feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_27_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 28
feat_summary_id: part 1, chapter 28
feat_summary: {"name": "Part 1, Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-28", "summary": "Julien tries to stays out of his classmates' way, but it's difficult because he can't hide how smart he is. There's really only one guy on his side, and that's one of his teachers named Father Chas-Bernard. One day, Chas-Bernard asks for Julien's help with decorating a church. Julien is such a good climber that he hangs decorations from places in the church everyone else is afraid to go. Chas-Bernard takes this as a sign of Julien's strong faith. When he sits down to talk with Chas-Bernard that night, Julien realizes that there's lots to admire in the man. He has always followed his core values without worrying about what the people around him think. Chas-Bernard tells Julien that he needs his help to guard some of the church decorations during the next ceremony. It seems that thieves have lots of dirty tricks for stealing some of the more expensive ones. During the ceremony, Julien takes his post to guard the decorations. But he gets distracted by a pair of women who go into the confessional booths along one side of the church. When one of them turns their head, he realizes that she is none other than his former lover, Madame de Renal. When she sees Julien, Madame cries out and faints. The other woman is Madame Derville, who recognizes Julien and tells him to go away. She says that Madame de Renal has been doing well ever since Julien left Verrieres. When Father Chas pulls him back to work, Julien is so startled that he seems ill.", "analysis": ""}
text: CHAPTER XXVIII
  
  A PROCESSION
  
  
          All hearts were moved. The presence of God seemed to
          have descended into these narrow Gothic streets that
          stretched in every direction, and were sanded by the
          care of the faithful.--_Young_.
  
  
  It was in vain that Julien pretended to be petty and stupid. He could
  not please; he was too different. Yet all these professors, he said to
  himself, are very clever people, men in a thousand. Why do they not
  like my humility? Only one seemed to take advantage of his readiness
  to believe everything, and apparently to swallow everything. This was
  the abbe Chas-Bernard, the director of the ceremonies of the cathedral,
  where, for the last fifteen years, he had been given occasion to hope
  for a canonry. While waiting, he taught homiletics at the seminary.
  During the period of Julien's blindness, this class was one of those in
  which he most frequently came out top. The abbe Chas had used this as
  an opportunity to manifest some friendship to him, and when the class
  broke up, he would be glad to take him by the arm for some turns in the
  garden.
  
  "What is he getting at," Julien would say to himself. He noticed
  with astonishment that, for hours on end, the abbe would talk to him
  about the ornaments possessed by the cathedral. It had seventeen lace
  chasubles, besides the mourning vestments. A lot was hoped from the old
  wife of the judge de Rubempre. This lady, who was ninety years of age,
  had kept for at least seventy years her wedding dress of superb Lyons
  material, embroidered with gold.
  
  "Imagine, my friend," the abbe Chas would say, stopping abruptly, and
  staring with amazement, "that this material keeps quite stiff. There
  is so much gold in it. It is generally thought in Besancon that the
  will of the judge's wife will result in the cathedral treasure being
  increased by more than ten chasubles, without counting four or five
  capes for the great feast. I will go further," said the abbe Chas,
  lowering his voice, "I have reasons for thinking the judge's wife will
  leave us her magnificent silver gilt candlesticks, supposed to have
  been bought in Italy by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, whose
  favourite minister was one of the good lady's ancestors."
  
  "But what is the fellow getting at with all this old clothes business,"
  thought Julien. "These adroit preliminaries have been going on for
  centuries, and nothing comes of them. He must be very suspicious of me.
  He is cleverer than all the others, whose secret aim can be guessed so
  easily in a fortnight. I understand. He must have been suffering for
  fifteen years from mortified ambition."
  
  Julien was summoned one evening in the middle of the fencing lesson to
  the abbe Pirard, who said to him.
  
  "To-morrow is the feast of Corpus Domini (the Fete Dieu) the abbe
  Chas-Bernard needs you to help him to decorate the cathedral. Go and
  obey." The abbe Pirard called him back and added sympathetically. "It
  depends on you whether you will utilise the occasion to go into the
  town."
  
