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.

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.


CHAPTER XXX

AN AMBITIOUS MAN

    There is only one nobility, the title of duke; a marquis is
    ridiculous; the word duke makes one turn round.
                                       _Edinburgh Review_.

The Marquis de la Mole received the abbe Pirard without any of those
aristocratic mannerisms whose very politeness is at the same time so
impertinent to one who understands them. It would have been a waste of
time, and the Marquis was sufficiently expeditious in big affairs to
have no time to lose.

He had been intriguing for six months to get both the king and people
to accept a minister who, as a matter of gratitude, was to make him a
Duke. The Marquis had been asking his Besancon advocate for years on
end for a clear and precise summary of his Franche-Comte lawsuits. How
could the celebrated advocate explain to him what he did not understand
himself? The little square of paper which the abbe handed him explained
the whole matter.

"My dear abbe," said the Marquis to him, having got through in less
than five minutes all polite formulae of personal questions. "My dear
abbe, in the midst of my pretended prosperity I lack the time to occupy
myself seriously with two little matters which are rather important,
my family and my affairs. I manage the fortune of my house on a large
scale. I can carry it far. I manage my pleasures, and that is the first
consideration in my eyes," he added, as he saw a look of astonishment
in the abbe Pirard's eyes. Although a man of common sense, the abbe was
surprised to hear a man talk so frankly about his pleasures.

"Work doubtless exists in Paris," continued the great lord, "but it is
perched on the fifth story, and as soon as I take anyone up, he takes
an apartment on the second floor, and his wife starts a day at home;
the result is no more work and no more efforts except either to be, or
appear to be, a society man. That is the only thing they bother about,
as soon as they have got their bread and butter.

"For my lawsuits, yes, for every single one of them, I have, to put it
plainly, advocates who quarrel to death. One died of consumption the
day before yesterday. Taking my business all round, would you believe,
monsieur, that for three years I have given up all hope of finding a
man who deigns, during the time he is acting as my clerk, to give a
little serious thought to what he is doing. Besides, all this is only a
preliminary.

"I respect you and would venture to add that, although I only see you
for the first time to-day, I like you. Will you be my secretary at a
salary of eight hundred francs or even double. I shall still be the
gainer by it, I swear to you, and I will manage to reserve that fine
living for you for the day when we shall no longer be able to agree."
The abbe refused, but the genuine embarrassment in which he saw the
Marquis suggested an idea to him towards the end of the conversation.

"I have left in the depths of my seminary a poor young man who, if I
mistake not, will be harshly persecuted. If he were only a simple monk
he would be already _in pace_. So far this young man only knows Latin
and the Holy Scriptures, but it is not impossible that he will one day
exhibit great talent, either for preaching or the guiding of souls. I
do not know what he will do, but he has the sacred fire. He may go far.
I thought of giving him to our Bishop, if we had ever had one who was a
little of your way of considering men and things."

"What is your young man's extraction?" said the Marquis.

"He is said to be the son of a carpenter in our mountains. I rather
believe he is the natural son of some rich man. I have seen him receive
an anonymous or pseudonymous letter with a bill for five hundred
francs."

"Oh, it is Julien Sorel," said the Marquis.

"How do you know his name?" said the abbe, in astonishment, reddening
at his question.

"That's what I'm not going to tell you," answered the Marquis.

"Well," replied the abbe, "you might try making him your secretary. He
has energy. He has a logical mind. In a word, it's worth trying."

"Why not?" said the Marquis. "But would he be the kind of man to allow
his palm to be greased by the Prefect of Police or any one else and
then spy on me? That is only my objection."

After hearing the favourable assurances of the abbe Pirard, the Marquis
took a thousand franc note.

"Send this journey money to Julien Sorel. Let him come to me."

"One sees at once," said the abbe Pirard, "that you live in Paris.
You do not know the tyranny which weighs us poor provincials down,
and particularly those priests who are not friendly to the Jesuits.
They will refuse to let Julien Sorel leave. They will manage to cloak
themselves in the most clever excuses. They will answer me that he is
ill, that his letters were lost in the post, etc., etc."

"I will get a letter from the minister to the Bishop, one of these
days," answered the Marquis.

"I was forgetting to warn you of one thing," said the abbe. "This young
man, though of low birth, has a high spirit. He will be of no use if
you madden his pride. You will make him stupid."

"That pleases me," said the Marquis. "I will make him my son's comrade.
Will that be enough for you?"

Some time afterwards, Julien received a letter in an unknown writing,
and bearing the Chelon postmark. He found in it a draft on a Besancon
merchant, and instructions to present himself at Paris without delay.
The letter was signed in a fictitious name, but Julien had felt a
thrill in opening it. A leaf of a tree had fallen down at his feet. It
was the agreed signal between himself and the abbe Pirard.

Within an hour's time, Julien was summoned to the Bishop's Palace,
where he found himself welcomed with a quite paternal benevolence. My
lord quoted Horace and at the same time complimented him very adroitly
on the exalted destiny which awaited him in Paris in such a way as
to elicit an explanation by way of thanks. Julien was unable to say
anything, simply because he did not know anything, and my Lord showed
him much consideration. One of the little priests in the bishopric
wrote to the mayor, who hastened to bring in person a signed passport,
where the name of the traveller had been left in blank.

Before midnight of the same evening, Julien was at Fouque's. His
friend's shrewd mind was more astonished than pleased with the future
which seemed to await his friend.

"You will finish up," said that Liberal voter, "with a place in the
Government, which will compel you to take some step which will be
calumniated. It will only be by your own disgrace that I shall have
news of you. Remember that, even from the financial standpoint, it is
better to earn a hundred louis in a good timber business, of which
one is his own master, than to receive four thousand francs from a
Government, even though it were that of King Solomon."

Julien saw nothing in this except the pettiness of spirit of a country
bourgeois. At last he was going to make an appearance in the theatre of
great events. Everything was over-shadowed in his eyes by the happiness
of going to Paris, which he imagined to be populated by people of
intellect, full of intrigues and full of hypocrisy, but as polite as
the Bishop of Besancon and the Bishop of Agde. He represented to his
friend that he was deprived of any free choice in the matter by the
abbe Pirard's letter.'

The following day he arrived at Verrieres about noon. He felt the
happiest of men for he counted on seeing Madame de Renal again. He
went first to his protector the good abbe Chelan. He met with a severe
welcome.

