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.

CHAPTER XXXII

ENTRY INTO SOCIETY

        Ludicrous and pathetic memory: the first drawing-room
        where one appeared alone and without support at the
        age of eighteen! the look of a woman sufficed to
        intimidate me. The more I wished to please the more
        clumsy I became. I evolved the most unfounded ideas
        about everything. I would either abandon myself without
        any reason, or I would regard a man as an enemy simply
        because he had looked at me with a serious air; but
        all the same, in the middle of the unhappiness of
        my timidity, how beautiful did I find a beautiful
        day--_Kant_.

Julien stopped in amazement in the middle of the courtyard. "Pull
yourself together," said the abbe Pirard. "You get horrible ideas into
your head, besides you are only a child. What has happened to the
nil mirari of Horace (no enthusiasm) remember that when they see you
established here this crowd of lackeys will make fun of you. They will
see in you an equal who has been unjustly placed above them; and, under
a masquerade of good advice and a desire to help you, they will try to
make you fall into some gross blunder."

"Let them do their worst," said Julien biting his lip, and he became as
distrustful as ever.

The salons on the first storey which our gentlemen went through before
reaching the marquis' study, would have seemed to you, my reader, as
gloomy as they were magnificent. If they had been given to you just as
they were, you would have refused to live in them. This was the domain
of yawning and melancholy reasoning. They redoubled Julien's rapture.
"How can any one be unhappy?" he thought, "who lives in so splendid an
abode."

Finally our gentlemen arrived at the ugliest rooms in this superb
suite. There was scarcely any light. They found there a little keen
man with a lively eye and a blonde wig. The abbe turned round
to Julien and presented him. It was the marquis. Julien had much
difficulty in recognising him, he found his manner was so polite.
It was no longer the grand seigneur with that haughty manner of the
abbey of Bray-le-Haut. Julien thought that his wig had much too many
hairs. As the result of this opinion he was not at all intimidated.
The descendant of the friend of Henry III. seemed to him at first of
a rather insignificant appearance. He was extremely thin and very
restless, but he soon noticed that the marquis had a politeness which
was even more pleasant to his listener than that of the Bishop of
Besancon himself. The audience only lasted three minutes. As they went
out the abbe said to Julien,

"You looked at the marquis just as you would have looked at a picture.
I am not a great expert in what these people here call politeness. You
will soon know more about it than I do, but really the boldness of your
looks seemed scarcely polite."

They had got back into the fiacre. The driver stopped near the
boulevard; the abbe ushered Julien into a suite of large rooms. Julien
noticed that there was no furniture. He was looking at the magnificent
gilded clock representing a subject which he thought very indecent,
when a very elegant gentleman approached him with a smiling air. Julien
bowed slightly.

The gentleman smiled and put his hand on his shoulder. Julien shuddered
and leapt back, he reddened with rage. The abbe Pirard, in spite of his
gravity, laughed till the tears came into his eyes. The gentleman was a
tailor.

"I give you your liberty for two days," said the abbe as they went
out. "You cannot be introduced before then to Madame de la Mole. Any
one else would watch over you as if you were a young girl during these
first few moments of your life in this new Babylon. Get ruined at once
if you have got to be ruined, and I will be rid of my own weakness of
being fond of you. The day after to-morrow this tailor will bring you
two suits, you will give the man who tries them on five francs. Apart
from that don't let these Parisians hear the sound of your voice. If
you say a word they will manage somehow to make fun of you. They have a
talent for it. Come and see me the day after to-morrow at noon.... Go
and ruin yourself.... I was forgetting, go and order boots and a hat at
these addresses."

Julien scrutinised the handwriting of the addresses.

"It's the marquis's hand," said the abbe; "he is an energetic man who
foresees everything, and prefers doing to ordering. He is taking you
into his house, so that you may spare him that kind of trouble. Will
you have enough brains to execute efficiently all the instructions
which he will give you with scarcely a word of explanation? The future
will show, look after yourself."

Julien entered the shops indicated by the addresses without saying a
single word. He observed that he was received with respect, and that
the bootmaker as he wrote his name down in the ledger put M. de Sorel.

When he was in the Cemetery of Pere La Chaise a very obliging
gentleman, and what is more, one who was Liberal in his views,
suggested that he should show Julien the tomb of Marshal Ney which a
sagacious statecraft had deprived of the honour of an epitaph, but when
he left this Liberal, who with tears in his eyes almost clasped him in
his arms, Julien was without his watch. Enriched by this experience two
days afterwards he presented himself to the abbe Pirard, who looked at
him for a long time.

"Perhaps you are going to become a fop," said the abbe to him severely.
Julien looked like a very young man in full mourning; as a matter of
fact, he looked very well, but the good abbe was too provincial himself
to see that Julien still carried his shoulders in that particular way
which signifies in the provinces both elegance and importance. When the
marquis saw Julien his opinion of his graces differed so radically from
that of the good abbe as he said,

"Would you have any objection to M. le Sorel taking some dancing
lessons?"

The abbe was thunderstruck.

"No," he answered at last. "Julien is not a priest."

The marquis went up the steps of a little secret staircase two at a
time, and installed our hero in a pretty attic which looked out on the
big garden of the hotel. He asked him how many shirts he had got at the
linen drapers.

"Two," answered Julien, intimidated at seeing so great a lord
condescend to such details.

"Very good," replied the marquis quite seriously, and with a certain
curt imperiousness which gave Julien food for thought. "Very good, get
twenty-two more shirts. Here are your first quarter's wages."

As he went down from the attic the marquis called an old man. "Arsene,"
he said to him, "you will serve M. Sorel." A few minutes afterwards
Julien found himself alone in a magnificent library. It was a delicious
moment. To prevent his emotion being discovered he went and hid in
a little dark corner. From there he contemplated with rapture the
brilliant backs of the books. "I shall be able to read all these," he
said to himself. "How can I fail to like it here? M. de Renal would
have thought himself dishonoured for ever by doing one-hundredth part
of what the Marquis de la Mole has just done for me.

