feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Red and the Black/section_7_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 21-34
feat_summary_id: book 2, chapters 21-34
feat_summary: {"name": "", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210301223854/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/redblack/section8/", "summary": "Julien tries to divert his attention from Mathilde. He goes on a secret mission for the Marquis to help organize a conservative conspiracy that will strengthen the political power of the clergy in France. The Marquis, along with some of the most powerful men in France, wants to organize an army controlled by the Vatican. Julien's excellent powers of memorization impress the Marquis and his associates, so they send him around France to deliver their message to co- conspirators. Nevertheless, a group of conservative priests finds out about the conspiracy, forcing Julien to disguise himself as a soldier. Upon his return to Paris, Julien decides to make Mathilde jealous. He begins writing copied love letters to an extremely religious member of the Marquis's salon, Mme. de Fervaques. Julien knows that she is too pious to even understand his fake declarations of love, and is just using her attention to upset Mathilde. He is still very much in love with Mathilde. For the two months that he forces himself to avoid her, he is miserable. During this period, Julien becomes an expert dresser and even manages to make Mme. de Fervaques begin to like him. Mathilde cannot help but notice Julien's surge in popularity, and blushes whenever they are in the same room. Julien's ploy to make Mathilde jealous works perfectly. She finds out about the letters to Mme. de Fervaques and falls at Julien's feet proclaiming her undying love. Julien is madly in love with her too, but has learned how volatile Mathilde's emotions can be. He decides to say little and do little until he has guarantees from Mathilde that she will not change her mind. Julien now knows how to manipulate Mathilde's emotions, and succeeds in making her completely devoted to him. They resume their relationship, but Julien is careful not too show too much emotion in order to keep Mathilde interested in him. However, she soon finds out that she is pregnant and wants Julien to become her husband. Mathilde immediately confesses everything to her father, blaming herself for seducing Julien in the first place. The Marquis is enraged but will not have Julien killed. He cannot imagine his daughter having the last name Sorel, and tries to think of some way to get rid of Julien. Instead, after a month of negotiations and the help of M. Pirard, the Marquis both gives Julien a large income and ennobles him as Julien de La Vernaye. Julien is also made a lieutenant in the army. Having made Julien a man of rank and wealth, the Marquis finally consents to Julien's marriage to Mathilde.", "analysis": "Commentary Julien's hypocrisy finally comes full circle as he finds himself working as an agent for a conservative conspiracy. Stendhal uses this political interlude to separate Julien and Mathilde as well as mock both liberal and conservative politics. Writing immediately following the bourgeois liberal Revolution of 1830, Stendhal replaces the liberal conspiracy with a conservative one, cynically suggesting that the two parties are really interchangeable. He further ridicules conservative politics when he introduces a second conservative conspiracy that attempts to thwart the first plot. Revealingly, nothing Julien does on his mission matters or has any effect. Just like during the king's visit to Verrieres, Julien switches from the black clothes of the clergy to the red uniform of a soldier to avoid being recognized. Like liberal and conservative politics, the red and the black are really not that different from each other. Stendhal suggests that, like Julien's forgotten conspiracy, French politics are more comedy than drama. Julien finally masters the psychological power of triangular desire in this section. The first part of his affair with Mathilde is hampered by her inability to decide whether she loves him or not. She especially cannot forget Julien's humble social status. However, Julien soon figures out that jealousy is the best way to win her devotion. Forming a love triangle with Mme. de Fervaques as an intermediary, he succeeds in making Mathilde completely fall in love with him and give him assurances of her devotion. Yet Julien is careful not to immediately declare his own love, making sure that he keeps Mathilde dependent on him and not the other way around. More so than ever, he evokes the example of Napoleon and treats her like an enemy on a battlefield that must be intimidated. Stendhal notes that Mathilde is pregnant in a very brief sentence that does not fit well with the surrounding text. Did Julien get her pregnant on purpose to further his ambitions? Stendhal's reticence on this subject does seem to suggest some intent on Julien's part, but Julien is very shocked that Mathilde wants to tell her father. The Marquis's choices in this matter are clear: he must either have Julien killed or ennoble him. Julien still feels a deep obligation to the Marquis and offers to commit suicide, a declaration that makes Mathilde love him even more. Her ensuing argument with her father raises an interesting question regarding Julien's character. Neither of them feels that they know him very well. Indeed, Julien himself does not seem to know who he really is and what he really wants in life. Both Mathilde and the Marquis feel that Julien's political ambitions present a danger to the aristocracy and decide that the best way to engender his trust is to make him one of them; he could otherwise prove to be a revolutionary leader. Julien's lack of identity is thus molded into the title of de la Vernaye. Even though she is in love with Julien, Mathilde can not get over his low birth, and thus spreads a rumor that he is the illegitimate son of a nobleman. But his new title and army commission are the realization of Julien's dreams only in name: he has been acting like an aristocrat and a soldier since the beginning of the novel."}
text: CHAPTER LI
  
  THE SECRET NOTE
  
  
          I have seen everything I relate, and if I may have made
          a mistake when I saw it, I am certainly not deceiving
          you in telling you of it.
                                        _Letter to the author_.
  
  
  The marquis summoned him; M. de la Mole looked rejuvenated, his eye was
  brilliant.
  
  "Let us discuss your memory a little," he said to Julien, "it is said
  to be prodigious. Could you learn four pages by heart and go and say
  them at London, but without altering a single word?"
  
  The marquis was irritably fingering, the day's _Quotidienne_, and was
  trying in vain to hide an extreme seriousness which Julien had never
  noticed in him before, even when discussing the Frilair lawsuit.
  
  Julien had already learned sufficient manners to appreciate that he
  ought to appear completely taken in by the lightness of tone which was
  being manifested.
  
  "This number of the _Quotidienne_ is not very amusing possibly, but if
  M. the marquis will allow me, I shall do myself the honour to-morrow
  morning of reciting it to him from beginning to end."
  
  "What, even the advertisements?"
  
  "Quite accurately and without leaving out a word."
  
  "You give me your word?" replied the marquis with sudden gravity.
  
  "Yes, monsieur; the only thing which could upset my memory is the fear
  of breaking my promise."
  
  "The fact is, I forgot to put this question to you yesterday: I am
  not going to ask for your oath never to repeat what you are going to
  hear. I know you too well to insult you like that. I have answered for
  you. I am going to take you into a salon where a dozen persons will he
  assembled. You will make a note of what each one says.
  
  "Do not be uneasy. It will not be a confused conversation by any means.
  Each one will speak in his turn, though not necessarily in an orderly
  manner," added the marquis falling back into that light, subtle manner
  which was so natural to him. "While we are talking, you will write out
  twenty pages and will come back here with me, and we will get those
  twenty pages down to four, and those are the four pages you will recite
  to me to-morrow morning instead of the four pages of the _Quotidienne_.
  You will leave immediately afterwards. You must post about like a
  young man travelling on pleasure. Your aim will be to avoid attracting
  attention. You will arrive at the house of a great personage. You will
  there need more skill. Your business will then be to take in all his
  entourage, for among his secretaries and his servants are some people
  who have sold themselves to our enemies, and who spy on our travelling
  agents in order to intercept them.
  
  "You will have an insignificant letter of introduction. At the moment
  his Excellency looks at you, you will take out this watch of mine,
  which I will lend you for the journey. Wear it now, it will be so much
  done; at any rate give me yours.
  
  "The duke himself will be good enough to write at your dictation the
  four pages you have learnt by heart.
  
  "Having done this, but not earlier, mind you, you can, if his
  Excellency questions you, tell him about the meeting at which you are
  now going to be present.
  
  "You will be prevented from boring yourself on the journey between
  Paris and the minister's residence by the thought that there are people
  who would like nothing better than to fire a shot at M. the abbe Sorel.
  In that case that gentleman's mission will be finished, and I see a
  great delay, for how are we to know of your death, my dear friend? Even
  your zeal cannot go to the length of informing us of it.
  
  "Run straight away and buy a complete suit," went on the marquis
  seriously. "Dress in the fashion of two years ago. To-night you must
  look somewhat badly groomed. When you travel, on the other hand, you
  will be as usual. Does this surprise you? Does your suspiciousness
  guess the secret? Yes, my friend, one of the venerable personages you
  are going to hear deliver his opinion, is perfectly capable of giving
  information as the result of which you stand a very good chance of
  being given at least opium some fine evening in some good inn where you
  will have asked for supper."
  
  "It is better," said Julien, "to do an extra thirty leagues and not
  take the direct road. It is a case of Rome, I suppose...." The marquis
  assumed an expression of extreme haughtiness and dissatisfaction which
  Julien had never seen him wear since Bray-le-Haut.
  
  "That is what you will know, monsieur, when I think it proper to tell
  you. I do not like questions."
  
  "That was not one," answered Julien eagerly. "I swear, monsieur, I was
  thinking quite aloud. My mind was trying to find out the safest route."
  
  "Yes, it seems your mind was a very long way off. Remember that an
  emissary, and particularly one of your age should not appear to be a
  man who forces confidences."
  
  Julien was very mortified; he was in the wrong. His vanity tried to
  find an excuse and did not find one.
  
  "You understand," added monsieur de la Mole, "that one always falls
  back on one's heart when one has committed some mistake."
  
  An hour afterwards Julien was in the marquis's ante-chamber. He looked
  quite like a servant with his old clothes, a tie of a dubious white,
  and a certain touch of the usher in his whole appearance. The marquis
  burst out laughing as he saw him, and it was only then that Julien's
  justification was complete.
  
  "If this young man betrays me," said M. de la Mole to himself, "whom is
  one to trust? And yet, when one acts, one must trust someone. My son
  and his brilliant friends of the same calibre have as much courage and
  loyalty as a hundred thousand men. If it were necessary to fight, they
  would die on the steps of the throne. They know everything--except
  what one needs in emergency. Devil take me if I can find a single one
  among them who can learn four pages by heart and do a hundred leagues
  without being tracked down. Norbert would know how to sell his life as
  dearly as his grandfathers did. But any conscript could do as much."
  
  The marquis fell into a profound reverie. "As for selling one's life
  too," he said with a sigh, "perhaps this Sorel would manage it quite as
  well as he could.
  
  "Let us get into the carriage," said the marquis as though to chase
  away an unwanted idea.
  
  "Monsieur," said Julien, "while they were getting this suit ready for
  me, I learnt the first page of to-days _Quotidienne_ by heart."
  
  The marquis took the paper. Julien recited it without making a single
  mistake. "Good," said the marquis, who this night felt very diplomatic.
  "During the time he takes over this our young man will not notice the
  streets through which we are passing."
  
  They arrived in a big salon that looked melancholy enough and was
  partly upholstered in green velvet. In the middle of the room
  a scowling lackey had just placed a big dining-table which he
  subsequently changed into a writing-table by means of an immense green
  inkstained tablecloth which had been plundered from some minister.
  
  The master of the house was an enormous man whose name was not
  pronounced. Julien thought he had the appearance and eloquence of a
  man who ruminated. At a sign from the marquis, Julien had remained at
  the lower end of the table. In order to keep himself in countenance,
  he began to cut quills. He counted out of the corner of his eye seven
  visitors, but Julien could only see their backs. Two seemed to him
  to be speaking to M. de la Mole on a footing of equality, the others
  seemed more or less respectful.
  
  A new person entered without being announced. "This is strange,"
  thought Julien. "People are not announced in this salon. Is this
  precaution taken in my honour?" Everybody got up to welcome the new
  arrival. He wore the same extremely distinguished decoration as three
  of the other persons who were in the salon. They talked fairly low. In
  endeavouring to form an opinion of the new comer, Julien was reduced to
  seeing what he could learn from his features and his appearance. He was
  short and thick-set. He had a high colour and a brilliant eye and an
  expression that looked like a malignant boar, and nothing else.
  
  Julien's attention was partly distracted by the almost immediate
  arrival of a very different kind of person. It was a tall very thin
  man who wore three or four waistcoats. His eye was caressing, his
  demeanour polite.
  
  "He looks exactly like the old bishop of Besancon," thought Julien.
  This man evidently belonged to the church, was apparently not more than
  fifty to fifty-five years of age, and no one could have looked more
  paternal than he did.
  
  The young bishop of Agde appeared. He looked very astonished when,
  in making a scrutiny of those present, his gaze fell upon Julien. He
  had not spoken to him since the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. His look of
  surprise embarrassed and irritated Julien. "What!" he said to himself,
  "will knowing a man always turn out unfortunate for me? I don't feel
  the least bit intimidated by all those great lords whom I have never
  seen, but the look of that young bishop freezes me. I must admit that I
  am a very strange and very unhappy person."
  
  An extremely swarthy little man entered noisily soon afterwards and
  started talking as soon as he reached the door. He had a yellow
  complexion and looked a little mad. As soon as this ruthless talker
  arrived, the others formed themselves into knots with the apparent
  object of avoiding the bother of listening to him.
  
  As they went away from the mantelpiece they came near the lower end
  of the table where Julien was placed. His countenance became more and
  more embarrassed, for whatever efforts he made, he could not avoid
  hearing, and in spite of all his lack of experience he appreciated
  all the moment of the things which they were discussing with such
  complete frankness, and the importance which the high personages whom
  he apparently had under his observation must attach to their being kept
  secret.
  
  Julien had already cut twenty quills as slowly as possible; this
  distraction would shortly be no longer available. He looked in vain at
  M. de la Mole's eyes for an order; the marquis had forgotten him.
  
  "What I am doing is ridiculous," he said to himself as he cut his
  quills, "but persons with so mediocre an appearance and who are
  handling such great interests either for themselves or for others must
  be extremely liable to take offence. My unfortunate look has a certain
  questioning and scarcely respectful expression, which will doubtless
  irritate them. But if I palpably lower my eyes I shall look as if I
  were picking up every word they said."
  
  His embarrassment was extreme, he was listening to strange things.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LII
  
  THE DISCUSSION
  
  
          The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice
          everything for the public welfare, there are thousands
          and millions who think of nothing except their
          enjoyments and their vanity. One is requested in Paris
          by reason of the qualities not of one's self but of
          one's carriage.
                                          --NAPOLEON, Memorial.
  
  
  The footman rushed in saying "Monsieur the duke de ----"
  
  "Hold your tongue, you are just a fool," said the duke as he entered.
  He spoke these words so well, and with so much majesty, that Julien
  could not help thinking this great person's accomplishments were
  limited to the science of snubbing a lackey. Julien raised his
  eyes and immediately lowered them. He had so fully appreciated the
  significance of the new arrival that he feared that his look might be
  an indiscretion.
  
  The duke was a man of fifty dressed like a dandy and with a jerky
  walk. He had a narrow head with a large nose and a face that jutted
  forward; it would have been difficult to have looked at the same time
  more insignificant. His arrival was the signal for the opening of the
  meeting.
  
  Julien was sharply interrupted in his physiognomical observations by
  de la Mole's voice. "I present to you M. the abbe Sorel," said the
  Marquis. "He is gifted with an astonishing memory; it is scarcely an
  hour ago since I spoke to him of the mission by which he might be
  honoured, and he has learned the first page of the _Quotidienne_ by
  heart in order to give proof of his memory."
  
  "Ah! foreign news of that poor N--" said the master of the house. He
  took up the paper eagerly and looked at Julien in a manner rendered
  humorous by its own self-importance. "Speak, monsieur," he said to him.
  
  The silence was profound, all eyes were fixed on Julien. He recited
  so well that the duke said at the end of twenty lines, "That is
  enough." The little man who looked like a boar sat down. He was the
  president, for he had scarcely taken his place before he showed Julien
  a card-table and signed to him to bring it near him. Julien established
  himself at it with writing materials. He counted twelve persons seated
  round the green table cloth.
  
  "M. Sorel," said the Duke, "retire into next room, you will be called."
  
  The master of the house began to look very anxious. "The shutters
  are not shut," he said to his neighbour in a semi-whisper. "It is no
  good looking out of the window," he stupidly cried to Julien--"so
  here I am more or less mixed up in a conspiracy," thought the latter.
  "Fortunately it is not one of those which lead to the Place-de-Greve.
  Even though there were danger, I owe this and even more to the marquis,
  and should be glad to be given the chance of making up for all the
  sorrow which my madness may one day occasion him."
  
  While thinking of his own madness and his own unhappiness he regarded
  the place where he was, in such a way as to imprint it upon his memory
  for ever. He then remembered for the first time that he had never heard
  the lackey tell the name of the street, and that the marquis had taken
  a fiacre which he never did in the ordinary way. Julien was left to
  his own reflections for a long time. He was in a salon upholstered in
  red velvet with large pieces of gold lace. A large ivory crucifix was
  on the console-table and a gilt-edged, magnificently bound copy of M.
  de Maistre's book _The Pope_ was on the mantelpiece. Julien opened it
  so as not to appear to be eavesdropping. From time to time they talked
  loudly in the next room. At last the door was opened and he was called
  in.
  
  "Remember, gentlemen," the president was saying "that from this moment
  we are talking in the presence of the duke of ----. This gentleman,"
  he said, pointing to Julien, "is a young acolyte devoted to our sacred
  cause who by the aid of his marvellous memory will repeat quite easily
  our very slightest words."
  
  "It is your turn to speak, Monsieur," he said pointing to the paternal
  looking personage who wore three or four waistcoats. Julien thought it
  would have been more natural to have called him the gentleman in the
  waistcoats. He took some paper and wrote a great deal.
  
  (At this juncture the author would have liked to have put a page of
  dots. "That," said his publisher, "would be clumsy and in the case of
  so light a work clumsiness is death."
  
  "Politics," replies the author, "is a stone tied round the neck of
  literature which submerges it in less than six months. Politics in the
  midst of imaginative matter is like a pistol shot in the middle of a
  concert. The noise is racking without being energetic. It does not
  harmonise with the sound of any instrument. These politics will give
  mortal offence to one half of the readers and will bore the other half,
  who will have already read the ideas in question as set out in the
  morning paper in its own drastic manner."
  
