feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Red and the Black/section_8_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 35-41
feat_summary_id: book 2, chapters 35-41
feat_summary: {"name": "", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210301223854/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/redblack/section9/", "summary": "Julien feels like he has won the battle but not the war. He quickly impresses the other soldiers with his skill and professionalism. He is more ambitious than ever, hoping to become commander-in- chief of the French army by the time he is thirty. Julien also begins planning for the future of his child, who he is sure will be a boy. But all of his dreams are shattered when the Marquis de la Mole receives a letter from Mme. de Renal, denouncing Julien as a womanizer ambitious to make his fortune by seducing rich aristocrats. The Marquis withdraws all of his support for Julien, condemns his proposed marriage to Mathilde and asks Julien to move to America. Julien is stunned and, without a second thought, races back home to Verrieres where he finds Mme. de Renal kneeling in prayer at Church. Shaking violently, he shoots her from behind. Julien is immediately arrested and taken to Besancon to await trial. There he writes to Mathilde, ordering her to forget about him and to marry one of her many suitors. The idea of death no longer frightens Julien and he demands to be executed. However, Mme. de Renal was only slightly wounded from the one bullet that struck her and makes a quick recovery. Julien is overjoyed that she is not dead and for the first time in his life begins to believe in God. Mathilde and Fouque soon arrive to help him escape but Julien refuses, deciding that he wants to die. Mathilde goes to great lengths in her efforts to save Julien, hiring lawyers and attempting to bribe the priests in charge of Julien's court case. Despite her devotion to him, Julien soon loses interest in Mathilde and begins to think of Mme. de Renal instead. He decides that he only knew true happiness with Mme. de Renal, not Mathilde. Mme. de Renal decides not to appear at Julien's trial and writes a letter to the jury demanding his acquittal. She is still in love with Julien and feels so guilty that she secretly wishes he had killed her. Despite Julien's plea for death, Mathilde thinks that she has bribed the right people to assure Julien's innocence. However, M. Valenod is the foreman of the jury and is still jealous of Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal. He and one of Julien's enemies from the seminary pronounce Julien guilty and vote for his execution. Julien contemplates suicide until Mme. de Renal visits him in jail. They both still love each other, and vow not to commit suicide. Mme. de Renal confesses that she was forced by her confessor to write the letter to the Marquis, and Julien forgives her. When he is left alone, Julien finally begins to understand himself. He renounces hypocrisy as the malaise of his century and finds solace in his love for Mme. de Renal. He wishes that he had not been so ambitious and could have just concentrated on loving her. Julien rejects all final offers of clemency and is guillotined. With a bitter sense of historical irony, Mathilde buries his severed head herself, while Mme. de Renal dies of despair three days later.", "analysis": "Commentary Stendhal finishes the novel with a bitter denunciation of the political corruption of the clergy. He continues to acknowledge the existence of good men like M. Chelan and M. Pirard, but he portrays the majority of the clergy as conniving politicians. A jealous priest forces Mme. de Renal to write her letter to the Marquis. She later admits to Julien that the priest actually wrote it himself. During Julien's trial, Mathilde bribes a large number of priests who claim they can secure an acquittal. One priest even tries to blackmail Mathilde into making him a bishop in return for his help. As he nears death, Julien refuses to find truth in a religion where priests are more concerned with politics and their salaries than in helping the poor. Both Julien and Mathilde's reliance on French history to dictate their own destinies comes back to haunt them in this final section. Julien's admiration for Napoleonic honor and glory encourage him to both shoot Mme. de Renal and to later refuse clemency. He falsely believes that, like Napoleon, his glory and reputation will grow with his death. He wants to be a martyr. Mathilde's obsession with her decapitated ancestor, Boniface de la Mole, comes to life as well. As Julien goes off to kill Mme. de Renal, Mathilde notes how \"Boniface de la Mole seemed reborn in him.\" When Julien is finally guillotined, she does not hesitate to kiss his severed head and bury it herself, just as Queen Margot did 250 years earlier. In this historical context, Julien's fate seems sealed from the moment Mathilde falls in love with him. Her idea of romance is inextricably linked to the decapitation of her lover. Julien simply reenacts a role subconsciously prescribed to him by Mathilde. Stendhal thus uses Julien's unoriginal death to further criticize the predictable and boring nineteenth century. It is only in this last section that the reader begins to understand and admire Julien Sorel. He readily admits that Mme. de Renal represents a maternal figure for him. Since there is never any mention of Julien's biological mother, his tie with Mme. de Renal seems much stronger. As his love for Mathilde grows cold, one can only suspect that Julien has not been able to forget the class difference that separates them. His rejection of French society must also be a rejection of Mathilde. But as a surrogate mother, Mme. de Renal represents everything Julien ever really wanted in life: unconditional love. As he approaches death, Julien gains a sudden insight into who he really is. He realizes that he has always defined himself in terms of politics and society as a whole, never on his own terms. He always saw himself as a possible something-else, and not as Julien Sorel. This emphasis on individualism, one of Stendhal's classic themes, is finally resolved when Julien refuses to see himself through the lens of French society and French history. He is no Napoleon, he is no Boniface, and he is no de la Vernaye. Unlike the charlatans around him, Julien discovers that he has \"nobility in my heart.\" At his trial, he thus admonishes the lack of originality and creativity that plagues the nineteenth century. Having wanted to make his fortune all his life, Julien finally sees that it is successful bourgeois men like M. Valenod that are the most dangerous men in France. Stendhal sadly notes that not only are conservatives impeding the progress of French society, but liberals are making hypocrisy the national pastime."}
text: CHAPTER LXV
  
  A STORM
  
  
          My God, give me mediocrity.--_Mirabeau_.
  
