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	[[The Red and the Black (C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation)]]		[[The Red and the Black (C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation)]]
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-	A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
-
-	Title: The Red and The Black
-	Author: Stendahl [Henri Beyle, 1783-1842]
-	translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff [1889-1930]
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-	THE RED AND THE BLACK
-
-	A CHRONICLE OF THE
-	NINETEENTH CENTURY
-
-	[1831]
-
-	By Stendhal
-	[Henri Beyle, 1783-1842]
-
-	translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
-	[1889-1930]
-
-	[1925]
-
-
-
-	To O. H. H.
-
-	who had every word of both volumes read to her when she was powerless to
-	resist.
-
-	C. K. S. M.
-
-	Leghorn and Pisa July-December 1925
-
-
-
-	PUBLISHER'S NOTE
-
-	This work was on the point of publication when the great events of July
-	took place and turned every mind in a direction which does not encourage
-	the play of the imagination. We have reason to believe that the following
-	pages were written in 1827.
-
-	[Stendhal's note in first French edition]
-
-
-
-
-	BOOK ONE
-
-	The truth, the harsh truth
-	DANTON
-
-
-
-	CONTENTS
-
-	BOOK ONE
-
-	Chapter 1 A Small Town
-
-	Chapter 2 A Mayor
-
-	Chapter 3 The Bread of the Poor
-
-	Chapter 4 Father and Son
-
-	Chapter 5 Driving a Bargain
-
-	Chapter 6 Dullness
-
-	Chapter 7 Elective Affinities
-
-	Chapter 8 Minor Events
-
-	Chapter 9 An Evening in the Country
-
-	Chapter 10 A Large Heart and a Small Fortune
-
-	Chapter 11 Night Thoughts
-
-	Chapter 12 A Journey
-
-	Chapter 13 Open-work Stockings
-
-	Chapter 14 The English Scissors
-
-	Chapter 15 Cock-crow
-
-	Chapter 16 The Day After
-
-	Chapter 17 The Principal Deputy
-
-	Chapter 18 A King at Verrieres
-
-	Chapter 19 To Think Is To Be Full of Sorrow
-
-	Chapter 20 The Anonymous Letters
-
-	Chapter 21 Conversation with a Lord and Master
-
-	Chapter 22 Manners and Customs in 1830
-
-	Chapter 23 The Sorrows of a High Office
-
-	Chapter 24 A Capital
-
-	Chapter 25 The Seminary
-
-	Chapter 26 The World, or What the Rich Lack
-
-	Chapter 27 First Experience of Life
-
-	Chapter 28 A Procession
-
-	Chapter 29 The First Step
-
-	Chapter 30 Ambition
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 1
-	A Small Town
-
-
-	Put thousands together
-	Less bad,
-	But the cage less gay.
-	HOBBES
-
-	The small town of Verrieres may be regarded as one of the most
-	attractive in the Franche-Comte. Its white houses with their high
-	pitched roofs of red tiles are spread over the slope of a hill, the
-	slightest contours of which are indicated by clumps of sturdy
-	chestnuts. The Doubs runs some hundreds of feet below its
-	fortifications, built in times past by the Spaniards, and now in
-	ruins.
-
-	Verrieres is sheltered on the north by a high mountain, a spur of the
-	Jura. The jagged peaks of the Verra put on a mantle of snow in the
-	first cold days of October. A torrent which comes tearing down from
-	the mountain passes through Verrieres before emptying its waters into
-	the Doubs, and supplies power to a great number of sawmills; this is
-	an extremely simple industry, and procures a certain degree of comfort
-	for the majority of the inhabitants, who are of the peasant rather
-	than of the burgess class. It is not, however, the sawmills that have
-	made this little town rich. It is to the manufacture of printed
-	calicoes, known as Mulhouse stuffs, that it owes the general
-	prosperity which, since the fall of Napoleon, has led to the refacing
-	of almost all the houses in Verrieres.
-
-	No sooner has one entered the town than one is startled by the din of
-	a noisy machine of terrifying aspect. A score of weighty hammers,
-	falling with a clang which makes the pavement tremble, are raised
-	aloft by a wheel which the water of the torrent sets in motion. Each
-	of these hammers turns out, daily, I cannot say how many thousands of
-	nails. A bevy of fresh, pretty girls subject to the blows of these
-	enormous hammers, the little scraps of iron which are rapidly
-	transformed into nails. This work, so rough to the outward eye, is one
-	of the industries that most astonish the traveller who ventures for
-	the first time among the mountains that divide France from
-	Switzerland. If, on entering Verrieres, the traveller inquires to whom
-	belongs that fine nail factory which deafens everybody who passes up
-	the main street, he will be told in a drawling accent: 'Eh! It belongs
-	to the Mayor.'
-
-	Provided the traveller halts for a few moments in this main street of
-	Verrieres, which runs from the bank of the Doubs nearly to the summit
-	of the hill, it is a hundred to one that he will see a tall man
-	appear, with a busy, important air.
-
-	At the sight of him every hat is quickly raised. His hair is turning
-	grey, and he is dressed in grey. He is a Companion of several Orders,
-	has a high forehead, an aquiline nose, and on the whole his face is
-	not wanting in a certain regularity: indeed, the first impression
-	formed of it may be that it combines with the dignity of a village
-	mayor that sort of charm which may still be found in a man of
-	forty-eight or fifty. But soon the visitor from Paris is annoyed by a
-	certain air of self-satisfaction and self-sufficiency mingled with a
-	suggestion of limitations and want of originality. One feels, finally,
-	that this man's talent is confined to securing the exact payment of
-	whatever is owed to him and to postponing payment till the last
-	possible moment when he is the debtor.
-
-	Such is the Mayor of Verrieres, M. de Renal. Crossing the street with
-	a solemn step, he enters the town hall and passes from the visitor's
-	sight. But, a hundred yards higher up, if the visitor continues his
-	stroll, he will notice a house of quite imposing appearance, and,
-	through the gaps in an iron railing belonging to the house, some
-	splendid gardens. Beyond, there is a line of horizon formed by the
-	hills of Burgundy, which seem to have been created on purpose to
-	delight the eye. This view makes the visitor forget the pestilential
-	atmosphere of small financial interests which was beginning to stifle
-	him.
-
-	He is told that this house belongs to M. de Renal. It is to the
-	profits that he has made from his great nail factory that the Mayor of
-	Verrieres is indebted for this fine freestone house which he has just
-	finished building. His family, they say, is Spanish, old, and was or
-	claims to have been established in the country long before Louis XIV
-	conquered it.
-
-	Since 1815 he has blushed at his connection with industry: 1815 made
-	him Mayor of Verrieres. The retaining walls that support the various
-	sections of this splendid garden, which, in a succession of terraces,
-	runs down to the Doubs, are also a reward of M. de Renal's ability as
-	a dealer in iron.
-
-	You must not for a moment expect to find in France those picturesque
-	gardens which enclose the manufacturing towns of Germany; Leipsic,
-	Frankfurt, Nuremberg, and the rest. In the Franche-Comte, the more
-	walls a man builds, the more he makes his property bristle with stones
-	piled one above another, the greater title he acquires to the respect
-	of his neighbours. M. de Renal's gardens, honeycombed with walls, are
-	still further admired because he bought, for their weight in gold,
-	certain minute scraps of ground which they cover. For instance that
-	sawmill whose curious position on the bank of the Doubs struck you as
-	you entered Verrieres, and on which you noticed the name _Sorel_,
-	inscribed in huge letters on a board which overtops the roof,
-	occupied, six years ago, the ground on which at this moment they are
-	building the wall of the fourth terrace of M. de Renal's gardens.
-
-	For all his pride, the Mayor was obliged to make many overtures to old
-	Sorel, a dour and obstinate peasant; he was obliged to pay him in fine
-	golden louis before he would consent to remove his mill elsewhere. As
-	for the _public_ lade which supplied power to the saw, M. de Renal,
-	thanks to the influence he wielded in Paris, obtained leave to divert
-	it. This favour was conferred upon him after the 182- elections.
-
-	He gave Sorel four acres in exchange for one, five hundred yards lower
-	down by the bank of the Doubs. And, albeit this site was a great deal
-	more advantageous for his trade in planks of firwood, Pere Sorel, as
-	they have begun to call him now that he is rich, contrived to screw
-	out of the impatience and _landowning mania_ which animated his
-	neighbour a sum of 6,000 francs.
-
-	It is true that this arrangement was adversely criticised by the local
-	wiseacres. On one occasion, it was a Sunday, four years later, M. de
-	Renal, as he walked home from church in his mayoral attire, saw at a
-	distance old Sorel, supported by his three sons, watching him with a
-	smile. That smile cast a destroying ray of light into the Mayor's
-	soul; ever since then he has been thinking that he might have brought
-	about the exchange at less cost to himself.
-
-	To win popular esteem at Verrieres, the essential thing is not to
-	adopt (while still building plenty of walls) any plan of construction
-	brought from Italy by those masons who in spring pass through the
-	gorges of the Jura on their way to Paris. Such an innovation would
-	earn the rash builder an undying reputation fot wrong-headedness, and
-	he would be lost forever among the sober and moderate folk who create
-	reputations in the Franche-Comte.
-
-	As a matter of fact, these sober folk wield there the most irritating
-	form of _despotism_; it is owing to that vile word that residence in
-	small towns is intolerable to anyone who has lived in that great
-	republic which we call Paris. The tyranny of public opinion (and what
-	an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in
-	the United States of America.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 2
-	A Mayor
-
-
-	Prestige! Sir, is it nothing? To be revered by fools, gaped at by
-	children, envied by the rich and scorned by the wise.
-	BARNAVE
-
-	Fortunately for M. de Renal's reputation as an administrator, a huge
-	retaining wall was required for the public avenue which skirts the
-	hillside a hundred feet above the bed of the Doubs. To this admirable
-	position it is indebted for one of the most picturesque views in
-	France. But, every spring, torrents of rainwater made channels across
-	the avenue, carved deep gullies in it and left it impassable. This
-	nuisance, which affected everybody alike, placed M. de Renal under the
-	fortunate obligation to immortalise his administration by a wall
-	twenty feet in height and seventy or eighty yards long.
-
-	The parapet of this wall, to secure which M. de Renal was obliged to
-	make three journeys to Paris, for the Minister of the Interior before
-	last had sworn a deadly enmity to the Verrieres avenue; the parapet of
-	this wall now rises four feet above the ground. And, as though to defy
-	all Ministers past and present, it is being finished off at this
-	moment with slabs of dressed stone.
-
-	How often, my thoughts straying back to the ball-rooms of Paris, which
-	I had forsaken overnight, my elbows leaning upon those great blocks of
-	stone of a fine grey with a shade of blue in it, have I swept with my
-	gaze the vale of the Doubs! Over there, on the left bank, are five or
-	six winding valleys, along the folds of which the eye can make out
-	quite plainly a number of little streams. After leaping from rock to
-	rock, they may be seen falling into the Doubs. The sun is extremely
-	hot in these mountains; when it is directly overhead, the traveller's
-	rest is sheltered on this terrace by a row of magnificent planes.
-	Their rapid growth, and handsome foliage of a bluish tint are due to
-	the artificial soil with which the Mayor has filled in the space
-	behind his immense retaining wall, for, despite the opposition of the
-	town council, he has widened the avenue by more than six feet
-	(although he is an Ultra and I myself a Liberal, I give him credit for
-	it), that is why, in his opinion and in that of M. Valenod, the
-	fortunate governor of the Verrieres poorhouse, this terrace is worthy
-	to be compared with that of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
-
-	For my part, I have only one fault to find with the _Cours de la
-	Fidelite_; one reads this, its official title, in fifteen or twenty
-	places, on marble slabs which have won M. de Renal yet another Cross;
-	what I should be inclined to condemn in the Cours de la Fidelite is
-	the barbarous manner in which the authorities keep these sturdy plane
-	trees trimmed and pollarded. Instead of suggesting, with their low,
-	rounded, flattened heads, the commonest of kitchen garden vegetables,
-	they would like nothing better than to assume those magnificent forms
-	which one sees them wear in England. But the Mayor's will is despotic,
-	and twice a year every tree belonging to the commune is pitilessly
-	lopped. The Liberals of the place maintain, but they exaggerate, that
-	the hand of the official gardener has grown much more severe since the
-	Reverend Vicar Maslon formed the habit of appropriating the clippings.
-
-	This young cleric was sent from Besancon, some years ago, to keep an
-	eye upon the abbe Chelan and certain parish priests of the district.
-	An old Surgeon-Major of the Army of Italy, in retirement at Verrieres,
-	who in his time had been simultaneously, according to the Mayor, a
-	Jacobin and a Bonapartist, actually ventured one day to complain to
-	him of the periodical mutilation of these fine trees.
-
-	'I like shade,' replied M. de Renal with the touch of arrogance
-	appropriate when one is addressing a surgeon, a Member of the Legion
-	of Honour; 'I like shade, I have my trees cut so as to give shade, and
-	I do not consider that a tree is made for any other purpose, unless,
-	like the useful walnut, it _yields a return_.'
-
-	There you have the great phrase that decides everything at Verrieres:
-	YIELD A RETURN; it by itself represents the habitual thought of more
-	than three fourths of the inhabitants.
-
-	_Yielding a return_ is the consideration that settles everything in this
-	little town which seemed to you, just now, so attractive. The stranger
-	arriving there, beguiled by the beauty of the cool, deep valleys on
-	every side, imagines at first that the inhabitants are influenced by
-	the idea of beauty; they are always talking about the beauty of their
-	scenery: no one can deny that they make a great to-do about it; but
-	this is because it attracts a certain number of visitors whose money
-	goes to enrich the innkeepers, and thus, through the channel of the
-	rate-collector, _yields a return_ to the town.
-
-	It was a fine day in autumn and M. de Renal was strolling along the
-	Cours de la Fidelite, his lady on his arm. While she listened to her
-	husband, who was speaking with an air of gravity, Madame de Renal's
-	eye was anxiously following the movements of three little boys. The
-	eldest, who might be about eleven, was continually running to the
-	parapet as though about to climb on top. A gentle voice then uttered
-	the name Adolphe, and the child abandoned his ambitious project.
-	Madame de Renal looked like a woman of thirty, but was still extremely
-	pretty.
-
-	'He may live to rue the day, that fine gentleman from Paris,' M. de
-	Renal was saying in a tone of annoyance, his cheek paler even than was
-	its wont. 'I myself am not entirely without friends at Court....'
-
-	But albeit I mean to speak to you of provincial life for two hundred
-	pages, I shall not be so barbarous as to inflict upon you the tedium
-	and all the clever turns of a provincial dialogue.
-
-	This fine gentleman from Paris, so odious to the Mayor of Verrieres,
-	was none other than M. Appert, [Footnote: A contemporary
-	philanthropist and prison visitor.] who, a couple of days earlier, had
-	contrived to make his way not only into the prison and the poorhouse
-	of Verrieres, but also into the hospital, administered gratuitously by
-	the Mayor and the principal landowners of the neighbourhood.
-
-	'But,' Madame de Renal put in timidly, 'what harm can this gentleman
-	from Paris do you, since you provide for the welfare of the poor with
-	the most scrupulous honesty?'
-
-	'He has only come to cast blame, and then he'll go back and have
-	articles put in the Liberal papers.'
-
-	'You never read them, my dear.'
-
-	'But people tell us about those Jacobin articles; all that distracts
-	us, and hinders us from doing good. [Author's footnote: authentic] As
-	for me, I shall never forgive the cure.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 3
-	The Bread of the Poor
-
-
-	A virtuous priest who does not involve himself in intrigue is a
-	blessing for the village.
-	FLEURY
-
-	It should be explained that the cure of Verrieres, an old man of
-	eighty, but blessed by the keen air of his mountains with an iron
-	character and strength, had the right to visit at any hour of the day
-	the prison, the hospital, and even the poorhouse. It was at six
-	o'clock in the morning precisely that M. Appert, who was armed with an
-	introduction to the cure from Paris, had had the good sense to arrive
-	in an inquisitive little town. He had gone at once to the presbytery.
-
-	As he read the letter addressed to him by M. le Marquis de La Mole, a
-	Peer of France, and the wealthiest landowner in the province, the cure
-	Chelan sat lost in thought.
-
-	'I am old and liked here,' he murmured to himself at length, 'they
-	would never dare!' Turning at once to the gentleman from Paris, with
-	eyes in which, despite his great age, there burned that sacred fire
-	which betokens the pleasure of performing a fine action which is
-	slightly dangerous:
-
-	'Come with me, Sir, and, in the presence of the gaoler and especially
-	of the superintendents of the poorhouse, be so good as not to express
-	any opinion of the things we shall see.' M. Appert realised that he
-	had to deal with a man of feeling; he accompanied the venerable cure,
-	visited the prison, the hospital, the poorhouse, asked many questions
-	and, notwithstanding strange answers, did not allow himself to utter
-	the least word of reproach.
-
-	This visit lasted for some hours. The cure invited M. Appert to dine
-	with him, but was told that his guest had some letters to write: he
-	did not wish to compromise his kind friend any further. About three
-	o'clock, the gentlemen went back to complete their inspection of the
-	poorhouse, after which they returned to the prison. There they found
-	the gaoler standing in the doorway; a giant six feet tall, with bandy
-	legs; terror had made his mean face hideous.
-
-	'Ah, Sir,' he said to the cure, on catching sight of him, 'is not this
-	gentleman, that I see with you, M. Appert?'
-
-	'What if he is?' said the cure.
-
-	'Because yesterday I received the most definite instructions, which
-	the Prefect sent down by a gendarme who had to gallop all night long,
-	not to allow M. Appert into the prison.'
-
-	'I declare to you, M. Noiroud,' said the cure, 'that this visitor, who
-	is in my company, is M. Appert. Do you admit that I have the right to
-	enter the prison at any hour of the day or night, bringing with me
-	whom I please?'
-
-	'Yes, M. le cure,' the gaoler murmured in a subdued tone, lowering his
-	head like a bulldog brought reluctantly to obedience by fear of the
-	stick. 'Only, M. le cure, I have a wife and children, if I am
-	reported I shall be dismissed; I have only my place here to live on.'
-
-	'I too should be very sorry to lose mine,' replied the worthy cure, in
-	a voice swayed by ever increasing emotion.
-
-	'What a difference!' the gaoler answered promptly; 'why you, M. le
-	cure, we know that you have an income of 800 livres, a fine place in
-	the sun ...'
-
-	Such are the events which, commented upon, exaggerated in twenty
-	different ways, had been arousing for the last two days all the evil
-	passions of the little town of Verrieres. At that moment they were
-	serving as text for the little discussion which M. de Renal was having
-	with his wife. That morning, accompanied by M. Valenod, the governor
-	of the poorhouse, he had gone to the cure's house, to inform him of
-	their extreme displeasure. M. Chelan was under no one's protection; he
-	felt the full force of their words.
-
-	'Well, gentlemen, I shall be the third parish priest, eighty years of
-	age, to be deprived of his living in this district. I have been
-	here for six and fifty years; I have christened almost all the
-	inhabitants of the town, which was no more than a village when I came.
-	Every day I marry young couples whose grandparents I married long ago.
-	Verrieres is my family; but I said to myself, when I saw the stranger:
-	"This man, who has come from Paris, may indeed be a Liberal, there are
-	far too many of them; but what harm can he do to our poor people and
-	our prisoners?"'
-
-	The reproaches of M. de Renal, and above all those of M. Valenod, the
-	governor of the poorhouse, becoming more and more bitter:
-
-	'Very well, gentlemen, have me deprived,' the old cure had cried, in a
-	quavering voice. 'I shall live in the town all the same. You all know
-	that forty-eight years ago I inherited a piece of land which brings me
-	800 livres; I shall live on that income. I save nothing out of my
-	stipend, gentlemen, and that may be why I am less alarmed when people
-	speak of taking it from me.'
-
-	M. de Renal lived on excellent terms with his wife; but not knowing
-	what answer to make to the question, which she timidly repeated: 'What
-	harm can this gentleman from Paris do to the prisoners?' he was just
-	about to lose his temper altogether when she uttered a cry. Her second
-	son had climbed upon the parapet of the wall of the terrace, and was
-	running along it, though this wall rose more than twenty feet from the
-	vineyard beneath. The fear of alarming her son and so making him fall
-	restrained Madame de Renal from calling him. Finally the child, who
-	was laughing at his own prowess, turned to look at his mother, noticed
-	how pale she was, sprang down upon the avenue and ran to join her. He
-	was well scolded.
-
-	This little incident changed the course of the conversation.
-
-	'I am quite determined to engage young Sorel, the sawyer's son,' said
-	M. de Renal; 'he will look after the children, who are beginning to be
-	too much of a handful for us. He is a young priest or thereabouts, a
-	good Latin scholar, and will bring the children on; for he has a
-	strong character, the cure says. I shall give him 300 francs and his
-	board. I had some doubts as to his morals; for he was the Benjamin of
-	that old surgeon, the Member of the Legion of Honour who on pretence
-	of being their cousin came to live with the Sorels. He might quite
-	well have been nothing better than a secret agent of the Liberals; he
-	said that our mountain air was good for his asthma; but that has never
-	been proved. He had served in all _Buonaparte's_ campaigns in Italy,
-	and they even say that he voted against the Empire in his day. This
-	Liberal taught young Sorel Latin, and left him all the pile of books
-	he brought here with him. Not that I should ever have dreamed of
-	having the carpenter's son with my children; but the cure, only the
-	day before the scene which has made a permanent breach between us,
-	told me that this Sorel has been studying theology for the last three
-	years, with the idea of entering the Seminary; so he is not a Liberal,
-	and he is a Latin scholar.
-
-	'This arrangement suits me in more ways than one,' M. de Renal went
-	on, looking at his wife with an air of diplomacy; 'Valenod is
-	tremendously proud of the two fine Norman horses he has just bought
-	for his calash. But he has not got a tutor for his children.'
-
-	'He is quite capable of taking this one from us.'
-
-	'Then you approve of my plan?' said M. de Renal, thanking his wife,
-	with a smile, for the excellent idea that had just occurred to her.
-	'There, that's settled.'
-
-	'Oh, good gracious, my dear, how quickly you make up your mind!'
-
-	'That is because I have a strong character, as the cure has had
-	occasion to see. Let us make no pretence about it, we are surrounded
-	by Liberals here. All these cloth merchants are jealous of me, I am
-	certain of it; two or three of them are growing rich; very well, I
-	wish them to see M. de Renal's children go by, out walking in the care
-	of their tutor. It will make an impression. My grandfather used often
-	to tell us that in his young days he had had a tutor. It's a hundred
-	crowns he's going to cost me, but that will have to be reckoned as a
-	necessary expense to keep up our position.'
-
-	This sudden decision plunged Madame de Renal deep in thought. She was
-	a tall, well-made woman, who had been the beauty of the place, as the
-	saying is in this mountain district. She had a certain air of
-	simplicity and bore herself like a girl; in the eyes of a Parisian,
-	that artless grace, full of innocence and vivacity, might even have
-	suggested ideas of a mildly passionate nature. Had she had wind of
-	this kind of success, Madame de Renal would have been thoroughly
-	ashamed of it. No trace either of coquetry or of affectation had ever
-	appeared in her nature. M. Valenod, the wealthy governor of the
-	poorhouse, was supposed to have paid his court to her, but without
-	success, a failure which had given a marked distinction to her virtue;
-	for this M. Valenod, a tall young man, strongly built, with a vivid
-	complexion and bushy black whiskers, was one of those coarse, brazen,
-	noisy creatures who in the provinces are called fine men.
-
-	Madame de Renal, being extremely shy and liable to be swayed by her
-	moods, was offended chiefly by the restless movements and loud voice
-	of M. Valenod. The distaste that she felt for what at Verrieres goes
-	by the name of gaiety had won her the reputation of being extremely
-	proud of her birth. She never gave it a thought, but had been greatly
-	pleased to see the inhabitants of Verrieres come less frequently to
-	her house. We shall not attempt to conceal the fact that she was
-	reckoned a fool in the eyes of their ladies, because, without any
-	regard for her husband's interests, she let slip the most promising
-	opportunities of procuring fine hats from Paris or Besancon. Provided
-	that she was left alone to stroll in her fine garden, she never made
-	any complaint.
-
-	She was a simple soul, who had never risen even to the point of
-	criticising her husband, and admitting that he bored her. She
-	supposed, without telling herself so, that between husband and wife
-	there could be no more tender relations. She was especially fond of M.
-	de Renal when he spoke to her of his plans for their children, one of
-	whom he intended to place in the army, the second on the bench, and
-	the third in the church. In short, she found M. de Renal a great deal
-	less boring than any of the other men of her acquaintance.
-
-	This wifely opinion was justified. The Mayor of Verrieres owed his
-	reputation for wit, and better still for good tone, to half a dozen
-	pleasantries which he had inherited from an uncle. This old Captain de
-	Renal had served before the Revolution in the Duke of Orleans's
-	regiment of infantry, and, when he went to Paris, had had the right of
-	entry into that Prince's drawing-rooms. He had there seen Madame de
-	Montesson, the famous Madame de Genlis, M. Ducrest, the 'inventor'
-	of the Palais-Royal. These personages figured all too frequently in
-	M. de Renal's stories. But by degrees these memories of things that it
-	required so much delicacy to relate had become a burden to him, and
-	for some time now it was only on solemn occasions that he would repeat
-	his anecdotes of the House of Orleans. As he was in other respects
-	most refined, except when the talk ran on money, he was regarded, and
-	rightly, as the most aristocratic personage in Verrieres.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 4
-	Father and Son
-
-
-	E sara mia colpa,
-	Se cosi e?
-	MACHIAVELLI
-
-	'My wife certainly has a head on her shoulders!' the Mayor of
-	Verrieres remarked to himself the following morning at six o'clock, as
-	he made his way down to Pere Sorel's sawmill. 'Although I said so to
-	her, to maintain my own superiority, it had never occurred to me that
-	if I do not take this little priest Sorel, who, they tell me, knows
-	his Latin like an angel, the governor of the poorhouse, that restless
-	spirit, might very well have the same idea, and snatch him from me, I
-	can hear the tone of conceit with which he would speak of his
-	children's tutor! ... This tutor, once I've secured him, will he wear
-	a cassock?'
-
-	M. de Renal was absorbed in this question when he saw in the distance
-	a peasant, a man of nearly six feet in height, who, by the first
-	dawning light, seemed to be busily occupied in measuring pieces of
-	timber lying by the side of the Doubs, upon the towpath. The peasant
-	did not appear any too well pleased to see the Mayor coming towards
-	him; for his pieces of wood were blocking the path, and had been laid
-	there in contravention of the law.
-
-	Pere Sorel, for it was he, was greatly surprised and even more pleased
-	by the singular offer which M. de Renal made him with regard to his
-	son Julien. He listened to it nevertheless with that air of
-	grudging-melancholy and lack of interest which the shrewd inhabitants
-	of those mountains know so well how to assume. Slaves in the days of
-	Spanish rule, they still retain this facial characteristic of the
-	Egyptian fellahin.
-
-	Sorel's reply was at first nothing more than a long-winded recital of
-	all the formal terms of respect which he knew by heart. While he was
-	repeating these vain words, with an awkward smile which enhanced the
-	air of falsehood and almost of rascality natural to his countenance,
-	the old peasant's active mind was seeking to discover what reason
-	could be inducing so important a personage to take his scapegrace of a
-	son into his establishment. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with
-	Julien, and it was for Julien that M. de Renal was offering him the
-	astounding wage of 300 francs annually, in addition to his food and
-	even his clothing. This last condition, which Pere Sorel had had the
-	intelligence to advance on the spur of the moment, had been granted
-	with equal readiness by M. de Renal.
-
-	This demand impressed the Mayor. 'Since Sorel is not delighted and
-	overwhelmed by my proposal, as he ought naturally to be, it is clear,'
-	he said to himself, 'that overtures have been made to him from another
-	quarter; and from whom can they have come, except from Valenod?' It
-	was in vain that M. de Renal urged Sorel to conclude the bargain there
-	and then: the astute old peasant met him with an obstinate refusal; he
-	wished, he said, to consult his son, as though, in the country, a rich
-	father ever consulted a penniless son, except for form's sake.
-
-	A sawmill consists of a shed by the side of a stream. The roof is held
-	up by rafters supported on four stout wooden pillars. Nine or ten feet
-	from the ground, in the middle of the shed, one sees a saw which moves
-	up and down, while an extremely simple mechanism thrusts forward
-	against this saw a piece of wood. This is a wheel set in motion by the
-	mill lade which drives both parts of the machine; that of the saw
-	which moves up and down, and the other which pushes the piece of wood
-	gently towards the saw, which slices it into planks.
-
-	As he approached his mill, Pere Sorel called Julien in his stentorian
-	voice; there was no answer. He saw only his two elder sons, young
-	giants who, armed with heavy axes, were squaring the trunks of fir
-	which they would afterwards carry to the saw. They were completely
-	engrossed in keeping exactly to the black line traced on the piece of
-	wood, from which each blow of the axe sent huge chips flying. They did
-	not hear their father's voice. He made his way to the shed; as he
-	entered it, he looked in vain for Julien in the place where he ought
-	to have been standing, beside the saw. He caught sight of him five or
-	six feet higher up, sitting astride upon one of the beams of the roof.
-	Instead of paying careful attention to the action of the machinery,
-	Julien was reading a book. Nothing could have been less to old Sorel's
-	liking; he might perhaps have forgiven Julien his slender build,
-	little adapted to hard work, and so different from that of his elder
-	brothers; but this passion for reading he detested: he himself was
-	unable to read.
-
-	It was in vain that he called Julien two or three times. The attention
-	the young man was paying to his book, far more than the noise of the
-	saw, prevented him from hearing his father's terrifying voice.
-	Finally, despite his years, the father sprang nimbly upon the trunk
-	that was being cut by the saw, and from there on to the cross beam
-	that held up the roof. A violent blow sent flying into the mill lade
-	the book that Julien was holding; a second blow no less violent, aimed
-	at his head, in the form of a box on the ear, made him lose his
-	balance. He was about to fall from a height of twelve or fifteen feet,
-	among the moving machinery, which would have crushed him, but his
-	father caught him with his left hand as he fell.
-
-	'Well, idler! So you keep on reading your cursed books, when you ought
-	to be watching the saw? Read them in the evening, when you go and
-	waste your time with the cure.'
-
-	Julien, although stunned by the force of the blow, and bleeding
-	profusely, went to take up his proper station beside the saw. There
-	were tears in his eyes, due not so much to his bodily pain as to the
-	loss of his book, which he adored.
-
-	'Come down, animal, till I speak to you.' The noise of the machine
-	again prevented Julien from hearing this order. His father who had
-	stepped down not wishing to take the trouble to climb up again on to
-	the machine, went to find a long pole used for knocking down walnuts,
-	and struck him on the shoulder with it. No sooner had Julien reached
-	the ground than old Sorel, thrusting him on brutally from behind,
-	drove him towards the house. 'Heaven knows what he's going to do to
-	me!' thought the young man. As he passed it, he looked sadly at the
-	mill lade into which his book had fallen; it was the one that he
-	valued most of all, the _Memorial de Sainte-Helene_.
-
-	His cheeks were flushed, his eyes downcast. He was a slim youth of
-	eighteen or nineteen, weak in appearance, with irregular but delicate
-	features and an aquiline nose. His large dark eyes, which, in moments
-	of calm, suggested a reflective, fiery spirit, were animated at this
-	instant with an expression of the most ferocious hatred. Hair of a
-	dark chestnut, growing very low, gave him a narrow brow, and in
-	moments of anger a wicked air. Among the innumerable varieties of the
-	human countenance, there is perhaps none that is more strikingly
-	characteristic. A slim and shapely figure betokened suppleness rather
-	than strength. In his childhood, his extremely pensive air and marked
-	pallor had given his father the idea that he would not live, or would
-	live only to be a burden upon his family. An object of contempt to the
-	rest of the household, he hated his brothers and father; in the games
-	on Sundays, on the public square, he was invariably beaten.
-
-	It was only during the last year that his good looks had begun to win
-	him a few supporters among the girls. Universally despised, as a
-	feeble creature, Julien had adored that old Surgeon-Major who one day
-	ventured to speak to the Mayor on the subject of the plane trees.
-
-	This surgeon used now and then to pay old Sorel a day's wage for his
-	son, and taught him Latin and history, that is to say all the history
-	that he knew, that of the 1796 campaign in Italy. On his death, he had
-	bequeathed to him his Cross of the Legion of Honour, the arrears of
-	his pension, and thirty or forty volumes, the most precious of which
-	had just taken a plunge into the public lade, diverted by the Mayor's
-	influence.
-
-	As soon as he was inside the house, Julien felt his shoulder gripped
-	by his father's strong hand; he trembled, expecting to receive a
-	shower of blows.
-
-	'Answer me without lying,' the old peasant's harsh voice shouted in
-	his ear, while the hand spun him round as a child's hand spins a lead
-	soldier. Julien's great dark eyes, filled with tears, found
-	themselves starting into the little grey eyes of the old peasant, who
-	looked as though he sought to penetrate to the depths of his son's
-	heart.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 5
-	Driving a Bargain
-
-
-	Cunctando restituit rem.
-	ENNIUS
-
-	'Answer me, without lying, if you can, you miserable bookworm; how do
-	you come to know Madame de Renal? When have you spoken to her?'
-
-	'I have never spoken to her,' replied Julien, 'I have never seen the
-	lady except in church.'
-
-	'But you must have looked at her, you shameless scoundrel?'
-
-	'Never! You know that in church I see none but God,' Julien added with
-	a hypocritical air, calculated, to his mind, to ward off further
-	blows.
-
-	'There is something behind this, all the same,' replied the suspicious
-	peasant, and was silent for a moment; 'but I shall get nothing out of
-	you, you damned hypocrite. The fact is, I'm going to be rid of you,
-	and my saw will run all the better without you. You have made a friend
-	of the parson or someone, and he's got you a fine post. Go and pack
-	your traps, and I'll take you to M. de Renal's where you're to be
-	tutor to the children.'
-
-	'What am I to get for that?'
-
-	'Board, clothing and three hundred francs in wages.'
-
-	'I do not wish to be a servant,'
-
-	'Animal, who ever spoke of your being a servant? Would I allow my son
-	to be a servant?'
-
-	'But, with whom shall I have my meals?'
-
-	This question left old Sorel at a loss; he felt that if he spoke he
-	might be guilty of some imprudence; he flew into a rage with Julien,
-	upon whom he showered abuse, accusing him of greed, and left him to go
-	and consult his other sons.
-
-	Presently Julien saw them, each leaning upon his axe and deliberating
-	together. After watching them for some time, Julien, seeing that he
-	could make out nothing of their discussion, went and took his place on
-	the far side of the saw, so as not to be taken by surprise. He wanted
-	time to consider this sudden announcement which was altering his
-	destiny, but felt himself to be incapable of prudence; his imagination
-	was wholly taken up with forming pictures of what he would see in M.
-	de Renal's fine house.
-
-	'I must give up all that,' he said to himself, 'rather than let myself
-	be brought down to feeding with the servants. My father will try to
-	force me; I would sooner die. I have saved fifteen francs and eight
-	sous, I shall run away tonight; in two days, by keeping to side-roads
-	where I need not fear the police, I can be at Besancon; there I enlist
-	as a soldier, and, if necessary, cross the border into Switzerland.
-	But then, good-bye to everything, good-bye to that fine clerical
-	profession which is a stepping-stone to everything.'
-
-	This horror of feeding with the servants was not natural to Julien; he
-	would, in seeking his fortune, have done other things far more
-	disagreeable. He derived this repugnance from Rousseau's _Confessions_.
-	It was the one book that helped his imagination to form any idea of
-	the world. The collection of reports of the Grand Army and the
-	_Memorial de Sainte-Helene_ completed his Koran. He would have gone to
-	the stake for those three books. Never did he believe in any other.
-	Remembering a saying of the old Surgeon-Major, he regarded all the
-	other books in the world as liars, written by rogues in order to
-	obtain advancement.
-
-	With his fiery nature Julien had one of those astonishing memories so
-	often found in foolish people. To win over the old priest Chelan, upon
-	whom he saw quite clearly that his own future depended, he had learned
-	by heart the entire New Testament in Latin; he knew also M. de
-	Maistre's book _Du Pape_, and had as little belief in one as in the
-	other.
-
-	As though by a mutual agreement, Sorel and his son avoided speaking to
-	one another for the rest of the day. At dusk, Julien went to the cure
-	for his divinity lesson, but did not think it prudent to say anything
-	to him of the strange proposal that had been made to his father. 'It
-	may be a trap,' he told himself; 'I must pretend to have forgotten
-	about it.'
-
-	Early on the following day, M. de Renal sent for old Sorel, who, after
-	keeping him waiting for an hour or two, finally appeared, beginning as
-	he entered the door a hundred excuses interspersed with as many
-	reverences. By dint of giving voice to every sort of objection, Sorel
-	succeeded in gathering that his son was to take his meals with the
-	master and mistress of the house, and on days when they had company in
-	a room by himself with the children. Finding an increasing desire to
-	raise difficulties the more he discerned a genuine anxiety on the
-	Mayor's part, and being moreover filled with distrust and
-	bewilderment, Sorel asked to see the room in which his son was to
-	sleep. It was a large chamber very decently furnished, but the
-	servants were already engaged in carrying into it the beds of the
-	three children.
-
-	At this the old peasant began to see daylight; he at once asked with
-	assurance to see the coat which would be given to his son. M. de Renal
-	opened his desk and took out a hundred francs.
-
-	'With this money, your son can go to M. Durand, the clothier, and get
-	himself a suit of black.'
-
-	'And supposing I take him away from you,' said the peasant, who had
-	completely forgotten the reverential forms of address. 'Will he take
-	this black coat with him?'
-
-	'Certainly.'
-
-	'Oh, very well!' said Sorel in a drawling tone, 'then there's only one
-	thing for us still to settle: the money you're to give him.'
-
-	'What!' M. de Renal indignantly exclaimed, 'we agreed upon that
-	yesterday: I give three hundred francs; I consider that plenty, if not
-	too much.'
-
-	'That was your offer, I do not deny it,' said old Sorel, speaking even
-	more slowly; then, by a stroke of genius which will astonish only
-	those who do not know the Franc-Comtois peasant, he added, looking M.
-	de Renal steadily in the face: '_We can do better elsewhere_.'
-
-	At these words the Mayor was thrown into confusion. He recovered
-	himself, however, and, after an adroit conversation lasting fully two
-	hours, in which not a word was said without a purpose, the peasant's
-	shrewdness prevailed over that of the rich man, who was not dependent
-	on his for his living. All the innumerable conditions which were to
-	determine Julien's new existence were finally settled; not only was
-	his salary fixed at four hundred francs, but it was to be paid in
-	advance, on the first day of each month.
-
-	'Very well! I shall let him have thirty-five francs,' said M. de
-	Renal.
-
-	'To make a round sum, a rich and generous gentleman like our Mayor,'
-	the peasant insinuated in a coaxing voice, 'will surely go as far as
-	thirty-six.'
-
-	'All right,' said M. de Renal, 'but let us have no more of this.'
-
-	For once, anger gave him a tone of resolution. The peasant saw that he
-	could advance no farther. Thereupon M. de Renal began in turn to make
-	headway. He utterly refused to hand over the thirty-six francs for the
-	first month to old Sorel, who was most eager to receive the money on
-	his son's behalf. It occurred to M. de Renal that he would be obliged
-	to describe to his wife the part he had played throughout this
-	transaction.
-
-	'Let me have back the hundred francs I gave you,' he said angrily. 'M.
-	Durand owes me money. I shall go with your son to choose the black
-	cloth.'
-
-	After this bold stroke, Sorel prudently retired upon his expressions
-	of respect; they occupied a good quarter of an hour. In the end,
-	seeing that there was certainly nothing more to be gained, he
-	withdrew. His final reverence ended with the words:
-
-	'I shall send my son up to the chateau.'
-
-	It was thus that the Mayor's subordinates spoke of his house when they
-	wished to please him.
-
-	Returning to his mill, Sorel looked in vain for his son. Doubtful as
-	to what might be in store for him, Julien had left home in the dead of
-	night. He had been anxious to find a safe hiding-place for his books
-	and his Cross of the Legion of Honour. He had removed the whole of his
-	treasures to the house of a young timber-merchant, a friend of his, by
-	the name of Fouque, who lived on the side of the high mountain
-	overlooking Verrieres.
-
-	When he reappeared: 'Heaven knows, you damned idler,' his father said
-	to him, 'whether you will ever have enough honour to pay me for the
-	cost of your keep, which I have been advancing to you all these years!
-	Pack up your rubbish, and off with you to the Mayor's.'
-
-	Julien, astonished not to receive a thrashing, made haste to set off.
-	But no sooner was he out of sight of his terrible father than he
-	slackened his pace. He decided that it would serve the ends of his
-	hypocrisy to pay a visit to the church.
-
-	The idea surprises you? Before arriving at this horrible idea, the
-	soul of the young peasant had had a long way to go.
-
-	When he was still a child, the sight of certain dragoons of the 6th,
-	in their long, white cloaks, and helmets adorned with long crests of
-	black horsehair, who were returning from Italy, and whom Julien saw
-	tying their horses to the barred window of his father's house, drove
-	him mad with longing for a military career.
-
-	Later on he listened with ecstasy to the accounts of the battles of
-	the Bridge of Lodi, Arcole and Rivoli given him by the old
-	Surgeon-Major. He noticed the burning gaze which the old man directed
-	at his Cross.
-
-	But when Julien was fourteen, they began to build a church at
-	Verrieres, one that might be called magnificent for so small a town.
-	There were, in particular, four marble pillars the sight of which
-	impressed Julien; they became famous throughout the countryside, owing
-	to the deadly enmity which they aroused between the Justice of the
-	Peace and the young vicar, sent down from Besancon, who was understood
-	to be the spy of the Congregation. The Justice of the Peace came
-	within an ace of losing his post, such at least was the common report.
-	Had he not dared to have a difference of opinion with a priest who,
-	almost every fortnight, went to Besancon, where he saw, people said,
-	the Right Reverend Lord Bishop?
-
-	In the midst of all this, the Justice of the Peace, the father of a
-	large family, passed a number of sentences which appeared unjust; all
-	of these were directed against such of the inhabitants as read the
-	_Constitutionnel_. The right party was triumphant. The sums involved
-	amounted, it was true, to no more than four or five francs; but one of
-	these small fines was levied upon a nailsmith, Julien's godfather. In
-	his anger, this man exclaimed: 'What a change! And to think that, for
-	twenty years and more, the Justice was reckoned such an honest man!'
-	The Surgeon-Major, Julien's friend, was dead.
-
-	All at once Julien ceased to speak of Napoleon; he announced his
-	intention of becoming a priest, and was constantly to be seen, in his
-	father's sawmill, engaged in learning by heart a Latin Bible which the
-	cure had lent him. The good old man, amazed at his progress, devoted
-	whole evenings to instructing him in divinity. Julien gave utterance
-	in his company to none but pious sentiments. Who could have supposed
-	that that girlish face, so pale and gentle, hid the unshakeable
-	determination to expose himself to the risk of a thousand deaths
-	rather than fail to make his fortune?
-
-	To Julien, making a fortune meant in the first place leaving
-	Verrieres; he loathed his native place. Everything that he saw there
-	froze his imagination.
-
-	>From his earliest boyhood, he had had moments of exaltation. At such
-	times he dreamed with rapture that one day he would be introduced to
-	the beautiful ladies of Paris; he would manage to attract their
-	attention by some brilliant action. Why should he not be loved by one
-	of them, as Bonaparte, when still penniless, had been loved by the
-	brilliant Madame de Beauharnais? For many years now, perhaps not an
-	hour of Julien's life had passed without his reminding himself that
-	Bonaparte, an obscure subaltern with no fortune, had made himself
-	master of the world with his sword. This thought consoled him for his
-	misfortunes which he deemed to be great, and enhanced his joy when joy
-	came his way.
-
-	The building of the church and the sentences passed by the Justice
-	brought him sudden enlightenment; an idea which occurred to him drove
-	him almost out of his senses for some weeks, and finally took
-	possession of him with the absolute power of the first idea which a
-	passionate nature believes itself to have discovered.
-
-	'When Bonaparte made a name for himself, France was in fear of being
-	invaded; military distinction was necessary and fashionable. Today we
-	see priests at forty drawing stipends of a hundred thousand francs,
-	that is to say three times as much as the famous divisional commanders
-	under Napoleon. They must have people to support them. Look at the
-	Justice here, so wise a man, always so honest until now, sacrificing
-	his honour, at his age, from fear of offending a young vicar of
-	thirty. I must become a priest.'
-
-	On one occasion, in the midst of his new-found piety, after Julien had
-	been studying divinity for two years, he was betrayed by a sudden
-	blaze of the fire that devoured his spirit. This was at M. Chelan's;
-	at a dinner party of priests, to whom the good cure had introduced him
-	as an educational prodigy, he found himself uttering frenzied praise
-	of Napoleon. He bound his right arm across his chest, pretending that
-	he had put the arm out of joint when shifting a fir trunk, and kept it
-	for two months in this awkward position. After this drastic penance,
-	he forgave himself. Such is the young man of eighteen, but weak in
-	appearance, whom you would have said to be, at the most, seventeen,
-	who, carrying a small parcel under his arm, was entering the
-	magnificent church of Verrieres.
-
-	He found it dark and deserted. In view of some festival, all the
-	windows in the building had been covered with crimson cloth; the
-	effect of this, when the sun shone, was a dazzling blaze of light, of
-	the most imposing and most religious character. Julien shuddered.
-	Being alone in the church, he took his seat on the bench that had the
-	most handsome appearance. It bore the arms of M. de Renal.
-
-	On the desk in front, Julien observed a scrap of printed paper, spread
-	out there as though to be read. He looked at it closely and saw:
-
-	'Details of the execution and of the last moments of Louis Jenrel,
-	executed at Besancon, on the ...'
-
-	The paper was torn. On the other side he read the opening words of a
-	line, which were: 'The first step.'
-
-	'Who can have put this paper here?' said Julien. 'Poor wretch!' he
-	added with a sigh, 'his name has the same ending as mine.' And he
-	crumpled up the paper.
-
-	On his way out, Julien thought he saw blood by the holy water stoup;
-	it was some of the water that had been spilt: the light from the red
-	curtains which draped the windows made it appear like blood.
-
-	Finally, Julien felt ashamed of his secret terror.
-
-	'Should I prove coward?' he said to himself. '_To arms_!'
-
-	This phrase, so often repeated in the old Surgeon's accounts of
-	battles, had a heroic sound in Julien's ears. He rose and walked
-	rapidly to M. de Renal's house.
-
-	Despite these brave resolutions, as soon as he caught sight of the
-	house twenty yards away he was overcome by an unconquerable shyness.
-	The iron gate stood open; it seemed to him magnificent. He would have
-	now to go in through it.
-
-	Julien was not the only person whose heart was troubled by his arrival
-	in this household. Madame de Renal's extreme timidity was disconcerted
-	by the idea of this stranger who, in the performance of his duty,
-	would be constantly coming between her and her children. She was
-	accustomed to having her sons sleep in her own room. That morning,
-	many tears had flowed when she saw their little beds being carried
-	into the apartment intended for the tutor. In vain did she beg her
-	husband to let the bed of Stanislas Xavier, the youngest boy, be taken
-	back to her room.
-
-	Womanly delicacy was carried to excess in Madame de Renal. She formed
-	a mental picture of a coarse, unkempt creature, employed to scold her
-	children, simply because he knew Latin, a barbarous tongue for the
-	sake of which her sons would be whipped.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 6
-	Dullness
-
-
-	Non so piu cosa son,
-	Cosa facio.
-	MOZART (Figaro)
-
-	With the vivacity and grace which came naturally to her when she was
-	beyond the reach of male vision, Madame de Renal was coming out
-	through the glass door which opened from the drawing-room into the
-	garden, when she saw, standing by the front door, a young peasant,
-	almost a boy still, extremely pale and showing traces of recent tears.
-	He was wearing a clean white shirt and carried under his arm a neat
-	jacket of violet ratteen.
-
-	This young peasant's skin was so white, his eyes were so appealing,
-	that the somewhat romantic mind of Madame de Renal conceived the idea
-	at first that he might be a girl in disguise, come to ask some favour
-	of the Mayor. She felt sorry for the poor creature, who had come to a
-	standstill by the front door, and evidently could not summon up
-	courage to ring the bell. Madame de Renal advanced, oblivious for the
-	moment of the bitter grief that she felt at the tutor's coming.
-	Julien, who was facing the door, did not see her approach. He trembled
-	when a pleasant voice sounded close to his ear:
-
-	'What have you come for, my boy?'
-
-	Julien turned sharply round, and, struck by the charm of Madame de
-	Renal's expression, forgot part of his shyness. A moment later,
-	astounded by her beauty, he forgot everything, even his purpose in
-	coming. Madame de Renal had repeated her question.
-
-	'I have come to be tutor, Madame,' he at length informed her, put to
-	shame by his tears which he dried as best he might.
-
-	Madame de Renal remained speechless; they were standing close
-	together, looking at one another. Julien had never seen a person so
-	well dressed as this, let alone a woman with so exquisite a
-	complexion, to speak to him in a gentle tone. Madame de Renal looked
-	at the large tears which lingered on the cheeks (so pallid at first
-	and now so rosy) of this young peasant. Presently she burst out
-	laughing, with all the wild hilarity of a girl; she was laughing at
-	herself, and trying in vain to realise the full extent of her
-	happiness. So this was the tutor whom she had imagined an unwashed and
-	ill-dressed priest, who was coming to scold and whip her children.
-
-	'Why, Sir!' she said to him at length, 'do you know Latin?'
-
-	The word 'Sir' came as such a surprise to Julien that he thought for a
-	moment before answering.
-
-	'Yes, Ma'am,' he said shyly.
-
-	Madame de Renal felt so happy that she ventured to say to Julien:
-
-	'You won't scold those poor children too severely?'
-
-	'Scold them? I?' asked Julien in amazement. 'Why should I?'
-
-	'You will, Sir,' she went on after a brief silence and in a voice that
-	grew more emotional every moment, 'you will be kind to them, you
-	promise me?'
-
-	To hear himself addressed again as 'Sir', in all seriousness, and by a
-	lady so fashionably attired, was more than Julien had ever dreamed of;
-	in all the cloud castles of his boyhood, he had told himself that no
-	fashionable lady would deign to speak to him until he had a smart
-	uniform. Madame de Renal, for her part, was completely taken in by the
-	beauty of Julien's complexion, his great dark eyes and his becoming
-	hair which was curling more than usual because, to cool himself, he
-	had just dipped his head in the basin of the public fountain. To her
-	great delight, she discovered an air of girlish shyness in this fatal
-	tutor, whose severity and savage appearance she had so greatly
-	dreaded for her children's sake. To Madame de Renal's peace-loving
-	nature the contrast between her fears and what she now saw before her
-	was a great event. Finally she recovered from her surprise. She was
-	astonished to find herself standing like this at the door of her house
-	with this young man almost in his shirtsleeves and so close to her.
-
-	'Let us go indoors, Sir,' she said to him with an air of distinct
-	embarrassment.
-
-	Never in her life had a purely agreeable sensation so profoundly
-	stirred Madame de Renal; never had so charming an apparition come in
-	the wake of more disturbing fears. And so those sweet children, whom
-	she had tended with such care, were not to fall into the hands of a
-	dirty, growling priest. As soon as they were in the hall, she turned
-	to Julien who was following her shyly. His air of surprise at the
-	sight of so fine a house was an additional charm in the eyes of Madame
-	de Renal. She could not believe her eyes; what she felt most of all
-	was that the tutor ought to be wearing a black coat.
-
-	'But is it true, Sir,' she said to him, again coming to a halt, and
-	mortally afraid lest she might be mistaken, so happy was the belief
-	making her, 'do you really know Latin?'
-
-	These words hurt Julien's pride and destroyed the enchantment in which
-	he had been living for the last quarter of an hour.
-
-	'Yes, Ma'am,' he informed her, trying to adopt a chilly air; 'I know
-	Latin as well as M. le cure; indeed, he is sometimes so kind as to say
-	that I know it better.'
-
-	Madame de Renal felt that Julien had a very wicked air; he had stopped
-	within arm's length of her. She went nearer to him, and murmured:
-
-	'For the first few days, you won't take the whip to my children, even
-	if they don't know their lessons?'
-
-	This gentle, almost beseeching tone coming from so fine a lady at once
-	made Julien forget what he owed to his reputation as a Latin scholar.
-	Madame de Renal's face was close to his own, he could smell the
-	perfume of a woman's summer attire, so astounding a thing to a poor
-	peasant. Julien blushed deeply, and said with a sigh and in a faint
-	voice:
-
-	'Fear nothing, Ma'am, I shall obey you in every respect.'
-
-	It was at this moment only, when her anxiety for her children was
-	completely banished, that Madame de Renal was struck by Julien's
-	extreme good looks. The almost feminine cast of his features and his
-	air of embarrassment did not seem in the least absurd to a woman who
-	was extremely timid herself. The manly air which is generally
-	considered essential to masculine beauty would have frightened her.
-
-	'How old are you, Sir?' she asked Julien.
-
-	'I shall soon be nineteen.'
-
-	'My eldest son is eleven,' went on Madame de Renal, completely
-	reassured; 'he will be almost a companion for you, you can talk to him
-	seriously. His father tried to beat him once, the child was ill for a
-	whole week, and yet it was quite a gentle blow.'
-
-	'How different from me,' thought Julien. 'Only yesterday my father was
-	thrashing me. How fortunate these rich people are!'
-
-	Madame de Renal had by this time arrived at the stage of remarking the
-	most trivial changes in the state of the tutor's mind; she mistook
-	this envious impulse for shyness, and tried to give him fresh courage.
-
-	'What is your name, Sir?' she asked him with an accent and a grace the
-	charm of which Julien could feel without knowing whence it sprang.
-
-	'They call me Julien Sorel, Ma'am; I am trembling as I enter a strange
-	house for the first time in my life; I have need of your protection,
-	and shall require you to forgive me many things at first. I have never
-	been to College, I was too poor; I have never talked to any other men,
-	except my cousin the Surgeon-Major, a Member of the Legion of Honour,
-	and the Reverend Father Chelan. He will give you a good account of me.
-	My brothers have always beaten me, do not listen to them if they speak
-	evil of me to you; pardon my faults, Ma'am, I shall never have any
-	evil intention.'
-
-	Julien plucked up his courage again during this long speech; he was
-	studying Madame de Renal. Such is the effect of perfect grace when it
-	is natural to the character, particularly when she whom it adorns has
-	no thought of being graceful. Julien, who knew all that was to be
-	known about feminine beauty, would have sworn at that moment that she
-	was no more than twenty. The bold idea at once occurred to him of
-	kissing her hand. Next, this idea frightened him; a moment later, he
-	said to himself: 'It would be cowardly on my part not to carry out an
-	action which may be of use to me, and diminish the scorn which this
-	fine lady probably feels for a poor workman, only just taken from the
-	sawbench.' Perhaps Julien was somewhat encouraged by the words
-	'good-looking boy' which for the last six months he had been used to
-	hearing on Sundays on the lips of various girls. While he debated thus
-	with himself, Madame de Renal offered him a few suggestions as to how
-	he should begin to handle her children. The violence of Julien's
-	effort to control himself made him turn quite pale again; he said,
-	with an air of constraint:
-
-	'Never, Ma'am, will I beat your children; I swear it before God.'
-
-	And so saying he ventured to take Madame de Renal's hand
-	and carry it to his lips. She was astonished at this action, and, on
-	thinking it over, shocked. As the weather was very warm, her arm was
-	completely bare under her shawl, and Julien's action in raising her
-	hand to his lips had uncovered it to the shoulder. A minute later she
-	scolded herself; she felt that she had not been quickly enough
-	offended.
-
-	M. de Renal, who had heard the sound of voices, came out of his study;
-	with the same majestic and fatherly air that he assumed when he was
-	conducting marriages in the Town Hall, he said to Julien:
-
-	'It is essential that I speak to you before the children see you.'
-
-	He ushered Julien into one of the rooms and detained his wife, who was
-	going to leave them together. Having shut the door, M. de Renal seated
-	himself with gravity.
-
-	'The cure has told me that you were an honest fellow, everyone in this
-	house will treat you with respect, and if I am satisfied I shall help
-	you to set up for yourself later on. I wish you to cease to see
-	anything of either your family or your friends, their tone would not
-	be suited to my children. Here are thirty-six francs for the first
-	month; but I must have your word that you will not give a penny of
-	this money to your father.'
-
-	M. de Renal was annoyed with the old man, who, in this business, had
-	proved more subtle than he himself.
-
-	'And now, _Sir_, for by my orders everyone in this house is to address
-	you as Sir, and you will be conscious of the advantage of entering a
-	well-ordered household; now, Sir, it is not proper that the children
-	should see you in a jacket. Have the servants seen him?' M. de Renal
-	asked his wife.
-
-	'No, dear,' she replied with an air of deep thought.
-
-	'Good. Put on this,' he said to the astonished young man, handing him
-	one of his own frock coats. 'And now let us go to M. Durand, the
-	clothier.'
-
-	More than an hour later, when M. de Renal returned with the new tutor
-	dressed all in black, he found his wife still seated in the same
-	place. She felt soothed by Julien's presence; as she studied his
-	appearance she forgot to feel afraid. Julien was not giving her a
-	thought; for all his mistrust of destiny and of mankind, his heart at
-	that moment was just like a child's; he seemed to have lived whole
-	years since the moment when, three hours earlier, he stood trembling
-	in the church. He noticed Madame de Renal's frigid manner, and
-	gathered that she was angry because he had ventured to kiss her hand.
-	But the sense of pride that he derived from the contact of garments so
-	different from those which he was accustomed to wear caused him so
-	much excitement, and he was so anxious to conceal his joy that all his
-	gestures were more or less abrupt and foolish. Madame de Renal gazed
-	at him with eyes of astonishment.
-
-	'A little gravity, Sir,' M. de Renal told him, 'if you wish to be
-	respected by my children and my servants.'
-
-	'Sir,' replied Julien, 'I am uncomfortable in these new clothes; I, a
-	humble peasant, have never worn any but short jackets; with your
-	permission, I shall retire to my bedroom.'
-
-	'What think you of this new acquisition?' M. de Renal asked his wife.
-
-	With an almost instinctive impulse, of which she herself certainly was
-	not aware, Madame de Renal concealed the truth from her husband.
-
-	'I am by no means as enchanted as you are with this little peasant;
-	your kindness will turn him into an impertinent rascal whom you will
-	be obliged to send packing within a month.'
-
-	'Very well! We shall send him packing; he will have cost me a hundred
-	francs or so, and Verrieres will have grown used to seeing a tutor
-	with M. de Renal's children. That point I should not have gained if I
-	had let Julien remain in the clothes of a working man. When I dismiss
-	him, I shall of course keep the black suit which I have just ordered
-	from the clothier. He shall have nothing but the coat I found ready
-	made at the tailor's, which he is now wearing.'
-
-	The hour which Julien spent in his room seemed like a second to Madame
-	de Renal. The children, who had been told of their new tutor's
-	arrival, overwhelmed their mother with questions. Finally Julien
-	appeared. He was another man. It would have been straining the word to
-	say that he was grave; he was gravity incarnate. He was introduced to
-	the children, and spoke to them with an air that surprised M. de Renal
-	himself.
-
-	'I am here, young gentlemen,' he told them at the end of his address,
-	'to teach you Latin. You know what is meant by repeating a lesson.
-	Here is the Holy Bible,' he said, and showed them a tiny volume in
-	32mo, bound in black. 'It is in particular the story of Our Lord Jesus
-	Christ, that is the part which is called the New Testament. I shall
-	often make you repeat lessons; now you must make me repeat mine.'
-
-	Adolphe, the eldest boy, had taken the book.
-
-	'Open it where you please,' Julien went on, 'and tell me the first
-	word of a paragraph. I shall repeat by heart the sacred text, the rule
-	of conduct for us all, until you stop me.'
-
-	Adolphe opened the book, read a word, and Julien repeated the whole
-	page as easily as though he were speaking French. M. de Renal looked
-	at his wife with an air of triumph. The children, seeing their
-	parents' amazement, opened their eyes wide. A servant came to the door
-	of the drawing-room, Julien went on speaking in Latin. The servant at
-	first stood motionless and then vanished. Presently the lady's maid
-	and the cook appeared in the doorway; by this time Adolphe had opened
-	the book at eight different places, and Julien continued to repeat the
-	words with the same ease.
-
-	'Eh, what a bonny little priest,' the cook, a good and truly devout
-	girl, said aloud.
-
-	M. de Renal's self-esteem was troubled; so far from having any thought
-	of examining the tutor, he was engaged in ransacking his memory for a
-	few words of Latin; at last, he managed to quote a line of Horace.
-	Julien knew no Latin apart from the Bible. He replied with a frown:
-
-	'The sacred ministry to which I intend to devote myself has forbidden
-	me to read so profane a poet.'
-
-	M. de Renal repeated a fair number of alleged lines of Horace. He
-	explained to his children what Horace was; but the children, overcome
-	with admiration, paid little attention to what he was saying. They
-	were watching Julien.
-
-	The servants being still at the door, Julien felt it incumbent upon
-	him to prolong the test.
-
-	'And now,' he said to the youngest boy, 'Master Stanislas Xavier too
-	must set me a passage from the Holy Book.'
-
-	Little Stanislas, swelling with pride, read out to the best of his
-	ability the opening words of a paragraph, and Julien repeated the
-	whole page. That nothing might be wanting to complete M. de Renal's
-	triumph, while Julien was reciting, there entered M. Valenod, the
-	possessor of fine Norman horses, and M. Charcot de Maugiron,
-	Sub-Prefect of the district. This scene earned for Julien the title
-	'Sir'; the servants themselves dared not withhold it from him.
-
-	That evening, the whole of Verrieres flocked to M. de Renal's to
-	behold the marvel. Julien answered them all with an air of gloom which
-	kept them at a distance. His fame spread so rapidly through the town
-	that, shortly afterwards, M. de Renal, afraid of losing him, suggested
-	his signing a contract for two years.
-
-	'No, Sir,' Julien replied coldly, 'if you chose to dismiss me I should
-	be obliged to go. A contract which binds me without putting you under
-	any obligation is unfair, I must decline.'
-
-	Julien managed so skilfully that, less than a month after his coming
-	to the house, M. de Renal himself respected him. The cure having
-	quarrelled with MM. de Renal and Valenod, there was no one who could
-	betray Julien's former passion for Napoleon, of whom he was careful to
-	speak with horror.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 7
-	Elective Affinities
-
-
-	They can only touch the heart by bruising it.
-	A MODERN
-
-	The children adored him, he did not care for them; his thoughts were
-	elsewhere. Nothing that these urchins could do ever tried his
-	patience. Cold, just, impassive, and at the same time loved, because
-	his coming had in a measure banished dullness from the house, he was a
-	good tutor. For his part, he felt only hatred and horror for the high
-	society in which he was allowed to occupy the very foot of the
-	table, a position which may perhaps explain his hatred and horror.
-	There were certain formal dinners at which he could barely contain his
-	loathing of everything round about him. On Saint Louis's day in
-	particular, M. Valenod was laying down the law at M. de Renal's;
-	Julien almost gave himself away; he escaped into the garden, saying
-	that he must look after the children. 'What panegyrics of honesty!' he
-	exclaimed; 'anyone would say that was the one and only virtue; and yet
-	what consideration, what a cringing respect for a man who obviously
-	has doubled and tripled his fortune since he has been in charge of the
-	relief of the poor! I would wager that he makes something even out of
-	the fund set apart for the foundlings, those wretches whose need is
-	even more sacred than that of the other paupers. Ah, monsters!
-	Monsters! And I too, I am a sort of foundling, hated by my father, my
-	brothers, my whole family.'
-
-	Some days earlier, Julien walking by himself and saying his office in
-	a little wood, known as the Belvedere, which overlooks the Cours de la
-	Fidelite, had tried in vain to avoid his two brothers, whom he saw
-	approaching him by a solitary path. The jealousy of these rough
-	labourers had been so quickened by the sight of their brother's
-	handsome black coat, and air of extreme gentility, as well as by the
-	sincere contempt which he felt for them, that they had proceeded to
-	thrash him, leaving him there unconscious and bleeding freely. Madame
-	de Renal, who was out walking with M. Valenod and the Sub-Prefect,
-	happened to turn into the little wood; she saw Julien lying on the
-	ground and thought him dead. She was so overcome as to make M. Valenod
-	jealous.
-
-	His alarm was premature. Julien admired Madame de Renal's looks, but
-	hated her for her beauty; it was the first reef on which his fortune
-	had nearly foundered. He spoke to her as seldom as possible, in the
-	hope of making her forget the impulse which, at their first encounter,
-	had led him to kiss her hand.
-
-	Elisa, Madame de Renal's maid, had not failed to fall in love with the
-	young tutor; she often spoke of him to her mistress. Miss Elisa's love
-	had brought upon Julien the hatred of one of the footmen. One day he
-	heard this man say to Elisa: 'You won't speak to me any more, since
-	that greasy tutor has been in the house.' Julien did not deserve the
-	epithet; but, with the instinct of a good-looking youth, became doubly
-	attentive to his person. M. Valenod's hatred was multiplied
-	accordingly. He said in public that so much concern with one's
-	appearance was not becoming in a young cleric. Barring the cassock,
-	Julien now wore clerical attire.
-
-	Madame de Renal observed that he was speaking more often than before
-	to Miss Elisa; she learned that these conversations were due to the
-	limitations of Julien's extremely small wardrobe. He had so scanty a
-	supply of linen that he was obliged to send it out constantly to be
-	washed, and it was in performing these little services that Elisa made
-	herself useful to him.
-
-	This extreme poverty, of which she had had no suspicion, touched
-	Madame de Renal; she longed to make him presents, but did not dare;
-	this inward resistance was the first feeling of regret that Julien
-	caused her. Until then the name of Julien and the sense of a pure and
-	wholly intellectual joy had been synonymous to her. Tormented by the
-	idea of Julien's poverty, Madame de Renal spoke to her husband about
-	making him a present of linen:
-
-	'What idiocy!' he replied. 'What! Make presents to a man with whom we
-	are perfectly satisfied, and who is serving us well? It is when he
-	neglects his duty that we should stimulate his zeal.'
-
-	Madame de Renal felt ashamed of this way of looking at things; before
-	Julien came she would not have noticed it. She never saw the young
-	cleric's spotless, though very simple, toilet without asking herself:
-	'Poor boy, how ever does he manage?'
-
-	As time went on she began to feel sorry for Julien's deficiencies,
-	instead of being shocked by them.
-
-	Madame de Renal was one of those women to be found in the provinces
-	whom one may easily take to be fools until one has known them for a
-	fortnight. She had no experience of life, and made no effort at
-	conversation. Endowed with a delicate and haughty nature, that
-	instinct for happiness natural to all human beings made her, generally
-	speaking, pay no attention to the actions of the coarse creatures into
-	whose midst chance had flung her.
-
-	She would have been remarkable for her naturalness and quickness of
-	mind, had she received the most scanty education; but in her capacity
-	as an heiress she had been brought up by nuns who practised a
-	passionate devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and were animated by
-	a violent hatred of the French as being enemies of the Jesuits. Madame
-	de Renal had sufficient sense to forget at once, as absurdities,
-	everything she had learned in the convent; but she put nothing else in
-	its place, and ended by knowing nothing. The flatteries of which she
-	had been the precocious object, as the heiress to a large fortune, and
-	a marked tendency towards passionate devotion, had bred in her an
-	attitude towards life that was wholly inward. With an outward show of
-	the most perfect submission, and a self-suppression which the husbands
-	of Verrieres used to quote as an example to their wives, and which was
-	a source of pride to M. de Renal, her inner life was, as a matter of
-	fact, dictated by the most lofty disdain. Any princess who is quoted
-	as an illustration of pride pays infinitely more attention to what her
-	gentlemen are doing round about her than this meekest of women, so
-	modest in appearance, gave to anything that her husband said or did.
-	Until Julien arrived, she had really paid no attention to anyone but
-	her children. Their little illnesses, their sorrows, their little
-	pleasures absorbed the whole sensibility of this human soul, which had
-	never, in the whole of her life, adored anyone save God, while she was
-	at the Sacred Heart in Besancon.
-
-	Although she did not condescend to say so to anyone, a feverish attack
-	coming to one of her sons threw her almost into the same state as if
-	the child had died. A burst of coarse laughter, a shrug of the
-	shoulders, accompanied by some trivial maxim as to the foolishness of
-	women, had regularly greeted the confessions of grief of this sort
-	which the need of an outlet had led her to make to her husband during
-	the first years of their married life. Witticisms of this sort,
-	especially when they bore upon the illnesses of the children, turned
-	the dagger in Madame de Renal's heart. This was all the substitute she
-	found for the obsequious, honeyed flatteries of the Jesuitical convent
-	in which she had passed her girlhood. She was educated in the school
-	of suffering. Too proud to speak of griefs of this sort, even to her
-	friend Madame Derville, she imagined that all men resembled her
-	husband, M. Valenod, and the Sub-Prefect Charcot de Maugiron. Coarse
-	wit and the most brutal insensibility to everything that did not
-	promise money, promotion or a Cross; a blind hatred of every argument
-	that went against them seemed to her to be things natural to the male
-	sex, like the wearing of boots and felt hats.
-
-	After many long years, Madame de Renal had not yet grown accustomed to
-	these money-grubbing creatures among whom she had to live.
-
-	Hence the success of the little peasant Julien. She found much
-	pleasant enjoyment, radiant with the charm of novelty, in the sympathy
-	of this proud and noble spirit. Madame de Renal had soon forgiven him
-	his extreme ignorance, which was an additional charm, and the
-	roughness of his manners, which she succeeded in improving. She found
-	that it was worth her while to listen to him, even when they spoke of
-	the most ordinary things, even when it was a question of a poor dog
-	that had been run over, as it was crossing the street, by a peasant's
-	cart going by at a trot. The sight of such a tragedy made her husband
-	utter his coarse laugh, whereas she saw Julien's fine, beautifully
-	arched black eyebrows wince. Generosity, nobility of soul, humanity,
-	seemed to her, after a time, to exist only in this young cleric. She
-	felt for him alone all the sympathy and even admiration which those
-	virtues arouse in well-bred natures.
-
-	In Paris, Julien's position with regard to Madame de Renal would very
-	soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the
-	novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in
-	three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear
-	statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them
-	the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model,
-	sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps
-	with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.
-
-	In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident
-	would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath
-	our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only
-	because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those
-	pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of
-	thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and
-	never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly,
-	everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural.
-
-	Often, when she thought of the young tutor's poverty, Madame de Renal
-	was moved to tears. Julien came upon her, one day, actually crying.
-
-	'Ah, Ma'am, you have had some bad news!'
-
-	'No, my friend,' was her answer: 'Call the children, let us go for a
-	walk.'
-
-	She took his arm and leaned on it in a manner which Julien thought
-	strange. It was the first time that she had called him 'my friend'.
-
-	Towards the end of their walk, Julien observed that she was blushing
-	deeply. She slackened her pace.
-
-	'You will have heard,' she said without looking at him, 'that I am the
-	sole heiress of a very rich aunt who lives at Besancon. She loads me
-	with presents. My sons are making ... such astonishing progress ...
-	that I should like to ask you to accept a little present, as a token
-	of my gratitude. It is only a matter of a few louis to supply you with
-	linen. But--' she added, blushing even more deeply, and was silent.
-
-	'What, Ma'am?' said Julien.
-
-	'It would be unnecessary,' she went on, lowering her head, 'to speak
-	of this to my husband.'
-
-	'I may be humble, Ma'am, but I am not base,' replied Julien coming to
-	a standstill, his eyes ablaze with anger, and drawing himself up to
-	his full height. 'That is a point which you have not sufficiently
-	considered. I should be less than a footman if I put myself in the
-	position of hiding from M. de Renal anything that had to do with my
-	money.'
-
-	Madame de Renal was overwhelmed.
-
-	'The Mayor,' Julien went on, 'has given me thirty-six francs five
-	times since I came to live in his house; I am prepared to show my
-	account-book to M. de Renal or to anyone else, including M. Valenod
-	who hates me.'
-
-	This outburst left Madame de Renal pale and trembling, and the walk
-	came to an end before either of them could find an excuse for renewing
-	the conversation. Love for Madame de Renal became more and more
-	impossible in the proud heart of Julien: as for her, she respected,
-	she admired him; she had been scolded by him. On the pretext of making
-	amends for the humiliation which she had unintentionally caused him,
-	she allowed herself to pay him the most delicate attentions. The
-	novelty of this procedure kept her happy for a week. Its effect was to
-	some extent to appease Julien's anger; he was far from seeing anything
-	in it that could be mistaken for personal affection.
-
-	'That,' he said to himself, 'is what rich people are like: they
-	humiliate one, and then think they can put things right by a few
-	monkey-tricks.'
-
-	Madame de Renal's heart was too full, and as yet too innocent for her,
-	notwithstanding the resolutions she had made, not to tell her husband
-	of the offer she had made to Julien and the manner in which she had
-	been repulsed.
-
-	'What,' M. de Renal retorted, with keen annoyance, 'could you tolerate
-	a refusal from a servant?'
-
-	And as Madame de Renal protested at this word:
-
-	'I speak, Ma'am, as the late Prince de Conde spoke, when presenting
-	his Chamberlains to his bride: "All these people," he told her, "are
-	our servants." I read you the passage from Besenval's _Memoirs_, it is
-	essential in questions of precedence. Everyone who is not a gentleman,
-	who lives in your house and receives a salary, is your servant. I
-	shall say a few words to this Master Julien, and give him a hundred
-	francs.'
-
-	'Ah, my dear,' said Madame de Renal trembling, 'please do not say
-	anything in front of the servants.'
-
-	'Yes, they might be jealous, and rightly,' said her husband as he left
-	the room, thinking of the magnitude of the sum.
-
-	Madame de Renal sank down on a chair, almost fainting with grief. 'He
-	is going to humiliate Julien, and it is my fault!' She felt a horror
-	of her husband, and hid her face in her hands. She promised herself
-	that she would never confide anything in him again.
-
-	When she next saw Julien, she was trembling all over, her bosom was so
-	contracted that she could not manage to utter a single word. In her
-	embarrassment she took his hands and wrung them.
-
-	'Well, my friend,' she said to him after a little, 'are you pleased
-	with my husband?'
-
-	'How should I not be?' Julien answered with a bitter smile; 'he has
-	given me a hundred francs.'
-
-	Madame de Renal looked at him as though uncertain what to do.
-
-	'Give me your arm,' she said at length with an accent of courage which
-	Julien had never yet observed in her.
-
-	She ventured to enter the shop of the Verrieres bookseller, in spite
-	of his terrible reputation as a Liberal. There she chose books to the
-	value of ten louis which she gave to her sons. But these books were
-	the ones which she knew that Julien wanted. She insisted that there,
-	in the bookseller's shop, each of the children should write his own
-	name in the books that fell to his share. While Madame de Renal was
-	rejoicing at the partial reparation which she had had the courage to
-	make to Julien, he was lost in amazement at the quantity of books
-	which he saw on the bookseller's shelves. Never had he dared to set
-	foot in so profane a place; his heart beat violently. So far from his
-	having any thought of trying to guess what was occurring in the heart
-	of Madame de Renal, he was plunged in meditation as to how it would be
-	possible for a young student of divinity to procure some of these
-	books. At length the idea came to him that it might be possible, by a
-	skilful approach, to persuade M. de Renal that he ought to set his
-	sons, as the subject for an essay, the lives of the celebrated
-	gentlemen who were natives of the province. After a month of careful
-	preliminaries, he saw his idea prove successful, so much so that,
-	shortly afterwards, he ventured, in speaking to M. de Renal, to
-	mention an action considerably more offensive to the noble Mayor; it
-	was a matter of contributing to the prosperity of a Liberal, by taking
-	out a subscription at the library. M. de Renal entirely agreed that
-	it was wise to let his eldest son have a _visual impression_ of various
-	works which he would hear mentioned in conversation when he went to
-	the Military School; but Julien found the Mayor obdurate in refusing
-	to go any farther. He suspected a secret reason, which he was unable
-	to guess.
-
-	'I was thinking, Sir,' he said to him one day, 'that it would be
-	highly improper for the name of a respectable gentleman like a Renal
-	to appear on the dirty ledger of the librarian.'
-
-	M. de Renal's face brightened.
-
-	'It would also be a very bad mark,' Julien went on, in a humbler tone,
-	'against a poor divinity student, if it should one day be discovered
-	that his name had been on the ledger of a bookseller who keeps a
-	library. The Liberals might accuse me of having asked for the most
-	scandalous books; for all one knows they might even go so far as to
-	write in after my name the titles of those perverse works.'
-
-	But Julien was going off the track. He saw the Mayor's features resume
-	their expression of embarrassment and ill humour. Julien was silent.
-	'I have my man hooked,' he said to himself.
-
-	A few days later, on the eldest boy's questioning Julien as to a book
-	advertised in the _Quotidienne_, in M. de Renal's presence:
-
-	'To remove all occasion for triumph from the Jacobin Party,' said the
-	young tutor, 'and at the same time to enable me to answer Master
-	Adolphe, one might open a subscription at the bookshop in the name of
-	the lowest of your servants.'
-
-	'That is not at all a bad idea,' said M. de Renal, obviously
-	delighted.
-
-	'Only it would have to be specified,' said Julien with that grave and
-	almost sorrowful air which becomes certain people so well, when they
-	see the success of the projects which have been longest in their
-	minds, 'it would have to be specified that the servant shall not take
-	out any novels. Once they were in the house, those dangerous works
-	might corrupt Madame's maids, not to speak of the servant himself.'
-
-	'You forget the political pamphlets,' added M. de Renal, in a haughty
-	tone. He wished to conceal the admiration that he felt for the clever
-	middle course discovered by his children's tutor.
-
-	Julien's life was thus composed of a series of petty negotiations; and
-	their success was of far more importance to him than the evidence of a
-	marked preference for himself which was only waiting for him to read
-	it in the heart of Madame de Renal.
-
-	The moral environment in which he had been placed all his life was
-	repeated in the household of the worshipful Mayor of Verrieres. There,
-	as in his father's sawmill, he profoundly despised the people with
-	whom he lived, and was hated by them. He saw every day, from the
-	remarks made by the Sub-Prefect, by M. Valenod and by the other
-	friends of the family, with reference to the things that had just
-	happened under their eyes, how remote their ideas were from any
-	semblance of reality. Did an action strike him as admirable, it was
-	precisely what called forth blame from the people round about him. His
-	unspoken retort was always: 'What monsters!' or 'What fools!' The
-	amusing thing was that, with all his pride, frequently he understood
-	nothing at all of what was being discussed.
-
-	In his whole life, he had never spoken with sincerity except to the
-	old Surgeon-Major; the few ideas that he had bore reference to
-	Napoleon's campaigns in Italy, or to surgery. His youthful courage
-	took delight in detailed accounts of the most painful operations; he
-	said to himself: 'I should not have flinched.'
-
-	The first time that Madame de Renal attempted a conversation with him
-	on a subject other than that of the children's education, he began to
-	talk of surgical operations; she turned pale, and begged him to stop.
-
-	Julien knew nothing apart from these matters. And so, as he spent his
-	time with Madame de Renal, the strangest silence grew up between them
-	as soon as they were alone together. In her own drawing-room, humble
-	as his bearing was, she found in his eyes an air of intellectual
-	superiority over everyone that came to the house. Were she left alone
-	for a moment with him, she saw him grow visibly embarrassed. This
-	troubled her, for her womanly instinct made her realise that his
-	embarrassment was not in the least degree amorous.
-
-	In consequence of some idea derived from a description of good
-	society, as the old Surgeon-Major had beheld it, as soon as
-	conversation ceased in a place where he found himself in the company
-	of a woman, Julien felt abashed, as though he himself were specially
-	to blame for this silence. This sensation was a hundred times more
-	painful when they were alone. His imagination, full of the most
-	extravagant, the most Spanish notions as to what a man ought to say,
-	when he is alone with a woman, offered him in his agitation none but
-	inadmissible ideas. His soul was in the clouds, and yet he was
-	incapable of breaking the most humiliating silence. Thus his air of
-	severity, during his long walks with Madame de Renal and the children,
-	was intensified by the most cruel sufferings. He despised himself
-	hideously. If by mischance he forced himself to speak, he found
-	himself saying the most ridiculous things. To increase his misery, he
-	saw and exaggerated his own absurdity; but what he did not see was the
-	expression in his eyes, they were so fine and revealed so burning a
-	soul that, like good actors, they imparted at times a charming meaning
-	to what was meaningless. Madame de Renal remarked that, when alone
-	with her, he never expressed himself well except when he was
-	distracted by some unforeseen occurrence, he never thought of turning
-	a compliment. As the friends of the family did not spoil her by
-	offering her new and brilliant ideas, she took a delight in the
-	flashes of Julien's intellect.
-
-	Since the fall of Napoleon, all semblance of gallantry in speech has
-	been sternly banished from the code of provincial behaviour. People
-	are afraid of losing their posts. The unscrupulous seek support from
-	the _Congregation_ and hypocrisy has made the most brilliant advances
-	even among the Liberal classes. Dulness increases. No pleasure is
-	left, save in reading and agriculture.
-
-	Madame de Renal, the wealthy heiress of a religious aunt, married at
-	sixteen to a worthy gentleman, had never in her life felt or seen
-	anything that bore the faintest resemblance to love. Her confessor,
-	the good cure Chelan, was the only person almost who had ever spoken
-	to her of love, with reference to the advances of M. Valenod, and he
-	had drawn so revolting a picture of it that the word conveyed nothing
-	to her but the idea of the most abject immorality. She regarded as an
-	exception, or rather as something quite apart from nature, love such
-	as she had found it in the very small number of novels that chance had
-	brought to her notice. Thanks to this ignorance, Madame de
-	Renal, entirely happy, occupied incessantly with the thought of
-	Julien, was far from reproaching herself in the slightest degree.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 8
-	Minor Events
-
-
-	Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,
-	And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
-	And burning blushes, though for no transgression.
-	_Don Juan_, I. 74
-
-	The angelic sweetness which Madame de Renal derived from her own
-	character as well as from her present happiness was interrupted only
-	when she happened to think of her maid Elisa. This young woman
-	received a legacy, went to make her confession to the cure Chelan, and
-	revealed to him her intention to marry Julien. The cure was genuinely
-	delighted at his friend's good fortune; but his surprise was great
-	when Julien informed him with a resolute air that Miss Elisa's offer
-	could not be accepted.
-
-	'Pay good heed, my son, to what is taking place in your heart,' said
-	the cure, frowning; 'I congratulate you on your vocation, if it is to
-	it alone that must be ascribed your scorn of a more than adequate
-	provision. For fifty-six years and more have I been cure at Verrieres,
-	and yet, so far as one can see, I am going to be deprived. This
-	distresses me, albeit I have an income of eight hundred livres. I tell
-	you of this detail in order that you may not be under any illusion as
-	to what is in store for you in the priestly calling. If you think of
-	paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured. You
-	may make your fortune, but you will have to injure the poor and needy,
-	flatter the Sub-Prefect, the Mayor, the important person, and
-	minister to his passions: such conduct, which in the world is called
-	the art of life, may, in a layman, be not wholly incompatible with
-	salvation; but in our calling, we have to choose; we must make our
-	fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.
-	Go, my dear friend, reflect, and come back in three days' time with a
-	definite answer. I am sorry to see underlying your character, a
-	smouldering ardour which does not suggest to my mind the moderation
-	and complete renunciation of earthly advantages necessary in a priest;
-	I augur well from your intelligence; but, allow me to tell you,' the
-	good cure went on, with tears in his eyes, 'in the calling of a
-	priest, I shall tremble for your salvation.'
-
-	Julien was ashamed of his emotion; for the first time in his life, he
-	saw himself loved; he wept for joy, and went to hide his tears in the
-	great woods above Verrieres.
-
-	'Why am I in this state?' he asked himself at length; 'I feel that I
-	would give my life a hundred times over for that good Father Chelan,
-	and yet he has just proved to me that I am no better than a fool. It
-	is he above all that I have to deceive, and he sees through me. That
-	secret ardour of which he speaks is my plan for making my fortune. He
-	thinks me unfit to be a priest, at the very moment when I imagined
-	that the sacrifice of an income of fifty louis was going to give him
-	the most exalted idea of my piety and my vocation.
-
-	'For the future,' Julien continued, 'I shall rely only upon those
-	elements of my character which I have tested. Who would ever have said
-	that I should find pleasure in shedding tears? That I should love the
-	man who proves to me that I am nothing more than a fool?'
-
-	Three days later, Julien had found the pretext with which he should
-	have armed himself from the first; this pretext was a calumny, but
-	what of that? He admitted to the cure, after much hesitation, that a
-	reason which he could not explain to him, because to reveal it would
-	injure a third party, had dissuaded him from the first from the
-	projected marriage. This was tantamount to an indictment of Elisa's
-	conduct. M. Chelan detected in his manner a fire that was wholly
-	mundane, and very different from that which should have inspired a
-	young Levite.
-
-	'My friend,' he appealed to him again, 'be an honest yeoman, educated
-	and respected, rather than a priest without a vocation.'
-
-	Julien replied to these fresh remonstrances extremely well, so far as
-	words went; he hit upon the expressions which a fervent young
-	seminarist would have employed; but the tone in which he uttered them,
-	the ill-concealed fire that smouldered in his eyes alarmed M. Chelan.
-
-	We need not augur ill for Julien's future; he hit upon the correct
-	form of words of a cunning and prudent hypocrisy. That is not bad at
-	his age. As for his tone and gestures, he lived among country folk; he
-	had been debarred from seeing the great models. In the sequel, no
-	sooner had he been permitted to mix with these gentlemen than he
-	became admirable as well in gesture as in speech.
-
-	Madame de Renal was surprised that her maid's newly acquired fortune
-	had not made the girl more happy; she saw her going incessantly to the
-	cure's, and returning with tears in her eyes; finally Elisa spoke to
-	her mistress of her marriage.
-
-	Madame de Renal believed herself to have fallen ill; a sort of fever
-	prevented her enjoying any sleep; she was alive only when she had her
-	maid or Julien before her eyes. She could think of nothing but them
-	and the happiness they would find in their married life. The poverty
-	of the small house in which people would be obliged to live, with an
-	income of fifty louis, portrayed itself to her in enchanting colours.
-	Julien might very well become a lawyer at Bray, the Sub-Prefecture two
-	leagues from Verrieres; in that event she would see something of
-	him.
-
-	Madame de Renal sincerely believed that she was going mad; she said so
-	to her husband, and finally did fall ill. That evening, as her maid
-	was waiting upon her, she noticed that the girl was crying. She
-	loathed Elisa at that moment, and had spoken sharply to her; she
-	begged the girl's pardon. Elisa's tears increased; she said that if
-	her mistress would allow it, she would tell her the whole tale of her
-	distress.
-
-	'Speak,' replied Madame de Renal.
-
-	'Well, the fact is, Ma'am, he won't have me; wicked people must have
-	spoken evil of me to him, and he believes them.'
-
-	'Who won't have you?' said Madame de Renal, scarcely able to breathe.
-
-	'And who could it be, Ma'am, but M. Julien?' the maid replied through
-	her sobs. 'His Reverence has failed to overcome his resistance; for
-	His Reverence considers that he ought not to refuse a decent girl,
-	just because she has been a lady's maid. After all, M. Julien's own
-	father is no better than a carpenter; and he himself, how was he
-	earning his living before he came to Madame's?'
-
-	Madame de Renal had ceased to listen; surfeit of happiness had almost
-	deprived her of the use of her reason. She made the girl repeat to her
-	several times the assurance that Julien had refused in a positive
-	manner, which would not permit of his coming to a more reasonable
-	decision later on.
-
-	'I wish to make a final effort,' she said to her maid. 'I shall speak
-	to M. Julien.'
-
-	Next day after luncheon, Madame de Renal gave herself the exquisite
-	sensation of pleading her rival's cause, and of seeing Elisa's hand
-	and fortune persistently refused for an hour on end.
-
-	Little by little Julien abandoned his attitude of studied reserve, and
-	ended by making spirited answers to the sound arguments advanced by
-	Madame de Renal. She could not hold out against the torrent of
-	happiness which now poured into her heart after all those days of
-	despair. She found herself really ill. When she had come to herself,
-	and was comfortably settled in her own room, she asked to be left
-	alone. She was in a state of profound astonishment.
-
-	'Can I be in love with Julien?' she asked herself at length.
-
-	This discovery, which at any other time would have filled her with
-	remorse and with a profound agitation, was no more to her than a
-	singular spectacle, but one that left her indifferent. Her heart,
-	exhausted by all that she had just undergone, had no sensibility left
-	to place at the service of her passions.
-
-	Madame de Renal tried to work, and fell into a deep sleep; when she
-	awoke, she was less alarmed than she should have been. She was too
-	happy to be able to take anything amiss. Artless and innocent as she
-	was, this honest provincial had never tormented her soul in an attempt
-	to wring from it some little sensibility to some novel shade of
-	sentiment or distress. Entirely absorbed, before Julien came, in that
-	mass of work which, outside Paris, is the lot of a good wife and
-	mother, Madame de Renal thought about the passions, as we think about
-	the lottery: a certain disappointment and a happiness sought by fools
-	alone.
-
-	The dinner bell rang; Madame de Renal blushed deeply when she heard
-	Julien's voice as he brought in the children. Having acquired some
-	adroitness since she had fallen in love, she accounted for her colour
-	by complaining of a splitting headache.
-
-	'There you have women,' put in M. de Renal, with a coarse laugh.
-	'There's always something out of order in their machinery.'
-
-	Accustomed as she was to this form of wit, the tone of his voice hurt
-	Madame de Renal. She sought relief in studying Julien's features; had
-	he been the ugliest man in the world, he would have charmed her at
-	that moment.
-
-	Always zealous in imitating the habits of the Court, with the first
-	fine days of spring M. de Renal removed his household to Vergy; it is
-	the village rendered famous by the tragic adventure of Gabrielle. A
-	few hundred yards from the picturesque ruins of the old gothic church,
-	M. de Renal owned an old castle with its four towers, and a garden
-	laid out like that of the Tuileries, with a number of box borders, and
-	chestnut alleys trimmed twice in the year. An adjoining field, planted
-	with apple trees, allowed the family to take the air. Nine or ten
-	splendid walnuts grew at the end of the orchard; their massive foliage
-	rose to a height of some eighty feet.
-
-	'Each of those damned walnuts,' M. de Renal would say when his wife
-	admired them, 'costs me half an acre of crop; the corn will not grow
-	in their shade.'
-
-	The rustic scene appeared to come as a novelty to Madame de Renal; her
-	admiration knew no bounds. The feeling that animated her gave her a
-	new spirit and determination. On the second day after their removal to
-	Vergy, M. de Renal having returned to town upon some official
-	business, his wife engaged labourers at her own expense. Julien had
-	given her the idea of a little gravelled path, which should run round
-	the orchard and beneath the big walnuts, and would allow the children
-	to walk there in the early morning without wetting their shoes in the
-	dew. This plan was put into execution within twenty-four hours of its
-	conception. Madame de Renal spent a long and happy day with Julieu
-	supervising the labourers.
-
-	When the Mayor of Verrieres returned from the town, he was greatly
-	surprised to find the path finished. His coming surprised Madame de
-	Renal also; she had forgotten that he existed. For the next two
-	months, he continued to speak with annoyance of their presumption in
-	having carried out, without consulting him, so important a repair, but
-	Madame de Renal had done it at her own expense, and this to some
-	extent consoled him.
-
-	She spent her days running about the orchard with her children, and
-	chasing butterflies. They had made a number of large nets of
-	light-coloured gauze, with which they caught the unfortunate
-	lepidoptera. This was the outlandish name which Julien taught Madame
-	de Renal. For she had sent to Besancon for the handsome work on the
-	subject by M. Godart; and Julien read to her the strange habits of
-	these insects.
-
-	They fastened them, without compunction, with pins upon a large sheet
-	of pasteboard, also prepared by Julien.
-
-	At last Madame de Renal and Julien had a subject for conversation; he
-	was no longer exposed to the frightful torture inflicted on him by
-	intervals of silence.
-
-	They conversed incessantly, and with extreme interest, although always
-	of the most innocent things. This life, active, occupied and cheerful,
-	suited everyone, except Miss Elisa, who found herself worked to death.
-	'Even at carnival-time,' she said, 'when there is a ball at Verrieres,
-	Madame has never taken so much trouble over her dress; she changes her
-	clothes two or three times a day.'
-
-	As it is our intention to flatter no one, we shall not conceal the
-	fact that Madame de Renal, who had a superb skin, had dresses made for
-	her which exposed her arms and bosom freely. She was very well made,
-	and this way of dressing suited her to perfection.
-
-	'You have never _been so young_, Ma'am,' her friends from Verrieres used
-	to tell her when they came to dine at Vergy. (It is a local form of
-	speech.)
-
-	A curious point, which our readers will scarcely believe, was that
-	Madame de Renal had no deliberate intention in taking such pains with
-	her appearance. She enjoyed doing so; and, without giving the matter
-	any particular thought, whenever she was not chasing butterflies with
-	the children and Julien, she was engaged with Elisa making dresses.
-	Her one expedition to Verrieres was due to a desire to purchase new
-	summer clothes which had just arrived there from Mulhouse.
-
-	She brought back with her to Vergy a young woman, one of her cousins.
-	Since her marriage, Madame de Renal had gradually formed an intimate
-	friendship with Madame Derville, who in their younger days had been
-	her school-fellow at the Sacre-Coeur.
-
-	Madame Derville laughed heartily at what she called her cousin's
-	absurd ideas. 'If I were alone, they would never occur to me,' she
-	used to say. These sudden ideas, which in Paris would have been
-	called sallies, made Madame de Renal feel ashamed, as of something
-	foolish, when she was with her husband; but Madame Derville's presence
-	gave her courage. She began by telling her what she was thinking in a
-	timid voice; when the ladies were by themselves for any length of
-	time, Madame de Renal would become animated, and a long, undisturbed
-	morning passed in a flash and left the friends quite merry. On this
-	visit, the sensible Madame Derville found her cousin much less merry
-	and much happier.
-
-	Julien, meanwhile, had been living the life of a child since he had
-	come to the country, as happy to be running after butterflies as were
-	his pupils. After so much constraint and skilful diplomacy, alone,
-	unobserved by his fellow-men, and, instinctively, feeling not in the
-	least afraid of Madame de Renal, he gave himself up to the pleasure of
-	being alive, so keen at his age, and in the midst of the fairest
-	mountains in the world.
-
-	As soon as Madame Derville arrived, Julien felt that she was his
-	friend; he hastened to show her the view that was to be seen from the
-	end of the new path; as a matter of fact it was equal, if not superior
-	to the most admirable scenery which Switzerland and the Italian lakes
-	have to offer. By climbing the steep slope which began a few yards
-	farther on, one came presently to high precipices fringed with
-	oakwoods, which projected almost over the bed of the river. It was to
-	the summits of these sheer rocks that Julien, happy, free, and indeed
-	something more, lord of the house, led the two friends, and relished
-	their admiration of those sublime prospects.
-
-	'To me it is like Mozart's music,' said Madame Derville.
-
-	His brothers' jealousy, the presence of a despotic and ill-tempered
-	father had spoiled the country round Verrieres in Julien's eyes. At
-	Vergy, he found no trace of these unpleasant memories; for the first
-	time in his life, he could see no one that was his enemy. When M. de
-	Renal was in town, as frequently happened, he ventured to read; soon,
-	instead of reading at night, and then taking care, moreover, to shade
-	his lamp with an inverted flower-pot, he could take his full measure
-	of sleep; during the day, in the interval between the children's
-	lessons, he climbed up among these rocks with the book that was his
-	sole rule of conduct, and the sole object of his transports. He found
-	in it at once happiness, ecstasy and consolation in moments of
-	depression.
-
-	Certain things which Napoleon says of women, various discussions of
-	the merits of the novels in vogue during his reign, furnished him
-	now, for the first time, with several ideas which would long since
-	have been familiar to any other young man of his age.
-
-	The hot weather came. They formed the habit of spending the evening
-	under a huge lime a few yards from the house. There the darkness was
-	intense. One evening, Julien was talking with emphasis, he was
-	revelling in the pleasure of talking well and to young married women;
-	as he gesticulated, he touched the hand of Madame de Renal, who was
-	leaning on the back of one of those chairs of painted wood that are
-	placed in gardens.
-
-	The hand was hurriedly withdrawn; but Julien decided that it was his
-	_duty_ to secure that the hand should not be withdrawn when he touched
-	it. The idea of a duty to be performed, and of making himself
-	ridiculous, or rather being left with a sense of inferiority if he did
-	not succeed in performing it, at once took all the pleasure from his
-	heart.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 9
-	An Evening in the Country
-
-
-	M. Guerin's Dido, a charming sketch!
-	STROMBECK
-
-	When he saw Madame de Renal again, the next morning, there was a
-	strange look in his eyes; he watched her like an enemy with whom he
-	would presently be engaged. This expression, so different from his
-	expression overnight, made Madame de Renal lose her head; she had been
-	kind to him, and he appeared vexed. She could not take her eyes from
-	his.
-
-	Madame Derville's presence excused Julien from his share of the
-	conversation, and enabled him to concentrate his attention upon what
-	he had in mind. His sole occupation, throughout the day, was that of
-	fortifying himself by reading the inspired text which refreshed his
-	soul.
-
-	He greatly curtailed the children's lessons, and when, later on, the
-	presence of Madame de Renal recalled him to the service of his own
-	vanity, decided that it was absolutely essential that this evening she
-	should allow her hand to remain in his.
-
-	The sun as it set and so brought nearer the decisive moment made
-	Julien's heart beat with a strange excitement. Night fell. He
-	observed, with a joy that lifted a huge weight from his breast, that
-	it was very dark. A sky packed with big clouds, kept in motion by a
-	hot breeze, seemed to forebode a tempest. The two women continued
-	strolling until a late hour. Everything that they did this evening
-	seemed strange to Julien. They were enjoying this weather, which, in
-	certain delicate natures, seems to enhance the pleasure of love.
-
-	At last they sat down, Madame de Renal next to Julien, and Madame
-	Derville on the other side of her friend. Preoccupied with the attempt
-	he must shortly make, Julien could think of nothing to say. The
-	conversation languished.
-
-	'Shall I tremble like this and feel as uncomfortable the first time I
-	have to fight a duel?' Julien wondered; for he had too little
-	confidence either in himself or in others not to observe the state he
-	was in.
-
-	In this agonising uncertainty, any danger would have seemed to him
-	preferable. How often did he long to see Madame de Renal called by
-	some duty which would oblige her to return to the house and so leave
-	the garden! The violence of the effort which Julien had to make to
-	control himself was such that his voice was entirely altered;
-	presently Madame de Renal's voice became tremulous also, but Julien
-	never noticed this. The ruthless warfare which his sense of duty was
-	waging with his natural timidity was too exhausting for him to be in a
-	condition to observe anything outside himself. The quarter before ten
-	had sounded from the tower clock, without his having yet ventured on
-	anything. Julien, ashamed of his cowardice, told himself: 'At the
-	precise moment when ten o'clock strikes, I shall carry out the
-	intention which, all day long, I have been promising myself that I
-	would fulfil this evening, or I shall go up to my room and blow my
-	brains out.'