  "If your characters don't talk politics," replied the publisher, "they
  cease to be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book is no longer a mirror as
  you claim?")
  
  Julien's record ran to twenty-six pages. Here is a very diluted
  extract, for it has been necessary to adopt the invariable practice of
  suppressing those ludicrous passages, whose violence would have seemed
  either offensive or intolerable (see the _Gazette des Tribunaux_).
  
  The man with the waistcoats and the paternal expression (he was perhaps
  a bishop) often smiled and then his eyes, which were surrounded with
  a floating forest of eyebrows, assumed a singular brilliance and an
  unusually decided expression. This personage whom they made speak first
  before the duke ("but what duke is it?" thought Julien to himself) with
  the apparent object of expounding various points of view and fulfilling
  the functions of an advocate-general, appeared to Julien to fall into
  the uncertainty and lack of definiteness with which those officials
  are so often taxed. During the course of the discussion the duke went
  so far as to reproach him on this score. After several sentences of
  morality and indulgent philosophy the man in the waistcoats said,
  
  "Noble England, under the guiding hand of a great man, the immortal
  Pitt, has spent forty milliards of francs in opposing the revolution.
  If this meeting will allow me to treat so melancholy a subject with
  some frankness, England fails to realise sufficiently that in dealing
  with a man like Buonaparte, especially when they have nothing to
  oppose him with, except a bundle of good intentions there is nothing
  decisive except personal methods."
  
  "Ah! praising assassination again!" said the master of the house
  anxiously.
  
  "Spare us your sentimental sermons," cried the president angrily. His
  boarlike eye shone with a savage brilliance. "Go on," he said to the
  man with the waistcoats. The cheeks and the forehead of the president
  became purple.
  
  "Noble England," replied the advocate-general, "is crushed to-day:
  for each Englishman before paying for his own bread is obliged to pay
  the interest on forty milliards of francs which were used against the
  Jacobins. She has no more Pitt."
  
  "She has the Duke of Wellington," said a military personage looking
  very important.
  
  "Please, gentlemen, silence," exclaimed the president. "If we are still
  going to dispute, there was no point in having M. Sorel in."
  
  "We know that monsieur has many ideas," said the duke irritably,
  looking at the interrupter who was an old Napoleonic general. Julien
  saw that these words contained some personal and very offensive
  allusion. Everybody smiled, the turncoat general appeared beside
  himself with rage.
  
  "There is no longer a Pitt, gentlemen," went on the speaker with all
  the despondency of a man who has given up all hope of bringing his
  listeners to reason. "If there were a new Pitt in England, you would
  not dupe a nation twice over by the same means."
  
  "That's why a victorious general, a Buonaparte, will be henceforward
  impossible in France," exclaimed the military interrupter.
  
  On this occasion neither the president nor the duke ventured to get
  angry, though Julien thought he read in their eyes that they would
  very much like to have done so. They lowered their eyes, and the duke
  contented himself with sighing in quite an audible manner. But the
  speaker was put upon his mettle.
  
  "My audience is eager for me to finish," he said vigorously, completely
  discarding that smiling politeness and that balanced diction that
  Julien thought had expressed his character so well. "It is eager for
  me to finish, it is not grateful to me for the efforts I am making to
  offend nobody's ears, however long they may be. Well, gentlemen, I will
  be brief.
  
  "I will tell you in quite common words: England has not got a sou with
  which to help the good cause. If Pitt himself were to come back he
  would never succeed with all his genius in duping the small English
  landowners, for they know that the short Waterloo campaign alone cost
  them a milliard of francs. As you like clear phrases," continued the
  speaker, becoming more and more animated, "I will say this to you: Help
  yourselves, for England has not got a guinea left to help you with,
  and when England does not pay, Austria, Russia and Prussia--who will
  only have courage but have no money--cannot launch more than one or two
  campaigns against France.
  
  "One may hope that the young soldiers who will be recruited by the
  Jacobins will be beaten in the first campaign, and possibly in the
  second; but, even though I seem a revolutionary in your prejudiced
  eyes, in the third campaign--in the third campaign I say--you will have
  the soldiers of 1794 who were no longer the soldiers enlisted in 1792."
  
  At this point interruption broke out simultaneously from three or four
  quarters.
  
  "Monsieur," said the president to Julien, "Go and make a precis in the
  next room of the beginning of the report which you have written out."
  
  Julien went out to his great regret. The speaker was just dealing
  with the question of probabilities which formed the usual subject
  for his meditations. "They are frightened of my making fun of them,"
  he thought. When he was called back, M. de la Mole was saying with a
  seriousness which seemed quite humorous to Julien who knew him so well,
  
  "Yes, gentlemen, one finds the phrase, 'is it god, table or tub?'
  especially applicable to this unhappy people. '_It is god_' exclaims
  the writer of fables. It is to you, gentlemen, that this noble and
  profound phrase seems to apply. Act on your own initiative, and noble
  France will appear again, almost such as our ancestors made her, and as
  our own eyes have seen her before the death of Louis XVI.
  
  "England execrates disgraceful Jacobinism as much as we do, or at any
  rate her noble lords do. Without English gold, Austria and Prussia
  would only be able to give battle two or three times. Would that be
  sufficient to ensure a successful occupation like the one which M. de
  Richelieu so foolishly failed to exploit in 1817? I do not think so."
  
  At this point there was an interruption which was stifled by the hushes
  of the whole room. It came again from the old Imperial general who
  wanted the blue ribbon and wished to figure among the authors of the
  secret note.
  
  "I do not think so," replied M. de la Mole, after the uproar had
  subsided. He laid stress on the "I" with an insolence which charmed
  Julien.
  
  "That's a pretty piece of acting," he said to himself, as he made his
  pen almost keep pace with the marquis' words.
  
  M. de la Mole annihilated the twenty campaigns of the turncoat with a
  well turned phrase.
  
  "It is not only on foreign powers," continued the marquis in a more
  even tone, "on whom we shall be able to rely for a new military
  occupation. All those young men who write inflammatory articles
  in the _Globe_ will provide you with three or four thousand young
  captains among whom you may find men with the genius, but not the good
  intentions of a Kleber, a Hoche, a Jourdan, a Pichegru."
  
  "We did not know how to glorify him," said the president. "He should
  have been immortalized."
  
  "Finally, it is necessary for France to have two parties," went on M.
  de la Mole; "but two parties not merely in name, but with clear-cut
  lines of cleavage. Let us realise what has got to be crushed. On
  the one hand the journalists and the electors, in a word, public
  opinion; youth and all that admire it. While it is stupefying itself
  with the noise of its own vain words, we have certain advantages of
  administrating the expenditure of the budget."
  
  At this point there was another interruption.
  
  "As for you, monsieur," said M. de la Mole to the interrupter, with an
  admirable haughtiness and ease of manner, "you do not spend, if the
  words chokes you, but you devour the forty thousand francs put down to
  you in the State budget, and the eighty thousand which you receive from
  the civil list."
  
  "Well, monsieur, since you force me to it, I will be bold enough to
  take you for an example. Like your noble ancestors, who followed Saint
  Louis to the crusade, you ought in return for those hundred and twenty
  thousand francs to show us at any rate a regiment; a company, why, what
  am I saying? say half a company, even if it only had fifty men, ready
  to fight and devoted to the good cause to the point of risking their
  lives in its service. You have nothing but lackeys, who in the event of
  a rebellion would frighten you yourselves."
  
  "Throne, Church, Nobility are liable to perish to-morrow, gentlemen,
  so long as you refrain from creating in each department a force of
  five hundred devoted men, devoted I mean, not only with all the French
  courage, but with all the Spanish constancy.
  
  "Half of this force ought to be composed of our children, our nephews,
  of real gentlemen, in fact. Each of them will have beside him not a
  little talkative bourgeois ready to hoist the tricolor cockade, if 1815
  turns up again, but a good, frank and simple peasant like Cathelineau.
  Our gentleman will have educated him, it will be his own foster brother
  if it is possible. Let each of us sacrifice the fifth of his income in
  order to form this little devoted force of five hundred men in each
  department. Then you will be able to reckon on a foreign occupation.
  The foreign soldier will never penetrate even as far as Dijon if he
  is not certain of finding five hundred friendly soldiers in each
  department.
  
  "The foreign kings will only listen to you when you are in a position
  to announce to them that you have twenty thousand gentlemen ready to
  take up arms in order to open to them the gates of France. The service
  is troublesome, you say. Gentlemen, it is the only way of saving our
  lives. There is war to the death between the liberty of the press and
  our existence as gentlemen. Become manufacturers, become peasants, or
  take up your guns. Be timid if you like, but do not be stupid. Open
  your eyes.
  
  "'_Form your battalions_,' I would say to you in the words of the
  Jacobin songs. Some noble Gustavus Adolphus will then be found who,
  touched by the imminent peril of the monarchical principle, will make
  a dash three hundred leagues from his own country, and will do for
  you what Gustavus did for the Protestant princes. Do you want to go
  on talking without acting? In fifty years' time there will be only
  presidents or republics in Europe and not one king, and with those
  three letters R. O. I. you will see the last of the priests and the
  gentlemen. I can see nothing but candidates paying court to squalid
  majorities.
  
  "It is no use your saying that at the present time France has not
  a single accredited general who is universally known and loved,
  that the army is only known and organised in the interests of the
  throne and the church, and that it has been deprived of all its old
  troopers, while each of the Prussian and Austrian regiments count fifty
  non-commissioned officers who have seen fire.
  
  "Two hundred thousand young men of the middle classes are spoiling for
  war--"
  
  "A truce to disagreeable truths," said a grave personage in a pompous
  tone. He was apparently a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, for M.
  de la Mole smiled pleasantly, instead of getting angry, a circumstance
  which greatly impressed Julien.
  
  "A truce to unpleasant truths, let us resume, gentlemen. The man who
  needs to have a gangrened leg cut off would be ill advised to say to
  his surgeon, 'this disease is very healthy.' If I may use the metaphor,
  gentlemen, the noble duke of ---- is our surgeon."
  
  "So the great words have at last been uttered," thought Julien. "It is
  towards the ---- that I shall gallop to-night."
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LIII
  
  THE CLERGY, THE FORESTS, LIBERTY
  
  
          The first law of every being, is to preserve itself and
          live. You sow hemlock, and expect to see ears of corn
          ripen.--_Machiavelli_.
  
  
  The great personage continued. One could see that he knew his subject.
  He proceeded to expound the following great truths with a soft and
  tempered eloquence with which Julien was inordinately delighted:--
  
  "1. England has not a guinea to help us with; economy and Hume are
  the fashion there. Even the saints will not give us any money, and M.
  Brougham will make fun of us.
  
  "2. The impossibility of getting the kings of Europe to embark on more
  than two campaigns without English gold; two campaigns will not be
  enough to dispose of the middle classes.
  
  "3. The necessity of forming an armed party in France. Without this,
  the monarchical principle in Europe will not risk even two campaigns.
  
  "The fourth point which I venture to suggest to you, as self-evident,
  is this:
  
  "The impossibility of forming an armed party in France without the
  clergy. I am bold enough to tell you this because I will prove it to
  you, gentlemen. You must make every sacrifice for the clergy.
  
  "Firstly, because as it is occupied with its mission by day and by
  night, and guided by highly capable men established far from these
  storms at three hundred leagues from your frontiers----"
  
  "Ah, Rome, Rome!" exclaimed the master of the house.
  
  "Yes, monsieur, Rome," replied the Cardinal haughtily. "Whatever more
  or less ingenious jokes may have been the fashion when you were young,
  I have no hesitation in saying that in 1830 it is only the clergy,
  under the guidance of Rome, who has the ear of the lower classes.
  
  "Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day appointed by
  their chiefs, and the people--who after all provide soldiers--will be
  more touched by the voices of its priests than by all the versifying in
  the whole world." (This personality provoked some murmurs.)
  
  "The clergy has a genius superior to yours," went on the cardinal
  raising his voice. "All the progress that has been made towards this
  essential point of having an armed party in France has been made by
  us." At this juncture facts were introduced. "Who used eighty thousand
  rifles in Vendee?" etc., etc.
  
  "So long as the clergy is without its forests it is helpless. At
  the first war the minister of finance will write to his agents that
  there is no money to be had except for the cure. At bottom France
  does not believe, and she loves war. Whoever gives her war will be
  doubly popular, for making war is, to use a vulgar phrase, the same as
  starving the Jesuits; making war means delivering those monsters of
  pride--the men of France--from the menace of foreign intervention."
  
  The cardinal had a favourable hearing. "M. de Nerval," he said, "will
  have to leave the ministry, his name irritates and to no purpose."
  
  At these words everybody got up and talked at the same time. "I will be
  sent away again," thought Julien, but the sapient president himself had
  forgotten both the presence and existence of Julien.
  
  All eyes were turned upon a man whom Julien recognised. It was M. de
  Nerval, the prime minister, whom he had seen at M. the duc de Retz's
  ball.
  
  The disorder was at its height, as the papers say when they talk of the
  Chamber. At the end of a long quarter of an hour a little quiet was
  established.
  
  Then M. de Nerval got up and said in an apostolic tone and a singular
  voice:
  
  "I will not go so far as to say that I do not set great store on being
  a minister.
  
  "It has been demonstrated to me, gentlemen, that my name will double
  the forces of the Jacobins by making many moderates divide against
  us. I should therefore be willing to retire; but the ways of the Lord
  are only visible to a small number; but," he added, looking fixedly
  at the cardinal, "I have a mission. Heaven has said: 'You will either
  loose your head on the scaffold or you will re-establish the monarchy
  of France and reduce the Chambers to the condition of the parliament of
  Louis XV.,' and that, gentlemen, I shall do."
  
  He finished his speech, sat down, and there was a long silence.
  
  "What a good actor," thought Julien. He made his usual mistake of
  ascribing too much intelligence to the people. Excited by the debates
  of so lively an evening, and above all by the sincerity of the
  discussion, M. de Nerval did at this moment believe in his mission.
  This man had great courage, but at the same time no sense.
  
  During the silence that followed the impressive words, "I shall do it,"
  midnight struck. Julien thought that the striking of the clock had in
  it a certain element of funereal majesty. He felt moved.
  
  The discussion was soon resumed with increasing energy, and above all
  with an incredible naivety. "These people will have me poisoned,"
  thought Julien at times. "How can they say such things before a
  plebian."
  
  They were still talking when two o'clock struck. The master of the
  house had been sleeping for some time. M. de la Mole was obliged to
  ring for new candles. M. de Nerval, the minister, had left at the
  quarter to two, but not without having repeatedly studied Julien's face
  in a mirror which was at the minister's side. His departure had seemed
  to put everybody at their ease.
  
  While they were bringing new candles, the man in the waistcoats,
  whispered to his neighbour: "God knows what that man will say to the
  king. He may throw ridicule upon us and spoil our future."
  
  "One must own that he must possess an unusual self-assurance, not to
  say impudence, to put in an appearance here There were signs of it
  before he became a minister; but a portfolio changes everything and
  swamps all a man's interests; he must have felt its effect."
  
  The minister had scarcely left before the general of Buonaparte closed
  his eyes. He now talked of his health and his wounds, consulted his
  watch, and went away.
  
  "I will wager," said the man in the waistcoats, "that the general is
  running after the minister; he will apologise for having been here and
  pretend that he is our leader."
  
  "Let us now deliberate, gentlemen," said the president, after the
  sleepy servants had finished bringing and lighting new candles. "Let us
  leave off trying to persuade each other. Let us think of the contents
  of the note which will be read by our friends outside in forty-eight
  hours from now. We have heard ministers spoken of. Now that M. de
  Nerval has left us, we are at liberty to say 'what we do care for
  ministers.'"
  
  The cardinal gave a subtle smile of approval.
  
  "Nothing is easier it seems to me than summing up our position," said
  the young bishop of Agde, with the restrained concentrated fire of the
  most exalted fanaticism. He had kept silent up to this time; his eye,
  which Julien had noticed as being soft and calm at the beginning, had
  become fiery during the first hour of the discussion. His soul was now
  bubbling over like lava from Vesuvius.
  
  "England only made one mistake from 1806 to 1814," he said, "and that
  was in not taking direct and personal measures against Napoleon. As
  soon as that man had made dukes and chamberlains, as soon as he had
  re-established the throne, the mission that God had entrusted to him
  was finished. The only thing to do with him was to sacrifice him.
  The scriptures teach us in more than one place how to make an end of
  tyrants" (at this point there were several Latin quotations).
  
  "To-day, gentlemen, it is not a man who has to be sacrificed, it
  is Paris. What is the use of arming your five hundred men in each
  department, a hazardous and interminable enterprise? What is the good
  of involving France in a matter which is personal to Paris? Paris alone
  has done the evil, with its journals and it salons. Let the new Babylon
  perish.
  
  "We must bring to an end the conflict between the church and Paris.
  Such a catastrophe would even be in the worldly interests of the
  throne. Why did not Paris dare to whisper a word under Buonaparte? Ask
  the cannon of Saint-Roch?"
  
  Julien did not leave with M. de la Mole before three o'clock in the
  morning.
  
  The marquis seemed tired and ashamed. For the first time in his life
  in conversation with Julien, his tone was plaintive. He asked him for
  his word never to reveal the excesses of zeal, that was his expression,
  of which chance had just made him a witness. "Only mention it to our
  foreign friend, if he seriously insists on knowing what our young
  madmen are like. What does it matter to them if a state is overthrown,
  they will become cardinals and will take refuge in Rome. As for us, we
  shall be massacred by the peasants in our chateaus."
  
  The secret note into which the marquis condensed Julien's full report
  of twenty-six pages was not ready before a quarter to five.
  