  "Incedo per ignes," answered Julien. (I have secret enemies).
  
  Julien went to the cathedral next morning with downcast eyes. The sight
  of the streets and the activity which was beginning to prevail in the
  town did him good. In all quarters they were extending the fronts of
  the houses for the procession.
  
  All the time that he had passed in the seminary seemed to him no more
  than a moment. His thoughts were of Vergy, and of the pretty Amanda
  whom he might perhaps meet, for her cafe was not very far off. He saw
  in the distance the abbe Chas-Bernard on the threshold of his beloved
  cathedral. He was a big man with a jovial face and a frank air. To-day
  he looked triumphant. "I was expecting you, my dear son," he cried as
  soon as he saw Julien in the distance. "Be welcome. This day's duty
  will be protracted and arduous. Let us fortify ourselves by a first
  breakfast. We will have the second at ten o'clock during high mass."
  
  "I do not wish, sir," said Julien to him gravely, "to be alone for a
  single instant. Deign to observe," he added, showing him the clock over
  their heads, "that I have arrived at one minute to five."
  
  "So those little rascals at the seminary frightened you. It is very
  good of you to think of them," said the abbe. "But is the road less
  beautiful because there are thorns in the hedges which border it.
  Travellers go on their way, and leave the wicked thorns to wait in vain
  where they are. And now to work my dear friend, to work."
  
  The abbe Chas was right in saying that the task would be arduous. There
  had been a great funeral ceremony at the cathedral the previous day.
  They had not been able to make any preparations. They had consequently
  only one morning for dressing all the Gothic pillars which constitute
  the three naves with a kind of red damask cloth ascending to a height
  of thirty feet. The Bishop had fetched by mail four decorators from
  Paris, but these gentry were not able to do everything, and far from
  giving any encouragement to the clumsiness of the Besancon colleagues,
  they made it twice as great by making fun of them.
  
  Julien saw that he would have to climb the ladder himself. His agility
  served him in good stead. He undertook the direction of the decorators
  from town. The Abbe Chas was delighted as he watched him flit from
  ladder to ladder. When all the pillars were dressed in damask, five
  enormous bouquets of feathers had to be placed on the great baldachin
  above the grand altar. A rich coping of gilded wood was supported by
  eight big straight columns of Italian marble, but to reach the centre
  of the baldachin above the tabernacle involved walking over an old
  wooden cornice which was forty feet high and possibly worm-eaten.
  
  The sight of this difficult crossing had extinguished the gaiety of the
  Parisian decorators, which up till then had been so brilliant. They
  looked at it from down below, argued a great deal, but did not go up.
  Julien seized hold of the bouquets of feathers and climbed the ladder
  at a run. He placed it neatly on the crown-shaped ornament in the
  centre of the baldachin. When he came down the ladder again, the abbe
  Chas-Bernard embraced him in his arms.
  
  "Optime" exclaimed the good priest, "I will tell this to Monseigneur."
  
  Breakfast at ten o'clock was very gay. The abbe Chas had never seen his
  church look so beautiful.
  
  "Dear disciple," he said to Julien. "My mother used to let out chairs
  in this venerable building, so I have been brought up in this great
  edifice. The Terror of Robespierre ruined us, but when I was eight
  years old, that was my age then, I used to serve masses in private
  houses, so you see I got my meals on mass-days. Nobody could fold a
  chasuble better than I could, and I never cut the fringes. After the
  re-establishment of public worship by Napoleon, I had the good fortune
  to direct everything in this venerable metropolis. Five times a year do
  my eyes see it adorned with these fine ornaments. But it has never been
  so resplendent, and the damask breadths have never been so well tied or
  so close to the pillars as they are to-day."
  
  "So he is going to tell me his secret at last," said Julien. "Now he is
  going to talk about himself. He is expanding." But nothing imprudent
  was said by the man in spite of his evident exaltation.
  