-
-	After a final interval of tension and anxiety, during which the excess
-	of his emotion carried Julien almost out of his senses, the strokes of
-	ten sounded from the clock overhead. Each stroke of that fatal bell
-	stirred an echo in his bosom, causing him almost a physical revulsion.
-
-	Finally, while the air was still throbbing with the last stroke of
-	ten, he put out his hand and took that of Madame de Renal, who at once
-	withdrew it. Julien, without exactly knowing what he was doing,
-	grasped her hand again. Although greatly moved himself, he was struck
-	by the icy coldness of the hand he was clasping; he pressed it with
-	convulsive force; a last attempt was made to remove it from him, but
-	finally the hand was left in his grasp.
-
-	His heart was flooded with joy, not because he loved Madame de Renal,
-	but because a fearful torment was now at an end. So that Madame
-	Derville should not notice anything, he felt himself obliged to speak;
-	his voice, now, was loud and ringing. Madame de Renal's, on the other
-	hand, betrayed such emotion that her friend thought she must be ill
-	and suggested to her that they should go indoors. Julien saw the
-	danger: 'If Madame de Renal returns to the drawing-room, I am going to
-	fall back into the horrible position I have been in all day. I have
-	not held this hand long enough to be able to reckon it as a definite
-	conquest.'
-
-	When Madame Derville repeated her suggestion that they should go into
-	the drawing-room, Julien pressed the hand that lay in his.
-
-	Madame de Renal, who was preparing to rise, resumed her seat, saying
-	in a faint tone:
-
-	'I do, as a matter of fact, feel a little unwell, but the fresh air is
-	doing me good.'
-
-	These words confirmed Julien's happiness, which, at this moment, was
-	extreme: he talked, forgot to dissimulate, appeared the most charming
-	of men to his two hearers. And yet there was still a slight want of
-	courage in this eloquence which had suddenly come to him. He was in a
-	deadly fear lest Madame Derville, exhausted by the wind which was
-	beginning to rise, and heralded the storm, might decide to go in by
-	herself to the drawing-room. Then he would be left alone with Madame
-	de Renal. He had found almost by accident the blind courage which was
-	sufficient for action; but he felt that it lay beyond his power to
-	utter the simplest of words to Madame de Renal. However mild her
-	reproaches might be, he was going to be defeated, and the advantage
-	which he had just gained wiped out.
-
-	Fortunately for him, this evening, his touching and emphatic speeches
-	found favour with Madame Derville, who as a rule found him as awkward
-	as a schoolboy, and by no means amusing. As for Madame de Renal, her
-	hand lying clasped in Julien's, she had no thought of anything; she
-	was allowing herself to live. The hours they spent beneath this huge
-	lime, which, local tradition maintained, had been planted by Charles
-	the Bold, were for her a time of happiness. She listened with rapture
-	to the moaning of the wind in the thick foliage of the lime, and the
-	sound of the first few drops that were beginning to fall upon its
-	lowest leaves. Julien did not notice a detail which would have greatly
-	reassured him; Madame de Renal, who had been obliged to remove her
-	hand from his, on rising to help her cousin to pick up a pot of
-	flowers which the wind had overturned at their feet, had no sooner sat
-	down again than she gave him back her hand almost without difficulty,
-	and as though it had been an understood thing between them.
-
-	Midnight had long since struck; at length it was time to leave the
-	garden: the party broke up. Madame de Renal, transported by the joy of
-	being in love, was so ignorant that she hardly reproached herself at
-	all. Happiness robbed her of sleep. A sleep like lead carried off
-	Julien, utterly worn out by the battle that had been raging all day in
-	his heart between timidity and pride.
-
-	Next morning he was called at five o'clock; and (what would have been
-	a cruel blow to Madame de Renal had she known of it) he barely gave
-	her a thought. He had done _his duty, and a heroic duty_. Filled with
-	joy by this sentiment, he turned the key in the door of his bedroom
-	and gave himself up with an entirely new pleasure to reading about the
-	exploits of his hero.
-
-	When the luncheon bell sounded, he had forgotten, in reading the
-	reports of the Grand Army, all the advantages he had won overnight. He
-	said to himself, in a careless tone, as he went down to the
-	drawing-room: 'I must tell this woman that I love her.'
-
-	Instead of that gaze charged with passion which he expected to meet,
-	he found the stern face of M. de Renal, who, having arrived a couple
-	of hours earlier from Verrieres, did not conceal his displeasure on
-	finding that Julien was wasting the whole morning without attending to
-	the children. No sight could have been so unprepossessing as that of
-	this self-important man, conscious of a grievance and confident of his
-	right to let it be seen.
-
-	Each of her husband's harsh words pierced Madame de Renal to the
-	heart. As for Julien, he was so plunged in ecstasy, still so absorbed
-	in the great events which for the last few hours had been happening
-	before his eyes, that at first he could barely lower the pitch of his
-	attention to listen to the stern voice of M. de Renal. At length he
-	answered him, sharply enough:
-
-	'I was unwell.'
-
-	The tone of this reply would have stung a man far less susceptible
-	than the Mayor of Verrieres; it occurred to him to reply to Julien
-	with an immediate dismissal. He was restrained only by the maxim which
-	he had laid down for himself, never to be too hasty in business
-	matters.
-
-	'This young fool,' he soon reminded himself, 'has made himself a sort
-	of reputation in my house; Valenod may take him on, or else he will
-	marry Elisa, and, in either case, he can afford to laugh at me in his
-	heart.'
-
-	Despite the wisdom of these reflections, M. de Renal's displeasure
-	found an outlet nevertheless in a succession of coarse utterances
-	which succeeded in irritating Julien. Madame de Renal was on the point
-	of subsiding in tears. As soon as the meal was ended, she asked
-	Julien to give her his arm for their walk; she leaned upon it in a
-	friendly way. To all that Madame de Renal said to him, Julien could
-	only murmur in reply:
-
-	'This is what rich people are like!'
-
-	M. de Renal kept close beside them; his presence increased Julien's
-	anger. He noticed suddenly that Madame de Renal was leaning upon his
-	arm in a marked manner; this action horrified him, he repulsed her
-	violently, freeing his arm from hers.
-
-	Fortunately M. de Renal saw nothing of this fresh impertinence; it was
-	noticed only by Madame Derville; her friend burst into tears. At this
-	moment M. de Renal began flinging stones at a little peasant girl who
-	was trespassing by taking a short cut across a corner of the orchard.
-
-	'Monsieur Julien, kindly control yourself, remember that we are all of
-	us liable to moments of ill temper,' Madame Derville said hastily.
-
-	Julien looked at her coldly with eyes in which the loftiest contempt
-	was portrayed.
-
-	This look astonished Madame Derville, and would have surprised her far
-	more could she have guessed its full meaning; she would have read in
-	it a vague hope of the most terrible revenge. It is doubtless to such
-	moments of humiliation that we owe men like Robespierre.
-
-	'Your Julien is very violent, he frightens me,' Madame Derville
-	murmured to her friend.
-
-	'He has every reason to be angry,' the other replied. 'After the
-	astonishing progress the children have made with him, what does it
-	matter if he spends a morning without speaking to them? You must admit
-	that gentlemen are very hard.'
-
-	For the first time in her life, Madame de Renal felt a sort of desire
-	to be avenged on her husband. The intense hatred that animated Julien
-	against rich people was about to break forth. Fortunately M. de Renal
-	called for his gardener, with whom for the rest of the time he busied
-	himself in stopping up with faggots of thorn the short cut that had
-	been made across the orchard. Julien did not utter a single word in
-	reply to the attentions that were shown him throughout the remainder
-	of the walk. As soon as M. de Renal had left them, the two ladies, on
-	the plea that they were tired, had asked him each for an arm.
-
-	As he walked between these women whose cheeks were flushed with the
-	embarrassment of an intense discomfort, Julien's sombre and decided
-	air formed a striking contrast. He despised these women, and all
-	tender feelings.
-
-	'What!' he said to himself, 'not even an allowance of five hundred
-	francs to complete my studies! Ah! How I should send her packing!'
-
-	Absorbed in these drastic thoughts, the little that he deigned to take
-	in of the polite speeches of the two ladies displeased him as being
-	devoid of meaning, silly, feeble, in a word _feminine_.
-
-	By dint of talking for talking's sake, and of trying to keep the
-	conversation alive, Madame de Renal found herself saying that her
-	husband had come from Verrieres because he had made a bargain, for the
-	purchase of maize straw, with one of his farmers. (In this district
-	maize straw is used to stuff the palliasses of the beds.)
-
-	'My husband will not be joining us again,' Madame de Renal went on:
-	'he will be busy with the gardener and his valet changing the straw in
-	all the palliasses in the house. This morning he put fresh straw on
-	all the beds on the first floor, now he is at work on the second.'
-
-	Julien changed colour; he looked at Madame de Renal in an odd manner,
-	and presently drew her apart, so to speak, by increasing his pace.
-	Madame Derville allowed them to move away from her.
-
-	'Save my life,' said Julien to Madame de Renal, 'you alone can do it;
-	for you know that the valet hates me like poison. I must confess to
-	you, Ma'am, that I have a portrait; I have hidden it in the palliasse
-	on my bed.'
-
-	At these words, Madame de Renal in turn grew pale.
-
-	'You alone, Ma'am, can go into my room at this moment; feel, without
-	letting yourself be observed, in the corner of the palliasse nearest
-	to the window; you will find there a small box of shiny black
-	pasteboard.'
-
-	'It contains a portrait?' said Madame de Renal, barely able to stand.
-
-	Her air of disappointment was noticed by Julien, who at once took
-	advantage of it.
-
-	'I have a second favour to ask of you, Ma'am; I beg you not to look at
-	the portrait, it is my secret.'
-
-	'It is a secret!' repeated Madame de Renal, in faint accents.
-
-	But, albeit she had been reared among people proud of their wealth,
-	and sensible of pecuniary interests alone, love had already instilled
-	some generosity into her heart. Though cruelly wounded, it was with an
-	air of the simplest devotion that Madame de Renal put to Julien the
-	questions necessary to enable her to execute his commission properly.
-
-	'And so,' she said, as she left him, 'it is a little round box, of
-	black pasteboard, and very shiny.'
-
-	'Yes, Ma'am,' replied Julien in that hard tone which danger gives a
-	man.
-
-	She mounted to the second floor of the house, as pale as though she
-	were going to her death. To complete her misery she felt that she was
-	on the point of fainting, but the necessity of doing Julien a service
-	restored her strength.
-
-	'I must have that box,' she said to herself as she quickened her pace.
-
-	She could hear her husband talking to the valet, actually in Julien's
-	room. Fortunately they moved into the room in which the children
-	slept. She lifted the mattress and plunged her hand into the straw
-	with such force as to scratch her fingers. But, although extremely
-	sensitive to slight injuries of this sort, she was now quite
-	unconscious of the pain, for almost immediately she felt the polished
-	surface of the pasteboard box. She seized it and fled.
-
-	No sooner was she rid of the fear of being surprised by her husband,
-	than the horror inspired in her by this box made her feel that in
-	another minute she must unquestionably faint.
-
-	'So Julien is in love, and I have here the portrait of the woman he
-	loves.'
-
-	Seated on a chair in the sitting-room of this apartment, Madame de
-	Renal fell a prey to all the horrors of jealousy. Her extreme
-	ignorance was of service to her again at this moment; astonishment
-	tempered her grief. Julien appeared, snatched the box, without
-	thanking her, without saying a word, and ran into his bedroom, where
-	he struck a light and immediately destroyed it. He was pale,
-	speechless; he exaggerated to himself the risk he had been running.
-
-
-	'The portrait of Napoleon,' he said to himself with a toss of the
-	head, 'found hidden in the room of a man who professes such hatred for
-	the usurper! Found by M. de Renal, so _ultra_ and so angry! and, to
-	complete the imprudence, on the white card at the back of the
-	portrait, lines in my writing! And lines that can leave no doubt as to
-	the warmth of my admiration! And each of those transports of love is
-	dated! There was one only two days ago!
-
-	'All my reputation brought down, destroyed in a moment!' Julien said
-	to himself as he watched the box burn, 'and my reputation is all I
-	have, I live by it alone ... and what a life at that, great God!'
-
-	An hour later, his exhaustion and the pity he felt for himself
-	disposed him to feel affection. He met Madame de Renal and took her
-	hand which he kissed with more sincerity than he had ever yet shown.
-	She coloured with delight, and almost simultaneously repulsed Julien
-	with the anger of a jealous woman. Julien's pride, so recently
-	wounded, made a fool of him at that moment. He saw in Madame de Renal
-	only a rich woman, he let fall her hand with contempt, and strode
-	away. He went out and walked pensively in the garden; presently a
-	bitter smile appeared on his lips.
-
-	'Here I am walking about as calm as a man who is his own master! I am
-	not looking after the children! I am exposing myself to the
-	humiliating remarks of M. de Renal, and he will be justified.' He
-	hastened to the children's room.
-
-	The caresses of the youngest boy, to whom he was greatly attached, did
-	something to soothe his agonising pain.
-
-	'This one does not despise me yet,' thought Julien. But presently he
-	blamed himself for this relief from pain, as for a fresh weakness.
-	These children fondle me as they might fondle the puppy that was
-	bought yesterday.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 1O
-	A Large Heart and a Small Fortune
-
-	But passion most dissembles, yet betrays,
-	Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky
-	Foretells the heaviest tempest.
-	_Don Juan_, I. 73
-
-	M. de Renal, who was visiting every room in the house, reappeared in
-	the children's room with the servants who brought back the palliasses
-	refilled. The sudden entry of this man was the last straw to Julien.
-
-	Paler, more sombre than usual, he advanced towards him. M. de Renal
-	stood still and looked at his servants.
-
-	'Sir,' Julien began, 'do you suppose that with any other tutor your
-	children would have made the same progress that they have made with
-	me? If your answer is no,' he went on without giving M. de Renal time
-	to speak, 'how dare you presume to reproach me with neglecting them?'
-
-	M. de Renal, who had barely recovered from his alarm, concluded from
-	the strange tone which he saw this young peasant adopt that he had in
-	his pocket some more attractive offer and was going to leave him.
-	Julien's anger increasing as he spoke:
-
-	'I can live without you, Sir,' he concluded.
-
-	'I am extremely sorry to see you so agitated,' replied M. de Renal,
-	stammering a little. The servants were a few feet away, and were
-	occupied in making the beds.
-
-	'That is not enough for me, Sir,' Julien went on, beside himself with
-	rage; 'think of the abominable things you said to me, and in the
-	presence of ladies, too!'
-
-	M. de Renal was only too well aware of what Julien was asking, and
-	conflicting passions did battle in his heart. It so happened that
-	Julien, now really mad with rage, exclaimed: 'I know where to go, Sir,
-	when I leave your house.'
-
-	On hearing these words, M. de Renal had a vision of Julien established
-	in M. Valenod's household.
-
-	'Very well, Sir,' he said at length with a sigh, and the air of a man
-	calling in a surgeon to perform the most painful operation, 'I agree
-	to your request. From the day after tomorrow, which is the first of
-	the month, I shall give you fifty francs monthly.'
-
-	Julien wanted to laugh and remained speechless: his anger had
-	completely vanished.
-
-	'I did not despise the animal enough,' he said to himself. 'This, no
-	doubt, is the most ample apology so base a nature is capable of
-	making.'
-
-	The children, who had listened to this scene open-mouthed, ran to the
-	garden to tell their mother that M. Julien was in a great rage, but
-	that he was to have fifty francs a month.
-
-	Julien went after them from force of habit, without so much as a
-	glance at M. de Renal, whom he left in a state of intense annoyance.
-
-	'That's a hundred and sixty-eight francs,' the Mayor said to himself,
-	'that M. Valenod has cost me. I must really say a few firm words to
-	him about his contract to supply the foundlings.'
-
-	A moment later, Julien again stood before him.
-
-	'I have a matter of conscience to discuss with M. Chelan. I have the
-	honour to inform you that I shall be absent for some hours.'
-
-	'Ah, my dear Julien,' said M. de Renal, laughing in the most insincere
-	manner, 'the whole day, if you wish, the whole of tomorrow, my worthy
-	friend. Take the gardener's horse to go to Verrieres.'
-
-	'There,' M. de Renal said to himself, 'he's going with an answer to
-	Valenod; he's given me no promise, but we must let the young hothead
-	cool down.'
-
-	Julien made a speedy escape and climbed up among the big woods through
-	which one can go from Vergy to Verrieres. He was in no hurry to reach
-	M. Chelan's. So far from desiring to involve himself in a fresh
-	display of hypocrisy, he needed time to see clearly into his own
-	heart, and to give audience to the swarm of conflicting feelings that
-	disturbed it.
-
-	'I have won a battle,' he said to himself as soon as he found himself
-	in the shelter of the woods and out of sight of anyone, 'I have really
-	won a battle!'
-
-	The last word painted his whole position for him in glowing colours,
-	and restored some degree of tranquillity to his heart.
-
-	'Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month; M. de Renal must be
-	in a fine fright. But of what?'
-
-	His meditation as to what could have frightened the prosperous and
-	powerful man against whom, an hour earlier, he had been seething with
-	rage completely restored Julien's serenity. He was almost conscious,
-	for a moment, of the exquisite beauty of the woods through which he
-	was walking. Enormous fragments of bare rock had in times past fallen
-	into the heart of the forest from the side of the mountain. Tall
-	beeches rose almost as high as these rocks whose shadow provided a
-	delicious coolness within a few yards of places where the heat of the
-	sun's rays would have made it impossible to stop.
-
-	Julien paused for a breathing-space in the shadow of these great
-	rocks, then went on climbing. Presently, by following a narrow path,
-	barely visible and used only by goatherds, he found himself standing
-	upon an immense rock, where he could be certain of his complete
-	isolation from his fellow-men. This natural position made him smile,
-	it suggested to him the position to which he was burning to attain in
-	the moral sphere. The pure air of these lofty mountains breathed
-	serenity and even joy into his soul. The Mayor of Verrieres might
-	still, in his eyes, be typical of all the rich and insolent denizens
-	of the earth, but Julien felt that the hatred which had convulsed him
-	that afternoon contained, notwithstanding its violence, no element of
-	personal ill-feeling. Should he cease to see M. de Renal, within a
-	week he would have forgotten him, the man himself, his house, his
-	dogs, his children and all that was his. 'I have forced him, I do not
-	know how, to make the greatest of sacrifices. What, more than fifty
-	crowns a year? A moment earlier I had just escaped from the greatest
-	danger. That makes two victories in one day; the second contains no
-	merit, I must try to discover the reason. But we can leave such
-	arduous research for tomorrow.'
-
-	Julien, erect upon his mighty rock, gazed at the sky, kindled to flame
-	by an August sun. The grasshoppers were chirping in the patch of
-	meadow beneath the rock; when they ceased everything around him was
-	silence. Twenty leagues of country lay at his feet. From time to time
-	a hawk, risen from the bare cliffs above his head, caught his eye as
-	it wheeled silently in its vast circles. Julien's eye followed
-	mechanically the bird of prey. Its calm, powerful motion impressed
-	him, he envied such strength, he envied such isolation.
-
-	It was the destiny of Napoleon, was it one day to be his own?
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 11
-	Night Thoughts
-
-
-	Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,
-	And tremulously gentle her small hand
-	Withdrew itself from his, but left behind
-	A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland
-	And slight, so very slight, that to the mind
-	Twas but a doubt.
-	_Don Juan_, I. 71
-
-	He must, however, let himself be seen at Verrieres. As he left the
-	Presbytery the first person he met was, by a happy chance, M. Valenod,
-	whom he hastened to inform of the increase in his salary.
-
-	On his return to Vergy, Julien did not go down to the garden until
-	night had set in. His heart was worn out by the multitude of powerful
-	emotions that had assailed it in the course of the day. 'What shall I
-	say to them?' he asked himself anxiously, thinking of the ladies. It
-	never occurred to him that his spirits were precisely at the level of
-	the trivial happenings that as a rule occupy the whole interest of
-	women. Often Julien was unintelligible to Madame Derville, and even to
-	her friend, while he in turn only half understood all that they were
-	saying to him. Such was the effect of the force, and, if I may use the
-	word, of the magnitude of the waves of passion on which the heart of
-	this ambitious youth was being tossed. In this strange creature almost
-	every day was one of storm.
-
-	When he went into the garden that evening, Julien was ready to listen
-	with interest to the thoughts of the fair cousins. They awaited his
-	coming with impatience. He took his accustomed seat, by Madame de
-	Renal's side. The darkness soon became intense. He attempted to clasp
-	a white hand which for some time he had seen close beside him, resting
-	on the back of a chair. There was some hesitation shown, but finally
-	the hand was withdrawn from him in a manner which betokened
-	displeasure. Julien was prepared to regard this as final, and to
-	continue the conversation in a light tone, when he heard M. de Renal
-	approach.
-
-	The rude words of the morning still rang in Julien's ears. 'Would it
-	not,' he said to himself, 'be a good way of scoring off this creature,
-	so lavishly endowed with every material advantage, to take possession
-	of his wife's hand under his very eyes? Yes, I will do it, I, for whom
-	he has shown such contempt.'
-
-	>From that moment peace of mind, so ill assorted to Julien's character,
-	speedily vanished; he desired most anxiously, and without being able
-	to fix his mind on anything else, that Madame de Renal might consent
-	to let him hold her hand.
-
-	M. de Renal talked politics in an angry tone: two or three
-	manufacturers at Verrieres were becoming decidedly richer than
-	himself, and wished to oppose him at the elections. Madame Derville
-	listened to him. Julien, irritated by this talk, moved his chair
-	nearer to Madame de Renal's. The darkness hid every movement. He
-	ventured to place his hand close to the pretty arm which her gown left
-	bare. Troubled, no longer conscious of what he was doing, he moved his
-	cheek in the direction of this pretty arm, and made bold to press his
-	lips to it.
-
-	Madame de Renal shuddered. Her husband was a few feet away, she
-	hastened to give Julien her hand, at the same time thrusting him
-	slightly from her. While M. de Renal continued his abuse of the
-	good-for-nothings and Jacobins who were making fortunes, Julien
-	covered the hand which had been left in his with passionate kisses, or
-	so at least they seemed to Madame de Renal. And yet the poor woman
-	had been furnished with proof, on this fatal day, that the heart of
-	the man whom she adored without confessing it was pledged elsewhere!
-	Throughout the hours of Julien's absence, she had been a prey to the
-	most abject misery, which had made her think.
-
-	'What,' she said to herself, 'am I to love, to have love offered to
-	me? Am I, a married woman, to fall in love? But,' she reminded
-	herself, 'I have never felt that dark passion for my husband, and so I
-	cannot tear my mind from Julien. At heart he is only a boy filled with
-	respect for me! This folly will pass. How can it concern my husband
-	what feelings I may entertain for this young man? M. de Renal would be
-	bored by the talks I have with Julien, about things of the
-	imagination. He himself thinks only about his business. I am taking
-	nothing from him to give to Julien.'
-
-	No trace of hypocrisy came to sully the purity of this simple soul,
-	carried away by a passion such as she had never felt. She was
-	deceived, but quite unawares, and at the same time a virtuous instinct
-	had taken alarm. Such were the conflicts that were agitating her when
-	Julien appeared in the garden. She heard his voice, almost at the same
-	moment she saw him sit down by her side. Her heart was so to speak
-	carried away by this charming happiness which for the last fortnight
-	had astonished even more than it had bewitched her. Everything was
-	unexpected to her. And yet after a few moments: 'So Julien's presence
-	is enough,' she said to herself, 'to wipe out all memory of his
-	misconduct?' She took fright; then it was that she withdrew her hand
-	from his.
-
-	His kisses, filled with passion and such as she had never yet
-	received, made her at once forget the possibility of his loving
-	another woman. Soon he was no longer guilty in her eyes. The cessation
-	of her poignant grief, born of suspicion, the presence of a happiness
-	of which she had never even dreamed, plunged her in transports of
-	affection and wild gaiety. That evening was delightful for them all,
-	except for the Mayor of Verrieres, who could not forget the growing
-	wealth of his competitors. Julien no longer thought of his dark
-	ambition, nor of his plans that would be so difficult of execution.
-	For the first time in his life, he was carried away by the power of
-	beauty. Lost in a vague and pleasant dream, so foreign to his nature,
-	gently pressing that hand which pleased him as an example of perfect
-	beauty, he gave a divided attention to the rustle of the leaves of the
-	lime, stirred by the gentle night breeze, and to the dogs at the mill
-	by the Doubs, barking in the distance.
-
-	But this emotion was a pleasure and not a passion. On returning to his
-	room he thought of one happiness only, that of going on with his
-	favourite book; at twenty, the thought of the world and of the
-	impression one is going to make on it, prevails over everything else.
-
-	Presently, however, he put down the book. By dint of dreaming of
-	Napoleon's victories, he had discerned a new element in his own. 'Yes,
-	I have won a battle,' he told himself, 'but I must follow it up, I
-	must crush the arrogance of this proud gentleman while he is still
-	retreating. That is Napoleon out and out. I must ask him for three
-	days' holiday, to go and see my friend Fouque. If he refuses, I again
-	offer to break the agreement; but he will give way.'
-
-	Madame de Renal could not close an eye. She felt that she had never
-	lived until that moment. She could not tear her mind from the
-	happiness of feeling Julien cover her hand with burning kisses.
-
-	Suddenly the horrid word _adultery_ occurred to her. All the most
-	disgusting implications that the vilest debauchery can impart to the
-	idea of sensual love came crowding into her imagination. These ideas
-	sought to tarnish the tender and godlike image that she had made for
-	herself of Julien and of the pleasure of loving him. The future
-	portrayed itself in terrible colours. She saw herself an object of
-	scorn.
-
-	It was a frightful moment; her soul journeyed into strange lands. That
-	evening she had tasted an unknown happiness; now she suddenly found
-	herself plunged in appalling misery. She had no conception of such
-	sufferings; they began to affect her reason. The thought occurred to
-	her for a moment of confessing to her husband that she was afraid of
-	falling in love with Julien. It would have allowed her to speak of
-	him. Fortunately she recalled a piece of advice given her long ago by
-	her aunt, on the eve of her marriage. It warned her of the danger of
-	confiding in a husband, who is after all a master. In the intensity of
-	her grief she wrung her hands.
-
-	She was carried away indiscriminately by conflicting and painful
-	imaginings. At one moment she was afraid of not being loved in return,
-	at another the fearful thought of the crime tortured her as though on
-	the morrow she would have to be exposed in the pillory, on the public
-	square of Verrieres, with a placard proclaiming her adultery to the
-	populace.
-
-	Madame de Renal was without any experience of life; even when wide
-	awake and in the full exercise of her reason, she would have seen no
-	distinction between being guilty in the sight of God and finding
-	herself publicly greeted with all the most flagrant marks of general
-	opprobrium.
-
-	When the frightful idea of adultery and of all the ignominy which (she
-	supposed) that crime brings in its train gave her at length a respite,
-	and she began to dream of the delight of living with Julien
-	innocently, as in the past, she found herself swept away by the
-	horrible thought that Julien was in love with another woman. She saw
-	once again his pallor when he was afraid of losing her portrait, or of
-	compromising her by letting it be seen. For the first time, she had
-	surprised signs of fear on that calm and noble countenance. Never had
-	he shown himself in such a state for her or for her children. This
-	additional grief carried her to the utmost intensity of anguish which
-	the human soul is able to endure. Unconsciously, Madame de Renal
-	uttered cries which roused her maid. Suddenly she saw appear by her
-	bedside the light of a lamp, and recognised Elisa.
-
-	'Is it you that he loves?' she cried in her frenzy.
-
-	The maid, amazed at the fearful distress in which she found her
-	mistress, paid no attention fortunately to this singular utterance.
-	Madame de Renal realised her own imprudence: 'I am feverish,' she told
-	her, 'and I think, a little light-headed; stay beside me.'
-
-	Thoroughly awakened by the necessity of controlling herself, she felt
-	less wretched; reason resumed the sway of which her state of
-	drowsiness had deprived it. To escape from the fixed stare of her
-	maid, she ordered her to read the newspaper aloud, and it was to the
-	monotonous sound of the girl's voice, reading a long article from the
-	_Quotidienne_, that Madame de Renal formed the virtuous resolution to
-	treat Julien with absolute coldness when next she saw him.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 12
-	A Journey
-
-
-	In Paris you find elegant people, there may be people with character
-	in the provinces.
-	SIEYES
-
-	Next morning, at five o'clock, before Madame de Renal was visible,
-	Julien had obtained from her husband three days' leave of absence.
-	Contrary to his expectation, Julien found himself longing to see her
-	again, and could think of nothing but that shapely hand. He went down
-	to the garden, Madame de Renal was long in coming. But if Julien had
-	been in love with her he would have seen her, behind her half-closed
-	shutters on the first floor, her face pressed to the glass. She was
-	watching him. At length, in spite of her resolutions, she decided to
-	show herself in the garden. Her customary pallor had given place to
-	the most glowing colour. This simple-minded woman was evidently
-	agitated: a feeling of constraint and even of resentment marred that
-	expression of profound serenity, as though raised above all the common
-	interests of life, which gave such charm to that heavenly face.
-
-	Julien lost no time in joining her; he admired those fine arms which a
-	shawl flung in haste across her shoulders left visible. The coolness
-	of the morning air seemed to increase the brilliance of a complexion
-	which the agitation of the past night made all the more sensible to
-	every impression. This beauty, modest and touching, and yet full of
-	thoughts which are nowhere to be found among the lower orders, seemed
-	to reveal to Julien an aspect of her nature of which he had never yet
-	been aware. Wholly absorbed in admiration of the charms which his
-	greedy eye surprised, Julien was not thinking of the friendly greeting
-	which he might expect to receive. He was all the more astonished by
-	the icy coldness that was shown him, beneath which he even thought he
-	could make out a deliberate intention to put him in his place.
-
-	The smile of pleasure faded from his lips; he remembered the rank that
-	he occupied in society, especially in the eyes of a noble and wealthy
-	heiress. In a moment, his features showed nothing but pride and anger
-	with himself. He felt a violent disgust at having been so foolish as
-	to postpone his departure by more than an hour, only to receive so
-	humiliating a greeting.
-
-	'Only a fool,' he told himself, 'loses his temper with other people: a
-	stone falls because it is heavy. Am I always to remain a boy? When am
-	I going to form the good habit of giving these people their exact
-	money's worth and no more of my heart and soul? If I wish to be
-	esteemed by them and by myself, I must show them that it is my poverty
-	that deals with their wealth, but that my heart is a thousand leagues
-	away from their insolence, and is placed in too exalted a sphere to be
-	reached by their petty marks of contempt or favour.'
-
-	While these sentiments came crowding into the young tutor's mind, his
-	features assumed an expression of injured pride and ferocity. Madame
-	de Renal was greatly distressed by this. The virtuous coldness which
-	she had meant to impart to her greeting gave way to an expression of
-	interest, and of an interest animated by the surprise of the sudden
-	change which she had just beheld in him. The flow of idle words that
-	people exchange in the morning with regard to one another's health, to
-	the beauty of the day, and so forth, dried up at once in them both.
-	Julien, whose judgment was not disturbed by any passion, soon found a
-	way of letting Madame de Renal see how little he regarded himself as
-	being on terms of friendship with her; he said nothing to her of the
-	little expedition on which he was starting, bowed to her, and set off.
-
-	As she watched him go, overwhelmed by the sombre pride which she read
-	in that glance, so friendly the evening before, her eldest son, who
-	came running up from the other end of the garden, said to her as he
-	embraced her:
-
-	'We have a holiday, M. Julien is going on a journey.'
-
-	At these words Madame de Renal felt herself frozen by a deadly chill;
-	she was unhappy in her virtue, and more unhappy still in her weakness.
-
-	This latest development now occupied the whole of her imagination; she
-	was carried far beyond the wise resolutions which were the fruit of
-	the terrible night she had passed. It was a question no longer of
-	resisting this charming lover, but of losing him for ever.
-
-	She was obliged to take her place at table. To add to her misery, M.
-	de Renal and Madame Derville spoke of nothing but Julien's departure.
-	The Mayor of Verrieres had remarked something, unusual in the firm
-	tone with which he had demanded a holiday.
-
-	'The young peasant has doubtless an offer from someone in his pocket.
-	But that someone, even if it should be M. Valenod, must be a little
-	discouraged by the sum of 600 francs, which he must now be prepared to
-	spend annually. Yesterday, at Verrieres, he will have asked for three
-	days in which to think things over; and this morning, so as not to be
-	obliged to give me an answer, the young gentleman goes off to the
-	mountains. To have to reckon with a wretched workman who puts on airs,
-	that's what we've come to!'
-
-	'Since my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded Julien,
-	thinks he is going to leave us, what am I to suppose?' Madame de Renal
-	asked herself. 'Ah! It is all settled!'
-
-	So as to be able at least to weep in freedom, and without having to
-	answer Madame Derville's questions, she pleaded a splitting headache,
-	and retired to bed.
-
-	'There you have a woman all over,' M. de Renal repeated; 'there's
-	always something wrong with those complicated machines.' And he went
-	on his way jeering.
-
-	While Madame de Renal was at the mercy of the most cruel inflictions
-	of the terrible passion into which accident had led her, Julien was
-	making his way light-heartedly amid the loveliest views that mountain
-	scenery has to offer. He was obliged to pass over the high range to
-	the north of Vergy. The path which he followed, rising gradually amid
-	great beechwoods, forms an endless series of zigzags on the side of
-	the high mountain which bounds the valley of the Doubs on the north.
-	Presently the traveller's gaze, passing over the lower ridges which
-	confine the course of the Doubs on the south, was able to sweep the
-	fertile plains of Burgundy and Beaujolais. Irresponsive as the heart
-	of this ambitious youth might be to this kind of beauty, he could not
-	refrain from stopping now and again to gaze at so vast and so imposing
-	a prospect.
-
-	At length he came to the summit of the high mountain, beneath which he
-	must pass in order to arrive, by this diagonal route, at the lonely
-	valley in which his friend Fouque, the young timber merchant, lived.
-	Julien was in no hurry to see him, or any other human being for that
-	matter. Concealed like a bird of prey, amid the bare rocks which
-	crowned the high mountain, he could see a long way off anyone that
-	might be coming his way. He discovered a small cave in the almost
-	perpendicular face of one of the rocks. He set his course for it, and
-	presently was ensconced in this retreat. 'Here,' he said, his eyes
-	sparkling with joy, 'men can do me no harm.' It occurred to him to
-	indulge in the pleasure of writing down his thoughts, so dangerous to
-	him in any other place. A smooth block of stone served as his table.
-	His pen flew: he saw nothing of the scene round about him. At length
-	he noticed that the sun was setting behind the distant mountains of
-	Beaujolais.
-
-	'Why should I not spend the night here?' he asked himself; 'I have
-	bread, and _I am free_!' At the sound of that great word his heart
-	leaped, his hypocrisy meant that he was not free even with Fouque. His
-	head supported on both his hands, Julien stayed in this cave happier
-	than he had ever been in his life, engrossed in his dreams and in the
-	joy of freedom. Without heeding it he saw fade and die, one after
-	another, the last rays of evening light. In the midst of that vast
-	darkness, his soul wandered in contemplation of what he imagined that
-	he would one day find in Paris. This was first and foremost a woman
-	far more beautiful and of a far higher intelligence than any it had
-	been his lot to see in the country. He loved with passion, he was
-	loved in return. If he tore himself from her for a few moments, it was
-	to cover himself with glory and earn the right to be loved more warmly
-	still.
-
-	Even if we allow him Julien's imagination, a young man brought up
-	among the melancholy truths of Paris would have been aroused at this
-	stage in his romance by the cold touch of irony; the mighty deeds
-	would have vanished with the hope of performing them, to give place to
-	the well-known maxim: 'When a man leaves his mistress, he runs the
-	risk of being betrayed two or three times daily.' The young peasant
-	saw no obstacle between himself and the most heroic actions, save want
-	of opportunity.
-
-	But black night had succeeded the day, and he had still two leagues to
-	cover before coming down to the hamlet in which Fouque lived. Before
-	leaving the little cave, Julien struck a light and carefully destroyed
-	all that he had written.
-
-	He greatly astonished his friend by knocking at his door at one
-	o'clock in the morning. He found Fouque engaged in making up his
-	accounts. He was a young man of tall stature, none too well made, with
-	large, hard features, a huge nose, and plenty of good nature concealed
-	beneath this repellent aspect.
-
-	'You've quarrelled with your M. de Renal, then, that you come here of
-	a sudden like this?'
-
-	Julien related to him, with suitable omissions, the events of the
-	previous evening.
-
-	'Stay with me,' Fouque said to him; 'I see that you know M. de Renal,
-	M. Valenod, the Sub-Prefect Maugiron, the cure Chelan; you have
-	grasped all the subtle points of their natures; you're ripe now to put
-	yourself up for auction. You know arithmetic better than I do, you
-	shall keep my books; I am making a big profit from my business. The
-	impossibility of doing everything by myself and the fear of hitting
-	upon a rogue in the man I might take as my partner prevent me every
-	day from doing the most profitable deals. Not a month ago I put six
-	thousand francs in the pocket of Michaud of Saint-Amand, whom I had
-	not seen for six years, and met quite by chance at the Pontarlier
-	sale. Why should not you have made those six thousand francs yourself,
-	or three thousand at least? For if I had had you with me that day, I
-	should have gone on bidding for that lot of timber, and the other
-	would soon have left me with it. Be my partner.'
-
-	This offer annoyed Julien; it unsettled his erratic mind; throughout
-	supper, which the friends cooked for themselves, like Homeric heroes,
-	for Fouque lived by himself, he showed Julien his books, and proved to
-	him what advantages his trade in timber offered. Fouque had the
-	highest opinion of Julien's intelligence and character.
-
-	When at length the latter found himself alone in his little room
-	walled with planks of firwood, 'It is true,' he said to himself, 'I
-	can make a few thousand francs here, then return with advantage to the
-	calling of soldier or priest, according to the fashion prevailing in
-	France at the time. The little hoard that I shall have amassed will
-	remove all difficulties of detail. Alone on this mountainside, I can
-	do something to dispel my present appalling ignorance of so many of
-	the things that occupy the minds of all these fashionable gentlemen.
-	But Fouque is giving up the thought of marriage, he has told me again
-	and again that solitude is making him melancholy. It is obvious that
-	if he is taking a partner who has no money to put into his business,
-	it is in the hope of providing himself with a companion who will never
-	leave him.
-
-	'Shall I prove false to my friend?' exclaimed Julien angrily. This
-	creature, for whom hypocrisy and the absence of all fellow feeling
-	were the ordinary line of conduct, could not on this occasion bear the
-	thought of the slightest want of delicacy towards a man who loved him.
-
-	But all at once Julien became happy, he had a reason for refusing.
-	'What, I should be idly wasting seven or eight years! I should thus
-	arrive at eight and twenty; but, at that age, Napoleon had already
-	done his greatest deeds! After I have obscurely scraped together a
-	little money by going round all these timber sales, and winning the
-	favour of various minor rascals, who can say whether I shall still
-	preserve the sacred fire with which one makes oneself a name?'
-
-	The following morning, Julien replied with great coolness to the
-	worthy Fouque, who looked upon the matter of their partnership as
-	settled, that his vocation to the sacred ministry of the altar did not
-	allow him to accept. Fouque could not believe his ears.
-
-	'But do you realise,' he kept on saying, 'that I make you my partner,
-	or, if you prefer, give you four thousand francs a year? And you want
-	to go back to your M. de Renal, who despises you like the mud on his
-	shoes! When you have two hundred louis in hand, what is to prevent you
-	from entering the Seminary? I will say more, I undertake to procure
-	for you the best parish in the district. For,' Fouque went on,
-	lowering his voice, 'I supply firewood to the ----, and the ----, and
-	M. ----. I give them the best quality of oak, for which they pay me
-	the price of white wood, but never was money better invested.'
-
-	Nothing could prevail against Julien's vocation. In the end Fouque
-	decided that he must be slightly mad. On the third day, at dawn,
-	Julien left his friend to pass the day among the rocks of the big
-	mountain. He found his little cave again, but he no longer enjoyed
-	peace of mind, his friend's offers had destroyed it. Like Hercules he
-	found himself called upon to choose not between vice and virtue, but
-	between mediocrity ending in an assured comfort and all the heroic
-	dreams of his youth. 'So I have no real firmness of character,' he
-	told himself; and this was the doubt that pained him most. 'I am not
-	of the stuff of which great men are made, since I am afraid that eight
-	years spent in providing myself with bread may rob me of that sublime
-	energy which makes men do extraordinary things.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 13
-	Open-work Stockings
-
-	A novel is a mirror taken along a road.
-	SAINT-REAL
-
-	When Julien caught sight of the picturesque ruins of the old church of
-	Vergy, it occurred to him that for two whole days he had not once
-	thought of Madame de Renal. The other day, as I was leaving, that
-	woman reminded me of the vast gulf that separates us, she treated me
-	like a workman's son. No doubt she wished to show me that she repented
-	of having let me hold her hand the night before ... It is a lovely
-	hand, all the same! What charm, what nobility dwells in that woman's
-	glance!'
-
-	The possibility of making a fortune with Fouque gave a certain
-	facility to the course of Julien's reasoning; it was less often
-	interrupted by irritation, and the keen sense of his own poverty and
-	humble position in the eyes of the world. As though perched on a lofty
-	promontory, he was able to judge, and, so to speak, overlooked extreme
-	poverty on the one hand and that life of comfort which he still called
-	riches on the other. He was far from considering his position like a
-	philosopher, but he had sufficient perception to feel that he was
-	_different_ after this little expedition among the mountains.
-
-	He was struck by the extreme uneasiness with which Madame de Renal
-	listened to the short account of his journey, for which she had asked
-	him.
-
-	Fouque had had thoughts of marriage, unhappy love affairs; the
-	conversation between the friends had been filled with long confidences
-	of this nature. After finding happiness too soon, Fouque had
-	discovered that he was not the sole possessor of his mistress's heart.
-	These disclosures had astonished Julien; he had learned much that was
-	new to him. His solitary life, compounded of imagination and
-	suspicion, had kept him aloof from everything that could have
-	enlightened him.
-
-	During his absence, life had been for Madame de Renal nothing more
-	than a succession of torments, each different but all alike
-	intolerable; she was really ill.
-
-	'You must not, on any account,' Madame Derville told her when she saw
-	Julien return, 'feeling as you do, sit in the garden this evening, the
-	damp air would make you worse.'
-
-	Madame Derville was surprised to see that her friend, who was always
-	being scolded by M. de Renal for the undue simplicity of her attire,
-	had put on open-work stockings and a pair of charming little shoes
-	that had arrived from Paris. For the last three days Madame de Renal's
-	sole distraction had been to cut out and make Elisa put together in
-	all haste a summer gown, of a charming little fabric greatly in
-	fashion. It was just possible to finish this gown a few minutes after
-	Julien's arrival; Madame de Renal at once put it on. Her friend had no
-	longer any doubt.
-
-	'She is in love, poor woman!' Madame Derville said to herself. She
-	understood all the strange symptoms of her illness.
-
-	She saw her speak to Julien. Pallor took the place of the most vivid
-	blushes. Anxiety stood revealed in her eyes, fastened on those of the
-	young tutor. Madame de Renal expected every moment that he was going
-	to offer an explanation, and announce that he was leaving the house,
-	or would remain. It never occurred to Julien to say anything about
-	this subject, which had not entered his thoughts. After a terrible
-	struggle, Madame de Renal at last ventured to say to him, in a
-	tremulous voice, in which the whole extent of her passion lay
-	revealed:
-
-	'Are you going to leave your pupils to take a post elsewhere?'
-
-	Julien was struck by her quavering voice and by the look in her eyes.
-	'This woman loves me,' he said to himself; 'but after this passing
-	weakness for which her pride is reproaching her, and as soon as she is
-	no longer afraid of my going, she will return to her arrogance.' This
-	glimpse of their respective positions came to Julien like a flash of
-	lightning; he replied, hesitatingly:
-
-	'I should greatly regret leaving such attractive and _well-born_
-	children, but perhaps it will be inevitable. A man has duties towards
-	himself also.'
-
-	As he uttered the words well born (this was one of the aristocratic
-	expressions which Julien had recently acquired), he burned with a
-	strong feeling of antipathy.
-
-	'To this woman,' he said to himself, 'I am not well born.'
-
-	Madame de Renal, as she listened to him, was admiring his
-	intelligence, his beauty, her heart was pierced by the possibility of
-	departure which he dangled before her. All her friends from Verrieres
-	who, during Julien's absence, had come out to dine at Vergy, had
-	almost vied in complimenting her upon the astonishing young man that
-	her husband had had the good fortune to unearth. This was not to say
-	that they understood anything of the progress that the children had
-	made. The fact of his knowing the Bible by heart, and in Latin, too,
-	had provoked in the inhabitants of Verrieres an admiration that will
-	endure for, it may be, a century.
-
-	Julien, who spoke to no one, knew nothing of all this. If Madame de
-	Renal had had the slightest self-control, she would have congratulated
-	him on the reputation he had won, and Julien, his pride set at rest,
-	would have been pleasant and affable to her, all the more as her new
-	gown seemed to him charming. Madame de Renal, also pleased with her
-	pretty gown, and with what Julien said to her about it, had proposed a
-	turn in the garden; soon she had confessed that she was not well
-	enough to walk. She had taken the returned traveller's arm, and, far
-	from restoring her strength, the contact of that arm deprived her of
-	what little strength remained to her.
-
-	It was dark; no sooner were they seated than Julien, relying on the
-	privilege he had already won, ventured to press his lips to the arm of
-	his pretty neighbour, and to take her hand. He was thinking of the
-	boldness which Fouque had used with his mistresses, and not of Madame
-	de Renal; the phrase _well born_ still weighed upon his heart. His own
-	hand was pressed, but this afforded him no pleasure. Far from his
-	being proud, or even grateful for the affection which Madame de Renal
-	betrayed this evening by unmistakable signs, beauty, elegance,
-	freshness found him almost unconscious of their appeal. Purity of
-	heart, freedom from any feeling of hatred, serve doubtless to prolong
-	the duration of youth. It is the face that ages first in the majority
-	of beautiful women.
-
-	Julien was sullen all the evening; hitherto he had been angry only
-	with fortune and with society; now that Fouque had offered him an
-	ignoble way of arriving at comfort, he was angry with himself.
-	Absorbed in his own thoughts, although now and then he addressed a few
-	words to the ladies, Julien ended by unconsciously letting go Madame
-	de Renal's hand. This action completely nonplussed the poor woman; she
-	saw in it an indication of her fate.
-
-	Had she been certain of Julien's affection, her virtue might perhaps
-	have found strength to resist him. Trembling at the thought of losing
-	him for ever, her passion carried her to the point of seizing Julien's
-	hand, which, in his distraction, he had allowed to rest upon the back
-	of a chair. This action stirred the ambitious youth; he would have
-	liked it to be witnessed by all those proud nobles who, at table, when
-	he was at the lower end with the children, used to look at him with so
-	patronising a smile. 'This woman cannot despise me any longer: in that
-	case,' he said to himself, 'I ought to be stirred by her beauty; I owe
-	it to myself to be her lover.' Such an idea would never have occurred
-	to him before he received the artless confidences of his friend.
-
-	The sudden resolution he had just made formed a pleasing distraction.
-	He said to himself: 'I must have one of these two women'; he realised
-	that he would greatly have preferred to pay his court to Madame
-	Derville; it was not that she was more attractive, but she had seen
-	him always as a tutor honoured for his learning, and not as a working
-	carpenter, with a ratteen jacket folded under his arm, as he had first
-	appeared to Madame de Renal.
-
-	It was precisely as a young workman, blushing to the whites of his
-	eyes, hesitating outside the door of the house and not venturing to
-	ring the bell, that Madame de Renal delighted most to picture him.
-
-	As he followed up this survey of his position, Julien saw that he must
-	not think of attempting the conquest of Madame Derville, who had
-	probably noticed the weakness that Madame de Renal showed for him.
-	Forced to return to the latter: 'What do I know of this woman's
-	character?' Julien asked himself. 'Only this: before I went away, I
-	took her hand, she withdrew it; today I withdraw my hand, she seizes
-	it and presses it. A good opportunity to repay her all the contempt
-	she has shown for me. God knows how many lovers she has had! Perhaps
-	she is deciding in my favour only because of the facilities for our
-	meeting.'
-
-	Such is, alas, the drawback of an excessive civilisation. At the age
-	of twenty, the heart of a young man, if he has any education, is a
-	thousand leagues from that devil-may-care attitude without which love
-	is often only the most tedious duty.
-
-	'I owe it to myself all the more,' went on Julien's petty vanity, 'to
-	succeed with this woman, so that if I ever make my fortune, and
-	someone reproaches me with having filled the humble post of tutor, I
-	may let it be understood that it was love that brought me into that
-	position.'
-
-	Julien once more withdrew his hand from that of Madame de Renal, then
-	took her hand again and pressed it. As they returned to the
-	drawing-room, towards midnight, Madame de Renal murmured in his ear:
-
-	'Are you leaving us, are you going away?'
-
-	Julien answered with a sigh:
-
-	'I must indeed go away, for I love you passionately; it is a sin ...
-	and what a sin for a young priest!'
-
-	Madame de Renal leaned upon his arm, bending towards him until her
-	cheek felt the warmth of his.
-
-	The night passed for these two people very differently. Madame de
-	Renal was exalted by transports of the most lofty moral pleasure. A
-	coquettish girl who falls in love early grows accustomed to the
-	distress of love; when she comes to the age of true passion, the charm
-	of novelty is lacking. As Madame de Renal had never read any novels,
-	all the refinements of her happiness were new to her. No melancholy
-	truth came to freeze her heart, not even the spectre of the future.
-	She saw herself as happy in ten years' time as she was at that moment.
-	Even the thought of virtue and of the fidelity she had vowed to M. de
-	Renal, which had distressed her some days before, presented itself in
-	vain, she dismissed it like an importunate stranger. 'Never will I
-	allow Julien to take any liberty,' Madame de Renal told herself, 'we
-	shall live in future as we have been living for the last month. He
-	shall be a friend.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 14
-	The English Scissors
-
-	A girl of sixteen had a rosy complexion, and put on rouge.
-	POLIDORI
-
-	As for Julien, Fouque's offer had indeed destroyed all his happiness;
-	he could not decide upon any course.
-
-	'Alas! Perhaps I am wanting in character, I should have made Napoleon
-	a bad soldier. Anyhow,' he went on, 'my little intrigue with the lady
-	of the house is going to distract me for the moment.'
-
-	Fortunately for him, even in this minor incident, his inward feelings
-	bore no relation to his cavalier language. He was afraid of Madame de
-	Renal because of her pretty gown. This gown was in his eyes the
-	advance guard of Paris. His pride was determined to leave nothing to
-	chance and to the inspiration of the moment. Drawing upon Fouque's
-	confessions and the little he had read about love in the Bible, he
-	prepared a plan of campaign in great detail. Since, though he did not
-	admit it to himself, he was extremely anxious, he committed this plan
-	to writing.
-
-	The following morning, in the drawing-room, Madame de Renal was alone
-	with him for a moment.
-
-	'Have you no other name besides Julien?' she asked him.
-
-	Our hero did not know what answer to give to so flattering a question.
-	No provision had been made in his plan for such an event. But for the
-	stupid mistake of making a plan, Julien's quick mind would soon have
-	come to his rescue, his surprise would only have added to the keenness
-	of his perceptions.
-
-	He was awkward and exaggerated his own awkwardness. Madame de Renal
-	soon forgave him that. She saw in it the effect of a charming candour.
-	And the one thing lacking, to her mind, in this man, who was
-	considered so brilliant, was an air of candour.
-
-	'I don't at all trust your little tutor,' Madame Derville said to her
-	on several occasions. 'He seems to me to be always thinking and to act
-	only from motives of policy. He's crafty.'
-
-	Julien remained deeply humiliated by the disaster of not having known
-	what answer to make to Madame de Renal.
-
-	'A man of my sort owes it to himself to make up for this check'; and,
-	seizing the moment at which she passed from one room to another, he
-	did what he considered his duty by giving Madame de Renal a kiss.
-
-	Nothing could have been less appropriate, less agreeable either to
-	himself or to her, nor could anything have been more imprudent. They
-	barely escaped being caught. Madame de Renal thought him mad. She was
-	frightened and even more shocked. This stupidity reminded her of M.
-	Valenod.
-
-	'What would happen to me,' she asked herself, 'if I were left alone
-	with him?' All her virtue returned, for her love was in eclipse.
-
-	She arranged matters so that there should always be one of her
-	children with her.
-
-	The day passed slowly for Julien, he spent the whole of it in clumsily
-	carrying out his plan of seduction. He never once looked at Madame de
-	Renal without embodying a question in his look; he was not, however,
-	such a fool as not to see that he was failing completely to be
-	agreeable, let alone seductive.
-
-	Madame de Renal could not get over her astonishment at finding him so
-	awkward and at the same time so bold. 'It is the timidity of love in a
-	man of parts!' she said to herself at length, with an inexpressible
-	joy. 'Can it be possible that he has never been loved by my rival!'
-
-	After luncheon, Madame de Renal returned to the drawing-room to
-	entertain M. Charcot de Maugiron, the Sub-Prefect of Bray. She was
-	working at a little tapestry frame on a tall stand. Madame Derville
-	was by her side. It was in this position, and in the full light of
-	day, that our hero thought fit to thrust forward his boot and press
-	the pretty foot of Madame de Renal, whose open-work stocking and smart
-	Parisian shoe were evidently attracting the gaze of the gallant
-	Sub-Prefect.
-
-	Madame de Renal was extremely alarmed; she let fall her scissors, her
-	ball of wool, her needles, and Julien's movement could thus pass for a
-	clumsy attempt to prevent the fall of the scissors, which he had seen
-	slipping down. Fortunately these little scissors of English steel
-	broke, and Madame de Renal could not sufficiently express her regret
-	that Julien had not been nearer at hand.
-
-	'You saw them falling before I did, you might have caught them; your
-	zeal has only succeeded in giving me a violent kick.'
-
-	All this play-acting took in the Sub-Prefect, but not Madame Derville.
-	'This pretty youth has very bad manners!' she thought; the
-	worldly-wisdom of a provincial capital can never pardon mistakes of
-	this sort. Madame de Renal found an opportunity of saying to Julien:
-
-	'Be careful, I order you.'
-
-	Julien realised his own clumsiness, and was annoyed. For a long time
-	he debated within himself whether he ought to take offence at the
-	words: 'I order you.' He was foolish enough to think: 'She might say
-	to me "I order you" if it was something to do with the children's
-	education; but in responding to my love, she assumes equality. One
-	cannot love without equality'; and he lost himself in composing
-	commonplaces on the subject of equality. He repeated angrily to
-	himself the verse of Corneille which Madame Derville had taught him a
-	few days earlier:
-
-	Love creates equalities, it does not seek them.
-
-	Julien, insisting upon playing the part of a Don Juan, he who had
-	never had a mistress in his life, was deadly dull for the rest of the
-	day. He had only one sensible idea; bored with himself and with Madame
-	de Renal, he saw with alarm the evening approach when he would be
-	seated in the garden, by her side and in the dark. He told M. de Renal
-	that he was going to Verrieres to see the cure; he set off after
-	dinner, and did not return until late at night.
-
-	At Verrieres, Julien found M. Chelan engaged in packing up; he had at
-	last been deprived of his benefice; the vicar Maslon was to succeed
-	him. Julien helped the good cure, and it occurred to him to write to
-	Fouque that the irresistible vocation which he felt for the sacred
-	ministry had prevented him at first from accepting his friend's
-	obliging offer, but that he had just witnessed such an example of
-	injustice, that perhaps it would be more advantageous to his welfare
-	were he not to take holy orders.
-
-	Julien applauded his own deftness in making use of the deprivation of
-	the cure of Verrieres to leave a door open for himself and so return
-	to commerce, should the sad voice of prudence prevail, in his mind,
-	over heroism.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 15
-	Cock-crow
-
-
-	Amour en latin faict amor;
-	Or done provient d'amour la mort,
-	Et, par avant, soulcy qui mord,
-	Deuil, plours, pieges, forfaitz, remord . ..
-	_Blason d'amour_
-
-	If Julien had had a little of that discernment which he so
-	gratuitously supposed himself to possess, he might have congratulated
-	himself next day on the effect produced by his visit to Verrieres. His
-	absence had caused his clumsiness to be forgotten. All that day too,
-	he was inclined to sulk; towards nightfall a preposterous idea
-	occurred to him, and he imparted it to Madame de Renal with a rare
-	intrepidity.
-
-	No sooner had they sat down in the garden than, without waiting for a
-	sufficient cloak of darkness, Julien put his lips to Madame de Renal's
-	ear, and, at the risk of compromising her horribly, said to her:
-
-	'Tonight, Ma'am, at two o'clock, I am coming to your room, I have
-	something to say to you.'
-
-	Julien was trembling lest his request should be granted; the part of a
-	seducer was so horrible a burden that if he had been free to follow
-	his own inclination, he would have retired to his room for some days,
-	and not set eyes on the ladies again. He realised that, by his clever
-	tactics of yesterday, he had squandered all the promise of the day
-	before, and really he did not know where to turn.
-
-	Madame de Renal replied with a genuine and by no means exaggerated
-	indignation to the impertinent announcement which Julien had had the
-	audacity to make. He thought he could read scorn in her brief answer.
-	It was certain that in this answer, uttered in the lowest of tones,
-	the word 'Fie!' had figured. Making the excuse that he had something
-	to say to the children, Julien went up to their room, and on his
-	return placed himself by the side of Madame Derville and at a distance
-	from Madame de Renal. He thus removed from himself all possibility of
-	taking her hand. The conversation took a serious turn, and Julien held
-	his own admirably, apart from a few intervals of silence during which
-	he cudgelled his brains. 'Why cannot I think of some fine plan,' he
-	asked himself, 'to force Madame de Renal to show me those unmistakable
-	marks of affection which made me imagine, three days ago, that she was
-	mine!'
-
-	Julien was extremely disconcerted by the almost desperate situation
-	into which he had been led. And yet nothing could have embarrassed him
-	so much as success.
-
-	When the party broke up at midnight, his pessimism led him to believe
-	that Madame Derville looked upon him with contempt, and that probably
-	he stood no higher in the favour of Madame de Renal.
-
-	Being in an extremely bad temper and deeply humiliated, Julien could
-	not sleep. He was a thousand leagues from any thought of abandoning
-	all pretence, all his plans, and of living from day to day with Madame
-	de Renal, contenting himself like a child with the happiness that each
-	day would bring.
-
-	He wearied his brain in devising clever stratagems; a moment later, he
-	felt them to be absurd; he was in short extremely wretched, when two
-	struck from the clock tower.
-
-	This sound aroused him as the crow of the cock aroused Saint Peter. He
-	saw himself arrived at the moment of the most distressing event. He
-	had not thought once again of his impertinent suggestion, from the
-	moment in which he had made it. It had met with so hostile a
-	reception!
-
-	'I told her that I should come to her at two o'clock,' he said to
-	himself as he rose; 'I may be inexperienced and coarse, as is natural
-	in the son of a peasant, Madame Derville has let me see that plainly
-	enough; but at any rate I will not be weak.'
-
-	Julien had every right to praise his own courage, never had he set
-	himself a more painful task. As he opened the door of his room, he
-	trembled so much that his knees gave way beneath him, and he was
-	obliged to lean against the wall.
-
-	He was in his stockinged feet. He went to listen at M. de Renal's
-	door, through which he could hear him snoring. This dismayed him. He
-	had no longer any excuse for not going to her. But, great God! What
-	should he do when he got there? He had no plan, and even if he had had
-	one, he was in such distress of mind that he would not have been in a
-	fit state to put it into practice.
-
-	Finally, with an anguish a thousand times keener than if he had been
-	going to the scaffold, he entered the little corridor that led to
-	Madame de Renal's room. He opened the door with a trembling hand,
-	making a fearful noise as he did so.
-
-	There was a light in the room, a night light was burning in the
-	fireplace; he had not expected this fresh calamity. Seeing him enter,
-	Madame de Renal sprang quickly out of bed. 'Wretch!' she cried. There
-	was some confusion. Julien forgot his futile plans and returned to
-	his own natural character. Not to please so charming a woman seemed
-	to him the greatest disaster possible. His only answer to her
-	reproaches was to fling himself at her feet, clasping her round the
-	knees. As she spoke to him with extreme harshness, he burst into
-	tears.
-
-	Some hours later, when Julien emerged from Madame de Renal's room, one
-	might have said, in the language of romance, that there was nothing
-	more left for him to wish. And indeed, he was indebted to the love he
-	had inspired and to the unforeseen impression made on him by her
-	seductive charms for a victory to which not all his misplaced
-	ingenuity would ever have led him.
-
-	But, in the most delicious moments, the victim of a freakish pride, he
-	still attempted to play the part of a man in the habit of captivating
-	women: he made incredible efforts to destroy his natural amiability.
-	Instead of his paying attention to the transports which he excited,
-	and to the remorse that increased their vivacity, the idea of duty was
-	continually before his eyes. He feared a terrible remorse, and undying
-	ridicule, should he depart from the ideal plan that he had set himself
-	to follow. In a word, what made Julien a superior being was precisely
-	what prevented him from enjoying the happiness that sprang up at his
-	feet. He was like a girl of sixteen who has a charming complexion and,
-	before going to a ball, is foolish enough to put on rouge.
-
-	In mortal terror at the apparition of Julien, Madame de Renal was soon
-	a prey to the cruellest alarms. Julien's tears and despair distressed
-	her greatly.
-
-	Indeed, when she had no longer anything to refuse him, she thrust him
-	from her, with genuine indignation, and then flung herself into his
-	arms. No purpose was apparent in all this behaviour. She thought
-	herself damned without remission, and sought to shut out the vision of
-	hell by showering the most passionate caresses on Julien. In a word,
-	nothing would have been wanting to complete our hero's happiness, not
-	even a burning sensibility in the woman he had just vanquished, had he
-	been capable of enjoying it. Julien's departure brought no cessation
-	of the transports which were shaking her in spite of herself, nor of
-	her struggle with the remorse that was tearing her.
-
-	'Heavens! Is to be happy, to be loved, no more than that?' Such was
-	Julien's first thought on his return to his own room. He was in that
-	state of astonishment and uneasy misgivings into which a heart falls
-	when it has just obtained what it has long desired. It has grown used
-	to desiring, finds nothing left to desire, and has not yet acquired
-	any memories. Like a soldier returning from a parade, Julien was
-	busily engaged in reviewing all the details of his conduct. 'Have I
-	failed in one of the duties I owe to myself? Have I really played my
-	part?'
-
-	And what a part! The part of a man accustomed to shine before women.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 16
-	The Day After
-
-
-	He turn'd his lips to hers, and with his hand
-	Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair.
-	_Don Juan_, I. 170
-
-	Fortunately for Julien's pride, Madame de Renal had been too greatly
-	agitated and surprised to notice the fatuity of the man who in a
-	moment had become everything in the world to her.
-
-	As she was imploring him to withdraw, seeing the day begin to break:
-
-	'Oh, Heavens!' she said, 'if my husband has heard any sound, I am
-	lost.'
-
-	Julien, who had leisure for composing phrases, remembered one to the
-	point:
-
-	'Should you regret your life?'
-
-	'Ah! Very much at this moment, but I should not regret having known
-	you.'
-
-	Julien found that his dignity required him to return to his room in
-	broad daylight and with deliberate want of precaution.
-
-	The continuous attention with which he watched his own slightest
-	actions, in the insane idea of being taken for a man of experience,
-	had this one advantage; when he saw Madame de Renal again, at
-	luncheon, his behaviour was a miracle of prudence.
-
-	As for her, she could not look at him without blushing to the whites
-	of her eyes, and could not live for an instant without looking at him;
-	she noticed her own confusion, and her efforts to conceal it
-	increased. Julien raised his eyes to hers once only. At first, Madame
-	de Renal admired his prudence. Presently, seeing that this solitary
-	glance was not repeated, she took alarm: 'Can it be that he does not
-	love me any more,' she asked herself; 'alas, I am far too old for him;
-	I am ten years his senior.'
-
-	On the way from the dining-room to the garden, she pressed Julien's
-	hand. In the surprise that he felt at so extraordinary a token of
-	affection, he gazed at her with passion; for she had struck him as
-	looking very pretty at luncheon, and, without raising his eyes, he had
-	spent his time making a detailed catalogue of her charms. This look
-	consoled Madame de Renal; it did not remove all her uneasiness; but
-	her uneasiness removed, almost entirely, the remorse she felt when she
-	thought of her husband.
-
-	At luncheon, the said husband had noticed nothing; not so with Madame
-	Derville; she feared Madame de Renal to be on the point of succumbing.
-	All through the day, her bold, incisive friendship did not spare the
-	other those hinted suggestions intended to portray in hideous colours
-	the danger that she was running.
-
-	Madame de Renal was burning to be left alone with Julien; she wanted
-	to ask him whether he still loved her. Despite the unalterable
-	gentleness of her nature, she was more than once on the point of
-	letting her friend know what a nuisance she was making of herself.
-
-	That evening, in the garden, Madame Derville arranged things so
-	skilfully that she found herself placed between Madame de Renal and
-	Julien. Madame de Renal, who had formed a delicious image of the
-	pleasure of pressing Julien's hand and carrying it to her lips, could
-	not so much as address a word to him.
-
-	This catastrophe increased her agitation. Remorse for one thing was
-	gnawing her. She had so scolded Julien for the imprudence he had shown
-	in coming to her room the night before, that she trembled lest he
-	might not come that night. She left the garden early, and went up to
-	wait in her room. But, beside herself with impatience, she rose and
-	went to glue her ear to Julien's door. Despite the uncertainty and
-	passion that were devouring her, she did not dare enter. This action
-	seemed to her the last word in lowness, for it serves as text to a
-	country maxim.
-
-	The servants were not all in bed. Prudence obliged her finally to
-	return to her own room. Two hours of waiting were two centuries of
-	torment.
-
-	But Julien was too loyal to what he called his duty, to fail in the
-	execution, detail by detail, of what he had laid down for himself.
-
-	As one o'clock struck, he slipped quietly from his room, made sure
-	that the master of the house was sound asleep, and appeared before
-	Madame de Renal. On this occasion he found greater happiness with his
-	mistress, for he was less continually thinking of the part he had to
-	play. He had eyes to see and ears to hear. What Madame de Renal said
-	to him about his age contributed to give him some degree of
-	self-assurance.
-
-	'Alas! I am ten years older than you! How can you love me?' she
-	repeated without any object, simply because the idea oppressed her.
-
-	Julien could not conceive such a thing, but he saw that her distress
-	was genuine, and almost entirely forgot his fear of being ridiculous.
-
-	The foolish idea of his being regarded as a servile lover, at his
-	mistress's beck and call, on account of his humble birth, vanished
-	likewise. In proportion as Julien's transports reassured his coy
-	mistress, she recovered some degree of happiness and the faculty of
-	criticising her lover. Fortunately, he showed almost nothing, on this
-	occasion, of that borrowed air which had made their meeting the night
-	before a victory, but not a pleasure. Had she noticed his intentness
-	upon playing a part, the painful discovery would have robbed her of
-	all happiness for ever. She could have seen in it nothing else than a
-	painful consequence of their disparity of age.
-
-	Albeit Madame de Renal had never thought about theories of love,
-	difference of age is, next to difference of fortune, one of the great
-	commonplaces of provincial humour, whenever there is any talk of love.
-
-	In a few days, Julien, all the ardour of his youth restored, was madly
-	in love.
-
-	'One must admit,' he said to himself, 'that her kindness of heart is
-	angelic, and that no one could be prettier.'
-
-	He had almost entirely lost the idea of a part to be played. In a
-	moment of unrestrained impulse, he even confessed to her all his
-	anxieties. This confidence raised to its climax the passion that he
-	inspired. 'So I have not had any fortunate rival,' Madame de Renal
-	said to herself with ecstasy. She ventured to question him as to the
-	portrait in which he took such an interest; Julien swore to her that
-	it was that of a man.
-
-	When Madame de Renal was calm enough to reflect, she could not get
-	over her astonishment that such happiness could exist and that she had
-	never had the slightest idea of it.
-
-	'Ah!' she said to herself, 'if I had known Julien ten years ago, when
-	I might still be considered pretty!'
-
-	Julien's thoughts were worlds apart from these. His love was still
-	founded in ambition: it was the joy of possessing--he, a poor creature
-	so unfortunate and so despised--so noble and beautiful a woman. His
-	acts of adoration, his transports at the sight of his mistress's
-	charms, ended by reassuring her somewhat as to the difference in age.
-	Had she possessed a little of that worldly wisdom a woman of thirty
-	has long enjoyed in more civilised lands, she would have shuddered for
-	the continuance of a love which seemed to exist only upon surprise and
-	the titillation of self-esteem.
-
-	In the moments when he forgot his ambition, Julien went into
-	transports over everything that Madame de Renal possessed, including
-	her hats and gowns. He could not tire of the pleasure of inhaling
-	their perfume. He opened her wardrobe and stood for hours on end
-	marvelling at the beauty and neat arrangement of everything inside.
-	His mistress, leaning upon his shoulder, gazed at him; he himself
-	gazed at those ornaments and fripperies which on a wedding day are
-	displayed among the presents.
-
-	'I might have married a man like this!' Madame de Renal sometimes
-	thought; 'What a fiery spirit! What a rapturous life with him!'
-
-	As for Julien, never had he found himself so close to those terrible
-	weapons of feminine artillery. 'It is impossible,' he told himself,
-	'that in Paris there can be anything finer!' After which he could find
-	no objection to his happiness. Often his mistress's sincere
-	admiration, and her transports of passion made him forget the fatuous
-	theory that had kept him so restrained and almost ridiculous in the
-	first moments of their intimacy. There were moments when, despite his
-	hypocritical habits, he found an intense pleasure in confessing to
-	this great lady who admired him his ignorance of any number of little
-	usages. His mistress's rank seemed to raise him above himself. Madame
-	de Renal, for her part, found the most exquisite moral satisfaction in
-	thus instructing in a heap of little things this young man endowed
-	with genius whom everyone regarded as bound one day to go so far. Even
-	the Sub-Prefect and M. Valenod could not help admiring him: she
-	thought the better of them accordingly. As for Madame Derville, these
-	were by no means her sentiments. In despair at what she thought she
-	could discern, and seeing that her wise counsel was becoming hateful
-	to a woman who had positively lost her head, she left Vergy without
-	offering an explanation for which she was not asked. Madame de Renal
-	shed a few tears at her departure, and soon it seemed to her that
-	her happiness was doubled. By the withdrawal of her guest she found
-	herself left alone with her lover almost all day long.
-
-	Julien gave himself all the more readily to the pleasant society of
-	his mistress inasmuch as, whenever he was left too long by himself,
-	Fouque's fatal offer recurred to his mind to worry him. In the first
-	days of this new life, there were moments when he, who had never
-	loved, who had never been loved by anyone, found so exquisite a
-	pleasure in being sincere, that he was on the point of confessing to
-	Madame de Renal the ambition which until then had been the very
-	essence of his existence. He would have liked to be able to consult
-	her as to the strange temptation which he felt in Fouque's offer, but
-	a trifling occurrence put a stop to all frankness.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 17
-	The Principal Deputy
-
-
-	O! how this spring of love resembleth
-	The uncertain glory of an April day,
-	Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
-	And by and by a cloud takes all away!
-	_The Two Gentlemen of Verona_
-
-	One evening as the sun set, sitting by his mistress, at the end of the
-	orchard, safe from disturbance, he was deep in thought. 'Will such
-	delicious moments,' he was wondering, 'last for ever?' His thoughts
-	were absorbed in the difficulty of adopting a profession, he was
-	deploring this great and distressing problem which puts an end to
-	boyhood and spoils the opening years of manhood when one has no money.
-
-	'Ah!' he cried, 'Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the
-	youth of France! Who is to take his place? What will the poor wretches
-	do without him, even those who are richer than I, who have just the
-	few crowns needed to procure them a good education, and not enough
-	money to purchase a man at twenty and launch themselves in a career!
-	Whatever happens,' he added with deep sigh, 'that fatal memory will
-	for ever prevent us from being happy!'
-
-	He saw Madame de Renal frown suddenly; she assumed a cold, disdainful
-	air; this line of thought seemed to her worthy of a servant. Brought
-	up in the idea that she was extremely rich, it seemed to her a thing
-	to be taken for granted that Julien was also. She loved him a thousand
-	times more than life itself, and money to her meant nothing.
-
-	Julien was far from guessing what was in her mind. This frown brought
-	him back to earth. He had presence of mind enough to arrange his
-	sentence and to make it plain to the noble lady, seated so close
-	beside him on the bank of verdure, that the words he had just uttered
-	were some that he had heard during his expedition to his friend the
-	timber merchant. This was the reasoning of the impious.
-
-	'Very well! Don't mix any more with such people,' said Madame de
-	Renal, still preserving a trace of that glacial air which had suddenly
-	taken the place of an expression of the tenderest affection.
-
-	This frown, or rather his remorse for his imprudence, was the first
-	check administered to the illusion that was bearing Julien away. He
-	said to himself: 'She is good and kind, her feeling for me is strong,
-	but she has been brought up in the enemy's camp. They are bound to be
-	specially afraid of that class of men of spirit who, after a good
-	education, have not enough money to enter upon a career. What would
-	become of these nobles, if it were granted us to fight them with equal
-	weapons? Myself, for instance, as Mayor of Verrieres, well
-	intentioned, honest as M. de Renal is at heart, how I should deal with
-	the vicar, M. Valenod and all their rascalities! How justice should
-	triumph in Verrieres. It is not their talents that would prove an
-	obstacle. They are endlessly feeling their way.'
-
-	Julien's happiness was, that day, on the point of becoming permanent.
-	What our hero lacked was the courage to be sincere. He needed the
-	courage to give battle, but on the spot; Madame de Renal had been
-	surprised by his speech, because the men whom she was in the habit of
-	meeting were always saying that the return of Robespierre was made
-	possible especially by these young men of the lower orders, who had
-	been too well educated. Madame de Renal's cold manner persisted for
-	some time, and seemed to Julien to be marked. This was because the
-	fear of having said to him indirectly something unpleasant followed
-	her repugnance at his unfortunate speech. This distress was clearly
-	shown on her pure countenance; so simple when she was happy and away
-	from bores.
-
-	Julien no longer dared give himself up freely to his dreams. More calm
-	and less amorous, he decided that it was imprudent in him to go to
-	Madame de Renal in her room. It would be better if she came to him; if
-	a servant saw her moving about the house, there would be a score of
-	possible reasons to account for her action.
-
-	But this arrangement also had its drawbacks. Julien had received from
-	Fouque certain books for which he, as a student of divinity, could
-	never have asked a bookseller. He ventured to open them only at night.
-	Often he would have been just as well pleased not to be interrupted by
-	an assignation, the tension of waiting for which, even before the
-	little scene in the orchard, would have left him incapable of reading.
-
-	He was indebted to Madame de Renal for an entirely new understanding
-	of the books he read. He had ventured to ply her with questions as to
-	all sorts of little things ignorance of which seriously handicaps the
-	intelligence of a young man born outside the ranks of society,
-	whatever natural genius one may choose to attribute to him.
-
-	This education in love, given by an extremely ignorant woman, was a
-	blessing. Julien was at once enabled to see society as it is today.
-	His mind was not perplexed by accounts of what it was in the past, two
-	thousand years ago, or sixty years ago merely, in the days of
-	Voltaire and Louis XV. To his unspeakable joy a cloud passed from
-	before his eyes; he understood at last the things that were happening
-	at Verrieres.
-
-	In the foreground appeared the highly complicated intrigues woven, for
-	the last two years, round the Prefect at Besancon. They were supported
-	by letters that came from Paris, and bore all the most illustrious
-	signatures. It was a question of making M. de Moirod, the most
-	bigoted man in the place, the Principal instead of the Second Deputy
-	to the Mayor of Verrieres.
-
-	His rival was an extremely rich manufacturer, whom it was absolutely
-	essential to confine to the post of Second Deputy.
-
-	Julien at last understood the hints that he had overheard, when the
-	cream of local society came to dine with M. de Renal. This privileged
-	class was greatly taken up with this selection of a Principal Deputy,
-	of which the rest of the town and especially the Liberals did not even
-	suspect the possibility. What gave it its importance was that, as
-	everybody knew, the eastern side of the main street of Verrieres must
-	be moved back more than nine feet, for this street was now a royal
-	highway.
-
-	Well, if M. de Moirod, who owned three houses that would have to be
-	moved back, succeeded in becoming Principal Deputy, and so Mayor in
-	the event of M. de Renal's being returned to Parliament, he would shut
-	his eyes, and it would be possible to make little, imperceptible
-	repairs to the houses that encroached on the public thoroughfare, as a
-	result of which they would be good for a hundred years. Despite the
-	great piety and admitted probity of M. de Moirod, it was certain that
-	he _could be managed_, for he had a large family. Among the houses
-	that would have to be moved back, nine belonged to the very best
-	people in Verrieres.
-
-	In Julien's eyes, this intrigue was far more important than the
-	history of the battle of Fontenoy, a name which he saw for the first
-	time in one of the books that Fouque had sent him. Many things had
-	astonished Julien during the five years since he had begun to spend
-	his evenings with the cure. But discretion and a humble spirit being
-	the chief qualities required in a divinity student, it had always been
-	impossible for him to ask any questions.
-
-	One day, Madame de Renal had given an order to her husband's valet,
-	Julien's enemy.
-
-	'But, Ma'am, today is the last Friday of the month,' the man answered
-	her with a curious expression.
-
-	'Go,' said Madame de Renal.
-
-	'Well,' said Julien, 'he is going to that hay store, which used to be
-	a church, and was recently restored to the faith; but why? That is one
-	of the mysteries which I have never been able to penetrate.'
-
-	'It is a most beneficial, but a very strange institution,' replied
-	Madame de Renal. 'Women are not admitted; all that I know of it is
-	that they all address one another as _tu_. For instance, this servant
-	will find M. Valenod there, and that conceited fool will not be in the
-	least annoyed at hearing himself called _tu_ by Saint-Jean, and will
-	answer him in the same tone. If you really want to know what they do
-	there, I can ask M. de Maugiron and M. Valenod for details. We pay
-	twenty francs for each servant so that they do not cut our throats.'
-
-	The time flew. The memory of his mistress's charms distracted Julien
-	from his black ambition. The necessity to refrain from speaking to her
-	of serious, reasonable matters, since they were on opposite sides,
-	added, without his suspecting it, to the happiness that he owed to her
-	and to the power which she was acquiring over him.
-
-	At those moments when the presence of quick-eared children confined
-	them to the language of cold reason, it was with a perfect docility
-	that Julien, gazing at her with eyes that burned with love, listened
-	to her explanations of the world as it really was. Often, in the
-	middle of an account of some clever piece of roguery, in connection
-	with the laying out of a road, or of some astounding contract, Madame
-	de Renal's mind would suddenly wander to the point of delirium; Julien
-	was obliged to scold her, she allowed herself to caress him in the
-	same way as she caressed her children. This was because there were
-	days on which she imagined that she loved him like a child of her own.
-	Had she not to reply incessantly to his artless questions about a
-	thousand simple matters of which a child of good family is not
-	ignorant at fifteen? A moment later, she was admiring him as her
-	master. His intelligence positively frightened her; she thought she
-	could perceive more clearly every day the future great man in this
-	young cleric. She saw him as Pope, she saw him as First Minister, like
-	Richelieu.
-
-	'Shall I live long enough to see you in your glory?' she said to
-	Julien; 'there is a place waiting for a great man; the Monarchy, the
-	Church need one; these gentlemen say so every day. If some Richelieu
-	does not stem the torrent of private judgment, all is lost.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 18
-	A King at Verrieres
-
-
-	Are you fit only to be flung down like the corpse of a nation, its
-	soul gone and its veins emptied of blood?
-	(From the Bishop's address,
-	delivered in the Chapel of Saint Clement)
-
-	On the third of September, at ten o'clock in the evening, a mounted
-	constable aroused the whole of Verrieres by galloping up the main
-	street; he brought the news that His Majesty the King of -- was coming
-	the following Sunday, and it was now Tuesday. The Prefect authorised,
-	that is to say ordered, the formation of a Guard of Honour; he must be
-	received with all the pomp possible. A courier was sent to Vergy. M.
-	de Renal arrived during the night and found the whole town in a
-	ferment. Everybody was claiming a right to something; those who had no
-	other duty were engaging balconies to see the King enter the town.
-
-	Who was to command the Guard of Honour? M. de Renal saw at once how
-	important it was, in the interest of the houses that would have to be
-	moved back, that M. de Moirod should fill this post. It might be held
-	to constitute a claim to the place of Principal Deputy. There was
-	nothing to be said against M. de Moirod's devotion; it went beyond all
-	comparison, but he had never ridden a horse in his life. He was a man
-	of six and thirty, timid in every way, and equally afraid of falls and
-	of being laughed at.
-
-	The Mayor sent for him at five o'clock in the morning.
-
-	'You see, Sir, that I am asking your advice, as though you already
-	occupied the post in which all right-minded people would gladly see
-	you. In this unfortunate town the manufacturers prosper, the Liberal
-	Party are becoming millionaires, they aspire to power, they will forge
-	themselves weapons out of everything. We must consider the King's
-	interests, those of the Monarchy, and above all those of our holy
-	religion. To whom do you think, Sir, that we ought to entrust the
-	command of the Guard of Honour?'
-
-	In spite of the horrible fear that a horse inspired in him, M. de
-	Moirod ended by accepting this honour like a martyr. 'I shall manage
-	to adopt the right manner,' he told the Mayor. There was barely time
-	to overhaul the uniforms which had been used seven years before on the
-	passage of a Prince of the Blood.
-
-	At seven, Madame de Renal arrived from Vergy with Julien and the
-	children. She found her drawing-room full of Liberal ladies who were
-	preaching the union of parties, and had come to implore her to make
-	her husband find room in the Guard of Honour for theirs. One of them
-	asserted that if her husband were not chosen he would go bankrupt from
-	grief. Madame de Renal sent them all packing at once. She seemed
-	greatly occupied.
-
-	Julien was surprised and even more annoyed by her making a mystery to
-	him of what was disturbing her. 'I thought as much,' he told himself
-	bitterly, 'her love is eclipsed by the joy of receiving a King in her
-	house. All this excitement dazzles her. She will begin to love me
-	again when her brain is no longer troubled by ideas of caste.'
-
-	The surprising thing was that he loved her all the more for this.
-
-	The upholsterers began to invade the whole house, he long watched in
-	vain for an opportunity of saying a word to her. At length he found
-	her coming out of his own room, carrying one of his coats. They were
-	alone. He tried to speak to her. She made off, declining to listen to
-	him. 'What a fool I am to be in love with a woman like that, ambition
-	makes her just as stupid as her husband.'
-
-	She was even more so: one of her great wishes, which she had never
-	confessed to Julien, for fear of shocking him, was to see him discard,
-	if only for a day, his gloomy black coat. With an ingenuity truly
-	admirable in so natural a woman, she secured, first from M. de Moirod,
-	and then from the Sub-Prefect M. de Maugiron, that Julien should be
-	appointed to the Guard of Honour in preference to five or six young
-	men, sons of manufacturers in easy circumstances, at least two of whom
-	were of an exemplary piety. M. Valenod, who was reckoning on lending
-	his carriage to the prettiest women of the town, in order to have his
-	fine Norman horses admired, agreed to let Julien, the person he hated
-	most, have one of them. But each of the members of the Guard of Honour
-	possessed or had borrowed one of those sky-blue coats with a pair of
-	colonel's epaulettes in silver, which had shone in public seven years
-	before. Madame de Renal wanted a new coat, and she had but four days
-	in which to send to Besancon, and to procure from there the uniform,
-	the weapons, the hat, and all the other requisites for a Guard of
-	Honour. What is rather amusing is that she thought it imprudent to
-	have Julien's coat made at Verrieres. She wished to take him by
-	surprise, him and the town.
-
-	The work of organising the Guard of Honour and popular feeling
-	finished, the Mayor had next to deal with a great religious ceremony;
-	the King of ---- refused to pass through Verrieres without paying a
-	visit to the famous relic of Saint Clement which is preserved at
-	Bray-le-Haut, a short league from the town. The clergy must be present
-	in full force, and this was the most difficult thing to arrange; M.
-	Maslon, the new cure, was determined, at any price, to keep M. Chelan
-	out. In vain did M. de Renal point out to him the imprudence of this
-	action. The Marquis de La Mole, whose ancestors for so long were
-	Governors of the Province, had been chosen to accompany the King of
-	----. He had known the abbe Chelan for thirty years. He would be
-	certain to inquire for him on arriving at Verrieres, and, if he found
-	that he was in disgrace, was quite capable of going in search of him,
-	to the little house to which he had retired, accompanied by such of
-	the procession as were under his orders. What a rebuff that would be!
-
-	'I am dishonoured here and at Besancon,' replied the abbe Maslon, 'if
-	he appears among my clergy. A Jansenist, great heavens!'
-
-	'Whatever you may say, my dear abbe,' M. de Renal assured him, 'I
-	shall not expose the municipal government of Verrieres to the risk of
-	an insult from M. de La Mole. You don't know the man, he is sound
-	enough at court; but here, in the country, he has a satirical, mocking
-	spirit, and likes nothing so much as to embarrass people. He is
-	capable, simply for his own amusement, of covering us with ridicule in
-	the eyes of the Liberals.'
-
-	It was not until the night between Saturday and Sunday, after three
-	days of discussion, that the abbe Maslon's pride gave way before the
-	Mayor's fear, which had turned to courage. The next thing was to write
-	a honeyed note to the abbe Chelan, inviting him to be present at the
-	veneration of the relic at Bray-le-Haut, his great age and infirmities
-	permitting. M. Chelan asked for and obtained a letter of invitation
-	for Julien, who was to accompany him in the capacity of sub-deacon.
-
-	Early on Sunday morning, thousands of peasants, arriving from the
-	neighbouring mountains, flooded the streets of Verrieres. It was a day
-	of brilliant sunshine. At length, about three o'clock, a tremor ran
-	through the crowd; they had caught sight of a beacon blazing on a rock
-	two leagues from Verrieres. This signal announced that the King had
-	just entered the territory of the Department. Immediately the sound of
-	all the bells and the repeated discharge of an old Spanish cannon
-	belonging to the town proclaimed its joy at this great event. Half the
-	population climbed up on the roofs. All the women were on the
-	balconies. The Guard of Honour began to move. The brilliant uniforms
-	were greatly admired, each of the onlookers recognised a relative
-	or friend. There was general laughter at the alarm of M. de Moirod,
-	whose cautious hand lay ready at any moment to clutch hold of his
-	saddle. But one thing made them forget all the others: the left-hand
-	man in the ninth section was a handsome lad, very slender, who at
-	first was not identified. Presently a cry of indignation from some,
-	the astonished silence of others announced a general sensation. The
-	onlookers recognised in this young man, riding one of M. Valenod's
-	Norman horses, young Sorel, the carpenter's son. There was one
-	unanimous outcry against the Mayor, especially among the Liberals.
-	What, because this young labourer dressed up as a priest was tutor to
-	his brats, he had the audacity to appoint him to the Guard of Honour,
-	to the exclusion of M. This and M. That, wealthy manufacturers! 'Those
-	gentlemen,' said a banker's wife, 'ought really to offer an affront to
-	the little upstart, born in the gutter.'
-
-	'He has a wicked temper and he is wearing a sabre,' replied her
-	companion; 'he would be quite treacherous enough to slash them across
-	the face.'
-
-	The comments made by the aristocratic element were more dangerous. The
-	ladies asked themselves whether the Mayor alone was responsible for
-	this grave breach of etiquette. On the whole justice was done to his
-	contempt for humble birth.
-
-	While he was giving rise to so much comment, Julien was the happiest
-	man alive. Bold by nature, he had a better seat on a horse than most
-	of the young men of this mountain town. He saw in the eyes of the
-	women that they were talking about him.
-
-	His epaulettes were more brilliant because they were new. At every
-	moment his horse threatened to rear; he was in the seventh heaven of
-	joy.
-
-	His happiness knew no bounds when, as they passed near the old
-	rampart, the sound of the small cannon made his horse swerve out of
-	the ranks. By the greatest accident, he did not fall off; from that
-	moment he felt himself a hero. He was Napoleon's orderly officer and
-	was charging a battery.
-
-	There was one person happier than he. First of all she had watched him
-	pass from one of the windows of the town hall; then, getting into her
-	carriage, and rapidly making a wide detour, she was in time to tremble
-	when his horse carried him out of the ranks. Finally, her carriage
-	passing out at a gallop through another of the gates of the town, she
-	made her way back to the road along which the King was to pass, and
-	was able to follow the Guard of Honour at a distance of twenty paces,
-	in a noble cloud of dust. Ten thousand peasants shouted: 'Long live
-	the King' when the Mayor had the honour of addressing His Majesty. An
-	hour later, when, having listened to all the speeches, the King was
-	about to enter the town, the small cannon began to fire again with
-	frenzied haste. But an accident occurred, not to the gunners who had
-	learned their trade at Leipsic and Montmirail, but to the future
-	Principal Deputy, M. de Moirod. His horse dropped him gently into the
-	one puddle to be found along the whole road, which created a scandal,
-	because he had to be pulled out of the way to enable the King's
-	carriage to pass.
-
-	His Majesty alighted at the fine new church, which was decked out for
-	the occasion with all its crimson hangings. The King was to halt for
-	dinner, immediately after which he would take the road again to go and
-	venerate the famous relic of Saint Clement. No sooner was the King
-	inside the church than Julien went off at a gallop to M. de Renal's.
-	There he discarded with a sigh his fine sky-blue coat, his sabre, his
-	epaulettes, to resume the little threadbare black coat. He mounted his
-	horse again, and in a few minutes was at Bray-le-Haut, which stands on
-	the summit of an imposing hill. 'Enthusiasm is multiplying these
-	peasants,' thought Julien. 'One cannot move at Verrieres, and here
-	there are more than ten thousand of them round this old abbey.' Half
-	ruined by the vandalism of the Revolution, it had been magnificently
-	restored since the Restoration, and there was already some talk of
-	miracles. Julien joined the abbe Chelan, who scolded him severely, and
-	gave him a cassock and surplice. He vested himself hurriedly in these
-	and followed M. Chelan, who was going in search of the youthful Bishop
-	of Agde. This was a nephew of M. de La Mole, recently appointed to the
-	See, who had been selected to exhibit the relic to the King. But the
-	Bishop was not to be found.
-
-	The clergy were growing impatient. They awaited their leader in the
-	sombre, gothic cloister of the ancient abbey. Four and twenty parish
-	priests had been collected to represent the original chapter of
-	Bray-le-Haut which prior to 1789 had consisted of four and twenty
-	canons. Having spent three quarters of an hour in deploring the
-	youthfulness of the Bishop, the priests decided that it would be a
-	good thing if their Dean were to go and inform His Lordship that the
-	King was on his way, and that it was time they were in the choir. M.
-	Chelan's great age had made him Dean; despite the anger he showed with
-	Julien, he made a sign to him to follow him. Julien carried his
-	surplice admirably. By some secret process of the ecclesiastical
-	toilet-table, he had made his fine curly hair lie quite flat; but, by
-	an oversight which intensified the anger of M. Chelan, beneath the
-	long folds of his cassock one could see the spurs of the Guard of
-	Honour.
-
-	When they reached the Bishop's apartment, the tall lackeys smothered
-	in gold lace barely condescended to inform the old cure that His
-	Lordship could not be seen. They laughed at him when he tried to
-	explain that in his capacity as Dean of the Noble Chapter of
-	Bray-le-Haut, it was his privilege to be admitted at all times to the
-	presence of the officiating Bishop.
-
-	Julien's proud spirit was offended by the insolence of the lackeys. He
-	set off on a tour of the dormitories of the old abbey, trying every
-	door that he came to. One quite small door yielded to his efforts and
-	he found himself in a cell in the midst of His Lordship's
-	body-servants, dressed in black with chains round their necks. Seeing
-	his air of haste, these gentlemen supposed that the Bishop had sent
-	for him and allowed him to pass. He went a little way and found
-	himself in an immense gothic chamber, very dark and panelled
-	throughout in black oak; with a single exception, its pointed windows
-	had been walled up with bricks. There was nothing to conceal the
-	coarse surface of this masonry, which formed a sorry contrast to the
-	venerable splendour of the woodwork. Both sides of this room, famous
-	among the antiquarians of Burgundy, which the Duke Charles the Bold
-	built about the year 1470 in expiation of some offence, were lined
-	with wooden stalls, richly carved. These displayed, inlaid in wood of
-	different colours, all the mysteries of the Apocalypse.
-
-	This melancholy splendour, degraded by the intrusion of the bare
-	bricks and white plaster, impressed Julien. He stood there in silence.
-	At the other end of the room, near the only window through which any
-	light came, he saw a portable mirror framed in mahogany. A young man,
-	robed in violet with a lace surplice, but bare-headed, was standing
-	three paces away from the mirror. This article appeared out of place
-	in such a room, and had doubtless been brought there from the town.
-	Julien thought that the young man seemed irritated; with his right
-	hand he was gravely giving benedictions in the direction of the
-	mirror.
-
-	'What can this mean?' he wondered. 'Is it a preliminary ceremony that
-	this young priest is performing? He is perhaps the Bishop's secretary
-	... he will be rude like the lackeys ... but what of that, let us try
-	him.'
-
-	He went forward and passed slowly down the length of the room, keeping
-	his eyes fixed on that solitary window and watching the young man who
-	continued to give benedictions, with a slow motion but in endless
-	profusion, and without pausing for a moment.
-
-	As he drew nearer he was better able to see the other's look of
-	annoyance. The costliness of his lace-bordered surplice brought
-	Julien to a standstill some distance away from the magnificent mirror.
-
-	'It is my duty to speak,' he reminded himself at length; but the
-	beauty of the room had touched his feelings and he was chilled in
-	anticipation by the harsh words that would be addressed to him.
-
-	The young man caught sight of him in the glass, turned round, and
-	suddenly discarding his look of irritation said to him in the
-	pleasantest tone:
-
-	'Well, Sir, is it ready yet?'
-
-	Julien remained speechless. As this young man turned towards him,
-	Julien saw the pectoral cross on his breast: it was the Bishop of
-	Agde. 'So young,' thought Julien; 'at the most, only six or eight
-	years older than myself!'
-
-	And he felt ashamed of his spurs.
-
-	'Monseigneur,' he replied timidly. 'I am sent by the Dean of the
-	Chapter, M. Chelan.'
-
-	'Ah! I have an excellent account of him,' said the bishop in a
-	courteous tone which left Julien more fascinated than ever. 'But I beg
-	your pardon, Sir, I took you for the person who is to bring me back my
-	mitre. It was carelessly packed in Paris; the silver tissue has been
-	dreadfully frayed at the top. It will create a shocking effect,' the
-	young Bishop went on with a sorrowful air, 'and they are keeping me
-	waiting too.'
-
-	'Monseigneur, I shall go and find the mitre, with Your Lordship's
-	permission.'
-
-	Julien's fine eyes had their effect.
-
-	'Go, Sir,' the Bishop answered with exquisite courtesy; 'I must
-	have it at once. I am sorry to keep the gentlemen of the Chapter
-	waiting.'
-
-	When Julien was halfway down the room, he turned to look at the Bishop
-	and saw that he was once more engaged in giving benedictions. 'What
-	can that be?' Julien asked himself; 'no doubt, it is a religious
-	preparation necessary to the ceremony that is to follow.' When he came
-	to the cell in which the servants were waiting, he saw the mitre in
-	their hands. These gentlemen, yielding in spite of themselves to
-	Julien's imperious glance, surrendered it to him.
-
-	He felt proud to be carrying it: as he crossed the room, he walked
-	slowly; he held it with respect. He found the Bishop seated before the
-	glass; but, from time to time, his right hand, tired as it was, still
-	gave the benediction. Julien helped him to put on the mitre. The
-	Bishop shook his head.
-
-	'Ah! It will keep on,' he said to Julien with a satisfied air. 'Will
-	you go a little way off?'
-
-	Whereupon the Bishop walked at a smart pace to the middle of the room,
-	then returning towards the mirror with a slow step, he resumed his air
-	of irritation and went on solemnly giving benedictions.
-
-	Julien was spellbound with astonishment; he was tempted to guess what
-	this meant, but did not dare. The Bishop stopped, and looking at him
-	with an air from which the solemnity rapidly vanished:
-
-	'What do you say to my mitre, Sir, does it look right?'
-
-	'Quite right, Monseigneur.'
-
-	'It is not too far back? That would look rather silly; but it does not
-	do, either, to wear them pulled down over one's eyes like an officer's
-	shako.'
-
-	'It seems to me to be quite right.'
-
-	'The King of ---- is accustomed to venerable clergy who are doubtless
-	very solemn. I should not like, especially in view of my age, to
-	appear too frivolous.'
-
-	And the Bishop once more began to walk about the room scattering
-	benedictions.
-
-	'It is quite clear,' said Julien, at last venturing to understand, 'he
-	is practising the benediction.'
-
-	A few moments later:
-
-	'I am ready,' said the Bishop. 'Go, Sir, and inform the Dean and the
-	gentlemen of the Chapter.'
-
-	Presently M. Chelan, followed by the two oldest of the cures, entered
-	by an immense door, magnificently carved, which Julien had not
-	noticed. But this time he remained in his place in the extreme rear,
-	and could see the Bishop only over the shoulders of the ecclesiastics
-	who crowded towards this door.
-
-	The Bishop crossed the room slowly; when he came to the threshold the
-	cures formed in processional order. After a momentary confusion the
-	procession began to move, intoning a psalm. The Bishop came last,
-	between M. Chelan and another cure of great age. Julien found a place
-	for himself quite close to His Lordship, as being attached to the abbe
-	Chelan. They moved down the long corridors of the abbey of
-	Bray-le-Haut; in spite of the brilliant sunshine, these were dark and
-	damp. At length they arrived at the door of the cloister. Julien was
-	speechless with admiration of so fine a ceremony. His heart was
-	divided between the ambition aroused by the Bishop's youthfulness, and
-	the sensibility and exquisite manners of this prelate. His courtesy
-	was of a very different kind from M. de Renal's, even on his good
-	days. 'The more one rises towards the highest rank of society,'
-	thought Julien, 'the more one finds these charming manners.'
-
-	They entered the church by a side door; suddenly an appalling crash
-	made its ancient vaults resound; Julien thought that the walls were
-	collapsing. It was again the small cannon; drawn by eight horses at a
-	gallop, it had just arrived; and immediately on its arrival, brought
-	into action by the gunners of Leipsic, it was firing five rounds a
-	minute, as though the Prussians had been in front of it.
-
-	But this stirring sound no longer had any effect upon Julien, he
-	dreamed no more of Napoleon and martial glory. 'So young,' he was
-	thinking, 'to be Bishop of Agde! But where is Agde? And how much is
-	it worth? Two or three hundred thousand francs, perhaps.'
-
-	His Lordship's servants appeared, carrying a magnificent dais; M.