  "I am dead tired," said the marquis, "as is quite obvious from the lack
  of clearness at the end of this note; I am more dissatisfied with it
  than with anything I ever did in my whole life. Look here, my friend,"
  he added, "go and rest for some hours, and as I am frightened you might
  be kidnapped, I shall lock you up in your room."
  
  The marquis took Julien on the following day to a lonely chateau at a
  good distance from Paris. There were strange guests there whom Julien
  thought were priests. He was given a passport which was made out in a
  fictitious name, but indicated the real destination of his journey,
  which he had always pretended not to know. He got into a carriage alone.
  
  The marquis had no anxiety on the score of his memory. Julien
  had recited the secret note to him several times but he was very
  apprehensive of his being intercepted.
  
  "Above all, mind you look like a coxcomb who is simply travelling to
  kill time," he said affectionately to him when he was leaving the
  salon. "Perhaps there was more than one treacherous brother in this
  evening's meeting."
  
  The journey was quick and very melancholy. Julien had scarcely got
  out of the marquis's sight before he forgot his secret note and his
  mission, and only thought about Mathilde's disdain.
  
  At a village some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came and told him
  that there were no horses. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Julien
  was very annoyed and asked for supper. He walked in front of the door
  and gradually without being noticed passed into the stable-yard. He did
  not see any horses there.
  
  "That man looked strange though," thought Julien to himself. "He was
  scrutinizing me with his brutal eyes."
  
  As one sees he was beginning to be slightly sceptical of all he heard.
  He thought of escaping after supper, and in order to learn at any rate
  something about the surrounding country, he left his room to go and
  warm himself at the kitchen fire. He was overjoyed to find there the
  celebrated singer, signor Geronimo.
  
  The Neopolitan was ensconced in an armchair which he had had brought
  near the fire. He was groaning aloud, and was speaking more to himself
  than to the twenty dumbfounded German peasants who surrounded him.
  
  "Those people will be my ruin," he cried to Julien, "I have promised to
  sing to-morrow at Mayence. Seven sovereign princes have gone there to
  hear me. Let us go and take the air," he added, meaningly.
  
  When he had gone a hundred yards down the road, and it was impossible
  to be overheard, he said to Julien:
  
  "Do you know the real truth, the postmaster is a scoundrel. When I went
  out for a walk I gave twenty sous to a little ragamuffin who told me
  everything. There are twelve horses in the stable at the other end of
  the village. They want to stop some courier."
  
  "Really," said Julien innocently.
  
  Discovering the fraud was not enough; the thing was to get away, but
  Geronimo and his friends could not succeed in doing this.
  
  "Let us wait for daybreak," said the singer at last, "they are
  mistrustful of us. It is perhaps you or me whom they suspect. We will
  order a good breakfast to-morrow morning, we will go for a walk while
  they are getting it ready, we will then escape, we will hire horses,
  and gain the next station."
  
  "And how about your luggage?" said Julien, who thought perhaps Geronimo
  himself might have been sent to intercept him. They had to have supper
  and go to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep when he was woken
  up with a start by the voices of two persons who were speaking in his
  room with utmost freedom.
  
  He recognised the postmaster armed with a dark lantern. The light was
  turned on the carriage-seat which Julien had had taken up into his
  room. Beside the postmaster was a man who was calmly searching the open
  seat. Julien could see nothing except the sleeves of his coat which
  were black and very tight.
  
  "It's a cassock," he said to himself and he softly seized the little
  pistol which he had placed under his pillow.
  
  "Don't be frightened of his waking up, cure," said the postmaster, "the
  wine that has been served him was the stuff prepared by yourself."
  
  "I can't find any trace of papers," answered the cure. "A lot of linen
  and essences, pommades, and vanities. It's a young man of the world
  on pleasure bent. The other one who effects an Italian accent is more
  likely to be the emissary."
  
  The men approached Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat.
  He felt very tempted to kill them for thieves. Nothing could be safer
  in its consequences. He was very desirous of doing so.... "I should
  only be a fool," he said to himself, "I should compromise my mission."
  "He is not a diplomatist," said the priest after searching his coat. He
  went away and did well to do so.
  
  "It will be a bad business for him," Julien was saying to himself, "if
  he touches me in my bed. He may have quite well come to stab me, and I
  won't put up with that."
  
  The cure turned his head, Julien half opened his eyes. He was
  inordinately astonished, he was the abbe Castanede. As a matter of
  fact, although these two persons had made a point of talking in a
  fairly low voice, he had thought from the first that he recognised one
  of the voices. Julien was seized with an inordinate desire to purge the
  earth of one of its most cowardly villains; "But my mission," he said
  to himself.
  
  The cure and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour afterwards
  Julien pretended to have just woken up. He called out and woke up the
  whole house.
  
  "I am poisoned," he exclaimed, "I am suffering horribly!" He wanted an
  excuse to go to Geronimo's help. He found him half suffocated by the
  laudanum that had been contained in the wine.
  
  Julien had been apprehensive of some trick of this character and had
  supped on some chocolate which he had brought from Paris. He could not
  wake Geronimo up sufficiently to induce him to leave.
  
  "If they were to give me the whole kingdom of Naples," said the singer,
  "I would not now give up the pleasure of sleeping."
  
  "But the seven sovereign princes?"
  
  "Let them wait."
  
  Julien left alone, and arrived at the house of the great personage
  without other incident. He wasted a whole morning in vainly soliciting
  an audience. Fortunately about four o'clock the duke wanted to take
  the air. Julien saw him go out on foot and he did not hesitate
  to ask him for alms. When at two yards' distance from the great
  personage he pulled out the Marquis de la Mole's watch and exhibited
  it ostentatiously. "_Follow me at a distance_," said the man without
  looking at him.
  
  At a quarter of a league's distance the duke suddenly entered a little
  _coffee-house_. It was in a room of this low class inn that Julien had
  the honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished
  he was told to "_start again and go more slowly_."
  
  The prince took notes. "Reach the next posting station on foot. Leave
  your luggage and your carriage here. Get to Strasbourg as best you can
  and at half-past twelve on the twenty-second of the month (it was at
  present the tenth) come to this same coffee-house. Do not leave for
  half-an-hour. Silence!"
  
  These were the only words which Julien heard. They sufficed to inspire
  him with the highest admiration. "That is the way," he thought, "that
  real business is done; what would this great statesman say if he were
  to listen to the impassioned ranters heard three days ago?"
  
  Julien took two days to reach Strasbourg. He thought he would have
  nothing to do there. He made a great detour. "If that devil of an abbe
  Castanede has recognised me he is not the kind of man to loose track
  of me easily.... And how he would revel in making a fool of me, and
  causing my mission to fail."
  
  Fortunately the abbe Castanede, who was chief of the congregational
  police on all the northern frontier had not recognised him. And the
  Strasbourg Jesuits, although very zealous, never gave a thought to
  observing Julien, who with his cross and his blue tail-coat looked
  like a young military man, very much engrossed in his own personal
  appearance.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LIV
  
  STRASBOURG
  
  
          Fascination! Love gives thee all his love, energy and
          all his power of suffering unhappiness. It is only
          his enchanting pleasures, his sweet delights, which
          are outside thy sphere. When I saw her sleep I was
          made to say "With all her angelic beauty and her sweet
          weaknesses she is absolutely mine! There she is, quite
          in my power, such as Heaven made her in its pity in
          order to ravish a man's heart."--_Ode of Schiller_.
  
  
  Julien was compelled to spend eight days in Strasbourg and tried to
  distract himself by thoughts of military glory and patriotic devotion.
  Was he in love then? he could not tell, he only felt in his tortured
  soul that Mathilde was the absolute mistress both of his happiness
  and of his imagination. He needed all the energy of his character
  to keep himself from sinking into despair. It was out of his power
  to think of anything unconnected with mademoiselle de la Mole. His
  ambition and his simple personal successes had formerly distracted him
  from the sentiments which madame de Renal had inspired. Mathilde was
  all-absorbing; she loomed large over his whole future.
  
  Julien saw failure in every phase of that future. This same individual
  whom we remember to have been so presumptuous and haughty at Verrieres,
  had fallen into an excess of grotesque modesty.
  
  Three days ago he would only have been too pleased to have killed the
  abbe Castanede, and now, at Strasbourg, if a child had picked a quarrel
  with him he would have thought the child was in the right. In thinking
  again about the adversaries and enemies whom he had met in his life he
  always thought that he, Julien, had been in the wrong. The fact was
  that the same powerful imagination which had formerly been continuously
  employed in painting a successful future in the most brilliant colours
  had now been transformed into his implacable enemy.
  
  The absolute solicitude of a traveller's life increased the ascendancy
  of this sinister imagination. What a boon a friend would have been!
  But Julien said to himself, "Is there a single heart which beats with
  affection for me? And even if I did have a friend, would not honour
  enjoin me to eternal silence?"
  
  He was riding gloomily in the outskirts of Kehl; it is a market town
  on the banks of the Rhine and immortalised by Desaix and Gouvion
  Saint-Cyr. A German peasant showed him the little brooks, roads and
  islands of the Rhine, which have acquired a name through the courage of
  these great generals. Julien was guiding his horse with his left hand,
  while he held unfolded in his right the superb map which adorns the
  _Memoirs of the Marshal Saint Cyr_. A merry exclamation made him lift
  his head.
  
  It was the Prince Korasoff, that London friend of his, who had
  initiated him some months before into the elementary rules of high
  fatuity. Faithful to his great art, Korasoff, who had just arrived at
  Strasbourg, had been one hour in Kehl and had never read a single line
  in his whole life about the siege of 1796, began to explain it all to
  Julien. The German peasant looked at him in astonishment; for he knew
  enough French to appreciate the enormous blunders which the prince was
  making. Julien was a thousand leagues away from the peasant's thoughts.
  He was looking in astonishment at the handsome young man and admiring
  his grace in sitting a horse.
  
  "What a lucky temperament," he said to himself, "and how his trousers
  suit him and how elegantly his hair is cut! Alas, if I had been like
  him, it might have been that she would not have come to dislike me
  after loving me for three days."
  
  When the prince had finished his siege of Kehl, he said to Julien,
  "You look like a Trappist, you are carrying to excess that principle
  of gravity which I enjoined upon you in London. A melancholy manner
  cannot be good form. What is wanted is an air of boredom. If you are
  melancholy, it is because you lack something, because you have failed
  in something."
  
  "That means showing one's own inferiority; if, on the other hand you
  are bored, it is only what has made an unsuccessful attempt to please
  you, which is inferior. So realise, my dear friend, the enormity of
  your mistake."
  
  Julien tossed a crown to the gaping peasant who was listening to them.
  
  "Good," said the prince, "that shows grace and a noble disdain, very
  good!" And he put his horse to the gallop. Full of a stupid admiration,
  Julien followed him.
  
  "Ah! if I have been like that, she would not have preferred Croisenois
  to me!" The more his reason was offended by the grotesque affectations
  of the prince the more he despised himself for not having them. It was
  impossible for self-disgust to be carried further.
  
  The prince still finding him distinctly melancholy, said to him as they
  re-entered Strasbourg, "Come, my dear fellow, have you lost all your
  money, or perhaps you are in love with some little actress.
  
  "The Russians copy French manners, but always at an interval of fifty
  years. They have now reached the age of Louis XV."
  
  These jests about love brought the tears to Julien's eyes. "Why should
  I not consult this charming man," he suddenly said to himself.
  
  "Well, yes, my dear friend," he said to the prince, "you see in me a
  man who is very much in love and jilted into the bargain. A charming
  woman who lives in a neighbouring town has left me stranded here after
  three passionate days, and the change kills me."
  
  Using fictitious names, he described to the prince Mathilde's conduct
  and character.
  
  "You need not finish," said Korasoff. "In order to give you confidence
  in your doctor, I will finish the story you have confided to me. This
  young woman's husband enjoys an enormous income, or even more probably,
  she belongs herself to the high nobility of the district. She must be
  proud about something."
  
  Julien nodded his head, he had no longer the courage to speak. "Very
  good," said the prince, "here are three fairly bitter pills that you
  will take without delay.
  
  "1. See madame ----. What is her name, any way?"
  
  "Madame de Dubois."
  
  "What a name!" said the prince bursting into laughter. "But forgive me,
  you find it sublime. Your tactics must be to see Madame de Dubois every
  day; above all do not appear to be cold and piqued. Remember the great
  principle of your century: be the opposite of what is expected. Be
  exactly as you were the week before you were honoured by her favours."
  
  "Ah! I was calm enough then," exclaimed Julien in despair, "I thought I
  was taking pity on her...."
  
  "The moth is burning itself at the candle," continued the prince using
  a metaphor as old as the world.
  
  "1. You will see her every day.
  
  "2. You will pay court to a woman in her own set, but without
  manifesting a passion, do you understand? I do not disguise from
  you that your role is difficult; you are playing a part, and if she
  realises you are playing it you are lost."
  
  "She has so much intelligence and I have so little, I shall be lost,"
  said Julien sadly.
  
  "No, you are only more in love than I thought. Madame de Dubois is
  preoccupied with herself as are all women who have been favoured
  by heaven either with too much pedigree or too much money. She
  contemplates herself instead of contemplating you, consequently she
  does not know you. During the two or three fits of love into which she
  managed to work herself for your especial benefit, she saw in you the
  hero of her dreams, and not the man you really are.
  
  "But, deuce take it, this is elementary, my dear Sorel, are you an
  absolute novice?
  
  "Oddslife! Let us go into this shop. Look at that charming black
  cravat, one would say it was made by John Anderson of Burlington
  Street. Be kind enough to take it and throw far away that awful black
  cord which you are wearing round your neck."
  
  "And now," continued the prince as they came out of the shop of the
  first hosier of Strasbourg, "what is the society in which madame de
  Dubois lives? Great God, what a name, don't be angry, my dear Sorel, I
  can't help it.... Now, whom are you going to pay court to?"
  
  "To an absolute prude, the daughter of an immensely rich
  stocking-merchant. She has the finest eyes in the world and they please
  me infinitely; she doubtless holds the highest place in the society
  of the district, but in the midst of all her greatness she blushes
  and becomes positively confused if anyone starts talking about trade
  or shops. And, unfortunately, her father was one of the best known
  merchants in Strasbourg."
  
  "So," said the prince with a laugh, "you are sure that when one talks
  about trade your fair lady thinks about herself and not about you. This
  silly weakness is divine and extremely useful, it will prevent you
  from yielding to a single moment's folly when near her sparkling eyes.
  Success is assured."
  
  Julien was thinking of madame the marechale de Fervaques who often
  came to the Hotel de la Mole. She was a beautiful foreigner who had
  married the marechal a year before his death. The one object of her
  whole life seemed to be to make people forget that she was the daughter
  of a manufacturer. In order to cut some figure in Paris she had placed
  herself at the head of the party of piety.
  
  Julien sincerely admired the prince; what would he not have given to
  have possessed his affectations! The conversation between the two
  friends was interminable. Korasoff was delighted: No Frenchman had ever
  listened to him for so long. "So I have succeeded at last," said the
  prince to himself complacently, "in getting a proper hearing and that
  too through giving lessons to my master."
  
  "So we are quite agreed," he repeated to Julien for the tenth time.
  "When you talk to the young beauty, I mean the daughter of the
  Strasbourg stocking merchant in the presence of madame de Dubois, not
  a trace of passion. But on the other hand be ardently passionate when
  you write. Reading a well-written love-letter is a prude's supremest
  pleasure. It is a moment of relaxation. She leaves off posing and dares
  to listen to her own heart; consequently two letters a day."
  
  "Never, never," said Julien despondently, "I would rather be ground in
  a mortar than make up three phrases. I am a corpse, my dear fellow,
  hope nothing from me. Let me die by the road side."
  
  "And who is talking about making up phrases? I have got six volumes
  of copied-out love-letters in my bag. I have letters to suit every
  variation of feminine character, including the most highly virtuous.
  Did not Kalisky pay court at Richmond-on-the-Thames at three leagues
  from London, you know, to the prettiest Quakeress in the whole of
  England?"
  
  Julien was less unhappy when he left his friend at two o'clock in the
  morning.
  
  The prince summoned a copyist on the following day, and two days
  afterwards Julien was the possessor of fifty-three carefully numbered
  love-letters intended for the most sublime and the most melancholy
  virtue.
  
  "The reason why there is not fifty-four," said the prince "is because
  Kalisky allowed himself to be dismissed. But what does it matter to
  you, if you are badly treated by the stocking-merchant's daughter since
  you only wish to produce an impression upon madame de Dubois' heart."
  
  They went out riding every day, the prince was mad on Julien. Not
  knowing how else to manifest his sudden friendship, he finished up by
  offering him the hand of one of his cousins, a rich Moscow heiress;
  "and once married," he added, "my influence and that cross of yours
  will get you made a Colonel within two years."
  
  "But that cross was not given me by Napoleon, far from it."
  
  "What does it matter?" said the prince, "didn't he invent it. It is
  still the first in Europe by a long way."
  
  Julien was on the point of accepting; but his duty called him back to
  the great personage. When he left Korasoff he promised to write. He
  received the answer to the secret note which he had brought, and posted
  towards Paris; but he had scarcely been alone for two successive days
  before leaving France, and Mathilde seemed a worse punishment than
  death. "I will not marry the millions Korasoff offers me," he said to
  himself, "and I will follow his advice.
  
  "After all the art of seduction is his speciality. He has thought about
  nothing else except that alone for more than fifteen years, for he is
  now thirty.
  
  "One can't say that he lacks intelligence; he is subtle and cunning;
  enthusiasm and poetry are impossible in such a character. He is an
  attorney: an additional reason for his not making a mistake.
  
  "I must do it, I will pay court to madame de Fervaques.
  
