanity is
offended because M. de Renal is a man. Men form a vast and illustrious
body to which I have the honour to belong. I am nothing but a fool." M.
Chelan had refused the magnificent apartments which the most important
Liberals in the district had offered him, when his loss of his living
had necessitated his leaving the parsonage. The two rooms which he had
rented were littered with his books. Julien, wishing to show Verrieres
what a priest could do, went and fetched a dozen pinewood planks from
his father, carried them on his back all along the Grande-Rue, borrowed
some tools from an old comrade and soon built a kind of book-case in
which he arranged M. Chelan's books.

"I thought you were corrupted by the vanity of the world," said the
old man to him as he cried with joy, "but this is something which well
redeems all the childishness of that brilliant Guard of Honour uniform
which has made you so many enemies."

M. de Renal had ordered Julien to stay at his house. No one suspected
what had taken place. The third day after his arrival Julien saw no
less a personage than M. the sub-prefect de Maugiron come all the way
up the stairs to his room. It was only after two long hours of fatuous
gossip and long-winded lamentations about the wickedness of man, the
lack of honesty among the people entrusted with the administration
of the public funds, the dangers of his poor France, etc. etc., that
Julien was at last vouchsafed a glimpse of the object of the visit.
They were already on the landing of the staircase and the poor half
disgraced tutor was escorting with all proper deference the future
prefect of some prosperous department, when the latter was pleased to
take an interest in Julien's fortune, to praise his moderation in money
matters, etc., etc. Finally M. de Maugiron, embracing him in the most
paternal way, proposed that he should leave M. de Renal and enter the
household of an official who had children to educate and who, like King
Philippe, thanked Heaven not so much that they had been granted to him,
but for the fact that they had been born in the same neighbourhood as
M. Julien. Their tutor would enjoy a salary of 800 francs, payable
not from month to month, which is not at all aristocratic, said M. de
Maugiron, but quarterly and always in advance.

It was Julien's turn now. After he had been bored for an hour and a
half by waiting for what he had to say, his answer was perfect and,
above all, as long as a bishop's charge. It suggested everything and
yet said nothing clearly. It showed at the same time respect for M.
de Renal, veneration for the public of Verrieres and gratitude to the
distinguished sub-prefect. The sub-prefect, astonished at finding
him more Jesuitical than himself, tried in vain to obtain something
definite. Julien was delighted, seized the opportunity to practise, and
started his answer all over again in different language. Never has an
eloquent minister who wished to make the most of the end of a session
when the Chamber really seemed desirous of waking up, said less in more
words.

M. de Maugiron had scarcely left before Julien began to laugh like
a madman. In order to exploit his Jesuitical smartness, he wrote a
nine-page letter to M. de Renal in which he gave him an account of all
that had been said to him and humbly asked his advice. "But the old
scoundrel has not told me the name of the person who is making the
offer. It is bound to be M. Valenod who, no doubt, sees in my exile at
Verrieres the result of his anonymous letter."

Having sent off his despatch and feeling as satisfied as a hunter who
at six o'clock in the morning on a fine autumn day, comes out into
a plain that abounds with game, he went out to go and ask advice of
M. Chelan. But before he had arrived at the good cure's, providence,
wishing to shower favours upon him, threw in his path M. de Valenod,
to whom he owned quite freely that his heart was torn in two; a poor
lad such as he was owed an exclusive devotion to the vocation to which
it had pleased Heaven to call him. But vocation was not everything in
this base world. In order to work worthily at the vine of the Lord,
and to be not totally unworthy of so many worthy colleagues, it was
necessary to be educated; it was necessary to spend two expensive years
at the seminary of Besancon; saving consequently became an imperative
necessity, and was certainly much easier with a salary of eight hundred
francs paid quarterly than with six hundred francs which one received
monthly. On the other hand, did not Heaven, by placing him by the side
of the young de Renals, and especially by inspiring him with a special
devotion to them, seem to indicate that it was not proper to abandon
that education for another one.

