finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_28_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 29
part 1, chapter 29
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-29", "summary": "Father Pirard calls Julien into his office and tells him that a letter from Father Chas-Bernard has told him about all the wonderful work Julien's been doing. In short, Pirard is pleased with him. He promotes Julien to the role of teacher in the seminary. Julien's only response is to kiss the man's hand. This promotion will finally give Julien a chance to be alone with his thoughts from time to time. While he's in the seminary, France brings in conscription to force young men into the army. Julien doesn't get called because he's in the seminary. Julien does really well in the seminary's exams. A little too well, actually, because one clever examiner asks Julien what he knows about certain writers he's not supposed to know about, and Julien quotes all kinds of lines from them. Basically, his knowledge is counted against him because these writers are considered profane by the church. So Julien ends up getting ranked very low on the exam lists. Julien receives a letter from Paris containing five hundred francs. He figures that it's from Madame de Renal. Now for some backstory about the money. It turns out that a rich man from France named the Marquis de La Mole is in the middle of a land dispute with one of the local priests, a guy named Father Frilair who can't stand Father Pirard. In fact, Frilair is the one behind Julien's poor exam score because the guy hates Julien's mentor, Pirard. Still with us? The Marquis wants to know what to do about Father Frilair, and he finds a friend in father Pirard. Over time, he comes to like Pirard quite a lot. Pirard eventually tells him about Frilair's mean way of tricking Julien into a bad test result. Since the marquis has never been able to pay Pirard for his support, he leaps at the chance to give five hundred francs to the man's top student--Julien Sorel. So that's where the money has come from. Next thing you know, de La Mole offers Pirard control of one of the most powerful parishes in Paris. He agrees eventually, but not before writing a letter to the bishop outlining all the dirty scheming his enemies in the church have done for years. He sends Julien to deliver the letter. He knows he's kind of sending Julien to the wolves. Julien still offers the man all the money he has to help him now that he's leaving. When he delivers the letter, he charms the bishop with his knowledge of both religious and secular literature. The two of them have a long discussion, and the bishop is impressed with Julien's knowledge. Then Julien reveals how poorly he did on the exams and the bishop can't believe it. The bishop gives Julien a book as a gift for his pleasant company. The next day, all the other students are envious of the book. Meanwhile, it comes out that Father Pirard has taken a much better job in Paris. This humiliates his rival, Father Frilair.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XXIX

THE FIRST PROMOTION


    He knew his age, he knew his department, and he is rich.
                                               _The Forerunner_.


Julien had not emerged from the deep reverie in which the episode in
the cathedral had plunged him, when the severe abbe Pirard summoned him.

"M. the abbe Chas-Bernard has just written in your favour. I am on
the whole sufficiently satisfied with your conduct. You are extremely
imprudent and irresponsible without outward signs of it. However, up
to the present, you have proved yourself possessed of a good and even
generous heart. Your intellect is superior. Taking it all round, I see
in you a spark which one must not neglect.

"I am on the point of leaving this house after fifteen years of work.
My crime is that I have left the seminarists to their free will, and
that I have neither protected nor served that secret society of which
you spoke to me at the Confessional. I wish to do something for you
before I leave. I would have done so two months earlier, for you
deserve it, had it not been for the information laid against you as
the result of the finding in your trunk of Amanda Binet's address. I
will make you New and Old Testament tutor. Julien was transported with
gratitude and evolved the idea of throwing himself on his knees and
thanking God. He yielded to a truer impulse, and approaching the abbe
Pirard, took his hand and pressed it to his lips.

"What is the meaning of this?" exclaimed the director angrily, but
Julien's eyes said even more than his act.

The abbe Pirard looked at him in astonishment, after the manner of a
man who has long lost the habit of encountering refined emotions. The
attention deceived the director. His voice altered.