  "It is very likely she will bore me a little, but I will look at her
  beautiful eyes which are so like those other eyes which have loved me
  more than anyone in the world.
  
  "She is a foreigner; she is a new character to observe.
  
  "I feel mad, and as though I were going to the devil. I must follow the
  advice of a friend and not trust myself."
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LV
  
  THE MINISTRY OF VIRTUE
  
  
          But if I take this pleasure with so much prudence
          and circumspection I shall no longer find it a
          pleasure.--_Lope de Vega_.
  
  
  As soon as our hero had returned to Paris and had come out of the
  study of the marquis de La Mole, who seemed very displeased with the
  despatches that were given him, he rushed off for the comte Altamira.
  This noble foreigner combined with the advantage of having once been
  condemned to death a very grave demeanour together with the good
  fortune of a devout temperament; these two qualities, and more than
  anything, the comte's high birth, made an especial appeal to madame de
  Fervaques who saw a lot of him.
  
  Julien solemnly confessed to him that he was very much in love with her.
  
  "Her virtue is the purest and the highest," answered Altamira, "only it
  is a little Jesuitical and dogmatic.
  
  "There are days when, though I understand each of the expressions which
  she makes use of, I never understand the whole sentence. She often
  makes me think that I do not know French as well as I am said to. But
  your acquaintance with her will get you talked about; it will give you
  weight in the world. But let us go to Bustos," said Count Altamira
  who had a methodical turn of mind; "he once paid court to madame la
  marechale."
  
  Don Diego Bustos had the matter explained to him at length, while he
  said nothing, like a barrister in his chambers. He had a big monk-like
  face with black moustaches and an inimitable gravity; he was, however,
  a good carbonaro.
  
  "I understand," he said to Julien at last. "Has the marechale de
  Fervaques had lovers, or has she not? Have you consequently any hope
  of success? That is the question. I don't mind telling you, for my own
  part, that I have failed. Now that I am no more piqued I reason it out
  to myself in this way; she is often bad tempered, and as I will tell
  you in a minute, she is quite vindictive.
  
  "I fail to detect in her that bilious temperament which is the sign of
  genius, and shows as it were a veneer of passion over all its actions.
  On the contrary, she owes her rare beauty and her fresh complexion to
  the phlegmatic, tranquil character of the Dutch."
  
  Julien began to lose patience with the phlegmatic slowness of the
  imperturbable Spaniard; he could not help giving vent to some
  monosyllables from time to time.
  
  "Will you listen to me?" Don Diego Bustos gravely said to him.
  
  "Forgive the _furia franchese_; I am all ears," said Julien.
  
  "The marechale de Fervaques then is a great hater; she persecutes
  ruthlessly people she has never seen--advocates, poor devils of men of
  letters who have composed songs like Colle, you know?
  
      "J'ai la marotte
       D'aimer Marote, etc."
  
  And Julien had to put up with the whole quotation.
  
  The Spaniard was very pleased to get a chance of singing in French.
  
  That divine song was never listened to more impatiently. When it was
  finished Don Diego said--"The marechale procured the dismissal of the
  author of the song:
  
      "Un jour l'amour au cabaret."
  
  Julien shuddered lest he should want to sing it. He contented himself
  with analysing it. As a matter of fact, it was blasphemous and somewhat
  indecent.
  
  "When the marechale become enraged against that song," said Don Diego,
  "I remarked to her that a woman of her rank ought not to read all the
  stupid things that are published. Whatever progress piety and gravity
  may make France will always have a cabaret literature.
  
  "'Be careful,' I said to madame de Fervaques when she had succeeded
  in depriving the author, a poor devil on half-pay, of a place worth
  eighteen hundred francs a year, 'you have attacked this rhymster with
  your own arms, he may answer you with his rhymes; he will make a song
  about virtue. The gilded salons will be on your side; but people who
  like to laugh will repeat his epigrams.' Do you know, monsieur, what
  the marechale answered? 'Let all Paris come and see me walking to my
  martyrdom for the sake of the Lord. It will be a new spectacle for
  France. The people will learn to respect the quality. It will be the
  finest day of my life.' Her eyes never looked finer."
  
  "And she has superb ones," exclaimed Julien.
  
  "I see that you are in love. Further," went on Don Diego Bustos
  gravely, "she has not the bilious constitution which causes
  vindictiveness. If, however, she likes to do harm, it is because she is
  unhappy, I suspect some secret misfortune. May it not be quite well a
  case of prude tired of her role?"
  
  The Spaniard looked at him in silence for a good minute.
  
  "That's the whole point," he added gravely, "and that's what may give
  you ground for some hope. I have often reflected about it during the
  two years that I was her very humble servant. All your future, my
  amorous sir, depends on this great problem. Is she a prude tired of her
  role and only malicious because she is unhappy?"
  
  "Or," said Altamira emerging at last from his deep silence, "can it be
  as I have said twenty times before, simply a case of French vanity; the
  memory of her father, the celebrated cloth merchant, constitutes the
  unhappiness of this frigid melancholy nature. The only happiness she
  could find would be to live in Toledo and to be tortured by a confessor
  who would show her hell wide open every day."
  
  "Altamira informs me you are one of us," said Don Diego, whose
  demeanour was growing graver and graver to Julien as he went out. "You
  will help us one day in re-winning our liberty, so I would like to help
  you in this little amusement. It is right that you should know the
  marechale's style; here are four letters in her hand-writing."
  
  "I will copy them out," exclaimed Julien, "and bring them back to you."
  
  "And you will never let anyone know a word of what we have been
  saying."
  
  "Never, on my honour," cried Julien.
  
  "Well, God help you," added the Spaniard, and he silently escorted
  Altamira and Julien as far as the staircase.
  
  This somewhat amused our hero; he was on the point of smiling. "So
  we have the devout Altamira," he said to himself, "aiding me in an
  adulterous enterprise."
  
  During Don Diego's solemn conversation Julien had been attentive to the
  hours struck by the clock of the Hotel d'Aligre.
  
  The dinner hour was drawing near, he was going to see Mathilde again.
  He went in and dressed with much care.
  
  "Mistake No. 1," he said to himself as he descended the staircase: "I
  must follow the prince's instructions to the letter."
  
  He went up to his room again and put on a travelling suit which was as
  simple as it could be. "All I have to do now," he thought, "is to keep
  control of my expression." It was only half-past five and they dined at
  six. He thought of going down to the salon which he found deserted. He
  was moved to the point of tears at the sight of the blue sofa. "I must
  make an end of this foolish sensitiveness," he said angrily, "it will
  betray me." He took up a paper in order to keep himself in countenance
  and passed three or four times from the salon into the garden.
  
  It was only when he was well concealed by a large oak and was trembling
  all over, that he ventured to raise his eyes at mademoiselle de la
  Mole's window. It was hermetically sealed; he was on the point of
  fainting and remained for a long time leaning against the oak; then
  with a staggering step he went to have another look at the gardener's
  ladder.
  
  The chain which he had once forced asunder--in, alas, such different
  circumstances--had not yet been repaired. Carried away by a moment of
  madness, Julien pressed it to his lips.
  
  After having wandered about for a long time between the salon and the
  garden, Julien felt horribly tired; he was now feeling acutely the
  effects of a first success. My eyes will be expressionless and will not
  betray me! The guests gradually arrived in the salon; the door never
  opened without instilling anxiety into Julien's heart.
  
  They sat down at table. Mademoiselle de la Mole, always faithful to her
  habit of keeping people waiting, eventually appeared. She blushed a
  great deal on seeing Julien, she had not been told of his arrival. In
  accordance with Prince Korasoff's recommendation, Julien looked at his
  hands. They were trembling. Troubled though he was beyond words by this
  discovery, he was sufficiently happy to look merely tired.
  
  M. de la Mole sang his praises. The marquise spoke to him a minute
  afterwards and complimented him on his tired appearance. Julien said to
  himself at every minute, "I ought not to look too much at mademoiselle
  de la Mole, I ought not to avoid looking at her too much either. I must
  appear as I was eight days before my unhappiness----" He had occasion
  to be satisfied with his success and remained in the salon. Paying
  attention for the first time to the mistress of the house, he made
  every effort to make the visitors speak and to keep the conversation
  alive.
  
  His politeness was rewarded; madame la marechale de Fervaques was
  announced about eight o'clock. Julien retired and shortly afterwards
  appeared dressed with the greatest care. Madame de la Mole was
  infinitely grateful to him for this mark of respect and made a point
  of manifesting her satisfaction by telling madame de Fervaques about
  his journey. Julien established himself near the marechale in such a
  position that Mathilde could not notice his eyes. In this position he
  lavished in accordance with all the rules in the art of love, the most
  abject admiration on madame de Fervaques. The first of the 53 letters
  with which Prince Korasoff had presented him commenced with a tirade on
  this sentiment.
  
  The marechale announced that she was going to the Opera-Bouffe. Julien
  rushed there. He ran across the Chevalier de Beauvoisis who took him
  into a box occupied by Messieurs the Gentlemen of the Chamber, just
  next to madame de Fervaques's box. Julien constantly looked at her. "I
  must keep a siege-journal," he said to himself as he went back to the
  hotel, "otherwise I shall forget my attacks." He wrote two or three
  pages on this boring theme, and in this way achieved the admirable
  result of scarcely thinking at all about mademoiselle de la Mole.
  
  Mathilde had almost forgotten him during his journey. "He is simply
  a commonplace person after all," she thought, "his name will always
  recall to me the greatest mistake in my life. I must honestly go back
  to all my ideas about prudence and honour; a woman who forgets them has
  everything to lose." She showed herself inclined to allow the contract
  with the marquis de Croisenois, which had been prepared so long ago, to
  be at last concluded. He was mad with joy; he would have been very much
  astonished had he been told that there was an element of resignation at
  the bottom of those feelings of Mathilde which made him so proud.
  
  All mademoiselle de la Mole's ideas changed when she saw Julien. "As a
  matter of fact he is my husband," she said to herself. "If I am sincere
  in my return to sensible notions, he is clearly the man I ought to
  marry."
  
  She was expecting importunities and airs of unhappiness on the part of
  Julien; she commenced rehearsing her answers, for he would doubtless
  try to address some words to her when they left the dinner table. Far
  from that he remained stubbornly in the salon and did not even look in
  the direction of the garden, though God knows what pain that caused him!
  
  "It is better to have this explanation out all at once," thought
  mademoiselle de la Mole; she went into the garden alone, Julien did not
  appear. Mathilde went and walked near the salon window. She found him
  very much occupied in describing to madame de Fervaques the old ruined
  chateau which crown the banks along the Rhine and invest them with so
  much atmosphere. He was beginning to acquit himself with some credit
  in that sentimental picturesque jargon which is called wit in certain
  salons. Prince Korasoff would have been very proud if he had been at
  Paris. This evening was exactly what he had predicted.
  
  He would have approved the line of conduct which Julien followed on the
  subsequent days.
  
  An intrigue among the members of the secret government was going to
  bestow a few blue ribbons; madame marechale de Fervaques was insisting
  on her great uncle being made a chevalier of the order. The marquis de
  la Mole had the same pretensions for his father-in-law; they joined
  forces and the marechale came to the Hotel de la Mole nearly every day.
  It was from her that Julien learned that the marquis was going to be
  a minister. He was offering to the _Camarilla_ a very ingenious plan
  for the annihilation of the charter within three years without any
  disturbance.
  
  If M. de la Mole became a minister, Julien could hope for a bishopric:
  but all these important interests seemed to be veiled and hazy. His
  imagination only perceived them very vaguely, and so to speak, in
  the far distance. The awful unhappiness which was making him into a
  madman could find no other interest in life except the character of his
  relations with mademoiselle de la Mole. He calculated that after five
  or six careful years he would manage to get himself loved again.
  
  This cold brain had been reduced, as one sees, to a state of complete
  disorder. Out of all the qualities which had formerly distinguished
  him, all that remained was a little firmness. He was literally faithful
  to the line of conduct which prince Korasoff had dictated, and placed
  himself every evening near madame Fervaques' armchair, but he found it
  impossible to think of a word to say to her.
  
  The strain of making Mathilde think that he had recovered exhausted his
  whole moral force, and when he was with the marechale he seemed almost
  lifeless; even his eyes had lost all their fire, as in cases of extreme
  physical suffering.
  
  As madame de la Mole's views were invariably a counterpart of the
  opinions of that husband of hers who could make her into a Duchess, she
  had been singing Julien's praises for some days.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LVI
  
  MORAL LOVE
  
  
      There also was of course in Adeline
      That calm patrician polish in the address,
      Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line
      Of anything which Nature would express;
      Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine.
      At least his manner suffers not to guess
      That anything he views can greatly please.
                              _Don Juan, c. xiii. st._ 84.
  
  
  "There is an element of madness in all this family's way of looking at
  things," thought the marechale; "they are infatuated with their young
  abbe, whose only accomplishment is to be a good listener, though his
  eyes are fine enough, it is true."
  
  Julien, on his side, found in the marechale's manners an almost perfect
  instance of that patrician calm which exhales a scrupulous politeness;
  and, what is more, announces at the same time the impossibility of
  any violent emotion. Madame de Fervaques would have been as much
  scandalised by any unexpected movement or any lack of self-control, as
  by a lack of dignity towards one's inferiors. She would have regarded
  the slightest symptom of sensibility as a kind of moral drunkenness
  which puts one to the blush and was extremely prejudicial to what a
  person of high rank owed to herself. Her great happiness was to talk of
  the king's last hunt; her favourite book, was the Memoirs of the Duke
  de Saint Simon, especially the genealogical part.
  
  Julien knew the place where the arrangement of the light suited madame
  de Fervaques' particular style of beauty. He got there in advance, but
  was careful to turn his chair in such a way as not to see Mathilde.
  
  Astonished one day at this consistent policy of hiding himself from
  her, she left the blue sofa and came to work by the little table near
  the marechale's armchair. Julien had a fairly close view of her over
  madame de Fervaques' hat.
  
  Those eyes, which were the arbiters of his fate, frightened him, and
  then hurled him violently out of his habitual apathy. He talked, and
  talked very well.
  
  He was speaking to the marechale, but his one aim was to produce an
  impression upon Mathilde's soul. He became so animated that eventually
  madame de Fervaques did not manage to understand a word he said.
  
  This was a prime merit. If it had occurred to Julien to follow it up by
  some phrases of German mysticism, lofty religion, and Jesuitism, the
  marechale would have immediately given him a rank among the superior
  men whose mission it was to regenerate the age.
  
  "Since he has bad enough taste," said mademoiselle de la Mole, "to talk
  so long and so ardently to madame de Fervaques, I shall not listen to
  him any more." She kept her resolution during the whole latter part of
  the evening, although she had difficulty in doing so.
  
  At midnight, when she took her mother's candle to accompany her to
  her room, madame de la Mole stopped on the staircase to enter into an
  exhaustive eulogy of Julien. Mathilde ended by losing her temper. She
  could not get to sleep. She felt calmed by this thought: "the very
  things which I despise in a man may none the less constitute a great
  merit in the eyes of the marechale."
  
  As for Julien, he had done something, he was less unhappy; his eyes
  chanced to fall on the Russian leather portfolio in which prince
  Korasoff had placed the fifty-three love letters which he had presented
  to him. Julien saw a note at the bottom of the first letter: No. 1 is
  sent eight days after the first meeting.
  
  "I am behind hand," exclaimed Julien. "It is quite a long time since I
  met madame de Fervaques." He immediately began to copy out this first
  love letter. It was a homily packed with moral platitudes and deadly
  dull. Julien was fortunate enough to fall asleep at the second page.
  
  Some hours afterwards he was surprised to see the broad daylight as he
  lent on his desk. The most painful moments in his life were those when
  he woke up every morning to realise his unhappiness. On this particular
  day he finished copying out his letter in a state verging on laughter.
  "Is it possible," he said to himself, "that there ever lived a young
  man who actually wrote like that." He counted several sentences of nine
  lines each. At the bottom of the original he noticed a pencilled note.
  "These letters are delivered personally, on horseback, black cravat,
  blue tail-coat. You give the letter to the porter with a contrite air;
  expression of profound melancholy. If you notice any chambermaid, dry
  your eyes furtively and speak to her."
  
  All this was duly carried out.
  
  "I am taking a very bold course!" thought Julien as he came out of the
  Hotel de Fervaques, "but all the worse for Korasoff. To think of daring
  to write to so virtuous a celebrity. I shall be treated with the utmost
  contempt, and nothing will amuse me more. It is really the only comedy
  that I can in any way appreciate. Yes, it will amuse me to load with
  ridicule that odious creature whom I call myself. If I believed in
  myself, I would commit some crime to distract myself."
  
  The moment when Julien brought his horse back to the stable was the
  happiest he had experienced for a whole month. Korasoff had expressly
  forbidden him to look at the mistress who had left him, on any pretext
  whatsoever. But the step of that horse, which she knew so well, and
  Julien's way of knocking on the stable door with his riding-whip to
  call a man, sometimes attracted Mathilde to behind the window-curtain.
  The muslin was so light that Julien could see through it. By looking
  under the brim of his hat in a certain way, he could get a view of
  Mathilde's figure without seeing her eyes. "Consequently," he said to
  himself, "she cannot see mine, and that is not really looking at her."
  
  In the evening madame de Fervaques behaved towards him, exactly as
  though she had never received the philosophic mystical and religious
  dissertation which he had given to her porter in the morning with so
  melancholy an air. Chance had shown Julien on the preceding day how
  to be eloquent; he placed himself in such a position that he could
  see Mathilde's eyes. She, on her side, left the blue sofa a minute
  after the marechale's arrival; this involved abandoning her usual
  associates. M. de Croisenois seemed overwhelmed by this new caprice:
  his palpable grief alleviated the awfulness of Julien's agony.
  