  
  His mind was engrossed; he only half answered the eager tenderness that
  she showed to him. He remained gloomy and taciturn. He had never seemed
  so great and so adorable in Mathilde's eyes. She was apprehensive of
  some subtle twist of his pride which would spoil the whole situation.
  
  She saw the abbe Pirard come to the hotel nearly every morning. Might
  not Julien have divined something of her father's intentions through
  him? Might not the marquis himself have written to him in a momentary
  caprice. What was the explanation of Julien's stern manner following on
  so great a happiness? She did not dare to question.
  
  She did not _dare_--she--Mathilde! From that moment her feelings for
  Julien contained a certain vague and unexpected element which was
  almost panic. This arid soul experienced all the passion possible in
  an individual who has been brought up amid that excessive civilisation
  which Paris so much admires.
  
  Early on the following day Julien was at the house of the abbe Pirard.
  Some post-horses were arriving in the courtyard with a dilapidated
  chaise which had been hired at a neighbouring station.
  
  "A vehicle like that is out of fashion," said the stern abbe to him
  morosely. "Here are twenty thousand francs which M. de la Mole makes
  you a gift of. He insists on your spending them within a year, but
  at the same time wants you to try to look as little ridiculous as
  possible." (The priest regarded flinging away so substantial a sum on a
  young man as simply an opportunity for sin).
  
  "The marquis adds this: 'M. Julien de la Vernaye will have received
  this money from his father, whom it is needless to call by any other
  name. M. de la Vernaye will perhaps think it proper to give a present
  to M. Sorel, a carpenter of Verrieres, who cared for him in his
  childhood....' I can undertake that commission," added the abbe. "I
  have at last prevailed upon M. de la Mole to come to a settlement with
  that Jesuit, the abbe de Frilair. His influence is unquestionably too
  much for us. The complete recognition of your high birth on the part
  of this man, who is in fact the governor of B---- will be one of the
  unwritten terms of the arrangement." Julien could no longer control his
  ecstasy. He embraced the abbe. He saw himself recognised.
  
  "For shame," said M. Pirard, pushing him away. "What is the meaning of
  this worldly vanity? As for Sorel and his sons, I will offer them in my
  own name a yearly allowance of five hundred francs, which will be paid
  to each of them as long as I am satisfied with them."
  
  Julien was already cold and haughty. He expressed his thanks, but in
  the vaguest terms which bound him to nothing. "Could it be possible,"
  he said to himself, "that I am the natural son of some great nobleman
  who was exiled to our mountains by the terrible Napoleon?" This idea
  seemed less and less improbable every minute.... "My hatred of my
  father would be a proof of this.... In that case, I should not be an
  unnatural monster after all."
  
  A few days after this soliloquy the Fifteenth Regiment of Hussars,
  which was one of the most brilliant in the army, was being reviewed on
  the parade ground of Strasbourg. M. the chevalier de La Vernaye sat
  the finest horse in Alsace, which had cost him six thousand francs. He
  was received as a lieutenant, though he had never been sub-lieutenant
  except on the rolls of a regiment of which he had never heard.
  
  His impassive manner, his stern and almost malicious eyes, his pallor,
  and his invariable self-possession, founded his reputation from
  the very first day. Shortly afterwards his perfect and calculated
  politeness, and his skill at shooting and fencing, of which, though
  without any undue ostentation, he made his comrades aware, did away
  with all idea of making fun of him openly. After hesitating for five
  or six days, the public opinion of the regiment declared itself in his
  favour.
  
  "This young man has everything," said the facetious old officers,
  "except youth."
  
  Julien wrote from Strasbourg to the old cure of Verrieres, M. Chelan,
  who was now verging on extreme old age.
  
  "You will have learnt, with a joy of which I have no doubt, of the
  events which have induced my family to enrich me. Here are five hundred
  francs which I request you to distribute quietly, and without any
  mention of my name, among those unfortunate ones who are now poor as I
  myself was once, and whom you will doubtless help as you once helped
  me."
  
  Julien was intoxicated with ambition, and not with vanity. He
  nevertheless devoted a great part of his time to attending to his
  external appearance. His horses, his uniform, his orderlies' liveries,
  were all kept with a correctness which would have done credit to the
  punctiliousness of a great English nobleman. He had scarcely been made
  a lieutenant as a matter of favour (and that only two days ago) than
  he began to calculate that if he was to become commander-in-chief
  at thirty, like all the great generals, then he must be more than a
  lieutenant at twenty-three at the latest. He thought about nothing
  except fame and his son.
  
  It was in the midst of the ecstasies of the most reinless ambition that
  he was surprised by the arrival of a young valet from the Hotel de la
  Mole, who had come with a letter.
  
