feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_29_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 30
feat_summary_id: part 1, chapter 30
feat_summary: {"name": "Part 1, Chapter 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-30", "summary": "Father Pirard travels to Paris to meet with the Marquis de La Mole. He asks Pirard if he'd consider leaving the priesthood to become his personal assistant. The salary is generous, but Pirard declines. He suggests Julien Sorel as an alternative. The marquis agrees. Julien gets the letter asking him to come to Paris immediately. He travels to the bishop's house to say he's leaving. He says goodbye to his friend Fouqe too. Before leaving, he rides back to Verrieres and buys a ladder. He brings the ladder back to the de Renal house and uses it to sneak up into Madame de Renal's bedroom. She is shocked to see him, but also happy. The two of them spend the night together and he waits a long time before leaving. While they talk, he realizes that the five hundred francs from Paris was not from her. When he finally leaves, some servants hear him and start shooting, thinking he's a burglar. He escapes, though.", "analysis": ""}
text: CHAPTER XXX
  
  AN AMBITIOUS MAN
  
  
      There is only one nobility, the title of duke; a marquis is
      ridiculous; the word duke makes one turn round.
                                         _Edinburgh Review_.
  
  
  The Marquis de la Mole received the abbe Pirard without any of those
  aristocratic mannerisms whose very politeness is at the same time so
  impertinent to one who understands them. It would have been a waste of
  time, and the Marquis was sufficiently expeditious in big affairs to
  have no time to lose.
  
  He had been intriguing for six months to get both the king and people
  to accept a minister who, as a matter of gratitude, was to make him a
  Duke. The Marquis had been asking his Besancon advocate for years on
  end for a clear and precise summary of his Franche-Comte lawsuits. How
  could the celebrated advocate explain to him what he did not understand
  himself? The little square of paper which the abbe handed him explained
  the whole matter.
  
  "My dear abbe," said the Marquis to him, having got through in less
  than five minutes all polite formulae of personal questions. "My dear
  abbe, in the midst of my pretended prosperity I lack the time to occupy
  myself seriously with two little matters which are rather important,
  my family and my affairs. I manage the fortune of my house on a large
  scale. I can carry it far. I manage my pleasures, and that is the first
  consideration in my eyes," he added, as he saw a look of astonishment
  in the abbe Pirard's eyes. Although a man of common sense, the abbe was
  surprised to hear a man talk so frankly about his pleasures.
  
  "Work doubtless exists in Paris," continued the great lord, "but it is
  perched on the fifth story, and as soon as I take anyone up, he takes
  an apartment on the second floor, and his wife starts a day at home;
  the result is no more work and no more efforts except either to be, or
  appear to be, a society man. That is the only thing they bother about,
  as soon as they have got their bread and butter.
  
  "For my lawsuits, yes, for every single one of them, I have, to put it
  plainly, advocates who quarrel to death. One died of consumption the
  day before yesterday. Taking my business all round, would you believe,
  monsieur, that for three years I have given up all hope of finding a
  man who deigns, during the time he is acting as my clerk, to give a
  little serious thought to what he is doing. Besides, all this is only a
  preliminary.
  
  "I respect you and would venture to add that, although I only see you
  for the first time to-day, I like you. Will you be my secretary at a
  salary of eight hundred francs or even double. I shall still be the
  gainer by it, I swear to you, and I will manage to reserve that fine
  living for you for the day when we shall no longer be able to agree."
  The abbe refused, but the genuine embarrassment in which he saw the
  Marquis suggested an idea to him towards the end of the conversation.
  
  "I have left in the depths of my seminary a poor young man who, if I
  mistake not, will be harshly persecuted. If he were only a simple monk
  he would be already _in pace_. So far this young man only knows Latin
  and the Holy Scriptures, but it is not impossible that he will one day
  exhibit great talent, either for preaching or the guiding of souls. I
  do not know what he will do, but he has the sacred fire. He may go far.
  I thought of giving him to our Bishop, if we had ever had one who was a
  little of your way of considering men and things."
  
  "What is your young man's extraction?" said the Marquis.
  
