finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_10_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 5-7
chapters 5-7
{"name": "Chapters 5-7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-57", "summary": "After several months, Julien has made his services very valuable to M. de la Mole although, socially, he has fallen from favor in the household. He applies himself tirelessly to his work, and to escape the discouragement that his exile causes him to feel, he devotes his leisure time entirely to fencing and riding. Norbert is estranged from him, and Mme. de la Mole finds Julien's impetuosity and sensitivity repugnant to decorum. Julien is offended by a rude individual in a cafe one day, and he immediately challenges the man to a duel. Going the following morning to the address indicated on the offender's card, Julien finds, to his surprise, that the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, whose name is on the card, is the master of the coachman who had offended Julien. Julien promptly punishes the coachman for his insolence, and the chevalier agrees to a duel. Julien is slightly wounded, but the new acquaintance soon becomes friendship. The chevalier is a model aristocrat whom Julien imitates in manners and attitude, accompanying him to the opera. In order to escape the ridicule that would result from public knowledge that he had dueled with a sawyer's son, the chevalier spreads the rumor that Julien is the natural son of a close friend of the Marquis de la Mole. The latter, upon hearing this rumor, is greatly amused. Bedridden with gout, the Marquis de la Mole is reduced to the company of Julien during the absence of his family. The marquis discovers in Julien a man of ideas and of quick wit. The marquis makes Julien a gift of a blue coat, and when Julien visits him in the evenings wearing the garment, the marquis treats him as an equal. Julien introduces efficiency into the marquis' business affairs, and his innovations are so much appreciated that the marquis wants to reward him with a gift of money. This Julien declines, pretending that the gift would ruin the relationship with the man in blue since it is to that man and not to the man in black that it is made. Recognizing the inborn nobility of Julien, the marquis devises a plan to confer upon him the cross of the Legion d'Honneur, which will constitute an exterior acknowledgment of Julien's inner nobility. He sends Julien to England, where he is introduced to various notables in the highest circles. Upon his return, Julien is told that when he wears his decoration, he will be, in the eyes of the marquis, the son of the Duc de Retz, a friend of the marquis. The decoration makes Julien more confident. A visit is paid to Julien by Valenod, recently made a baron. Valenod has replaced Renal as mayor of Verrieres. Ironically, Valenod was the ultra candidate, and Renal the candidate of the liberals. The marquis agrees to receive the mayor and intends even to encourage his political career. Benefiting from his more intimate relationship with the marquis, Julien succeeds in having his own father named director of the workhouse and Cholin named as director of the lottery. Julien learns later that his intervention has thwarted the candidacy of an honest man, M. Gros, who, Julien recognizes, really deserved and needed the appointment to the lottery post. This causes Julien some remorse, which is quickly stilled, however, by a rationalization that expediency sometimes brings about injustice.", "analysis": "These chapters constitute a further stage in the education of Julien, specifically as the protege of M. de la Mole. Chapter 5 is preparatory to the subsequent development of the father-son relationship in that it points up Julien's success and failure: success as a prized secretary, failure as a social creature in this blase aristocracy in which he moves. Note again Stendhal's tenderly ironic treatment of his hero in the cafe scene. Stendhal will make a fool of Julien by exploiting his hero's basically contradictory nature, causing his impetuosity to play out another mock-heroic adventure. Julien is \"unmasked\" by a less glorious counterpart: the \"gentleman\" whom he challenges turns out to be a lackey, like himself. Typically, however, Stendhal takes care not to exploit the ridiculousness that would be inherent in such a situation. Stendhal permits himself to make light of Julien, delicately, but the reader may not take this liberty. The same restraint is apparent in the handling of the encounter with the chevalier. Instead of taking offense, the latter, another of the \"happy few,\" befriends Julien and plays the role of fairy godfather. Stendhal calls to our attention the resemblance between the two cafe scenes. He utilizes repeatedly the recurrence of similar situations at different points of the narration, and such a device is particularly effective in a novel describing the formation of an individual. An event that repeats itself calls our attention to the distance covered by the character. In this instance, we note that Julien's pride has not weakened but that he is now more highly placed on the social ladder. The duel episode serves also to further the relationship between Julien and the marquis. The rumor of noble but illegitimate birth circulated by the chevalier \"suggests\" to the marquis, without his own awareness of it, the action he takes to confer a kind of nobility on Julien in Chapter 7. By the end of Chapter 6, the fatherly interest felt by the marquis in Julien has progressed to the point where the marquis wants actively to \"form\" his secretary. Hence, he stations Julien at the opera to study another spectacle, the impressive entry and departure of the aristocracy, in order that Julien may imitate their ways and rid himself of his remaining provincialisins. Betraying his negligence in plot manipulation and preparation, Stendhal feels obliged, in Chapter 7, to justify the familiar tone in which the marquis has just addressed Julien at the end of the preceding chapter. Such an intervention Stendhal would no doubt justify by evoking his realistic pretention and his definition of the novel -- he is not inventing, he is only reporting the truth, and this detail he had forgotten to mention. Stendhal indicates to the reader to what extent Julien has actually replaced Norbert as a worthy son for the marquis, both in the eyes of the latter and in those of Stendhal. \"Play acting\" recurs as a theme in these chapters, and the deliberate insincerity that it implies is a necessary quality of the nobility to which Julien aspires. The marquis, another fairy godfather, intervenes as for Cinderella, outfitting Julien and casting him in a dual role. A truly noble soul is capable of effecting metamorphosis by will. Thus, the marquis is \"magically\" empowered to transform Julien into the gentleman in the blue coat by night and into the black-coated secretary by day. That Julien is making progress is obvious by the fact that he surpasses his master's performance. By proudly refusing the well deserved gift, Julien intimates that the marquis is violating the rules he has established himself. This performance inspires the marquis to bring about the next transformation: Julien's diplomatic mission to London, which will serve as a pretext for a decoration. Julien's frequenting London's high society is the culminating phase in the stage of his formation related in these chapters. Valenod's reappearance and his victory over Renal serve to remind the reader of the changing fortunes on the political scene. Valenod's ascendancy had been predicted in Chapter 1 of Part II. Stendhal is careful to note that antipathy and rivalry still exist between Julien and Valenod. This fact will be utilized in the ultimate determination of Julien's fate. The close of Chapter 7 reminds us that Julien's experiences have taken their toll on his principles and innocence. In short, he is being corrupted, but, fortunately, this change is reversible. In the incident in question, Julien has occasion only to rationalize his remorse. One cannot help but wonder which would have won out, expediency or principle, had Julien known earlier that Gros was also aspiring to the position in which Julien's intervention has established Cholin."}
CHAPTER XXXV