  "All is lost," wrote Mathilde to him: "Rush here as quickly as
  possible, sacrifice everything, desert if necessary. As soon as you
  have arrived, wait for me in a fiacre near the little garden door,
  near No. ---- of the street ---- I will come and speak to you: I shall
  perhaps be able to introduce you into the garden. All is lost, and I am
  afraid there is no way out; count on me; you will find me staunch and
  firm in adversity. I love you."
  
  A few minutes afterwards, Julien obtained a furlough from the colonel,
  and left Strasbourg at full gallop. But the awful anxiety which
  devoured him did not allow him to continue this method of travel beyond
  Metz. He flung himself into a post-chaise, and arrived with an almost
  incredible rapidity at the indicated spot, near the little garden door
  of the Hotel de la Mole. The door opened, and Mathilde, oblivious of
  all human conventions, rushed into his arms. Fortunately, it was only
  five o'clock in the morning, and the street was still deserted.
  
  "All is lost. My father, fearing my tears, left Thursday night. Nobody
  knows where for? But here is his letter: read it." She climbed into the
  fiacre with Julien.
  
  "I could forgive everything except the plan of seducing you because
  you are rich. That, unhappy girl, is the awful truth. I give you my
  word of honour that I will never consent to a marriage with that man.
  I will guarantee him an income of 10,000 francs if he will live far
  away beyond the French frontiers, or better still, in America. Read the
  letter which I have just received in answer to the enquiries which I
  have made. The impudent scoundrel had himself requested me to write to
  madame de Renal. I will never read a single line you write concerning
  that man. I feel a horror for both Paris and yourself. I urge you to
  cover what is bound to happen with the utmost secrecy. Be frank, have
  nothing more to do with the vile man, and you will find again the
  father you have lost."
  
  "Where is Madame de Renal's letter?" said Julien coldly.
  
  "Here it is. I did not want to shew it to you before you were prepared
  for it."
  
  
          LETTER
  
          "My duties to the sacred cause of religion and morality,
          oblige me, monsieur, to take the painful course which I
          have just done with regard to yourself: an infallible
          principle orders me to do harm to my neighbour at the
          present moment, but only in order to avoid an even
          greater scandal. My sentiment of duty must overcome
          the pain which I experience. It is only too true,
          monsieur, that the conduct of the person about whom you
          ask me to tell you the whole truth may seem incredible
          or even honest. It may possibly be considered proper
          to hide or to disguise part of the truth: that would
          be in accordance with both prudence and religion. But
          the conduct about which you desire information has
          been in fact reprehensible to the last degree, and
          more than I can say. Poor and greedy as the man is, it
          is only by the aid of the most consummate hypocrisy,
          and by seducing a weak and unhappy woman, that he has
          endeavoured to make a career for himself and become
          someone in the world. It is part of my painful duty to
          add that I am obliged to believe that M. Julien has no
          religious principles. I am driven conscientiously to
          think that one of his methods of obtaining success in
          any household is to try to seduce the woman who commands
          the principal influence. His one great object, in spite
          of his show of disinterestedness, and his stock-in-trade
          of phrases out of novels, is to succeed in doing what he
          likes with the master of the household and his fortune.
          He leaves behind him unhappiness and eternal remorse,
          etc., etc., etc."
  
  This extremely long letter, which was almost blotted out by tears, was
  certainly in madame de Renal's handwriting; it was even written with
  more than ordinary care.
  
  "I cannot blame M. de la Mole," said Julien, "after he had finished it.
  He is just and prudent. What father would give his beloved daughter to
  such a man? Adieu!" Julien jumped out of the fiacre and rushed to his
  post-chaise, which had stopped at the end of the street. Mathilde, whom
  he had apparently forgotten, took a few steps as though to follow him,
  but the looks she received from the tradesmen, who were coming out on
  the thresholds of their shops, and who knew who she was, forced her to
  return precipitately to the garden.
  
  Julien had left for Verrieres. During that rapid journey he was unable
  to write to Mathilde as he had intended. His hand could only form
  illegible characters on the paper.
  
  He arrived at Verrieres on a Sunday morning. He entered the shop of the
  local gunsmith, who overwhelmed him with congratulations on his recent
  good fortune. It constituted the news of the locality.
  
  Julien had much difficulty in making him understand that he wanted a
  pair of pistols. At his request the gunsmith loaded the pistols.
  
  The three peals sounded; it is a well-known signal in the villages of
  France, and after the various ringings in the morning announces the
  immediate commencement of Mass.
  
  Julien entered the new church of Verrieres. All the lofty windows of
  the building were veiled with crimson curtains. Julien found himself
  some spaces behind the pew of madame de Renal. It seemed to him that
  she was praying fervently The sight of the woman whom he had loved so
  much made Julien's arm tremble so violently that he was at first unable
  to execute his project. "I cannot," he said to himself. "It is a
  physical impossibility."
  
  At that moment the young priest, who was officiating at the Mass, rang
  the bell for the elevation of the host. Madame de Renal lowered her
  head, which, for a moment became entirely hidden by the folds of her
  shawl. Julien did not see her features so distinctly: he aimed a pistol
  shot at her, and missed her: he aimed a second shot, she fell.
  