Julien reached such a degree of perfection in that particular kind of
eloquence which has succeeded the drastic quickness of the empire, that
he finished by boring himself with the sound of his own words.

On reaching home he found a valet of M. Valenod in full livery who had
been looking for him all over the town, with a card inviting him to
dinner for that same day.

Julien had never been in that man's house. Only a few days before
he had been thinking of nothing but the means of giving him a sound
thrashing without getting into trouble with the police. Although
the time of the dinner was one o'clock, Julien thought it was more
deferential to present himself at half-past twelve at the office of M.
the director of the workhouse. He found him parading his importance in
the middle of a lot of despatch boxes. His large black whiskers, his
enormous quantity of hair, his Greek bonnet placed across the top of
his head, his immense pipe, his embroidered slippers, the big chains
of gold crossed all over his breast, and the whole stock-in-trade of
a provincial financier who considers himself prosperous, failed to
impose on Julien in the least: They only made him think the more of the
thrashing which he owed him.

He asked for the honour of being introduced to Madame Valenod. She
was dressing and was unable to receive him. By way of compensation he
had the privilege of witnessing the toilet of M. the director of the
workhouse. They subsequently went into the apartment of Madame Valenod,
who introduced her children to him with tears in her eyes. This lady
was one of the most important in Verrieres, had a big face like a
man's, on which she had put rouge in honour of this great function. She
displayed all the maternal pathos of which she was capable.

Julien thought all the time of Madame de Renal. His distrust made him
only susceptible to those associations which are called up by their
opposites, but he was then affected to the verge of breaking down.
This tendency was increased by the sight of the house of the director
of the workhouse. He was shown over it. Everything in it was new and
magnificent, and he was told the price of every article of furniture.
But Julien detected a certain element of sordidness, which smacked of
stolen money into the bargain. Everybody in it, down to the servants,
had the air of setting his face in advance against contempt.

The collector of taxes, the superintendent of indirect taxes, the
officer of gendarmerie, and two or three other public officials arrived
with their wives. They were followed by some rich Liberals. Dinner was
announced. It occurred to Julien, who was already feeling upset, that
there were some poor prisoners on the other side of the dining-room
wall, and that an illicit profit had perhaps been made over their
rations of meat in order to purchase all that garish luxury with which
they were trying to overwhelm him.

"Perhaps they are hungry at this very minute," he said to himself. He
felt a choking in his throat. He found it impossible to eat and almost
impossible to speak. Matters became much worse a quarter of an hour
afterwards; they heard in the distance some refrains of a popular song
that was, it must be confessed, a little vulgar, which was being sung
by one of the inmates. M. Valenod gave a look to one of his liveried
servants who disappeared and soon there was no more singing to be
heard. At that moment a valet offered Julien some Rhine wine in a green
glass and Madame Valenod made a point of asking him to note that this
wine cost nine francs a bottle in the market. Julien held up his green
glass and said to M. Valenod,

"They are not singing that wretched song any more."

"Zounds, I should think not," answered the triumphant governor. "I have
made the rascals keep quiet."

These words were too much for Julien. He had the manners of his new
position, but he had not yet assimilated its spirit. In spite of all
his hypocrisy and its frequent practice, he felt a big tear drip down
his cheek.

He tried to hide it in the green glass, but he found it absolutely
impossible to do justice to the Rhine wine. "Preventing singing he said
to himself: Oh, my God, and you suffer it."

Fortunately nobody noticed his ill-bred emotion. The collector of
taxes had struck up a royalist song. "So this," reflected Julien's
conscience during the hubbub of the refrain which was sung in chorus,
"is the sordid prosperity which you will eventually reach, and you will
only enjoy it under these conditions and in company like this. You
will, perhaps, have a post worth twenty thousand francs; but while you
gorge yourself on meat, you will have to prevent a poor prisoner from
singing; you will give dinners with the money which you have stolen out
of his miserable rations and during your dinners he will be still more
wretched. Oh, Napoleon, how sweet it was to climb to fortune in your
way through the dangers of a battle, but to think of aggravating the
pain of the unfortunate in this cowardly way."

