finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_4_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapters 16-23
chapters 16-23
{"name": "Chapters 16-23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapters-1623", "summary": "Now their love idyll begins: Julien loves her madly, says Stendhal, but his love is still a form of ambition. Mme. de Renal's great joy is clouded only by the fear that she is too old for Julien. The second night finds Julien forgetting his role and enjoying his experience. Mme. de Renal takes great pleasure in educating Julien in social manners and in all the political intrigue that reigns in Verrieres, of which Julien has been completely ignorant. The town is honored by a visit of the king, and Mme. de Renal succeeds in having a place in the guard of honor awarded to Julien. From his role of dashing, handsome officer, Julien moves to that of attendant priest to Chelan in a religious ceremony honoring the local saint. Other important personages to whose presence his role gives him access are the young Bishop Agde, officiating prelate, and M. de La Mole, influential and powerful Parisian aristocrat, Peer of France, in the king's entourage. When one of her sons falls seriously ill, Mme. de Renal is convinced that God is punishing her adultery. Witnessing her anguish and torment, Julien finds new reasons to love her. When Stanislas is well, her anguish nevertheless remains since the experience has made her aware of guilt. Their love, however, becomes deeper, more desperate, and somber. M. de Renal receives an anonymous letter denouncing Julien as his wife's lover. Julien senses what the letter is and warns Mme. de Renal not to come to his room that night. She, however, constantly wary that Julien is looking for an excuse to abandon her, comes to his room anyway but is not received. She writes Julien a long letter, elaborating her doubts and reiterating her undying love for him. At the same time, however, she is capable of devising a plan in the event that there does exist an anonymous letter denouncing them. She will pretend also to have received such a letter and will deliver it to her husband to confound him and to allay his doubts. M. de Renal is suffering greatly from wounded pride, anger, and self-pity. He is unable to bring himself to take any decisive step. His wife arrives, hands her letter to him, and in the next breath requests that Julien be sent away for a time until the scandal dies down. This represents exactly the solution Renal would have wanted. It relieves him of the necessity of finding out the truth since it is an avowal of innocence on her part. She furnishes him with further evidence in the form of old love letters written to her by Valenod. She succeeds masterfully in putting him on the wrong track, thereby saving appearances and her affair with Julien. In order to prove to the town that all is well in the Renal household, Julien lives in their townhouse. There he is visited by the sub-prefect, M. de Maugiron, who, on the behalf of another, sounds out Julien on the possibility of leaving the Renal household for a new position. Julien congratulates himself on his ability to satisfy Maugiron with a long-winded answer that constitutes, in effect, no answer to his proposition. Invited to dinner at the home of Valenod, Julien inwardly condemns the vulgar ostentation and bad taste of his hosts. When Valenod silences one of the inmates of the workhouse, Julien finds further grounds to feel superior to Valenod and to scorn him. Julien is invited everywhere; he is held in such esteem as a learned and talented tutor. When the Renals come for the day to Verrieres, mother and children form a happy family group with Julien, and their happiness irks the mayor, who interrupts the scene. The mayor has been forced by the Congregation to rent out a property at a much lower sum than he could have asked. Valenod, his subordinate whose trickery and intriguing with the Congregation have brought about the downfall of the Jansenist Chelan, has played a role in this intrigue. Valenod is indebted to the Vicar Frilair of the Congregation, and at the same time he is ingratiating himself with the liberals in the event that he falls out of favor with the conservatives and that M. de Renal takes steps to disgrace him. Julien learns of these machinations from Mme. de Renal, and since he attends the mysterious auction, he is taken for the Renals' spy. The gloom that reigns in the Renal household is momentarily dispelled by the unexpected arrival of an Italian singer, recommended highly to Renal and seeking further recommendations to the French court. His gaiety, exuberance, and talent provide a welcome interlude for the family, and his mission further edifies Julien as to how influence assures promotion and personal advancement. Meanwhile, several factors precipitate Julien's departure to Besancon. The town is scandalized that M. de Renal has ignored the talk about the affair in his household. Through Valenod's machinations, Elisa has related to the Jesuit Maslon and to Chelan what is going on between Julien and Mme. de Renal. Chelan therefore requires of Julien that he either enter the seminary at Besancon, the director of which is Chelan's lifelong friend, or that Julien become the partner of Fouque. M. de Renal agrees that Julien must leave. Julien accepts the ultimatum but volunteers, to the great joy of Mme. de Renal, to return after three days for a last farewell. If Julien goes to Besancon, his education must be financed; if he stays, Valenod will engage him as tutor. Another anonymous letter received by Renal presents the occasion for the final intervention of Mme. de Renal to convince her husband of the necessity of offering money to Julien. At first, Julien accepts the money as a loan, but ultimately, to the joy of the mayor, he refuses it because of his great pride. Mme. de Renal, paradoxically, lives only for the last night's rendezvous with Julien, but when it arrives, she is cold and lifeless, anticipating the future emptiness of her life. Julien departs for Besancon.", "analysis": "In these chapters, Julien plays a relatively passive role since his education requires that his experience be enlarged, and this requires that through his teacher, here for the most part Mme. de Renal, fresh insights into the local political situation be managed for Julien and for the reader. It is as if by seducing Mme. de Renal, Julien has displayed sufficient initiative so that he may now sit back without having to play an active role himself. He will have only to feel the effects of his relationship with Mme. de Renal and of other conditions existing in Verrieres. Besides, this is also a political novel, and Stendhal takes time out to add to his scornful expose of the evils of the Restoration on the local level. It is mainly to Mme. de Renal that the initiative falls because her love has taught her the necessity of ruse. Julien's earlier petty scheming seems even more ludicrous judged against Mme. de Renal's daring and heroic stratagems inspired by love. Her love has crystallized to the point where she would make any sacrifice for Julien: She educates him socially and, at the risk of scandal, obtains for Julien the position in the guard of honor. It is likewise she who takes the initiative to skillfully dupe her husband about the anonymous letters. Their love is that of mother and son at the same time that it is of mistress and lover. Julien has never had a mother or the love of a family, and Stendhal remedies this lack by the insertion of an idyllic family scene in which Julien displaces completely Mayor Renal in Chapter 22. The conclusions to be drawn about Stendhal's own childhood are obvious. Note that it is mainly on faith that we must believe in Julien's superior intelligence, for Stendhal will rarely permit us to witness any examples of his brilliance and articulate eloquence. The author intervenes to assure us of Julien's superiority, others acclaim him , and Mme. de Renal herself predicts a great future for such a brilliant man. His inexperience, at this stage, accounts somewhat for the lack of indications, it is true, but in his later experiences in Paris, the same absence of proof will be noticeable. Julien out-Jesuits the sub-prefect when the latter attempts to enlist him in the service of Valenod, but we hear none of his brilliant conversational digressions to avoid an answer. Stendhal simply tells us that his reply was perfect, as long-winded as a pastoral letter in that it suggested everything and stated nothing. Since Stendhal was, in a sense, writing the novel for himself and for the \"happy few,\" he evidently felt no need to demonstrate a superiority of which he was convinced. His modesty was another factor in this reticence. Thanks to the love that Mme. de Renal has for him, Julien has made two noticeable strides ahead in his onslaught on society: He enjoys a vicarious military experience in the guard of honor and, because of his roles that day, is soon sought after by all of Verrieres. He makes progress and profits from his education in spite of the generally passive role he assumes. He has progressed in the art of hypocrisy: When he lets slip praise of Napoleon and is rebuked for it by Mme. de Renal, his pride does not incapacitate him, and he is even adroit enough to dodge responsibility for the statement. Julien's self-appointed role as messenger to Bishop Agde previews his later roles as secretary and as spy. Julien will never attain a position of independence vis-a-vis society; rather, he will always be a protected and cherished instrument of others. He actively compares the success of alternative ways of action as he sees them in others. He prefers the refined manners of Bishop Agde to those he has found in the province. He sees everywhere examples of compromise in order to succeed: the letter left in the room occupied by M. de La Mole; the mission of the Italian singer. The latter he compares favorably to M. de Renal, who is forced to humiliate himself before the Congregation. At the Valenod's dinner, Julien is horrified at the ill-treatment the workhouse inmates receive, although he is able to contain his true feelings. In the face of the ultimatum given him by Chelan, Julien debates as to whether he should take offense, but again he remains master of himself, silent in a feigned attitude of humility. It must be reiterated that Stendhal does not condemn Julien's hypocrisy. A nature as sensitive, generous, and spontaneous as Julien's is forced to this extremity to survive. The playing out of the novel's title in Chapter 18 will not have been missed by the reader: Julien plays alternately the role of soldier, then priest. It will be, of course, the latter vocation that he will choose as a means to success since Napoleon's disappearance has rendered the former impossible. Nonetheless, the spurs that he wears under the priest's cassock indicate that his career in the priesthood will be marked with the ruthlessness and dashing of the soldier. Although Julien is capable of more love for Mme. de Renal than before his seduction of her, he is far from being a victim of it. Goaded by ambition, Julien's mind is not yet a fecund \"theater\" where this imperious emotion may manifest itself and thrive. Stendhal makes passing allusions to the \"mad\" love Julien has for her and to the fact that he finds new reasons to love her, but we are hardly convinced. His love for Mme. de Renal must await the end of the novel for its full development. It might be argued that in making Julien master of the love experience, Stendhal is getting his revenge on all of the women with whom he had been unsuccessful. Julien's love brings him, at this stage, contentment and a peace and happiness he has never known. He seems to love her more as he sees more and more how much she loves him -- particularly when Mme. de Renal's son is critically ill. At that moment, Julien realizes how completely his mistress is a helpless, suffering victim of love. He feels only momentarily the doubts and torments that continue to plague her and that move her love to constant renewal in new crystallizations. It is quite possible that it is Stendhal's own sensibility, modesty, and need for privacy that prevent him from disclosing much of what Julien's love for Mme. de Renal entails, for Julien is a projection of what Stendhal would like to be, as are all his protagonists. It will be obvious to the reader at this point in the novel that Stendhal does not take great pains to conceive an overall view of the action in which subsequent events are mutually interdependent and which would seem to be \"necessary\" as logical and expected results of previous causes. On the contrary, he invents incidents as he needs them, and the resulting haphazard nature of succession results from an almost improvisational technique of composition and is one of the meanings of his definition of the novel as a \"mirror which is carried along the road.\" He needed, for example, the sudden grave illness of Stanislas to permit a further crystallization of Mme. de Renal's love for Julien and an intensification of his love for her. The unannounced arrival of Geronimo is a fortuitous event needed to alleviate the series of defeats that M. de Renal has just undergone and that have plunged the household into gloom. In Chapter 23, almost without any warning, the reader learns that because of the scandal of Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal, a scandal hardly surprising but heretofore not even alluded to by Stendhal, a decision must be made as to Julien's future. Obviously. Stendhal wants to move him on to Besancon, and this is the logical means. Similarly, Elisa chooses this moment to inform Chelan of Julien's conduct, and it is this \"father-figure\" alone who can prevail on Julien to leave."}
CHAPTER XVI

THE DAY AFTER


    He turned his lips to hers and with his hand
    Called back the tangles of her wandering hair.
                               _Don Juan,_ c. I, st. 170.


Happily for Julien's fame, Madame de Renal had been too agitated and
too astonished to appreciate the stupidity of the man who had in a
single moment become the whole to world her.

"Oh, my God!" she said to herself, as she pressed him to retire when
she saw the dawn break, "if my husband has heard the noise, I am lost."
Julien, who had had the time to make up some phrases, remembered this
one,

"Would you regret your life?"

"Oh, very much at a moment like this, but I should not regret having
known you."

Julien thought it incumbent on his dignity to go back to his room in
broad daylight and with deliberate imprudence.

The continuous attention with which he kept on studying his slightest
actions with the absurd idea of appearing a man of experience had only
one advantage. When he saw Madame de Renal again at breakfast his
conduct was a masterpiece of prudence.

As for her, she could not look at him without blushing up to the eyes,
and could not live a moment without looking at him. She realised her
own nervousness, and her efforts to hide it redoubled. Julien only
lifted his eyes towards her once. At first Madame de Renal admired
his prudence: soon seeing that this single look was not repealed, she
became alarmed. "Could it be that he does not love me?" she said to
herself. "Alas! I am quite old for him. I am ten years older than he
is."

As she passed from the dining-room to the garden, she pressed Julien's
hand. In the surprise caused by so singular a mark of love, he regarded
her with passion, for he had thought her very pretty over breakfast,
and while keeping his eyes downcast he had passed his time in thinking
of the details of her charms. This look consoled Madame de Renal. It
did not take away all her anxiety, but her anxiety tended to take away
nearly completely all her remorse towards her husband.

The husband had noticed nothing at breakfast. It was not so with
Madame Derville. She thought she saw Madame de Renal on the point of
succumbing. During the whole day her bold and incisive friendship
regaled her cousin with those innuendoes which were intended to paint
in hideous colours the dangers she was running.

Madame de Renal was burning to find herself alone with Julien. She
wished to ask him if he still loved her. In spite of the unalterable
sweetness of her character, she was several times on the point of
notifying her friend how officious she was.

Madame Derville arranged things so adroitly that evening in the garden,
that she found herself placed between Madame de Renal and Julien.
Madame de Renal, who had thought in her imagination how delicious it
would be to press Julien's hand and carry it to her lips, was not able
to address a single word to him.

This hitch increased her agitation. She was devoured by one pang of
remorse. She had so scolded Julien for his imprudence in coming to her
room on the preceding night, that she trembled lest he should not come
to-night. She left the garden early and went and ensconced herself in
her room, but not being able to control her impatience, she went and
glued her ear to Julien's door. In spite of the uncertainty and passion
which devoured her, she did not dare to enter. This action seemed
to her the greatest possible meanness, for it forms the basis of a
provincial proverb.

The servants had not yet all gone to bed. Prudence at last compelled
her to return to her room. Two hours of waiting were two centuries of
torture.

Julien was too faithful to what he called his duty to fail to
accomplish stage by stage what he had mapped out for himself.

As one o'clock struck, he escaped softly from his room, assured himself
that the master of the house was soundly asleep, and appeared in Madame
de Renal's room. To-night he experienced more happiness by the side of
his love, for he thought less constantly about the part he had to play.
He had eyes to see, and ears to hear. What Madame de Renal said to him
about his age contributed to give him some assurance.

"Alas! I am ten years older than you. How can you love me?" she
repeated vaguely, because the idea oppressed her.

Julien could not realise her happiness, but he saw that it was genuine
and he forgot almost entirely his own fear of being ridiculous.

The foolish thought that he was regarded as an inferior, by reason of
his obscure birth, disappeared also. As Julien's transports reassured
his timid mistress, she regained a little of her happiness, and of her
power to judge her lover. Happily, he had not, on this occasion, that
artificial air which had made the assignation of the previous night a
triumph rather than a pleasure. If she had realised his concentration
on playing a part that melancholy discovery would have taken away all
her happiness for ever. She could only have seen in it the result of
the difference in their ages.

Although Madame de Renal had never thought of the theories of love,
difference in age is next to difference in fortune, one of the great
commonplaces of provincial witticisms, whenever love is the topic of
conversation.

In a few days Julien surrendered himself with all the ardour of his
age, and was desperately in love.

"One must own," he said to himself, "that she has an angelic kindness
of soul, and no one in the world is prettier."

He had almost completely given up playing a part. In a moment of
abandon, he even confessed to her all his nervousness. This confidence
raised the passion which he was inspiring to its zenith. "And I have no
lucky rival after all," said Madame de Renal to herself with delight.
She ventured to question him on the portrait in which he used to be so
interested. Julien swore to her that it was that of a man.

When Madame de Renal had enough presence of mind left to reflect, she
did not recover from her astonishment that so great a happiness could
exist; and that she had never had anything of.

"Oh," she said to herself, "if I had only known Julien ten years ago
when I was still considered pretty."