"Well yes, my child, I am attached to you. Heaven knows that I have
been so in spite of myself. I ought to show neither hate nor love to
anyone. I see in you something which offends the vulgar. Jealousy and
calumny will pursue you in whatever place Providence may place you.
Your comrades will never behold you without hate, and if they pretend
to like you, it will only be to betray you with greater certainty. For
this there is only one remedy. Seek help only from God, who, to punish
you for your presumption, has cursed you with the inevitable hatred
of your comrades. Let your conduct be pure. That is the only resource
which I can see for you. If you love truth with an irresistible
embrace, your enemies will sooner or later be confounded."

It had been so long since Julien had heard a friendly voice that he
must be forgiven a weakness. He burst out into tears.

The abbe Pirard held out his arms to him. This moment was very sweet
to both of them. Julien was mad with joy. This promotion was the first
which he had obtained. The advantages were immense. To realise them one
must have been condemned to pass months on end without an instant's
solitude, and in immediate contact with comrades who were at the best
importunate, and for the most part insupportable. Their cries alone
would have sufficed to disorganise a delicate constitution. The noise
and joy of these peasants, well-fed and well-clothed as they were,
could only find a vent for itself, or believe in its own completeness
when they were shouting with all the strength of their lungs.

Now Julien dined alone, or nearly an hour later than the other
seminarists. He had a key of the garden and could walk in it when no
one else was there.

Julien was astonished to perceive that he was now hated less. He, on
the contrary, had been expecting that their hate would become twice as
intense. That secret desire of his that he should not be spoken to,
which had been only too manifest before, and had earned him so many
enemies, was no longer looked upon as a sign of ridiculous haughtiness.
It became, in the eyes of the coarse beings who surrounded him, a just
appreciation of his own dignity. The hatred of him sensibly diminished,
above all among the youngest of his comrades, who were now his pupils,
and whom he treated with much politeness. Gradually he obtained his own
following. It became looked upon as bad form to call him Martin Luther.

But what is the good of enumerating his friends and his enemies? The
whole business is squalid, and all the more squalid in proportion to
the truth of the picture. And yet the clergy supply the only teachers
of morals which the people have. What would happen to the people
without them? Will the paper ever replace the cure?

Since Julien's new dignity, the director of the seminary made a point
of never speaking to him without witnesses. These tactics were prudent,
both for the master and for the pupil, but above all it was meant for
a test. The invariable principle of that severe Jansenist Pirard was
this--"if a man has merit in your eyes, put obstacles in the way of
all he desires, and of everything which he undertakes. If the merit is
real, he will manage to overthrow or get round those obstacles."

It was the hunting season. It had occurred to Fouque to send a stag
and a boar to the seminary as though they came from Julien's parents.
The dead animals were put down on the floor between the kitchen and
the refectory. It was there that they were seen by all the seminarists
on their way to dinner. They constituted a great attraction for their
curiosity. The boar, dead though it was, made the youngest ones feel
frightened. They touched its tusks. They talked of nothing else for a
whole week.

This gift, which raised Julien's family to the level of that class
of society which deserves respect, struck a deadly blow at all
jealousy. He enjoyed a superiority, consecrated by fortune. Chazel,
the most distinguished of the seminarists, made advances to him, and
always reproached him for not having previously apprised them of his
parents' position and had thus involved them in treating money without
sufficient respect. A conscription took place, from which Julien, in
his capacity as seminarist, was exempt. This circumstance affected him
profoundly. "So there is just passed for ever that moment which, twenty
years earlier, would have seen my heroic life begin. He was walking
alone in the seminary garden. He heard the masons who were walling up
the cloister walls talking between themselves.

"Yes, we must go. There's the new conscription. When _the other_ was
alive it was good business. A mason could become an officer then, could
become a general then. One has seen such things."

"You go and see now. It's only the ragamuffins who leave for the army.
Any one _who has anything_ stays in the country here."

"The man who is born wretched stays wretched, and there you are."

"I say, is it true what they say, that the other is dead?" put in the
third mason.

"Oh well, it's the '_big men_' who say that, you see. The other one
made them afraid."

"What a difference. How the fortification went ahead in his time. And
to think of his being betrayed by his own marshals."