-	Chelan took one of the poles, but actually it was Julien that bore it.
-	The Bishop took his place beneath it. He had really succeeded in
-	giving himself the air of an old man; our hero's admiration knew no
-	bounds. 'What cannot one do if one is clever!' he thought.
-
-	The King made his entry. Julien was so fortunate as to see him at
-	close range. The Bishop addressed him with unction, and did not forget
-	to include a slight touch of confusion, extremely flattering to His
-	Majesty. We shall not repeat the account of the ceremonies at
-	Bray-le-Haut; for a fortnight they filled the columns of all the
-	newspapers of the Department. Julien learned, from the Bishop's
-	speech, that the King was descended from Charles the Bold.
-
-	Later on it was one of Julien's duties to check the accounts of what
-	this ceremony had cost. M. de La Mole, who had secured a bishopric for
-	his nephew, had chosen to pay him the compliment of bearing the whole
-	of the expense himself. The ceremony at Bray-le-Haut alone cost three
-	thousand eight hundred francs.
-
-	After the Bishop's address and the King's reply, His Majesty took his
-	place beneath the dais; he then knelt down most devoutly upon a
-	cushion close to the altar. The choir was enclosed with stalls, and
-	these stalls were raised two steps above the pavement. It was on the
-	second of these steps that Julien sat at the feet of M. Chelan, not
-	unlike a train-bearer at the feet of his Cardinal, in the Sistine
-	Chapel, in Rome. There were a Te Deum, clouds of incense, endless
-	volleys of musketry and artillery; the peasants were frantic with joy
-	and piety. Such a day undoes the work of a hundred numbers of the
-	Jacobin papers.
-
-	Julien was within six paces of the King, who was praying with genuine
-	fervour. He noticed for the first time a small man of intelligent
-	appearance, whose coat was almost bare of embroidery. But he wore a
-	sky-blue riband over this extremely simple coat. He was nearer to the
-	King than many other gentlemen, whose coats were so covered with gold
-	lace that, to use Julien's expression, one could not see the cloth. He
-	learned a minute later that this was M. de La Mole. He decided that he
-	wore a haughty, indeed an insolent air.
-
-	'This Marquis would not be polite like my dear Bishop,' he thought.
-	'Ah! The career of a churchman makes one gentle and wise. But the
-	King has come to venerate the relic, and I see no relic. Where can
-	Saint Clement be?'
-
-	A little clerk, who was next to him, informed him that the venerable
-	relic was in the upper part of the building, in a _chapelle ardente_.
-
-	'What is a _chapelle ardente_?' Julien asked himself.
-
-	But he would not ask for an explanation of the words. He followed the
-	proceedings with even closer attention.
-
-	On the occasion of a visit from a sovereign prince, etiquette requires
-	that the canons shall not accompany the Bishop. But as he started for
-	the chapelle ardente His Lordship of Agde summoned the abbe Chelan;
-	Julien ventured to follow him.
-
-	After climbing a long stair, they came to a very small door, the frame
-	of which was sumptuously gilded. This work had a look of having just
-	been completed.
-
-	Outside the door were gathered on their knees four and twenty girls,
-	belonging to the most distinguished families of Verrieres. Before
-	opening the door, the Bishop sank on his knees in the midst of these
-	girls, who were all pretty. While he was praying aloud, it seemed as
-	though they could not sufficiently admire his fine lace, his charm,
-	his young and pleasant face. This spectacle made our hero lose all
-	that remained of his reason. At that moment, he would have fought for
-	the Inquisition, and in earnest. Suddenly the door flew open. The
-	little chapel seemed to be ablaze with light. One saw upon the altar
-	more than a thousand candles arranged in eight rows, separated from
-	one another by clusters of flowers. The sweet odour of the purest
-	incense rose in clouds from the gate of the sanctuary. The newly
-	gilded chapel was quite small, but very lofty. Julien noticed that
-	there were on the altar candles more than fifteen feet long. The girls
-	could not restrain a cry of admiration. No one had been admitted to
-	the tiny ante-chapel save the twenty-four girls, the two priests and
-	Julien.
-
-	Presently the King arrived, followed only by M. de La Mole and his
-	Great Chamberlain. The guards themselves remained outside, on their
-	knees, presenting their arms.
-
-	His Majesty flung himself rather than knelt down on the faldstool. It
-	was then only that Julien, pressed against the gilded door, caught
-	sight, beneath a girl's bare arm, of the charming statue of Saint
-	Clement. It was hidden beneath the altar, in the garb of a young Roman
-	soldier. He had in his throat a large wound from which the blood
-	seemed to be flowing. The artist had surpassed himself; the eyes,
-	dying but full of grace, were half closed. A budding moustache adorned
-	the charming mouth, which being slightly open had the effect of being
-	still engaged in prayer. At the sight of this statue, the girl nearest
-	to Julien wept hot tears; one of her tears fell upon Julien's hand.
-
-	After an interval of prayer in the most profound silence, disturbed
-	only by the distant sound of the bells of all the villages within a
-	radius of ten leagues, the Bishop of Agde asked the King's permission
-	to speak. He concluded a brief but highly edifying discourse with
-	these words, simple in themselves, but thereby all the better assured
-	of their effect.
-
-	'Never forget, young Christian women, that you have seen one of the
-	great Kings of the earth upon his knees before the servants of this
-	all-powerful and terrible God. These servants, frail, persecuted,
-	martyred upon earth, as you can see from the still bleeding wound of
-	Saint Clement, are triumphant in heaven. All your lives, I think,
-	young Christians, you will remember this day. You will detest impiety.
-	Always you will remain faithful to this God who is so great, so
-	terrible, but so good.'
-
-	At these words, the Bishop rose with authority.
-
-	'You promise me?' he said, extending his arm with an air of
-	inspiration.
-
-	'We promise,' said the girls, bursting into tears.
-
-	'I receive your promise, in the name of our terrible God!' the Bishop
-	concluded in a voice of thunder. And the ceremony was at an end.
-
-	The King himself was in tears. It was not until long afterwards that
-	Julien was calm enough to inquire where were the bones of the Saint,
-	sent from Rome to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. He was told that
-	they were embodied in the charming wax figure.
-
-	His Majesty deigned to permit the girls who had accompanied him into
-	the chapel to wear a red riband upon which were embroidered the words:
-	'HATRED OF IMPIETY, PERPETUAL ADORATION.'
-
-	M. de La Mole ordered ten thousand bottles of wine to be distributed
-	among the peasants. That evening, at Verrieres, the Liberals found an
-	excuse for illuminating their houses a hundred times more brilliantly
-	than the Royalists. Before leaving the town, the King paid a visit to
-	M. de Moirod.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 19
-	To Think Is To Be Full of Sorrow
-
-	The grotesque character of everyday occurrences conceals from
-	one the real misery of passions.
-	BARNAVE
-
-	While he was replacing its ordinary furniture in the room that M. de
-	La Mole had occupied, Julien found a piece of stout paper, folded
-	twice across. He read at the foot of the first page:
-
-	To H. E., M. le Marquis de La Mole, Peer of France, Knight of the
-	Royal Orders, etc., etc.
-
-	It was a petition in the rude handwriting of a cook.
-
-	Monsieur le Marquis,
-
-	All my life I have held religious principles. I was in Lyons, exposed
-	to the bombs, at the time of the siege, in '93, of execrable memory.
-	I am a communicant, I go every Sunday to mass in my parish church. I
-	have never failed in my Easter duty, not even in '93, of execrable
-	memory. My cook, for before the revolution I kept servants, my cook
-	observes Friday. I enjoy in Verrieres a general and I venture to say
-	merited respect. I walk beneath the dais in processions, beside the
-	cure and the mayor. I carry, on solemn occasions, a big candle bought
-	at my own cost. The certificates of all of which are in Paris at the
-	Ministry of Finance. I ask Monsieur le Marquis for the Verrieres
-	lottery office, which cannot fail to be vacant soon in one way or
-	another, the present holder being seriously ill, and besides voting
-	the wrong way at the elections; etc.
-
-	DE CHOLIN
-
-	On the margin of this petition was an endorsement signed de Moirod,
-	which began with the words:
-
-	'I had the honour yesterday to mention the respectable person who
-	makes this request,' and so forth.
-
-	'And so even that imbecile Cholin shows me the way that I must
-	follow,' Julien said to himself.
-
-	A week after the visit of the King of ---- to Verrieres, the chief
-	thing to emerge from the innumerable falsehoods, foolish
-	interpretations, absurd discussions, etc., etc., to which the King,
-	the Bishop of Agde, the Marquis de La Mole, the ten thousand bottles
-	of wine, the unseated Moirod (who, in the hope of a Cross, did not set
-	foot outside his own door for a whole month after his fall) were in
-	turn subjected, was the utter indelicacy of having jockeyed into the
-	Guard of Honour, Julien Sorel, the son of a carpenter. You ought to
-	have heard, on this topic, the wealthy calico printers, who, morning,
-	noon and night, used to talk themselves hoarse in preaching equality.
-	That proud woman, Madame de Renal, was the author of this abomination.
-	Her reason? The flashing eyes and pink cheeks of that young abbe Sorel
-	were reason enough and to spare.
-
-	Shortly after their return to Vergy, Stanislas Xavier, the youngest of
-	the children, took fever; at once Madame de Renal was seized by the
-	most fearful remorse. For the first time she blamed herself for
-	falling in love in a coherent fashion. She seemed to understand, as
-	though by a miracle, the appalling sin into which she had let herself
-	be drawn. Although deeply religious by nature, until this moment she
-	had never thought of the magnitude of her crime in the eyes of God.
-
-	Long ago, at the convent of the Sacred Heart, she had loved God with a
-	passionate love; she feared Him in the same way in this predicament.
-	The struggles that rent her heart asunder were all the more terrible
-	in that there was nothing reasonable in her fear. Julien discovered
-	that any recourse to argument irritated instead of calming her; she
-	saw in it the language of hell. However, as Julien himself was greatly
-	attached to little Stanislas, he was more welcome to speak to her of
-	the child's illness: presently it assumed a grave character. Then her
-	incessant remorse deprived Madame de Renal even of the power to sleep;
-	she never emerged from a grim silence: had she opened her mouth, it
-	would have been to confess her crime to God and before men.
-
-	'I beg of you,' Julien said to her, as soon as they were alone, 'say
-	nothing to anyone; let me be the sole confidant of your griefs. If you
-	still love me, do not speak! your words cannot cure our Stanislas of
-	his fever.'
-
-	But his attempts at consolation produced no effect; he did not know
-	that Madame de Renal had taken it into her head that, to appease the
-	anger of a jealous God, she must either hate Julien or see her son
-	die. It was because she felt that she could not hate her lover that
-	she was so unhappy.
-
-	'Avoid my presence,' she said to Julien one day; 'in the name of God,
-	leave this house: it is your presence here that is killing my son.
-
-	'God is punishing me,' she added in a whisper; 'He is just; I adore
-
-	His equity; my crime is shocking, and I was living without remorse! It
-	was the first sign of departure from God: I ought to be doubly
-	punished.'
-
-	Julien was deeply touched. He was unable to see in this attitude
-	either hypocrisy or exaggeration. 'She believes that she is killing
-	her son by loving me, and yet the unhappy woman loves me more than her
-	son. That, how can I doubt it, is the remorse that is killing her;
-	there is true nobility of feeling. But how can I have inspired such
-	love, I, so poor, so ill-bred, so ignorant, often so rude in my
-	manners?'
-
-	One night the child's condition was critical. About two o'clock in the
-	morning, M. de Renal came to see him. The boy, burning with fever, was
-	extremely flushed and did not recognise his father. Suddenly Madame de
-	Renal threw herself at her husband's feet: Julien saw that she was
-	going to reveal everything and to ruin herself for ever.
-
-	Fortunately, this strange exhibition annoyed M. de Renal.
-
-	'Good night! Good night!' he said and prepared to leave the room.
-
-	'No, listen to me,' cried his wife on her knees before him, seeking to
-	hold him back. 'Learn the whole truth. It is I that am killing my son.
-	I gave him his life, and I am taking it from him. Heaven is punishing
-	me; in the eyes of God, I am guilty of murder. I must destroy and
-	humble myself; it may be that such a sacrifice will appease the Lord.'
-
-	If M. de Renal had been a man of imagination, he would have guessed
-	everything.
-
-	'Romantic stuff,' he exclaimed, thrusting away his wife who sought to
-	embrace his knees. 'Romantic stuff, all that! Julien, tell them to
-	fetch the doctor at daybreak.'
-
-	And he went back to bed. Madame de Renal sank on her knees, half
-	unconscious, with a convulsive movement thrusting away Julien, who was
-	coming to her assistance.
-
-	Julien stood watching her with amazement.
-
-	'So this is adultery!' he said to himself ... 'Can it be possible
-	that those rascally priests are right after all? That they, who commit
-	so many sins, have the privilege of knowing the true theory of sin?
-	How very odd!'
-
-	For twenty minutes since M. de Renal had left the room, Julien had
-	seen the woman he loved, her head sunk on the child's little bed,
-	motionless and almost unconscious. 'Here we have a woman of superior
-	intelligence reduced to the last extremes of misery, because she has
-	known me,' he said to himself.
-
-	The hours passed rapidly. 'What can I do for her? I must make up my
-	mind. I have ceased to count here. What do I care for men, and their
-	silly affectations? What can I do for her? ... Go from her? But I
-	shall be leaving her alone, torn by the most frightful grief. That
-	automaton of a husband does her more harm than good. He will say
-	something offensive to her, in his natural coarseness; she may go mad,
-	throw herself from the window.
-
-	'If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will tell him
-	everything. And then, for all one knows, in spite of the fortune he is
-	to inherit through her, he will make a scandal. She may tell
-	everything, great God, to that--abbe Maslon, who makes the illness of
-	a child of six an excuse for never stirring out of this house, and not
-	without purpose. In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all
-	that she knows of the man; she sees only the priest.'
-
-	'Leave me,' came suddenly from Madame de Renal as she opened her eyes.
-
-	'I would give my life a thousand times to know how I can be of most
-	use to you,' replied Julien; 'never have I so loved you, my dear
-	angel, or rather, from this instant only, I begin to adore you as you
-	deserve to be adored. What is to become of me apart from you, and
-	with the knowledge that you are wretched by my fault! But I must not
-	speak of my own sufferings. I shall go, yes, my love. But, if I leave
-	you, if I cease to watch over you, to be constantly interposing myself
-	between you and your husband, you will tell him everything, you will
-	be ruined. Think of the ignominy with which he will drive you from the
-	house; all Verrieres, all Besancon will ring with the scandal. All the
-	blame will be cast on you; you will never be able to lift up your head
-	again.'
-
-
-	'That is all that I ask,' she cried, rising to her feet. 'I shall
-	suffer, all the better.'
-
-	'But, by this appalling scandal, you will be harming him as well!'
-
-	'But I humble myself, I throw myself down in the mud; and in that way
-	perhaps I save my son. This humiliation, in the sight of all, is
-	perhaps a public penance. So far as my frailty can judge, is it not
-	the greatest sacrifice that I can make to God? Perhaps he will deign
-	to accept my humiliation and to spare me my son! Show me a harder
-	sacrifice and I will hasten to perform it.'
-
-	'Let me punish myself. I too am guilty. Would you have me retire to La
-	Trappe? The austerity of the life there may appease your God ... Oh,
-	heaven! Why can I not take upon myself Stanislas's illness?'
-
-	'Ah! You love him,' said Madame de Renal, rising and flinging herself
-	into his arms.
-
-	Immediately she thrust him from her with horror.
-
-	'I believe you! I believe you!' she went on, having fallen once more
-	on her knees; 'O my only friend, why are not you Stanislas's father?
-	Then it would not be a horrible sin to love you more than your son.'
-
-	'Will you permit me to stay, and henceforward only to love you as a
-	brother? It is the only reasonable expiation; it may appease the wrath
-	of the Most High.'
-
-	'And I,' she exclaimed, rising, and taking Julien's head in her hands,
-	and holding it at arm's length before her eyes, 'and I, shall I love
-	you like a brother? Is it in my power to love you like a brother?'
-
-	Julien burst into tears.
-
-	'I will obey you,' he said as he fell at her feet. 'I will obey you,
-	whatever you may bid me do; it is the one thing left for me. My brain
-	is smitten with blindness; I can see no course to take. If I leave
-	you, you tell your husband all; you ruin yourself, and him at the same
-	time. After such a disgrace he will never be elected Deputy. If I
-	stay, you regard me as the cause of your son's death, and you yourself
-	die of grief. Would you like to test the effect of my going? If you
-	like, I will punish myself for our sin by leaving you for a week. I
-	shall pass the time in retreat wherever you choose. At the abbey of
-	Bray-le-Haut, for instance; but swear to me that during my absence you
-	will reveal nothing to your husband. Remember that I can never return
-	if you speak.'
-
-	She promised; he departed, but was recalled after two days.
-
-	'It is impossible for me to keep my oath without you. I shall speak to
-	my husband, if you are not constantly there to order me with your eyes
-	to be silent. Each hour of this abominable life seems to me to last a
-	day.'
-
-	In the end, heaven took pity on this unhappy mother. Gradually
-	Stanislas passed out of danger. But the ice was broken, her reason had
-	learned the magnitude of her sin, she could no more recover her
-	equilibrium. Remorse still remained, and took the form that it was
-	bound to take in so sincere a heart. Her life was heaven and hell;
-	hell when she did not see Julien, heaven when she was at his feet.
-
-	'I am no longer under any illusion,' she told him, even at the moments
-	when she ventured to give absolute rein to her love: 'I am damned,
-	irremediably damned. You are young, you have yielded to my seduction,
-	heaven may pardon you; but as for me, I am damned. I know it by an
-	infallible sign. I am afraid: who would not be afraid at the sight of
-	hell? But at heart, I am not in the least repentant. I would commit my
-	sin again, were it to be committed. Let heaven only refrain from
-	punishing me in this world and in my children, and I shall have more
-	than I deserve. But you, at least, my Julien,' she cried at other
-	moments, 'are you happy? Do you feel that I love you enough?'
-
-	Julien's distrust and suffering pride, which needed above all a love
-	that made sacrifices, could not stand out against the sight of so
-	great, so indubitable a sacrifice, and one that was made afresh every
-	moment. He adored Madame de Renal. 'She may well be noble, and I the
-	son of a working man; she loves me ... I am not to her a footman
-	employed in the part of lover.' Once rid of this fear, Julien fell
-	into all the follies of love, into its mortal uncertainties.
-
-	'At least.' she cried when she saw that he doubted her love, 'let me
-	make you happy during the few days we still have to spend together!
-	Let us make haste; tomorrow perhaps I shall be no longer yours. If
-	heaven strikes me through my children, in vain shall I seek to live
-	only for love of you, not to see that it is my crime that is killing
-	them. I shall not be able to survive that blow. Even if I would, I
-	could not; I should go mad.'
-
-	'Ah! If I could take your sin upon my conscience, as you so generously
-	wished that you might take Stanislas's fever!'
-
-	This great moral crisis changed the nature of the sentiment that
-	united Julien to his mistress. His love was no longer merely
-	admiration of her beauty, pride in the possession of her.
-
-	Their joy was thenceforward of a far higher nature, the flame that
-	devoured them was more intense. They underwent transports of utter
-	madness. Their happiness would have seemed great in the eyes of other
-	people. But they never recaptured the delicious serenity, the
-	unclouded happiness, the spontaneous joy of the first days of their
-	love, when Madame de Renal's one fear was that of not being loved
-	enough by Julien. Their happiness assumed at times the aspect of
-	crime.
-
-	In what were their happiest, and apparently their calmest moments:
-	'Oh! Great God! I see hell before me,' Madame de Renal would suddenly
-	exclaim, gripping Julien's hand with a convulsive movement. 'What
-	fearful torments! I have well deserved them.' She clutched him,
-	clinging to him like the ivy to the wall.
-
-	Julien tried in vain to calm this agitated soul. She took his hand,
-	which she covered with kisses. Then, relapsing into a sombre
-	meditation; 'Hell,' she said, 'hell would be a blessing to me; I
-	should still have some days in this world to spend with him, but hell
-	here on earth, the death of my children ... Yet, at that price,
-	perhaps my crime would be forgiven me ... Oh! Great God! Grant me not
-	my pardon at that price. These poor children have done nothing to
-	offend thee; 'tis I, I, the guilt is mine alone! I love a man who is
-	not my husband.'
-
-	Julien next saw Madame de Renal reach a state that was outwardly
-	tranquil. She sought to take the burden upon herself, she wished not
-	to poison the existence of him whom she loved.
-
-	In the midst of these alternations of love, remorse and pleasure, the
-	days passed for them with lightning rapidity. Julien lost the habit of
-	reflection.
-
-	Miss Elisa went to conduct a little lawsuit which she had at
-	Verrieres. She found M. Valenod greatly annoyed with Julien. She hated
-	the tutor and often spoke about him to M. Valenod.
-
-	'You would ruin me, Sir, if I told you the truth!' she said to him one
-	day. 'Employers all hang together in important things. They never
-	forgive us poor servants for certain revelations ...'
-
-	After these conventional phrases, which the impatient curiosity of M.
-	Valenod found a way of cutting short, he learned the most mortifying
-	things in the world for his own self-esteem.
-
-	This woman, the most distinguished in the place, whom for six years he
-	had surrounded with every attention, and, unluckily, before the eyes
-	of all the world; this proudest of women, whose disdain had so often
-	made him blush, had taken as her lover a little journeyman dressed up
-	as a tutor. And that nothing might be wanting to the discomfiture of
-	the governor of the poorhouse, Madame de Renal adored this lover.
-
-	'And,' the maid added with a sigh, 'M. Julien went to no pains to make
-	this conquest, he has never departed from his habitual coldness with
-	Madame.'
-
-	It was only in the country that Elisa had become certain of her facts,
-	but she thought that this intrigue dated from far earlier.
-
-	'That, no doubt, is why,' she continued bitterly, 'he refused at the
-	time to marry me. And I, like a fool, going to consult Madame de
-	Renal, begging her to speak to the tutor!'
-
-	That same evening M. de Renal received from the town, with his
-	newspaper, a long anonymous letter which informed him in the fullest
-	detail of all that was going on under his roof. Julien saw him turn
-	pale as he read this letter, which was written on blue paper, and cast
-	angry glances at himself. For the rest of the evening the Mayor never
-	recovered his peace of mind; it was in vain that Julien tried to
-	flatter him by asking him to explain obscure points in the pedigrees
-	of the best families of Burgundy.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 20
-	The Anonymous Letters
-
-	Do not give dalliance
-	Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
-	To the fire i'the blood.
-	_The Tempest_
-
-	As they left the drawing-room about midnight, Julien found time to say
-	to his mistress: 'Do not let us meet tonight, your husband has
-	suspicions; I would swear that that long letter he was reading with
-	such displeasure is an anonymous one.'
-
-	Fortunately, Julien locked himself into his room. Madame de Renal
-	conceived the mad idea that this warning was simply a pretext for not
-	coming to see her. She lost her head absolutely, and at the usual hour
-	came to his door. Julien, hearing a sound in the corridor, instantly
-	blew out his lamp. Someone was attempting to open his door; was it
-	Madame de Renal, was it a jealous husband?
-
-	Early the next morning, the cook, who took an interest in Julien,
-	brought him a book on the cover of which he read these words written
-	in Italian: _Guardate alia pagina 130_.
-
-	Julien shuddered at the imprudence, turned to page one hundred and
-	thirty and found fastened to it with a pin the following letter
-	written in haste, bedewed with tears, and without the least attempt at
-	spelling. Ordinarily Madame de Renal spelt quite well; he was moved by
-	this detail and began to forget the frightful imprudence.
-
-	'So you would not let me in tonight? There are moments when I feel
-	that I have never seen into the depths of your heart. Your look
-	frightens me. I am afraid of you. Great God! Can it be, you have never
-	loved me? In that case, my husband can discover our love, and shut me
-	up in lifelong imprisonment, in the country, apart from my children.
-	Perhaps God wills it so. I shall soon die; but you will be a monster.
-
-	'Do you not love me? Are you tired of my follies, of my remorse,
-	impious one? Do you wish to ruin me? I give you an easy method. Go,
-	show this letter to all Verrieres, or rather show it to M. Valenod
-	alone. Tell him that I love you; but no, utter no such blasphemy; tell
-	him that I adore you, that life only began for me on the day when I
-	first saw you; that in the wildest moments of my girlhood, I had never
-	even dreamed of the happiness that I owe to you; that I have
-	sacrificed my life to you, that I am sacrificing my soul to you. You
-	know that I am sacrificing far more.
-
-	'But what does he know of sacrifices, that man? Tell him, tell him, to
-	make him angry, that I defy all evil-speakers, and that there is but
-	one misfortune in the world for me, that of beholding a change in the
-	one man who holds me to life. What a blessing for me to lose it, to
-	offer it in sacrifice, and to fear no longer for my children!
-
-	'Doubt not, dear friend, if there be an anonymous letter, it comes
-	from that odious being who, for the last six years, has pursued me
-	with his loud voice, with a list of the jumps his horse has taken,
-	with his fatuity and with the endless enumeration of all his
-	advantages.
-
-	'Is there an anonymous letter? Wicked one, that is what I wished to
-	discuss with you; but no, you were right. Clasping you in my arms, for
-	the last time perhaps, I could never have discussed the matter calmly,
-	as I do when I am alone. From this moment our happiness will not be so
-	easily secured. Will that be an annoyance to you? Yes, on the days
-	when you have not received some amusing book from M. Fouque. The
-	sacrifice is made; tomorrow, whether there be an anonymous letter or
-	not, I shall tell my husband that I have received an anonymous letter,
-	that he must instantly offer you a large sum to accept another post,
-	find some decent pretext, and send you back without delay to your
-	family.
-
-	'Alas, dear friend, we are going to be parted for a fortnight, perhaps
-	a month! But there, I do you justice, you will suffer as much as I.
-	Still, this is the only way to counteract the effect of this anonymous
-	letter; it is not the first that my husband has received, and on my
-	account too. Alas! How I have laughed at them!
-
-	'The whole purpose of my scheme is to make my husband think that the
-	letter comes from M. Valenod; I have no doubt that he is its author.
-	If you leave the house, do not fail to go and establish yourself at
-	Verrieres. I shall contrive that my husband conceives the idea of
-	spending a fortnight there, to prove to the fools that there is no
-	coolness between him and myself. Once you are at Verrieres, make
-	friends with everyone, even the Liberals. I know that all the ladies
-	will run after you.
-
-	'Do not go and quarrel with M. Valenod, nor crop his ears, as you once
-	threatened; on the contrary, show him every politeness. The essential
-	thing is that it should be known throughout Verrieres that you are
-	going to Valenod's, or to some other house, for the children's
-	education.
-
-	'That is what my husband will never stand. Should he resign himself to
-	it, well, at least you will be living in Verrieres, and I shall see
-	you sometimes. My children, who are so fond of you, will go to see
-	you. Great God! I feel that I love my children more, because they love
-	you. What remorse! How is all this going to end? I am wandering ...
-	Well, you understand what you must do; be gentle, polite, never
-	contemptuous with these vulgar personages, I implore you on my knees:
-	they are to be the arbiters of our destiny. Doubt not for a moment
-	that my husband in dealing with you will conform to whatever _public
-	opinion_ may prescribe.
-
-	'It is you that are going to provide me with this anonymous
-	letter; arm yourself with patience and a pair of scissors. Cut out of
-	a book the words you will see below; paste them together, with
-	water-glue, on the sheet of blue paper that I send you; it came to me
-	from M. Valenod. Be prepared for a search of your room; burn the pages
-	of the book you mutilate. If you do not find the words ready made,
-	have the patience to compose them letter by letter. To spare you
-	trouble, I have cut the anonymous letter short. Alas! If you no longer
-	love me, as I fear, how long mine must seem to you!
-
-	ANONYMOUS LETTER
-
-	"MADAME,
-
-	All your little goings on are known; but the persons to whose interest
-	it is to check them have been warned. From a lingering affection for
-	yourself, I beg you to detach yourself entirely from the little
-	peasant. If you have the wisdom to do this, your husband will believe
-	that the warning he has received was misleading, and he will be left
-	in his error. Bear in mind that I know your secret; tremble, unhappy
-	woman; henceforward you must tread a straight path, driven by me."
-
-	'As soon as you have finished pasting together the words that make up
-	this letter (do you recognise the Governor's style in it?) come out of
-	your room, I shall meet you about the house.
-
-	'I shall go to the village, and return with a troubled countenance; I
-	shall indeed be greatly troubled. Great God! What a risk I am running,
-	and all because you _thought you detected_ an anonymous letter. Finally,
-	with a woebegone face, I shall give my husband this letter, which will
-	have been handed to me by a stranger. As for you, go for a walk in the
-	direction of the woods with the children, and do not return until
-	dinner time.
-
-	'From the rocks above, you can see the tower of the dovecote. If all
-	goes well, I shall place a white handkerchief there; if not, you will
-	see nothing.
-
-	'Ungrateful wretch, will not your heart find out some way of telling
-	me that you love me, before starting on this walk? Whatever may befall
-	me, be certain of one thing: I should not survive for a day a final
-	parting. Ah! bad mother! These are two idle words that I have
-	written, dear Julien. I do not feel them; I can think only of you at
-	this moment, I have written them only so as not to be blamed by you.
-	Now that I find myself brought to the point of losing you, what use is
-	there in pretence? Yes, let my heart seem black as night to you, but
-	let me not lie to the man whom I adore! I have been all too deceitful
-	already in my life. Go to, I forgive you if you love me no longer. I
-	have not time to read my letter through. It is a small thing in my
-	eyes to pay with my life for the happy days which I have spent in your
-	arms. You know that they will cost me more than life.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 21
-	Conversation with a Lord and Master
-
-	Alas! our frailty is the cause, not we! For such as we are made of,
-	such we be.
-	_Twelfth Night_
-
-	It was with a childish pleasure that Julien spent an hour in pasting
-	words together. As he left his room he came upon his pupils and their
-	mother; she took the letter with a simplicity and courage, the
-	calmness of which terrified him.
-
-	'Is the gum quite dry?' she asked him.
-
-	'Can this be the woman who was being driven mad by remorse?' he
-	thought. 'What are her plans at this moment?' He was too proud to ask
-	her; but never, perhaps, had she appealed to him more strongly.
-
-	'If things go amiss,' she went on with the same coolness, 'I shall be
-	stripped of everything. Bury this store somewhere in the mountains; it
-	may some day be my last resource.'
-
-	She handed him a glass-topped case, in red morocco, filled with gold
-	and a few diamonds.
-
-	'Go now,' she said to him.
-
-	She embraced her children, the youngest of them twice over. Julien
-	stood spellbound. She left him at a rapid pace and without looking at
-	him again.
-
-	>From the moment of his opening the anonymous letter, M. de Renal's life
-	had been a burden to him. He had not been so agitated since a duel
-	that he had nearly had to fight in 1816, and, to do him justice, the
-	prospect of receiving a bullet in his person would now have distressed
-	him less. He examined the letter from every angle. 'Is not this a
-	woman's hand?' he asked himself. 'In that case, what woman can have
-	written it?' He considered in turn all the women he knew at Verrieres,
-	without finding a definite object for his suspicions. Could a man have
-	dictated the letter? If so, what man? Here again, a similar
-	uncertainty; he had earned the jealousy and no doubt the hatred of the
-	majority of the men he knew. 'I must consult my wife,' he said to
-	himself, from force of habit, as he rose from the armchair in which he
-	had collapsed.
-
-	No sooner had he risen than 'Good God!' he exclaimed, clapping his
-	hand to his head, 'she is the one person whom I cannot trust; from
-	this moment she is my enemy.' And tears of anger welled into his eyes.
-
-	It was a fitting reward for that barrenness of heart in which
-	practical wisdom in the provinces is rooted, that the two men whom, at
-	that moment, M. de Renal most dreaded were his two most intimate
-	friends.
-
-	'Apart from them, I have ten friends perhaps,' and he turned them over
-	in his mind, calculating the exact amount of comfort that he would be
-	able to derive from each. 'To all of them, to all of them,' he cried in
-	his rage, 'my appalling misfortune will give the most intense
-	pleasure.' Happily for him, he supposed himself to be greatly envied,
-	and not without reason. Apart from his superb house in town on which
-	the King of ---- had just conferred everlasting honour by sleeping
-	beneath its roof, he had made an admirable piece of work of his
-	country house at Vergy. The front was painted white, and the windows
-	adorned with handsome green shutters. He was comforted for a moment by
-	the thought of this magnificence. The fact of the matter was that this
-	mansion was visible from a distance of three or four leagues, to the
-	great detriment of all the country houses or so-called _chateaux_ of
-	the neighbourhood, which had been allowed to retain the humble grey
-	tones imparted to them by time.
-
-	M. de Renal could reckon upon the tears and pity of one of his
-	friends, the churchwarden of the parish; but he was an imbecile who
-	shed tears at everything. This man was nevertheless his sole resource.
-
-	'What misfortune is comparable to mine?' he exclaimed angrily. 'What
-	isolation!
-
-	'Is it possible,' this truly pitiable man asked himself, 'is it
-	possible that, in my distress, I have not a single friend of whom
-	to ask advice? For my mind is becoming unhinged, I can feel it! Ah,
-	Falcoz! Ah, Ducros!' he cried bitterly. These were the names of two
-	of his boyhood's friends whom he had alienated by his arrogance in
-	1814. They were not noble, and he had tried to alter the terms of
-	equality on which they had been living all their lives.
-
-	One of them, Falcoz, a man of spirit and heart, a paper merchant at
-	Verrieres, had purchased a printing press in the chief town of the
-	Department and had started a newspaper. The _Congregation_ had
-	determined to ruin him: his paper had been condemned, his printer's
-	licence had been taken from him. In these unfortunate circumstances he
-	ventured to write to M. de Renal for the first time in ten years. The
-	Mayor of Verrieres felt it incumbent on him to reply in the Ancient
-	Roman style: 'If the King's Minister did me the honour to consult me,
-	I should say to him: "Ruin without compunction all provincial
-	printers, and make printing a monopoly like the sale of tobacco."'
-	This letter to an intimate friend which had set the whole of Verrieres
-	marvelling at the time, M. de Renal now recalled, word for word, with
-	horror. 'Who would have said that with my rank, my fortune, my
-	Crosses, I should one day regret it?' It was in such transports of
-	anger, now against himself, now against all around him, that he passed
-	a night of anguish; but, fortunately, it did not occur to him to spy
-	upon his wife.
-
-	'I am used to Louise,' he said to himself, 'she knows all my affairs;
-	were I free to marry again tomorrow I could find no one fit to take
-	her place.' Next, he sought relief in the idea that his wife was
-	innocent; this point of view made it unnecessary for him to show his
-	strength of character, and was far more convenient; how many slandered
-	wives have we not all seen!
-
-	'But what!' he suddenly exclaimed, pacing the floor with a convulsive
-	step, 'am I to allow her, as though I were a man of straw, a mere
-	ragamuffin, to make a mock of me with her lover? Is the whole of
-	Verrieres to be allowed to sneer at my complacency? What have they not
-	said about Charmier?' (a notorious local cuckold). 'When he is
-	mentioned, is there not a smile on every face? He is a good pleader,
-	who is there that ever mentions his talent for public speaking? "Ah!
-	Charmier!" is what they say; "Bernard's Charmier." They actually give
-	him the name of the man that has disgraced him.
-
-	'Thank heaven,' said M. de Renal at other moments, 'I have no
-	daughter, and the manner in which I am going to punish their mother
-	will not damage the careers of my children; I can surprise that young
-	peasant with my wife, and kill the pair of them; in that event, the
-	tragic outcome of my misfortune may perhaps make it less absurd.' This
-	idea appealed to him: he worked it out in the fullest detail. 'The
-	Penal Code is on my side, and, whatever happens, our _Congregation_
-	and my friends on the jury will save me.' He examined his hunting
-	knife, which had a keen blade; but the thought of bloodshed frightened
-	him.
-
-	'I might thrash this insolent tutor black and blue and turn him from
-	the house; but what a stir in Verrieres and, indeed, throughout the
-	Department! After the suppression of Falcoz's paper, when his editor
-	came out of prison, I was instrumental in making him lose a place
-	worth six hundred francs. They say that the scribbler has dared to
-	show his face again in Besancon, he may easily attack me, and so
-	cunningly that it will be impossible to bring him to justice! That
-	insolent fellow will insinuate in a thousand ways that he has been
-	speaking the truth. A man of family, who respects his rank as I do, is
-	always hated by plebeians. I shall see myself in those frightful Paris
-	papers; my God! what degradation! To see the ancient name of Renal
-	plunged in the mire of ridicule ... If I ever travel, I shall have to
-	change my name; what! give up this name which is my pride and my
-	strength. What a crowning infamy!
-
-	'If I do not kill my wife, if I drive her from the house with
-	ignominy, she has her aunt at Besancon, who will hand over the whole
-	of her fortune to her on the quiet. My wife will go and live in Paris
-	with Julien; Verrieres will hear of it, and I shall again be regarded
-	as a dupe.' This unhappy man then perceived, from the failing light of
-	his lamp, that day was beginning to break. He went to seek a breath of
-	air in the garden. At that moment, he had almost made up his mind to
-	create no scene, chiefly because a scene of that sort would fill his
-	good friends at Verrieres with joy.
-
-	His stroll in the garden calmed him somewhat. 'No,' he cried, 'I shall
-	certainly not part with my wife, she is too useful to me.' He pictured
-	to himself with horror what his house would be like without his wife;
-	his sole female relative was the Marquise de R---- who was old,
-	idiotic and evil-minded.
-
-	An idea of the greatest good sense occurred to him, but to put it into
-	practice required a strength of character far exceeding the little
-	that the poor man possessed. 'If I keep my wife,' he said to himself;
-	'I know my own nature; one day, when she taxes my patience, I shall
-	reproach her with her offence. She is proud, we are bound to quarrel,
-	and all this will happen before she has inherited her aunt's estate.
-	And then, how they will all laugh at me! My wife loves her children,
-	it will all come to them in the end. But I, I shall be the talk of
-	Verrieres. What, they will say, he couldn't even punish his wife!
-	Would it not be better to stick to my suspicions and to verify
-	nothing? Then I tie my own hands, I cannot afterwards reproach her
-	with anything.'
-
-	A moment later M. de Renal, his wounded vanity once more gaining the
-	mastery, was laboriously recalling all the stories told in the
-	billiard-room of the Casino or Noble Club of Verrieres, when some
-	fluent talker interrupted the pool to make merry at the expense of
-	some cuckolded husband. How cruel, at that moment, those pleasantries
-	seemed.
-
-	'God! Why is not my wife dead! Then I should be immune from ridicule.
-	Why am I not a widower! I should go and spend six months in Paris in
-	the best society.' After this momentary happiness caused by the idea
-	of widowhood, his imagination returned to the methods of ascertaining
-	the truth. Should he at midnight, after the whole household had gone
-	to bed, sprinkle a few handfuls of bran outside the door of Julien's
-	room? Next morning, at daybreak, he would see the footprints on it.
-
-	'But that would be no good,' he broke out angrily, 'that wretched
-	Elisa would notice it, and it would be all over the house at once that
-	I am jealous.'
-
-	In another story that circulated at the Casino, a husband had made
-	certain of his plight by fastening a hair with a little wax so as to
-	seal up the doors of his wife's room and her lover's.
-
-	After so many hours of vacillation, this method of obtaining
-	enlightenment seemed to him decidedly the best, and he was thinking of
-	adopting it, when at a bend in the path he came upon that wife whom he
-	would have liked to see dead.
-
-	She was returning from the village. She had gone to hear mass in the
-	church of Vergy. A tradition of extremely doubtful value in the eyes
-	of the cold philosopher, but one in which she believed, made out that
-	the little church now in use had been the chapel of the castle of the
-	Lord of Vergy. This thought obsessed Madame de Renal throughout the
-	time which she had meant to pass in prayer in this church. She kept on
-	picturing to herself her husband killing Julien during the chase, as
-	though by accident, and afterwards, that evening, making her eat his
-	heart.
-
-	'My fate,' she said to herself, 'depends on what he will think when he
-	hears me. After these terrible moments, perhaps I shall not find
-	another opportunity to speak to him. He is not a wise creature, swayed
-	by reason. I might, if he were, with the aid of my own feeble wits,
-	forecast what he would do or say. But my fate lies in my cunning, in
-	the art of directing the thoughts of this whimsical creature, who
-	becomes blind with anger and incapable of seeing things. Great God! I
-	require talent, coolness, where am I to find them?'
-
-	She recovered her calm as though by magic on entering the garden and
-	seeing her husband in the distance. The disorder of his hair and
-	clothes showed that he had not slept. She handed him a letter which,
-	though the seal was broken, was still folded. He, without opening it,
-	gazed at his wife with madness in his eyes.
-
-	'Here is an abomination,' she said to him, 'which an evil-looking man
-	who claims to know you and that you owe him a debt of gratitude,
-	handed to me as I came past the back of the lawyer's garden. One thing
-	I must ask of you, and that is that you send back to his own people,
-	and without delay, that Monsieur Julien.' Madame de Renal made haste
-	to utter this name, even beginning a little too soon perhaps, in order
-	to rid herself of the fearful prospect of having to utter it.
-
-	She was filled with joy on beholding the joy that it gave her husband.
-	>From the fixed stare which he directed at her she realised that Julien
-	had guessed aright. Instead of worrying about a very present trouble,
-	'what intelligence,' she thought to herself. 'What perfect tact! And
-	in a young man still quite devoid of experience! To what heights will
-	he not rise in time? Alas! Then his success will make him forget me.'
-
-	This little act of admiration of the man she adored completely
-	restored her composure.
-
-	She congratulated herself on the step she had taken. 'I have proved
-	myself not unworthy of Julien,' she said to herself, with a sweet and
-	secret relish.
-
-	Without saying a word, for fear of committing himself, M. de Renal
-	examined this second anonymous letter composed, as the reader may
-	remember, of printed words gummed upon a sheet of paper of a bluish
-	tinge. 'They are making a fool of me in every way,' M. de Renal said
-	to himself, utterly worn out.
-
-	'Fresh insults to be looked into, and all owing to my wife!' He was on
-	the point of deluging her with a stream of the coarsest invective; the
-	thought of the fortune awaiting her at Besancon just stopped him.
-	Overpowered by the necessity of venting his anger on something, he
-	tore up the sheet on which this second anonymous letter was gummed,
-	and strode rapidly away, feeling that he could not endure his wife's
-	company. A minute later, he returned to her, already more calm.
-
-	'We must take action at once and dismiss Julien,' she immediately
-	began; 'after all he is only the son of a working man. You can
-	compensate him with a few crowns, besides, he is clever and can easily
-	find another place, with M. Valenod, for instance, or the Sub-Prefect
-	Maugiron; they both have families. And so you will not be doing him
-	any harm ...'
-
-	'You speak like the fool that you are,' cried M. de Renal in a voice
-	of thunder. 'How can one expect common sense of a woman? You never pay
-	attention to what is reasonable; how should you have any knowledge?
-	Your carelessness, your laziness leave you just enough activity to
-	chase butterflies, feeble creatures which we are so unfortunate as to
-	have in our households ...'
-
-	Madame de Renal let him speak, and he spoke at length; he passed his
-	anger, as they say in those parts.
-
-	'Sir,' she answered him finally, 'I speak as a woman whose honour,
-	that is to say her most priceless possession, has been outraged.'
-
-	Madame de Renal preserved an unalterable calm throughout the whole of
-	this trying conversation, upon which depended the possibility of her
-	continuing to live beneath the same roof as Julien. She sought out the
-	ideas that seemed to her best fitted to guide her husband's blind
-	anger. She had remained unmoved by all the insulting remarks that he
-	had addressed to her, she did not hear them, she was thinking all the
-	time of Julien. 'Will he be pleased with me?'
-
-	'This little peasant upon whom we have lavished every attention,
-	including presents, may be innocent,' she said at length, 'but he is
-	none the less the occasion of the first insult I have ever received ...
-	Sir, when I read that abominable document, I vowed that either he
-	or I should leave your roof.'
-
-	'Do you wish to create a scandal that will dishonour me and yourself
-	as well? You'll be giving a fine treat to many people in Verrieres.'
-
-	'That is true; they are all jealous of the state of prosperity to
-	which your wise management has brought you, your family and the town ...
-	Very well, I shall go and bid Julien ask you for leave to spend a
-	month with that timber merchant in the mountain, a fit companion for
-	that little workman.'
-
-	'Take care what you do,' put in M. de Renal, calmly enough. 'The one
-	thing I must insist on is that you do not speak to him. You would show
-	temper and make him cross with me; you know how touchy the little
-	gentleman is.'
-
-	'That young man has no tact,' went on Madame de Renal; 'he may be
-	learned, you know about that, but at bottom he is nothing but a
-	peasant. For my own part, I have never had any opinion of him since he
-	refused to marry Elisa, it was a fortune ready made; and all because
-	now and again she pays a secret visit to M. Valenod.'
-
-	'Ah!' said M. de Renal, raising his eyebrows as far as they would go,
-	'what, did Julien tell you that?'
-
-	'No, not exactly; he has always spoken to me of the vocation that is
-	calling him to the sacred ministry; but believe me, the first vocation
-	for the lower orders is to find their daily bread. He made it fairly
-	clear to me that he was not unaware of these secret visits.'
-
-	'And I, I, knew nothing about them!' cried M. de Renal, all his fury
-	returning, emphasising every word. 'There are things going on in my
-	house of which I know nothing ... What! There has been something
-	between Elisa and Valenod?'
-
-	'Oh, that's an old story, my dear friend,' Madame de Renal said
-	laughing, 'and I daresay no harm was done. It was in the days when
-	your good friend Valenod would not have been sorry to have it thought
-	in Verrieres that there was a little love--of a purely platonic
-	sort--exchanged between him and me.'
-
-	'I had that idea at one time,' cried M. de Renal striking his head in
-	his fury as he advanced from one discovery to another, 'and you never
-	said a word to me about it?'
-
-	'Was I to make trouble between two friends all for a little outburst
-	of vanity on the part of our dear Governor? What woman is there in
-	society to whom he has not addressed one or more letters, extremely
-	witty and even a trifle gallant?'
-
-	'Has he written to you?'
-
-	'He writes frequently.'
-
-	'Show me his letters this instant, I order you'; and M. de Renal added
-	six feet to his stature.
-
-	'I shall do nothing of the sort,' the answer came in a tone so gentle
-	as to be almost indifferent, 'I shall let you see them some other day,
-	when you are more yourself.'
-
-	'This very instant, damn it!' cried M. de Renal, blind with rage, and
-	yet happier than he had been at any time in the last twelve hours.
-
-	'Will you swear to me,' said Madame de Renal solemnly, 'never to
-	quarrel with the Governor of the Poorhouse over these letters?'
-
-	'Quarrel or no quarrel, I can take the foundlings away from him; but,'
-	he continued, furiously, 'I want those letters this instant; where are
-	they?'
-
-	'In a drawer in my desk; but you may be certain, I shall not give you
-	the key of it.'
-
-	'I shall be able to force it,' he cried as he made off in the
-	direction of his wife's room.
-
-	He did indeed break open with an iron bar a valuable mahogany writing
-	desk, imported from Paris, which he used often to polish with the tail
-	of his coat when he thought he detected a spot on its surface.
-
-	Madame de Renal meanwhile had run up the hundred and twenty steps of
-	the dovecote; she knotted the corner of a white handkerchief to one of
-	the iron bars of the little window. She was the happiest of women.
-	With tears in her eyes she gazed out at the wooded slopes of the
-	mountain. 'Doubtless,' she said to herself, 'beneath one of those
-	spreading beeches, Julien is watching for this glad signal.' For long
-	she strained her ears, then cursed the monotonous drone of the
-	grasshoppers and the twitter of the birds. But for those tiresome
-	sounds, a cry of joy, issuing from among the rocks, might have reached
-	her in her tower. Her ravening gaze devoured that immense slope of
-	dusky verdure, unbroken as the surface of a meadow, that was formed by
-	the treetops. 'How is it he has not the sense,' she asked herself with
-	deep emotion, 'to think of some signal to tell me that his happiness
-	is no less than mine?' She came down from the dovecote only when she
-	began to be afraid that her husband might come up in search of her.
-
-	She found him foaming with rage. He was running through M. Valenod's
-	anodyne sentences, that were little used to being read with such
-	emotion.
-
-	Seizing a moment in which a lull in her husband's exclamations gave
-	her a chance to make herself heard:
-
-	'I cannot get away from my original idea,' said Madame de Renal,
-	'Julien ought to go for a holiday. Whatever talent he may have for
-	Latin, he is nothing more, after all, than a peasant who is often
-	coarse and wanting in tact; every day, thinking he is being polite, he
-	plies me with extravagant compliments in the worst of taste, which he
-	learns by heart from some novel ...'
-
-	'He never reads any,' cried M. de Renal; 'I am positive as to that. Do
-	you suppose that I am a blind master who knows nothing of what goes on
-	under his roof?'
-
-	'Very well, if he doesn't read those absurd compliments anywhere, he
-	invents them, which is even worse. He will have spoken of me in that
-	tone in Verrieres; and, without going so far,' said Madame de Renal,
-	with the air of one making a discovery, 'he will have spoken like that
-	before Elisa, which is just as though he had spoken to M. Valenod.'
-
-	'Ah!' cried M. de Renal, making the table and the whole room shake
-	with one of the stoutest blows that human fist ever gave, 'the
-	anonymous letter in print and Valenod's letters were all on the same
-	paper.'
-
-	'At last!' thought Madame de Renal; she appeared thunderstruck by this
-	discovery, and without having the courage to add a single word went
-	and sat down on the divan, at the farther end of the room.
-
-	The battle was now won; she had her work cut out to prevent M. de
-	Renal from going and talking to the supposed author of the anonymous
-	letter.
-
-	'How is it you do not feel that to make a scene, without sufficient
-	proof, with M. Valenod would be the most deplorable error? If you are
-	envied, Sir, who is to blame? Your own talents: your wise
-	administration, the buildings you have erected with such good taste,
-	the dowry I brought you, and above all the considerable fortune we may
-	expect to inherit from my worthy aunt, a fortune the extent of which
-	is vastly exaggerated, have made you the principal person in
-	Verrieres.'
-
-	'You forget my birth,' said M. de Renal, with a faint smile.
-
-	'You are one of the most distinguished gentlemen in the province,'
-	Madame de Renal hastily added; 'if the King were free and could do
-	justice to birth, you would doubtless be figuring in the House of
-	Peers,' and so forth. 'And in this magnificent position do you seek to
-	provide jealousy with food for comment?
-
-	'To speak to M. Valenod of his anonymous letter is to proclaim
-	throughout Verrieres, or rather in Besancon, throughout the Province,
-	that this petty cit, admitted perhaps imprudently to the friendship of
-	a Renal, has found out a way to insult him. Did these letters which
-	you have just discovered prove that I had responded to M. Valenod's
-	overtures, then it would be for you to kill me, I should have deserved
-	it a hundred times, but not to show anger with him. Think that all
-	your neighbours only await a pretext to be avenged for your
-	superiority; think that in 1816 you were instrumental in securing
-	certain arrests. That man who took refuge on your roof ...'
-
-	'What I think is that you have neither respect nor affection for me,'
-	shouted M. de Renal with all the bitterness that such a memory
-	aroused, 'and I have not been made a Peer!'
-
-	'I think, my friend,' put in Madame de Renal with a smile, 'that I
-	shall one day be richer than you, that I have been your companion for
-	twelve years, and that on all these counts I ought to have a voice in
-	your councils, especially in this business today. If you prefer
-	Monsieur Julien to me,' she added with ill-concealed scorn, 'I am
-	prepared to go and spend the winter with my aunt.'
-
-	This threat was uttered _with gladness_. It contained the firmness
-	which seeks to cloak itself in courtesy; it determined M. de Renal.
-	But, obeying the provincial custom, he continued to speak for a long
-	time, harked back to every argument in turn; his wife allowed him to
-	speak, there was still anger in his tone. At length, two hours of
-
-	futile discourse wore out the strength of a man who had been helpless
-	with rage all night. He determined upon the line of conduct which he
-	was going to adopt towards M. Valenod, Julien, and even Elisa.
-
-	Once or twice, during this great scene, Madame de Renal came within an
-	ace of feeling a certain sympathy for the very real distress of this
-	man who for ten years had been her friend. But our true passions are
-	selfish. Moreover she was expecting every moment an avowal of the
-	anonymous letter which he had received overnight, and this avowal
-	never came. To gain complete confidence, Madame de Renal required to
-	know what ideas might have been suggested to the man upon whom her
-	fate depended. For, in the country, husbands control public opinion. A
-	husband who denounces his wife covers himself with ridicule, a thing
-	that every day is becoming less dangerous in France; but his wife, if
-	he does not supply her with money, declines to the position of a
-	working woman at fifteen sous daily, and even then the virtuous souls
-	have scruples about employing her.
-
-	An odalisque in the seraglio may love the Sultan with all her heart;
-	he is all powerful, she has no hope of evading his authority by a
-	succession of clever little tricks. The master's vengeance is
-	terrible, bloody, but martial and noble: a dagger blow ends
-	everything. It is with blows dealt by public contempt that a husband
-	kills his wife in the nineteenth century; it is by shutting the doors
-	of all the drawing-rooms in her face.
-
-	The sense of danger was keenly aroused in Madame de Renal on her
-	return to her own room; she was horrified by the disorder in which she
-	found it. The locks of all her pretty little boxes had been broken;
-	several planks in the floor had been torn up. 'He would have been
-	without pity for me!' she told herself. 'To spoil so this floor of
-	coloured parquet, of which he is so proud; when one of his children
-	comes in with muddy shoes, he flushes with rage. And now it is ruined
-	for ever!' The sight of this violence rapidly silenced the last
-	reproaches with which she had been blaming herself for her too rapid
-	victory.
-
-	Shortly before the dinner bell sounded, Julien returned with the
-	children. At dessert, when the servants had left the room, Madame de
-	Renal said to him very drily:
-
-	'You expressed the desire to me to go and spend a fortnight at
-	Verrieres; M. de Renal is kind enough to grant you leave. You can go
-	as soon as you please. But, so that the children shall not waste any
-	time, their lessons will be sent to you every day, for you to
-	correct.'
-
-	'Certainly,' M. de Renal added in a most bitter tone, 'I shall not
-	allow you more than a week.'
-
-	Julien read in his features the uneasiness of a man in cruel torment.
-
-	'He has not yet come to a decision,' he said to his mistress, during a
-	moment of solitude in the drawing-room.
-
-	Madame de Renal informed him rapidly of all that she had done since
-	the morning.
-
-	'The details tonight,' she added laughing.
-
-	'The perversity of woman!' thought Julien. 'What pleasure, what
-	instinct leads them to betray us?
-
-	'I find you at once enlightened and blinded by your love,' he said to
-	her with a certain coldness; 'your behaviour today has been admirable;
-	but is there any prudence in our attempting to see each other tonight?
-	This house is paved with enemies; think of the passionate hatred that
-	Elisa has for me.'
-
-	'That hatred greatly resembles the passionate indifference that you
-	must have for me.'
-
-	'Indifferent or not, I am bound to save you from a peril into which I
-	have plunged you. If chance decrees that M. de Renal speaks to Elisa,
-	by a single word she may disclose everything to him. What is to
-	prevent him from hiding outside my room, well armed ...'
-
-	'What! Lacking in courage even!' said Madame de Renal, with all the
-	pride of a woman of noble birth.
-
-	'I shall never sink so low as to speak of my courage,' said Julien
-	coldly, 'that is mean. Let the world judge by my actions. But,' he
-	went on, taking her hand, 'you cannot conceive how attached I am to
-	you, and what a joy it is to me to be able to take leave of you before
-	this cruel parting.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 22.
-	Manners and Customs in 1830
-
-	Speech was given to man to enable him to conceal his thoughts.
-	MALAGRIDA, S.J.
-
-	The first thing that Julien did on arriving in Verrieres was to
-	reproach himself for his unfairness to Madame de Renal. 'I should have
-	despised her as a foolish woman if from weakness she had failed to
-	bring off the scene with M. de Renal! She carried it through like a
-	diplomat, and my sympathies are with the loser, who is my enemy. There
-	is a streak of middle-class pettiness in my nature; my vanity is hurt,
-	because M. de Renal is a man! That vast and illustrous corporation to
-	which I have the honour to belong; I am a perfect fool.'
-
-	M. Chelan had refused the offers of hospitality which the most
-	respected Liberals of the place had vied with one another in making
-	him, when his deprivation drove him from the presbytery. The pair of
-	rooms which he had taken were littered with his books. Julien, wishing
-	to show Verrieres what it meant to be a priest, went and fetched from
-	his father's store a dozen planks of firwood, which he carried on his
-	back the whole length of the main street. He borrowed some tools from
-	an old friend and had soon constructed a sort of bookcase in which he
-	arranged M. Chelan's library.
-
-	'I supposed you to have been corrupted by the vanity of the world,'
-	said the old man, shedding tears of joy; 'this quite redeems the
-	childishness of that dazzling guard of honour uniform which made you
-	so many enemies.'
-
-	M. de Renal had told Julien to put up in his house. No one had any
-	suspicion of what had happened. On the third day after his arrival,
-	there came up to his room no less a personage than the Sub-Prefect, M.
-	de Maugiron. It was only after two solid hours of insipid
-	tittle-tattle, and long jeremiads on the wickedness of men, on the
-	lack of honesty in the people entrusted with the administration of
-	public funds, on the dangers besetting poor France, etc., etc., that
-	Julien saw him come at length to the purpose of his visit. They were
-	already on the landing, and the poor tutor, on the verge of disgrace,
-	was ushering out with all due respect the future Prefect of some
-	fortunate Department, when it pleased the latter gentleman to occupy
-	himself with Julien's career, to praise his moderation where his own
-	interests were concerned, etc., etc. Finally M. de Maugiron, taking
-	him in his arms in the most fatherly manner, suggested to him that he
-	should leave M. de Renal and enter the household of an official who
-	had children to educate, and who, like King Philip, would thank
-	heaven, not so much for having given him them as for having caused
-	them to be born in the neighbourhood of M. Julien. Their tutor would
-	receive a salary of eight hundred francs, payable not month by month,
-	'which is not noble,' said M. de Maugiron, but quarterly, and in
-	advance to boot.
-
-	It was now the turn of Julien who, for an hour and a half, had been
-	waiting impatiently for an opportunity to speak. His reply was
-	perfect, and as long as a pastoral charge; it let everything be
-	understood, and at the same time said nothing definite. A listener
-	would have found in it at once respect for M. de Renal, veneration for
-	the people of Verrieres and gratitude towards the illustrious
-	Sub-Prefect. The said Sub-Prefect, astonished at finding a bigger
-	Jesuit than himself, tried in vain to obtain something positive.
-	Julien, overjoyed, seized the opportunity to try his skill and began
-	his answer over again in different terms. Never did the most eloquent
-	Minister, seeking to monopolise the last hours of a sitting when the
-	Chamber seems inclined to wake up, say less in more words. As soon as
-	M. de Maugiron had left him, Julien broke out in helpless laughter. To
-	make the most of his Jesuitical bent, he wrote a letter of nine pages
-	to M. de Renal, in which he informed him of everything that had been
-	said to him, and humbly asked his advice. 'Why, that rascal never even
-	told me the name of the person who is making the offer! It will be M.
-	Valenod, who sees in my banishment to Verrieres the effect of his
-	anonymous letter.'
-
-
-	His missive dispatched, Julien, as happy as a hunter who at six in the
-	morning on a fine autumn day emerges upon a plain teeming with game,
-	went out to seek the advice of M. Chelan. But before he arrived at the
-	good cure's house, heaven, which was anxious to shower its blessings
-	on him, threw him into the arms of M. Valenod, from whom he did not
-	conceal the fact that his heart was torn; a penniless youth like
-	himself was bound to devote himself entirely to the vocation which
-	heaven had placed in his heart, but a vocation was not everything in
-	this vile world. To be a worthy labourer in the Lord's vineyard, and
-	not to be altogether unworthy of all one's learned fellow-labourers,
-	one required education; one required to spend in the seminary at
-	Besancon two very expensive years; it became indispensable, therefore,
-	to save money, which was considerably easier with a salary of eight
-	hundred francs paid quarterly, than with six hundred francs which
-	melted away month by month. On the other hand, did not heaven, by
-	placing him with the Renal boys, and above all by inspiring in him a
-	particular attachment to them, seem to indicate to him that it would
-	be a mistake to abandon this form of education for another? ...
-
-	Julien arrived at such a pitch of perfection in this kind of
-	eloquence, which has taken the place of the swiftness of action of the
-	Empire, that he ended by growing tired of the sound of his own voice.
-
-	Returning to the house he found one of M. Valenod's servants in full
-	livery, who had been looking for him all over the town, with a note
-	inviting him to dinner that very day.
-
-	Never had Julien set foot in the man's house; only a few days earlier,
-	his chief thought was how he might give him a thorough good thrashing
-	without subsequent action by the police. Although dinner was not to be
-	until one o'clock, Julien thought it more respectful to present
-	himself at half past twelve in the study of the Governor of the
-	Poorhouse. He found him displaying his importance amid a mass of
-	papers. His huge black whiskers, his enormous quantity of hair, his
-	night-cap poised askew on the top of his head, his immense pipe, his
-	embroidered slippers, the heavy gold chains slung across his chest in
-	every direction, and all the equipment of a provincial financier, who
-	imagines himself to be a ladies' man, made not the slightest
-	impression upon Julien; he only thought all the more of the thrashing
-	that he owed him.
-
-	He craved the honour of being presented to Madame Valenod; she was
-	making her toilet and could not see him. To make up for this, he had
-	the privilege of witnessing that of the Governor of the Poorhouse.
-	They then proceeded to join Madame Valenod, who presented her children
-	to him with tears in her eyes. This woman, one of the most important
-	people in Verrieres, had a huge masculine face, which she had
-	plastered with rouge for this great ceremony. She displayed all the
-	pathos of maternal feelings.
-
-	Julien thought of Madame de Renal. His distrustful nature made him
-	scarcely susceptible to any memories save those that are evoked by
-	contrast, but such memories moved him to tears. This tendency was
-	increased by the sight of the Governor's house. He was taken through
-	it. Everything in it was sumptuous and new, and he was told the price
-	of each article. But Julien felt that there was something mean about
-	it, a taint of stolen money. Everyone, even the servants, wore a bold
-	air that seemed to be fortifying them against contempt.
-
-	The collector of taxes, the receiver of customs, the chief constable
-	and two or three other public officials arrived with their wives. They
-	were followed by several wealthy Liberals. Dinner was announced.
-	Julien, already in the worst of humours, suddenly reflected that on
-	the other side of the dining-room wall there were wretched prisoners,
-	whose rations of meat had perhaps been squeezed to purchase all this
-	tasteless splendour with which his hosts sought to dazzle him.
-
-	'They are hungry perhaps at this moment,' he said to himself; his
-	throat contracted, he found it impossible to eat and almost to speak.
-	It was much worse a quarter of an hour later; they could hear in the
-	distance a few snatches of a popular and, it must be admitted, not too
-	refined song which one of the inmates was singing. M. Valenod glanced
-	at one of his men in full livery, who left the room, and presently the
-	sound of singing ceased. At that moment, a footman offered Julien
-	some Rhine wine in a green glass, and Madame Valenod took care to
-	inform him that this wine cost nine francs the bottle, direct from the
-	grower. Julien, the green glass in his hand, said to M. Valenod:
-
-	'I don't hear that horrid song any more.'
-
-	'Gad! I should think not, indeed,' replied the Governor triumphantly.
-	'I've made the rascal shut up.'
-
-	This was too much for Julien; he had acquired the manners but had not
-	yet the heart appropriate to his station. Despite all his hypocrisy,
-	which he kept in such constant practice, he felt a large tear trickle
-	down his cheek.
-
-	He tried to hide it with the green glass, but it was simply impossible
-	for him to do honour to the Rhine wine. 'Stop the man singing!' he
-	murmured to himself, 'O my God, and Thou permittest it!'
-
-	Fortunately for him, no one noticed his ill-bred emotion. The
-	collector of taxes had struck up a royalist ditty. During the clamour
-	of the refrain, sung in chorus: 'There,' Julien's conscience warned
-	him, 'you have the sordid fortune which you will achieve, and you will
-	enjoy it only in these conditions and in such company as this! You
-	will have a place worth perhaps twenty thousand francs, but it must be
-	that while you gorge to repletion you stop the poor prisoner from
-	singing; you will give dinner parties with the money you have filched
-	from his miserable pittance, and during your dinner he will be more
-	wretched still! O Napoleon! How pleasant it was in your time to climb
-	to fortune through the dangers of a battle; but meanly to intensify
-	the sufferings of the wretched!'
-
-	I admit that the weakness which Julien displays in this monologue
-	gives me a poor opinion of him. He would be a worthy colleague for
-	those conspirators in yellow gloves, who profess to reform all the
-	conditions of life in a great country, and would be horrified at
-	having to undergo the slightest inconvenience themselves.
-
-	Julien was sharply recalled to his proper part. It was not that he
-	might dream and say nothing that he had been invited to dine in such
-	good company.
-
-	A retired calico printer, a corresponding member of the Academy of
-	Besancon and of that of Uzes, was speaking to him, down the whole
-	length of the table, inquiring whether all that was commonly reported
-	as to his astonishing prowess in the study of the New Testament was
-	true.
-
-	A profound silence fell instantly; a New Testament appeared as though
-	by magic in the hands of the learned member of the two academies.
-	Julien having answered in the affirmative, a few words in Latin were
-	read out to him at random. He began to recite: his memory did not
-	betray him, and this prodigy was admired with all the noisy energy of
-	the end of a dinner. Julien studied the glowing faces of the women.
-	Several of them were not ill-looking. He had made out the wife of the
-	collector who sang so well.
-
-	'Really, I am ashamed to go on speaking Latin so long before these
-	ladies,' he said, looking at her. 'If M. Rubigneau' (this was the
-	member of the two academies) 'will be so good as to read out any
-	sentence in Latin, instead of going on with the Latin text, I shall
-	endeavour to improvise a translation.'
-
-	This second test set the crown of glory on his achievement.
-
-	There were in the room a number of Liberals, men of means, but the
-	happy fathers of children who were capable of winning bursaries, and
-	in this capacity suddenly converted after the last Mission. Despite
-	this brilliant stroke of policy, M. de Renal had never consented to
-	have them in his house. These worthy folk, who knew Julien only by
-	reputation and from having seen him on horseback on the day of the
-	King of ----'s visit, were his most vociferous admirers. 'When will
-	these fools tire of listening to this Biblical language, of which they
-	understand nothing?' he thought. On the contrary, this language amused
-	them by its unfamiliarity; they laughed at it. But Julien had grown
-	tired.
-
-	He rose gravely as six o'clock struck and mentioned a chapter of the
-	new theology of Liguori, which he had to learn by heart in order to
-	repeat it next day to M. Chelan. 'For my business,' he added
-	pleasantly, 'is to make other people repeat lessons, and to repeat
-	them myself.'
-
-	His audience laughed heartily and applauded; this is the kind of wit
-	that goes down at Verrieres. Julien was by this time on his feet,
-	everyone else rose, regardless of decorum; such is the power of
-	genius. Madame Valenod kept him for a quarter of an hour longer; he
-	really must hear the children repeat their catechism; they made the
-	most absurd mistakes which he alone noticed. He made no attempt to
-	correct them. 'What ignorance of the first principles of religion,' he
-	thought. At length he said good-bye and thought that he might escape;
-	but the children must next attempt one of La Fontaine's Fables.
-
-	'That author is most immoral,' Julien said to Madame Valenod; 'in one
-	of his Fables on Messire Jean Chouart, he has ventured to heap
-	ridicule on all that is most venerable. He is strongly reproved by the
-	best commentators.'
-
-	Before leaving the house Julien received four or five invitations to
-	dinner. 'This young man does honour to the Department,' his
-	fellow-guests, in great hilarity, were all exclaiming at once. They
-	went so far as to speak of a pension voted out of the municipal funds,
-	to enable him to continue his studies in Paris.
-
-	While this rash idea was making the dining-room ring, Julien had
-	stolen away to the porch. 'Oh, what scum! What scum!' he murmured
-	three or four times, as he treated himself to the pleasure of drinking
-	in the fresh air.
-
-	He felt himself a thorough aristocrat for the moment, he who for long
-	had been so shocked by the disdainful smile and the haughty
-	superiority which he found lurking behind all the compliments that
-	were paid him at M. de Renal's. He could not help feeling the extreme
-	difference. 'Even if we forget,' he said to himself as he walked away,
-	'that the money has been stolen from the poor prisoners, and that they
-	are forbidden to sing as well, would it ever occur to M. de Renal to
-	tell his guests the price of each bottle of wine that he offers them?
-	And this M. Valenod, in going over the list of his property, which he
-	does incessantly, cannot refer to his house, his land and all the rest
-	of it, if his wife is present, without saying your house, your land.'
-
-	This lady, apparently so conscious of the joy of ownership, had just
-	made an abominable scene, during dinner, with a servant who had broken
-	a wineglass and spoiled one of her sets; and the servant had answered
-	her with the most gross insolence.
-
-	'What a household!' thought Julien; 'if they were to give me half of
-	all the money they steal, I wouldn't live among them. One fine day I
-	should give myself away; I should be unable to keep back the contempt
-	they inspire in me.'
-
-	He was obliged, nevertheless, obeying Madame de Renal's orders, to
-	attend several dinners of this sort; Julien was the fashion; people
-	forgave him his uniform and the guard of honour, or rather that
-	imprudent display was the true cause of his success. Soon, the only
-	question discussed in Verrieres was who would be successful in the
-	struggle to secure the learned young man's services, M. de Renal or
-	the Governor of the Poorhouse. These two gentlemen formed with M.
-	Maslon a triumvirate which for some years past had tyrannised the
-	town. People were jealous of the Mayor, the Liberals had grounds for
-	complaint against him; but after all he was noble and created to fill
-	a superior station, whereas M. Valenod's father had not left him an
-	income of six hundred livres. He had been obliged to pass from the
-	stage of being pitied for the shabby apple-green coat in which
-	everybody remembered him in his younger days to that of being envied
-	for his Norman horses, his gold chains, the clothes he ordered from
-	Paris, in short, all his present prosperity.
-
-	In the welter of this world so new to Julien he thought he had
-	discovered an honest man; this was a geometrician, was named Gros and
-	was reckoned a Jacobin. Julien, having made a vow never to say
-	anything except what he himself believed to be false, was obliged to
-	make a show of being suspicious of M. Gros. He received from Vergy
-	large packets of exercises. He was advised to see much of his father,
-	and complied with this painful necessity. In a word, he was quite
-	redeeming his reputation, when one morning he was greatly surprised to
-	find himself awakened by a pair of hands which were clapped over his
-	eyes.
-
-	It was Madame de Renal who had come in to town and, running upstairs
-	four steps at a time and leaving her children occupied with a
-	favourite rabbit that they had brought with them, had reached Julien's
-	room a minute in advance of them. The moment was delicious but all too
-	brief: Madame de Renal had vanished when the children arrived with
-	the rabbit, which they wanted to show to their friend. Julien welcomed
-	them all, including the rabbit. He seemed to be once more one of a
-	family party; he felt that he loved these children, that it amused him
-	to join in their chatter. He was amazed by the sweetness of their
-	voices, the simplicity and nobility of their manners; he required to
-	wash his imagination clean of all the vulgar behaviour, all the
-	unpleasant thoughts the atmosphere of which he had to breathe at
-	Verrieres. There was always the dread of bankruptcy, wealth and
-	poverty were always fighting for the upper hand. The people with whom
-	he dined, in speaking of the joint on their table, made confidences
-	humiliating to themselves, and nauseating to their hearers.
-
-	'You aristocrats, you have every reason to be proud,' he said to
-	Madame de Renal. And he told her of all the dinners he had endured.
-
-	'Why, so you are in the fashion!' And she laughed heartily at the
-	thought of the rouge which Madame Valenod felt herself obliged to put
-	on whenever she expected Julien. 'I believe she has designs on your
-	heart,' she added.
-
-	Luncheon was a joy. The presence of the children, albeit apparently a
-	nuisance, increased as a matter of fact the general enjoyment. These
-	poor children did not know how to express their delight at seeing
-	Julien again. The servants had not failed to inform them that he was
-	being offered two hundred francs more to educate the little Valenods.
-
-	In the middle of luncheon, Stanislas Xavier, still pale after his
-	serious illness, suddenly asked his mother what was the value of his
-	silver spoon and fork and of the mug out of which he was drinking.
-
-	'Why do you want to know?'
-
-	'I want to sell them to give the money to M. Julien, so that he shan't
-	be a _dupe_ to stay with us.'
-
-	Julien embraced him, the tears standing in his eyes. The mother wept
-	outright, while Julien, who had taken Stanislas on his knees,
-	explained to him that he must not use the word _dupe_, which, employed
-	in that sense, was a servant's expression. Seeing the pleasure he was
-	giving Madame de Renal, he tried to explain, by picturesque examples,
-	which amused the children, what was meant by a dupe.
-
-	'I understand,' said Stanislas, 'it's the crow who is silly and drops
-	his cheese, which is picked up by the fox, who is a flatterer.'
-
-	Madame de Renal, wild with joy, smothered her children in kisses,
-	which she could hardly do without leaning slightly upon Julien.
-
-	Suddenly the door opened; it was M. de Renal. His stern, angry face
-	formed a strange contrast with the innocent gaiety which his presence
-	banished. Madame de Renal turned pale; she felt herself incapable of
-	denying anything. Julien seized the opportunity and, speaking very
-	loud, began to tell the Mayor the incident of the silver mug which
-	Stanislas wanted to sell. He was sure that this story would be ill
-	received. At the first word M. de Renal frowned, from force of habit
-	at the mere name of silver. 'The mention of that metal,' he would say,
-	'is always a preliminary to some call upon my purse.'
-
-	But here there was more than money at stake; there was an increase of
-	his suspicions. The air of happiness which animated his family in his
-	absence was not calculated to improve matters with a man dominated by
-	so sensitive a vanity. When his wife praised the graceful and witty
-	manner in which Julien imparted fresh ideas to his pupils:
-
-	'Yes, yes, I know, he is making me odious to my children; it is very
-	easy for him to be a hundred times pleasanter to them than I, who am,
-	after all, the master. Everything tends in these days to bring
-	_lawful_ authority into contempt. Unhappy France!'
-
-	Madame de Renal did not stop to examine the implications of her
-	husband's manner. She had just seen the possibility of spending twelve
-	hours in Julien's company. She had any number of purchases to make in
-	the town, and declared that she absolutely must dine in a tavern; in
-	spite of anything her husband might say or do, she clung to her idea.
-	The children were in ecstasies at the mere word tavern, which modern
-	prudery finds such pleasure in pronouncing.
-
-	M. de Renal left his wife in the first linen-draper's shop that she
-	entered, to go and pay some calls. He returned more gloomy than in the
-	morning; he was convinced that the whole town was thinking about
-	nothing but himself and Julien. As a matter of fact, no one had as yet
-	allowed him to form any suspicion of the offensive element in the
-	popular comments. Those that had been repeated to the Mayor had dealt
-	exclusively with the question whether Julien would remain with him at
-	six hundred francs or would accept the eight hundred francs offered by
-	the Governor of the Poorhouse.
-
-	The said Governor, when he met M. de Renal in society, gave him the
-	cold shoulder. His behaviour was not without a certain subtlety; there
-	is not much thoughtless action in the provinces: sensations are so
-	infrequent there that people suppress them.
-
-	M. Valenod was what is called, a hundred leagues from Paris, a
-	_faraud_; this is a species marked by coarseness and natural
-	effrontery. His triumphant existence, since 1815, had confirmed him in
-	his habits. He reigned, so to speak, at Verrieres, under the orders of
-	M. de Renal; but being far more active, blushing at nothing,
-	interfering in everything, everlastingly going about, writing,
-	speaking, forgetting humiliations, having no personal pretensions, he
-	had succeeded in equalling the credit of his Mayor in the eyes of
-	ecclesiastical authority. M. Valenod had as good as told the grocers
-	of the place: 'Give me the two biggest fools among you'; the lawyers:
-	'Point me out the two most ignorant'; the officers of health: 'Let me
-	have your two biggest rascals.' When he had collected the most
-	shameless representatives of each profession, he had said to them:
-	'Let us reign together.'
-
-	The manners of these men annoyed M. de Renal. Valenod's coarse nature
-	was offended by nothing, not even when the young abbe Maslon gave him
-	the lie direct in public.
-
-	But, in the midst of this prosperity, M. Valenod was obliged to
-	fortify himself by little insolences in points of detail against the
-	harsh truths which he was well aware that everyone was entitled to
-	address to him. His activity had multiplied since the alarms which M.
-	Appert's visit had left in its wake. He had made three journeys to
-	Besancon; he wrote several letters for each mail; he sent others by
-	unknown messengers who came to his house at nightfall. He had been
-	wrong perhaps in securing the deprivation of the old cure Chelan; for
-	this vindictive action had made him be regarded, by several pious
-	ladies of good birth, as a profoundly wicked man. Moreover this
-	service rendered had placed him in the absolute power of the
-	Vicar-General de Frilair, from whom he received strange orders. He had
-	reached this stage in his career when he yielded to the pleasure of
-	writing an anonymous letter. To add to his embarrassment, his wife
-	informed him that she wished to have Julien in the house; the idea
-	appealed to her vanity.
-
-	In this situation, M. Valenod foresaw a final rupture with his former
-	confederate M. de Renal. The Mayor would address him in harsh
-	language, which mattered little enough to him; but he might write to
-	Besancon, or even to Paris. A cousin of some Minister or other might
-	suddenly descend upon Verrieres and take over the Governorship of the
-	Poorhouse. M. Valenod thought of making friends with the Liberals; it
-	was for this reason that several of them were invited to the dinner at
-	which Julien recited. He would find powerful support there against the
-	Mayor. But an election might come, and it went without saying that the
-	Poorhouse and a vote for the wrong party were incompatible. The
-	history of these tactics, admirably divined by Madame de Renal, had
-	been imparted to Julien while he gave her his arm to escort her from
-	one shop to another, and little by little had carried them to the
-	Cours de la Fidelite, where they spent some hours, almost as peaceful
-	as the hours at Vergy.
-
-	At this period, M. Valenod was seeking to avoid a final rupture with
-	his former chief, by himself adopting a bold air towards him. On the
-	day of which we treat, this system proved successful, but increased
-	the Mayor's ill humour.
-
-	Never can vanity, at grips with all the nastiest and shabbiest
-	elements of a petty love of money, have plunged a man in a more
-	wretched state than that in which M. de Renal found himself, at the
-	moment of his entering the tavern. Never, on the contrary, had his
-	children been gayer or more joyful. The contrast goaded him to fury.
-
-	'I am not wanted in my own family, so far as I can see!' he said as he
-	entered, in a tone which he sought to make imposing.
-
-	By way of reply, his wife drew him aside and explained to him the
-	necessity of getting rid of Julien. The hours of happiness she had
-	just enjoyed had given her back the ease and resolution necessary for
-	carrying out the plan of conduct which she had been meditating for the
-	last fortnight. What really and completely dismayed the poor Mayor of
-	Verrieres was that he knew that people joked publicly in the town at
-	the expense of his attachment to _hard cash_: M. Valenod was as
-	generous as a robber, whereas he had shown himself in a prudent rather
-	than a brilliant light in the last five or six subscription lists for
-	the Confraternity of Saint Joseph, the Congregation of Our Lady, the
-	Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, and so forth.
-
-	Among the country gentlemen of Verrieres and the neighbourhood,
-	skilfully classified in the lists compiled by the collecting Brethren,
-	according to the amount of their offerings, the name of M. de Renal
-	had more than once been seen figuring upon the lowest line. In vain
-	might he protest that he _earned nothing_. The clergy allow no joking
-	on that subject.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 13
-	The Sorrows of an Official
-
-
-	Il piacere di alzar la testa tutto l'anno e ben pagato da certi quarti
-	d'ora che bisogna passar.
-	CASTI
-
-	But let us leave this little man to his little fears; why has he taken
-	into his house a man of feeling, when what he required was the soul of
-	a flunkey? Why does he not know how to select his servants? The
-	ordinary procedure of the nineteenth century is that when a powerful
-	and noble personage encounters a man of feeling, he kills, exiles,
-	imprisons or so humiliates him that the other, like a fool, dies of
-	grief. In this instance it so happens that it is not yet the man of
-	feeling who suffers. The great misfortune of the small towns of France
-	and of elected governments, like that of New York, is an inability to
-	forget that there exist in the world persons like M. de Renal. In a
-	town of twenty thousand inhabitants, these men form public opinion,
-	and public opinion is a terrible force in a country that has the
-	Charter. A man endowed with a noble soul, of generous instincts, who
-	would have been your friend did he not live a hundred leagues away,
-	judges you by the public opinion of your town, which is formed by the
-	fools whom chance has made noble, rich and moderate. Woe to him who
-	distinguishes himself!
-
-	Immediately after dinner, they set off again for Vergy; but, two days
-	later, Julien saw the whole family return to Verrieres.
-
-	An hour had not gone by before, greatly to his surprise, he discovered
-	that Madame de Renal was making a mystery of something. She broke off
-	her conversations with her husband as soon as he appeared, and seemed
-	almost to wish him to go away. Julien did not wait to be told twice.
-	He became cold and reserved; Madame de Renal noticed this, and did not
-	seek an explanation. 'Is she going to provide me with a successor?'
-	thought Julien. 'Only the day before yesterday, she was so intimate
-	with me! But they say that this is how great ladies behave. They are
-	like kings, no one receives so much attention as the minister who, on
-	going home, finds the letter announcing his dismissal.'
-
-	Julien remarked that in these conversations, which ceased abruptly on
-	his approach, there was frequent mention of a big house belonging to
-	the municipality of Verrieres, old, but large and commodious, and
-	situated opposite the church, in the most valuable quarter of the
-	town. 'What connection can there be between that house and a new
-	lover?' Julien asked himself. In his distress of mind, he repeated to
-	himself those charming lines of Francois I, which seemed to him new,
-	because it was not a month since Madame de Renal had taught them to
-	him. At that time, by how many vows, by how many caresses had not each
-	line been proved false!
-
-	Souvent femme varie
-	Bien fol est qui s'y fie.
-
-	M. de Renal set off by post for Besancon. This journey was decided
-	upon at two hours' notice, he seemed greatly troubled. On his return,
-	he flung a large bundle wrapped in grey paper on the table.
-
-	'So much for that stupid business,' he said to his wife.
-
-	An hour later, Julien saw the bill-sticker carrying off this large
-	bundle; he followed him hastily. 'I shall learn the secret at the
-	first street corner.'
-
-	He waited impatiently behind the bill-sticker, who with his fat brush
-	was slapping paste on the back of the bill. No sooner was it in its
-	place than Julien's curiosity read on it the announcement in full
-	detail of the sale by public auction of the lease of that large and
-	old house which recurred so frequently in M. de Renal's conversations
-	with his wife. The assignation was announced for the following day at
-	two o'clock, in the town hall, on the extinction of the third light.
-	Julien was greatly disappointed; he considered the interval to be
-	rather short: how could all the possible bidders come to know of the
-	sale in time? But apart from this, the bill, which was dated a
-	fortnight earlier and which he read from beginning to end in three
-	different places, told him nothing.
-
-	He went to inspect the vacant house. The porter, who did not see him
-	approach, was saying mysteriously to a friend:
-
-	'Bah! It's a waste of time. M. Maslon promised him he should have it
-	for three hundred francs; and as the Mayor kicked, he was sent to the
-	Bishop's Palace, by the Vicar-General de Frilair.'
-
-	Julien's appearance on the scene seemed greatly to embarrass the two
-	cronies, who did not say another word.
-
-	Julien did not fail to attend the auction. There was a crowd of people
-	in an ill-lighted room; but everyone eyed his neighbours in a singular
-	fashion. Every eye was fixed on a table, where Julien saw, on a pewter
-	plate, three lighted candle-ends. The crier was shouting: 'Three
-	hundred francs, gentlemen!'
-
-	'Three hundred francs! It is too bad!' one man murmured to another.
-	Julien was standing between them. 'It is worth more than eight
-	hundred; I am going to cover the bid.'
-
-	'It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. What are you going to
-	gain by bringing M. Maslon, M. Valenod, the Bishop, his terrible
-	Vicar-General de Frilair and the whole of their gang down upon you?'
-
-	'Three hundred and twenty,' the other shouted.
-
-	'Stupid idiot!' retorted his neighbour. 'And here's one of the Mayor's
-	spies,' he added pointing at Julien.
-
-	Julien turned sharply to rebuke him for this speech; but the two
-	Franc-Comtois paid no attention to him. Their coolness restored his
-	own. At this moment the last candle-end went out, and the drawling
-	voice of the crier assigned the house for a lease of nine years to M.
-	de Saint-Giraud, chief secretary at the Prefecture of ----, and for
-	three hundred and thirty francs.
-
-	As soon as the Mayor had left the room, the discussion began.
-
-	'That's thirty francs Grogeot's imprudence has earned for the town,'
-	said one.
-
-	'But M. de Saint-Giraud,' came the answer, 'will have his revenge on
-	Grogeot, he will pass it on.'
-
-	'What a scandal,' said a stout man on Julien's left: 'a house for
-	which I'ld have given, myself, eight hundred francs as a factory, and
-	then it would have been a bargain.'
-
-	'Bah!' replied a young Liberal manufacturer, 'isn't M. de Saint-Giraud
-	one of the _Congregation_? Haven't his four children all got bursaries?
-	Poor man! The town of Verrieres is simply bound to increase his
-	income with an allowance of five hundred francs; that is all.'
-
-	'And to think that the Mayor hasn't been able to stop it!' remarked a
-	third. 'For he may be an Ultra, if you like, but he's not a thief.'
-
-	'He's not a thief?' put in another; 'it's a regular thieves' kitchen.
-	Everything goes into a common fund, and is divided up at the end of
-	the year. But there's young Sorel; let us get away.'
-
-	Julien went home in the worst of tempers; he found Madame de Renal
-	greatly depressed.
-
-	'Have you come from the sale?' she said to him.
-
-	'Yes, Ma'am, where I had the honour to be taken for the Mayor's spy.'
-
-	'If he had taken my advice, he would have gone away somewhere.'
-
-	At that moment, M. de Renal appeared; he was very sombre. Dinner was
-	eaten in silence. M. de Renal told Julien to accompany the children to
-	Vergy; they travelled in unbroken gloom. Madame de Renal tried to
-	comfort her husband.
-
-	'Surely you are accustomed to it, my dear.'
-
-	That evening, they were seated in silence round the domestic hearth;
-	the crackle of the blazing beech logs was their sole distraction. It
-	was one of those moments of depression which are to be found in the
-	most united families. One of the children uttered a joyful cry.
-
-	'There's the bell! The bell!'
-
-	'Egad, if it's M. de Saint-Giraud come to get hold of me, on the
-	excuse of thanking me, I shall give him a piece of my mind; it's too
-	bad. It's Valenod that he has to thank, and it is I who am
-	compromised. What am I going to say if those pestilent Jacobin
-	papers get hold of the story, and make me out a M. Nonante-Cinq?'
-	[Footnote by C. K. S. M.: M. Marsan explains this allusion to a
-	satire by Barthelemy at the expense of the Marseilles magistrate
-	Merindol, who in sentencing him to a fine had made use of the
-	Common Southern expression 'Nonante-cinq' for 'Quatre-vingt-quinze.]
-
-	A good-looking man, with bushy black whiskers, entered the room at
-	this moment in the wake of the servant.
-
-	'M. le Maire, I am Signor Geronimo. Here is a letter which M. le
-	Chevalier de Beauvaisis, attache at the Embassy at Naples, gave me for
-	you when I came away; it is only nine days ago,' Signor Geronimo
-	added, with a sprightly air, looking at Madame de Renal. 'Signor de
-	Beauvaisis, your cousin, and my good friend, Madame, tells me that
-	you know Italian.'
-
-	The good humour of the Neapolitan changed this dull evening into one
-	that was extremely gay. Madame de Renal insisted upon his taking
-	supper. She turned the whole house upside down; she wished at all
-	costs to distract Julien's thoughts from the description of him as a
-	spy which twice in that day he had heard ringing in his ear. Signer
-	Geronimo was a famous singer, a man used to good company, and at the
-	same time the best of company himself, qualities which, in France,
-	have almost ceased to be compatible. He sang after supper a little
-	duet with Madame de Renal. He told charming stories. At one o'clock in
-	the morning the children protested when Julien proposed that they
-	should go to bed.
-
-	'Just this story,' said the eldest.
-
-	'It is my own, Signorino,' replied Signer Geronimo. 'Eight years ago I
-	was, like you, a young scholar in the Conservatorio of Naples, by
-	which I mean that I was your age; for I had not the honour to be the
-	son of the eminent Mayor of the beautiful town of Verrieres.'
-
-	This allusion drew a sigh from M. de Renal, who looked at his wife.
-
-	'Signer Zingarelli,' went on the young singer, speaking with a
-	slightly exaggerated accent which made the children burst out
-	laughing, 'Signor Zingarelli is an exceedingly severe master. He is
-	not loved at the Conservatorio; but he makes them act always as though
-	they loved him. I escaped whenever I could; I used to go to the little
-	theatre of San Carlino, where I used to hear music fit for the gods:
-	but, O heavens, how was I to scrape together the eight soldi which
-	were the price of admission to the pit? An enormous sum,' he said,
-	looking at the children, and the children laughed again. 'Signer
-	Giovannone, the Director of San Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen
-	years old. "This boy is a treasure," he said.
-
-	'"Would you like me to engage you, my friend?" he said to me one day.
-
-	'"How much will you give me?"
-
-	'"Forty ducats a month." That, gentlemen, is one hundred and sixty
-	francs. I seemed to see the heavens open.
-
-	'"But how," I said to Giovannone, "am I to persuade the strict
-	Zingarelli to let me go?"
-
-	'"_Lascia fare a me_."'
-
-	'Leave it to me!' cried the eldest of the children.
-
-	'Precisely, young Sir. Signor Giovannone said to me: "First of all,
-	_caro_, a little agreement." I signed the paper: he gave me three
-	ducats. I had never seen so much money. Then he told me what I must
-	do.
-
-	'Next day, I demanded an interview with the terrible Signer
-	Zingarelli. His old servant showed me into the room.
-
-	'"What do you want with me, you scapegrace?" said Zingarelli.
-
-	'"_Maestro_" I told him, "I repent of my misdeeds; never again will I
-	break out of the Conservatorio by climbing over the iron railings. I
-	am going to study twice as hard."
-
-	'"If I were not afraid of spoiling the finest bass voice I have ever
-	heard, I should lock you up on bread and water for a fortnight, you
-	scoundrel."
-
-	'"_Maestro_" I went on, "I am going to be a model to the whole school,
-	_credete a me_. But I ask one favour of you, if anyone comes to ask for
-	me to sing outside, refuse him. Please say that you cannot allow it."
-
-	'"And who do you suppose is going to ask for a good for nothing like
-	you? Do you think I shall ever allow you to leave the Conservatorio?
-	Do you wish to make a fool of me? Off with you, off with you!" he
-	said, aiming a kick at my hindquarters, "or it will be bread and water
-	in a cell."
-
-	'An hour later, Signer Giovannone came to call on the Director.
-
-	'"I have come to ask you to make my fortune," he began, "let me have
-	Geronimo. If he sings in my theatre this winter I give my daughter in
-	marriage."
-
-	'"What do you propose to do with the rascal?" Zingarelli asked him. "I
-	won't allow it. You shan't have him; besides, even if I consented, he
-	would never be willing to leave the Conservatorio; he's just told me
-	so himself."
-
-	'"If his willingness is all that matters," said Giovannone gravely,
-	producing my agreement from his pocket, "_carta canta_! Here is his
-	signature."
-
-	'Immediately Zingarelli, furious, flew to the bell-rope: "Turn
-	Geronimo out of the Conservatorio," he shouted, seething with rage. So
-	out they turned me, I splitting my sides with laughter. That same
-	evening, I sang the _aria del Moltiplico_. Polichinelle intends to
-	marry, and counts up on his fingers the different things he will need
-	for the house, and loses count afresh at every moment.'
-
-	'Oh, won't you, Sir, please sing us that air?' said Madame de Renal.
-
-	Geronimo sang, and his audience all cried with laughter.
-
-	Signor Geronimo did not go to bed until two in the morning, leaving
-	the family enchanted with his good manners, his obliging nature and
-	his gay spirits.
-
-	Next day M. and Madame de Renal gave him the letters which he required
-	for the French Court.
-
-	'And so, falsehood everywhere,' said Julien. 'There is Signor Geronimo
-	on his way to London with a salary of sixty thousand francs. But for
-	the cleverness of the Director of San Carlino, his divine voice might
-	not have been known and admired for another ten years, perhaps ...
-	Upon my soul, I would rather be a Geronimo than a Renal. He is not so
-	highly honoured in society, but he has not the humiliation of having
-	to grant leases like that one today, and his is a merry life.'
-
-	One thing astonished Julien: the weeks of solitude spent at Verrieres,
-	in M. de Renal's house, had been for him a time of happiness. He had
-	encountered disgust and gloomy thoughts only at the dinners to which
-	he had been invited; in that empty house, was he not free to read,
-	write, meditate, undisturbed? He had not been aroused at every moment
-	from his radiant dreams by the cruel necessity of studying the motions
-	of a base soul, and that in order to deceive it by hypocritical words
-	or actions.
-
-	'Could happiness be thus within my reach? ... The cost of such a life
-	is nothing; I can, as I choose, marry Miss Elisa, or become Fouque's
-	partner ... But the traveller who has just climbed a steep mountain,
-	sits down on the summit, and finds a perfect pleasure in resting.
-	Would he be happy if he were forced to rest always?'
-
-	Madame de Renal's mind was a prey to carking thoughts. In spite of her
-	resolve to the contrary, she had revealed to Julien the whole business
-	of the lease. 'So he will make me forget all my vows!' she thought.
-
-	She would have given her life without hesitation to save that of her
-	husband, had she seen him in peril. Hers was one of those noble and
-	romantic natures, for which to see the possibility of a generous
-	action, and not to perform it gives rise to a remorse almost equal to
-	that which one feels for a past crime. Nevertheless, there were
-	dreadful days on which she could not banish the thought of the
-	absolute happiness which she would enjoy, if, suddenly left a widow,
-	she were free to marry Julien.
-
-	He loved her children far more than their father; in spite of his
-	strict discipline, he was adored by them. She was well aware that, if
-	she married Julien, she would have to leave this Vergy whose leafy
-	shade was so dear to her. She pictured herself living in Paris,
-	continuing to provide her sons with that education at which everyone
-	marvelled. Her children, she herself, Julien, all perfectly happy.
-
-	A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made
-	it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love
-	has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it
-	speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to
-	work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is
-	only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to
-	love.
-
-	The philosopher's observation makes me excuse Madame de Renal, but
-	there was no excuse for her at Verrieres, and the whole town, without
-	her suspecting it, was exclusively occupied with the scandal of her
-	love. Thanks to this great scandal, people that autumn were less
-	bored than usual.
-
-	The autumn, the first weeks of winter had soon come and gone. It was
-	time to leave the woods of Vergy. The high society of Verrieres began
-	to grow indignant that its anathemas were making so little impression
-	upon M. de Renal. In less than a week, certain grave personages who
-	made up for their habitual solemnity by giving themselves the pleasure
-	of fulfilling missions of this sort, implanted in him the most cruel
-	suspicions, but without going beyond the most measured terms.
-
-	M. Valenod, who was playing a close game, had placed Elisa with a
-	noble and highly respected family, which included five women. Elisa
-	fearing, she said, that she might not find a place during the winter,
-	had asked this family for only about two thirds of what she was
-	receiving at the Mayor's. Of her own accord, the girl had the
-	excellent idea of going to confess to the retired cure Chelan as well
-	as to the new cure, so as to be able to give them both a detailed
-	account of Julien's amours.
-
-	On the morning after his return, at six o'clock, the abbe Chelan sent
-	for Julien:
-
-	'I ask you nothing,' he said to him; 'I beg you, and if need be order
-	you to tell me nothing, I insist that within three days you leave
-	either for the Seminary at Besancon or for the house of your friend
-	Fouque, who is still willing to provide a splendid career for you. I
-	have foreseen and settled everything, but you must go, and not return
-	to Verrieres for a year.'
-
-	Julien made no answer; he was considering whether his honour ought to
-	take offence at the arrangements which M. Chelan, who after all was
-	not his father, had made for him.
-
-	'Tomorrow at this hour I shall have the honour of seeing you again,'
-	he said at length to the cure.
-
-	M. Chelan, who reckoned upon overcoming the young man by main force,
-	spoke volubly. His attitude, his features composed in the utmost
-	humility, Julien did not open his mouth.
-
-	At length he made his escape, and hastened to inform Madame de Renal,
-	whom he found in despair. Her husband had just been speaking to her
-	with a certain frankness. The natural weakness of his character,
-	seeking encouragement in the prospect of the inheritance from
-	Besancon, had made him decide to regard her as entirely innocent. He
-	had just confessed to her the strange condition in which he found
-	public opinion at Verrieres. The public were wrong, had been led
-	astray by envious ill-wishers, but what was to be done?
-
-	Madame de Renal had the momentary illusion that Julien might be able
-	to accept M. Valenod's offer, and remain at Verrieres. But she was no
-	longer the simple, timid woman of the previous year; her fatal
-	passion, her spells of remorse had enlightened her. Soon she had to
-	bear the misery of proving to herself, while she listened to her
-	husband, that a separation, at any rate for the time being, was now
-	indispensable. 'Away from me, Julien will drift back into those
-	ambitious projects that are so natural when one has nothing. And I,
-	great God! I am so rich, and so powerless to secure my own happiness!
-	He will forget me. Charming as he is, he will be loved, he will love.
-	Ah, unhappy woman! Of what can I complain? Heaven is just, I have not
-	acquired merit by putting a stop to my crime; it blinds my judgment.
-	It rested with me alone to win over Elisa with a bribe, nothing would
-	have been easier. I did not take the trouble to reflect for a moment,
-	the wild imaginings of love absorbed all my time. And now I perish.'
-
-	One thing struck Julien; as he conveyed to Madame de Renal the
-	terrible news of his departure, he was met with no selfish objection.
-	Evidently she was making an effort not to cry.
-
-	'We require firmness, my friend.'
-
-	She cut off a lock of her hair.
-
-	'I do not know what is to become of me,' she said to him, 'but if I
-	die, promise me that you will never forget my children. Far or near,
-	try to make them grow up honourable men. If there is another
-	revolution, all the nobles will be murdered, their father may
-	emigrate, perhaps, because of that peasant who was killed upon a roof.
-	Watch over the family ... Give me your hand. Farewell, my friend!
-	These are our last moments together. This great sacrifice made, I hope
-	that in public I shall have the courage to think of my reputation.'
-
-	Julien had been expecting despair. The simplicity of this farewell
-	touched him.
-
-	'No, I do not accept your farewell thus. I shall go; they wish it; you
-	wish it yourself. But, three days after my departure, I shall return
-	to visit you by night.'