Julien was far from having thoughts like these. His love was still
akin to ambition. It was the joy of possessing, poor, unfortunate and
despised as he was, so beautiful a woman. His acts of devotion, and his
ecstacies at the sight of his mistress's charms finished by reassuring
her a little with regard to the difference of age. If she had possessed
a little of that knowledge of life which the woman of thirty has
enjoyed in the more civilised of countries for quite a long time, she
would have trembled for the duration of a love, which only seemed to
thrive on novelty and the intoxication of a young man's vanity. In
those moments when he forgot his ambition, Julien admired ecstatically
even the hats and even the dresses of Madame de Renal. He could not
sate himself with the pleasure of smelling their perfume. He would open
her mirrored cupboard, and remain hours on end admiring the beauty and
the order of everything that he found there. His love leaned on him and
looked at him. He was looking at those jewels and those dresses which
had had been her wedding presents.

"I might have married a man like that," thought Madame de Renal
sometimes. "What a fiery soul! What a delightful life one would have
with him?"

As for Julien, he had never been so near to those terrible instruments
of feminine artillery. "It is impossible," he said to himself "for
there to be anything more beautiful in Paris." He could find no flaw
in his happiness. The sincere admiration and ecstacies of his mistress
would frequently make him forget that silly pose which had rendered
him so stiff and almost ridiculous during the first moments of the
intrigue. There were moments where, in spite of his habitual hypocrisy,
he found an extreme delight in confessing to this great lady who
admired him, his ignorance of a crowd of little usages. His mistress's
rank seemed to lift him above himself. Madame de Renal, on her side,
would find the sweetest thrill of intellectual voluptuousness in thus
instructing in a number of little things this young man who was so full
of genius, and who was looked upon by everyone as destined one day to
go so far. Even the sub-prefect and M. Valenod could not help admiring
him. She thought it made them less foolish. As for Madame Derville, she
was very far from being in a position to express the same sentiments.
Rendered desperate by what she thought she divined, and seeing that
her good advice was becoming offensive to a woman who had literally
lost her head, she left Vergy without giving the explanation, which
her friend carefully refrained from asking. Madame de Renal shed a few
tears for her, and soon found her happiness greater than ever. As a
result of her departure, she found herself alone with her lover nearly
the whole day.

Julien abandoned himself all the more to the delightful society of his
sweetheart, since, whenever he was alone, Fouque's fatal proposition
still continued to agitate him. During the first days of his novel life
there were moments when the man who had never loved, who had never been
loved by anyone, would find so delicious a pleasure in being sincere,
that he was on the point of confessing to Madame de Renal that ambition
which up to then had been the very essence of his existence. He would
have liked to have been able to consult her on the strange temptation
which Fouque's offer held out to him, but a little episode rendered any
frankness impossible.





CHAPTER XVII

THE FIRST DEPUTY

    Oh, how this spring of love resembleth
    The uncertain glory of an April day,
    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
    And by and by a cloud takes all away.
                   _Two Gentlemen of Verona._


One evening when the sun was setting, and he was sitting near his love,
at the bottom of the orchard, far from all intruders, he meditated
deeply. "Will such sweet moments" he said to himself "last for ever?"
His soul was engrossed in the difficulty of deciding on a calling. He
lamented that great attack of unhappiness which comes at the end of
childhood and spoils the first years of youth in those who are not rich.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "was not Napoleon the heaven-sent saviour for young
Frenchmen? Who is to replace him? What will those unfortunate youths
do without him, who, even though they are richer than I am, have only
just the few crowns necessary to procure an education for themselves,
but have not at the age of twenty enough money to buy a man and advance
themselves in their career." "Whatever one does," he added, with a deep
sigh, "this fatal memory will always prevent our being happy."

He suddenly saw Madame de Renal frown. She assumed a cold and
disdainful air. She thought his way of looking at things typical of a
servant. Brought up as she was with the idea that she was very rich,
she took it for granted that Julien was so also. She loved him a
thousand times more than life and set no store by money.

Julien was far from guessing these ideas, but that frown brought him
back to earth. He had sufficient presence of mind to manipulate his
phrases, and to give the noble lady who was sitting so near him on the
grass seat to understand that the words he had just repeated had been
heard by him during his journey to his friend the wood merchant. It was
the logic of infidels.

"Well, have nothing to do with those people," said Madame de Renal,
still keeping a little of that icy air which had suddenly succeeded an
expression of the warmest tenderness.

This frown, or rather his remorse for his own imprudence, was the
first check to the illusion which was transporting Julien. He said to
himself, "She is good and sweet, she has a great fancy for me, but she
has been brought up in the enemy's camp. They must be particularly
afraid of that class of men of spirit who, after a good education, have
not enough money to take up a career. What would become of those nobles
if we had an opportunity of fighting them with equal arms. Suppose me,
for example, mayor of Verrieres, and as well meaning and honest as M.
de Renal is at bottom. What short shrift I should make of the vicaire,
M. Valenod and all their jobberies! How justice would triumph in
Verrieres. It is not their talents which would stop me. They are always
fumbling about."

That day Julien's happiness almost became permanent. Our hero lacked
the power of daring to be sincere. He ought to have had the courage to
have given battle, and on the spot; Madame de Renal had been astonished
by Julien's phrase, because the men in her circle kept on repeating
that the return of Robespierre was essentially possible by reason of
those over-educated young persons of the lower classes. Madame de
Renal's coldness lasted a longish time, and struck Julien as marked.
The reason was that the fear that she had said something in some way or
other disagreeable to him, succeeded her annoyance for his own breach
of taste. This unhappiness was vividly reflected in those features
which looked so pure and so naive when she was happy and away from
intruders.

Julien no longer dared to surrender himself to his dreams. Growing
calmer and less infatuated, he considered that it was imprudent to go
and see Madame de Renal in her room. It was better for her to come to
him. If a servant noticed her going about the house, a dozen different
excuses could explain it.

But this arrangement had also its inconveniences. Julien had received
from Fouque some books, which he, as a theology student would never
have dared to ask for in a bookshop. He only dared to open them at
night. He would often have found it much more convenient not to be
interrupted by a visit, the very waiting for which had even on the
evening before the little scene in the orchard completely destroyed his
mood for reading.

He had Madame de Renal to thank for understanding books in quite a new
way. He had dared to question her on a number of little things, the
ignorance of which cuts quite short the intellectual progress of any
young man born out of society, however much natural genius one may
choose to ascribe to him.

This education given through sheer love by a woman who was extremely
ignorant, was a piece of luck. Julien managed to get a clear insight
into society such as it is to-day. His mind was not bewildered by the
narration of what it had been once, two thousand years ago, or even
sixty years ago, in the time of Voltaire and Louis XV. The scales fell
from his eyes to his inexpressible joy, and he understood at last what
was going on in Verrieres.

In the first place there were the very complicated intrigues which
had been woven for the last two years around the prefect of Besancon.
They were backed up by letters from Paris, written by the cream of
the aristocracy. The scheme was to make M. de Moirod (he was the most
devout man in the district) the first and not the second deputy of the
mayor of Verrieres.

He had for a competitor a very rich manufacturer whom it was essential
to push back into the place of second deputy.

Julien understood at last the innuendoes which he had surprised,
when the high society of the locality used to come and dine at M. de
Renal's. This privileged society was deeply concerned with the choice
of a first deputy, while the rest of the town, and above all, the
Liberals, did not even suspect its possibility. The factor which made
the matter important was that, as everybody knows, the east side of the
main street of Verrieres has to be put more than nine feet back since
that street has become a royal route.

Now if M. de Moirod, who had three houses liable to have their frontage
put back, succeeded in becoming first deputy and consequently mayor in
the event of M. de Renal being elected to the chamber, he would shut
his eyes, and it would be possible to make little imperceptible repairs
in the houses projecting on to the public road, as the result of which
they would last a hundred years. In spite of the great piety and proved
integrity of M. de Moirod, everyone was certain that he would prove
amenable, because he had a great many children. Among the houses liable
to have their frontage put back nine belonged to the cream of Verrieres
society.

In Julien's eyes this intrigue was much more important than the history
of the battle of Fontenoy, whose name he now came across for the first
time in one of the books which Fouque had sent him. There had been
many things which had astonished Julien since the time five years ago
when he had started going to the cure's in the evening. But discretion
and humility of spirit being the primary qualities of a theological
student, it had always been impossible for him to put questions.

One day Madame de Renal was giving an order to her husband's valet who
was Julien's enemy.

"But, Madame, to-day is the last Friday in the month," the man answered
in a rather strange manner.

"Go," said Madame de Renal.

"Well," said Julien, "I suppose he's going to go to that corn shop
which was once a church, and has recently been restored to religion,
but what is he going to do there? That's one of the mysteries which I
have never been able to fathom."

"It's a very literary institution, but a very curious one," answered
Madame de Renal. "Women are not admitted to it. All I know is, that
everybody uses the second person singular. This servant, for instance,
will go and meet M. Valenod there, and the haughty prig will not be
a bit offended at hearing himself addressed by Saint-Jean in that
familiar way, and will answer him in the same way. If you are keen on
knowing what takes place, I will ask M. de Maugiron and M. Valenod
for details. We pay twenty francs for each servant, to prevent their
cutting our throats one fine day."

Time flew. The memory of his mistress's charms distracted Julien from
his black ambition. The necessity of refraining from mentioning gloomy
or intellectual topics since they both belonged to opposing parties,
added, without his suspecting it, to the happiness which he owed her,
and to the dominion which she acquired over him.

On the occasions when the presence of the precocious children reduced
them to speaking the language of cold reason, Julien looking at her
with eyes sparkling with love, would listen with complete docility to
her explanations of the world as it is. Frequently, in the middle of an
account of some cunning piece of jobbery, with reference to a road or
a contract, Madame de Renal's mind would suddenly wander to the very
point of delirium. Julien found it necessary to scold her. She indulged
when with him in the same intimate gestures which she used with her
own children. The fact was that there were days when she deceived
herself that she loved him like her own child. Had she not repeatedly
to answer his naive questions about a thousand simple things that a
well-born child of fifteen knows quite well? An instant afterwards
she would admire him like her master. His genius would even go so far
as to frighten her. She thought she should see more clearly every day
the future great man in this young abbe. She saw him Pope; she saw him
first minister like Richelieu. "Shall I live long enough to see you in
your glory?" she said to Julien. "There is room for a great man; church
and state have need of one."





CHAPTER XVIII

A KING AT VERRIERES


    Do you not deserve to be thrown aside like a plebeian
    corpse which has no soul and whose blood flows no
    longer in its veins.
                   _Sermon of the Bishop at the Chapel of Saint Clement_.


On the 3rd of September at ten o'clock in the evening, a gendarme woke
up the whole of Verrieres by galloping up the main street. He brought
the news that His Majesty the King of ---- would arrive the following
Sunday, and it was already Tuesday. The prefect authorised, that is to
say, demanded the forming of a guard of honour. They were to exhibit
all possible pomp. An express messenger was sent to Vergy. M. de Renal
arrived during the night and found the town in a commotion. Each
individual had his own pretensions; those who were less busy hired
balconies to see the King.

Who was to command the Guard of Honour? M. de Renal at once realised
how essential it was in the interests of the houses liable to have
their frontage put back that M. de Moirod should have the command.
That might entitle him to the post of first deputy-mayor. There was
nothing to say against the devoutness of M. de Moirod. It brooked
no comparison, but he had never sat on a horse. He was a man of
thirty-six, timid in every way, and equally frightened of falling and
of looking ridiculous. The mayor had summoned him as early as five
o'clock in the morning.

"You see, monsieur, I ask your advice, as though you already occupy
that post to which all the people on the right side want to carry you.
In this unhappy town, manufacturers are prospering, the Liberal party
is becoming possessed of millions, it aspires to power; it will manage
to exploit everything to its own ends. Let us consult the interests of
the king, the interest of the monarchy, and above all, the interest of
our holy religion. Who do you think, monsieur, could be entrusted with
the command of the guard of honour?"

In spite of the terrible fear with which horses inspired him, M. de
Moirod finished by accepting this honour like a martyr. "I shall know
how to take the right tone," he said to the mayor. There was scarcely
time enough to get ready the uniforms which had served seven years ago
on the occasion of the passage of a prince of the blood.

At seven o'clock, Madame de Renal arrived at Vergy with Julien and
the children. She found her drawing room filled with Liberal ladies
who preached the union of all parties and had come to beg her to urge
her husband to grant a place to theirs in the guard of honour. One of
them actually asserted that if her husband was not chosen he would go
bankrupt out of chagrin. Madame de Renal quickly got rid of all these
people. She seemed very engrossed.

Julien was astonished, and what was more, angry that she should make
a mystery of what was disturbing her, "I had anticipated it," he said
bitterly to himself. "Her love is being over-shadowed by the happiness
of receiving a King in her house. All this hubbub overcomes her. She
will love me once more when the ideas of her caste no longer trouble
her brain."

An astonishing fact, he only loved her the more.

The decorators began to fill the house. He watched a long time for the
opportunity to exchange a few words. He eventually found her as she was
coming out of his own room, carrying one of his suits. They were alone.
He tried to speak to her. She ran away, refusing to listen to him. "I
am an absolute fool to love a woman like that, whose ambition renders
her as mad as her husband."

She was madder. One of her great wishes which she had never confessed
to Julien for fear of shocking him, was to see him leave off, if only
for one day, his gloomy black suit. With an adroitness which was truly
admirable in so ingenuous a woman, she secured first from M. de Moirod,
and subsequently, from M. the sub-perfect de Maugiron, an assurance
that Julien should be nominated a guard of honour in preference to five
or six young people, the sons of very well-off manufacturers, of whom
two at least, were models of piety. M. de Valenod, who reckoned on
lending his carriage to the prettiest women in the town, and on showing
off his fine Norman steeds, consented to let Julien (the being he hated
most in the whole world) have one of his horses. But all the guards of
honour, either possessed or had borrowed, one of those pretty sky-blue
uniforms, with two silver colonel epaulettes, which had shone seven
years ago. Madame de Renal wanted a new uniform, and she only had four
days in which to send to Besancon and get from there the uniform, the
arms, the hat, etc., everything necessary for a Guard of Honour. The
most delightful part of it was that she thought it imprudent to get
Julien's uniform made at Verrieres. She wanted to surprise both him and
the town.

Having settled the questions of the guards of honour, and of the public
welcome finished, the mayor had now to organise a great religious
ceremony. The King of ---- did not wish to pass through Verrieres
without visiting the famous relic of St. Clement, which is kept at
Bray-le-Haut barely a league from the town. The authorities wanted
to have a numerous attendance of the clergy, but this matter was the
most difficult to arrange. M. Maslon, the new cure, wanted to avoid at
any price the presence of M. Chelan. It was in vain that M. de Renal
tried to represent to him that it would be imprudent to do so. M. the
Marquis de La Mole whose ancestors had been governors of the province
for so many generations, had been chosen to accompany the King of ----.
He had known the abbe Chelan for thirty years. He would certainly ask
news of him when he arrived at Verrieres, and if he found him disgraced
he was the very man to go and route him out in the little house to
which he had retired, accompanied by all the escort that he had at his
disposition. What a rebuff that would be?

"I shall be disgraced both here and at Besancon," answered the abbe
Maslon, "if he appears among my clergy. A Jansenist, by the Lord."

"Whatever you can say, my dear abbe," replied M. de Renal, "I'll never
expose the administration of Verrieres to receiving such an affront
from M. de la Mole. You do not know him. He is orthodox enough at
Court, but here in the provinces, he is a satirical wit and cynic,
whose only object is to make people uncomfortable. He is capable of
covering us with ridicule in the eyes of the Liberals, simply in order
to amuse himself."

It was only on the night between the Saturday and the Sunday, after
three whole days of negotiations that the pride of the abbe Maslon bent
before the fear of the mayor, which was now changing into courage. It
was necessary to write a honeyed letter to the abbe Chelan, begging
him to be present at the ceremony in connection with the relic of
Bray-le-Haut, if of course, his great age and his infirmity allowed him
to do so. M. Chelan asked for and obtained a letter of invitation for
Julien, who was to accompany him as his sub-deacon.