  
  
  
  
  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."
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LXX
  
  TRANQUILITY
  
  
          It is because I was foolish then that I am wise to-day.
          Oh thou philosopher who seest nothing except the actual
          instant. How short-sighted are thy views! Thine eye
          is not adapted to follow the subterranean work of the
          passions.--_M. Goethe_.
  
  
  This conversation was interrupted by an interrogation followed by
  a conference with the advocate entrusted with the defence. These
  moments were the only absolutely unpleasant ones in a life made up of
  nonchalance and tender reveries.
  
  "There is murder, and murder with premeditation," said Julien to the
  judge as he had done to the advocate, "I am sorry, gentlemen, he added
  with a smile, that this reduces your functions to a very small compass."
  
  "After all," said Julien to himself, when he had managed to rid
  himself of those two persons, "I must really be brave, and apparently
  braver than those two men. They regard that duel with an unfortunate
  termination, which I can only seriously bother myself about on the
  actual day, as the greatest of evils and the arch-terror."
  
  "The fact is that I have known a much greater unhappiness," continued
  Julien, as he went on philosophising with himself. "I suffered far
  more acutely during my first journey to Strasbourg, when I thought I
  was abandoned by Mathilde--and to think that I desired so passionately
  that same perfect intimacy which to-day leaves me so cold--as a matter
  of fact I am more happy alone than when that handsome girl shares my
  solitude."
  
  The advocate, who was a red-tape pedant, thought him mad, and believed,
  with the public, that it was jealousy which had lead him to take up
  the pistol. He ventured one day to give Julien to understand that
  this contention, whether true or false, would be an excellent way of
  pleading. But the accused man became in a single minute a passionate
  and drastic individual.
  
  "As you value your life, monsieur," exclaimed Julien, quite beside
  himself, "mind you never put forward such an abominable lie." The
  cautious advocate was for a moment afraid of being assassinated.
  
  He was preparing his case because the decisive moment was drawing near.
  The only topic of conversation in Besancon, and all the department, was
  the _cause celebre_. Julien did not know of this circumstance. He had
  requested his friends never to talk to him about that kind of thing.
  
  On this particular day, Fouque and Mathilde had tried to inform him
  of certain rumours which in their view were calculated to give hope.
  Julien had stopped them at the very first word.
  
  "Leave me my ideal life. Your pettifogging troubles and details of
  practical life all more or less jar on me and bring me down from my
  heaven. One dies as best one can: but I wish to chose my own way of
  thinking about death. What do I care for other people? My relations
  with other people will be sharply cut short. Be kind enough not to talk
  to me any more about those people. Seeing the judge and the advocate is
  more than enough."
  
  "As a matter of fact," he said to himself, "it seems that I am fated
  to die dreaming. An obscure creature like myself, who is certain to be
  forgotten within a fortnight, would be very silly, one must admit, to
  go and play a part. It is nevertheless singular that I never knew so
  much about the art of enjoying life, as since I have seen its end so
  near me."
  
  He passed his last day in promenading upon the narrow terrace at the
  top of the turret, smoking some excellent cigars which Mathilde had
  had fetched from Holland by a courier. He had no suspicion that his
  appearance was waited for each day by all the telescopes in the town.
  His thoughts were at Vergy. He never spoke to Fouque about madame de
  Renal, but his friend told him two or three times that she was rapidly
  recovering, and these words reverberated in his heart.
  
  While Julien's soul was nearly all the time wholly in the realm
  of ideas, Mathilde, who, as befits an aristocratic spirit, had
  occupied herself with concrete things, had managed to make the
  direct and intimate correspondence between madame de Fervaques and
  M. de Frilair progress so far that the great word bishopric had been
  already pronounced. The venerable prelate, who was entrusted with the
  distribution of the benefices, added in a postscript to one of his
  niece's letters, "This poor Sorel is only a lunatic. I hope he will be
  restored to us."
  
  At the sight of these lines, M. de Frilair felt transported. He had no
  doubts about saving Julien.
  
  "But for this Jacobin law which has ordered the formation of an
  unending panel of jurymen, and which has no other real object, except
  to deprive well-born people of all their influence," he said to
  Mathilde on the eve of the balloting for the thirty-six jurymen of the
  session, "I would have answered for the verdict. I certainly managed to
  get the cure N---- acquitted."
  
  When the names were selected by ballot on the following day, M. de
  Frilair experienced a genuine pleasure in finding that they contained
  five members of the Besancon congregation and that amongst those who
  were strangers to the town were the names of MM. Valenod, de Moirod,
  de Cholin. I can answer for these eight jurymen he said to Mathilde.
  The first five are mere machines, Valenod is my agent: Moirod owes me
  everything: de Cholin is an imbecile who is frightened of everything.
  
  The journal published the names of the jurymen throughout the
  department, and to her husband's unspeakable terror, madame de Renal
  wished to go to Besancon. All that M. de Renal could prevail on her
  to promise was that she would not leave her bed so as to avoid the
  unpleasantness of being called to give evidence. "You do not understand
  my position," said the former mayor of Verrieres. "I am now said to
  be disloyal and a Liberal. No doubt that scoundrel Valenod and M. de
  Frilair will get the procureur-general and the judges to do all they
  can to cause me unpleasantness."
  