  "He is said to be the son of a carpenter in our mountains. I rather
  believe he is the natural son of some rich man. I have seen him receive
  an anonymous or pseudonymous letter with a bill for five hundred
  francs."
  
  "Oh, it is Julien Sorel," said the Marquis.
  
  "How do you know his name?" said the abbe, in astonishment, reddening
  at his question.
  
  "That's what I'm not going to tell you," answered the Marquis.
  
  "Well," replied the abbe, "you might try making him your secretary. He
  has energy. He has a logical mind. In a word, it's worth trying."
  
  "Why not?" said the Marquis. "But would he be the kind of man to allow
  his palm to be greased by the Prefect of Police or any one else and
  then spy on me? That is only my objection."
  
  After hearing the favourable assurances of the abbe Pirard, the Marquis
  took a thousand franc note.
  
  "Send this journey money to Julien Sorel. Let him come to me."
  
  "One sees at once," said the abbe Pirard, "that you live in Paris.
  You do not know the tyranny which weighs us poor provincials down,
  and particularly those priests who are not friendly to the Jesuits.
  They will refuse to let Julien Sorel leave. They will manage to cloak
  themselves in the most clever excuses. They will answer me that he is
  ill, that his letters were lost in the post, etc., etc."
  
  "I will get a letter from the minister to the Bishop, one of these
  days," answered the Marquis.
  
  "I was forgetting to warn you of one thing," said the abbe. "This young
  man, though of low birth, has a high spirit. He will be of no use if
  you madden his pride. You will make him stupid."
  
  "That pleases me," said the Marquis. "I will make him my son's comrade.
  Will that be enough for you?"
  
  Some time afterwards, Julien received a letter in an unknown writing,
  and bearing the Chelon postmark. He found in it a draft on a Besancon
  merchant, and instructions to present himself at Paris without delay.
  The letter was signed in a fictitious name, but Julien had felt a
  thrill in opening it. A leaf of a tree had fallen down at his feet. It
  was the agreed signal between himself and the abbe Pirard.
  
  Within an hour's time, Julien was summoned to the Bishop's Palace,
  where he found himself welcomed with a quite paternal benevolence. My
  lord quoted Horace and at the same time complimented him very adroitly
  on the exalted destiny which awaited him in Paris in such a way as
  to elicit an explanation by way of thanks. Julien was unable to say
  anything, simply because he did not know anything, and my Lord showed
  him much consideration. One of the little priests in the bishopric
  wrote to the mayor, who hastened to bring in person a signed passport,
  where the name of the traveller had been left in blank.
  
  Before midnight of the same evening, Julien was at Fouque's. His
  friend's shrewd mind was more astonished than pleased with the future
  which seemed to await his friend.
  
  "You will finish up," said that Liberal voter, "with a place in the
  Government, which will compel you to take some step which will be
  calumniated. It will only be by your own disgrace that I shall have
  news of you. Remember that, even from the financial standpoint, it is
  better to earn a hundred louis in a good timber business, of which
  one is his own master, than to receive four thousand francs from a
  Government, even though it were that of King Solomon."
  
  Julien saw nothing in this except the pettiness of spirit of a country
  bourgeois. At last he was going to make an appearance in the theatre of
  great events. Everything was over-shadowed in his eyes by the happiness
  of going to Paris, which he imagined to be populated by people of
  intellect, full of intrigues and full of hypocrisy, but as polite as
  the Bishop of Besancon and the Bishop of Agde. He represented to his
  friend that he was deprived of any free choice in the matter by the
  abbe Pirard's letter.'
  
  The following day he arrived at Verrieres about noon. He felt the
  happiest of men for he counted on seeing Madame de Renal again. He
  went first to his protector the good abbe Chelan. He met with a severe
  welcome.
  
  "Do you think you are under any obligation to me?" said M. Chelan to
  him, without answering his greeting. "You will take breakfast with me.
  During that time I will have a horse hired for you and you will leave
  Verrieres without seeing anyone."
  
  "Hearing is obeying," answered Julien with a demeanour smacking of
  the seminary, and the only questions now discussed were theology and
  classical Latin.
  
