CHAPTER LXVI

SAD DETAILS

        Do not expect any weakness on my part. I have avenged
        myself. I have deserved death, and here I am. Pray for
        my soul.--_Schiller_

Julien remained motionless. He saw nothing more. When he recovered
himself a little he noticed all the faithful rushing from the church.
The priest had left the altar. Julien started fairly slowly to follow
some women who were going away with loud screams. A woman who was
trying to get away more quickly than the others, pushed him roughly. He
fell. His feet got entangled with a chair, knocked over by the crowd;
when he got up, he felt his neck gripped. A gendarme, in full uniform,
was arresting him. Julien tried mechanically to have recourse to his
little pistol; but a second gendarme pinioned his arms.

He was taken to the prison. They went into a room where irons were put
on his hands. He was left alone. The door was doubly locked on him. All
this was done very quickly, and he scarcely appreciated it at all.

"Yes, upon my word, all is over," he said aloud as he recovered
himself. "Yes, the guillotine in a fortnight ... or killing myself
here."

His reasoning did not go any further. His head felt as though it had
been seized in some violent grip. He looked round to see if anyone was
holding him. After some moments he fell into a deep sleep.

Madame de Renal was not mortally wounded. The first bullet had pierced
her hat. The second had been fired as she was turning round. The
bullet had struck her on the shoulder, and, astonishing to relate,
had ricocheted from off the shoulder bone (which it had, however,
broken) against a gothic pillar, from which it had loosened an enormous
splinter of stone.

When, after a long and painful bandaging, the solemn surgeon said to
madame de Renal, "I answer for your life as I would for my own," she
was profoundly grieved.

She had been sincerely desirous of death for a long time. The letter
which she had written to M. de la Mole in accordance with the
injunctions of her present confessor, had proved the final blow to a
creature already weakened by an only too permanent unhappiness. This
unhappiness was caused by Julien's absence; but she, for her own part,
called it remorse. Her director, a young ecclesiastic, who was both
virtuous and enthusiastic, and had recently come to Dijon, made no
mistake as to its nature.

"Dying in this way, though not by my own hand, is very far from being
a sin," thought madame de Renal. "God will perhaps forgive me for
rejoicing over my death." She did not dare to add, "and dying by
Julien's hand puts the last touch on my happiness."

She had scarcely been rid of the presence of the surgeon and of all the
crowd of friends that had rushed to see her, than she called her maid,
Elisa. "The gaoler," she said to her with a violent blush, "is a cruel
man. He will doubtless ill-treat him, thinking to please me by doing
so.... I cannot bear that idea. Could you not go, as though on your own
account, and give the gaoler this little packet which contains some
louis. You will tell him that religion forbids him to treat him badly,
above all, he must not go and speak about the sending of this money."

It was this circumstance, which we have just mentioned, that Julien had
to thank for the humanity of the gaoler of Verrieres. It was still the
same M. Noiraud, that ideal official, whom he remembered as being so
finely alarmed by M. Appert's presence.

A judge appeared in the prison. "I occasioned death by premeditation,"
said Julien to him. "I bought the pistols and had them loaded at
so-and-so's, a gunsmith. Article 1342 of the penal code is clear. I
deserve death, and I expect it." Astonished at this kind of answer, the
judge started to multiply his questions, with a view of the accused
contradicting himself in his answers.

"Don't you see," said Julien to him with a smile, "that I am making
myself out as guilty as you can possibly desire? Go away, monsieur, you
will not fail to catch the quarry you are pursuing. You will have the
pleasure to condemn me. Spare me your presence."

"I have an irksome duty to perform," thought Julien. "I must write to
mademoiselle de la Mole:--"

        "I have avenged myself," he said to her. "Unfortunately,
        my name will appear in the papers, and I shall not be
        able to escape from the world incognito. I shall die
        in two months' time. My revenge was ghastly, like the
        pain of being separated from you. From this moment I
        forbid myself to write or pronounce your name. Never
        speak of me even to my son; silence is the only way of
        honouring me. To the ordinary commonplace man, I shall
        represent a common assassin. Allow me the luxury of the
        truth at this supreme moment; you will forget me. This
        great catastrophe of which I advise you not to say a
        single word to a single living person, will exhaust,
        for several years to come, all that romantic and unduly
        adventurous element which I have detected in your
        character. You were intended by nature to live among the
        heroes of the middle ages; exhibit their firm character.
        Let what has to happen take place in secret and without
        your being compromised. You will assume a false name,
        and you will confide in no one. If you absolutely need a
        friend's help, I bequeath the abbe Pirard to you.

        "Do not talk to anyone else, particularly to the people
        of your own class--the de Luz's, the Caylus's.

        "A year after my death, marry M. de Croisenois; I
        command you as your husband. Do not write to me at all,
        I shall not answer. Though in my view, much less wicked
        than Iago, I am going to say, like him: 'From this time
        forth, I never will speack word.'[1]

        "I shall never be seen to speak or write again. You will
        have received my final words and my final expressions of
        adoration.

                                                         "J. S."

It was only after he had despatched this letter and had recovered
himself a little, that Julien felt for the first time extremely
unhappy. Those momentous words, I shall die, meant the successive
tearing out of his heart of each individual hope and ambition.
Death, in itself, was not horrible in his eyes. His whole life had
been nothing but a long preparation for unhappiness, and he had
made a point of not losing sight of what is considered the greatest
unhappiness of all.

"Come then," he said to himself; "if I had to fight a duel in a couple
of months, with an expert duellist, should I be weak enough to think
about it incessantly with panic in my soul?"

He passed more than an hour in trying to analyze himself thoroughly on
this score.

When he saw clear in his own soul, and the truth appeared before his
eyes with as much definiteness as one of the pillars of his prison, he
thought about remorse.

"Why should I have any? I have been atrociously injured; I have
killed--I deserve death, but that is all. I die after having squared my
account with humanity. I do not leave any obligation unfulfilled. I owe
nothing to anybody; there is nothing shameful about my death, except
the instrument of it; that alone, it is true, is simply sufficient to
disgrace me in the eyes of the bourgeois of Verrieres; but from the
intellectual standpoint, what could be more contemptible than they? I
have one means of winning their consideration; by flinging pieces of
gold to the people as I go to the scaffold. If my memory is linked with
the idea of gold, they will always look upon it as resplendent."