SENSIBILITY AND A GREAT PIOUS LADY


        An idea which has any life in it seems like a crudity,
        so accustomed are they to colourless expression. Woe to
        him who introduces new ideas into his conversation!
                                          --_Faublas_.


This was the stage Julien had reached, when after several months of
probation the steward of the household handed him the third quarter of
his wages. M. de la Mole had entrusted him with the administration of
his estates in Brittany and Normandy. Julien made frequent journeys
there. He had chief control of the correspondence relating to the
famous lawsuit with the abbe de Frilair. M. Pirard had instructed him.

On the data of the short notes which the marquis would scribble on the
margin of all the various paper which were addressed to him, Julien
would compose answers which were nearly all signed.

At the Theology School his professors complained of his lack of
industry, but they did not fail to regard him as one of their most
distinguished pupils. This varied work, tackled as it was with all
the ardour of suffering ambition, soon robbed Julien of that fresh
complexion which he had brought from the provinces. His pallor
constituted one of his merits in the eyes of his comrades, the young
seminarist; he found them much less malicious, much less ready to bow
down to a silver crown than those of Besancon; they thought he was
consumptive. The marquis had given him a horse.

Julien fearing that he might meet people during his rides on horseback,
had given out that this exercise had been prescribed by the doctors.
The abbe Pirard had taken him into several Jansenist Societies. Julien
was astonished; the idea of religion was indissolubly connected in his
mind with the ideas of hypocrisy and covetousness. He admired those
austere pious men who never gave a thought to their income. Several
Jansenists became friendly with him and would give him advice. A new
world opened before him. At the Jansenists he got to know a comte
Altamira, who was nearly six feet high, was a Liberal, a believer, and
had been condemned to death in his own country. He was struck by the
strange contrast of devoutness and love of liberty.

Julien's relations with the young comte had become cool. Norbert
had thought that he answered the jokes of his friends with too much
sharpness. Julien had committed one or two breaches of social etiquette
and vowed to himself that he would never speak to mademoiselle
Mathilde. They were always perfectly polite to him in the Hotel de
la Mole but he felt himself quite lost. His provincial common sense
explained this result by the vulgar proverb _Tout beau tout nouveau_.

He gradually came to have a little more penetration than during his
first days, or it may have been that the first glamour of Parisian
urbanity had passed off. As soon as he left off working, he fell a prey
to a mortal boredom. He was experiencing the withering effects of that
admirable politeness so typical of good society, which is so perfectly
modulated to every degree of the social hierarchy.

No doubt the provinces can be reproached with a commonness and lack of
polish in their tone; but they show a certain amount of passion, when
they answer you. Julien's self-respect was never wounded at the Hotel
de la Mole, but he often felt at the end of the day as though he would
like to cry. A cafe-waiter in the provinces will take an interest in
you if you happen to have some accident as you enter his cafe, but if
this accident has everything about it which is disagreeable to your
vanity, he will repeat ten times in succession the very word which
tortures you, as he tells you how sorry he is. At Paris they make a
point of laughing in secret, but you always remain a stranger.

We pass in silence over a number of little episodes which would have
made Julien ridiculous, if he had not been to some extent above
ridicule. A foolish sensibility resulted in his committing innumerable
acts of bad taste. All his pleasures were precautions; he practiced
pistol shooting every day, he was one of the promising pupils of the
most famous maitres d'armes. As soon as he had an instant to himself,
instead of employing it in reading as he did before, he would rush
off to the riding school and ask for the most vicious horses. When he
went out with the master of the riding school he was almost invariably
thrown.