From the beginning of the Sunday morning, thousands of peasants began
to arrive from the neighbouring mountains, and to inundate the streets
of Verrieres. It was the finest sunshine. Finally, about three o'clock,
a thrill swept through all this crowd. A great fire had been perceived
on a rock two leagues from Verrieres. This signal announced that the
king had just entered the territory of the department. At the same
time, the sound of all the bells and the repeated volleys from an old
Spanish cannon which belonged to the town, testified to its joy at
this great event. Half the population climbed on to the roofs. All the
women were on the balconies. The guard of honour started to march, The
brilliant uniforms were universally admired; everybody recognised a
relative or a friend. They made fun of the timidity of M. de Moirod,
whose prudent hand was ready every single minute to catch hold of his
saddle-bow. But one remark resulted in all the others being forgotten;
the first cavalier in the ninth line was a very pretty, slim boy, who
was not recognised at first. He soon created a general sensation, as
some uttered a cry of indignation, and others were dumbfounded with
astonishment. They recognised in this young man, who was sitting one
of the Norman horses of M. Valenod, little Sorel, the carpenter's son.
There was a unanimous out-cry against the mayor, above all on the part
of the Liberals. What, because this little labourer, who masqueraded as
an abbe, was tutor to his brats, he had the audacity to nominate him
guard of honour to the prejudice of rich manufacturers like so-and-so
and so-and-so! "Those gentlemen," said a banker's wife, "ought to put
that insolent gutter-boy in his proper place."

"He is cunning and carries a sabre," answered her neighbour. "He would
be dastardly enough to slash them in the face."

The conversation of aristocratic society was more dangerous. The ladies
began to ask each other if the mayor alone was responsible for this
grave impropriety. Speaking generally, they did justice to his contempt
for lack of birth.

Julien was the happiest of men, while he was the subject of so much
conversation. Bold by nature, he sat a horse better than the majority
of the young men of this mountain town. He saw that, in the eyes of the
women, he was the topic of interest.

His epaulettes were more brilliant than those of the others, because
they were new. His horse pranced at every moment. He reached the zenith
of joy.

His happiness was unbounded when, as they passed by the old rampart,
the noise of the little cannon made his horse prance outside the line.
By a great piece of luck he did not fall; from that moment he felt
himself a hero. He was one of Napoleon's officers of artillery, and was
charging a battery.

One person was happier than he. She had first seen him pass from one
of the folding windows in the Hotel de Ville. Then taking her carriage
and rapidly making a long detour, she arrived in time to shudder when
his horse took him outside the line. Finally she put her carriage to
the gallop, left by another gate of the town, succeeded in rejoining
the route by which the King was to pass, and was able to follow the
Guard of Honour at twenty paces distance in the midst of a noble dust.
Six thousand peasants cried "Long live the King," when the mayor had
the honour to harangue his Majesty. An hour afterwards, when all the
speeches had been listened to, and the King was going to enter the
town, the little cannon began again to discharge its spasmodic volleys.
But an accident ensued, the victim being, not one of the cannoneers who
had proved their mettle at Leipsic and at Montreuil, but the future
deputy-mayor, M. de Moirod. His horse gently laid him in the one heap
of mud on the high road, a somewhat scandalous circumstance, inasmuch
as it was necessary to extricate him to allow the King to pass. His
Majesty alighted at the fine new church, which was decked out to-day
with all its crimson curtains. The King was due to dine, and then
afterwards take his carriage again and go and pay his respects to the
celebrated relic of Saint Clement. Scarcely was the King in the church
than Julien galloped towards the house of M. de Renal. Once there
he doffed with a sigh his fine sky-blue uniform, his sabre and his
epaulettes, to put on again his shabby little black suit. He mounted
his horse again, and in a few moments was at Bray-le-Haut, which was
on the summit of a very pretty hill. "Enthusiasm is responsible for
these numbers of peasants," thought Julien. It was impossible to move
a step at Verrieres, and here there were more than ten thousand round
this ancient abbey. Half ruined by the vandalism of the Revolution,
it had been magnificently restored since the Restoration, and people
were already beginning to talk of miracles. Julien rejoined the abbe
Chelan, who scolded him roundly and gave him a cassock and a surplice.
He dressed quickly and followed M. Chelan, who was going to pay a call
on the young bishop of Agde. He was a nephew of M. de la Mole, who had
been recently nominated, and had been charged with the duty of showing
the relic to the King. But the bishop was not to be found.

The clergy began to get impatient. It was awaiting its chief in the
sombre Gothic cloister of the ancient abbey. Twenty-four cures had
been brought together so as to represent the ancient chapter of
Bray-le-Haut, which before 1789 consisted of twenty-four canons. The
cures, having deplored the bishop's youth for three-quarters of an
hour, thought it fitting for their senior to visit Monseigneur to
apprise him that the King was on the point of arriving, and that it was
time to betake himself to the choir. The great age of M. Chelan gave
him the seniority. In spite of the bad temper which he was manifesting
to Julien, he signed him to follow. Julien was wearing his surplice
with distinction. By means of some trick or other of ecclesiastical
dress, he had made his fine curling hair very flat, but by a
forgetfulness, which redoubled the anger of M. Chelan, the spurs of the
Guard of Honour could be seen below the long folds of his cassock.

When they arrived at the bishop's apartment, the tall lackeys with
their lace-frills scarcely deigned to answer the old cure to the effect
that Monseigneur was not receiving. They made fun of him when he tried
to explain that in his capacity of senior member of the chapter of
Bray-le-Haut, he had the privilege of being admitted at any time to the
officiating bishop.

Julien's haughty temper was shocked by the lackeys' insolence. He
started to traverse the corridors of the ancient abbey, and to shake
all the doors which he found. A very small one yielded to his efforts,
and he found himself in a cell in the midst of Monseigneur's valets,
who were dressed in black suits with chains on their necks. His hurried
manner made these gentlemen think that he had been sent by the bishop,
and they let him pass. He went some steps further on, and found himself
in an immense Gothic hall, which was extremely dark, and completely
wainscotted in black oak. The ogive windows had all been walled in
with brick except one. There was nothing to disguise the coarseness
of this masonry, which offered a melancholy contrast to the ancient
magnificence of the woodwork. The two great sides of this hall, so
celebrated among Burgundian antiquaries, and built by the Duke, Charles
the Bold, about 1470 in expiation of some sin, were adorned with richly
sculptured wooden stalls. All the mysteries of the Apocalypse were to
be seen portrayed in wood of different colours.

This melancholy magnificence, debased as it was by the sight of the
bare bricks and the plaster (which was still quite white) affected
Julien. He stopped in silence. He saw at the other extremity of the
hall, near the one window which let in the daylight, a movable mahogany
mirror. A young man in a violet robe and a lace surplice, but with his
head bare, was standing still three paces from the glass. This piece
of furniture seemed strange in a place like this, and had doubtless
been only brought there on the previous day. Julien thought that the
young man had the appearance of being irritated. He was solemnly giving
benedictions with his right hand close to the mirror.

"What can this mean," he thought. "Is this young priest performing some
preliminary ceremony? Perhaps he is the bishop's secretary. He will be
as insolent as the lackeys. Never mind though! Let us try." He advanced
and traversed somewhat slowly the length of the hall, with his gaze
fixed all the time on the one window, and looking at the young man who
continued without any intermission bestowing slowly an infinite number
of blessings.

The nearer he approached the better he could distinguish his angry
manner. The richness of the lace surplice stopped Julien in spite of
himself some paces in front of the mirror. "It is my duty to speak," he
said to himself at last. But the beauty of the hall had moved him, and
he was already upset by the harsh words he anticipated.

The young man saw him in the mirror, turned round, and suddenly
discarding his angry manner, said to him in the gentlest tone,

"Well, Monsieur, has it been arranged at last?"

Julien was dumbfounded. As the young man began to turn towards him,
Julien saw the pectoral cross on his breast. It was the bishop of Agde.
"As young as that," thought Julien. "At most six or eight years older
than I am!"

He was ashamed of his spurs.

"Monseigneur," he said at last, "I am sent by M. Chelan, the senior of
the chapter."

"Ah, he has been well recommended to me," said the bishop in a polished
tone which doubled Julien's delight, "But I beg your pardon, Monsieur,
I mistook you for the person who was to bring me my mitre. It was badly
packed at Paris. The silver cloth towards the top has been terribly
spoiled. It will look awful," ended the young bishop sadly, "And
besides, I am being kept waiting."

"Monseigneur, I will go and fetch the mitre if your grace will let me."

Julien's fine eyes did their work.

"Go, Monsieur," answered the bishop, with charming politeness. "I need
it immediately. I am grieved to keep the gentlemen of the chapter
waiting."

When Julien reached the centre of the hall, he turned round towards the
bishop, and saw that he had again commenced giving benedictions.

"What can it be?" Julien asked himself. "No doubt it is a necessary
ecclesiastical preliminary for the ceremony which is to take place."
When he reached the cell in which the valets were congregated, he
saw the mitre in their hands. These gentlemen succumbed in spite of
themselves to his imperious look, and gave him Monseigneur's mitre.

He felt proud to carry it. As he crossed the hall he walked slowly. He
held it with reverence. He found the bishop seated before the glass,
but from time to time, his right hand, although fatigued, still gave a
blessing. Julien helped him to adjust his mitre. The bishop shook his
head.

"Ah! it will keep on," he said to Julien with an air of satisfaction.
"Do you mind going a little way off?"

Then the bishop went very quickly to the centre of the room, then
approached the mirror, again resumed his angry manner, and gravely
began to give blessings.

Julien was motionless with astonishment. He was tempted to understand,
but did not dare. The bishop stopped, and suddenly abandoning his grave
manner looked at him and said:

"What do you think of my mitre, monsieur, is it on right?"

"Quite right, Monseigneur."

"It is not too far back? That would look a little silly, but I mustn't
on the other hand wear it down over the eyes like an officer's shako."

"It seems to me to be on quite right."

"The King of ---- is accustomed to a venerable clergy who are doubtless
very solemn. I should not like to appear lacking in dignity, especially
by reason of my youth."

And the bishop started again to walk about and give benedictions.

"It is quite clear," said Julien, daring to understand at last, "He is
practising giving his benediction."

"I am ready," the bishop said after a few moments. "Go, Monsieur, and
advise the senior and the gentlemen of the chapter."

Soon M. Chelan, followed by the two oldest cures, entered by a big
magnificently sculptured door, which Julien had not previously noticed.
But this time he remained in his place quite at the back, and was only
able to see the bishop over the shoulders of ecclesiastics who were
pressing at the door in crowds.

The bishop began slowly to traverse the hall. When he reached the
threshold, the cures formed themselves into a procession. After a short
moment of confusion, the procession began to march intoning the psalm.
The bishop, who was between M. Chelan and a very old cure, was the last
to advance. Julien being in attendance on the abbe Chelan managed to
get quite near Monseigneur. They followed the long corridors of the
abbey of Bray-le-Haut. In spite of the brilliant sun they were dark and
damp. They arrived finally at the portico of the cloister. Julien was
dumbfounded with admiration for so fine a ceremony. His emotions were
divided between thoughts of his own ambition which had been reawakened
by the bishop's youth and thoughts of the latter's refinement and
exquisite politeness. This politeness was quite different to that of M.
de Renal, even on his good days. "The higher you lift yourself towards
the first rank of society," said Julien to himself, "the more charming
manners you find."

They entered the church by a side door; suddenly an awful noise made
the ancient walls echo. Julien thought they were going to crumble. It
was the little piece of artillery again. It had been drawn at a gallop
by eight horses and had just arrived. Immediately on its arrival it had
been run out by the Leipsic cannoneers and fired five shots a minute as
though the Prussians had been the target.

But this admirable noise no longer produced any effect on Julien. He no
longer thought of Napoleon and military glory. "To be bishop of Agde so
young," he thought. "But where is Agde? How much does it bring in? Two
or three hundred thousand francs, perhaps."

Monseigneur's lackeys appeared with a magnificent canopy. M. Chelan
took one of the poles, but as a matter of fact it was Julien who
carried it. The bishop took his place underneath. He had really
succeeded in looking old; and our hero's admiration was now quite
unbounded. "What can't one accomplish with skill," he thought.

The king entered. Julien had the good fortune to see him at close
quarters. The bishop began to harangue him with unction, without
forgetting a little nuance of very polite anxiety for his Majesty.
We will not repeat a description of the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut.
They filled all the columns of the journals of the department for a
fortnight on end. Julien learnt from the bishop that the king was
descended from Charles the Bold.

At a later date, it was one of Julien's duties to check the accounts
of the cost of this ceremony. M. de la Mole, who had succeeded in
procuring a bishopric for his nephew, had wished to do him the favour
of being himself responsible for all the expenses. The ceremony alone
of Bray-le-Haute cost three thousand eight hundred francs.

After the speech of the bishop, and the answer of the king, his
Majesty took up a position underneath the canopy, and then knelt very
devoutly on a cushion near the altar. The choir was surrounded by
stalls, and the stalls were raised two steps from the pavement. It
was at the bottom of these steps that Julien sat at the feet of M.
de Chelan almost like a train-bearer sitting next to his cardinal in
the Sixtine chapel at Rome. There was a _Te Deum_, floods of incense,
innumerable volleys of musketry and artillery; the peasants were drunk
with happiness and piety. A day like this undoes the work of a hundred
numbers of the Jacobin papers.

Julien was six paces from the king, who was really praying with
devotion. He noticed for the first time a little man with a witty
expression, who wore an almost plain suit. But he had a sky-blue ribbon
over this very simple suit. He was nearer the king than many other
lords, whose clothes were embroidered with gold to such an extent that,
to use Julien's expression, it was impossible to see the cloth. He
learnt some minutes later that it was Monsieur de la Mole. He thought
he looked haughty, and even insolent.

"I'm sure this marquis is not so polite as my pretty bishop," he
thought. "Ah, the ecclesiastical calling makes men mild and good. But
the king has come to venerate the relic, and I don't see a trace of the
relic. Where has Saint Clement got to?"

A little priest who sat next to him informed him that the venerable
relic was at the top of the building in a _chapelle ardente_.

"What is a _chapelle ardente_," said Julien to himself.

But he was reluctant to ask the meaning of this word. He redoubled his
attention.

The etiquette on the occasion of a visit of a sovereign prince is
that the canons do not accompany the bishop. But, as he started on
his march to the _chapelle ardente_, my lord bishop of Agde called
the abbe Chelan. Julien dared to follow him. Having climbed up a long
staircase, they reached an extremely small door whose Gothic frame
was magnificently gilded. This work looked as though it had been
constructed the day before.

Twenty-four young girls belonging to the most distinguished families in
Verrieres were assembled in front of the door. The bishop knelt down
in the midst of these pretty maidens before he opened the door. While
he was praying aloud, they seemed unable to exhaust their admiration
for his fine lace, his gracious mien, and his young and gentle face.
This spectacle deprived our hero of his last remnants of reason. At
this moment he would have fought for the Inquisition, and with a good
conscience. The door suddenly opened. The little chapel was blazing
with light. More than a thousand candles could be seen before the
altar, divided into eight lines and separated from each other by
bouquets of flowers. The suave odour of the purest incense eddied
out from the door of the sanctuary. The chapel, which had been newly
gilded, was extremely small but very high. Julien noticed that there
were candles more than fifteen feet high upon the altar. The young
girls could not restrain a cry of admiration. Only the twenty-four
young girls, the two cures and Julien had been admitted into the little
vestibule of the chapel. Soon the king arrived, followed by Monsieur
de la Mole and his great Chamberlain. The guards themselves remained
outside kneeling and presenting arms.