-
-	Madame de Renal's existence was changed. So Julien really did love her
-	since he had had the idea, of his own accord, of seeing her again. Her
-	bitter grief changed into one of the keenest bursts of joy that she
-	had ever felt in her life. Everything became easy to her. The
-	certainty of seeing her lover again took from these last moments all
-	their lacerating force. From that instant the conduct, like the
-	features of Madame de Renal was noble, firm, and perfectly
-	conventional.
-
-	M. de Renal presently returned; he was beside himself. For the first
-	time he mentioned to his wife the anonymous letter which he had
-	received two months earlier.
-
-	'I intend to take it to the Casino, to show them all that it comes
-	from that wretch Valenod, whom I picked up out of the gutter and made
-	into one of the richest citizens of Verrieres. I shall disgrace him
-	publicly, and then fight him. It is going too far.'
-
-	'I might be left a widow, great God!' thought Madame de Renal. But
-	almost at the same instant she said to herself: 'If I do not prevent
-	this duel, as I certainly can, I shall be my husband's murderess.'
-
-	Never before had she handled his vanity with so much skill. In less
-	than two hours she made him see, always by the use of arguments that
-	had occurred first to him, that he must show himself friendlier than
-	ever towards M. Valenod, and even take Elisa into the house again.
-	Madame de Renal required courage to make up her mind to set eyes on
-	this girl, the cause of all her troubles. But the idea had come to her
-	from Julien.
-
-	Finally, after having been set three or four times in the right
-	direction, M. de Renal arrived of his own accord at the idea (highly
-	distressing, from the financial point of view) that the most
-	unpleasant thing that could happen for himself was that Julien, amid
-	the seething excitement and gossip of the whole of Verrieres, should
-	remain there as tutor to M. Valenod's children. It was obviously in
-	Julien's interest to accept the offer made him by the Governor of the
-	Poorhouse. It was essential however to M. de Renal's fair fame that
-	Julien should leave Verrieres to enter the seminary at Besancon or at
-	Dijon. But how was he to be made to agree, and after that how was he
-	to maintain himself there?
-
-	M. de Renal, seeing the imminence of a pecuniary sacrifice, was in
-	greater despair than his wife. For her part, after this conversation,
-	she was in the position of a man of feeling who, weary of life, has
-	taken a dose of _stramonium_; he ceases to act, save, so to speak,
-	automatically, and no longer takes an interest in anything. Thus Louis
-	XIV on his deathbed was led to say: 'When I was king.' An admirable
-	speech!
-
-	On the morrow, at break of day, M. de Renal received an anonymous
-	letter. It was couched in the most insulting style. The coarsest
-	words applicable to his position stared from every line. It was the
-	work of some envious subordinate. This letter brought him back to the
-	thought of fighting a duel with M. Valenod. Soon his courage had risen
-	to the idea of an immediate execution of his design. He left the house
-	unaccompanied, and went to the gunsmith's to procure a brace of
-	pistols, which he told the man to load.
-
-	'After all,' he said to himself, 'should the drastic rule of the
-	Emperor Napoleon be restored, I myself could not be charged with the
-	misappropriation of a halfpenny. At the most I have shut my eyes; but
-	I have plenty of letters in my desk authorising me to do so.'
-
-	Madame de Renal was frightened by her husband's cold anger, it brought
-	back to her mind the fatal thought of widowhood, which she found it so
-	hard to banish. She shut herself up with him. For hours on end she
-	pleaded with him in vain, the latest anonymous letter had determined
-	him. At length she succeeded in transforming the courage required to
-	strike M. Valenod into that required to offer Julien six hundred
-	francs for his maintenance for one year in a Seminary. M. de Renal,
-	heaping a thousand curses on the day on which he had conceived the
-	fatal idea of taking a tutor into his household, forgot the anonymous
-	letter.
-
-	He found a grain of comfort in an idea which he did not communicate to
-	his wife: by skilful handling, and by taking advantage of the young
-	man's romantic ideas, he hoped to bind him, for a smaller sum, to
-	refuse M. Valenod's offers.
-
-	Madame de Renal found it far harder to prove to Julien that, if he
-	sacrificed to her husband's convenience a post worth eight hundred
-	francs, publicly offered him by the Governor of the Poorhouse, he
-	might without blushing accept some compensation.
-
-	'But,' Julien continued to object, 'I have never had, even for a
-	moment, the slightest thought of accepting that offer. You have made
-	me too familiar with a life of refinement, the vulgarity of those
-	people would kill me.'
-
-	Cruel necessity, with its hand of iron, bent Julien's will. His pride
-	offered him the self-deception of accepting only as a loan the sum
-	offered by the Mayor of Verrieres, and giving him a note of hand
-	promising repayment with interest after five years.
-
-	Madame de Renal had still some thousands of francs hidden in the
-	little cave in the mountains.
-
-	She offered him these, trembling, and feeling only too sure that they
-	would be rejected with fury.
-
-	'Do you wish,' Julien asked her, 'to make the memory of our love
-	abominable?'
-
-	At length Julien left Verrieres. M. de Renal was overjoyed; at the
-	decisive moment of accepting money from him, this sacrifice proved to
-	be too great for Julien. He refused point-blank. M. de Renal fell upon
-	his neck, with tears in his eyes. Julien having asked him for a
-	testimonial to his character, he could not in his enthusiasm find
-	terms laudatory enough to extol the young man's conduct. Our hero had
-	saved up five louis and intended to ask Fouque for a similar amount.
-
-	He was greatly moved. But when he had gone a league from Verrieres,
-	where he was leaving such a treasure of love behind him, he thought
-	only of the pleasure of seeing a capital, a great military centre like
-	Besancon.
-
-	During this short parting of three days, Madame de Renal was duped by
-	one of love's most cruel illusions. Her life was tolerable enough,
-	there was between her and the last extremes of misery this final
-	meeting that she was still to have with Julien.
-
-	She counted the hours, the minutes that divided her from it. Finally,
-	during the night that followed the third day, she heard in the
-	distance the signal arranged between them. Having surmounted a
-	thousand perils, Julien appeared before her.
-
-	>From that moment, she had but a single thought: 'I am looking at you
-	now for the last time.' Far from responding to her lover's eagerness,
-	she was like a barely animated corpse. If she forced herself to tell
-	him that she loved him, it was with an awkward air that was almost a
-	proof to the contrary. Nothing could take her mind from the cruel
-	thought of eternal separation. The suspicious Julien fancied for a
-	moment that she had already forgotten him. His hints at such a
-	possibility were received only with huge tears that flowed in silence,
-	and with a convulsive pressure of his hand.
-
-	'But, Great God! How do you expect me to believe you?' was Julien's
-	reply to his mistress's chill protestations. 'You would show a hundred
-	times more of sincere affection to Madame Derville, to a mere
-	acquaintance.'
-
-	Madame de Renal, petrified, did not know how to answer.
-
-	'It would be impossible for a woman to be more wretched ... I hope I
-	am going to die ... I feel my heart freezing ...'
-
-	Such were the longest answers he was able to extract from her.
-
-	When the approach of day made his departure necessary, Madame de
-	Renal's tears ceased all at once. She saw him fasten a knotted cord to
-	the window without saying a word, without returning his kisses. In
-	vain might Julien say to her:
-
-	'At last we have reached the state for which you so longed.
-	Henceforward you will live without remorse. At the slightest
-	indisposition of one of your children, you will no longer see them
-	already in the grave.'
-
-	'I am sorry you could not say good-bye to Stanislas,' she said to him
-	coldly.
-
-	In the end, Julien was deeply impressed by the embraces, in which
-	there was no warmth, of this living corpse; he could think of nothing
-	else for some leagues. His spirit was crushed, and before crossing the
-	pass, so long as he was able to see the steeple of Verrieres church,
-	he turned round often.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 24
-	A Capital
-
-	So much noise, so many busy people! So many ideas in the
-	head of a man of twenty! So many distractions for love!
-	BARNAVE
-
-	At length he made out, on a distant mountain, a line of dark walls; it
-	was the citadel of Besancon. 'How different for me,' he said with a
-	sigh, 'if I were arriving in this noble fortress to be a sublieutenant
-	in one of the regiments entrusted with its defence!'
-
-	Besancon is not merely one of the most charming towns in France, it
-	abounds in men and women of feeling and spirit. But Julien was only a
-	young peasant and had no way of approaching the distinguished people.
-
-	He had borrowed from Fouque a layman's coat, and it was in this attire
-	that he crossed the drawbridges. His mind full of the history of the
-	siege of 1674, he was determined to visit, before shutting himself up
-	in the Seminary, the ramparts and the citadel. More than once, he was
-	on the point of being arrested by the sentries for making his way into
-	places from which the engineers of the garrison excluded the public,
-	in order to make a profit of twelve or fifteen francs every year by
-	the sale of the hay grown there.
-
-	The height of the walls, the depth of the moats, the awe-inspiring
-	appearance of the guns had occupied him for some hours, when he
-	happened to pass by the principal cafe, on the boulevard. He stood
-	speechless with admiration; albeit he could read the word Cafe
-	inscribed in huge letters over the two vast doors, he could not
-	believe his eyes. He made an effort to master his timidity; he
-	ventured to enter, and found himself in a hall thirty or forty feet
-	long, the ceiling of which rose to a height of at least twenty feet.
-	On this day of days everything wore an air of enchantment for him.
-
-	Two games of billiards were in progress. The waiters were calling out
-	the scores; the players hurried round the tables through a crowd of
-	onlookers. Streams of tobacco smoke, pouring from every mouth,
-	enveloped them in a blue haze. The tall stature of these men, their
-	rounded shoulders, their heavy gait, their bushy whiskers, the long
-	frock coats that coveted their bodies, all attracted Julien's
-	attention. These noble sons of ancient Bisontium conversed only in
-	shouts; they gave themselves the air of tremendous warriors. Julien
-	stood spellbound in admiration; he was thinking of the vastness and
-	splendour of a great capital like Besancon. He felt that he could not
-	possibly summon up courage to ask for a cup of coffee from one of
-	those gentlemen with the proud gaze who were marking the score at
-	billiards.
-
-	But the young lady behind the counter had remarked the charming
-	appearance of this young country cousin, who, brought to a standstill
-	three paces from the stove, hugging his little bundle under his arm,
-	was studying the bust of the King, in gleaming white plaster. This
-	young lady, a strapping Franc-Comtoise, extremely well made, and
-	dressed in the style calculated to give tone to a cafe, had already
-	said twice, in a low voice so modulated that only Julien should hear
-	her: 'Sir! Sir!' Julien's gaze met that of a pair of the most tender
-	blue eyes, and saw that it was himself who was being addressed.
-
-	He stepped briskly up to the counter and the pretty girl, as he might
-	have advanced in the face of the enemy. As he executed this great
-	movement, his bundle fell to the ground.
-
-	What pity will not our provincial inspire in the young scholars of
-	Paris, who at fifteen, have already learned how to enter a cafe with
-	so distinguished an air! But these children, so stylish at fifteen, at
-	eighteen begin to turn common. The passionate shyness which one meets
-	in the provinces now and then overcomes itself, and then teaches its
-	victim to desire. As he approached this beautiful girl who had deigned
-	to speak to him, 'I must tell her the truth,' thought Julien, who was
-	growing courageous by dint of his conquered shyness.
-
-	'Madame, I have come for the first time in my life to Besancon; I
-	should like to have, and to pay for, a roll of bread and a cup of
-	coffee.'
-
-	The girl smiled a little and then blushed; she feared, for this
-	good-looking young man, the satirical attention and witticisms of the
-	billiard players. He would be frightened and would never show his face
-	there again.
-
-	'Sit down here, near me,' she said, and pointed to a marble table,
-	almost entirely hidden by the enormous mahogany counter which
-	protruded into the room.
-
-	The young woman leaned over this counter, which gave her an
-	opportunity to display a superb figure. Julien observed this; all his
-	ideas altered. The pretty girl had just set before him a cup, some
-	sugar and a roll of bread. She hesitated before calling to a waiter
-	for coffee, realising that on the arrival of the said waiter her
-	private conversation with Julien would be at an end.
-
-	Julien, lost in thought, was comparing this fair and sprightly beauty
-	with certain memories which often stirred him. The thought of the
-	passion of which he had been the object took from him almost all his
-	timidity. The pretty girl had only a moment; she read the expression
-	in Julien's eyes.
-
-	'This pipe smoke makes you cough, come to breakfast tomorrow before
-	eight o'clock; at that time, I am almost alone.'
-
-	'What is your name?' said Julien, with the caressing smile of happy
-	timidity.
-
-	'Amanda Binet.'
-
-	'Will you permit me to send you, in an hour's time, a little parcel no
-	bigger than this?'
-
-	The fair Amanda reflected for a while.
-
-	'I am watched: what you ask may compromise me; however, I am now going
-	to write down my address upon a card, which you can attach to your
-	parcel. Send it to me without fear.'
-
-	'My name is Julien Sorel,' said the young man. 'I have neither family
-	nor friends in Besancon.'
-
-	'Ah! Now I understand,' she exclaimed joyfully, 'you have come for the
-	law school?'
-
-	'Alas, no!' replied Julien; 'they are sending me to the Seminary.'
-
-	The most complete discouragement extinguished the light in Amanda's
-	features; she called a waiter: she had the necessary courage now. The
-	waiter poured out Julien's coffee, without looking at him.
-
-	Amanda was taking money at the counter; Julien prided himself on
-	having ventured to speak to her: there was a dispute in progress at
-	one of the billiard tables. The shouts and contradictions of the
-	players, echoing through that vast hall, made a din which astonished
-	Julien. Amanda was pensive and did not raise her eyes.
-
-	'If you like, Mademoiselle,' he said to her suddenly with assurance,
-	'I can say that I am your cousin.'
-
-	This little air of authority delighted Amanda. This is no
-	good-for-nothing young fellow,' she thought. She said to him very
-	quickly, without looking at him, for her eye was occupied in watching
-	whether anyone were approaching the counter:
-
-	'I come from Genlis, near Dijon; say that you are from Genlis too, and
-	my mother's cousin.'
-
-	'I shall not forget.'
-
-	'On Thursdays, at five o'clock, in summer, the young gentlemen from
-	the Seminary come past the cafe here.'
-
-	'If you are thinking of me, when I pass, have a bunch of violets in
-	your hand.'
-
-	Amanda gazed at him with an air of astonishment; this gaze changed
-	Julien's courage into temerity; he blushed deeply, however, as he said
-	to her:
-
-	'I feel that I love you with the most violent love.'
-
-	'Don't speak so loud, then,' she warned him with an air of alarm.
-
-	Julien thought of trying to recollect the language of an odd volume of
-	the _Nouvelle Heloise_, which he had found at Vergy. His memory served
-	him well; he had been for ten minutes reciting the _Nouvelle Heloise_
-	to Miss Amanda, who was in ecstasies; he was delighted with his own
-	courage, when suddenly the fair Franc-Comtoise assumed a glacial air.
-	One of her admirers stood in the doorway of the cafe.
-
-	He came up to the counter, whistling and swaying his shoulders; he
-	stared at Julien. For the moment, the latter's imagination, always
-	flying to extremes, was filled entirely with thoughts of a duel. He
-	turned deadly pale, thrust away his cup, assumed an air of assurance
-	and studied his rival most attentively. While this rival's head was
-	lowered as he familiarly poured himself out a glass of brandy upon the
-	counter, with a glance Amanda ordered Julien to lower his gaze. He
-	obeyed, and for a minute or two sat motionless in his place, pale,
-	determined, and thinking only of what was going to happen; he was
-	really fine at that moment. The rival had been astonished by Julien's
-	eyes; his glass of brandy drained at a gulp, he said a few words to
-	Amanda, thrust his hands into the side pockets of his ample coat, and
-	made his way to one of the billiard tables, breathing loudly and
-	staring at Julien. The latter sprang to his feet in a transport of
-	rage; but did not know what action to take to be insulting. He laid
-	down his little bundle and, with the most swaggering gait that he
-	could assume, strode towards the billiard table.
-
-	In vain did prudence warn him: 'With a duel on the day of your arrival
-	at Besancon, your career in the church is gone for ever.'
-
-	'What does that matter, it shall never be said that I quailed before
-	an insult.'
-
-	Amanda observed his courage; it formed a charming contrast with the
-	simplicity of his manners; in an instant, she preferred him to the big
-	young man in the long coat. She rose, and, while appearing to be
-	following with her eyes the movements of someone going by in the
-	street, took her place swiftly between him and the billiard table.
-
-	'You are not to look askance at that gentleman; he is my
-	brother-in-law.'
-
-	'What do I care? He looked at me.'
-
-	'Do you wish to get me into trouble? No doubt, he looked at you,
-	perhaps he will even come up and speak to you. I have told him that
-	you are one of my mother's family and that you have just come from
-	Genlis. He is a Franc-Comtois and has never been farther than Dole, on
-	the road into Burgundy; so tell him whatever you like, don't be
-	afraid.'
-
-	Julien continued to hesitate; she added rapidly, her barmaid's
-	imagination supplying her with falsehoods in abundance:
-
-	'I dare say he did look at you, but it was when he was asking me who
-	you were; he is a man who is rude with everyone, he didn't mean to
-	insult you.'
-
-	Julien's eye followed the alleged brother-in-law; he saw him buy a
-	number for the game of pool which was beginning at the farther of the
-	two billiard tables. Julien heard his loud voice exclaim: 'I
-	volunteer!' He passed nimbly behind Miss Amanda's back and took a step
-	towards the billiard table. Amanda seized him by the arm.
-
-	'Come and pay me first,' she said to him.
-
-	'Quite right,' thought Julien; 'she is afraid I may leave without
-	paying.' Amanda was as greatly agitated as himself, and had turned
-	very red; she counted out his change as slowly as she could, repeating
-	to him in a whisper as she did so:
-
-	'Leave the cafe this instant, or I shan't like you any more; I do like
-	you, though, very much.'
-
-	Julien did indeed leave, but slowly. 'Is it not incumbent upon
-	me,' he repeated to himself, 'to go and stare at that rude person in
-	my turn, and breathe in his face?' This uncertainty detained him for
-	an hour on the boulevard, outside the cafe; he watched to see if his
-	man came out. He did not however appear, and Julien withdrew.
-
-	He had been but a few hours in Besancon, and already he had something
-	to regret. The old Surgeon-Major had long ago, notwithstanding his
-	gout, taught him a few lessons in fencing; this was all the science
-	that Julien could place at the service of his anger. But this
-	embarrassment would have been nothing if he had known how to pick a
-	quarrel otherwise than by striking a blow; and, if they had come to
-	fisticuffs, his rival, a giant of a man, would have beaten him and
-	left him discomfited.
-
-	'For a poor devil like me,' thought Julien, 'without protectors and
-	without money, there will be no great difference between a Seminary
-	and a prison; I must leave my lay clothes in some inn, where I can put
-	on my black coat. If I ever succeed in escaping from the Seminary for
-	an hour or two, I can easily, in my lay clothes, see Miss Amanda
-	again.' This was sound reasoning; but Julien, as he passed by all the
-	inns in turn, had not the courage to enter any of them.
-
-	Finally, as he came again to the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, his roving
-	gaze met that of a stout woman, still reasonably young, with a high
-	complexion, a happy and gay expression. He went up to her and told her
-	his story.
-
-	'Certainly, my fine young priest,' the landlady of the Ambassadeurs
-	said to him, 'I shall keep your lay clothes for you, indeed I will
-	have them brushed regularly. In this weather, it is a mistake to leave
-	a broadcloth coat lying.' She took a key and led him herself to a
-	bedroom, advising him to write down a list of what he was leaving
-	behind.
-
-	'Lord, how nice you look like that, M. l'abbe Sorel,' said the stout
-	woman, when he came down to the kitchen. 'I am going to order you a
-	good dinner; and,' she added in an undertone, 'it will only cost you
-	twenty sous, instead of the fifty people generally pay; for you must
-	be careful with your little purse.'
-
-	'I have ten louis,' retorted Julien with a certain note of pride.
-
-	'Oh, good Lord!' replied the good landlady in alarm, 'do not speak so
-	loud; there are plenty of bad folk in Besancon. They will have that
-	out of you in less than no time. Whatever you do, never go into the
-	cafes, they are full of rogues.'
-
-	'Indeed!' said Julien, to whom this last statement gave food for
-	thought.
-
-	'Never go anywhere except to me, I will give you your coffee. Bear in
-	mind that you will always find a friend here and a good dinner for
-	twenty sous; that's good enough for you, I hope. Go and sit down at
-	the table, I am going to serve you myself.'
-
-	'I should not be able to eat,' Julien told her. 'I am too much
-	excited, I am going to enter the Seminary as soon as I leave here.'
-
-	The good woman would not allow him to leave until she had stuffed his
-	pockets with provisions. Finally Julien set out for the dread spot,
-	the landlady from her doorstep pointing out the way.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 25
-	The Seminary
-
-	Three hundred and thirty-six dinners at 83 centimes, three
-	hundred and thirty-six suppers at 38 centimes, chocolate to
-	such as are entitled to it; how much is there to be made on
-	the contract?
-	THE VALENOD OF BESANCON
-
-	He saw from a distance the cross of gilded iron over the door; he went
-	towards it slowly; his legs seemed to be giving way under him. 'So
-	there is that hell upon earth, from which I can never escape!' Finally
-	he decided to ring. The sound of the bell echoed as though in a
-	deserted place. After ten minutes, a pale man dressed in black came
-	and opened the door to him. Julien looked at him and at once lowered
-	his gaze. This porter had a singular physiognomy. The prominent green
-	pupils of his eyes were convex as those of a cat's; the unwinking
-	contours of his eyelids proclaimed the impossibility of any human
-	feeling; his thin lips were stretched and curved over his protruding
-	teeth. And yet this physiognomy did not suggest a criminal nature, so
-	much as that entire insensibility which inspires far greater terror in
-	the young. The sole feeling that Julien's rapid glance could discern
-	in that long, smug face was a profound contempt for every subject that
-	might be mentioned to him, which did not refer to another and a better
-	world.
-
-	Julien raised his eyes with an effort, and in a voice which the
-	palpitation of his heart made tremulous explained that he wished to
-	speak to M. Pirard, the Director of the Seminary. Without a word, the
-	man in black made a sign to him to follow. They climbed two flights of
-	a wide staircase with a wooden baluster, the warped steps of which
-	sloped at a downward angle from the wall, and seemed on the point of
-	collapse. A small door, surmounted by a large graveyard cross of white
-	wood painted black, yielded to pressure and the porter showed him into
-	a low and gloomy room, the whitewashed walls of which were adorned
-	with two large pictures dark with age. There, Julien was left to
-	himself; he was terrified, his heart throbbed violently; he would have
-	liked to find the courage to weep. A deathly silence reigned
-	throughout the building.
-
-	After a quarter of an hour, which seemed to him a day, the sinister
-	porter reappeared on the threshold of a door at the other end of the
-	room, and, without condescending to utter a word, beckoned to him to
-	advance. He entered a room even larger than the first and very badly
-	lighted. The walls of this room were whitewashed also; but they were
-	bare of ornament. Only in a corner by the door, Julien noticed in
-	passing a bed of white wood, two straw chairs and a little armchair
-	made of planks of firwood without a cushion. At the other end of the
-	room, near a small window with dingy panes, decked with neglected
-	flowerpots, he saw a man seated at a table and dressed in a shabby
-	cassock; he appeared to be in a rage, and was taking one after another
-	from a pile of little sheets of paper which he spread out on his table
-	after writing a few words on each. He did not observe Julien's
-	presence. The latter remained motionless, standing in the middle of
-	the room, where he had been left by the porter, who had gone out again
-	shutting the door behind him.
-
-	Ten minutes passed in this fashion; the shabbily dressed man writing
-	all the time. Julien's emotion and terror were such that he felt
-	himself to be on the point of collapsing. A philosopher would have
-	said, perhaps wrongly: 'It is the violent impression made by ugliness
-	on a soul created to love what is beautiful.'
-
-	The man who was writing raised his head; Julien did not observe this
-	for a moment, and indeed, after he had noticed it, still remained
-	motionless, as though turned to stone by the terrible gaze that was
-	fixed on him. Julien's swimming eyes could barely make out a long face
-	covered all over with red spots, except on the forehead, which
-	displayed a deathly pallor. Between the red cheeks and white forehead
-	shone a pair of little black eyes calculated to inspire terror in the
-	bravest heart. The vast expanse of his forehead was outlined by a mass
-	of straight hair, as black as jet.
-
-	'Are you coming nearer, or not?' the man said at length impatiently.
-
-	Julien advanced with an uncertain step, and at length, ready to fall
-	to the ground and paler than he had ever been in his life, came to a
-	halt a few feet away from the little table of white wood covered with
-	scraps of paper.
-
-	'Nearer,' said the man.
-
-	Julien advanced farther, stretching out his hand as though in search
-	of something to lean upon.
-
-	'Your name?'
-
-	'Julien Sorel.'
-
-	'You are very late,' said the other, once more fastening upon him a
-	terrible eye.
-
-	Julien could not endure this gaze; putting out his hand as though to
-	support himself, he fell full length upon the floor.
-
-	The man rang a bell. Julien had lost only his sense of vision and the
-	strength to move; he could hear footsteps approaching.
-
-	He was picked up and placed in the little armchair of white wood. He
-	heard the terrible man say to the porter:
-
-	'An epileptic, evidently; I might have known it.'
-
-	When Julien was able to open his eyes, the man with the red face was
-	again writing; the porter had vanished. 'I must have courage,' our
-	hero told himself, 'and above all hide my feelings.' He felt a sharp
-	pain at his heart. 'If I am taken ill, heaven knows what they will
-	think of me.' At length the man stopped writing, and with a sidelong
-	glance at Julien asked:
-
-	'Are you in a fit state to answer my questions?'
-
-	'Yes, Sir,' said Julien in a feeble voice.
-
-	'Ah! That is fortunate.'
-
-	The man in black had half risen and was impatiently seeking for a
-	letter in the drawer of his table of firwood which opened with a
-	creak. He found it, slowly resumed his seat, and once more gazing at
-	Julien, with an air which seemed to wrest from him the little life
-	that remained to him:
-
-	'You are recommended to me by M. Chelan, who was the best cure in the
-	diocese, a good man if ever there was one, and my friend for the last
-	thirty years.'
-
-	'Ah! It is M. Pirard that I have the honour to address,' said Julien
-	in a feeble voice.
-
-	'So it seems,' said the Director of the Seminary, looking sourly at
-	him.
-
-	The gleam in his little eyes brightened, followed by an involuntary
-	jerk of the muscles round his mouth. It was the physiognomy of a tiger
-	relishing in anticipation the pleasure of devouring its prey.
-
-	'Chelan's letter is short,' he said, as though speaking to himself.
-	'_Intelligenti pauca_; in these days, one cannot write too little.' He
-	read aloud:
-
-	'"I send you Julien Sorel, of this parish, whom I baptised nearly
-	twenty years ago; his father is a wealthy carpenter but allows him
-	nothing. Julien will be a noteworthy labourer in the Lord's vineyard.
-	Memory, intelligence are not wanting, he has the power of reflection.
-	Will his vocation last? Is it sincere?"'
-
-	'Sincere!' repeated the abbe Pirard with an air of surprise, gazing at
-	Julien; but this time the abbe's gaze was less devoid of all trace of
-	humanity. 'Sincere!' he repeated, lowering his voice and returning to
-	the letter:
-
-	'"I ask you for a bursary for Julien; he will qualify for it by
-	undergoing the necessary examinations. I have taught him a little
-	divinity, that old and sound divinity of Bossuet, Arnault, Fleury. If
-	the young man is not to your liking, send him back to me; the Governor
-	of our Poorhouse, whom you know well, offers him eight hundred francs
-	to come as tutor to his children. Inwardly I am calm, thank God. I am
-	growing accustomed to the terrible blow. _Vale et me ama_."'
-
-	The abbe Pirard, relaxing the speed of his utterance as he came to the
-	signature, breathed with a sigh the word 'Chelan.'
-
-	'He is calm,' he said; 'indeed, his virtue deserved that reward; God
-	grant it to me, when my time comes!'
-
-	He looked upwards and made the sign of the Cross. At the sight of this
-	holy symbol Julien felt a slackening of the profound horror which,
-	from his entering the building, had frozen him.
-
-	'I have here three hundred and twenty-one aspirants for the holiest of
-	callings,' the abbe Pirard said at length, in a severe but not hostile
-	tone; 'only seven or eight have been recommended to me by men like the
-	abbe Chelan; thus among the three hundred and twenty-one you will be
-	the ninth. But my protection is neither favour nor weakness, it is an
-	increase of precaution and severity against vice. Go and lock that
-	door.'
-
-	Julien made an effort to walk and managed not to fall. He noticed that
-	a little window, near the door by which he had entered, commanded a
-	view of the country. He looked at the trees; the sight of them did him
-	good, as though he had caught sight of old friends.
-
-	'_Loquerisne linguam latinam_? (Do you speak Latin?)' the abbe Pirard
-	asked him as he returned.
-
-	'_Ita, pater optime_ (Yes, excellent Father),' replied Julien, who was
-	beginning to come to himself. Certainly nobody in the world had
-	appeared to him less excellent than M. Pirard, during the last
-	half-hour.
-
-	The conversation continued in Latin. The expression in the abbe's eyes
-	grew gentler; Julien recovered a certain coolness. 'How weak I am,' he
-	thought, 'to let myself be imposed upon by this show of virtue! This
-	man will be simply a rascal like M. Maslon'; and Julien congratulated
-	himself on having hidden almost all his money in his boots.
-
-	The abbe Pirard examined Julien in theology, and was surprised by the
-	extent of his knowledge. His astonishment increased when he questioned
-	him more particularly on the Holy Scriptures. But when he came to
-	questions touching the doctrine of the Fathers, he discovered that
-	Julien barely knew the names of Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Saint
-	Bonaventure, Saint Basil, etc., etc.
-
-	'In fact,' thought the abbe Pirard, 'here is another instance of that
-	fatal tendency towards Protestantism which I have always had to rebuke
-	in Chelan. A thorough, a too thorough acquaintance with the Holy
-	Scriptures.'
-
-	(Julien had just spoken to him, without having been questioned on the
-	subject, of the true date of authorship of Genesis, the Pentateuch,
-	etc.)
-
-	'To what does all this endless discussion of the Holy Scriptures lead,'
-	thought the abbe Pirard, 'if not to private judgment, that is to say
-	to the most fearful Protestantism? And, in conjunction with this rash
-	learning, nothing about the Fathers that can compensate for this
-	tendency.'
-
-	But the astonishment of the Director of the Seminary knew no bounds
-	when, questioning Julien as to the authority of the Pope, and
-	expecting the maxims of the ancient Gallican church, he heard the
-	young man repeat the whole of M. de Maistre's book.
-
-	'A strange man, Chelan,' thought the abbe Pirard; 'has he given him
-	this book to teach him to laugh at it?'
-
-	In vain did he question Julien, trying to discover whether he
-	seriously believed the doctrine of M. de Maistre. The young man could
-	answer him only by rote. From this moment, Julien was really
-	admirable, he felt that he was master of himself. After a prolonged
-	examination it seemed to him that M. Pirard's severity towards him
-	was no more than an affectation. Indeed, but for the rule of austere
-	gravity which, for the last fifteen years, he had imposed on himself
-	in dealing with his pupils in theology, the Director of the Seminary
-	would have embraced Julien in the name of logic, such clarity,
-	precision, and point did he find in the young man's answers.
-
-	'This is a bold and healthy mind,' he said to himself, 'but _corpus
-	debile_ (a frail body).
-
-	'Do you often fall like that?' he asked Julien in French, pointing
-	with his finger to the floor.
-
-	'It was the first time in my life; the sight of the porter's face
-	paralysed me,' Julien explained, colouring like a child.
-
-	The abbe Pirard almost smiled.
-
-	'Such is the effect of the vain pomps of this world; you are evidently
-	accustomed to smiling faces, positive theatres of falsehood. The truth
-	is austere, Sir. But is not our task here below austere also? You will
-	have to see that your conscience is on its guard against this
-	weakness: _Undue sensibility to vain outward charms_.
-
-	'Had you not been recommended to me,' said the abbe Pirard, returning
-	with marked pleasure to the Latin tongue, 'had you not been
-	recommended to me by a man such as the abbe Chelan, I should address
-	you in the vain language of this world to which it appears that you
-	are too well accustomed. The entire bursary for which you apply is, I
-	may tell you, the hardest thing in the world to obtain. But the abbe
-	Chelan has earned little, by fifty-six years of apostolic labours, if
-	he cannot dispose of a bursary at the Seminary.'
-
-	After saying these words, the abbe Pirard advised Julien not to join
-	any secret society or congregation without his consent.
-
-	'I give you my word of honour,' said Julien with the heartfelt warmth
-	of an honest man.
-
-	The Director of the Seminary smiled for the first time.
-
-	'That expression is not in keeping here,' he told him; 'it is too
-	suggestive of the vain honour of men of the world, which leads them
-	into so many errors and often into crime. You owe me obedience in
-	virtue of the seventeenth paragraph of the Bull _Unam Ecclesiam_ of
-	Saint Pius V. I am your ecclesiastical superior. In this house to
-	hear, my dearly beloved son, is to obey. How much money have you?'
-
-	('Now we come to the point,' thought Julien, 'this is the reason of
-	the "dearly beloved son".')
-
-	'Thirty-five francs, Father.'
-
-	'Keep a careful note of how you spend your money; you will have to
-	account for it to me.'
-
-	This exhausting interview had lasted three hours. Julien was told to
-	summon the porter.
-
-	'Put Julien Sorel in cell number 103,' the abbe Pirard told the man.
-
-	As a special favour, he was giving Julien a room to himself.
-
-	'Take up his trunk,' he added.
-
-	Julien lowered his eyes and saw his trunk staring him in the face; he
-	had been looking at it for three hours and had never seen it.
-
-	On arriving at No. 103, which was a tiny room eight feet square on the
-	highest floor of the building, Julien observed that it looked out
-	towards the ramparts, beyond which one saw the smiling plain which the
-	Doubs divides from the city.
-
-	'What a charming view!' exclaimed Julien; in speaking thus to himself
-	he was not conscious of the feeling implied by his words. The violent
-	sensations he had experienced in the short time that he had spent in
-	Besancon had completely drained his strength. He sat down by the
-	window on the solitary wooden chair that was in his cell, and at once
-	fell into a profound slumber. He did not hear the supper bell, nor
-	that for Benediction; he had been forgotten.
-
-	When the first rays of the sun awakened him next morning, he found
-	himself lying upon the floor.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 26
-	The World, or What the Rich Lack
-
-
-	I am alone on earth, no one deigns to think of me. All the
-	people I see making their fortunes have a brazenness and a
-	hard-heartedness which I do not sense in myself. Ah! I shall
-	soon be dead, either of hunger, or from the sorrow of finding
-	men so hard.
-	YOUNG
-
-	He made haste to brush his coat and to go downstairs; he was late. An
-	under-master rebuked him severely; instead of seeking to excuse
-	himself, Julien crossed his arms on his breast:
-
-	'_Peccavi, pater optime_ (I have sinned, I confess my fault, O Father),'
-	he said with a contrite air.
-
-	This was a most successful beginning. The sharp wits among the
-	seminarists saw that they had to deal with a man who was not new to
-	the game. The recreation hour came, Julien saw himself the object of
-	general curiosity. But they found in him merely reserve and silence.
-	Following the maxims that he had laid down for himself, he regarded
-	his three hundred and twenty-one comrades as so many enemies; the most
-	dangerous of all in his eyes was the abbe Pirard.
-
-	A few days later, Julien had to choose a confessor, he was furnished
-	with a list.
-
-	'Eh; Great God, for what do they take me?' he said to himself. 'Do
-	they suppose I can't take a hint?' And he chose the abbe Pirard.
-
-	Though he did not suspect it, this step was decisive. A little
-	seminarist, still quite a boy, and a native of Verrieres, who, from
-	the first day, had declared himself his friend, informed him that if
-	he had chosen M. Castanede, the vice-principal of the Seminary, he
-	would perhaps have shown greater prudence.
-
-	'The abbe Castanede is the enemy of M. Pirard, who is suspected of
-	Jansenism'; the little seminarist added, whispering this information
-	in his ear.
-
-	All the first steps taken by our hero who fancied himself so prudent
-	were, like his choice of a confessor, foolish in the extreme. Led
-	astray by all the presumption of an imaginative man, he mistook his
-	intentions for facts, and thought himself a consummate hypocrite. His
-	folly went the length of his reproaching himself for his successes in
-	this art of the weak.
-
-	'Alas! It is my sole weapon! In another epoch, it would have been by
-	speaking actions in the face of the enemy that I should have _earned
-	my bread_.'
-
-	Julien, satisfied with his own conduct, looked around him; he found
-	everywhere an appearance of the purest virtue.
-
-	Nine or ten of the seminarists lived in the odour of sanctity, and had
-	visions like Saint Teresa and Saint Francis, when he received the
-	Stigmata upon Monte Verna, in the Apennines. But this was a great
-	secret which their friends kept to themselves. These poor young
-	visionaries were almost always in the infirmary. Some hundred others
-	combined with a robust faith an unwearying application. They worked
-	until they made themselves ill, but without learning much. Two or
-	three distinguished themselves by real talent, and, among these, one
-	named Chazel; but Julien felt himself repelled by them, and they by
-	him.
-
-	The rest of the three hundred and twenty-one seminarists were composed
-	entirely of coarse creatures who were by no means certain that they
-	understood the Latin words which they repeated all day long. Almost
-	all of them were the sons of peasants, and preferred to earn their
-	bread by reciting a few Latin words rather than by tilling the soil.
-	It was after making this discovery, in the first few days, that Julien
-	promised himself a rapid success. 'In every service, there is need of
-	intelligent people, for after all there is work to be done,' he told
-	himself. 'Under Napoleon, I should have been a serjeant; among these
-	future cures, I shall be a Vicar-General.
-
-	'All these poor devils,' he added, 'labourers from the cradle, have
-	lived, until they came here, upon skim milk and black bread. In their
-	cottages, they tasted meat only five or six times in a year. Like the
-	Roman soldiers who found active service a holiday, these boorish
-	peasants are enchanted by the luxuries of the Seminary.'
-
-	Julien never read anything in their lack-lustre eyes beyond the
-	satisfaction of a bodily need after dinner, and the expectation of a
-	bodily pleasure before the meal. Such were the people among whom he
-	must distinguish himself; but what Julien did not know, what they
-	refrained from telling him, was that to be at the top of the various
-	classes of dogma, church history, etc., etc., which were studied in
-	the Seminary, was nothing more in their eyes than a sin of
-	_vainglory_. Since Voltaire, since Two Chamber government, which is
-	at bottom only _distrust and private judgment_, and instils in the
-	hearts of the people that fatal habit of _want of confidence_, the
-	Church of France seems to have realised that books are its true
-	enemies. It is heartfelt submission that is everything in its eyes.
-	Success in studies, even in sacred studies, is suspect, and with good
-	reason. What is to prevent the superior man from going over to the
-	other side, like Sieyes or Gregoire? The trembling Church clings to
-	the Pope as to her sole chance of salvation. The Pope alone can
-	attempt to paralyse private judgment, and, by the pious pomps of the
-	ceremonies of his court, make an impression upon the sick and listless
-	minds of men and women of the world.
-
-	Having half mastered these several truths, which however all the words
-	uttered in a Seminary tend to deny, Julien fell into a deep
-	melancholy. He worked hard, and rapidly succeeded in learning things
-	of great value to a priest, entirely false in his eyes, and in which
-	he took no interest. He imagined that there was nothing else for him
-	to do.
-
-	'Am I then forgotten by all the world?' he wondered. He little knew
-	that M. Pirard had received and had flung in the fire several letters
-	bearing the Dijon postmark, letters in which, despite the most
-	conventional style and language, the most intense passion was
-	apparent. Keen remorse seemed to be doing battle with this love. 'So
-	much the better,' thought the abbe Pirard, 'at least it is not an
-	irreligious woman that this young man has loved.'
-
-	One day, the abbe Pirard opened a letter which seemed to be half
-	obliterated by tears, it was an eternal farewell. 'At last,' the
-	writer informed Julien, 'heaven has granted me the grace of hating not
-	the author of my fault, he will always be dearer to me than anything
-	in the world, but my fault itself. The sacrifice is made, my friend.
-	It is not without tears, as you see. The salvation of the beings to
-	whom I am bound, and whom you have loved so dearly, has prevailed. A
-	just but terrible God can no longer wreak vengeance upon them for
-	their mother's crimes. Farewell, Julien, be just towards men.'
-
-	This ending to the letter was almost entirely illegible. The writer
-	gave an address at Dijon, and at the same time hoped that Julien would
-	never reply, or that at least he would confine himself to language
-	which a woman restored to the ways of virtue could read without
-	blushing.
-
-	Julien's melancholy, assisted by the indifferent food supplied to the
-	Seminary by the contractor for dinners at 83 centimes a head, was
-	beginning to have an effect on his health, when one morning Fouque
-	suddenly appeared in his room.
-
-	'At last I have found my way in. I have come five times to Besancon,
-	honour bound, to see you. Always a barred door. I posted someone at
-	the gate of the Seminary; why the devil do you never come out?'
-
-	'It is a test which I have set myself.'
-
-	'I find you greatly altered. At last I see you again. Two good five
-	franc pieces have just taught me that I was no better than a fool not
-	to have offered them on my first visit.'
-
-	The conversation between the friends was endless. Julien changed
-	colour when Fouque said to him:
-
-	'Have you heard, by the way? The mother of your pupils has become most
-	devoutly religious.'
-
-	And he spoke with that detached air which makes so singular an
-	impression on the passionate soul whose dearest interests the speaker
-	unconsciously destroys.
-
-	'Yes, my friend, the most exalted strain of piety. They say that she
-	makes pilgrimages. But, to the eternal shame of the abbe Maslon, who
-	has been spying so long upon that poor M. Chelan, Madame de Renal will
-	have nothing to do with him. She goes to confession at Dijon or
-	Besancon.'
-
-	'She comes to Besancon!' said Julien, his brow flushing.
-
-	'Quite often,' replied Fouque with a questioning air.
-
-	'Have you any _Constitutionnels_ on you?'
-
-	'What's that you say?' replied Fouque.
-
-	'I ask you if you have any _Constitutionnels_?' Julien repeated, in a
-	calmer tone. 'They are sold here for thirty sous a copy.'
-
-	'What! Liberals even in the Seminary!' cried Fouque. 'Unhappy France!'
-	he went on, copying the hypocritical tone and meek accents of the abbe
-	Maslon.
-
-	This visit would have made a profound impression upon our hero, had
-	not, the very next day, a remark addressed to him by that little
-	seminarist from Verrieres who seemed such a boy, led him to make an
-	important discovery. Ever since he had been in the Seminary, Julien's
-	conduct had been nothing but a succession of false steps. He laughed
-	bitterly at himself.
-
-	As a matter of fact, the important actions of his life were wisely
-	ordered; but he paid no attention to details, and the clever people in
-	a Seminary look only at details. And so he passed already among his
-	fellow students as a free thinker. He had been betrayed by any number
-	of trifling actions.
-
-	In their eyes he was convicted of this appalling vice, _he thought, he
-	judged for himself_, instead of blindly following _authority_ and
-	example. The abbe Pirard had been of no assistance to him; he had not
-	once uttered a word to him apart from the tribunal of penitence, and
-	even there he listened rather than spoke. It would have been very
-	different had Julien chosen the abbe Castanede.
-
-	The moment that Julien became aware of his own folly, his interest
-	revived. He wished to know the whole extent of the harm, and, with
-	this object, emerged a little from that haughty and obstinate silence
-	with which he repulsed his fellows. It was then that they took their
-	revenge on him. His advances were received with a contempt which went
-	the length of derision. He realised that since his entering the
-	Seminary, not an hour had passed, especially during recreation, that
-	had not borne some consequence for or against him, had not increased
-	the number of his enemies, or won him the good will of some seminarist
-	who was genuinely virtuous or a trifle less boorish than the rest. The
-	damage to be repaired was immense, the task one of great difficulty.
-	Thenceforward Julien's attention was constantly on the alert; it was a
-	case of portraying himself in an entirely new character.
-
-	The control of his eyes, for instance, gave him a great deal of
-	trouble. It is not without reason that in such places they are kept
-	lowered. 'What was not my presumption at Verrieres!' Julien said to
-	himself, 'I imagined I was alive; I was only preparing myself for
-	life; here I am at last in the world, as I shall find it until I have
-	played out my part, surrounded by real enemies. What an immense
-	difficulty,' he went on, 'is this incessant hypocrisy! It would put
-	the labours of Hercules to shame. The Hercules of modern times is
-	Sixtus V, who for fifteen years on end, by his modesty, deceived
-	forty Cardinals, who had seen him proud and vigorous in his youth.
-
-	'So learning is really nothing here!' he told himself with scorn;
-	'progress in dogma, in sacred history, and the rest of it, count only
-	in appearance. All that is said on that topic is intended to make
-	fools like myself fall into the trap. Alas, my sole merit consisted in
-	my rapid progress, in my faculty for grasping all that nonsense. Can
-	it be that in their hearts they esteem it at its true value; judge of
-	it as I do? And I was fool enough to be proud of myself! Those first
-	places in class which I always obtain have served only to give me
-	bitter enemies. Chazel, who knows far more than I, always puts into
-	his compositions some piece of stupidity which sends him down to the
-	fiftieth place; if he obtains the first, it is when he is not
-	thinking. Ah! one word, a single word from M. Pirard, how useful it
-	would have been to me!'
-
-	>From the moment in which Julien's eyes were opened, the long exercises
-	of ascetic piety, such as the Rosary five times weekly, the hymns to
-	the Sacred Heart, etc., etc., which had seemed to him of such deadly
-	dullness, became the most interesting actions of his life. Sternly
-	criticising his own conduct, and seeking above all not to exaggerate
-	his methods, Julien did not aspire from the first, like the
-	seminarists who served as models to the rest, to perform at every
-	moment some _significant_ action, that is to say one which gave proof
-	of some form of Christian perfection. In Seminaries, there is a way of
-	eating a boiled egg which reveals the progress one has made in the
-	godly life.
-
-	The reader, who is perhaps smiling, will please to remember all the
-	mistakes made, in eating an egg, by the abbe Delille when invited to
-	luncheon by a great lady of the Court of Louis XVI.
-
-	Julien sought at first to arrive at the _non culpa_, to wit, the state
-	of the young seminarist whose gait, his way of moving his arms, eyes,
-	etc., do not, it is true, indicate anything worldly, but do not yet
-	show the creature absorbed by the idea of the next life and the
-	_absolute nullity_ of this.
-
-	Everywhere Julien found inscribed in charcoal, on the walls of the
-	passages, sentences like the following: 'What are sixty years of
-	trial, set in the balance with an eternity of bliss or an eternity of
-	boiling oil in hell!' He no longer despised them; he realised that he
-	must have them always before his eyes. 'What shall I be doing all my
-	life?' he said to himself; 'I shall be selling the faithful a place in
-	heaven. How is that place to be made visible to them? By the
-	difference between my exterior and that of a layman.'
-
-	After several months of application kept up at every moment, Julien
-	still had the air of a _thinker_. His way of moving his eyes and
-	opening his lips did not reveal an implicit faith ready to believe
-	everything and to uphold everything, even by martyrdom. It was with
-	anger that Julien saw himself surpassed in this respect by the most
-	boorish peasants. They had good reasons for not having the air of
-	thinkers.
-
-	What pains did he not take to arrive at that expression of blind and
-	fervent faith, which is so frequently to be found in the convents of
-	Italy, and such perfect examples of which Guercino has bequeathed to
-	us laymen in his paintings in churches. [Author's footnote: For
-	instance, in the Louvre, no. 1130: 'Francis Duke of Aquitaine laying
-	aside the crown and putting on a monastic habit.']
-
-	On the greatest festivals the seminarists were given sausages with
-	pickled cabbage. Julien's neighbours at table observed that he
-	remained unmoved by this good fortune; it was one of his first crimes.
-	His comrades saw in it an odious mark of the most stupid hypocrisy;
-	nothing made him so many enemies. 'Look at that gentleman, look at
-	that proud fellow,' they would say, 'pretending to despise our best
-	ration, sausages with cabbage! The wretched conceit of the damned
-	fellow!' He should have refrained as an act of penance from eating
-	the whole of his portion, and should have made the sacrifice of
-	saying to some friend, with reference to the pickled cabbage: 'What
-	is there that man can offer to an All Powerful Being, if it be not
-	_voluntary suffering_?'
-
-	Julien lacked the experience which makes it so easy for us to see
-	things of this sort.
-
-	'Alas! The ignorance of these young peasants, my comrades, is a great
-	advantage to them,' Julien would exclaim in moments of discouragement.
-	'When they arrive in the Seminary, the teacher has not to rid them of
-	the appalling number of worldly thoughts which I brought with me, and
-	which they read on my face, do what I will.'
-
-	Julien studied with an attention that bordered upon envy the more
-	boorish of the young peasants who arrived at the Seminary. At the
-	moment when they were stripped of their ratteen jackets to be garbed
-	in the black cassock, their education was limited to an immense and
-	unbounded respect for dry and liquid money, as the saying goes in the
-	Franche-Comte.
-
-	It is the sacramental and heroic fashion of expressing the sublime
-	idea of ready cash.
-
-	Happiness, for these seminarists, as for the heroes of Voltaire's
-	tales, consists first and foremost in dining well. Julien discovered
-	in almost all of them an innate respect for the man who wears a coat
-	of _fine cloth_. This sentiment estimates _distributive justice_, as
-	it is dealt out to us by our courts, at its true worth, indeed below
-	its true worth. 'What is to be gained,' they would often say among
-	themselves, 'by going to law with the big?'
-
-	'Big' is the word used in the valleys of the Jura to denote a rich
-	man. One may imagine their respect for the richest party of all: the
-	Government!
-
-	Not to smile respectfully at the mere name of the Prefect is reckoned,
-	among the peasants of the Franche-Comte, an imprudence; and
-	imprudence, among the poor, is promptly punished with want of bread.
-
-	After having been almost suffocated at first by his sense of scorn,
-	Julien ended by feeling pity: it had often been the lot of the fathers
-	of the majority of his comrades to come home on a winter evening to
-	their cottages, and to find there no bread, no chestnuts, and no
-	potatoes. 'Is it surprising then,' Julien asked himself, 'if the happy
-	man, in their eyes, is first of all the man who has just eaten a good
-	dinner, and after that he who possesses a good coat! My comrades have
-	a definite vocation; that is to say, they see in the ecclesiastical
-	calling a long continuation of this happiness: dining well and having
-	a warm coat in winter.'
-
-	Julien happened to hear a young seminarist, endowed with imagination,
-	say to his companion:
-
-	'Why should not I become Pope like Sixtus v, who was a swineherd?'
-
-	'They make none but Italians Popes,' replied the friend; 'but they'll
-	draw lots among us, for sure, to fill places as Vicars-General and
-	Canons, and perhaps Bishops. M. P---- the Bishop of Chalons, is the
-	son of a cooper; that is my father's trade.'
-
-	One day, in the middle of a lesson in dogma, the abbe Pirard sent for
-	Julien. The poor young fellow was delighted to escape from the
-	physical and moral atmosphere in which he was plunged.
-
-	Julien found himself greeted by the Director in the manner which had
-	so frightened him on the day of his joining the Seminary.
-
-	'Explain to me what I see written upon this playing card,' he said to
-	him, looking at him in such a way as to make him wish that the earth
-	would open and swallow him.
-
-	Julien read:
-
-	'Amanda Binet, at the Giraffe cafe, before eight o'clock. Say you are
-	from Genlis, and a cousin of my mother.'
-
-	Julien perceived the immensity of the danger; the abbe Castanede's
-	police had stolen the address from him.
-
-	'The day on which I came here,' he replied, gazing at the abbe
-	Pirard's forehead, for he could not face his terrible eye, 'I was
-	trembling with fear: M. Chelan had told me that this was a place full
-	of tale-bearing and spite of all sorts; spying and the accusation of
-	one's comrades are encouraged here. Such is the will of heaven, to
-	show life as it is to young priests, and to inspire in them a disgust
-	with the world and its pomps.'
-
-	'And it is to me that you make these fine speeches'--the abbe Pirard
-	was furious. 'You young rascal!'
-
-	'At Verrieres,' Julien went on calmly, 'my brothers used to beat me
-	when they had any reason to be jealous of me ...'
-
-	'To the point! Get to the point!' cried M. Pirard, almost beside
-	himself.
-
-	Without being the least bit in the world intimidated, Julien resumed
-	his narrative.
-
-	'On the day of my coming to Besancon, about noon, I felt hungry, I
-	went into a cafe. My heart was filled with repugnance for so profane a
-	spot; but I thought that my luncheon would cost me less there than at
-	an inn. A lady, who seemed to be the mistress of the place, took pity
-	on my raw looks. "Besancon is full of wicked people," she told me, "I
-	am afraid for you, Sir. If you find yourself in any trouble, come to
-	me, send a message to me before eight o'clock. If the porters at the
-	Seminary refuse to take your message, say that you are my cousin, and
-	come from Genlis ..."'
-
-	'All this farrago will have to be investigated,' exclaimed the abbe
-	Pirard who, unable to remain in one place, was striding up and down
-	the room.
-
-	'You will go back to your cell!'
-
-	The abbe accompanied Julien and locked him in. He himself at once
-	proceeded to examine his trunk, in the bottom of which the fatal card
-	had been carefully concealed. Nothing was missing from the trunk, but
-	several things had been disarranged; and yet the key never left his
-	possession. 'How fortunate,' Julien said to himself, 'that during the
-	time of my blindness I never made use of the permission to leave the
-	building, which M. Castanede so frequently offered me with a
-	generosity which I now understand. Perhaps I might have been so
-	foolish as to change my clothes and pay the fair Amanda a visit, I
-	should have been ruined. When they despaired of making any use of
-	their information in that way, so as not to waste it they have used it
-	to denounce me.
-
-	A couple of hours later, the Director sent for him.
-
-	'You have not lied,' he said to him, looking at him less severely;
-	'but to keep such an address is an imprudence the serious nature of
-	which you cannot conceive. Unhappy boy! In ten years, perhaps, it will
-	redound to your hurt.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 27
-	First Experience of Life
-
-
-	The present moment, by God! is the ark of the Lord.
-	Woe betide the man who lays his hand upon it.
-	DIDEROT
-
-	The reader will kindly excuse our giving but few clear and precise
-	details of this epoch in Julien's life. Not that we lack them, far
-	from it; but perhaps the life he led in the Seminary is too black for
-	the modest colouring which we have sought to preserve in these pages.
-	People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be
-	reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other
-	pleasure, even that to be found in reading a story.
-
-	Julien met with little success in his attempts at hypocrisy in action;
-	he passed through moments of disgust and even of complete
-	discouragement. He was utterly unsuccessful, and that moreover in a
-	vile career. The slightest help from without would have sufficed to
-	restore his morale, the difficulty to be overcome was not great; but
-	he was alone, as lonely as a vessel abandoned in mid-ocean. 'And if I
-	should succeed,' he said to himself; 'to have to spend my whole life
-	in such evil company! Gluttons who think of nothing but the ham
-	omelette they are going to devour at dinner, or men like the abbe
-	Castanede, to whom no crime is too black! They will rise to power; but
-	at what a price, great God!
-
-	'Man's will is powerful, I see it written everywhere; but is it
-	sufficiently so to overcome such repulsion? The task of great men has
-	always been easy; however terrible was their danger, it was beautiful
-	in their eyes; and who but myself can realise the ugliness of all that
-	surrounds me?'
-
-	This was the most trying moment in his life. It was so easy for him to
-	enlist in one of the fine regiments that were stationed at Besancon!
-	He might become a teacher of Latin; he wanted so little to keep
-	himself alive! But then, no career, no future for his imagination: it
-	was a living death. Here is a detailed account of one of his wretched
-	days.
-
-	'My presumption has so often flattered itself upon my being different
-	from the other young peasants! Well, I have lived long enough to see
-	that difference breeds hatred,' he said to himself one morning. This
-	great truth had just been revealed to him by one of his most annoying
-	failures. He had laboured for a week to make himself agreeable to a
-	student who lived in the odour of sanctity. He was walking with him in
-	the courtyard, listening submissively to idiocies that sent him to
-	sleep as he walked. Suddenly a storm broke, the thunder growled, and
-	the saintly student exclaimed, thrusting him rudely away:
-
-	'Listen, each for himself in this world, I have no wish to be struck
-	by lightning: God may blast you as an infidel, another Voltaire.'
-
-	His teeth clenched with rage and his eyes opened towards the sky
-	furrowed by streaks of lightning: 'I should deserve to be submerged,
-	were I to let myself sleep during the storm!' cried Julien. 'Let us
-	attempt the conquest of some other drudge.'
-
-	The bell rang for the abbe Castanede's class of sacred history.
-
-	These young peasants who lived in such fear of the hard toil and
-	poverty of their fathers, were taught that day by the abbe Castanede
-	that that being so terrible in their eyes, the Government, had no real
-	or legitimate power save what was delegated to it by God's Vicar on
-	Earth.
-
-	'Render yourselves worthy of the Pope's bounties by the sanctity of
-	your lives, by your obedience, be like a rod in his hands,' he went
-	on, 'and you will attain to a superb position where you will be in
-	supreme command, under no man's control; a permanent position, of
-	which the Government pays one third of the emoluments, and the
-	faithful, roused by your preaching, the other two thirds.'
-
-	On leaving his classroom, M. Castanede stopped in the courtyard.
-
-	'You may well say of a cure, each man gets what he deserves,' he said
-	to the students who gathered round him. 'I myself have known mountain
-	parishes where the fees came to more than those of many town cures.
-	There was as much in money, not to speak of the fat capons, eggs,
-	fresh butter, and endless little delicacies; and there the cure takes
-	the first place without challenge: no good meal to which he is not
-	invited, made much of,' etc.
-
-	No sooner had M. Castanede gone up to his own room, than the students
-	divided into groups. Julien belonged to none of these; they drew away
-	from him as from a tainted wether. In each of the groups, he saw a
-	student toss a copper in the air, and if he guessed head or tail
-	aright, his companions concluded that he would soon have one of these
-	livings with fat fees.
-
-	Stories followed. One young priest, barely a year in orders, having
-	presented a domestic rabbit to an old cure's servant, had got the cure
-	to ask for him as his assistant, and a few months afterwards, for the
-	cure had died almost immediately, had succeeded him in a good living.
-	Another had managed to have his name put forward for the eventual
-	succession to the curacy of a prosperous country town, by attending
-	all the meals of the paralytic old cure and carving his chickens for
-	him gracefully.
-
-	The seminarists, like young men in every profession, exaggerated the
-	effect of these little stratagems when they were out of the ordinary
-	and struck the imagination.
-
-	'I must,' thought Julien, 'take part in these conversations.' When
-	they were not discussing sausages and rich livings, their talk ran on
-	the worldly side of ecclesiastical teaching; the differences between
-	Bishops and Prefects, mayors and cures. Julien saw lurking in their
-	minds the idea of a second God, but of a God far more to be feared and
-	far more powerful than the first; this second God was the Pope. It was
-	said, but with lowered voice, and when the speaker was quite certain
-	of not being overheard by M. Pirard, that if the Pope did not take
-	the trouble to appoint all the Prefects and all the mayors in France,
-	it was because he had delegated the King of France for that duty, by
-	naming him the Eldest Son of the Church.
-
-	It was about this time that Julien thought he might derive some
-	benefit from his admiration for M. de Maistre's book on the Pope. He
-	did, as a matter of fact, astonish his fellow-students; but this was a
-	fresh misfortune. He annoyed them by expressing their opinions better
-	than they could themselves. M. Chelan had been a rash counsellor for
-	Julien as he had been for himself. After training him to the habit of
-	reasoning accurately and not letting himself be taken in by vain
-	words, he had omitted to tell him that in a person of little repute
-	this habit is a crime; for sound reasoning always gives offence.
-
-	Julien's fine speech was therefore only another crime against him. His
-	companions, being compelled to think about him, succeeded in finding
-	two words to express all the horror with which he filled them: they
-	nicknamed him Martin Luther; 'chiefly,' they said, 'because of that
-	infernal logic of which he is so proud.'
-
-	Several young seminarists had fresher complexions and might be
-	reckoned better looking than Julien; but he had white hands, and could
-	not hide certain habits of personal cleanliness. This distinction was
-	none at all in the grim dwelling into which destiny had cast him. The
-	unclean peasants among whom he lived declared that he had extremely
-	lax morals. We are afraid to tire the reader by an account of our
-	hero's endless mishaps. To take one instance, the more vigorous among
-	his companions tried to make a practice of thrashing him; he was
-	obliged to arm himself with a metal compass and to inform them, but
-	only by signs, that he would use it. Signs cannot be represented, in a
-	spy's report, so damningly as words.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 28
-	A Procession
-
-
-	All hearts were moved. God's presence seemed to have come down
-	into these narrow, gothic streets, decked on every side, and
-	strewn with sand through the good offices of the faithful.
-	YOUNG [Tr. footnote: As in Chapter 26 I have left this motto
-	in French. It seems, however, to be taken from Arthur Young
-	rather and Edward. C. K. S. M.]
-
-	In vain might Julien make himself small and foolish, he could not give
-	satisfaction, he was too different. 'And yet,' he said to himself,
-	'all these Professors are men of great discernment, and picked men,
-	each of them one in a thousand; how is it they do not like my
-	humility?' One alone seemed to him to be taking advantage of his
-	readiness to believe anything and to appear taken in by everything.
-	This was the abbe Chas-Bernard, Master of Ceremonies at the Cathedral,
-	where, for the last fifteen years, he had been kept in hopes of a
-	Canonry; in the meantime, he taught sacred eloquence at the Seminary.
-	In the period of his blindness, this class was one of those in which
-	Julien most regularly came out at the top. The abbe Chas had been led
-	by this to show a partiality for him, and, at the end of his class,
-	would gladly take his arm for a turn in the garden.
-
-	'What can his object be?' Julien asked himself. He found with
-	amazement that, for hours on end, the abbe talked to him of the
-	ornaments which the Cathedral possessed. It had seventeen apparelled
-	chasubles, apart from the vestments worn at requiems. They had great
-	hopes of President de Rubempre's widow; this lady, who was ninety
-	years old, had preserved for at least seventy of those years her
-	wedding garments of superb Lyons stuffs, figured in gold. 'Just
-	imagine, my friend,' said the abbe Chas coming to a standstill and
-	opening his eyes wide, 'these stuffs stand by themselves, there is so
-	much gold in them. It is common opinion in Besancon that, under the
-	Presidente's will, the treasury of the Cathedral will be enriched with
-	more than ten chasubles, not to mention four or five copes for the
-	greater feasts. I will go farther,' the abbe Chas added, lowering his
-	voice. 'I have good reason to think that the Presidente will bequeath
-	to us eight magnificent silver-gilt candlesticks, which are supposed
-	to have been bought in Italy, by the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the
-	Bold, whose favourite minister was an ancestor of hers.'
-
-	'But what is this man really aiming at behind all this frippery?'
-	Julien wondered. 'This careful preparation has been going on for an
-	age, and nothing comes of it. He must have singularly little faith in
-	me! He is cleverer than any of the others, whose secret purposes one
-	can see so plainly after a fortnight. I understand, this man's
-	ambition has been in torment for fifteen years.'
-
-	One evening, in the middle of the armed drill, Julien was sent for by
-	the abbe Pirard, who said to him:
-
-	'Tomorrow is the feast of Corpus Christi. M. l'abbe Chas-Bernard
-	requires you to help him to decorate the Cathedral; go and obey.'
-
-	The abbe Pirard called him back, and added, in a tone of compassion:
-
-	'It is for you to decide whether you wish to seize the opportunity of
-	taking a stroll through the town.'
-
-	'_Incedo per ignes_,' replied Julien: which is to say, I am treading on
-	dangerous ground.
-
-	Next morning at daybreak, Julien made his way to the Cathedral,
-	walking with lowered eyes. The sight of the streets and the activity
-	which was beginning to pervade the town did him good. On every side
-	people were draping the fronts of their houses for the procession. All
-	the time that he had spent in the Seminary seemed to him no more than
-	an instant. His thoughts were at Vergy, and with that charming Amanda
-	Binet, whom he might meet, for her cafe was but little out of his way.
-	He saw in the distance the abbe Chas-Bernard, standing by the door of
-	his beloved Cathedral; he was a large man with a joyful countenance
-	and an open air. This morning he was triumphant: 'I have been waiting
-	for you, my dear son,' he called out, as soon as he caught sight of
-	Julien, 'you are welcome. Our labours this day will be long and hard,
-	let us fortify ourselves with an early breakfast; the other we shall
-	take at ten o'clock during high mass.'
-
-	'I desire, Sir,' Julien said to him with an air of gravity, 'not to be
-	left alone for a moment; kindly observe,' he added, pointing to the
-	clock above their heads, 'that I have arrived at one minute before
-	five.'
-
-	'Ah! So you are afraid of those young rascals at the Seminary! It is
-	too kind of you to give them a thought,' said the abbe Chas; 'is a
-	road any the worse, because there are thorns in the hedges on either
-	side of it? The traveller goes his way and leaves the wicked thorns to
-	wither where they are. However, we must to work, my dear friend, to
-	work.'
-
-	The abbe Chas had been right in saying that their labours would be
-	hard. There had been a great funeral service in the Cathedral the day
-	before; it had been impossible to make any preparations; they were
-	obliged, therefore, in the course of the morning, to drape each of the
-	gothic pillars which separate the nave from the aisles in a sort of
-	jacket of red damask which rose to a height of thirty feet. The Bishop
-	had ordered four decorators from Paris by mail coach, but these
-	gentlemen could not do everything themselves, and so far from
-	encouraging the awkward efforts of their Bisontine colleagues they
-	increased their awkwardness by laughing at it.
-
-	Julien saw that he would have to go up the ladders himself, his
-	agility stood him in good stead. He undertook to direct the local
-	decorators in person. The abbe Chas was in ecstasies as he watched him
-	spring from one ladder to another. When all the pillars were hung with
-	damask, the next thing was to go and place five enormous bunches of
-	plumes on top of the great baldachino, over the high altar. A richly
-	gilded wooden crown was supported on eight great twisted columns of
-	Italian marble. But, in order to reach the centre of the baldachino,
-	over the tabernacle, one had to step across an old wooden cornice,
-	possibly worm-eaten, and forty feet from the ground.
-
-	The sight of this perilous ascent had extinguished the gaiety, so
-	brilliant until then, of the Parisian decorators; they looked at it
-	from beneath, discussed it volubly, and did not go up. Julien took
-	possession of the bunches of plumes, and ran up the ladder. He
-	arranged them admirably upon the ornament in the form of a crown in
-	the centre of the baldachino. As he stepped down from the ladder, the
-	abbe Chas-Bernard took him in his arms.
-
-	'_Optime_!' exclaimed the worthy priest, 'I shall tell Monseigneur of
-	this.'
-
-	Their ten o'clock breakfast was a merry feast. Never had the abbe Chas
-	seen his church looking so well.
-
-	'My dear disciple,' he said to Julien, 'my mother used to hire out
-	chairs in this venerable fane, so that I was brought up in this great
-	edifice. Robespierre's Terror ruined us; but, at eight years old, as
-	I then was, I was already serving masses in private houses, and
-	their owners gave me my dinner on mass days. No one could fold a
-	chasuble better than I, the gold braid was never broken. Since the
-	restoration of the Faith by Napoleon, it has been my happy lot to
-	take charge of everything in this venerable mother church. On five
-	days in the year, my eyes behold it decked out with these beautiful
-	ornaments. But never has it been so resplendent, never have the damask
-	strips been so well hung as they are today, have they clung so to the
-	pillars.'
-
-	'At last, he is going to tell me his secret,' thought Julien, 'here he
-	is talking to me of himself; he is beginning to expand.' But nothing
-	imprudent was said by this man, evidently in an excited state. 'And
-	yet he has worked hard, he is happy,' Julien said to himself, 'the
-	good wine has not been spared. What a man! What an example for me! He
-	takes the prize.' (This was a low expression which he had picked up
-	from the old surgeon.)
-
-	When the Sanctus bell rang during high mass, Julien wished to put on a
-	surplice so as to follow the Bishop in the superb procession.
-
-	'And the robbers, my friend, the robbers!' cried the abbe Chas, 'you
-	forget them. The procession is going out; the church will be left
-	empty; we must keep watch, you and I. We shall be fortunate if we lose
-	only a couple of ells of that fine braid which goes round the base of
-	the pillars. That is another gift from Madame de Rubempre; it comes
-	from the famous Count, her great-grandfather; it is pure gold, my
-	friend,' the abbe went on, whispering in his ear, and with an air of
-	evident exaltation, 'nothing false about it! I entrust to you the
-	inspection of the north aisle, do not stir from it. I keep for myself
-	the south aisle and nave. Keep an eye on the confessionals; it is
-	there that the robbers' women spies watch for the moment when our
-	backs are turned.'
-
-	As he finished speaking, the quarter before twelve struck, at once the
-	big bell began to toll. It was being pulled with all the ringers'
-	might; the rich and solemn sound stirred Julien deeply. His
-	imagination rose from the ground.
-
-	The odour of the incense and of the rose leaves strewn before the
-	Blessed Sacrament by children dressed as little Saint Johns,
-	intensified his excitement.
-
-	The sober note of the bell ought to have suggested to Julien only the
-	thought of the work of a score of men earning fifty centimes, and
-	assisted perhaps by fifteen or twenty of the faithful. He ought to
-	have thought of the wear and tear of the ropes, of the timber, of the
-	danger from the bell itself which fell every two hundred years, and to
-	have planned some way of diminishing the wage of the ringers, or of
-	paying them with some indulgence or other favour drawn from the
-	spiritual treasury of the Church, with no strain upon her purse.
-
-	In place of these sage reflections, Julien's soul, excited by these
-	rich and virile sounds, was straying through imaginary space. Never
-	will he make either a good priest or a great administrator. Souls that
-	are moved thus are capable at most of producing an artist. Here
-	Julien's presumption breaks out in the full light of day. Fifty,
-	perhaps, of his fellow seminarists, made attentive to the realities of
-	life by the public hatred and Jacobinism which, they are told, is
-	lurking behind every hedge, on hearing the big bell of the Cathedral,
-	would have thought only of the wages paid to the ringers. They would
-	have applied the genius of a Bareme to determine the question whether
-	the degree of emotion aroused in the public was worth the money given
-	to the ringers. Had Julien chosen to give his mind to the material
-	interests of the Cathedral, his imagination flying beyond its goal
-	would have thought of saving forty francs for the Chapter, and would
-	have let slip the opportunity of avoiding an outlay of twenty-five
-	centimes.
-
-	While, in the most perfect weather ever seen, the procession wound its
-	way slowly through Besancon, and halted at the glittering stations
-	which all the local authorities had vied with one another in erecting,
-	the church remained wrapped in a profound silence. A suffused light,
-	an agreeable coolness reigned in it; it was still balmy with the
-	fragrance of flowers and incense.
-
-	The silence, the profound solitude, the coolness of the long aisles,
-	made Julien's musings all the sweeter. He had no fear of being
-	disturbed by the abbe Chas, who was occupied in another part of the
-	building. His soul had almost quitted its mortal envelope, which was
-	strolling at a slow pace along the north aisle committed to his
-	charge. He was all the more at rest, since he was certain that there
-	was nobody in the confessionals save a few devout women; he saw
-	without observing.
-
-	His distraction was nevertheless half conquered by the sight of two
-	women extremely well dressed who were kneeling, one of them in a
-	confessional, the other, close beside her, upon a chair. He saw
-	without observing them; at the same time, whether from a vague sense
-	of his duty, or from admiration of the plain but noble attire of these
-	ladies, he remarked that there was no priest in that confessional. 'It
-	is strange,' he thought, 'that these beautiful ladies are not kneeling
-	before some station, if they are religious; or placed in good seats in
-	the front of some balcony, if they are fashionable. How well cut that
-	gown is! What grace!' He slackened his pace in order to see their
-	faces.
-
-	The one who was kneeling in the confessional turned her head slightly
-	on hearing the sound of Julien's step amid the prevailing silence. All
-	at once she gave a little cry, and fainted.
-
-	As her strength left her, this kneeling lady fell back; her friend,
-	who was close at hand, hastened to the rescue. At the same time Julien
-	caught sight of the shoulders of the lady who had fallen back. A rope
-	of large seed pearls, well known to him, caught his eye. What was his
-	state when he recognised the hair of Madame de Renal! It was she. The
-	lady who was trying to hold up her head, and to arrest her fall, was
-	Madame Derville. Julien, beside himself with emotion, sprang forward;
-	Madame de Renal's fall would perhaps have brought down her friend if
-	he had not supported them. He saw Madame de Renal's head, pale,
-	absolutely devoid of consciousness, drooping upon her shoulder. He
-	helped Madame Derville to prop that charming head against the back of
-	a straw chair; he was on his knees.
-
-	Madame Derville turned and recognised him.
-
-	'Fly, Sir, fly!' she said to him in accents of the most burning anger.
-	'On no account must she see you again. The sight of you must indeed
-	fill her with horror, she was so happy before you came! Your behaviour
-	is atrocious. Fly; be off with you, if you have any shame left.'
-
-	This speech was uttered with such authority, and Julien felt so weak
-	at the moment, that he withdrew. 'She always hated me,' he said to
-	himself, thinking of Madame Derville.
-
-	At that moment, the nasal chant of the leading priests in the
-	procession rang through the church; the procession was returning. The
-	abbe Chas-Bernard called repeatedly to Julien, who at first did not
-	hear him: finally he came and led him by the arm from behind a pillar
-	where Julien had taken refuge more dead than alive. He wished to
-	present him to the Bishop.
-
-	'You are feeling unwell, my child,' said the abbe, seeing him so pale
-	and almost unable to walk; 'you have been working too hard.' The abbe
-	gave him his arm. 'Come, sit down here, on the sacristan's little
-	stool, behind me; I shall screen you.' They were now by the side of
-	the main door. 'Calm yourself, we have still a good twenty minutes
-	before Monseigneur appears. Try to recover yourself; when he passes,
-	I shall hold you up, for I am strong and vigorous, in spite of my
-	age.'
-
-	But when the Bishop passed, Julien was so tremulous that the abbe Chas
-	abandoned the idea of presenting him.
-
-	'Do not worry yourself about it,' he told him, 'I shall find another
-	opportunity.'
-
-	That evening, he sent down to the chapel of the Seminary ten pounds of
-	candles, saved, he said, by Julien's efforts and the rapidity with
-	which he extinguished them. Nothing could have been farther from the
-	truth. The poor boy was himself extinguished; he had not had a thought
-	in his head after seeing Madame de Renal.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 29
-	The First Step
-
-
-	He knew his times, he knew his departement, and he is rich.
-	_Le Precurseur_
-
-	Julien had not yet recovered from the profound abstraction in which
-	the incident in the Cathedral had plunged him, when one morning the
-	grim abbe Pirard sent for him.
-
-	'Here is M. l'abbe Chas-Bernard writing to me to commend you. I am
-	quite satisfied with your conduct as a whole. You are extremely
-	imprudent and indeed stupid, without showing it; however, up to the
-	present your heart is sound and even generous; your intellect is above
-	the average. Taking you all in all, I see a spark in you which must
-	not be neglected.
-
-	'After fifteen years of labour, I am on the eve of leaving this
-	establishment: my crime is that of having allowed the seminarists to
-	use their own judgment, and of having neither protected nor unmasked
-	that secret society of which you have spoken to me at the stool of
-	penitence. Before I go, I wish to do something for you; I should have
-	acted two months ago, for you deserve it, but for the accusation based
-	upon the address of Amanda Binet, which was found in your possession.
-	I appoint you tutor in the New and Old Testaments.'
-
-	Julien, in a transport of gratitude, quite thought of falling on his
-	knees and thanking God; but he yielded to a more genuine impulse. He
-	went up to the abbe Pirard and took his hand, which he raised to his
-	lips.
-
-	'What is this?' cried the Director in a tone of annoyance; but
-	Julien's eyes were even more eloquent than his action.
-
-	The abbe Pirard gazed at him in astonishment, like a man who, in the
-	course of long years, has fallen out of the way of meeting with
-	delicate emotions. This attention pierced the Director's armour; his
-	voice changed.
-
-	'Ah, well! Yes, my child, I am attached to you. Heaven knows that it
-	is entirely against my will. I ought to be just, and to feel neither
-	hatred nor love for anyone. Your career will be difficult. I see in
-	you something that offends the common herd. Jealousy and calumny will
-	pursue you. In whatever place Providence may set you, your companions
-	will never set eyes on you without hating you; and if they pretend to
-	love you, it will be in order to betray you the more surely. For this
-	there is but one remedy: have recourse only to God, who has given you,
-	to punish you for your presumption, this necessity of being hated; let
-	your conduct be pure; that is the sole resource that I can see for
-	you. If you hold fast to the truth with an invincible embrace, sooner
-	or later your enemies will be put to confusion."
-
-	It was so long since Julien had heard a friendly voice, that we must
-	forgive him a weakness: he burst into tears. The abbe Pirard opened
-	his arms to embrace him; the moment was very precious to them both.
-
-	Julien was wild with joy; this promotion was the first that he had
-	obtained; the advantages were immense. In order to realise them, one
-	must have been condemned to pass whole months without a moment's
-	solitude, and in immediate contact with companions at best tiresome,
-	and mostly intolerable. Their shouts alone would have been enough to
-	create disorder in a sensitive organism. The boisterous joy of these
-	peasants well fed and well dressed, could find expression, thought
-	itself complete only when they were shouting with the full force of
-	their lungs.
-
-	Now Julien dined by himself, or almost so, an hour later than the rest
-	of the seminarists. He had a key to the garden, and might walk there
-	at the hours when it was empty.
-
-	Greatly to his surprise, Julien noticed that they hated him less; he
-	had been expecting, on the contrary, an intensification of their
-	hatred. That secret desire that no one should speak to him, which was
-	all too apparent and had made him so many enemies, was no longer a
-	sign of absurd pride. In the eyes of the coarse beings among whom he
-	lived, it was a proper sense of his own dignity. Their hatred
-	diminished perceptibly, especially among the youngest of his
-	companions, now become his pupils, whom he treated with great
-	courtesy. In course of time he had even supporters; it became bad form
-	to call him Martin Luther.
-
-	But why speak of his friends, his enemies? It is all so ugly, and all
-	the more ugly, the more accurately it is drawn from life. These are
-	however the only teachers of ethics that the people have, and without
-	them where should we be? Will the newspaper ever manage to take the
-	place of the parish priest?
-
-	Since Julien's promotion, the Director of the Seminary made a point of
-	never speaking to him except in the presence of witnesses. This was
-	only prudent, in the master's interest as well as the pupil's; but
-	more than anything else it was a test. The stern Jansenist Pirard's
-	invariable principle was: 'Has a man any merit in your eyes? Place an
-	obstacle in the way of everything that he desires, everything that he
-	undertakes. If his merit be genuine, he will certainly be able to
-	surmount or thrust aside your obstacles.'
-
-	It was the hunting season. Fouque took it into his head to send to the
-	Seminary a stag and a boar in the name of Julien's family. The dead
-	animals were left lying in the passage, between kitchen and refectory.
-	There all the seminarists saw them on their way to dinner. They
-	aroused much interest. The boar, although stone dead, frightened the
-	younger boys; they fingered his tusks. Nothing else was spoken of for
-	a week.
-
-	This present, which classified Julien's family in the section of
-	society that one must respect, dealt a mortal blow to jealousy. It was
-	a form of superiority consecrated by fortune. Chazel and the most
-	distinguished of the seminarists made overtures to him, and almost
-	complained to him that he had not warned them of his parents' wealth,
-	and had thus betrayed them into showing a want of respect for money.
-
-	There was a conscription from which Julien was exempt in his capacity
-	as a seminarist. This incident moved him deeply. 'And so there has
-	passed now for ever the moment at which, twenty years ago, a heroic
-	life would have begun for me!'
-
-	Walking by himself in the Seminary garden, he overheard a conversation
-	between two masons who were at work upon the enclosing wall.
-
-	'Ah, well! One will have to go, here's another conscription.'
-
-	In the _other man's_ days, well and good! A stone mason became an
-	officer, and became a general, that has been known.'
-
-	'Look what it's like now! Only the beggars go. A man with the
-	_wherewithal_ stays at home.'
-
-	'The man who is born poor stays poor, and that's all there is to it.'
-
-	'Tell me, now, is it true what people say, that the other is dead?'
-	put in a third mason.
-
-	'It's the big ones who say that, don't you see? They were afraid of
-	the other.'
-
-	'What a difference, how well everything went in his time! And to think
-	that he was betrayed by his Marshals! There must always be a traitor
-	somewhere!'
-
-	This conversation comforted Julien a little. As he walked away he
-	repeated to himself with a sigh:
-
-	'The only King whose memory the people cherish still!'
-
-	The examinations came round. Julien answered the questions in a
-	brilliant manner; he saw that Chazel himself was seeking to display
-	the whole extent of his knowledge.
-
-	On the first day, the examiners appointed by the famous Vicar-General
-	de Frilair greatly resented having always to place first, or at the
-	very most second on their list this Julien Sorel who had been pointed
-	out to them as the favourite of the abbe Pirard. Wagers were made in
-	the Seminary that in the aggregate list of the examinations, Julien
-	would occupy the first place, a distinction that carried with it the
-	honour of dining with the Bishop. But at the end of one session, in
-	which the subject had been the Fathers of the Church, a skilful
-	examiner, after questioning Julien upon Saint Jerome, and his passion
-	for Cicero, began to speak of Horace, Virgil and other profane
-	authors. Unknown to his companions, Julien had learned by heart a
-	great number of passages from these authors. Carried away by his
-	earlier successes, he forgot where he was and, at the repeated request
-	of the examiner, recited and paraphrased with enthusiasm several odes
-	of Horace. Having let him sink deeper and deeper for twenty minutes,
-	suddenly the examiner's face changed, and he delivered a stinging
-	rebuke to Julien for having wasted his time in these profane studies,
-	and stuffed his head with useless if not criminal thoughts.
-
-	'I am a fool, Sir, and you are right,' said Julien with a modest air,
-	as he saw the clever stratagem by which he had been taken in.
-
-	This ruse on the examiner's part was considered a dirty trick, even in
-	the Seminary, though this did not prevent M. l'abbe de Frilair, that
-	clever man, who had so ably organised the framework of the Bisontine
-	_Congregation_, and whose reports to Paris made judges, prefect, and
-	even the general officers of the garrison tremble, from setting, with
-	his powerful hand, the number 198 against Julien's name. He was
-	delighted thus to mortify his enemy, the Jansenist Pirard.
-
-	For the last ten years his great ambition had been to remove Pirard
-	from control of the Seminary. That cleric, following in his own
-	conduct the principles which he had outlined to Julien, was sincere,
-	devout, innocent of intrigue, devoted to his duty. But heaven, in its
-	wrath, had given him that splenetic temperament, bound to feel deeply
-	insults and hatred. Not one of the affronts that were put upon him was
-	lost upon his ardent spirit. He would have offered his resignation a
-	hundred times, but he believed that he was of use in the post in which
-	Providence had placed him. 'I prevent the spread of Jesuitry and
-	idolatry,' he used to say to himself.
-
-	At the time of the examinations, it was perhaps two months since he
-	had spoken to Julien, and yet he was ill for a week, when, on
-	receiving the official letter announcing the result of the
-	competition, he saw the number 198 set against the name of that pupil
-	whom he regarded as the glory of his establishment. The only
-	consolation for this stern character was to concentrate upon Julien
-	all the vigilance at his command. He was delighted to find in him
-	neither anger nor thoughts of revenge, nor discouragement.
-
-	Some weeks later, Julien shuddered on receiving a letter; it bore the
-	Paris postmark. 'At last,' he thought, 'Madame de Renal has remembered
-	her promises.' A gentleman who signed himself Paul Sorel, and
-	professed to be related to him, sent him a bill of exchange for five
-	hundred francs. The writer added that if Julien continued to study
-	with success the best Latin authors, a similar sum would be sent to
-	him every year.
-
-	'It is she, it is her bounty!' Julien said to himself with emotion,
-	'she wishes to comfort me; but why is there not one word of
-	affection?'
-
-	He was mistaken with regard to the letter; Madame de Renal, under the
-	influence of her friend Madame Derville, was entirely absorbed in her
-	own profound remorse. In spite of herself, she often thought of the
-	strange creature whose coming into her life had so upset it, but she
-	would never have dreamed of writing to him.
-
-	If we spoke the language of the Seminary, we might see a miracle in
-	this windfall of five hundred francs, and say that it was M. de
-	Frilair himself that heaven had employed to make this gift to Julien.
-
-	Twelve years earlier, M. l'abbe de Frilair had arrived at Besancon with
-	the lightest of portmanteaux, which, the story went, contained his
-	entire fortune. He now found himself one of the wealthiest landowners
-	in the Department. In the course of his growing prosperity he had
-	purchased one half of an estate of which the other half passed by
-	inheritance to M. de La Mole. Hence a great lawsuit between these
-	worthies.
-
-	Despite his brilliant existence in Paris, and the posts which he held
-	at court, the Marquis de La Mole felt that it was dangerous to fight
-	down at Besancon against a Vicar-General who was reputed to make and
-	unmake Prefects. Instead of asking for a gratuity of fifty thousand
-	francs, disguised under some head or other that would pass in the
-	budget, and allowing M. de Frilair to win this pettifogging action for
-	fifty thousand francs, the Marquis took offence. He believed that he
-	had a case: a fine reason!
-
-	For, if we may be so bold as to say it: what judge is there who has
-	not a son, or at least a cousin to help on in the world?
-
-	To enlighten the less clear-sighted, a week after the first judgment
-	that he obtained, M. l'abbe de Frilair took the Bishop's carriage, and
-	went in person to convey the Cross of the Legion of Honour to his
-	counsel. M. de La Mole, somewhat dismayed by the bold front assumed by
-	the other side, and feeling that his own counsel were weakening, asked
-	the advice of the abbe Chelan, who put him in touch with M. Pirard.
-
-	At the date of our story they had been corresponding thus for some
-	years. The abbe Pirard dashed into the business with all the force of
-	his passionate nature. In constant communication with the Marquis's
-	counsel, he studied his case, and finding him to be in the right,
-	openly declared himself a partisan of the Marquis de La Mole against
-	the all powerful Vicar-General. The latter was furious at such
-	insolence, and coming from a little Jansenist to boot!
-
-	'You see what these court nobles are worth who claim to have such
-	power!' the abbe de Frilair would say to his intimates; 'M. de La Mole
-	has not sent so much as a wretched Cross to his agent at Besancon, and
-	is going to allow him to be deprived of his post without a murmur. And
-	yet, my friends write to me, this noble peer never allows a week to
-	pass without going to show off his blue riband in the drawing-room of
-	the Keeper of the Seals, for what that is worth.'
-
-	In spite of all M. Pirard's activity, and albeit M. de La Mole was
-	always on the best of terms with the Minister of Justice and still
-	more with his officials, all that he had been able to achieve, after
-	six years of constant effort, was to avoid actually losing his case.
-
-	In ceaseless correspondence with the abbe Pirard, over an affair which
-	they both pursued with passion, the Marquis came in time to appreciate
-	the abbe's type of mind. Gradually, despite the immense gulf between
-	their social positions, their correspondence took on a tone of
-	friendship. The abbe Pirard told the Marquis that his enemies were
-	seeking to oblige him, by their insults, to offer his resignation. In
-	the anger which he felt at the infamous stratagem (according to him)
-	employed against Julien, he related the latter's story to the Marquis.
-
-	Although extremely rich, this great nobleman was not in the least a
-	miser. He had never once been able to make the abbe Pirard accept so
-	much as the cost of postage occasioned by the lawsuit. He took the
-	opportunity to send five hundred francs to the abbe's favourite pupil.
-
-	M. de La Mole took the trouble to write the covering letter with his
-	own hand. This set him thinking of the abbe.
-
-	One day the latter received a short note in which he was requested to
-	call at once, upon urgent business, at an inn on the outskirts of
-	Besancon. There he found M. de La Mole's steward.
-
-	'M. le Marquis has instructed me to bring you his carriage,' he was
-	informed. 'He hopes that after you have read this letter, you will
-	find it convenient to start for Paris, in four or five days from now.
-	I am going to employ the time which you will be so kind as to indicate
-	to me in visiting the estates of M. le Marquis in the Franche-Comte.
-	After which, on whatever day suits you, we shall start for Paris.'
-
-	The letter was brief:
-
-	'Rid yourself, my dear Sir, of all these provincial bickerings, come
-	and breathe a calmer air in Paris. I am sending you my carriage, which
-	has orders to await your decision for four days. I shall wait for you
-	myself, in Paris, until Tuesday. It requires only the word yes, from
-	you, Sir, to make me accept in your name one of the best livings in
-	the neighbourhood of Paris. The wealthiest of your future parishioners
-	has never set eyes on you, but is devoted to you more warmly than you
-	can suppose; he is the Marquis de La Mole.'
-
-	Without knowing it, the stern abbe Pirard loved this Seminary, peopled
-	with his enemies, to which, for fifteen years, he had devoted all his
-	thoughts. M. de La Mole's letter was to him like the sudden
-	appearance of a surgeon with the duty of performing a painful but
-	necessary operation. His dismissal was certain. He gave the steward an
-	appointment, in three days' time.
-
-	For the next forty-eight hours, he was in a fever of uncertainty.
-	Finally, he wrote to M. de La Mole and composed, for the Bishop's
-	benefit, a letter, a masterpiece of ecclesiastical diction, though a
-	trifle long. It would have been difficult to find language more
-	irreproachable, or breathing a more sincere respect. And yet this
-	letter, intended to give M. de Frilair a trying hour with his patron,
-	enumerated all the serious grounds for complaint and descended to the
-	sordid little pinpricks which, after he had borne them, with
-	resignation, for six years, were forcing the abbe Pirard to leave the
-	diocese.
-
-	They stole the wood from his shed, they poisoned his dog, etc., etc.
-
-	This letter written, he sent to awaken Julien who, at eight o'clock in
-	the evening, was already asleep, as were all the seminarists.
-
-	'You know where the Bishop's Palace is?' he said to him in the best
-	Latin; 'take this letter to Monseigneur. I shall not attempt to
-	conceal from you that I am sending you amongst wolves. Be all eyes and
-	ears. No prevarication in your answers; but remember that the man who
-	is questioning you would perhaps take a real delight in trying to harm
-	you. I am glad, my child, to give you this experience before I leave
-	you, for I do not conceal from you that the letter which you are
-	taking contains my resignation.'
-
-	Julien did not move; he was fond of the abbe Pirard. In vain might
-	prudence warn him:
-
-	'After this worthy man's departure, the Sacred Heart party will
-	degrade and perhaps even expel me.'
-
-	He could not think about himself. What embarrassed him was a sentence
-	which he wished to cast in a polite form, but really he was incapable
-	of using his mind.
-
-	'Well, my friend, aren't you going?'
-
-	'You see, Sir, they say,' Julien began timidly, 'that during your long
-	administration here, you have never put anything aside. I have six
-	hundred francs.'
-
-	Tears prevented him from continuing.
-
-	'That too will be noticed,' said the ex-Director of the Seminary
-	coldly. 'Go to the Palace, it is getting late.'
-
-	As luck would have it, that evening M. l'abbe de Frilair was in
-	attendance in the Bishop's parlour; Monseigneur was dining at the
-	Prefecture. So that it was to M. de Frilair himself that Julien gave
-	the letter, but he did not know who he was.
-
-	Julien saw with astonishment that this priest boldly opened the letter
-	addressed to the Bishop. The fine features of the Vicar-General soon
-	revealed a surprise mingled with keen pleasure, and his gravity
-	increased. While he was reading, Julien, struck by his good looks,
-	had time to examine him. It was a face that would have had more
-	gravity but for the extreme subtlety that appeared in certain of its
-	features, and would actually have suggested dishonesty, if the owner
-	of that handsome face had ceased for a moment to control it. The nose,
-	which was extremely prominent, formed an unbroken and perfectly
-	straight line, and gave unfortunately to a profile that otherwise was
-	most distinguished, an irremediable resemblance to the mask of a fox.
-	In addition, this abbe who seemed so greatly interested in M. Pirard's
-	resignation, was dressed with an elegance that greatly pleased Julien,
-	who had never seen its like on any other priest.
-
-	It was only afterwards that Julien learned what was the abbe de
-	Frilair's special talent. He knew how to amuse his Bishop, a pleasant
-	old man, made to live in Paris, who regarded Besancon as a place of
-	exile. This Bishop was extremely short-sighted, and passionately fond
-	of fish. The abbe de Frilair used to remove the bones from the fish
-	that was set before Monseigneur.
-
-	Julien was silently watching the abbe as he read over again the letter
-	of resignation, when suddenly the door burst open. A lackey, richly
-	attired, passed rapidly through the room. Julien had barely time to
-	turn towards the door; he saw a little old man, wearing a pectoral
-	cross. He fell on his knees: the Bishop bestowed a kind smile upon him
-	as he passed through the room. The handsome abbe followed him, and
-	Julien was left alone in this parlour, the pious magnificence of which
-	he could now admire at his leisure.
-
-	The Bishop of Besancon, a man of character, tried, but not crushed by
-	the long hardships of the Emigration, was more than seventy-five, and
-	cared infinitely little about what might happen in the next ten years.
-
-	'Who is that clever-looking seminarist, whom I seemed to see as I
-	passed?' said the Bishop. 'Ought they not, by my orders, to be in
-	their beds at this hour?'
-
-	'This one is quite wide awake, I assure you, Monseigneur, and he brings
-	great news: the resignation of the only Jansenist left in your
-	diocese. That terrible abbe Pirard understands at last the meaning of
-	a hint.'
-
-	'Well,' said the Bishop with a laugh, 'I defy you to fill his place
-	with a man of his quality. And to show you the value of the man, I
-	invite him to dine with me tomorrow.'
-
-	The Vicar-General wished to insinuate a few words as to the choice of
-	a successor. The prelate, little disposed to discuss business, said to
-	him:
-
-	'Before we put in the next man, let us try to discover why this one is
-	going. Fetch me in that seminarist, the truth is to be found in the
-	mouths of babes.'
-
-	Julien was summoned: 'I shall find myself trapped between two
-	inquisitors,' he thought. Never had he felt more courageous.
-
-	At the moment of his entering the room, two tall valets, better
-	dressed than M. Valenod himself, were disrobing Monseigneur. The
-	prelate, before coming to the subject of M. Pirard, thought fit to
-	question Julien about his studies. He touched upon dogma, and was
-	amazed. Presently he turned to the Humanities, Virgil, Horace, Cicero.
-	'Those names,' thought Julien, 'earned me my number 198. I have
-	nothing more to lose, let us try to shine.' He was successful; the
-	prelate, an excellent humanist himself, was enchanted.
-
-	At dinner at the Prefecture, a girl, deservedly famous, had recited
-	the poem of _La Madeleine_. [Footnote: A poem by Delphine Gay] He
-	was in the mood for literary conversation, and at once forgot the abbe
-	Pirard and everything else, in discussing with the seminarist the
-	important question, whether Horace had been rich or poor. The prelate
-	quoted a number of odes, but at times his memory began to fail him,
-	and immediately Julien would recite the entire ode, with a modest air;
-	what struck the Bishop was that Julien never departed from
-	the tone of the conversation; he said his twenty or thirty Latin
-	verses as he would have spoken of what was going on in his Seminary. A
-	long discussion followed of Virgil and Cicero. At length the prelate
-	could not refrain from paying the young seminarist a compliment.
-
-	'It would be impossible to have studied to better advantage.'
-
-	'Monseigneur,' said Julien, 'your Seminary can furnish you with one
-	hundred and ninety-seven subjects far less unworthy of your esteemed
-	approval.'
-
-	'How so?' said the prelate, astonished at this figure.
-
-	'I can support with official proof what I have the honour to say
-	before Monseigneur.
-
-	'At the annual examination of the Seminary, answering questions upon
-	these very subjects which have earned me, at this moment,
-	Monseigneur's approval, I received the number 198.'
-
-	'Ah! This is the abbe Pirard's favourite,' exclaimed the Bishop, with
-	a laugh, and with a glance at M. de Frilair; 'we ought to have
-	expected this; but it is all in fair play. Is it not the case, my
-	friend,' he went on, turning to Julien, 'that they waked you from your
-	sleep to send you here?'
-
-	'Yes, Monseigneur. I have never left the Seminary alone in my life but
-	once, to go and help M. l'abbe Chas-Bernard to decorate the Cathedral,
-	on the feast of Corpus Christi.'
-
-	'_Optime_,' said the Bishop; 'what, it was you that showed such great
-	courage, by placing the bunches of plumes on the baldachino? They
-	make me shudder every year; I am always afraid of their costing me a
-	man's life. My friend, you will go far; but I do not wish to cut short
-	your career, which will be brilliant, by letting you die of hunger.'
-
-	And, on an order from the Bishop, the servants brought in biscuits and
-	Malaga wine, to which Julien did honour, and even more so than abbe
-	Frilair, who knew that his Bishop liked to see him eat cheerfully and
-	with a good appetite.
-
-	The prelate, growing more and more pleased with the close of his
-	evening, spoke for a moment of ecclesiastical history. He saw that
-	Julien did not understand. He then passed to the moral conditions of
-	the Roman Empire, under the Emperors of the Age of Constantine. The
-	last days of paganism were accompanied by that state of uneasiness and
-	doubt which, in the nineteenth century, is disturbing sad and weary
-	minds. Monseigneur remarked that Julien seemed hardly to know even the
-	name of Tacitus.
-
-	Julien replied with candour, to the astonishment of the prelate, that
-	this author was not to be found in the library of the Seminary.
-
-	'I am really delighted to hear it,' said the Bishop merrily. 'You
-	relieve me of a difficulty; for the last ten minutes, I have been
-	trying to think of a way of thanking you for the pleasant evening
-	which you have given me, and certainly in a most unexpected manner.
-	Although the gift is scarcely canonical, I should like to give you a
-	set of Tacitus.'
-
-	The prelate sent for eight volumes handsomely bound, and insisted upon
-	writing with his own hand, on the title-page of the first, a Latin
-	inscription to Julien Sorel. The Bishop prided himself on his fine
-	Latinity; he ended by saying to him, in a serious tone, completely at
-	variance with his tone throughout the rest of the conversation:
-
-	'Young man, if you are wise, you shall one day have the best living in
-	my diocese, and not a hundred leagues from my episcopal Palace; but
-	you must be wise.'
-
-	Julien, burdened with his volumes, left the Palace, in great
-	bewilderment, as midnight was striking.
-
-	Monseigneur had not said a word to him about the abbe Pirard. Julien
-	was astonished most of all by the extreme politeness shown him by the
-	Bishop. He had never imagined such an urbanity of form, combined with
-	so natural an air of dignity. He was greatly struck by the contrast
-	when he set eyes once more on the sombre abbe Pirard, who awaited him
-	with growing impatience.
-
-	'_Quid tibi dixerunt_? (What did they say to you?)' he shouted at the
-	top of his voice, the moment Julien came within sight.