  He mounted his horse, rode a league, and then perceiving a wood and
  not seeing any one who could notice him enter, he plunged into it.
  At sunset, he sent away the horse. Later, he entered the cottage of
  a peasant, who consented to sell him a ladder and to follow him with
  it to the little wood which commands the _Cours de la Fidelite_ at
  Verrieres.
  
  "I have been following a poor mutineer of a conscript ... or a
  smuggler," said the peasant as he took leave of him, "but what does
  it matter? My ladder has been well paid for, and I myself have done a
  thing or two in that line."
  
  The night was very black. Towards one o'clock in the morning, Julien,
  laden with his ladder, entered Verrieres. He descended as soon as he
  could into the bed of the stream, which is banked within two walls, and
  traverses M. de Renal's magnificent gardens at a depth of ten feet.
  Julien easily climbed up the ladder. "How will the watch dogs welcome
  me," he thought. "It all turns on that." The dogs barked and galloped
  towards him, but he whistled softly and they came and caressed him.
  Then climbing from terrace to terrace he easily managed, although all
  the grills were shut, to get as far as the window of Madame de Renal's
  bedroom which, on the garden side, was only eight or six feet above the
  ground. There was a little heart shaped opening in the shutters which
  Julien knew well. To his great disappointment, this little opening was
  not illuminated by the flare of a little night-light inside.
  
  "Good God," he said to himself. "This room is not occupied by Madame de
  Renal. Where can she be sleeping? The family must be at Verrieres since
  I have found the dogs here, but I might meet M. de Renal himself, or
  even a stranger in this room without a light, and then what a scandal!"
  The most prudent course was to retreat, but this idea horrified Julien.
  
  "If it's a stranger, I will run away for all I'm worth, and leave my
  ladder behind me, but if it is she, what a welcome awaits me! I can
  well imagine that she has fallen into a mood of penitence and the most
  exalted piety, but after all, she still has some remembrance of me,
  since she has written to me." This bit of reasoning decided him.
  
  With a beating heart, but resolved none the less to see her or perish
  in the attempt, he threw some little pebbles against the shutter.
  No answer. He leaned his long ladder beside the window, and himself
  knocked on the shutter, at first softly, and then more strongly.
  "However dark it is, they may still shoot me," thought Julien. This
  idea made the mad adventure simply a question of bravery.
  
  "This room is not being slept in to-night," he thought, "or whatever
  person might be there would have woken up by now. So far as it is
  concerned, therefore, no further precautions are needed. I must only
  try not to be heard by the persons sleeping in the other rooms."
  
  He descended, placed his ladder against one of the shutters, climbed
  up again, and placing his hand through the heart-shaped opening, was
  fortunate enough to find pretty quickly the wire which is attached to
  the hook which closed the shutter. He pulled this wire. It was with an
  ineffable joy that he felt that the shutter was no longer held back,
  and yielded to his effort.
  
  I must open it bit by bit and let her recognise my voice. He opened the
  shutter enough to pass his head through it, while he repeated in a low
  voice, "It's a friend."
  
  He pricked up his ears and assured himself that nothing disturbed the
  profound silence of the room, but there could be no doubt about it,
  there was no light, even half-extinguished, on the mantelpiece. It was
  a very bad sign.
  
  "Look out for the gun-shot," he reflected a little, then he ventured
  to knock against the window with his finger. No answer. He knocked
  harder. I must finish it one way or another, even if I have to break
  the window. When he was knocking very hard, he thought he could catch
  a glimpse through the darkness of something like a white shadow that
  was crossing the room. At last there was no doubt about it. He saw a
  shadow which appeared to advance with extreme slowness. Suddenly he saw
  a cheek placed against the pane to which his eye was glued.
  
  He shuddered and went away a little, but the night was so black that
  he could not, even at this distance, distinguish if it were Madame de
  Renal. He was frightened of her crying out at first in alarm. He heard
  the dogs prowling and growling around the foot of the ladder. "It is
  I," he repeated fairly loudly. "A friend."
  
  No answer. The white phantom had disappeared.
  
  "Deign to open to me. I must speak to you. I am too unhappy." And he
  knocked hard enough to break the pane.
  
  A crisp sound followed. The casement fastening of the window yielded.
  He pushed the casement and leaped lightly into the room.
  