I own that the weakness which Julien had been manifesting in this
soliloquy gives me a poor opinion of him. He is worthy of being the
accomplice of those kid-gloved conspirators who purport to change the
whole essence of a great country's existence, without wishing to have
on their conscience the most trivial scratch.

Julien was sharply brought back to his role. He had not been invited to
dine in such good company simply to moon dreamily and say nothing.

A retired manufacturer of cotton prints, a corresponding member of the
Academy of Besancon and of that of Uzes, spoke to him from the other
end of the table and asked him if what was said everywhere about his
astonishing progress in the study of the New Testament was really true.

A profound silence was suddenly inaugurated. A New Testament in Latin
was found as though by magic in the possession of the learned member
of the two Academies. After Julien had answered, part of a sentence
in Latin was read at random. Julien then recited. His memory proved
faithful and the prodigy was admired with all the boisterous energy of
the end of dinner. Julien looked at the flushed faces of the ladies. A
good many were not so plain. He recognised the wife of the collector,
who was a fine singer.

"I am ashamed, as a matter of fact, to talk Latin so long before these
ladies," he said, turning his eyes on her. "If M. Rubigneau," that was
the name of the member of the two Academies, "will be kind enough to
read a Latin sentence at random instead of answering by following the
Latin text, I will try to translate it impromptu." This second test
completed his glory.

Several Liberals were there, who, though rich, were none the less the
happy fathers of children capable of obtaining scholarships, and had
consequently been suddenly converted at the last mission. In spite of
this diplomatic step, M. de Renal had never been willing to receive
them in his house. These worthy people, who only knew Julien by name
and from having seen him on horseback on the day of the king of ----'s
entry, were his most noisy admirers. "When will those fools get tired
of listening to this Biblical language, which they don't understand in
the least," he thought. But, on the contrary, that language amused them
by its strangeness and made them smile. But Julien got tired.

As six o'clock struck he got up gravely and talked about a chapter in
Ligorio's New Theology which he had to learn by heart to recite on the
following day to M. Chelan, "for," he added pleasantly, "my business is
to get lessons said by heart to me, and to say them by heart myself."

There was much laughter and admiration; such is the kind of wit which
is customary in Verrieres. Julien had already got up and in spite of
etiquette everybody got up as well, so great is the dominion exercised
by genius. Madame Valenod kept him for another quarter of an hour. He
really must hear her children recite their catechisms. They made the
most absurd mistakes which he alone noticed. He was careful not to
point them out. "What ignorance of the first principles of religion,"
he thought. Finally he bowed and thought he could get away; but they
insisted on his trying a fable of La Fontaine.

"That author is quite immoral," said Julien to Madame Valenod. A
certain fable on Messire Jean Chouart dares to pour ridicule on
all that we hold most venerable. He is shrewdly blamed by the best
commentators. Before Julien left he received four or five invitations
to dinner. "This young man is an honour to the department," cried all
the guests in chorus. They even went so far as to talk of a pension
voted out of the municipal funds to put him in the position of
continuing his studies at Paris.

While this rash idea was resounding through the dining-room Julien
had swiftly reached the front door. "You scum, you scum," he cried,
three or four times in succession in a low voice as he indulged in the
pleasure of breathing in the fresh air.

He felt quite an aristocrat at this moment, though he was the very
man who had been shocked for so long a period by the haughty smile of
disdainful superiority which he detected behind all the courtesies
addressed to him at M. de Renal's. He could not help realising the
extreme difference. Why let us even forget the fact of its being money
stolen from the poor inmates, he said to himself as he went away, let
us forget also their stopping the singing. M. de Renal would never
think of telling his guests the price of each bottle of wine with
which he regales them, and as for this M. Valenod, and his chronic
cataloguing of his various belongings, he cannot talk of his house, his
estate, etc., in the presence of his wife without saying, "Your house,
your estate."