  Madame de Renal found no difficulty in yielding to her husband's
  orders. "If I appear at the assize court," she said to herself, "I
  should seem as if I were asking for vengeance." In spite of all the
  promises she had made to the director of her conscience and to her
  husband that she would be discreet, she had scarcely arrived at
  Besancon before she wrote with her own hand to each of the thirty-six
  jurymen:--
  
  "I shall not appear on the day of the trial, monsieur, because my
  presence might be prejudicial to M. Sorel's case. I only desire one
  thing in the world, and that I desire passionately--for him to be
  saved. Have no doubt about it, the awful idea that I am the cause of an
  innocent man being led to his death would poison the rest of my life
  and would no doubt curtail it. How can you condemn him to death while I
  continue to live? No, there is no doubt about it, society has no right
  to take away a man's life, and above all, the life of a being like
  Julien Sorel. Everyone at Verrieres knew that there were moments when
  he was quite distracted. This poor young man has some powerful enemies,
  but even among his enemies, (and how many has he not got?) who is there
  who casts any doubt on his admirable talents and his deep knowledge?
  The man whom you are going to try, monsieur, is not an ordinary person.
  For a period of nearly eighteen months we all knew him as a devout and
  well behaved student. Two or three times in the year he was seized by
  fits of melancholy that went to the point of distraction. The whole
  town of Verrieres, all our neighbours at Vergy, where we live in the
  fine weather, my whole family, and monsieur the sub-prefect himself
  will render justice to his exemplary piety. He knows all the Holy Bible
  by heart. Would a blasphemer have spent years of study in learning the
  Sacred Book. My sons will have the honour of presenting you with this
  letter, they are children. Be good enough to question them, monsieur,
  they will give you all the details concerning this poor young man which
  are necessary to convince you of how barbarous it would be to condemn
  him. Far from revenging me, you would be putting me to death.
  
  "What can his enemies argue against this? The wound, which was the
  result of one of those moments of madness, which my children themselves
  used to remark in their tutor, is so little dangerous than in less
  than two months it has allowed me to take the post from Verrieres to
  Besancon. If I learn, monsieur, that you show the slightest hesitation
  in releasing so innocent a person from the barbarity of the law, I will
  leave my bed, where I am only kept by my husband's express orders, and
  I will go and throw myself at your feet. Bring in a verdict, monsieur,
  that the premeditation has not been made out, and you will not have an
  innocent man's blood on your head, etc."
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LXXI
  
  THE TRIAL
  
  
          The country will remember this celebrated case for
          a long time. The interest in the accused amounted
          to an agitation. The reason was that his crime was
          astonishing, and yet not atrocious. Even if it had been,
          this young man was so handsome. His brilliant career,
          that came to an end so early in his life, intensified
          the pathos. "Will they condemn him?" the women asked of
          the men of their acquaintance, and they could be seen to
          grow pale as they waited for the answer.--_Sainte Beuve_.
  
  
  The day that madame de Renal and Mathilde feared so much arrived at
  last.
  
  Their terror was intensified by the strange appearance of the town,
  which had its emotional effect even upon Fouque's sturdy soul. All the
  province had rushed to Besancon to see the trial of this romantic case.
  
  There had been no room left in the inns for some days. M. the president
  of the assizes, was besieged by requests for tickets; all the ladies
  in the town wanted to be present at the trial. Julien's portrait was
  hawked about the streets, etc., etc.
  
  Mathilde was keeping in reserve for this supreme moment a complete
  autograph letter from my lord, bishop of ----. This prelate, who
  governed the Church of France and created its bishops, was good enough
  to ask for Julien's acquittal. On the eve of the trial, Mathilde took
  this letter to the all-powerful grand vicar.
  
  When she was going away in tears at the end of the interview, M.
  de Frilair at last emerged from his diplomatic reserve and almost
  shewed some emotion himself. "I will be responsible for the jury's
  verdict," he said to her. "Out of the twelve persons charged with the
  investigation of whether your friend's crime is made out, and above
  all, whether there was premeditation, I can count six friends who are
  devoted to my fortunes, and I have given them to understand that they
  have it in their power to promote me to the episcopate. Baron Valenod,
  whom I have made mayor of Verrieres, can do just as he likes with two
  of his officials, MM. de Moirod, and de Cholin. As a matter of fact,
  fate has given us for this business two jurymen of extremely loose
  views; but, although ultra-Liberals, they are faithful to my orders on
  great occasions, and I have requested them to vote like M. Valenod.
  I have learnt that a sixth juryman, a manufacturer, who is immensely
  rich, and a garrulous Liberal into the bargain, has secret aspirations
  for a contract with the War Office, and doubtless he would not like to
  displease me. I have had him told that M. de Valenod knows my final
  injunctions."
  
  "And who is this M. Valenod?" said Mathilde, anxiously.
  
  "If you knew him, you could not doubt our success. He is an audacious
  speaker, coarse, impudent, with a natural gift for managing fools. 1814
  saw him in low water, and I am going to make a prefect of him. He is
  capable of beating the other jurymen if they do not vote his way."
  
  Mathilde felt a little reassured.
  
  Another discussion awaited her in the evening. To avoid the
  prolongation of an unpleasant scene, the result of which, in his view,
  was absolutely certain, Julien had resolved not to make a speech.
  