"But let me have a look at the copies I have to make." Having finished
this work Julien ventured to approach the books. He almost went mad
with joy as he opened an edition of Voltaire. He ran and opened the
door of the library to avoid being surprised. He then indulged in the
luxury of opening each of the eighty volumes. They were magnificently
bound and were the masterpiece of the best binder in London. It was
even more than was required to raise Julien's admiration to the maximum.

An hour afterwards the marquis came in and was surprised to notice that
Julien spelt cela with two "ll" cella. "Is all that the abbe told me of
his knowledge simply a fairy tale?" The marquis was greatly discouraged
and gently said to him,

"You are not sure of your spelling?"

"That is true," said Julien without thinking in the least of the
injustice that he was doing to himself. He was overcome by the kindness
of the marquis which recalled to him through sheer force of contrast
the superciliousness of M. de Renal.

"This trial of the little Franc-comtois abbe is waste of time," thought
the marquis, "but I had such great need of a reliable man."

"You spell cela with one 'l,'" said the marquis to him, "and when you
have finished your copies look the words whose spelling you are not
sure of up in the dictionary."

The marquis sent for him at six o'clock. He looked at Julien's boots
with manifest pain. "I am sorry for a mistake I made. I did not tell
you that you must dress every day at half-past five."

Julien looked at him but did not understand.

"I mean to say put on stockings. Arsene will remind you. To-day I will
make your apologies."

As he finished the sentence M. de la Mole escorted Julien into a salon
resplendent with gilding. On similar occasions M. de Renal always made
a point of doubling his pace so as to have the privilege of being the
first to pass the threshold. His former employer's petty vanity caused
Julien to tread on the marquis's feet and hurt him a great deal because
of his gout. "So he is clumsy to the bargain," he said to himself. He
presented him to a woman of high stature and of imposing appearance.
It was the marquise. Julien thought that her manner was impertinent,
and that she was a little like Madame de Maugiron, the wife of the
sub-prefect of the arrondissement of Verrieres when she was present
at the Saint-Charles dinner. Rendered somewhat nervous by the extreme
magnificence of the salon Julien did not hear what M. de la Mole was
saying. The marquise scarcely deigned to look at him. There were
several men there, among whom Julien recognised with an inexpressible
pleasure the young bishop of Agde who had deigned to speak to him some
months before at the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. This young prelate was
doubtless frightened by the tender look which the timidity of Julien
fixed on him, and did not bother to recognise "the provincial."

The men assembled in this salon seemed to Julien to have a certain
element of gloom and constraint. Conversation takes place in a low
voice in Paris and little details are not exaggerated.

A handsome young man with moustaches, came in about half-past six. He
was very pale, and had a very small head.

"You always keep us waiting" said the marquise, as he kissed her hand.

Julien realised that it was the Count de la Mole. From the very first
he thought he was charming.

"Is it possible," he said to himself "that this is the man whose
offensive jests are going to drive me out of the house."

As the result of scrutinising count Norbert, Julien noticed that he
was in boots and spurs. "And I have got to be in shoes just like
an inferior apparently." They sat down at table, Julien heard the
marquise raising her voice a little and saying something severe. Almost
simultaneously he noticed an extremely blonde and very well developed
young person who had just sat down opposite him. Nevertheless she
made no appeal to him. Looking at her attentively he thought that he
had never seen such beautiful eyes, although they betokened a great
coldness of soul. Subsequently Julien thought that, though they
looked bored and sceptical, they were conscious of the duty of being
impressive. "Madame de Renal of course had very fine eyes" he said to
himself, "she used to be universally complimented on them, but they had
nothing in common with these." Julien did not know enough of society
to appreciate that it was the fire of repartee which from time to time
gave their brilliancy to the eyes of Mademoiselle Mathilde (for that
was the name he heard her called by). When Madame de Renal's eyes
became animated, it was with the fire of passion, or as the result of a
generous indignation on hearing of some evil deed. Towards the end of
the meal Julien found a word to express Mademoiselle de la Mole's type
of beauty. Her eyes are scintillating, he said to himself. Apart from
her eyes she was cruelly like her mother, whom he liked less and less,
and he ceased looking at her. By way of compensation he thought Count
Norbert admirable in every respect. Julien was so fascinated that the
idea never occurred to him of being jealous, and hating him because he
was richer and of nobler birth than he was himself.

Julien thought that the marquis looked bored.

About the second course he said to his son: "Norbert, I ask all your
good offices for M. Julien Sorel, whom I have just taken into my staff
and of whom I hope to make a man _si cella se peut_."

"He is my secretary," said the marquis to his neighbour, "and he spells
cela with two ll's." Everybody looked at Julien, who bowed to Norbert
in a manner that was slightly too marked, but speaking generally they
were satisfied with his expression.

The marquis must have spoken about the kind of education which Julien
had received for one of the guests tackled him on Horace. "It was
just by talking about Horace that I succeeded with the bishop of
Besancon," said Julien to himself. Apparently that is the only author
they know. From that instant he was master of himself. This transition
was rendered easy because he had just decided that he would never look
upon Madamoiselle de la Mole as a woman after his own taste. Since the
seminary he had the lowest opinion of men, and was not to be easily
intimidated by them. He would have enjoyed all his self-possession if
the dining-room had been furnished with less magnificence. It was,
as a matter of fact, two mirrors each eight feet high in which he
would look from time to time at the man who was speaking to him about
Horace, which continued to impress him. His phrases were not too long
for a provincial, he had fine eyes whose brilliancy was doubled by his
quavering timidity, or by his happy bashfulness when he had given a
good answer. They found him pleasant. This kind of examination gave
a little interest to a solemn dinner. The marquis signed to Julien's
questioner to press him sharply. "Can he possibly know something?" he
thought.

Julien answered and thought out new ideas. He lost sufficient of his
nervousness, not indeed to exhibit any wit, for that is impossible
for any one ignorant of the special language which is used in Paris,
but to show himself possessed of ideas which, though presented out of
place and ungracefully, were yet original. They saw that he knew Latin
perfectly.