His Majesty precipitated, rather than threw himself, on to the stool.
It was only then that Julien, who was keeping close to the gilded
door, perceived over the bare arm of a young girl, the charming statue
of St. Clement. It was hidden under the altar, and bore the dress of
a young Roman soldier. It had a large wound on its neck, from which
the blood seemed to flow. The artist had surpassed himself. The eyes,
which though dying were full of grace, were half closed. A budding
moustache adored that charming mouth which, though half closed, seemed
notwithstanding to be praying. The young girl next to Julien wept warm
tears at the sight. One of her tears fell on Julien's hand.

After a moment of prayer in the profoundest silence, that was only
broken by the distant sound of the bells of all the villages within a
radius of ten leagues, the bishop of Agde asked the king's permission
to speak. He finished a short but very touching speech with a passage,
the very simplicity of which assured its effectiveness:

"Never forget, young Christian women, that you have seen one of the
greatest kings of the world on his knees before the servants of
this Almighty and terrible God. These servants, feeble, persecuted,
assassinated as they were on earth, as you can see by the still
bleeding wounds of Saint Clement, will triumph in Heaven. You will
remember them, my young Christian women, will you not, this day for
ever, and will detest the infidel. You will be for ever faithful to
this God who is so great, so terrible, but so good?"

With these words the bishop rose authoritatively.

"You promise me?" he said, lifting up his arm with an inspired air.

"We promise," said the young girls melting into tears.

"I accept your promise in the name of the terrible God," added the
bishop in a thunderous voice, and the ceremony was at an end.

The king himself was crying. It was only a long time afterwards that
Julien had sufficient self-possession to enquire "where were the bones
of the Saint that had been sent from Rome to Philip the Good, Duke of
Burgundy?" He was told that they were hidden in the charming waxen
figure.

His Majesty deigned to allow the young ladies who had accompanied him
into the chapel to wear a red ribbon on which were embroidered these
words, "HATE OF THE INFIDEL. PERPETUAL ADORATION."

Monsieur de la Mole had ten thousand bottles of wine distributed among
the peasants. In the evening at Verrieres, the Liberals made a point of
having illuminations which were a hundred times better than those of
the Royalists. Before leaving, the king paid a visit to M. de Moirod.





CHAPTER XIX

THINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING


    The grotesqueness of every-day events conceals the real
           unhappiness of the passions.--_Barnave_.

As he was replacing the usual furniture in the room which M. de la
Mole had occupied, Julien found a piece of very strong paper folded in
four. He read at the bottom of the first page "To His Excellency M.
le Marquis de la Mole, peer of France, Chevalier of the Orders of the
King, etc. etc." It was a petition in the rough hand-writing of a cook.

        "Monsieur le Marquis, I have had religious principles
        all my life. I was in Lyons exposed to the bombs at
        the time of the siege, in '93 of execrable memory. I
        communicate, I go to Mass every Sunday in the parochial
        church. I have never missed the paschal duty, even in
        '93 of execrable memory. My cook used to keep servants
        before the revolution, my cook fasts on Fridays. I am
        universally respected in Verrieres, and I venture to
        say I deserve to be so. I walk under the canopy in the
        processions at the side of the cure and of the mayor. On
        great occasions I carry a big candle, bought at my own
        expense.

        "I ask Monsieur the marquis for the lottery appointment
        of Verrieres, which in one way or another is bound to
        be vacant shortly as the beneficiary is very ill, and
        moreover votes on the wrong side at elections, etc. De
        Cholin."

In the margin of this petition was a recommendation signed "de Moirod"
which began with this line, "I have had the honour, the worthy person
who makes this request."

"So even that imbecile de Cholin shows me the way to go about things,"
said Julien to himself.

Eight days after the passage of the King of ---- through Verrieres,
the one question which predominated over the innumerable falsehoods,
foolish conjectures, and ridiculous discussions, etc., etc., which had
had successively for their object the king, the Marquis de la Mole,
the ten thousand bottles of wine, the fall of poor de Moirod, who,
hoping to win a cross, only left his room a week after his fall, was
the absolute indecency of having _foisted_ Julien Sorel, a carpenter's
son, into the Guard of Honour. You should have heard on this point the
rich manufacturers of printed calico, the very persons who used to bawl
themselves hoarse in preaching equality, morning and evening in the
cafe. That haughty woman, Madame de Renal, was of course responsible
for this abomination. The reason? The fine eyes and fresh complexion of
the little abbe Sorel explained everything else.

A short time after their return to Vergy, Stanislas, the youngest of
the children, caught the fever; Madame de Renal was suddenly attacked
by an awful remorse. For the first time she reproached herself for her
love with some logic. She seemed to understand as though by a miracle
the enormity of the sin into which she had let herself be swept. Up to
that moment, although deeply religious, she had never thought of the
greatness of her crime in the eyes of God.

In former times she had loved God passionately in the Convent of
the Sacred Heart; in the present circumstances, she feared him with
equal intensity. The struggles which lacerated her soul were all the
more awful in that her fear was quite irrational. Julien found that
the least argument irritated instead of soothing her. She saw in the
illness the language of hell. Moreover, Julien was himself very fond of
the little Stanislas.

It soon assumed a serious character. Then incessant remorse deprived
Madame de Renal of even her power of sleep. She ensconced herself in a
gloomy silence: if she had opened her mouth, it would only have been to
confess her crime to God and mankind.

"I urge you," said Julien to her, as soon as they got alone, "not to
speak to anyone. Let me be the sole confidant of your sufferings. If
you still love me, do not speak. Your words will not be able to take
away our Stanislas' fever." But his consolations produced no effect.
He did not know that Madame de Renal had got it into her head that, in
order to appease the wrath of a jealous God, it was necessary either to
hate Julien, or let her son die. It was because she felt she could not
hate her lover that she was so unhappy.

"Fly from me," she said one day to Julien. "In the name of God leave
this house. It is your presence here which kills my son. God punishes
me," she added in a low voice. "He is just. I admire his fairness.
My crime is awful, and I was living without remorse," she exclaimed.
"That was the first sign of my desertion of God: I ought to be doubly
punished."

Julien was profoundly touched. He could see in this neither hypocrisy
nor exaggeration. "She thinks that she is killing her son by loving me,
and all the same the unhappy woman loves me more than her son. I cannot
doubt it. It is remorse for that which is killing her. Those sentiments
of hers have real greatness. But how could I have inspired such a love,
I who am so poor, so badly-educated, so ignorant, and sometimes so
coarse in my manners?"

One night the child was extremely ill. At about two o'clock in the
morning, M. de Renal came to see it. The child consumed by fever, and
extremely flushed, could not recognise its father. Suddenly Madame de
Renal threw herself at her husband's feet; Julien saw that she was
going to confess everything and ruin herself for ever.

Fortunately this extraordinary proceeding annoyed M. de Renal.

"Adieu! Adieu!" he said, going away.

"No, listen to me," cried his wife on her knees before him, trying to
hold him back. "Hear the whole truth. It is I who am killing my son. I
gave him life, and I am taking it back. Heaven is punishing me. In the
eyes of God I am guilty of murder. It is necessary that I should ruin
and humiliate myself. Perhaps that sacrifice will appease the the Lord."

If M. de Renal had been a man of any imagination, he would then have
realized everything.

"Romantic nonsense," he cried, moving his wife away as she tried to
embrace his knees. "All that is romantic nonsense! Julien, go and fetch
the doctor at daybreak," and he went back to bed. Madame de Renal fell
on her knees half-fainting, repelling Julien's help with a hysterical
gesture.

Julien was astonished.

"So this is what adultery is," he said to himself. "Is it possible
that those scoundrels of priests should be right, that they who commit
so many sins themselves should have the privilege of knowing the true
theory of sin? How droll!"

For twenty minutes after M. de Renal had gone back to bed, Julien saw
the woman he loved with her head resting on her son's little bed,
motionless, and almost unconscious. "There," he said to himself, "is
a woman of superior temperament brought to the depths of unhappiness
simply because she has known me."

"Time moves quickly. What can I do for her? I must make up my mind. I
have not got simply myself to consider now. What do I care for men and
their buffooneries? What can I do for her? Leave her? But I should be
leaving her alone and a prey to the most awful grief. That automaton
of a husband is more harm to her than good. He is so coarse that he is
bound to speak harshly to her. She may go mad and throw herself out of
the window."

"If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will confess
everything, and who knows, in spite of the legacy which she is bound to
bring him, he will create a scandal. She may confess everything (great
God) to that scoundrel of an abbe who makes the illness of a child
of six an excuse for not budging from this house, and not without a
purpose either. In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all she
knows of the man; she only sees the priest."

"Go away," said Madame de Renal suddenly to him, opening her eyes.

"I would give my life a thousand times to know what could be of most
use to you," answered Julien. "I have never loved you so much, my dear
angel, or rather it is only from this last moment that I begin to adore
you as you deserve to be adored. What would become of me far from you,
and with the consciousness that you are unhappy owing to what I have
done? But don't let my suffering come into the matter. I will go--yes,
my love! But if I leave you, dear; if I cease to watch over you, to be
incessantly between you and your husband, you will tell him everything.
You will ruin yourself. Remember that he will hound you out of his
house in disgrace. Besancon will talk of the scandal. You will be said
to be absolutely in the wrong. You will never lift up your head again
after that shame."

"That's what I ask," she cried, standing up. "I shall suffer, so much
the better."

"But you will also make him unhappy through that awful scandal."

"But I shall be humiliating myself, throwing myself into the mire, and
by those means, perhaps, I shall save my son. Such a humiliation in the
eyes of all is perhaps to be regarded as a public penitence. So far as
my weak judgment goes, is it not the greatest sacrifice that I can make
to God?--perhaps He will deign to accept my humiliation, and to leave
me my son. Show me another sacrifice which is more painful and I will
rush to it."

"Let me punish myself. I too am guilty. Do you wish me to retire to the
Trappist Monastery? The austerity of that life may appease your God.
Oh, heaven, why cannot I take Stanislas's illness upon myself?"

"Ah, do you love him then," said Madame de Renal, getting up and
throwing herself in his arms.

At the same time she repelled him with horror.

"I believe you! I believe you! Oh, my one friend," she cried falling on
her knees again. "Why are you not the father of Stanislas? In that case
it would not be a terrible sin to love you more than your son."

"Won't you allow me to stay and love you henceforth like a brother? It
is the only rational atonement. It may appease the wrath of the Most
High."

"Am I," she cried, getting up and taking Julien's head between her two
hands, and holding it some distance from her. "Am I to love you as if
you were a brother? Is it in my power to love you like that?" Julien
melted into tears.

"I will obey you," he said, falling at her feet. "I will obey you in
whatever you order me. That is all there is left for me to do. My mind
is struck with blindness. I do not see any course to take. If I leave
you you will tell your husband everything. You will ruin yourself
and him as well. He will never be nominated deputy after incurring
such ridicule. If I stay, you will think I am the cause of your son's
death, and you will die of grief. Do you wish to try the effect of my
departure. If you wish, I will punish myself for our sin by leaving you
for eight days. I will pass them in any retreat you like. In the abbey
of Bray-le-Haut, for instance. But swear that you will say nothing to
your husband during my absence. Remember that if you speak I shall
never be able to come back."

She promised and he left, but was called back at the end of two days.

"It is impossible for me to keep my oath without you. I shall speak to
my husband if you are not constantly there to enjoin me to silence by
your looks. Every hour of this abominable life seems to last a day."

Finally heaven had pity on this unfortunate mother. Little by little
Stanislas got out of danger. But the ice was broken. Her reason had
realised the extent of her sin. She could not recover her equilibrium
again. Her pangs of remorse remained, and were what they ought to have
been in so sincere a heart. Her life was heaven and hell: hell when she
did not see Julien; heaven when she was at his feet.

"I do not deceive myself any more," she would say to him, even during
the moments when she dared to surrender herself to his full love. "I
am damned, irrevocably damned. You are young, heaven may forgive you,
but I, I am damned. I know it by a certain sign. I am afraid, who would
not be afraid at the sight of hell? but at the bottom of my heart I
do not repent at all. I would commit my sin over again if I had the
opportunity. If heaven will only forbear to punish me in this world and
through my children, I shall have more than I deserve. But you, at any
rate, my Julien," she would cry at other moments, "are you happy? Do
you think I love you enough?"

The suspiciousness and morbid pride of Julien, who needed, above all,
a self-sacrificing love, altogether vanished when he saw at every hour
of the day so great and indisputable a sacrifice. He adored Madame
de Renal. "It makes no difference her being noble, and my being a
labourer's son. She loves me.... she does not regard me as a valet
charged with the functions of a lover." That fear once dismissed,
Julien fell into all the madness of love, into all its deadly
uncertainties.

"At any rate," she would cry, seeing his doubts of her love, "let me
feel quite happy during the three days we still have together. Let us
make haste; perhaps to-morrow will be too late. If heaven strikes me
through my children, it will be in vain that I shall try only to live
to love you, and to be blind to the fact that it is my crime which has
killed them. I could not survive that blow. Even if I wished I could
not; I should go mad."

"Ah, if only I could take your sin on myself as you so generously
offered to take Stanislas' burning fever!"

This great moral crisis changed the character of the sentiment
which united Julien and his mistress. His love was no longer simply
admiration for her beauty, and the pride of possessing her.

Henceforth their happiness was of a quite superior character. The flame
which consumed them was more intense. They had transports filled with
madness. Judged by the worldly standard their happiness would have
appeared intensified. But they no longer found that delicious serenity,
that cloudless happiness, that facile joy of the first period of their
love, when Madame de Renal's only fear was that Julien did not love her
enough. Their happiness had at times the complexion of crime.

In their happiest and apparently their most tranquil moments, Madame
de Renal would suddenly cry out, "Oh, great God, I see hell," as she
pressed Julien's hand with a convulsive grasp. "What horrible tortures!
I have well deserved them." She grasped him and hung on to him like ivy
onto a wall.

Julien would try in vain to calm that agitated soul. She would take his
hand, cover it with kisses. Then, relapsing into a gloomy reverie, she
would say, "Hell itself would be a blessing for me. I should still have
some days to pass with him on this earth, but hell on earth, the death
of my children. Still, perhaps my crime will be forgiven me at that
price. Oh, great God, do not grant me my pardon at so great a price.
These poor children have in no way transgressed against You. I, I am
the only culprit. I love a man who is not my husband."

Julien subsequently saw Madame de Renal attain what were apparently
moments of tranquillity. She was endeavouring to control herself;
she did not wish to poison the life of the man she loved. They found
the days pass with the rapidity of lightning amid these alternating
moods of love, remorse, and voluptuousness. Julien lost the habit of
reflecting.

Mademoiselle Elisa went to attend to a little lawsuit which she had at
Verrieres. She found Valenod very piqued against Julien. She hated the
tutor and would often speak about him.

"You will ruin me, Monsieur, if I tell the truth," she said one day to
Valenod. "All masters have an understanding amongst themselves with
regard to matters of importance. There are certain disclosures which
poor servants are never forgiven."

After these stereotyped phrases, which his curiosity managed to cut
short, Monsieur Valenod received some information extremely mortifying
to his self-conceit.

This woman, who was the most distinguished in the district, the woman
on whom he had lavished so much attention in the last six years, and
made no secret of it, more was the pity, this woman who was so proud,
whose disdain had put him to the blush times without number, had just
taken for her lover a little workman masquerading as a tutor. And to
fill the cup of his jealousy, Madame de Renal adored that lover.

"And," added the housemaid with a sigh, "Julien did not put himself out
at all to make his conquest, his manner was as cold as ever, even with
Madame."

Elisa had only become certain in the country, but she believed that
this intrigue dated from much further back. "That is no doubt the
reason," she added spitefully, "why he refused to marry me. And to
think what a fool I was when I went to consult Madame de Renal and
begged her to speak to the tutor."