  The white phantom flitted away from him. He took hold of its arms. It
  was a woman. All his ideas of courage vanished. "If it is she, what is
  she going to say?" What were his emotions when a little cry gave him to
  understand, that it was Madame de Renal?
  
  He clasped her in his arms. She trembled and scarcely had the strength
  to push him away.
  
  "Unhappy man. What are you doing?" Her agonised voice could scarcely
  articulate the words.
  
  Julien thought that her voice rang with the most genuine indignation.
  
  "I have come to see you after a cruel separation of more than fourteen
  months."
  
  "Go away, leave me at once. Oh, M. Chelan, why did you prevent me
  writing to him? I could then have foreseen this horror." She pushed
  him away with a truly extraordinary strength. "Heaven has deigned to
  enlighten me," she repeated in a broken voice. "Go away! Flee!"
  
  "After fourteen months of unhappiness I shall certainly not leave you
  without a word. I want to know all you have done. Yes, I have loved
  you enough to deserve this confidence. I want to know everything."
  This authoritative tone dominated Madame de Renal's heart in spite of
  herself. Julien, who was hugging her passionately and resisting her
  efforts to get loose, left off clasping her in his arms. This reassured
  Madame de Renal a little.
  
  "I will take away the ladder," he said, "to prevent it compromising
  us in case some servant should be awakened by the noise, and go on a
  round."
  
  "Oh leave me, leave me!" she cried with an admirable anger. "What
  do men matter to me! It is God who sees the awful scene you are now
  making. You are abusing meanly the sentiments which I had for you but
  have no longer. Do you hear, Monsieur Julien?"
  
  He took away the ladder very slowly so as not to make a noise.
  
  "Is your husband in town, dear," he said to her not in order to defy
  her but as a sheer matter of habit.
  
  "Don't talk to me like that, I beg you, or I will call my husband. I
  feel only too guilty in not having sent you away before. I pity you,"
  she said to him, trying to wound his, as she well knew, irritable pride.
  
  This refusal of all endearments, this abrupt way of breaking so tender
  a tie which he thought still subsisted, carried the transports of
  Julien's love to the point of delirium.
  
  "What! is it possible you do not love me?" he said to her, with one of
  those accents that come straight from the heart and impose a severe
  strain on the cold equanimity of the listener.
  
  She did not answer. As for him, he wept bitterly.
  
  In fact he had no longer the strength to speak.
  
  "So I am completely forgotten by the one being who ever loved me, what
  is the good of living on henceforth?" As soon as he had no longer to
  fear the danger of meeting a man all his courage had left him; his
  heart now contained no emotion except that of love.
  
  He wept for a long time in silence.
  
  He took her hand; she tried to take it away, and after a few almost
  convulsive moments, surrendered it to him. It was extremely dark; they
  were both sitting on Madame de Renal's bed.
  
  "What a change from fourteen months ago," thought Julien, and his tears
  redoubled. "So absence is really bound to destroy all human sentiments."
  
  "Deign to tell me what has happened to you?" Julien said at last.
  
  "My follies," answered Madame de Renal in a hard voice whose frigid
  intonation contained in it a certain element of reproach, "were no
  doubt known in the town when you left, your conduct was so imprudent.
  Some time afterwards when I was in despair the venerable Chelan came to
  see me. He tried in vain for a long time to obtain a confession. One
  day he took me to that church at Dijon where I made my first communion.
  In that place he ventured to speak himself----" Madame de Renal
  was interrupted by her tears. "What a moment of shame. I confessed
  everything. The good man was gracious enough not to overwhelm me with
  the weight of his indignation. He grieved with me. During that time I
  used to write letters to you every day which I never ventured to send.
  I hid them carefully and when I was more than usually unhappy I shut
  myself up in my room and read over my letters."
  
  "At last M. Chelan induced me to hand them over to him, some of them
  written a little more discreetly were sent to you, you never answered."
  
  "I never received any letters from you, I swear!"
  
  "Great heavens! Who can have intercepted them? Imagine my grief until
  the day I saw you in the cathedral. I did not know if you were still
  alive."
  