This conversation consoled Julien a little. As he went away, he
repeated with a sigh:

"_Le seul roi dont le peuple a garde la memoire._"

The time for the examination arrived. Julien answered brilliantly. He
saw that Chazel endeavoured to exhibit all his knowledge. On the first
day the examiners, nominated by the famous Grand Vicar de Frilair, were
very irritated at always having to put first, or at any rate second,
on their list, that Julien Sorel, who had been designated to them as
the Benjamin of the Abbe Pirard. There were bets in the seminary that
Julien would come out first in the final list of the examination, a
privilege which carried with it the honour of dining with my Lord
Bishop. But at the end of a sitting, dealing with the fathers of the
Church, an adroit examiner, having first interrogated Julien on Saint
Jerome and his passion for Cicero, went on to speak about Horace,
Virgil and other profane authors. Julien had learnt by heart a great
number of passages from these authors without his comrades' knowledge.
Swept away by his successes, he forgot the place where he was, and
recited in paraphrase with spirit several odes of Horace at the
repeated request of the examiner. Having for twenty minutes given him
enough rope to hang himself, the examiner changed his expression, and
bitterly reproached him for the time he had wasted on these profane
studies, and the useless or criminal ideas which he had got into his
head.

"I am a fool, sir. You are right," said Julien modestly, realising the
adroit stratagem of which he was the victim.

This examiner's dodge was considered dirty, even at the seminary, but
this did not prevent the abbe de Frilair, that adroit individual who
had so cleverly organised the machinery of the Besancon congregation,
and whose despatches to Paris put fear into the hearts of judges,
prefect, and even the generals of the garrison, from placing with
his powerful hand the number 198 against Julien's name. He enjoyed
subjecting his enemy, Pirard the Jansenist, to this mortification.

His chief object for the last ten years had been to deprive him of the
headship of the seminary. The abbe, who had himself followed the plan
which he had indicated to Julien, was sincere, pious, devoted to his
duties and devoid of intrigue, but heaven in its anger had given him
that bilious temperament which is by nature so deeply sensitive to
insults and to hate. None of the insults which were addressed to him
was wasted on his burning soul. He would have handed in his resignation
a hundred times over, but he believed that he was useful in the place
where Providence had set him. "I prevent the progress of Jesuitism and
Idolatry," he said to himself.

At the time of the examinations, it was perhaps nearly two months
since he had spoken to Julien, and nevertheless, he was ill for eight
days when, on receipt of the official letter announcing the result of
the competition, he saw the number 198 placed beside the name of that
pupil whom he regarded as the glory of his town. This stern character
found his only consolation in concentrating all his surveillance on
Julien. He was delighted that he discovered in him neither anger, nor
vindictiveness, nor discouragement.

Julien felt a thrill some months afterwards when he received a letter.
It bore the Paris post-mark. Madame de Renal is remembering her
promises at last, he thought. A gentleman who signed himself Paul
Sorel, and who said that he was his relative, sent him a letter of
credit for five hundred francs. The writer went on to add that if
Julien went on to study successfully the good Latin authors, a similar
sum would be sent to him every year.

"It is she. It is her kindness," said Julien to himself, feeling quite
overcome. "She wishes to console me. But why not a single word of
affection?"

He was making a mistake in regard to this letter, for Madame de Renal,
under the influence of her friend, Madame Derville, was abandoning
herself absolutely to profound remorse. She would often think, in
spite of herself, of that singular being, the meeting with whom had
revolutionized her life. But she carefully refrained from writing to
him.

If we were to talk the terminology of the seminary, we would be able
to recognise a miracle in the sending of these five hundred francs and
to say that heaven was making use of Monsieur de Frilair himself in
order to give this gift to Julien. Twelve years previously the abbe de
Frilair had arrived in Besancon with an extremely exiguous portmanteau,
which, according to the story, contained all his fortune. He was now
one of the richest proprietors of the department. In the course of his
prosperity, he had bought the one half of an estate, while the other
half had been inherited by Monsieur de la Mole. Consequently there was
a great lawsuit between these two personages.