After this chain of reasoning, which after a minute's reflection seemed
to him self-evident, Julien said to himself, "I have nothing left to do
in the world," and fell into a deep sleep.

About 9 o'clock in the evening the gaoler woke him up as he brought in
his supper.

"What are they saying in Verrieres?"

"M. Julien, the oath which I took before the crucifix in the 'Royal
Courtyard,' on the day when I was installed in my place, obliges me to
silence."

He was silent, but remained. Julien was amused by the sight of this
vulgar hypocrisy. I must make him, he thought, wait a long time for the
five francs which he wants to sell his conscience for.

When the gaoler saw him finish his meal without making any attempt to
corrupt him, he said in a soft and perfidious voice:

"The affection which I have for you, M. Julien, compels me to speak.
Although they say that it is contrary to the interests of justice,
because it may assist you in preparing your defence. M. Julien you are
a good fellow at heart, and you will be very glad to learn that madame
de Renal is better."

"What! she is not dead?" exclaimed Julien, beside himself.

"What, you know nothing?" said the gaoler, with a stupid air which soon
turned into exultant cupidity. "It would be very proper, monsieur, for
you to give something to the surgeon, who, so far as law and justice
go, ought not to have spoken. But in order to please you, monsieur, I
went to him, and he told me everything."

"Anyway, the wound is not mortal," said Julien to him impatiently, "you
answer for it on your life?"

The gaoler, who was a giant six feet tall, was frightened and retired
towards the door. Julien saw that he was adopting bad tactics for
getting at the truth. He sat down again and flung a napoleon to M.
Noiraud.

As the man's story proved to Julien more and more conclusively that
madame de Renal's wound was not mortal, he felt himself overcome by
tears. "Leave me," he said brusquely.

The gaoler obeyed. Scarcely had the door shut, than Julien exclaimed:
"Great God, she is not dead," and he fell on his knees, shedding hot
tears.

In this supreme moment he was a believer. What mattered the hypocrisies
of the priests? Could they abate one whit of the truth and sublimity of
the idea of God?

It was only then that Julien began to repent of the crime that he had
committed. By a coincidence, which prevented him falling into despair,
it was only at the present moment that the condition of physical
irritation and semi-madness, in which he had been plunged since his
departure from Paris for Verrieres came to an end.

His tears had a generous source. He had no doubt about the condemnation
which awaited him.

"So she will live," he said to himself. "She will live to forgive me
and love me."

Very late the next morning the gaoler woke him up and said, "You must
have a famous spirit, M. Julien. I have come in twice, but I did not
want to wake you up. Here are two bottles of excellent wine which our
cure, M. Maslon, has sent you."

"What, is that scoundrel still here?" said Julien.

"Yes, monsieur," said the gaoler, lowering his voice. "But do not talk
so loud, it may do you harm."

Julien laughed heartily.

"At the stage I have reached, my friend, you alone can do me harm in
the event of your ceasing to be kind and tender. You will be well
paid," said Julien, changing his tone and reverting to his imperious
manner. This manner was immediately justified by the gift of a piece of
money.

M. Noiraud related again, with the greatest detail, everything he
had learnt about madame de Renal, but he did not make any mention of
mademoiselle Elisa's visit.

The man was as base and servile as it was possible to be. An idea
crossed Julien's mind. "This kind of misshapen giant cannot earn more
than three or four hundred francs, for his prison is not at all full.
I can guarantee him ten thousand francs, if he will escape with me
to Switzerland. The difficulty will be in persuading him of my good
faith." The idea of the long conversation he would need to have with so
vile a person filled Julien with disgust. He thought of something else.

In the evening the time had passed. A post-chaise had come to pick him
up at midnight. He was very pleased with his travelling companions, the
gendarmes. When he arrived at the prison of Besancon in the morning
they were kind enough to place him in the upper storey of a Gothic
turret. He judged the architecture to be of the beginning of the
fourteenth century. He admired its fascinating grace and lightness.
Through a narrow space between two walls, beyond the deep court, there
opened a superb vista.

On the following day there was an interrogation, after which he was
left in peace for several days. His soul was calm. He found his affair
a perfectly simple one. "I meant to kill. I deserve to be killed."

His thoughts did not linger any further over this line of reasoning.
As for the sentence, the disagreeableness of appearing in public,
the defence, he considered all this as slight embarrassment, irksome
formalities, which it would be time enough to consider on the actual
day. The actual moment of death did not seize hold of his mind either.
"I will think about it after the sentence." Life was no longer boring,
he was envisaging everything from a new point of view, he had no longer
any ambition. He rarely thought about mademoiselle de la Mole. His
passion of remorse engrossed him a great deal, and often conjured up
the image of madame de Renal, particularly during the silence of the
night, which in this high turret was only disturbed by the song of the
osprey.

He thanked heaven that he had not inflicted a mortal wound.
"Astonishing," he said to himself, "I thought that she had destroyed my
future happiness for ever by her letter to M. de la Mole, and here am
I, less than a fortnight after the date of that letter, not giving a
single thought to all the things that engrossed me then. An income of
two or three thousand francs, on which to live quietly in a mountain
district, like Vergy.... I was happy then.... I did not realise my
happiness."

At other moments he would jump up from his chair. "If I had mortally
wounded madame de Renal, I would have killed myself.... I need to feel
certain of that so as not to horrify myself."

"Kill myself? That's the great question," he said to himself. "Oh,
those judges, those fiends of red tape, who would hang their best
citizen in order to win the cross.... At any rate, I should escape from
their control and from the bad French of their insults, which the local
paper will call eloquence."

"I still have five or six weeks, more or less to live.... Kill myself.
No, not for a minute," he said to himself after some days, "Napoleon
went on living."

"Besides, I find life pleasant, this place is quiet, I am not troubled
with bores," he added with a smile, and he began to make out a list of
the books which he wanted to order from Paris.