Julien's adversary was a member of the Academy Inscriptions who chanced
to know Latin. He found Julien a very good humanist, was not frightened
of making him feel uncomfortable, and really tried to embarrass him. In
the heat of the controversy Julien eventually forgot the magnificent
furniture of the dining-room. He managed to expound theories concerning
the Latin poets which his questioner had never read of anywhere. Like
an honest man, he gave the young secretary all due credit for them.
As luck would have it, they started a discussion on the question
of whether Horace was poor or rich, a good humoured and careless
voluptuary who made verses to amuse himself, like Chapelle the friend
of Moliere and de la Fontaine, or a poor devil of a poet laureate who
wrote odes for the king's birthday like Southey, the accuser of Lord
Byron. They talked about the state of society under Augustus and under
George IV. At both periods the aristocracy was all-powerful, but,
while at Rome it was despoiled of its power by Maecenas who was only a
simple knight, it had in England reduced George IV practically to the
position of a Venetian doge. This discussion seemed to lift the marquis
out of that state of bored torpor in which he had been plunged at the
beginning of the dinner.

Julien found meaningless such modern names as Southey, Lord Byron,
and George IV, which he now heard pronounced for the first time. But
every one noticed that whenever the conversation dealt with events that
had taken place in Rome and about which knowledge could be obtained
by a perusal of the works of Horace, Martial or Tacitus, etc., he
showed an indisputable superiority. Julien coolly appropriated several
ideas which he had learnt from the bishop of Besancon in the historic
conversation which he had had with that prelate. These ideas were not
the least appreciated.

When every one was tired of talking about poets the marquise, who
always made it a rule to admire whatever amused her husband, deigned
to look at Julien. "Perhaps an educated man lies hid beneath the
clumsy manners of this young abbe," said the Academician who happened
to be near the marquise. Julien caught a few words of what he said.
Ready-made phrases suited the intellect of the mistress of the house
quite well. She adopted this one about Julien, and was very pleased
with herself for having invited the academician to dinner. "He has
amused M. de la Mole" she thought.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIRST STEPS

        This immense valley, filled with brilliant lights and so
        many thousands of men dazzles my sight. No one knows me.
        All are superior to me. I lose my head. _Poemi dell' av.
        REINA_.

Julien was copying letters in the library very early the next day
when Mademoiselle Mathilde came in by a little dummy door very well
masked by the backs of the books. While Julien was admiring the
device, Mademoiselle Mathilde seemed astonished and somewhat annoyed
at finding him there: Julien saw that she was in curl-papers and had
a hard, haughty, and masculine expression. Mademoiselle de la Mole
had the habit of surreptitiously stealing books from her father's
library. Julien's presence rendered this morning's journey abortive,
a fact which annoyed her all the more as she had come to fetch the
second volume of Voltaire's _Princess of Babylon_, a worthy climax to
one of the most eminently monarchical and religious educations which
the convent of the Sacred Heart had ever provided. This poor girl of
nineteen already required some element of spiciness in order to get up
an interest in a novel.

Count Norbert put in an appearance in the library about three o'clock.
He had come to study a paper so as to be able to talk politics in the
evening, and was very glad to meet Julien, whose existence he had
forgotten. He was charming, and offered him a ride on horseback.

"My father will excuse us until dinner."

Julien appreciated the us and thought it charming.

"Great heavens! M. le Comte," said Julien, "if it were a question of
felling an eighty-foot tree or hewing it out and making it into planks
I would acquit myself all right, I daresay, but as for riding a horse,
I haven't done such a thing six times in my life."

"Well, this will be the seventh," said Norbert.

As a matter of fact, Julien remembered the king of ----'s entry into
Verrieres, and thought he rode extremely well. But as they were
returning from the Bois de Boulogne he fell right in the middle of the
Rue du Bac, as he suddenly tried to get out of the way of a cabriolet,
and was spattered all over with mud. It was lucky that he had two
suits. The marquis, wishing to favour him with a few words at dinner,
asked him for news of his excursion. Norbert began immediately to
answer him in general terms.

"M. le Comte is extremely kind to me," answered Julien. "I thank him
for it, and I fully appreciate it. He was good enough to have the
quietest and prettiest horse given to me, but after all he could
not tie me on to it, and owing to the lack of that precaution, I
had a fall right in the middle of that long street near the bridge.
Madame Mathilde made a futile effort to hide a burst of laughter, and
subsequently was indiscreet enough to ask for details. Julien acquitted
himself with much simplicity. He had grace without knowing it.

"I prophesy favourably about that little priest," said the marquis to
the academician. "Think of a provincial being simple over a matter like
that. Such a thing has never been witnessed before, and will never be
witnessed again; and what is more, he describes his misfortune before
ladies."

Julien put his listeners so thoroughly at their ease over his
misfortune that at the end of the dinner, when the general conversation
had gone off on to another subject, Mademoiselle Mathilde asked her
brother some questions over the details of the unfortunate occurrence.
As she put numerous questions, and as Julien met her eyes several
times, he ventured to answer himself, although the questions had not
been addressed to him, and all three of them finished up by laughing
just as though they had all been inhabitants of some village in the
depths of a forest.

On the following day Julien attended two theology lectures, and then
came back to copy out about twenty letters. He found a young man, who
though very carefully dressed, had a mean appearance and an envious
expression, established near him in the library.

The marquis entered, "What are you doing here, M. Tanbeau?" he said
severely to the new-comer.

"I thought--" answered the young man, with a base smile.

"No, monsieur, you thought nothing of the kind. This is a try-on, but
it is an unfortunate one."

Young Tanbeau got up in a rage and disappeared. He was a nephew of the
academician who was a friend of Madame de la Mole, and intended to take
up the profession of letters. The academician had induced the marquis
to take him as a secretary. Tanbeau used to work in a separate room,
but having heard of the favour that was vouchsafed to Julien he wished
to share it, and he had gone this morning and established his desk in
the library.