-
-	Then, as Julien found some difficulty in translating the Bishop's
-	conversation into Latin:
-
-	'Speak French, and repeat to me Monseigneur's own words, without
-	adding or omitting anything,' said the ex-Director of the Seminary, in
-	his harsh tone and profoundly inelegant manner.
-
-	'What a strange present for a Bishop to make to a young seminarist,'
-	he said as he turned the pages of the sumptuous Tacitus, the gilded
-	edges of which seemed to fill him with horror.
-
-	Two o'clock was striking when, after a detailed report of everything,
-	he allowed his favourite pupil to retire to his own room.
-
-	'Leave me the first volume of your Tacitus, which contains the
-	Bishop's inscription,' he said to him. 'That line of Latin will be
-	your lightning conductor in this place, when I have gone.
-
-	'_Erit tibi, fili mi, successor meus tanquam leo quaerens quern
-	devoret_. (My successor will be to you, my son, as a lion seeking whom
-	he may devour.)'
-
-	On the following morning, Julien detected something strange in the
-	manner in which his companions addressed him. This made him all the
-	more reserved. 'Here,' he thought, 'we have the effect of M. Pirard's
-	resignation. It is known throughout the place, and I am supposed to be
-	his favourite. There must be an insult behind this attitude'; but he
-	could not discover it. There was, on the contrary, an absence of
-	hatred in the eyes of all whom he encountered in the dormitories.
-	'What can this mean? It is doubtless a trap, we are playing a close
-	game.' At length the young seminarist from Verrieres said to him with
-	a laugh: '_Cornelii Taciti opera omnia_ (Complete Works of Tacitus).'
-
-	At this speech, which was overheard, all the rest seemed to vie with
-	one another in congratulating Julien, not only upon the magnificent
-	present which he had received from Monseigneur, but also upon the two
-	hours of conversation with which he had been honoured. It was common
-	knowledge, down to the most trifling details. From this moment, there
-	was no more jealousy; everyone paid court to him most humbly; the abbe
-	Castanede who, only yesterday, had treated him with the utmost
-	insolence, came to take him by the arm and invited him to luncheon.
-
-	Owing to a weakness in Julien's character, the insolence of these
-	coarse creatures had greatly distressed him; their servility caused
-	him disgust and no pleasure.
-
-	Towards midday, the abbe Pirard took leave of his pupils, not without
-	first delivering a severe allocution. 'Do you seek the honours of this
-	world,' he said to them, 'all social advantages, the pleasure of
-	commanding men, that of defying the laws and of being insolent to all
-	men with impunity? Or indeed do you seek your eternal salvation? The
-	most ignorant among you have only to open their eyes to distinguish
-	between the two paths.'
-
-	No sooner had he left than the devotees of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
-	went to chant a _Te Deum_ in the chapel. Nobody in the Seminary took
-	the late Director's allocution seriously. 'He is very cross at being
-	dismissed,' was what might be heard on all sides. Not one seminarist
-	was simple enough to believe in the voluntary resignation of a post
-	which provided so many opportunities for dealing with the big
-	contractors.
-
-	The abbe Pirard took up his abode in the best inn in Besancon; and on
-	the pretext of some imaginary private affairs, proposed to spend a
-	couple of days there.
-
-	The Bishop invited him to dinner, and, to tease his Vicar-General, de
-	Frilair, endeavoured to make him shine. They had reached the dessert
-	when there arrived from Paris the strange tidings that the abbe Pirard
-	was appointed to the splendid living of N ----, within four leagues of
-	the capital. The worthy prelate congratulated him sincerely. He saw in
-	the whole affair a well played game which put him in a good humour and
-	gave him the highest opinion of the abbe's talents. He bestowed upon
-	him a magnificent certificate in Latin, and silenced the abbe de
-	Frilair, who ventured to make remonstrances.
-
-	That evening, Monseigneur carried his admiration to the drawing-room
-	of the Marquise de Rubempre. It was a great piece of news for the
-	select society of Besancon; people were lost in conjectures as to the
-	meaning of this extraordinary favour. They saw the abbe Pirard a
-	Bishop already. The sharper wits supposed M. de La Mole to have become
-	a Minister, and allowed themselves that evening to smile at the
-	imperious airs which M. l'abbe de Frilair assumed in society.
-
-	Next morning, the abbe Pirard was almost followed through the streets,
-	and the tradesmen came out to their shop-doors when he went to beg an
-	audience of the Marquis's judges. For the first time, he was received
-	by them with civility. The stern Jansenist, indignant at everything
-	that he saw around him, spent a long time at work with the counsel
-	whom he had chosen for the Marquis de La Mole, and then left for
-	Paris. He was so foolish as to say to two or three lifelong friends
-	who escorted him to the carriage and stood admiring its heraldic
-	blason, that after governing the Seminary for fifteen years he was
-	leaving Besancon with five hundred and twenty francs in savings.
-	These friends embraced him with tears in their eyes, and then said to
-	one another: The good abbe might have spared himself that lie, it is
-	really too absurd.'
-
-	The common herd, blinded by love of money, were not fitted to
-	understand that it was in his sincerity that the abbe Pirard had found
-	the strength to fight single-handed for six years against Marie
-	Alacoque, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Jesuits and his Bishop.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 30
-	Ambition
-
-
-	There is only one true nobility left; namely, the title of Duke;
-	Marquis is absurd, at the word Duke one turns one's head.
-	The Edinburgh Review [Trans. footnote: I have translated this
-	motto, which is quoted in French by Stendahl, but have not been
-	able to find the original passage in the _Edinburgh Review.
-	C. K. S. M.]
-
-	The Marquis de La Mole received the abbe Pirard without any of those
-	little mannerisms of a great gentleman, outwardly so polite, but so
-	impertinent to him who understands them. It would have been a waste of
-	time, and the Marquis was so far immersed in public business as to
-	have no time to waste.
-
-	For six months he had been intriguing to make both King and nation
-	accept a certain Ministry, which, as a mark of gratitude, would make
-	him a Duke.
-
-	The Marquis had appealed in vain, year after year, to his lawyer at
-	Besancon for a clear and definite report on his lawsuits in the
-	Franche-Comte. How was the eminent lawyer to explain them to him, if
-	he did not understand them himself?
-
-	The little slip of paper which the abbe gave him explained everything.
-
-	'My dear abbe,' said the Marquis, after polishing off in less than
-	five minutes all the polite formulas and personal inquiries, 'my dear
-	abbe, in the midst of my supposed prosperity, I lack the time to
-	occupy myself seriously with two little matters which nevertheless are
-	of considerable importance: my family and my affairs. I take the
-	greatest interest in the fortunes of my house, I may carry it far; I
-	look after my pleasures, and that is what must come before everything
-	else, at least in my eyes,' he went on, noticing the astonishment in
-	the eyes of the abbe Pirard. Although a man of sense, the abbe was
-	amazed to see an old man talking so openly of his pleasures.
-
-	'Work does no doubt exist in Paris,' the great nobleman continued,
-	'but perched in the attics; and as soon as I come in contact with a
-	man, he takes an apartment on the second floor, and his wife starts a
-	day; consequently, no more work, no effort except to be or to appear
-	to be a man of fashion. That is their sole interest once they are
-	provided with bread.
-
-	'For my lawsuits, to be strictly accurate, and also for each lawsuit
-	separately, I have lawyers who work themselves to death; one of them
-	died of consumption, the day before yesterday. But, for my affairs in
-	general, would you believe, Sir, that for the last three years I have
-	given up hope of finding a man who, while he is writing for me, will
-	deign to think a little seriously of what he is doing. However, all
-	this is only a preamble.
-
-	'I respect you, and, I would venture to add, although we meet for the
-	first time, I like you. Will you be my secretary, with a salary of
-	eight thousand francs, or indeed twice that sum? I shall gain even
-	more, I assure you; and I shall make it my business to keep your fine
-	living for you, for the day on which we cease to agree.'
-
-	The abbe declined, but towards the end of the conversation, the sight
-	of the Marquis's genuine embarrassment suggested an idea to him.
-
-	'I have left down in my Seminary a poor young man who, if I be not
-	mistaken, is going to be brutally persecuted. If he were only a simple
-	monk he would be already _in pace_.
-
-	'At present this young man knows only Latin and the Holy Scriptures;
-	but it is by no means impossible that one day he may display great
-	talent, either for preaching or for the guidance of souls. I do not
-	know what he will do; but he has the sacred fire, he may go far. I
-	intended to give him to our Bishop, should one ever be sent to us who
-	had something of your way of looking at men and affairs.'
-
-	'What is your young man's origin?' said the Marquis.
-
-	'He is said to be the son of a carpenter in our mountains, but I am
-	inclined to believe that he is the natural son of some rich man. I
-	have seen him receive an anonymous or pseudonymous letter containing a
-	bill of exchange for five hundred francs.'
-
-	'Ah! It is Julien Sorel,' said the Marquis.
-
-	'How do you know his name?' asked the astonished abbe; and, as he was
-	blushing at his own question:
-
-	'That is what I am not going to tell you,' replied the Marquis.
-
-	'Very well!' the abbe went on, 'you might try making him your
-	secretary, he has energy, and judgment; in short, it is an experiment
-	worth trying.'
-
-	'Why not?' said the Marquis; 'but would he be the sort of man to let
-	his palm be greased by the Prefect of Police or by anyone else, to
-	play the spy on me? That is my only objection.'
-
-	Receiving favourable assurances from the abbe Pirard, the Marquis
-	produced a note for one thousand francs:
-
-	'Send this to Julien Sorel for his journey; tell him to come to me.'
-
-	'One can see,' said the abbe Pirard, 'that you live in Paris! You are
-	unaware of the tyranny that weighs upon us poor provincials, and
-	especially upon priests who are not on good terms with the Jesuits.
-	They will never allow Julien Sorel to leave, they will manage to cover
-	themselves with the cleverest excuses, they will reply that he is ill,
-	letters will have gone astray in the post,' etc., etc.
-
-	'One of these days I shall procure a letter from the Minister to the
-	Bishop,' said the Marquis.
-
-	'I was forgetting one thing,' said the abbe: 'this young man, although
-	of quite humble birth, has a proud heart, he will be of no use to you
-	if his pride is offended; you will only make him stupid.'
-
-	'I like that,' said the Marquis, 'I shall make him my son's companion,
-	will that do?'
-
-	Some time after this, Julien received a letter in an unknown hand and
-	bearing the postmark of Chalons, and found a draft upon a merchant in
-	Besancon and instructions to proceed to Paris without delay. The
-	letter was signed with an assumed name, but as he opened it Julien
-	trembled: a leaf from a tree had fallen out at his feet; it was the
-	signal arranged between him and the abbe Pirard.
-
-	Within an hour, Julien was summoned to the Bishop's Palace, where he
-	found himself greeted with a wholly fatherly welcome. Interspersed
-	with quotations from Horace, Monseigneur paid him, with regard to the
-	exalted destiny that awaited him in Paris, a number of very neat
-	compliments, which required an explanation if he were to express his
-	thanks. Julien could say nothing, chiefly because he knew nothing, and
-	Monseigneur showed a high regard for him. One of the minor clergy of
-	the Palace wrote to the Mayor who made haste to appear in person
-	bringing a passport already signed, but with a blank space for the
-	name of the traveller.
-
-	Before midnight, Julien was with Fouque, whose sober mind was more
-	astonished than delighted by the future which seemed to be in store
-	for his friend.
-
-	'The end of it will be,' said this Liberal elector, 'a post under
-	Government, which will oblige you to take some action that will be
-	pilloried in the newspapers. It will be through your disgrace that I
-	shall have news of you. Remember that, even financially speaking, it
-	is better to earn one hundred louis in an honest trade in timber,
-	where you are your own master, than to receive four thousand francs
-	from a Government, were it that of King Solomon himself.'
-
-	Julien saw no more in this than the pettiness of a rustic mind. He was
-	at last going to appear on the stage of great events. The good fortune
-	of going to Paris, which he peopled in his imagination with men of
-	intelligence, great intriguers, great hypocrites, but as courteous as
-	the Bishop of Besancon and the Bishop of Agde, eclipsed everything
-	else in his eyes. He represented himself to his friend as deprived of
-	his free will by the abbe Pirard's letter.
-
-	Towards noon on the following day he arrived in Verrieres the happiest
-	of men, he reckoned upon seeing Madame de Renal again. He went first
-	of all to his original protector, the good abbe Chelan. He met with a
-	stern reception.
-
-	'Do you consider that you are under any obligation to me?' said M.
-	Chelan, without acknowledging his greeting. 'You will take luncheon
-	with me, meanwhile another horse will be hired for you, and you will
-	leave Verrieres, without seeing anyone.'
-
-	'To hear is to obey,' replied Julien, with the prim face of a
-	seminarist; and there was no further discussion save of theology and
-	Latin scholarship.
-
-	He mounted his horse, rode a league, after which, coming upon a wood,
-	with no one to see him enter it, he hid himself there. At sunset he
-	sent the horse back. Later on, he entered the house of a peasant, who
-	agreed to sell him a ladder, and to go with him, carrying the ladder,
-	to the little wood that overhung the Cours de la Fidelite, in
-	Verrieres.
-
-	'We are a poor conscript deserting--or a smuggler,' said the peasant,
-	as he took leave of him, 'but what do I care? My ladder is well paid
-	for, and I myself have had to pass some awkward moments in my life.'
-
-	The night was very dark. About one o'clock in the morning, Julien,
-	carrying his ladder, made his way into Verrieres. He climbed down as
-	soon as he could into the bed of the torrent, which ran through M. de
-	Renal's magnificent gardens at a depth of ten feet, and confined
-	between walls. Julien climbed up easily by his ladder. 'What sort of
-	greeting will the watch-dogs give me?' he wondered. 'That is the whole
-	question.' The dogs barked, and rushed towards him; but he whistled
-	softly, and they came and fawned upon him.
-
-	Then climbing from terrace to terrace, although all the gates were
-	shut, he had no difficulty in arriving immediately beneath the window
-	of Madame de Renal's bedroom, which, on the garden side, was no more
-	than nine or ten feet above the ground.
-
-	There was in the shutters a small opening in the shape of a heart,
-	which Julien knew well. To his great dismay, this little opening was
-	not lighted by the glimmer of a nightlight within.
-
-	'Great God!' he said to himself; 'tonight, of all nights, this room is
-	not occupied by Madame de Renal! Where can she be sleeping? The family
-	are at Verrieres, since I found the dogs here; but I may in this room,
-	without a light, come upon M. de Renal himself or a stranger, and then
-	what a scandal!'
-
-	The most prudent course was to retire; but the idea filled Julien with
-	horror. 'If it is a stranger, I shall make off as fast as my legs will
-	carry me, leaving my ladder behind; but if it is she, what sort of
-	welcome awaits me? She is steeped in repentance and the most extreme
-	piety, I may be sure of that; but after all, she has still some memory
-	of me, since she has just written to me.' With this argument he made
-	up his mind.
-
-	His heart trembling, but determined nevertheless to see her or to
-	perish, he flung a handful of gravel against the shutter; no reply. He
-	placed his ladder against the wall by the side of the window and
-	tapped himself on the shutter, softly at first then more loudly. 'Dark
-	as it is, they may fire a gun at me,' thought Julien. This thought
-	reduced his mad undertaking to a question of physical courage.
-
-	'This room is unoccupied tonight,' he thought, 'or else whoever it is
-	that is sleeping here is awake by this time. So there is no need for
-	any further precaution here; all I need think of is not making myself
-	heard by the people who are sleeping in the other rooms.'
-
-	He stepped down, placed his ladder against one of the shutters,
-	climbed up again and passing his hand through the heart-shaped
-	opening, was fortunate in finding almost at once the wire fastened to
-	the latch that closed the shutter. He pulled this wire; it was with an
-	unspeakable joy that he felt that the shutter was no longer closed and
-	was yielding to his efforts. 'I must open it little by little and let
-	her recognise my voice.' He opened the shutter sufficiently to pass
-	his head through the gap, repeating in a whisper: 'It is a friend.'
-
-	He made certain, by applying his ear, that nothing broke the profound
-	silence in the room. But decidedly, there was no nightlight, even half
-	extinguished, on the hearth; this was indeed a bad sign.
-
-	'Beware of a gunshot!' He thought for a moment; then, with one finger,
-	ventured to tap the pane: no response; he tapped more loudly. 'Even if
-	I break the glass, I must settle this business.' As he was knocking
-	hard, he thought he could just make out, in the pitch darkness,
-	something like a white phantom coming across the room. In a moment,
-	there was no doubt about it, he did see a phantom which seemed to be
-	advancing with extreme slowness. Suddenly he saw a cheek pressed to
-	the pane to which his eye was applied.
-
-	He shuddered, and recoiled slightly. But the night was so dark that,
-	even at this close range, he could not make out whether it was Madame
-	de Renal. He feared an instinctive cry of alarm; he could hear the
-	dogs prowling with muttered growls round the foot of his ladder. 'It
-	is I,' he repeated, quite loudly, 'a friend.' No answer; the white
-	phantom had vanished. 'For pity's sake, open the window. I must speak
-	to you, I am too wretched!' and he knocked until the window nearly
-	broke.
-
-	A little sharp sound was heard; the catch of the window gave way; he
-	pushed it open and sprang lightly into the room.
-
-	The white phantom moved away; he seized it by the arms; it was a
-	woman. All his ideas of courage melted. 'If it is she, what will she
-	say to me?' What was his state when he realised from a faint cry that
-	it was Madame de Renal.
-
-	He gathered her in his arms; she trembled, and had barely the strength
-	to repulse him.
-
-	'Wretch! What are you doing?'
-
-	Scarcely could her tremulous voice articulate the words. Julien saw
-	that she was genuinely angry.
-
-	'I have come to see you after fourteen months of a cruel parting.'
-
-	'Go, leave me this instant. Ah! M. Chelan, why did you forbid me to
-	write to him? I should have prevented this horror.' She thrust him
-	from her with a force that was indeed extraordinary. 'I repent of my
-	crime; heaven has deigned to enlighten me,' she repeated in a stifled
-	voice. 'Go! Fly!'
-
-	'After fourteen months of misery, I shall certainly not leave you
-	until I have spoken to you. I wish to know all that you have been
-	doing. Ah! I have loved you well enough to deserve this confidence ...
-	I wish to know all.'
-
-	In spite of herself Madame de Renal felt this tone of authority exert
-	its influence over her heart.
-
-	Julien, who was holding her in a passionate embrace, and resisting her
-	efforts to liberate herself, ceased to press her in his arms. This
-	relaxation helped to reassure Madame de Renal.
-
-	'I am going to draw up the ladder,' he said, 'so that it may not
-	compromise us if one of the servants, awakened by the noise, goes the
-	rounds.'
-
-	'Ah! Leave me, leave me rather,' the answer came with unfeigned anger.
-	'What do men matter to me? It is God that sees the terrible wrong you
-	are doing me, and will punish me for it. You are taking a cowardly
-	advantage of the regard that I once felt for you, but no longer feel.
-	Do you hear, Master Julien?'
-
-	He drew up the ladder very slowly, so as not to make any noise.
-
-	'Is your husband in town?' he asked, not to defy her, but from force
-	of habit.
-
-	'Do not speak to me so, for pity's sake, or I shall call my husband. I
-	am all too guilty already of not having sent you away, at any cost. I
-	pity you,' she told him, seeking to wound his pride which she knew to
-	be so irritable.
-
-	Her refusal to use the _tu_ form, that abrupt method of breaking so
-	tender a bond, and one upon which he still reckoned, roused Julien's
-	amorous transport to a frenzy.
-
-	'What! Is it possible that you no longer love me!' he said to her, in
-	those accents of the heart to which it is so difficult to listen
-	unmoved.
-
-	She made no reply; as for him, he was weeping bitter tears.
-
-	Really, he had no longer the strength to speak.
-
-	'And so I am completely forgotten by the one person who has ever loved
-	me! What use to live any longer?' All his courage had left him as
-	soon as he no longer had to fear the danger of encountering a man;
-	everything had vanished from his heart, save love.
-
-	He wept for a long time in silence. He took her hand, she tried to
-	withdraw it; and yet, after a few almost convulsive movements, she let
-	him keep it. The darkness was intense; they found themselves both
-	seated upon Madame de Renal's bed.
-
-	'What a difference from the state of things fourteen months ago!'
-	thought Julien, and his flow of tears increased. 'So absence
-	unfailingly destroys all human feelings!
-
-	'Be so kind as to tell me what has happened to you,' Julien said at
-	length, embarrassed by his silence and in a voice almost stifled by
-	tears.
-
-	'There can be no doubt,' replied Madame de Renal in a harsh voice, the
-	tone of which offered a cutting reproach to Julien, 'my misdeeds were
-	known in the town, at the time of your departure. You were so
-	imprudent in your behaviour. Some time later, when I was in despair,
-	the respectable M. Chelan came to see me. It was in vain that, for a
-	long time, he sought to obtain a confession. One day, the idea
-	occurred to him to take me into that church at Dijon in which I made
-	my first Communion. There, he ventured to broach the subject...'
-	Madame de Renal's speech was interrupted by her tears. 'What a
-	shameful moment! I confessed all. That worthy man was kind enough not
-	to heap on me the weight of his indignation: he shared my distress. At
-	that time I was writing you day after day letters which I dared not
-	send you; I concealed them carefully, and when I was too wretched used
-	to shut myself up in my room and read over my own letters.
-
-	'At length, M. Chelan persuaded me to hand them over to him ... Some
-	of them, written with a little more prudence than the rest, had been
-	sent to you; never once did you answer me.'
-
-	'Never, I swear to you, did I receive any letter from you at the
-	Seminary.'
-
-	'Great God! who can have intercepted them?'
-
-	'Imagine my grief; until the day when I saw you in the Cathedral, I
-	did not know whether you were still alive.'
-
-	'God in His mercy made me understand how greatly I was sinning against
-	Him, against my children, against my husband,' replied Madame de
-	Renal. 'He has never loved me as I believed then that you loved me
-	...'
-
-	Julien flung himself into her arms, without any definite intention but
-	with entire lack of self-control. But Madame de Renal thrust him from
-	her, and continued quite firmly:
-
-	'My respectable friend M. Chelan made me realise that, in marrying M.
-	de Renal, I had pledged all my affections to him, even those of which
-	I was still ignorant, which I had never felt before a certain fatal
-	intimacy ... Since the great sacrifice of those letters, which were
-	so precious to me, my life has flowed on, if not happily, at any rate
-	quietly enough. Do not disturb it any more; be a friend to me ... the
-	best of friends.' Julien covered her hands with kisses; she could feel
-	that he was still crying. 'Do not cry, you distress me so ... Tell me,
-	it is your turn now, all that you have been doing.' Julien was unable
-	to speak. 'I wish to know what sort of life you led at the Seminary,'
-	she repeated, 'then you shall go.'
-
-	Without a thought of what he was telling her, Julien spoke of the
-	endless intrigues and jealousies which he had encountered at first,
-	then of his more peaceful life after he was appointed tutor.
-
-	'It was then,' he added, 'that after a long silence, which was
-	doubtless intended to make me understand what I see only too clearly
-	now, that you no longer love me, and that I had become as nothing to
-	you ...'
-
-	Madame de Renal gripped his hands. 'It was then that you sent me a sum
-	of five hundred francs.'
-
-	'Never,' said Madame de Renal.
-
-	'It was a letter postmarked _Paris_ and signed Paul Sorel, to avoid all
-	suspicion.'
-
-	A short discussion followed as to the possible source of this letter.
-	The atmosphere began to change. Unconsciously, Madame de Renal and
-	Julien had departed from their solemn tone; they had returned to that
-	of a tender intimacy. They could not see each other, so intense was
-	the darkness, but the sound of their voices told all. Julien slipped
-	his arm round the waist of his mistress; this movement was highly
-	dangerous. She tried to remove Julien's arm, whereupon he, with a
-	certain adroitness, distracted her attention by an interesting point
-	in his narrative.
-
-	The arm was then forgotten, and remained in the position that it had
-	occupied.
-
-	After abundant conjectures as to the source of the letter with the
-	five hundred francs, Julien had resumed his narrative; he became
-	rather more his own master in speaking of his past life which, in
-	comparison with what was happening to him at that moment, interested
-	him so little. His attention was wholly concentrated on the manner in
-	which his visit was to end. 'You must leave me,' she kept on telling
-	him, in a curt tone.
-
-	'What a disgrace for me if I am shown the door! The remorse will be
-	enough to poison my whole life,' he said to himself, 'she will never
-	write to me. God knows when I shall return to this place!' From that
-	moment, all the element of heavenly bliss in Julien's situation
-	vanished rapidly from his heart. Seated by the side of a woman whom he
-	adored, clasping her almost in his arms, in this room in which he had
-	been so happy, plunged in a black darkness, perfectly well aware that
-	for the last minute she had been crying, feeling, from the movement of
-	her bosom, that she was convulsed with sobs, he unfortunately became a
-	frigid politician, almost as calculating and as frigid as when, in the
-	courtyard of the Seminary, he saw himself made the butt of some
-	malicious joke by one of his companions stronger than himself. Julien
-	spun out his story, and spoke of the wretched life he had led since
-	leaving Verrieres. 'And so,' Madame de Renal said to herself, 'after a
-	year's absence, almost without a single token of remembrance, while I
-	was forgetting him, his mind was entirely taken up with the happy days
-	he had enjoyed at Vergy.' Her sobs increased in violence. Julien saw
-	that his story had been successful. He realised that he must now try
-	his last weapon: he came abruptly to the letter that he had just
-	received from Paris.
-
-	'I have taken leave of Monseigneur, the Bishop.'
-
-	'What! You are not returning to Besancon! You are leaving us for
-	ever?'
-
-	'Yes,' replied Julien, in a resolute tone; 'yes, I am abandoning the
-	place where I am forgotten even by her whom I have most dearly loved
-	in all my life, and I am leaving it never to set eyes on it again. I
-	am going to Paris ...'
-
-	'You are going to Paris!' Madame de Renal exclaimed quite aloud.
-
-	Her voice was almost stifled by her tears, and showed the intensity of
-	her grief. Julien had need of this encouragement; he was going to
-	attempt a course which might decide everything against him; and before
-	this exclamation, seeing no light, he was absolutely ignorant of the
-	effect that he was producing. He hesitated no longer; the fear of
-	remorse gave him complete command of himself; he added coldly as he
-	rose to his feet:
-
-	'Yes, Madame, I leave you for ever, may you be happy; farewell.'
-
-	He took a few steps towards the window; he was already opening it.
-	Madame de Renal sprang after him and flung herself into his arms.
-
-	Thus, after three hours of conversation, Julien obtained what he had
-	so passionately desired during the first two. Had they come a little
-	earlier, this return to tender sentiments, the eclipse of remorse in
-	Madame de Renal would have been a divine happiness; obtained thus by
-	artifice, they were no more than mere pleasure. Julien positively
-	insisted, against the entreaties of his mistress, upon lighting the
-	nightlight.
-
-	'Do you then wish me,' he asked her, 'to retain no memory of having
-	seen you? The love that is doubtless glowing in those charming eyes,
-	shall it then be lost to me? Shall the whiteness of that lovely hand
-	be invisible to me? Think that I am leaving you for a very long time
-	perhaps!'
-
-	Madame de Renal could refuse nothing in the face of this idea which
-	made her dissolve in tears. Dawn was beginning to paint in clear hues
-	the outline of the fir trees on the mountain to the least of
-	Verrieres. Instead of going away, Julien, intoxicated with pleasure,
-	asked Madame de Renal to let him spend the whole day hidden in her
-	room, and not to leave until the following night.
-
-	'And why not?' was her answer. 'This fatal relapse destroys all my
-	self-esteem, and dooms me to lifelong misery,' and she pressed him to
-	her heart. 'My husband is no longer the same, he has suspicions; he
-	believes that I have been fooling him throughout this affair, and is
-	in the worst of tempers with me. If he hears the least sound I am
-	lost, he will drive me from the house like the wretch that I am.'
-
-	'Ah! There I can hear the voice of M. Chelan,' said Julien; you would
-	not have spoken to me like that before my cruel departure for the
-	Seminary; you loved me then!'
-
-	Julien was rewarded for the coolness with which he had uttered this
-	speech; he saw his mistress at once forget the danger in which the
-	proximity of her husband involved her, to think of the far greater
-	danger of seeing Julien doubtful of her love for him. The daylight was
-	rapidly increasing and now flooded the room; Julien recovered all the
-	exquisite sensations of pride when he was once more able to see in his
-	arms and almost at his feet this charming woman, the only woman that
-	he had ever loved, who, a few hours earlier, had been entirely wrapped
-	up in the fear of a terrible God and in devotion to duty. Resolutions
-	fortified by a year of constancy had not been able to hold out against
-	his boldness.
-
-	Presently they heard a sound in the house; a consideration to which
-	she had not given a thought now disturbed Madame de Renal.
-
-	'That wicked Elisa will be coming into the room, what are we to do
-	with that enormous ladder?' she said to her lover; 'where are we to
-	hide it? I am going to take it up to the loft,' she suddenly
-	exclaimed, with a sort of playfulness.
-
-	'But you will have to go through the servant's room,' said Julien with
-	astonishment.
-
-	'I shall leave the ladder in the corridor, call the man and send him
-	on an errand.'
-
-	'Remember to have some excuse ready in case the man notices the ladder
-	when he passes it in the passage.'
-
-	'Yes, my angel,' said Madame de Renal as she gave him a kiss. 'And
-	you, remember to hide yourself quickly under the bed if Elisa comes
-	into the room while I am away.'
-
-	Julien was amazed at this sudden gaiety. 'And so,' he thought, 'the
-	approach of physical danger, so far from disturbing her, restores her
-	gaiety because she forgets her remorse! Indeed a superior woman! Ah!
-	There is a heart in which it is glorious to reign!' Julien was in
-	ecstasies.
-
-	Madame de Renal took the ladder; plainly it was too heavy for her.
-	Julien went to her assistance; he was admiring that elegant figure,
-	which suggested anything rather than strength, when suddenly, without
-	help, she grasped the ladder and picked it up as she might have picked
-	up a chair. She carried it swiftly to the corridor on the third
-	storey, where she laid it down by the wall. She called the manservant,
-	and, to give him time to put on his clothes, went up to the dovecote.
-	Five minutes later, when she returned to the corridor, the ladder was
-	no more to be seen. What had become of it? Had Julien been out of the
-	house, the danger would have been nothing. But, at that moment, if her
-	husband saw the ladder! The consequences might be appalling. Madame de
-	Renal ran up and down the house. At last she discovered the ladder
-	under the roof, where the man had taken it and in fact hidden it
-	himself. This in itself was strange, and at another time would have
-	alarmed her.
-
-	'What does it matter to me,' she thought, 'what may happen in
-	twenty-four hours from now, when Julien will have gone? Will not
-	everything then be to me horror and remorse?'
-
-	She had a sort of vague idea that she ought to take her life, but what
-	did that matter? After a parting which she had supposed to be for
-	ever, he was restored to her, she saw him again, and what he had done
-	in making his way to her gave proof of such a wealth of love!
-
-	In telling Julien of the incident of the ladder:
-
-	'What shall I say to my husband,' she asked him, 'if the man tells him
-	how he found the ladder?' She meditated for a moment. 'It will take
-	them twenty-four hours to discover the peasant who sold it to you';
-	and flinging herself into Julien's arms and clasping him in a
-	convulsive embrace: 'Ah! to die, to die like this!' she cried as she
-	covered him with kisses; 'but I must not let you die of hunger,' she
-	added with a laugh.
-
-	'Come; first of all, I am going to hide you in Madame Derville's room,
-	which is always kept locked.' She kept watch at the end of the
-	corridor and Julien slipped from door to door. 'Remember not to
-	answer, if anyone knocks,' she reminded him as she turned the key
-	outside; 'anyhow, it would only be the children playing.'
-
-	'Make them go into the garden, below the window,' said Julien, 'so
-	that I may have the pleasure of seeing them, make them speak.'
-
-	'Yes, yes,' cried Madame de Renal as she left him.
-
-	She returned presently with oranges, biscuits, a bottle of Malaga; she
-	had found it impossible to purloin any bread.
-
-	'What is your husband doing?' said Julien.
-
-	'He is writing down notes of the deals he proposes to do with some
-	peasants.'
-
-	But eight o'clock had struck, the house was full of noise. If Madame
-	de Renal were not to be seen, people would begin searching everywhere
-	for her; she was obliged to leave him. Presently she returned, in
-	defiance of all the rules of prudence, to bring him a cup of coffee;
-	she was afraid of his dying of hunger. After luncheon she managed to
-	shepherd the children underneath the window of Madame Derville's room.
-	He found that they had grown considerably, but they had acquired a
-	common air, or else his ideas had changed. Madame de Renal spoke to
-	them of Julien. The eldest replied with affection and regret for his
-	former tutor, but it appeared that the two younger had almost
-	forgotten him.
-
-	M. de Renal did not leave the house that morning; he was incessantly
-	going up and downstairs, engaged in striking bargains with certain
-	peasants, to whom he was selling his potato crop. Until dinner time,
-	Madame de Renal had not a moment to spare for her prisoner. When
-	dinner was on the table, it occurred to her to steal a plateful of hot
-	soup for him. As she silently approached the door of the room in which
-	he was, carrying the plate carefully, she found herself face to face
-	with the servant who had hidden the ladder that morning. At that
-	moment, he too was coming silently along the corridor, as though
-	listening. Probably Julien had forgotten to tread softly. The servant
-	made off in some confusion. Madame de Renal went boldly into Julien's
-	room; her account of the incident made him shudder.
-
-	'You are afraid'; she said to him; 'and I, I would brave all the
-	dangers in the world without a tremor. I fear one thing only, that is
-	the moment when I shall be left alone after you have gone,' and she
-	ran from the room.
-
-	'Ah!' thought Julien, greatly excited, 'remorse is the only danger
-	that sublime soul dreads!'
-
-	Night came at last. M. de Renal went to the Casino.
-
-	His wife had announced a severe headache, she retired to her room,
-	made haste to dismiss Elisa, and speedily rose from her bed to open
-	the door to Julien.
-
-	It so happened that he really was faint with hunger. Madame de Renal
-	went to the pantry to look for bread. Julien heard a loud cry. She
-	returned and told him that on entering the dark pantry, making her way
-	to a cupboard in which the bread was kept, and stretching out her
-	hand, she had touched a woman's arm. It was Elisa who had uttered the
-	cry which Julien had heard.
-
-	'What was she doing there?'
-
-	'She was stealing a few sweetmeats, or possibly spying on us,' said
-	Madame de Renal with complete indifference. 'But fortunately I have
-	found a pate and a big loaf.'
-
-	'And what have you got there?' said Julien, pointing to the pockets of
-	her apron.
-
-	Madame de Renal had forgotten that, ever since dinner, they had been
-	filled with bread.
-
-	Julien clasped her in his arms with the keenest passion; never had she
-	seemed to him so beautiful. 'Even in Paris,' he told himself vaguely,
-	'I shall not be able to find a nobler character.' She had all the
-	awkwardness of a woman little accustomed to attentions of this sort,
-	and at the same time the true courage of a person who fears only
-	dangers of another kind and far more terrible.
-
-	While Julien was devouring his supper with a keen appetite, and his
-	mistress was playfully apologising for the simplicity of the repast,
-	for she had a horror of serious speech, the door of the room was all
-	at once shaken violently. It was M. de Renal.
-
-	'Why have you locked yourself in?' he shouted to her.
-
-	Julien had just time to slip beneath the sofa.
-
-	'What! You are fully dressed,' said M. de Renal, as he entered; 'you
-	are having supper, and you have locked your door?'
-
-	On any ordinary day, this question, put with all the brutality of a
-	husband, would have troubled Madame de Renal, but she felt that her
-	husband had only to lower his eyes a little to catch sight of Julien;
-	for M. de Renal had flung himself upon the chair on which Julien had
-	been sitting a moment earlier, facing the sofa.
-
-	Her headache served as an excuse for everything. While in his turn her
-	husband was giving her a long and detailed account of the pool he had
-	won in the billiard room of the Casino, 'a pool of nineteen francs,
-	begad!' he added, she saw lying on a chair before their eyes, and
-	within a few feet of them, Julien's hat. Cooler than ever, she began
-	to undress, and, choosing her moment, passed swiftly behind her
-	husband and flung a garment over the chair with the hat on it.
-
-	At length M. de Renal left her. She begged Julien to begin over again
-	the story of his life in the Seminary: 'Yesterday I was not listening
-	to you, I was thinking, while you were speaking, only of how I was to
-	bring myself to send you away.'
-
-	She was the embodiment of imprudence. They spoke very loud; and it
-	might have been two o'clock in the morning when they were interrupted
-	by a violent blow on the door. It was M. de Renal again:
-
-	'Let me in at once, there are burglars in the house!' he said,
-	'Saint-Jean found their ladder this morning.'
-
-	'This is the end of everything,' cried Madame de Renal, throwing
-	herself into Julien's arms. 'He is going to kill us both, he does not
-	believe in the burglars; I am going to die in your arms, more
-	fortunate in my death than I have been in my life.' She made no answer
-	to her husband, who was waiting angrily outside, she was holding
-	Julien in a passionate embrace.
-
-	'Save Stanislas's mother,' he said to her with an air of command. 'I
-	am going to jump down into the courtyard from the window of the
-	closet, and escape through the garden, the dogs know me. Make a bundle
-	of my clothes and throw it down into the garden as soon as you can.
-	Meanwhile, let him break the door in. And whatever you do, no
-	confession, I forbid it, suspicion is better than certainty.'
-
-	'You will kill yourself, jumping down,' was her sole reply and her
-	sole anxiety.
-
-	She went with him to the window of the closet; she then took such time
-	as she required to conceal his garments. Finally she opened the door
-	to her husband, who was boiling with rage. He searched the bedroom,
-	the closet, without uttering a word, and then vanished. Julien's
-	clothes were thrown down to him, he caught them and ran quickly down
-	the garden towards the Doubs.
-
-	As he ran, he heard a bullet whistle past him, and simultaneously the
-	sound of a gun being fired.
-
-	'That is not M. de Renal,' he decided, 'he is not a good enough shot.'
-	The dogs were running by his side in silence, a second shot apparently
-	shattered the paw of one dog, for it began to emit lamentable howls.
-	Julien jumped the wall of a terrace, proceeded fifty yards under
-	cover, then continued his flight in a different direction. He heard
-	voices calling, and could distinctly see the servant, his enemy, fire
-	a gun; a farmer also came and shot at him from the other side of the
-	garden, but by this time Julien had reached the bank of the Doubs,
-	where he put on his clothes.
-
-	An hour later, he was a league from Verrieres, on the road to Geneva.
-	'If there is any suspicion,' thought Julien, 'it is on the Paris road
-	that they will look for me.'
-
-
-
-
-
-	BOOK TWO
-
-	She is not pretty, she is not wearing rouge.
-	SAINT-BEUVE
-
-
-
-	CONTENTS
-
-	BOOK TWO
-
-	Chapter 1 Country Pleasures
-
-	Chapter 2 First Appearance in Society
-
-	Chapter 3 First Steps
-
-	Chapter 4 The Hotel de La Mole
-
-	Chapter 5 Sensibility and a Pious Lady
-
-	Chapter 6 Pronunciation
-
-	Chapter 7 An Attack of Gout
-
-	Chapter 8 What Is the Decoration that Confers Distinction?
-
-	Chapter 9 The Ball
-
-	Chapter 10 Queen Marguerite
-
-	Chapter 11 The Tyranny of a Girl
-
-	Chapter 12 Another Danton?
-
-	Chapter 13 A Plot
-
-	Chapter 14 A Girl's Thoughts
-
-	Chapter 15 Is It a Plot?
-
-	Chapter 16 One o'Clock in the Morning
-
-	Chapter 17 An Old Sword
-
-	Chapter 18 Painful Moments
-
-	Chapter 19 The Opera-Bouffe
-
-	Chapter 20 The Japanese Vase
-
-	Chapter 21 The Secret Note
-
-	Chapter 22 The Discussion
-
-	Chapter 23 The Clergy, their Forests, Liberty
-
-	Chapter 24 Strasbourg
-
-	Chapter 25 The Office of Virtue
-
-	Chapter 26 Moral Love
-
-	Chapter 27 The Best Positions in the Church
-
-	Chapter 28 Manon Lescaut
-
-	Chapter 29 Boredom
-
-	Chapter 30 A Box at the Bouffes
-
-	Chapter 31 Making Her Afraid
-
-	Chapter 32 The Tiger
-
-	Chapter 33 The Torment of the Weak
-
-	Chapter 34 A Man of Spirit
-
-	Chapter 35 A Storm
-
-	Chapter 36 Painful Details
-
-	Chapter 37 A Dungeon
-
-	Chapter 38 A Man of Power
-
-	Chapter 39 Intrigue
-
-	Chapter 40 Tranquillity
-
-	Chapter 41 The Trial
-
-	Chapter 42 In the Prison
-
-	Chapter 43 Last Adieux
-
-	Chapter 44 The Shadow of the Guillotine
-
-	Chapter 45 Exit Julien
-
-	Translator's Note
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 1
-	Country Pleasures
-
-
-	O rus, quando ego te aspiciam!
-	VIRGIL [HORACE in earlier edition]
-
-	'The gentleman is waiting, surely, for the mail-coach for Paris?' he
-	was asked by the landlord of an inn at which he stopped to break his
-	fast.
-
-	'Today or tomorrow, it is all the same to me,' said Julien.
-
-	The coach arrived while he was feigning indifference. There were two
-	places vacant.
-
-	'What! It is you, my poor Falcoz,' said the traveller, who had come
-	from the direction of Geneva to him who now entered the coach with
-	Julien.
-
-	'I thought you had settled in the neighbourhood of Lyons,' said
-	Falcoz, 'in a charming valley by the Rhone.'
-
-	'Settled, indeed! I am running away.'
-
-	'What! Running away? You, Saint-Giraud! With that honest face of
-	yours, have you committed a crime?' said Falcoz, with a laugh.
-
-	'Upon my soul, not far off it. I am running away from the abominable
-	life one leads in the country. I love the shade of the woods and the
-	quiet of the fields, as you know; you have often accused me of being
-	romantic. The one thing I never wished to hear mentioned was politics,
-	and politics pursue me everywhere.'
-
-	'But to what party do you belong?'
-
-	'To none, and that is what has been fatal to me. These are all my
-	politics: I enjoy music, and painting; a good book is an event in my
-	life; I shall soon be four and forty. How many years have I to live?
-	Fifteen, twenty, thirty, perhaps, at the most. Very well; I hold that
-	in thirty years from now, our Ministers will be a little more able,
-	but otherwise just as good fellows as we have today. The history of
-	England serves as a mirror to show me our future. There will always be
-	a King who seeks to extend his prerogative; the ambition to enter
-	Parliament, the glory and the hundreds of thousands of francs amassed
-	by Mirabeau will always keep our wealthy provincials awake at night:
-	they will call that being Liberal and loving the people. The desire to
-	become a Peer or a Gentleman in Waiting will always possess the
-	Ultras. On board the Ship of State, everyone will wish to be at the
-	helm, for the post is well paid. Will there never be a little corner
-	anywhere for the mere passenger?'
-
-	'Why, of course, and a very pleasant one, too, for a man of your
-	peaceful nature. Is it the last election that is driving you from
-	your district?'
-
-	'My trouble dates from farther back. I was, four years ago, forty
-	years old, and had five hundred thousand francs, I am four years older
-	now, and have probably fifty thousand less, which I shall lose by the
-	sale of my place, Monfleury, by the Rhone, a superb position.
-
-	'In Paris, I was tired of that perpetual play-acting, to which one is
-	driven by what you call nineteenth-century civilisation. I felt a
-	longing for human fellowship and simplicity. I bought a piece of land
-	in the mountains by the Rhone, the most beautiful spot in the world.
-
-	'The vicar of the village and the neighbouring squires made much of me
-	for the first six months; I had them to dine; I had left Paris, I told
-	them, so as never to mention or to hear of politics again. You see, I
-	subscribe to no newspaper. The fewer letters the postman brings me,
-	the happier I am.
-
-	'This was not what the vicar wanted; presently I was besieged with
-	endless indiscreet requests, intrigues, and so forth. I wished to give
-	two or three hundred francs every year to the poor, they pestered me
-	for them on behalf of pious associations; Saint Joseph, Our Lady, and
-	so forth. I refused: then I came in for endless insults. I was foolish
-	enough to show annoyance. I could no longer leave the house in the
-	morning to go and enjoy the beauty of our mountain scenery, without
-	meeting some bore who would interrupt my thoughts with an unpleasant
-	reminder of my fellow men and their evil ways. In the Rogationtide
-	processions, for instance, the chanting in which I like (it is
-	probably a Greek melody), they no longer bless my fields, because, the
-	vicar says, they belong to an unbeliever. A pious old peasant woman's
-	cow dies, she says that it is because there is a pond close by which
-	belongs to me, the unbeliever, a philosopher from Paris, and a week
-	later I find all my fish floating on the water, poisoned with lime. I
-	am surrounded by trickery in every form. The justice of the peace, an
-	honest man, but afraid of losing his place, always decides against me.
-	The peace of the fields is hell to me. As soon as they saw me
-	abandoned by the vicar, head of the village _Congregation_, and not
-	supported by the retired captain, head of the Liberals, they all fell
-	upon me, even the mason who had been living upon me for a year, even
-	the wheelwright, who tried to get away with cheating me when he mended
-	my ploughs.
-
-	'In order to have some footing and to win a few at least of my
-	lawsuits, I turned Liberal; but, as you were saying, those damned
-	elections came, they asked me for my vote ...'
-
-	'For a stranger?'
-
-	'Not a bit of it, for a man I know only too well. I refused, a fearful
-	imprudence! From that moment, I had the Liberals on top of me as well,
-	my position became intolerable. I believe that if it had ever entered
-	the vicar's head to accuse me of having murdered my servant, there
-	would have been a score of witnesses from both parties, ready to swear
-	that they had seen me commit the crime.'
-
-	'You wish to live in the country without ministering to your
-	neighbours' passions, without even listening to their gossip. What a
-	mistake!'
-
-	'I have made amends for it now. Monfleury is for sale. I shall lose
-	fifty thousand francs, if I must, but I am overjoyed, I am leaving
-	that hell of hypocrisy and malice. I am going to seek solitude and
-	rustic peace in the one place in France where they exist, in a
-	fourth-floor apartment, overlooking the Champs-Elysees. And yet I am
-	just thinking whether I shall not begin my political career, in the
-	Roule quarter, by presenting the blessed bread in the parish church.'
-
-	'None of that would have happened to you under Bonaparte,' said
-	Falcoz, his eyes shining with anger and regret.
-
-	'That's all very well, but why couldn't he keep going, your Bonaparte?
-	Everything that I suffer from today is his doing.'
-
-	Here Julien began to listen with increased attention. He had realised
-	from the first that the Bonapartist Falcoz was the early playmate of
-	M. de Renal, repudiated by him in 1816, while the philosopher
-	Saint-Giraud must be a brother of that chief clerk in the Prefecture
-	of ----, who knew how to have municipal property knocked down to him
-	on easy terms.
-
-	'And all that has been your Bonaparte's doing,' Saint-Giraud
-	continued: 'An honest man, harmless if ever there was one, forty years
-	old and with five hundred thousand francs, can't settle down in the
-	country and find peace there. Bonaparte's priests and nobles drive him
-	out again.'
-
-	'Ah! You must not speak evil of him,' cried Falcoz, 'never has France
-	stood so high in the esteem of foreign nations as during the thirteen
-	years of his reign. In those days, everything that was done had
-	greatness in it.'
-
-	'Your Emperor, may the devil fly away with him,' went on the man of
-	four and forty, 'was great only upon his battlefields, and when he
-	restored our financial balance in 1801. What was the meaning of all
-	his conduct after that? With his chamberlains and his pomp and his
-	receptions at the Tuileries, he simply furnished a new edition of all
-	the stuff and nonsense of the monarchy. It was a corrected edition, it
-	might have served for a century or two. The nobles and priests
-	preferred to return to the old edition, but they have not the iron
-	hand that they need to bring it before the public.'
-
-	'Listen to the old printer talking!'
-
-	'Who is it that is turning me off my land?' went on the printer with
-	heat. 'The priests, whom Napoleon brought back with his Concordat,
-	instead of treating them as the State treats doctors, lawyers,
-	astronomers, of regarding them merely as citizens, without inquiring
-	into the trade by which they earn their living. Would there be these
-	insolent gentlemen today if your Bonaparte had not created barons and
-	counts? No, the fashion had passed. Next to the priests, it is the
-	minor country nobles that have annoyed me most, and forced me to turn
-	Liberal.'
-
-	The discussion was endless, this theme will occupy the minds and
-	tongues of France for the next half-century. As Saint-Giraud kept on
-	repeating that it was impossible to live in the provinces, Julien
-	timidly cited the example of M. de Renal.
-
-	'Egad, young man, you're a good one!' cried Falcoz, 'he has turned
-	himself into a hammer so as not to be made the anvil, and a terrible
-	hammer at that. But I can see him cut out by Valenod. Do you know that
-	rascal? He's the real article. What will your M. de Renal say when he
-	finds himself turned out of office one of these fine days, and Valenod
-	filling his place?'
-
-	'He will be left to meditate on his crimes,' said Saint-Giraud. 'So
-	you know Verrieres, young man, do you? Very good! Bonaparte, whom
-	heaven confound, made possible the reign of the Renals and Chelans,
-	which has paved the way for the reign of the Valenods and Maslons.'
-
-	This talk of shady politics astonished Julien, and took his thoughts
-	from his dreams of sensual bliss.
-
-	He was little impressed by the first view of Paris seen in the
-	distance. His fantastic imaginings of the future in store for him had
-	to do battle with the still vivid memory of the twenty-four hours
-	which he had just spent at Verrieres. He made a vow that he would
-	never abandon his mistress's children, but would give up everything to
-	protect them, should the impertinences of the priests give us a
-	Republic and lead to persecutions of the nobility.
-
-	What would have happened to him on the night of his arrival at
-	Verrieres if, at the moment when he placed his ladder against Madame
-	de Renal's bedroom window, he had found that room occupied by a
-	stranger, or by M. de Renal?
-
-	But also what bliss in those first few hours, when his mistress really
-	wished to send him away, and he pleaded his cause, seated by her side
-	in the darkness! A mind like Julien's is pursued by such memories for
-	a lifetime. The rest of their meeting had already merged into the
-	first phases of their love, fourteen months earlier.
-
-	Julien was awakened from his profound abstraction by the stopping of
-	the carriage. They had driven into the courtyard of the posthouse in
-	the rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 'I wish to go to La Malmaison,' he
-	told the driver of a passing cabriolet. 'At this time of night, Sir?
-	What to do?' 'What business is it of yours? Drive on.'
-
-	True passion thinks only of itself. That, it seems to me, is why the
-	passions are so absurd in Paris, where one's neighbour always insists
-	upon one's thinking largely of him. I shall not describe Julien's
-	transports at La Malmaison. He wept. What! In spite of the ugly white
-	walls set up this year, which divide the park in pieces? Yes, sir;
-	for Julien, as for posterity, there was no distinction between
-	Arcole, Saint Helena and La Malmaison.
-
-	That evening, Julien hesitated for long before entering the playhouse;
-	he had strange ideas as to that sink of iniquity.
-
-	An intense distrust prevented him from admiring the Paris of today, he
-	was moved only by the monuments bequeathed by his hero.
-
-	'So here I am in the centre of intrigue and hypocrisy! This is where
-	the abbe de Frilair's protectors reign.'
-
-	On the evening of the third day, curiosity prevailed over his plan of
-	seeing everything before calling upon the abbe Pirard.
-
-	The said abbe explained to him, in a frigid tone, the sort of life
-	that awaited him at M. de La Mole's.
-
-	'If after a few months you are of no use to him, you will return to
-	the Seminary, but by the front door. You are going to lodge with the
-	Marquis, one of the greatest noblemen in France. You will dress in
-	black, but like a layman in mourning, not like a churchman. I require
-	that, thrice weekly, you pursue your theological studies in a
-	Seminary, where I shall introduce you. Each day, at noon, you will
-	take your place in the library of the Marquis, who intends to employ
-	you in writing letters with reference to lawsuits and other business.
-	The Marquis notes down, in a word or two, upon the margin of each
-	letter that he receives, the type of answer that it requires. I have
-	undertaken that, by the end of three months, you will have learned to
-	compose these answers to such effect that, of every twelve which you
-	present to the Marquis for his signature, he will be able to sign
-	eight or nine. In the evening, at eight o'clock, you will put his
-	papers in order, and at ten you will be free.
-
-	'It may happen,' the abbe Pirard continued, 'that some old lady or
-	some man of persuasive speech will hint to you the prospect of immense
-	advantages, or quite plainly offer you money to let him see the
-	letters received by the Marquis ...'
-
-	'Oh, Sir!' cried Julien, blushing.
-
-	'It is strange,' said the abbe with a bitter smile, 'that, poor as you
-	are, and after a year of Seminary, you still retain these virtuous
-	indignations. You must indeed have been blind!
-
-	'Can it be his blood coming out?' murmured the abbe, as though putting
-	the question to himself. 'The strange thing is,' he added, looking at
-	Julien, 'that the Marquis knows you ... How, I cannot say. He is
-	giving you, to begin with, a salary of one hundred louis. He is a man
-	who acts only from caprice, that is his weakness; he will outdo you in
-	puerilities. If he is pleased with you, your salary may rise in time
-	to eight thousand francs.
-
-	'But you must be well aware,' the abbe went on in a harsh tone, 'that
-	he is not giving you all this money for your handsome face. You will
-	have to be of use to him. If I were in your position, I should speak
-	as little as possible, and above all, never speak of matters of which
-	I know nothing.
-
-	'Ah!' said the abbe, 'I have been making inquiries on your behalf; I
-	was forgetting M. de La Mole's family. He has two children, a
-	daughter, and a son of nineteen, the last word in elegance, a mad
-	fellow, who never knows at one minute what he will be doing the next.
-	He has spirit, and courage; he has fought in Spain. The Marquis
-	hopes, I cannot say why, that you will become friends with the young
-	Comte Norbert. I have said that you are a great Latin scholar, perhaps
-	he reckons upon your teaching his son a few ready-made phrases about
-	Cicero and Virgil.
-
-	'In your place, I should never allow this fine young man to make free
-	with me; and, before yielding to his overtures, which will be
-	perfectly civil, but slightly marred by irony, I should make him
-	repeat them at least twice.
-
-	'I shall not conceal from you that the young Comte de La Mole is bound
-	to look down upon you at first, because of your humble birth. He is
-	the direct descendant of a courtier, who had the honour to have his
-	head cut off on the Place de Greve, on the 26th of April, 1574, for a
-	political intrigue. As for you, you are the son of a carpenter at
-	Verrieres, and moreover, you are in his father's pay. Weigh these
-	differences carefully, and study the history of this family in
-	Moreri, all the flatterers who dine at their table make from time to
-	time what they call delicate allusions to it.
-
-	'Take care how you respond to the pleasantries of M. le Comte Norbert
-	de La Mole, Squadron Commander of Hussars and a future Peer of France,
-	and do not come and complain to me afterwards.'
-
-	'It seems to me,' said Julien, blushing deeply, 'that I ought not even
-	to answer a man who looks down upon me.'
-
-	'You have no idea of this form of contempt; it will reveal itself only
-	in exaggerated compliments. If you were a fool, you might let yourself
-	be taken in by them; if you wished to succeed, you ought to let
-	yourself be taken in.'
-
-	'On the day when all this ceases to agree with me,' said Julien,
-	'shall I be considered ungrateful if I return to my little cell,
-	number 103?'
-
-	'No doubt,' replied the abbe, 'all the sycophants of the house will
-	slander you, but then I shall appear. _Adsum qui fed_. I shall say that
-	it was from me that the decision came.'
-
-	Julien was dismayed by the bitter and almost malicious tone which he
-	remarked in M. Pirard; this tone completely spoiled his last
-	utterance.
-
-	The fact was that the abbe felt a scruple of conscience about loving
-	Julien, and it was with a sort of religious terror that he was thus
-	directly interfering with the destiny of another man.
-
-	'You will also see,' he continued, with the same ill grace, and as
-	though in the performance of a painful duty, 'you will see Madame la
-	Marquise de La Mole. She is a tall, fair woman, pious, proud,
-	perfectly civil and even more insignificant. She is a daughter of the
-	old Due de Chaulnes, so famous for his aristocratic prejudices. This
-	great lady is a sort of compendium, in high relief, of all that makes
-	up the character of the women of her rank. She makes it no secret that
-	to have had ancestors who went to the Crusades is the sole advantage
-	to which she attaches any importance. Money comes only a long way
-	after: does that surprise you? We are no longer in the country, my
-	friend.
-
-	'You will find in her drawing-room many great noblemen speaking of our
-	Princes in a tone of singular disrespect. As for Madame de La Mole,
-	she lowers her voice in respect whenever she names a Prince, let alone
-	a Princess. I should not advise you to say in her hearing that Philip
-	II or Henry VIII was a monster. They were KINGS, and that gives them
-	an inalienable right to the respect of everyone, and above all to the
-	respect of creatures without birth, like you and me. However,' M.
-	Pirard added, 'we are priests, for she will take you for one; on that
-	footing, she regards us as lackeys necessary to her salvation.'
-
-	'Sir,' said Julien, 'it seems to me that I shall not remain long in
-	Paris.'
-
-	'As you please; but observe that there is no hope of success, for a
-	man of our cloth, except through the great nobles. With that
-	indefinable element (at least, I cannot define it), which there is in
-	your character, if you do not succeed you will be persecuted; there is
-	no middle way for you. Do not abuse your position. People see that you
-	are not pleased when they speak to you; in a social environment like
-	this, you are doomed to misfortune, if you do not succeed in winning
-	respect.
-
-	'What would have become of you at Besancon, but for this caprice on
-	the part of the Marquis de La Mole? One day, you will appreciate all
-	the singularity of what he is doing for you, and, if you are not a
-	monster, you will feel eternal gratitude to him and his family. How
-	many poor abbes, cleverer men than you, have lived for years in Paris,
-	upon the fifteen sous for their mass and the ten sous for their
-	lectures in the Sorbonne! ... Remember what I told you, last winter,
-	of the early years of that wretch, Cardinal Dubois. Are you, by any
-	chance, so proud as to imagine that you have more talent than he?
-
-	'I, for example, a peaceable and insignificant man, expected to end my
-	days in my Seminary; I was childish enough to have grown attached to
-	it. Very well! I was going to be turned out when I offered my
-	resignation. Do you know what was the extent of my fortune? I had five
-	hundred and twenty francs of capital, neither more nor less; not a
-	friend, at most two or three acquaintances. M. de La Mole, whom I had
-	never seen, saved me from disaster; he had only to say the word, and I
-	was given a living in which all my parishioners are people in easy
-	circumstances, above the common vices, and the stipend fills me with
-	shame, so far out of proportion is it to my work. I have spoken to you
-	at this length only to put a little ballast into that head of yours.
-
-	'One word more; it is my misfortune to have a hasty temper; it is
-	possible that you and I may cease to speak to one another.
-
-	'If the arrogance of the Marquise, or the mischievous pranks of her
-	son, make the house definitely insupportable to you, I advise you to
-	finish your studies in some Seminary thirty leagues from Paris, and in
-	the North, rather than in the South. You will find in the North more
-	civilisation and fewer injustices; and,' he added, lowering his voice,
-	'I must admit it, the proximity of the Parisian newspapers makes the
-	petty tyrants afraid.
-
-	'If we continue to find pleasure in each other's company, and the
-	Marquis's household does not agree with you, I offer you a place as my
-	vicar, and shall divide the revenues of this living with you equally.
-	I owe you this and more,' he added, cutting short Julien's expressions
-	of gratitude, 'for the singular offer which you made me at Besancon.
-	If, instead of five hundred and twenty francs, I had had nothing, you
-	would have saved me.'
-
-	The cruel tone had gone from the abbe's voice. To his great confusion,
-	Julien felt the tears start to his eyes; he was longing to fling
-	himself into the arms of his friend: he could not resist saying to
-	him, with the most manly air that he was capable of affecting:
-
-	'I have been hated by my father from the cradle; it was one of my
-	great misfortunes; but I shall no longer complain of fortune. I have
-	found another father in you, Sir.'
-
-	'Good, good,' said the abbe, with embarrassment; then remembering most
-	opportunely a phrase from the vocabulary of a Director of a Seminary:
-	'You must never say fortune, my child, always say Providence.'
-
-	The cab stopped; the drier lifted the bronze knocker on an immense
-	door: it was the HOTEL DE LA MOLE; and, so that the passer-by might
-	be left in no doubt of this, the words were to be read on a slab of
-	black marble over the door.
-
-	This affectation was not to Julien's liking. 'They are so afraid of
-	the Jacobins! They see a Robespierre and his tumbril behind every
-	hedge; often they make one die with laughing, and they advertise their
-	house like this so that the mob shall know it in the event of a
-	rising, and sack it.' He communicated what was in his mind to the
-	Abbe Pirard.
-
-	'Ah! Poor boy, you will soon be my vicar. What an appalling idea to
-	come into your head!'
-
-	'I can think of nothing more simple,' said Julien.
-
-	The gravity of the porter and above all the cleanness of the courtyard
-	had filled him with admiration. The sun was shining brightly.
-
-	'What magnificent architecture!' he said to his friend.
-
-	It was one of the typical town houses, with their lifeless fronts, of
-	the Faubourg Saint-Germain, built about the date of Voltaire's death.
-	Never have the fashionable and the beautiful been such worlds apart.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 2
-	First Appearance in Society
-
-
-	Absurd and touching memory: one's first appearance, at
-	eighteen, alone and unsupported, in a drawing-room! A
-	glance from a woman was enough to terrify me. The more
-	I tried to shine, the more awkward I became. I formed
-	the most false ideas of everything; either I surrendered
-	myself for no reason, or I saw an enemy in a man because
-	he had looked at me with a serious expression. But then,
-	amid all the fearful sufferings of my shyness, how fine
-	was a fine day!
-	KANT
-
-	Julien stopped in confusion in the middle of the courtyard.
-
-	'Do assume a reasonable air,' said the Abbe Picard; 'you take hold of
-	horrible ideas, and you are only a boy! Where is the _nil mirari_ of
-	Horace?' (That is: no enthusiasm.) 'Reflect that this tribe of
-	flunkeys, seeing you established here, will try to make a fool of you;
-	they will regard you as an equal, unjustly set over them. Beneath a
-	show of good nature, of good advice, of a wish to guide you, they will
-	try to catch you out in some stupid blunder.'
-
-	'I defy them to do so,' said Julien, biting his lip; and he recovered
-	all his former distrust.
-
-	The drawing-rooms through which our friends passed on the first floor,
-	before coming to the Marquis's study, would have seemed to you, gentle
-	reader, as depressing as they were magnificent. Had you been made a
-	present of them as they stood, you would have refused to live in them;
-	they are the native heath of boredom and dreary argument. They
-	redoubled Julien's enchantment. 'How can anyone be unhappy,' he
-	thought, 'who lives in so splendid a residence?'
-
-	Finally, our friends came to the ugliest of the rooms in this superb
-	suite: the daylight barely entered it; here, they found a wizened
-	little man with a keen eye and a fair periwig. The abbe turned to
-	Julien, whom he presented. It was the Marquis. Julien had great
-	difficulty in recognising him, so civil did he find him. This was no
-	longer the great nobleman, so haughty in his mien, of the Abbey of
-	Bray-le-Haut. It seemed to Julien that there was far too much hair in
-	his wig. Thanks to this impression, he was not in the least
-	intimidated. The descendant of Henri III's friend struck him at first
-	as cutting but a poor figure. He was very thin and greatly agitated.
-	But he soon remarked that the Marquis showed a courtesy even more
-	agreeable to the person he was addressing than that of the Bishop of
-	Besancon himself. The audience did not occupy three minutes. As they
-	left the room, the abbe said to Julien:
-
-	'You looked at the Marquis as you would have looked at a picture. I am
-	no expert in what these people call politeness, soon you will know
-	more about it than I; still, the boldness of your stare seemed to me
-	to be scarcely polite.'
-
-	They had returned to their vehicle; the driver stopped by the
-	boulevard; the abbe led Julien through a series of spacious rooms.
-	Julien remarked that they were unfurnished. He was looking at a
-	magnificent gilt clock, representing a subject that in his opinion was
-	highly indecent, when a most elegant gentleman approached them with an
-	affable expression. Julien made him a slight bow.
-
-	The gentleman smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder. Julien quivered
-	and sprang back. He was flushed with anger. The abbe Pirard, for all
-	his gravity, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. The gentleman
-	was a tailor.
-
-	'I leave you at liberty for two days,' the abbe told him as they
-	emerged; 'it is not until then that you can be presented to Madame de
-	La Mole. Most people would protect you like a young girl, in these
-	first moments of your sojourn in this modern Babylon. Ruin yourself at
-	once, if you are to be ruined, and I shall be rid of the weakness I
-	show in caring for you. The day after tomorrow, in the morning, this
-	tailor will bring you two coats; you will give five francs to the boy
-	who tries them on you. Otherwise, do not let these Parisians hear the
-	sound of your voice. If you utter a word, they will find a way of
-	making you look foolish. That is their talent. The day after tomorrow,
-	be at my house at midday ... Run along, ruin yourself ... I was
-	forgetting, go and order boots, shirts, a hat at these addresses.'
-
-	Julien studied the handwriting of the addresses.
-
-	'That is the Marquis's hand,' said the abbe, 'he is an active man who
-	provides for everything, and would rather do a thing himself than
-	order it to be done. He is taking you into his household so that you
-	may save him trouble of this sort. Will you have sufficient
-	intelligence to carry out all the orders that this quick-witted man
-	will suggest to you in a few words? The future will show: have a
-	care!'
-
-	Julien, without uttering a word, made his way into the shops indicated
-	on the list of addresses; he observed that he was greeted there with
-	respect, and the bootmaker, in entering his name in his books, wrote
-	'M. Julien de Sorel'.
-
-	In the Cemetery of Pere-Lachaise a gentleman who seemed highly
-	obliging, and even more Liberal in his speech, offered to guide Julien
-	to the tomb of Marshal Ney, from which a wise administration has
-	withheld the honour of an epitaph. But, after parting from this
-	Liberal, who, with tears in his eyes, almost clasped him to his bosom,
-	Julien no longer had a watch. It was enriched by this experience that,
-	two days later, at noon, he presented himself before the abbe Pirard,
-	who studied him attentively.
-
-	'You are perhaps going to become a fop,' the abbe said to him, with a
-	severe expression. Julien had the appearance of an extremely young
-	man, in deep mourning; he did, as a matter of fact, look quite well,
-	but the good abbe was himself too provincial to notice that Julien
-	still had that swing of the shoulders which in the provinces betokens
-	at once elegance and importance. On seeing Julien, the Marquis
-	considered his graces in a light so different from that of the good
-	abbe that he said to him:
-
-	'Should you have any objection to M. Sorel's taking dancing-lessons?'
-
-	The abbe was rooted to the spot.
-
-	'No,' he replied, at length, 'Julien is not a priest.'
-
-	The Marquis, mounting two steps at a time by a little secret stair,
-	conducted our hero personally to a neat attic which overlooked the
-	huge garden of the house. He asked him how many shirts he had ordered
-	from the hosier.
-
-	'Two,' replied Julien, dismayed at seeing so great a gentleman descend
-	to these details.
-
-	'Very good,' said the Marquis, with a serious air, and an imperative,
-	curt note in his voice, which set Julien thinking: 'very good! Order
-	yourself two and twenty more. Here is your first quarter's salary.'
-
-	As they came down from the attic, the Marquis summoned an elderly man:
-	'Arsene,' he said to him, 'you will look after M. Sorel.' A few
-	minutes later, Julien found himself alone in a magnificent library: it
-	was an exquisite moment. So as not to be taken by surprise in his
-	emotion, he went and hid himself in a little dark corner; from which
-	he gazed with rapture at the glittering backs of the books. 'I can
-	read all of those,' he told himself. 'And how should I fail to be
-	happy here? M. de Renal would have thought himself disgraced for ever
-	by doing the hundredth part of what the Marquis de La Mole has just
-	done for me.
-
-	'But first of all, we must copy the letters.' This task ended, Julien
-	ventured towards the shelves; he almost went mad with joy on finding
-	an edition of Voltaire. He ran and opened the door of the library so
-	as not to be caught. He then gave himself the pleasure of opening each
-	of the eighty volumes in turn. They were magnificently bound, a
-	triumph of the best craftsman in London. This was more than was needed
-	to carry Julien's admiration beyond all bounds.
-
-	An hour later, the Marquis entered the room, examined the copies, and
-	was surprised to see that Julien wrote cela with a double _l_, _cella_
-	'So all that the abbe has been telling me of his learning is simply a
-	tale!' The Marquis, greatly discouraged, said to him gently:
-
-	'You are not certain of your spelling?'
-
-	'That is true,' said Julien, without the least thought of the harm he
-	was doing himself; he was moved by the Marquis's kindness, which made
-	him think of M. de Renal's savage tone.
-
-	'It is all a waste of time, this experiment with a little
-	Franc-comtois priest,' thought the Marquis; 'but I did so want a
-	trustworthy man.
-
-	'_Cela_ has only one _l_,' the Marquis told him; 'when you have
-	finished your copies, take the dictionary and look out all the words
-	of which you are not certain.'
-
-	At six o'clock the Marquis sent for him; he looked with evident dismay
-	at Julien's boots: 'I am to blame. I forgot to tell you that every
-	evening at half-past five you must dress.'
-
-	Julien looked at him without understanding him.
-
-	'I mean put on stockings. Arsene will remind you; today I shall make
-	your apologies.'
-
-	So saying, M. de La Mole ushered Julien into a drawing-room
-	resplendent with gilding. On similar occasions, M. de Renal never
-	failed to increase his pace so that he might have the satisfaction of
-	going first through the door.
-
-	The effect of his old employer's petty vanity was that Julien now trod
-	upon the Marquis's heels, and caused him considerable pain, owing to
-	his gout. 'Ah! He is even more of a fool than I thought,' the Marquis
-	said to himself. He presented him to a woman of tall stature and
-	imposing aspect. It was the Marquise. Julien decided that she had an
-	impertinent air, which reminded him a little of Madame de Maugiron,
-	the Sub-Prefect's wife of the Verrieres district, when she attended
-	the Saint Charles's day dinner. Being somewhat embarrassed by the
-	extreme splendour of the room, Julien did not hear what M. de La Mole
-	was saying. The Marquise barely deigned to glance at him. There were
-	several men in the room, among whom Julien recognised with unspeakable
-	delight the young Bishop of Agde, who had condescended to say a few
-	words to him once at the ceremony at Bray-le-Haut. The young prelate
-	was doubtless alarmed by the tender gaze which Julien, in his
-	timidity, fastened upon him, and made no effort to recognise this
-	provincial.
-
-	The men assembled in this drawing-room seemed to Julien to be somehow
-	melancholy and constrained; people speak low in Paris, and do not
-	exaggerate trifling matters.
-
-	A handsome young man, wearing moustaches, very pale and slender,
-	entered the room at about half-past six; he had an extremely small
-	head.
-
-	'You always keep us waiting,' said the Marquise, as he kissed her
-	hand.
-
-	Julien gathered that this was the Comte de La Mole. He found him
-	charming from the first.
-
-	'Is it possible,' he said to himself, 'that this is the man whose
-	offensive pleasantries are going to drive me from this house?'
-
-	By dint of a survey of Comte Norbert's person, Julien discovered that
-	he was wearing boots and spurs; 'and I ought to be wearing shoes,
-	evidently as his inferior.' They sat down to table. Julien heard the
-	Marquise utter a word of rebuke, slightly raising her voice. Almost at
-	the same moment he noticed a young person extremely fair and very
-	comely, who was taking her place opposite to him. She did not attract
-	him at all; on studying her attentively, however, he thought that he
-	had never seen such fine eyes; but they hinted at great coldness of
-	heart. Later, Julien decided that they expressed a boredom which
-	studies other people but keeps on reminding itself that it is one's
-	duty to be imposing. 'Madame de Renal, too, had the most beautiful
-	eyes,' he said to himself; 'people used to compliment her on them; but
-	they had nothing in common with these.' Julien had not enough
-	experience to discern that it was the fire of wit that shone from time
-	to time in the eyes of Mademoiselle Mathilde, for so he heard her
-	named. When Madame de Renal's eyes became animated, it was with the
-	fire of her passions, or was due to a righteous indignation upon
-	hearing of some wicked action. Towards the end of dinner, Julien found
-	the right word to describe the type of beauty exemplified by the eyes
-	of Mademoiselle de La Mole: 'They are scintillating,' he said to
-	himself. Otherwise, she bore a painful resemblance to her mother, whom
-	he disliked more and more, and he ceased to look at her. Comte
-	Norbert, on the other hand, struck him as admirable in every respect.
-	Julien was so captivated, that it never entered his head to be jealous
-	of him and to hate him, because he was richer and nobler than himself.
-
-	Julien thought that the Marquis appeared bored.
-
-	During the second course, he said to his son:
-
-	'Norbert, I must ask you to look after M. Julien Sorel, whom I have
-	just taken upon my staff, and intend to make a man of, if that (_cela_)
-	can be done.
-
-	'He is my secretary,' the Marquis added to his neighbour, 'and he
-	spells _cela_ with a double _l_.'
-
-	Everyone looked at Julien, who gave Norbert a slightly exaggerated
-	bow; but on the whole, they were satisfied with his appearance.
-
-	The Marquis must have spoken of the kind of education that Julien had
-	received, for one of the guests tackled him upon Horace: 'It was
-	precisely in discussing Horace that I was successful with the Bishop
-	of Besancon,' Julien said to himself, 'evidently he is the only author
-	they know.' From that moment he was master of himself. This change was
-	made easy by his having just decided that Mademoiselle de La Mole
-	would never be a woman in his eyes. Since his Seminary days he defied
-	men to do their worst, and refused to be intimidated by them. He would
-	have enjoyed perfect self-possession, had the dining-room been
-	furnished with less magnificence. It was, as a matter of fact, a pair
-	of mirrors, each of them eight feet high, in which he caught sight now
-	and then of his challenger as he spoke of Horace, that still continued
-	to overawe him. His sentences were not unduly long for a provincial.
-	He had fine eyes, the sparkle in which was enhanced by his tremulous,
-	or, when he had made a good answer, his happy shyness. This sort of
-	examination made a serious dinner-party quite interesting. The Marquis
-	made a sign to the other speaker to press Julien hard. 'Can it be
-	possible that he does know something?' he thought.
-
-	Julien found fresh ideas as he answered, and lost enough of his
-	shyness not, indeed, to display wit, a thing impossible to a person
-	ignorant of the language that is spoken in Paris, but he had original
-	ideas, albeit expressed without gracefulness or appropriateness, and
-	it could be seen that he had a thorough knowledge of Latin.
-
-	His adversary was a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, who
-	happened to know Latin; he found in Julien an excellent humanist, lost
-	all fear of making him blush, and really did seek to embarrass him. In
-	the heat of the duel, Julien at length forgot the magnificent
-	decoration of the dining-room, and began to express ideas with regard
-	to the Latin poets, which the other had never read in any book. Being
-	an honest man, he gave the credit for them to the young secretary.
-	Fortunately, the discussion turned to the question whether Horace had
-	been poor or rich: an amiable person, sensual and easy-going, making
-	poetry for his own amusement, like Chapelle, the friend of Moliere and
-	La Fontaine; or a poor devil of a Poet Laureate attached to the court
-	and composing odes for the King's Birthday, like Southey, the traducer
-	of Lord Byron. They spoke of the state of society under Augustus and
-	under George IV; in both epochs the aristocracy was all-powerful! but
-	in Rome it saw its power wrested from it by Maecenas, who was a mere
-	knight; and in England it had reduced George IV more or less to the
-	position of a Doge of Venice. This discussion seemed to draw the
-	Marquis out of the state of torpor in which his boredom had kept him
-	plunged at the beginning of dinner.
-
-	Julien could make nothing of all these modern names, such as Southey,
-	Lord Byron, George IV, which he now heard for the first time. But no
-	one could fail to observe that whenever there was any question of
-	historical events at Rome, a knowledge of which might be derived from
-	the works of Horace, Martial, Tacitus, etc., he had an unchallengeable
-	superiority. Julien appropriated without a scruple a number of ideas
-	which he had acquired from the Bishop of Besancon, during the famous
-	discussion he had had with that prelate; these proved to be not the
-	least acceptable.
-
-	When the party tired of discussing poets, the Marquise, who made it a
-	rule to admire anything that amused her husband, condescended to
-	glance at Julien. 'The awkward manners of this young cleric may
-	perhaps be concealing a learned man,' the Academician, who was sitting
-	near her, said to the Marquise; and Julien overheard something of what
-	he was saying. Ready-made phrases were quite to the taste of his
-	hostess; she adopted this description of Julien, and was glad that she
-	had invited the Academician to dine. 'He amuses M. de La Mole,' she
-	thought.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 3
-	First Steps
-
-
-	That immense valley filled with brilliant lights and with all
-	those thousands of people dazzles my sight. Not one of them
-	knows me, all are superior to me. My head reels.
-	_Poemi dell' avvocato_, REINA
-
-	Early in the morning of the following day, Julien was copying letters
-	in the library, when Mademoiselle Mathilde entered by a little private
-	door, cleverly concealed with shelves of dummy books. While Julien was
-	admiring this device, Mademoiselle Mathilde appeared greatly surprised
-	and distinctly annoyed to see him there. Julien decided that her
-	curlpapers gave her a hard, haughty, almost masculine air.
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole had a secret habit of stealing books from her
-	father's library, undetected. Julien's presence frustrated her
-	expedition that morning, which annoyed her all the more as she had
-	come to secure the second volume of Voltaire's _Princesse de
-	Babylone_, a fitting complement to an eminently monarchical and
-	religious education, a triumph on the part of the Sacre-Coeur! This
-	poor girl, at nineteen, already required the spice of wit to make her
-	interested in a novel.
-
-	Comte Norbert appeared in the library about three o'clock; he had come
-	to study a newspaper, in order to be able to talk politics that
-	evening, and was quite pleased to find Julien, whose existence he had
-	forgotten. He was charming to him, and offered to lend him a horse.
-
-	'My father is letting us off until dinner.'
-
-	Julien appreciated this _us_, and thought it charming.
-
-	'Heavens, Monsieur le Comte,' said Julien, 'if it were a question of
-	felling an eighty-foot tree, trimming it and sawing it into planks, I
-	venture to say that I should manage it well enough; but riding a horse
-	is a thing I haven't done six times in my life.'
-
-	'Well, this will be the seventh,' said Norbert.
-
-	Privately, Julien remembered the entry of the King of ---- into
-	Verrieres and imagined himself a superior horseman. But, on their way
-	back from the Bois de Boulogne, in the very middle of the Rue du Bac,
-	he fell off, while trying to avoid a passing cab, and covered himself
-	in mud. It was fortunate for him that he had a change of clothes. At
-	the dinner the Marquis, wishing to include him in the conversation,
-	asked him about his ride; Norbert made haste to reply in generous
-	language.
-
-	'Monsieur le Comte is too kind to me,' put in Julien. 'I thank him for
-	it, and fully appreciate his kindness. He has been so good as to give
-	me the quietest and handsomest of horses; but after all he could not
-	glue me on to it, and, that being so, I fell off right in the middle
-	of that very long street near the bridge.'
-
-	Mademoiselle Mathilde tried in vain to stifle a peal of laughter;
-	finally indiscretion prevailed and she begged for details. Julien
-	emerged from the difficulty with great simplicity; he had an
-	unconscious grace.
-
-	'I augur well of this little priest,' the Marquis said to the
-	Academician; 'a simple countryman in such a scrape! Such a thing was
-	never yet seen and never will be seen; in addition to which he relates
-	his misadventure before the _ladies_!'
-
-	Julien set his listeners so thoroughly at ease over his mishap that at
-	the end of dinner, when the general conversation had taken another
-	turn, Mademoiselle Mathilde began to ply her brother with questions as
-	to the details of the distressing event. As her inquiry continued, and
-	as Julien more than once caught her eye, he ventured to reply
-	directly, although he had not been questioned, and all three ended in
-	laughter, just like three young peasants from a village in the heart
-	of a forest.
-
-	On the following day Julien attended two lectures on theology, and
-	then returned to transcribe a score of letters. He found ensconced by
-	his own place in the library a young man dressed with great neatness,
-	but his general appearance was ignominious and his expression one of
-	envy.
-
-	The Marquis entered.
-
-	'What are you doing here, Monsieur Tanbeau?' he asked the newcomer in
-	a severe tone.
-
-	'I thought,' the young man began with a servile smile.
-
-	'No, Sir, you did not think. This is an attempt, but it is an
-	unfortunate one.'
-
-	Young Tanbeau rose in a fury and left the room. He was a nephew of the
-	Academician, Madame de La Mole's friend, and was intended for a
-	literary career. The Academician had persuaded the Marquis to take him
-	as a secretary. Tanbeau, who worked in a room apart, having heard of
-	the favour that was being bestowed upon Julien, was anxious to share
-	it, and that morning had come and set up his desk in the library.
-
-	At four o'clock, Julien ventured, after some hesitation, to seek out
-	Comte Norbert. This young gentleman was going out riding, and was
-	somewhat embarrassed, for his manners were perfect.
-
-	'I think,' he said to Julien, 'that presently you might go to the
-	riding school; and after a few weeks I shall be delighted to ride with
-	you.'
-
-	'I wished to have the honour of thanking you for all your kindness to
-	me; pray believe, Sir,' Julien added with a most serious air, 'that I
-	am fully conscious of all that I owe you. If your horse is not injured
-	as a result of my clumsiness yesterday, and if it is free, I should
-	like to ride it today.'
-
-	'Faith, my dear Sorel, on your own head be it! Assume that I have
-	raised all the objections that prudence demands; the fact is that it
-	is four o'clock, we have no time to lose.'
-
-	After he was in the saddle:
-
-	'What must one do, not to fall off?' Julien asked the young Comte.
-
-	'All sorts of things,' replied Norbert with a shout of laughter: 'for
-	instance, sit well back.'
-
-	Julien began to trot. They were crossing the Place Louis XVI.
-
-	'Ah! Young hothead, there are too many carriages here, and with
-	careless drivers too. Once you are on the ground, their tilburys will
-	go bowling over you; they are not going to risk hurting their horses'
-	mouths by pulling up short.'
-
-	A score of times Norbert saw Julien on the point of falling; but at
-	last their ride ended without mishap. On their return, the young Comte
-	said to his sister:
-
-	'Let me introduce a regular dare-devil.'
-
-	At dinner, speaking to his father, down the length of the table, he
-	did justice to Julien's courage; it was all that one could praise in
-	his method of riding. During the day the young Comte had heard the men
-	who were grooming the horses in the yard make Julien's fall an excuse
-	for the most outrageous mockery of him.
-
-	In spite of all this kindness, Julien soon felt himself completely
-	isolated among this family. All their customs seemed strange to him,
-	and he was always making mistakes. His blunders were the delight of
-	the footmen.
-
-	The abbe Pirard had gone off to his living. 'If Julien is a frail
-	reed, let him perish; if he is a man of courage, let him make his way
-	by himself,' he thought.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 4
-	The Hotel de La Mole
-
-
-	What is he doing here? might it please him?
-	might he think to please?
-	RONSARD
-
-	If everything seemed strange to Julien, in the noble drawing-room of
-	the Hotel de La Mole, the young man himself, pale and dressed in
-	black, seemed in turn highly singular to those who deigned to notice
-	him. Madame de La Mole suggested that her husband should send him away
-	on business upon days when certain personages were coming to dine.
-
-	'I should like to carry through the experiment,' replied the Marquis.
-	'The abbe Pirard maintains that we do wrong to crush the self-respect
-	of the people we admit into our households. One can lean only upon
-	what resists, etc. There is nothing wrong with this fellow except his
-	uncouth appearance; he might be deaf and dumb.'
-
-	'If I am to keep my bearings, I must,' Julien said to himself, 'write
-	down the names and a few words as to the character of the people I see
-	appear in this drawing-room.'
-
-	At the head of his list he placed five or six friends of the family
-	who paid a desperate court to him, supposing him to be protected by
-	some caprice of the Marquis. These were poor devils, more or less
-	spiritless; but, it must be said in praise of men of this class as
-	they are to be found today in the drawing-rooms of the nobility, they
-	were not equally spiritless to all comers. Some of them would have let
-	themselves be abused by the Marquis, and yet would have revolted
-	against a harsh word addressed to them by Madame de La Mole.
-
-	There was too much pride, there was too much boredom in the character
-	of both host and hostess; they were too much in the habit of insulting
-	people for their own distraction, to be able to expect any true
-	friends. But, except on wet days, and in their moments of furious
-	boredom, which were rare, they were never to be found wanting in
-	politeness.
-
-	If the five or six flatterers who treated Julien with such fatherly
-	affection had deserted the Hotel de La Mole, the Marquise would have
-	been left to long hours of solitude; and, in the eyes of women of her
-	rank, solitude is a dreadful thing: it is the badge of disgrace.
-
-	The Marquis behaved admirably to his wife; he saw to it that her
-	drawing-room was adequately filled; not with peers, he found his new
-	colleagues scarcely noble enough to come to his house as friends, nor
-	entertaining enough to be admitted as subordinates.
-
-	It was not until much later that Julien discovered these secrets. The
-	political questions which form the chief topic in middle-class houses
-	are never mentioned in houses like that of the Marquis, save in times
-	of trouble.
-
-	So powerful still, even in this age of boredom, are the dictates of
-	the need of amusement, that even on the evenings of dinnerparties, as
-	soon as the Marquis had left the drawing-room, everyone else fled. So
-	long as you did not speak lightly of God, or of the clergy, or of the
-	King, or of the men in power, or of the artists patronised by the
-	court, or of anything established; so long as you did not say anything
-	good of Beranger, or of the opposition press, or of Voltaire, or of
-	Rousseau, or of anything that allowed itself the liberty of a little
-	freedom of speech; so long, above all, as you did not talk politics,
-	you could discuss anything you pleased with freedom.
-
-	There is no income of a hundred thousand crowns, no blue riband that
-	can prevail against a drawing-room so constituted. The smallest living
-	idea seemed an outrage. Despite good tone, perfect manners, the desire
-	to be agreeable, boredom was written upon every brow. The young men
-	who came to pay their respects, afraid to speak of anything that might
-	lead to their being suspected of thinking, afraid to reveal some
-	forbidden reading, became silent after a few elegantly phrased
-	sentences on Rossini and the weather.
-
-	Julien observed that the conversation was usually kept going by two
-	Viscounts and five Barons whom M. de La Mole had known during the
-	Emigration. These gentlemen enjoyed incomes of from six to eight
-	thousand livres; four of them swore by the _Quotidienne_, and three by
-	the _Gazette de France_. One of them had some new story to tell every
-	day of the Chateau, in which the word 'admirable' was lavishly used.
-	Julien remarked that this man wore five Crosses, whereas the others,
-	as a rule, had no more than three.
-
-	On the other hand, you saw in the ante-room ten footmen in livery, and
-	all through the evening you had ices or tea every quarter of an hour;
-	and, at midnight, a sort of supper with champagne.
-
-	It was for this reason that Julien sometimes remained to the end;
-	otherwise, he failed to understand how anyone could listen seriously
-	to the ordinary conversation of this drawing-room, so magnificently
-	gilded. Now and again he would watch the speakers, to see whether they
-	themselves were not laughing at what they were saying. 'My M. de
-	Maistre, whom I know by heart, has said things a hundred times
-	better,' he thought; 'and even he is extremely boring.'
-
-	Julien was not the only one to be aware of the mental stagnation. Some
-	consoled themselves by taking quantities of ices; the others with the
-	pleasure of being able to say for the rest of the evening: 'I have
-	just come from the Hotel de La Mole, where I heard that Russia', etc.,
-	etc.
-
-	Julien learned, from one of the flatterers, that less than six months
-	ago Madame de La Mole had rewarded an assiduity that had lasted for
-	more than twenty years by securing a Prefecture for poor Baron Le
-	Bourguignon, who had been a Sub-Prefect ever since the Restoration.
-
-	This great event had rekindled the zeal of these gentlemen; the least
-	thing might have offended them before, now they were no longer
-	offended by anything. It was rare that the incivility was direct, but
-	Julien had already overheard at table two or three brief little
-	passages between the Marquis and his wife, wounding to those who were
-	placed near them. These noble personages did not conceal their sincere
-	contempt for everyone that was not the offspring of people who rode in
-	the King's carriages. Julien observed that the word Crusade was the
-	only one that brought to their faces an expression of intense
-	seriousness, blended with respect. Their ordinary respect had always a
-	shade of condescension.
-
-	In the midst of this magnificence and this boredom, Julien was
-	interested in nothing but M. de La Mole; he listened with pleasure one
-	day to his protestations that he was in no way responsible for the
-	promotion of that poor Le Bourguignon. This was a delicate attention
-	to the Marquise: Julien had learned the truth from the abbe Pirard.
-
-	One morning when the abbe was working with Julien, in the Marquis's
-	library, on the endless litigation with Frilair:
-
-	'Sir,' said Julien suddenly, 'is dining every evening with Madame la
-	Marquise one of my duties, or is it a favour that they show me?'
-
-	'It is a signal honour!' replied the abbe, greatly shocked. 'M. N----,
-	the Academician, who has been paying assiduous court for the last
-	fifteen years, has never been able to obtain it for his nephew M.
-	Tanbeau.'
-
-	'It is to me, Sir, the most tedious part of my employment. I was less
-	bored at the Seminary. I see even Mademoiselle de La Mole yawn at
-	times, although she must be accustomed to the pretty speeches of the
-	friends of the family. I am afraid of falling asleep. Please be so
-	good as to obtain leave for me to go and dine for forty sous in some
-	obscure inn.'
-
-	The abbe, a regular _parvenu_, was highly sensible of the honour of
-	dining with a great nobleman. While he was endeavouring to make Julien
-	understand what he felt, a slight sound made them turn their heads.
-	Julien saw Mademoiselle de La Mole who was listening. He blushed. She
-	had come in search of a book and had heard everything; she felt a
-	certain respect for Julien. 'This fellow was not born on his knees,'
-	she thought, 'like that old abbe. Heavens! How ugly he is.'
-
-	At dinner, Julien dared not look at Mademoiselle de La Mole, but she
-	was so kind as to speak to him. That evening, they expected a large
-	party; she made him promise to remain. Girls in Paris do not care for
-	men of a certain age, especially when they are not well dressed.
-	Julien did not require much sagacity to perceive that M. Le
-	Bourguignon's colleagues, who remained in the drawing-room, had the
-	honour to be the customary butt of Mademoiselle de La Mole's wit. That
-	evening, whether with deliberate affectation or not, she was cruel in
-	her treatment of the bores.
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole was the centre of a little group that
-	assembled almost every evening behind the Marquise's immense armchair.
-	There, you would find the Marquis de Croisenois, the Comte de Caylus,
-	the Vicomte de Luz and two or three other young officers, friends of
-	Norbert or his sister. These gentlemen sat upon a large blue sofa. At
-	the end of the sofa, opposite to that occupied by the brilliant
-	Mathilde, Julien was silently installed upon a little cane-bottomed
-	chair with a low seat. This modest post was the envy of all the
-	flatterers; Norbert kept his father's young secretary in countenance
-	by addressing him or uttering his name once or twice in the course of
-	the evening. On this occasion, Mademoiselle de La Mole asked him what
-	might be the height of the mountain on which the citadel of Besancon
-	stood. Julien could not for the life of him have said whether this
-	mountain was higher or lower than Montmartre. Often he laughed
-	heartily at what was being said in the little group; but he felt
-	himself incapable of thinking of anything similar to say. It was like
-	a foreign language which he could understand, but was unable to speak.
-
-	Mathilde's friends were that evening in a state of constant hostility
-	towards the people who kept arriving in this vast drawing-room. The
-	friends of the family had the preference at first, being better known.
-	One can imagine whether Julien was attentive; everything interested
-	him, both the things themselves, and the way they were made to seem
-	ridiculous.
-
-	'Ah! Here comes M. Descoulis,' said Mathilde; 'he has left off his
-	wig; can he be hoping to secure a Prefecture by his genius? He is
-	exposing that bald brow which he says is filled with lofty thoughts.'
-
-	'He is a man who knows the whole world,' said the Marquis de
-	Croisenois; 'he comes to my uncle, the Cardinal's, too. He is capable
-	of cultivating a lie with each of his friends, for years on end, and
-	he has two or three hundred friends. He knows how to foster
-	friendship, that is his talent. You ought to see him, covered in mud,
-	at the door of a friend's house, at seven o'clock on a winter morning.
-
-	'He hatches a quarrel, now and again, and writes seven or eight
-	letters to keep up the quarrel. Then he is reconciled, and produces
-	seven or eight letters for the transports of affection. But it is in
-	the frank and sincere expansion of an honest man who can keep nothing
-	on his conscience that he shines most. This is his favourite device
-	when he has some favour to ask. One of my uncle's Vicars-General is
-	perfect when he relates the life of M. Descoulis since the
-	Restoration. I shall bring him to see you.'
-
-	'Bah! I shouldn't listen to that talk; it is the professional jealousy
-	of small-minded people,' said the Comte de Caylus.
-
-	'M. Descoulis will have a name in history,' the Marquis went on; 'he
-	made the Restoration with the Abbe de Pradt and M. Talleyrand and
-	Pozzo di Borgo.'
-
-	'That man has handled millions,' said Norbert, 'and I cannot conceive
-	why he comes here to swallow my father's epigrams, which are often
-	appalling. "How many times have you betrayed your friends, my dear
-	Descoulis?" he shouted at him the other day, down the whole length of
-	the table.'
-
-	'But is it true that he has betrayed people?' said Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole. 'Who is there that has not?'
-
-	'What!' said the Comte de Caylus to Norbert, 'you have M. Sainclair
-	here, the notorious Liberal; what the devil can he have come for? I
-	must go over to him, and talk to him, and make him talk; they say he
-	is so clever.'
-
-	'But how can your mother have him in the house?' said M de Croisenois.
-	'His ideas are so extravagant, so enthusiastic, so independent...'
-
-	'Look,' said Mademoiselle de La Mole, 'there is your independent man,
-	bowing to the ground before M. Descoulis, and seizing his hand. I
-	almost thought he was going to raise it to his lips.'
-
-	'Descoulis must stand better with the authorities than we thought,'
-	put in M. de Croisenois.
-
-	'Sainclair comes here to get into the Academy,' said Norbert; 'look
-	how he is bowing to Baron L ----, Croisenois.'
-
-	'He would be less servile if he went on his knees,' put in M. de Luz.
-
-	'My dear Sorel,' said Norbert, 'you who are a man of brains, but have
-	just come down from your mountains, see that you never bow to people
-	as that great poet does, not even to God Almighty.'
-
-	'Ah! Here comes a man of brains if you like, M. le Baron Baton,' said
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole, imitating the voice of the footman who had
-	just announced him.
-
-	'I think even your servants laugh at him. What a name, Baron Baton!'
-	said M. de Caylus.
-
-	'"What's in a name?" as he said to us the other day,' retorted
-	Mathilde. '"Imagine the Duc de Bouillon announced for the
-	first time. All the public needs, in my case, is to have grown
-	accustomed to it."'
-
-	Julien quitted the circle round the sofa. Still but little sensible of
-	the charming subtleties of a light-handed mockery, if he were to laugh
-	at a witticism, he required that it should be founded on reason. He
-	could see nothing in the talk of these young men, but the tone of
-	general depreciation, and this shocked him. His provincial or English
-	prudery went so far as to detect envy in it, wherein he was certainly
-	mistaken.
-
-	'Comte Norbert,' he said to himself, 'whom I have seen make three
-	rough copies of a letter of twenty lines to his Colonel, would be very
-	glad to have written a single page in his life like those of M.
-	Sainclair.'
-
-	Passing unperceived owing to his lack of importance, Julien approached
-	several groups in turn; he was following Baron Baton at a distance,
-	and wished to hear him talk. This man of such intelligence wore a
-	troubled air, and Julien saw him recover himself a little only when he
-	had hit upon three or four sparkling sentences. It seemed to Julien
-	that this kind of wit required ample room to develop itself.
-
-	The Baron could not produce epigrams; he required at least four
-	sentences of six lines each to be brilliant.
-
-	'This man is holding forth, he is not talking,' said someone behind
-	Julien's back. He turned round and flushed with pleasure when he heard
-	the name of Comte Chalvet. This was the cleverest man of the day.
-	Julien had often come upon his name in the _Memorial de Sainte-Helene_
-	and in the fragments of history dictated by Napoleon. Comte Chalvet
-	was curt in his speech; his remarks were flashes of lightning,
-	accurate, keen, profound. If he spoke of any public matter,
-	immediately one saw the discussion reach a fresh stage. He brought
-	facts to bear on it, it was a pleasure to listen to him. In politics,
-	however, he was a brazen cynic.
-
-	'I am independent, myself,' he was saying to a gentleman wearing three
-	decorations, whom he was apparently quizzing. 'Why should I be
-	expected to hold the same opinion today that I held six weeks ago? If
-	I did, I should be a slave to my opinion.'
-
-	Four grave young men who stood round him made grimaces at this; these
-	gentlemen do not care for the flippant style. The Comte saw that he
-	had gone too far. Fortunately he caught sight of the honest M.
-	Balland, a tartuffe of honesty. The Comte began talking to him: people
-	gathered round them, guessing that poor Balland was going to be
-	scarified. By dint of morals and morality, although horribly ugly, and
-	after early struggles with the world which it would be hard to
-	describe, M. Balland had married an extremely rich wife, who died;
-	then a second extremely rich wife, who was never seen in society. He
-	enjoyed in all humility an income of sixty thousand livres, and had
-	flatterers of his own. Comte Chalvet spoke to him of all this, without
-	pity. Presently they were surrounded by a circle of thirty people.
-	Everyone smiled, even the grave young men, the hope of the age.
-
-	'Why does he come to M. de La Mole's, where he is obviously made a
-	butt?' thought Julien. He went across to the abbe Pirard, to ask him.
-
-	M. Balland left the room.
-
-	'Good!' said Norbert, 'there's one of my father's spies gone; that
-	leaves only the little cripple Napier.'
-
-	'Can that be the clue to the riddle?' thought Julien. 'But, in that
-	case, why does the Marquis invite M. Balland?'
-
-	The stern abbe Pirard was making faces in a corner of the room, as he
-	heard fresh names announced.
-
-	'Why, it is a den,' he said, like Basilic, 'I see none but villains
-	enter.'
-
-	The fact was that the stern abbe did not recognise the distinguishing
-	marks of good society. But, from his Jansenist friends, he had a very
-	accurate notion of the men who make their way into drawing-rooms only
-	by their extreme cleverness in the service of all parties, or by a
-	fortune of notorious origin. For some minutes, that evening, he
-	replied from the abundance of his heart to Julien's eager questions,
-	then cut himself short, distressed to find himself speaking ill of
-	everyone, and imputing it to himself as a sin. Being choleric and a
-	Jansenist, and regarding Christian charity as a duty, his life in
-	society was a perpetual conflict.
-
-	'How frightful that abbe Pirard looks!' Mademoiselle de La Mole was
-	saying, as Julien returned to the sofa.