[1] Stendhal's bad spelling is here reproduced.

CHAPTER LXVII

A TURRET

        The tomb of a friend.--_Sterne_.

He heard a loud noise in the corridor. It was not the time when the
gaoler usually came up to his prison. The osprey flew away with a
shriek. The door opened, and the venerable cure Chelan threw himself
into his arms. He was trembling all over and had his stick in his hands.

"Great God! Is it possible, my child--I ought to say monster?"

The good old man could not add a single word. Julien was afraid he
would fall down. He was obliged to lead him to a chair. The hand of
time lay heavy on this man who had once been so active. He seemed to
Julien the mere shadow of his former self.

When he had regained his breath, he said, "It was only the day before
yesterday that I received your letter from Strasbourg with your five
hundred francs for the poor of Verrieres. They brought it to me in
the mountains at Liveru where I am living in retirement with my
nephew Jean. Yesterday I learnt of the catastrophe.... Heavens, is it
possible?" And the old man left off weeping. He did not seem to have
any ideas left, but added mechanically, "You will have need of your
five hundred francs, I will bring them back to you."

"I need to see you, my father," exclaimed Julien, really touched. "I
have money, anyway."

But he could not obtain any coherent answer. From time to time, M.
Chelan shed some tears which coursed silently down his cheeks. He then
looked at Julien, and was quite dazed when he saw him kiss his hands
and carry them to his lips. That face which had once been so vivid,
and which had once portrayed with such vigour the most noble emotions
was now sunk in a perpetual apathy. A kind of peasant came soon to
fetch the old man. "You must not fatigue him," he said to Julien, who
understood that he was the nephew. This visit left Julien plunged in a
cruel unhappiness which found no vent in tears. Everything seemed to
him gloomy and disconsolate. He felt his heart frozen in his bosom.

This moment was the cruellest which he had experienced since the
crime. He had just seen death and seen it in all its ugliness. All his
illusions about greatness of soul and nobility of character had been
dissipated like a cloud before the hurricane.

This awful plight lasted several hours. After moral poisoning, physical
remedies and champagne are necessary. Julien would have considered
himself a coward to have resorted to them. "What a fool I am," he
exclaimed, towards the end of the horrible day that he had spent
entirely in walking up and down his narrow turret. "It's only, if I
had been going to die like anybody else, that the sight of that poor
old man would have had any right to have thrown me into this awful fit
of sadness: but a rapid death in the flower of my age simply puts me
beyond the reach of such awful senility."

In spite of all his argumentation, Julien felt as touched as any
weak-minded person would have been, and consequently felt unhappy
as the result of the visit. He no longer had any element of rugged
greatness, or any Roman virtue. Death appeared to him at a great height
and seemed a less easy proposition.

"This is what I shall take for my thermometer," he said to himself.
"To-night I am ten degrees below the courage requisite for
guillotine-point level. I had that courage this morning. Anyway, what
does it matter so long as it comes back to me at the necessary moment?"
This thermometer idea amused him and finally managed to distract him.

When he woke up the next day he was ashamed of the previous day. "My
happiness and peace of mind are at stake." He almost made up his mind
to write to the Procureur-General to request that no one should be
admitted to see him. "And how about Fouque," he thought? "If he takes
it upon himself to come to Besancon, his grief will be immense."
It had perhaps been two months since he had given Fouque a thought.
"I was a great fool at Strasbourg. My thoughts did not go beyond my
coat-collar. He was much engrossed by the memory of Fouque, which
left him more and more touched. He walked nervously about. Here I
am, clearly twenty degrees below death point.... If this weakness
increases, it will be better for me to kill myself. What joy for the
abbe Maslon, and the Valenods, if I die like an usher."

Fouque arrived. The good, simple man, was distracted by grief. His one
idea, so far as he had any at all, was to sell all he possessed in
order to bribe the gaoler and secure Julien's escape. He talked to him
at length of M. de Lavalette's escape.

"You pain me," Julien said to him. "M. de Lavalette was innocent--I
am guilty. Though you did not mean to, you made me think of the
difference...."

"But is it true? What? were you going to sell all you possessed?" said
Julien, suddenly becoming mistrustful and observant.

Fouque was delighted at seeing his friend answer his obsessing idea,
and detailed at length, and within a hundred francs, what he would get
for each of his properties.

"What a sublime effort for a small country land-owner," thought Julien.
"He is ready to sacrifice for me the fruits of all the economies, and
all the little semi-swindling tricks which I used to be ashamed of when
I saw him practice them."

"None of the handsome young people whom I saw in the Hotel de la Mole,
and who read Rene, would have any of his ridiculous weaknesses: but,
except those who are very young and who have also inherited riches
and are ignorant of the value of money, which of all those handsome
Parisians would be capable of such a sacrifice?"

All Fouque's mistakes in French and all his common gestures seemed to
disappear. He threw himself into his arms. Never have the provinces
in comparison with Paris received so fine a tribute. Fouque was so
delighted with the momentary enthusiasm which he read in his friend's
eyes that he took it for consent to the flight.

This view of the sublime recalled to Julien all the strength that the
apparition of M. Chelan had made him lose. He was still very young;
but in my view he was a fine specimen. Instead of his character passing
from tenderness to cunning, as is the case with the majority of men,
age would have given him that kindness of heart which is easily melted
... but what avail these vain prophecies.

The interrogations became more frequent in spite of all the efforts
of Julien, who always endeavoured by his answers to shorten the whole
matter.

"I killed, or at any rate, I wished to occasion death, and I did so
with premeditation," he would repeat every day. But the judge was
a pedant above everything. Julien's confessions had no effect in
curtailing the interrogations. The judge's conceit was wounded. Julien
did not know that they had wanted to transfer him into an awful cell,
and that it was only, thanks to Fouque's efforts, that he was allowed
to keep his pretty room at the top of a hundred and eighty steps.

M. the abbe de Frilair was one of the important customers who entrusted
Fouque with the purveying of their firewood. The good tradesmen managed
to reach the all powerful grand vicar. M. de Frilair informed him,
to his unspeakable delight, that he was so touched by Julien's good
qualities, and by the services which he had formerly rendered to the
seminary, that he intended to recommend him to the judges. Fouque
thought he saw a hope of saving his friend, and as he went out, bowing
down to the ground, requested M. the grand vicar, to distribute a sum
of ten louis in masses to entreat the acquittal of the accused.