At four o'clock Julien ventured, after a little hesitation, to present
himself to Count Norbert. The latter was on the point of going riding,
and being a man of perfect politeness felt embarrassed.

"I think," he said to Julien, "that you had better go to the riding
school, and after a few weeks, I shall be charmed to ride with you."

"I should like to have the honour of thanking you for the kindness
which you have shewn me. Believe me, monsieur," added Julien very
seriously, "that I appreciate all I owe you. If your horse has not been
hurt by the reason of my clumsiness of yesterday, and if it is free I
should like to ride it this afternoon."

"Well, upon my word, my dear Sorel, you do so at your own risk and
peril; kindly assume that I have put forth all the objections required
by prudence. As a matter of fact it is four o'clock, we have no time to
lose."

As soon as Julien was on horseback, he said to the young count, "What
must one do not to fall off?"

"Lots of things," answered Norbert, bursting into laughter. "Keep your
body back for instance."

Julien put his horse to the trot. They were at the Place Louis XVI.

"Oh, you foolhardy youngster," said Norbert "there are too many
carriages here, and they are driven by careless drivers into the
bargain. Once you are on the ground their tilburies will run over your
body, they will not risk spoiling their horses' mouths by pulling up
short."

Norbert saw Julien twenty times on the point of tumbling, but in the
end the excursion finished without misadventure. As they came back the
young count said to his sister,

"Allow me to introduce a dashing dare-devil."

When he talked to his father over the dinner from one end of the table
to the other, he did justice to Julien's courage. It was the only
thing one could possibly praise about his style of riding. The young
count had heard in the morning the men who groomed the horses in the
courtyard making Julien's fall an opportunity for the most outrageous
jokes at his expense.

In spite of so much kindness Julien soon felt himself completely
isolated in this family. All their customs seemed strange to him, and
he was cognizant of none of them. His blunders were the delight of the
valets.

The abbe Pirard had left for his living. "If Julien is a weak reed,
let him perish. If he is a man of spirit, let him get out of his
difficulties all alone," he thought.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE HOTEL DE LA MOLE

        What is he doing here? Will he like it there? Will he
        try to please?--_Ronsard_.

If everything in the aristocratic salon of the Hotel de la Mole seemed
strange to Julien, that pale young man in his black suit seemed in his
turn very strange to those persons who deigned to notice him. Madame de
la Mole suggested to her husband that he should send him off on some
business on those days when they had certain persons to dinner.

"I wish to carry the experiment to its logical conclusion," answered
the marquis. "The abbe Pirard contends that we are wrong in crushing
the self-respect of the people whom we allow around us. _One can only
lean on what resists_. The only thing against this man is his unknown
face, apart from that he is a deaf mute."

"If I am to know my way about," said Julien to himself. "I must write
down the names of the persons whom I see come to the salon together
with a few words on their character."

He put at the head of the list five or six friends of the house who
took every opportunity of paying court to him, believing that he was
protected by a whim of the marquis. They were poor dull devils. But it
must be said in praise of this class of men, such as they are found
to-day in the salons of the aristocracy, that every one did not find
them equally tame. One of them was now allowing himself to be bullied
by the marquis, who was venting his irritation at a harsh remark which
had been addressed to him by the marquise.

The masters of the house were too proud or too prone to boredom; they
were too much used to finding their only distraction in the addressing
of insults, to enable them to expect true friends. But, except on
rainy days and in rare moments of savage boredom, they always showed
themselves perfectly polite.

If the five or six toadies who manifested so paternal an affection
towards Julien had deserted the Hotel de la Mole, the marquise would
have been exposed to long spells of solitude, and in the eyes of women
of that class, solitude is awful, it is the symbol of _disgrace_.

The marquis was charming to his wife. He saw that her salon was
sufficiently furnished, though not with peers, for he did not think his
new colleagues were sufficiently noble to come to his house as friends,
or sufficiently amusing to be admitted as inferiors.

It was only later that Julien fathomed these secrets. The governing
policy of a household, though it forms the staple of conversation in
bourgeois families, is only alluded to in families of the class of that
of the marquis in moments of distress. So paramount even in this bored
century is the necessity of amusing one's self, that even on the days
of dinner-parties the marquis had scarcely left the salon before all
the guests ran away. Provided that one did not make any jests about
either God or the priests or the king or the persons in office, or the
artists who enjoyed the favour of the court, or of anything that was
established, provided that one did not praise either Beranger or the
opposition papers, or Voltaire or Rousseau or anything which involved
any element of free speech, provided that above all that one never
talked politics, one could discuss everything with freedom.

There is no income of a hundred thousand crowns a year and no blue
ribbon which could sustain a contest against such a code of salon
etiquette.

The slightest live idea appeared a crudity. In spite of the prevailing
good form, perfect politeness, and desire to please, _ennui_ was
visible in every face. The young people who came to pay their calls
were frightened of speaking of anything which might make them suspected
of thinking or of betraying that they had read something prohibited,
and relapsed into silence after a few elegant phrases about Rossini and
the weather.

Julien noticed that the conversation was usually kept alive by two
viscounts and five barons whom M. de la Mole had known at the time of
the emigration. These gentlemen enjoyed an income of from six to eight
hundred thousand francs. Four swore by the _Quotidienne_ and three
by the _Gazette de France_. One of them had every day some anecdote
to tell about the Chateau, in which he made lavish use of the word
_admirable_. Julien noticed that he had five crosses, the others as a
rule only had three.

By way of compensation six footmen in livery were to be seen in the
ante-room, and during the whole evening ices or tea were served every
quarter-of-an-hour, while about midnight there was a kind of supper
with champagne.

This was the reason that sometimes induced Julien to stay till the
end. Apart from this he could scarcely understand why any one could
bring himself to take seriously the ordinary conversation in this
magnificently gilded salon. Sometimes he would look at the talkers to
see if they themselves were not making fun of what they were saying.
"My M. de Maistre, whom I know by heart," he thought, "has put it a
hundred times better, and all the same he is pretty boring."