The marquis found him convenient by reason of his persistent industry,
his silence and his intelligence, and gradually took him into his
confidence with regard to all his affairs, which were in any way
difficult to unravel. The marquis was a sagacious business man on all
those occasions when his lofty ambition gave him some respite; having
special information within his reach, he would speculate successfully
on the Exchange. He would buy mansions and forests; but he would easily
lose his temper. He would give away hundreds of louis, and would go
to law for a few hundred francs. Rich men with a lofty spirit have
recourse to business not so much for results as for distraction. The
marquis needed a chief of staff who would put all his money affairs
into clear and lucid order. Madame de la Mole, although of so even a
character, sometimes made fun of Julien. Great ladies have a horror
of those unexpected incidents which are produced by a sensitive
character; they constitute the opposite pole of etiquette. On two or
three occasions the marquis took his part. "If he is ridiculous in your
salon, he triumphs in his office." Julien on his side thought he had
caught the marquise's secret. She deigned to manifest an interest in
everything the minute the Baron de la Joumate was announced. He was a
cold individual with an expressionless physiognomy. He was tall, thin,
ugly, very well dressed, passed his life in his chateau, and generally
speaking said nothing about anything. Such was his outlook on life.
Madame de la Mole would have been happy for the first time in her life
if she could have made him her daughter's husband.





CHAPTER XXXVI

PRONUNCIATION


        If fatuity is pardonable it is in one's first youth,
        for it is then the exaggeration of an amiable thing. It
        needs an air of love, gaiety, nonchalance. But fatuity
        coupled with self-importance; fatuity with a solemn and
        self-sufficient manner! This extravagance of stupidity
        was reserved for the XIXth century. Such are the persons
        who want to unchain the _hydra of revolutions_!--LE
        JOHANNISBURG, _Pamphlet_.

Considering that he was a new arrival who was too disdainful to put any
questions, Julien did not fall into unduly great mistakes. One day when
he was forced into a cafe in the Rue St. Honore by a sudden shower,
a big man in a beaver coat, surprised by his gloomy look, looked at
him in return just as mademoiselle Amanda's lover had done before at
Besancon.

Julien had reproached himself too often for having endured the other
insult to put up with this stare. He asked for an explanation. The
man in the tail-coat immediately addressed him in the lowest and most
insulting language. All the people in the cafe surrounded them. The
passers-by stopped before the door. Julien always carried some little
pistols as a matter of precaution. His hand was grasping them nervously
in his pocket. Nevertheless he behaved wisely and confined himself to
repeating to his man "Monsieur, your address, I despise you."

The persistency in which he kept repeating these six words eventually
impressed the crowd.

"By Jove, the other who's talking all to himself ought to give him
his address," they exclaimed. The man in the tail-coat hearing this
repeated several times, flung five or six cards in Julien's face.

Fortunately none of them hit him in the face; he had mentally resolved
not to use his pistols except in the event of his being hit. The man
went away, though not without turning round from time to time to shake
his fist and hurl insults at him.

Julien was bathed in sweat. "So," he said angrily to himself, "the
meanest of mankind has it in his power to affect me as much as this.
How am I to kill so humiliating a sensitiveness?"

Where was he to find a second? He did not have a single friend. He had
several acquaintances, but they all regularly left him after six weeks
of social intercourse. "I am unsociable," he thought, and "I am now
cruelly punished for it." Finally it occurred to him to rout out an old
lieutenant of the 96th, named Lievin, a poor devil with whom he often
used to fence. Julien was frank with him.

"I am quite willing to be your second," said Lievin, "but on one
condition. If you fail to wound your man you will fight with me
straight away."

"Agreed," said Julien quite delighted; and they went to find M. de
Beauvoisis at the address indicated on his card at the end of the
Faubourg Saint Germain.

It was seven o'clock in the morning. It was only when he was being
ushered in, that Julien thought that it might quite well be the young
relation of Madame de Renal, who had once been employed at the Rome
or Naples Embassy, and who had given the singer Geronimo a letter of
introduction.

Julien gave one of the cards which had been flung at him the previous
evening together with one of his own to a tall valet.

He and his second were kept waiting for a good three-quarters of
an hour. Eventually they were ushered in to a elegantly furnished
apartment. They found there a tall young man who was dressed like a
doll. His features presented the perfection and the lack of expression
of Greek beauty. His head, which was remarkably straight, had the
finest blonde hair. It was dressed with great care and not a single
hair was out of place.

"It was to have his hair done like this, that is why this damned
fop has kept us waiting," thought the lieutenant of the 96th. The
variegated dressing gown, the morning trousers, everything down to the
embroidered slippers was correct. He was marvellously well-groomed.
His blank and aristocratic physiognomy betokened rare and orthodox
ideas; the ideal of a Metternichian diplomatist. Napoleon as well did
not like to have in his entourage officers who thought.

Julien, to whom his lieutenant of the 96th had explained, that keeping
him waiting was an additional insult after having thrown his card
so rudely in his face, entered brusquely M. de Beauvoisis' room. He
intended to be insolent, but at the same time to exhibit good form.

Julien was so astonished by the niceness of M. de Beauvoisis'
manners and by the combination of formality, self-importance, and
self-satisfaction in his demeanour, by the admirable elegance of
everything that surrounded him, that he abandoned immediately all
idea of being insolent. It was not his man of the day before. His
astonishment was so great at meeting so distinguished a person, instead
of the rude creature whom he was looking for, that he could not find a
single word to say. He presented one of the cards which had been thrown
at him.

"That's my name," said the young diplomat, not at all impressed by
Julien's black suit at seven o'clock in the morning, "but I do not
understand the honour."

His manner of pronouncing these last words revived a little of Julien's
bad temper.

"I have come to fight you, monsieur," and he explained in a few words
the whole matter.

M. Charles de Beauvoisis, after mature reflection, was fairly satisfied
with the cut of Julien's black suit.

"It comes from Staub, that's clear," he said to himself, as he heard
him speak. "That waistcoat is in good taste. Those boots are all right,
but on the other hand just think of wearing a black suit in the early
morning! It must be to have a better chance of not being hit," said the
chevalier de Beauvoisis to himself.