Fouque was making a strange mistake. M. de Frilair was very far from
being a Valenod. He refused, and even tried to make the good peasant
understand that he would do better to keep his money. Seeing that it
was impossible to be clear without being indiscreet, he advised him to
give that sum as alms for the use of the poor prisoners, who, in point
of fact, were destitute of everything.

"This Julien is a singular person, his action is unintelligible,"
thought M. de Frilair, "and I ought to find nothing unintelligible.
Perhaps it will be possible to make a martyr of him.... In any case,
I shall get to the bottom of the matter, and shall perhaps find an
opportunity of putting fear into the heart of that madame de Renal
who has no respect for us, and at the bottom detests me.... Perhaps
I might be able to utilise all this as a means of a brilliant
reconciliation with M. de la Mole, who has a weakness for the little
seminarist."

The settlement of the lawsuit had been signed some weeks previously,
and the abbe Pirard had left Besancon after having duly mentioned
Julien's mysterious birth, on the very day when the unhappy man tried
to assassinate madame de Renal in the church of Verrieres.

There was only one disagreeable event between himself and his death
which Julien anticipated. He consulted Fouque concerning his idea
of writing to M. the Procureur-General asking to be exempt from all
visits. This horror at the sight of a father, above all at a moment
like this, deeply shocked the honest middle-class heart of the wood
merchant.

He thought he understood why so many people had a passionate hatred for
his friend. He concealed his feelings out of respect for misfortune.

"In any case," he answered coldly, "such an order for privacy would not
be applied to your father."

CHAPTER LXVIII

A POWERFUL MAN

        But her proceedings are so mysterious and her figure is
        so elegant! Who can she be?--_Schiller_.

The doors of the turret opened very early on the following day.

"Oh! good God," he thought, "here's my father! What an unpleasant
scene!"

At the same time a woman dressed like a peasant rushed into his arms.
He had difficulty in recognising her. It was mademoiselle de la Mole.

"You wicked man! Your letter only told me where you were. As for what
you call your crime, but which is really nothing more or less than a
noble vengeance, which shews me all the loftiness of the heart which
beats within your bosom, I only got to know of it at Verrieres."

In spite of all his prejudices against mademoiselle de la Mole,
prejudices moreover which he had not owned to himself quite frankly,
Julien found her extremely pretty. It was impossible not to recognise
both in what she had done and what she had said, a noble disinterested
feeling far above the level of anything that a petty vulgar soul would
have dared to do? He thought that he still loved a queen, and after a
few moments said to her with a remarkable nobility both of thought and
of elocution,

"I sketched out the future very clearly. After my death I intended to
remarry you to M. de Croisenois, who will officially of course then
marry a widow. The noble but slightly romantic soul of this charming
widow, who will have been brought back to the cult of vulgar prudence
by an astonishing and singular event which played in her life a part
as great as it was tragic, will deign to appreciate the very real
merit of the young marquis. You will resign yourself to be happy with
ordinary worldly happiness, prestige, riches, high rank. But, dear
Mathilde, if your arrival at Besancon is suspected, it will be a mortal
blow for M. de la Mole, and that is what I shall never forgive myself.
I have already caused him so much sorrow. The academician will say that
he has nursed a serpent in his bosom.

"I must confess that I little expected so much cold reason and so much
solicitude for the future," said mademoiselle de la Mole, slightly
annoyed. "My maid who is almost as prudent as you are, took a passport
for herself, and I posted here under the name of madam Michelet."

"And did madame Michelet find it so easy to get to see me?"

"Ah! you are still the same superior man whom I chose to favour. I
started by offering a hundred francs to one of the judge's secretaries,
who alleged at first that my admission into this turret was impossible.
But once he had got the money the worthy man kept me waiting, raised
objections, and I thought that he meant to rob me--" She stopped.

"Well?" said Julien.

"Do not be angry, my little Julien," she said, kissing him. "I was
obliged to tell my name to the secretary, who took me for a young
working girl from Paris in love with handsome Julien. As a matter of
fact those are his actual expressions. I swore to him, my dear, that I
was your wife, and I shall have a permit to see you every day."

"Nothing could be madder," thought Julien, "but I could not help it.
After all, M. de la Mole is so great a nobleman that public opinion
will manage to find an excuse for the young colonel who will marry
such a charming widow. My death will atone for everything;" and he
abandoned himself with delight to Mathilde's love. It was madness, it
was greatness of soul, it was the most remarkable thing possible. She
seriously suggested that she should kill herself with him.

After these first transports, when she had had her fill of the
happiness of seeing Julien, a keen curiosity suddenly invaded her soul.
She began to scrutinize her lover, and found him considerably above
the plane which she had anticipated. Boniface de La Mole seemed to be
brought to life again, but on a more heroic scale.

Mathilde saw the first advocates of the locality, and offended them by
offering gold too crudely, but they finished by accepting.

She promptly came to the conclusion that so far as dubious and far
reaching intrigues were concerned, everything depended at Besancon on
M. the abbe de Frilair.

She found at first overwhelming difficulties in obtaining an interview
with the all-powerful leader of the congregation under the obscure name
of madame Michelet. But the rumour of the beauty of a young dressmaker,
who was madly in love, and had come from Paris to Besancon to console
the young abbe Julien Sorel, spread over the town.

Mathilde walked about the Besancon streets alone: she hoped not to be
recognised. In any case, she thought it would be of some use to her
cause if she produced a great impression on the people. She thought, in
her madness, of making them rebel in order to save Julien as he walked
to his death. Mademoiselle de la Mole thought she was dressed simply
and in a way suitable to a woman in mourning, she was dressed in fact
in such a way as to attract every one's attention.

She was the object of everyone's notice at Besancon when she obtained
an audience of M. de Frilair after a week spent in soliciting it.