Julien was not the only one to appreciate this stifling moral
atmosphere. Some consoled themselves by taking a great quantity of
ices, others by the pleasure of saying all the rest of the evening, "I
have just come from the Hotel de la Mole where I learnt that Russia,
etc."

Julien learnt from one of the toadies that scarcely six months ago
madame de la Mole had rewarded more than twenty years of assiduous
attention by promoting the poor baron Le Bourguignon, who had been a
sub-prefect since the restoration, to the rank of prefect.

This great event had whetted the zeal of all these gentlemen.
Previously there were few things to which they would have objected,
now they objected to nothing. There was rarely any overt lack of
consideration, but Julien had already caught at meals two or three
little short dialogues between the marquis and his wife which were
cruel to those who were seated near them. These noble personages did
not conceal their sincere contempt for everyone who was not sprung
from people who were entitled to ride in the carriages of the king.
Julien noticed that the word crusade was the only word which gave their
face an expression of deep seriousness akin to respect. Their ordinary
respect had always a touch of condescension. In the middle of this
magnificence and this boredom Julien was interested in nothing except
M. de la Mole. He was delighted to hear him protest one day that he
had had nothing to do with the promotion of that poor Le Bourguignon,
it was an attention to the marquise. Julien knew the truth from the
abbe Pirard.

The abbe was working in the marquis's library with Julien one morning
at the eternal de Frilair lawsuit.

"Monsieur," said Julien suddenly, "is dining every day with madame la
marquise one of my duties or a special favour that they show to me?"

"It's a special honour," replied the scandalised abbe. "M. the
Academician, who has been cultivating the family for fifteen years, has
never been able to obtain so much for his M. Tanbeau."

"I find it, sir, the most painful part of my employment. I was less
bored at the seminary. Some times I see even mademoiselle de la Mole
yawn, and yet she ought to be accustomed to the social charms of the
friends of the house. I am frightened of falling asleep. As a favour,
obtain permission for me to go and get a forty sous' dinner in some
obscure inn."

The abbe who was a true snob, was very appreciative of the honour of
dining with a great lord. While he was endeavouring to get Julien to
understand this point of view a slight noise made them turn round.
Julien saw mademoiselle de la Mole listening. He reddened. She had come
to fetch a book and had heard everything. She began to entertain some
respect for Julien. "He has not been born servile," she thought, "like
that old abbe. Heavens, how ugly he is."

At dinner Julien did not venture to look at mademoiselle de la Mole
but she was kind enough to speak to him. They were expecting a lot
of visitors that day and she asked him to stay. The young girls of
Paris are not at all fond of persons of a certain age, especially when
they are slovenly. Julien did not need much penetration to realise
that the colleagues of M. le Bourguignon who remained in the salon
had the privilege of being the ordinary butt of mademoiselle de la
Mole's jokes. On this particular day, whether or not by reason of some
affectation on her part, she proved cruel to bores.

Mademoiselle de la Mole was the centre of a little knot which used to
form nearly every evening behind the marquise's immense arm-chair.
There were to be found there the marquis de Croisenois, the comte
de Caylus, the vicomte de Luz and two or three other young officers,
the friends of Norbert or his sister. These gentlemen used to sit
down on a large blue sofa. At the end of the sofa, opposite the part
where the brilliant Mathilde was sitting, Julien sat in silence on a
little, rather low straw chair. This modest position was envied by all
the toadies; Norbert kept his father's young secretary in countenance
by speaking to him, or mentioning him by name once or twice in the
evening. On this particular occasion mademoiselle de la Mole asked him
what was the height of the mountain on which the citadel of Besancon
is planted. Julien had never any idea if this mountain was higher or
lower than Montmartre. He often laughed heartily at what was said in
this little knot, but he felt himself incapable of inventing anything
analagous. It was like a strange language which he understood but could
not speak.

On this particular day Matilde's friends manifested a continuous
hostility to the visitors who came into the vast salon. The friends of
the house were the favoured victims at first, inasmuch as they were
better known. You can form your opinion as to whether Julien paid
attention; everything interested him, both the substance of things and
the manner of making fun of them.

"And there is M. Descoulis," said Matilde; "he doesn't wear a wig any
more. Does he want to get a prefectship through sheer force of genius?
He is displaying that bald forehead which he says is filled with lofty
thoughts."

"He is a man who knows the whole world," said the marquis de
Croisenois. "He also goes to my uncle the cardinal's. He is capable of
cultivating a falsehood with each of his friends for years on end, and
he has two or three hundred friends. He knows how to nurse friendship,
that is his talent. He will go out, just as you see him, in the worst
winter weather, and be at the door of one of his friends by seven
o'clock in the morning.

"He quarrels from time to time and he writes seven or eight letters
for each quarrel. Then he has a reconciliation and he writes seven or
eight letters to express his bursts of friendship. But he shines most
brilliantly in the frank and sincere expansiveness of the honest man
who keeps nothing up his sleeve. This manoeuvre is brought into play
when he has some favour to ask. One of my uncle's grand vicars is very
good at telling the life of M. Descoulis since the restoration. I will
bring him to you."

"Bah! I don't believe all that, it's professional jealousy among the
lower classes," said the comte de Caylus.

"M. Descoulis will live in history," replied the marquis. "He brought
about the restoration together with the abbe de Pradt and messieurs de
Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo."

"That man has handled millions," said Norbert, "and I can't conceive
why he should come here to swallow my father's epigrams which are
frequently atrocious. 'How many times have you betrayed your friends,
my dear Descoulis?' he shouted at him one day from one end of the table
to the other."

"But is it true that he has played the traitor?" asked mademoiselle de
la Mole. "Who has not played the traitor?"

"Why!" said the comte de Caylus to Norbert, "do you have that
celebrated Liberal, M. Sainclair, in your house. What the devil's he
come here for? I must go up to him and speak to him and make him speak.
He is said to be so clever."

"But how will your mother receive him?" said M. de Croisenois. "He has
such extravagant, generous and independent ideas."

