CHAPTER XL

QUEEN MARGUERITE

        Love! In what madness do you not manage to make us find
        pleasure!
                                      Letters of a Portuguese Nun.

Julien reread his letters. "How ridiculous I must have appeared in the
eyes of that Parisian doll," he said to himself when the dinner-bell
rang. "How foolish to have really told her what I was thinking! Perhaps
it was not so foolish. Telling the truth on that occasion was worthy of
me. Why did she come to question me on personal matters? That question
was indiscreet on her part. She broke the convention. My thoughts about
Danton are not part of the sacrifice which her father pays me to make."

When he came into the dining-room Julien's thoughts were distracted
from his bad temper by mademoiselle de la Mole's mourning which was all
the more striking because none of the other members of the family were
in black.

After dinner he felt completely rid of the feeling which had obsessed
him all day. Fortunately the academician who knew Latin was at dinner.
"That's the man who will make the least fun of me," said Julien to
himself, "if, as I surmise, my question about mademoiselle de la Mole's
mourning is in bad taste."

Mathilde was looking at him with a singular expression. "So this is the
coquetry of the women of this part of the country, just as madame de
Renal described it to me," said Julien to himself. "I was not nice to
her this morning. I did not humour her caprice of talking to me. I got
up in value in her eyes. The Devil doubtless is no loser by it.

"Later on her haughty disdain will manage to revenge herself. I defy
her to do her worst. What a contrast with what I have lost! What
charming naturalness? What naivety! I used to know her thoughts before
she did herself. I used to see them come into existence. The only rival
she had in her heart was the fear of her childrens' death. It was a
reasonable, natural feeling to me, and even though I suffered from it I
found it charming. I have been a fool. The ideas I had in my head about
Paris prevented me from appreciating that sublime woman.

"Great God what a contrast and what do I find here? Arid, haughty
vanity: all the fine shades of wounded egotism and nothing more."

They got up from table. "I must not let my academician get snapped up,"
said Julien to himself. He went up to him as they were passing into the
garden, assumed an air of soft submissiveness and shared in his fury
against the success of Hernani.

"If only we were still in the days of _lettres de cachet_!" he said.

"Then he would not have dared," exclaimed the academician with a
gesture worthy of Talma.

Julien quoted some words from Virgil's Georgics in reference to a
flower and expressed the opinion that nothing was equal to the abbe
Delille's verses. In a word he flattered the academician in every
possible way. He then said to him with the utmost indifference, "I
suppose mademoiselle de la Mole has inherited something from some uncle
for whom she is in mourning."

"What! you belong to the house?" said the academician stopping short,
"and you do not know her folly? As a matter of fact it is strange her
mother should allow her to do such things, but between ourselves, they
do not shine in this household exactly by their force of character.
Mademoiselle's share has to do for all of them, and governs them.
To-day is the thirtieth of April!" and the academician stopped and
looked meaningly at Julien. Julien smiled with the most knowing
expression he could master. "What connection can there be between
ruling a household, wearing a black dress, and the thirtieth April?" he
said to himself. "I must be even sillier than I thought."

"I must confess...." he said to the academician while he continued to
question him with his look. "Let us take a turn round the garden,"
said the academician delighted at seeing an opportunity of telling a
long and well-turned story.

"What! is it really possible you do not know what happened on the 30th
April, 1574?"

"And where?" said Julien in astonishment.

"At the place de Greve."

Julien was extremely astonished that these words did not supply him
with the key. His curiosity and his expectation of a tragic interest
which would be in such harmony with his own character gave his eyes
that brilliance which the teller of a story likes to see so much in
the person who is listening to him. The academician was delighted at
finding a virgin ear, and narrated at length to Julien how Boniface de
la Mole, the handsomest young man of this century together with Annibal
de Coconasso, his friend, a gentleman of Piedmont, had been beheaded on
the 30th April, 1574. La Mole was the adored lover of Queen Marguerite
of Navarre and "observe," continued the academician, "that mademoiselle
de La Mole's full name is Mathilde Marguerite. La Mole was at the same
time a favourite of the Duke d'Alencon and the intimate friend of
his mistress's husband, the King of Navarre, subsequently Henri IV.
On Shrove Tuesday of that year 1574, the court happened to be at St.
Germain with the poor king Charles IX. who was dying. La Mole wished
to rescue his friends the princes, whom Queen Catherine of Medici was
keeping prisoner in her Court. He advanced two hundred cavalry under
the walls of St. Germain; the Duke d'Alencon was frightened and La Mole
was thrown to the executioner.