"Do you think you are under any obligation to me?" said M. Chelan to
him, without answering his greeting. "You will take breakfast with me.
During that time I will have a horse hired for you and you will leave
Verrieres without seeing anyone."

"Hearing is obeying," answered Julien with a demeanour smacking of
the seminary, and the only questions now discussed were theology and
classical Latin.

He mounted his horse, rode a league, and then perceiving a wood and
not seeing any one who could notice him enter, he plunged into it.
At sunset, he sent away the horse. Later, he entered the cottage of
a peasant, who consented to sell him a ladder and to follow him with
it to the little wood which commands the _Cours de la Fidelite_ at
Verrieres.

"I have been following a poor mutineer of a conscript ... or a
smuggler," said the peasant as he took leave of him, "but what does
it matter? My ladder has been well paid for, and I myself have done a
thing or two in that line."

The night was very black. Towards one o'clock in the morning, Julien,
laden with his ladder, entered Verrieres. He descended as soon as he
could into the bed of the stream, which is banked within two walls, and
traverses M. de Renal's magnificent gardens at a depth of ten feet.
Julien easily climbed up the ladder. "How will the watch dogs welcome
me," he thought. "It all turns on that." The dogs barked and galloped
towards him, but he whistled softly and they came and caressed him.
Then climbing from terrace to terrace he easily managed, although all
the grills were shut, to get as far as the window of Madame de Renal's
bedroom which, on the garden side, was only eight or six feet above the
ground. There was a little heart shaped opening in the shutters which
Julien knew well. To his great disappointment, this little opening was
not illuminated by the flare of a little night-light inside.

"Good God," he said to himself. "This room is not occupied by Madame de
Renal. Where can she be sleeping? The family must be at Verrieres since
I have found the dogs here, but I might meet M. de Renal himself, or
even a stranger in this room without a light, and then what a scandal!"
The most prudent course was to retreat, but this idea horrified Julien.

"If it's a stranger, I will run away for all I'm worth, and leave my
ladder behind me, but if it is she, what a welcome awaits me! I can
well imagine that she has fallen into a mood of penitence and the most
exalted piety, but after all, she still has some remembrance of me,
since she has written to me." This bit of reasoning decided him.

With a beating heart, but resolved none the less to see her or perish
in the attempt, he threw some little pebbles against the shutter.
No answer. He leaned his long ladder beside the window, and himself
knocked on the shutter, at first softly, and then more strongly.
"However dark it is, they may still shoot me," thought Julien. This
idea made the mad adventure simply a question of bravery.

"This room is not being slept in to-night," he thought, "or whatever
person might be there would have woken up by now. So far as it is
concerned, therefore, no further precautions are needed. I must only
try not to be heard by the persons sleeping in the other rooms."

He descended, placed his ladder against one of the shutters, climbed
up again, and placing his hand through the heart-shaped opening, was
fortunate enough to find pretty quickly the wire which is attached to
the hook which closed the shutter. He pulled this wire. It was with an
ineffable joy that he felt that the shutter was no longer held back,
and yielded to his effort.

I must open it bit by bit and let her recognise my voice. He opened the
shutter enough to pass his head through it, while he repeated in a low
voice, "It's a friend."

He pricked up his ears and assured himself that nothing disturbed the
profound silence of the room, but there could be no doubt about it,
there was no light, even half-extinguished, on the mantelpiece. It was
a very bad sign.

"Look out for the gun-shot," he reflected a little, then he ventured
to knock against the window with his finger. No answer. He knocked
harder. I must finish it one way or another, even if I have to break
the window. When he was knocking very hard, he thought he could catch
a glimpse through the darkness of something like a white shadow that
was crossing the room. At last there was no doubt about it. He saw a
shadow which appeared to advance with extreme slowness. Suddenly he saw
a cheek placed against the pane to which his eye was glued.

He shuddered and went away a little, but the night was so black that
he could not, even at this distance, distinguish if it were Madame de
Renal. He was frightened of her crying out at first in alarm. He heard
the dogs prowling and growling around the foot of the ladder. "It is
I," he repeated fairly loudly. "A friend."

No answer. The white phantom had disappeared.

"Deign to open to me. I must speak to you. I am too unhappy." And he
knocked hard enough to break the pane.

A crisp sound followed. The casement fastening of the window yielded.
He pushed the casement and leaped lightly into the room.

The white phantom flitted away from him. He took hold of its arms. It
was a woman. All his ideas of courage vanished. "If it is she, what is
she going to say?" What were his emotions when a little cry gave him to
understand, that it was Madame de Renal?

He clasped her in his arms. She trembled and scarcely had the strength
to push him away.

"Unhappy man. What are you doing?" Her agonised voice could scarcely
articulate the words.

Julien thought that her voice rang with the most genuine indignation.

"I have come to see you after a cruel separation of more than fourteen
months."

"Go away, leave me at once. Oh, M. Chelan, why did you prevent me
writing to him? I could then have foreseen this horror." She pushed
him away with a truly extraordinary strength. "Heaven has deigned to
enlighten me," she repeated in a broken voice. "Go away! Flee!"

"After fourteen months of unhappiness I shall certainly not leave you
without a word. I want to know all you have done. Yes, I have loved
you enough to deserve this confidence. I want to know everything."
This authoritative tone dominated Madame de Renal's heart in spite of
herself. Julien, who was hugging her passionately and resisting her
efforts to get loose, left off clasping her in his arms. This reassured
Madame de Renal a little.

"I will take away the ladder," he said, "to prevent it compromising
us in case some servant should be awakened by the noise, and go on a
round."

"Oh leave me, leave me!" she cried with an admirable anger. "What
do men matter to me! It is God who sees the awful scene you are now
making. You are abusing meanly the sentiments which I had for you but
have no longer. Do you hear, Monsieur Julien?"

He took away the ladder very slowly so as not to make a noise.

"Is your husband in town, dear," he said to her not in order to defy
her but as a sheer matter of habit.

"Don't talk to me like that, I beg you, or I will call my husband. I
feel only too guilty in not having sent you away before. I pity you,"
she said to him, trying to wound his, as she well knew, irritable pride.

This refusal of all endearments, this abrupt way of breaking so tender
a tie which he thought still subsisted, carried the transports of
Julien's love to the point of delirium.

"What! is it possible you do not love me?" he said to her, with one of
those accents that come straight from the heart and impose a severe
strain on the cold equanimity of the listener.

She did not answer. As for him, he wept bitterly.