The very same evening, M. de Renal received from the town, together
with his paper, a long anonymous letter which apprised him in the
greatest detail of what was taking place in his house. Julien saw him
pale as he read this letter written on blue paper, and look at him
with a malicious expression. During all that evening the mayor failed
to throw off his trouble. It was in vain that Julien paid him court by
asking for explanations about the genealogy of the best families in
Burgundy.





CHAPTER XX

ANONYMOUS LETTERS


    Do not give dalliance
    Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
    To the fire i' the blood.--_Tempest_.


As they left the drawing-room about midnight, Julien had time to say to
his love,

"Don't let us see each other to-night. Your husband has suspicions. I
would swear that that big letter he read with a sigh was an anonymous
letter."

Fortunately, Julien locked himself into his room. Madame de Renal had
the mad idea that this warning was only a pretext for not seeing her.
She absolutely lost her head, and came to his door at the accustomed
hour. Julien, who had heard the noise in the corridor, immediately blew
out his lamp. Someone was trying to open the door. Was it Madame de
Renal? Was it a jealous husband?

Very early next morning the cook, who liked Julien, brought him a book,
on the cover of which he read these words written in Italian: _Guardate
alla pagina_ 130.

Julien shuddered at the imprudence, looked for page 130, and found
pinned to it the following letter hastily written, bathed with tears,
and full of spelling mistakes. Madame de Renal was usually very
correct. He was touched by this circumstance, and somewhat forgot the
awfulness of the indiscretion.

        "So you did not want to receive me to-night? There are
        moments when I think that I have never read down to the
        depths of your soul. Your looks frighten me. I am afraid
        of you. Great God! perhaps you have never loved me? In
        that case let my husband discover my love, and shut me
        up in a prison in the country far away from my children.
        Perhaps God wills it so. I shall die soon, but you will
        have proved yourself a monster.

        "Do you not love me? Are you tired of my fits of folly
        and of remorse, you wicked man? Do you wish to ruin me?
        I will show you an easy way. Go and show this letter to
        all Verrieres, or rather show it to M. Valenod. Tell him
        that I love you, nay, do not utter such a blasphemy,
        tell him I adore you, that it was only on the day I saw
        you that my life commenced; that even in the maddest
        moments of my youth I never even dreamt of the happiness
        that I owe to you, that I have sacrificed my life to
        you and that I am sacrificing my soul. You know that
        I am sacrificing much more. But does that man know
        the meaning of sacrifice? Tell him, I say, simply to
        irritate him, that I will defy all evil tongues, that
        the only misfortune for me in the whole world would
        be to witness any change in the only man who holds me
        to life. What a happiness it would be to me to lose
        my life, to offer it up as a sacrifice and to have no
        longer any fear for my children.

        "Have no doubt about it, dear one, if it is an
        anonymous letter, it comes from that odious being who
        has persecuted me for the last six years with his loud
        voice, his stories about his jumps on horseback, his
        fatuity, and the never ending catalogue of all his
        advantages.

        "Is there an anonymous letter? I should like to discuss
        that question with you, you wicked man; but no, you
        acted rightly. Clasping you in my arms perhaps for the
        last time, I should never have been able to argue as
        coldly as I do, now that I am alone. From this moment
        our happiness will no longer be so easy. Will that be a
        vexation for you? Yes, on those days when you haven't
        received some amusing book from M. Fouque. The sacrifice
        is made; to-morrow, whether there is or whether there is
        not any anonymous letter, I myself will tell my husband
        I have received an anonymous letter and that it is
        necessary to give you a golden bridge at once, find some
        honourable excuse, and send you back to your parents
        without delay.

        "Alas, dear one, we are going to be separated for a
        fortnight, perhaps a month! Go, I will do you justice,
        you will suffer as much as I, but anyway, this is the
        only means of disposing of this anonymous letter. It is
        not the first that my husband has received, and on my
        score too. Alas! how I used to laugh over them!

        "My one aim is to make my husband think that the letter
        comes from M. Valenod; I have no doubt that he is
        its author. If you leave the house, make a point of
        establishing yourself at Verrieres; I will manage that
        my husband should think of passing a fortnight there
        in order to prove to the fools there was no coldness
        between him and me. Once at Verrieres, establish ties of
        friendship with everyone, even with the Liberals. I am
        sure that all their ladies will seek you out.

        "Do not quarrel with M. Valenod, or cut off his ears,
        as you said you would one day. Try, on the contrary, to
        ingratiate yourself with him. The essential point is
        that it should be notorious in Verrieres that you are
        going to enter the household either of Valenod or of
        someone else to take charge of the children's education.

        "That is what my husband will never put up with. If he
        does feel bound to resign himself to it, well, at any
        rate, you will be living in Verrieres and I shall be
        seeing you sometimes. My children, who love you so much,
        will go and see you. Great God! I feel that I love my
        children all the more because they love you. How is
        all this going to end? I am wandering.... Anyway you
        understand your line of conduct. Be nice, polite, but
        not in any way disdainful to those coarse persons. I
        ask you on my knees; they will be the arbiters of our
        fate. Do not fear for a moment but that, so far as you
        are concerned, my husband will conform to what public
        opinion lays down for him.

        "It is you who will supply me with the anonymous letter.
        Equip yourself with patience and a pair of scissors, cut
        out from a book the words which you will see, then stick
        them with the mouth-glue on to the leaf of loose paper
        which I am sending you. It comes to me from M. Valenod.
        Be on your guard against a search in your room; burn the
        pages of the book which you are going to mutilate. If
        you do not find the words ready-made, have the patience
        to form them letter by letter. I have made the anonymous
        letter too short.


        ANONYMOUS LETTER.


        'MADAME,

        All your little goings-on are known, but the persons
        interested in stopping have been warned. I have still
        sufficient friendship left for you to urge you to cease
        all relations with the little peasant. If you are
        sensible enough to do this, your husband will believe
        that the notification he has received is misleading, and
        he will be left in his illusion. Remember that I have
        your secret; tremble, unhappy woman, you must now _walk
        straight_ before me.'


        "As soon as you have finished glueing together the
        words that make up this letter (have you recognised the
        director's special style of speech) leave the house, I
        will meet you.

        "I will go into the village and come back with a
        troubled face. As a matter of fact I shall be very much
        troubled. Great God! What a risk I run, and all because
        you thought you guessed an anonymous letter. Finally,
        looking very much upset, I shall give this letter to my
        husband and say that an unknown man handed it to me. As
        for you, go for a walk with the children, on the road to
        the great woods, and do not come back before dinner-time.

        "You will be able to see the tower of the dovecot from
        the top of the rocks. If things go well for us, I
        will place a white handkerchief there, in case of the
        contrary, there will be nothing at all.

        "Ungrateful man, will not your heart find out some means
        of telling me that you love me before you leave for that
        walk. Whatever happens, be certain of one thing: I shall
        never survive our final separation by a single day.
        Oh, you bad mother! but what is the use of my writing
        those two words, dear Julien? I do not feel them, at
        this moment I can only think of you. I have only written
        them so as not to be blamed by you, but what is the good
        of deception now that I find myself face to face with
        losing you? Yes, let my soul seem monstrous to you,
        but do not let me lie to the man whom I adore. I have
        already deceived only too much in this life of mine. Go!
        I forgive you if you love me no more. I have not the
        time to read over my letter. It is a small thing in my
        eyes to pay for the happy days that I have just passed
        in your arms with the price of my life. You know that
        they will cost me more."





CHAPTER XXI

DIALOGUE WITH A MASTER


     Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
     For such as we are made of, such we be.--_Twelfth Night_.


It was with a childish pleasure that for a whole hour Julien put the
words together. As he came out of his room, he met his pupils with
their mother. She took the letter with a simplicity and a courage whose
calmness terrified him.

"Is the mouth-glue dry enough yet?" she asked him.

"And is this the woman who was so maddened by remorse?" he thought.
"What are her plans at this moment?" He was too proud to ask her, but
she had never perhaps pleased him more.

"If this turns out badly," she added with the same coolness, "I shall
be deprived of everything. Take charge of this, and bury it in some
place of the mountain. It will perhaps one day be my only resource."

She gave him a glass case in red morocco filled with gold and some
diamonds.

"Now go," she said to him.

She kissed the children, embracing the youngest twice. Julien remained
motionless. She left him at a rapid pace without looking at him.

From the moment that M. de Renal had opened the anonymous letter his
life had been awful. He had not been so agitated since a duel which he
had just missed having in 1816, and to do him justice, the prospect of
receiving a bullet would have made him less unhappy. He scrutinised the
letter from every standpoint. "Is that not a woman's handwriting?" he
said to himself. In that case, what woman had written it? He reviewed
all those whom he knew at Verrieres without being able to fix his
suspicions on any one. Could a man have dictated that letter? Who
was that man? Equal uncertainty on this point. The majority of his
acquaintances were jealous of him, and, no doubt, hated him. "I must
consult my wife," he said to himself through habit, as he got up from
the arm-chair in which he had collapsed.

"Great God!" he said aloud before he got up, striking his head, "it is
she above all of whom I must be distrustful. At the present moment she
is my enemy," and tears came into his eyes through sheer anger.

By a poetic justice for that hardness of heart which constitutes the
provincial idea of shrewdness, the two men whom M. de Renal feared the
most at the present moment were his two most intimate friends.

"I have ten friends perhaps after those," and he passed them in review,
gauging the degree of consolation which he could get from each one.
"All of them, all of them," he exclaimed in a rage, "will derive the
most supreme pleasure from my awful experience."

As luck would have it, he thought himself envied, and not without
reason. Apart from his superb town mansion in which the king of ----
had recently spent the night, and thus conferred on it an enduring
honour, he had decorated his chateau at Vergy extremely well. The
facade was painted white and the windows adorned with fine green
shutters. He was consoled for a moment by the thought of this
magnificence. The fact was that this chateau was seen from three or
four leagues off, to the great prejudice of all the country houses or
so-called chateaux of the neighbourhood, which had been left in the
humble grey colour given them by time.

There was one of his friends on whose pity and whose tears M. de Renal
could count, the churchwarden of the parish; but he was an idiot who
cried at everything. This man, however, was his only resource. "What
unhappiness is comparable to mine," he exclaimed with rage. "What
isolation!"

"Is it possible?" said this truly pitiable man to himself. "Is it
possible that I have no friend in my misfortune of whom I can ask
advice? for my mind is wandering, I feel it. Oh, Falcoz! oh, Ducros!"
he exclaimed with bitterness. Those were the names of two friends of
his childhood whom he had dropped owing to his snobbery in 1814. They
were not noble, and he had wished to change the footing of equality on
which they had been living with him since their childhood.

One of them, Falcoz, a paper-merchant of Verrieres, and a man of
intellect and spirit, had bought a printing press in the chief town of
the department and undertaken the production of a journal. The priestly
congregation had resolved to ruin him; his journal had been condemned,
and he had been deprived of his printer's diploma. In these sad
circumstances he ventured to write to M. de Renal for the first time
for ten years. The mayor of Verrieres thought it his duty to answer
in the old Roman style: "If the King's Minister were to do me the
honour of consulting me, I should say to him, ruin ruthlessly all the
provincial printers, and make printing a monopoly like tobacco." M. de
Renal was horrified to remember the terms of this letter to an intimate
friend whom all Verrieres had once admired, "Who would have said that
I, with my rank, my fortune, my decorations, would ever come to regret
it?" It was in these transports of rage, directed now against himself,
now against all his surroundings, that he passed an awful night; but,
fortunately, it never occurred to him to spy on his wife.

"I am accustomed to Louise," he said to himself, "she knows all my
affairs. If I were free to marry to-morrow, I should not find anyone to
take her place." Then he began to plume himself on the idea that his
wife was innocent. This point of view did not require any manifestation
of character, and suited him much better. "How many calumniated women
has one not seen?"

"But," he suddenly exclaimed, as he walked about feverishly, "shall I
put up with her making a fool of me with her lover as though I were
a man of no account, some mere ragamuffin? Is all Verrieres to make
merry over my complaisance? What have they not said about Charmier
(he was a husband in the district who was notoriously deceived)? Was
there not a smile on every lip at the mention of his name? He is a good
advocate, but whoever said anything about his talent for speaking? 'Oh,
Charmier,' they say, 'Bernard's Charmier,' he is thus designated by the
name of the man who disgraces him."

"I have no daughter, thank heaven," M. de Renal would say at other
times, "and the way in which I am going to punish the mother will
consequently not be so harmful to my children's household. I could
surprise this little peasant with my wife and kill them both; in that
case the tragedy of the situation would perhaps do away with the
grotesque element." This idea appealed to him. He followed it up in all
its details. "The penal code is on my side, and whatever happens our
congregation and my friends on the jury will save me." He examined his
hunting-knife which was quite sharp, but the idea of blood frightened
him.

"I could thrash this insolent tutor within an inch of his life and
hound him out of the house; but what a sensation that would make in
Verrieres and even over the whole department! After Falcoz' journal had
been condemned, and when its chief editor left prison, I had a hand
in making him lose his place of six hundred francs a year. They say
that this scribbler has dared to show himself again in Besancon. He
may lampoon me adroitly and in such a way that it will be impossible
to bring him up before the courts. Bring him up before the courts!
The insolent wretch will insinuate in a thousand and one ways that he
has spoken the truth. A well-born man who keeps his place like I do,
is hated by all the plebeians. I shall see my name in all those awful
Paris papers. Oh, my God, what depths. To see the ancient name of
Renal plunged in the mire of ridicule. If I ever travel I shall have
to change my name. What! abandon that name which is my glory and my
strength. Could anything be worse than that?

"If I do not kill my wife but turn her out in disgrace, she has her
aunt in Besancon who is going to hand all her fortune over to her.
My wife will go and live in Paris with Julien. It will be known at
Verrieres, and I shall be taken for a dupe." The unhappy man then
noticed from the paleness of the lamplight that the dawn was beginning
to appear. He went to get a little fresh air in the garden. At this
moment he had almost determined to make no scandal, particularly in
view of the fact that a scandal would overwhelm with joy all his good
friends in Verrieres.

The promenade in the garden calmed him a little. "No," he exclaimed,
"I shall not deprive myself of my wife, she is too useful to me." He
imagined with horror what his house would be without his wife. The only
relative he had was the Marquise of R---- old, stupid, and malicious.

A very sensible idea occurred to him, but its execution required a
strength of character considerably superior to the small amount of
character which the poor man possessed. "If I keep my wife," he said
to himself, "I know what I shall do one day; on some occasion when
she makes me lose patience, I shall reproach her with her guilt. She
is proud, we shall quarrel, and all this will happen before she has
inherited her aunt's fortune. And how they will all make fun of me
then! My wife loves her children, the result will be that everything
will go to them. But as for me, I shall be the laughing-stock of
Verrieres. 'What,' they will say, 'he could not even manage to revenge
himself on his wife!' Would it not be better to leave it and verify
nothing? In that case I tie my hands, and cannot afterwards reproach
her with anything."

An instant afterwards M. de Renal, once more a prey to wounded vanity,
set himself laboriously to recollect all the methods of procedure
mentioned in the billiard-room of the _Casino_ or the _Nobles' Club_ in
Verrieres, when some fine talker interrupted the pool to divert himself
at the expense of some deceived husband. How cruel these pleasantries
appeared to him at the present moment!

"My God, why is my wife not dead! then I should be impregnable against
ridicule. Why am I not a widower? I should go and pass six months in
Paris in the best society. After this moment of happiness occasioned
by the idea of widowerhood, his imagination reverted to the means of
assuring himself of the truth. Should he put a slight layer of bran
before the door of Julien's room at midnight after everyone had gone to
bed? He would see the impression of the feet in the following morning.

"But that's no good," he suddenly exclaimed with rage. "That
inquisitive Elisa will notice it, and they will soon know all over the
house that I am jealous."

In another _Casino_ tale a husband had assured himself of his
misfortune by tying a hair with a little wax so that it shut the door
of the gallant as effectually as a seal.