"But the thing which affects mademoiselle Mathilde, and what she has
admitted to me herself seven or eight years ago when she was twelve,
is a head! a head!----and the academician lifted up his eyes to the
heavens. What struck her in this political catastrophe, was the hiding
of Queen Marguerite de Navarre in a house in the place de Greve and
her then asking for her lover's head. At midnight on the following day
she took that head in her carriage and went and buried it herself in a
chapel at the foot of the hill at Montmartre."

"Impossible?" cried Julien really moved.

"Mademoiselle Mathilde despises her brother because, as you see, he
does not bother one whit about this ancient history, and never wears
mourning on the thirtieth of April. It is since the time of this
celebrated execution and in order to recall the intimate friendship
of La Mole for the said Coconasso, who Italian that he was, bore
the name of Annibal that all the men of that family bear that name.
And," added the academician lowering his voice, "this Coconasso was,
according to Charles IX. himself, one of the cruellest assassins of the
twenty-fourth August, 1572. But how is it possible, my dear Sorel, that
you should be ignorant of these things--you who take your meals with
the family."

"So that is why mademoiselle de la Mole twice called her brother
Annibal at dinner. I thought I had heard wrong."

"It was a reproach. It is strange that the marquise should allow such
follies. The husband of that great girl will have a fine time of it."

This remark was followed by five or six satiric phrases. Julien was
shocked by the joy which shone in the academician's eyes. "We are just
a couple of servants," he thought, "engaged in talking scandal about
our masters. But I ought not to be astonished at anything this academy
man does."

Julien had surprised him on his knees one day before the marquise de
la Mole; he was asking her for a tobacco receivership for a nephew in
the provinces. In the evening a little chambermaid of mademoiselle de
la Mole, who was paying court to Julien, just as Elisa had used to do,
gave him to understand that her mistress's mourning was very far from
being worn simply to attract attention. This eccentricity was rooted in
her character. She really loved that la Mole, the beloved lover of the
most witty queen of the century, who had died through trying to set his
friends at liberty--and what friends! The first prince of the blood and
Henri IV.

Accustomed as he had been to the perfect naturalness which shone
throughout madame de Renal's whole demeanour, Julien could not help
finding all the women of Paris affected, and, though by no means of a
morose disposition, found nothing to say to them. Mademoiselle de la
Mole was an exception.

He now began to cease taking for coldness of heart that kind of beauty
which attaches importance to a noble bearing. He had long conversations
with mademoiselle de la Mole, who would sometimes walk with him in
the garden after dinner. She told him one day that she was reading
the History of D'Aubigne and also Brantome. "Strange books to read,"
thought Julien; "and the marquis does not allow her to read Walter
Scott's novels!"

She told him one day, with that pleased brilliancy in her eyes, which
is the real test of genuine admiration, about a characteristic act of a
young woman of the reign of Henry III., which she had just read in the
memoirs of L'Etoile. Finding her husband unfaithful she stabbed him.

Julien's vanity was nattered. A person who was surrounded by so much
homage, and who governed the whole house, according to the academician,
deigned to talk to him on a footing almost resembling friendship.

"I made a mistake," thought Julien soon afterwards. "This is not
familiarity, I am simply the confidante of a tragedy, she needs to
speak to someone. I pass in this family for a man of learning. I will
go and read Brantome, D'Aubigne, L'Etoile. I shall then be able to
challenge some of the anecdotes which madame de la Mole speaks to me
about. I want to leave off this role of the passive confidante."

His conversations with this young girl, whose demeanour was so
impressive and yet so easy, gradually became more interesting. He
forgot his grim role of the rebel plebian. He found her well-informed
and even logical. Her opinions in the gardens were very different to
those which she owned to in the salon. Sometimes she exhibited an
enthusiasm and a frankness which were in absolute contrast to her usual
cold haughtiness.

"The wars of the League were the heroic days of France," she said
to him one day, with eyes shining with enthusiasm. "Then everyone
fought to gain something which he desired, for the sake of his party's
triumph, and not just in order to win a cross as in the days of your
emperor. Admit that there was then less egotism and less pettiness. I
love that century."

"And Boniface de la Mole was the hero of it," he said to her.

"At least he was loved in a way that it is perhaps sweet to be loved.
What woman alive now would not be horrified at touching the head of her
decapitated lover?"

Madame de la Mole called her daughter. To be effective hypocrisy
ought to hide itself, yet Julien had half confided his admiration for
Napoleon to mademoiselle de la Mole.