  "My advocate will speak," he said to Mathilde. "I shall figure too long
  anyway as a laughing-stock to all my enemies. These provincials have
  been shocked by the rapidity of my success, for which I have to thank
  you, and believe me, there is not one of them who does not desire my
  conviction, though he would be quite ready to cry like an idiot when I
  am taken to my death."
  
  "They desire to see you humiliated. That is only too true," answered
  Mathilde, "but I do not think they are at all cruel. My presence at
  Besancon, and the sight of my sufferings have interested all the women;
  your handsome face will do the rest. If you say a few words to your
  judges, the whole audience will be on your side, etc., etc."
  
  At nine o'clock on the following day, when Julien left his prison
  for the great hall of the Palais de Justice, the gendarmes had much
  difficulty in driving away the immense crowd that was packed in the
  courtyard. Julien had slept well. He was very calm, and experienced no
  other sentiment except a sense of philosophic pity towards that crowd
  of jealous creatures who were going to applaud his death sentence,
  though without cruelty. He was very surprised when, having been
  detained in the middle of the crowd more than a quarter of an hour,
  he was obliged to admit that his presence affected the public with
  a tender pity. He did not hear a single unpleasant remark. "These
  provincials are less evil than I thought," he said to himself.
  
  As he entered the courtroom, he was struck by the elegance of the
  architecture. It was real Gothic, with a number of pretty little
  columns hewn out of stone with the utmost care. He thought himself in
  England.
  
  But his attention was soon engrossed by twelve or fifteen pretty
  women, who sat exactly opposite the prisoner's seat and filled the
  three balconies above the judges and the jury. As he turned round
  towards the public, he saw that the circular gallery that dominated the
  amphitheatre was filled with women, the majority were young and seemed
  very pretty, their eyes were shining and full of interest. The crowd
  was enormous throughout the rest of the room. People were knocking
  against the door, and the janitors could not obtain silence.
  
  When all the eyes that were looking for Julien observed where he was,
  and saw him occupying the slightly raised place which is reserved for
  the prisoner, he was greeted by a murmur of astonishment and tender
  interest.
  
  You would have taken him for under twenty on this day. He was dressed
  very simply, but with a perfect grace. His hair and his forehead were
  charming. Mathilde had insisted on officiating personally at his
  toilette. Julien's pallor was extreme. Scarcely was he seated in this
  place than he heard people say all over the room, "Great heavens! how
  young he is!... But he's quite a child!... He is much better than his
  portrait."
  
  "Prisoner," said the gendarme who was sitting on his right, "do you see
  those six ladies in that balcony?" The gendarme pointed out a little
  gallery that jutted out over the amphitheatre where the jury were
  placed. "That's madame, the prefect's wife," continued the gendarme.
  "Next to her, madame the marquise de M----. She likes you well: I have
  heard her speak to the judge of first instance. Next to her is madame
  Derville."
  
  "Madame Derville!" exclaimed Julien, and a vivid blush spread over his
  forehead. "When she leaves here," he thought, "she will write to madame
  de Renal." He was ignorant of madame de Renal's arrival at Besancon.
  The witnesses were quickly heard. After the first words of the opening
  of the prosecution by the advocate-general, two of the ladies in the
  little balcony just opposite Julien burst into tears. Julien noticed
  that madame Derville did not break down at all. He remarked, however,
  that she was very red.
  
  The advocate-general was indulging in melodrama in bad French over the
  barbarity of the crime that had been perpetrated. Julien noticed that
  madame Derville's neighbours seemed to manifest a keen disapproval.
  Several jurors, who were apparently acquainted with the ladies, spoke
  to them and seemed to reassure them. "So far as it goes, that is
  certainly a good omen," thought Julien.
  
  Up to the present, he had felt himself steeped in an unadulterated
  contempt for all the persons who were present at the trial. This
  sentiment of disgust was intensified by the stale eloquence of
  the advocate-general. But the coldness of Julien's soul gradually
  disappeared before the marks of interest of which he was evidently the
  object.
  
  He was satisfied with the sturdy demeanour of his advocate. "No
  phrases," he said to him in a whisper, as he was about to commence his
  speech.
  
  "All the bombast which our opponent has stolen from Bossuet and
  lavished upon you," said the advocate, "has done you good."
  
  As a matter of fact, he had scarcely spoken for five minutes before
  practically all the women had their handkerchiefs in their hands. The
  advocate was encouraged, and addressed some extremely strong remarks
  to the jury. Julien shuddered. He felt on the point of breaking into
  tears. "My God," he thought, "what would my enemies say?"
  
  He was on the point of succumbing to the emotion which was overcoming
  him, when, luckily for him, he surprised an insolent look from M. the
  baron de Valenod.
  
  "That rogue's eyes are gleaming," he said to himself "What a triumph
  for that base soul! If my crime had only produced this one result, it
  would be my duty to curse it. God knows what he will say about it to
  madame de Renal."
  
  This idea effaced all others. Shortly afterwards Julien was brought
  back to reality by the public's manifestation of applause. The advocate
  had just finished his speech. Julien remembered that it was good form
  to shake hands with him. The time had passed rapidly.
  