After so many hours of uncertainty this means of clearing up his fate
seemed to him emphatically the best, and he was thinking of availing
himself of it when, in one of the turnings of the avenue he met the
very woman whom he would like to have seen dead. She was coming back
from the village. She had gone to hear mass in the church of Vergy.
A tradition, extremely doubtful in the eyes of the cold philosopher,
but in which she believed, alleges that the little church was once the
chapel of the chateau of the Lord of Vergy. This idea obsessed Madame
de Renal all the time in the church that she had counted on spending in
prayer. She kept on imagining to herself the spectacle of her husband
killing Julien when out hunting as though by accident, and then making
her eat his heart in the evening.

"My fate," she said to herself, "depends on what he will think when
he listens to me. It may be I shall never get another opportunity
of speaking to him after this fatal quarter of an hour. He is not a
reasonable person who is governed by his intellect. In that case, with
the help of my weak intelligence, I could anticipate what he will do or
say. He will decide our common fate. He has the power. But this fate
depends on my adroitness, on my skill in directing the ideas of this
crank, who is blinded by his rage and unable to see half of what takes
place. Great God! I need talent and coolness, where shall I get it?"

She regained her calmness as though by magic, and she entered the
garden and saw her husband in the distance. His dishevelled hair and
disordered dress showed that he had not slept.

She gave him a letter with a broken seal but folded. As for him,
without opening it, he gazed at his wife with the eyes of a madman.

"Here's an abominable thing," she said to him, "which an evil-looking
man who makes out that he knows you and is under an obligation to you,
handed to me as I was passing behind the notary's garden. I insist on
one thing and that is that you send back this M. Julien to his parents
and without delay." Madame de Renal hastened to say these words,
perhaps a little before the psychological moment, in order to free
herself from the awful prospect of having to say them.

She was seized with joy on seeing that which she was occasioning to her
husband. She realised from the fixed stare which he was rivetting on
her that Julien had surmised rightly.

"What a genius he is to be so brilliantly diplomatic instead of
succumbing to so real a misfortune," she thought. "He will go very far
in the future! Alas, his successes will only make him forget me."

This little act of admiration for the man whom she adored quite cured
her of her trouble.

She congratulated herself on her tactics. "I have not been unworthy of
Julien," she said to herself with a sweet and secret pleasure.

M. de Renal kept examining the second anonymous letter which the
reader may remember was composed of printed words glued on to a paper
verging on blue. He did not say a word for fear of giving himself away.
"They still make fun of me in every possible way," said M. de Renal
to himself, overwhelmed with exhaustion. "Still more new insults to
examine and all the time on account of my wife." He was on the point
of heaping on her the coarsest insults. He was barely checked by the
prospects of the Besancon legacy. Consumed by the need of venting his
feelings on something, he crumpled up the paper of the second anonymous
letter and began to walk about with huge strides. He needed to get
away from his wife. A few moments afterwards he came back to her in a
quieter frame of mind.

"The thing is to take some definite line and send Julien away," she
said immediately, "after all it is only a labourer's son. You will
compensate him by a few crowns and besides he is clever and will easily
manage to find a place, with M. Valenod for example, or with the
sub-prefect De Maugiron who both have children. In that way you will
not be doing him any wrong...." "There you go talking like the fool
that you are," exclaimed M. de Renal in a terrible voice. "How can one
hope that a woman will show any good sense? You never bother yourself
about common sense. How can you ever get to know anything? Your
indifference and your idleness give you no energy except for hunting
those miserable butterflies, which we are unfortunate to have in our
houses."

Madame de Renal let him speak and he spoke for a long time. _He was
working off his anger_, to use the local expression.

"Monsieur," she answered him at last, "I speak as a woman who has
been outraged in her honour, that is to say, in what she holds most
precious."

Madame de Renal preserved an unalterable sang-froid during all this
painful conversation on the result of which depended the possibility of
still living under the same roof as Julien. She sought for the ideas
which she thought most adapted to guide her husband's blind anger
into a safe channel. She had been insensible to all the insulting
imputations which he had addressed to her. She was not listening to
them, she was then thinking about Julien. "Will he be pleased with me?"

"This little peasant whom we have loaded with attentions, and even with
presents, may be innocent," she said to him at last, "but he is none
the less the occasion of the first affront that I have ever received.
Monsieur, when I read this abominable paper, I vowed to myself that
either he or I should leave your house."

"Do you want to make a scandal so as to dishonour me and yourself as
well? You will make things hum in Verrieres I can assure you."

"It is true, the degree of prosperity in which your prudent management
has succeeded in placing you yourself, your family and the town is the
subject of general envy.... Well, I will urge Julien to ask you for
a holiday to go and spend the month with that wood-merchant of the
mountains, a fit friend to be sure for this little labourer."

"Mind you do nothing at all," resumed M. de Renal with a fair amount of
tranquillity. "I particularly insist on your not speaking to him. You
will put him into a temper and make him quarrel with me. You know to
what extent this little gentleman is always spoiling for a quarrel."

"That young man has no tact," resumed Madame de Renal. "He may be
learned, you know all about that, but at bottom he is only a peasant.
For my own part I never thought much of him since he refused to
marry Elisa. It was an assured fortune; and that on the pretext that
sometimes she had made secret visits to M. Valenod."

"Ah," said M. de Renal, lifting up his eyebrows inordinately. "What,
did Julien tell you that?"

"Not exactly, he always talked of the vocation which calls him to the
holy ministry, but believe me, the first vocation for those lower-class
people is getting their bread and butter. He gave me to understand that
he was quite aware of her secret visits."

"And I--I was ignorant," exclaimed M. de Renal, growing as angry as
before and accentuating his words. "Things take place in my house which
I know nothing about.... What! has there been anything between Elisa
and Valenod?"

"Oh, that's old history, my dear," said Madame de Renal with a smile,
"and perhaps no harm has come of it. It was at the time when your good
friend Valenod would not have minded their thinking at Verrieres that a
perfectly platonic little affection was growing up between him and me."

"I had that idea once myself," exclaimed M. de Renal, furiously
striking his head as he progressed from discovery to discovery, "and
you told me nothing about it."

"Should one set two friends by the ears on account of a little fit of
vanity on the part of our dear director? What society woman has not had
addressed to her a few letters which were both extremely witty and even
a little gallant?"

"He has written to you?"

"He writes a great deal."

"Show me those letters at once, I order you," and M. de Renal pulled
himself up to his six feet.

"I will do nothing of the kind," he was answered with a sweetness
verging on indifference. "I will show you them one day when you are in
a better frame of mind."

"This very instant, odds life," exclaimed M. de Renal, transported with
rage and yet happier than he had been for twelve hours.

"Will you swear to me," said Madame de Renal quite gravely, "never to
quarrel with the director of the workhouse about these letters?"

"Quarrel or no quarrel, I can take those foundlings away from him,
but," he continued furiously, "I want those letters at once. Where are
they?"

"In a drawer in my secretary, but I shall certainly not give you the
key."

"I'll manage to break it," he cried, running towards his wife's room.

He did break in fact with a bar of iron a costly secretary of veined
mahogany which came from Paris and which he had often been accustomed
to wipe with the nap of his coat, when he thought he had detected a
spot.

Madame de Renal had climbed up at a run the hundred and twenty steps
of the dovecot. She tied the corner of a white handkerchief to one of
the bars of iron of the little window. She was the happiest of women.
With tears in her eyes she looked towards the great mountain forest.
"Doubtless," she said to herself, "Julien is watching for this happy
signal."

She listened attentively for a long time and then she cursed the
monotonous noise of the grasshopper and the song of the birds. "Had it
not been for that importunate noise, a cry of joy starting from the big
rocks could have arrived here." Her greedy eye devoured that immense
slope of dark verdure which was as level as a meadow.

"Why isn't he clever enough," she said to herself, quite overcome, "to
invent some signal to tell me that his happiness is equal to mine?" She
only came down from the dovecot when she was frightened of her husband
coming there to look for her.

She found him furious. He was perusing the soothing phrases of M. de
Valenod and reading them with an emotion to which they were but little
used.

"I always come back to the same idea," said Madame de Renal seizing
a moment when a pause in her husband's ejaculations gave her the
possibility of getting heard. "It is necessary for Julien to travel.
Whatever talent he may have for Latin, he is only a peasant after all,
often coarse and lacking in tact. Thinking to be polite, he addresses
inflated compliments to me every day, which are in bad taste. He learns
them by heart out of some novel or other."

"He never reads one," exclaimed M. de Renal. "I am assured of it. Do
you think that I am the master of a house who is so blind as to be
ignorant of what takes place in his own home."

"Well, if he doesn't read these droll compliments anywhere, he invents
them, and that's all the worse so far as he is concerned. He must have
talked about me in this tone in Verrieres and perhaps without going so
far," said Madame Renal with the idea of making a discovery, "he may
have talked in the same strain to Elisa, which is almost the same as if
he had said it to M. Valenod."

"Ah," exclaimed M. de Renal, shaking the table and the room with one of
the most violent raps ever made by a human fist. "The anonymous printed
letter and Valenod's letters are written on the same paper."

"At last," thought Madame de Renal. She pretended to be overwhelmed
at this discovery, and without having the courage to add a single
word, went and sat down some way off on the divan at the bottom of the
drawing-room.

From this point the battle was won. She had a great deal of trouble in
preventing M. de Renal from going to speak to the supposed author of
the anonymous letter. "What, can't you see that making a scene with M.
Valenod without sufficient proof would be the most signal mistake? You
are envied, Monsieur, and who is responsible? Your talents: your wise
management, your tasteful buildings, the dowry which I have brought
you, and above all, the substantial legacy which we are entitled to
hope for from my good aunt, a legacy, the importance of which is
inordinately exaggerated, have made you into the first person in
Verrieres."

"You are forgetting my birth," said M. de Renal, smiling a little.

"You are one of the most distinguished gentlemen in the province,"
replied Madame de Renal emphatically. "If the king were free and could
give birth its proper due, you would no doubt figure in the Chamber of
Peers, etc. And being in this magnificent position, you yet wish to
give the envious a fact to take hold of."

"To speak about this anonymous letter to M. Valenod is equivalent
to proclaiming over the whole of Verrieres, nay, over the whole of
Besancon, over the whole province that this little bourgeois who has
been admitted perhaps imprudently to intimacy _with a Renal_, has
managed to offend him. At the time when those letters which you have
just taken prove that I have reciprocated M. Valenod's love, you ought
to kill me. I should have deserved it a hundred times over, but not to
show him your anger. Remember that all our neighbours are only waiting
for an excuse to revenge themselves for your superiority. Remember that
in 1816 you had a hand in certain arrests.

"I think that you show neither consideration nor love for me,"
exclaimed M. de Renal with all the bitterness evoked by such a memory,
"and I was not made a peer."

"I am thinking, my dear," resumed Madame de Renal with a smile, "that
I shall be richer than you are, that I have been your companion for
twelve years, and that by virtue of those qualifications I am entitled
to have a voice in the council and, above all, in to-day's business. If
you prefer M. Julien to me," she added, with a touch of temper which
was but thinly disguised, "I am ready to go and pass a winter with my
aunt." These words proved a lucky shot. They possessed a firmness which
endeavoured to clothe itself with courtesy. It decided M. de Renal, but
following the provincial custom, he still thought for a long time, and
went again over all his arguments; his wife let him speak. There was
still a touch of anger in his intonation. Finally two hours of futile
rant exhausted the strength of a man who had been subject during the
whole night to a continuous fit of anger. He determined on the line of
conduct he was going to follow with regard to M. Valenod, Julien and
even Elisa.

Madame de Renal was on the point once or twice during this great scene
of feeling some sympathy for the very real unhappiness of the man
who had been so dear to her for twelve years. But true passions are
selfish. Besides she was expecting him every instant to mention the
anonymous letter which he had received the day before and he did not
mention it. In order to feel quite safe, Madame de Renal wanted to know
the ideas which the letter had succeeding in suggesting to the man on
whom her fate depended, for, in the provinces the husbands are the
masters of public opinion. A husband who complains covers himself with
ridicule, an inconvenience which becomes no less dangerous in France
with each succeeding year; but if he refuses to provide his wife with
money, she falls to the status of a labouring woman at fifteen sous a
day, while the virtuous souls have scruples about employing her.

An odalisque in the seraglio can love the Sultan with all her might.
He is all-powerful and she has no hope of stealing his authority by
a series of little subtleties. The master's vengeance is terrible
and bloody but martial and generous; a dagger thrust finishes
everything. But it is by stabbing her with public contempt that a
nineteenth-century husband kills his wife. It is by shutting against
her the doors of all the drawing-rooms.

When Madame de Renal returned to her room, her feeling of danger was
vividly awakened. She was shocked by the disorder in which she found
it. The locks of all the pretty little boxes had been broken. Many
planks in the floor had been lifted up. "He would have no pity on me,"
she said to herself. "To think of his spoiling like this, this coloured
wood floor which he likes so much; he gets red with rage whenever one
of his children comes into it with wet shoes, and now it is spoilt for
ever." The spectacle of this violence immediately banished the last
scruples which she was entertaining with respect to that victory which
she had won only too rapidly.

Julien came back with the children a little before the dinner-bell.
Madame de Renal said to him very drily at dessert when the servant had
left the room:

"You have told me about your wish to go and spend a fortnight at
Verrieres. M. de Renal is kind enough to give you a holiday. You can
leave as soon as you like, but the childrens' exercises will be sent to
you every day so that they do not waste their time."

"I shall certainly not allow you more than a week," said M. de Renal in
a very bitter tone. Julien thought his visage betrayed the anxiety of a
man who was seriously harassed.

"He has not yet decided what line to take," he said to his love during
a moment when they were alone together in the drawing-room.

Madame de Renal rapidly recounted to him all she had done since the
morning.

"The details are for to-night," she added with a smile.

"Feminine perversity," thought Julien, "What can be the pleasure, what
can be the instinct which induces them to deceive us."

"I think you are both enlightened and at the same time blinded by your
love," he said to her with some coldness. "Your conduct to-day has been
admirable, but is it prudent for us to try and see each other to-night?
This house is paved with enemies. Just think of Elisa's passionate
hatred for me."

"That hate is very like the passionate indifference which you no doubt
have for me."

"Even if I were indifferent I ought to save you from the peril in which
I have plunged you. If chance so wills it that M. de Renal should speak
to Elisa, she can acquaint him with everything in a single word. What
is to prevent him from hiding near my room fully armed?"

"What, not even courage?" said Madame de Renal, with all the
haughtiness of a scion of nobility.

"I will never demean myself to speak about my courage," said Julien,
coldly, "it would be mean to do so. Let the world judge by the facts.
But," he added, taking her hand, "you have no idea how devoted I am to
you and how over-joyed I am of being able to say good-bye to you before
this cruel separation."






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.





CHAPTER XXIII

SORROWS OF AN OFFICIAL


        Il piacere di alzar la testa tutto l'anno, e ben pagato
        da certi quarti d'ora che bisogna passar.--_Casti_.


Let us leave this petty man to his petty fears; why did he take a man
of spirit into his household when he needed someone with the soul
of a valet? Why can't he select his staff? The ordinary trend of
the nineteenth century is that when a noble and powerful individual
encounters a man of spirit, he kills him, exiles him and imprisons him,
or so humiliates him that the other is foolish enough to die of grief.
In this country it so happens that it is not merely the man of spirit
who suffers. The great misfortunes of the little towns of France and of
representative governments, like that of New York, is that they find
it impossible to forget the existence of individuals like M. de Renal.
It is these men who make public opinion in a town of twenty thousand
inhabitants, and public opinion is terrible in a country which has a
charter of liberty. A man, though of a naturally noble and generous
disposition, who would have been your friend in the natural course of
events, but who happens to live a hundred leagues off, judges you by
the public opinion of your town which is made by those fools who have
chanced to be born noble, rich and conservative. Unhappy is the man who
distinguishes himself.