This lady, who was apparently so keenly alive to the delights of
decorum, had just had an awful scene during the dinner with a servant
who had broken a wine-glass and spoilt one of her dozens; and the
servant too had answered her back with the utmost insolence.

"What a collection," said Julien to himself; "I would not live like
they do were they to give me half of all they steal. I shall give
myself away one fine day. I should not be able to restrain myself from
expressing the disgust with which they inspire one."

It was necessary, however, to obey Madame de Renal's injunction and be
present at several dinners of the same kind. Julien was the fashion; he
was forgiven his Guard of Honour uniform, or rather that indiscretion
was the real cause of his successes. Soon the only question in
Verrieres was whether M. de Renal or M. the director of the workhouse
would be the victor in the struggle for the clever young man. These
gentlemen formed, together with M. Maslon, a triumvirate which had
tyrannised over the town for a number of years. People were jealous of
the mayor, and the Liberals had good cause for complaint, but, after
all, he was noble and born for a superior position, while M. Valenod's
father had not left him six hundred francs a year. His career had
necessitated a transition from pitying the shabby green suit which had
been so notorious in his youth, to envying the Norman horses, his gold
chains, his Paris clothes, his whole present prosperity.

Julien thought that he had discovered one honest man in the whirlpool
of this novel world. He was a geometrist named Gros, and had the
reputation of being a Jacobin. Julien, who had vowed to say nothing
but that which he disbelieved himself, was obliged to watch himself
carefully when speaking to M. Gros. He received big packets of
exercises from Vergy. He was advised to visit his father frequently,
and he fulfilled his unpleasant duty. In a word he was patching his
reputation together pretty well, when he was thoroughly surprised to
find himself woken up one morning by two hands held over his eyes.

It was Madame de Renal who had made a trip to the town, and who,
running up the stairs four at a time while she left her children
playing with a pet rabbit, had reached Julien's room a moment before
her sons. This moment was delicious but very short: Madame de Renal
had disappeared when the children arrived with the rabbit which
they wanted to show to their friend. Julien gave them all a hearty
welcome, including the rabbit. He seemed at home again. He felt that
he loved these children and that he enjoyed gossiping with them. He
was astonished at the sweetness of their voices, at the simplicity
and dignity of their little ways; he felt he needed to purge his
imagination of all the vulgar practices and all the unpleasantnesses
among which he had been living in Verrieres. For there everyone was
always frightened of being scored off, and luxury and poverty were at
daggers drawn.

The people with whom he would dine would enter into confidences over
the joint which were as humiliating for themselves as they were
nauseating to the hearer.

"You others, who are nobles, you are right to be proud," he said to
Madame de Renal, as he gave her an account of all the dinners which he
had put up with.

"You're the fashion then," and she laughed heartily as she thought of
the rouge which Madame Valenod thought herself obliged to put on each
time she expected Julien. "I think she has designs on your heart," she
added.

The breakfast was delicious. The presence of the children, though
apparently embarrassing, increased as a matter of fact the happiness of
the party. The poor children did not know how to give expression to the
joy at seeing Julien again. The servants had not failed to tell them
that he had been offered two hundred francs a year more to educate the
little Valenods.

Stanislas-Xavier, who was still pale from his illness, suddenly asked
his mother in the middle of the breakfast, the value of his silver
cover and of the goblet in which he was drinking.

"Why do you want to know that?"

"I want to sell them to give the price to M. Julien so that he shan't
be _done_ if he stays with us."

Julien kissed him with tears in his eyes. His mother wept
unrestrainedly, for Julien took Stanislas on his knees and explained to
him that he should not use the word "done" which, when employed in that
meaning was an expression only fit for the servants' hall. Seeing the
pleasure which he was giving to Madame de Renal, he tried to explain
the meaning of being "done" by picturesque illustrations which amused
the children.