In spite of all her courage, the idea of an influential leader of the
congregation, and the idea of deep and calculating criminality, were so
associated with each other in her mind, that she trembled as she rang
the bell at the door of the bishop's palace. She could scarcely walk
when she had to go up the staircase, which led to the apartment of the
first grand Vicar. The solitude of the episcopal palace chilled her. "I
might sit down in an armchair, and the armchair might grip my arms: I
should then disappear. Whom could my maid ask for? The captain of the
gendarmerie will take care to do nothing. I am isolated in this great
town."

After her first look at the apartment, mademoiselle de la Mole felt
reassured. In the first place, the lackey who had opened the door to
her had on a very elegant livery. The salon in which she was asked to
wait displayed that refined and delicate luxury which differs so much
from crude magnificence, and which is only found in the best houses in
Paris. As soon as she noticed M. de Frilair coming towards her with
quite a paternal air, all her ideas of his criminality disappeared. She
did not even find on his handsome face the impress of that drastic and
somewhat savage courage which is so anti-pathetic to Paris society.
The half-smile which animated the features of the priest, who was
all-powerful at Besancon, betokened the well-bred man, the learned
prelate, the clever administrator. Mathilde felt herself at Paris.

It was the work of a few minutes for M. de Frilair to induce Mathilde
to confess to him that she was the daughter of his powerful opponent,
the marquis de la Mole.

"As a matter of fact, I am not Madame Michelet," she said, reassuming
all the haughtiness of her natural demeanour, "and this confession
costs me but little since I have come to consult you, monsieur, on the
possibility of procuring the escape of M. de la Vernaye. Moreover, he
is only guilty of a piece of folly; the woman whom he shot at is well;
and, in the second place, I can put down fifty-thousand francs straight
away for the purpose of bribing the officials, and pledge myself for
twice that sum. Finally, my gratitude and the gratitude of my family
will be ready to do absolutely anything for the man who has saved M. de
la Vernaye."

M. de Frilair seemed astonished at the name. Mathilde shewed him
several letters from the Minister of War, addressed to M. Julien Sorel
de la Vernaye.

"You see, monsieur, that my father took upon himself the responsibility
of his career. I married him secretly, my father was desirous that he
should be a superior officer before the notification of this marriage,
which, after all, is somewhat singular for a de la Mole."

Mathilde noticed that M. de Frilair's expression of goodwill and mild
cheerfulness was rapidly vanishing in proportion as he made certain
important discoveries. His face exhibited a subtlety tinged with deep
perfidiousness, the abbe had doubts, he was slowly re-reading the
official documents.

"What can I get out of these strange confidences?" he said to himself.
"Here I am suddenly thrown into intimate relations with a friend of
the celebrated marechale de Fervaques, who is the all-powerful niece
of my lord, bishop of ---- who can make one a bishop of France. What
I looked upon as an extremely distant possibility presents itself
unexpectedly. This may lead me to the goal of all my hopes."

Mathilde was at first alarmed by the sudden change in the expression
of this powerful man, with whom she was alone in a secluded room. "But
come," she said to herself soon afterwards. "Would it not have been
more unfortunate if I had made no impression at all on the cold egoism
of a priest who was already sated with power and enjoyment?"

Dazzled at the sight of this rapid and unexpected path of reaching the
episcopate which now disclosed itself to him, and astonished as he was
by Mathilde's genius, M. de Frilair ceased for a moment to be on his
guard. Mademoiselle de la Mole saw him almost at her feet, tingling
with ambition, and trembling nervously.

"Everything is cleared up," she thought. "Madame de Fervaques' friend
will find nothing impossible in this town." In spite of a sentiment
of still painful jealousy she had sufficient courage to explain that
Julien was the intimate friend of the marechale, and met my lord the
bishop of ---- nearly every day.

"If you were to draw by ballot four or five times in succession a
list of thirty-six jurymen from out the principal inhabitants of this
department," said the grand Vicar, emphasizing his words, and with a
hard, ambitious expression in his eyes, "I should not feel inclined to
congratulate myself, if I could not reckon on eight or ten friends who
would be the most intelligent of the lot in each list. I can always
manage in nearly every case to get more than a sufficient majority to
secure a condemnation, so you see, mademoiselle, how easy it is for me
to secure a conviction." The abbe stopped short as though astonished
by the sound of his own words; he was admitting things which are never
said to the profane. But he in his turn dumbfounded Mathilde when he
informed her that the special feature in Julien's strange adventure
which astonished and interested Besancon society, was that he had
formerly inspired Madame de Renal with a grand passion and reciprocated
it for a long time. M. de Frilair had no difficulty in perceiving the
extreme trouble which his story produced.

"I have my revenge," he thought. "After all it's a way of managing
this decided young person. I was afraid that I should not succeed." Her
distinguished and intractable appearance intensified in his eyes the
charm of the rare beauty whom he now saw practically entreating him. He
regained all his self-possession--and he did not hesitate to move the
dagger about in her heart.

"I should not be at all surprised," he said to her lightly, "if we
were to learn that it was owing to jealousy that M. Sorel fired two
pistol shots at the woman he once loved so much. Of course she must
have consoled herself and for some time she has been seeing extremely
frequently a certain abbe Marquinot of Dijon, a kind of Jansenist, and
as immoral as all Jansenists are."

M. de Frilair experienced the voluptuous pleasure of torturing at
his leisure the heart of this beautiful girl whose weakness he had
surprised.

"Why," he added, as he fixed his ardent eyes upon Mathilde, "should
M. Sorel have chosen the church, if it were not for the reason that
his rival was celebrating mass in it at that very moment? Everyone
attributes an infinite amount of intelligence and an even greater
amount of prudence to the fortunate man who is the object of your
interest. What would have been simpler than to hide himself in the
garden of M. de Renal which he knows so well. Once there he could put
the woman of whom he was jealous to death with the practical certainty
of being neither seen, caught, nor suspected."

This apparently sound train of reasoning eventually made Mathilde
loose all self-possession. Her haughty soul steeped in all that arid
prudence, which passes in high society for the true psychology of the
human heart, was not of the type to be at all quick in appreciating
that joy of scorning all prudence, which an ardent soul can find so
keen. In the high classes of Paris society in which Mathilde had lived,
it is only rarely that passion can divest itself of prudence, and
people always make a point of throwing themselves out of windows from
the fifth storey.