  This unexpected turn in his life made him talk like an angel, and
  inasmuch as a certain element of self-appreciation will insinuate
  itself even into those hearts which serve as a temple for the
  most august virtue, the marechale said to herself as she got into
  her carriage, "Madame de la Mole is right, this young priest has
  distinction. My presence must have overawed him at first. As a matter
  of fact, the whole tone of this house is very frivolous; I can see
  nothing but instances of virtue helped by oldness, and standing in
  great need of the chills of age. This young man must have managed to
  appreciate the difference; he writes well, but I fear very much that
  this request of his in his letter for me to enlighten him with my
  advice, is really nothing less than an, as yet, unconscious sentiment.
  
  "Nevertheless how many conversions have begun like that! What makes me
  consider this a good omen is the difference between his style and that
  of the young people whose letters I have had an opportunity of seeing.
  One cannot avoid recognising unction, profound seriousness, and much
  conviction in the prose of this young acolyte; he has no doubt the
  sweet virtue of a Massillon."
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LVII
  
  THE FINEST PLACES IN THE CHURCH
  
  
      Services! talents! merits! bah! belong to a coterie.
                                                 _Telemaque_.
  
  
  The idea of a bishopric had thus become associated with the idea of
  Julien in the mind of a woman, who would sooner or later have at her
  disposal the finest places in the Church of France. This idea had not
  struck Julien at all; at the present time his thoughts were strictly
  limited to his actual unhappiness. Everything tended to intensify
  it. The sight of his room, for instance, had become unbearable. When
  he came back in the evening with his candle, each piece of furniture
  and each little ornament seemed to become articulate, and to announce
  harshly some new phase of his unhappiness.
  
  "I have a hard task before me today," he said to himself as he came in
  with a vivacity which he had not experienced for a long time; "let us
  hope that the second letter will be as boring as the first."
  
  It was more so. What he was copying seemed so absurd that he finished
  up by transcribing it line for line without thinking of the sense.
  
  "It is even more bombastic," he said to himself, "than those official
  documents of the treaty of Munster which my professor of diplomacy made
  me copy out at London."
  
  It was only then that he remembered madame de Fervaque's letters which
  he had forgotten to give back to the grave Spaniard Don Diego Bustos.
  He found them. They were really almost as nonsensical as those of
  the young Russian nobleman. Their vagueness was unlimited. It meant
  everything and nothing. "It's the AEolian harp of style," thought
  Julien. "The only real thing I see in the middle of all these lofty
  thoughts about annihilation, death, infinity, etc., is an abominable
  fear of ridicule."
  
  The monologue which we have just condensed was repeated for fifteen
  days on end. Falling off to sleep as he copied out a sort of commentary
  on the Apocalypse, going with a melancholy expression to deliver it
  the following day, taking his horse back to the stable in the hope
  of catching sight of Mathilde's dress, working, going in the evening
  to the opera on those evenings when madame de Fervaques did not come
  to the Hotel de la Mole, such were the monotonous events in Julien's
  life. His life had more interest, when madame la Fervaques visited the
  marquise; he could then catch a glimpse of Mathilde's eyes underneath
  a feather of the marechale's hat, and he would wax eloquent. His
  picturesque and sentimental phrases began to assume a style, which was
  both more striking and more elegant.
  
  He quite realised that what he said was absurd in Mathilde's eyes, but
  he wished to impress her by the elegance of his diction. "The falser my
  speeches are the more I ought to please," thought Julien, and he then
  had the abominable audacity to exaggerate certain elements in his own
  character. He soon appreciated that to avoid appearing vulgar in the
  eyes of the marechale it was necessary to eschew simple and rational
  ideas. He would continue on these lines, or would cut short his grand
  eloquence according as he saw appreciation or indifference in the eyes
  of the two great ladies whom he had set out to please.
  
  Taking it all round, his life was less awful than when his days were
  passed in inaction.
  
  "But," he said to himself one evening, "here I am copying out the
  fifteenth of these abominable dissertations; the first fourteen have
  been duly delivered to the marechale's porter. I shall have the honour
  of filling all the drawers in her escritoire. And yet she treats me
  as though I never wrote. What can be the end of all this? Will my
  constancy bore her as much as it does me? I must admit that that
  Russian friend of Korasoff's who was in love with the pretty Quakeress
  of Richmond, was a terrible man in his time; no one could be more
  overwhelming."
  
  Like all mediocre individuals, who chance to come into contact with the
  manoeuvres of a great general, Julien understood nothing of the attack
  executed by the young Russian on the heart of the young English girl.
  The only purpose of the first forty letters was to secure forgiveness
  for the boldness of writing at all. The sweet person, who perhaps lived
  a life of inordinate boredom, had to be induced to contract the habit
  of receiving letters, which were perhaps a little less insipid than her
  everyday life.
  
  One morning a letter was delivered to Julien. He recognised the arms
  of madame la Fervaques, and broke the seal with an eagerness which
  would have seemed impossible to him some days before. It was only an
  invitation to dinner.
  
  He rushed to prince Korasoffs instructions. Unfortunately the young
  Russian had taken it into his head to be as flippant as Dorat, just
  when he should have been simple and intelligible! Julien was not able
  to form any idea of the moral position which he ought to take up at the
  marechale's dinner.
  
  The salon was extremely magnificent and decorated like the gallery de
  Diane in the Tuileries with panelled oil-paintings.
  
  There were some light spots on these pictures. Julien learnt later that
  the mistress of the house had thought the subject somewhat lacking in
  decency and that she had had the pictures corrected. "What a moral
  century!" he thought.
  
  He noticed in this salon three of the persons who had been present
  at the drawing up of the secret note. One of them, my lord bishop of
  ---- the marechale's uncle had the disposition of the ecclesiastical
  patronage, and could, it was said, refuse his niece nothing. "What
  immense progress I have made," said Julien to himself with a melancholy
  smile, "and how indifferent I am to it. Here I am dining with the
  famous bishop of ----."
  
  The dinner was mediocre and the conversation wearisome.
  
  "It's like the small talk in a bad book," thought Julien. "All the
  greatest subjects of human thought are proudly tackled. After listening
  for three minutes one asks oneself which is greater--the speaker's
  bombast, or his abominable ignorance?"
  
  The reader has doubtless forgotten the little man of letters named
  Tanbeau, who was the nephew of the Academician, and intended to be
  professor, who seemed entrusted with the task of poisoning the salon of
  the Hotel de la Mole with his base calumnies.
  
  It was this little man who gave Julien the first inkling that though,
  madame de Fervaques did not answer, she might quite well take an
  indulgent view of the sentiment which dictated them. M. Tanbeau's
  sinister soul was lacerated by the thought of Julien's success; "but
  since, on the other hand, a man of merit cannot be in two places at the
  same time any more than a fool," said the future professor to himself,
  "if Sorel becomes the lover of the sublime marechale, she will obtain
  some lucrative position for him in the church, and I shall be rid of
  him in the Hotel de la Mole."
  
  M. the abbe Pirard addressed long sermons to Julien concerning his
  success at the hotel de Fervaques. There was a sectarian jealousy
  between the austere Jansenist and the salon of the virtuous marechale
  which was Jesuitical, reactionary, and monarchical.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LVIII
  
  MANON LESCAUT
  
  
          Accordingly once he was thoroughly convinced of the
          asinine stupidity of the prior, he would usually succeed
          well enough by calling white black, and black white.
          _Lichtenberg_.
  
  
  The Russian instructions peremptorily forbade the writer from ever
  contradicting in conversation the recipient of the letters. No pretext
  could excuse any deviation from the role of that most ecstatic
  admiration. The letters were always based on that hypothesis.
  
  One evening at the opera, when in madame de Fervaques' box, Julien
  spoke of the ballet of _Manon Lescaut_ in the most enthusiastic terms.
  His only reason for talking in that strain was the fact that he thought
  it insignificant.
  
  The marechale said that the ballet was very inferior to the abbe
  Prevost's novel.
  
  "The idea," thought Julien, both surprised and amused, "of so highly
  virtuous a person praising a novel! Madame de Fervaques used to profess
  two or three times a week the most absolute contempt for those writers,
  who, by means of their insipid works, try to corrupt a youth which is,
  alas! only too inclined to the errors of the senses."
  
  "_Manon Lescaut_" continued the marechale, "is said to be one of the
  best of this immoral and dangerous type of book. The weaknesses and the
  deserved anguish of a criminal heart are, they say, portrayed with a
  truth which is not lacking in depth; a fact which does not prevent your
  Bonaparte from stating at St. Helena that it is simply a novel written
  for lackeys."
  
  The word Bonaparte restored to Julien all the activity of his mind.
  "They have tried to ruin me with the marechale; they have told her of
  my enthusiasm for Napoleon. This fact has sufficiently piqued her to
  make her yield to the temptation to make me feel it." This discovery
  amused him all the evening, and rendered him amusing. As he took leave
  of the marechale in the vestibule of the opera, she said to him,
  "Remember, monsieur, one must not like Bonaparte if you like me; at
  the best he can only be accepted as a necessity imposed by Providence.
  Besides, the man did not have a sufficiently supple soul to appreciate
  masterpieces of art."
  
  "When you like me," Julien kept on repeating to himself, "that means
  nothing or means everything. Here we have mysteries of language which
  are beyond us poor provincials." And he thought a great deal about
  madame de Renal, as he copied out an immense letter destined for the
  marechale.
  
  "How is it," she said to him the following day, with an assumed
  indifference which he thought was clumsily assumed, "that you talk to
  me about London and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, I
  think, when you came back from the opera?"
  
  Julien was very embarrassed. He had copied line by line without
  thinking about what he was writing, and had apparently forgotten to
  substitute Paris and Saint Cloud for the words London and Richmond
  which occurred in the original. He commenced two or three sentences,
  but found it impossible to finish them. He felt on the point of
  succumbing to a fit of idiotic laughter. Finally by picking his words
  he succeeded in formulating this inspiration: "Exalted as I was by the
  discussion of the most sublime and greatest interests of the human
  soul, my own soul may have been somewhat absent in my letter to you."
  
  "I am making an impression," he said to himself, "so I can spare myself
  the boredom of the rest of the evening." He left the Hotel de Fervaques
  at a run. In the evening he had another look at the original of the
  letter which he had copied out on the previous night, and soon came to
  the fatal place where the young Russian made mention of London and of
  Richmond. Julien was very astonished to find this letter almost tender.
  
  It had been the contrast between the apparent lightness of his
  conversation, and the sublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of
  his letters which had marked him out for favour. The marechale was
  particularly pleased by the longness of the sentences; this was very
  far from being that sprightly style which that immoral man Voltaire
  had brought into fashion. Although our hero made every possible human
  effort to eliminate from his conversation any symptom of good sense, it
  still preserved a certain anti-monarchical and blasphemous tinge which
  did not escape madame de Fervaques. Surrounded as she was by persons
  who, though eminently moral, had very often not a single idea during a
  whole evening, this lady was profoundly struck by anything resembling
  a novelty, but at the same time she thought she owed it to herself to
  be offended by it. She called this defect: Keeping the imprint of the
  lightness of the age.
  
  But such salons are only worth observing when one has a favour to
  procure. The reader doubtless shares all the ennui of the colourless
  life which Julien was leading. This period represents the steppes of
  our journey.
  
  Mademoiselle de la Mole needed to exercise her self-control to avoid
  thinking of Julien during the whole period filled by the de Fervaques
  episode. Her soul was a prey to violent battles; sometimes she piqued
  herself on despising that melancholy young man, but his conversation
  captivated her in spite of herself. She was particularly astonished by
  his absolute falseness. He did not say a single word to the marechale
  which was not a lie, or at any rate, an abominable travesty of his own
  way of thinking, which Mathilde knew so perfectly in every phase. This
  Machiavellianism impressed her. "What subtlety," she said to herself.
  "What a difference between the bombastic coxcombs, or the common
  rascals like Tanbeau who talk in the same strain."
  
  Nevertheless Julien went through awful days. It was only to accomplish
  the most painful of duties that he put in a daily appearance in the
  marechale's salon.
  
  The strain of playing a part ended by depriving his mind of all its
  strength. As he crossed each night the immense courtyard of the Hotel
  de Fervaques, it was only through sheer force in character and logic
  that he succeeded in keeping a little above the level of despair.
  
  "I overcame despair at the seminary," he said, "yet what an awful
  prospect I had then. I was then either going to make my fortune or
  come to grief just as I am now. I found myself obliged to pass all my
  life in intimate association with the most contemptible and disgusting
  things in the whole world. The following spring, just eleven short
  months later, I was perhaps the happiest of all young people of my own
  age."
  
  But very often all this fine logic proved unavailing against the awful
  reality. He saw Mathilde every day at breakfast and at dinner. He knew
  from the numerous letters which de la Mole dictated to him that she was
  on the eve of marrying de Croisenois. This charming man already called
  twice a day at the Hotel de la Mole; the jealous eye of a jilted lover
  was alive to every one of his movements. When he thought he had noticed
  that mademoiselle de la Mole was beginning to encourage her intended,
  Julien could not help looking tenderly at his pistols as he went up to
  his room.
  
  "Ah," he said to himself, "would it not be much wiser to take the marks
  out of my linen and to go into some solitary forest twenty leagues from
  Paris to put an end to this atrocious life? I should be unknown in the
  district, my death would remain a secret for a fortnight, and who would
  bother about me after a fortnight?"
  
  This reasoning was very logical. But on the following day a glimpse of
  Mathilde's arm between the sleeve of her dress and her glove sufficed
  to plunge our young philosopher into memories which, though agonising,
  none the less gave him a hold on life. "Well," he said to himself, "I
  will follow this Russian plan to the end. How will it all finish?"
  
  "So far as the marechale is concerned, after I have copied out these
  fifty-three letters, I shall not write any others.
  
  "As for Mathilde, these six weeks of painful acting will either leave
  her anger unchanged, or will win me a moment of reconciliation. Great
  God! I should die of happiness." And he could not finish his train of
  thought.
  
  After a long reverie he succeeded in taking up the thread of his
  argument. "In that case," he said to himself, "I should win one day of
  happiness, and after that her cruelties which are based, alas, on my
  lack of ability to please her will recommence. I should have nothing
  left to do, I should be ruined and lost for ever. With such a character
  as hers what guarantee can she give me? Alas! My manners are no doubt
  lacking in elegance, and my style of speech is heavy and monotonous.
  Great God, why am I myself?"
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LIX
  
  ENNUI
  
  
          Sacrificing one's self to one's passions, let it pass;
          but sacrificing one's self to passions which one has not
          got! Oh! melancholy nineteenth century!
                                              _Girodet_.
  
  
  Madame de Fervaques had begun reading Julien's long letters without any
  pleasure, but she now began to think about them; one thing, however,
  grieved her. "What a pity that M. Sorel was not a real priest! He could
  then be admitted to a kind of intimacy; but in view of that cross,
  and that almost lay dress, one is exposed to cruel questions and what
  is one to answer?" She did not finish the train of thought, "Some
  malicious woman friend may think, and even spread it about that he is
  some lower middle-class cousin or other, a relative of my father, some
  tradesman who has been decorated by the National Guard." Up to the
  time which she had seen Julien, madame de Fervaque's greatest pleasure
  had been writing the word marechale after her name. Consequently a
  morbid parvenu vanity, which was ready to take umbrage at everything,
  combatted the awakening of her interest in him. "It would be so easy
  for me," said the marechale, "to make him a grand vicar in some diocese
  near Paris! but plain M. Sorel, and what is more, a man who is the
  secretary of M. de la Mole! It is heart-breaking."
  
  For the first time in her life this soul, which was afraid of
  everything, was moved by an interest which was alien to its own
  pretensions to rank and superiority. Her old porter noticed that
  whenever he brought a letter from this handsome young man, who always
  looked so sad, he was certain to see that absent, discontented
  expression, which the marechale always made a point of assuming on the
  entry of any of her servants, immediately disappear. The boredom of a
  mode of life whose ambitions were concentrated on impressing the public
  without her having at heart any real faculty of enjoyment for that kind
  of success, had become so intolerable since she had begun to think of
  Julien that, all that was necessary to prevent her chambermaids being
  bullied for a whole day, was that their mistress should have passed
  an hour in the society of this strange young man on the evening of
  the preceding day. His budding credit was proof against very cleverly
  written anonymous letters. It was in vain that Tanbeau supplied M. de
  Luz, de Croisenois, de Caylus, with two or three very clever calumnies
  which these gentlemen were only too glad to spread, without making
  too many enquiries of the actual truth of the charges. The marechale,
  whose temperament was not calculated to be proof against these vulgar
  expedients related her doubts to Mathilde, and was always consoled by
  her.
  
  One day, madame de Fervaques, after having asked three times if there
  were any letters for her, suddenly decided to answer Julien. It was a
  case of the triumph of ennui. On reaching the second letter in his name
  the marechale almost felt herself pulled up sharp by the unbecomingness
  of writing with her own hand so vulgar an address as to M. Sorel, care
  of M. le Marquis de la Mole.
  
  "You must bring me envelopes with your address on," she said very drily
  to Julien in the evening. "Here I am appointed lover and valet in one,"
  thought Julien, and he bowed, amused himself by wrinkling his face up
  like Arsene, the old valet of the marquis.
  
  He brought the envelopes that very evening, and he received the third
  letter very early on the following day: he read five or six lines at
  the beginning, and two or three towards the end. There were four pages
  of a small and very close writing. The lady gradually developed the
  sweet habit of writing nearly every day. Julien answered by faithful
  copies of the Russian letters; and such is the advantage of the
  bombastic style that madame de Fervaques was not a bit astonished by
  the lack of connection between his answers and her letters. How gravely
  irritated would her pride have been if the little Tanbeau who had
  constituted himself a voluntary spy on all Julien's movements had been
  able to have informed her that all these letters were left unsealed and
  thrown haphazard into Julien's drawer.
  