M. le Marquis de la Mole felt that, in spite of his brilliant life at
Paris and the offices which he held at Court, it would be dangerous to
fight at Besancon against the Grand Vicar, who was reputed to make and
unmake prefects.

Instead of soliciting a present of fifty thousand francs which could
have been smuggled into the budget under some name or other, and of
throwing up this miserable lawsuit with the abbe Frilair over a matter
of fifty thousand francs, the marquis lost his temper. He thought
he was in the right, absolutely in the right. Moreover, if one is
permitted to say so, who is the judge who has not got a son, or at any
rate a cousin to push in the world?

In order to enlighten the blindest minds the abbe de Frilair took
the carriage of my Lord the Bishop eight days after the first decree
which he obtained, and went himself to convey the cross of the Legion
of Honour to his advocate. M. de la Mole, a little dumbfounded at
the demeanour of the other side, and appreciating also that his own
advocates were slackening their efforts, asked advice of the abbe
Chelan, who put him in communication with M. Pirard.

At the period of our story the relations between these two men had
lasted for several years. The abbe Pirard imported into this affair
his characteristic passion. Being in constant touch with the Marquis's
advocates, he studied his case, and finding it just, he became quite
openly the solicitor of M. de la Mole against the all-powerful Grand
Vicar. The latter felt outraged by such insolence, and on the part of a
little Jansenist into the bargain.

"See what this Court nobility who pretend to be so powerful really
are," would say the abbe de Frilair to his intimates. M. de la Mole has
not even sent a miserable cross to his agent at Besancon, and will let
him be tamely turned out. None the less, so they write me, this noble
peer never lets a week go by without going to show off his blue ribbon
in the drawing-room of the Keeper of Seal, whoever it may be.

In spite of all the energy of the abbe Pirard, and although M. de la
Mole was always on the best of terms with the minister of justice, and
above all with his officials, the best that he could achieve after six
careful years was not to lose his lawsuit right out. Being as he was
in ceaseless correspondence with the abbe Pirard in connection with an
affair in which they were both passionately interested, the Marquis
came to appreciate the abbe's particular kind of intellect. Little by
little, and in spite of the immense distance in their social positions,
their correspondence assumed the tone of friendship. The abbe Pirard
told the Marquis that they wanted to heap insults upon him till he
should be forced to hand in his resignation. In his anger against what,
in his opinion, was the infamous stratagem employed against Julien, he
narrated his history to the Marquis.

Although extremely rich, this great lord was by no means miserly. He
had never been able to prevail on the abbe Pirard to accept even the
reimbursement of the postal expenses occasioned by the lawsuit. He
seized the opportunity of sending five hundred francs to his favourite
pupil. M. de la Mole himself took the trouble of writing the covering
letter. This gave the abbe food for thought. One day the latter
received a little note which requested him to go immediately on an
urgent matter to an inn on the outskirts of Besancon. He found there
the steward of M. de la Mole.

"M. le Marquis has instructed me to bring you his carriage," said the
man to him. "He hopes that after you have read this letter you will
find it convenient to leave for Paris in four or five days. I will
employ the time in the meanwhile in asking you to be good enough to
show me the estates of M. le Marquis in the Franche-Comte, so that I
can go over them."

The letter was short:--

        "Rid yourself, my good sir, of all the chicanery of the
        provinces and come and breathe the peaceful atmosphere
        of Paris. I send you my carriage which has orders to
        await your decision for four days. I will await you
        myself at Paris until Tuesday. You only require to say
        so, monsieur, to accept in your own name one of the best
        livings in the environs of Paris. The richest of your
        future parishioners has never seen you, but is more
        devoted than you can possibly think: he is the Marquis
        de la Mole."