Julien remained alone in the garden. "That is the immense advantage
they have over us," he said to himself. "Their ancestors lift them
above vulgar sentiments, and they have not got always to be thinking
about their subsistence! What misery," he added bitterly. "I am not
worthy to discuss these great matters. My life is nothing more than a
series of hypocrisies because I have not got a thousand francs a year
with which to buy my bread and butter."

Mathilde came running back. "What are you dreaming about, monsieur?"
she said to him.

Julien was tired of despising himself. Through sheer pride he frankly
told her his thoughts. He blushed a great deal while talking to such
a person about his own poverty. He tried to make it as plain as he
could that he was not asking for anything. Mathilde never thought
him so handsome; she detected in him an expression of frankness and
sensitiveness which he often lacked.

Within a month of this episode Julien was pensively walking in the
garden of the hotel; but his face had no longer the hardness and
philosophic superciliousness which the chronic consciousness of his
inferior position had used to write upon it. He had just escorted
mademoiselle de la Mole to the door of the salon. She said she had hurt
her foot while running with her brother.

"She leaned on my arm in a very singular way," said Julien to himself.
"Am I a coxcomb, or is it true that she has taken a fancy to me? She
listens to me so gently, even when I confess to her all the sufferings
of my pride! She too, who is so haughty to everyone! They would be
very astonished in the salon if they saw that expression of hers. It
is quite certain that she does not show anyone else such sweetness and
goodness."

Julien endeavoured not to exaggerate this singular friendship. He
himself compared it to an armed truce. When they met again each day,
they almost seemed before they took up the almost intimate tone of the
previous day to ask themselves "are we going to be friends or enemies
to-day?" Julien had realised that to allow himself to be insulted
with impunity even once by this haughty girl would mean the loss of
everything. "If I have got to quarrel would it not be better that it
should be straight away in defending the rights of my own pride,
than in parrying the expressions of contempt which would follow the
slightest abandonment of my duty to my own self-respect?"

On many occasions, on days when she was in a bad temper Mathilde, tried
to play the great lady with him. These attempts were extremely subtle,
but Julien rebuffed them roughly.

One day he brusquely interrupted her. "Has mademoiselle de la Mole any
orders to give her father's secretary?" he said to her. "If so he must
listen to her orders, and execute them, but apart from that he has not
a single word to say to her. He is not paid to tell her his thoughts."

This kind of life, together with the singular surmises which it
occasioned, dissipated the boredom which he had been accustomed to
experience in that magnificent salon, where everyone was afraid, and
where any kind of jest was in bad form.

"It would be humorous if she loved me but whether she loves me or
not," went on Julien, "I have for my confidential friend a girl of
spirit before whom I see the whole household quake, while the marquis
de Croisenois does so more than anyone else. Yes, to be sure, that
same young man who is so polite, so gentle, and so brave, and who has
combined all those advantages of birth and fortune a single one of
which would put my heart at rest--he is madly in love with her, he
ought to marry her. How many letters has M. de la Mole made me write
to the two notaries in order to arrange the contract? And I, though I
am an absolute inferior when I have my pen in my hand, why, I triumph
over that young man two hours afterwards in this very garden; for,
after all, her preference is striking and direct. Perhaps she hates
him because she sees in him a future husband. She is haughty enough
for that. As for her kindness to me, I receive it in my capacity of
confidential servant.

"But no, I am either mad or she is making advances to me; the colder
and more respectful I show myself to her, the more she runs after me.
It may be a deliberate piece of affectation; but I see her eyes become
animated when I appear unexpectedly. Can the women of Paris manage to
act to such an extent. What does it matter to me! I have appearances in
my favour, let us enjoy appearances. Heavens, how beautiful she is!
How I like her great blue eyes when I see them at close quarters, and
they look at me in the way they often do? What a difference between
this spring and that of last year, when I lived an unhappy life among
three hundred dirty malicious hypocrites, and only kept myself afloat
through sheer force of character, I was almost as malicious as they
were."

"That young girl is making fun of me," Julien would think in his
suspicious days. "She is acting in concert with her brother to make
a fool of me. But she seems to have an absolute contempt for her
brother's lack of energy. He is brave and that is all. He has not a
thought which dares to deviate from the conventional. It is always
I who have to take up the cudgels in his defence. A young girl of
nineteen! Can one at that age act up faithfully every second of the
day to the part which one has determined to play. On the other hand
whenever mademoiselle de la Mole fixes her eyes on me with a singular
expression comte Norbert always goes away. I think that suspicious.
Ought he not to be indignant at his sister singling out a servant of
her household? For that is how I heard the Duke de Chaulnes speak about
me. This recollection caused anger to supersede every other emotion. It
is simply a fashion for old fashioned phraseology on the part of the
eccentric duke?"