After he had given himself this explanation he became again perfectly
polite to Julien, and almost treated him as an equal. The conversation
was fairly lengthy, for the matter was a delicate one, but eventually
Julien could not refuse to acknowledge the actual facts. The perfectly
mannered young man before him did not bear any resemblance to the
vulgar fellow who had insulted him the previous day.

Julien felt an invincible repugnance towards him. He noted the
self-sufficiency of the chevalier de Beauvoisis, for that was the name
by which he had referred to himself, shocked as he was when Julien
called him simply "Monsieur."

He admired his gravity which, though tinged with a certain modest
fatuity, he never abandoned for a single moment. He was astonished at
his singular manner of moving his tongue as he pronounced his words,
but after all, this did not present the slightest excuse for picking a
quarrel.

The young diplomatist very graciously offered to fight, but the
ex-lieutenant of the 96th, who had been sitting down for an hour with
his legs wide apart, his hands on his thigh, and his elbows stuck out,
decided that his friend, monsieur de Sorel, was not the kind to go and
pick a quarrel with a man because someone else had stolen that man's
visiting cards.

Julien went out in a very bad temper. The chevalier de Beauvoisis'
carriage was waiting for him in the courtyard before the steps. By
chance Julien raised his eyes and recognised in the coachman his man of
the day before.

Seeing him, catching hold of him by his big jacket, tumbling him down
from his seat, and horse-whipping him thoroughly took scarcely a moment.

Two lackeys tried to defend their comrade. Julien received some blows
from their fists. At the same moment, he cocked one of his little
pistols and fired on them. They took to flight. All this took about a
minute.

The chevalier de Beauvoisis descended the staircase with the most
pleasing gravity, repeating with his lordly pronunciation, "What is
this, what is this." He was manifestly very curious, but his diplomatic
importance would not allow him to evince any greater interest.

When he knew what it was all about, a certain haughtiness tried to
assert itself in that expression of slightly playful nonchalance which
should never leave a diplomatist's face.

The lieutenant of the 96th began to realise that M. de Beauvoisis was
anxious to fight. He was also diplomatic enough to wish to reserve for
his friend the advantage of taking the initiative.

"This time," he exclaimed, "there is ground for duel."

"I think there's enough," answered the diplomat.

"Turn that rascal out," he said to his lackeys. "Let someone else get
up."

The door of the carriage was open. The chevalier insisted on doing
the honours to Julien and his friend. They sent for a friend of M. de
Beauvoisis, who chose them a quiet place. The conversation on their
way went as a matter of fact very well indeed. The only extraordinary
feature was the diplomatist in a dressing-gown.

"These gentlemen, although very noble, are by no means as boring,"
thought Julien, "as the people who come and dine at M. de la Mole's,
and I can see why," he added a moment afterwards. "They allow
themselves to be indecent." They talked about the dancers that the
public had distinguished with its favour at the ballet presented
the night before. The two gentlemen alluded to some spicy anecdotes
of which Julien and his second, the lieutenant of the 96th, were
absolutely ignorant.

Julien was not stupid enough to pretend to know them. He confessed his
ignorance with a good grace. This frankness pleased the chevalier's
friend. He told him these stories with the greatest detail and
extremely well.

One thing astonished Julien inordinately. The carriage was pulled up
for a moment by an altar which was being built in the middle of the
street for the procession of Corpus Christi Day. The two gentlemen
indulged in the luxury of several jests. According to them, the cure
was the son of an archbishop. Such a joke would never have been heard
in the house of M. de la Mole, who was trying to be made a duke. The
duel was over in a minute. Julien got a ball in his arm. They bandaged
it with handkerchiefs which they wetted with brandy, and the chevalier
de Beauvoisis requested Julien with great politeness to allow him to
take him home in the same carriage that had brought him. When Julien
gave the name of M. de la Mole's hotel, the young diplomat and his
friend exchanged looks. Julien's fiacre was here, but they found these
gentlemen's conversation more entertaining than that of the good
lieutenant of the 96th.

"By Jove, so a duel is only that," thought Julien. "What luck I found
that coachman again. How unhappy I should have been if I had had to put
up with that insult as well." The amusing conversation had scarcely
been interrupted. Julien realised that the affectation of diplomatists
is good for something.

"So ennui," he said himself, "is not a necessary incident of
conversation among well-born people. These gentlemen make fun of the
Corpus Christi procession and dare to tell extremely obscene anecdotes,
and what is more, with picturesque details. The only thing they really
lack is the ability to discuss politics logically, and that lack is
more than compensated by their graceful tone, and the perfect aptness
of their expressions." Julien experienced a lively inclination for
them. "How happy I should be to see them often."

They had scarcely taken leave of each other before the chevalier de
Beauvoisis had enquiries made. They were not brilliant.

He was very curious to know his man. Could he decently pay a call on
him? The little information he had succeeded in obtaining from him was
not of an encouraging character.

"Oh, this is awful," he said to his second. "I can't possibly own up
to having fought a duel with a mere secretary of M. de la Mole, simply
because my coachman stole my visiting cards."

"There is no doubt that all this may make you look ridiculous."