  "All the same he has worked a great deal," said Julien to himself.
  "He is happy. What a man! What an example for me! He really takes the
  cake." (This was a vulgar phrase which he had learned from the old
  surgeon).
  
  As the sanctus of high mass sounded, Julien wanted to take a surplice
  to follow the bishop in the superb procession. "And the thieves, my
  friend! And the thieves," exclaimed the abbe Chas. "Have you forgotten
  them? The procession will go out, but we will watch, will you and I.
  We shall be very lucky if we get off with the loss of a couple of ells
  of this fine lace which surrounds the base of the pillars. It is a
  gift of Madame de Rubempre. It comes from her great-grandfather the
  famous Count. It is made of real gold, my friend," added the abbe in
  a whisper, and with evident exaltation. "And all genuine. I entrust
  you with the watching of the north wing. Do not leave it. I will keep
  the south wing and the great nave for myself. Keep an eye on the
  confessional. It is there that the women accomplices of the thieves
  always spy. Look out for the moment when we turn our backs."
  
  As he finished speaking, a quarter to twelve struck. Immediately
  afterwards the sound of the great clock was heard. It rang a full peal.
  These full solemn sounds affected Julien. His imagination was no longer
  turned to things earthly. The perfume of the incense and of the rose
  leaves thrown before the holy sacrament by little children disguised as
  St. John increased his exaltation.
  
  Logically the grave sounds of the bell should only have recalled to
  Julien's mind the thought of the labour of twenty men paid fifty-four
  centimes each, and possibly helped by fifteen or twenty faithful souls.
  Logically, he ought to have thought of the wear and tear of the cords
  and of the framework and of the danger of the clock itself, which
  falls down every two centuries, and to have considered the means of
  diminishing the salary of the bell-ringers, or of paying them by some
  indulgence or other grace dispensed from the treasures of the Church
  without diminishing its purse.
  
  Julien's soul exalted by these sounds with all their virile fulness,
  instead of making these wise reflections, wandered in the realm
  of imagination. He will never turn out a good priest or a good
  administrator. Souls which get thrilled so easily are at the best
  only capable of producing an artist. At this moment the presumption
  of Julien bursts out into full view. Perhaps fifty of his comrades
  in the seminary made attentive to the realities of life by their own
  unpopularity and the Jacobinism which they are taught to see hiding
  behind every hedge, would have had no other thought suggested by the
  great bell of the cathedral except the wages of the ringers. They would
  have analysed with the genius of Bareme whether the intensity of the
  emotion produced among the public was worth the money which was given
  to the ringers. If Julien had only tried to think of the material
  interests of the cathedral, his imagination would have transcended its
  actual object and thought of economizing forty francs on the fabric
  and have lost the opportunity of avoiding an expense of twenty-five
  centimes.
  
  While the procession slowly traversed Besancon on the finest day
  imaginable, and stopped at the brilliant altar-stations put up by the
  authorities, the church remained in profound silence. There prevailed a
  semi-obscurity, an agreeable freshness. It was still perfumed with the
  fragrance of flowers and incense.
  
  The silence, the deep solitude, the freshness of the long naves
  sweetened Julien's reverie. He did not fear being troubled by the
  abbe Chas, who was engaged in another part of the building. His soul
  had almost abandoned its mortal tenement, which was pacing slowly the
  north wing which had been trusted to his surveillance. He was all the
  more tranquil when he had assured himself that there was no one in the
  confessional except some devout women. His eyes looked in front of him
  seeing nothing.
  
  His reverie was almost broken by the sight of two well-dressed women,
  one in the Confessional, and the other on a chair quite near her. He
  looked without seeing, but noticed, however, either by reason of some
  vague appreciation of his duties or admiration for the aristocratic
  but simple dress of the ladies, that there was no priest in the
  Confessional.
  
  "It is singular," he thought, "that if these fair ladies are devout,
  they are not kneeling before some altar, or that if they are in society
  they have not an advantageous position in the first row of some
  balcony. How well cut that dress is! How graceful!"
  