  "God granted me the grace of understanding how much I was sinning
  towards Him, towards my children, towards my husband," went on Madame
  de Renal. "He never loved me in the way that I then thought that you
  had loved me."
  
  Julien rushed into her arms, as a matter of fact without any particular
  purpose and feeling quite beside himself. But Madame de Renal repelled
  him and continued fairly firmly.
  
  "My venerable friend, M. Chelan, made me understand that in marrying I
  had plighted all my affections, even those which I did not then know,
  and which I had never felt before a certain fatal attachment ... after
  the great sacrifice of the letters that were so dear to me, my life has
  flowed on, if not happily, at any rate calmly. Do not disturb it. Be
  a friend to me, my best friend." Julien covered her hand with kisses.
  She perceived he was still crying. "Do not cry, you pain me so much.
  Tell me, in your turn, what you have been doing," Julien was unable
  to speak. "I want to know the life you lead at the seminary," she
  repeated. "And then you will go."
  
  Without thinking about what he was saying Julien spoke of the
  numberless intrigues and jealousies which he had first encountered, and
  then of the great serenity of his life after he had been made a tutor.
  
  "It was then," he added, "that after a long silence which was no doubt
  intended to make me realise what I see only too clearly to-day, that
  you no longer loved me and that I had become a matter of indifference
  to you...."
  
  Madame de Renal wrung her hands.
  
  "It was then that you sent me the sum of five hundred francs."
  
  "Never," said Madame de Renal.
  
  "It was a letter stamped Paris and signed Paul Sorel so as to avert
  suspicion."
  
  There was a little discussion about how the letter could possibly have
  originated.
  
  The psychological situation was altered. Without knowing it Julien had
  abandoned his solemn tone; they were now once more on the footing of a
  tender affection. It was so dark that they did not see each other but
  the tone of their voices was eloquent of everything. Julien clasped
  his arm round his love's waist. This movement had its dangers. She
  tried to put Julien's arms away from her; at this juncture he cleverly
  diverted her attention by an interesting detail in his story. The arm
  was practically forgotten and remained in its present position.
  
  After many conjectures as to the origin of the five hundred francs
  letter, Julien took up his story. He regained a little of his
  self-control as he spoke of his past life, which compared with what he
  was now experiencing interested him so little. His attention was now
  concentrated on the final outcome of of his visit. "You will have to
  go," were the curt words he heard from time to time.
  
  "What a disgrace for me if I am dismissed. My remorse will embitter all
  my life," he said to himself, "she will never write to me. God knows
  when I shall come back to this part of the country." From this moment
  Julien's heart became rapidly oblivious of all the heavenly delights of
  his present position.
  
  Seated as he was close to a woman whom he adored and practically
  clasping her in his arms in this room, the scene of his former
  happiness, amid a deep obscurity, seeing quite clearly as he did that
  she had just started crying, and feeling that she was sobbing from the
  heaving of her chest, he was unfortunate enough to turn into a cold
  diplomatist, nearly as cold as in those days when in the courtyard
  of the seminary he found himself the butt of some malicious joke on
  the part of one of his comrades who was stronger than he was. Julien
  protracted his story by talking of his unhappy life since his departure
  from Verrieres.
  
  "So," said Madame de Renal to herself, "after a year's absence and
  deprived almost entirely of all tokens of memory while I myself was
  forgetting him, he only thought of the happy days that he had had in
  Verrieres." Her sobs redoubled. Julien saw the success of his story.
  He realised that he must play his last card. He abruptly mentioned a
  letter he had just received from Paris.
  
  "I have taken leave of my Lord Bishop."
  
  "What! you are not going back to Besancon? You are leaving us for ever?"
  
  "Yes," answered Julien resolutely, "yes, I am leaving a country where I
  have been forgotten even by the woman whom I loved more than anyone in
  my life; I am leaving it and I shall never see it again. I am going to
  Paris."
  
  "You are going to Paris, dear," exclaimed Madame de Renal.
  
  Her voice was almost choked by her tears and showed the extremity of
  her trouble. Julien had need of this encouragement. He was on the point
  of executing a manoeuvre which might decide everything against him; and
  up to the time of this exclamation he could not tell what effect he was
  producing as he was unable to see. He no longer hesitated. The fear of
  remorse gave him complete control over himself. He coldly added as he
  got up.
  