Immediately after dinner they left for Vergy, but the next day but
one Julien saw the whole family return to Verrieres. An hour had not
passed before he discovered to his great surprise that Madame de Renal
had some mystery up her sleeve. Whenever he came into the room she
would break off her conversation with her husband and would almost
seem to desire that he should go away. Julien did not need to be given
this hint twice. He became cold and reserved. Madame de Renal noticed
it and did not ask for an explanation. "Is she going to give me a
successor," thought Julien. "And to think of her being so familiar
with me the day before yesterday, but that is how these great ladies
are said to act. It's just like kings. One never gets any more warning
than the disgraced minister who enters his house to find his letter of
dismissal." Julien noticed that these conversations which left off so
abruptly at his approach, often dealt with a big house which belonged
to the municipality of Verrieres, a house which though old was large
and commodious and situated opposite the church in the most busy
commercial district of the town. "What connection can there be between
this house and a new lover," said Julien to himself. In his chagrin he
repeated to himself the pretty verses of Francis I. which seemed novel
to him, for Madame de Renal had only taught him them a month before:

    Souvent femme varie
    Bien fol est qui s'y fie.

M. de Renal took the mail to Besancon. This journey was a matter of two
hours. He seemed extremely harassed. On his return he threw a big grey
paper parcel on the table.

"Here's that silly business," he said to his wife. An hour afterwards
Julien saw the bill-poster carrying the big parcel. He followed him
eagerly. "I shall learn the secret at the first street corner." He
waited impatiently behind the bill-poster who was smearing the back of
the poster with his big brush. It had scarcely been put in its place
before Julien's curiosity saw the detailed announcement of the putting
up for public auction of that big old house whose name had figured so
frequently in M. de Renal's conversations with his wife. The auction of
the lease was announced for to-morrow at two o'clock in the Town Hall
after the extinction of the third fire. Julien was very disappointed.
He found the time a little short. How could there be time to apprise
all the other would-be purchasers. But, moreover, the bill, which was
dated a fortnight back, and which he read again in its entirety in
three distinct places, taught him nothing.

He went to visit the house which was to let. The porter, who had not
seen him approach, was saying mysteriously to a neighbour:

"Pooh, pooh, waste of time. M. Maslon has promised him that he shall
have it for three hundred francs; and, as the mayor kicked, he has been
summoned to the bishop's palace by M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair."

Julien's arrival seemed very much to disconcert the two friends who
did not say another word. Julien made a point of being present at the
auction of the lease.

There was a crowd in the badly-lighted hall, but everybody kept
quizzing each other in quite a singular way. All eyes were fixed on a
table where Julien perceived three little lighted candle-ends on a tin
plate. The usher was crying out "Three hundred francs, gentlemen."

"Three hundred francs, that's a bit too thick," said a man to his
neighbour in a low voice. Julien was between the two of them. "It's
worth more than eight hundred, I will raise the bidding." "It's cutting
off your nose to spite your face. What will you gain by putting M.
Maslon, M. Valenod, the Bishop, this terrible Grand Vicar de Frilair
and the whole gang on your track."

"Three hundred and twenty francs," shouted out the other.

"Damned brute," answered his neighbour. "Why here we have a spy of the
mayor," he added, designating Julien.

Julien turned sharply round to punish this remark, but the two,
Franc-comtois, were no longer paying any attention to him. Their
coolness gave him back his own. At that moment the last candle-end
went out and the usher's drawling voice awarded the house to M. de St.
Giraud of the office of the prefecture of ---- for a term of nine years
and for a rent of 320 francs.

As soon as the mayor had left the hall, the gossip began again.

"Here's thirty francs that Grogeot's recklessness is landing the
municipality in for," said one--"But," answered another, "M. de Saint
Giraud will revenge himself on Grogeot."

"How monstrous," said a big man on Julien's left. "A house which I
myself would have given eight hundred francs for my factory, and I
would have got a good bargain."

"Pooh!" answered a young manufacturer, "doesn't M. de St. Giraud belong
to the congregation? Haven't his four children got scholarships? poor
man! The community of Verrieres must give him five hundred francs over
and above his salary, that is all."

"And to say that the mayor was not able to stop it," remarked a third.
"For he's an ultra he is, I'm glad to say, but he doesn't steal."

"Doesn't he?" answered another. "Suppose it's simply a mere game of
'snap'[1] then. Everything goes into a big common purse, and everything
is divided up at the end of the year. But here's that little Sorel,
let's go away."

Julien got home in a very bad temper. He found Madame de Renal very sad.

"You come from the auction?" she said to him.

"Yes, madam, where I had the honour of passing for a spy of M. the
Mayor."

"If he had taken my advice, he would have gone on a journey."

At this moment Monsieur de Renal appeared: he looked very dismal. The
dinner passed without a single word. Monsieur de Renal ordered Julien
to follow the children to Vergy.

Madame de Renal endeavoured to console her husband.

"You ought to be used to it, my dear."

That evening they were seated in silence around the domestic hearth.
The crackle of the burnt pinewood was their only distraction. It
was one of those moments of silence which happen in the most united
families. One of the children cried out gaily,

"Somebody's ringing, somebody's ringing!"

"Zounds! supposing it's Monsieur de Saint Giraud who has come under
the pretext of thanking me," exclaimed the mayor. "I will give him a
dressing down. It is outrageous. It is Valenod to whom he'll feel under
an obligation, and it is I who get compromised. What shall I say if
those damned Jacobin journalists get hold of this anecdote, and turn me
into a M. Nonante Cinque."

A very good-looking man, with big black whiskers, entered at this
moment, preceded by the servant.

"Monsieur the mayor, I am Signor Geronimo. Here is a letter which M.
the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, who is attached to the Embassy of Naples,
gave me for you on my departure. That is only nine days ago, added
Signor Geronimo, gaily looking at Madame de Renal. Your cousin, and my
good friend, Signor de Beauvoisis says that you know Italian, Madame."

The Neapolitan's good humour changed this gloomy evening into a very
gay one. Madame de Renal insisted upon giving him supper. She put the
whole house on the go. She wanted to free Julien at any price from the
imputation of espionage which she had heard already twice that day.

Signor Geronimo was an excellent singer, excellent company, and had
very gay qualities which, at any rate in France, are hardly compatible
with each other. After dinner he sang a little duet with Madame de
Renal, and told some charming tales. At one o'clock in the morning the
children protested, when Julien suggested that they should go to bed.

"Another of those stories," said the eldest.

"It is my own, Signorino," answered Signor Geronimo.

"Eight years ago I was, like you, a young pupil of the Naples
Conservatoire. I mean I was your age, but I did not have the honour to
be the son of the distinguished mayor of the pretty town of Verrieres."
This phrase made M. de Renal sigh, and look at his wife.

"Signor Zingarelli," continued the young singer, somewhat exaggerating
his action, and thus making the children burst into laughter, "Signor
Zingarelli was an excellent though severe master. He is not popular at
the Conservatoire, but he insists on the pretence being kept up that he
is. I went out as often as I could. I used to go to the little Theatre
de San Carlino, where I used to hear divine music. But heavens! the
question was to scrape together the eight sous which were the price of
admission to the parterre? An enormous sum," he said, looking at the
children and watching them laugh. "Signor Giovannone, director of the
San Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen. 'That child is a treasure,'
he said.

"'Would you like me to engage you, my dear boy?' he said.

"'And how much will you give me?'

"'Forty ducats a month.' That is one hundred and sixty francs,
gentlemen. I thought the gates of heaven had opened.

"'But,' I said to Giovannone, 'how shall I get the strict Zingarelli to
let me go out?'

"'_Lascia fare a me_.'"

"Leave it to me," exclaimed the eldest of the children.

"Quite right, my young sir. Signor Giovannone he says to me, 'First
sign this little piece of paper, my dear friend.' I sign.

"He gives me three ducats. I had never seen so much money. Then he told
me what I had to do.

"Next day I asked the terrible Zingarelli for an audience. His old
valet ushered me in.

"'What do you want of me, you naughty boy?' said Zingarelli.

"'Maestro,' I said, 'I repent of all my faults. I will never go out of
the Conservatoire by passing through the iron grill. I will redouble my
diligence.'

"'If I were not frightened of spoiling the finest bass voice I have
ever heard, I would put you in prison for a fortnight on bread and
water, you rascal.'

"'Maestro,' I answered, 'I will be the model boy of the whole school,
_credete a me_, but I would ask one favour of you. If anyone comes and
asks permission for me to sing outside, refuse. As a favour, please say
that you cannot let me.'

"'And who the devil do you think is going to ask for a ne'er-do-well
like you? Do you think I should ever allow you to leave the
Conservatoire? Do you want to make fun of me? Clear out! Clear out!' he
said, trying to give me a kick, 'or look out for prison and dry bread.'"

One thing astonished Julien. The solitary weeks passed at Verrieres in
de Renal's house had been a period of happiness for him. He had only
experienced revulsions and sad thoughts at the dinners to which he had
been invited. And was he not able to read, write and reflect, without
being distracted, in this solitary house? He was not distracted every
moment from his brilliant reveries by the cruel necessity of studying
the movement of a false soul in order to deceive it by intrigue and
hypocrisy.

"To think of happiness being so near to me--the expense of a life
like that is small enough. I could have my choice of either marrying
Mademoiselle Elisa or of entering into partnership with Fouque. But it
is only the traveller who has just scaled a steep mountain and sits
down on the summit who finds a perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be
happy if he had to rest all the time?"

Madame de Renal's mind had now reached a state of desperation. In spite
of her resolutions, she had explained to Julien all the details of the
auction. "He will make me forget all my oaths!" she thought.

She would have sacrificed her life without hesitation to save that
of her husband if she had seen him in danger. She was one of those
noble, romantic souls who find a source of perpetual remorse equal to
that occasioned by the actual perpetration of a crime, in seeing the
possibility of a generous action and not doing it. None the less, there
were deadly days when she was not able to banish the imagination of
the excessive happiness which she would enjoy if she suddenly became a
widow, and were able to marry Julien.

He loved her sons much more than their father did; in spite of his
strict justice they were devoted to him. She quite realised that if
she married Julien, it would be necessary to leave that Vergy, whose
shades were so dear to her. She pictured herself living at Paris, and
continuing to give her sons an education which would make them admired
by everyone. Her children, herself, and Julien! They would be all
perfectly happy!

Strange result of marriage such as the nineteenth century has made it!
The boredom of matrimonial life makes love fade away inevitably, when
love has preceded the marriage. But none the less, said a philosopher,
married life soon reduces those people who are sufficiently rich
not to have to work, to a sense of being utterly bored by all quiet
enjoyments. And among women, it is only arid souls whom it does not
predispose to love.

The philosopher's reflection makes me excuse Madame de Renal, but she
was not excused in Verrieres, and without her suspecting it, the whole
town found its sole topic of interest in the scandal of her intrigue.
As a result of this great affair, the autumn was less boring than usual.

The autumn and part of the winter passed very quickly. It was necessary
to leave the woods of Vergy. Good Verrieres society began to be
indignant at the fact that its anathemas made so little impression on
Monsieur de Renal. Within eight days, several serious personages who
made up for their habitual gravity of demeanour by their pleasure in
fulfilling missions of this kind, gave him the most cruel suspicions,
at the same time utilising the most measured terms.

M. Valenod, who was playing a deep game, had placed Elisa in an
aristocratic family of great repute, where there were five women.
Elisa, fearing, so she said, not to find a place during the winter, had
only asked from this family about two-thirds of what she had received
in the house of the mayor. The girl hit upon the excellent idea of
going to confession at the same time to both the old cure Chelan,
and also to the new one, so as to tell both of them in detail about
Julien's amours.

The day after his arrival, the abbe Chelan summoned Julien to him at
six o'clock in the morning.

"I ask you nothing," he said. "I beg you, and if needs be I insist,
that you either leave for the Seminary of Besancon, or for your friend
Fouque, who is always ready to provide you with a splendid future. I
have seen to everything and have arranged everything, but you must
leave, and not come back to Verrieres for a year."

Julien did not answer. He was considering whether his honour ought to
regard itself offended at the trouble which Chelan, who, after all, was
not his father, had taken on his behalf.

"I shall have the honour of seeing you again to-morrow at the same
hour," he said finally to the cure.

Chelan, who reckoned on carrying so young a man by storm, talked a
great deal. Julien, cloaked in the most complete humbleness, both of
demeanour and expression, did not open his lips.

Eventually he left, and ran to warn Madame de Renal whom he found in
despair. Her husband had just spoken to her with a certain amount of
frankness. The weakness of his character found support in the prospect
of the legacy, and had decided him to treat her as perfectly innocent.
He had just confessed to her the strange state in which he had found
public opinion in Verrieres. The public was wrong; it had been misled
by jealous tongues. But, after all, what was one to do?

Madame de Renal was, for the moment, under the illusion that Julien
would accept the offer of Valenod and stay at Verrieres. But she was no
longer the simple, timid woman that she had been the preceding year.
Her fatal passion and remorse had enlightened her. She soon realised
the painful truth (while at the same time she listened to her husband),
that at any rate a temporary separation had become essential.

When he is far from me, Julien will revert to those ambitious projects
which are so natural when one has no money. And I, Great God! I am so
rich, and my riches are so useless for my happiness. He will forget
me. Loveable as he is, he will be loved, and he will love. You unhappy
woman. What can I complain of? Heaven is just. I was not virtuous
enough to leave off the crime. Fate robs me of my judgment. I could
easily have bribed Elisa if I had wanted to; nothing was easier. I did
not take the trouble to reflect for a moment. The mad imagination of
love absorbed all my time. I am ruined.

When Julien apprised Madame de Renal of the terrible news of his
departure, he was struck with one thing. He did not find her put
forward any selfish objections. She was evidently making efforts not to
cry.

"We have need of firmness, my dear." She cut off a strand of her hair.
"I do no know what I shall do," she said to him, "but promise me if I
die, never to forget my children. Whether you are far or near, try to
make them into honest men. If there is a new revolution, all the nobles
will have their throats cut. Their father will probably emigrate,
because of that peasant on the roof who got killed. Watch over my
family. Give me your hand. Adieu, my dear. These are our last moments.
Having made this great sacrifice, I hope I shall have the courage to
consider my reputation in public."

Julien had been expecting despair. The simplicity of this farewell
touched him.

"No, I am not going to receive your farewell like this. I will leave
you now, as you yourself wish it. But three days after my departure I
will come back to see you at night."

Madame de Renal's life was changed. So Julien really loved her, since
of his own accord he had thought of seeing her again. Her awful grief
became changed into one of the keenest transports of joy which she had
felt in her whole life. Everything became easy for her. The certainty
of seeing her lover deprived these last moments of their poignancy.
From that moment, both Madame de Renal's demeanour and the expression
of her face were noble, firm, and perfectly dignified.

M. de Renal soon came back. He was beside himself. He eventually
mentioned to his wife the anonymous letter which he had received two
months before.

"I will take it to the Casino, and shew everybody that it has been sent
by that brute Valenod, whom I took out of the gutter and made into one
of the richest tradesmen in Verrieres. I will disgrace him publicly,
and then I will fight him. This is too much."

"Great Heavens! I may become a widow," thought Madame de Renal, and
almost at the same time she said to herself,

"If I do not, as I certainly can, prevent this duel, I shall be the
murderess of my own husband."

She had never expended so much skill in honoring his vanity. Within
two hours she made him see, and always by virtue of reasons which he
discovered himself, that it was necessary to show more friendship than
ever to M. Valenod, and even to take Elisa back into the household.

Madame de Renal had need of courage to bring herself to see again the
girl who was the cause of her unhappiness. But this idea was one of
Julien's. Finally, having been put on the track three or four times,
M. de Renal arrived spontaneously at the conclusion, disagreeable
though it was from the financial standpoint, that the most painful
thing that could happen to him would be that Julien, in the middle of
the effervescence of popular gossip throughout Verrieres, should stay
in the town as the tutor of Valenod's children. It was obviously to
Julien's interest to accept the offer of the director of the workhouse.
Conversely, it was essential for M. de Renal's prestige that Julien
should leave Verrieres to enter the seminary of Besancon or that of
Dijon. But how to make him decide on that course? And then how is he
going to live?