  He slackened his pace to try and look at them. The lady who was
  kneeling in the Confessional turned her head a little hearing the noise
  of Julien's step in this solemn place. Suddenly she gave a loud cry,
  and felt ill.
  
  As the lady collapsed and fell backwards on her knees, her friend who
  was near her hastened to help her. At the same time Julien saw the
  shoulders of the lady who was falling backwards. His eyes were struck
  by a twisted necklace of fine, big pearls, which he knew well. What
  were his emotions when he recognised the hair of Madame de Renal? It
  was she! The lady who was trying to prevent her from falling was Madame
  Derville. Julien was beside himself and hastened to their side. Madame
  de Renal's fall would perhaps have carried her friend along with her,
  if Julien had not supported them. He saw the head of Madame de Renal,
  pale and entirely devoid of consciousness floating on his shoulder. He
  helped Madame Derville to lean that charming head up against a straw
  chair. He knelt down.
  
  Madame Derville turned round and recognised him.
  
  "Away, monsieur, away!" she said to him, in a tone of the most lively
  anger. "Above all, do not let her see you again. The sight of you would
  be sure to horrify her. She was so happy before you came. Your conduct
  is atrocious. Flee! Take yourself off if you have any shame left."
  
  These words were spoken with so much authority, and Julien felt so
  weak, that he did take himself off. "She always hated me," he said to
  himself, thinking of Madame Derville. At the same moment the nasal
  chanting of the first priests in the procession which was now coming
  back resounded in the church. The abbe Chas-Bernard called Julien, who
  at first did not hear him, several times. He came at last and took his
  arm behind a pillar where Julien had taken refuge more dead than alive.
  He wanted to present him to the Bishop.
  
  "Are you feeling well, my child?" said the abbe to him, seeing him so
  pale, and almost incapable of walking. "You have worked too much." The
  abbe gave him his arm. "Come, sit down behind me here, on the little
  seat of the dispenser of holy water; I will hide you."
  
  They were now beside the main door.
  
  "Calm yourself. We have still a good twenty minutes before Monseigneur
  appears. Try and pull yourself together. I will lift you up when he
  passes, for in spite of my age, I am strong and vigorous."
  
  Julien was trembling so violently when the Bishop passed, that the abbe
  Chas gave up the idea of presenting him.
  
  "Do not take it too much to heart," he said. "I will find another
  opportunity."
  
  The same evening he had six pounds of candles which had been saved, he
  said, by Julien's carefulness, and by the promptness with which he had
  extinguished them, carried to the seminary chapel. Nothing could have
  been nearer the truth. The poor boy was extinguished himself. He had
  not had a single thought after meeting Madame de Renal.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Part 1, Chapter 28
target: Julien tries to stays out of his classmates' way, but it's difficult because he can't hide how smart he is. There's really only one guy on his side, and that's one of his teachers named Father Chas-Bernard. One day, Chas-Bernard asks for Julien's help with decorating a church. Julien is such a good climber that he hangs decorations from places in the church everyone else is afraid to go. Chas-Bernard takes this as a sign of Julien's strong faith. When he sits down to talk with Chas-Bernard that night, Julien realizes that there's lots to admire in the man. He has always followed his core values without worrying about what the people around him think. Chas-Bernard tells Julien that he needs his help to guard some of the church decorations during the next ceremony. It seems that thieves have lots of dirty tricks for stealing some of the more expensive ones. During the ceremony, Julien takes his post to guard the decorations. But he gets distracted by a pair of women who go into the confessional booths along one side of the church. When one of them turns their head, he realizes that she is none other than his former lover, Madame de Renal. When she sees Julien, Madame cries out and faints. The other woman is Madame Derville, who recognizes Julien and tells him to go away. She says that Madame de Renal has been doing well ever since Julien left Verrieres. When Father Chas pulls him back to work, Julien is so startled that he seems ill.