"I understand," said Stanislas, "it's like the crow who is silly enough
to let his cheese fall and be taken by the fox who has been playing the
flatterer."

Madame de Renal felt mad with joy and covered her children with kisses,
a process which involved her leaning a little on Julien.

Suddenly the door opened. It was M. de Renal. His severe and
discontented expression contrasted strangely with the sweet joy
which his presence dissipated. Madame de Renal grew pale, she felt
herself incapable of denying anything. Julien seized command of the
conversation and commenced telling M. the mayor in a loud voice the
incident of the silver goblet which Stanislas wanted to sell. He was
quite certain this story would not be appreciated. M. de Renal first
of all frowned mechanically at the mere mention of money. Any allusion
to that mineral, he was accustomed to say, is always a prelude to some
demand made upon my purse. But this was something more than a mere
money matter. His suspicions were increased. The air of happiness which
animated his family during his absence was not calculated to smooth
matters over with a man who was a prey to so touchy a vanity. "Yes,
yes," he said, as his wife started to praise to him the combined grace
and cleverness of the way in which Julien gave ideas to his pupils. "I
know, he renders me hateful to my own children. It is easy enough for
him to make himself a hundred times more loveable to them than I am
myself, though after all, I am the master. In this century everything
tends to make _legitimate_ authority unpopular. Poor France!"

Madame de Renal had not stopped to examine the fine shades of the
welcome which her husband gave her. She had just caught a glimpse of
the possibility of spending twelve hours with Julien. She had a lot of
purchases to make in the town and declared that she positively insisted
in going to dine at the tavern. She stuck to her idea in spite of all
her husband's protests and remonstrances. The children were delighted
with the mere word tavern, which our modern prudery denounces with so
much gusto.

M. de Renal left his wife in the first draper's shop which she entered
and went to pay some visits. He came back more morose than he had
been in the morning. He was convinced that the whole town was busy
with himself and Julien. As a matter of fact no one had yet given him
any inkling as to the more offensive part of the public gossip. Those
items which had been repeated to M. the mayor dealt exclusively with
the question of whether Julien would remain with him with six hundred
francs, or would accept the eight hundred francs offered by M. the
director of the workhouse.

The director, when he met M. de Renal in society, gave him the cold
shoulder. These tactics were not without cleverness. There is no
impulsiveness in the provinces. Sensations are so rare there that they
are never allowed to be wasted.

M. le Valenod was what is called a hundred miles from Paris a _faraud_;
that means a coarse imprudent type of man. His triumphant existence
since 1815 had consolidated his natural qualities. He reigned, so
to say, in Verrieres subject to the orders of M. de Renal; but as
he was much more energetic, was ashamed of nothing, had a finger in
everything, and was always going about writing and speaking, and
was oblivious of all snubs, he had, although without any personal
pretensions, eventually come to equal the mayor in reputation in the
eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities. M. Valenod had, as it were,
said to the local tradesmen "Give me the two biggest fools among your
number;" to the men of law "Show me the two greatest dunces;" to the
sanitary officials "Point out to me the two biggest charlatans." When
he had thus collected the most impudent members of each separate
calling, he had practically said to them, "Let us reign together."

The manners of those people were offensive to M. de Renal. The
coarseness of Valenod took offence at nothing, not even the frequency
with which the little abbe Maslon would give the lie to him in public.

But in the middle of all this prosperity M. Valenod found it necessary
to reassure himself by a number of petty acts of insolence on the
score of the crude truths which he well realised that everybody was
justified in addressing to him. His activity had redoubled since the
fears which the visit of M. Appert had left him. He had made three
journeys to Besancon. He wrote several letters by each courier; he sent
others by unknown men who came to his house at nightfall. Perhaps he
had been wrong in securing the dismissal of the old cure Chelan. For
this piece of vindictiveness had resulted in his being considered an
extremely malicious man by several pious women of good birth. Besides,
the rendering of this service had placed him in absolute dependence
on M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair from whom he received some strange
commissions. He had reached this point in his intrigues when he had
yielded to the pleasure of writing an anonymous letter, and thus
increasing his embarrassment. His wife declared to him that she wanted
to have Julien in her house; her vanity was intoxicated with the idea.