"Look," said mademoiselle de la Mole, "look at the independent man who
bows down to the ground to M. Descoulis while he grabs hold of his
hand. I almost thought he was going to put it to his lips."

"Descoulis must stand better with the powers that be than we thought,"
answered M. de Croisenois.

"Sainclair comes here in order to get into the academy," said Norbert.
"See how he bows to the baron L----, Croisenois."

"It would be less base to kneel down," replied M. de Luz.

"My dear Sorel," said Norbert, "you are extremely smart, but you come
from the mountains. Mind you never bow like that great poet is doing,
even to God the Father."

"Ah there's a really witty man, M. the Baron Baton," said mademoiselle
de la Mole, imitating a little the voice of the flunkey who had just
announced him.

"I think that even your servants make fun of him. What a name Baron
Baton," said M. de Caylus.

"What's in a name?" he said to us the other day, went on Matilde.
"Imagine the Duke de Bouillon announced for the first time. So far as I
am concerned the public only need to get used to me."

"Julien left the vicinity of the sofa."

Still insufficiently appreciative of the charming subtleties of a
delicate raillery to laugh at a joke, he considered that a jest ought
to have some logical foundation. He saw nothing in these young peoples'
conversation except a vein of universal scandal-mongering and was
shocked by it. His provincial or English prudery went so far as to
detect envy in it, though in this he was certainly mistaken.

"Count Norbert," he said to himself, "who has had to make three drafts
for a twenty-line letter to his colonel would be only too glad to have
written once in his whole life one page as good as M. Sainclair."

Julien approached successively the several groups and attracted no
attention by reason of his lack of importance. He followed the Baron
Baton from a distance and tried to hear him.

This witty man appeared nervous and Julien did not see him recover
his equanimity before he had hit upon three or four stinging phrases.
Julien thought that this kind of wit had great need of space.

The Baron could not make epigrams. He needed at least four sentences of
six lines each, in order to be brilliant.

"That man argues, he does not talk," said someone behind Julien. He
turned round and reddened with pleasure when he heard the name of the
comte Chalvet. He was the subtlest man of the century. Julien had often
found his name in the _Memorial of St. Helena_ and in the portions of
history dictated by Napoleon. The diction of comte Chalvet was laconic,
his phrases were flashes of lightning--just, vivid, deep. If he talked
about any matter the conversation immediately made a step forward; he
imported facts into it; it was a pleasure to hear him. In politics,
however, he was a brazen cynic.

"I am independent, I am," he was saying to a gentleman with three
stars, of whom apparently he was making fun. "Why insist on my having
to-day the same opinion I had six weeks ago. In that case my opinion
would be my master."

Four grave young men who were standing round scowled; these gentlemen
did not like flippancy. The comte saw that he had gone too far. Luckily
he perceived the honest M. Balland, a veritable hypocrite of honesty.
The count began to talk to him; people closed up, for they realised
that poor Balland was going to be the next victim.

M. Balland, although he was horribly ugly and his first steps in the
world were almost unmentionable, had by dint of his morals and his
morality married a very rich wife who had died; he subsequently married
a second very rich one who was never seen in society. He enjoyed, in
all humility, an income of sixty thousand francs, and had his own
flatterers. Comte Chalvet talked to him pitilessly about all this.
There was soon a circle of thirty persons around them. Everybody was
smiling, including the solemn young men who were the hope of the
century.

"Why does he come to M. de la Mole where he is obviously only a
laughing stock?" thought Julien. He approached the abbe Pirard to ask
him.

M. Balland made his escape.

"Good," said Norbert, "there is one of the spies of my father gone;
there is only the little limping Napier left."

"Can that be the key of the riddle?" thought Julien, "but if so, why
does the marquis receive M. Balland?"

The stern abbe Pirard was scowling in a corner of the salon listening
to the lackeys announcing the names.

"This is nothing more than a den," he was saying like another Basil, "I
see none but shady people come in."

As a matter of fact the severe abbe did not know what constitutes
high society. But his friends the Jansenites, had given him some very
precise notions about those men who only get into society by reason
of their extreme subtlety in the service of all parties, or of their
monstrous wealth. For some minutes that evening he answered Julien's
eager questions fully and freely, and then suddenly stopped short
grieved at having always to say ill of every one, and thinking he was
guilty of a sin. Bilious Jansenist as he was, and believing as he did
in the duty of Christian charity, his life was a perpetual conflict.

"How strange that abbe Pirard looks," said mademoiselle de la Mole, as
Julien came near the sofa.

Julien felt irritated, but she was right all the same. M. Pirard was
unquestionably the most honest man in the salon, but his pimply face,
which was suffering from the stings of conscience, made him look
hideous at this particular moment. "Trust physiognomy after this,"
thought Julien, "it is only when the delicate conscience of the abbe
Pirard is reproaching him for some trifling lapse that he looks so
awful; while the expression of that notorious spy Napier shows a pure
and tranquil happiness." The abbe Pirard, however, had made great
concessions to his party. He had taken a servant, and was very well
dressed.

Julien noticed something strange in the salon, it was that all eyes
were being turned towards the door, and there was a semi silence. The
flunkey was announcing the famous Barron Tolly, who had just become
publicly conspicuous by reason of the elections. Julien came forward
and had a very good view of him. The baron had been the president of
an electoral college; he had the brilliant idea of spiriting away
the little squares of paper which contained the votes of one of the
parties. But to make up for it he replaced them by an equal number of
other little pieces of paper containing a name agreeable to himself.
This drastic manoeuvre had been noticed by some of the voters, who had
made an immediate point of congratulating the Baron de Tolly. The good
fellow was still pale from this great business. Malicious persons had
pronounced the word galleys. M. de la Mole received him coldly. The
poor Baron made his escape.

"If he leaves us so quickly it's to go to M. Comte's,"[1] said Comte
Chalvet and everyone laughed.