Without having suspected it, the stern abbe Pirard loved this seminary,
peopled as it was by his enemies, but to which for the past fifteen
years he had devoted all his thoughts. M. de la Mole's letter had
the effect on him of the visit of the surgeon come to perform a
difficult but necessary operation. His dismissal was certain. He made
an appointment with the steward for three days later. For forty-eight
hours he was in a fever of uncertainty. Finally he wrote to the M. de
la Mole, and composed for my Lord the Bishop a letter, a masterpiece of
ecclesiastical style, although it was a little long; it would have been
difficult to have found more unimpeachable phrases, and ones breathing
a more sincere respect. And nevertheless, this letter, intended as it
was to get M. de Frilair into trouble with his patron, gave utterance
to all the serious matters of complaint, and even descended to the
little squalid intrigues which, having been endured with resignation
for six years, were forcing the abbe Pirard to leave the diocese.

They stole his firewood, they poisoned his dog, etc., etc.

Having finished this letter he had Julien called. Like all the other
seminarists, he was sleeping at eight o'clock in the evening.

"You know where the Bishop's Palace is," he said to him in good
classical Latin. "Take this letter to my Lord. I will not hide from
you that I am sending you into the midst of the wolves. Be all ears
and eyes. Let there be no lies in your answers, but realise that the
man questioning you will possibly experience a real joy in being able
to hurt you. I am very pleased, my child, at being able to give you
this experience before I leave you, for I do not hide from you that the
letter which you are bearing is my resignation."

Julien stood motionless. He loved the abbe Pirard. It was in vain that
prudence said to him,

"After this honest man's departure the Sacre-Coeur party will disgrace
me and perhaps expel me."

He could not think of himself. He was embarrassed by a phrase which he
was trying to turn in a polite way, but as a matter of fact he found
himself without the brains to do so.

"Well, my friend, are you not going?"

"Is it because they say, monsieur," answered Julian timidly, "that you
have put nothing on one side during your long administration. I have
six hundred francs."

His tears prevented him from continuing.

"_That also will be noticed,_" said the ex-director of the seminary
coldly. "Go to the Palace. It is getting late."

Chance would so have it that on that evening, the abbe de Frilair
was on duty in the salon of the Palace. My lord was dining with the
prefect, so it was to M. de Frilair himself that Julien, though he did
not know it, handed the letter.

Julien was astonished to see this abbe boldly open the letter which was
addressed to the Bishop. The face of the Grand Vicar soon expressed
surprise, tinged with a lively pleasure, and became twice as grave
as before. Julien, struck with his good appearance, found time to
scrutinise him while he was reading. This face would have possessed
more dignity had it not been for the extreme subtlety which appeared
in some features, and would have gone to the fact of actually denoting
falseness if the possessor of this fine countenance had ceased
to school it for a single minute. The very prominent nose formed
a perfectly straight line and unfortunately gave to an otherwise
distinguished profile, a curious resemblance to the physiognomy of
a fox. Otherwise this abbe, who appeared so engrossed with Monsieur
Pirard's resignation, was dressed with an elegance which Julien had
never seen before in any priest and which pleased him exceedingly.

It was only later that Julien knew in what the special talent of the
abbe de Frilair really consisted. He knew how to amuse his bishop,
an amiable old man made for Paris life, and who looked upon Besancon
as exile. This Bishop had very bad sight, and was passionately fond
of fish. The abbe de Frilair used to take the bones out of the fish
which was served to my Lord. Julien looked silently at the abbe who
was rereading the resignation when the door suddenly opened with a
noise. A richly dressed lackey passed in rapidly. Julien had only
time to turn round towards the door. He perceived a little old man
wearing a pectoral cross. He prostrated himself. The Bishop addressed a
benevolent smile to him and passed on. The handsome abbe followed him
and Julien was left alone in the salon, and was able to admire at his
leisure its pious magnificence.

The Bishop of Besancon, a man whose spirit had been tried but
not broken by the long miseries of the emigration, was more than
seventy-five years old and concerned himself infinitely little with
what might happen in ten years' time.

"Who is that clever-looking seminarist I think I saw as I passed?" said
the Bishop. "Oughtn't they to be in bed according to my regulations."