Such being his position M. Valenod imagined in advance a decisive
scene with his old colleague M. de Renal. The latter might address
to him some harsh words, which he would not mind much; but he might
write to Besancon and even to Paris. Some minister's cousin might
suddenly fall down on Verrieres and take over the workhouse. Valenod
thought of coming to terms with the Liberals. It was for that purpose
that several of them had been invited to the dinner when Julien was
present. He would have obtained powerful support against the mayor but
the elections might supervene, and it was only too evident that the
directorship of the workhouse was inconsistent with voting on the wrong
side. Madame de Renal had made a shrewd guess at this intrigue, and
while she explained it to Julien as he gave her his arm to pass from
one shop to another, they found themselves gradually taken as far as
the _Cours de la Fidelite_ where they spent several hours nearly as
tranquil as those at Vergy.

At the same time M. Valenod was trying to put off a definite crisis
with his old patron by himself assuming the aggressive. These tactics
succeeded on this particular day, but aggravated the mayor's bad
temper. Never has vanity at close grips with all the harshness and
meanness of a pettifogging love of money reduced a man to a more sorry
condition than that of M. de Renal when he entered the tavern. The
children, on the other hand, had never been more joyful and more merry.
This contrast put the finishing touch on his pique.

"So far as I can see I am not wanted in my family," he said as he
entered in a tone which he meant to be impressive.

For answer, his wife took him on one side and declared that it was
essential to send Julien away. The hours of happiness which she had
just enjoyed had given her again the ease and firmness of demeanour
necessary to follow out the plan of campaign which she had been
hatching for a fortnight. The finishing touch to the trouble of the
poor mayor of Verrieres was the fact that he knew that they joked
publicly in the town about his love for cash. Valenod was as generous
as a thief, and on his side had acquitted himself brilliantly in the
last five or six collections for the Brotherhood of St. Joseph, the
congregation of the Virgin, the congregation of the Holy Sacrament,
etc., etc.

M. de Renal's name had been seen more than once at the bottom of the
list of gentlefolk of Verrieres, and the surrounding neighbourhood
who were adroitly classified in the list of the collecting brethren
according to the amount of their offerings. It was in vain that he said
that he was _not making money_. The clergy stands no nonsense in such
matters.






Part 1, Chapter 22
Julien reaches Verrieres on his two-week vacation. The first thing he does is visit Father Chelan and build him some bookshelves. On his third day of vacation, Julien gets a visit from a guy named Monsieur de Maugiron who wants to lure Julien away from the de Renals so he can teach de Maugiron's children. Julien is surprised at one point by an invitation to lunch with Monsieur Valenod. Julien would rather beat the man with a stick than lunch with him. But he goes anyway. A bunch of city officials come to lunch, too. They yell for some nearby poor people to shut up and stop singing before settling into their luxurious meals. Julien is understandably disgusted by their upper class behavior. The crowd asks Julien to demonstrates his knowledge of the Bible. He repeats his old performance of reciting from memory any passage the guests start reading. They're all super impressed, which only makes Julien more resentful of them. When he's had enough, he gets up and excuses himself from lunch. He knows that one day, he'll explode and tell these kinds of people what he really thinks of them. Nonetheless, he goes to lots of parties and makes nice with the upper crust of Verrieres because Madame de Renal has told him this is a smart thing to do. One day, he wakes up with a pair of hands covering his eyes. It's Madame de Renal, who is visiting him with her children. While the group lunches, Monsieur de Renal walks in with a gloomy face. He feels like his children are starting to like Julien more than him. Then he leaves to attend some business meetings. The chapter closes by mentioning Monsieur de Renal's insecurity about his reputation as a cheapskate. Mr. Valenod, on the other hand, is famous for giving a lot of money to charity.