  One morning the porter was bringing into the library a letter to him
  from the marechale. Mathilde met the man, saw the letter together with
  the address in Julien's handwriting. She entered the library as the
  porter was leaving it, the letter was still on the edge of the table.
  Julien was very busy with his work and had not yet put it in his drawer.
  
  "I cannot endure this," exclaimed Mathilde, as she took possession
  of the letter, "you are completely forgetting me, me your wife, your
  conduct is awful, monsieur."
  
  At these words her pride, shocked by the awful unseemliness of her
  proceeding, prevented her from speaking. She burst into tears, and soon
  seemed to Julien scarcely able to breathe.
  
  Julien was so surprised and embarrassed that he did not fully
  appreciate how ideally fortunate this scene was for himself. He helped
  Mathilde to sit down; she almost abandoned herself in his arms.
  
  The first minute in which he noticed this movement, he felt an extreme
  joy. Immediately afterwards, he thought of Korasoff: "I may lose
  everything by a single word."
  
  The strain of carrying out his tactics was so great that his arms
  stiffened. "I dare not even allow myself to press this supple, charming
  frame to my heart, or she will despise me or treat me badly. What an
  awful character!" And while he cursed Mathilde's character, he loved
  her a hundred times more. He thought he had a queen in his arms.
  
  Julien's impassive coldness intensified the anguished pride which was
  lacerating the soul of mademoiselle de la Mole. She was far from having
  the necessary self-possession to try and read in his eyes what he felt
  for her at that particular moment. She could not make up her mind to
  look at him. She trembled lest she might encounter a contemptuous
  expression.
  
  Seated motionless on the library divan, with her head turned in the
  opposite direction to Julien, she was a prey to the most poignant
  anguish that pride and love can inflict upon a human soul. What an
  awful step had she just slipped into taking! "It has been reserved
  for me, unhappy woman that I am, to see my most unbecoming advances
  rebuffed! and rebuffed by whom?" added her maddened and wounded pride;
  "rebuffed by a servant of my father's! That's more than I will put up
  with," she said aloud, and rising in a fury, she opened the drawer of
  Julien's table, which was two yards in front of her.
  
  She stood petrified with horror when she saw eight or ten unopened
  letters, completely like the one the porter had just brought up. She
  recognised Julien's handwriting, though more or less disguised, on all
  the addresses.
  
  "So," she cried, quite beside herself, "you are not only on good terms
  with her, but you actually despise her. You, a nobody, despise madame
  la marechale de Fervaques!"
  
  "Oh, forgive me, my dear," she added, throwing herself on her knees;
  "despise me if you wish, but love me. I cannot live without your love."
  And she fell down in a dead faint.
  
  "So our proud lady is lying at my feet," said Julien to himself.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LX
  
  A BOX AT THE BOUFFES
  
  
     As the blackest sky
  Foretells the heaviest tempest
                 _Don Juan, c._ 1. _st_.76.
  
  
  In the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surprised than
  happy. Mathilde's abuse proved to him the shrewdness of the Russian
  tactics. "'Few words, few deeds,' that is my one method of salvation."
  He picked up Mathilde, and without saying a word, put her back on the
  divan. She was gradually being overcome by tears.
  
  In order to keep herself in countenance, she took madame de Fervaques'
  letters in her hands, and slowly broke the seals. She gave a noticeable
  nervous movement when she recognised the marechale's handwriting. She
  turned over the pages of these letters without reading them. Most of
  them were six pages.
  
  "At least answer me," Mathilde said at last, in the most supplicatory
  tone, but without daring to look at Julien: "You know how proud I am.
  It is the misfortune of my position, and of my temperament, too, I
  confess. Has madame de Fervaques robbed me of your heart? Has she made
  the sacrifices to which my fatal love swept me?"
  
  A dismal silence was all Julien's answer. "By what right," he thought,
  "does she ask me to commit an indiscretion unworthy of an honest man?"
  Mathilde tried to read the letters; her eyes were so wet with tears
  that it was impossible for her to do so. She had been unhappy for a
  month past, but this haughty soul had been very far from owning its own
  feelings even to itself. Chance alone had brought about this explosion.
  For one instant jealousy and love had won a victory over pride. She
  was sitting on the divan, and very near him. He saw her hair and her
  alabaster neck. For a moment he forgot all he owed to himself. He
  passed his arm around her waist, and clasped her almost to his breast.
  
  She slowly turned her head towards him. He was astonished by the
  extreme anguish in her eyes. There was not a trace of their usual
  expression.
  
  Julien felt his strength desert him. So great was the deadly pain of
  the courageous feat which he was imposing on himself.
  
  "Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain," said
  Julien to himself, "if I allow myself to be swept away by the happiness
  of loving her." She, however, kept repeatedly assuring him at this
  moment, in a hushed voice, and in words which she had scarcely the
  strength to finish, of all her remorse for those steps which her
  inordinate pride had dictated.
  
  "I, too, have pride," said Julien to her, in a scarcely articulate
  voice, while his features portrayed the lowest depths of physical
  prostration.
  
  Mathilde turned round sharply towards him. Hearing his voice was a
  happiness which she had given up hoping. At this moment her only
  thought of her haughtiness was to curse it. She would have liked to
  have found out some abnormal and incredible actions, in order to prove
  to him the extent to which she adored him and detested herself.
  
  "That pride is probably the reason," continued Julien, "why you singled
  me out for a moment. My present courageous and manly firmness is
  certainly the reason why you respect me. I may entertain love for the
  marechale."
  
  Mathilde shuddered; a strange expression came into her eyes. She was
  going to hear her sentence pronounced. This shudder did not escape
  Julien. He felt his courage weaken.
  
  "Ah," he said to himself, as he listened to the sound of the vain words
  which his mouth was articulating, as he thought it were some strange
  sound, "if I could only cover those pale cheeks with kisses without
  your feeling it."
  
  "I may entertain love for the marechale," he continued, while his voice
  became weaker and weaker, "but I certainly have no definite proof of
  her interest in me."
  
  Mathilde looked at him. He supported that look. He hoped, at any rate,
  that his expression had not betrayed him. He felt himself bathed in a
  love that penetrated even into the most secret recesses of his heart.
  He had never adored her so much; he was almost as mad as Mathilde. If
  she had mustered sufficient self-possession and courage to manoeuvre, he
  would have abandoned all his play-acting, and fallen at her feet. He
  had sufficient strength to manage to continue speaking: "Ah, Korasoff,"
  he exclaimed mentally, "why are you not here? How I need a word from
  you to guide me in my conduct." During this time his voice was saying,
  
  "In default of any other sentiment, gratitude would be sufficient to
  attach me to the marechale. She has been indulgent to me; she has
  consoled me when I have been despised. I cannot put unlimited faith
  in certain appearances which are, no doubt, extremely flattering, but
  possibly very fleeting."
  
  "Oh, my God!" exclaimed Mathilde.
  
  "Well, what guarantee will you give me?" replied Julien with a sharp,
  firm intonation, which seemed to abandon for a moment the prudent forms
  of diplomacy. "What guarantee, what god will warrant that the position
  to which you seem inclined to restore me at the present moment will
  last more than two days?"
  
  "The excess of my love, and my unhappiness if you do not love me," she
  said to him, taking his hands and turning towards him.
  
  The spasmodic movement which she had just made had slightly displaced
  her tippet; Julien caught a view of her charming shoulders. Her
  slightly dishevelled hair recalled a delicious memory....
  
  He was on the point of succumbing. "One imprudent word," he said to
  himself, "and I have to start all over again that long series of days
  which I have passed in despair. Madame de Renal used to find reasons
  for doing what her heart dictated. This young girl of high society
  never allows her heart to be moved except when she has proved to
  herself by sound logic that it ought to be moved."
  
  He saw this proof in the twinkling of an eye, and in the twinkling
  of an eye too, he regained his courage. He took away his hands which
  Mathilde was pressing in her own, and moved a little away from her with
  a marked respect.
  
  Human courage could not go further. He then busied himself with
  putting together madame de Fervaque's letters which were spread out on
  the divan, and it was with all the appearance of extreme politeness
  that he cruelly exploited the psychological moment by adding,
  
  "Mademoiselle de la Mole will allow me to reflect over all this." He
  went rapidly away and left the library; she heard him shut all the
  doors one after the other.
  
  "The monster is not the least bit troubled," she said to herself. "But
  what am I saying? Monster? He is wise, prudent, good. It is I myself
  who have committed more wrong than one can imagine."
  
  This point of view lasted. Mathilde was almost happy today, for she
  gave herself up to love unreservedly. One would have said that this
  soul had never been disturbed by pride (and what pride!)
  
  She shuddered with horror when a lackey announced madame le Fervaques
  into the salon in the evening. The man's voice struck her as sinister.
  She could not endure the sight of the marechale, and stopped suddenly.
  Julien who had felt little pride over his painful victory, had feared
  to face her, and had not dined at the Hotel de la Mole.
  
  His love and his happiness rapidly increased in proportion to the time
  that elapsed from the moment of the battle. He was blaming himself
  already. "How could I resist her?" he said to himself. "Suppose she
  were to go and leave off loving me! One single moment may change that
  haughty soul, and I must admit that I have treated her awfully."
  
  In the evening he felt that it was absolutely necessary to put in
  an appearance at the Bouffes in madame de Fervaques' box. She had
  expressly invited him. Mathilde would be bound to know of his presence
  or his discourteous absence. In spite of the clearness of this logic,
  he could not at the beginning of the evening bring himself to plunge
  into society. By speaking he would lose half his happiness. Ten o'clock
  struck and it was absolutely necessary to show himself. Luckily he
  found the marechale's box packed with women, and was relegated to a
  place near the door where he was completely hidden by the hats. This
  position saved him from looking ridiculous; Caroline's divine notes of
  despair in the _Matrimonio Segreto_ made him burst into tears. Madame
  de Fervaques saw these tears. They represented so great a contrast
  with the masculine firmness of his usual expression that the soul
  of the old-fashioned lady, saturated as it had been for many years
  with all the corroding acid of parvenu haughtiness, was none the less
  touched. Such remnants of a woman's heart as she still possessed
  impelled her to speak: she wanted to enjoy the sound of his voice at
  this moment.
  
  "Have you seen the de la Mole ladies?" she said to him. "They are
  in the third tier." Julien immediately craned out over the theatre,
  leaning politely enough on the front of the box. He saw Mathilde; her
  eyes were shining with tears.
  
  "And yet it is not their Opera day," thought Julien; "how eager she
  must be!"
  
  Mathilde had prevailed on her mother to come to the Bouffes in spite
  of the inconveniently high tier of the box, which a lady friend of the
  family had hastened to offer her. She wanted to see if Julien would
  pass the evening with the marechale.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LXI
  
  FRIGHTEN HER
  
  
          So this is the fine miracle of your civilisation; you
          have turned love into an ordinary business.--_Barnave_.
  
  
  Julien rushed into madame de la Mole's box. His eyes first met the
  tearful eyes of Mathilde; she was crying without reserve. There were
  only insignificant personages present, the friend who had leant her
  box, and some men whom she knew. Mathilde placed her hand on Julien's;
  she seemed to have forgotten all fear of her mother. Almost stifled as
  she was by her tears, she said nothing but this one word: "Guarantees!"
  
  "So long as I don't speak to her," said Julien to himself. He was
  himself very moved, and concealed his eyes with his hand as best
  he could under the pretext of avoiding the dazzling light of the
  third tier of boxes. "If I speak she may suspect the excess of my
  emotion, the sound of my voice will betray me. All may yet be lost."
  His struggles were more painful than they had been in the morning,
  his soul had had the time to become moved. He had been frightened at
  seeing Mathilde piqued with vanity. Intoxicated as he was with love and
  pleasure he resolved not to speak.
  
  In my view this is one of the finest traits in his character, an
  individual capable of such an effort of self-control may go far si
  _fata sinant_.
  
  Mademoiselle de la Mole insisted on taking Julien back to the hotel.
  Luckily it was raining a great deal, but the marquise had him placed
  opposite her, talked to him incessantly, and prevented him saying a
  single word to her daughter. One might have thought that the marquise
  was nursing Julien's happiness for him; no longer fearing to lose
  everything through his excessive emotion, he madly abandoned himself to
  his happiness.
  
  Shall I dare to say that when he went back to his room Julien fell
  on his knees and covered with kisses the love letters which prince
  Korasoff had given him.
  
  "How much I owe you, great man," he exclaimed in his madness. Little
  by little he regained his self-possession. He compared himself to a
  general who had just won a great battle. "My advantage is definite and
  immense," he said to himself, "but what will happen to-morrow? One
  instant may ruin everything."
  
  With a passionate gesture he opened the _Memoirs_ which Napoleon had
  dictated at St. Helena and for two long hours forced himself to read
  them. Only his eyes read; no matter, he made himself do it. During this
  singular reading his head and his heart rose to the most exalted level
  and worked unconsciously. "Her heart is very different from madame de
  Renal's," he said to himself, but he did not go further.
  
  "Frighten her!" he suddenly exclaimed, hurling away the book. "The
  enemy will only obey me in so far as I frighten him, but then he will
  not dare to show contempt for me."
  
  Intoxicated with joy he walked up and down his little room. In point of
  fact his happiness was based rather on pride than on love.
  
  "Frighten her!" he repeated proudly, and he had cause to be proud.
  
  "Madame de Renal always doubted even in her happiest moments if my
  love was equal to her own. In this case I have to subjugate a demon,
  consequently I must subjugate her." He knew quite well that Mathilde
  would be in the library at eight o'clock in the morning of the
  following day. He did not appear before nine o'clock. He was burning
  with love, but his head dominated his heart.
  
  Scarcely a single minute passed without his repeating to himself. "Keep
  her obsessed by this great doubt. Does he love me?" Her own brilliant
  position, together with the flattery of all who speak to her, tend a
  little too much to make her reassure herself.
  
  He found her sitting on the divan pale and calm, but apparently
  completely incapable of making a single movement. She held out her
  hand,
  
  "Dear one, it is true I have offended you, perhaps you are angry with
  me."
  
  Julien had not been expecting this simple tone. He was on the point of
  betraying himself.
  
  "You want guarantees, my dear, she added after a silence which she had
  hoped would be broken. Take me away, let us leave for London. I shall
  be ruined, dishonoured for ever." She had the courage to take her hand
  away from Julien to cover her eyes with it.
  
  All her feelings of reserve and feminine virtue had come back into her
  soul. "Well, dishonour me," she said at last with a sigh, "that will be
  a guarantee."
  
  "I was happy yesterday, because I had the courage to be severe with
  myself," thought Julien. After a short silence he had sufficient
  control over his heart to say in an icy tone,
  
  "Once we are on the road to London, once you are dishonoured, to employ
  your own expression, who will answer that you will still love me? that
  my very presence in the post-chaise will not seem importunate? I am not
  a monster; to have ruined your reputation will only make me still more
  unhappy. It is not your position in society which is the obstacle, it
  is unfortunately your own character. Can you yourself guarantee that
  you will love me for eight days?"
  
  "Ah! let her love me for eight days, just eight days," whispered
  Julien to himself, "and I will die of happiness. What do I care for
  the future, what do I care for life? And yet if I wish that divine
  happiness can commence this very minute, it only depends on me."
  
  Mathilde saw that he was pensive.
  
  "So I am completely unworthy of you," she said to him, taking his hand.
  
  Julien kissed her, but at the same time the iron hand of duty gripped
  his heart. If she sees how much I adore her I shall lose her. And
  before leaving her arms, he had reassumed all that dignity which is
  proper to a man.
  
  He managed on this and the following days to conceal his inordinate
  happiness. There were moments when he even refused himself the pleasure
  of clasping her in his arms. At other times the delirium of happiness
  prevailed over all the counsels of prudence.
  
  He had been accustomed to station himself near a bower of honeysuckle
  in the garden arranged in such a way so as to conceal the ladder when
  he had looked up at Mathilde's blind in the distance, and lamented her
  inconstancy. A very big oak tree was quite near, and the trunk of that
  tree prevented him from being seen by the indiscreet.
  
  As he passed with Mathilde over this very place which recalled his
  excessive unhappiness so vividly, the contrast between his former
  despair and his present happiness proved too much for his character.
  Tears inundated his eyes, and he carried his sweetheart's hand to his
  lips: "It was here I used to live in my thoughts of you, it was from
  here that I used to look at that blind, and waited whole hours for the
  happy moment when I would see that hand open it."
  
  His weakness was unreserved. He portrayed the extremity of his former
  despair in genuine colours which could not possibly have been invented.
  Short interjections testified to that present happiness which had put
  an end to that awful agony.
  
  "My God, what am I doing?" thought Julien, suddenly recovering himself.
  "I am ruining myself."
  
  In his excessive alarm he thought that he already detected a diminution
  of the love in mademoiselle de la Mole's eyes. It was an illusion, but
  Julien's face suddenly changed its expression and became overspread
  by a mortal pallor. His eyes lost their fire, and an expression of
  haughtiness touched with malice soon succeeded to his look of the most
  genuine and unreserved love.
  
  "But what is the matter with you, my dear," said Mathilde to him, both
  tenderly and anxiously.
  
  "I am lying," said Julien irritably, "and I am lying to you. I am
  reproaching myself for it, and yet God knows that I respect you
  sufficiently not to lie to you. You love me, you are devoted to me, and
  I have no need of praises in order to please you."
  
  "Great heavens! are all the charming things you have been telling me
  for the last two minutes mere phrases?"
  
  "And I reproach myself for it keenly, dear one. I once made them up for
  a woman who loved me, and bored me--it is the weakness of my character.
  I denounce myself to you, forgive me."
  
  Bitter tears streamed over Mathilde's cheeks.
  