"That one is very wide-awake I assure you, my Lord, and he brings
great news. It is the resignation of the only Jansenist residing in
your diocese, that terrible abbe Pirard realises at last that we mean
business."

"Well," said the Bishop with a laugh. "I challenge you to replace him
with any man of equal worth, and to show you how much I prize that man,
I will invite him to dinner for to-morrow."

The Grand Vicar tried to slide in a few words concerning the choice of
a successor. The prelate, who was little disposed to talk business,
said to him.

"Before we install the other, let us get to know a little of the
circumstances under which the present one is going. Fetch me this
seminarist. The truth is in the mouth of children."

Julien was summoned. "I shall find myself between two inquisitors,"
he thought. He had never felt more courageous. At the moment when he
entered, two valets, better dressed than M. Valenod himself, were
undressing my lord. That prelate thought he ought to question Julien
on his studies before questioning him about M. Pirard. He talked a
little theology, and was astonished. He soon came to the humanities,
to Virgil, to Horace, to Cicero. "It was those names," thought Julien,
that earned me my number 198. I have nothing to lose. Let us try
and shine. He succeeded. The prelate, who was an excellent humanist
himself, was delighted.

At the prefect's dinner, a young girl who was justly celebrated,
had recited the poem of the Madeleine. He was in the mood to talk
literature, and very quickly forgot the abbe Pirard and his affairs
to discuss with the seminarist whether Horace was rich or poor. The
prelate quoted several odes, but sometimes his memory was sluggish,
and then Julien would recite with modesty the whole ode: the fact
which struck the bishop was that Julien never deviated from the
conversational tone. He spoke his twenty or thirty Latin verses as
though he had been speaking of what was taking place in his own
seminary. They talked for a long time of Virgil, or Cicero, and the
prelate could not help complimenting the young seminarist. "You could
not have studied better."

"My Lord," said Julien, "your seminary can offer you 197 much less
unworthy of your high esteem."

"How is that?" said the Prelate astonished by the number.

"I can support by official proof just what I have had the honour of
saying before my lord. I obtained the number 198 at the seminary's
annual examination by giving accurate answers to the very questions
which are earning me at the present moment my lord's approbation.

"Ah, it is the Benjamin of the abbe Pirard," said the Bishop with a
laugh, as he looked at M. de Frilair. "We should have been prepared
for this. But it is fair fighting. Did you not have to be woken up, my
friend," he said, addressing himself to Julien. "To be sent here?"

"Yes, my Lord. I have only been out of the seminary alone once in my
life to go and help M. the abbe Chas-Bernard decorate the cathedral on
Corpus Christi day.

"Optime," said the Bishop. "So, it is you who showed proof of so much
courage by placing the bouquets of feathers on the baldachin. They
make me shudder. They make me fear that they will cost some man his
life. You will go far, my friend, but I do not wish to cut short your
brilliant career by making you die of hunger."

And by the order of the Bishop, biscuits and wine were brought in, to
which Julien did honour, and the abbe de Frilair, who knew that his
Bishop liked to see people eat gaily and with a good appetite, even
greater honour.

The prelate, more and more satisfied with the end of his evening,
talked for a moment of ecclesiastical history. He saw that Julien did
not understand. The prelate passed on to the moral condition of the
Roman Empire under the system of the Emperor Constantine. The end of
paganism had been accompanied by that state of anxiety and of doubt
which afflicts sad and jaded spirits in the nineteenth century. My Lord
noticed Julien's ignorance of almost the very name of Tacitus. To the
astonishment of the prelate, Julien answered frankly that that author
was not to be found in the seminary library.

"I am truly very glad," said the Bishop gaily, "You relieve me of an
embarrassment. I have been trying for the last five minutes to find a
way of thanking you for the charming evening which you have given me in
a way that I could certainly never have expected. I did not anticipate
finding a teacher in a pupil in my seminary. Although the gift is not
unduly canonical, I want to give you a Tacitus." The prelate had eight
volumes in a superior binding fetched for him, and insisted on writing
himself on the title page of the first volume a Latin compliment to
Julien Sorel. The Bishop plumed himself on his fine Latinity. He
finished by saying to him in a serious tone, which completely clashed
with the rest of the conversation.