In fact he had no longer the strength to speak.

"So I am completely forgotten by the one being who ever loved me, what
is the good of living on henceforth?" As soon as he had no longer to
fear the danger of meeting a man all his courage had left him; his
heart now contained no emotion except that of love.

He wept for a long time in silence.

He took her hand; she tried to take it away, and after a few almost
convulsive moments, surrendered it to him. It was extremely dark; they
were both sitting on Madame de Renal's bed.

"What a change from fourteen months ago," thought Julien, and his tears
redoubled. "So absence is really bound to destroy all human sentiments."

"Deign to tell me what has happened to you?" Julien said at last.

"My follies," answered Madame de Renal in a hard voice whose frigid
intonation contained in it a certain element of reproach, "were no
doubt known in the town when you left, your conduct was so imprudent.
Some time afterwards when I was in despair the venerable Chelan came to
see me. He tried in vain for a long time to obtain a confession. One
day he took me to that church at Dijon where I made my first communion.
In that place he ventured to speak himself----" Madame de Renal
was interrupted by her tears. "What a moment of shame. I confessed
everything. The good man was gracious enough not to overwhelm me with
the weight of his indignation. He grieved with me. During that time I
used to write letters to you every day which I never ventured to send.
I hid them carefully and when I was more than usually unhappy I shut
myself up in my room and read over my letters."

"At last M. Chelan induced me to hand them over to him, some of them
written a little more discreetly were sent to you, you never answered."

"I never received any letters from you, I swear!"

"Great heavens! Who can have intercepted them? Imagine my grief until
the day I saw you in the cathedral. I did not know if you were still
alive."

"God granted me the grace of understanding how much I was sinning
towards Him, towards my children, towards my husband," went on Madame
de Renal. "He never loved me in the way that I then thought that you
had loved me."

Julien rushed into her arms, as a matter of fact without any particular
purpose and feeling quite beside himself. But Madame de Renal repelled
him and continued fairly firmly.

"My venerable friend, M. Chelan, made me understand that in marrying I
had plighted all my affections, even those which I did not then know,
and which I had never felt before a certain fatal attachment ... after
the great sacrifice of the letters that were so dear to me, my life has
flowed on, if not happily, at any rate calmly. Do not disturb it. Be
a friend to me, my best friend." Julien covered her hand with kisses.
She perceived he was still crying. "Do not cry, you pain me so much.
Tell me, in your turn, what you have been doing," Julien was unable
to speak. "I want to know the life you lead at the seminary," she
repeated. "And then you will go."

Without thinking about what he was saying Julien spoke of the
numberless intrigues and jealousies which he had first encountered, and
then of the great serenity of his life after he had been made a tutor.

"It was then," he added, "that after a long silence which was no doubt
intended to make me realise what I see only too clearly to-day, that
you no longer loved me and that I had become a matter of indifference
to you...."

Madame de Renal wrung her hands.

"It was then that you sent me the sum of five hundred francs."

"Never," said Madame de Renal.

"It was a letter stamped Paris and signed Paul Sorel so as to avert
suspicion."

There was a little discussion about how the letter could possibly have
originated.

The psychological situation was altered. Without knowing it Julien had
abandoned his solemn tone; they were now once more on the footing of a
tender affection. It was so dark that they did not see each other but
the tone of their voices was eloquent of everything. Julien clasped
his arm round his love's waist. This movement had its dangers. She
tried to put Julien's arms away from her; at this juncture he cleverly
diverted her attention by an interesting detail in his story. The arm
was practically forgotten and remained in its present position.

After many conjectures as to the origin of the five hundred francs
letter, Julien took up his story. He regained a little of his
self-control as he spoke of his past life, which compared with what he
was now experiencing interested him so little. His attention was now
concentrated on the final outcome of of his visit. "You will have to
go," were the curt words he heard from time to time.

"What a disgrace for me if I am dismissed. My remorse will embitter all
my life," he said to himself, "she will never write to me. God knows
when I shall come back to this part of the country." From this moment
Julien's heart became rapidly oblivious of all the heavenly delights of
his present position.

Seated as he was close to a woman whom he adored and practically
clasping her in his arms in this room, the scene of his former
happiness, amid a deep obscurity, seeing quite clearly as he did that
she had just started crying, and feeling that she was sobbing from the
heaving of her chest, he was unfortunate enough to turn into a cold
diplomatist, nearly as cold as in those days when in the courtyard
of the seminary he found himself the butt of some malicious joke on
the part of one of his comrades who was stronger than he was. Julien
protracted his story by talking of his unhappy life since his departure
from Verrieres.

"So," said Madame de Renal to herself, "after a year's absence and
deprived almost entirely of all tokens of memory while I myself was
forgetting him, he only thought of the happy days that he had had in
Verrieres." Her sobs redoubled. Julien saw the success of his story.
He realised that he must play his last card. He abruptly mentioned a
letter he had just received from Paris.

"I have taken leave of my Lord Bishop."

"What! you are not going back to Besancon? You are leaving us for ever?"

"Yes," answered Julien resolutely, "yes, I am leaving a country where I
have been forgotten even by the woman whom I loved more than anyone in
my life; I am leaving it and I shall never see it again. I am going to
Paris."

"You are going to Paris, dear," exclaimed Madame de Renal.

Her voice was almost choked by her tears and showed the extremity of
her trouble. Julien had need of this encouragement. He was on the point
of executing a manoeuvre which might decide everything against him; and
up to the time of this exclamation he could not tell what effect he was
producing as he was unable to see. He no longer hesitated. The fear of
remorse gave him complete control over himself. He coldly added as he
got up.

"Yes, madame, I leave you for ever. May you be happy. Adieu."

He moved some steps towards the window. He began to open it. Madame de
Renal rushed to him and threw herself into his arms. So it was in this
way that, after a dialogue lasting three hours, Julien obtained what he
desired so passionately during the first two hours.

Madame de Renal's return to her tender feelings and this overshadowing
of her remorse would have been a divine happiness had they come a
little earlier; but, as they had been obtained by artifice, they were
simply a pleasure. Julien insisted on lighting the night-light in spite
of his mistress's opposition.

"Do you wish me then," he said to her "to have no recollection of
having seen you. Is the love in those charming eyes to be lost to me
for ever? Is the whiteness of that pretty hand to remain invisible?
Remember that perhaps I am leaving you for a very long time."