  "As soon as some trifle offends me and throws me back on my
  meditation," continued Julien, "my abominable memory, which I curse at
  this very minute, offers me a resource, and I abuse it."
  
  "So I must have slipped, without knowing it, into some action which has
  displeased you," said Mathilde with a charming simplicity.
  
  "I remember one day that when you passed near this honeysuckle you
  picked a flower, M. de Luz took it from you and you let him keep it. I
  was two paces away."
  
  "M. de Luz? It is impossible," replied Mathilde with all her natural
  haughtiness. "I do not do things like that."
  
  "I am sure of it," Julien replied sharply.
  
  "Well, my dear, it is true," said Mathilde, as she sadly lowered her
  eyes. She knew positively that many months had elapsed since she had
  allowed M. de Luz to do such a thing.
  
  Julien looked at her with ineffable tenderness, "No," he said to
  himself, "she does not love me less."
  
  In the evening she rallied him with a laugh on his fancy for madame de
  Fervaques. "Think of a bourgeois loving a parvenu, those are perhaps
  the only type of hearts that my Julien cannot make mad with love. She
  has made you into a real dandy," she said playing with his hair.
  
  During the period when he thought himself scorned by Mathilde, Julien
  had become one of the best dressed men in Paris. He had, moreover,
  a further advantage over other dandies, in as much as once he had
  finished dressing he never gave a further thought to his appearance.
  
  One thing still piqued Mathilde, Julien continued to copy out the
  Russian letters and send them to the marechale.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LXII
  
  THE TIGER
  
  
          Alas, why these things and not other
          things?--_Beaumarchais_.
  
  
  An English traveller tells of the intimacy in which he lived with a
  tiger. He had trained it and would caress it, but he always kept a
  cocked pistol on his table.
  
  Julien only abandoned himself to the fulness of his happiness in those
  moments when Mathilde could not read the expression in his eyes. He
  scrupulously performed his duty of addressing some harsh word to her
  from time to time.
  
  When Mathilde's sweetness, which he noticed with some surprise,
  together with the completeness of her devotion were on the point of
  depriving him of all self-control, he was courageous enough to leave
  her suddenly.
  
  Mathilde loved for the first time in her life.
  
  Life had previously always dragged along at a tortoise pace, but now it
  flew.
  
  As, however, her pride required to find a vent in some way or other,
  she wished to expose herself to all the dangers in which her love could
  involve her. It was Julien who was prudent, and it was only when it was
  a question of danger that she did not follow her own inclination; but
  submissive, and almost humble as she was when with him, she only showed
  additional haughtiness to everyone in the house who came near her,
  whether relatives or friends.
  
  In the evening she would call Julien to her in the salon in the
  presence of sixty people, and have a long and private conversation with
  him.
  
  The little Tanbeau installed himself one day close to them. She
  requested him to go and fetch from the library the volume of Smollet
  which deals with the revolution of 1688, and when he hesitated, added
  with an expression of insulting haughtiness, which was a veritable balm
  to Julien's soul, "Don't hurry."
  
  "Have you noticed that little monster's expression?" he said to her.
  
  "His uncle has been in attendance in this salon for ten or twelve
  years, otherwise I would have had him packed off immediately."
  
  Her behaviour towards MM. de Croisenois, de Luz, etc., though outwardly
  perfectly polite, was in reality scarcely less provocative. Mathilde
  keenly reproached herself for all the confidential remarks about them
  which she had formerly made to Julien, and all the more so since she
  did not dare to confess that she had exaggerated to him the, in fact,
  almost absolutely innocent manifestations of interest of which these
  gentlemen had been the objects. In spite of her best resolutions her
  womanly pride invariably prevented her from saying to Julien, "It was
  because I was talking to you that I found a pleasure in describing my
  weakness in not drawing my hand away, when M. de Croisenois had placed
  his on a marble table and had just touched it."
  
  But now, as soon as one of these gentlemen had been speaking to her for
  some moments, she found she had a question to put to Julien, and she
  made this an excuse for keeping him by her side.
  
  She discovered that she was _enceinte_ and joyfully informed Julien of
  the fact.
  
  "Do you doubt me now? Is it not a guarantee? I am your wife for ever."
  
  This announcement struck Julien with profound astonishment. He was on
  the point of forgetting the governing principle of his conduct. How am
  I to be deliberately cold and insulting towards this poor young girl,
  who is ruining herself for my sake. And if she looked at all ill,
  he could not, even on those days when the terrible voice of wisdom
  made itself heard, find the courage to address to her one of those
  harsh remarks which his experience had found so indispensable to the
  preservation of their love.
  
  "I will write to my father," said Mathilde to him one day, "he is
  more than a father to me, he is a friend; that being so, I think it
  unworthy both of you and of myself to try and deceive him, even for a
  single minute."
  
  "Great heavens, what are you going to do?" said Julien in alarm.
  
  "My duty," she answered with eyes shining with joy.
  
  She thought she was showing more nobility than her lover.
  
  "But he will pack me off in disgrace."
  
  "It is his right to do so, we must respect it. I will give you my arm,
  and we will go out by the front door in full daylight."
  
  Julien was thunderstruck and requested her to put it off for a week.
  
  "I cannot," she answered, "it is the voice of honour, I have seen my
  duty, I must follow it, and follow it at once."
  
  "Well, I order you to put it off," said Julien at last. "Your honour
  is safe for the present. I am your husband. The position of us will be
  changed by this momentous step. I too am within my rights. To-day is
  Tuesday, next Tuesday is the duke de Retz's at home; when M. de la Mole
  comes home in the evening the porter will give him the fatal letter.
  His only thought is to make you a duchess, I am sure of it. Think of
  his unhappiness."
  
  "You mean, think of his vengeance?"
  
  "It may be that I pity my benefactor, and am grieved at injuring him,
  but I do not fear, and shall never fear anyone."
  
  Mathilde yielded. This was the first occasion, since she had informed
  Julien of her condition, that he had spoken to her authoritatively.
  She had never loved him so much. The tender part of his soul had
  found happiness in seizing on Mathilde's condition as an excuse
  for refraining from his cruel remarks to her. The question of the
  confession to M. de la Mole deeply moved him. Was he going to be
  separated from Mathilde? And, however grieved she would be to see him
  go, would she have a thought for him after his departure?
  
  He was almost equally horrified by the thought of the justified
  reproaches which the marquis might address to him.
  
  In the evening he confessed to Mathilde the second reason for his
  anxiety, and then led away by his love, confessed the first as well.
  
  She changed colour. "Would it really make you unhappy," she said to
  him, "to pass six months far away from me?"
  
  "Infinitely so. It is the only thing in the world which terrifies me."
  
  Mathilde was very happy. Julien had played his part so assiduously that
  he had succeeded in making her think that she was the one of the two
  who loved the more.
  
  The fatal Tuesday arrived. When the marquis came in at midnight he
  found a letter addressed to him, which was only to be opened himself
  when no one was there:--
  
          "My father,
  
          "All social ties have been broken between us, only those
          of nature remain. Next to my husband, you are and always
          will be the being I shall always hold most dear. My
          eyes are full of tears, I am thinking of the pain that
          I am causing you, but if my shame was to be prevented
          from becoming public, and you were to be given time to
          reflect and act, I could not postpone any longer the
          confession that I owe you. If your affection for me,
          which I know is extremely deep, is good enough to grant
          me a small allowance, I will go and settle with my
          husband anywhere you like, in Switzerland, for instance.
          His name is so obscure that no one would recognize
          in Madame Sorel, the daughter-in-law of a Verrieres
          carpenter, your daughter. That is the name which I have
          so much difficulty in writing. I fear your wrath against
          Julien, it seems so justified. I shall not be a duchess,
          my father; but I knew it when I loved him; for I was
          the one who loved him first, it was I who seduced him.
          I have inherited from you too lofty a soul to fix my
          attention on what either is or appears to be vulgar. It
          is in vain that I thought of M. Croisenois with a view
          to pleasing you. Why did you place real merit under my
          eyes? You told me yourself on my return from Hyeres,
          'that young Sorel is the one person who amuses me,' the
          poor boy is as grieved as I am if it is possible, at the
          pain this letter will give you. I cannot prevent you
          being irritated as a father, but love me as a friend.
  
          "Julien respected me. If he sometimes spoke to me,
          it was only by reason of his deep gratitude towards
          yourself, for the natural dignity of his character
          induces him to keep to his official capacity in any
          answers he may make to anyone who is so much above
          him. He has a keen and instinctive appreciation of the
          difference of social rank. It was I (I confess it with a
          blush to my best friend, and I shall never make such a
          confession to anyone else) who clasped his arm one day
          in the garden.
  
          "Why need you be irritated with him, after twenty-four
          hours have elapsed? My own lapse is irreparable. If you
          insist on it, the assurance of his profound respect and
          of his desperate grief at having displeased you, can
          be conveyed to you through me. You need not see him at
          all, but I shall go and join him wherever he wishes.
          It is his right and it is my duty. He is the father of
          my child. If your kindness will go so far as to grant
          us six thousand francs to live on, I will receive it
          with gratitude; if not, Julien reckons on establishing
          himself at Besancon, where he will set up as a Latin and
          literature master. However low may have been the station
          from which he springs, I am certain he will raise
          himself. With him I do not fear obscurity. If there is
          a revolution, I am sure that he will play a prime part.
          Can you say as much for any of those who have asked
          for my hand? They have fine estates, you say. I cannot
          consider that circumstance a reason for admiring them.
          My Julien would attain a high position, even under the
          present regime, if he had a million and my father's
          protection...."
  
  Mathilde, who knew that the marquis was a man who always abandoned
  himself to his first impulse, had written eight pages.
  
  "What am I to do?" said Julien to himself while M. de la Mole was
  reading this letter. "Where is (first) my duty; (second) my interest?
  My debt to him is immense. Without him I should have been a menial
  scoundrel, and not even enough of a scoundrel to be hated and
  persecuted by the others. He has made me a man of the world. The
  villainous acts which I now have to do are (first) less frequent;
  (second) less mean. That is more than as if he had given me a million.
  I am indebted to him for this cross and the reputation of having
  rendered those alleged diplomatic services, which have lifted me out of
  the ruck.
  
  "If he himself were writing instructions for my conduct, what would he
  prescribe?"
  
  Julien was sharply interrupted by M. de la Mole's old valet. "The
  marquis wants to see you at once, dressed or not dressed." The valet
  added in a low voice, as he walked by Julien's side, "He is beside
  himself: look out!"
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LXIII
  
  THE HELL OF WEAKNESS
  
  
          A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived
          it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle
          ages, nay, even under Richelieu, the Frenchman had
          _force of will_.--_Mirabeau_.
  
  
  Julien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his
  life this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the
  insults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished, and his
  patience was tried, but his gratitude remained unshaken.
  
  "The poor man now sees the annihilation, in a single minute, of all
  the fine plans which he has long cherished in his heart. But I owe it
  to him to answer. My silence tends to increase his anger." The part of
  Tartuffe supplied the answer;
  
  "I am not an angel.... I served you well; you paid me generously.... I
  was grateful, but I am twenty-two.... Only you and that charming person
  understood my thoughts in this household."
  
  "Monster," exclaimed the marquis. "Charming! Charming, to be sure! The
  day when you found her charming you ought to have fled."
  
  "I tried to. It was then that I asked permission to leave for
  Languedoc."
  
  Tired of stampeding about and overcome by his grief, the marquis threw
  himself into an arm-chair. Julien heard him whispering to himself, "No,
  no, he is not a wicked man."
  
  "No, I am not, towards you," exclaimed Julien, falling on his knees.
  But he felt extremely ashamed of this manifestation, and very quickly
  got up again.
  
  The marquis was really transported. When he saw this movement, he
  began again to load him with abominable insults, which were worthy of
  the driver of a fiacre. The novelty of these oaths perhaps acted as a
  distraction.
  
  "What! is my daughter to go by the name of madame Sorel? What! is my
  daughter not to be a duchess?" Each time that these two ideas presented
  themselves in all their clearness M. de la Mole was a prey to torture,
  and lost all power over the movements of his mind.
  
  Julien was afraid of being beaten.
  
  In his lucid intervals, when he was beginning to get accustomed to his
  unhappiness, the marquis addressed to Julien reproaches which were
  reasonable enough. "You should have fled, sir," he said to him. "Your
  duty was to flee. You are the lowest of men."
  
  Julien approached the table and wrote:
  
          "I have found my life unbearable for a long time; I am
          putting an end to it. I request monsieur the marquis to
          accept my apologies (together with the expression of my
          infinite gratitude) for any embarrassment that may be
          occasioned by my death in his hotel."
  
  "Kindly run your eye over this paper, M. the marquis," said Julien.
  "Kill me, or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in the
  morning. I will go and walk in the garden in the direction of the wall
  at the bottom."
  
  "Go to the devil," cried the marquis, as he went away.
  
  "I understand," thought Julien. "He would not be sorry if I were to
  spare his valet the trouble of killing me....
  
  "Let him kill me, if he likes; it is a satisfaction which I offer
  him.... But, by heaven, I love life. I owe it to my son."
  
  This idea, which had not previously presented itself with so much
  definiteness to his imagination, completely engrossed him during his
  walk after the first few minutes which he had spent thinking about his
  danger.
  
  This novel interest turned him into a prudent man. "I need advice as to
  how to behave towards this infuriated man.... He is devoid of reason;
  he is capable of everything. Fouque is too far away; besides, he would
  not understand the emotions of a heart like the marquis's."
  
  "Count Altamira ... am I certain of eternal silence? My request
  for advice must not be a fresh step which will raise still further
  complications. Alas! I have no one left but the gloomy abbe Pirard. His
  mind is crabbed by Jansenism.... A damned Jesuit would know the world,
  and would be more in my line. M. Pirard is capable of beating me at the
  very mention of my crime."
  
  The genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's help. "Well, I will go and
  confess to him." This was his final resolution after having walked
  about in the garden for two good hours. He no longer thought about
  being surprised by a gun shot. He was feeling sleepy.
  
  Very early the next day, Julien was several leagues away from Paris
  and knocked at the door of the severe Jansenist. He found to his great
  astonishment that he was not unduly surprised at his confidence.
  
  "I ought perhaps to reproach myself," said the abbe, who seemed more
  anxious than irritated. "I thought I guessed that love. My affection
  for you, my unhappy boy, prevented me from warning the father."
  
  "What will he do?" said Julien keenly.
  
  At that moment he loved the abbe, and would have found a scene between
  them very painful.
  
  "I see three alternatives," continued Julien.
  
  "M. de la Mole can have me put to death," and he mentioned the suicide
  letter which he had left with the Marquis; (2) "He can get Count
  Norbert to challenge me to a duel, and shoot at me point blank."
  
  "You would accept?" said the abbe furiously as he got up.
  
  "You do not let me finish. I should certainly never fire upon my
  benefactor's son. (3) He can send me away. If he says go to Edinburgh
  or New York, I will obey him. They can then conceal mademoiselle de la
  Mole's condition, but I will never allow them to suppress my son."
  
  "Have no doubt about it, that will be the first thought of that
  depraved man."
  
  At Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven
  o'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter. She feared that he might
  have considered it noble to put an end to his life; "and without my
  permission?" she said to herself with a pain due solely to her anger.
  
  "If he dies I shall die," she said to her father. "It will be you
  who will be the cause of his death.... Perhaps you will rejoice at
  it but I swear by his shades that I shall at once go into mourning,
  and shall publicly appear as _Madame the widow Sorel_, I shall send
  out my invitations, you can count on it.... You will find me neither
  pusillanimous nor cowardly."
  
  Her love went to the point of madness. M. de la Mole was flabbergasted
  in his turn.
  
  He began to regard what had happened with a certain amount of logic.
  Mathilde did not appear at breakfast. The marquis felt an immense
  weight off his mind, and was particularly flattered when he noticed
  that she had said nothing to her mother.
  
  Julien was dismounting from his horse. Mathilde had him called and
  threw herself into his arms almost beneath the very eyes of her
  chambermaid. Julien was not very appreciative of this transport. He had
  come away from his long consultation with the abbe Pirard in a very
  diplomatic and calculating mood. The calculation of possibilities had
  killed his imagination. Mathilde told him, with tears in her eyes, that
  she had read his suicide letter.
  
  "My father may change his mind; do me the favour of leaving for
  Villequier this very minute. Mount your horse again, and leave the
  hotel before they get up from table."
  
  When Julien's coldness and astonishment showed no sign of abatement,
  she burst into tears.
  
  "Let me manage our affairs," she exclaimed ecstatically, as she clasped
  him in her arms. "You know, dear, it is not of my own free will that
  I separate from you. Write under cover to my maid. Address it in a
  strange hand-writing, I will write volumes to you. Adieu, flee."
  
  This last word wounded Julien, but he none the less obeyed. "It will
  be fatal," he thought "if, in their most gracious moments these
  aristocrats manage to shock me."
  
  Mathilde firmly opposed all her father's prudent plans. She would
  not open negotiations on any other basis except this. She was to be
  Madame Sorel, and was either to live with her husband in poverty in
  Switzerland, or with her father in Paris. She rejected absolutely the
  suggestion of a secret accouchement. "In that case I should begin to
  be confronted with a prospect of calumny and dishonour. I shall go
  travelling with my husband two months after the marriage, and it will
  be easy to pretend that my son was born at a proper time."
  
  This firmness though at first received with violent fits of anger,
  eventually made the marquis hesitate.
  
  "Here," he said to his daughter in a moment of emotion, "is a gift of
  ten thousand francs a year. Send it to your Julien, and let him quickly
  make it impossible for me to retract it."
  