  "Yes, madame, I leave you for ever. May you be happy. Adieu."
  
  He moved some steps towards the window. He began to open it. Madame de
  Renal rushed to him and threw herself into his arms. So it was in this
  way that, after a dialogue lasting three hours, Julien obtained what he
  desired so passionately during the first two hours.
  
  Madame de Renal's return to her tender feelings and this overshadowing
  of her remorse would have been a divine happiness had they come a
  little earlier; but, as they had been obtained by artifice, they were
  simply a pleasure. Julien insisted on lighting the night-light in spite
  of his mistress's opposition.
  
  "Do you wish me then," he said to her "to have no recollection of
  having seen you. Is the love in those charming eyes to be lost to me
  for ever? Is the whiteness of that pretty hand to remain invisible?
  Remember that perhaps I am leaving you for a very long time."
  
  Madame de Renal could refuse him nothing. His argument made her melt
  into tears. But the dawn was beginning to throw into sharp relief the
  outlines of the pine trees on the mountain east of Verrieres. Instead
  of going away Julien, drunk with pleasure, asked Madame de Renal to let
  him pass the day in her room and leave the following night.
  
  "And why not?" she answered. "This fatal relapse robs me of all my
  respect and will mar all my life," and she pressed him to her heart.
  "My husband is no longer the same; he has suspicions, he believes I led
  him the way I wanted in all this business, and shows great irritation
  against me. If he hears the slightest noise I shall be ruined, he will
  hound me out like the unhappy woman that I am."
  
  "Ah here we have a phrase of M. Chelan's," said Julien "you would not
  have talked like that before my cruel departure to the seminary; in
  those days you used to love me."
  
  Julien was rewarded for the frigidity which he put into those words. He
  saw his love suddenly forget the danger which her husband's presence
  compelled her to run, in thinking of the much greater danger of seeing
  Julien doubt her love. The daylight grew rapidly brighter and vividly
  illuminated the room. Julien savoured once more all the deliciousness
  of pride, when he saw this charming woman in his arms and almost at his
  feet, the only woman whom he had ever loved, and who had been entirely
  absorbed only a few hours before by her fear of a terrible God and her
  devotion to her duties. Resolutions, fortified by a year's persuasion,
  had failed to hold out against his courage.
  
  They soon heard a noise in the house. A matter that Madame de Renal had
  not thought of began to trouble her.
  
  "That wicked Elisa will come into the room. What are we to do with this
  enormous ladder?" she said to her sweetheart, "where are we to hide it?
  I will take it to the loft," she exclaimed suddenly half playfully.
  
  "But you will have to pass through the servants' room," said Julien in
  astonishment.
  
  "I will leave the ladder in the corridor and will call the servant and
  send him on an errand."
  
  "Think of some explanation to have ready in the event of a servant
  passing the ladder and noticing it in the corridor."
  
  "Yes, my angel," said Madame de Renal giving him a kiss "as for you,
  dear, remember to hide under the bed pretty quickly if Elisa enters
  here during my absence."
  
  Julien was astonished by this sudden gaiety--"So" he thought, "the
  approach of a real danger instead of troubling her gives her back
  her spirits before she forgets her remorse. Truly a superior woman.
  Yes, that's a heart over which it is glorious to reign." Julien was
  transported with delight.
  
  Madame de Renal took the ladder, which was obviously too heavy for her.
  Julien went to her help. He was admiring that elegant figure which was
  so far from betokening any strength when she suddenly seized the ladder
  without assistance and took it up as if it had been a chair. She took
  it rapidly into the corridor of the third storey where she laid it
  alongside the wall. She called a servant, and in order to give him time
  to dress himself, went up into the dovecot.
  
  Five minutes later, when she came back to the corridor, she found no
  signs of the ladder. What had happened to it? If Julien had been out
  of the house she would not have minded the danger in the least. But
  supposing her husband were to see the ladder just now, the incident
  might be awful. Madame de Renal ran all over the house.
  
  Madame de Renal finally discovered the ladder under the roof where the
  servant had carried it and even hid it.
  