At last the abbe de Frilair was sure of his power over her. He gave
Mathilde to understand (and he was doubtless lying) that he could do
what he liked with the public official who was entrusted with the
conduct of Julien's prosecution. After the thirty-six jurymen for the
sessions had been chosen by ballot, he would approach at least thirty
jurymen directly and personally.

If M. de Frilair had not thought Mathilde so pretty, he would not have
spoken so clearly before the fifth or sixth interview.

CHAPTER LXIX

THE INTRIGUE

        Castres 1676--A brother has just murdered his sister
        in the house next to mine. This gentleman had already
        been guilty of one murder. His father saved his life by
        causing five-hundred crowns to be distributed among the
        councillors.--_Locke: Journey in France_.

When she left the bishop's palace, Mathilde did not hesitate to
despatch a courier to madame de Fervaques. The fear of compromising
herself did not stop her for a moment. She entreated her rival to
obtain for M. de Frilair an autograph letter from the bishop of ----.
She went as far as to entreat her to come herself to Besancon with all
speed. This was an heroic act on the part of a proud and jealous soul.

Acting on Fouque's advice, she had had the discretion to refrain from
mentioning the steps she had taken for Julien. Her presence troubled
him enough without that. A better man when face to face with death than
he had ever been during his life, he had remorse not only towards M. de
la Mole, but also towards Mathilde.

"Come," he said to himself, "there are times when I feel absent-minded
and even bored by her society. She is ruining herself on my account,
and this is how I reward her. Am I really a scoundrel?" This question
would have bothered him but little in the days when he was ambitious.
In those days he looked upon failure as the only disgrace.

His moral discomfort when with Mathilde was proportionately emphasized
by the fact that he inspired her at this time with the maddest and most
extraordinary passion. She talked of nothing but the strange sacrifices
that she was ready to make in order to save him.

Exalted as she was by a sentiment on which she plumed herself, to the
complete subordination of her pride, she would have liked not to have
let a single minute of her life go by without filling it with some
extraordinary act. The strangest projects, and ones involving her in
the utmost danger, supplied the topics of her long interviews with
Julien. The well-paid gaolers allowed her to reign over the prison.
Mathilde's ideas were not limited by the sacrifice of her reputation.
She would have thought nothing of making her condition known to society
at large. Throwing herself on her knees before the king's carriage
as it galloped along, in order to ask for Julien's pardon, and thus
attracting the attention of the prince, at the risk of being crushed
a thousand times over, was one of the least fantastic dreams in which
this exalted and courageous imagination chose to indulge. She was
certain of being admitted into the reserved portion of the park of St.
Cloud, through those friends of hers who were employed at the king's
court.

Julien thought himself somewhat unworthy of so much devotion. As a
matter of fact, he was tired of heroism. A simple, naive, and almost
timid tenderness was what would have appealed to him, while Mathilde's
haughty soul, on the other hand, always required the idea of a public
and an audience.

In the midst of all her anguish and all her fears for the life of
that lover whom she was unwilling to survive, she felt a secret need
of astonishing the public by the extravagance of her love and the
sublimity of her actions.

Julien felt irritated at not finding himself touched by all this
heroism. What would he have felt if he had known of all the mad ideas
with which Mathilde overwhelmed the devoted but eminently logical and
limited spirit of the good Fouque?

He did not know what to find fault with in Mathilde's devotion. For
he, too, would have sacrificed all his fortune, and have exposed his
life to the greatest risks in order to save Julien. He was dumbfounded
by the quantity of gold which Mathilde flung away. During the first
days Fouque, who had all the provincial's respect for money, was much
impressed by the sums she spent in this way.

He at last discovered that mademoiselle de la Mole's projects
frequently varied, and he was greatly relieved at finding a word with
which to express his blame for a character whom he found so exhausting.
She was changeable. There is only a step from this epithet to that of
wrong-headed, the greatest term of opprobrium known to the provinces.

"It is singular," said Julien to himself, as Mathilde was going out
of his prison one day, "that I should be so insensible at being the
object of so keen a passion! And two months ago I adored her! I have,
of course, read that the approach of death makes one lose interest
in everything, but it is awful to feel oneself ungrateful, and not
to be able to change. Am I an egoist, then?" He addressed the most
humiliating reproaches to himself on this score.

Ambition was dead in his heart; another passion had arisen from its
ashes. He called it remorse at having assassinated madame de Renal.

As a matter of fact, he loved her to the point of distraction. He
experienced a singular happiness on these occasions when, being left
absolutely alone, and without being afraid of being interrupted, he
could surrender himself completely to the memory of the happy days
which he had once passed at Verrieres, or at Vergy. The slightest
incidents of these days, which had fleeted away only too rapidly,
possessed an irresistible freshness and charm. He never gave a thought
to his Paris successes; they bored him.

These moods, which became intensified with every succeeding day, were
partly guessed by the jealous Mathilde. She realised very clearly that
she had to struggle against his love of solitude. Sometimes, with
terror in her heart, she uttered madame de Renal's name.

She saw Julien quiver. Henceforth her passion had neither bounds nor
limit.

"If he dies, I will die after him," she said to herself in all good
faith. "What will the Paris salons say when they see a girl of my own
rank carry her adoration for a lover who is condemned to death to such
a pitch as this? For sentiments like these you must go back to the age
of the heroes. It was loves of this kind which thrilled the hearts of
the century of Charles IX. and Henri III."

In the midst of her keenest transports, when she was clasping Julien's
head against her heart, she would say to herself with horror, "What!
is this charming head doomed to fall? Well," she added, inflamed by
a not unhappy heroism, "these lips of mine, which are now pressing
against this pretty hair, will be icy cold less than twenty-four hours
afterwards."

Thoughts of the awful voluptuousness of such heroic moments gripped
her in a compelling embrace. The idea of suicide, absorbing enough
in itself, entered that haughty soul (to which, up to the present it
had been so utterly alien), and soon reigned over it with an absolute
dominion.