That very evening the chevalier de Beauvoisis and his friend said
everywhere that this M. Sorel who was, moreover, quite a charming young
man, was a natural son of an intimate friend of the marquis de la Mole.
This statement was readily accepted. Once it was established, the young
diplomatist and friend deigned to call several times on Julien during
the fortnight. Julien owned to them that he had only been to the Opera
once in his life. "That is awful," said one, "that is the only place
one does go to. Your first visit must be when they are playing the
'_Comte Ory_.'"

The chevalier de Beauvoisis introduced him at the opera to the famous
singer Geronimo, who was then enjoying an immense success.

Julien almost paid court to the chevalier. His mixture of self-respect,
mysterious self-importance, and fatuous youthfulness fascinated him.
The chevalier, for example, would stammer a little, simply because he
had the honour of seeing frequently a very noble lord who had this
defect. Julien had never before found combined in one and the same
person the drollery which amuses, and those perfect manners which
should be the object of a poor provincial's imitation.

He was seen at the opera with the chevalier de Beauvoisis. This
association got him talked about.

"Well," said M. de la Mole to him one day, "so here you are, the
natural son of a rich gentleman of Franche-Comte, an intimate friend of
mine."

The marquis cut Julien short as he started to protest that he had not
in any way contributed to obtaining any credence for this rumour.

"M. de Beauvoisis did not fancy having fought a duel with the son of a
carpenter."

"I know it, I know it," said M. de la Mole. "It is my business now to
give some consistency to this story which rather suits me. But I have
one favour to ask of you, which will only cost you a bare half-hour of
your time. Go and watch every opera day at half-past eleven all the
people in society coming out in the vestibule. I still see you have
certain provincial mannerisms. You must rid yourself of them. Besides
it would do no harm to know, at any rate by sight, some of the great
personages to whom I may one day send you on a commission. Call in at
the box office to get identified. Admission has been secured for you."





CHAPTER XXXVII

AN ATTACK OF GOUT


     And I got advancement, not on my merit, but because my
                master had the gout.--_Bertolotti_.

The reader is perhaps surprised by this free and almost friendly tone.
We had forgotten to say that the marquis had been confined to his house
for six weeks by the gout.

Mademoiselle de la Mole and her mother were at Hyeres near the
marquise's mother. The comte Norbert only saw his father at stray
moments. They got on very well, but had nothing to say to each other.
M. de la Mole, reduced to Julien's society, was astonished to find that
he possessed ideas. He made him read the papers to him. Soon the young
secretary was competent to pick out the interesting passages. There was
a new paper which the marquis abhorred. He had sworn never to read it,
and spoke about it every day. Julien laughed. In his irritation against
the present time, the marquis made him read Livy aloud. The improvised
translation of the Latin text amused him. The marquis said one day
in that tone of excessive politeness which frequently tried Julien's
patience,

"Allow me to present you with a blue suit, my dear Sorel. When you find
it convenient to wear it and to come and see me, I shall look upon you
as the younger brother of the comte de Chaulnes, that is to say, the
son of my friend the old Duke."

Julien did not quite gather what it was all about, but he tried a visit
in the blue suit that very evening. The marquis treated him like an
equal. Julien had a spirit capable of appreciating true politeness, but
he had no idea of nuances. Before this freak of the marquis's he would
have sworn that it was impossible for him to have been treated with
more consideration. "What an admirable talent," said Julien to himself.
When he got up to go, the marquis apologised for not being able to
accompany him by reason of his gout.

Julien was preoccupied by this strange idea. "Perhaps he is making fun
of me," he thought. He went to ask advice of the abbe Pirard, who being
less polite than the marquis, made no other answer except to whistle
and change the subject.

Julien presented himself to the marquis the next morning in his black
suit, with his letter case and his letters for signature. He was
received in the old way, but when he wore the blue suit that evening,
the marquis's tone was quite different, and absolutely as polite as on
the previous day.

"As you are not exactly bored," said the marquis to him, "by these
visits which you are kind enough to pay to a poor old man, you must
tell him about all the little incidents of your life, but you must
be frank and think of nothing except narrating them clearly and in
an amusing way. For one must amuse oneself," continued the marquis.
"That's the only reality in life. I can't have my life saved in a
battle every day, or get a present of a million francs every day, but
if I had Rivarol here by my sofa he would rid me every day of an hour
of suffering and boredom. I saw a lot of him at Hamburg during the
emigration."

And the marquis told Julien the stories of Rivarol and the inhabitants
of Hamburg who needed the combined efforts of four individuals to
understand an epigram. M. de la Mole, being reduced to the society of
this little abbe, tried to teach him. He put Julien's pride on its
mettle. As he was asked to speak the truth, Julien resolved to tell
everything, but to suppress two things, his fanatical admiration for
the name which irritated the marquis, and that complete scepticism,
which was not particularly appropriate to a prospective cure. His
little affair with the chevalier de Beauvoisis came in very handy. The
marquis laughed till the tears came into his eyes at the scene in the
cafe in the Rue St. Honore with the coachman who had loaded him with
sordid insults. The occasion was marked by a complete frankness between
the marquis and the protege.

M. de la Mole became interested in this singular character. At the
beginning he had encouraged Julian's droll blunders in order to enjoy
laughing at them. Soon he found it more interesting to correct very
gently this young man's false outlook on life.

"All other provincials who come to Paris admire everything,"
thought the marquis. "This one hates everything. They have too much
affectation; he has not affectation enough; and fools take him for a
fool."

The attack of gout was protracted by the great winter cold and lasted
some months.