Madame de Renal could refuse him nothing. His argument made her melt
into tears. But the dawn was beginning to throw into sharp relief the
outlines of the pine trees on the mountain east of Verrieres. Instead
of going away Julien, drunk with pleasure, asked Madame de Renal to let
him pass the day in her room and leave the following night.

"And why not?" she answered. "This fatal relapse robs me of all my
respect and will mar all my life," and she pressed him to her heart.
"My husband is no longer the same; he has suspicions, he believes I led
him the way I wanted in all this business, and shows great irritation
against me. If he hears the slightest noise I shall be ruined, he will
hound me out like the unhappy woman that I am."

"Ah here we have a phrase of M. Chelan's," said Julien "you would not
have talked like that before my cruel departure to the seminary; in
those days you used to love me."

Julien was rewarded for the frigidity which he put into those words. He
saw his love suddenly forget the danger which her husband's presence
compelled her to run, in thinking of the much greater danger of seeing
Julien doubt her love. The daylight grew rapidly brighter and vividly
illuminated the room. Julien savoured once more all the deliciousness
of pride, when he saw this charming woman in his arms and almost at his
feet, the only woman whom he had ever loved, and who had been entirely
absorbed only a few hours before by her fear of a terrible God and her
devotion to her duties. Resolutions, fortified by a year's persuasion,
had failed to hold out against his courage.

They soon heard a noise in the house. A matter that Madame de Renal had
not thought of began to trouble her.

"That wicked Elisa will come into the room. What are we to do with this
enormous ladder?" she said to her sweetheart, "where are we to hide it?
I will take it to the loft," she exclaimed suddenly half playfully.

"But you will have to pass through the servants' room," said Julien in
astonishment.

"I will leave the ladder in the corridor and will call the servant and
send him on an errand."

"Think of some explanation to have ready in the event of a servant
passing the ladder and noticing it in the corridor."

"Yes, my angel," said Madame de Renal giving him a kiss "as for you,
dear, remember to hide under the bed pretty quickly if Elisa enters
here during my absence."

Julien was astonished by this sudden gaiety--"So" he thought, "the
approach of a real danger instead of troubling her gives her back
her spirits before she forgets her remorse. Truly a superior woman.
Yes, that's a heart over which it is glorious to reign." Julien was
transported with delight.

Madame de Renal took the ladder, which was obviously too heavy for her.
Julien went to her help. He was admiring that elegant figure which was
so far from betokening any strength when she suddenly seized the ladder
without assistance and took it up as if it had been a chair. She took
it rapidly into the corridor of the third storey where she laid it
alongside the wall. She called a servant, and in order to give him time
to dress himself, went up into the dovecot.

Five minutes later, when she came back to the corridor, she found no
signs of the ladder. What had happened to it? If Julien had been out
of the house she would not have minded the danger in the least. But
supposing her husband were to see the ladder just now, the incident
might be awful. Madame de Renal ran all over the house.

Madame de Renal finally discovered the ladder under the roof where the
servant had carried it and even hid it.

"What does it matter what happens in twenty-four hours," she thought,
"when Julien will be gone?"

She had a vague idea that she ought to take leave of life but what
mattered her duty? He was restored to her after a separation which she
had thought eternal. She was seeing him again and the efforts he had
made to reach her showed the extent of his love.

"What shall I say to my husband," she said to him. "If the servant
tells him he found this ladder?" She was pensive for a moment. "They
will need twenty-four hours to discover the peasant who sold it
to you." And she threw herself into Julien's arms and clasped him
convulsively.

"Oh, if I could only die like this," she cried covering him with
kisses. "But you mustn't die of starvation," she said with a smile.

"Come, I will first hide you in Madame Derville's room which is always
locked." She went and watched at the other end of the corridor and
Julien ran in. "Mind you don't try and open if any one knocks," she
said as she locked him in. "Anyway it would only be a frolic of the
children as they play together."

"Get them to come into the garden under the window," said Julien, "so
that I may have the pleasure of seeing them. Make them speak."

"Yes, yes," cried Madame de Renal to him as she went away. She soon
returned with oranges, biscuits and a bottle of Malaga wine. She had
not been able to steal any bread.

"What is your husband doing?" said Julien.

"He is writing out the figures of the bargains he is going to make with
the peasants."

But eight o'clock had struck and they were making a lot of noise in the
house. If Madame de Renal failed to put in an appearance, they would
look for her all over the house. She was obliged to leave him. Soon she
came back, in defiance of all prudence, bringing him a cup of coffee.
She was frightened lest he should die of starvation.

She managed after breakfast to bring the children under the window of
Madame Derville's room. He thought they had grown a great deal, but
they had begun to look common, or else his ideas had changed. Madame de
Renal spoke to them about Julien. The elder answered in an affectionate
tone and regretted his old tutor, but he found that the younger
children had almost forgotten him.

M. de Renal did not go out that morning; he was going up and downstairs
incessantly engaged in bargaining with some peasants to whom he was
selling potatoes.

Madame de Renal did not have an instant to give to her prisoner until
dinner-time. When the bell had been rung and dinner had been served,
it occurred to her to steal a plate of warm soup for him. As she
noiselessly approached the door of the room which he occupied, she
found herself face to face with the servant who had hid the ladder
in the morning. At the time he too was going noiselessly along the
corridor, as though listening for something. The servant took himself
off in some confusion.

Madame de Renal boldly entered Julien's room. The news of this
encounter made him shudder.

"You are frightened," she said to him, "but I would brave all the
dangers in the world without flinching. There is only one thing I fear,
and that is the moment when I shall be alone after you have left," and
she left him and ran downstairs.

"Ah," thought Julien ecstatically, "remorse is the only danger which
this sublime soul is afraid of."

At last evening came. Monsieur de Renal went to the Casino.

His wife had given out that she was suffering from an awful headache.
She went to her room, hastened to dismiss Elisa and quickly got up in
order to let Julien out.

He was literally starving. Madame de Renal went to the pantry to fetch
some bread. Julien heard a loud cry. Madame de Renal came back and told
him that when she went to the dark pantry and got near the cupboard
where they kept the bread, she had touched a woman's arm as she
stretched out her hand. It was Elisa who had uttered the cry Julien had
heard.

"What was she doing there?"

"Stealing some sweets or else spying on us," said Madame de Renal with
complete indifference, "but luckily I found a pie and a big loaf of
bread."

"But what have you got there?" said Julien pointing to the pockets of
her apron.