-
-	Julien felt a sting of irritation, and yet she was right. M. Pirard
-	was beyond question the most honest man in the room, but his blotched
-	face, distorted by the pangs of conscience, made him hideous at the
-	moment. 'Never judge by appearances after this,' thought Julien; 'it
-	is at the moment when the abbe's scruples are reproaching him with
-	some peccadillo that he looks terrible; whereas on the face of that
-	Napier, whom everyone knows to be a spy, one sees a pure and tranquil
-	happiness.' The abbe Pirard had nevertheless made a great concession
-	to his party; he had engaged a valet, and was quite well dressed.
-
-	Julien remarked a singular occurrence in the drawing-room: this was a
-	general movement of all eyes towards the door, with a lull in the
-	conversation. A footman announced the famous Baron de Tolly, to whom
-	the recent elections had attracted universal attention. Julien moved
-	forward and had an excellent view of him. The Baron was returning
-	officer in a certain constituency: he had had the bright idea of
-	making away with the little slips of paper bearing the votes of one of
-	the parties. But, to compensate for this, he duly replaced them with
-	other little slips of paper bearing a name of which he himself
-	approved. This decisive manoeuvre was observed by some of the
-	electors, who lost no time in presenting their compliments to Baron de
-	Tolly. The worthy man was still pale after his great excitement. Evil
-	tongues had uttered the word galleys. M. de La Mole received him
-	coldly. The poor Baron hurriedly made his escape.
-
-	'If he leaves us so soon, it must be to go to M. Comte's,' [Footnote:
-	A celebrated conjurer of the day.] said Comte Chalvet; and the
-	others laughed.
-
-	Amid a crowd of great noblemen who remained silent, and of intriguers,
-	mostly disreputable, but all of them clever fellows, who arrived one
-	after another that evening, in M. de La Mole's drawing-room (people
-	were speaking of him for a vacant Ministry), young Tanbeau was winning
-	his spurs. If he had not yet acquired any fineness of perception, he
-	made up for the deficiency, as we shall see, by the vigour of his
-	language.
-
-	'Why not sentence the man to ten years' imprisonment?' he was saying
-	at the moment when Julien joined his group; 'it is in a dungeon
-	underground that we ought to keep reptiles shut up; they must be made
-	to die in the dark, otherwise their venom spreads and becomes more
-	dangerous. What is the good of fining him a thousand crowns? He is
-	poor, very well, all the better; but his party will pay the fine for
-	him. It should have been a fine of five hundred francs and ten years
-	in a dungeon.'
-
-	'Good God! Who can the monster be that they are discussing?' thought
-	Julien, marvelling at his colleague's vehement tone and stilted
-	gestures. The thin, drawn little face of the Academician's favourite
-	nephew was hideous as he spoke. Julien soon learned that the person in
-	question was the greatest poet of the day. [Trans. Footnote: Beranger,
-	sentenced in December, 1828, to imprisonment and a fine of 10,000
-	francs. C. K. S. M.]
-
-	'Ah, monster!' exclaimed Julien, half aloud, and generous tears sprang
-	to his eyes. 'Ah, little wretch, I shall make you eat those words.
-
-	'And yet these,' he thought, 'are the waifs and strays of the party of
-	which the Marquis is one of the leaders! And that illustrious man whom
-	he is slandering, how many Crosses, how many sinecures might he not
-	have collected, if he had sold himself, I do not say to the lifeless
-	Ministry of M. de Nerval, but to one of those passably honest
-	Ministers whom we have seen succeed one another in office?'
-
-	The abbe Pirard beckoned to Julien; M. de La Mole had just been saying
-	something to him. But when Julien, who at the moment was listening,
-	with lowered gaze, to the lamentations of a Bishop, was free to move,
-	and able to join his friend, he found him monopolised by that
-	abominable young Tanbeau. The little monster loathed him as the source
-	of the favour that Julien enjoyed, and had come to pay court to him.
-
-	'When will death rid us of that old mass of corruption?' It was in
-	these terms, with Biblical emphasis, that the little man of letters
-	was speaking at that moment of the eminent Lord Holland. His chief
-	merit was a thorough knowledge of the biography of living men, and he
-	had just been making a rapid survey of all those who might aspire to
-	positions of influence under the new King of England.
-
-	The abbe Pirard moved into an adjoining room; Julien followed him.
-
-	'The Marquis does not like scribblers, I warn you; it is his one
-	antipathy. Know Latin, Greek if you can, the History of the
-	Egyptians, of the Persians, and so forth; he will honour you and
-	protect you as a scholar. But do not go and write a single page in
-	French, especially upon grave subjects, that are above your position
-	in society; he would call you a scribbler, and would take a dislike to
-	you. What, living in a great nobleman's mansion, don't you know the
-	Duc de Castries's saying about d'Alembert and Rousseau: "That sort
-	of fellow wishes to argue about everything, and has not a thousand
-	crowns a year?"'
-
-	'Everything becomes known,' thought Julien, 'here as in the Seminary.'
-	He had written nine or ten pages with distinct emphasis: they were a
-	sort of historical eulogy of the old Surgeon-Major, who, he said, had
-	made a man of him. 'And that little copy-book,' Julien said to
-	himself, 'has always been kept under lock and key.' He went upstairs,
-	burned his manuscript and returned to the drawing-room. The brilliant
-	rogues had departed, there remained only the stars and ribands.
-
-	Round the table, which the servants had just brought in already laid,
-	were seated seven or eight ladies, extremely noble, extremely
-	religious, extremely affected, between thirty and thirty-five years of
-	age. The brilliant wife of Marshal de Fervaques entered the room,
-	apologising for the lateness of the hour. It was after midnight; she
-	took her place next to the Marquise. Julien was deeply stirred; her
-	eyes and her expression reminded him of Madame de Renal.
-
-	The group round Mademoiselle de La Mole was still numerous. She and
-	her friends were engaged in making fun of the unfortunate Comte de
-	Thaler. This was the only son of the famous Jew, celebrated for the
-	riches that he had acquired by lending money to Kings to make war on
-	the common people. The Jew had recently died leaving his son a monthly
-	income of one hundred thousand crowns, and a name that, alas, was only
-	too well known! This singular position required either simplicity of
-	character or great determination.
-
-	Unfortunately, the Comte was nothing but a good fellow, adorned with
-	all sorts of pretensions inspired in him by his flatterers.
-
-	M. de Caylus asserted that he had been credited with the determination
-	to propose for the hand of Mademoiselle de La Mole (to whom the
-	Marquis de Croisenois, who was heir to a Dukedom with an income of one
-	hundred thousand livres, was paying court).
-
-	'Ah! Don't accuse him of having any determination,' Norbert pleaded
-	compassionately.
-
-	What this poor Comte de Thaler most lacked was, perhaps, the power to
-	determine anything. In this respect, he would have made an excellent
-	King. Taking advice incessantly from everybody, he had not the
-	courage to follow out any suggestion to the end.
-
-	His features would have been enough by themselves, said Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole, to fill her with everlasting joy. His face was a curious
-	blend of uneasiness and disappointment; but from time to time one
-	could make out quite plainly bursts of self-importance, combined with
-	that cutting tone which the wealthiest man in France ought to adopt,
-	especially when he is by no means bad-looking, and is not yet
-	thirty-six. 'He is timidly insolent,' said M. de Croisenois. The
-	Comte de Caylus, Norbert and two or three young men with moustaches
-	made fun of him to their hearts' content, without his guessing it, and
-	finally sent him away as one o'clock struck.
-
-	'Is it your famous pair of arabs that you are keeping waiting in this
-	weather?' Norbert asked him.
-
-	'No, I have a new pair that cost much less,' replied M. de Thaler.
-	'The near horse cost me five thousand francs, and the off horse is
-	only worth a hundred louis; but I must have you understand that he is
-	only brought out at night. The fact is that he trots perfectly with
-	the other.'
-
-	Norbert's remark made the Comte think that it befitted a man in his
-	position to have a passion for horses, and that he ought not to allow
-	his to stand in the rain. He left, and the other gentlemen took their
-	leave immediately, laughing at him as they went.
-
-	'And so,' thought Julien, as he heard the sound of their laughter on
-	the staircase, 'I have been allowed to see the opposite extreme to my
-	own position! I have not an income of twenty louis, and I have found
-	myself rubbing shoulders with a man who has an income of twenty louis
-	an hour, and they laughed at him ... A sight like that cures one of
-	envy.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 5
-	Sensibility and a Pious Lady
-
-
-	The smallest living idea seems an outrage, so accustomed are
-	people there to words without colour. Woe to the man who
-	innovates while he speaks!
-	FAUBLAS
-
-	After many months of trial, this is the stage that Julien had reached
-	on the day when the steward of the household paid him his third
-	quarter's salary. M. de La Mole had set him to study the management of
-	his estates in Brittany and Normandy. Julien made frequent journeys to
-	those parts. His principal duty was to take charge of the
-	correspondence relative to the famous lawsuit with the abbe de
-	Frilair. M. Pirard had given him the necessary instructions.
-
-	>From the brief notes which the Marquis used to scribble on the margins
-	of the papers of all kinds that came to him, Julien composed letters
-	almost all of which were signed.
-
-	At the school of theology, his teachers complained of his lack of
-	industry, but regarded him none the less as one of their most
-	distinguished pupils. These several labours, taken up with all the
-	ardour of a chafed ambition, had soon robbed Julien of the fresh
-	complexion he had brought with him from the country. His pallor was a
-	merit in the eyes of the young seminarists his companions; he found
-	them much less irritating, much less inclined to fall upon their knees
-	before a coin of the realm than those at Besancon; they, for their
-	part, supposed him to be consumptive. The Marquis had given him a
-	horse.
-
-	Afraid of their seeing him when he was out riding, Julien had told
-	them that this exercise had been ordered him by the doctors. The abbe
-	Pirard had taken him to a number of Jansenist societies. Julien was
-	astonished; the idea of religion was inseparably linked in his mind
-	with that of hypocrisy, and the hope of making money. He admired these
-	devout and stern men who took no interest in the budget. Several of
-	the Jansenists had formed an affection for him and gave him advice. A
-	new world opened before him. He met among the Jansenists a certain
-	Conte Altamira, a man six feet in height, a Liberal under sentence of
-	death in his own country, and a devout Catholic. This strange
-	incongruity, religion wedded to a love of freedom, impressed him.
-
-	Julien was out of favour with the young Count. Norbert had found that
-	he replied with too much warmth to the pleasantries of certain of his
-	friends. Julien after being guilty once or twice of a breach of good
-	manners, had pledged himself never to address another word to
-	Mademoiselle Mathilde. They were always perfectly civil to him at the
-	Hotel de La Mole; but he felt that he had fallen in their esteem. His
-	provincial common sense explained this change in the words of the
-	popular proverb: 'new is beautiful.'
-
-	Perhaps his perception was now a little clearer than at first, or else
-	the first fascination produced by the urbanity of Paris had ceased.
-
-	As soon as he stopped working, he fell into the clutches of a deadly
-	boredom; this was the withering effect of the politeness, admirable in
-	itself, but so measured, so perfectly graduated according to one's
-	position, which is a mark of high society. A heart that is at all
-	sensitive discerns the artificiality.
-
-	No doubt, provincials may be accused of a trace of vulgarity, or of a
-	want of politeness; but they do show a little warmth in answering one.
-	Never, in the Hotel de La Mole, was Julien's self-esteem wounded; but
-	often, at the end of the day he felt inclined to weep. In the
-	provinces, a waiter in a cafe takes an interest in you if you meet
-	with some accident on entering his cafe; but if that accident involves
-	anything capable of wounding your vanity, then, in condoling with you,
-	he will repeat again and again the word that makes you wince. In Paris
-	they are so considerate as to turn their backs to laugh at you, but
-	you will always remain a stranger.
-
-	We pass without comment over a multitude of minor adventures which
-	would have brought Julien into ridicule had he not been in a sense
-	beneath ridicule. An insane self-consciousness made him commit
-	thousands of blunders. All his pleasures were forms of precaution; he
-	practised with his pistol every day, and was numbered among the more
-	promising pupils of the most famous fencing masters. Whenever he had a
-	moment to spare, instead of spending it with a book as at one time, he
-	would dash to the riding school and as ask for the most vicious
-	horses. In his outings with the riding master, he was almost
-	invariably thrown.
-
-	The Marquis found him useful owing to his persistent hard work, his
-	reticence and his intelligence, and, by degrees, entrusted him with
-	the handling of all his business that was at all complicated. In those
-	moments in which his lofty ambition allowed him some relaxation, the
-	Marquis did his business with sagacity; being in a position to hear
-	all the latest news, he speculated with success. He bought houses,
-	timber; but he took offence easily. He gave away hundreds of louis and
-	went to law over hundreds of francs. Rich men with big ideas seek
-	amusement and not results from their private undertakings. The Marquis
-	needed a chief of staff who would put all his financial affairs into
-	an easily intelligible order.
-
-	Madame de La Mole, albeit of so restrained a character, would
-	sometimes make fun of Julien. The unexpected, an outcome of
-	sensibility, horrifies great ladies; it is a direct challenge to all
-	the conventions. On two or three occasions the Marquis took his part:
-	'If he is absurd in your drawing-room, in his own office he reigns
-	supreme.' Julien, for his part, thought he could divine the Marquise's
-	secret. She deigned to take an interest in everything as soon as her
-	servants announced the Baron de La Joumate. This was a chilly
-	creature, with expressionless features. He was small, thin, ugly, very
-	well dressed, he spent all his time at the Chateau and, as a rule,
-	had nothing to say about anything. His speech revealed his mind.
-	Madame de La Mole would have been passionately happy, for the first
-	time in her life, if she could have secured him as a husband for her
-	daughter.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 6
-	Pronunciation
-
-
-	Their lofty mission is to pass calm judgment on the trivial
-	events in the daily life of nations. Their wisdom should
-	pre-empt any fury caused by little things, or by events
-	which the voice of repute transfigures in bruiting them abroad.
-	GRATIUS
-
-	For a newcomer, who, out of pride, never asked any questions, Julien
-	managed to avoid any serious pitfall. One day, when he had been driven
-	into a cafe in the Rue Saint-Honore by a sudden shower, a tall man in
-	a beaver coat, surprised at his gloomy stare, began to stare back at
-	him exactly as Mademoiselle Amanda's lover had stared at him, long
-	before, at Besancon.
-
-	Julien had too often reproached himself for having allowed the former
-	insult to pass unpunished to tolerate this stare. He demanded an
-	explanation, the man in the greatcoat at once began to abuse him in
-	the foulest terms: everyone in the cafe gathered round them; the
-	passers-by stopped outside the door. With provincial caution, Julien
-	always carried a brace of pocket pistols; his hand gripped one of
-	these in his pocket with a convulsive movement. Better counsels
-	prevailed, however, and he confined himself to repeating with
-	clockwork regularity: 'Sir, your address? I scorn you.'
-
-	The persistence with which he clung to these six words began to
-	impress the crowd.
-
-	'Gad, that other fellow who goes on talking by himself ought to give
-	him his address.' The man in the greatcoat, hearing this opinion
-	freely vented, flung a handful of visiting cards in Julien's face.
-	Fortunately, none of them hit him, he had vowed that he would use his
-	pistol only in the event of his being touched. The man went away, not
-	without turning round from time to time to shake his fist at Julien
-	and to shout abuse.
-
-	Julien found himself bathed in sweat. 'So it lies within the power of
-	the lowest of mankind to work me up like this!' he said angrily to
-	himself. 'How am I to destroy this humiliating sensibility?'
-
-	Where was he to find a second? He had made the acquaintance of a
-	number of men; but all of them, after six weeks or so, had drifted
-	away from him. 'I am unsociable, and here I am cruelly punished for
-	it,' he thought. Finally, it occurred to him to apply to a retired
-	Lieutenant of the 96th named Lieven, a poor devil with whom he used
-	often to fence. Julien was frank with him.
-
-	'I shall be glad to be your second,' said Lieven, 'but upon one
-	condition: if you do not hit your man, you shall fight with me, there
-	and then.'
-
-	'Agreed,' said Julien, with delight; and they went to find M. C. de
-	Beauvoisis at the address indicated upon his cards, in the heart of
-	the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
-
-	It was seven o'clock in the morning. It was only when he sent in his
-	name that it occurred to Julien that this might be Madame de Renal's
-	young relative, formerly attached to the Embassy at Rome or Naples,
-	who had given the singer Geronimo a letter of introduction.
-
-	Julien had handed to a tall footman one of the cards flung at him the
-	day before, together with one of his own.
-
-	He was kept waiting, with his second, for fully three quarters of an
-	hour; finally they were shown into an admirably furnished apartment.
-	They found a tall young man, got up like a doll; his features
-	exemplified the perfection and the insignificance of Grecian beauty.
-	His head, remarkably narrow, was crowned with a pyramid of the most
-	beautiful golden locks. These were curled with scrupulous care, not a
-	hair stood out from the rest. 'It is to have his hair curled like
-	that,' thought the Lieutenant of the 96th, 'that this damned idiot has
-	been keeping us waiting.' His striped dressing-gown, his morning
-	trousers, everything, down to his embroidered slippers, was correct
-	and marvellously well cared for. His features, noble and vacuous,
-	betokened a propriety and paucity of ideas, the ideal of the
-	well-meaning man, a horror of the unexpected and of ridicule, an
-	abundance of gravity.
-
-	Julien, to whom his Lieutenant of the 96th had explained that to keep
-	him waiting so long, after rudely flinging his card in his face, was
-	an additional insult, strode boldly into M. de Beauvoisis's presence.
-	It was his intention to be insolent, but he wished at the same time to
-	show his good breeding.
-
-	He was so much impressed by M. de Beauvoisis's gentle manners, by his
-	air at once formal, important and self-satisfied, by the admirable
-	elegance of his surroundings, that in a twinkling all thought of being
-	insolent forsook him. This was not his man of the day before. So great
-	was his astonishment at finding so distinguished a person in place of
-	the vulgar fellow he had met in the cafe, that he could not think of a
-	single word to say. He presented one of the cards that had been flung
-	at him:
-
-	'This is my name,' said the man of fashion, in whom Julien's black
-	coat, at seven o'clock in the morning, inspired but scant respect;
-	'but I do not understand, the honour ...'
-
-	His way of pronouncing these last words restored some of Julien's ill
-	humour.
-
-	'I have come to fight with you, Sir,' and he rapidly explained the
-	situation.
-
-	M. Charles de Beauvoisis, after giving it careful thought, was quite
-	satisfied with the cut of Julien's black coat. 'From Staub's,
-	clearly,' he said to himself, listening to him in silence, 'that
-	waistcoat is in good taste, the boots are right; but, on the other
-	hand, that black coat in the early morning! ... It will be to stop the
-	bullet,' thought the Chevalier de Beauvoisis.
-
-	As soon as he had furnished himself with this explanation, he reverted
-	to a perfect politeness, and addressed Julien almost as an equal. The
-	discussion lasted for some time, it was a delicate matter; but in the
-	end Julien could not reject the evidence of his own eyes. The
-	well-bred young man whom he saw before him bore no resemblance
-	whatsoever to the rude person who, the day before, had insulted him.
-
-	Julien felt an invincible reluctance to go away, he prolonged the
-	explanation. He observed the self-sufficiency of the Chevalier de
-	Beauvoisis, for such was the style that he had adopted in referring to
-	himself, shocked at Julien's addressing him as Monsieur, pure and
-	simple.
-
-	He admired the other's gravity, blended with a certain modest fatuity
-	but never discarded for a single instant. He was astonished by the
-	curious way in which his tongue moved as he enunciated his words . . .
-	But after all, in all this, there was not the slightest reason to pick
-	a quarrel with him.
-
-	The young diplomat offered to fight with great courtesy, but the
-	ex-Lieutenant of the 96th, who had been sitting for an hour with his
-	legs apart, his hands on his hips and his arms akimbo, decided that
-	his friend, M. Sorel, was not the sort of person to pick a quarrel, in
-	the German fashion, with another man, because that man's visiting
-	cards had been stolen.
-
-	Julien left the house in the worst of tempers. The Chevalier de
-	Beauvoisis's carriage was waiting for him in the courtyard, in front
-	of the steps; as it happened, Julien raised his eyes and recognised
-	his man of the previous day in the coachman.
-
-	Seeing him, grasping him by the skirts of his coat, pulling him down
-	from his box and belabouring him with his whip, were the work of a
-	moment. Two lackeys tried to defend their fellow; Julien received a
-	pummelling: immediately he drew one of his pocket pistols and fired at
-	them; they took to their heels. It was all over in a minute.
-
-	The Chevalier de Beauvoisis came slowly downstairs with the most
-	charming gravity, repeating in the accents of a great nobleman:
-	'What's this? What's this?' His curiosity was evidently aroused, but
-	his diplomatic importance did not allow him to show any sign of
-	interest. When he learned what the matter was, a lofty pride still
-	struggled in his features against the slightly playful coolness which
-	ought never to be absent from the face of a diplomat.
-
-	The Lieutenant of the 96th realised that M. de Beauvoisis was anxious
-	to fight; he wished also, diplomatically enough, to preserve for his
-	friend the advantages of the initiative. 'This time,' he cried, 'there
-	are grounds for a duel!' 'I should think so,' replied the diplomat.
-
-	'I dismiss that rascal,' he said to his servants; 'someone else must
-	drive.' They opened the carriage door: the Chevalier insisted that
-	Julien and his second should get in before him. They went to find a
-	friend of M. de Beauvoisis, who suggested a quiet spot. The
-	conversation as they drove to it was perfect. The only odd thing was
-	the diplomat in undress.
-
-	'These gentlemen, although of the highest nobility,' thought Julien,
-	'are not in the least boring like the people who come to dine with M.
-	de La Mole; and I can see why,' he added a moment later, 'they are not
-	ashamed to be indecent.' They were speaking of the dancers whom the
-	public had applauded in a ballet of the previous evening. The
-	gentlemen made allusions to spicy anecdotes of which Julien and his
-	second, the Lieutenant of the 96th, were entirely ignorant. Julien did
-	not make the mistake of pretending to know them; he admitted his
-	ignorance with good grace. This frankness found favour with the
-	Chevalier's friend; he repeated the anecdotes to him in full detail,
-	and extremely well.
-
-	One thing astonished Julien vastly. A station which was being erected
-	in the middle of the street for the Corpus Christi day procession,
-	held up the carriage for a moment. The gentlemen indulged in a number
-	of pleasantries; the cure, according to them, was the son of an
-	Archbishop. Never, in the house of the Marquis de La Mole, who hoped
-	to become a Duke, would anyone have dared to say such a thing.
-
-	The duel was over in an instant: Julien received a bullet in his
-	arm; they bound it up for him with handkerchiefs; these were
-	soaked in brandy, and the Chevalier de Beauvoisis asked Julien most
-	politely to allow him to take him home, in the carriage that had
-	brought them. When Julien gave his address as the Hotel de La Mole,
-	the young diplomat and his friend exchanged glances. Julien's cab was
-	waiting, but he found these gentlemen's conversation infinitely more
-	amusing than that of the worthy Lieutenant of the 96th.
-
-	'Good God! A duel, is that all?' thought Julien. 'How fortunate I was
-	to come across that coachman again! What a misfortune, if I had had to
-	endure that insult a second time in a cafe!' The amusing conversation
-	had scarcely been interrupted. Julien now understood that the
-	affectation of a diplomat does serve some purpose.
-
-	'So dullness is by no means inherent,' he said to himself, 'in a
-	conversation between people of high birth! These men make fun of the
-	Corpus Christi day procession, they venture to repeat highly scabrous
-	anecdotes, and with picturesque details. Positively the only thing
-	lacking to them is judgment in politics, and this deficiency is more
-	than made up for by the charm of their tone and the perfect aptness of
-	their expressions.' Julien felt himself keenly attracted to them. 'How
-	glad I should be to see them often!'
-
-	No sooner had they parted than the Chevalier de Beauvoisis hastened in
-	search of information: what he heard was by no means promising.
-
-	He was extremely curious to know his man better; could he with decency
-	call upon him? The scanty information he managed to obtain was not of
-	an encouraging nature.
-
-	'This is frightful!' he said to his second. 'It is impossible for me to
-	admit that I have fought a duel with a mere secretary of M. de La
-	Mole, and that because I have been robbed of my visiting cards by a
-	coachman.'
-
-	'Certainly the whole story leaves one exposed to ridicule.'
-
-	That evening, the Chevalier de Beauvoisis spread the report everywhere
-	that this M. Sorel, who incidentally was a perfectly charming young
-	man, was the natural son of an intimate friend of the Marquis de La
-	Mole. The rumour passed without difficulty. As soon as it was
-	established, the young diplomat and his friend deigned to pay Julien
-	several visits, during the fortnight for which he was confined to his
-	room. Julien confessed to them that he had never in his life been to
-
-	the Opera.
-
-	'This is terrible,' they told him, 'where else does one go? Your first
-	outing must be to the _Comte Ory_.'
-
-	At the Opera, the Chevalier de Beauvoisis presented him to the famous
-	singer Geronimo, who was enjoying an immense success that season.
-
-	Julien almost paid court to the Chevalier; his blend of self-respect,
-	mysterious importance and boyish fatuity enchanted him. For instance,
-	the Chevalier stammered slightly because he had the honour to be
-	frequently in the company of a great nobleman who suffered from that
-	infirmity. Never had Julien seen combined in a single person the
-	absurdity which keeps one amused and the perfection of manners which a
-	poor provincial must seek to copy.
-
-	He was seen at the Opera with the Chevalier de Beauvoisis; their
-	association caused his name to be mentioned.
-
-	'Well, Sir!' M. de La Mole said to him one day, 'and so you are the
-	natural son of a rich gentleman of the Franche-Comte, my intimate
-	friend!'
-
-	The Marquis cut Julien short when he tried to protest that he had in
-	no way helped to give currency to this rumour.
-
-	'M. de Beauvoisis did not wish to have fought a duel with a
-	carpenter's son.'
-
-	'I know, I know,' said M. de La Mole; 'it rests with me now to give
-	consistency to the story, which suits me. But I have one favour to ask
-	you, which will cost you no more than half an hour of your time: every
-	Opera evening, at half-past eleven, go and stand in the vestibule
-	when the people of fashion are coming out. I still notice provincial
-	mannerisms in you at times, you must get rid of them; besides, it can
-	do you no harm to know, at least by sight, important personages to
-	whom I may one day have occasion to send you. Call at the box office
-	to have yourself identified; they have placed your name on the list.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 7
-	An Attack of Gout
-
-
-	And I received promotion, not on my own merits, but because
-	my master had the gout.
-	BERTOLOTTI
-
-	The reader is perhaps surprised at this free and almost friendly tone;
-	we have forgotten to say that for six weeks the Marquis had been
-	confined to the house by an attack of gout.
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole and her mother were at Hyeres, with the
-	Marquise's mother. Comte Norbert saw his father only for brief
-	moments; they were on the best of terms, but had nothing to say to one
-	another. M. de La Mole, reduced to Julien's company, was astonished to
-	find him endowed with ideas. He made him read the newspapers aloud.
-	Soon the young secretary was able to select the interesting passages.
-	There was a new paper which the Marquis abhorred; he had vowed that he
-	would never read it, and spoke of it every day. Julien laughed. The
-	Marquis, out of patience with the times, made Julien read him Livy;
-	the translation improvised from the Latin text amused him.
-
-	One day the Marquis said, with that tone of over-elaborate politeness,
-	which often tried Julien's patience:
-
-	'Allow me, my dear Sorel, to make you the present of a blue coat: when
-	it suits you to put it on and to pay me a visit, you will be, in my
-	eyes, the younger brother of the Comte de Chaulnes, that is to say,
-	the son of my old friend the Duke.'
-
-	Julien was somewhat in the dark as to what was happening; that evening
-	he ventured to pay a visit in his blue coat. The Marquis treated him
-	as an equal. Julien had a heart capable of appreciating true
-	politeness, but he had no idea of the finer shades. He would have
-	sworn, before this caprice of the Marquis, that it would be impossible
-	to be received by him with greater deference. 'What a marvellous
-	talent!' Julien said to himself; when he rose to go, the Marquis
-	apologised for not being able to see him to the door on account of his
-	gout.
-
-	Julien was obsessed by this strange idea: 'Can he be laughing at me?'
-	he wondered. He went to seek the advice of the abbe Pirard, who, less
-	courteous than the Marquis, answered him only with a whistle and
-	changed the subject. The following morning Julien appeared before the
-	Marquis, in a black coat, with his portfolio and the letters to be
-	signed. He was received in the old manner. That evening, in his blue
-	coat, it was with an entirely different tone and one in every way as
-	polite as the evening before.
-
-	'Since you appear to find some interest in the visits which you are so
-	kind as to pay to a poor, suffering old man,' the Marquis said to him,
-	'you must speak to him of all the little incidents in your life, but
-	openly, and without thinking of anything but how to relate them
-	clearly and in an amusing fashion. For one must have amusement,' the
-	Marquis went on; 'that is the only real thing in life. A man cannot
-	save my life on a battle-field every day, nor can he make me every day
-	the present of a million; but if I had Rivarol here, by my couch,
-	every day, he would relieve me of an hour of pain and boredom. I saw a
-	great deal of him at Hamburg, during the Emigration.'
-
-	And the Marquis told Julien stories of Rivarol among the Hamburgers,
-	who would club together in fours to elucidate the point of a witty
-	saying.
-
-	M. de La Mole, reduced to the society of this young cleric, sought to
-	enliven him. He stung Julien's pride. Since he was asked for the
-	truth, Julien determined to tell his whole story; but with the
-	suppression of two things: his fanatical admiration for a name which
-	made the Marquis furious, and his entire unbelief, which hardly became
-	a future cure. His little affair with the Chevalier de Beauvoisis
-	arrived most opportunely. The Marquis laughed till he cried at the
-	scene in the cafe in the Rue Saint-Honore, with the coachman who
-	covered him with foul abuse. It was a period of perfect frankness in
-	the relations between employer and protege.
-
-	M. de La Mole became interested in this singular character. At first,
-	he played with Julien's absurdities, for his own entertainment; soon
-	he found it more interesting to correct, in the gentlest manner, the
-	young man's mistaken view of life. 'Most provincials who come to Paris
-	admire everything,' thought the Marquis; 'this fellow hates
-	everything. They have too much sentiment, he has not enough, and fools
-	take him for a fool.'
-
-	The attack of gout was prolonged by the wintry weather and lasted for
-	some months.
-
-	'One becomes attached to a fine spaniel,' the Marquis told himself;
-	'why am I so ashamed of becoming attached to this young cleric? He is
-	original. I treat him like a son; well, what harm is there in that!
-	This fancy, if it lasts, will cost me a diamond worth five hundred
-	louis in my will.'
-
-	Once the Marquis had realised the firm character of his protege, he
-	entrusted him with some fresh piece of business every day.
-
-	Julien noticed with alarm that this great nobleman would occasionally
-	give him contradictory instructions with regard to the same matter.
-
-	This was liable to land him in serious trouble. Julien, when he came
-	to work with the Marquis, invariably brought a diary in which he wrote
-	down his instructions, and the Marquis initialled them. Julien had
-	engaged a clerk who copied out the instructions relative to each piece
-	of business in a special book. In this book were kept also copies of
-	all letters.
-
-	This idea seemed at first the most ridiculous and tiresome thing
-	imaginable. But, in less than two months, the Marquis realised its
-	advantages. Julien suggested engaging a clerk from a bank, who should
-	keep an account by double entry of all the revenue from and
-	expenditure on the estates of which he himself had charge.
-
-	These measures so enlightened the Marquis as to his own financial
-	position that he was able to give himself the pleasure of embarking on
-	two or three fresh speculations without the assistance of his broker,
-	who had been robbing him.
-
-	'Take three thousand francs for yourself,' he said, one day to his
-	young minister.
-
-	'But, Sir, my conduct may be criticised.'
-
-	'What do you want, then?' replied the Marquis, with irritation.
-
-	'I want you to be so kind as to make a formal agreement, and to write
-	it down yourself in the book; the agreement will award me a sum of
-	three thousand francs. Besides, it was M. l'abbe Pirard who first
-	thought of all this book-keeping.' The Marquis, with the bored
-	expression of the Marquis de Moncade, listening to M. Poisson, his
-	steward, reading his accounts, wrote out his instructions.
-
-	In the evening, when Julien appeared in his blue coat, there was never
-	any talk of business. The Marquis's kindness was so flattering to our
-	hero's easily wounded vanity that presently, in spite of himself, he
-	felt a sort of attachment to this genial old man. Not that Julien was
-	sensitive, as the word is understood in Paris; but he was not a
-	monster, and no one, since the death of the old Surgeon-Major, had
-	spoken to him so kindly. He remarked with astonishment that the
-	Marquis showed a polite consideration for his self-esteem which he had
-	never received from the old surgeon. Finally he realised that the
-	surgeon had been prouder of his Cross than the Marquis was of his Blue
-	Riband. The Marquis was the son of a great nobleman.
-
-	One day, at the end of a morning interview, in his black coat, and for
-	the discussion of business, Julien amused the Marquis, who kept him
-	for a couple of hours, and positively insisted upon giving him a
-	handful of bank notes which his broker had just brought him from the
-	Bourse.
-
-	'I hope, Monsieur le Marquis, not to be wanting in the profound
-	respect which I owe you if I ask you to allow me to say something.'
-
-	'Speak, my friend.'
-
-	'Will Monsieur le Marquis be graciously pleased to let me decline this
-	gift. It is not to the man in black that it is offered, and it would
-	at once put an end to the liberties which he is so kind as to tolerate
-	from the man in blue.' He bowed most respectfully, and left the room
-	without looking round.
-
-	This attitude amused the Marquis, who reported it that evening to the
-	abbe Pirard.
-
-	'There is something that I must at last confess to you, my dear abbe.
-	I know the truth about Julien's birth, and I authorise you not to keep
-	this confidence secret.
-
-	'His behaviour this morning was noble,' thought the Marquis, 'and I
-	shall ennoble him.'
-
-	Some time after this, the Marquis was at length able to leave his
-	room.
-
-	'Go and spend a couple of months in London,' he told Julien. 'The
-	special couriers and other messengers will bring you the letters I
-	receive, with my notes. You will write the replies and send them to
-	me, enclosing each letter with its reply. I have calculated that the
-	delay will not amount to more than five days.'
-
-	As he travelled post along the road to Calais, Julien thought with
-	amazement of the futility of the alleged business on which he was
-	being sent.
-
-	We shall not describe the feeling of horror, almost of hatred, with
-	which he set foot on English soil. The reader is aware of his insane
-	passion for Bonaparte. He saw in every officer a Sir Hudson Lowe, in
-	every nobleman a Lord Bathurst, ordering the atrocities of Saint
-	Helena, and receiving his reward in ten years of office.
-
-	In London he at last made acquaintance with the extremes of fatuity.
-	He made friends with some young Russian gentlemen who initiated him.
-
-	'You are predestined, my dear Sorel,' they told him, 'you are endowed
-	by nature with that cold expression _a thousand leagues from the
-	sensation of the moment_, which we try so hard to assume.'
-
-	'You have not understood our age,' Prince Korasoff said to him;
-	'_always do the opposite to what people expect of you_. That, upon my
-	honour, is the only religion of the day. Do not be either foolish or
-	affected, for then people will expect foolishness and affectations,
-	and you will not be obeying the rule.'
-
-	Julien covered himself with glory one day in the drawing-room of the
-	Duke of Fitz-Fulke, who had invited him to dine, with Prince Korasoff.
-	The party were kept waiting for an hour. The way in which Julien
-	comported himself amid the score of persons who stood waiting is still
-	quoted by the young Secretaries of Embassy in London. His expression
-	was inimitable.
-
-	He was anxious to meet, notwithstanding his friends the dandies, the
-	celebrated Philip Vane, the one philosopher that England has produced
-	since Locke. He found him completing his seventh year in prison. 'The
-	aristocracy does not take things lightly in this country,' thought
-	Julien; 'in addition to all this, Vane is disgraced, abused,' etc.
-
-	Julien found him good company; the fury of the aristocracy kept him
-	amused. 'There,' Julien said to himself, as he left the prison, 'is
-	the one cheerful man that I have met in England.'
-
-	'The idea of most use to tyrants is that of God,' Vane had said to
-	him.
-
-	We suppress the rest of the philosopher's system as being cynical.
-
-	On his return: 'What amusing idea have you brought me from England?'
-	M. de La Mole asked him. He remained silent. 'What idea have you
-	brought, amusing or not?' the Marquis went on, sharply.
-
-	'First of all,' said Julien, 'the wisest man in England is mad for an
-	hour daily; he is visited by the demon of suicide, who is the national
-	deity.
-
-	'Secondly, intelligence and genius forfeit twenty-five per cent of
-	their value on landing in England.
-
-	'Thirdly, nothing in the world is so beautiful, admirable, moving as
-	the English countryside.'
-
-	'Now, it is my turn,' said the Marquis.
-
-	'First of all, what made you say, at the ball at the Russian Embassy,
-	that there are in France three hundred thousand young men of five and
-	twenty who are passionately anxious for war? Do you think that that is
-	quite polite to the Crowned Heads?'
-
-	'One never knows what to say in speaking to our great diplomats,' said
-	Julien. They have a mania for starting serious discussions. If one
-	confines oneself to the commonplaces of the newspapers, one is
-	reckoned a fool. If one allows oneself to say something true and
-	novel, they are astonished, they do not know how to answer, and next
-	morning, at seven o'clock they send word to one by the First
-	Secretary, that one has been impolite.'
-
-	'Not bad,' said the Marquis, with a laugh. 'I wager, however, Master
-	Philosopher, that you have not discovered what you went to England to
-	do.'
-
-	'Pardon me,' replied Julien; 'I went there to dine once a week with
-	His Majesty's Ambassador, who is the most courteous of men.'
-
-	'You went to secure the Cross which is lying there' the Marquis told
-	him. 'I do not wish to make you lay aside your black coat, and I have
-	grown accustomed to the more amusing tone which I have adopted with
-	the man in blue. Until further orders, understand this: when I see
-	this Cross, you are the younger son of my friend the Duc de Chaulnes,
-	who, without knowing it, has been for the last six months employed in
-	diplomacy. Observe,' added the Marquis, with a highly serious air,
-	cutting short Julien's expressions of gratitude, 'that I do not on any
-	account wish you to rise above your station. That is always a mistake,
-	and a misfortune both for patron and for protege. When my lawsuits
-	bore you, or when you no longer suit me I shall ask for a good living
-	for you, like that of our friend the abbe Pirard, and _nothing more_,'
-	the Marquis added, in the driest of tones.
-
-	This Cross set Julien's pride at rest; he began to talk far more
-	freely. He felt himself less frequently insulted and made a butt by
-	those remarks, susceptible of some scarcely polite interpretation,
-	which, in the course of an animated conversation, may fall from the
-	lips of anyone.
-
-	His Cross was the cause of an unexpected visit; this was from M. le
-	Baron de Valenod, who came to Paris to thank the Minister for his
-	Barony and to come to an understanding with him. He was going to be
-	appointed Mayor of Verrieres in the place of M. de Renal.
-
-	Julien was consumed with silent laughter when M. de Valenod gave him
-	to understand that it had just been discovered that M de Renal was a
-	Jacobin. The fact was that, in a new election which was in
-	preparation, the new Baron was the ministerial candidate, and in the
-	combined constituency of the Department, which in reality was strongly
-	Ultra, it was M. de Renal who was being put forward by the Liberals.
-
-	It was in vain that Julien tried to learn something of Madame de
-	Renal; the Baron appeared to remember their former rivalry, and was
-	impenetrable. He ended by asking Julien for his father's vote at the
-	coming election. Julien promised to write.
-
-	'You ought, Monsieur le Chevalier, to introduce me to M. le Marquis de
-	La Mole.'
-
-	'Indeed, so _I ought_,' thought Julien; 'but a rascal like this!'
-
-	'To be frank,' he replied, 'I am too humble a person in the Hotel de
-	La Mole to take it upon me to introduce anyone.'
-
-	Julien told the Marquis everything: that evening he informed him of
-	Valenod's pretension, and gave an account of his life and actions
-	since 1814.
-
-	'Not only,' M. de La Mole replied, with a serious air, 'will you
-	introduce the new Baron to me tomorrow, but I shall invite him to dine
-	the day after. He will be one of our new Prefects.'
-
-	'In that case,' retorted Julien coldly, 'I request the post of
-	Governor of the Poorhouse for my father.'
-
-	'Excellent,' said the Marquis, recovering his gaiety; 'granted; I was
-	expecting a sermon. You are growing up.'
-
-	M. de Valenod informed Julien that the keeper of the lottery office at
-	Verrieres had just died; Julien thought it amusing to bestow this
-	place upon M. de Cholin, the old imbecile whose petition he had picked
-	up in the room occupied there by M. de La Mole. The Marquis laughed
-	heartily at the petition which Julien recited as he made him sign the
-	letter applying for this post to the Minister of Finance.
-
-	No sooner had M. de Cholin been appointed than Julien learned that
-	this post had been requested by the Deputies of the Department for M.
-	Gros, the celebrated geometrician: this noble-hearted man had an
-	income of only fourteen hundred francs, and every year had been
-	lending six hundred francs to the late holder of the post, to help him
-	to bring up his family.
-
-	Julien was astonished at the effect of what he had done. 'It is
-	nothing,' he told himself; 'I must be prepared for many other acts of
-	injustice, if I am to succeed, and, what is more, must know how to
-	conceal them, under a cloak of fine sentimental words: poor M, Gros!
-	It is he that deserved the Cross, it is I that have it, and I must act
-	according to the wishes of the Government that has given it to me.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 8
-	What Is the Decoration that Confers Distinction?
-
-
-	Your water does not refresh me, said the thirsty genie.
-	Yet it is the coolest well in all the Diar Bekir.
-	PELLICO
-
-	One day Julien returned from the charming property of Villequier, on
-	the bank of the Seine, in which M. de La Mole took a special interest
-	because, of all his estates, it was the only one that had belonged to
-	the celebrated Boniface de La Mole. He found at the Hotel the Marquise
-	and her daughter, who had returned from Hyeres.
-
-	Julien was now a dandy and understood the art of life in Paris. He
-	greeted Mademoiselle de La Mole with perfect coolness. He appeared to
-	remember nothing of the time when she asked him so gaily to tell her
-	all about his way of falling from his horse.
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole found him taller and paler. There was no
-	longer anything provincial about his figure or his attire; not so with
-	his conversation: this was still perceptibly too serious, too
-	positive. In spite of these sober qualities, and thanks to his pride,
-	it conveyed no sense of inferiority; one felt merely that he still
-	regarded too many things as important. But one saw that he was a man
-	who would stand by his word.
-
-	'He is wanting in lightness of touch, but not in intelligence,'
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole said to her father, as she teased him over the
-	Cross he had given Julien. 'My brother has been asking you for it for
-	the last eighteen months, and he is a La Mole!'
-
-	'Yes; but Julien has novelty. That has never been the case with the La
-	Mole you mention.'
-
-	M. le Duc de Retz was announced.
-
-	Mathilde felt herself seized by an irresistible desire to yawn; she
-	recognised the antique decorations and the old frequenters of the
-	paternal drawing-room. She formed an entirely boring picture of the
-	life she was going to resume in Paris. And yet at Hyeres she had
-	longed for Paris.
-
-	'To think that I am nineteen!' she reflected: 'it is the age of
-	happiness, according to all those gilt-edged idiots.' She looked
-	at nine or ten volumes of recent poetry that had accumulated, during
-	her absence in Provence, on the drawing-room table. It was her
-	misfortune to have more intelligence than MM. de Croisenois, de
-	Caylus, de Luz, and the rest of her friends. She could imagine
-	everything that they would say to her about the beautiful sky in
-	Provence, poetry, the south, etc., etc.
-
-	Those lovely eyes, in which was revealed the most profound boredom,
-	and, what was worse still, a despair of finding any pleasure, came to
-	rest upon Julien. At any rate, he was not exactly like all the rest.
-
-	'Monsieur Sorel,' she said in that short, sharp voice, with nothing
-	feminine about it, which is used by young women of the highest rank,
-	'Monsieur Sorel, are you coming to M. de Retz's ball tonight?'
-
-	'Mademoiselle, I have not had the honour to be presented to M. le
-	Duc.' (One would have said that these words and the title burned the
-	lips of the proud provincial.)
-
-	'He has asked my brother to bring you; and, if you came, you could
-	tell me all about Villequier; there is some talk of our going there in
-	the spring. I should like to know whether the house is habitable, and
-	if the country round it is as pretty as people say. There are so many
-	undeserved reputations!'
-
-	Julien made no reply.
-
-	'Come to the ball with my brother,' she added, in the driest of tones.
-
-	Julien made a respectful bow. 'So, even in the middle of a ball, I
-	must render accounts to all the members of the family. Am I not paid
-	to be their man of business?' In his ill humour, he added: 'Heaven
-	only knows whether what I tell the daughter may not upset the plans of
-	her father, and brother, and mother! It is just like the court of a
-	Sovereign Prince. One is expected to be a complete nonentity, and at
-	the same time give no one any grounds for complaint.
-
-	'How I dislike that great girl!' he thought, as he watched
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole cross the room, her mother having called her
-	to introduce her to a number of women visitors. 'She overdoes all the
-	fashions, her gown is falling off her shoulders ... she is even paler
-	than when she went away ... What colourless hair, if that is what
-	they call golden! You would say the light shone through it. How
-	arrogant her way of bowing, of looking at people! What regal
-	gestures!'
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole had called her brother back, as he was leaving
-	the room.
-
-	Comte Norbert came up to Julien:
-
-	'My dear Sorel,' he began, 'where would you like me to call for you at
-	midnight for M. de Retz's ball? He told me particularly to bring you.'
-
-	'I know to whom I am indebted for such kindness,' replied Julien,
-	bowing to the ground.
-
-	His ill humour, having no fault to find with the tone of politeness,
-	indeed of personal interest, in which Norbert had addressed him,
-	vented itself upon the reply which he himself had made to this
-	friendly speech. He detected a trace of servility in it.
-
-	That night, on arriving at the ball, he was struck by the magnificence
-	of the Hotel de Retz. The courtyard was covered with an immense
-	crimson awning patterned with golden stars: nothing could have been
-	more elegant. Beneath this awning, the court was transformed into a
-	grove of orange trees and oleanders in blossom. As their tubs had been
-	carefully buried at a sufficient depth, these oleanders and orange
-	trees seemed to be springing from the ground. The carriage drive had
-	been sprinkled with sand.
-
-	The general effect seemed extraordinary to our provincial. He had no
-	idea that such magnificence could exist; in an instant his imagination
-	had taken wings and flown a thousand leagues away from ill humour. In
-	the carriage, on their way to the ball, Norbert had been happy, and he
-	had seen everything in dark colours; as soon as they entered the
-	courtyard their moods were reversed.
-
-	Norbert was conscious only of certain details, which, in the midst of
-	all this magnificence, had been overlooked. He reckoned up the cost of
-	everything, and as he arrived at a high total, Julien remarked that he
-	appeared almost jealous of the outlay and began to sulk.
-
-	As for Julien, he arrived spell-bound with admiration, and almost
-	timid with excess of emotion in the first of the saloons in which the
-	company were dancing. Everyone was making for the door of the second
-	room, and the throng was so great that he found it impossible to move.
-	This great saloon was decorated to represent the Alhambra of Granada.
-
-	'She is the belle of the ball, no doubt about it,' said a young man
-	with moustaches, whose shoulder dug into Julien's chest.
-
-	'Mademoiselle Fourmont, who has been the reigning beauty all winter,'
-	his companion rejoined, 'sees that she must now take the second place:
-	look how strangely she is frowning.'
-
-	'Indeed she is hoisting all her canvas to attract. Look, look at that
-	gracious smile as soon as she steps into the middle in that country
-	dance. It is inimitable, upon my honour.'
-
-	'Mademoiselle de La Mole has the air of being in full control of the
-	pleasure she derives from her triumph, of which she is very well
-	aware. One would say that she was afraid of attracting whoever speaks
-	to her.'
-
-	'Precisely! That is the art of seduction.'
-
-	Julien was making vain efforts to catch a glimpse of this seductive
-	woman; seven or eight men taller than himself prevented him from
-	seeing her.
-
-	'There is a good deal of coquetry in that noble reserve,' went on the
-	young man with the moustaches.
-
-	'And those big blue eyes which droop so slowly just at the moment when
-	one would say they were going to give her away,' his companion added.
-	'Faith, she's a past master.'
-
-	'Look how common the fair Fourmont appears beside her,' said a third.
-
-	'That air of reserve is as much as to say: "How charming I should make
-	myself to you, if you were the man that was worthy of me."'
-
-	'And who could be worthy of the sublime Mathilde?' said the first:
-	'Some reigning Prince, handsome, clever, well made, a hero in battle,
-	and aged twenty at the most.'
-
-	'The natural son of the Emperor of Russia, for whom, on the occasion of
-	such a marriage, a Kingdom would be created; or simply the Comte de
-	Thaler, with his air of a peasant in his Sunday clothes . . .'
-
-	The passage was now cleared, Julien was free to enter.
-
-	'Since she appears so remarkable in the eyes of these puppets, it is
-	worth my while to study her,' he thought. 'I shall understand what
-	perfection means to these people.'
-
-	As he was trying to catch her eye, Mathilde looked at him. 'Duty calls
-	me,' Julien said to himself, but his resentment was now confined to
-	his expression. Curiosity made him step forward with a pleasure which
-	the low cut of the gown on Mathilda's shoulders rapidly enhanced, in a
-	manner, it must be admitted, by no means flattering to his
-	self-esteem. 'Her beauty has the charm of youth,' he thought. Five or
-	six young men, among whom Julien recognised those whom he had heard
-	talking in the doorway, stood between her and him.
-
-	'You can tell me, Sir, as you have been here all the winter,' she said
-	to him, 'is it not true that this is the prettiest ball of the
-	season?' He made no answer.
-
-	'This Coulon quadrille seems to me admirable; and the ladies are
-	dancing it quite perfectly.' The young men turned round to see who the
-	fortunate person was who was being thus pressed for an answer. It was
-	not encouraging.
-
-	'I should hardly be a good judge, Mademoiselle; I spend my time
-	writing: this is the first ball on such a scale that I have seen.'
-
-	The moustached young men were shocked.
-
-	'You are a sage, Monsieur Sorel,' she went on with a more marked
-	interest; 'you look upon all these balls, all these parties, like a
-	philosopher, like a Jean-Jacques Rousseau. These follies surprise you
-	without tempting you.'
-
-	A chance word had stifled Julien's imagination and banished every
-	illusion from his heart. His lips assumed an expression of disdain
-	that was perhaps slightly exaggerated.
-
-	'Jean-Jacques Rousseau,' he replied, 'is nothing but a fool in my eyes
-	when he takes it upon himself to criticise society; he did not
-	understand it, and approached it with the heart of an upstart
-	flunkey.'
-
-	'He wrote the _Contrat Social_,' said Mathilde in a tone of veneration.
-
-	'For all his preaching a Republic and the overthrow of monarchical
-	titles, the upstart is mad with joy if a Duke alters the course of his
-	after-dinner stroll to accompany one of his friends.'
-
-	'Ah, yes! The Due de Luxembourg at Montmorency accompanies a M.
-	Coindet on the road to Paris,' replied Mademoiselle de La Mole with
-	the impetuous delight of a first enjoyment of pedantry. She was
-	overjoyed at her own learning, almost like the Academician who
-	discovered the existence of King Feretrius. Julien's eye remained
-	penetrating and stern. Mathilde had felt a momentary enthusiasm; her
-	partner's coldness disconcerted her profoundly. She was all the more
-	astonished inasmuch as it was she who was in the habit of producing
-	this effect upon other people.
-
-	At that moment, the Marquis de Croisenois advanced eagerly towards
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole. He stopped for a moment within a few feet of
-	her, unable to approach her on account of the crowd. He looked at her,
-	with a smile at the obstacle. The young Marquise de Rouvray was close
-	beside him; she was a cousin of Mathilde. She gave her arm to her
-	husband, who had been married for only a fortnight. The Marquis de
-	Rouvray, who was quite young also, showed all that fatuous love which
-	seizes a man, who having made a 'suitable' marriage entirely arranged
-	by the family lawyers, finds that he has a perfectly charming spouse.
-	M. de Rouvray would be a Duke on the death of an uncle of advanced
-	years.
-
-	While the Marquis de Croisenois, unable to penetrate the throng, stood
-	gazing at Mathilde with a smiling air, she allowed her large, sky-blue
-	eyes to rest upon him and his neighbours. 'What could be duller,' she
-	said to herself, 'than all that group! Look at Croisenois who hopes to
-	marry me; he is nice and polite, he has perfect manners like M. de
-	Rouvray. If they did not bore me, these gentlemen would be quite
-	charming. He, too, will come to balls with me with that smug,
-	satisfied air. A year after we are married, my carriage, my horses, my
-	gowns, my country house twenty leagues from Paris, everything will be
-	as perfect as possible, just what is needed to make an upstart burst
-	with envy, a Comtesse de Roiville for instance; and after that?
-
-	Mathilde let her mind drift into the future. The Marquis de Croisenois
-	succeeded in reaching her, and spoke to her, but she dreamed on
-	without listening. The sound of his voice was lost in the hubbub of
-	the ball. Her eye mechanically followed Julien, who had moved away
-	with a respectful, but proud and discontented air. She saw in a
-	corner, aloof from the moving crowd, Conte Altamira, who was under
-	sentence of death in his own country, as the reader already knows.
-	Under Louis XIV, a lady of his family had married a Prince de Conti;
-	this antecedent protected him to some extent from the police of the
-	_Congregation_.
-
-	'I can see nothing but a sentence of death that distinguishes a man,'
-	thought Mathilde: 'it is the only thing that is not to be bought.
-
-	'Ah! There is a witty saying that I have wasted on myself! What a pity
-	that it did not occur to me when I could have made the most of it!'
-	Mathilde had too much taste to lead up in conversation to a witticism
-	prepared beforehand; but she had also too much vanity not to be
-	delighted with her own wit. An air of happiness succeeded the
-	appearance of boredom in her face. The Marquis de Croisenois, who was
-	still addressing her, thought he saw a chance of success, and doubled
-	his loquacity.
-
-	'What fault would anyone have to find with my remark?' Mathilde asked
-	herself. 'I should answer my critic: "A title of Baron, or Viscount,
-	that can be bought; a Cross, that is given; my brother has just had
-	one, what has he ever done? A step in promotion, that is obtained. Ten
-	years of garrison duty, or a relative as Minister for War, and one
-	becomes a squadron-commander, like Norbert. A great fortune! That is
-	still the most difficult thing to secure, and therefore the most
-	meritorious. Now is not that odd? It is just the opposite to what all
-	the books say . .. Well, to secure a fortune, one marries M.
-	Rothschild's daughter."
-
-	'My remark is really subtle. A death sentence is still the only thing
-	for which no one has ever thought of asking.
-
-	'Do you know Conte Altamira?' she asked M. de Croisenois.
-
-	She had the air of having come back to earth from so remote an
-	abstraction, and this question bore so little relation to all that the
-	poor Marquis had been saying to her for the last five minutes, that
-	his friendly feelings were somewhat disconcerted. He was, however, a
-	man of ready wit, and highly esteemed in that capacity.
-
-	'Mathilde is certainly odd,' he thought; 'it is a drawback, but she
-	gives her husband such a splendid social position! I cannot think how
-	the Marquis de La Mole manages it; he is on intimate terms with the
-	best people in every party, he is a man who cannot fall. Besides, this
-	oddity in Mathilde may pass for genius. Given noble birth and an ample
-	fortune, genius is not to be laughed at, and then, what distinction!
-	She has such a command, too, when she pleases, of that combination of
-	wit, character and aptness, which makes conversation perfect. ..' As
-	it is hard to do two things well at the same time, the Marquis
-	answered Mathilde with a vacant air, and as though repeating a lesson:
-
-	'Who does not know poor Altamira?' and he told her the story of the
-	absurd, abortive conspiracy.
-
-	'Most absurd!' said Mathilde, as though speaking to herself, 'but he
-	has done something. I wish to see a man; bring him to me,' she said to
-	the Marquis, who was deeply shocked.
-
-	Conte Altamira was one of the most openly professed admirers of the
-	haughty and almost impertinent air of Mademoiselle de La Mole; she
-	was, according to him, one of the loveliest creatures in Paris.
-
-	'How beautiful she would be on a throne!' he said to M. de Croisenois,
-	and made no difficulty about allowing himself to be led to her.
-
-	There are not wanting in society people who seek to establish the
-	principle that nothing is in such bad tone as a conspiracy; it reeks
-	of Jacobinism. And what can be more vile than an unsuccessful
-	Jacobin?
-
-	Mathilde's glance derided Altamira's Liberalism to M. de Croisenois,
-	but she listened to him with pleasure.
-
-	'A conspirator at a ball, it is a charming contrast,' she thought. In
-	this conspirator, with his black moustaches, she detected a
-	resemblance to a lion in repose; but she soon found that his mind had
-	but one attitude: utility, admiration for utility.
-
-	Excepting only what might bring to his country Two Chamber government,
-	the young Count felt that nothing was worthy of his attention. He
-	parted from Mathilde, the most attractive person at the ball, with
-	pleasure because he had seen a Peruvian General enter the room.
-
-	Despairing of Europe, poor Altamira had been reduced to hoping that,
-	when the States of South America became strong and powerful, they
-	might restore to Europe the freedom which Mirabeau had sent to them.
-	[Footnote: This page, written on July 25, 1830, was printed on
-	August 4. (Publisher's note.) --_Le Rouge et le Noir_ was published
-	in 1831. It was an order of July 25, 1830, dissolving the Chamber,
-	which provoked the Revolution of the following days, the abdication of
-	Charles X, and the accession of Louis-Phillippe--C. K. S. M.]
-
-	A swarm of young men with moustaches had gathered round Mathilde. She
-	had seen quite well that Altamira was not attracted, and felt piqued
-	by his desertion of her; she saw his dark eye gleam as he spoke to the
-	Peruvian General. Mademoiselle de La Mole studied the young Frenchmen
-	with that profound seriousness which none of her rivals was able to
-	imitate. 'Which of them,' she thought, 'could ever be sentenced to
-	death, even allowing him the most favourable conditions?'
-
-	This singular gaze flattered those who had little intelligence,
-	but disturbed the rest. They feared the explosion of some pointed
-	witticism which it would be difficult to answer.
-
-	'Good birth gives a man a hundred qualities the absence of which would
-	offend me: I see that in Julien's case,' thought Mathilde; 'but it
-	destroys those qualities of the spirit which make people be sentenced
-	to death.'
-
-	At that moment someone remarked in her hearing: 'That Conte Altamira
-	is the second son of the Principe di San Nazaro-Pimentel; it was a
-	Pimentel who attempted to save Conradin, beheaded in 1268. They are
-	one of the noblest families of Naples.'
-
-	'There,' Mathilde said to herself, 'is an excellent proof of my maxim:
-	Good birth destroys the strength of character without which people do
-	not incur sentences of death. I seem fated to go wrong this evening.
-	Since I am only a woman like any other, well, I must dance.' She
-	yielded to the persistence of the Marquis de Croisenois, who for the
-	last hour had been pleading for a galop. To distract her thoughts
-	from her philosophical failure, Mathilde chose to be perfectly
-	bewitching; M. de Croisenois was in ecstasies.
-
-	But not the dance, nor the desire to please one of the handsomest men
-	at court, nothing could distract Mathilde. She could not possibly have
-	enjoyed a greater triumph. She was the queen of the ball, she knew it,
-	but she remained cold.
-
-	'What a colourless life I shall lead with a creature like Croisenois,'
-	she said to herself, as he led her back to her place an hour later ...
-	'What pleasure can there be for me,' she went on sadly, 'if after an
-	absence of six months, I do not find any in a ball which is the envy
-	of all the women in Paris? And moreover I am surrounded by the homage
-	of a society which could not conceivably be more select. There is no
-	plebeian element here except a few peers and a Julien or two perhaps.
-	And yet,' she added, with a growing melancholy, 'what advantages has
-	not fate bestowed on me! Birth, wealth, youth! Everything, alas, but
-	happiness.
-
-	'The most dubious of my advantages are those of which they have been
-	telling me all evening. Wit, I know I have, for obviously I frighten
-	them all. If they venture to broach a serious subject, after five
-	minutes of conversation they all arrive out of breath, and as though
-	making a great discovery, at something which I have been repeating to
-	them for the last hour. I am beautiful, I have that advantage for
-	which Madame de Stael would have sacrificed everything, and yet the
-	fact remains that I am dying of boredom. Is there any reason why I
-	should be less bored when I have changed my name to that of the
-	Marquis de Croisenois?
-
-	'But, Lord!' she added, almost in tears, 'is he not a perfect man? He
-	is the masterpiece of the education of the age; one cannot look at him
-	without his thinking of something pleasant, and even clever, to say to
-	one; he is brave ... But that Sorel is a strange fellow,' she said to
-	herself, and the look of gloom in her eye gave place to a look of
-	anger. 'I told him that I had something to say to him, and he does not
-	condescend to return!'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 9
-	The Ball
-
-
-	The splendour of the dresses, the blaze of the candles,
-	the perfumes; all those rounded arms, and fine shoulders;
-	bouquets, the sound of Rossini's music, pictures by Ciceri!
-	I am beside myself!
-	_Travels of Uzeri_
-
-	'You are feeling cross,' the Marquise de La Mole said to her; 'I warn
-	you, that is not good manners at a ball.'
-
-	'It is only a headache,' replied Mathilde contemptuously, 'it is too
-	hot in here.'
-
-	At that moment, as though to corroborate Mademoiselle de La Mole, the
-	old Baron de Tolly fainted and fell to the ground; he had to be
-	carried out. There was talk of apoplexy, it was a disagreeable
-	incident.
-
-	Mathilde did not give it a thought. It was one of her definite habits
-	never to look at an old man or at anyone known to be given to talking
-	about sad things.
-
-	She danced to escape the conversation about the apoplexy, which was
-	nothing of the sort, for a day or two later the Baron reappeared.
-
-	'But M. Sorel does not appear,' she said to herself again after she
-	had finished dancing. She was almost searching for him with
-	her eyes when she caught sight of him in another room. Strange to say,
-	he seemed to have shed the tone of impassive coldness which was so
-	natural to him; he had no longer the air of an Englishman.
-
-	'He is talking to Conte Altamira, my condemned man!' Mathilde said to
-	herself. 'His eye is ablaze with a sombre fire; he has the air of a
-	Prince in disguise; the arrogance of his gaze has increased.'
-
-	Julien was coming towards the spot where she was, still talking to
-	Altamira; she looked fixedly at him, studying his features in search
-	of those lofty qualities which may entitle a man to the honour of
-	being sentenced to death.
-
-	As he passed by her:
-
-	'Yes,' he was saying to Conte Altamira, 'Danton was a man!'
-
-	'Oh, heavens! Is he to be another Danton,' thought Mathilde; 'but he
-	has such a noble face, and that Danton was so horribly ugly, a
-	butcher, I fancy.' Julien was still quite near her, she had no
-	hesitation in calling to him; she was conscious and proud of asking a
-	question that was extraordinary, coming from a girl.
-
-	'Was not Danton a butcher?' she asked him.
-
-	'Yes, in the eyes of certain people,' Julien answered her with an
-	expression of the most ill-concealed scorn, his eye still ablaze from
-	his conversation with Altamira, 'but unfortunately for people of
-	birth, he was a lawyer at Mery-sur-Seine; that is to say,
-	Mademoiselle,' he went on with an air of sarcasm, 'that he began life
-	like several of the Peers whom I see here this evening. It is true
-	that Danton had an enormous disadvantage in the eyes of beauty: he was
-	extremely ugly.'
-
-	The last words were uttered rapidly, with an extraordinary and
-	certainly far from courteous air.
-
-	Julien waited for a moment, bowing slightly from the waist and with an
-	arrogantly humble air. He seemed to be saying: 'I am paid to answer
-	you, and I live upon my pay.' He did not deign to raise his eyes to
-	her face. She, with her fine eyes opened extraordinarily wide and
-	fastened upon him, seemed like his slave. At length, as the silence
-	continued, he looked at her as a servant looks at his master, when
-	receiving orders. Although his eyes looked full into those of
-	Mathilde, still fastened upon him with a strange gaze, he withdrew
-	with marked alacrity.
-
-	'That he, who really is so handsome,' Mathilde said to herself at
-	length, awakening from her dreams, 'should pay such a tribute to
-	ugliness! Never a thought of himself! He is not like Caylus or
-	Croisenois. This Sorel has something of the air my father adopts when
-	he is playing the Napoleon, at a ball.' She had entirely forgotten
-	Danton. 'No doubt about it, I am bored this evening.' She seized her
-	brother by the arm, and, greatly to his disgust, forced him to take
-	her for a tour of the rooms. The idea occurred to her of following the
-	condemned man's conversation with Julien.
-
-	The crowd was immense. She succeeded, however, in overtaking them at
-	the moment when, just in front of her, Altamira had stopped by a tray
-	of ices to help himself. He was talking to Julien, half turning
-	towards him. He saw an arm in a braided sleeve stretched out to take
-	an ice from the same tray. The gold lace seemed to attract his
-	attention; he turned round bodily to see whose this arm was.
-	Immediately his eyes, so noble and unaffected, assumed a slight
-	expression of scorn.
-
-	'You see that man,' he murmured to Julien; 'he is the Principe
-	d'Araceli, the ---- Ambassador. This morning he applied for my
-	extradition to your French Foreign Minister, M. de Nerval. Look,
-	there he is over there, playing whist. M. de Nerval is quite ready to
-	give me up, for we gave you back two or three conspirators in 1816.
-	If they surrender me to my King I shall be hanged within twenty-four
-	hours. And it will be one of those pretty gentlemen with moustaches
-	who will seize me.'
-
-	'The wretches!' exclaimed Julien, half aloud.
-
-	Mathilde did not lose a syllable of their conversation. Her boredom
-	had vanished.
-
-	'Not such wretches as all that,' replied Conte Altamira. 'I have
-	spoken to you of myself to impress you with a real instance. Look at
-	Principe d'Araceli; every five minutes he casts a glance at his Golden
-	Fleece; he cannot get over the pleasure of seeing that trinket on his
-	breast. The poor man is really nothing worse than an anachronism. A
-	hundred years ago, the Golden Fleece was a signal honour, but then it
-	would have been far above his head. Today, among people of breeding,
-	one must be an Araceli to be thrilled by it. He would have hanged a
-	whole town to obtain it.'
-
-	'Was that the price he paid for it?' said Julien, with anxiety.
-
-	'Not exactly,' replied Altamira coldly; 'he perhaps had some thirty
-	wealthy landowners of his country, who were supposed to be Liberals,
-	flung into the river.'
-
-	'What a monster!' said Julien again.
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole, leaning forward with the keenest interest,
-	was so close to him that her beautiful hair almost brushed his
-	shoulder.
-
-	'You are very young!' replied Altamira. 'I told you that I have a
-	married sister in Provence; she is still pretty, good, gentle; she is
-	an excellent mother, faithful to all her duties, pious without
-	bigotry.'
-
-	'What is he leading up to?' thought Mademoiselle de La Mole.
-
-	'She is happy,' Conte Altamira continued; 'she was happy in 1815. At
-	that time I was in hiding there, on her property near Antibes; well,
-	as soon as she heard of the execution of Marshal Ney, she began to
-	dance!'
-
-	'Is it possible?' said the horrified Julien.
-
-	'It is the partisan spirit,' replied Altamira. There are no longer any
-	genuine passions in the nineteenth century; that is why people are so
-	bored in France. We commit the greatest cruelties, but without
-	cruelty.'
-
-	'All the worse!' said Julien; 'at least, when we commit crimes, we
-	should commit them with pleasure: that is the only good thing about
-	them, and the only excuse that can in any way justify them.'
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole, entirely forgetting what she owed to herself,
-	had placed herself almost bodily between Altamira and Julien. Her
-	brother, upon whose arm she leaned, being accustomed to obey her, was
-	looking about the room, and, to hide his lack of composure, pretending
-	to be held up by the crowd.
-
-	'You are right,' said Altamira; 'we do everything without pleasure and
-	without remembering it afterwards, even our crimes. I can point out to
-	you at this ball ten men, perhaps, who will be damned as murderers.
-	They have forgotten it, and the world also. [Footnote: 'A malcontent
-	is speaking.' (Note by Moliere to _Tartuffe_.)]
-
-	'Many of them are moved to tears if their dog breaks its paw. At
-	Pere-Lachaise, when people strew flowers on their graves, as you so
-	charmingly say in Paris, we are told that they combined all the
-	virtues of the knights of old, and we hear of the great deeds of their
-	ancestor who lived in the days of Henri IV: If, despite the good
-	offices of Principe d'Araceli, I am not hanged, and if I ever come to
-	enjoy my fortune in Paris, I hope to invite you to dine with nine or
-	ten murderers who are honoured and feel no remorse.
-
-	'You and I, at that dinner, will be the only two whose hands are free
-	from blood, but I shall be despised and almost hated, as a bloody and
-	Jacobinical monster, and you will simply be despised as a plebeian who
-	has thrust his way into good society.'
-
-	'Nothing could be more true,' said Mademoiselle de La Mole.
-
-	Altamira looked at her in astonishment; Julien did not deign to look
-	at her.
-
-	'Note that the revolution at the head of which I found myself,' Conte
-	Altamira went on, 'was unsuccessful, solely because I would not cut
-	off three heads, and distribute among our supporters seven or eight
-	millions which happened to be in a safe of which I held the key. My
-	King, who is now burning to have me hanged, and who, before the
-	revolt, used to address me as _tu_, would have given me the Grand
-	Cordon of his Order if I had cut off those three heads and distributed
-	the money in those safes: for then I should have scored at least a
-	partial success, and my country would have had a Charter of sorts ...
-	Such is the way of the world, it is a game of chess.'
-
-	'Then,' replied Julien, his eyes ablaze, 'you did not know the game;
-	now ...'
-
-	'I should cut off the heads, you mean, and I should not be a Girondin
-	as you gave me to understand the other day? I will answer you,' said
-	Altamira sadly, 'when you have killed a man in a duel, and that is a
-	great deal less unpleasant than having him put to death by a
-	headsman.'
-
-	'Faith!' said Julien, 'the end justifies the means; if, instead of
-	being a mere atom, I had any power, I would hang three men to save the
-	lives of four.'
-
-	His eyes expressed the fire of conscience and a contempt for the vain
-	judgments of men; they met those of Mademoiselle de La Mole who stood
-	close beside him, and this contempt, instead of changing into an air
-	of gracious civility, seemed to intensify.
-
-	It shocked her profoundly; but it no longer lay in her power to forget
-	Julien; she moved indifferently away, taking her brother with her.
-
-	'I must take some punch, and dance a great deal,' she said to herself,
-	'I intend to take the best that is going, and to create an effect at
-	all costs. Good, here comes that master of impertinence, the Comte de
-	Fervaques.' She accepted his invitation; they danced. 'It remains to
-	be seen,' she thought, 'which of us will be the more impertinent, but,
-	to get the full enjoyment out of him, I must make him talk.' Presently
-	all the rest of the country dance became a pure formality. No one was
-	willing to miss any of Mathilde's piquant repartees. M. de Fervaques
-	grew troubled, and, being able to think of nothing but elegant
-	phrases, in place of ideas, began to smirk; Mathilde, who was out of
-	temper, treated him cruelly, and made an enemy of him. She danced
-	until daybreak, and finally went home horribly tired. But, in the
-	carriage, the little strength that remained to her was still employed
-	in making her melancholy and wretched. She had been scorned by Julien,
-	and was unable to scorn him.
-
-	Julien was on a pinnacle of happiness. Carried away unconsciously by
-	the music, the flowers, the beautiful women, the general elegance,
-	and, most of all, by his own imagination, which dreamed of
-	distinctions for himself and of liberty for mankind:
-
-	'What a fine ball!' he said to the Conte, 'nothing is lacking.'
-
-	'Thought is lacking,' replied Altamira.
-
-	And his features betrayed that contempt which is all the more striking
-	because one sees that politeness makes it a duty to conceal it.
-
-	'You are here, Monsieur le Comte. Is not that thought, and actively
-	conspiring, too?'
-
-	'I am here because of my name. But they hate thought in your
-	drawing-rooms. It must never rise above the level of a comic song:
-	then it is rewarded. But the man who thinks, if he shows energy and
-	novelty in his sallies, you call a _cynic_. Is not that the name that
-	one of your judges bestowed upon Courier? You put him in prison, and
-	Beranger also. Everything that is of any value among you,
-	intellectually, the _Congregation_ flings to the criminal police; and
-	society applauds.
-
-	'The truth is that your antiquated society values conventionality
-	above everything .. . You will never rise higher than martial
-	gallantry; you will have Murats, but never a Washington. I can see
-	nothing in France but vanity. A man who thinks of things as he speaks
-	may easily say something rash, and his host then imagines himself
-	insulted.'
-
-	At this point, the Conte's carriage, which was taking Julien home,
-	stopped at the Hotel de La Mole. Julien was in love with his
-	conspirator. Altamira had paid him a handsome compliment, evidently
-	springing from a profound conviction: 'You have not the French
-	frivolity, and you understand the principle of _utility_.' It so
-	happened that, only two evenings before, Julien had seen _Marino
-	Faliero_, a tragedy by M. Casimir Delavigne.
-
-	'Has not Israel Bertuccio more character than all those Venetian
-	nobles?' our rebellious plebeian asked himself; 'and yet they are men
-	whose noble descent can be proved as far back as the year 700, a
-	century before Charlemagne; whereas the bluest blood at M. de Retz's
-	ball tonight does not go farther back, and that only by a hop, skip
-	and jump, than the thirteenth century. Very well! Among those Venetian
-	nobles, so great by birth, it is Israel Bertuccio that one remembers.
-
-	'A conspiracy wipes out all the titles conferred by social caprice. In
-	those conditions, a man springs at once to the rank which his manner
-	of facing death assigns to him. The mind itself loses some of its
-	authority ...
-
-	'What would Danton be today, in this age of Valenods and Renais? Not
-	even a Deputy Crown Prosecutor .. .
-
-	'What am I saying? He would have sold himself to the _Congregation_;
-	he would be a Minister, for after all the great Danton did steal.
-	Mirabeau, too, sold himself. Napoleon stole millions in Italy,
-	otherwise he would have been brought to a standstill by poverty, like
-	Pichegru. Only La Fayette never stole. Must one steal, must one sell
-	oneself?' Julien wondered. The question arrested the flow of his
-	imagination. He spent the rest of the night reading the history of the
-	Revolution.
-
-	Next day, as he copied his letters in the library, he could still
-	think of nothing but Conte Altamira's conversation.
-
-	'It is quite true,' he said to himself, after a long spell of
-	absorption; 'if those Spanish Liberals had compromised the people by
-	a few crimes, they would not have been swept away so easily. They were
-	conceited, chattering boys ... like myself!' Julien suddenly cried, as
-	though awaking with a bound.
-
-	'What difficult thing have I ever done that gives me the right to
-	judge poor devils who, after all, once in their lives, have dared,
-	have begun to act? I am like a man who, on rising from table,
-	exclaims: "Tomorrow I shall not dine; that will not prevent me from
-	feeling strong and brisk as I do today." How can I tell what people
-	feel in the middle of a great action? .. .' These lofty thoughts were
-	interrupted by the sudden arrival of Mademoiselle de La Mole, who at
-	this moment entered the library. He was so excited by his admiration
-	for the great qualities of Danton, Mirabeau, Carnot, who had contrived
-	not to be crushed, that his eyes rested upon Mademoiselle de La Mole,
-	but without his thinking of her, without his greeting her, almost
-	without his seeing her. When at length his great staring eyes became
-	aware of her presence, the light died out in them. Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole remarked this with a feeling of bitterness.
-
-	In vain did she ask him for a volume of Vely's _Histoire de France_
-	which stood on the highest shelf, so that Julien was obliged to fetch
-	the longer of the two ladders. He brought the ladder; he found the
-	volume, he handed it to her, still without being able to think of her.
-	As he carried back the ladder, in his preoccupation, his elbow struck
-	one of the glass panes protecting the shelves; the sound of the
-	splinters falling on the floor at length aroused him. He hastened to
-	make his apology to Mademoiselle de La Mole; he tried to be polite,
-	but he was nothing more. Mathilde saw quite plainly that she had
-	disturbed him, that he would have preferred to dream of what had been
-	occupying his mind before her entry, rather than to talk to her. After
-	a long glance at him, she slowly left the room. Julien watched her as
-	she went. He enjoyed the contrast between the simplicity of the attire
-	she was now wearing and her sumptuous magnificence overnight. The
-	difference in her physiognomy was hardly less striking. This girl, so
-	haughty at the Duc de Retz's ball, had at this moment almost a
-	suppliant look. 'Really,' Julien told himself, 'that black gown shows
-	off the beauty of her figure better than anything; but why is she in
-	mourning?
-
-	'If I ask anyone the reason of this mourning, I shall only make myself
-	appear a fool as usual.' Julien had quite come to earth from the
-	soaring flight of his enthusiasm. 'I must read over all the letters I
-	have written today; Heaven knows how many missing words and blunders I
-	shall find.' As he was reading with forced attention the first of
-	these letters, he heard close beside him the rustle of a silken gown;
-	he turned sharply round; Mademoiselle de La Mole was standing by his
-	table, and smiling. This second interruption made Julien lose his
-	temper.
-
-	As for Mathilde, she had just become vividly aware that she meant
-	nothing to this young man; her smile was intended to cover her
-	embarrassment, and proved successful.
-
-	'Evidently, you are thinking about something that is extremely
-	interesting, Monsieur Sorel. Is it by any chance some curious anecdote
-	of the conspiracy that has sent the Conte Altamira here to Paris? Tell
-	me what it is? I am burning to know; I shall be discreet, I swear to
-	you!' This last sentence astonished her as she uttered it. What, she
-	was pleading with a subordinate! Her embarrassment grew, she adopted a
-	light manner:
-
-	'What can suddenly have turned you, who are ordinarily so cold, into
-	an inspired creature, a sort of Michelangelo prophet?'
-
-	This bold and indiscreet question, cutting Julien to the quick,
-	revived all his passion.
-
-	'Was Danton justified in stealing?' he said to her sharply, and with
-	an air that grew more and more savage. 'The Revolutionaries of
-	Piedmont, of Spain, ought they to have compromised the people by
-	crimes? To have given away, even to men without merit, all the
-	commands in the army, all the Crosses? Would not the men who wore
-	those Crosses have had reason to fear a Restoration of their King?
-	Ought they to have let the Treasury in Turin be pillaged? In a word,
-	Mademoiselle,' he said, as he came towards her with a terrible air,
-	'ought the man who seeks to banish ignorance and crime from the earth
-	to pass like a whirlwind and do evil as though blindly?'
-
-	Mathilde was afraid, she could not meet his gaze, and recoiled a
-	little. She looked at him for a moment; then, ashamed of her fear,
-	with a light step left the library.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 10
-	Queen Marguerite
-
-	Love! In what folly do you not contrive to make us
-	find pleasure?
-	_Letters of a Portuguese Nun_
-
-	Julien read over his letters. When the dinner bell sounded: 'How
-	ridiculous I must have appeared in the eyes of that Parisian doll!' he
-	said to himself; 'what madness to tell her what was really in my
-	thoughts! And yet perhaps not so very mad. The truth on this occasion
-	was worthy of me.
-
-	'Why, too, come and cross-examine me on private matters? Her question
-	was indiscreet. She forgot herself. My thoughts on Danton form no part
-	of the sacrifice for which her father pays me.'
-
-	On reaching the dining-room, Julien was distracted from his ill humour
-	by Mademoiselle de La Mole's deep mourning, which was all the more
-	striking since none of the rest of the family was in black.
-
-	After dinner, he found himself entirely recovered from the fit of
-	enthusiasm which had possessed him all day. Fortunately, the
-	Academician who knew Latin was present at dinner. There is the man who
-	will be least contemptuous of me, if, as I suppose, my question about
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole's mourning should prove a blunder.'
-
-	Mathilde was looking at him with a singular expression. 'There we have
-	an instance of the coquetry of the women of these parts, just as
-	Madame de Renal described it to me,' Julien told himself. 'I was not
-	agreeable to her this morning, I did not yield to her impulse for
-	conversation. My value has increased in her eyes. No doubt the devil
-	loses no opportunity there. Later on, her proud scorn will find out a
-	way of avenging itself. Let her do her worst. How different from the
-	woman I have lost! What natural charm! What simplicity! I knew what
-	was in her mind before she did; I could see her thoughts take shape; I
-	had no competitor, in her heart, but the fear of losing her children;
-	it was a reasonable and natural affection, indeed it was pleasant for
-	me who felt the same fear. I was a fool. The ideas that I had I formed
-	of Paris prevented me from appreciating that sublime woman.
-
-	'What a difference, great God! And what do I find here? A sere and
-	haughty vanity, all the refinements of self-esteem and nothing more.'
-
-	The party left the table. 'I must not let my Academician be
-	intercepted,' said Julien. He went up to him as they were moving into
-	the garden, assumed a meek, submissive air, and sympathised with his
-	rage at the success of _Hernani_.
-
-	'If only we lived in the days of _lettres de cachet_!' he said.
-
-	'Ah, then he would never have dared,' cried the Academician, with a
-	gesture worthy of Talma.
-
-	In speaking of a flower, Julien quoted a line or two from Virgil's
-	_Georgics_, and decided that nothing came up to the poetry of the abbe
-	Delille. In short, he flattered the Academician in every possible way.
-	After which, with an air of the utmost indifference: 'I suppose,' he
-	said to him, 'that Mademoiselle de La Mole has received a legacy from
-	some uncle for whom she is in mourning.'
-
-	'What! You live in the house,' said the Academician, coming to a
-	standstill, 'and you don't know her mania? Indeed, it is strange that
-	her mother allows such things; but, between you and me, it is not
-	exactly by strength of character that they shine in this family.
-	Mademoiselle Mathilde has enough for them all, and leads them by the
-	nose. Today is the 3Oth of April!' and the Academician broke off,
-	looking at Julien, with an air of connivance. Julien smiled as
-	intelligently as he was able.
-
-	'What connection can there be between leading a whole household by the
-	nose, wearing black and the 30th of April?' he asked himself. 'I must
-	be even stupider than I thought.
-
-	'I must confess to you,' he said to the Academician, and his eye
-	continued the question.
-
-	'Let us take a turn in the garden,' said the Academician, delighted to
-	see this chance of delivering a long and formal speech. 'What! Is it
-	really possible that you do not know what happened on the 30th of
-	April, 1574?'
-
-	'Where?' asked Julien, in surprise.
-
-	'On the Place de Greve.'
-
-	Julien was so surprised that this name did not enlighten him. His
-	curiosity, the prospect of a tragic interest, so attuned to his
-	nature, gave him those sparkling eyes which a story-teller so loves to
-	see in his audience. The Academician, delighted to find a virgin ear,
-	related at full length to Julien how, on the 30th of April, 1574, the
-	handsomest young man of his age, Boniface de La Mole, and Annibal de
-	Coconasso, a Piedmontese gentleman, his friend, had been beheaded on
-	the Place de Greve. 'La Mole was the adored lover of Queen Marguerite
-	of Navarre; and observe,' the Academician added, 'that Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole is named Mathilde-Marguerite. La Mole was at the same time
-	the favourite of the Duc d'Alencon and an intimate friend of the King
-	of Navarre, afterwards Henri IV, the husband of his mistress. On
-	Shrove Tuesday in this year, 1574, the Court happened to be at
-	Saint-Germain, with the unfortunate King Charles IX, who was on his
-	deathbed. La Mole wished to carry off the Princes, his friends, whom
-	Queen Catherine de' Medici was keeping as prisoners with the Court. He
-	brought up two hundred horsemen under the walls of Saint-Germain, the
-	Due d'Alencon took fright, and La Mole was sent to the scaffold.
-
-	'But what appeals to Mademoiselle Mathilde, as she told me herself,
-	seven or eight years ago, when she was only twelve, for she has a
-	head, such a head! .. .' and the Academician raised his eyes to
-	heaven. 'What impresses her in this political catastrophe is that
-	Queen Marguerite of Navarre, who had waited concealed in a house on
-	the Place de Greve, made bold to ask the executioner for her lover's
-	head. And the following night, at midnight, she took the head in her
-	carriage, and went to bury it with her own hands in a chapel which
-	stood at the foot of the hill of Montmartre.'
-
-	'Is it possible?' exclaimed Julien, deeply touched.
-
-	'Mademoiselle Mathilde despises her brother because, as you see, he
-	thinks nothing of all this ancient history, and never goes into
-	mourning on the 30th of April. It is since this famous execution, and
-	to recall the intimate friendship between La Mole and Coconasso, which
-	Coconasso, being as he was an Italian, was named Annibal, that all the
-	men of this family have borne that name. And,' the Academician went
-	on, lowering his voice, 'this Coconasso was, on the authority of
-	Charles IX, himself, one of the bloodiest assassins on the 24th of
-	August, 1572.. But how is it possible, my dear Sorel, that you are
-	ignorant of these matters, you, who are an inmate of the house?'
-
-	'Then that is why twice, during the dinner, Mademoiselle de La Mole
-	addressed her brother as Annibal. I thought I had not heard aright.'
-
-	'It was a reproach. It is strange that the Marquise permits such folly
-	... That great girl's husband will see some fine doings!'
-
-	This expression was followed by five or six satirical phrases. The joy
-	at thus revealing an intimate secret that shone in the Academician's
-	eyes shocked Julien. 'What are we but a pair of servants engaged in
-	slandering our employers?' he thought. 'But nothing ought to surprise
-	me that is done by this academic gentleman.'
-
-	One day Julien had caught him on his knees before the Marquise de La
-	Mole; he was begging her for a tobacco licence for a nephew in the
-	country. That night, he gathered from a little maid of Mademoiselle de
-	La Mole, who was making love to him, as Elisa had done in the past,
-	that her mistress's mourning was by no means put on to attract
-	attention. This eccentricity was an intimate part of her nature. She
-	really loved this La Mole, the favoured lover of the most brilliant
-	Queen of her age, who had died for having sought to set his friends at
-	liberty. And what friends! The First Prince of the Blood and Henri IV.
-
-	Accustomed to the perfect naturalness that shone through the whole of
-	Madame de Renal's conduct, Julien saw nothing but affectation in all
-	the women of Paris, and even without feeling disposed to melancholy,
-	could think of nothing to say to them. Mademoiselle de La Mole was the
-	exception.
-
-	He began no longer to mistake for hardness of heart the kind of beauty
-	that goes with nobility of bearing. He had long conversations with
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole, who would stroll with him in the garden
-	sometimes after dinner, past the open windows of the drawing-room. She
-	told him one day that she was reading d'Aubigne's _History_, and
-	Brantome. 'A strange choice,' thought Julien, 'and the Marquise does
-	not allow her to read the novels of Walter Scott!'
-
-	One day she related to him, with that glow of pleasure in her eyes
-	which proves the sincerity of the speaker's admiration, the feat of a
-	young woman in the reign of Henri in, which she had just discovered
-	in the _Memoires_ by l'Etoile: finding that her husband was unfaithful,
-	she had stabbed him.
-
-	Julien's self-esteem was flattered. A person surrounded by such
-	deference, one who, according to the Academician, was the leader of
-	the household, deigned to address him in a tone which might almost be
-	regarded as friendly. 'I was mistaken,' was his next thought; 'this is
-	not familiarity, I am only the listener to a tragic story, it is the
-	need to speak. I am regarded as learned by this family. I shall go and
-	read Brantome, d'Aubigne, l'Etoile. I shall be able to challenge some
-	of the anecdotes which Mademoiselle de La Mole cites to me. I must
-	emerge from this part of a passive listener.'
-
-	In course of time his conversations with this girl, whose manner was
-	at once so imposing and so easy, became more interesting. He forgot
-	his melancholy role as a plebeian in revolt. He found her learned and
-	indeed rational. Her opinions in the garden differed widely from those
-	which she maintained in the drawing-room. At times she displayed with
-	him an enthusiasm and a frankness which formed a perfect contrast with
-	her normal manner, so haughty and cold.
-
-	'The Wars of the League are the heroic age of France,' she said to
-	him one day, her eyes aflame with intellect and enthusiasm. 'Then
-	everyone fought to secure a definite object which he desired in order
-	to make his party triumph, and not merely to win a stupid Cross as in
-	the days of your Emperor. You must agree that there was less egoism
-	and pettiness. I love that period.'
-
-	'And Boniface de La Mole was its hero,' he said to her.
-
-	'At any rate he was loved as it is perhaps pleasant to be loved. What
-	woman alive today would not be horrified to touch the head of her
-	decapitated lover?'
-
-	Madame de La Mole called her daughter indoors. Hypocrisy, to be
-	effective, must be concealed; and Julien, as we see, had taken
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole partly into his confidence as to his
-	admiration for Napoleon.
-
-	'That is the immense advantage which they have over us,' he said to
-	himself, when left alone in the garden. 'The history of their
-	ancestors raises them above vulgar sentiments, and they have not
-	always to be thinking of their daily bread! What a wretched state of
-	things!' he added bitterly. 'I am not worthy to discuss these serious
-	matters. My life is nothing more than a sequence of hypocrisies,
-	because I have not an income of a thousand francs with which to buy my
-	bread.'
-
-	'What are you dreaming of, Sir?' Mathilde asked him, running back
-	outdoors.
-
-	Julien was tired of despising himself. In a moment of pride, he told
-	her frankly what he was thinking. He blushed deeply when speaking of
-	his poverty to a person who was so rich. He sought to make it quite
-	clear by his proud tone that he asked for nothing. Never had he seemed
-	so handsome to Mathilde; she found in him an expression of sensibility
-	and frankness which he often lacked.
-
-	Less than a month later, Julien was strolling pensively in the garden
-	of the Hotel de La Mole; but his features no longer showed the
-	harshness, as of a surly philosopher, which the constant sense of his
-	own inferiority impressed on them. He had just come from the door of
-	the drawing-room to which he had escorted Mademoiselle de La Mole, who
-	pretended that she had hurt her foot when running with her brother.
-
-	'She leaned upon my arm in the strangest fashion!' Julien said to
-	himself. 'Am I a fool, or can it be true that she has a liking for
-	me? She listens to me so meekly even when I confess to her all the
-	sufferings of my pride! She, who is so haughty with everyone else!
-	They would be greatly surprised in the drawing-room if they saw her
-	looking like that. There is no doubt about it, she never assumes that
-	meek, friendly air with anyone but myself.'
-
-	Julien tried not to exaggerate this singular friendship. He compared
-	it himself to an armed neutrality. Day by day, when they met, before
-	resuming the almost intimate tone of the day before, they almost asked
-	themselves: 'Are we friends today, or enemies?' Julien had realised
-	that, were he once to allow himself to be insulted with impunity by
-	this haughty girl, all was lost. 'If I must quarrel, is it not to my
-	advantage to do so from the first, in defending the lawful rights of
-	my pride, rather than in repelling the marks of contempt that must
-	quickly follow the slightest surrender of what I owe to my personal
-	dignity?'
-
-	Several times, on days of mutual discord, Mathilde tried to adopt with
-	him the tone of a great lady; she employed a rare skill in these
-	attempts, but Julien repulsed them rudely.
-
-	One day he interrupted her suddenly: 'Has Mademoiselle de La Mole some
-	order to give to her father's secretary?' he asked her; 'he is obliged
-	to listen to her orders and to carry them out with respect; but apart
-	from that, he has not one word to say to her. He certainly is not paid
-	to communicate his thoughts to her.'
-
-	This state of affairs, and the singular doubts which Julien felt
-	banished the boredom which he found regularly in that drawing-room, in
-	which, for all its magnificence, people were afraid of everything, and
-	it was not thought proper to treat any subject lightly.
-
-	'It would be amusing if she loved me! Whether she loves me or not,'
-	Julien went on, 'I have as my intimate confidant an intelligent girl,
-	before whom I see the whole household tremble, and most of all the
-	Marquis de Croisenois. That young man who is so polished, so gentle,
-	so brave, who combines in his own person all the advantages of birth
-	and fortune, any one of which would set my heart so at ease! He is
-	madly in love with her, he is going to marry her. Think of all the
-	letters M. de La Mole has made me write to the two lawyers arranging
-	the contract! And I who see myself so subordinate, pen in hand, two
-	hours later, here in the garden, I triumph over so attractive a young
-	man: for after all, her preference is striking, direct. Perhaps, too,
-	she hates the idea of him as a future husband. She is proud enough for
-	that. And the favour she shows me, I obtain on the footing of a
-	confidential servant!
-
-	'But no, either I am mad, or she is making love to me; the more I show
-	myself cold and respectful towards her, the more she seeks me out.
-	That might be deliberate, an affectation; but I see her eyes become
-	animated when I appear unexpectedly. Are the women of Paris capable of
-	pretending to such an extent? What does it matter! I have appearances
-	on my side, let us make the most of them. My God, how handsome she is!
-	How I admire her great blue eyes, seen at close range, and looking at
-	me as they often do! What a difference between this spring and the
-	last, when I was living in misery, keeping myself alive by my strength
-	of character, surrounded by those three hundred dirty and evil-minded
-	hypocrites! I was almost as evil as they.'
-
-	In moments of depression: That girl is making a fool of me,' Julien
-	would think. 'She is plotting with her brother to mystify me. But she
-	seems so to despise her brother's want of energy! He is brave, and
-	there is no more to be said, she tells me. He has not an idea which
-	ventures to depart from the fashion. It is always I who am obliged to
-	take up her defence. A girl of nineteen! At that age can a girl be
-	faithful at every moment of the day to the code of hypocrisy that she
-	has laid down for herself?
-
-	'On the other hand, when Mademoiselle de La Mole fastens her great
-	blue eyes on me with a certain strange expression, Comte Norbert
-	always moves away. That seems to me suspicious; ought he not to be
-	annoyed at his sister's singling out a _domestic_ of their household?
-	For I have heard the Duc de Chaulnes use that term of me.' At this
-	memory anger obliterated every other feeling. 'Is it only the love of
-	old-fashioned speech in that ducal maniac?
-
-	'Anyhow, she is pretty!' Julien went on, with the glare of a tiger. 'I
-	will have her, I shall then depart and woe to him that impedes me in
-	my flight!'
-
-	This plan became Julien's sole occupation; he could no longer give a
-	thought to anything else. His days passed like hours. At all hours of
-	the day, when he sought to occupy his mind with some serious business,
-	his thoughts would abandon everything, and he would come to himself a
-	quarter of an hour later, his heart throbbing, his head confused, and
-	dreaming of this one idea: 'Does she love me?'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 11
-	The Tyranny of a Girl
-
-	I admire her beauty, but I fear her intelligence.
-	MERIMEE
-
-	Had Julien devoted to the consideration of what went on in the
-	drawing-room the time which he spent in exaggerating Mathilde's
-	beauty, or in lashing himself into a fury at the aloofness natural to
-	her family, whom she was forgetting in his company, he would have
-	understood in what her despotic power over everyone round about her
-	consisted. Whenever anyone earned Mademoiselle de La Mole's
-	displeasure, she knew how to punish him by a witticism so calculated,
-	so well chosen, apparently so harmless, so aptly launched, that the
-	wound it left deepened the more he thought of it. In time she became
-	deadly to wounded vanity. As she attached no importance to many things
-	that were the object of serious ambition with the rest of her family,
-	she always appeared cool in their eyes. The drawing-rooms of the
-	nobility are pleasant things to mention after one has left them, but
-	that is all; bare politeness is something in itself only for the first
-	few days. Julien experienced this; after the first enchantment, the
-	first bewilderment. 'Politeness,' he said to himself, 'is nothing more
-	than the absence of the irritation which would come from bad manners.'
-	Mathilde was frequently bored, perhaps she would have been bored in
-	any circumstances. At such times to sharpen the point of an epigram
-	was for her a distraction and a real pleasure.
-
-	It was perhaps in order to have victims slightly more amusing than her
-	distinguished relatives, the Academician and the five or six other
-	inferiors who formed their court, that she had given grounds for hope
-	to the Marquis de Croisenois, the Comte de Caylus and two or three
-	other young men of the highest distinction. They were nothing more to
-	her than fresh subjects for epigram.
-
-	We confess with sorrow, for we are fond of Mathilde, that she had
-	received letters from several of their number, and had occasionally
-	answered them. We hasten to add that this character in our story
-	forms an exception to the habits of the age. It is not, generally
-	speaking, with want of prudence that one can reproach the pupils of
-	the noble Convent of the Sacre-Coeur.
-
-	One day the Marquis de Croisenois returned to Mathilde a distinctly
-	compromising letter which she had written him the day before. He
-	thought that by this sign of extreme prudence he was greatly
-	strengthening his position. But imprudence was what Mathilde enjoyed
-	in her correspondence. It was her chief pleasure to play with fire.
-	She did not speak to him again for six weeks.
-
-	She amused herself with the letters of these young men; but, according
-	to her, they were all alike. It was always the most profound, the most
-	melancholy passion.
-
-	'They are all the same perfect gentlemen, ready to set off for
-	Palestine,' she said to her cousin. 'Can you think of anything more
-	insipid? Think that this is the sort of letter that I am going to
-	receive for the rest of my life! These letters can only change every
-	twenty years, according to the kind of occupation that is in fashion.
-	They must have been less colourless in the days of the Empire. Then
-	all these young men in society had seen or performed actions in which
-	there was real greatness. The Due de N----, my uncle, fought at
-	Wagram.'
-
-	'What intelligence is required to wield a sabre? And when that has
-	happened to them, they talk about it so often!' said Mademoiselle de
-	Sainte-Heredite, Mathilde's cousin.
-
-	'Oh, well, those stories amuse me. To have been in a real battle, one
-	of Napoleon's battles, in which ten thousand soldiers were killed, is
-	a proof of courage. Exposing oneself to danger elevates the soul, and
-	saves it from the boredom in which all my poor adorers seem to be
-	plunged; and it is contagious, that boredom. Which of them ever dreams
-	of doing anything out of the common? They seek to win my hand, a fine
-	enterprise! I am rich, and my father will help on his son-in-law. Oh,
-	if only he could find one who was at all amusing!'
-
-	Mathilde's vivid, picturesque point of view affected her speech, as we
-	can see. Often something she said jarred on the refined nerves of her
-	highly polished friends. They would almost have admitted, had she been
-	less in the fashion, that there was something in her language a little
-	too highly coloured for feminine delicacy.
-
-	She, on her part, was most unjust to the handsome men on horseback who
-	throng the Bois de Boulogne. She looked towards the future, not with
-	terror, that would have been too strong a feeling, but with a disgust
-	very rare at her age.
-
-	What had she left to desire? Fortune, noble birth, wit, beauty, or so
-	it was said, and she believed, all had been heaped upon her by the
-	hand of chance.
-
-	Such were the thoughts of the most envied heiress of the Faubourg
-	Saint-Germain, when she began to find pleasure in strolling with
-	Julien. She was amazed at his pride; she admired the cunning of this
-	little plebeian. 'He will manage to get himself made a Bishop like the
-	abbe Maury,' she said to herself.
-
-	Presently the sincere and unfeigned resistance, with which our hero
-	received a number of her ideas, began to occupy her mind; she thought
-	about him; she reported to her cousin the pettiest details of their
-	conversations, and found that she could never succeed in displaying
-	them in every aspect.