"One gets quite attached to a fine spaniel," thought the marquis. "Why
should I be so ashamed of being attached to this little abbe? He is
original. I treat him as a son. Well, where's the bother? The whim, if
it lasts, will cost me a diamond and five hundred louis in my will."
Once the marquis had realised his protege's strength of character, he
entrusted him with some new business every day.

Julien noticed with alarm that this great lord would often give him
inconsistent orders with regard to the same matter.

That might compromise him seriously. Julien now made a point whenever
he worked with him, of bringing a register with him in which he wrote
his instructions which the marquis initialled. Julien had now a clerk
who would transcribe the instructions relating to each matter in a
separate book. This book also contained a copy of all the letters.

This idea seemed at first absolutely boring and ridiculous, but in two
months the marquis appreciated its advantages. Julien suggested to him
that he should take a clerk out of a banker's who was to keep proper
book-keeping accounts of all the receipts and of all the expenses of
the estates which Julien had been charged to administer.

These measures so enlightened the marquis as to his own affairs that
he could indulge the pleasure of undertaking two or three speculations
without the help of his nominee who always robbed him.

"Take three thousand francs for yourself," he said one day to his young
steward.

"Monsieur, I should lay myself open to calumny."

"What do you want then?" retorted the marquis irritably.

"Perhaps you will be kind enough to make out a statement of account and
enter it in your own hand in the book. That order will give me a sum of
3,000 francs. Besides it's M. the abbe Pirard who had the idea of all
this exactness in accounts." The marquis wrote out his instructions in
the register with the bored air of the Marquis de Moncade listening to
the accounts of his steward M. Poisson.

Business was never talked when Julien appeared in the evening in
his blue suit. The kindness of the marquis was so flattering to the
self-respect of our hero, which was always morbidly sensitive, that
in spite of himself, he soon came to feel a kind of attachment for
this nice old man. It is not that Julien was a man of sensibility
as the phrase is understood at Paris, but he was not a monster, and
no one since the death of the old major had talked to him with so
much kindness. He observed that the marquis showed a politeness and
consideration for his own personal feelings which he had never found in
the old surgeon. He now realised that the surgeon was much prouder of
his cross than was the marquis of his blue ribbon. The marquis's father
had been a great lord.

One day, at the end of a morning audience for the transaction of
business, when the black suit was worn, Julien happened to amuse the
marquis who kept him for a couple of hours, and insisted on giving him
some banknotes which his nominee had just brought from the house.

"I hope M. le Marquis, that I am not deviating from the profound
respect which I owe you, if I beg you to allow me to say a word."

"Speak, my friend."

"M. le Marquis will deign to allow me to refuse this gift. It is not
meant for the man in the black suit, and it would completely spoil
those manners which you have kindly put up with in the man in the blue
suit." He saluted with much respect and went out without looking at his
employer.

This incident amused the marquis. He told it in the evening to the abbe
Pirard.

"I must confess one thing to you, my dear abbe. I know Julien's birth,
and I authorise you not to regard this confidence as a secret."

His conduct this morning is noble, thought the marquis, so I will
ennoble him myself.

Some time afterwards the marquis was able to go out.

"Go and pass a couple of months at London," he said to Julien.
"Ordinary and special couriers will bring you the letters I have
received, together with my notes. You will write out the answers and
send them back to me, putting each letter inside the answer. I have
ascertained that the delay will be no more than five days."

As he took the post down the Calais route, Julien was astonished at the
triviality of the alleged business on which he had been sent.

We will say nothing about the feeling of hate and almost horror with
which he touched English soil. His mad passion for Bonaparte is already
known. He saw in every officer a Sir Hudson Low, in every great
noble a Lord Bathurst, ordering the infamies of St. Helena and being
recompensed by six years of office.

At London he really got to know the meaning of sublime fatuity. He had
struck up a friendship with some young Russian nobles who initiated him.

"Your future is assured, my dear Sorel," they said to him. "You
naturally have that cold demeanour, _a thousand leagues away from the
sensation one has at the moment_, that we have been making such efforts
to acquire."

"You have not understood your century," said the Prince Korasoff to
him. "Always do the opposite of what is expected of you. On my honour
there you have the sole religion of the period. Don't be foolish or
affected, for then follies and affectations will be expected of you,
and the maxim will not longer prove true."

Julien covered himself with glory one day in the Salon of the Duke
of Fitz-Folke who had invited him to dinner together with the Prince
Korasoff. They waited for an hour. The way in which Julien conducted
himself in the middle of twenty people who were waiting is still quoted
as a precedent among the young secretaries of the London Embassy. His
demeanour was unimpeachable.

In spite of his friends, the dandies, he made a point of seeing the
celebrated Philip Vane, the one philosopher that England has had
since Locke. He found him finishing his seventh year in prison. The
aristocracy doesn't joke in this country, thought Julien. Moreover Vane
is disgraced, calumniated, etc.

Julien found him in cheery spirits. The rage of the aristocracy
prevented him from being bored. "There's the only merry man I've seen
in England," thought Julien to himself, as he left the prison.

"The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God," Vane had
said to him.

We suppress the rest of the system as being cynical.

"What amusing notion do you bring me from England?" said M. la Mole to
him on his return. He was silent. "What notion do you bring me, amusing
or otherwise?" repeated the marquis sharply.

"In the first place," said Julien, "The sanest Englishman is mad one
hour every day. He is visited by the Demon of Suicide who is the local
God.