  They brought in refreshments for the advocate and the prisoner. It was
  only then that Julien was struck by the fact that none of the women had
  left the audience to go and get dinner.
  
  "Upon my word, I am dying of hunger," said the advocate. "And you?"
  
  "I, too," answered Julien.
  
  "See, there's madame, the prefect's wife, who is also getting her
  dinner," said the advocate, as he pointed out the little balcony. "Keep
  up your courage; everything is going all right." The court sat again.
  
  Midnight struck as the president was summing up. The president was
  obliged to pause in his remarks. Amid the silence and the anxiety of
  all present, the reverberation of the clock filled the hall.
  
  "So my last day is now beginning," thought Julien. He soon felt
  inflamed by the idea of his duty. Up to the present he had controlled
  his emotion and had kept his resolution not to speak. When the
  president of the assizes asked him if he had anything to add, he got
  up. He saw in front of him the eyes of madame Derville, which seemed
  very brilliant in the artificial light. "Can she by any chance be
  crying?" he thought.
  
  "Gentlemen of the jury!
  
  "I am induced to speak by my fear of that contempt which I thought,
  at the very moment of my death, I should be able to defy. Gentlemen,
  I have not the honour of belonging to your class. You behold in me a
  peasant who has rebelled against the meanness of his fortune.
  
  "I do not ask you for any pardon," continued Julien, with a firmer
  note in his voice. "I am under no illusions. Death awaits me; it
  will be just. I have brought myself to make an attempt on the life
  of the woman who is most worthy of all reverence and all respect.
  Madame de Renal was a mother to me. My crime was atrocious, and it
  was premeditated. Consequently, I have deserved death, gentlemen of
  the jury. But even if I were not so guilty, I see among you men who,
  without a thought for any pity that may be due to my youth, would like
  to use me as a means for punishing and discouraging for ever that class
  of young man who, though born in an inferior class, and to some extent
  oppressed by poverty, have none the less been fortunate enough to
  obtain a good education, and bold enough to mix with what the pride of
  the rich calls Society.
  
  "That is my crime, gentlemen, and it will be punished with even more
  severity, inasmuch as, in fact, I am very far from being judged by my
  peers. I do not see on the jury benches any peasant who has made money,
  but only indignant bourgeois...."
  
  Julien talked in this strain for twenty minutes. He said everything
  he had on his mind. The advocate-general, who aspired to the favours
  of the aristocracy, writhed in his seat. But in spite of the somewhat
  abstract turn which Julien had given to his speech, all the women
  burst out into tears. Even madame Derville put her handkerchief to
  her eyes. Before finishing, Julien alluded again to the fact of his
  premeditation, to his repentance, and to the respect and unbounded
  filial admiration which, in happier days, he had entertained for madame
  de Renal.... Madame Derville gave a cry and fainted.
  
  One o'clock was striking when the jury retired to their room. None of
  the women had left their places; several men had tears in their eyes.
  The conversations were at first very animated, but, as there was a
  delay in the verdict of the jury, their general fatigue gradually began
  to invest the gathering with an atmosphere of calm. It was a solemn
  moment; the lights grew less brilliant. Julien, who was very tired,
  heard people around him debating the question of whether this delay was
  a good or a bad omen. He was pleased to see that all the wishes were
  for him. The jury did not come back, and yet not a woman left the court.
  
  When two o'clock had struck, a great movement was heard. The little
  door of the jury room opened. M. the baron de Valenod advanced with
  a slow and melodramatic step. He was followed by all the jurors. He
  coughed, and then declared on his soul and conscience that the jury's
  unanimous verdict was that Julien Sorel was guilty of murder, and of
  murder with premeditation. This verdict involved the death penalty,
  which was pronounced a moment afterwards. Julien looked at his watch,
  and remembered M. de Lavalette. It was a quarter past two. "To-day is
  Friday," he thought.
  
  "Yes, but this day is lucky for the Valenod who has got me
  convicted.... I am watched too well for Mathilde to manage to save me
  like madame de Lavalette saved her husband.... So in three days' time,
  at this very hour, I shall know what view to take about the great
  perhaps."
  
  At this moment he heard a cry and was called back to the things of this
  world. The women around him were sobbing: he saw that all faces were
  turned towards a little gallery built into the crowning of a Gothic
  pilaster. He knew later that Mathilde had concealed herself there. As
  the cry was not repeated, everybody began to look at Julien again, as
  the gendarmes were trying to get him through the crowd.
  
  "Let us try not to give that villain Valenod any chance of laughing
  at me," thought Julien. "With what a contrite sycophantic expression
  he pronounced the verdict which entails the death penalty, while that
  poor president of the assizes, although he has been a judge for years
  and years, had tears in his eyes as he sentenced me. What a joy the
  Valenod must find in revenging himself for our former rivalry for
  madame de Renal's favors! ... So I shall never see her again! The thing
  is finished.... A last good-bye between us is impossible--I feel it....
  How happy I should have been to have told her all the horror I feel for
  my crime!
  
  "Mere words. I consider myself justly convicted."
  