-
-	Suddenly an idea dawned upon her: 'I have the good fortune to be in
-	love,' she told herself one day, with an indescribable transport of
-	joy. 'I am in love, I am in love, it is quite clear! At my age, a
-	young girl, beautiful, clever, where can she find sensations, if not
-	in love? I may do what I like, I shall never feel any love for
-	Croisenois, Caylus, _e tutti quanti_. They are perfect, too perfect
-	perhaps; in short, they bore me.'
-
-	She turned over in her mind all the descriptions of passion which she
-	had read in _Manon Lescaut_, the _Nouvelle Heloise_, the _Letters of a
-	Portuguese Nun_, and so forth. There was no question, of course, of
-	anything but a grand passion; mere fleeting affection was unworthy of
-	a girl of her age and birth. She bestowed the name of love only upon
-	that heroic sentiment which was to be found in France in the days of
-	Henri IV and Bassompierre. That love never basely succumbed to
-	obstacles; far from it, it caused great deeds to be done. 'What a
-	misfortune for me that there is not a real Court like that of
-	Catherine de' Medici or Louis XIII! I feel that I am equal to
-	everything that is most daring and great. What should I not do with a
-	King who was a man of feeling, like Louis XII, sighing at my feet! I
-	should lead him to the Vendee, as Baron de Tolly is always saying, and
-	from there he would reconquer his Kingdom; then no more talk of a
-	Charter ... and Julien would aid me. What is it that he lacks? A
-	name and a fortune. He would make a name for himself, he would acquire
-	a fortune.
-
-	'The Marquis de Croisenois lacks nothing, and all his life long he
-	will be merely a Duke, half Ultra, half Liberal, an undecided creature
-	always holding back from extremes, and consequently finding himself
-	everywhere in the second rank.
-
-	'Where is the great action which is not an extreme at the moment in
-	which one undertakes it? It is when it is accomplished that it seems
-	possible to creatures of common clay. Yes, it is love with all its
-	miracles that is going to reign in my heart; I feel it by the fire
-	that is animating me. Heaven owed me this favour. Not in vain will it
-	have heaped every advantage upon a single head. My happiness will be
-	worthy of myself. Each of my days will not coldly resemble the day
-	before. There is already something grand and audacious in daring to
-	love a man placed so far beneath me in social position. Let me see:
-	will he continue to deserve me? At the first sign of weakness that I
-	observe in him, I abandon him. A girl of my birth, and with the
-	chivalrous character which they are so kind as to attribute to me'
-	(this was one of her father's sayings) 'ought not to behave like a
-	fool.
-
-	'Is not that the part that I should be playing if I loved the Marquis
-	de Croisenois? It would be simply a repetition of the happiness of my
-	cousins, whom I despise so utterly. I know beforehand everything that
-	the poor Marquis would say to me, all that I should have to say to him
-	in reply. What is the use of a love that makes one yawn? One might as
-	well take to religion. I should have a scene at the signing of my
-	marriage contract like my youngest cousin, with the noble relatives
-	shedding tears, provided they were not made angry by a final condition
-	inserted in the contract the day before by the solicitor to the other
-	party.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 12.
-	Another Danton
-
-
-	The need for anxiety explains the character of the beautiful
-	Marguerite de Valois, my aunt, who soon afterwards married
-	the King of Navarre, whom we now see on the throne of France
-	under the name of Henri IV. The need to gamble was the key
-	to the character of this delightful princess; hence the
-	quarrels and the reconciliations with her brothers from
-	the age of sixteen onwards. And what does a young girl gamble
-	with? The most precious thing she has: her reputation, the
-	possibility of esteem for her entire life.
-	_Memoirs of the Due d'Angouleme_, natural son of Charles IX
-
-	'With Julien and me there is no contract to be signed, no lawyer;
-	everything is heroic, everything will be left to chance. But for
-	nobility, which he lacks, it is the love of Marguerite de Valois for
-	young La Mole, the most distinguished man of his time. Is it my fault
-	if the young men at Court are such ardent devotees of the Conventions,
-	and turn pale at the mere thought of any adventure that is slightly
-	out of the common? A little expedition to Greece or Africa is to
-	them the height of audacity, and even then they can only go in a
-	troop. As soon as they find themselves alone, they become afraid, not
-	of Bedouin spears, but of ridicule, and that drives them mad.
-
-	'My little Julien, on the contrary, will only act alone. Never, in
-	that privileged being, is there the slightest thought of seeking the
-	approval and support of others! He despises other people, that is why
-	I do not despise him.
-
-	'If, with his poverty, Julien had been noble, my love would be nothing
-	more than a piece of vulgar folly, an unfortunate marriage; I should
-	not object to that; it would lack that element which characterises
-	great passion: the immensity of the difficulty to be overcome and the
-	black uncertainty of events.'
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole was so absorbed in these fine speculations
-	that next day, quite unintentionally, she sang Julien's praises to the
-	Marquis de Croisenois and her brother. Her eloquence went so far that
-	they became annoyed.
-
-	'Beware of that young man, who has so much energy,' her brother cried;
-	'if the Revolution begins again, he will have us all guillotined.'
-
-	She made no answer, and hastened to tease her brother and the Marquis
-	de Croisenois over the fear that energy inspired in them. It was
-	nothing more, really, than the fear of meeting something unexpected,
-	the fear of being brought up short in the presence of the
-	unexpected ...
-
-	'Still, gentlemen, still the fear of ridicule, a monster which,
-	unfortunately, died in 1816.'
-
-	'There can be no more ridicule,' M. de La Mole used to say, 'in a
-	country where there are two Parties.'
-
-	His daughter had assimilated this idea.
-
-	'And so, gentlemen,' she told Julien's enemies, 'you will be haunted
-	by fear all your lives, and afterwards people will say of you:
-
-	'"It was not a wolf, it was only a shadow."'
-
-	Mathilde soon left them. Her brother's remark filled her with horror;
-	it greatly disturbed her; but after sleeping on it, she interpreted it
-	as the highest possible praise.
-
-	'In this age, when all energy is dead, his energy makes them afraid. I
-	shall tell him what my brother said. I wish to see what answer he will
-	make. But I shall choose a moment when his eyes are glowing. Then he
-	cannot lie to me.
-
-	'Another Danton?' she went on after a long, vague spell of musing.
-	'Very well! Let us suppose that the Revolution has begun. What parts
-	would Croisenois and my brother play? It is all prescribed for them:
-	sublime resignation. They would be heroic sheep, allowing their
-	throats to be cut without a word. Their sole fear when dying would
-	still be of committing a breach of taste. My little Julien would blow
-	out the brains of the Jacobin who came to arrest him, if he had the
-	slightest hope of escaping. He, at least, has no fear of bad taste.'
-
-	These last words made her pensive again; they revived painful
-	memories, and destroyed all her courage. They reminded her of the
-	witticisms of MM. de Caylus, de Croisenois, de Luz, and her brother.
-	These gentlemen were unanimous in accusing Julien of a _priestly_ air,
-	humble and hypocritical.
-
-	'But,' she went on, suddenly, her eye sparkling with joy, 'by the
-	bitterness and the frequency of their sarcasms, they prove, in spite
-	of themselves, that he is the most distinguished man that we have seen
-	this winter. What do his faults, his absurdities matter? He has
-	greatness, and they are shocked by it, they who in other respects are
-	so kind and indulgent. He knows well that he is poor, and that he has
-	studied to become a priest; they are squadron commanders, and have no
-	need of study; it is a more comfortable life.
-
-	'In spite of all the drawbacks of his eternal black coat, and of that
-	priestly face, which he is obliged to assume, poor boy, if he is not
-	to die of hunger, his merit alarms them, nothing could be clearer. And
-	that priestly expression, he no longer wears it when we have been for
-	a few moments by ourselves. Besides, when these gentlemen say anything
-	which they consider clever and startling, is not their first glance
-	always at Julien? I have noticed that distinctly. And yet they know
-	quite well that he never speaks to them, unless he is asked a
-	question. It is only myself that he addresses. He thinks that I have a
-	lofty nature. He replies to their objections only so far as politeness
-	requires. He becomes respectful at once. With me, he will discuss
-	things for hours on end, he is not sure of his own ideas if I offer
-	the slightest objection. After all, all this winter we have not heard
-	a shot fired; the only possible way to attract attention has been by
-	one's talk. Well, my father, a superior man, and one who will greatly
-	advance the fortunes of our family, respects Julien. All the rest hate
-	him, no one despises him, except my mother's religious friends.'
-
-	The Comte de Caylus had or pretended to have a great passion for
-	horses; he spent all his time in his stables, and often took his
-	luncheon there. This great passion, combined with his habit of never
-	laughing, had won him a great esteem among his friends: he was the
-	'strong man' of their little circle.
-
-	As soon as it had assembled next day behind Madame de La Mole's
-	armchair, Julien not being present, M. de Caylus, supported by
-	Croisenois and Norbert, launched a violent attack upon the good
-	opinion Mathilde had of Julien, without any reason and almost as soon
-	as he saw Mademoiselle de La Mole. She detected this stratagem a mile
-	off, and was charmed by it.
-
-	'There they are all in league,' she said to herself, 'against a man
-	who has not ten louis to his name, and can answer them only when he is
-	questioned. They are afraid of him in his black coat. What would he
-	be with epaulettes?'
-
-	Never had she been so brilliant. At the first onslaught, she covered
-	Caylus and his allies with witty sarcasm. When the fire of these
-	brilliant officers' pleasantries was extinguished:
-
-	'Tomorrow some country squire from the mountains of the
-	Franche-Comte,' she said to M. de Caylus, 'has only to discover that
-	Julien is his natural son, and give him a name and a few thousand
-	francs, and in six weeks he will have grown moustaches like
-	yourselves, gentlemen; in six months he will be an officer of hussars
-	like yourselves, gentlemen. And then the greatness of his character
-	will no longer be a joke. I can see you reduced, My Lord Duke-to-be,
-	to that old and worthless plea: the superiority of the nobility of the
-	Court to the provincial nobility. But what defence have you left if I
-	choose to take an extreme case, if I am so unkind as to make Julien's
-	father a Spanish Duke, a prisoner of war at Besancon in Napoleon's
-	time, who, from a scruple of conscience, acknowledges him on his
-	deathbed?'
-
-	All these assumptions of a birth out of wedlock were regarded by MM.
-	de Caylus and de Croisenois as in distinctly bad taste. This was all
-	that they saw in Mathilde's argument.
-
-	Obedient as Norbert was, his sister's meaning was so unmistakable that
-	he assumed an air of gravity, little in keeping, it must be confessed,
-	with his genial, smiling features. He ventured to say a few words:
-
-	'Are you unwell, dear?' Mathilde answered him with a mock-serious
-	expression. 'You must be feeling very ill to reply to a joke with a
-	sermon.
-
-	'A sermon, from you! Are you thinking of asking to be made a Prefect?'
-
-	Mathilde very soon forgot the annoyance of the Comte de Caylus,
-	Norbert's ill humour and the silent despair of M. de Croisenois. She
-	had to make up her mind over a desperate idea which had taken
-	possession of her.
-
-	'Julien is quite sincere with me,' she told herself; 'at his age, in
-	an inferior state of fortune, wretched as an astounding ambition makes
-	him, he needs a woman friend. I can be that friend; but I see no sign
-	in him of love. With the audacity of his nature, he would have spoken
-	to me of his love.'
-
-	This uncertainty, this inward discussion, which, from now onwards,
-	occupied every moment of Mathilde's life, and in support of which,
-	whenever Julien addressed her, she found fresh arguments, completely
-	banished those periods of depression to which she was so liable.
-
-	The daughter of a man of intelligence who might become a Minister, and
-	restore their forests to the Clergy, Mademoiselle de La Mole had
-	been, in the Convent of the Sacre-Coeur, the object of the most
-	extravagant flatteries. The harm done in this way can never be
-	effaced. They had persuaded her that, in view of all her advantages of
-	birth, fortune, etc., she ought to be happier than other girls. This
-	is the source of the boredom from which princes suffer, and of all
-	their follies.
-
-	Mathilde had not been immune to the fatal influence of this idea.
-	However intelligent a girl may be, she cannot be on her guard for ten
-	years against the flattery of an entire convent, especially when it
-	appears to be so well founded.
-
-	>From the moment in which she decided that she was in love with Julien,
-	she was no longer bored. Every day she congratulated herself on the
-	decision she had made to indulge in a grand passion. 'This amusement
-	has its dangers,' she thought. 'All the better! A thousand times
-	better!
-
-	'Without a grand passion, I was languishing with boredom at the best
-	moment in a girl's life, between sixteen and twenty. I have already
-	wasted my best years; with no pleasure but to listen to the nonsense
-	talked by my mother's friends, who at Coblenz, in 1792, were not
-	quite, one gathers, so strict in their conduct, as they are today in
-	speech.'
-
-	It was while Mathilde was still devoured by this great uncertainty
-	that Julien was unable to understand the gaze which she kept fastened
-	upon him. He did indeed find an increased coldness in Comte Herbert's
-	manner, and a stiffening of pride in that of MM. de Caylus, de Luz and
-	de Croisenois. He was used to it. This discomfiture befell him at
-	times after an evening in which he had shone more brightly than
-	befitted his position. But for the special welcome which Mathilde
-	extended to him, and the curiosity which the whole scene inspired in
-	him, he would have refrained from following into the garden these
-	brilliant young men with the moustaches, when after dinner they
-	escorted Mademoiselle de La Mole.
-
-	'Yes, I cannot possibly blind myself to the fact,' thought Julien,
-	'Mademoiselle de La Mole keeps looking at me in a strange fashion.
-	But, even when her beautiful blue eyes seem to gaze at me with least
-	restraint, I can always read in them a cold, malevolent scrutiny. Is
-	it possible that this is love? How different from the look in Madame
-	de Renal's eyes.'
-
-	One evening after dinner, Julien, who had gone with M. de La Mole to
-	his study, came rapidly out to the garden. As he walked boldly up to
-	the group round Mathilde, he overheard a few words uttered in a loud
-	voice. She was teasing her brother. Julien heard his own name uttered
-	distinctly twice. He appeared; a profound silence at once fell, and
-	vain efforts were made to break it. Mademoiselle de La Mole and her
-	brother were too much excited to think of another topic of
-	conversation. MM. de Caylus, de Croisenois, de Luz and another of
-	their friends met Julien with an icy coldness. He withdrew.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 13
-	A Plot
-
-	Disconnected remarks, chance meetings turn into proofs
-	of the utmost clarity in the eyes of the imaginative man,
-	if he has any fire in his heart.
-	SCHILLER
-
-	On the following day he again surprised Norbert and his sister, who
-	were talking about him. On his arrival, a deathly silence fell, as on
-	the day before. His suspicions knew no bounds. 'Can these charming
-	young people be planning to make a fool of me? I must own, that is far
-	more probable, far more natural than a pretended passion on the part
-	of Mademoiselle de La Mole, for a poor devil of a secretary. For one
-	thing, do these people have passions? Mystification is their
-	specialty. They are jealous of my wretched little superiority in
-	language. Being jealous, that is another of their weaknesses. That
-	explains everything. Mademoiselle de La Mole hopes to persuade me that
-	she is singling me out, simply to offer me as a spectacle to her
-	intended.'
-
-	This cruel suspicion completely changed Julien's moral attitude. The
-	idea encountered in his heart a germ of love which it had no
-	difficulty in destroying. This love was founded only upon Mathilde's
-	rare beauty, or rather upon her regal manner and her admirable style
-	in dress. In this respect Julien was still an upstart. A beautiful
-	woman of fashion is, we are assured, the sight that most astonishes a
-	clever man of peasant origin when he arrives amid the higher ranks of
-	society. It was certainly not Mathilde's character that had set Julien
-	dreaming for days past. He had enough sense to grasp that he knew
-	nothing about her character. Everything that he saw of it might be
-	only a pretence.
-
-	For instance, Mathilde would not for anything in the world have failed
-	to hear mass on a Sunday; almost every day she went to church with her
-	mother. If, in the drawing-room of the Hotel de La Mole, some
-	impudent fellow forgot where he was and allowed himself to make the
-	remotest allusion to some jest aimed at the real or supposed interests
-	of Throne or Altar, Mathilde would at once assume an icy severity. Her
-	glance, which was so sparkling, took on all the expressionless pride
-	of an old family portrait.
-
-	But Julien knew for certain that she always had in her room one or two
-	of the most philosophical works of Voltaire. He himself frequently
-	abstracted a volume or two of the handsome edition so magnificently
-	bound. By slightly separating the other volumes on the shelf, he
-	concealed the absence of the volume he was taking away; but soon he
-	discovered that someone else was reading Voltaire. He had recourse to
-	a trick of the Seminary, he placed some little pieces of horsehair
-	across the volumes which he supposed might interest Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole. They vanished for weeks at a time.
-
-	M. de La Mole, losing patience with his bookseller, who kept sending
-	him all the sham _Memoirs_, gave Julien orders to buy every new book
-	that was at all sensational. But, so that the poison might not spread
-	through the household, the secretary was instructed to place these
-	books in a little bookcase that stood in the Marquis's own room. He
-	soon acquired the certainty that if any of these books were hostile to
-	the interests of Throne and Altar, they were not long in vanishing. It
-	was certainly not Norbert that was reading them.
-
-	Julien, exaggerating the importance of this discovery, credited
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole with a Machiavellian duplicity. This feigned
-	criminality wa a charm in his eyes, almost the only moral charm that
-	she possessed. The tediousness of hypocrisy and virtuous conversation
-	drove him to this excess.
-
-	He excited his imagination rather than let himself be carried away by
-	love.
-
-	It was after he had lost himself in dreams of the elegance of
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole's figure, the excellent taste of her
-	toilet, the whiteness of her hand, the beauty of her arm, the
-	_disinvoltura_ of all her movements, that he found himself in love.
-	Then, to complete her charm, he imagined her to be a Catherine de'
-	Medici. Nothing was too profound or too criminal for the character
-	that he assigned to her. It was the ideal of the Maslons, the Frilairs
-	and Castanedes whom he had admired in his younger days. It was, in
-	short, the ideal, to him, of Paris.
-
-	Was ever anything so absurd as to imagine profundity or criminality in
-	the Parisian character?
-
-	'It is possible that this trio may be making a fool of me,' he
-	thought. The reader has learned very little of Julien's nature if he
-	has not already seen the sombre, frigid expression that he assumed
-	when his eyes met those of Mathilde. A bitter irony repulsed the
-	assurances of friendship with which Mademoiselle de La Mole in
-	astonishment ventured on two or three occasions, to try him.
-
-	Piqued by his sudden eccentricity, the heart of this girl, naturally
-	cold, bored, responsive to intelligence, became as passionate as it
-	was in her nature to be. But there was also a great deal of pride in
-	Mathilde's nature, and the birth of a sentiment which made all her
-	happiness dependent upon another was attended by a sombre melancholy.
-
-	Julien had made sufficient progress since his arrival in Paris to
-	discern that this was not the barren melancholy of boredom. Instead of
-	being eager, as in the past, for parties, shows and distractions of
-	every kind, she avoided them.
-
-	Music performed by French singers bored Mathilde to death, and yet
-	Julien, who made it his duty to be present at the close of the Opera,
-	observed that she made her friends take her there as often as
-	possible. He thought he could detect that she had lost a little of the
-	perfect balance which shone in all her actions. She would sometimes
-	reply to her friends with witticisms that were offensive in their
-	pointed emphasis. It seemed to him that she had taken a dislike to the
-	Marquis de Croisenois. 'That young man must have a furious passion for
-	money, not to go off and leave a girl like that, however rich she may
-	be!' thought Julien. As for himself, indignant at the insults offered
-	to masculine dignity, his coldness towards her increased. Often he
-	went the length of replying with positive discourtesy.
-
-	However determined he might be not to be taken in by the signs of
-	interest shown by Mathilde, they were so evident on certain days, and
-	Julien, from whose eyes the scales were beginning to fall, found her
-	so attractive, that he was at times embarrassed by them.
-
-	'The skill and forbearance of these young men of fashion will end by
-	triumphing over my want of experience,' he told himself; 'I must go
-	away, and put an end to all this.' The Marquis had recently entrusted
-	to him the management of a number of small properties and houses which
-	he owned in lower Languedoc. A visit to the place became necessary: M.
-	de La Mole gave a reluctant consent. Except in matters of high
-	ambition, Julien had become his second self.
-
-	'When all is said and done, they have not managed to catch me,' Julien
-	told himself as he prepared for his departure. 'Whether the jokes
-	which Mademoiselle de La Mole makes at the expense of these gentlemen
-	be real, or only intended to inspire me with confidence, I have been
-	amused by them.
-
-	'If there is no conspiracy against the carpenter's son, Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole is inexplicable, but she is just as much so to the Marquis
-	de Croisenois as to me. Yesterday, for instance, her ill humour was
-	quite genuine, and I had the pleasure of seeing discomfited in my
-	favour a young man as noble and rich as I am penniless and plebeian.
-	That is my finest triumph. It will keep me in good spirits in my
-	post-chaise, as I scour the plains of Languedoc.'
-
-	He had kept his departure secret, but Mathilde knew better than he
-	that he was leaving Paris next day, and for a long time. She pleaded a
-	splitting headache, which was made worse by the close atmosphere of
-	the drawing-room. She walked for hours in the garden, and so pursued
-	with her mordant pleasantries Norbert, the Marquis de Croisenois,
-	Caylus, de Luz and various other young men who had dined at the Hotel
-	de La Mole, that she forced them to take their leave. She looked at
-	Julien in a strange fashion.
-
-	'This look is perhaps a piece of play-acting,' thought he; 'but her
-	quick breathing, all that emotion! Bah!' he said to himself, 'who am I
-	to judge of these matters? This is an example of the most consummate,
-	the most artificial behaviour to be found among the women of Paris.
-	That quick breathing, which so nearly proved too much for me, she will
-	have learned from Leontine Fay, whom she admires so.'
-
-	They were now left alone; the conversation was plainly languishing.
-	'No! Julien has no feeling for me,' Mathilde told herself with
-	genuine distress.
-
-	As he took leave of her, she clutched his arm violently:
-
-	'You will receive a letter from me this evening,' she told him in a
-	voice so strained as to be barely audible.
-
-	This had an immediate effect on Julien.
-
-	'My father,' she went on, 'has a most natural regard for the services
-	that you render him. You _must not_ go tomorrow; find some excuse.' And
-	she ran from the garden.
-
-	Her figure was charming. It would have been impossible to have a
-	prettier foot, she ran with a grace that enchanted Julien; but guess
-	what was his second thought when she had quite vanished. He was
-	offended by the tone of command in which she had uttered the words,
-	_you must_. Similarly Louis XV, as he breathed his last, was keenly
-	annoyed by the words _you must_ awkwardly employed by his Chief
-	Physician, and yet Louis XV was no upstart.
-
-	An hour later, a footman handed Julien a letter; it was nothing less
-	than a declaration of love.
-
-	'The style is not unduly affected,' he said to himself, seeking by
-	literary observations to contain the joy that was contorting his
-	features and forcing him to laugh in spite of himself.
-
-	'And so I,' he suddenly exclaimed, his excitement being too strong to
-	be held in check, 'I, a poor peasant, have received a declaration of
-	love from a great lady!
-
-	'As for myself, I have not done badly,' he went on, controlling his
-	joy as far as was possible. 'I have succeeded in preserving the
-	dignity of my character. I have never said that I was in love.' He
-	began to study the shapes of her letters; Mademoiselle de La Mole
-	wrote in a charming little English hand. He required some physical
-	occupation to take his mind from a joy which was bordering on
-	delirium.
-
-	'Your departure obliges me to speak ... It would be beyond my
-	endurance not to see you any more.'
-
-	A sudden thought occurred to strike Julien as a discovery, interrupt
-	the examination that he was making of Mathilde's letter, and intensify
-	his joy. 'I am preferred to the Marquis de Croisenois,' he cried, 'I,
-	who never say anything that is not serious! And he is so handsome! He
-	wears moustaches, a charming uniform; he always manages to say, just
-	at the right moment, something witty and clever.'
-
-	It was an exquisite moment for Julien; he roamed about the garden, mad
-	with happiness.
-
-	Later, he went upstairs to his office, and sent in his name to the
-	Marquis de La Mole, who fortunately had not gone out. He had no
-	difficulty in proving to him, by showing him various marked papers
-	that had arrived from Normandy, that the requirements of his
-	employer's lawsuits there obliged him to postpone his departure for
-	Languedoc.
-
-	'I am very glad you are not going,' the Marquis said to him, when they
-	had finished their business, '_I like to see you_.' Julien left the
-	room; this speech disturbed him.
-
-	'And I am going to seduce his daughter! To render impossible, perhaps,
-	that marriage with the Marquis de Croisenois, which is the bright spot
-	in his future: if he is not made Duke, at least his daughter will be
-	entitled to a _tabouret_.' Julien thought of starting for Languedoc in
-	spite of Mathilde's letter, in spite of the explanation he had given
-	the Marquis. This virtuous impulse soon faded.
-
-	'How generous I am,' he said to himself; 'I, a plebeian, to feel pity
-	for a family of such high rank! I, whom the Duc de Chaulnes calls a
-	domestic! How does the Marquis increase his vast fortune? By selling
-	national securities, when he hears at the Chateau that there is to be
-	the threat of a _Coup d' Etat_ next day. And I, cast down to the
-	humblest rank by a stepmotherly Providence, I, whom Providence has
-	endowed with a noble heart and not a thousand francs of income, that
-	is to say not enough for my daily bread, _literally speaking, not
-	enough for my daily bread_; am I to refuse a pleasure that is offered
-	me? A limpid spring which wells up to quench my thirst in the burning
-	desert of mediocrity over which I trace my painful course! Faith, I am
-	no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which
-	is called life.'
-
-	And he reminded himself of several disdainful glances aimed at him by
-	Madame de La Mole, and especially by the _ladies_, her friends.
-
-	The pleasure of triumphing over the Marquis de Croisenois completed
-	the rout of this lingering trace of virtue.
-
-	'How I should love to make him angry!' said Julien; 'with what
-	assurance would I now thrust at him with my sword.' And he struck a
-	sweeping blow at the air. 'Until now, I was a smug, basely profiting
-	by a trace of courage. After this letter, I am his equal.
-
-	'Yes,' he said to himself with an infinite delight, dwelling on the
-	words, 'our merits, the Marquis's and mine, have been weighed, and the
-	poor carpenter from the Jura wins the day.
-
-	'Good!' he cried, 'here is the signature to my reply ready found. Do
-	not go and imagine, Mademoiselle de La Mole, that I am forgetting my
-	station. I shall make you realise and feel that it is for the son of a
-	carpenter that you are betraying a descendant of the famous Guy de
-	Croisenois, who followed Saint Louis on his Crusade.'
-
-	Julien was unable to contain his joy. He was obliged to go down to the
-	garden. His room, in which he had locked himself up, seemed too
-	confined a space for him to breathe in.
-
-	'I, a poor peasant from the Jura,' he kept on repeating, 'I, I
-	condemned always to wear this dismal black coat! Alas, twenty years
-	ago, I should have worn uniform like them! In those days a man of my
-	sort was either killed, or _a General at six and thirty_.' The letter,
-	which he kept tightly clasped in his hand, gave him the bearing and
-	pose of a hero. 'Nowadays, it is true, with the said black coat, at
-	the age of forty, a man has emoluments of one hundred thousand francs
-	and the Blue Riband, like the Bishop of Beauvais.
-
-	'Oh, well!' he said to himself, laughing like Mephistopheles, 'I have
-	more sense than they; I know how to choose the uniform of my
-	generation.' And he felt an intensification of his ambition and of his
-	attachment to the clerical habit. 'How many Cardinals have there been
-	of humbler birth than mine, who have risen to positions of government!
-	My fellow-countryman Granvelle, for instance.' [Trans. Footnote:
-	Antoine de Granvelle, born at Besancon in 1517, was Minister to
-	Charles V and Philip II and Governor of the Netherlands. C. K. S. M.]
-
-	Gradually Julien's agitation subsided; prudence rose to the surface.
-	He said to himself, like his master Tartuffe, whose part he knew by
-	heart:
-
-	'I might suppose these words an honest artifice ...
-	Nay, I shall not believe so flattering a speech
-	Unless some favour shown by her for whom I sigh
-	Assure me that they mean all that they might imply.'
-	(_Tartuffe_, Act IV, Scene V)
-
-	'Tartuffe also was ruined by a woman, and he was as good a man as most
-	... My answer may be shewn ... a mishap for which we find this
-	remedy,' he went on, pronouncing each word slowly, and in accents of
-	restrained ferocity, 'we begin it by quoting the strongest expressions
-	from the letter of the sublime Mathilde.
-
-	'Yes, but then four of M. de Croisenois's flunkeys will spring upon
-	me, and tear the original from me.
-
-	'No, for I am well armed, and am accustomed, as they know, to firing
-	on flunkeys.
-
-	'Very well! Say, one of them has some courage; he springs upon me. He
-	has been promised a hundred napoleons. I kill or injure him, all the
-	better, that is what they want. I am flung into prison with all the
-	forms of law; I appear in the police court, and they send me, with all
-	justice and equity on the judges' part, to keep MM. Fontan and Magalon
-	company at Poissy. There, I lie upon straw with four hundred poor
-	wretches, pell-mell ... And I am to feel some pity for these people,'
-	he cried, springing impetuously to his feet. 'What pity do they show
-	for the Third Estate when they have us in their power?' These words
-	were the dying breath of his gratitude to M. de La Mole which, in
-	spite of himself, had tormented him until then.
-
-	'Not so fast, my fine gentlemen, I understand this little stroke of
-	Machiavellianism; the abbe Maslon or M. Castanede of the Seminary
-	could not have been more clever. You rob me of my incitement, the
-	letter, and I become the second volume of Colonel Caron at Colmar.
-
-	'One moment, gentlemen, I am going to send the fatal letter in a
-	carefully sealed packet to the custody of M. l'abbe Pirard. He is an
-	honest man, a Jansenist, and as such out of reach of the temptations
-	of the Budget. Yes, but he opens letters ... it is to Fouque that I
-	must send this one.'
-
-	It must be admitted the glare in Julien's eyes was ghastly, his
-	expression hideous; it was eloquent of unmitigated crime. He was an
-	unhappy man at war with the whole of society.
-
-	'_To arms_!' cried Julien. And he sprang with one bound down the steps
-	that led from the house. He entered the letter-writer's booth at the
-	street corner; the man was alarmed. 'Copy this,' said Julien, giving
-	him Mademoiselle de La Mole's letter.
-
-	While the writer was thus engaged, he himself wrote to Fouque; he
-	begged him to keep for him a precious article. 'But,' he said to
-	himself, laying down his pen, 'the secret room in the post office will
-	open my letter, and give you back the one you seek; no, gentlemen.' He
-	went and bought an enormous Bible from a Protestant bookseller,
-	skilfully concealed Mathilde's letter in the boards, had it packed up
-	with his own letter, and his parcel went off by the mail, addressed to
-	one of Fouque's workmen, whose name was unknown to anybody in Paris.
-
-	This done, he returned joyful and brisk to the Hotel de La Mole. 'It
-	is our turn, now,' he exclaimed, as he locked himself into his room,
-	and flung off his coat:
-
-	'What, Mademoiselle,' he wrote to Mathilde, 'it is Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole who, by the hand of Arsene, her father's servant, transmits a
-	letter couched in too seductive terms to a poor carpenter from the
-	Jura, doubtless to play a trick upon his simplicity ...' And he
-	transcribed the most unequivocal sentences from the letter he had
-	received.
-
-	His own would have done credit to the diplomatic prudence of M. le
-	Chevalier de Beauvoisis. It was still only ten o'clock; Julien,
-	intoxicated with happiness and with the sense of his own power, so
-	novel to a poor devil like himself, went off to the Italian opera. He
-	heard his friend Geronimo sing. Never had music raised him to so high
-	a pitch. He was a god. [Author's Footnote: Esprit per, pre. gui II.
-	A. 30. (Note by Stendhal.)]
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 14
-	A Girl's Thoughts
-
-
-	So much perplexity? So many sleepless nights!
-	Good God! Am I making myself despicable? He will
-	despise me himself. But he's leaving, he's going.
-	ALFRED DE MUSSET
-
-	It was not without an inward struggle that Mathilde had brought
-	herself to write. Whatever might have been the beginning of her
-	interest in Julien, it soon overcame the pride which, ever since she
-	had been aware of herself, had reigned alone in her heart. That cold
-	and haughty spirit was carried away for the first time by a passionate
-	sentiment. But if this overcame her pride, it was still faithful to
-	the habits bred of pride. Two months of struggle and of novel
-	sensations had so to speak altered her whole moral nature.
-
-	Mathilde thought she had happiness in sight. This prospect,
-	irresistible to a courageous spirit combined with a superior
-	intellect, had to make a long fight against dignity and every
-	sentiment of common duty. One day she entered her mother's room, at
-	seven o'clock in the morning, begging her for leave to retire to
-	Villequier. The Marquise did not even deign to answer her, and
-	recommended her to go back to her bed. This was the last effort made
-	by plain sense and the deference paid to accepted ideas.
-
-	The fear of wrongdoing and of shocking the ideas held as sacred by the
-	Caylus, the de Luz, the Croisenois, had little or no hold over her;
-	such creatures as they did not seem to her to be made to understand
-	her; she would have consulted them had it been a question of buying a
-	carriage or an estate. Her real terror was that Julien might be
-	displeased with her.
-
-	'Perhaps, too, he has only the outward appearance of a superior
-	person.'
-
-	She abhorred want of character, it was her sole objection to the
-	handsome young men among whom she lived. The more gracefully they
-	mocked at everything which departed from the fashion, or which
-	followed it wrongly when intending to follow it, the more they
-	condemned themselves in her eyes.
-
-	They were brave, and that was all. 'And besides, how are they brave?'
-	she asked herself: 'in a duel. But the duel is nothing more now than a
-	formality. Everything is known beforehand, even what a man is to say
-	when he falls. Lying on the grass, his hand on his heart, he must
-	extend a handsome pardon to his adversary and leave a message for a
-	fair one who is often imaginary, or who goes to a ball on the day of
-	his death, for fear of arousing suspicion.
-
-	'A man will face danger at the head of a squadron all glittering with
-	steel, but a danger that is solitary, strange, sudden, truly ugly?
-
-	'Alas!' said Mathilde, 'it was at the Court of Henri in that one found
-	men great by character as well as by birth! Ah, if Julien had served
-	at Jarnac or at Moncontour, I should no longer be in doubt. In those
-	days of strength and prowess, Frenchmen were not mere dolls. The day
-	of battle was almost the day of least perplexity.
-
-	'Their life was not imprisoned like an Egyptian mummy, within an
-	envelope always common to them all, always the same. Yes,' she went
-	on, 'there was more true courage in crossing the town alone at eleven
-	o'clock at night, after leaving the Hotel de Soissons, occupied by
-	Catherine de' Medici, than there is today in dashing to Algiers. A
-	man's life was a succession of hazards. Nowadays civilisation has
-	banished hazard, there is no room for the unexpected. If it appears in
-	our ideas, there are not epigrams enough to cope with it; if it
-	appears in events, no act of cowardice is too great for our fear.
-	Whatever folly our fear makes us commit is excused us. Degenerate and
-	boring age! What would Boniface de La Mole have said if, raising his
-	severed head from the tomb, he had seen, in 1793, seventeen of his
-	descendants allow themselves to be penned like sheep, to be
-	guillotined a day or two later? Their death was certain, but it would
-	have been in bad form to defend themselves and at least kill a Jacobin
-	or two. Ah! In the heroic age of France, in the days of Boniface de La
-	Mole, Julien would have been the squadron commander, and my brother
-	the young priest, properly behaved, with wisdom in his eyes and reason
-	on his lips.'
-
-	A few months since, Mathilde had despaired of meeting anyone a little
-	different from the common pattern. She had found a certain happiness
-	in allowing herself to write to various young men of fashion. This act
-	of boldness, so unconventional, so imprudent in a young girl, might
-	dishonour her in the eyes of M. de Croisenois, of his father, the Duc
-	de Chaulnes, and of the whole house of Chaulnes, who, seeing the
-	projected marriage broken off, would wish to know the reason. At that
-	time, on the night after she had written one of these letters,
-	Mathilde was unable to sleep. But these letters were mere replies.
-
-	Now she had ventured to say that she was in love. She had written
-	_first_ (what a terrible word!) to a man in the lowest rank of society.
-
-	This circumstance assured her, in the event of discovery, eternal
-	disgrace. Which of the women who came to see her mother would dare to
-	take her part? What polite expression could be put into their mouths
-	to lessen the shock of the fearful contempt of the drawing-rooms?
-
-	And even to speak to a man was fearful, but to write! 'There are
-	things which one does not write,' Napoleon exclaimed when he heard of
-	the surrender of Baylen. And it was Julien who had told her of this
-	saying! As though teaching her a lesson in advance.
-
-	But all this was still nothing, Mathilde's anguish had other causes.
-	Oblivious of the horrible effect upon society, of the ineradicable
-	blot, the universal contempt, for she was outraging her caste,
-	Mathilde was writing to a person of a very different nature from the
-	Croisenois, the de Luz, the Caylus.
-
-	The depth, the _strangeness_ of Julien's character had alarmed her,
-	even when she was forming an ordinary relation with him. And she was
-	going to make him her lover, possibly her master!
-
-	'What claims will he not assert, if ever he is in a position to do as
-	he likes with me? Very well! I shall say to myself like Medea: "_Midst
-	all these perils, I have still MYSELF_."'
-
-	Julien had no reverence for nobility of blood, she understood. Worse,
-	still, perhaps, he felt no love for her!
-
-	In these final moments of tormenting doubts, she was visited by ideas
-	of feminine pride. 'Everything ought to be strange in the lot of a
-	girl like myself,' cried Mathilde, with impatience. And so the pride
-	that had been inculcated in her from her cradle began to fight against
-	her virtue. It was at this point that Julien's threatened departure
-	came to precipitate events.
-
-	(Such characters are fortunately quite rare.)
-
-	Late that night, Julien was malicious enough to have an extremely
-	heavy trunk carried down to the porter's lodge; to carry it, he
-	summoned the footman who was courting Mademoiselle de La Mole's maid.
-	'This device may lead to no result,' he said to himself, 'but if it
-	proves successful, she will think that I have gone.' He went to sleep,
-	highly delighted with his trick. Mathilde never closed an eye.
-
-	Next morning, at a very early hour, Julien left the house unobserved,
-	but returned before eight o'clock.
-
-	No sooner was he in the library than Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared
-	on the threshold. He handed her his answer. He thought that it was
-	incumbent upon him to speak to her; this, at least, was the most
-	polite course, but Mademoiselle de La Mole would not listen to him and
-	vanished. Julien was overjoyed, he had not known what to say to her.
-
-	'If all this is not a trick arranged with Comte Norbert, plainly it
-	must have been my frigid glance that has kindled the freakish love
-	which this girl of noble birth has taken it into her head to feel for
-	me. I should be a little too much of a fool if I ever allowed myself
-	to be drawn into feeling any attraction towards the great flaxen
-	doll.' This piece of reasoning left him more cold and calculating than
-	he had ever been.
-
-	'In the battle that is preparing,' he went on, 'pride of birth will be
-	like a high hill, forming a military position between her and myself.
-	It is there that we must manoeuvre. I have done wrong to remain in
-	Paris; this postponement of my departure cheapens me, and exposes my
-	flank if all this is only a game. What danger was there in my going? I
-	was fooling them, if they are fooling me. If her interest in me has
-	any reality, I was increasing that interest an hundredfold.'
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole's letter had so flattered Julien's vanity
-	that, while he laughed at what was happening to him, he had forgotten
-	to think seriously of the advantages of departure.
-
-	It was a weakness of his character to be extremely sensitive to his
-	own faults. He was extremely annoyed at this instance of his weakness,
-	and had almost ceased to think of the incredible victory which had
-	preceded this slight check when, about nine o'clock, Mademoiselle de
-	La Mole appeared on the threshold of the library, flung him a letter,
-	and fled.
-
-	'It appears that this is to be a romance told in letters,' he said, as
-	he picked this one up. 'The enemy makes a false move, now I am going
-	to bring coldness and virtue into play.'
-
-	The letter called for a definite answer with an arrogance which
-	increased his inward gaiety. He gave himself the pleasure of
-	mystifying, for the space of two pages, the people who might wish to
-	make a fool of him, and it was with a fresh pleasantry that he
-	announced, towards the end of his reply, his decision to depart on the
-	following morning.
-
-	This letter finished: 'The garden can serve me as a post office,' he
-	thought, and made his way there. He looked up at the window of
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole's room.
-
-	It was on the first floor, next to her mother's apartment, but there
-	was a spacious mezzanine beneath.
-
-	This first floor stood so high, that, as he advanced beneath the
-	lime-alley, letter in hand, Julien could not be seen from Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole's window. The vault formed by the limes, which were
-	admirably pleached, intercepted the view.
-
-	'But what is this!' Julien said to himself, angrily, 'another
-	imprudence! If they have decided to make a fool of me, to let myself
-	be seen with a letter in my hand, is to play the enemy's game.'
-
-	Norbert's room was immediately above his sister's, and if Julien
-	emerged from the alley formed by the pleached branches of the limes,
-	the Count and his friends would be able to follow his every movement.
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared behind her closed window; he half
-	showed her his letter; she bowed her head. At once Julien ran up to
-	his own room, and happened to meet, on the main staircase, the fair
-	Mathilde, who snatched the letter with perfect composure and laughing
-	eyes.
-
-	'What passion there was in the eyes of that poor Madame de Renal,'
-	Julien said to himself, 'when, even after six months of intimate
-	relations, she ventured to receive a letter from me! Never once, I am
-	sure, did she look at me with a laugh in her eyes.'
-
-	He did not express to himself so clearly the rest of his comment; was
-	he ashamed of the futility of his motives? 'But also what a
-	difference,' his thoughts added, 'in the elegance of her morning gown,
-	in the elegance of her whole appearance! On catching sight of
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole thirty yards off, a man of taste could tell
-	the rank that she occupies in society. That is what one may call an
-	explicit merit.'
-
-	Still playing with his theme, Julien did not yet confess to himself
-	the whole of his thoughts; Madame de Renal had had no Marquis de
-	Croisenois to sacrifice to him. He had had as a rival only that
-	ignoble Sub-Prefect M. Charcot, who had assumed the name of Maugiron,
-	because the Maugirons were extinct.
-
-	At five o'clock, Julien received a third letter; it was flung at him
-	from the library door. Mademoiselle de La Mole again fled. 'What a
-	mania for writing,' he said to himself with a laugh, 'when it is so
-	easy for us to talk! The enemy wishes to have my letters, that is
-	clear, and plenty of them!' He was in no haste to open this last.
-	'More elegant phrases,' he thought; but he turned pale as he read it.
-	It consisted of eight lines only.
-
-	'I have to speak to you: I must speak to you, tonight; when one
-	o'clock strikes, be in the garden. Take the gardener's long ladder
-	from beside the well; place it against my window and come up to my
-	room. There is a moon: no matter.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 15
-	Is it a Plot?
-
-
-	Ah! How cruel is the interval between the conception of a
-	great project and its execution! What vain terrors! What
-	irresolutions! Life is at stake. Far more than life--honour!
-	SCHILLER
-
-	'This is becoming serious,' thought Julien ... 'and a little too
-	obvious,' he added, after a moment's reflection. 'Why! This pretty
-	young beauty can speak to me in the library with a freedom which,
-	thank heaven, is unrestricted; the Marquis, for fear of my bothering
-	him with accounts, never comes there. Why! M. de La Mole and Comte
-	Norbert, the only people who ever show their faces here, are absent
-	almost all day; it is easy to watch for the moment of their return to
-	the house, and the sublime Mathilde, for whose hand a Sovereign Prince
-	would not be too noble, wishes me to commit an act of abominable
-	imprudence!
-
-	'It is clear, they wish to ruin me, or to make a fool of me, at least.
-	First of all, they sought to ruin me by my letters; these proved
-	cautious; very well, now they require an action that shall be as clear
-	as daylight. These pretty little gentlemen think me too simple or too
-	conceited. The devil! With the brightest moon you ever saw, to climb
-	up by a ladder to a first floor, five and twenty feet from the ground!
-	They will have plenty of time to see me, even from the neighbouring
-	houses. I shall be a fine sight on my ladder!' Julien went up to his
-	room and began to pack his trunk, whistling as he did so. He had made
-	up his mind to go, and not even to answer the letter.
-
-	But this sage resolution gave him no peace of heart. 'If, by any
-	chance,' he said to himself, suddenly, his trunk packed and shut,
-	'Mathilde were sincere! Then I shall be cutting in her eyes the most
-	perfect figure of a coward. I have no birth, so I require great
-	qualities, ready on demand, with no flattering suppositions, qualities
-	proved by eloquent deeds ...'
-
-	He spent a quarter of an hour pacing the floor of his room. 'What use
-	in denying it?' he asked himself, at length; 'I shall be a coward in
-	her eyes. I lose not only the most brilliant young person in high
-	society, as everyone was saying at M. le Duc de Retz's ball, but,
-	furthermore, the heavenly pleasure of seeing her throw over for me the
-	Marquis de Croisenois, the son of a Duke, and a future Duke himself. A
-	charming young man who has all the qualities that I lack: a ready wit,
-	birth, fortune ...
-
-	'This remorse will pursue me all my life, not for her, there are heaps
-	of mistresses, "but only one honour", as old Don Diego says, and here
-	I am clearly and plainly recoiling from the first peril that comes my
-	way; for that duel with M. de Beauvoisis was a mere joke. This is
-	quite different. I may be shot point-blank by a servant, but that is
-	the least danger; I may forfeit my honour.
-
-	'This is becoming serious, my boy,' he went on, with a Gascon gaiety
-	and accent. '_Honur_ is at stake. A poor devil kept down by fate in my
-	lowly station will never find such an opportunity again; I shall have
-	adventures, but tawdry ones ...'
-
-	He reflected at length, he paced the room with a hurried step,
-	stopping short now and again. There stood in his room a magnificent
-	bust in marble of Cardinal Richelieu, which persistently caught his
-	eye. This bust appeared to be gazing at him sternly, as though
-	reproaching him for the want of that audacity which ought to be so
-	natural to the French character. 'In thy time, great man, should I
-	have hesitated?
-
-	'At the worst,' Julien told himself finally, 'let us suppose that all
-	this is a plot, it is a very dark one, and highly compromising for a
-	young girl. They know that I am not the man to keep silent. They will
-	therefore have to kill me. That was all very well in 1574, in the days
-	of Boniface de La Mole, but the La Mole of today would never dare.
-	These people are not the same now. Mademoiselle de La Mole is so
-	envied! Four hundred drawing-rooms would echo with her disgrace next
-	day, and with what rejoicing!
-
-	'The servants chatter among themselves of the marked preference that
-	is shown me; I know it, I have heard them . . .
-
-	'On the other hand, her letters! .. . They may suppose that I have
-	them on me. They surprise me in her room, and take them from me. I
-	shall have two, three, four, any number of men to deal with. But these
-	men, where will they collect them? Where is one to find discreet
-	agents in Paris? They are afraid of the law ... Gad! It will be the
-	Caylus and Croisenois and de Luz themselves. The thought of that
-	moment, and the foolish figure I shall cut there among them will be
-	what has tempted them. Beware the fate of Abelard, Master Secretary!
-
-	'Begad, then, gentlemen, you shall bear the mark of my fists, I shall
-	strike at your faces, like Caesar's soldiers at Pharsalia .. . As for
-	the letters, I can put them in a safe place.'
-
-	Julien made copies of the two last, concealed them in a volume of the
-	fine Voltaire from the library, and went himself with the originals to
-	the post.
-
-	When he returned: 'Into what madness am I rushing!' he said to himself
-	with surprise and terror. He had been a quarter of an hour without
-	considering his action of the coming night in all its aspects.
-
-	'But, if I refuse, I must despise myself ever afterwards. All my life
-	long, that action will be a matter for doubt to me, and such a doubt
-	is the most bitter agony. Have I not felt it over Amanda's lover? I
-	believe that I should find it easier to forgive myself what was
-	clearly a crime; once I had confessed it, I should cease to think
-	about it.
-
-	'What! I shall have been the rival of a man bearing one of the best
-	names in France, and I myself, with a light heart, am to declare
-	myself his inferior! Indeed, there is a strain of cowardice in not
-	going. That word settles everything,' cried Julien, springing to his
-	feet... 'besides, she is a real beauty!
-
-	'If this is not treachery, how foolishly she is behaving for me! ...
-	If it is a mystification, begad, gentlemen, it rests with me to turn
-	the jest to earnest, and so I shall.
-
-	'But if they pinion my arms, the moment I enter the room; they may
-	have set some diabolical machine there ready for me!
-
-	'It is like a duel,' he told himself with a laugh, 'there is a parry
-	for every thrust, my fencing master says, but the Almighty, who likes
-	things to end, makes one of the fighters forget to parry. Anyhow, here
-	is what will answer them'; he drew his pocket pistols; and, albeit
-	they were fully charged, renewed the primings.
-
-	There were still many hours to wait; in order to have something to do,
-	Julien wrote to Fouque: 'My friend, open the enclosed letter only in
-	case of accident, if you hear it said that something strange has
-	befallen me. Then, erase the proper names from the manuscript that I
-	am sending you, and make eight copies of it which you will send to the
-	newspapers of Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Brussels, etc.; ten days
-	later, have the manuscript printed, send the first copy to M. le
-	Marquis de La Mole, and a fortnight after that, scatter the other
-	copies by night about the streets of Verrieres.'
-
-	This brief exonerating memoir, arranged in the form of a tale, which
-	Fouque was to open only in case of accident, Julien made as little
-	compromising as possible to Mademoiselle de La Mole, but,
-	nevertheless, it described his position very accurately.
-
-	He had just sealed his packet when the dinner-bell rang; it made his
-	heart beat violently. His imagination, preoccupied with the narrative
-	which he had just composed, was a prey to all sorts of tragic
-	presentiment. He had seen himself seized by servants, garrotted,
-	carried down to a cellar with a gag in his mouth. There, one of them
-	kept a close watch over him, and if the honour of the noble family
-	required that the adventure should have a tragic ending, it was easy
-	to end everything with one of those poisons which leave no trace;
-	then, they would say that he had died a natural death, and would take
-	his dead body back to his room.
-
-	Carried away by his own story like a dramatic author, Julien was
-	really afraid when he entered the dining-room. He looked at all the
-	servants in full livery. He studied their expressions. 'Which of them
-	have been chosen for tonight's expedition?' he asked himself. 'In this
-	family, the memories of the Court of Henri in are so present, so often
-	recalled, that, when they think themselves outraged, they will show
-	more decision than other people of their rank.' He looked at
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole in order to read in her eyes what were the
-	plans of her family; she was pale, and had quite a mediaeval
-	appearance. Never had he found such an air of grandeur in her, she was
-	truly beautiful and imposing. He almost fell in love with her.
-	'_Pallida morte futura_,' he told himself, 'her pallor betokens that
-	something serious is afoot.'
-
-	In vain, after dinner, did he prolong his stroll in the garden,
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole did not come out. Conversation with her would,
-	at that moment, have relieved his heart of a great burden.
-
-	Why not confess it? He was afraid. As he was determined to act, he
-	abandoned himself to this sentiment without shame. 'Provided that at
-	the moment of action, I find the courage that I require,' he said to
-	himself, 'what does it matter how I may be feeling now?' He went to
-	reconnoitre the position and to try the weight of the ladder.
-
-	'It is an instrument,' he said to himself, with a laugh, 'which it is
-	written in my destiny that I am to use! Here as at Verrieres. What a
-	difference! Then,' he continued with a sigh, 'I was not obliged to be
-	suspicious of the person for whose sake I was exposing myself. What a
-	difference, too, in the danger!
-
-	'I might have been killed in M. de Renal's gardens without any harm to
-	my reputation. It would have been easy to make my death unaccountable.
-	Here, what abominable tales will they not bandy about in the
-	drawing-rooms of the Hotel de Chaulnes, the Hotel de Caylus, the Hotel
-	de Retz, and in short everywhere? I shall be handed down to posterity
-	as a monster.
-
-	'For two or three years,' he added, laughing at himself. But the
-	thought of this overwhelmed him. 'And I, who is going to justify me?
-	Supposing that Fouque prints my posthumous pamphlet, it will be only
-	an infamy the more. What! I am received in a house, and in payment
-	for the hospitality I receive there, the kindness that is showered
-	upon me, I print a pamphlet reporting all that goes on in the house! I
-	attack the honour of its women! Ah, a thousand times rather, let us
-	be trapped!'
-
-	It was a terrible evening.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER I 6
-	One o'Clock in the Morning
-
-
-	The garden was extremely large, laid out with perfect
-	taste just a few years previously. But the trees were over
-	a century old. The place had something rustic about it.
-	MASSINGER [Trans. footnote: I have left this motto
-	untranslated, as the attribution to Massinger seems to
-	be entirely fantastic. C. K. S. M.]
-
-	He was on the point of countermanding his instructions to Fouque when
-	the clock struck eleven. He came out of his bedroom and shut the door
-	behind him, turning the key noisily in the lock, as though he were
-	locking himself in. He prowled round the house to see what was afoot
-	everywhere, especially on the fourth floor, where the servants slept.
-	There was nothing unusual. One of Madame de La Mole's maids was
-	giving a party, the servants were merrily imbibing punch. 'The men who
-	are laughing like that,' thought Julien, 'cannot have been detailed
-	for the midnight encounter, they would be more serious.'
-
-	Finally he took his stand in a dark corner of the garden. 'If their
-	plan is to avoid the notice of the servants of the house, they will
-	make the men they have hired to seize me come in over the garden wall.
-
-	'If M. de Croisenois is taking all this calmly, he must feel that it
-	will be less compromising for the young person whom he intends to
-	marry to have me seized before the moment when I shall have entered
-	her room.'
-
-	He made an extremely careful military reconnaissance. 'My honour is at
-	stake,' he thought; 'if I make some blunder, it will be no excuse in
-	my own eyes to say to myself: "I never thought of that."'
-
-	The sky was maddeningly clear. About eleven o'clock the moon rose, at
-	half-past twelve it lighted the whole garden front of the house.
-
-	'She is mad,' Julien said to himself; when one o'clock struck, there
-	was still a light in Comte Norbert's windows. Never in his life had
-	Julien been so much afraid, he saw only the dangers of the enterprise,
-	and felt not the least enthusiasm.
-
-	He went to fetch the huge ladder, waited five minutes, to allow time
-	for a countermand, and at five minutes past one placed the ladder
-	against Mathilde's window. He climbed quietly, pistol in hand,
-	astonished not to find himself attacked. As he reached the window, she
-	opened it silently:
-
-	'Here you are, Sir,' Mathilde said to him with deep emotion; 'I have
-	been following your movements for the last hour.'
-
-	Julien was greatly embarrassed, he did not know how to behave, he did
-	not feel the least vestige of love. In his embarrassment, he decided
-	that he must show courage, he attempted to embrace Mathilde.
-
-	'Fie, Sir!' she said, and thrust him from her.
-
-	Greatly relieved at this repulse, he hastened to cast an eye round the
-	room: the moonlight was so brilliant that the shadows which it formed
-	in Mademoiselle de La Mole's room were black. 'There may easily be men
-	concealed there without my seeing them,' he thought.
-
-	'What have you in the side pocket of your coat?' Mathilde asked him,
-	delighted at finding a topic of conversation. She was strangely ill at
-	ease; all the feelings of reserve and timidity, so natural to a young
-	girl of good family, had resumed their sway and were keeping her on
-	tenter-hooks.
-
-	'I have all sorts of weapons and pistols,' replied Julien, no less
-	pleased at having something to say.
-
-	'You must pull up the ladder,' said Mathilde.
-
-	'It is huge, and may break the windows of the room below, or of the
-	mezzanine.'
-
-	'It must not break the windows,' Mathilde went on, trying in vain to
-	adopt the tone of ordinary conversation; 'you might, it seems to me,
-	let the ladder down by means of a cord tied to the top rung. I always
-	keep a supply of cords by me.'
-
-	'And this is a woman in love!' thought Julien, 'she dares to say that
-	she loves! Such coolness, such sagacity in her precautions make it
-	plain to me that I am not triumphing over M. de Croisenois, as I
-	foolishly imagined; but am simply becoming his successor. After all,
-	what does it matter? I am not in love! I triumph over the Marquis in
-	this sense, that he will be greatly annoyed at having a successor, and
-	still more annoyed that his successor should be myself. How arrogantly
-	he stared at me last night in the Cafe Tortoni, pretending not to
-	know me! How savagely he bowed to me afterwards, when he could no
-	longer avoid it!'
-
-	Julien had fastened the cord to the highest rung of the ladder, he now
-	let it down gently, leaning far out over the balcony so as to see that
-	it did not touch the windows. 'A fine moment for killing me,' he
-	thought, 'if there is anyone hidden in Mathilde's room'; but a
-	profound silence continued to reign everywhere.
-
-	The head of the ladder touched the ground. Julien succeeded in
-	concealing it in the bed of exotic flowers that ran beneath the wall.
-
-	'What will my mother say,' said Mathilde, 'when she sees her beautiful
-	plants all ruined! You must throw down the cord,' she went on, with
-	perfect calm. 'If it were seen running up to the balcony, it would be
-	difficult to explain its presence.'
-
-	'And how me gwine get way?' asked Julien, in a playful tone, imitating
-	Creole speech. (One of the maids in the house was a native of San
-	Domingo.)
-
-	'You get way by the door,' said Mathilde, delighted at this solution.
-
-	'Ah! How worthy this man is of all my love,' she thought.
-
-	Julien had just let the cord drop into the garden; Mathilde gripped
-	him by the arm. He thought he was being seized by an enemy, and turned
-	sharply round drawing a dagger. She thought she had heard a window
-	being opened. They stood motionless, without breathing. The moon
-	shone full upon them. As the sound was not repeated, there was no
-	further cause for alarm.
-
-	Then their embarrassment began again, and was great on both sides.
-	Julien made sure that the door was fastened with all its bolts; he
-	even thought of looking under the bed, but dared not; they might have
-	hidden a footman or two there. Finally, the fear of a subsequent
-	reproach from his prudence made him look.
-
-	Mathilde had succumbed to all the agonies of extreme shyness. She felt
-	a horror of her position.
-
-	'What have you done with my letters?' she said, at length.
-
-	'What a fine opportunity to discomfit these gentlemen, if they are
-	listening, and so avoid the conflict!' thought Julien.
-
-	'The first is hidden in a stout Protestant Bible which last night's
-	mail has carried far from here.'
-
-	He spoke very distinctly as he entered into these details, and in such
-	a way as to be overheard by anyone who might be concealed in two great
-	mahogany wardrobes which he had not dared to examine.
-
-	'The other two are in the post, and are going the same way as the
-	first.'
-
-	'Good Lord! But why all these precautions?' said Mathilde, with
-	astonishment.
-
-	'Is there any reason why I should lie to her?' thought Julien; and he
-	confessed to her all his suspicions.
-
-	'So that accounts for the coldness of thy letters!' cried Mathilde,
-	in accents rather of frenzy than of affection.
-
-	Julien did not observe her change of tone. This use of the singular
-	pronoun made him lose his head, or at least his suspicions vanished;
-	he ventured to clasp in his arms this girl who was so beautiful and
-	inspired such respect in him. He was only half repulsed.
-
-	He had recourse to his memory, as once before, long ago, at Besancon
-	with Amanda Binet, and repeated several of the finest passages from
-	the _Nouvelle Heloise_.
-
-	'Thou hast a man's heart,' she replied, without paying much attention
-	to what he was saying; 'I wished to test thy bravery, I admit. Thy
-	first suspicions and thyu determination to come shew thee to be even
-	more intrepid than I supposed.'
-
-	Mathilde made an effort to use the more intimate form; she was
-	evidently more attentive to this unusual way of speaking than to what
-	she was saying. This use of the _tu_ form, stripped of the tone of
-	affection, ceased, after a moment, to afford Julien any pleasure, he
-	was astonished at the absence of happiness; finally, in order to feel
-	it, he had recourse to his reason. He saw himself highly esteemed by
-	this girl who was so proud, and never bestowed unrestricted praise; by
-	this line of reasoning he arrived at a gratification of his
-	self-esteem.
-
-	This was not, it is true, that spiritual ecstasy which he had found at
-	times in the company of Madame de Renal. There was nothing tender in
-	his sentiments at this first moment. What he felt was the keenest
-	gratification of his ambition, and Julien was above all things
-	ambitious. He spoke again of the people he suspected and of the
-	precautions he had contrived. As he spoke he was thinking of how best
-	to profit by his victory.
-
-	Mathilde, who was still greatly embarrassed and had the air of one
-	appalled by what she had done, seemed enchanted at finding a topic of
-	conversation. They discussed how they should meet again. Julien
-	employed to the full the intelligence and daring of which he furnished
-	fresh proofs in the course of this discussion. They had some extremely
-	sharp-sighted people against them, young Tanbeau was certainly a spy,
-	but Mathilde and he were not altogether incompetent either.
-
-	What could be easier than to meet in the library, and arrange
-	everything?
-
-	'I can appear, without arousing suspicion, in any part of the house, I
-	could almost appear in Madame de La Mole's bedroom.' It was absolutely
-	necessary to pass through this room to reach her daughter's. If
-	Mathilde preferred that he should always come by a ladder, it was with
-	a heart wild with joy that he would expose himself to this slight
-	risk.
-
-	As she listened to him speaking, Mathilde was shocked by his air of
-	triumph. 'He is my master, then!' she told herself. Already she was
-	devoured by remorse. Her reason felt a horror of the signal act of
-	folly which she had just committed. Had it been possible, she would
-	have destroyed herself and Julien. Whenever, for an instant, the
-	strength of her will made her remorse silent, feelings of shyness and
-	outraged modesty made her extremely wretched. She had never for a
-	moment anticipated the dreadful plight in which she now found herself.
-
-	'I must speak to him, though,' she said to herself, finally, 'that is
-	laid down in the rules, one speaks to one's lover.' And then, as
-	though performing a duty, and with a tenderness that was evident
-	rather in the words that she used than in the sound of her voice, she
-	told him of the various decisions to which she had come with regard to
-	him during the last few days.
-
-	She had made up her mind that if he ventured to come to her with the
-	aid of the gardener's ladder, as she had bidden him, she would give
-	herself to him. But never were things so tender said in a colder and
-	more formal tone. So far, their intercourse was ice-bound. It was
-	enough to make one hate the thought of love. What a moral lesson for a
-	rash young woman! Is it worth her while to wreck her future for such a
-	moment?
-
-	After prolonged uncertainties, which might have appeared to a
-	superficial observer to be due to the most decided hatred, so hard was
-	it for the feeling of self-respect which a woman owes to herself, to
-	yield to so masterful a will, Mathilde finally became his mistress.
-
-	To tell the truth, their transports were somewhat deliberate.
-	Passionate love was far more a model which they were imitating than a
-	reality with them.
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole believed that she was performing a duty
-	towards herself and towards her lover. 'The poor boy,' she told
-	herself, 'has been the last word in daring, he deserves to be made
-	happy, or else I am wanting in character.' But she would gladly have
-	redeemed at the cost of an eternity of suffering the cruel necessity
-	to which she found herself committed.
-
-	In spite of the violence she was doing to herself, she retained entire
-	command of her speech.
-
-	No regret, no reproach came to mar this night which seemed odd rather
-	than happy to Julien. What a difference, great God, from his last
-	visit, of twenty-four hours, to Verrieres! 'These fine Paris manners
-	have found out the secret of spoiling everything, even love,' he said
-	to himself with an extreme disregard of justice.
-
-	He abandoned himself to these reflections, standing upright in one of
-	the great mahogany wardrobes into which he had been thrust at the
-	first sound heard from the next room, which was Madame de La Mole's
-	bedroom. Mathilde accompanied her mother to mass, the maids soon left
-	the apartment, and Julien easily made his escape before they returned
-	to complete their labours.
-
-	He mounted his horse and made at a leisurely pace for the most
-	solitary recesses of one of the forests near Paris. He was still more
-	surprised than happy. The happiness which, from time to time, came
-	flooding into his heart, was akin to that of a young Second Lieutenant
-	who, after some astounding action, has just been promoted Colonel by
-	the Commander in Chief; he felt himself carried to an immense height.
-	Everything that had been above him the day before was now on his level
-	or far beneath him. Gradually Julien's happiness increased as he put
-	the miles behind him.
-
-	If there was nothing tender in his heart, it was because, strange as
-	it may appear, Mathilde, throughout the whole of her conduct with him,
-	had been performing a duty. There was nothing unforeseen for her in
-	all the events of this night but the misery and shame which she had
-	found in the place of that utter bliss of which we read in novels.
-
-	'Can I have been mistaken? Am I not in love with him?' she asked
-	herself.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 17
-	An Old Sword
-
-
-	I now mean to be serious:--it is time,
-	Since laughter nowadays is deem'd too serious.
-	A jest at Vice by Virtue's call'd a crime.
-	_Don Juan_, XIII.
-
-	She did not appear at dinner. In the evening she came to the
-	drawing-room for a moment, but did not look at Julien. This behaviour
-	seemed to him strange; 'but,' he thought, 'I do not know the ways of
-	good society, she will give me some good reason for all this.' At the
-	same time, urged by the most intense curiosity, he studied the
-	expression on Mathilde's features; he could not conceal from himself
-	that she had a sharp and malevolent air. Evidently this was not the
-	same woman who, the night before, had felt or pretended to feel
-	transports of joy too excessive to be genuine.
-
-	Next day, and the day after, the same coldness on her part; she never
-	once looked at him, she seemed unaware of his existence. Julien,
-	devoured by the keenest anxiety, was a thousand leagues from the
-	feeling of triumph which alone had animated him on the first day. 'Can
-	it, by any chance,' he asked himself, 'be a return to the path of
-	virtue?' But that was a very middle-class expression to use of the
-	proud Mathilde.
-
-	'In the ordinary situations of life she has no belief in religion,'
-	thought Julien; 'she values it as being very useful to the interests
-	of her caste.
-
-	'But out of simple delicacy may she not be bitterly reproaching
-	herself with the mistake that she has made?' Julien assumed that he
-	was her first lover.
-
-	'But,' he said to himself at other moments, 'one must admit that there
-	is nothing artless, simple, tender, in her attitude; never have I seen
-	her looking so haughty. Can she despise me? It would be like her to
-	reproach herself with what she has done for me, solely on account of
-	my humble birth.'
-
-	While Julien, steeped in the prejudices he had derived from books and
-	from memories of Verrieres, was pursuing the chimera of a tender
-	mistress who never gives a thought to her own existence the moment she
-	has gratified the desires of her lover, Mathilde in her vanity was
-	furious with him.
-
-	As she had ceased to be bored for the last two months, she was no
-	longer afraid of boredom; so, albeit he could not for a moment suspect
-	it, Julien was deprived of his strongest advantage.
-
-	'I have given myself a master!' Mademoiselle de La Mole was saying to
-	herself, in the grip of the blackest despond. 'He may be the soul of
-	honour; but if I goad his vanity to extremes, he will have his revenge
-	by making public the nature of our relations.' Mathilde had never had
-	a lover, and at this epoch in life, which gives certain tender
-	illusions to even the most sterile hearts, she was a prey to the
-	bitterest reflections.
-
-	'He has an immense power over me, since he reigns by terror and can
-	inflict a fearful punishment on me if I drive him to extremes.' This
-	idea, by itself, was enough to provoke Mathilde to insult him. Courage
-	was the fundamental quality in her character. Nothing was capable of
-	giving her any excitement and of curing her of an ever-present
-	tendency to boredom, but the idea that she was playing heads or tails
-	with her whole existence.
-
-	On the third day, as Mademoiselle de La Mole persisted in not looking
-	at him, Julien followed her after dinner, to her evident annoyance,
-	into the billiard room.
-
-	'Well, Sir; you must imagine yourself to have acquired some very
-	powerful hold over me,' she said to him, with ill-controlled rage,
-	'since in opposition to my clearly expressed wishes, you insist on
-	speaking to me? Are you aware that nobody in the world has ever been
-	so presumptuous?'
-
-	Nothing could be more entertaining than the dialogue between these two
-	lovers; unconsciously they were animated by a mutual sentiment of the
-	keenest hatred. As neither of them had a consistent nature, as
-	moreover they were used to the ways of good society, it was not long
-	before they both declared in plain terms that they had quarrelled for
-	ever.
-
-	'I swear to you eternal secrecy,' said Julien; 'I would even add that
-	I will never address a word to you again, were it not that your
-	reputation might be injured by too marked a change.' He bowed
-	respectfully and left her.
-
-	He performed without undue difficulty what he regarded as a duty; he
-	was far from imagining himself to be deeply in love with Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole. No doubt he had not been in love with her three days
-	earlier, when he had been concealed in the great mahogany wardrobe.
-	But everything changed rapidly in his heart from the moment when he
-	saw himself parted from her for ever.
-
-	His pitiless memory set to work reminding him of the slightest
-	incidents of that night which in reality had left him so cold.
-
-	During the very night after their vow of eternal separation, Julien
-	nearly went mad when he found himself forced to admit that he was in
-	love with Mademoiselle de La Mole.
-
-	A ghastly conflict followed this discovery: all his feelings were
-	thrown into confusion.
-
-	Two days later, instead of being haughty with M. de Croisenois, he
-	could almost have burst into tears and embraced him.
-
-	The force of continued unhappiness gave him a glimmer of common sense;
-	he decided to set off for Languedoc, packed his trunk and went to the
-	posting house.
-
-	He almost fainted when, on reaching the coach office, he was informed
-	that, by mere chance, there was a place vacant next day in the
-	Toulouse mail. He engaged it and returned to the Hotel de La Mole to
-	warn the Marquis of his departure.
-
-	M. de La Mole had gone out. More dead than alive, Julien went to wait
-	for him in the library. What were his feelings on finding Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole there?
-
-	On seeing him appear, she assumed an air of malevolence which it was
-	impossible for him to misinterpret,
-
-	Carried away by his misery, dazed by surprise, Julien was weak enough
-	to say to her, in the tenderest of tones and one that sprang from the
-	heart: 'Then, you no longer love me?'
-
-	'I am horrified at having given myself to the first comer,' said
-	Mathilde, weeping with rage at herself.
-
-	'_To the first comer_!' cried Julien, and he snatched up an old
-	mediaeval sword which was kept in the library as a curiosity.
-
-	His grief, which he had believed to be intense at the moment of his
-	speaking to Mademoiselle de La Mole, had now been increased an
-	hundredfold by the tears of shame which he saw her shed. He would have
-	been the happiest of men had it been possible to kill her.
-
-	Just as he had drawn the sword, with some difficulty, from its
-	antiquated scabbard, Mathilde, delighted by so novel a sensation,
-	advanced proudly towards him; her tears had ceased to flow.
-
-	The thought of the Marquis de La Mole, his benefactor, arose vividly
-	in Julien's mind. 'I should be killing his daughter!' he said to
-	himself; 'how horrible!' He made as though to fling away the sword.
-	'Certainly,' he thought, 'she will now burst out laughing at the sight
-	of this melodramatic gesture': thanks to this consideration, he
-	entirely regained his self-possession. He examined the blade of the
-	old sword with curiosity, and as though he were looking for a spot of
-	rust, then replaced it in its scabbard, and with the utmost calm hung
-	it up on the nail of gilded bronze from which he had taken it.
-
-	This series of actions, very deliberate towards the end, occupied
-	fully a minute; Mademoiselle de La Mole gazed at him in astonishment.
-	'So I have been within an inch of being killed by my lover!' she said
-	to herself.
-
-	This thought carried her back to the bravest days of the age of
-	Charles IX and Henri III.
-
-	She stood motionless before Julien who had now replaced the sword, she
-	gazed at him with eyes in which there was no more hatred. It must be
-	admitted that she was very attractive at that moment, certainly no
-	woman had ever borne less resemblance to a Parisian doll (this label
-	expressed Julien's chief objection to the women of that city).
-
-	'I am going to fall back into a fondness for him,' thought Mathilde;
-	'and then at once he would suppose himself to be my lord and master,
-	after a relapse, and at the very moment when I have just spoken to him
-	so firmly.' She fled.
-
-	'My God! How beautiful she is!' said Julien, as he watched her run
-	from the room: 'that is the creature who flung herself into my arms
-	with such frenzy not a week ago ... And those moments will never
-	come again! And it is my fault! And, at the moment of so extraordinary
-	an action, and one that concerned me so closely, I was not conscious
-	of it! ... I must admit that I was born with a very dull and unhappy
-	nature.'
-
-	The Marquis appeared; Julien made haste to inform him of his
-	departure.
-
-	'For where?' said M. de La Mole.
-
-	'For Languedoc.'
-
-	'No, if you please, you are reserved for a higher destiny; if you go
-	anywhere, it will be to the North ... Indeed, in military parlance, I
-	confine you to your quarters. You will oblige me by never being absent
-	for more than two or three hours, I may need you at any moment.'
-
-	Julien bowed, and withdrew without uttering a word, leaving the
-	Marquis greatly astonished; he was incapable of speech, and shut
-	himself up in his room. There, he was free to exaggerate all the
-	iniquity of his lot.
-
-	'And so,' he thought, 'I cannot even go away! God knows for how many
-	days the Marquis is going to keep me in Paris; great God! What is to
-	become of me? And not a friend that I can consult; the abbe Pirard
-	would not let me finish my first sentence, Conte Altamira would offer
-	to enlist me in some conspiracy.
-
-	'And meanwhile I am mad, I feel it; I am mad!
-
-	'Who can guide me, what is to become of me?'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 18
-	Painful Moments
-
-
-	And she admits it to me! She goes into the minutest
-	details! Her lovely eye fixed on mine reveals the
-	love that she felt for another!
-	SCHILLER
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole, in an ecstasy, could think only of the
-	felicity of having come within an inch of being killed. She went so
-	far as to say to herself: 'He is worthy to be my master, since he has
-	been on the point of killing me. How many of the good-looking young
-	men in society would one have to fuse together to arrive at such an
-	impulse of passion?
-
-	'One must admit that he did look handsome when he climbed on the
-	chair, to replace the sword, precisely in the picturesque position
-	which the decorator had chosen for it! After all, I was not such a
-	fool to fall in love with him.'
-
-	At that moment, had any honourable way of renewing their relations
-	presented itself, she would have seized it with pleasure. Julien,
-	locked and double-locked in his room, was a prey to the most violent
-	despair. In the height of his folly, he thought of flinging himself at
-	her feet. If, instead of remaining hidden in a remote corner, he had
-	wandered through the house and into the garden, so as to be within
-	reach of any opportunity, he might perhaps in a single instant have
-	converted his fearful misery into the keenest happiness.
-
-	But the adroitness with the want of which we are reproaching him would
-	have debarred the sublime impulse of seizing the sword which, at that
-	moment, made him appear so handsome in the eyes of Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole. This caprice, which told in Julien's favour, lasted for the rest
-	of the day; Mathilde formed a charming impression of the brief moments
-	during which she had loved him, and looked back on them with regret.
-
-	'Actually,' she said to herself, 'my passion for that poor boy lasted,
-	in his eyes, only from one o'clock in the morning, when I saw him
-	arrive by his ladder, with all his pistols in the side pocket of his
-	coat, until eight. It was at a quarter past eight, when hearing mass
-	at Sainte-Valere, that it first occurred to me that he would imagine
-	himself to be my master, and might try to make me obey him by force of
-	terror.'
-
-	After dinner, Mademoiselle de La Mole, far from avoiding Julien, spoke
-	to him, and almost ordered him to accompany her to the garden; he
-	obeyed. This proved too much for her self-control. Mathilde yielded,
-	almost unconsciously, to the love which she began to feel for him. She
-	found an intense pleasure in strolling by his side, it was with
-	curiosity that she gazed at his hands which that morning had seized
-	the sword to kill her.
-
-	After such an action, after all that had passed, there could no longer
-	be any question of their conversing on the same terms as before.
-
-	Gradually Mathilde began to talk to him with an intimate confidence of
-	the state of her heart. She found a strange delight in this kind of
-	conversation; she proceeded to tell him of the fleeting impulses of
-	enthusiasm which she had felt for M. de Croisenois, for M. de Caylus
-	...
-
-	'What! For M. de Caylus as well!' cried Julien; and all the bitter
-	jealousy of a past jilted lover was made manifest in his words.
-	Mathilde received them in that light, and was not offended.
-
-	She continued to torture Julien, detailing her past feelings in the
-	most picturesque fashion, and in accents of the most absolute
-	sincerity. He saw that she was describing what was present before her
-	eyes. He had the grief of remarking that as she spoke she made fresh
-	discoveries in her own heart.
-
-	The agony of jealousy can go no farther.
-
-	The suspicion that a rival is loved is painful enough already, but to
-	have the love that he inspires in her confessed to one in detail by
-	the woman whom one adores is without doubt the acme of suffering.
-
-	Oh, how she punished, at that moment, the impulse of pride which had
-	led Julien to set himself above all the Caylus and Croisenois! With
-	what an intense and heartfelt misery he now exaggerated their most
-	trivial advantages! With what ardent sincerity he now despised
-	himself!
-
-	Mathilde seemed adorable to him, language fails to express the
-	intensity of his admiration. As he walked by her side, he cast furtive
-	glances at her hands, her arms, her regal bearing. He was on the point
-	of falling at her feet, crushed with love and misery, and crying:
-	'Pity!'
-
-	'And this creature who is so lovely, so superior to all the rest, who
-	has once loved me, it is M. de Caylus whom, no doubt, she will
-	presently be loving!'
-
-	Julien could not doubt Mademoiselle de La Mole's sincerity; the accent
-	of truth was all too evident in everything that she said. That
-	absolutely nothing might be wanting to complete his misery, there were
-	moments when, by dint of occupying her mind with the sentiments which
-	she had at one time felt for M. de Caylus, Mathilde was led to speak
-	of him as though she loved him still. Certainly there was love in her
-	accents, Julien could see it plainly.
-
-	Had his bosom been flooded with a mass of molten lead, he would have
-	suffered less. How, arrived at this extreme pitch of misery, was the
-	poor boy to guess that it was because she was talking to him that
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole found such pleasure in recalling all the
-	niceties of love that she had felt in the past for M. de Caylus or M.
-	de Luz?
-
-	No words could express Julien's anguish. He was listening to the
-	detailed confidences of the love felt for others in that same lime
-	walk where, so few days since, he had waited for one o'clock to strike
-	before making his way into her room. Human nature is incapable of
-	enduring misery at a higher pitch than this.
-
-	This kind of cruel intimacy lasted for a whole week. Mathilde now
-	appeared to seek, now did not shun opportunities of speaking to him;
-	and the subject of conversation, to which they seemed both to return
-	with a sort of torturing pleasure, was the recital of the sentiments
-	that she had felt for others; she recounted to him the letters that
-	she had written, told him the very words of them, repeated whole
-	sentences. On the final days she seemed to be studying Julien with a
-	sort of malignant delight. His sufferings were a source of keen
-	enjoyment to her.
-
-	We can see that Julien had no experience of life, he had not even read
-	any novels; if he had been a little less awkward, and had said with a
-	certain coldness to this girl, whom he so adored and who made him such
-	strange confidences: 'Admit that though I am not the equal of all
-	these gentlemen, it is still myself that you love ...'
-
-	Perhaps she would have been glad to have her secret guessed; at any
-	rate his success would have depended entirely upon the grace with
-	which Julien expressed this idea, and the moment that he chose.
-	However that might be, he came out well, and yith advantage to
-	himself, from a situation which was tending to become monotonous in
-	Mathilde's eyes.
-
-	'And you no longer love me, me who adore you!' Julien said |o her one
-	day, desperate with love and misery. It was almost She worst blunder
-	that he could have made.
-
-	This speech destroyed in an instant all the pleasure that lademoiselle
-	de La Mole found in speaking to him of the state of her heart. She was
-	beginning to feel astonished that after what had happened he did not
-	take offence at her confidences, he was on the point of imagining, at
-	the moment when he made this foolish speech, that perhaps he no longer
-	loved her. 'Pride has doubtless quenched his love,' she said to
-	herself. 'He is not the man to see himself set with impunity beneath
-	creatures like Caylus, de Luz, Croisenois, who he admits are so far
-	his superiors. No, I shall never see him at my feet again!'
-
-	On the preceding days, in the artlessness of his misery, Julien had
-	paid a heartfelt tribute to the brilliant qualities of these
-	gentlemen; he went so far as to exaggerate them. This change of
-	attitude had by no means escaped the notice of Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole; it had surprised her, but she did not suspect the reason or it.
-	Julien's frenzied soul, in praising a rival whom he believed to be
-	loved, sympathised with that rival in his good fortune.
-
-	This speech, so frank but so stupid, altered the whole situation an
-	instant: Mathilde, certain of being loved, despised him completely.
-
-	She was strolling with him at the moment of this unfortunate
-	utterance; she left him, and her final glance was expressive of the
-	most bitter scorn. Returning to the drawing-room, for the rest of the
-	evening she never looked at him again. Next day, this scorn of him had
-	entire possession of her heart; there was no longer any question of
-	the impulse which, for a whole week, had made her find such pleasure
-	in treating Julien as her most intimate friend; the sight of him was
-	repulsive to her. Mathilde's feeling reached the point of disgust; no
-	words could express the intensity of the scorn that she felt when her
-	eyes happened to fall on him.
-
-	Julien had understood nothing of all that had been happening in
-	Mathilde's heart, but for the past week he discerned her scorn. He had
-	the good sense to appear in her presence as rarely as possible, and
-	never looked her in the face.
-
-	But it was not without a mortal anguish that he deprived himself to
-	some extent of her company. He thought he could feel that his misery
-	was thereby actually increased. 'The courage of a man's heart can go
-	no farther,' he told himself. He spent all his time at a little window
-	in the attics of the house; the shutters were carefully closed, and
-	from there, at least, he could catch a glimpse of Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole when she appeared in the garden.
-
-	What were his feelings when, after dinner, he saw her strolling with
-	M. de Caylus, M. de Luz or any of the others for whom she had avowed
-	some slight amorous inclination in the past?
-
-	Julien had had no idea of such an intensity of misery; he was on the
-	point of crying aloud; that resolute heart was at last reduced to
-	utter helplessness.
-
-	Any thought that was not of Mademoiselle de La Mole had become odious
-	to him; he was incapable of writing the most simple letters.
-
-	'You are crazy,' the Marquis said to him.
-
-	Julien, trembling with fear of a disclosure, pleaded illness and
-	managed to make himself believed. Fortunately for him, the Marquis
-	teased him at dinner over his coming journey: Mathilde gathered that
-	it might be prolonged. For several days now Julien had been avoiding
-	her, and the brilliant young men who had everything that was lacking
-	in this creature so pale and sombre, once loved by her, had no longer
-	the power to distract her from her dreams.
-
-	'An ordinary girl,' she said to herself, 'would have sought for the
-	man of her choice among the young fellows who attract every eye in a
-	drawing-room; but one of the characteristics of genius is not to let
-	its thoughts move in the rut traced by the common herd.
-
-	'As the partner of such a man as Julien, who lacks nothing but the
-	fortune which I possess, I shall continue to attract attention, I
-	shall by no means pass unperceived through life. So far from
-	incessantly dreading a Revolution like my cousins, who, in their fear
-	of the people, dare not scold a postilion who drives them badly, I
-	shall be certain of playing a part and a great part, for the man of my
-	choice has character and an unbounded ambition. What does he lack?
-	Friends? Money? I can give him all that.' But in her thoughts she
-	treated Julien rather as an inferior being who can be made to love one
-	when one wills.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 19
-	The Opera-Bouffe
-
-
-	O how this spring of love resembleth
-	The uncertain glory of an April day;
-	Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
-	And by and by a cloud takes all away!
-	SHAKESPEARE
-
-	Occupied with thoughts of the future and of the singular part which
-	she hoped to play, Mathilde soon came to look back with regret upon
-	the dry, metaphysical discussions which she often had with Julien.
-	Wearied with keeping her thoughts on so high a plane, sometimes also
-	she would sigh for the moments of happiness which she had found in his
-	company; these memories were not untouched by remorse, which at
-	certain moments overwhelmed her.
-
-	'But if one has a weakness,' she said to herself, 'it is incumbent
-	upon a girl like myself to forget her duties only for a man of merit;
-	people will not be able to say that it was his handsome moustaches or
-	his elegant seat on a horse that seduced me, but his profound
-	discussions of the future in store for France, his ideas as to the
-	resemblance the events that are going to burst upon us may bear to the
-	Revolution of 1688 in England. I have been seduced,' she answered the
-	voice of remorse, 'I am a weak woman, but at least I have not been led
-	astray like a puppet by outward advantages.
-
-	'If there be a Revolution, why should not Julien Sorel play the part
-	of Roland, and I that of Madame Roland? I prefer that to the part of
-	Madame de Stael: immoral conduct will be an obstacle in our time.
-	Certainly they shall not reproach me with a second lapse; I should die
-	of shame.'
-
-	Mathilde's meditations were not all as grave, it must be admitted, as
-	the thoughts we have just transcribed.
-
-	She would look at Julien, and found a charming grace in his most
-	trivial actions.
-
-	'No doubt,' she said to herself, 'I have succeeded in destroying every
-	idea in his mind that he has certain rights.
-
-	'The air of misery and profound passion with which the poor boy
-	addressed those words of love to me a week ago, is proof positive; I
-	must confess that it was extraordinary in me to be vexed by a speech
-	so fervent with respect and passion. Am I not his wife? That speech
-	was only natural, and, I am bound to say, quite agreeable. Julien
-	still loved me after endless conversations, in which I had spoken to
-	him, and with great cruelty, I admit, only of the feelings of love
-	which the boredom of the life I lead had inspired in me for the young
-	men in society of whom he is so jealous. Ah, if he knew how little
-	danger there is in them for me! How lifeless they seem to me when
-	compared with him, all copies of each other.'
-
-	As she made these reflections, Mathilde was tracing lines with a
-	pencil at random on a page of her album. One of the profiles as she
-	finished it startled and delighted her: it bore a striking resemblance
-	to Julien. 'It is the voice of heaven! This is one of the miracles of
-	love,' she cried in a transport, 'quite unconsciously I have drawn his
-	portrait.'
-
-	She fled to her room, locked herself in, set to work, tried seriously
-	to make a portrait of Julien, but could not succeed; the profile drawn
-	at random was still the best likeness. Mathilde was enchanted; she saw
-	in it a clear proof of her grand passion.
-
-	She did not lay aside her album until late in the evening, when the
-	Marquise sent for her to go to the Italian opera. She had only one
-	idea, to catch Julien's eye, so as to make her mother invite him to
-	join them.
-
-	He did not appear; the ladies had only the most commonplace people in
-	their box. During the whole of the first act of the opera, Mathilde
-	sat dreaming of the man whom she loved with transports of the most
-	intense passion; but in the second act a maxim of love sung, it must
-	be admitted, to a melody worthy of Cimarosa, penetrated her heart.
-	The heroine of the opera said: 'I must be punished for all the
-	adoration that I feel for him, I love him too well!'
-
-	The moment she had heard this sublime _cantilena_, everything that
-	existed in the world vanished from Mathilde's ken. People spoke to
-	her; she did not answer; her mother scolded her, it was all she could
-	do to look at her. Her ecstasy reached a state of exaltation and
-	passion comparable to the most violent emotions that, during the last
-	few days, Julien had felt for her. The _cantilena_, divinely
-	graceful, to which was sung the maxim that seemed to her to bear so
-	striking an application to her own situation, occupied every moment in
-	which she was not thinking directly of Julien. Thanks to her love of
-	music, she became that evening as Madame de Renal invariably was when
-	thinking of him. Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless,
-	than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself
-	too well, it criticises itself incessantly; so far from banishing
-	thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.
-
-	On her return home, in spite of anything that Madame de La Mole might
-	say, Mathilde alleged an attack of fever, and spent part of the night
-	playing over the _cantilena_ on her piano. She sang the words of the
-	famous aria which had charmed her:
-
-	Devo punirmi, devo punirmi,
-	Se troppo amai.
-
-	The result of this night of madness was that she imagined herself to
-	have succeeded in conquering her love. (This page will damage the
-	unfortunate author in more ways than one. The frigid hearts will
-	accuse it of indecency. It does not offer the insult to the young
-	persons who shine in the drawing-rooms of Paris, of supposing that a
-	single one of their number is susceptible to the mad impulses which
-	degrade the character of Mathilde. This character is wholly
-	imaginary, and is indeed imagined quite apart from the social customs
-	which among all the ages will assure so distinguished a place to the
-	civilisation of the nineteenth century.
-
-	It is certainly not prudence that is lacking in the young ladies who
-	have been the ornament of the balls this winter.
-
-	Nor do I think that one can accuse them of unduly despising a
-	brilliant fortune, horses, fine properties, and everything that
-	ensures an agreeable position in society. So far from their seeing
-	nothing but boredom in all these advantages, they are as a rule the
-	object of their most constant desires, and if there is any passion in
-	their hearts it is for them.
-
-	Neither is it love that provides for the welfare of young men endowed
-	with a certain amount of talent like Julien; they attach themselves
-	inseparably to a certain set, and when the set 'arrives', all the good
-	things of society rain upon them. Woe to the student who belongs to no
-	set, even his minute and far from certain successes will be made a
-	reproach to him, and the higher virtue will triumph over him as it
-	robs him. Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At
-	one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the
-	mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror
-	in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shows
-	the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon
-	which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows
-	the water to gather and the puddle to form.
-
-	Now that it is quite understood that the character of Mathilde is
-	impossible in our age, no less prudent than virtuous, I am less afraid
-	of causing annoyance by continuing the account of the follies of this
-	charming girl.)
-
-	Throughout the whole of the day that followed she looked out for
-	opportunities to assure herself that she had indeed conquered her
-	insane passion. Her main object was to displease Julien in every way;
-	but none of her movements passed unperceived by him.
-
-	Julien was too wretched and above all, too greatly agitated, to
-	interpret so complicated a stratagem of passion, still less could he
-	discern all the promise that it held out to himself: he fell a victim
-	to it; never perhaps had his misery been so intense. His actions were
-	so little under the control of his mind that if some morose
-	philosopher had said to him: 'Seek to take advantage rapidly of a
-	disposition which for the moment is favourable to you; in this sort of
-	brain-fed love, which we see in Paris, the same state of mind cannot
-	continue for more than a couple of days,' he would not have
-	understood. But, excited as he might be, Julien had a sense of honour.
-	His first duty was discretion; so much he did understand. To ask for
-	advice, to relate his agony to the first comer would have been a
-	happiness comparable to that of the wretch who, crossing a burning
-	desert, receives from the sky a drop of ice-cold water. He was aware
-	of the danger, he was afraid of answering with a torrent of tears the
-	indiscreet person who should question him; he closeted himself in his
-	room.
-
-	He saw Mathilde strolling late and long in the garden; when at length
-	she had left it, he went down there; he made his way to a rose tree
-	from which she had plucked a rose.
-
-	The night was dark, he could indulge the full extent of his misery
-	without fear of being seen. It was evident to him that Mademoiselle de
-	La Mole was in love with one of those young officers to whom she had
-	been chattering so gaily. He himself had been loved by her, but she
-	had seen how slight were his merits.
-
-	'And indeed, they are slight!' Julien told himself with entire
-	conviction; 'I am, when all is said, a very dull creature, very
-	common, very tedious to others, quite insupportable to myself.' He was
-	sick to death of all his own good qualities, of all the things that he
-	had loved with enthusiasm; and in this state of inverted imagination
-	he set to work to criticise life with his imagination. This is an
-	error that stamps a superior person.
-
-	More than once the idea of suicide occurred to him; this image was
-	full of charm, it was like a delicious rest; it was the glass of
-	ice-cold water offered to the wretch who, in the desert, is dying of
-	thirst and heat.
-
-	'My death will increase the scorn that she feels for me!' he
-	exclaimed. 'What a memory I shall leave behind me!'
-
-	Sunk into the nethermost abyss of misery, a human being has no
-	resource left but courage. Julien had not wisdom enough to say to
-	himself: 'I must venture all'; but as he looked up at the window of
-	Mathilde's room, he could see through the shutters that she was
-	putting out her light: he pictured to himself that charming room which
-	he had seen, alas, once only in his life. His imagination went no
-	farther.
-
-	One o'clock struck; from hearing the note of the bell to saying to
-	himself: 'I am going up by the ladder,' did not take a moment.
-
-	This was a flash of genius, cogent reasons followed in abundance. 'Can
-	I possibly be more wretched?' he asked himself. He ran to the ladder,
-	the gardener had made it fast with a chain. With the hammer of one of
-	his pocket pistols, which he broke, Julien, animated for the moment by
-	a superhuman force, wrenched open one of the iron links of the chain
-	which bound the ladder; in a few minutes it was free, and he had
-	placed it against Mathilde's window.
-
-	'She will be angry, will heap contempt upon me, what of that? I give
-	her a kiss, a final kiss, I go up to my room and kill myself ... ; my
-	lips will have touched her cheek before I die!'
-
-	He flew up the ladder, tapped at the shutter; a moment later Mathilde
-	heard him, she tried to open the shutter, the ladder kept it closed.
-	Julien clung to the iron latch intended to hold the shutter open, and,
-	risking a thousand falls, gave the ladder a violent shake, and
-	displaced it a little. Mathilde was able to open the shutter.
-
-	He flung himself into the room more dead than alive: 'So it is you!'
-	she said, and fell into his arms ...
-
-	* * *
-
-	What words can describe the intensity of Julien's happiness?
-	Mathilde's was almost as great.
-
-	She spoke to him against herself, she accused herself to him.
-
-	'Punish me for my atrocious pride,' she said to him, squeezing him in
-	her arms as though to strangle him; 'you are my master, I am your
-	slave, I must beg pardon upon my knees for having sought to rebel.'
-	She slipped from his embrace to fall at his feet. 'Yes, you are my
-	master,' she said again, intoxicated with love and joy; 'reign over me
-	for ever, punish your slave severely when she seeks to rebel.'
-
-	In another moment she had torn herself from his arms, lighted the
-	candle, and Julien had all the difficulty in the world in preventing
-	her from cutting off all one side of her hair.
-
-	'I wish to remind myself,' she told him, 'that I am your servant:
-	should my accursed pride ever make me forget it, show me these locks
-	and say: "There is no question now of love, we are not concerned with
-	the emotion that your heart may be feeling at this moment, you have
-	sworn to obey, obey upon your honour."'
-
-	But it is wiser to suppress the description of so wild a felicity.
-
-	Julien's chivalry was as great as his happiness; 'I must go down now
-	by the ladder,' he said to Mathilde, when he saw the dawn appear over
-	the distant chimneys to the east, beyond the gardens. The sacrifice
-	that I am imposing on myself is worthy of you, I am depriving myself
-	of some hours of the most astounding happiness that a human soul can
-	enjoy, it is a sacrifice that I am offering to your reputation: if you
-	know my heart you appreciate the effort that I have to make. Will you
-	always be to me what you are at this moment? But the voice of honour
-	speaks, it is enough. Let me tell you that, since our first meeting,
-	suspicion has not been directed only against robbers. M. de La Mole
-	has set a watch in the garden. M. de Croisenois is surrounded by
-	spies, we know what he is, doing night by night ...'
-
-	When she heard this idea, Mathilde burst out laughing. Her mother and
-	one of the maids were aroused: immediately they called to her through
-	the door. Julien looked at her, she turned pale as she scolded the
-	maid, and did not condescend to speak to her mother.
-
-	'But if it should occur to them to open the window, they will see the
-	ladder!' Julien said to her.
-
-	He clasped her once more in his arms, sprang on to the ladder and slid
-	rather than climbed down it; in a moment he was on the ground.
-
-	Three seconds later the ladder was under the lime alley, and
-	Mathilde's honour was saved. Julien, on recovering his senses, found
-	himself bleeding copiously and half naked: he had cut himself in his
-	headlong descent.
-
-	The intensity of his happiness had restored all the energy of his
-	nature: had a score of men appeared before him, to attack them
-	single-handed would, at that moment, have been but a pleasure the
-	more. Fortunately, his martial valour was not put to the proof: he
-	laid down the ladder in its accustomed place; he replaced the chain
-	that fastened it; he did not forget to come back and obliterate the
-	print which the ladder had left in the border of exotic flowers
-	beneath Mathilde's window.
-
-	As in the darkness he explored the loose earth with his hand, to make
-	sure that the mark was entirely obliterated, he felt something drop on
-	his hand; it was a whole side of Mathilde's hair which she had clipped
-	and threw down to him.
-
-	She was at her window.
-
-	'See what your servant sends you,' she said in audible tones, 'it is
-	the sign of eternal obedience. I renounce the exercise of my own
-	reason; be my master.'
-
-	Julien, overcome, was on the point of fetching back the ladder and
-	mounting again to her room. Finally reason prevailed.
-
-	To enter the house from the garden was by no means easy. He succeeded
-	in forcing the door of a cellar; once in the house he was obliged to
-	break open, as silently as possible, the door of his own room. In his
-	confusion he had left everything behind, including the key, which was
-	in the pocket of his coat. 'Let us hope,' he thought, 'that she will
-	remember to hide all that _corpus delicti_!'
-
-	Finally exhaustion overpowered happiness, and, as the sun rose, he
-	fell into a profound slumber.
-
-	The luncheon bell just succeeded in waking him, he made his appearance
-	in the dining-room. Shortly afterwards, Mathilde entered the room.
-	Julien's pride tasted a momentary joy when he saw the love that glowed
-	in the eyes of this beautiful creature, surrounded by every mark of
-	deference; but soon his prudence found an occasion for alarm.
-
-	On the pretext of not having had time to dress her hair properly,
-	Mathilde had so arranged it that Julien could see at a glance the
-	whole extent of the sacrifice that she had made for him in clipping
-	her locks that night. If anything could have spoiled so lovely a
-	head, Mathilde would have succeeded in spoiling hers; all one side of
-	those beautiful pale golden locks were cropped to within half an inch
-	of her scalp.
-
-	At luncheon, Mathilde's whole behaviour was in keeping with this
-	original imprudence. You would have said that she was deliberately
-	trying to let everyone see the insane passion that she had for Julien.
-	Fortunately, that day, M. de La Mole and the Marquise were greatly
-	taken up with a list of forthcoming promotions to the Blue Riband, in
-	which the name of M. de Chaulnes had not been included. Towards the
-	end of the meal, Mathilde in talking to Julien addressed him as 'my
-	master'. He coloured to the whites of his eyes.
-
-	Whether by accident or by the express design of Madame de La Mole,
-	Mathilde was not left alone for an instant that day. In the evening,
-	however, as she passed from the dining-room to the drawing-room, she
-	found an opportunity of saying to Julien:
-
-	'I hope you do not think that it is my idea: Mamma has just decided
-	that one of her maids is to sleep in my room.'
-
-	The day passed like lightning; Julien was on the highest pinnacle of
-	happiness. By seven o'clock next morning he was installed in the
-	library; he hoped that Mademoiselle de La Mole would deign to appear
-	there; he had written her an endless letter.