"In the second place, intellect and genius lose twenty-five per cent.
of their value when they disembark in England.

"In the third place, nothing in the world is so beautiful, so
admirable, so touching, as the English landscapes."

"Now it is my turn," said the marquis.

"In the first place, why do you go and say at the ball at the Russian
Ambassador's that there were three hundred thousand young men of twenty
in France who passionately desire war? Do you think that is nice for
the kings?"

"One doesn't know what to do when talking to great diplomats," said
Julien. "They have a mania for starting serious discussions. If one
confines oneself to the commonplaces of the papers, one is taken for a
fool. If one indulges in some original truth, they are astonished and
at a loss for an answer, and get you informed by the first Secretary
of the Embassy at seven o'clock next day that your conduct has been
unbecoming."

"Not bad," said the marquis laughing. "Anyway I will wager Monsieur
Deep-one that you have not guessed what you went to do in England."

"Pardon me," answered Julien. "I went there to dine once a week with
the king's ambassador, who is the most polite of men."

"You went to fetch this cross you see here," said the marquis to him.
"I do not want to make you leave off your black suit, and I have got
accustomed to the more amusing tone I have assumed with the man who
wears the blue suit. So understand this until further orders. When I
see this cross, you will be my friend, the Duke of Chaulne's younger
son, who has been employed in the diplomatic service the last six
months without having any idea of it. Observe," added the marquis
very seriously, cutting short all manifestations of thanks, "that I
do not want you to forget your place. That is always a mistake and a
misfortune both for patron and for dependent. When my lawsuits bore
you, or when you no longer suit me, I will ask a good living like that
of our good friend the abbe Pirard's for you, and nothing more," added
the marquis dryly. This put Julien's pride at its ease. He talked much
more. He did not so frequently think himself insulted and aimed at by
those phrases which are susceptible of some interpretation which is
scarcely polite, and which anybody may give utterance to in the course
of an animated conversation.

This cross earned him a singular visit. It was that of the baron de
Valenod, who came to Paris to thank the Minister for his barony, and
arrive at an understanding with him. He was going to be nominated mayor
of Verrieres, and to supersede M. de Renal.

Julien did not fail to smile to himself when M. Valenod gave him to
understand that they had just found out that M. de Renal was a Jacobin.
The fact was that the new baron was the ministerial candidate at the
election for which they were all getting ready, and that it was M. de
Renal who was the Liberal candidate at the great electoral college of
the department, which was, in fact, very ultra.

It was in vain that Julien tried to learn something about madame de
Renal. The baron seemed to remember their former rivalry, and was
impenetrable. He concluded by canvassing Julien for his father's vote
at the election which was going to take place. Julien promised to write.

"You ought, monsieur le Chevalier, to present me to M. the marquis de
la Mole."

"I ought, as a matter of fact," thought Julien. "But a rascal like
that!"

"As a matter of fact," he answered, "I am too small a personage in the
Hotel de la Mole to take it upon myself to introduce anyone." Julien
told the marquis everything. In the evening he described Valenod's
pretensions, as well as his deeds and feats since 1814.

"Not only will you present the new baron to me," replied de la Mole,
very seriously, "but I will invite him to dinner for the day after
to-morrow. He will be one of our new prefects."

"If that is the case, I ask for my father the post of director of the
workhouse," answered Julien, coldly.

"With pleasure," answered the marquis gaily. "It shall be granted. I
was expecting a lecture. You are getting on."

M. de Valenod informed Julien that the manager of the lottery office at
Verrieres had just died. Julien thought it humorous to give that place
to M. de Cholin, the old dotard whose petition he had once picked up in
de la Mole's room. The marquis laughed heartily at the petition, which
Julien recited as he made him sign the letter which requested that
appointment of the minister of finance.

M. de Cholin had scarcely been nominated, when Julien learnt that that
post had been asked by the department for the celebrated geometrician,
monsieur Gros. That generous man had an income of only 1400 francs, and
every year had lent 600 to the late manager who had just died, to help
him bring up his family.

Julien was astonished at what he had done.

"That's nothing," he said to himself. "It will be necessary to commit
several other injustices if I mean to get on, and also to conceal them
beneath pretty, sentimental speeches. Poor monsieur Gros! It is he who
deserves the cross. It is I who have it, and I ought to conform to the
spirit of the Government which gives it me."