Madame de Renal had forgotten that they had been filled with bread
since dinner.

Julien clasped her in his arms with the most lively passion. She had
never seemed to him so beautiful. "I could not meet a woman of greater
character even at Paris," he said confusedly to himself. She combined
all the clumsiness of a woman who was but little accustomed to paying
attentions of this kind, with all the genuine courage of a person who
is only afraid of dangers of quite a different sphere and quite a
different kind of awfulness.

While Julien was enjoying his supper with a hearty appetite and his
sweetheart was rallying him on the simplicity of the meal, the door of
the room was suddenly shaken violently. It was M. de Renal.

"Why have you shut yourself in?" he cried to her.

Julien had only just time to slip under the sofa.

On any ordinary day Madame de Renal would have been upset by this
question which was put with true conjugal harshness; but she realised
that M. de Renal had only to bend down a little to notice Julien, for
M. de Renal had flung himself into the chair opposite the sofa which
Julien had been sitting in one moment before.

Her headache served as an excuse for everything. While her husband on
his side went into a long-winded account of the billiards pool which he
had won at Casino, "yes, to be sure a nineteen franc pool," he added.
She noticed Julien's hat on a chair three paces in front of them.
Her self-possession became twice as great, she began to undress, and
rapidly passing one minute behind her husband threw her dress over the
chair with the hat on it.

At last M. de Renal left. She begged Julien to start over again his
account of his life at the Seminary. "I was not listening to you
yesterday all the time you were speaking, I was only thinking of
prevailing on myself to send you away."

She was the personification of indiscretion. They talked very loud and
about two o'clock in the morning they were interrupted by a violent
knock at the door. It was M. de Renal again.

"Open quickly, there are thieves in the house!" he said. "Saint Jean
found their ladder this morning."

"This is the end of everything," cried Madame de Renal, throwing
herself into Julien's arms. "He will kill both of us, he doesn't
believe there are any thieves. I will die in your arms, and be more
happy in my death than I ever was in my life." She made no attempt to
answer her husband who was beginning to lose his temper, but started
kissing Julien passionately.

"Save Stanislas's mother," he said to her with an imperious look. "I
will jump down into the courtyard through the lavatory window, and
escape in the garden; the dogs have recognised me. Make my clothes into
a parcel and throw them into the garden as soon as you can. In the
meanwhile let him break the door down. But above all, no confession, I
forbid you to confess, it is better that he should suspect rather than
be certain."

"You will kill yourself as you jump!" was her only answer and her only
anxiety.

She went with him to the lavatory window; she then took sufficient time
to hide his clothes. She finally opened the door to her husband who was
boiling with rage. He looked in the room and in the lavatory without
saying a word and disappeared. Julien's clothes were thrown down to
him; he seized them and ran rapidly towards the bottom of the garden in
the direction of the Doubs.

As he was running he heard a bullet whistle past him, and heard at the
same time the report of a gun.

"It is not M. de Renal," he thought, "he's far too bad a shot." The
dogs ran silently at his side, the second shot apparently broke the paw
of one dog, for he began to whine piteously. Julien jumped the wall of
the terrace, did fifty paces under cover, and began to fly in another
direction. He heard voices calling and had a distinct view of his enemy
the servant firing a gun; a farmer also began to shoot away from the
other side of the garden. Julien had already reached the bank of the
Doubs where he dressed himself.

An hour later he was a league from Verrieres on the Geneva road. "If
they had suspicions," thought Julien, "they will look for me on the
Paris road."

Father Pirard travels to Paris to meet with the Marquis de La Mole. He asks Pirard if he'd consider leaving the priesthood to become his personal assistant. The salary is generous, but Pirard declines. He suggests Julien Sorel as an alternative. The marquis agrees. Julien gets the letter asking him to come to Paris immediately. He travels to the bishop's house to say he's leaving. He says goodbye to his friend Fouqe too. Before leaving, he rides back to Verrieres and buys a ladder. He brings the ladder back to the de Renal house and uses it to sneak up into Madame de Renal's bedroom. She is shocked to see him, but also happy. The two of them spend the night together and he waits a long time before leaving. While they talk, he realizes that the five hundred francs from Paris was not from her. When he finally leaves, some servants hear him and start shooting, thinking he's a burglar. He escapes, though.

Pirard refuses to serve as Mole's secretary but recommends Julien for the post. The latter is notified by Pirard to come to Paris but visits Verrieres before his departure. Chelan requires that he not see Mme. de Renal. Julien obtains a ladder, however, and courageously presents himself at Mme. de Renal's window, not knowing who might be awaiting him there or how he would be received by Mme. de Renal. She admits him with reluctance, but after three hours of conversation, he succeeds in overcoming her remorse. She has given herself with a certain gaiety and abandon, an attitude that she retains the next day while she hides Julien in her room and, in spite of endless perils, until the next night. The arrival of M. de Renal, who has discovered the "thief's" ladder, pounding on her door, causes Julien to leap from her window and to take flight to Paris, on the road to Geneva, however, to avoid capture.

It is obvious that Pirard's journey to Paris is a means to get Julien there, and with a position, that is, protected by the powerful M. de La Mole. Julien can only assume that the gift he has received comes from Mme. de Renal. The superiority of the reader invites our complicity with Julien's other mentors. It is fitting that Julien returns to Verrieres before undertaking the next stage in his education in Paris. We are thereby made more aware of the distance covered in his formation. Fourteen months have passed, we are told, but we are not noticeably aware of the passage of time with Stendhal. We have, rather, the impression of a non-ending present. Contrast Julien's attitude as he undertakes with premeditation the seduction of Mme. de Renal to his awkwardness on the first occasion. A refusal on her part would have been a disgrace for his honor, and he is forced to cold calculation to overcome her remorse. The ruthlessness with which Julien calculates this seduction shows us the extent to which the hypocrisy of the seminary has permeated his character. His threat to leave and the avowal that he will be going to Paris never to return force her consent. Note the means employed by Julien to gain access to Mme. vie Renal's room prior to their last meeting. It is possible that Julien recalls his meeting with Mme. de Renal in the Besancon cathedral, a scene in which he had utilized a ladder to perform another act of daring: the decoration of the church. Stendhal flatters the intelligence of his reader by not making explicit this associational mechanism in the mind of Julien. In both incidents, Julien distinguishes himself by a spirit of adventure, a necessity to engage his entire existence in a single act, regardless of the consequences. What of Julien's love for Mme. de Renal? Once again he is able to appreciate her greatness of soul as he witnesses her courage and gaiety in the face of danger. They are worthy of one another in their heroism. The dangers to which his visit exposes Mme. de Renal, both real and in the form of remorse which will no doubt follow, and Julien's insistence -- everything indicates that although Stendhal says that Julien "adores" her, his love is rather a need to be loved, to be preferred, to be the object of sacrifice for another.