"Well, she is pretty!" continued Julien with a tigerish expression, "I
will have her, I will then go away, and woe to him who disturbs me in
my flight."

This idea became Julien's sole preoccupation. He could not think of
anything else. His days passed like hours.

Every moment when he tried to concentrate on some important matter
his mind became a blank, and he would wake up a quarter of an hour
afterwards with a beating heart and an anxious mind, brooding over this
idea "does she love me?"

CHAPTER XLI

A YOUNG GIRL'S DOMINION

        I admire her beauty but I fear her intellect.--_Merimee_.

If Julien had employed the time which he spent in exaggerating
Matilde's beauty or in working himself up into a rage against that
family haughtiness which she was forgetting for his sake in examining
what was going on in the salon, he would have understood the secret of
her dominion over all that surrounded her.

When anyone displeased mademoiselle de La Mole she managed to punish
the offender by a jest which was so guarded, so well chosen, so polite
and so neatly timed, that the more the victim thought about it, the
sorer grew the wound. She gradually became positively terrible to
wounded vanity. As she attached no value to many things which the
rest of her family very seriously wanted, she always struck them as
self-possessed. The salons of the aristocracy are nice enough to brag
about when you leave them, but that is all; mere politeness alone only
counts for something in its own right during the first few days. Julien
experienced this after the first fascination and the first astonishment
had passed off. "Politeness," he said to himself "is nothing but the
absence of that bad temper which would be occasioned by bad manners."
Mathilde was frequently bored; perhaps she would have been bored
anywhere. She then found a real distraction and real pleasure in
sharpening an epigram.

It was perhaps in order to have more amusing victims than her great
relations, the academician and the five or six other men of inferior
class who paid her court, that she had given encouragement to the
marquis de Croisenois, the comte Caylus and two or three other young
men of the highest rank. They simply represented new subjects for
epigrams.

We will admit with reluctance, for we are fond of Mathilde, that she
had received many letters from several of them and had sometimes
answered them. We hasten to add that this person constitutes an
exception to the manners of the century. Lack of prudence is not
generally the fault with which the pupils of the noble convent of the
Sacred Heart can be reproached.

One day the marquis de Croisenois returned to Mathilde a fairly
compromising letter which she had written the previous night. He
thought that he was thereby advancing his cause a great deal by taking
this highly prudent step. But the very imprudence of her correspondence
was the very element in it Mathilde liked. Her pleasure was to stake
her fate. She did not speak to him again for six weeks.

She amused herself with the letters of these young men, but in her view
they were all like each other. It was invariably a case of the most
profound, the most melancholy, passion.

"They all represent the same perfect man, ready to leave for
Palestine," she exclaimed to her cousin. "Can you conceive of anything
more insipid? So these are the letters I am going to receive all my
life! There can only be a change every twenty years according to the
kind of vogue which happens to be fashionable. They must have had more
colour in them in the days of the Empire. In those days all these young
society men had seen or accomplished feats which really had an element
of greatness. The Duke of N---- my uncle was at Wagram."

"What brains do you need to deal a sabre blow? And when they have had
the luck to do that they talk of it so often!" said mademoiselle de
Sainte-Heredite, Mathilde's cousin.

"Well, those tales give me pleasure. Being in a real battle, a battle
of Napoleon, where six thousand soldiers were killed, why, that's proof
of courage. Exposing one's self to danger elevates the soul and saves
it from the boredom in which my poor admirers seem to be sunk; and that
boredom is contagious. Which of them ever thought of doing anything
extraordinary? They are trying to win my hand, a pretty business to
be sure! I am rich and my father will procure advancement for his
son-in-law. Well! I hope he'll manage to find someone who is a little
bit amusing."

Mathilde's keen, sharp and picturesque view of life spoilt her language
as one sees. An expression of hers would often constitute a blemish
in the eyes of her polished friends. If she had been less fashionable
they would almost have owned that her manner of speaking was, from the
standpoint of feminine delicacy, to some extent unduly coloured.

She, on her side, was very unjust towards the handsome cavaliers who
fill the Bois de Boulogne. She envisaged the future not with terror,
that would have been a vivid emotion, but with a disgust which was very
rare at her age.