Chapters 5-7
After several months, Julien has made his services very valuable to M. de la Mole although, socially, he has fallen from favor in the household. He applies himself tirelessly to his work, and to escape the discouragement that his exile causes him to feel, he devotes his leisure time entirely to fencing and riding. Norbert is estranged from him, and Mme. de la Mole finds Julien's impetuosity and sensitivity repugnant to decorum. Julien is offended by a rude individual in a cafe one day, and he immediately challenges the man to a duel. Going the following morning to the address indicated on the offender's card, Julien finds, to his surprise, that the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, whose name is on the card, is the master of the coachman who had offended Julien. Julien promptly punishes the coachman for his insolence, and the chevalier agrees to a duel. Julien is slightly wounded, but the new acquaintance soon becomes friendship. The chevalier is a model aristocrat whom Julien imitates in manners and attitude, accompanying him to the opera. In order to escape the ridicule that would result from public knowledge that he had dueled with a sawyer's son, the chevalier spreads the rumor that Julien is the natural son of a close friend of the Marquis de la Mole. The latter, upon hearing this rumor, is greatly amused. Bedridden with gout, the Marquis de la Mole is reduced to the company of Julien during the absence of his family. The marquis discovers in Julien a man of ideas and of quick wit. The marquis makes Julien a gift of a blue coat, and when Julien visits him in the evenings wearing the garment, the marquis treats him as an equal. Julien introduces efficiency into the marquis' business affairs, and his innovations are so much appreciated that the marquis wants to reward him with a gift of money. This Julien declines, pretending that the gift would ruin the relationship with the man in blue since it is to that man and not to the man in black that it is made. Recognizing the inborn nobility of Julien, the marquis devises a plan to confer upon him the cross of the Legion d'Honneur, which will constitute an exterior acknowledgment of Julien's inner nobility. He sends Julien to England, where he is introduced to various notables in the highest circles. Upon his return, Julien is told that when he wears his decoration, he will be, in the eyes of the marquis, the son of the Duc de Retz, a friend of the marquis. The decoration makes Julien more confident. A visit is paid to Julien by Valenod, recently made a baron. Valenod has replaced Renal as mayor of Verrieres. Ironically, Valenod was the ultra candidate, and Renal the candidate of the liberals. The marquis agrees to receive the mayor and intends even to encourage his political career. Benefiting from his more intimate relationship with the marquis, Julien succeeds in having his own father named director of the workhouse and Cholin named as director of the lottery. Julien learns later that his intervention has thwarted the candidacy of an honest man, M. Gros, who, Julien recognizes, really deserved and needed the appointment to the lottery post. This causes Julien some remorse, which is quickly stilled, however, by a rationalization that expediency sometimes brings about injustice.
These chapters constitute a further stage in the education of Julien, specifically as the protege of M. de la Mole. Chapter 5 is preparatory to the subsequent development of the father-son relationship in that it points up Julien's success and failure: success as a prized secretary, failure as a social creature in this blase aristocracy in which he moves. Note again Stendhal's tenderly ironic treatment of his hero in the cafe scene. Stendhal will make a fool of Julien by exploiting his hero's basically contradictory nature, causing his impetuosity to play out another mock-heroic adventure. Julien is "unmasked" by a less glorious counterpart: the "gentleman" whom he challenges turns out to be a lackey, like himself. Typically, however, Stendhal takes care not to exploit the ridiculousness that would be inherent in such a situation. Stendhal permits himself to make light of Julien, delicately, but the reader may not take this liberty. The same restraint is apparent in the handling of the encounter with the chevalier. Instead of taking offense, the latter, another of the "happy few," befriends Julien and plays the role of fairy godfather. Stendhal calls to our attention the resemblance between the two cafe scenes. He utilizes repeatedly the recurrence of similar situations at different points of the narration, and such a device is particularly effective in a novel describing the formation of an individual. An event that repeats itself calls our attention to the distance covered by the character. In this instance, we note that Julien's pride has not weakened but that he is now more highly placed on the social ladder. The duel episode serves also to further the relationship between Julien and the marquis. The rumor of noble but illegitimate birth circulated by the chevalier "suggests" to the marquis, without his own awareness of it, the action he takes to confer a kind of nobility on Julien in Chapter 7. By the end of Chapter 6, the fatherly interest felt by the marquis in Julien has progressed to the point where the marquis wants actively to "form" his secretary. Hence, he stations Julien at the opera to study another spectacle, the impressive entry and departure of the aristocracy, in order that Julien may imitate their ways and rid himself of his remaining provincialisins. Betraying his negligence in plot manipulation and preparation, Stendhal feels obliged, in Chapter 7, to justify the familiar tone in which the marquis has just addressed Julien at the end of the preceding chapter. Such an intervention Stendhal would no doubt justify by evoking his realistic pretention and his definition of the novel -- he is not inventing, he is only reporting the truth, and this detail he had forgotten to mention. Stendhal indicates to the reader to what extent Julien has actually replaced Norbert as a worthy son for the marquis, both in the eyes of the latter and in those of Stendhal. "Play acting" recurs as a theme in these chapters, and the deliberate insincerity that it implies is a necessary quality of the nobility to which Julien aspires. The marquis, another fairy godfather, intervenes as for Cinderella, outfitting Julien and casting him in a dual role. A truly noble soul is capable of effecting metamorphosis by will. Thus, the marquis is "magically" empowered to transform Julien into the gentleman in the blue coat by night and into the black-coated secretary by day. That Julien is making progress is obvious by the fact that he surpasses his master's performance. By proudly refusing the well deserved gift, Julien intimates that the marquis is violating the rules he has established himself. This performance inspires the marquis to bring about the next transformation: Julien's diplomatic mission to London, which will serve as a pretext for a decoration. Julien's frequenting London's high society is the culminating phase in the stage of his formation related in these chapters. Valenod's reappearance and his victory over Renal serve to remind the reader of the changing fortunes on the political scene. Valenod's ascendancy had been predicted in Chapter 1 of Part II. Stendhal is careful to note that antipathy and rivalry still exist between Julien and Valenod. This fact will be utilized in the ultimate determination of Julien's fate. The close of Chapter 7 reminds us that Julien's experiences have taken their toll on his principles and innocence. In short, he is being corrupted, but, fortunately, this change is reversible. In the incident in question, Julien has occasion only to rationalize his remorse. One cannot help but wonder which would have won out, expediency or principle, had Julien known earlier that Gros was also aspiring to the position in which Julien's intervention has established Cholin.