  "What does it matter what happens in twenty-four hours," she thought,
  "when Julien will be gone?"
  
  She had a vague idea that she ought to take leave of life but what
  mattered her duty? He was restored to her after a separation which she
  had thought eternal. She was seeing him again and the efforts he had
  made to reach her showed the extent of his love.
  
  "What shall I say to my husband," she said to him. "If the servant
  tells him he found this ladder?" She was pensive for a moment. "They
  will need twenty-four hours to discover the peasant who sold it
  to you." And she threw herself into Julien's arms and clasped him
  convulsively.
  
  "Oh, if I could only die like this," she cried covering him with
  kisses. "But you mustn't die of starvation," she said with a smile.
  
  "Come, I will first hide you in Madame Derville's room which is always
  locked." She went and watched at the other end of the corridor and
  Julien ran in. "Mind you don't try and open if any one knocks," she
  said as she locked him in. "Anyway it would only be a frolic of the
  children as they play together."
  
  "Get them to come into the garden under the window," said Julien, "so
  that I may have the pleasure of seeing them. Make them speak."
  
  "Yes, yes," cried Madame de Renal to him as she went away. She soon
  returned with oranges, biscuits and a bottle of Malaga wine. She had
  not been able to steal any bread.
  
  "What is your husband doing?" said Julien.
  
  "He is writing out the figures of the bargains he is going to make with
  the peasants."
  
  But eight o'clock had struck and they were making a lot of noise in the
  house. If Madame de Renal failed to put in an appearance, they would
  look for her all over the house. She was obliged to leave him. Soon she
  came back, in defiance of all prudence, bringing him a cup of coffee.
  She was frightened lest he should die of starvation.
  
  She managed after breakfast to bring the children under the window of
  Madame Derville's room. He thought they had grown a great deal, but
  they had begun to look common, or else his ideas had changed. Madame de
  Renal spoke to them about Julien. The elder answered in an affectionate
  tone and regretted his old tutor, but he found that the younger
  children had almost forgotten him.
  
  M. de Renal did not go out that morning; he was going up and downstairs
  incessantly engaged in bargaining with some peasants to whom he was
  selling potatoes.
  
  Madame de Renal did not have an instant to give to her prisoner until
  dinner-time. When the bell had been rung and dinner had been served,
  it occurred to her to steal a plate of warm soup for him. As she
  noiselessly approached the door of the room which he occupied, she
  found herself face to face with the servant who had hid the ladder
  in the morning. At the time he too was going noiselessly along the
  corridor, as though listening for something. The servant took himself
  off in some confusion.
  
  Madame de Renal boldly entered Julien's room. The news of this
  encounter made him shudder.
  
  "You are frightened," she said to him, "but I would brave all the
  dangers in the world without flinching. There is only one thing I fear,
  and that is the moment when I shall be alone after you have left," and
  she left him and ran downstairs.
  
  "Ah," thought Julien ecstatically, "remorse is the only danger which
  this sublime soul is afraid of."
  
  At last evening came. Monsieur de Renal went to the Casino.
  
  His wife had given out that she was suffering from an awful headache.
  She went to her room, hastened to dismiss Elisa and quickly got up in
  order to let Julien out.
  
  He was literally starving. Madame de Renal went to the pantry to fetch
  some bread. Julien heard a loud cry. Madame de Renal came back and told
  him that when she went to the dark pantry and got near the cupboard
  where they kept the bread, she had touched a woman's arm as she
  stretched out her hand. It was Elisa who had uttered the cry Julien had
  heard.
  
  "What was she doing there?"
  
  "Stealing some sweets or else spying on us," said Madame de Renal with
  complete indifference, "but luckily I found a pie and a big loaf of
  bread."
  
  "But what have you got there?" said Julien pointing to the pockets of
  her apron.
  
  Madame de Renal had forgotten that they had been filled with bread
  since dinner.
  
  Julien clasped her in his arms with the most lively passion. She had
  never seemed to him so beautiful. "I could not meet a woman of greater
  character even at Paris," he said confusedly to himself. She combined
  all the clumsiness of a woman who was but little accustomed to paying
  attentions of this kind, with all the genuine courage of a person who
  is only afraid of dangers of quite a different sphere and quite a
  different kind of awfulness.
  