"Young man, if you are good, you will have one day the best living in
my diocese, and one not a hundred leagues from my episcopal palace, but
you must be good."

Laden with his volumes, Julien left the palace in a state of great
astonishment as midnight was striking.

My Lord had not said a word to him about the abbe Pirard. Julien was
particularly astonished by the Bishop's extreme politeness. He had had
no conception of such an urbanity in form combined with so natural an
air of dignity. Julien was especially struck by the contrast on seeing
again the gloomy abbe Pirard, who was impatiently awaiting him.

"Quid tibi dixerunt (What have they said to you)?" he cried out to him
in a loud voice as soon as he saw him in the distance. "Speak French,
and repeat my Lord's own words without either adding or subtracting
anything," said the ex-Director of the seminary in his harsh tone,
and with his particularly inelegant manners, as Julien got slightly
confused in translating into Latin the speeches of the Bishop.

"What a strange present on the part of the Bishop to a young
seminarist," he ventured to say as he turned over the leaves of the
superb Tacitus, whose gilt edges seemed to horrify him.

Two o'clock was already striking when he allowed his favourite pupil to
retire to his room after an extremely detailed account.

"Leave me the first volume of your Tacitus," he said to him. "Where
is my Lord Bishop's compliment? This Latin line will serve as your
lightning-conductor in this house after my departure."

Erit tibi, fili mi, successor meus tanquam leo querens quem devoret.
(For my successor will be to you, my son, like a ravening lion seeking
someone to devour).

The following morning Julien noticed a certain strangeness in
the manner in which his comrades spoke to him. It only made him
more reserved. "This," he thought, "is the result of M. Pirard's
resignation. It is known over the whole house, and I pass for his
favourite. There ought logically to be an insult in their demeanour."
But he could not detect it. On the contrary, there was an absence of
hate in the eyes of all those he met along the corridors. "What is the
meaning of this? It is doubtless a trap. Let us play a wary game."

Finally the little seminarist said to him with a laugh,

"Cornelii Taciti opera omnia (complete works of Tacitus)."

On hearing these words, they all congratulated Julien enviously, not
only on the magnificent present which he had received from my lord, but
also on the two hours' conversation with which he had been honoured.
They knew even its minutest details. From that moment envy ceased
completely. They courted him basely. The abbe Castanede, who had
manifested towards him the most extreme insolence the very day before,
came and took his arm and invited him to breakfast.

By some fatality in Julien's character, while the insolence of these
coarse creatures had occasioned him great pain, their baseness afforded
him disgust, but no pleasure.

Towards mid-day the abbe Pirard took leave of his pupils, but not
before addressing to them a severe admonition.

"Do you wish for the honours of the world," he said to them. "For all
the social advantages, for the pleasure of commanding pleasures, of
setting the laws at defiance, and the pleasure of being insolent with
impunity to all? Or do you wish for your eternal salvation? The most
backward of you have only got to open your eyes to distinguish the true
ways."

He had scarcely left before the devotees of the _Sacre Coeur de Jesus_
went into the chapel to intone a Te Deum. Nobody in the seminary took
the ex-director's admonition seriously.

"He shows a great deal of temper because he is losing his job," was
what was said in every quarter.

Not a single seminarist was simple enough to believe in the voluntary
resignation of a position which put him into such close touch with the
big contractors.

The abbe Pirard went and established himself in the finest inn at
Besancon, and making an excuse of business which he had not got,
insisted on passing a couple of days there. The Bishop had invited
him to dinner, and in order to chaff his Grand Vicar de Frilair,
endeavoured to make him shine. They were at dessert when the
extraordinary intelligence arrived from Paris that the abbe Pirard had
been appointed to the magnificent living of N. ---- four leagues from
Paris. The good prelate congratulated him upon it. He saw in the whole
affair a piece of good play which put him in a good temper and gave him
the highest opinion of the abbe's talents. He gave him a magnificent
Latin certificate, and enjoined silence on the abbe de Frilair, who was
venturing to remonstrate.