What could she desire? Fortune, good birth, wit, beauty, according to
what the world said, and according to what she believed, all these
things had been lavished upon her by the hands of chance.

So this was the state of mind of the most envied heiress of the
faubourg Saint-Germain when she began to find pleasure in walking with
Julien. She was astonished at his pride; she admired the ability of the
little bourgeois. "He will manage to get made a bishop like the abbe
Mouray," she said to herself.

Soon the sincere and unaffected opposition with which our hero received
several of her ideas filled her mind; she continued to think about
it, she told her friend the slightest details of the conversation,
but thought that she would never succeed in fully rendering all their
meaning.

An idea suddenly flashed across her; "I have the happiness of loving,"
she said to herself one day with an incredible ecstasy of joy. "I am in
love, I am in love, it is clear! Where can a young, witty and beautiful
girl of my own age find sensations if not in love? It is no good. I
shall never feel any love for Croisenois, Caylus, and _tutti quanti_.
They are unimpeachable, perhaps too unimpeachable; any way they bore
me."

She rehearsed in her mind all the descriptions of passion which she
had read in _Manon Lescaut_, the _Nouvelle Heloise_, the _Letters of
a Portuguese Nun_, etc., etc. It was only a question of course of the
grand passion; light love was unworthy of a girl of her age and birth.
She vouchsafed the name of love to that heroic sentiment which was met
with in France in the time of Henri III. and Bassompierre. That love
did not basely yield to obstacles, but, far from it, inspired great
deeds. "How unfortunate for me that there is not a real court like that
of Catherine de' Medici or of Louis XIII. I feel equal to the boldest
and greatest actions. What would I not make of a king who was a man of
spirit like Louis XIII. if he were sighing at my feet! I would take
him to the Vendee, as the Baron de Tolly is so fond of saying, and
from that base he would re-conquer his kingdom; then no more about a
charter--and Julien would help me. What does he lack? name and fortune.
He will make a name, he will win a fortune.

"Croisenois lacks nothing, and he will never be anything else all his
life but a duke who is half 'ultra' and half Liberal, an undecided
being who never goes to extremes and consequently always plays second
fiddle.

"What great action is not an extreme at the moment when it is
undertaken? It is only after accomplishment that it seems possible to
commonplace individuals. Yes, it is love with all its miracles which
is going to reign over my heart; I feel as much from the fire which is
thrilling me. Heaven owed me this boon. It will not then have lavished
in vain all its bounties on one single person. My happiness will be
worthy of me. Each day will no longer be the cold replica of the day
before. There is grandeur and audacity in the very fact of daring to
love a man, placed so far beneath me by his social position. Let us see
what happens, will he continue to deserve me? I will abandon him at the
first sign of weakness which I detect. A girl of my birth and of that
mediaeval temperament which they are good enough to ascribe to me (she
was quoting from her father) must not behave like a fool.

"But should I not be behaving like a fool if I were to love the marquis
de Croisenois? I should simply have a new edition over again of that
happiness enjoyed by my girl cousins which I so utterly despise. I
already know everything the poor marquis would say to me and every
answer I should make. What's the good of a love which makes one
yawn? One might as well be in a nunnery. I shall have a celebration
of the signing of a contract just like my younger cousin when the
grandparents all break down, provided of course that they are not
annoyed by some condition introduced into the contract at the eleventh
hour by the notary on the other side."

CHAPTER XLII

IS HE A DANTON?

        The need of anxiety. These words summed up the character
        of my aunt, the beautiful Marguerite de Valois, who was
        soon to marry the King of Navarre whom we see reigning
        at present in France under the name of Henry IV. The
        need of staking something was the key to the character
        of this charming princess; hence her quarrels and
        reconciliations with her brothers from the time when she
        was sixteen. Now, what can a young girl stake? The most
        precious thing she has: her reputation, the esteem of a
        lifetime.
                        _Memoirs of the Duke d' Angouleme._
                        _the natural son of Charles IX_.

"There is no contract to sign for Julien and me, there is no notary;
everything is on the heroic plane, everything is the child of chance.
Apart from the noble birth which he lacks, it is the love of Marguerite
de Valois for the young La Mole, the most distinguished man of the
time, over again. Is it my fault that the young men of the court are
such great advocates of the conventional, and turn pale at the mere
idea of the slightest adventure which is a little out of the ordinary?
A little journey in Greece or Africa represents the highest pitch of
their audacity, and moreover they can only march in troops. As soon as
they find themselves alone they are frightened, not of the Bedouin's
lance, but of ridicule and that fear makes them mad.