  
  
  
  
  
target: Julien feels like he has won the battle but not the war. He quickly impresses the other soldiers with his skill and professionalism. He is more ambitious than ever, hoping to become commander-in- chief of the French army by the time he is thirty. Julien also begins planning for the future of his child, who he is sure will be a boy. But all of his dreams are shattered when the Marquis de la Mole receives a letter from Mme. de Renal, denouncing Julien as a womanizer ambitious to make his fortune by seducing rich aristocrats. The Marquis withdraws all of his support for Julien, condemns his proposed marriage to Mathilde and asks Julien to move to America. Julien is stunned and, without a second thought, races back home to Verrieres where he finds Mme. de Renal kneeling in prayer at Church. Shaking violently, he shoots her from behind. Julien is immediately arrested and taken to Besancon to await trial. There he writes to Mathilde, ordering her to forget about him and to marry one of her many suitors. The idea of death no longer frightens Julien and he demands to be executed. However, Mme. de Renal was only slightly wounded from the one bullet that struck her and makes a quick recovery. Julien is overjoyed that she is not dead and for the first time in his life begins to believe in God. Mathilde and Fouque soon arrive to help him escape but Julien refuses, deciding that he wants to die. Mathilde goes to great lengths in her efforts to save Julien, hiring lawyers and attempting to bribe the priests in charge of Julien's court case. Despite her devotion to him, Julien soon loses interest in Mathilde and begins to think of Mme. de Renal instead. He decides that he only knew true happiness with Mme. de Renal, not Mathilde. Mme. de Renal decides not to appear at Julien's trial and writes a letter to the jury demanding his acquittal. She is still in love with Julien and feels so guilty that she secretly wishes he had killed her. Despite Julien's plea for death, Mathilde thinks that she has bribed the right people to assure Julien's innocence. However, M. Valenod is the foreman of the jury and is still jealous of Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal. He and one of Julien's enemies from the seminary pronounce Julien guilty and vote for his execution. Julien contemplates suicide until Mme. de Renal visits him in jail. They both still love each other, and vow not to commit suicide. Mme. de Renal confesses that she was forced by her confessor to write the letter to the Marquis, and Julien forgives her. When he is left alone, Julien finally begins to understand himself. He renounces hypocrisy as the malaise of his century and finds solace in his love for Mme. de Renal. He wishes that he had not been so ambitious and could have just concentrated on loving her. Julien rejects all final offers of clemency and is guillotined. With a bitter sense of historical irony, Mathilde buries his severed head herself, while Mme. de Renal dies of despair three days later.
feat_summary_analysis: Commentary Stendhal finishes the novel with a bitter denunciation of the political corruption of the clergy. He continues to acknowledge the existence of good men like M. Chelan and M. Pirard, but he portrays the majority of the clergy as conniving politicians. A jealous priest forces Mme. de Renal to write her letter to the Marquis. She later admits to Julien that the priest actually wrote it himself. During Julien's trial, Mathilde bribes a large number of priests who claim they can secure an acquittal. One priest even tries to blackmail Mathilde into making him a bishop in return for his help. As he nears death, Julien refuses to find truth in a religion where priests are more concerned with politics and their salaries than in helping the poor. Both Julien and Mathilde's reliance on French history to dictate their own destinies comes back to haunt them in this final section. Julien's admiration for Napoleonic honor and glory encourage him to both shoot Mme. de Renal and to later refuse clemency. He falsely believes that, like Napoleon, his glory and reputation will grow with his death. He wants to be a martyr. Mathilde's obsession with her decapitated ancestor, Boniface de la Mole, comes to life as well. As Julien goes off to kill Mme. de Renal, Mathilde notes how "Boniface de la Mole seemed reborn in him." When Julien is finally guillotined, she does not hesitate to kiss his severed head and bury it herself, just as Queen Margot did 250 years earlier. In this historical context, Julien's fate seems sealed from the moment Mathilde falls in love with him. Her idea of romance is inextricably linked to the decapitation of her lover. Julien simply reenacts a role subconsciously prescribed to him by Mathilde. Stendhal thus uses Julien's unoriginal death to further criticize the predictable and boring nineteenth century. It is only in this last section that the reader begins to understand and admire Julien Sorel. He readily admits that Mme. de Renal represents a maternal figure for him. Since there is never any mention of Julien's biological mother, his tie with Mme. de Renal seems much stronger. As his love for Mathilde grows cold, one can only suspect that Julien has not been able to forget the class difference that separates them. His rejection of French society must also be a rejection of Mathilde. But as a surrogate mother, Mme. de Renal represents everything Julien ever really wanted in life: unconditional love. As he approaches death, Julien gains a sudden insight into who he really is. He realizes that he has always defined himself in terms of politics and society as a whole, never on his own terms. He always saw himself as a possible something-else, and not as Julien Sorel. This emphasis on individualism, one of Stendhal's classic themes, is finally resolved when Julien refuses to see himself through the lens of French society and French history. He is no Napoleon, he is no Boniface, and he is no de la Vernaye. Unlike the charlatans around him, Julien discovers that he has "nobility in my heart." At his trial, he thus admonishes the lack of originality and creativity that plagues the nineteenth century. Having wanted to make his fortune all his life, Julien finally sees that it is successful bourgeois men like M. Valenod that are the most dangerous men in France. Stendhal sadly notes that not only are conservatives impeding the progress of French society, but liberals are making hypocrisy the national pastime.