CHAPTER XXXI

THE PLEASURES OF THE COUNTRY

     O rus quando ego te aspiciam?--_Horace_

"You've no doubt come to wait for the Paris mail, Monsieur," said the
host of an inn where he had stopped to breakfast.

"To-day or to-morrow, it matters little," said Julien.

The mail arrived while he was still posing as indifferent. There were
two free places.

"Why! it's you my poor Falcoz," said the traveller who was coming from
the Geneva side to the one who was getting in at the same time as
Julien.

"I thought you were settled in the outskirts of Lyons," said Falcoz,
"in a delicious valley near the Rhone."

"Nicely settled! I am running away."

"What! you are running away? you Saint Giraud! Have you, who look so
virtuous, committed some crime?" said Falcoz with a smile.

"On my faith it comes to the same thing. I am running away from the
abominable life which one leads in the provinces. I like the freshness
of the woods and the country tranquillity, as you know. You have often
accused me of being romantic. I don't want to hear politics talked as
long as I live, and politics are hounding me out."

"But what party do you belong to?"

"To none and that's what ruins me. That's all there is to be said
about my political life--I like music and painting. A good book is
an event for me. I am going to be forty-four. How much longer have I
got to live? Fifteen--twenty--thirty years at the outside. Well, I
want the ministers in thirty years' time to be a little cleverer than
those of to-day but quite as honest. The history of England serves as
a mirror for our own future. There will always be a king who will try
to increase his prerogative. The ambition of becoming a deputy, the
fame of Mirabeau and the hundreds of thousand francs which he won for
himself will always prevent the rich people in the province from going
to sleep: they will call that being Liberal and loving the people. The
desire of becoming a peer or a gentleman of the chamber will always win
over the ultras. On the ship of state every one is anxious to take over
the steering because it is well paid. Will there be never a poor little
place for the simple passenger?"

"Is it the last elections which are forcing you out of the province?"

"My misfortune goes further back. Four years ago I was forty and
possessed 500,000 francs. I am four years older to-day and probably
50,000 francs to the bad, as I shall lose that sum on the sale of my
chateau of Monfleury in a superb position near the Rhone.

"At Paris I was tired of that perpetual comedy which is rendered
obligatory by what you call nineteenth-century civilisation. I thirsted
for good nature and simplicity. I bought an estate in the mountains
near the Rhine, there was no more beautiful place under the heavens.

"The village clergyman and the gentry of the locality pay me court for
six months; I invite them to dinner; I have left Paris, I tell them, so
as to avoid talking politics or hearing politics talked for the rest of
my life. As you know I do not subscribe to any paper, the less letters
the postman brought me the happier I was.

"That did not suit the vicar's book. I was soon the victim of a
thousand unreasonable requests, annoyances, etc. I wished to give two
or three hundred francs a year to the poor, I was asked to give it
to the Paris associations, that of Saint Joseph, that of the Virgin,
etc. I refused. I was then insulted in a hundred ways. I was foolish
enough to be upset by it. I could not go out in the morning to enjoy
the beauty of our mountain without finding some annoyance which
distracted me from my reveries and recalled unpleasantly both men and
their wickedness. On the Rogation processions, for instance whose
chanting I enjoy (it is probably a Greek melody) they will not bless
my fields because, says the clergyman, they belong to an infidel. A
cow dies belonging to a devout old peasant woman. She says the reason
is the neighbourhood of a pond which belongs to my infidel self, a
philosopher coming from Paris, and eight days afterwards I find my
fish in agonies poisoned by lime. Intrigue in all its forms envelops
me. The justice of the peace, who is an honest man, but frightened of
losing his place, always decides against me. The peace of the country
proved a hell for me. Once they saw that I was abandoned by the vicar,
the head of the village congregation, and that I was not supported by
the retired captain who was the head of the Liberals they all fell upon
me, down to the mason whom I had supported for a year, down to the very
wheel-wright who wanted to cheat me with impunity over the repairing of
my ploughs.

"In order to find some support, and to win at any rate some of my law
suits I became a Liberal, but, as you say, those damned elections come
along. They asked me for my vote."

"For an unknown man?"

"Not at all, for a man whom I knew only too well. I refused. It was
terribly imprudent. From that moment I had the Liberals on my hands as
well, and my position became intolerable. I believe that if the vicar
had got it into his head to accuse me of assassinating my servant,
there would be twenty witnesses of the two parties who would swear that
they had seen me committing the crime."

"You mean to say you want to live in the country without pandering
to the passions of your neighbours, without even listening to their
gossip. What a mistake!"

"It is rectified at last. Monfleury is for sale. I will lose 50,000
francs if necessary, but I am over-joyed I am leaving that hell of
hypocrisy and annoyance. I am going to look for solitude and rustic
peace in the only place where those things are to be found in France,
on a fourth storey looking on to the Champs-Elysees; and, moreover, I
am actually deliberating if I shall not commence my political career by
giving consecrated bread to the parish in the Roule quarter."

"All this would not have happened under Bonaparte," said Falcoz with
eyes shining with rage and sorrow.

"Very good, but why didn't your Bonaparte manage to keep his position?
Everything which I suffer to-day is his work."

At this point Julien's attention was redoubled. He had realised from
the first word that the Bonapartist Falcoz was the old boyhood friend
of M. de Renal, who had been repudiated by him in 1816, and that the
philosopher Saint-Giraud must be the brother of that chief of the
prefecture of----who managed to get the houses of the municipality
knocked down to him at a cheap price.

"And all this is the work of your Bonaparte. An honest man, aged forty,
and possessed of five hundred thousand francs however inoffensive he
is, cannot settle in the provinces and find peace there; those priests
and nobles of his will turn him out."

"Oh don't talk evil of him," exclaimed Falcoz. "France was never so
high in the esteem of the nations as during the thirteen years of his
reign; then every single act was great."