"No, the blood of my ancestors has not grown tepid in descending to
me," said Mathilde proudly to herself.

"I have a favour to ask of you," said her lover to her one day. "Put
your child out to nurse at Verrieres. Madame de Renal will look after
the nurse."

"Those words of yours are very harsh." And Mathilde paled.

"It is true, and I ask your pardon a thousand times," exclaimed Julien,
emerging from his reverie, and clasping her in his arms.

After having dried his tears, he reverted to his original idea, but
with greater tact. He had given a twist of melancholy philosophy to the
conversation. He talked of that future of his which was so soon going
to close. "One must admit, dear one, that passions are an accident in
life, but such accidents only occur in superior souls.... My son's
death would be in reality a happiness for your own proud family, and
all the servants will realize as much. Neglect will be the lot of that
child of shame and unhappiness. I hope that, at a time which I do not
wish to fix, but which nevertheless I am courageous enough to imagine,
you will obey my last advice: you will marry the marquis de Croisenois."

"What? Dishonoured?"

"Dishonour cannot attach to a name such as yours. You will be a widow,
and the widow of a madman--that is all. I will go further--my crime
will confer no dishonour, since it had no money motive. Perhaps when
the time comes for your marriage, some philosophic legislator will have
so far prevailed on the prejudice of his contemporaries as to have
secured the suppression of the death penalty. Then some friendly voice
will say, by way of giving an instance: 'Why, madame de la Mole's first
husband was a madman, but not a wicked man or a criminal. It was absurd
to have his head cut off.' So my memory will not be infamous in any
way--at least, after a certain time.... Your position in society, your
fortune, and, if you will allow me to say so, your genius, will make M.
de Croisenois, once he is your husband, play a part which he would have
never managed to secure unaided. He only possesses birth and bravery,
and those qualities alone, though they constituted an accomplished man
in 1729, are an anachronism a century later on, and only give rise to
unwarranted pretensions. You need other things if you are to place
yourself at the head of the youth of France."

"You will take all the help of your firm and enterprising character
to the political party which you will make your husband join. You may
be able to be a successor to the Chevreuses and the Longuevilles of
the Fronde--but then, dear one, the divine fire which animates you
at present will have grown a little tepid. Allow me to tell you," he
added, "after many other preparatory phrases, that in fifteen years'
time you will look upon the love you once had for me as a madness,
which though excusable, was a piece of madness all the same."

He stopped suddenly and became meditative. He found himself again
confronted with the idea which shocked Mathilde so much: "In fifteen
years, madame de Renal will adore my son and you will have forgotten
him."

Julien is imprisoned in Verrieres, unaware that Mme. de Renal has miraculously escaped death and that the kind treatment he receives in prison is due to her intervention. He writes his farewell to Mathilde, requesting that she never attempt to see him again. Julien is overjoyed to learn that Mme. de Renal is not dead. He has confessed numerous times to the public prosecutor who visits him, and he hopes, by this means, to simplify the procedure and to be left alone. He is moved to another prison in a gothic tower in Besancon. He begins to relive his past with Mme. de Renal and finds that there was happiness. He contemplates suicide, then rejects the idea. Julien receives the visits of Chelan and Fouque. Chelan disheartens him, weakening his courage. Fouque cheers him. The interrogations continue in spite of Julien's frank avowal of guilt. Fouque attempts to intervene by means of a visit to Frilair. The latter is increasingly intrigued by the mystery of the Sorel affair, and he will attempt to benefit from it. Julien hopes not to have to endure a visit from his father, and Fouque is horrified at this lack of filial love. Mathilde visits Julien disguised as Madame Michelet. She has made overtures everywhere to gain Julien's release. Of these attempts she tells him nothing. Julien finds her extremely attractive, and, out of respect and admiration, he abandons himself with ecstasy to her love. Mathilde has visited Frilair, leader of the Besancon Congregation, erstwhile enemy of her father. She discloses to Frilair enough information to arrive at a sort of bargain: She will exercise her influence in Paris to Frilair's advantage in exchange for Frilair's assurance that he will work for the acquittal of Julien. Mathilde has requested that Mme. de Fervaques use her influence with a bishop to negotiate with Frilair. Mathilde has bribed the guards to gain constant access to Julien. The latter reproaches himself for not appreciating Mathilde's superhuman efforts to save him or her passionate ecstasies. He proposes that she turn over their child to Mme. de Renal. Mathilde, offended at this suggestion, finds that she is increasingly obliged to fight against Julien's growing inclination for solitude and against an awakening of affection for Mme. de Renal. He returns to the subject of his child's future but approaches it more diplomatically.