M. de Renal, seeing a monetary sacrifice looming in the distance,
was in deeper despair than his wife. As for her, she felt after this
interview in the position of a man of spirit who, tired of life, has
taken a dose of stramonium. He only acts mechanically so to speak, and
takes no longer any interest in anything. In this way, Louis XIV. came
to say on his death-bed, "When I was king." An admirable epigram.

Next morning, M. de Renal received quite early an anonymous letter.
It was written in a most insulting style, and the coarsest words
applicable to his position occurred on every line. It was the work of
some jealous subordinate. This letter made him think again of fighting
a duel with Valenod. Soon his courage went as far as the idea of
immediate action. He left the house alone, went to the armourer's and
got some pistols which he loaded.

"Yes, indeed," he said to himself, "even though the strict
administration of the Emperor Napoleon were to become fashionable
again, I should not have one sou's worth of jobbery to reproach myself
with; at the outside, I have shut my eyes, and I have some good letters
in my desk which authorise me to do so."

Madame de Renal was terrified by her husband's cold anger. It recalled
to her the fatal idea of widowhood which she had so much trouble in
repelling. She closeted herself with him. For several hours she talked
to him in vain. The new anonymous letter had decided him. Finally she
succeeded in transforming the courage which had decided him to box
Valenod's ears, into the courage of offering six hundred francs to
Julien, which would keep him for one year in a seminary.

M. de Renal cursed a thousand times the day that he had had the
ill-starred idea of taking a tutor into his house, and forgot the
anonymous letter.

He consoled himself a little by an idea which he did not tell his
wife. With the exercise of some skill, and by exploiting the romantic
ideas of the young man, he hoped to be able to induce him to refuse M.
Valenod's offer at a cheaper price.

Madame de Renal had much more trouble in proving to Julien that
inasmuch as he was sacrificing the post of six hundred francs a year
in order to enable her husband to keep up appearances, he need have no
shame about accepting the compensation. But Julien would say each time,
"I have never thought for a moment of accepting that offer. You have
made me so used to a refined life that the coarseness of those people
would kill me."

Cruel necessity bent Julien's will with its iron hand. His pride gave
him the illusion that he only accepted the sum offered by M. de Renal
as a loan, and induced him to give him a promissory note, repayable in
five years with interest.

Madame de Renal had, of course, many thousands of francs which had been
concealed in the little mountain cave.

She offered them to him all a tremble, feeling only too keenly that
they would be angrily refused.

"Do you wish," said Julien to her, "to make the memory of our love
loathsome?"

Finally Julien left Verrieres. M. de Renal was very happy, but when
the fatal moment came to accept money from him the sacrifice proved
beyond Julien's strength. He refused point blank. M. de Renal embraced
him around the neck with tears in his eyes. Julien had asked him for
a testimonial of good conduct, and his enthusiasm could find no terms
magnificent enough in which to extol his conduct.

Our hero had five louis of savings and he reckoned on asking Fouque for
an equal sum.

He was very moved. But one league from Verrieres, where he left so much
that was dear to him, he only thought of the happiness of seeing the
capital of a great military town like Besancon.

During the short absence of three days, Madame de Renal was the victim
of one of the cruellest deceptions to which love is liable. Her life
was tolerable, because between her and extreme unhappiness there was
still that last interview which she was to have with Julien.

Finally during the night of the third day, she heard from a distance
the preconcerted signal. Julien, having passed through a thousand
dangers, appeared before her. In this moment she only had one
thought--"I see him for the last time." Instead of answering the
endearments of her lover, she seemed more dead than alive. If she
forced herself to tell him that she loved him, she said it with an
embarrassed air which almost proved the contrary. Nothing could rid her
of the cruel idea of eternal separation. The suspicious Julien thought
for the moment that he was already forgotten. His pointed remarks to
this effect were only answered by great tears which flowed down in
silence, and by some hysterical pressings of the hand.

"But," Julien would answer his mistress's cold protestations, "Great
Heavens! How can you expect me to believe you? You would show one
hundred times more sincere affection to Madame Derville to a mere
acquaintance."

Madame de Renal was petrified, and at a loss for an answer.

"It is impossible to be more unhappy. I hope I am going to die. I feel
my heart turn to ice."

Those were the longest answers which he could obtain.

When the approach of day rendered it necessary for him to leave Madame
de Renal, her tears completely ceased. She saw him tie a knotted rope
to the window without saying a word, and without returning her kisses.
It was in vain that Julien said to her.

"So now we have reached the state of affairs which you wished for
so much. Henceforward you will live without remorse. The slightest
indisposition of your children will no longer make you see them in the
tomb."

"I am sorry that you cannot kiss Stanislas," she said coldly.

Julien finished by being profoundly impressed by the cold embraces of
this living corpse. He could think of nothing else for several leagues.
His soul was overwhelmed, and before passing the mountain, and while
he could still see the church tower of Verrieres he turned round
frequently.


[1] C'est pigeon qui vole. A reference to a contemporary animal game
with a pun on the word "vole."





Chapters 16-23
Now their love idyll begins: Julien loves her madly, says Stendhal, but his love is still a form of ambition. Mme. de Renal's great joy is clouded only by the fear that she is too old for Julien. The second night finds Julien forgetting his role and enjoying his experience. Mme. de Renal takes great pleasure in educating Julien in social manners and in all the political intrigue that reigns in Verrieres, of which Julien has been completely ignorant. The town is honored by a visit of the king, and Mme. de Renal succeeds in having a place in the guard of honor awarded to Julien. From his role of dashing, handsome officer, Julien moves to that of attendant priest to Chelan in a religious ceremony honoring the local saint. Other important personages to whose presence his role gives him access are the young Bishop Agde, officiating prelate, and M. de La Mole, influential and powerful Parisian aristocrat, Peer of France, in the king's entourage. When one of her sons falls seriously ill, Mme. de Renal is convinced that God is punishing her adultery. Witnessing her anguish and torment, Julien finds new reasons to love her. When Stanislas is well, her anguish nevertheless remains since the experience has made her aware of guilt. Their love, however, becomes deeper, more desperate, and somber. M. de Renal receives an anonymous letter denouncing Julien as his wife's lover. Julien senses what the letter is and warns Mme. de Renal not to come to his room that night. She, however, constantly wary that Julien is looking for an excuse to abandon her, comes to his room anyway but is not received. She writes Julien a long letter, elaborating her doubts and reiterating her undying love for him. At the same time, however, she is capable of devising a plan in the event that there does exist an anonymous letter denouncing them. She will pretend also to have received such a letter and will deliver it to her husband to confound him and to allay his doubts. M. de Renal is suffering greatly from wounded pride, anger, and self-pity. He is unable to bring himself to take any decisive step. His wife arrives, hands her letter to him, and in the next breath requests that Julien be sent away for a time until the scandal dies down. This represents exactly the solution Renal would have wanted. It relieves him of the necessity of finding out the truth since it is an avowal of innocence on her part. She furnishes him with further evidence in the form of old love letters written to her by Valenod. She succeeds masterfully in putting him on the wrong track, thereby saving appearances and her affair with Julien. In order to prove to the town that all is well in the Renal household, Julien lives in their townhouse. There he is visited by the sub-prefect, M. de Maugiron, who, on the behalf of another, sounds out Julien on the possibility of leaving the Renal household for a new position. Julien congratulates himself on his ability to satisfy Maugiron with a long-winded answer that constitutes, in effect, no answer to his proposition. Invited to dinner at the home of Valenod, Julien inwardly condemns the vulgar ostentation and bad taste of his hosts. When Valenod silences one of the inmates of the workhouse, Julien finds further grounds to feel superior to Valenod and to scorn him. Julien is invited everywhere; he is held in such esteem as a learned and talented tutor. When the Renals come for the day to Verrieres, mother and children form a happy family group with Julien, and their happiness irks the mayor, who interrupts the scene. The mayor has been forced by the Congregation to rent out a property at a much lower sum than he could have asked. Valenod, his subordinate whose trickery and intriguing with the Congregation have brought about the downfall of the Jansenist Chelan, has played a role in this intrigue. Valenod is indebted to the Vicar Frilair of the Congregation, and at the same time he is ingratiating himself with the liberals in the event that he falls out of favor with the conservatives and that M. de Renal takes steps to disgrace him. Julien learns of these machinations from Mme. de Renal, and since he attends the mysterious auction, he is taken for the Renals' spy. The gloom that reigns in the Renal household is momentarily dispelled by the unexpected arrival of an Italian singer, recommended highly to Renal and seeking further recommendations to the French court. His gaiety, exuberance, and talent provide a welcome interlude for the family, and his mission further edifies Julien as to how influence assures promotion and personal advancement. Meanwhile, several factors precipitate Julien's departure to Besancon. The town is scandalized that M. de Renal has ignored the talk about the affair in his household. Through Valenod's machinations, Elisa has related to the Jesuit Maslon and to Chelan what is going on between Julien and Mme. de Renal. Chelan therefore requires of Julien that he either enter the seminary at Besancon, the director of which is Chelan's lifelong friend, or that Julien become the partner of Fouque. M. de Renal agrees that Julien must leave. Julien accepts the ultimatum but volunteers, to the great joy of Mme. de Renal, to return after three days for a last farewell. If Julien goes to Besancon, his education must be financed; if he stays, Valenod will engage him as tutor. Another anonymous letter received by Renal presents the occasion for the final intervention of Mme. de Renal to convince her husband of the necessity of offering money to Julien. At first, Julien accepts the money as a loan, but ultimately, to the joy of the mayor, he refuses it because of his great pride. Mme. de Renal, paradoxically, lives only for the last night's rendezvous with Julien, but when it arrives, she is cold and lifeless, anticipating the future emptiness of her life. Julien departs for Besancon.
In these chapters, Julien plays a relatively passive role since his education requires that his experience be enlarged, and this requires that through his teacher, here for the most part Mme. de Renal, fresh insights into the local political situation be managed for Julien and for the reader. It is as if by seducing Mme. de Renal, Julien has displayed sufficient initiative so that he may now sit back without having to play an active role himself. He will have only to feel the effects of his relationship with Mme. de Renal and of other conditions existing in Verrieres. Besides, this is also a political novel, and Stendhal takes time out to add to his scornful expose of the evils of the Restoration on the local level. It is mainly to Mme. de Renal that the initiative falls because her love has taught her the necessity of ruse. Julien's earlier petty scheming seems even more ludicrous judged against Mme. de Renal's daring and heroic stratagems inspired by love. Her love has crystallized to the point where she would make any sacrifice for Julien: She educates him socially and, at the risk of scandal, obtains for Julien the position in the guard of honor. It is likewise she who takes the initiative to skillfully dupe her husband about the anonymous letters. Their love is that of mother and son at the same time that it is of mistress and lover. Julien has never had a mother or the love of a family, and Stendhal remedies this lack by the insertion of an idyllic family scene in which Julien displaces completely Mayor Renal in Chapter 22. The conclusions to be drawn about Stendhal's own childhood are obvious. Note that it is mainly on faith that we must believe in Julien's superior intelligence, for Stendhal will rarely permit us to witness any examples of his brilliance and articulate eloquence. The author intervenes to assure us of Julien's superiority, others acclaim him , and Mme. de Renal herself predicts a great future for such a brilliant man. His inexperience, at this stage, accounts somewhat for the lack of indications, it is true, but in his later experiences in Paris, the same absence of proof will be noticeable. Julien out-Jesuits the sub-prefect when the latter attempts to enlist him in the service of Valenod, but we hear none of his brilliant conversational digressions to avoid an answer. Stendhal simply tells us that his reply was perfect, as long-winded as a pastoral letter in that it suggested everything and stated nothing. Since Stendhal was, in a sense, writing the novel for himself and for the "happy few," he evidently felt no need to demonstrate a superiority of which he was convinced. His modesty was another factor in this reticence. Thanks to the love that Mme. de Renal has for him, Julien has made two noticeable strides ahead in his onslaught on society: He enjoys a vicarious military experience in the guard of honor and, because of his roles that day, is soon sought after by all of Verrieres. He makes progress and profits from his education in spite of the generally passive role he assumes. He has progressed in the art of hypocrisy: When he lets slip praise of Napoleon and is rebuked for it by Mme. de Renal, his pride does not incapacitate him, and he is even adroit enough to dodge responsibility for the statement. Julien's self-appointed role as messenger to Bishop Agde previews his later roles as secretary and as spy. Julien will never attain a position of independence vis-a-vis society; rather, he will always be a protected and cherished instrument of others. He actively compares the success of alternative ways of action as he sees them in others. He prefers the refined manners of Bishop Agde to those he has found in the province. He sees everywhere examples of compromise in order to succeed: the letter left in the room occupied by M. de La Mole; the mission of the Italian singer. The latter he compares favorably to M. de Renal, who is forced to humiliate himself before the Congregation. At the Valenod's dinner, Julien is horrified at the ill-treatment the workhouse inmates receive, although he is able to contain his true feelings. In the face of the ultimatum given him by Chelan, Julien debates as to whether he should take offense, but again he remains master of himself, silent in a feigned attitude of humility. It must be reiterated that Stendhal does not condemn Julien's hypocrisy. A nature as sensitive, generous, and spontaneous as Julien's is forced to this extremity to survive. The playing out of the novel's title in Chapter 18 will not have been missed by the reader: Julien plays alternately the role of soldier, then priest. It will be, of course, the latter vocation that he will choose as a means to success since Napoleon's disappearance has rendered the former impossible. Nonetheless, the spurs that he wears under the priest's cassock indicate that his career in the priesthood will be marked with the ruthlessness and dashing of the soldier. Although Julien is capable of more love for Mme. de Renal than before his seduction of her, he is far from being a victim of it. Goaded by ambition, Julien's mind is not yet a fecund "theater" where this imperious emotion may manifest itself and thrive. Stendhal makes passing allusions to the "mad" love Julien has for her and to the fact that he finds new reasons to love her, but we are hardly convinced. His love for Mme. de Renal must await the end of the novel for its full development. It might be argued that in making Julien master of the love experience, Stendhal is getting his revenge on all of the women with whom he had been unsuccessful. Julien's love brings him, at this stage, contentment and a peace and happiness he has never known. He seems to love her more as he sees more and more how much she loves him -- particularly when Mme. de Renal's son is critically ill. At that moment, Julien realizes how completely his mistress is a helpless, suffering victim of love. He feels only momentarily the doubts and torments that continue to plague her and that move her love to constant renewal in new crystallizations. It is quite possible that it is Stendhal's own sensibility, modesty, and need for privacy that prevent him from disclosing much of what Julien's love for Mme. de Renal entails, for Julien is a projection of what Stendhal would like to be, as are all his protagonists. It will be obvious to the reader at this point in the novel that Stendhal does not take great pains to conceive an overall view of the action in which subsequent events are mutually interdependent and which would seem to be "necessary" as logical and expected results of previous causes. On the contrary, he invents incidents as he needs them, and the resulting haphazard nature of succession results from an almost improvisational technique of composition and is one of the meanings of his definition of the novel as a "mirror which is carried along the road." He needed, for example, the sudden grave illness of Stanislas to permit a further crystallization of Mme. de Renal's love for Julien and an intensification of his love for her. The unannounced arrival of Geronimo is a fortuitous event needed to alleviate the series of defeats that M. de Renal has just undergone and that have plunged the household into gloom. In Chapter 23, almost without any warning, the reader learns that because of the scandal of Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal, a scandal hardly surprising but heretofore not even alluded to by Stendhal, a decision must be made as to Julien's future. Obviously. Stendhal wants to move him on to Besancon, and this is the logical means. Similarly, Elisa chooses this moment to inform Chelan of Julien's conduct, and it is this "father-figure" alone who can prevail on Julien to leave.