"Your emperor, devil take him," replied the man of forty-four, "was
only great on his battle fields and when he reorganised the finances
about 1802. What is the meaning of all his conduct since then? What
with his chamberlains, his pomp, and his receptions in the Tuileries,
he has simply provided a new edition of all the monarchical tomfoolery.
It was a revised edition and might possibly have lasted for a century
or two. The nobles and the priests wish to go back to the old one, but
they did not have the iron hand necessary to impose it on the public."

"Yes, that's just how an old printer would talk."

"Who has turned me out of my estate?" continued the printer, angrily.
"The priests, whom Napoleon called back by his Concordat instead
of treating them like the State treats doctors, barristers, and
astronomers, simply seeing in them ordinary citizens, and not bothering
about the particular calling by which they are trying to earn their
livelihood. Should we be saddled with these insolent gentlemen today,
if your Bonaparte had not created barons and counts? No, they were out
of fashion. Next to the priests, it's the little country nobility who
have annoyed me the most, and compelled me to become a Liberal."

The conversation was endless. The theme will occupy France for another
half-century. As Saint-Giraud kept always repeating that it was
impossible to live in the provinces, Julien timidly suggested the case
of M. de Renal.

"Zounds, young man, you're a nice one," exclaimed Falcoz. "He turned
spider so as not to be fly, and a terrible spider into the bargain.
But I see that he is beaten by that man Valenod. Do you know that
scoundrel? He's the villain of the piece. What will your M. de Renal
say if he sees himself turned out one of these fine days, and Valenod
put in his place?"

"He will be left to brood over his crimes," said Saint-Giraud. "Do
you know Verrieres, young man? Well, Bonaparte, heaven confound him!
Bonaparte and his monarchical tomfoolery rendered possible the reign
of the Renals and the Chelans, which brought about the reign of the
Valenods and the Maslons."

This conversation, with its gloomy politics, astonished Julien and
distracted him from his delicious reveries.

He appreciated but little the first sight of Paris as perceived in the
distance. The castles in the air he had built about his future had to
struggle with the still present memory of the twenty-four hours that
he had just passed in Verrieres. He vowed that he would never abandon
his mistress's children, and that he would leave everything in order
to protect them, if the impertinence of the priests brought about a
republic and the persecution of the nobles.

What would have happened on the night of his arrival in Verrieres if,
at the moment when he had leant his ladder against the casement of
Madame de Renal's bedroom he had found that room occupied by a stranger
or by M. de Renal?

But how delicious, too, had been those first two hours when his
sweetheart had been sincerely anxious to send him away and he had
pleaded his cause, sitting down by her in the darkness! A soul like
Julien's is haunted by such memories for a lifetime. The rest of the
interview was already becoming merged in the first period of their
love, fourteen months previous.

Julien was awakened from his deep meditation by the stopping of the
coach. They had just entered the courtyard of the Post in the Rue
Rousseau. "I want to go to La Malmaison," he said to a cabriolet which
approached.

"At this time, Monsieur--what for?"

"What's that got to do with you? Get on."

Every real passion only thinks about itself. That is why, in my view,
passions are ridiculous at Paris, where one's neighbour always insists
on one's considering him a great deal. I shall refrain from recounting
Julien's ecstasy at La Malmaison. He wept. What! in spite of those
wretched white walls, built this very year, which cut the path up into
bits? Yes, monsieur, for Julien, as for posterity, there was nothing to
choose between Arcole, Saint Helena, and La Malmaison.

In the evening, Julien hesitated a great deal before going to the
theatre. He had strange ideas about that place of perdition.

A deep distrust prevented him from admiring actual Paris. He was only
affected by the monuments left behind by his hero.

"So here I am in the centre of intrigue and hypocrisy. Here reign the
protectors of the abbe de Frilair." On the evening of the third day
his curiosity got the better of his plan of seeing everything before
presenting himself to the abbe Pirard. The abbe explained to him coldly
the kind of life which he was to expect at M. de la Mole's.

"If you do not prove useful to him at the end of some months you will
go back to the seminary, but not in disgrace. You will live in the
house of the marquis, who is one of the greatest seigneurs of France.
You will wear black, but like a man who is in mourning, and not like
an ecclesiastic. I insist on your following your theological studies
three days a week in a seminary where I will introduce you. Every day
at twelve o'clock you will establish yourself in the marquis's library;
he counts on making use of you in drafting letters concerning his
lawsuits and other matters. The marquis will scribble on the margin
of each letter he gets the kind of answer which is required. I have
assured him that at the end of three months you will be so competent to
draft the answers, that out of every dozen you hand to the marquis for
signature, he will be able to sign eight or nine. In the evening, at
eight o'clock, you will tidy up his bureau, and at ten you will be free.

"It may be," continued the abbe Pirard, "that some old lady or some
smooth-voiced man will hint at immense advantages, or will crudely
offer you gold, to show him the letters which the marquis has received."

"Ah, monsieur," exclaimed Julien, blushing.

"It is singular," said the abbe with a bitter smile, "that poor as
you are, and after a year at a seminary, you still have any of this
virtuous indignation left. You must have been very blind."

"Can it be that blood will tell," muttered the abbe in a whisper, as
though speaking to himself. "The singular thing is," he added, looking
at Julien, "that the marquis knows you--I don't know how. He will give
you a salary of a hundred louis to commence with. He is a man who only
acts by his whim. That is his weakness. He will quarrel with you about
the most childish matters. If he is satisfied, your wages may rise in
consequence up to eight thousand francs.

"But you realise," went on the abbe, sourly, "that he is not giving
you all this money simply on account of your personal charm. The thing
is to prove yourself useful. If I were in your place I would talk very
little, and I would never talk about what I know nothing about.

"Oh, yes," said the abbe, "I have made some enquiries for you. I was
forgetting M. de la Mole's family. He has two children--a daughter and
a son of nineteen, eminently elegant--the kind of madman who never
knows to-day what he will do to-morrow. He has spirit and valour; he
has been through the Spanish war. The marquis hopes, I don't know why,
that you will become a friend of the young count Norbert. I told him
that you were a great classic, and possibly he reckons on your teaching
his son some ready-made phrases about Cicero and Virgil.

"If I were you, I should never allow that handsome young man to make
fun of me, and before I accepted his advances, which you will find
perfectly polite but a little ironical, I would make him repeat them
more than once.

"I will not hide from you the fact that the young count de La Mole is
bound to despise you at first, because you are nothing more than a
little bourgeois. His grandfather belonged to the court, and had the
honour of having his head cut off in the Place de Greve on the 26th
April, 1574, on account of a political intrigue.