"My little Julien on the other hand only likes to act alone. This
unique person never thinks for a minute of seeking help or support in
others! He despises others, and that is why I do not despise him.

"If Julien were noble as well as poor, my love would simply be a vulgar
piece of stupidity, a sheer mesalliance; I would have nothing to do
with it; it would be absolutely devoid of the characteristic traits of
grand passion--the immensity of the difficulty to be overcome and the
black uncertainty cf the result."

Mademoiselle de la Mole was so engrossed in these pretty arguments that
without realising what she was doing, she praised Julien to the marquis
de Croisenois and her brother on the following day. Her eloquence went
so far that it provoked them.

"You be careful of this young man who has so much energy," exclaimed
her brother; "if we have another revolution he will have us all
guillotined."

She was careful not to answer, but hastened to rally her brother and
the marquis de Croisenois on the apprehension which energy caused them.
"It is at bottom simply the fear of meeting the unexpected, the fear of
being non-plussed in the presence of the unexpected--"

"Always, always, gentlemen, the fear of ridicule, a monster which had
the misfortune to die in 1816."

"Ridicule has ceased to exist in a country where there are two
parties," M. de la Mole was fond of saying.

His daughter had understood the idea.

"So, gentlemen," she would say to Julien's enemies, "you will be
frightened all your life and you will be told afterwards,

          "Ce n'etait pas un loup, ce n'en etait que l'ombre."

Matilde soon left them. Her brother's words horrified her; they
occasioned her much anxiety, but the day afterwards she regarded them
as tantamount to the highest praise.

"His energy frightens them in this age where all energy is dead. I will
tell him my brother's phrase. I want to see what answer he will make.
But I will choose one of the moments when his eyes are shining. Then he
will not be able to lie to me.

"He must be a Danton!" she added after a long and vague reverie. "Well,
suppose the revolution begins again, what figures will Croisenois and
my brother cut then? It is settled in advance: Sublime resignation.
They will be heroic sheep who will allow their throats to be cut
without saying a word. Their one fear when they die will still be the
fear of being bad form. If a Jacobin came to arrest my little Julien he
would blow his brains out, however small a chance he had of escaping.
He is not frightened of doing anything in bad form."

These last words made her pensive; they recalled painful memories and
deprived her of all her boldness. These words reminded her of the jests
of MM. de Caylus, Croisenois, de Luz and her brother; these gentlemen
joined in censuring Julien for his priestly demeanour, which they said
was humble and hypocritical.

"But," she went on suddenly with her eyes gleaming with joy, "the very
bitterness and the very frequency of their jests prove in spite of
themselves that he is the most distinguished man whom we have seen this
winter. What matter his defects and the things which they make fun of?
He has the element of greatness and they are shocked by it. Yes, they,
the very men who are so good and so charitable in other matters. It is
a fact that he is poor and that he has studied in order to be a priest;
they are the heads of a squadron and never had any need of studying;
they found it less trouble.

"In spite of all the handicap of his everlasting black suit and of that
priestly expression which he must wear, poor boy, if he isn't to die of
hunger, his merit frightens them, nothing could be clearer. And as for
that priest-like expression, why he no longer has it after we have been
alone for some moments, and after those gentlemen have evolved what
they imagine to be a subtle and impromptu epigram, is not their first
look towards Julien? I have often noticed it. And yet they know well
that he never speaks to them unless he is questioned. I am the only one
whom he speaks to. He thinks I have a lofty soul. He only answers the
points they raise sufficiently to be polite. He immediately reverts
into respectfulness. But with me he will discuss things for whole
hours, he is not certain of his ideas so long as I find the slightest
objection to them. There has not been a single rifle-shot fired all
this winter; words have been the only means of attracting attention.
Well, my father, who is a superior man and will carry the fortunes of
our house very far, respects Julien. Every one else hates him, no one
despises him except my mother's devout friends."

The Comte de Caylus had or pretended to have a great passion for
horses; he passed his life in his stables and often breakfasted there.
This great passion, together with his habit of never laughing, won for
him much respect among his friends: he was the eagle of the little
circle.

As soon as they had reassembled the following day behind madame de la
Mole's armchair, M. de Caylus, supported by Croisenois and by Norbert,
began in Julien's absence to attack sharply the high opinion which
Mathilde entertained for Julien. He did this without any provocation,
and almost the very minute that he caught sight of mademoiselle de la
Mole. She tumbled to the subtlety immediately and was delighted with it.