The same evening, my Lord conveyed his admiration to the Marquise de
Rubempre. This was great news for fine Besancon society. They abandoned
themselves to all kinds of conjectures over this extraordinary favour.
They already saw the abbe Pirard a Bishop. The more subtle brains
thought M. de la Mole was a minister, and indulged on this day in
smiles at the imperious airs that M. the abbe de Frilair adopted in
society.

The following day the abbe Pirard was almost mobbed in the streets,
and the tradesmen came to their shop doors when he went to solicit an
interview with the judges who had had to try the Marquis's lawsuit. For
the first time in his life he was politely received by them. The stern
Jansenist, indignant as he was with all that he saw, worked long with
the advocates whom he had chosen for the Marquis de la Mole, and left
for Paris. He was weak enough to tell two or three college friends who
accompanied him to the carriage whose armorial bearings they admired,
that after having administered the Seminary for fifteen years he was
leaving Besancon with five hundred and twenty francs of savings. His
friends kissed him with tears in their eyes, and said to each other,

"The good abbe could have spared himself that lie. It is really too
ridiculous."

The vulgar, blinded as they are by the love of money, were
constitutionally incapable of understanding that it was in his own
sincerity that the abbe Pirard had found the necessary strength to
fight for six years against Marie Alacoque, the _Sacre Coeur de Jesus_,
the Jesuits and his Bishop.






Part 1, Chapter 29
Father Pirard calls Julien into his office and tells him that a letter from Father Chas-Bernard has told him about all the wonderful work Julien's been doing. In short, Pirard is pleased with him. He promotes Julien to the role of teacher in the seminary. Julien's only response is to kiss the man's hand. This promotion will finally give Julien a chance to be alone with his thoughts from time to time. While he's in the seminary, France brings in conscription to force young men into the army. Julien doesn't get called because he's in the seminary. Julien does really well in the seminary's exams. A little too well, actually, because one clever examiner asks Julien what he knows about certain writers he's not supposed to know about, and Julien quotes all kinds of lines from them. Basically, his knowledge is counted against him because these writers are considered profane by the church. So Julien ends up getting ranked very low on the exam lists. Julien receives a letter from Paris containing five hundred francs. He figures that it's from Madame de Renal. Now for some backstory about the money. It turns out that a rich man from France named the Marquis de La Mole is in the middle of a land dispute with one of the local priests, a guy named Father Frilair who can't stand Father Pirard. In fact, Frilair is the one behind Julien's poor exam score because the guy hates Julien's mentor, Pirard. Still with us? The Marquis wants to know what to do about Father Frilair, and he finds a friend in father Pirard. Over time, he comes to like Pirard quite a lot. Pirard eventually tells him about Frilair's mean way of tricking Julien into a bad test result. Since the marquis has never been able to pay Pirard for his support, he leaps at the chance to give five hundred francs to the man's top student--Julien Sorel. So that's where the money has come from. Next thing you know, de La Mole offers Pirard control of one of the most powerful parishes in Paris. He agrees eventually, but not before writing a letter to the bishop outlining all the dirty scheming his enemies in the church have done for years. He sends Julien to deliver the letter. He knows he's kind of sending Julien to the wolves. Julien still offers the man all the money he has to help him now that he's leaving. When he delivers the letter, he charms the bishop with his knowledge of both religious and secular literature. The two of them have a long discussion, and the bishop is impressed with Julien's knowledge. Then Julien reveals how poorly he did on the exams and the bishop can't believe it. The bishop gives Julien a book as a gift for his pleasant company. The next day, all the other students are envious of the book. Meanwhile, it comes out that Father Pirard has taken a much better job in Paris. This humiliates his rival, Father Frilair.