Little Tanbeau was trying to win his spurs by talking to some silent
noblemen and some intriguers who, though shady, were all men of wit,
and were on this particular night in great force in M. de la Mole's
salon (for he was mentioned for a place in the ministry). If he had not
yet any subtlety of perception he made up for it as one will see by the
energy of his words.

"Why not sentence that man to ten years' imprisonment," he was saying
at the moment when Julien approached his knot. "Those reptiles should
be confined in the bottom of a dungeon, they ought to languish to death
in gaol, otherwise their venom will grow and become more dangerous.
What is the good of sentencing him to a fine of a thousand crowns? He
is poor, so be it, all the better, but his party will pay for him. What
the case required was a five hundred francs fine and ten years in a
dungeon."

"Well to be sure, who is the monster they are speaking about?" thought
Julien who was viewing with amazement the vehement tone and hysterical
gestures of his colleague. At this moment the thin, drawn, little face
of the academician's nephew was hideous. Julien soon learnt that they
were talking of the greatest poet of the century.

"You monster," Julien exclaimed half aloud, while tears of generosity
moistened his eyes. "You little rascal," he thought, "I will pay you
out for this."

"Yet," he thought, "those are the unborn hopes of the party of which
the marquis is one of the chiefs. How many crosses and how many
sinecures would that celebrated man whom he is now defaming have
accumulated if he had sold himself--I won't say to the mediocre
ministry of M. de Nerval--but to one of those reasonably honest
ministries which we have seen follow each other in succession."

The abbe Pirard motioned to Julien from some distance off; M. de la
Mole had just said something to him. But when Julien, who was listening
at the moment with downcast eyes to the lamentations of the bishop,
had at length got free and was able to get near his friend, he found
him monopolised by the abominable little Tanbeau. The little beast
hated him as the cause of Julien's favour with the marquis, and was now
making up to him.

"_When will death deliver us from that aged rottenness_," it was in
these words of a biblical energy that the little man of letters was
now talking of the venerable Lord Holland. His merit consisted in an
excellent knowledge of the biography of living men, and he had just
made a rapid review of all the men who could aspire to some influence
under the reign of the new King of England.

The abbe Pirard passed in to an adjacent salon. Julien followed him.

"I warn you the marquis does not like scribblers, it is his only
prejudice. Know Latin and Greek if you can manage it, the history of
the Egyptians, Persians, etc., he will honour and protect you as a
learned man. But don't write a page of French, especially on serious
matters which are above your position in society, or he will call you
a scribbler and take you for a scoundrel. How is it that living as you
do in the hotel of a great lord you don't know the Duke de Castries'
epigram on Alembert and Rousseau: 'the fellow wants to reason about
everything and hasn't got an income of a thousand crowns'!"

"Everything leaks out here," thought Julien, "just like the seminary."
He had written eight or six fairly drastic pages. It was a kind of
historical eulogy of the old surgeon-major who had, he said, made a man
of him. "The little note book," said Julien to himself, "has always
been locked." He went up to his room, burnt his manuscript and returned
to the salon. The brilliant scoundrels had left it, only the men with
the stars were left.

Seven or eight very aristocratic ladies, very devout, very affected,
and of from thirty to thirty-five years of age, were grouped round
the table that the servants had just brought in ready served. The
brilliant marechale de Fervaques came in apologising for the lateness
of the hour. It was more than midnight: she went and sat down near
the marquise. Julien was deeply touched, she had the eyes and the
expression of madame de Renal.

Mademoiselle de la Mole's circle was still full of people. She was
engaged with her friends in making fun of the unfortunate comte de
Thaler. He was the only son of that celebrated Jew who was famous for
the riches that he had won by lending money to kings to make war on the
peoples.

The Jew had just died leaving his son an income of one hundred thousand
crowns a month, and a name that was only too well known. This strange
position required either a simple character or force of will power.

Unfortunately the comte was simply a fellow who was inflated by all
kinds of pretensions which had been suggested to him by all his toadies.

M. de Caylus asserted that they had induced him to make up his mind to
ask for the hand of mademoiselle de la Mole, to whom the marquis de
Croisenois, who would be a duke with a hundred thousand francs a year,
was paying his attentions.

"Oh, do not accuse him of having a mind," said Norbert pitifully.

Will-power was what the poor comte de Thaler lacked most of all. So
far as this side of his character went he was worthy of being a king.
He would take council from everybody, but he never had the courage to
follow any advice to the bitter end.

"His physiognomy would be sufficient in itself," mademoiselle de la
Mole was fond of saying, "to have inspired her with a holy joy." It
was a singular mixture of anxiety and disappointment, but from time to
time one could distinguish gusts of self-importance, and above all that
trenchant tone suited to the richest man in France, especially when he
had nothing to be ashamed of in his personal appearance and was not yet
thirty-six. "He is timidly insolent," M. de Croisenois would say. The
comte de Caylus, Norbert, and two or three moustachioed young people
made fun of him to their heart's content without him suspecting it, and
finally packed him off as one o'clock struck.

"Are those your famous Arab horses waiting for you at the door in this
awful weather?" said Norbert to him.

"No, it is a new pair which are much cheaper," said M. de Thaler. "The
horse on the left cost me five thousand francs, while the one on the
right is only worth one hundred louis, but I would ask you to believe
me when I say that I only have him out at night. His trot you see is
exactly like the other ones."

Norbert's remark made the comte think it was good form for a man like
him to make a hobby of his horses, and that he must not let them get
wet. He went away, and the other gentleman left a minute afterwards
making fun of him all the time. "So," thought Julien as he heard them
laugh on the staircase, "I have the privilege of seeing the exact
opposite of my own situation. I have not got twenty louis a year and I
found myself side by side with a man who has twenty louis an hour and
they made fun of him. Seeing a sight like that cures one of envy."

[1] celebrated conjuror.