  In order to obey Mathilde, whose imperious temper he well knew, Julien
  had travelled forty useless leagues; he was superintending the accounts
  of the farmers at Villequier. This act of benevolence on the part of
  the marquis occasioned his return. He went and asked asylum of the abbe
  Pirard, who had become Mathilde's most useful ally during his absence.
  Every time that he was questioned by the marquis, he would prove to him
  that any other course except public marriage would be a crime in the
  eyes of God.
  
  "And happily," added the abbe, "worldly wisdom is in this instance in
  agreement with religion. Could one, in view of Mdlle. de la Mole's
  passionate character, rely for a minute on her keeping any secret which
  she did not herself wish to preserve? If one does not reconcile oneself
  to the frankness of a public marriage, society will concern itself much
  longer with this strange mesalliance__. Everything must be said all
  at once without either the appearance or the reality of the slightest
  mystery."
  
  "It is true," said the marquis pensively.
  
  Two or three friends of M. de la Mole were of the same opinion as the
  abbe Pirard. The great obstacle in their view was Mathilde's decided
  character. But in spite of all these fine arguments the marquis's soul
  could not reconcile itself to giving up all hopes of a coronet for his
  daughter.
  
  He ransacked his memory and his imagination for all the variations of
  knavery and duplicity which had been feasible in his youth. Yielding to
  necessity and having fear of the law seemed absurd and humiliating for
  a man in his position. He was paying dearly now for the luxury of those
  enchanting dreams concerning the future of his cherished daughter in
  which he had indulged for the last ten years.
  
  "Who could have anticipated it?" he said to himself. "A girl of so
  proud a character, of so lofty a disposition, who is even prouder than
  I am of the name she bears? A girl whose hand has already been asked
  for by all the cream of the nobility of France."
  
  "We must give up all faith in prudence. This age is made to confound
  everything. We are marching towards chaos."
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LXIV
  
  A MAN OF INTELLECT
  
  
          The prefect said to himself as he rode along the highway
          on horseback, "why should I not be a minister, a
          president of the council, a duke? This is how I should
          make war.... By these means I should have all the
          reformers put in irons."--_The Globe_.
  
  
  No argument will succeed in destroying the paramount influence of ten
  years of agreeable dreaming. The marquis thought it illogical to be
  angry, but could not bring himself to forgive. "If only this Julien
  could die by accident," he sometimes said to himself. It was in this
  way that his depressed imagination found a certain relief in running
  after the most absurd chimaeras. They paralysed the influence of the
  wise arguments of the abbe Pirard. A month went by in this way without
  negotiations advancing one single stage.
  
  The marquis had in this family matter, just as he had in politics,
  brilliant ideas over which he would be enthusiastic for two or three
  days. And then a line of tactics would fail to please him because it
  was based on sound arguments, while arguments only found favour in his
  eyes in so far as they were based on his favourite plan. He would work
  for three days with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a poet on bringing
  matters to a certain stage; on the following day he would not give it a
  thought.
  
  Julien was at first disconcerted by the slowness of the marquis;
  but, after some weeks, he began to surmise that M. de La Mole had no
  definite plan with regard to this matter. Madame de La Mole and the
  whole household believed that Julien was travelling in the provinces
  in connection with the administration of the estates; he was in hiding
  in the parsonage of the abbe Pirard and saw Mathilde every day;
  every morning she would spend an hour with her father, but they would
  sometimes go for weeks on end without talking of the matter which
  engrossed all their thoughts.
  
  "I don't want to know where the man is," said the marquis to her one
  day. "Send him this letter." Mathilde read:
  
  "The Languedoc estates bring in 20,600 francs. I give 10,600 francs to
  my daughter, and 10,000 francs to M. Julien Sorel. It is understood
  that I give the actual estates. Tell the notary to draw up two separate
  deeds of gift, and to bring them to me to-morrow, after this there are
  to be no more relations between us. Ah, Monsieur, could I have expected
  all this? The marquis de La Mole."
  
  "I thank you very much," said Mathilde gaily. "We will go and settle in
  the Chateau d'Aiguillon, between Agen and Marmande. The country is said
  to be as beautiful as Italy."
  
  This gift was an extreme surprise to Julien. He was no longer the cold,
  severe man whom we have hitherto known. His thoughts were engrossed in
  advance by his son's destiny. This unexpected fortune, substantial as
  it was for a man as poor as himself, made him ambitious. He pictured
  a time when both his wife and himself would have an income of 36,000
  francs. As for Mathilde, all her emotions were concentrated on her
  adoration for her husband, for that was the name by which her pride
  insisted on calling Julien. Her one great ambition was to secure the
  recognition of her marriage. She passed her time in exaggerating to
  herself the consummate prudence which she had manifested in linking her
  fate to that of a superior man. The idea of personal merit became a
  positive craze with her.
  
  Julien's almost continuous absence, coupled with the complications of
  business matters and the little time available in which to talk love,
  completed the good effect produced by the wise tactics which Julien had
  previously discovered.
  
  Mathilde finished by losing patience at seeing so little of the man
  whom she had come really to love.
  
  In a moment of irritation she wrote to her father and commenced her
  letter like Othello:
  
  "My very choice is sufficient proof that I have preferred Julien to all
  the advantages which society offered to the daughter of the marquis
  de la Mole. Such pleasures, based as they are on prestige and petty
  vanity mean nothing to me. It is now nearly six weeks since I have
  lived separated from my husband. That is sufficient to manifest my
  respect for yourself. Before next Thursday I shall leave the paternal
  house. Your acts of kindness have enriched us. No one knows my secret
  except the venerable abbe Pirard. I shall go to him: he will marry us,
  and an hour after the ceremony we shall be on the road to Languedoc,
  and we will never appear again in Paris except by your instructions.
  But what cuts me to the quick is that all this will provide the subject
  matter for piquant anecdotes against me and against yourself. May not
  the epigrams of a foolish public compel our excellent Norbert to pick a
  quarrel with Julien, under such circumstances I know I should have no
  control over him. We should discover in his soul the mark of the rebel
  plebian. Oh father, I entreat you on my knees, come and be present at
  my marriage in M. Pirard's church next Thursday. It will blunt the
  sting of malignant scandal and will guarantee the life's happiness of
  your only daughter, and of that of my husband, etc., etc."
  
  This letter threw the marquis's soul into a strange embarrassment.
  He must at last take a definite line. All his little habits: all his
  vulgar friends had lost their influence.
  
  In these strange circumstances the great lines of his character,
  which had been formed by the events of his youth, reassumed all their
  original force. The misfortunes of the emigration had made him into
  an imaginative man. After having enjoyed for two years an immense
  fortune and all the distinctions of the court, 1790 had flung him into
  the awful miseries of the emigration. This hard schooling had changed
  the character of a spirit of twenty-two. In essence, he was not so
  much dominated by his present riches as encamped in their midst. But
  that very imagination which had preserved his soul from the taint of
  avarice, had made him a victim of a mad passion for seeing his daughter
  decorated by a fine title.
  
  During the six weeks which had just elapsed, the marquis had felt at
  times impelled by a caprice for making Julien rich. He considered
  poverty mean, humiliating for himself, M. de la Mole, and impossible
  in his daughter's husband; he was ready to lavish money. On the next
  day his imagination would go off on another tack, and he would think
  that Julien would read between the lines of this financial generosity,
  change his name, exile himself to America, and write to Mathilde that
  he was dead for her. M. de la Mole imagined this letter written, and
  went so far as to follow its effect on his daughter's character.
  
  The day when he was awakened from these highly youthful dreams by
  Mathilde's actual letter after he had been thinking for along time
  of killing Julien or securing his disappearance he was dreaming of
  building up a brilliant position for him. He would make him take the
  name of one of his estates, and why should he not make him inherit a
  peerage? His father-in-law, M. the duke de Chaulnes, had, since the
  death of his own son in Spain, frequently spoken to him about his
  desire to transmit his title to Norbert....
  
  "One cannot help owning that Julien has a singular aptitude for
  affairs, had boldness, and is possibly even brilliant," said the
  marquis to himself ... "but I detect at the root of his character a
  certain element which alarms me. He produces the same impression upon
  everyone, consequently there must be something real in it," and the
  more difficult this reality was to seize hold of, the more it alarmed
  the imaginative mind of the old marquis.
  
  "My daughter expressed the same point very neatly the other day (in a
  suppressed letter).
  
  "Julien has not joined any salon or any coterie. He has nothing to
  support himself against me, and has absolutely no resource if I abandon
  him. Now is that ignorance of the actual state of society? I have said
  to him two or three times, the only real and profitable candidature is
  the candidature of the salons.
  
  "No, he has not the adroit, cunning genius of an attorney who never
  loses a minute or an opportunity. He is very far from being a character
  like Louis XL. On the other hand, I have seen him quote the most
  ungenerous maxims ... it is beyond me. Can it be that he simply repeats
  these maxims in order to use them as a _dam_ against his passions?
  
  "However, one thing comes to the surface; he cannot bear contempt,
  that's my hold on him.
  
  "He has not, it is true, the religious reverence for high birth. He
  does not instinctively respect us.... That is wrong; but after all,
  the only things which are supposed to make the soul of a seminary
  student impatient are lack of enjoyment and lack of money. He is quite
  different, and cannot stand contempt at any price."
  
  Pressed as he was by his daughter's letter, M. de la Mole realised the
  necessity for making up his mind. "After all, the great question is
  this:--Did Julien's audacity go to the point of setting out to make
  advances to my daughter because he knows I love her more than anything
  else in the world, and because I have an income of a hundred thousand
  crowns?"
  
  Mathilde protests to the contrary.... "No, monsieur Julien, that is a
  point on which I am not going to be under any illusion.
  
  "Is it really a case of spontaneous and authentic love? or is it just
  a vulgar desire to raise himself to a fine position? Mathilde is
  far-seeing; she appreciated from the first that this suspicion might
  ruin him with me--hence that confession of hers. It was she who took
  upon herself to love him the first.
  
  "The idea of a girl of so proud a character so far forgetting herself
  as to make physical advances! To think of pressing his arm in the
  garden in the evening! How horrible! As though there were not a hundred
  other less unseemly ways of notifying him that he was the object of her
  favour.
  
  "_Qui s'excuse s'accuse_; I distrust Mathilde." The marquis's reasoning
  was more conclusive to-day than it was usually. Nevertheless, force
  of habit prevailed, and he resolved to gain time by writing to his
  daughter, for a correspondence was being carried on between one wing
  of the hotel and the other. M. de la Mole did not dare to discuss
  matters with Mathilde and to see her face to face. He was frightened of
  clinching the whole matter by yielding suddenly.
  
          "Mind you commit no new acts of madness; here is
          a commission of lieutenant of Hussars for M. the
          chevalier, Julien Sorel de la Vernaye. You see what I
          am doing for him. Do not irritate me. Do not question
          me. Let him leave within twenty-four hours and present
          himself at Strasbourg where his regiment is. Here is an
          order on my banker. Obey me."
  
  Mathilde's love and joy were unlimited. She wished to profit by her
  victory and immediately replied.
  
          "If M. de la Vernaye knew all that you are good enough
          to do for him, he would be overwhelmed with gratitude
          and be at your feet. But amidst all this generosity, my
          father has forgotten me; your daughter's honour is in
          peril. An indiscretion may produce an everlasting blot
          which an income of twenty thousand crowns could not
          put right. I will only send the commission to M. de la
          Vernaye if you give me your word that my marriage will
          be publicly celebrated at Villequier in the course of
          next month. Shortly after that period, which I entreat
          you not to prolong, your daughter will only be able to
          appear in public under the name of Madame de la Vernaye.
          How I thank you, dear papa, for having saved me from the
          name of Sorel, etc., etc."
  
  The reply was unexpected:
  
          "Obey or I retract everything. Tremble, you imprudent
          young girl. I do not yet know what your Julien is,
          and you yourself know less than I. Let him leave for
          Strasbourg, and try to act straightly. I will notify him
          from here of my wishes within a fortnight."
  
  Mathilde was astonished by this firm answer. _I do not know Julien_.
  These words threw her into a reverie which soon finished in the most
  fascinating suppositions; but she believed in their truth. My Julien's
  intellect is not clothed in the petty mean uniform of the salons, and
  my father refuses to believe in his superiority by reason of the very
  fact which proves it.
  
  All the same, if I do not obey this whim of his, I see the possibility
  of a public scene; a scandal would lower my position in society, and
  might render me less fascinating in Julien's eyes. After the scandal
  ... ten years of poverty; and the only thing which can prevent marrying
  for merit becoming ridiculous is the most brilliant wealth. If I live
  far away from my father, he is old and may forget me.... Norbert will
  marry some clever, charming woman; old Louis XIV. was seduced by the
  duchess of Burgundy.
  
  She decided to obey, but refrained from communicating her father's
  letter to Julien. It might perhaps have been that ferocious character
  driven to some act of madness.
  
  Julien's joy was unlimited when she informed him in the evening that
  he was a lieutenant of Hussars. Its extent can be imagined from the
  fact that this had constituted the ambition of his whole life, and
  also from the passion which he now had for his son. The change of name
  struck him with astonishment.
  
  "After all," he thought, "I have got to the end of my romance, and I
  deserve all the credit. I have managed to win the love of that monster
  of pride," he added, looking at Mathilde. "Her father cannot live
  without her, nor she without me."
  
  
  
  
  
  
target: Julien tries to divert his attention from Mathilde. He goes on a secret mission for the Marquis to help organize a conservative conspiracy that will strengthen the political power of the clergy in France. The Marquis, along with some of the most powerful men in France, wants to organize an army controlled by the Vatican. Julien's excellent powers of memorization impress the Marquis and his associates, so they send him around France to deliver their message to co- conspirators. Nevertheless, a group of conservative priests finds out about the conspiracy, forcing Julien to disguise himself as a soldier. Upon his return to Paris, Julien decides to make Mathilde jealous. He begins writing copied love letters to an extremely religious member of the Marquis's salon, Mme. de Fervaques. Julien knows that she is too pious to even understand his fake declarations of love, and is just using her attention to upset Mathilde. He is still very much in love with Mathilde. For the two months that he forces himself to avoid her, he is miserable. During this period, Julien becomes an expert dresser and even manages to make Mme. de Fervaques begin to like him. Mathilde cannot help but notice Julien's surge in popularity, and blushes whenever they are in the same room. Julien's ploy to make Mathilde jealous works perfectly. She finds out about the letters to Mme. de Fervaques and falls at Julien's feet proclaiming her undying love. Julien is madly in love with her too, but has learned how volatile Mathilde's emotions can be. He decides to say little and do little until he has guarantees from Mathilde that she will not change her mind. Julien now knows how to manipulate Mathilde's emotions, and succeeds in making her completely devoted to him. They resume their relationship, but Julien is careful not too show too much emotion in order to keep Mathilde interested in him. However, she soon finds out that she is pregnant and wants Julien to become her husband. Mathilde immediately confesses everything to her father, blaming herself for seducing Julien in the first place. The Marquis is enraged but will not have Julien killed. He cannot imagine his daughter having the last name Sorel, and tries to think of some way to get rid of Julien. Instead, after a month of negotiations and the help of M. Pirard, the Marquis both gives Julien a large income and ennobles him as Julien de La Vernaye. Julien is also made a lieutenant in the army. Having made Julien a man of rank and wealth, the Marquis finally consents to Julien's marriage to Mathilde.
feat_summary_analysis: Commentary Julien's hypocrisy finally comes full circle as he finds himself working as an agent for a conservative conspiracy. Stendhal uses this political interlude to separate Julien and Mathilde as well as mock both liberal and conservative politics. Writing immediately following the bourgeois liberal Revolution of 1830, Stendhal replaces the liberal conspiracy with a conservative one, cynically suggesting that the two parties are really interchangeable. He further ridicules conservative politics when he introduces a second conservative conspiracy that attempts to thwart the first plot. Revealingly, nothing Julien does on his mission matters or has any effect. Just like during the king's visit to Verrieres, Julien switches from the black clothes of the clergy to the red uniform of a soldier to avoid being recognized. Like liberal and conservative politics, the red and the black are really not that different from each other. Stendhal suggests that, like Julien's forgotten conspiracy, French politics are more comedy than drama. Julien finally masters the psychological power of triangular desire in this section. The first part of his affair with Mathilde is hampered by her inability to decide whether she loves him or not. She especially cannot forget Julien's humble social status. However, Julien soon figures out that jealousy is the best way to win her devotion. Forming a love triangle with Mme. de Fervaques as an intermediary, he succeeds in making Mathilde completely fall in love with him and give him assurances of her devotion. Yet Julien is careful not to immediately declare his own love, making sure that he keeps Mathilde dependent on him and not the other way around. More so than ever, he evokes the example of Napoleon and treats her like an enemy on a battlefield that must be intimidated. Stendhal notes that Mathilde is pregnant in a very brief sentence that does not fit well with the surrounding text. Did Julien get her pregnant on purpose to further his ambitions? Stendhal's reticence on this subject does seem to suggest some intent on Julien's part, but Julien is very shocked that Mathilde wants to tell her father. The Marquis's choices in this matter are clear: he must either have Julien killed or ennoble him. Julien still feels a deep obligation to the Marquis and offers to commit suicide, a declaration that makes Mathilde love him even more. Her ensuing argument with her father raises an interesting question regarding Julien's character. Neither of them feels that they know him very well. Indeed, Julien himself does not seem to know who he really is and what he really wants in life. Both Mathilde and the Marquis feel that Julien's political ambitions present a danger to the aristocracy and decide that the best way to engender his trust is to make him one of them; he could otherwise prove to be a revolutionary leader. Julien's lack of identity is thus molded into the title of de la Vernaye. Even though she is in love with Julien, Mathilde can not get over his low birth, and thus spreads a rumor that he is the illegitimate son of a nobleman. But his new title and army commission are the realization of Julien's dreams only in name: he has been acting like an aristocrat and a soldier since the beginning of the novel.