"As for you, you are the son of a carpenter of Verrieres, and what
is more, in receipt of his father's wages. Ponder well over these
differences, and look up the family history in Moreri. All the
flatterers who dine at their house make from time to time what they
call delicate allusions to it.

"Be careful of how you answer the pleasantries of M. the count de La
Mole, chief of a squadron of hussars, and a future peer of France, and
don't come and complain to me later on."

"It seems to me," said Julien, blushing violently, "that I ought not
even to answer a man who despises me."

"You have no idea of his contempt. It will only manifest itself by
inflated compliments. If you were a fool, you might be taken in by it.
If you want to make your fortune, you ought to let yourself be taken in
by it."

"Shall I be looked upon as ungrateful," said Julien, "if I return to my
little cell Number 108 when I find that all this no longer suits me?"

"All the toadies of the house will no doubt calumniate you," said the
abbe, "but I myself will come to the rescue. Adsum qui feci. I will say
that I am responsible for that resolution."

Julien was overwhelmed by the bitter and almost vindictive tone which
he noticed in M. Pirard; that tone completely infected his last answer.

The fact is that the abbe had a conscientious scruple about loving
Julien, and it was with a kind of religious fear that he took so direct
a part in another's life.

"You will also see," he added with the same bad grace, as though
accomplishing a painful duty, "you also will see Madame the marquise
de La Mole. She is a big blonde woman about forty, devout, perfectly
polite, and even more insignificant. She is the daughter of the old
Duke de Chaulnes so well known for his aristocratic prejudices. This
great lady is a kind of synopsis in high relief of all the fundamental
characteristics of women of her rank. She does not conceal for her own
part that the possession of ancestors who went through the crusades
is the sole advantage which she respects. Money only comes a long way
afterwards. Does that astonish you? We are no longer in the provinces,
my friend.

"You will see many great lords in her salon talk about our princes in
a tone of singular flippancy. As for Madame de la Mole, she lowers her
voice out of respect every time she mentions the name of a Prince, and
above all the name of a Princess. I would not advise you to say in her
hearing that Philip II. or Henry VII. were monsters. They were kings, a
fact which gives them indisputable rights to the respect of creatures
without birth like you and me. Nevertheless," added M. Pirard, "we are
priests, for she will take you for one; that being our capacity, she
considers us as spiritual valets necessary for her salvation."

"Monsieur," said Julien, "I do not think I shall be long at Paris."

"Good, but remember that no man of our class can make his fortune
except through the great lords. With that indefinable element in your
character, at any rate I think it is, you will be persecuted if you
do not make your fortune. There is no middle course for you, make no
mistake about it; people see that they do not give you pleasure when
they speak to you; in a social country like this you are condemned to
unhappiness if you do not succeed in winning respect."

"What would have become of you at Besancon without this whim of the
marquis de la Mole? One day you will realise the extraordinary extent
of what he has done for you, and if you are not a monster you will be
eternally grateful to him and his family. How many poor abbes more
learned than you have lived years at Paris on the fifteen sous they
got for their mass and their ten sous they got for their dissertations
in the Sorbonne. Remember what I told you last winter about the first
years of that bad man Cardinal Dubois. Are you proud enough by chance
to think yourself more talented than he was?

"Take, for instance, a quiet and average man like myself; I reckoned
on dying in my seminary. I was childish enough to get attached to
it. Well I was on the point of being turned out, when I handed in
my resignation. You know what my fortune consisted of. I had five
hundred and twenty francs capital neither more nor less, not a friend,
scarcely two or three acquaintances. M. de la Mole, whom I had never
seen, extricated me from that quandary. He only had to say the word
and I was given a living where the parishioners are well-to-do people
above all crude vices, and where the income puts me to shame, it is so
disproportionate to my work. I refrained from talking to you all this
time simply to enable you to find your level a bit.

"One word more, I have the misfortune to be irritable. It is possible
that you and I will cease to be on speaking terms.

"If the airs of the marquise or the spiteful pleasantries of her son
make the house absolutely intolerable for you I advise you to finish
your studies in some seminary thirty leagues from Paris and rather
north than south. There is more civilisation in the north, and, he
added lowering his voice, I must admit that the nearness of the Paris
papers puts fear into our petty tyrants.

"If we continue to find pleasure in each other's society and if the
marquis's house does not suit you, I will offer you the post of my
curate, and will go equal shares with you in what I get from the
living. I owe you that and even more, he added interrupting Julien's
thanks, for the extraordinary offer which you made me at Besancon. If
instead of having five hundred and twenty francs I had had nothing you
would have saved me."

The abbe's voice had lost its tone of cruelty, Julien was ashamed to
feel tears in his eyes. He was desperately anxious to throw himself
into his friend's arms. He could not help saying to him in the most
manly manner he could assume:

"I was hated by my father from the cradle; it was one of my great
misfortunes, but I shall no longer complain of my luck, I have found
another father in you, monsieur."

"That is good, that is good," said the embarrassed abbe, then suddenly
remembering quite appropriately a seminary platitude "you must never
say luck, my child, always say providence."

The fiacre stopped. The coachman lifted up the bronze knocker of an
immense door. It was the Hotel de la Mole, and to prevent the passers
by having any doubt on the subject these words could be read in black
marble over the door.

This affectation displeased Julien. "They are so frightened of the
Jacobins. They see a Robespierre and his tumbril behind every head.
Their panic is often gloriously grotesque and they advertise their
house like this so that in the event of a rising the rabble can
recognise it and loot it." He communicated his thought to the abbe
Pirard.

"Yes, poor child, you will soon be my curate. What a dreadful idea you
have got into your head."

"Nothing could be simpler," said Julien.

The gravity of the porter, and above all, the cleanness of the the
court, struck him with admiration. It was fine sunshine. "What
magnificent architecture," he said to his friend. The hotel in question
was one of those buildings of the Faubourg Saint-Germain with a flat
facade built about the time of Voltaire's death. At no other period had
fashion and beauty been so far from one another.

Julien hops a coach heading to Paris. On the coach, he listens to two guys talk about how great Napoleon Bonaparte was and he smiles to himself. When he arrives in Paris, he spends an evening seeing some of the sights before heading to where he was instructed. He meets Father Pirard, who tells him that he'll head back to the seminary if he doesn't make himself useful. Pirard also warns him that people in the house, especially de La Mole's son, will act snooty toward him at first. Julien thanks Pirard for his help.