Julien's voyage to Paris is enlivened by the conversation of his fellow travelers -- a Bonapartist, former friend of M. de Renal, and a newly formed liberal, Saint-Giraud, who is fleeing the pettiness and intrigue of provincial life for the calm of Paris. The latter had sought peace in the provinces, but because he refused to take sides in the great debate between ultras and liberals, he was persecuted by both. The conversation reflects their opposing political views: Saint-Giraud maintains that the present disorder is due to Napoleon's desire to revive the monarchy. Such strong argumentation does not prevent Julien, upon his arrival in Paris, from making a pilgrimage to Napoleon's palace at Malmaison. Pirard describes to him in detail the new life he will lead at the home of the Marquis de la Mole. Pirard warns Julien of what to expect from this aristocratic and haughty family. Chapter 2 is devoted to Julien's arrival and few days in the Mole household. He is first presented to the marquis, who has him outfitted and finds it necessary, in order to improve Julien's grace, to have him take dancing lessons. Invited for dinner in the salon, Julien meets Mme. de la Mole and Mathilde. The latter he finds uninteresting and even unattractive in comparison to Mme. de Renal. He finds Norbert, the marquis' son, charming. At dinner, Julien succeeds in making a favorable impression by his knowledge of the classical writers. Julien takes his working post in the library, where the vast array of books dazzles and inspires him. Mlle. de la Mole enters to smuggle out a copy of Voltaire, and this encounter strengthens Julien's impression of her as a cold-hearted, uninteresting woman. Norbert, on the other hand, continues to delight Julien by his kindness, and he accepts Norbert's invitation to go riding. A mishap while riding is later related at dinner, and Julien's good grace and innocence in the avowal of his awkwardness cause the marquis to look favorably upon him and incite the curiosity of Mathilde. Further equestrian attempts on Julien's part elicit the remark from Norbert at dinner that Julien is very courageous. Julien's many mishaps are especially relished by the servants of the household. Chapter 4 describes a typical evening in the salon of the Mole family. Julien reacts as violently to what he witnesses as he did in the Verrieres home of Valenod, and the scenes are, in fact, similar. Court at the Mole's is strongly reminiscent in its sterility of the court of Louis XVI. There reigns an air of decorum, politeness, and cruelty. Only insignificant subjects are discussed, nothing controversial, and the barrenness of the conversation inevitably leads to calumny, derision, and mockery by those in favor with M. de la Mole, directed at those out of his favor. Admitting to Pirard how distasteful he finds these evenings, Julien is overheard by Mathilde, who admires this courage and sincerity.

Stendhal loses no opportunity to further the education of Julien, rendering, at the same time, a view of the political situation of the period. Julien would seem by nature and inclination to be a liberal, although he frequents only ultra milieus: the Renals and the Moles. Julien is, in fact, an opportunist -- he has no allegiance except to himself and to others of the "happy few" who befriend and love him. The only reaction that Julien registers at this revelatory discussion during the coach journey is one of astonishment, and Napoleon remains his idol. Saint-Giraud's situation is an ironic preview of what Julien's future holds, but in reverse. Saint-Giraud is returning to Paris after having vainly sought peace in the provinces. He apparently considers Paris as the lesser of the two evils. Julien will follow the reverse route -- arriving at the same conclusion: present happiness is not appreciated. The scene is an effective transition between the scenes of action from another point of view. It indicates that France's lamentable situation during the Restoration is localized neither in Paris nor in the provinces-it is ubiquitous. We have seen corruption and compromise as it operates on the local level, in the grass-roots, then in the seminary, where the purveyors of weakness are formed. Now we will witness the motor source of France's sickness in the aristocratic and ecclesiastical powers in Paris. Note the father-function of Pirard, whose kind intervention will minimize Julien's chances of being ridiculous in the Mole household. Although the other members of the Mole family are cruelly and concisely described by Pirard, Mathilde is only briefly mentioned at this point. Compare Julien's wary but self-assured air upon introduction to the Mole household to his awkwardness and intimidated state upon arrival at the Renal home, fifteen months before. Stendhal tells us that Julien has come to expect the worst from people; therefore, he is not easily intimidated. Note, however, how astutely Stendhal renders, almost in passing, a psychologically convincing detail describing Julien's manner of confronting a new situation, where he must find some weakness in his adversary, the discovery of which will bolster Julien's own confidence.  It seems to Julien that M. de la Mole's wig is much too thick. Thanks to this observation, he is not at all intimidated. That is, observing no matter how slight a deficiency in a superior, Julien is able to derive confidence from it. At dinner, his self-assurance does not falter this time because he decides that Mathilde de la Mole will never be a woman in his eyes. Mathilde takes an interest in Julien for the first time in Chapter 3, and it is his uniqueness and candor, in contrast to the stereotyped characters to whom she is accustomed, that will constitute much of the basis of her interest and subsequent love for Julien. Julien must undergo a social metamorphosis as part of his education, and learning to ride a horse is part of this training. Stendhal notes, at the end of the chapter, that Julien already feels himself to be an outsider in this family, the customs and manners of which are strange to him. This concluding remark serves as a transition to the subject matter of the following chapter. Stendhal benefits from Julien's role of outsider to view the sterility of this social institution, the aristocratic salon of 1830. Pirard's austere presence and conspicuous isolation contrast with the habitues' obsequious conduct, their superficial and docile character, as they mingle and assume their roles in their respective sub-circles Julien does not fail to note this contrast. Julien's violent disapproval of the cruel derision of merit, especially by his rival secretary, Tanbeau, is reminiscent of his reaction at the Valenod's dinner party. It is by means of this device that Stendhal elicits the reader's sympathy for his hero: Stendhal satirizes Julien's adversaries through ridicule; the reader, therefore, naturally allies himself with Julien. Admitted as a silent spectator into Mathilde's circle, Julien observes her suitors, the most favored of whom is the Count de Croisenois. In passing, Stendhal observes that Mathilde admires Julien's courage in denouncing this type of social gathering to Pirard -- a second hint at the future relationship of Julien and Mathilde. The description of the salon no doubt inspired Proust in his own vivid and satirical depiction of early twentieth-century salon mores. It was Proust, incidentally, who first called attention to the recurrent theme of "high places" in the works of Stendhal.