"So there they are all leagued together," she said to herself, "against
a man of genius who has not ten louis a year to bless himself with and
who cannot answer them except in so far as he is questioned. They are
frightened of him, black coat and all. But how would things stand if he
had epaulettes?"

She had never been more brilliant, hardly had Caylus and his allies
opened their attack than she riddled them with sarcastic jests. When
the fire of these brilliant officers was at length extinguished she
said to M. de Caylus,

"Suppose that some gentleman in the Franche-Comte mountains finds out
to-morrow that Julien is his natural son and gives him a name and
some thousands of francs, why in six months he will be an officer of
hussars like you, gentlemen, in six weeks he will have moustaches like
you gentlemen. And then his greatness of character will no longer be
an object of ridicule. I shall then see you reduced, monsieur the
future duke, to this stale and bad argument, the superiority of the
court nobility over the provincial nobility. But where will you be
if I choose to push you to extremities and am mischievous enough to
make Julien's father a Spanish duke, who was a prisoner of war at
Besancon in the time of Napoleon, and who out of conscientious scruples
acknowledges him on his death bed?" MM. de Caylus, and de Croisenois
found all these assumptions of illegitimacy in rather bad taste. That
was all they saw in Mathilde's reasoning.

His sister's words were so clear that Norbert, in spite of his
submissiveness, assumed a solemn air, which one must admit did not
harmonise very well with his amiable, smiling face. He ventured to say
a few words.

"Are you ill? my dear," answered Mathilde with a little air of
seriousness. "You must be very bad to answer jests by moralizing."

"Moralizing from you! Are you soliciting a job as prefect?"

Mathilde soon forgot the irritation of the comte de Caylus, the bad
temper of Norbert, and the taciturn despair of M. de Croisenois. She
had to decide one way or the other a fatal question which had just
seized upon her soul.

"Julien is sincere enough with me," she said to herself, "a man at
his age, in a inferior position, and rendered unhappy as he is by an
extraordinary ambition, must have need of a woman friend. I am perhaps
that friend, but I see no sign of love in him. Taking into account the
audacity of his character he would surely have spoken to me about his
love."

This uncertainty and this discussion with herself which henceforth
monopolised Mathilde's time, and in connection with which she found new
arguments each time that Julien spoke to her, completely routed those
fits of boredom to which she had been so liable.

Daughter as she was of a man of intellect who might become a minister,
mademoiselle de la Mole had been when in the convent of the Sacred
Heart, the object of the most excessive flattery. This misfortune can
never be compensated for. She had been persuaded that by reason of all
her advantages of birth, fortune, etc., she ought to be happier than
any one else. This is the cause of the boredom of princes and of all
their follies.

Mathilde had not escaped the deadly influence of this idea. However
intelligent one may be, one cannot at the age of ten be on one's guard
against the flatteries of a whole convent, which are apparently so well
founded.

From the moment that she had decided that she loved Julien, she
was no longer bored. She congratulated herself every day on having
deliberately decided to indulge in a grand passion. "This amusement
is very dangerous," she thought. "All the better, all the better, a
thousand times. Without a grand passion I should be languishing in
boredom during the finest time of my life, the years from sixteen
to twenty. I have already wasted my finest years: all my pleasure
consisted in being obliged to listen to the silly arguments of my
mother's friends who when at Coblentz in 1792 were not quite so strict,
so they say, as their words of to-day."

It was while Mathilde was a prey to these great fits of uncertainty
that Julien was baffled by those long looks of hers which lingered upon
him. He noticed, no doubt, an increased frigidity in the manner of
comte Norbert, and a fresh touch of haughtiness in the manner of MM. de
Caylus, de Luz and de Croisenois. He was accustomed to that. He would
sometimes be their victim in this way at the end of an evening when, in
view of the position he occupied, he had been unduly brilliant. Had it
not been for the especial welcome with which Mathilde would greet him,
and the curiosity with which all this society inspired him, he would
have avoided following these brilliant moustachioed young men into the
garden, when they accompanied mademoiselle de La Mole there, in the
hour after dinner.

"Yes," Julien would say to himself, "it is impossible for me to deceive
myself, mademoiselle de la Mole looks at me in a very singular way.
But even when her fine blue open eyes are fixed on me, wide open with
the most abandon, I always detect behind them an element of scrutiny,
self-possession and malice. Is it possible that this may be love? But
how different to madame de Renal's looks!"

