finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_16_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 17
part 1, chapter 17
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 17", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-17", "summary": "One evening, Julien hangs out alone with Madame de Renal and watches the sunset. He thinks out loud about how poor his upbringing was. Madame frowns at this because she doesn't like to be reminded that she's sleeping with a peasant. Julien begins to ask Madame how things work in the upper class world. The more he learns, the more he realizes how ignorant he is of high society. He especially learns about local politics and how certain men get put in certain positions of authority. Madame is confident that some day, Julien will become a great man.", "analysis": ""}
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."






Part 1, Chapter 17
One evening, Julien hangs out alone with Madame de Renal and watches the sunset. He thinks out loud about how poor his upbringing was. Madame frowns at this because she doesn't like to be reminded that she's sleeping with a peasant. Julien begins to ask Madame how things work in the upper class world. The more he learns, the more he realizes how ignorant he is of high society. He especially learns about local politics and how certain men get put in certain positions of authority. Madame is confident that some day, Julien will become a great man.