  While Julien was enjoying his supper with a hearty appetite and his
  sweetheart was rallying him on the simplicity of the meal, the door of
  the room was suddenly shaken violently. It was M. de Renal.
  
  "Why have you shut yourself in?" he cried to her.
  
  Julien had only just time to slip under the sofa.
  
  On any ordinary day Madame de Renal would have been upset by this
  question which was put with true conjugal harshness; but she realised
  that M. de Renal had only to bend down a little to notice Julien, for
  M. de Renal had flung himself into the chair opposite the sofa which
  Julien had been sitting in one moment before.
  
  Her headache served as an excuse for everything. While her husband on
  his side went into a long-winded account of the billiards pool which he
  had won at Casino, "yes, to be sure a nineteen franc pool," he added.
  She noticed Julien's hat on a chair three paces in front of them.
  Her self-possession became twice as great, she began to undress, and
  rapidly passing one minute behind her husband threw her dress over the
  chair with the hat on it.
  
  At last M. de Renal left. She begged Julien to start over again his
  account of his life at the Seminary. "I was not listening to you
  yesterday all the time you were speaking, I was only thinking of
  prevailing on myself to send you away."
  
  She was the personification of indiscretion. They talked very loud and
  about two o'clock in the morning they were interrupted by a violent
  knock at the door. It was M. de Renal again.
  
  "Open quickly, there are thieves in the house!" he said. "Saint Jean
  found their ladder this morning."
  
  "This is the end of everything," cried Madame de Renal, throwing
  herself into Julien's arms. "He will kill both of us, he doesn't
  believe there are any thieves. I will die in your arms, and be more
  happy in my death than I ever was in my life." She made no attempt to
  answer her husband who was beginning to lose his temper, but started
  kissing Julien passionately.
  
  "Save Stanislas's mother," he said to her with an imperious look. "I
  will jump down into the courtyard through the lavatory window, and
  escape in the garden; the dogs have recognised me. Make my clothes into
  a parcel and throw them into the garden as soon as you can. In the
  meanwhile let him break the door down. But above all, no confession, I
  forbid you to confess, it is better that he should suspect rather than
  be certain."
  
  "You will kill yourself as you jump!" was her only answer and her only
  anxiety.
  
  She went with him to the lavatory window; she then took sufficient time
  to hide his clothes. She finally opened the door to her husband who was
  boiling with rage. He looked in the room and in the lavatory without
  saying a word and disappeared. Julien's clothes were thrown down to
  him; he seized them and ran rapidly towards the bottom of the garden in
  the direction of the Doubs.
  
  As he was running he heard a bullet whistle past him, and heard at the
  same time the report of a gun.
  
  "It is not M. de Renal," he thought, "he's far too bad a shot." The
  dogs ran silently at his side, the second shot apparently broke the paw
  of one dog, for he began to whine piteously. Julien jumped the wall of
  the terrace, did fifty paces under cover, and began to fly in another
  direction. He heard voices calling and had a distinct view of his enemy
  the servant firing a gun; a farmer also began to shoot away from the
  other side of the garden. Julien had already reached the bank of the
  Doubs where he dressed himself.
  
  An hour later he was a league from Verrieres on the Geneva road. "If
  they had suspicions," thought Julien, "they will look for me on the
  Paris road."
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Part 1, Chapter 30
target: Father Pirard travels to Paris to meet with the Marquis de La Mole. He asks Pirard if he'd consider leaving the priesthood to become his personal assistant. The salary is generous, but Pirard declines. He suggests Julien Sorel as an alternative. The marquis agrees. Julien gets the letter asking him to come to Paris immediately. He travels to the bishop's house to say he's leaving. He says goodbye to his friend Fouqe too. Before leaving, he rides back to Verrieres and buys a ladder. He brings the ladder back to the de Renal house and uses it to sneak up into Madame de Renal's bedroom. She is shocked to see him, but also happy. The two of them spend the night together and he waits a long time before leaving. While they talk, he realizes that the five hundred francs from Paris was not from her. When he finally leaves, some servants hear him and start shooting, thinking he's a burglar. He escapes, though.