One evening after dinner Julien, who had followed M. de la Mole into
his study, was rapidly walking back to the garden. He approached
Mathilde's circle without any warning, and caught some words pronounced
in a very loud voice. She was teasing her brother. Julien heard his
name distinctly pronounced twice. He appeared. There was immediately
a profound silence and abortive efforts were made to dissipate it.
Mademoiselle de la Mole and her brother were too animated to find
another topic of conversation. MM. de Caylus, de Croisenois, de Luz,
and one of their friends, manifested an icy coldness to Julien. He went
away.

As Julien's ardor cools, he is able to reflect on Mathilde's attitude toward him, and he begins to see her in a new light. The academician tells Julien the story of Boniface de la Mole, ancestor of Mathilde, who was beheaded in the Place de Greve defending his friends, and whose lover was the Queen Marguerite. The latter heroically retrieved Boniface's head and lovingly buried it. Mathilde reveres this ancestor and wears mourning on the anniversary of his death. This knowledge evokes Julien's admiration for Mathilde, and in subsequent conversations with her in the garden, he finds that she is intelligent and charming. Finding himself treated kindly by Mathilde, Julien wonders whether she loves him. Then his suspicious nature sees a plot being perpetrated by Mathilde and her brother to make him look ridiculous. Julien decides to seduce her, then to flee. He is tormented by the suspicion that she loves him. Mathilde, on the other hand, has arrived at the discovery that she must be in love with Julien. Mathilde praises Julien in the presence of her brother, Caylus, and Croisenois, and, to their surprise, ridicules them in Julien's defense. She attributes their condemnation of Julien to the jealousy they must feel for a man of genius. One evening, Julien hears his name mentioned in an argument between Mathilde and her brother, and when he joins them, silence falls, and Caylus, Croisenois, and de Luz treat him coldly.

Julien discovers immediately how to have a successful relationship with Mathilde. He must remain cool and never permit her momentary sympathy to lull him into complete confidence. He notices that their conversations seem to begin as a duel, and he realizes that, in order to command her respect, thus her admiration, he must maintain a certain distance between them. Later, as their relationship becomes more involved, Julien will forget this discovery momentarily. His ultimate success with Mathilde will depend upon his rediscovery and utilization of this strategy. Julien is still master of himself. He suspects that Mathilde loves him, but he is not the victim of any passion for her. Here reawakens the peasant's distrust and suspicion. Julien's fear of ridicule  conflicts with his growing admiration for Mathilde, and the resulting decision to seduce her indicates the victory of his suspicious nature. According to Stendhal's theory of love, some assurance and encouragement that one is loved are necessary before one's own feelings progress in the crystallization process. Chapter 11 is an exploration of Mathilde's character and presents the culmination of the various preoccupations she has had since Chapter 8. Stendhal describes typical incidents that illustrate her pride, the command she has over others, her boredom with the ordinary; and he continues the self-analysis she made at the ball. Mathilde arrives at the discovery that she must be in love with Julien and is overjoyed at this prospect. In reality, she is in love with the idea of being in love. Hers is a love in the Cornelian sense: it depends upon her intellectual approval of it, and it is necessary that the object of the love prove himself worthy of it. She projects its future course: "I've already shown boldness and greatness of heart by daring to fall in love with a man so far below me in social position, I wonder if he'll continue to be worthy of me. At the first sign of weakness I see in him, I'll abandon him." Chapter 12 is but the continuation of the preceding in that Mathilde continues to subject her love for Julien to cold intellectual analysis. She rationalizes it, justifies it, and revels in it. Here for the first time, Mathilde verbalizes the association between Julien and herself and Boniface and Marguerite, an association she has unconsciously forged since Chapter 8. Mathilde has arrived at that stage in crystallization in which every virtue and perfection is attributed to the object once the realization of love has come to awareness. She sees Julien as a superior man who despises others, and that is why she doesn't despise him. Doubtless, she defends Julien with greater vigor because of the overwhelming disgust that her brother and suitors inspire in her, as the epitome of the commonplace. Even Norbert's warning that Julien is a future revolutionary who would see them to the guillotine is simply another reason for Mathilde to love him. What does worry her, however, is the possibility that Julien does not love her. At any rate, Mathilde has escaped her boredom by deliberating about this decision to indulge in a great passion. Julien still wavers between his doubts and hopes concerning Mathilde's intentions. In this respect, Julien would seem to be experiencing a variation of the crystallization process, although Stendhal's modesty prevents him from showing Julien as a victim of this emotion.