From this point on, Julien's life will be lived in the jail cell. Although his physical life will be severely limited, his mental and psychological life will be very active, and he will ultimately know the happiness he has sought, once the voice of ambition stills itself, out of necessity. Julien will arrive at a sort of self-knowledge. Here begin to unfurl the various preoccupations of Julien that will be fully developed in later chapters: his decreasing interest in Mathilde and the ever-increasing thought of Mme. de Renal; his meditations on death, courage, and happiness. Let us analyze one of Julien's states of mind. Finally emerging from his hypnotic state, Julien's first comment is that it is over; there is only death awaiting him, either by the guillotine or by suicide. Then he falls asleep. It is as if he realizes the necessity of steeling himself, of adopting an attitude, in order to avoid falling into the anguish of fear. His defiant confession to the judge is simply a refusal to submit to the humiliation of being judged, reserving this right for himself. Next he feels the tiresome duty of reporting to Mathilde, to inform her of his act of vengeance, to request that she forget him. It is not only an accounting to his partner in heroism to prove that he is worthy, but also the expression of an unconscious wish to be rid of her. Then comes the first awesome realization of the death that awaits him. At the hint of the appearance of fear, Julien rallies his courage and rejects the idea of remorse by rationalization: He has been wronged; he has wronged; he must be punished. He rounds out this reasoning by scorning society, which might see some glory in his execution only if he were to scatter gold among the people on his way to the scaffold. Stendhal's presentation of Julien as the victim of society, condemned not for the crime of attempted murder but for not accepting his place in that society, no doubt inspired Camus in his portrayal of Meursault in L'Etranger. Meursault killed an Arab, but he is found guilty because he did not weep at his mother's funeral. Meursault's acceptance of the verdict echoes many of Julien's thoughts of these final chapters. Julien's carefully constructed mask is completely destroyed when he learns that Mme. de Renal is not dead at all. At this news, Julien is reduced instantaneously to a simple, defenseless child in tears, and he sees the will of God in his act. Only now does Julien permit himself to feel repentance for his crime, and it is his own renewed love for Mme. de Renal that prompts his joyous cry that she will live, then, to love him still. Momentarily, he thinks now of escape but dismisses the idea since it would depend upon bribing the ignoble jailor. Julien's prison tower cell affords him a beautiful view. It is another of the symbols of the elevated isolation of the superior soul. Stendhal puts Fabrice in a similar situation in The Charterhouse. Moreover, Fabrice comes to prefer the prison to freedom since he has fallen in love with the jailor's daughter. It will be only in such solitude, safely shut off from the world, that Julien will find happiness. Note that in Stendhal's view, the hero is less excluded from society by his imprisonment than is society denied access to the hero. Julien resigns himself again, however, to the justice of the death penalty. Life is not boring for him since he begins to see it from a new slant. Julien is amazed at what is happening to him inwardly. Stendhal's heroes watch themselves, discover themselves. There is nothing predetermined about them in the sense that characters are often "flat" and never surprise us. Balzac tends to create flat characters; Stendhal's are round, using the terminology of E. M. Forster . It is this aspect of Stendhal's character portrayal that has found much favor with contemporary existentialistic critics. The Stendhalian hero is forced to be free, is condemned to the eternal state of becoming. He discovers himself daily in order to remake himself. What are these perceptions of his glorious future in prison? Julien's rediscovery of the happiness he had with Mme. de Renal and of the fact that he still loves her. Stendhal's analysis of Julien operates by the associational method: Remorse makes Julien think of Mme. de Renal and of his past happiness; at other times, thinking that he might have killed her, Julien swears that, in that event, he would have committed suicide; suicide, an imagined consequence of that past possibility, then looms as a possibility in the present. Still measuring himself against Napoleon, Julien rejects suicide since Napoleon went on living. The end of Chapter 36 finds Julien temporarily happy with his present surroundings. Julien's imprisonment will be punctuated by intermittent visitors. Even here he cannot escape the outside world. Note the contrasting effects that his visitors have on him: The aged Chelan presents to Julien only the images of death and decay in spite of his reasoning that his own death in the prime of life ought to dispel such a vision; the antidote is the vision of the sublime afforded by the simplicity, sincerity, and artless friendship of Fouque. Part of Stendhal's uniqueness for his age as a psychological novelist is obscured to us by the developments in the novel posterior to Stendhal, and to which we are very much accustomed. Stendhal was one of the first novelists to portray how the individual is altered by the influence exerted upon him from surrounding reality. In this respect, he antedates naturalism. Such alternations have, in fact, been carefully noted throughout the novel be Stendhal, but they are particularly noticeable during the episode relating Julien's imprisonment. Here, any intrusion on Julien's isolation produces dramatic reactions in his soul. Julien hits upon the idea of the thermometer to measure his courage, and this gives rise to his resolution to be courageous when it will be required of him. We have already witnessed Julien's tendency to bolster his courage in the present by assuring himself of his future self-control. Although he is safely imprisoned, Julien is still the victim of society and of its intrigues. This theme is taken up again by Stendhal and will be amplified in what follows. Julien plays almost no role in Chapter 38. More hints are given that he is losing interest in Mathilde. The time has come for Mathilde to play out in reality her ideal dream of heroic self-sacrifice for her own version of Boniface de La Mole. The Julien-Mathilde continues to be Cornelian: Julien now really merits her love since Mathilde may assume that what prompted his crime was love for her. This incarnation in Julien of her ideal plus his increasing indifference toward her will intensify Mathilde's love. She seems, in fact, to love Julien desperately even though Stendhal will tell us that this love needs the third party to witness it. That is, Mathilde's heroic efforts to save Julien at the risk of loss of her own reputation are partially inspired by her need to impress the world, to be admired by others. She aspires to see herself loving Julien as others would see her. Hers is still an intellectual love. Mathilde's visit to Frilair is reminiscent of Julien's entrance into the seminary. Both must screw up their courage as they approach the lion in his den. The confrontation between Mathilde and Frilair might be considered a battle in ruse in which Mathilde will not have the upper hand. Nevertheless, Frilair and Mathilde are fairly evenly matched as adversaries, and, in the end, both will be duped. The action in Chapter 39 takes place wholly in Julien's cell. At first there is not one specific incident narrated; rather, several visits, all similar, are fused to comprise a typical one in which the attitude of Mathilde and Julien are contrasted. The final conversation closing the short chapter becomes the result of what precedes and stands for one specific visit. Here is represented one of Stendhal's typical methods of narration. Julien is tired of heroism. He is more virtuous now than at any time in his life since ambition no longer goads him. Therefore, he reproaches himself for what he has done to the marquis and Mathilde de la Mole. It is here that Stendhal advises us that Julien, unwittingly, is hopelessly in love with Mme. de Renal. Julien's awareness of this fact is dim, expressing itself only in his desire to give his offspring to Mme. de Renal. Rebuffed by Mathilde, Julien artfully returns to the same subject, expressed in terms that would appeal to Mathilde's turn of mind. Note that Stendhal does not comment on Julien's stratagem. His conduct toward Mathilde is reminiscent of that which he adopted in his "seduction" of Mme. de Fervaques. This is the first manifestation of Julien's new attitude toward Mathilde. He relies on duplicity to convince her. Later, as he becomes increasingly irked by her presence, he will punish her somewhat sadistically. Note, in Julien's presentation, Stendhal's own preoccupation with the future. Stendhal was convinced that his real public would be that of the twentieth century. The appearance of the idea of abolishment of capital punishment, a contemporary issue, would bear out Stendhal's conviction that he was writing for the future.