-
-	He did not see her until several hours had passed, at luncheon. Her
-	head was dressed on this occasion with the greatest pains; a
-	marvellous art had been employed to conceal the gap left by the
-	clipped locks. She looked once or twice at Julien, but with polite,
-	calm eyes; there was no longer any question of her calling him 'my
-	master'.
-
-	Julien could not breathe for astonishment ... Mathilde found fault
-	with herself for almost everything that she had done for him.
-
-	On mature reflection, she had decided that he was a creature, if not
-	altogether common, at any rate not sufficiently conspicuous to deserve
-	all the strange follies which she had ventured to commit for him. On
-	the whole, she no longer thought of love; she was tired of love that
-	day.
-
-	As for Julien, the emotions of his heart were those of a boy of
-	sixteen. Harrowing doubt, bewilderment, despair, seized upon him by
-	turns during this luncheon, which seemed to him to be everlasting.
-
-	As soon as he could decently rise from table, he flew rather than ran
-	to the stable, saddled his horse himself and was off at a gallop; he
-	was afraid of disgracing himself by some sign of weakness. 'I must
-	kill my heart by physical exhaustion,' he said to himself as he
-	galloped through the woods of Meudon. 'What have I done, what have I
-	said to deserve such disgrace?
-
-	'I must do nothing, say nothing today,' he decided as he returned to
-	the house, 'be dead in body as I am in spirit. Julien no longer lives,
-	it is his corpse that is still stirring.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 2O
-	The Japanese Vase
-
-
-	His heart does not at first realise the whole extent of
-	his misery: he is more disturbed than moved. But in
-	proportion as his reason returns, he feels the depth of
-	his misfortune. All the pleasures in life are as nothing
-	to him, he can feel only the sharp points of the despair
-	that is rending him. But what is the good of speaking of
-	physical pain? What pain felt by the body alone is
-	comparable to this?
-	JEAN-PAUL
-
-	The dinner bell rang, Julien had barely time to dress; he found
-	Mathilde in the drawing-room urging her brother and M. de Croisenois
-	not to go and spend the evening with Madame la Marechale de Fervaques.
-
-	She could hardly have been more seductive and charming with them.
-	After dinner they were joined by M. de Luz, M. de Caylus and several
-	of their friends. One would have said that Mademoiselle de La Mole had
-	resumed, together with the observance of sisterly affection, that of
-	the strictest conventions. Although the weather that evening was
-	charming, she insisted that they should not go out to the garden; she
-	was determined not to be lured away from the armchair in which Madame
-	de La Mole was enthroned. The blue sofa was the centre of the group,
-	as in winter.
-
-	Mathilde was out of humour with the garden, or at least it seemed to
-	her to be utterly boring: it was associated with the memory of Julien.
-
-	Misery destroys judgment. Our hero made the blunder of clinging to
-	that little cane chair which in the past had witnessed such brilliant
-	triumphs. This evening, nobody spoke to him; his presence passed as
-	though unperceived or worse. Those of Mademoiselle de La Mole's
-	friends who were seated near him at the end of the sofa made an
-	affectation of turning their backs on him, or so he thought.
-
-	'It is a courtier's disgrace,' he concluded. He decided to study for a
-	moment the people who were trying to crush him with their disdain.
-
-	M. de Luz's uncle held an important post in the King's Household, the
-	consequence of which was that this gallant officer opened his
-	conversation with each fresh arrival with the following interesting
-	detail: His uncle had set off at seven o'clock for Saint-Cloud, and
-	expected to spend the night there. This piece of news was introduced
-	in the most casual manner, but it never failed to come out.
-
-	Upon observing M. de Croisenois with the severe eye of misery, Julien
-	remarked the enormous influence which this worthy and amiable young
-	man attributed to occult causes. So much so that he became moody and
-	cross if he heard an event of any importance set down to a simple and
-	quite natural cause. 'There is a trace of madness there,' Julien told
-	himself. 'This character bears a striking resemblance to that of the
-	Emperor Alexander, as Prince Korasoff described him to me.' During the
-	first year of his stay in Paris, poor Julien, coming fresh from the
-	Seminary, dazzled by the graces, so novel to him, of all these
-	agreeable young men, could do nothing but admire them. Their true
-	character was only now beginning to outline itself before his eyes.
-
-	'I am playing an undignified part here,' he suddenly decided. The next
-	thing was how to leave his little cane chair in a fashion that should
-	not be too awkward. He tried to think of one, he called for something
-	original upon an imagination that was fully occupied elsewhere. He was
-	obliged to draw upon his memory, which, it must be confessed, was by
-	no means rich in resources of this order; the boy was still a thorough
-	novice, so that his awkwardness was complete and attracted everyone's
-	attention when he rose to leave the drawing-room. Misery was all too
-	evident in his whole deportment. He had been playing the part for
-	three quarters of an hour of a troublesome inferior from whom people
-	do not take the trouble to conceal what they think of him.
-
-	The critical observations which he had been making at the expense of
-	his rivals prevented him, however, from taking his misfortune too
-	seriously; he retained, to give support to his pride, the memory of
-	what had occurred the night before last. 'Whatever the advantages they
-	may have over me,' he thought as he went into the garden by himself,
-	'Mathilde has not been to any of them what, on two occasions in my
-	life, she has deigned to be to me.'
-
-	His sagacity went no farther. He failed entirely to understand the
-	character of the singular person whom chance had now made absolute
-	mistress of his whole happiness.
-
-	He devoted the next day to killing himself and his horse with
-	exhaustion. He made no further attempt, that evening, to approach the
-	blue sofa to which Mathilde was faithful. He remarked that Comte
-	Norbert did not so much as deign to look at him when they met in the
-	house. 'He must be making an extraordinary effort,' he thought, 'he
-	who is naturally so polite.'
-
-	For Julien, sleep would have meant happiness. Despite his bodily
-	exhaustion, memories of a too seductive kind began to invade his whole
-	imagination. He had not the intelligence to see that by his long rides
-	through the forests round Paris, acting only upon himself and in no
-	way upon the heart or mind of Mathilde, he was leaving the arrangement
-	of his destiny to chance.
-
-	It seemed to him that one thing would supply boundless comfort to his
-	grief: namely to speak to Mathilde. And yet what could he venture to
-	say to her?
-
-	This was the question upon which one morning at seven o'clock he was
-	pondering deeply, when suddenly he saw her enter the library.
-
-	'I know, Sir, that you desire to speak to me.'
-
-	'Great God! Who told you that?'
-
-	'I know it, what more do you want? If you are lacking in honour, you
-	may ruin me, or at least attempt to do so; but this danger, which I do
-	not regard as real, will certainly not prevent me from being sincere.
-	I no longer love you, Sir; my wild imagination misled me ...'
-
-	On receiving this terrible blow, desperate with love and misery,
-	Julien tried to excuse himself. Nothing could be more absurd. Does one
-	excuse oneself for failing to please? But reason no longer held any
-	sway over his actions. A blind instinct urged him to postpone the
-	decision of his fate. It seemed to him that so long as he was still
-	speaking, nothing was definitely settled. Mathilde did not listen to
-	his words, the sound of them irritated her, she could not conceive how
-	he had the audacity to interrupt her.
-
-	The twofold remorse of her virtue and her pride made her, that
-	morning, equally unhappy. She was more or less crushed by the
-	frightful idea of having given certain rights over herself to a little
-	cleric, the son of a peasant. 'It is almost,' she told herself in
-	moments when she exaggerated her distress, 'as though I had to
-	reproach myself with a weakness for one of the footmen.'
-
-	In bold and proud natures, it is only a step from anger with oneself
-	to fury with other people; one's transports of rage are in such
-	circumstances a source of keen pleasure.
-
-	In a moment, Mademoiselle de La Mole reached the stage of heaping on
-	Julien the marks of the most intense scorn. She had infinite
-	cleverness, and this cleverness triumphed in the art of torturing the
-	self-esteem of others and inflicting cruel wounds upon them.
-
-	For the first time in his life, Julien found himself subjected to the
-	action of a superior intelligence animated by the most violent hatred
-	of himself. So far from entertaining the slightest idea of defending
-	himself at that moment, he began to despise himself. Hearing her heap
-	upon him such cruel marks of scorn, so cleverly calculated to destroy
-	any good opinion that he might have of himself, he felt that Mathilde
-	was right, and that she was not saying enough.
-
-	As for her, her pride found an exquisite pleasure in thus punishing
-	herself and him for the adoration which she had felt a few days
-	earlier.
-
-	She had no need to invent or to think for the first time of the cruel
-	words which she now uttered with such complacence. She was only
-	repeating what for the last week had been said in her heart by the
-	counsel of the opposite party to love.
-
-	Every word increased Julien's fearful misery an hundredfold. He tried
-	to escape, Mademoiselle de La Mole held him by the arm with a gesture
-	of authority.
-
-	'Please to observe,' he said to her, 'that you are speaking extremely
-	loud; they will hear you in the next room.'
-
-	'What of that!' Mademoiselle de La Mole retorted proudly, 'who will
-	dare to say to me that he has heard me? I wish to rid your petty
-	self-esteem for ever of the ideas which it may have formed of me.'
-
-	When Julien was able to leave the library, he was so astounded that he
-	already felt his misery less keenly. 'Well! She no longer loves me,'
-	he repeated to himself, speaking aloud as though to inform himself of
-	his position. 'It appears that she loved me for a week or ten days,
-	and I shall love her all my life.
-
-	'Is it really possible, she meant nothing, nothing at all to my heart,
-	only a few days ago.'
-
-	The delights of satisfied pride flooded Mathilde's bosom; so she had
-	managed to break with him for ever! The thought of so complete a
-	triumph over so strong an inclination made her perfectly happy. 'And
-	so this little gentleman will understand, and once for all, that he
-	has not and never will have any power over me.' She was so happy that
-	really she had ceased to feel any love at that moment.
-
-	After so atrocious, so humiliating a scene, in anyone less passionate
-	than Julien, love would have become impossible. Without departing for
-	a single instant from what she owed to herself, Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole had addressed to him certain of those disagreeable statements, so
-	well calculated that they can appear to be true, even when one
-	remembers them in cold blood.
-
-	The conclusion that Julien drew at the first moment from so
-	astonishing a scene was that Mathilde had an unbounded pride. He
-	believed firmly that everything was at an end for ever between them,
-	and yet, the following day, at luncheon, he was awkward and timid in
-	her presence. This was a fault that could not have been found with him
-	until then. In small matters as in great, he knew clearly what he
-	ought and wished to do, and carried it out.
-
-	That day, after luncheon, when Madame de La Mole asked him for a
-	seditious and at the same time quite rare pamphlet, which her parish
-	priest had brought to her secretly that morning, Julien, in taking it
-	from a side table, knocked over an old vase of blue porcelain, the
-	ugliest thing imaginable.
-
-	Madame de La Mole rose to her feet with a cry of distress and came
-	across the room to examine the fragments of her beloved vase. 'It was
-	old Japan,' she said, 'it came to me from my great-aunt the Abbess of
-	Chelles; it was a present from the Dutch to the Duke of Orleans when
-	he was Regent and he gave it to his daughter ...'
-
-	Mathilde had followed her mother, delighted to see the destruction of
-	this blue vase which seemed to her horribly ugly. Julien stood silent
-	and not unduly distressed; he saw Mademoiselle de La Mole standing
-	close beside him.
-
-	'This vase,' he said to her, 'is destroyed for ever; so is it with a
-	sentiment which was once the master of my heart; I beg you to accept
-	my apologies for all the foolish things it has made me do'; and he
-	left the room.
-
-	'Really, one would think,' said Madame de La Mole as he went, 'that
-	this M. Sorel is proud and delighted with what he has done.'
-
-	This speech fell like a weight upon Mathilde's heart. 'It is true,'
-	she told herself, 'my mother has guessed aright, such is the sentiment
-	that is animating him.' Then and then only ended her joy in the scene
-	that she had made with him the day before. 'Ah, well, all is at an
-	end,' she said to herself with apparent calm; 'I am left with a great
-	example; my mistake has been fearful, degrading! It will make me wise
-	for all the rest of my life.'
-
-	'Was I not speaking the truth?' thought Julien; 'why does the love
-	that I felt for that madwoman torment me still?'
-
-	This love, so far from dying, as he hoped, was making rapid strides.
-	'She is mad, it is true,' he said to himself, 'but is she any less
-	adorable? Is it possible for a girl to be more lovely? Everything that
-	the most elegant civilisation can offer in the way of keen pleasures,
-	was it not all combined to one's heart's content in Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole?' These memories of past happiness took possession of Julien, and
-	rapidly undid all the work of reason.
-
-	Reason struggles in vain against memories of this sort; its stern
-	endeavours serve only to enhance their charm.
-
-	Twenty-four hours after the breaking of the old Japanese vase, Julien
-	was decidedly one of the unhappiest of men.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 21
-	The Secret Note
-
-
-	For I saw everything that I am telling you; and if I
-	may have been deceived when I saw it, I am most
-	certainly not deceiving you in telling you of it.
-	From a Letter to the Author
-
-	The Marquis sent for him; M. de La Mole seemed rejuvenated, there was
-	a gleam in his eye.
-
-	'Let us hear a little about your memory,' he said to Julien. 'I am
-	told it is prodigious! Could you learn four pages by heart and go and
-	repeat them in London? But without altering a word!'
-
-	The Marquis was feverishly turning the pages of that morning's
-	_Quotidienne_, and seeking in vain to dissimulate a highly serious air,
-	which Julien had never seen him display, not even when they were
-	discussing the Frilair case.
-
-	Julien had by this time sufficient experience to feel that he ought to
-	appear thoroughly deceived by the light manner that was being assumed
-	for his benefit.
-
-	'This number of the _Quotidienne_ is perhaps not very amusing; but, if
-	M. le Marquis will allow me, tomorrow morning I shall have the honour
-	to recite it to him from beginning to end.'
-
-	'What! Even the advertisements?'
-
-	'Literally, and without missing a word.'
-
-	'Do you give me your word for that?' went on the Marquis with a sudden
-	gravity.
-
-	'Yes, Sir, only the fear of not keeping it might upset my memory.'
-
-	'What I mean is that I forgot to ask you this question yesterday; I do
-	not ask you on your oath never to repeat what you are about to hear; I
-	know you too well to insult you in that way. I have answered for you,
-	I am going to take you to a room where there will be twelve persons
-	assembled; you will take note of what each of them says.
-
-	'Do not be uneasy, it is not going to be a confused conversation, each
-	one will speak in his turn, I do not mean a set speech,' the Marquis
-	went on, resuming the tone of careless superiority which came so
-	naturally to him. 'While we are talking, you will write down twenty
-	pages or so; you will return here with me, we shall cut down those
-	twenty pages to four. It is those four pages that you shall recite to
-	me tomorrow morning instead of the whole number of the _Quotidienne_.
-	You will then set off at once; you will have to take post like a young
-	man who is travelling for his pleasure. Your object will be to pass
-	unobserved by anyone. You will arrive in the presence of a great
-	personage. There, you will require more skill. It will be a question
-	of taking in everyone round him; for among his secretaries, among his
-	servants, there are men in the pay of our enemies, who lie in wait for
-	our agents to intercept them. You shall have a formal letter of
-	introduction. When His Excellency looks at you, you will take out my
-	watch here, which I am going to lend you for the journey. Take it now,
-	while you are about it, and give me yours.
-
-	'The Duke himself will condescend to copy out at your dictation the
-	four pages which you will have learned by heart.
-
-	'When this has been done, but not before, remember, you may, if His
-	Excellency questions you, give him an account of the meeting which you
-	are now about to attend.
-
-	'One thing that will prevent you from feeling bored on your jorney is
-	that between Paris and the residence of the Minister there are people
-	who would ask for nothing better than to fire a shot at M. l'abbe
-	Sorel. Then his mission is at an end and I foresee a long delay; for,
-	my dear fellow, how shall we hear of your death? Your zeal cannot go
-	so far as to inform us of it.
-
-	'Run off at once and buy yourself a complete outfit,' the Marquis went
-	on with a serious air. 'Dress in the style of the year before last.
-	This evening you will have to look a little shabby. On the journey,
-	however, you will dress as usual. Does that surprise you, does your
-	suspicious mind guess the reason? Yes, my friend, one of the venerable
-	personages whom you are about to hear discuss is fully capable of
-	transmitting information by means of which someone may quite possibly
-	administer opium to you, if nothing worse, in the evening, in some
-	respectable inn at which you will have called for supper.'
-
-	'It would be better,' said Julien, 'to travel thirty leagues farther
-	and avoid the direct route. My destination is Rome, I suppose ...'
-
-	The Marquis assumed an air of haughty displeasure which Julien had not
-	seen to so marked a degree since Bray-le-Haut.
-
-	'That is what you shall learn, Sir, when I think fit to tell you. I do
-	not like questions.'
-
-	'It was not a question,' replied Julien effusively: 'I swear to you,
-	Sir, I was thinking aloud, I was seeking in my own mind the safest
-	route.'
-
-	'Yes, it seems that your thoughts were far away. Never forget that an
-	ambassador, one of your youth especially, ought not to appear to be
-	forcing confidences.'
-
-	Julien was greatly mortified, he was in the wrong. His self-esteem
-	sought for an excuse and could find none.
-
-	'Understand then,' M. de La Mole went on, 'that people always appeal
-	to their hearts when they have done something foolish.'
-
-	An hour later, Julien was in the Marquis's waiting-room in the garb of
-	an inferior, with old-fashioned clothes, a doubtfully clean neckcloth
-	and something distinctly smug about his whole appearance.
-
-	At the sight of him, the Marquis burst out laughing, and then only was
-	Julien's apology accepted.
-
-	'If this young man betrays me,' M. de La Mole asked himself, 'whom can
-	I trust? And yet when it comes to action, one has to trust somebody.
-	My son and his brilliant friends of the same kidney have honest
-	hearts, and loyalty enough for a hundred thousand; if it were a
-	question of fighting, they would perish on the steps of the throne,
-	they know everything ... except just what is required at the moment.
-	Devil take me if I can think of one of them who could learn four pages
-	by heart and travel a hundred leagues without being tracked. Norbert
-	would know how to let himself be killed like his ancestors, but any
-	conscript can do that ...'
-
-	The Marquis fell into a profound meditation: 'And even being killed,'
-	he said with a sigh, 'perhaps this Sorel would manage that as well as
-	he ...
-
-	'The carriage is waiting,' said the Marquis, as though to banish a
-	vexatious thought.
-
-	'Sir,' said Julien, 'while they were altering this coat for me, I
-	committed to memory the first page of today's _Quotidienne_.'
-
-	The Marquis took the paper, Julien repeated the page without a single
-	mistake. 'Good,' said the Marquis, every inch the diplomat that
-	evening; 'meanwhile this young man is not observing the streets
-	through which we are passing.'
-
-	They arrived in a large room of a distinctly gloomy aspect, partly
-	panelled and partly hung in green velvet. In the middle of the room, a
-	scowling footman had just set up a large dinner-table, which he
-	proceeded to convert into a writing table, by means of an immense
-	green cloth covered with ink stains, a relic of some Ministry.
-
-	The master of the house was a corpulent man whose name was never
-	uttered; Julien decided that his expression and speech were those of a
-	man engaged in digestion.
-
-	At a sign from the Marquis, Julien had remained at the lower end of
-	the table. To avoid drawing attention to himself he began to point the
-	quills. He counted out of the corner of his eye seven speakers, but
-	he could see nothing more of them than their backs. Two of them
-	appeared to him to be addressing M. de La Mole on terms of equality,
-	the others seemed more or less deferential.
-
-	Another person entered the room unannounced. 'This is strange,'
-	thought Julien, 'no one is announced in this room. Can this precaution
-	have been taken in my honour?' Everyone rose to receive the newcomer.
-	He was wearing the same extremely distinguished decoration as three of
-	the men who were already in the room. They spoke in low tones. In
-	judging the newcomer, Julien was restricted to what he could learn
-	from his features and dress. He was short and stout, with a high
-	complexion and a gleaming eye devoid of any expression beyond the
-	savage glare of a wild boar.
-
-	Julien's attention was sharply distracted by the almost immediate
-	arrival of a wholly different person. This was a tall man, extremely
-	thin and wearing three or four waistcoats. His eye was caressing, his
-	gestures polished.
-
-	'That is just the expression of the old Bishop of Besancon,' thought
-	Julien. This man evidently belonged to the Church, he did not appear
-	to be more than fifty or fifty-five, no one could have looked more
-	fatherly.
-
-	The young Bishop of Agde appeared, and seemed greatly surprised when,
-	in making a survey of those present, his eye rested on Julien. He had
-	not spoken to him since the ceremony at Bray-le-Haut. His look of
-	surprise embarrassed and irritated Julien. 'What,' the latter said to
-	himself, 'is knowing a man to be always to my disadvantage? All these
-	great gentlemen whom I have never seen before do not frighten me in
-	the least, and the look in this young Bishop's eyes freezes me! It
-	must be admitted that I am a very strange and very unfortunate
-	creature.'
-
-	A small and extremely dark man presently made a noisy entrance, and
-	began speaking from the door; he had a sallow complexion and a
-	slightly eccentric air. On the arrival of this pitiless talker, groups
-	began to form, apparently to escape the boredom of listening to him.
-
-	As they withdrew from the fireplace they drew near to the lower end of
-	the table, where Julien was installed. His expression became more and
-	more embarrassed, for now at last, in spite of all his efforts, he
-	could not avoid hearing them, and however slight his experience might
-	be, he realised the full importance of the matters that were being
-	discussed without any attempt at concealment; and yet how careful the
-	evidently exalted personages whom he saw before him ought to be to
-	keep them secret.
-
-	Already, working as slowly as possible, Julien had pointed a score of
-	quills; this resource must soon fail him. He looked in vain for an
-	order in the eyes of M. de La Mole; the Marquis had forgotten him.
-
-	'What I am doing is absurd,' thought Julien as he pointed his pens;
-	'but people who are so commonplace in appearance, and are entrusted by
-	others or by themselves with such high interests, must be highly
-	susceptible. My unfortunate expression has a questioning and scarcely
-	respectful effect which would doubtless annoy them. If I lower my eyes
-	too far I shall appear to be making a record of their talk.'
-
-	His embarrassment was extreme, he was hearing some strange things
-	said.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 22
-	The Discussion
-
-	The republic--for every person today willing to sacrifice
-	all to the common good, there are thousands and millions
-	who know only their own pleasures and their vanity. One
-	is esteemed in Paris for one's carriage, not for one's virtue.
-	NAPOLEON, _Memorial_
-
-	The footman burst in, announcing: 'Monsieur le Duc de ----.'
-
-	'Hold your tongue, you fool,' said the Duke as he entered the room. He
-	said this so well, and with such majesty that Julien could not help
-	thinking that knowing how to lose his temper with a footman was the
-	whole extent of this great personage's knowledge. Julien raised his
-	eyes and at once lowered them again. He had so clearly divined the
-	importance of this new arrival that he trembled lest his glance should
-	be thought an indiscretion.
-
-	This Duke was a man of fifty, dressed like a dandy, and treading as
-	though on springs. He had a narrow head with a large nose, and a
-	curved face which he kept thrusting forward. It would have been hard
-	for anyone to appear at once so noble and so insignificant. His coming
-	was a signal for the opening of the discussion.
-
-	Julien was sharply interrupted in his physiognomical studies by the
-	voice of M. de La Mole. 'Let me present to you M. l'abbe Sorel,' said
-	the Marquis. 'He is endowed with an astonishing memory; it was only an
-	hour ago that I spoke to him of the mission with which he might
-	perhaps be honoured, and, in order to furnish us with a proof of his
-	memory, he has learned by heart the first page of the _Quotidienne_.'
-
-	'Ah! The foreign news, from poor N ----,' said the master of the
-	house. He picked up the paper eagerly and, looking at Julien with a
-	whimsical air, in the effort to appear important: 'Begin, Sir,' he
-	said to him.
-
-	The silence was profound, every eye was fixed on Julien; he repeated
-	his lesson so well that after twenty lines: 'That will do,' said the
-	Duke. The little man with the boar's eyes sat down. He was the
-	chairman for, as soon as he had taken his place, he indicated a card
-	table to Julien, and made a sign to him to bring it up to his side.
-	Julien established himself there with writing materials. He counted
-	twelve people seated round the green cloth.
-
-	'M. Sorel,' said the Duke, 'retire to the next room. We shall send for
-	you.'
-
-	The master of the house assumed an uneasy expression. 'The shutters
-	are not closed,' he murmured to his neighbour. 'It is no use your
-	looking out of the window,' he foolishly exclaimed to Julien. 'Here I
-	am thrust into a conspiracy at the very least,' was the latter's
-	thought. 'Fortunately, it is not one of the kind that end on the Place
-	de Greve. Even if there were danger, I owe that and more to the
-	Marquis. I should be fortunate, were it granted me to atone for all
-	the misery which my follies may one day cause him!'
-
-	Without ceasing to think of his follies and of his misery, he studied
-	his surroundings in such a way that he could never forget them. Only
-	then did he remember that he had not heard the Marquis tell his
-	footman the name of the street, and the Marquis had sent for a cab, a
-	thing he never did.
-
-	Julien was left for a long time to his reflections. He was in a
-	parlour hung in green velvet with broad stripes of gold. There was on
-	the side-table a large ivory crucifix, and on the mantelpiece the book
-	_Du Pape_, by M. de Maistre, with gilt edges, and magnificently bound.
-	Julien opened it so as not to appear to be eavesdropping. Every now
-	and then there was a sound of raised voices from the next room. At
-	length the door opened, his name was called.
-
-	'Remember, Gentlemen,' said the chairman, 'that from this moment we
-	are addressing the Duc de ----. This gentleman,' he said, pointing to
-	Julien, 'is a young Levite, devoted to our sacred cause, who will have
-	no difficulty in repeating, thanks to his astonishing memory, our most
-	trivial words.
-
-	'Monsieur has the floor,' he said, indicating the personage with the
-	fatherly air, who was wearing three or four waistcoats. Julien felt
-	that it would have been more natural to call him the gentleman with
-	the waistcoats. He supplied himself with paper and wrote copiously.
-
-	(Here the author would have liked to insert a page of dots. 'That will
-	not look pretty,' says the publisher, 'and for so frivolous a work not
-	to look pretty means death.'
-
-	'Politics,' the author resumes, 'are a stone attached to the neck of
-	literature, which, in less than six months, drowns it. Politics in
-	the middle of imaginative interests are like a pistol-shot in the
-	middle of a concert. The noise is deafening without being emphatic. It
-	is not in harmony with the sound of any of the instruments. This
-	mention of politics is going to give deadly offence to half my
-	readers, and to bore the other half, who have already found far more
-	interesting and emphatic politics in their morning paper.'
-
-	'If your characters do not talk politics,' the publisher retorts,
-	'they are no longer Frenchmen of 1830, and your book ceases to hold a
-	mirror, as you claim....')
-
-	Julien's report amounted to twenty-six pages; the following is a quite
-	colourless extract; for I have been obliged, as usual, to suppress the
-	absurdities, the frequency of which would have appeared tedious or
-	highly improbable. (Compare the _Gazette des Tribunaux_. )
-
-	The man with the waistcoats and the fatherly air (he was a Bishop,
-	perhaps), smiled often, and then his eyes, between their tremulous
-	lids, assumed a strange brilliance and an expression less undecided
-	than was his wont. This personage, who was invited to speak first,
-	before the Duke ('but what Duke?' Julien asked himself), apparently to
-	express opinions and to perform the functions of Attorney General,
-	appeared to Julien to fall into the uncertainty and absence of
-	definite conclusions with which those officers are often reproached.
-	In the course of the discussion the Duke went so far as to rebuke him
-	for this.
-
-	After several phrases of morality and indulgent philosophy, the man
-	with the waistcoats said:
-
-	'Noble England, guided by a great man, the immortal Pitt, spent forty
-	thousand million francs in destroying the Revolution. If this assembly
-	will permit me to express somewhat boldly a melancholy reflection,
-	England does not sufficiently understand that with a man like
-	Bonaparte, especially when one had had to oppose to him only a
-	collection of good intentions, there was nothing decisive save
-	personal measures ...'
-
-	'Ah! Praise of assassination again!' said the master of the house with
-	an uneasy air.
-
-	'Spare us your sentimental homilies,' exclaimed the chairman angrily;
-	his boar's eye gleamed with a savage light. 'Continue,' he said to the
-	man with the waistcoats. The chairman's cheeks and brow turned purple.
-
-	'Noble England,' the speaker went on, 'is crushed today, for every
-	Englishman, before paying for his daily bread, is obliged to pay the
-	interest on the forty thousand million francs which were employed
-	against the Jacobins. She has no longer a Pitt ...'
-
-	'She has the Duke of Wellington,' said a military personage who
-	assumed an air of great importance.
-
-	'Silence, please, Gentlemen,' cried the chairman; 'if we continue to
-	disagree, there will have been no use in our sending for M. Sorel.'
-
-	'We know that Monsieur is full of ideas,' said the Duke with an air of
-	vexation and a glance at the interrupter, one of Napoleon's Generals.
-	Julien saw that this was an allusion to something personal and highly
-	offensive. Everyone smiled; the turncoat General seemed beside
-	himself with rage.
-
-	'There is no longer a Pitt,' the speaker went on, with the discouraged
-	air of a man who despairs of making his hearers listen to reason.
-	'Were there a fresh Pitt in England, one does not hoodwink a nation
-	twice by the same means ...'
-
-	'That is why a conquering General, a Bonaparte is impossible now in
-	France,' cried the military interrupter.
-
-	On this occasion, neither the chairman nor the Duke dared show
-	annoyance, though Julien thought he could read in their eyes that they
-	were tempted to do so. They lowered their eyes, and the Duke contented
-	himself with a sigh loud enough to be audible to them all.
-
-	But the speaker had lost his temper.
-
-	'You are in a hurry for me to conclude,' he said with heat, entirely
-	discarding that smiling politeness and measured speech which Julien
-	had assumed to be the natural expression of his character: 'you are in
-	a hurry for me to conclude; you give me no credit for the efforts that
-	I am making not to offend the ears of anyone present, however long
-	they may be. Very well, Gentlemen, I shall be brief.
-
-	'And I shall say to you in the plainest of words: England has not a
-	halfpenny left for the service of the good cause. Were Pitt to return
-	in person, with all his genius he would not succeed in hoodwinking the
-	small landowners of England, for they know that the brief campaign of
-	Waterloo cost them, by itself, one thousand million francs. Since you
-	wish for plain speaking,' the speaker added, growing more and more
-	animated, 'I shall say to you: Help yourselves, for England has not a
-	guinea for your assistance, and if England does not pay, Austria,
-	Russia, Prussia, which have only courage and no money, cannot support
-	more than one campaign or two against France.
-
-	'You may hope that the young soldiers collected by Jacobinism will be
-	defeated in the first campaign, in the second perhaps; but in the
-	third (though I pass for a revolutionary in your prejudiced eyes), in
-	the third you will have the soldiers of 1794, who were no longer the
-	recruited peasants of 1792.'
-
-	Here the interruption broke out in three or four places at once.
-
-	'Sir,' said the chairman to Julien, 'go and make a fair copy in the
-	next room of the first part of the report which you have taken down.'
-	Julien left the room with considerable regret. The speaker had
-	referred to probabilities which formed the subject of his habitual
-	meditations.
-
-	'They are afraid of my laughing at them,' he thought. When he was
-	recalled, M. de La Mole was saying, with an earnestness, which, to
-	Julien, who knew him, seemed highly amusing:
-
-	'Yes, Gentlemen, it is above all of this unhappy race that one can
-	say: "Shall it be a god, a table or a bowl?"
-
-	'"_It shall be a god_!" cries the poet. It is to you, Gentlemen, that
-	this saying, so noble and so profound, seems to apply. Act for
-	yourselves, and our noble France will reappear more or less as our
-	ancestors made her and as our own eyes beheld her before the death of
-	Louis XVI.
-
-	'England, her noble Lords at least, curses as heartily as we ignoble
-	Jacobinism: without English gold, Austria, Russia, Prussia cannot
-	fight more than two or three battles. Will that suffice to bring about
-	a glorious occupation, like that which M. de Richelieu squandered so
-	stupidly in 1817? I do not think so.'
-
-	At this point an interruption occurred, but it was silenced by a
-	general murmur. It arose once more from the former Imperial General,
-	who desired the Blue Riband, and was anxious to appear among the
-	compilers of the secret note.
-
-	'I do not think so,' M. de La Mole resumed after the disturbance. He
-	dwelt upon the word 'I' with an insolence which charmed Julien. 'That is
-	well played,' he said to himself as he made his pen fly almost as fast
-	as the Marquis's utterance. With a well-placed word, M. de La Mole
-	annihilated the twenty campaigns of the turncoat.
-
-	'It is not to foreigners alone,' the Marquis continued in the most
-	measured tone, 'that we can remain indebted for a fresh military
-	occupation. That youthful band who contribute incendiary articles to
-	the _Globe_ will provide you with three or four thousand young
-	captains, among whom may be found a Kleber, a Hoche, a Jourdan, a
-	Pichegru, but less well-intentioned.'
-
-	'We did wrong in not crowning him with glory,' said the chairman, 'we
-	ought to have made him immortal.'
-
-	'There must, in short, be two parties in France,' went on M. de La
-	Mole, 'but two parties, not in name only, two parties clearly defined,
-	sharply divided. Let us be certain whom we have to crush. On one side
-	the journalists, the electors, public opinion; in a word, youth and
-	all those who admire it. While it is dazed by the sound of its own
-	idle words, we, we have the certain advantage of handling the budget.'
-
-	Here came a fresh interruption.
-
-	'You, Sir,' M. de La Mole said to the interrupter with a supercilious
-	ease that was quite admirable, 'you do not handle, since the word
-	appears to shock you, you devour forty thousand francs borne on the
-	state budget and eighty thousand which you receive from the Civil
-	List.
-
-	'Very well, Sir, since you force me to it, I take you boldly as an
-	example. Like your noble ancestors who followed Saint Louis to the
-	Crusade, you ought, for those hundred and twenty thousand francs, to
-	let us see at least a regiment, a company, shall I say a half-company,
-	were it composed only of fifty men ready to fight, and devoted to the
-	good cause, alive or dead. You have only footmen who, in the event of
-	a revolt, would frighten nobody but yourself.
-
-	The Throne, the Altar, the Nobility may perish any day, Gentlemen, so
-	long as you have not created in each Department a force of five
-	hundred devoted men; devoted, I mean, not only with all the gallantry
-	of France but with the constancy of Spain.
-
-	'One half of this troop will have to be composed of our sons, our
-	nephews, in short of true gentlemen. Each of them will have by his
-	side, not a glib little cockney ready to hoist the striped cockade if
-	another 1815 should arrive, but an honest peasant, simple and open
-	like Cathelineau; our gentleman will have trained him, it should be
-	his foster-brother, if possible. Let each of us sacrifice the fifth
-	part of his income to form this little devoted troop of five hundred
-	men to a Department. Then you may count upon a foreign occupation.
-	Never will the foreign soldier cross our borders as far as Dijon even,
-	unless he is certain of finding five hundred friendly soldiers in each
-	Department.
-
-	'The foreign Kings will listen to you only when you can inform them
-	that there are twenty thousand gentlemen ready to take up arms to open
-	to them the gates of France. This service is arduous, you will say.
-	Gentlemen, it is the price of our heads. Between the liberty of the
-	press and our existence as gentlemen, there is war to the knife.
-	Become manufacturers, peasants, or take up your guns. Be timid if you
-	like, but do not be stupid. Open your eyes.
-
-	'_Form your battalions_, I say to you, in the words of the Jacobin
-	song; then there will appear some noble Gustavus-Adolphus, who,
-	moved by the imminent peril to the monarchical principle will come
-	flying three hundred leagues beyond his borders, and do for you what
-	Gustavus did for the Protestant princes. Do you propose to go on
-	talking without acting? In fifty years there will be nothing in Europe
-	but Presidents of Republics, not one King left. And with those four
-	letters K-I-N-G, go the priests and the gentlemen. I can see nothing
-	but _candidates_ paying court to draggletailed _majorities_.
-
-	'It is no use your saying that France has not at this moment a
-	trustworthy General, known and loved by all, that the army is
-	organised only in the interests of Throne and Altar, that all the old
-	soldiers have been discharged from it, whereas each of the Prussian
-	and Austrian regiments includes fifty non-commissioned officers who
-	have been under fire.
-
-	'Two hundred thousand young men of the middle class are in love with
-	the idea of war....'
-
-	'Enough unpleasant truths,' came in a tone of importance from a grave
-	personage, apparently high on the ladder of ecclesiastical preferment,
-	for M. de La Mole smiled pleasantly instead of showing annoyance,
-	which was highly significant to Julien.
-
-	'Enough unpleasant truths; Gentlemen, to sum up: the man with whom it
-	was a question of amputating his gangrened leg would be ill-advised to
-	say to his surgeon: this diseased leg is quite sound. Pardon me the
-	simile, Gentlemen, the noble Duke of ---- is our surgeon.' [Trans.
-	footnote: The Duke of Wellington. C. K. S. M.]
-
-	'There is the great secret out at last,' thought Julien; 'it is to the
-	---- that I shall be posting tonight.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 23
-	The Clergy, their Forests, Liberty
-
-
-	The first law for every creature is that of
-	self-preservation, of life. You sow hemlock,
-	and expect to see the corn ripen!
-	MACHIAVELLI
-
-	The grave personage continued; one could see that he knew; he set
-	forth with a gentle and moderate eloquence, which vastly delighted
-	Julien, the following great truths:
-
-	(1) England has not a guinea at our service; economy and Hume are the
-	fashion there. Even the Saints will not give us any money, and Mr
-	Brougham will laugh at us.
-
-	(2,) Impossible to obtain more than two campaigns from the Monarchs of
-	Europe, without English gold; and two campaigns will not be enough
-	against the middle classes.
-
-	(3) Necessity of forming an armed party in France, otherwise the
-	monarchical principle in the rest of Europe will not risk even those
-	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 say it to you boldly, because I am going to prove it to
-	you, Gentlemen. We must give the Clergy everything:
-
-	'(i) Because, occupying themselves with their own business night and
-	day, and guided by men of high capacity established out of harm's way
-	three hundred leagues from your frontiers ...'
-
-	'Ah! Rome! Rome!' exclaimed the master of the house ...
-
-	'Yes, Sir, _Rome_!' the Cardinal answered proudly. 'Whatever be the more
-	or less ingenious pleasantries which were in fashion when you were
-	young, I will proclaim boldly, in 1830, that the Clergy, guided by
-	Rome, speak and speak alone to the lower orders.
-
-	'Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day indicated by
-	their leaders, and the people, who, after all, furnish the soldiers,
-	will be more stirred by the voice of their priests than by all the
-	cheap poems in the world. . ..' (This personal allusion gave rise to
-	murmurs.)
-
-	'The Clergy have an intellect superior to yours,' the Cardinal went
-	on, raising his voice; 'all the steps that you have taken towards this
-	essential point, _having an armed party here in France_, have been
-	taken by us.' Here facts were cited. Who had sent eighty thousand
-	muskets to the Vendee? and so forth.
-
-	'So long as the Clergy are deprived of their forests, they have no
-	tenure. At the first threat of war, the Minister of Finance writes to
-	his agents that there is no more money except for the parish priests.
-	At heart, France is not religious, and loves war. Whoever it be that
-	gives her war, he will be doubly popular, for to make war is to starve
-	the Jesuits, in vulgar parlance; to make war is to deliver those
-	monsters of pride, the French people, from the menace of foreign
-	intervention.'
-
-	The Cardinal had a favourable hearing ... 'It was essential,' he said,
-	'that M. de Nerval should leave the Ministry, his name caused
-	needless irritation.'
-
-	Upon this, they all rose to their feet and began speaking at once.
-	'They will be sending me out of the room again,' thought Julien; but
-	the prudent chairman himself had forgotten Julien's presence and
-	indeed his existence.
-
-	Every eye turned to a man whom Julien recognised. It was M. de Nerval,
-	the First Minister, whom he had seen at the Duc de Retz's ball.
-
-	_The disorder was at its height_, as the newspapers say, when
-	reporting the sittings of the Chamber. After fully a quarter of an
-	hour, silence began to be restored.
-
-	Then M. de Nerval rose and, adopting the tone of an Apostle:
-
-	'I shall not for one moment pretend,' he said, in an unnatural voice,
-	'that I am not attached to office.
-
-	'It has been proved to me, Gentlemen, that my name doubles the
-	strength of the Jacobins by turning against us a number of moderate
-	men. I should willingly resign, therefore; but the ways of the Lord
-	are visible to but a small number; but,' he went on, looking fixedly
-	at the Cardinal, 'I have a mission; heaven has said to me: "You shall
-	lay down your head on the scaffold, or you shall reestablish the
-	Monarchy in France, and reduce the Chambers to what Parliament was
-	under Louis XV," and that, Gentlemen, _I will do_.'
-
-	He ceased, sat down, and a great silence fell.
-
-	'There is a good actor,' thought Julien. He made the mistake, then as
-	always, of crediting people with too much cleverness.
-
-	Animated by the debates of so lively an evening, and above all by the
-	sincerity of the discussion, at that moment M. de Nerval believed in
-	his mission. With his great courage the man did not combine any sense.
-
-	Midnight struck during the silence that followed the fine peroration
-	'_that I will do_'. Julien felt that there was something imposing and
-	funereal in the sound of the clock. He was deeply moved.
-
-	The discussion soon began again with increasing energy and above all
-	with an incredible simplicity. 'These men will have me poisoned,'
-	thought Julien, at certain points. 'How can they say such things
-	before a plebeian?'
-
-	Two o'clock struck while they were still talking. The master of the
-	house had long been asleep; M. de La Mole was obliged to ring to have
-	fresh candles brought in. M. de Nerval, the Minister, had left at a
-	quarter to two, not without having frequently studied Julien's face in
-	a mirror which hung beside him. His departure had seemed to create an
-	atmosphere of relief.
-
-	While the candles were being changed: 'Heaven knows what that fellow
-	is going to say to the King!' the man with the waistcoats murmured to
-	his neighbour. 'He can make us look very foolish and spoil our future.
-
-	'You must admit that he shows a very rare presumption, indeed
-	effrontery, in appearing here. He used to come here before he took
-	office; but a portfolio alters everything, swallows up all a man's
-	private interests, he ought to have felt that.'
-
-	As soon as the Minister was gone, Bonaparte's General had shut his
-	eyes. He now spoke of his health, his wounds, looked at his watch, and
-	left.
-
-	'I would bet,' said the man with the waistcoats, 'that the General is
-	running after the Minister; he is going to make his excuses for being
-	found here, and pretend that he is our leader.'
-
-	When the servants, who were half asleep, had finished changing the
-	candles:
-
-	'Let us now begin to deliberate, Gentlemen,' said the chairman, 'and
-	no longer attempt to persuade one another. Let us consider the tenor
-	of the note that in forty-eight hours will be before the eyes of our
-	friends abroad. There has been reference to Ministers. We can say, now
-	that M. de Nerval has left us, what do we care for Ministers? We shall
-	control them.'
-
-	The Cardinal showed his approval by a delicate smile.
-
-	'Nothing easier, it seems to me, than to sum up our position,' said
-	the young Bishop of Agde with the concentrated and restrained fire of
-	the most exalted fanaticism. Hitherto he had remained silent; his eye,
-	which Julien had watched, at first mild and calm, had grown fiery
-	after the first hour's discussion. Now his heart overflowed like lava
-	from Vesuvius.
-
-	'From 1806 to 1814, England made only one mistake,' he said, 'which
-	was her not dealing directly and personally with Napoleon. As soon as
-	that man had created Dukes and Chamberlains, as soon as he had
-	restored the Throne, the mission that God had entrusted to him was at
-	an end; he was ripe only for destruction. The Holy Scriptures teach us
-	in more than one passage the way to make an end of tyrants.' (Here
-	followed several Latin quotations.)
-
-	'Today, Gentlemen, it is not a man that we must destroy; it is Paris.
-	The whole of France copies Paris. What is the use of arming your five
-	hundred men in each Department? A hazardous enterprise and one that
-	will never end. What is the use of involving France in a matter which
-	is peculiar to Paris? Paris alone, with her newspapers and her
-	drawing-rooms, has done the harm; let the modern Babylon perish.
-
-	'Between the Altar and Paris, there must be a fight to the finish.
-	This catastrophe is indeed to the earthly advantage of the Throne. Why
-	did not Paris dare to breathe under Bonaparte? Ask the artillery of
-	Saint-Roch.'
-
-	* * *
-
-	It was not until three o'clock in the morning that Julien left the
-	house with M. de La Mole.
-
-	The Marquis was depressed and tired. For the first time, in speaking
-	to Julien, he used a tone of supplication. He asked him to promise
-	never to disclose the excesses of zeal, such was his expression, which
-	he had chanced to witness. 'Do not mention it to our friend abroad,
-	unless he deliberately insists on knowing the nature of our young
-	hotheads. What does it matter to them if the State be overthrown? They
-	will be Cardinals, and will take refuge in Rome. We, in our country
-	seats, shall be massacred by the peasants.'
-
-	The secret note which the Marquis drafted from the long report of six
-	and twenty pages, written by Julien, was not ready until a quarter to
-	five.
-
-	'I am dead tired,' said the Marquis, 'and so much can be seen from
-	this note, which is lacking in precision towards the end; I am more
-	dissatisfied with it than with anything I ever did in my life. Now,
-	my friend,' he went on, 'go and lie down for a few hours, and for fear
-	of your being abducted, I am going to lock you into your room.'
-
-	Next day, the Marquis took Julien to a lonely mansion, at some
-	distance from Paris. They found there a curious company who, Julien
-	decided, were priests. He was given a passport which bore a false
-	name, but did at last indicate the true goal of his journey, of which
-	he had always feigned ignorance. He started off by himself in a
-	calash.
-
-	The Marquis had no misgivings as to his memory, Julien had repeated
-	the text of the secret note to him several times; but he was greatly
-	afraid of his being intercepted.
-
-	'Remember, whatever you do, to look like a fop who is travelling to
-	kill time,' was his friendly warning, as Julien was leaving the room.
-	'There may perhaps have been several false brethren in our assembly
-	last night.'
-
-	The journey was rapid and very tedious. Julien was barely out of the
-	Marquis's sight before he had forgotten both the secret note and his
-	mission, and was thinking of nothing but Mathilde's scorn.
-
-	In a village, some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came to inform
-	him that there were no fresh horses. It was ten o'clock at night;
-	Julien, greatly annoyed, ordered supper. He strolled up and down
-	outside the door and passed unperceived into the stable-yard. He saw
-	no horses there.
-
-	'The man had a singular expression all the same,' he said to himself;
-	'his coarse eye was scrutinising me.'
-
-	We can see that he was beginning not to believe literally everything
-	that he was told. He thought of making his escape after supper, and in
-	the meanwhile, in order to learn something of the lie of the land,
-	left his room to go and warm himself by the kitchen fire. What was his
-	joy upon finding there Signor Geronimo, the famous singer!
-
-	Comfortably ensconced in an armchair which he had made them push up
-	close to the fire, the Neapolitan was groaning aloud and talking more,
-	by himself, than the score of German peasants who were gathered round
-	him open-mouthed.
-
-	'These people are ruining me,' he cried to Julien, 'I have promised to
-	sing tomorrow at Mayence. Seven Sovereign Princes have assembled there
-	to hear me. But let us take the air,' he added, in a significant tone.
-
-	When he had gone a hundred yards along the road, and was well out of
-	earshot:
-
-	'Do you know what is happening?' he said to Julien; 'this postmaster
-	is a rogue. As I was strolling about, I gave a franc to a little
-	ragamuffin who told me everything. There are more than a dozen horses
-	in a stable at the other end of the village. They mean to delay some
-	courier.'
-
-	'Indeed?' said Julien, with an innocent air.
-
-	It was not enough to have discovered the fraud, they must get on: this
-	was what Geronimo and his friend could not manage to do. 'We must wait
-	for the daylight,' the singer said finally, 'they are suspicious of
-	us. Tomorrow morning we shall order a good breakfast; while they are
-	preparing it we go out for a stroll, we escape, hire fresh horses, and
-	reach the next post.'
-
-	'And your luggage?' said Julien, who thought that perhaps Geronimo
-	himself might have been sent to intercept him. It was time to sup and
-	retire to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep, when he was
-	awakened with a start by the sound of two people talking in his room,
-	apparently quite unconcerned.
-
-	He recognised the postmaster, armed with a dark lantern. Its light was
-	concentrated upon the carriage-trunk, which Julien had had carried up
-	to his room. With the postmaster was another man who was calmly going
-	through the open trunk. Julien could make out only the sleeves of his
-	coat, which were black and close-fitting.
-
-	'It is a cassock,' he said to himself, and quietly seized the pocket
-	pistols which he had placed under his pillow.
-
-	'You need not be afraid of his waking, Monsieur le Cure,' said the
-	postmaster. 'The wine we gave them was some of what you prepared
-	yourself.'
-
-	'I can find no trace of papers,' replied the cure. 'Plenty of linen,
-	oils, pomades and fripperies; he is a young man of the world, occupied
-	with his own pleasures. The envoy will surely be the other, who
-	pretends to speak with an Italian accent.'
-
-	The men came up to Julien to search the pockets of his travelling
-	coat. He was strongly tempted to kill them as robbers. This could
-	involve no dangerous consequences. He longed to do it... 'I should be
-	a mere fool,' he said to himself, 'I should be endangering my
-	mission.' After searching his coat, 'this is no diplomat,' said the
-	priest: he moved away, and wisely.
-
-	'If he touches me in my bed, it will be the worse for him!' Julien was
-	saying to himself; 'he may quite well come and stab me, and that I
-	will not allow.'
-
-	The cure turned his head, Julien half-opened his eyes; what was his
-	astonishment! It was the abbe Castanede! And indeed, although the two
-	men had tried to lower their voices, he had felt, from the first, that
-	he recognised the sound of one of them. He was seized with a
-	passionate desire to rid the world of one of its vilest scoundrels ...
-
-	'But my mission!' he reminded himself.
-
-	The priest and his acolyte left the room. A quarter of an hour later,
-	Julien pretended to awake. He called for help and roused the whole
-	house.
-
-	'I have been poisoned,' he cried, 'I am in horrible agony!' He wanted
-	a pretext for going to Geronimo's rescue. He found him half
-	asphyxiated by the laudanum that had been in his wine.
-
-	Julien, fearing some pleasantry of this kind, had supped upon
-	chocolate which he had brought with him from Paris. He could not
-	succeed in arousing Geronimo sufficiently to make him agree to leave
-	the place.
-
-	'Though you offered me the whole Kingdom of Naples,' said the singer,
-	'I would not forgo the pleasure of sleep at this moment.'
-
-	'But the seven Sovereign Princes!'
-
-	'They can wait.'
-
-	Julien set off alone and arrived without further incident at the abode
-	of the eminent personage. He spent a whole morning in vainly
-	soliciting an audience. Fortunately, about four o'clock, the Duke
-	decided to take the air. Julien saw him leave the house on foot, and
-	had no hesitation in going up to him and begging for alms. When within
-	a few feet of the eminent personage, he drew out the Marquis de La
-	Mole's watch, and flourished it ostentatiously. 'Follow me at
-	distance,' said the other, without looking at him.
-
-	After walking for a quarter of a league, the Duke turned abruptly in
-	to a little _Kaffeehaus_. It was in a bedroom of this humblest form of
-	inn that Julien had the honour of reciting his four pages to the Duke.
-	When he had finished: 'Begin again, and go more slowly,' he was told.
-
-	The Prince took down notes. 'Go on foot to the next post. Leave your
-	luggage and your calash here. Make your way to Strasbourg as best you
-	can, and on the twenty-second of the month'--it was now the tenth--'be
-	in this coffee-house here at half-past twelve. Do not leave here for
-	half an hour. Silence!'
-
-	Such were the only words that Julien heard said. They sufficed to fill
-	him with the deepest admiration. 'It is thus,' he thought, 'that one
-	handles affairs; what would this great statesman say if he had heard
-	those hotheaded chatterboxes three days ago?'
-
-	Julien took two days to reach Strasbourg, he felt that there was
-	nothing for him to do there. He made a wide circuit. 'If that devil,
-	the abbe Castanede has recognised me, he is not the man to be easily
-	shaken off ... And what a joy to him to make a fool of me, and to
-	spoil my mission!'
-
-	The abbe Castanede, Chief of Police to the _Congregation_ along the
-	whole of the Northern frontier, had mercifully not recognised him. And
-	the Jesuits of Strasbourg, albeit most zealous, never thought of
-	keeping an eye on Julien, who, with his Cross and his blue greatcoat,
-	had the air of a young soldier greatly concerned with his personal
-	appearance.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 24
-	Strasbourg
-
-	Fascination! Thou sharest with love all its energy, all
-	its capacity for suffering. Its enchanting pleasures, its
-	sweet delights are alone beyond thy sphere. I could not
-	say, as I saw her asleep: She is all mine with her angelic
-	beauty and her sweet frailties! Behold her delivered into
-	my power, as heaven made her in its compassion to enchant
-	a man's heart.
-	_Ode_ by SCHILLER
-
-	Obliged to spend a week in Strasbourg, Julien sought to distract
-	himself with thoughts of martial glory and of devotion to his country.
-	Was he in love, then? He could not say, only he found in his bruised
-	heart Mathilde the absolute mistress of his happiness as of his
-	imagination. He required all his natural energy to keep himself from
-	sinking into despair. To think of anything that bore no relation to
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole was beyond his power. Ambition, the mere
-	triumphs of vanity, had I distracted him in the past from the
-	sentiments that Madame de Renal inspired in him. Mathilde had
-	absorbed all; he found her everywhere in his future.
-
-	On every hand, in this future, Julien foresaw failure. This creature
-	whom we saw at Verrieres so filled with presumption, so arrogant, had
-	fallen into an absurd extreme of modesty.
-
-	Three days earlier he would have killed the abbe Castanede with
-	pleasure, and at Strasbourg, had a boy picked a quarrel with him, he
-	would have offered the boy an apology. In thinking over the
-	adversaries, the enemies whom he had encountered in the course of his
-	life, he found that invariably he, Julien, had been in the wrong.
-
-	The fact was that he had now an implacable enemy in that powerful
-	imagination, which before had been constantly employed in painting
-	such brilliant successes for him in the future.
-
-	The absolute solitude of a traveller's existence strengthened the
-	power of this dark imagination. What a treasure would a friend have
-	been! 'But,' Julien asked himself, 'is there a heart in the world that
-	beats for me? And if I had a friend, does not honour impose on me an
-	eternal silence?'
-
-	He took a horse and rode sadly about the neighbourhood of Kehl; it is
-	a village on the bank of the Rhine, immortalised by Desaix and Gouvion
-	Saint-Cyr. A German peasant pointed out to him the little streams,
-	the roads, the islands in the Rhine which the valour of those great
-	Generals has made famous. Julien, holding the reins in his left hand,
-	was carrying spread out in his right the superb map which illustrates
-	the Memoirs of Marshal Saint-Cyr. A joyful exclamation made him raise
-	his head.
-
-	It was Prince Korasoff, his London friend, who had expounded to him
-	some months earlier the first principles of high fatuity. Faithful to
-	this great art, Korasoff, who had arrived in Strasbourg the day
-	before, had been an hour at Kehl, and had never in his life read a
-	line about the siege of 1796, began to explain it all to Julien. The
-	German peasant gazed at him in astonishment; for he knew enough French
-	to make out the enormous blunders into which the Prince fell. Julien's
-	thoughts were a thousand leagues away from the peasant's, he was
-	looking with amazement at this handsome young man, and admiring his
-	grace in the saddle.
-
-	'A happy nature!' he said to himself. 'How well his breeches fit him,
-	how elegantly his hair is cut! Alas, if I had been like that, perhaps
-	after loving me for three days she would not have taken a dislike to
-	me.'
-
-	When the Prince had come to an end of his version of the siege of
-	Kehl: 'You look like a Trappist,' he said to Julien, 'you are
-	infringing the principle of gravity I taught you in London. A
-	melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored
-	air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something,
-	there is something in which you have not succeeded.
-
-	'_It is shewing your inferiority_. If you are bored, on the other hand,
-	it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.
-	Realise, my dear fellow, what a grave mistake you are making.'
-
-	Julien flung a crown to the peasant who stood listening to them,
-	open-mouthed.
-
-	'Good,' said the Prince, 'that is graceful, a noble disdain! Very
-	good!' And he put his horse into a gallop. Julien followed him, filled
-	with a stupefied admiration.
-
-	'Ah! If I had been like that, she would not have preferred Croisenois
-	to me!' The more his reason was shocked by the absurdities of the
-	Prince, the more he despised himself for not admiring them, and deemed
-	himself unfortunate in not sharing them. Self-contempt can be carried
-	no farther.
-
-	The Prince found him decidedly melancholy: 'Ah, my dear fellow,' he
-	said to him, as they rode into Strasbourg, 'have you lost all your
-	money, or can you be in love with some little actress?'
-
-	The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty
-	years. They have now reached the days of Louis XV.
-
-	These jests, at the expense of love, filled Julien's eyes with tears:
-	'Why should not I consult so friendly a man?' he asked himself
-	suddenly.
-
-	'Well, yes, my friend,' he said to the Prince, 'you find me in
-	Strasbourg, madly in love, indeed crossed in love. A charming woman,
-	who lives in a neighbouring town, has abandoned me after three days of
-	passion, and the change is killing me.'
-
-	He described to the Prince, under an assumed name, the actions and
-	character of Mathilde.
-
-	'Do not go on,' said Korasoff: 'to give you confidence in your
-	physician, I am going to cut short your confidences. This young
-	woman's husband possesses an enormous fortune, or, what is more
-	likely, she herself belongs to the highest nobility of the place. She
-	must be proud of something.'
-
-	Julien nodded his head, he had no longer the heart to speak.
-
-	'Very good,' said the Prince, 'here are three medicines, all rather
-	bitter, which you are going to take without delay:
-
-	'First: You must every day see Madame ---- what do you call her?'
-
-	'Madame de Dubois.'
-
-	'What a name!' said the Prince, with a shout of laughter; 'but forgive
-	me, to you it is sublime. It is essential that you see Madame de
-	Dubois every day; above all do not appear to her cold and cross;
-	remember the great principle of your age: be the opposite to what
-	people expect of you. Show yourself precisely as you were a week
-	before you were honoured with her favours.'
-
-	'Ah! I was calm then,' cried Julien, in desperation, 'I thought that I
-	pitied her ...'
-
-	'The moth singes its wings in the flame of the candle,' the Prince
-	continued, 'a metaphor as old as the world.
-
-	'First of all: you will see her every day.
-
-	'Secondly: you will pay court to a woman of her acquaintance, but
-	without any appearance of passion, you understand? I do not conceal
-	from you, yours is a difficult part to play: you have to act, and if
-	she discovers that you are acting, you are doomed.'
-
-	'She is so clever, and I am not! I am doomed,' said Julien sadly.
-
-	'No, you are only more in love than I thought. Madame de Dubois is
-	profoundly taken up with herself, like all women who have received
-	from heaven either too high a rank or too much money. She looks at
-	herself instead of looking at you, and so does not know you. During
-	the two or three amorous impulses to which she has yielded in your
-	favour, by a great effort of imagination, she beheld in you the hero
-	of her dreams and not yourself as you really are ...
-
-	'But what the devil, these are the elements, my dear Sorel, are you
-	still a schoolboy? .. .
-
-	'Egad! Come into this shop; look at that charming black cravat; you
-	would say it was made by John Anderson, of Burlington Street; do me
-	the pleasure of buying it, and of throwing right away that dreadful
-	black rope which you have round your neck.
-
-	'And now,' the Prince went on as they left the shop of the first
-	hosier in Strasbourg, 'who are the friends of Madame de Dubois? Good
-	God, what a name! Do not be angry, my dear Sorel, I cannot help it...
-	To whom will you pay court?'
-
-	'To a prude of prudes, the daughter of an enormously rich
-	stocking-merchant. She has the loveliest eyes in the world, which
-	please me vastly; she certainly occupies the first place in the
-	district; but amid all her grandeur she blushes and loses her head
-	entirely if anyone refers to trade and a shop. And unfortunately for
-	her, her father was one of the best-known tradesmen in Strasbourg.'
-
-	'So that if one mentions _industry_,' said the Prince, with a laugh,
-	'you may be sure that your fair one is thinking of herself and not of
-	you. The weakness is divine and most useful, it will prevent you from
-	ever doing anything foolish in her fair eyes. Your success is
-	assured.'
-
-	Julien was thinking of Madame la Marechale de Fervaques, who often
-	came to the Hotel de La Mole. She was a beautiful foreigner who had
-	married the Marshal a year before his death. Her whole life seemed to
-	have no other object than to make people forget that she was the
-	daughter of an _industrial_, and in order to count for something in
-	Paris she had set herself at the head of the forces of virtue.
-
-	Julien admired the Prince sincerely; what would he not have given to
-	have his absurd affectations! The conversation between the friends was
-	endless; Korasoff was in raptures: never had a Frenchman given him so
-	long a hearing. 'And so I have succeeded at last,' the Prince said to
-	himself with delight, 'in making my voice heard when I give lessons to
-	my masters!
-
-	'It is quite understood,' he repeated to Julien for the tenth time,
-	'not a vestige of passion when you are talking to the young beauty,
-	the Strasbourg stocking-merchant's daughter, in the presence of Madame
-	de Dubois. On the contrary, burning passion when you write. Reading a
-	well-written love letter is a prude's supreme pleasure; it is a
-	momentary relaxation. She is not acting a part, she dares to listen to
-	her heart; and so, two letters daily.'
-
-	'Never, never!' said Julien, losing courage; 'I would let myself
-	be brayed in a mortar sooner than compose three sentences; I am a
-	corpse, my dear fellow, expect nothing more of me. Leave me to die by
-	the roadside.'
-
-	'And who said anything about composing phrases? I have in my hold-all
-	six volumes of love letters in manuscript. There are specimens for
-	every kind of woman, I have a set for the most rigid virtue. Didn't
-	Kalisky make love on Richmond Terrace, you know, a few miles out of
-	London, to the prettiest Quakeress in the whole of England?'
-
-	Julien was less wretched when he parted from his friend at two o'clock
-	in the morning.
-
-	Next day the Prince sent for a copyist, and two days later Julien had
-	fifty-three love letters carefully numbered, intended to cope with the
-	most sublime and melancholy virtue.
-
-	'There would be fifty-four,' said the Prince, 'only Kalisky was shown
-	the door; but what does it matter to you, being ill-treated by the
-	stocking-merchant's daughter, since you are seeking to influence only
-	the heart of Madame de Dubois?'
-
-	Every day they went out riding: the Prince was madly taken with
-	Julien. Not knowing what token to give him of his sudden affection, he
-	ended by offering him the hand of one of his cousins, a wealthy
-	heiress in Moscow; 'and once you are married,' he explained, 'my
-	influence and the Cross you are wearing will make you a Colonel in two
-	years.'
-
-	'But this Cross was not given me by Napoleon, quite the reverse.'
-
-	'What does that matter,' said the Prince, 'didn't he invent it? It is
-	still the first decoration by far in Europe.'
-
-	Julien was on the point of accepting; but duty recalled him to the
-	eminent personage; on parting from Korasoff, he promised to write. He
-	received the reply to the secret note that he had brought, and
-	hastened to Paris; but he had barely been by himself for two days on
-	end, before the thought of leaving France and Mathilde seemed to him a
-	punishment worse than death itself. 'I shall not wed the millions that
-	Korasoff offers me,' he told himself, 'but I shall follow his advice.
-
-	'After all, the art of seduction is his business; he has thought of
-	nothing else for more than fifteen years, for he is now thirty. One
-	cannot say that he is lacking in intelligence; he is shrewd and
-	cautious; enthusiasm, poetry are impossible in such a nature: he is
-	calculating; all the more reason why he should not be mistaken.
-
-	'There is no help for it, I am going to pay court to Madame de
-	Fervaques.
-
-	'She will bore me a little, perhaps, but I shall gaze into those
-	lovely eyes which are so like the eyes that loved me best in the
-	world.
-
-	'She is foreign; that is a fresh character to be studied.
-
-	'I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and
-	pay no heed to myself.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 25
-	The Office of Virtue
-
-
-	But if I take this pleasure with so much prudence
-	and circumspection, it ceases to be a pleasure for me.
-	LOPE DE VEGA
-
-	Immediately on his return to Paris, and on leaving the study of the
-	Marquis de La Mole, who appeared greatly disconcerted by the messages
-	that were conveyed to him, our hero hastened to find Conte Altamira.
-	With the distinction of being under sentence of death, this handsome
-	foreigner combined abundant gravity and had the good fortune to be
-	devout; these two merits and, more than all, the exalted birth of the
-	Count were entirely to the taste of Madame de Fervaques, who saw much
-	of him.
-
-	Julien confessed to him gravely that he was deeply in love with her.
-
-	'She represents the purest and loftiest virtue,' replied Altamira,
-	'only it is a trifle Jesuitical and emphatic. There are days on which
-	I understand every word that she uses, but I do not understand the
-	sentence as a whole. She often makes me think that I do not know
-	French as well as people say. This acquaintance will make you talked
-	about; it will give you a position in society. But let us go and see
-	Bustos,' said Conte Altamira, who had an orderly mind; 'he has made
-	love to Madame la Marechale.'
-
-	Don Diego Bustos made them explain the matter to him in detail,
-	without saying a word, like a barrister in chambers. He had a plump,
-	monkish face, with black moustaches, and an unparalleled gravity; in
-	other respects, a good carbonaro.
-
-	'I understand,' he said at length to Julien. 'Has the Marechale de
-	Fervaques had lovers, or has she not? Have you, therefore, any hope of
-	success? That is the question. It is as much as to say that, for my
-	own part, I have failed. Now that I am no longer aggrieved, I put it
-	to myself in this way: often she is out of temper, and, as I shall
-	shortly prove to you, she is nothing if not vindictive.
-
-	'I do not find in her that choleric temperament which is a mark of
-	genius and covers every action with a sort of glaze of passion. It is,
-	on the contrary, to her calm and phlegmatic Dutch manner that she owes
-	her rare beauty and the freshness of her complexion.'
-
-	Julien was growing impatient with the deliberateness and imperturbable
-	phlegm of the Spaniard; now and again, in spite of himself, he gave
-	vent to a monosyllabic comment.
-
-	'Will you listen to me?' Don Diego Bustos inquired gravely.
-
-	'Pardon the _furia francese_; I am all ears,' said Julien.
-
-	'Well, then, the Marechale de Fervaques is much given to hatred; she
-	is pitiless in her pursuit of people she has never seen, lawyers, poor
-	devils of literary men who have written songs like Colle, you know?
-
-	"J'ai la marotte
-	D'aimer Marote," etc.'
-
-	And Julien was obliged to listen to the quotation to the end. The
-	Spaniard greatly enjoyed singing in French.
-
-	That divine song was never listened to with greater impatience. When
-	he had finished: 'The Marechale,' said Don Diego Bustos, 'has ruined
-	the author of the song:
-
-	"Un jour l'amant au cabaret ..."'
-
-	Julien was in an agony lest he should wish to sing it. He contented
-	himself with analysing it. It was, as a matter of fact, impious and
-	hardly decent.
-
-	'When the Marechale flew into a passion with that song,' said Don
-	Diego, 'I pointed out 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, there will always be in France a literature of
-	the tavern. When Madame de Fervaques had the author, a poor devil on
-	half pay, deprived of a post worth eighteen hundred francs: "Take
-	care," said I to her, "you have attacked this rhymester with your
-	weapons, he may reply to you with his rhymes: he will make a song
-	about virtue. The gilded saloons will be on your side; the people who
-	like to laugh will repeat his epigrams." Do you know, Sir, what answer
-	the Marechale made me? "In the Lord's service all Paris would see me
-	tread the path of martyrdom; it would be a novel spectacle in France.
-	The people would learn to respect the quality. It would be the
-	happiest day of my life." Never were her eyes more brilliant.'
-
-	'And she has superb eyes,' exclaimed Julien.
-
-	'I see that you are in love ... Very well, then,' Don Diego Bustos
-	went on gravely, 'she has not the choleric constitution that impels
-	one to vengeance. If she enjoys injuring people, nevertheless, it is
-	because she is unhappy, I suspect _inward suffering_. May she not be a
-	prude who has grown weary of her calling?'
-
-	The Spaniard gazed at him in silence for fully a minute.
-
-	'That is the whole question,' he went on gravely, 'and it is from this
-	that you may derive some hope. I gave it much thought during the two
-	years in which I professed myself her most humble servant. Your whole
-	future, you, Sir, who are in love, hangs on this great problem. Is she
-	a prude, weary of her calling, and malicious because she is
-	miserable?'
-
-	'Or rather,' said Altamira, emerging at last from his profound
-	silence, 'can it be what I have said to you twenty times? Simply and
-	solely French vanity; it is the memory of her father, the famous cloth
-	merchant, that causes the unhappiness of a character naturally morose
-	and dry. There could be only one happiness for her, that of living in
-	Toledo, and being tormented by a confessor, who every day would show
-	her hell gaping for her.'
-
-	As Julien rose to leave: 'Altamira tells me that you are one of us,'
-	Don Diego said to him, graver than ever. 'One day you will help us to
-	reconquer our freedom, and so I wish to help you in this little
-	diversion. It is as well that you should be acquainted with the
-	Marechale's style; here are four letters in her hand.'
-
-	'I shall have them copied,' cried Julien, 'and return them to you.'
-
-	'And no one shall ever learn from you a single word of what we have
-	been saying?'
-
-	'Never, upon my honour!' cried Julien.
-
-	'Then may heaven help you!' the Spaniard concluded; and he accompanied
-	Julien and Altamira in silence to the head of the stair.
-
-	This scene cheered our hero somewhat; he almost smiled. 'And here is
-	the devout Altamira,' he said to himself, 'helping me in an adulterous
-	enterprise.'
-
-	Throughout the whole of the grave conversation of Don Diego Bustos,
-	Julien had been attentive to the stroke of the hours on the clock of
-	the Hotel d'Aligre.
-
-	The dinner hour was approaching, he was to see Mathilde again! He went
-	home, and dressed himself with great care.
-
-	'My first blunder,' he said to himself, as he was going downstairs; 'I
-	must carry out the Prince's orders to the letter.'
-
-	He returned to his room, and put on a travelling costume of the utmost
-	simplicity.
-
-	'Now,' he thought, 'I must consider how I am to look at her.' It was
-	only half-past five, and dinner was at six. He decided to go down to
-	the drawing-room, which he found deserted. The sight of the blue sofa
-	moved him to tears; soon his cheeks began to burn. 'I must get rid of
-	this absurd sensibility,' he said to himself angrily; 'it will betray
-	me.' He took up a newspaper to keep himself in countenance, and
-	strolled three or four times from the drawing-room to the garden.
-
-	It was only in fear and trembling and safely concealed behind a big
-	oak tree that he ventured to raise his eyes to the window of
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole's room. It was fast shut; he nearly fell to
-	the ground, and stood for a long time leaning against the oak; then,
-	with a tottering step, he went to look at the gardener's ladder.
-
-	The link of the chain, forced open by him in circumstances, alas, so
-	different, had not been mended. Carried away by a mad impulse, Julien
-	pressed it to his lips.
-
-	After a long course of wandering between drawing-room and garden, he
-	found himself horribly tired; this was an initial success which
-	pleased him greatly. 'My eyes will be dull and will not betray me!'
-	Gradually, the guests arrived in the drawing-room; the door never
-	opened without plunging Julien in mortal dread.
-
-	They sat down to table. At length Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared,
-	still faithful to her principle of keeping the others waiting. She
-	blushed a deep red on seeing Julien; she had not been told of his
-	arrival. Following Prince Korasoff's advice, Julien looked at her
-	hands; they were trembling. Disquieted himself, beyond all
-	expression, by this discovery, he was thankful to appear to be merely
-	tired.
-
-	M. de La Mole sang his praises. The Marquise addressed him shortly
-	afterwards, and expressed concern at his appearance of fatigue. Julien
-	kept on saying to himself: 'I must not look at Mademoiselle de La Mole
-	too much, but I ought not either to avoid her eye. I must appear to be
-	what I really was a week before my disaster ...' He had occasion to be
-	satisfied with his success, and remained in the drawing-room.
-	Attentive for the first time to the lady of the house, he spared no
-	effort to make the men of her circle talk, and to keep the
-	conversation alive.
-
-	His politeness was rewarded: about eight o'clock, Madame la Marechale
-	de Fervaques was announced. Julien left the room and presently
-	reappeared, dressed with the most scrupulous care. Madame de La Mole
-	was vastly flattered by this mark of respect, and sought to give him a
-	proof of her satisfaction by speaking of his travels to Madame de
-	Fervaques. Julien took his seat beside the Marechale, in such a way
-	that his eyes should not be visible to Mathilde. Thus placed, and
-	following all the rules of the art, he made Madame de Fervaques the
-	object of the most awed admiration. It was with an outburst on this
-	sentiment that the first of the fifty-three letters of which Prince
-	Korasoff had made him a present began.
-
-	The Marechale announced that she was going on to the Opera-Bouffe.
-	Julien hastened there; he found the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, who took
-	him to the box of the Gentlemen of the Household, immediately beside
-	that of Madame de Fervaques. Julien gazed at her incessantly. 'I
-	must,' he said to himself, as he returned home, 'keep a diary of the
-	siege; otherwise I should lose count of my attacks.' He forced himself
-	to write down two or three pages on this boring subject, and thus
-	succeeded (marvel of marvels!) in hardly giving a thought to
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole.
-
-	Mathilde had almost forgotten him during his absence. 'After all, he
-	is only a common person,' she thought, 'his name will always remind me
-	of the greatest mistake of my life. I must return in all sincerity to
-	the recognised standards of prudence and honour; a woman has
-	everything to lose in forgetting them.' She showed herself ready to
-	permit at length the conclusion of the arrangement with the Marquis de
-	Croisenois, begun so long since. He was wild with joy; he would have
-	been greatly astonished had anyone told him that it was resignation
-	that lay at the root of this attitude on Mathilde's part, which was
-	making him so proud.
-
-	All Mademoiselle de La Mole's ideas changed at the sight of Julien.
-	'In reality, that is my husband,' she said to herself; 'if I return in
-	sincerity to the standards of prudence, it is obviously he that I
-	ought to marry.'
-
-	She was prepared for importunities, for an air of misery on Julien's
-	part; she prepared her answers: for doubtless, on rising from table,
-	he would endeavour to say a few words to her. Far from it, he remained
-	fixed in the drawing-room, his eyes never even turned towards the
-	garden, heaven knows with how great an effort! 'It would be better to
-	get our explanation over at once,' Mademoiselle de La Mole told
-	herself; she went out by herself to the garden, Julien did not appear
-	there. Mathilde returned and strolled past the drawing-room windows;
-	she saw him busily engaged in describing to Madame de Fervaques the
-	old ruined castles that crown the steep banks of the Rhine and give
-	them so distinctive a character. He was beginning to acquit himself
-	none too badly in the use of the sentimental and picturesque language
-	which is called _wit_ in certain drawing-rooms.
-
-	Prince Korasoff would indeed have been proud, had he been in Paris:
-	the evening was passing exactly as he had foretold.
-
-	He would have approved of the mode of behaviour to which Julien
-	adhered throughout the days that followed.
-
-	An intrigue among those constituting the Power behind the Throne was
-	about to dispose of several Blue Ribands; Madame la Marechale de
-	Fervaques insisted that her great-uncle should be made a Knight of the
-	Order. The Marquis de La Mole was making a similar claim for his
-	father-in-law; they combined their efforts, and the Marechale came
-	almost every day to the Hotel de La Mole. It was from her that Julien
-	learned that the Marquis was to become a Minister: he offered the
-	_Camarilla_ a highly ingenious plan for destroying the Charter,
-	without any fuss, in three years' time.
-
-	Julien might expect a Bishopric, if M. de La Mole entered the
-	Ministry; but to his eyes all these important interests were as though
-	hidden by a veil. His imagination perceived them now only vaguely, and
-	so to speak in the distance. The fearful misery which was driving him
-	mad made him see every interest in life in the state of his relations
-	with Mademoiselle de La Mole. He calculated that after five or six
-	years of patient effort, he might succeed in making her love him once
-	again.
-
-	This coolest of heads had, as we see, sunk to a state of absolute
-	unreason. Of all the qualities that had distinguished him in the
-	past, there remained to him only a trace of firmness. Faithful to the
-	letter to the plan of conduct dictated to him by Prince Korasoff,
-	every evening he took his place as near as possible to the armchair
-	occupied by Madame de Fervaques, but found it impossible to think of a
-	word to say to her.
-
-	The effort that he was imposing on himself to appear cured in the eyes
-	of Mathilde absorbed all his spiritual strength, he remained rooted
-	beside the Marechale like a barely animate being; his eyes even, as in
-	the extremity of physical suffering, had lost all their fire.
-
-	Since Madame de La Mole's attitude towards the world was never
-	anything more than a feeble copy of the opinions of that husband who
-	might make her a Duchess, for some days she had been lauding Julien's
-	merits to the skies.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 26
-	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_, XIII. 34
-
-	'There is a trace of madness in the way the whole of this family have
-	of looking at things,' thought the Marechale; 'they are infatuated
-	with their little abbe, who can do nothing but sit and stare at one;
-	it is true, his eyes are not bad-looking.'
-
-	Julien, for his part, found in the Marechale's manner an almost
-	perfect example of that patrician calm which betokens a scrupulous
-	politeness and still more the impossibility of any keen emotion. Any
-	sudden outburst, a want of self-control, would have shocked Madame de
-	Fervaques almost as much as a want of dignity towards one's inferiors.
-	The least sign of sensibility would have been in her eyes like a sort
-	of moral intoxication for which one ought to blush, and which was
-	highly damaging to what a person of exalted rank owed to herself. Her
-	great happiness was to speak of the King's latest hunt, her favourite
-	book the _Memoires du duc de Saint-Simon_, especially the genealogical
-	part.
-
-	Julien knew the place in the drawing-room which, as the lights were
-	arranged, suited the style of beauty of Madame de Fervaques. He would
-	be there waiting for her, but took great care to turn his chair so
-	that he should not be able to see Mathilde. Astonished by this
-	persistence in hiding from her, one evening she left the blue sofa and
-	came to work at a little table that stood by the Marquise's armchair.
-	Julien could see her at quite a close range from beneath the brim of
-	Madame de Fervaques's hat. Those eyes, which governed his destiny,
-	frightened him at first, seen at such close range, then jerked him
-	violently out of his habitual apathy; he talked, and talked very well.
-
-	He addressed himself to the Marechale, but his sole object was to
-	influence the heart of Mathilde. He grew so animated that finally
-	Madame de Fervaques could not understand what he said.
-
-	This was so much to the good. Had it occurred to Julien to follow it
-	up with a few expressions of German mysticism, religious fervour and
-	Jesuitry, the Marechale would have numbered him straightway among the
-	superior persons called to regenerate the age.
-
-	'Since he shows such bad taste,' Mademoiselle de La Mole said to
-	herself, 'as to talk for so long and with such fervour to Madame de
-	Fervaques, I shall not listen to him any more.' For the rest of the
-	evening she kept her word, albeit with difficulty.
-
-	At midnight, when she took up her mother's candlestick, to escort her
-	to her room, Madame de La Mole stopped on the stairs to utter a
-	perfect panegyric of Julien. This completed Mathilde's ill humour; she
-	could not send herself to sleep. A thought came to her which soothed
-	her: 'The things that I despise may even be great distinctions in the
-	Marechale's eyes.'
-
-	As for Julien, he had now taken action, he was less wretched; his eyes
-	happened to fall on the Russia-leather portfolio in which Prince
-	Korasoff had placed the fifty-three love letters of which he had made
-	him a present. Julien saw a note at the foot of the first letter:
-	'Send No. 1 a week after the first meeting.'
-
-	'I am late!' exclaimed Julien, 'for it is ever so long now since I
-	first met Madame de Fervaques.' He set to work at once to copy out
-	this first love letter; it was a homily stuffed with phrases about
-	virtue, and of a deadly dullness; Julien was fortunate in falling
-	asleep over the second page.
-
-	Some hours later the risen sun surprised him crouching with his head
-	on the table. One of the most painful moments of his life was that in
-	which, every morning, as he awoke, he discovered his distress. This
-	morning, he finished copying his letter almost with a laugh. 'Is it
-	possible,' he asked himself, 'that there can ever have been a young
-	man who could write such stuff?' He counted several sentences of nine
-	lines. At the foot of the original he caught sight of a pencilled
-	note.
-
-	'One delivers these letters oneself: on horseback, a black cravat, a
-	blue greatcoat. One hands the letter to the porter with a contrite
-	air; profound melancholy in the gaze. If one should see a lady's maid,
-	wipe the eyes furtively. Address a few words to the maid.'
-
-	All these instructions were faithfully carried out.
-
-	'What I am doing is very bold,' thought Julien, as he rode away from
-	the Hotel de Fervaques, 'but so much the worse for Korasoff. To dare
-	write to so notorious a prude! I am going to be treated with the
-	utmost contempt, and nothing will amuse me more. This is, really, the
-	only form of comedy to which I can respond. Yes, to cover with
-	ridicule that odious being whom I call myself will amuse me. If I
-	obeyed my instincts I should commit some crime for the sake of
-	distraction.'
-
-	For a month past, the happiest moment in Julien's day had been that in
-	which he brought his horse back to the stables. Korasoff had expressly
-	forbidden him to look, upon any pretext whatsoever, at the mistress
-	who had abandoned him. But the paces of that horse which she knew so
-	well, the way in which Julien rapped with his whip at the stable door
-	to summon a groom, sometimes drew Mathilde to stand behind her window
-	curtain. The muslin was so fine that Julien could see through it. By
-	looking up in a certain way from under the brim of his hat, he caught
-	a glimpse of Mathilde's form without seeing her eyes. 'Consequently,'
-	he told himself, 'she cannot see mine, and this is not the same as
-	looking at her.'
-
-	That evening, Madame de Fervaques behaved to him exactly as though she
-	had not received the philosophical, mystical and religious
-	dissertation which, in the morning, he had handed to her porter with
-	such an air of melancholy. The evening before, chance had revealed to
-	Julien the secret springs of eloquence; he arranged himself so as to
-	be able to see Mathilde's eyes. She, meanwhile, immediately after the
-	arrival of the Marechale, rose from the blue sofa: this was a
-	desertion of her regular company. M. de Croisenois showed
-	consternation at this new caprice; his evident distress relieved
-	Julien of the keenest pangs of his own sufferings.
-
-	This unexpected turn in his affairs made him talk like an angel; and
-	as self-esteem finds its way even into hearts that serve as temples to
-	the most august virtue: 'Madame de La Mole is right,' the Marechale
-	said to herself, as she stepped into her carriage, 'that young priest
-	has distinction. My presence must, at first, have frightened him.
-	Indeed, everything that one finds in that house is very frivolous; all
-	the virtue I see there is the result of age, and stood in great need
-	of the congealing hand of time. That young man must have seen the
-	difference; he writes well; but I am much afraid that the request that
-	I should enlighten him with my advice, which he makes in his letter,
-	is in reality only a sentiment unaware of itself.
-
-	'And yet, how many conversions have begun in this way! What leads me
-	to augur well of this one is the difference in his style from that of
-	the young men whose letters I have had occasion to see. It is
-	impossible not to recognise unction, a profound earnestness and great
-	conviction in the prose of this young Levite; he must have the
-	soothing virtue of Massillon.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 27
-	The Best Positions in the Church
-
-
-	Service! talent! merit! bah! belong to a coterie.
-	TELEMACHUS
-
-	Thus the idea of a Bishopric was for the first time blended with that
-	of Julien in the head of a woman who sooner or later would be
-	distributing the best positions in the Church of France. This prospect
-	would have made little difference to him; for the moment, his thoughts
-	rose to nothing that was alien to his present misery: everything
-	intensified it; for instance the sight of his bedroom had become
-	intolerable to him. At night, when he came upstairs with his candle,
-	each piece of furniture, every little ornament seemed to acquire the
-	power of speech to inform him harshly of some fresh detail of his
-	misery.
-
-	This evening, 'I am a galley slave,' he said to himself, as he entered
-	it, with a vivacity long unfamiliar to him: 'let us hope that the
-	second letter will be as boring as the first.'
-
-	It was even more so. What he was copying seemed to him so absurd that
-	he began to transcribe it line for line, without a thought of the
-	meaning.
-
-	'It is even more emphatic,' he said to himself, 'than the official
-	documents of the Treaty of Muenster, which my tutor in diplomacy made
-	me copy out in London.'
-
-	It was only then that he remembered the letters from Madame de
-	Fervaques, the originals of which he had forgotten to restore to the
-	grave Spaniard, Don Diego Bustos. He searched for them; they were
-	really almost as fantastic a rigmarole as those of the young Russian
-	gentleman. They were completely vague. They expressed everything and
-	nothing. 'It is the Aeolian harp of style,' thought Julien. 'Amid the
-	most lofty thoughts about annihilation, death, the infinite, etc., I
-	can see no reality save a shocking fear of ridicule.'
-
-	The monologue which we have here abridged was repeated nightly for a
-	fortnight. Falling asleep while transcribing a sort of commentary on
-	the Apocalypse, going next day to deliver a letter with a melancholy
-	air, leaving his horse in the stable yard with the hope of catching a
-	glimpse of Mathilde's gown, working, putting in an appearance in the
-	evening at the Opera when Madame de Fervaques did not come to the
-	Hotel de La Mole; such were the monotonous events of Julien's
-	existence. They became more interesting when Madame de Fervaques paid
-	a visit to the Marquise; then he could steal a glance at Mathilde's
-	eyes beneath the side of the Marechale's hat, and would wax eloquent.
-	His picturesque and sentimental phrases began to assume a turn at once
-	more striking and more elegant.
-
-	He was fully aware that what he was saying seemed absurd to Mathilde,
-	but he sought to impress her by the elegance of his diction. 'The
-	falser the things I say, the more I ought to appeal to her,' thought
-	Julien; and then, with a shocking boldness, he began to exaggerate
-	certain aspects of nature. He very soon perceived that, if he were
-	not to appear vulgar in the eyes of the Marechale, he must above all
-	avoid any simple or reasonable idea. He continued on these lines, or
-	abridged his amplifications according as he read success or
-	indifference in the eyes of the two great ladies to whom he must
-	appeal.
-
-	On the whole, his life was less horrible than at the time when his
-	days passed in inaction.
-
-	'But,' he said to himself one evening, 'here I am transcribing the
-	fifteenth of these abominable dissertations; the first fourteen have
-	been faithfully delivered to the Marechale's Swiss. I shall soon have
-	the honour of filling all the pigeonholes in her desk. And yet she
-	treats me exactly as though I were not writing! What can be the end of
-	all this? Can my constancy bore her as much as it bores me? I am bound
-	to say that this Russian, Korasoff's friend, who was in love with the
-	fair Quakeress of Richmond, must have been a terrible fellow in his
-	day; no one could be more deadly.'
-
-	Like everyone of inferior intelligence whom chance brings into touch
-	with the operations of a great general, Julien understood nothing of
-	the attack launched by the young Russian upon the heart of the fair
-	English maid. The first forty letters were intended only to make her
-	pardon his boldness in writing. It was necessary to make this gentle
-	person, who perhaps was vastly bored, form the habit of receiving
-	letters that were perhaps a trifle less insipid than her everyday
-	life.
-
-	One morning, a letter was handed to Julien; he recognised the armorial
-	bearings of Madame de Fervaques, and broke the seal with an eagerness
-	which would have seemed quite impossible to him a few days earlier: it
-	was only an invitation to dine.
-
-	He hastened to consult Prince Korasoff's instructions. Unfortunately,
-	the young Russian had chosen to be as frivolous as Dorat, just where
-	he ought to have been simple and intelligible; Julien could not
-	discover the moral attitude which he was supposed to adopt at the
-	Marechale's table.
-
-	Her drawing-room was the last word in magnificence, gilded like the
-	Galerie de Diane in the Tuileries, with oil paintings in the panels.
-	There were blank spaces in these paintings, Julien learned later on
-	that the subjects had seemed hardly decent to the lady of the house,
-	who had had the pictures corrected. 'A moral age!' he thought.
-
-	In this drawing-room he remarked three of the gentlemen who had been
-	present at the drafting of the secret note. One of them, the Right
-	Reverend Bishop of ----, the Marechale's uncle, had the patronage of
-	benefices, and, it was said, could refuse nothing to his niece. 'What
-	a vast stride I have made,' thought Julien, with a melancholy smile,
-	'and how cold it leaves me! Here I am dining with the famous Bishop
-	of ----.'
-
-	The dinner was indifferent and the conversation irritating. 'It is
-	like the table of contents of a dull book,' thought Julien. 'All the
-	greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayed in it. Listen
-	to it for three minutes, and you ask yourself which is more striking,
-	the emphasis of the speaker or his shocking ignorance.'
-
-	The reader has doubtless forgotten that little man of letters, named
-	Tanbeau, the nephew of the Academician and an embryo professor, who,
-	with his vile calumnies, seemed to be employed in poisoning the
-	drawing-room of the Hotel de La Mole.
-
-	It was from this little man that Julien first gleaned the idea that it
-	might well be that Madame de Fervaques, while refraining from
-	answering his letters, looked with indulgence upon the sentiment that
-	dictated them. The black heart of M. Tanbeau was torn asunder by the
-	thought of Julien's successes; but inasmuch as, looking at it from
-	another angle, a deserving man cannot, any more than a fool, be in two
-	places at once, 'if Sorel becomes the lover of the sublime Marechale,'
-	the future professor told himself, 'she will place him in the Church
-	in some advantageous manner, and I shall be rid of him at the Hotel de
-	La Mole.'
-
-	M. l'abbe Pirard also addressed long sermons to Julien on his
-	successes at the Hotel de Fervaques. There was a sectarian jealousy
-	between the austere Jansenist and the Jesuitical, regenerative and
-	monarchical drawing-room of the virtuous Marechale.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 28
-	Manon Lescaut
-
-
-	Now once he was fully convinced of the foolishness and
-	idiocy of the prior, he succeeded quite straightforwardly
-	by calling black white, and white black.
-	LICHTENBERG
-
-	The Russian instructions laid down categorically that one must never
-	contradict in speech the person with whom one corresponded. One must
-	never depart, upon any account, from an attitude of the most ecstatic
-	admiration; the letters were all based upon this supposition.
-
-	One evening, at the Opera, in Madame de Fervaques's box, Julien
-	praised to the skies the ballet in _Manon Lescaut_. [Trans. footnote:
-	Composed by Halevy upon a libretto by Scribe, and performed in 1830.]
-	His sole reason for doing so was that he found it insipid.
-
-	The Marechale said that this ballet was greatly inferior to abbe
-	Prevost's novel.
-
-	'What!' thought Julien, with surprise and amusement, 'a person of such
-	extreme virtue praise a novel!' Madame de Fervaques used to profess,
-	two or three times weekly, the most utter scorn for the writers, who,
-	by means of those vulgar works, sought to corrupt a younger generation
-	only too prone to the errors of the senses.
-
-	'In that immoral and pernicious class, _Manon Lescaut_,' the Marechale
-	went on, 'occupies, they say, one of the first places. The frailties
-	and well-merited sufferings of a thoroughly criminal heart are, they
-	say, described in it with a truth that is almost profound; which did
-	not prevent your Bonaparte from declaring on Saint Helena that it was
-	a novel written for servants.'
-
-	This speech restored all its activity to Julien's spirit. 'People have
-	been trying to damage me with the Marechale; they have told her of my
-	enthusiasm for Napoleon. This intelligence has stung her sufficiently
-	for her to yield to the temptation to let me feel her resentment.'
-	This discovery kept him amused for the rest of the evening and made
-	him amusing. As he was bidding the Marechale good night in the
-	vestibule of the Opera: 'Bear in mind, Sir,' she said to him, 'that
-	people must not love Napoleon when they love me; they may, at the
-	most, accept him as a necessity imposed by Providence. Anyhow, the man
-	had not a soul pliant enough to feel great works of art.'
-
-	'_When they love me_!' Julien repeated to himself; 'either that means
-	nothing at all, or it means everything. There is one of the secrets of
-	language that are hidden from us poor provincials.' And he thought
-	incessantly of Madame de Renal as he copied an immensely long letter
-	intended for the Marechale.
-
-	'How is it,' she asked him the following evening, with an air of
-	indifference which seemed to him unconvincing, 'that you speak to me
-	of _London_ and _Richmond_ in a letter which you wrote last night, it
-	appears, after leaving the Opera?'
-
-	Julien was greatly embarrassed; he had copied the letter line for
-	line, without thinking of what he was writing, and apparently had
-	forgotten to substitute for the words _London_ and _Richmond_, which
-	occurred in the original, _Paris_ and _Saint-Cloud_. He began two or
-	three excuses, but found it impossible to finish any of them; he felt
-	himself on the point of giving way to an outburst of helpless
-	laughter. At length, in his search for the right words, he arrived at
-	the following idea: 'Exalted by the discussion of the most sublime,
-	the highest interests of the human soul, my own, in writing to you,
-	must have become distracted.
-
-	'I am creating an impression,' he said to himself, 'therefore I can
-	spare myself the tedium of the rest of the evening.' He left the Hotel
-	de Fervaques in hot haste. That evening, as he looked over the
-	original text of the letter which he had copied the night before, he
-	very soon came to the fatal passage where the young Russian spoke of
-	London and Richmond. Julien was quite surprised to find this letter
-	almost tender.
-
-	It was the contrast between the apparent frivolity of his talk and the
-	sublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of his letters that had
-	marked him out. The length of his sentences was especially pleasing to
-	the Marechale; this was not the cursory style brought into fashion by
-	Voltaire, that most immoral of men! Although our hero did everything
-	in the world to banish any suggestion of common sense from his
-	conversation, it had still an anti-monarchical and impious colour
-	which did not escape the notice of Madame de Fervaques. Surrounded by
-	persons who were eminently moral, but who often had not one idea in an
-	evening, this lady was profoundly impressed by everything that bore a
-	semblance of novelty; but, at the same time, she felt that she owed it
-	to herself to be shocked by it. She called this defect, 'retaining the
-	imprint of the frivolity of the age'.
-
-	But such drawing-rooms are worth visiting only when one has a favour
-	to ask. All the boredom of this life without interests which Julien
-	was leading is doubtless shared by the reader. These are the barren
-	moorlands on our journey.
-
-	Throughout the time usurped in Julien's life by the Fervaques episode,
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole had to make a constant effort not to think of
-	him. Her heart was exposed to violent combats: sometimes she
-	flattered herself that she was despising this gloomy young man; but,
-	in spite of her efforts, his conversation captivated her. What
-	astonished her most of all was his complete insincerity; he never
-	uttered a word to the Marechale which was not a lie, or at least a
-	shocking travesty of his point of view, which Mathilde knew so
-	perfectly upon almost every subject. This Machiavellism impressed her.
-	'What profundity!' she said to herself; 'how different from the
-	emphatic blockheads or the common rascals, like M. Tanbeau, who speak
-	the same language!'
-
-	Nevertheless, Julien passed some fearful days. It was to perform the
-	most arduous of his duties that he appeared each evening in the
-	Marechale's drawing-room. His efforts to play a part ended by sapping
-	all his spiritual strength. Often, at night, as he crossed the vast
-	courtyard of the Hotel de Fervaques, it was only by force of character
-	and reason that he succeeded in keeping himself from sinking into
-	despair.
-
-	'I conquered despair at the Seminary,' he said to himself: 'and yet
-	what an appalling prospect I had before me then! I stood to make my
-	fortune or to fail; in either case, I saw myself obliged to spend my
-	whole life in the intimate society of all that is most contemptible
-	and disgusting under heaven. The following spring, when only eleven
-	short months had passed, I was perhaps the happiest of all the young
-	men of my age.'
-
-	But often enough all these fine arguments proved futile when faced
-	with the frightful reality. Every day he saw Mathilde at luncheon and
-	at dinner. From the frequent letters which M. de La Mole dictated to
-	him, he knew her to be on the eve of marrying M. de Croisenois.
-	Already that amiable young man was calling twice daily at the Hotel de
-	La Mole: the jealous eye of an abandoned lover did not miss a single
-	one of his actions.
-
-	When he thought he had noticed that Mademoiselle de La Mole was
-	treating her suitor kindly, on returning to his room, Julien could not
-	help casting a loving glance at his pistols.
-
-	'Ah, how much wiser I should be,' he said to himself, 'to remove the
-	marks from my linen, and retire to some lonely forest, twenty leagues
-	from Paris, there to end this accursed existence! A stranger to the
-	countryside, my death would remain unknown for a fortnight, and who
-	would think of me after a fortnight had passed?'
-
-	This reasoning was extremely sound. But next day, a glimpse of
-	Mathilde's arm, seen between her sleeve and her glove, was enough to
-	plunge our young philosopher in cruel memories, which, at the same
-	time, made him cling to life. 'Very well!' he would then say to
-	himself, 'I shall follow out this Russian policy to the end. How is it
-	going to end?
-
-	'As for the Marechale, certainly, after I have copied these
-	fifty-three letters, I shall write no more.
-
-	'As for Mathilde, these six weeks of such painful play-acting, will
-	either fail altogether to appease her anger, or will win me a moment
-	of reconciliation. Great God! I should die of joy!' And he was unable
-	to pursue the idea farther.
-
-	When, after a long spell of meditation, he succeeded in recovering the
-	use of his reason: 'Then,' he said to himself, 'I should obtain a
-	day's happiness, after which would begin again her severities,
-	founded, alas, upon the scant power that I have to please her, and I
-	should be left without any further resource, I should be ruined, lost
-	for ever ...
-
-	'What guarantee can she give me, with her character? Alas, my scant
-	merit is responsible for everything. I must be wanting in elegance in
-	my manners, my way of speaking must be heavy and monotonous. Great
-	God! Why am I myself?'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 29
-	Boredom
-
-
-	Sacrificing oneself to one's passions is one thing;
-	but to passions that one doesn't have! O sad nineteenth century!
-	GIRODET
-
-	After having read without pleasure at first Julien's long letters,
-	Madame de Fervaques began to take an interest in them; but one thing
-	distressed her: 'What a pity that M. Sorel is not really a priest! One
-	could admit him to a sort of intimacy: with that Cross and what is
-	almost a layman's coat, one is exposed to cruel questions, and how is
-	one to answer them?' She did not complete her thought: 'some malicious
-	friend may suppose and indeed spread the report that he is some humble
-	little cousin, one of my father's family, some tradesman decorated by
-	the National Guard.'
-
-	Until the moment of her first meeting Julien, Madame de Fervaques's
-	greatest pleasure had been to write the word Marechale before her own
-	name. Thenceforward the vanity of an upstart, morbid and easily
-	offended, had to fight a nascent interest.
-
-	'It would be so easy for me,' the Marechale said to herself, 'to make
-	a Vicar-General of him in some diocese not far from Paris! But M.
-	Sorel by itself, and to add to that a mere secretary of M. de La Mole!
-	It is deplorable.'
-
-	For the first time, this spirit which _dreaded everything_ was stirred
-	by an interest apart from its own pretensions to rank and to social
-	superiority. Her old porter noticed that, when he brought her a
-	letter from that handsome young man, who wore such a melancholy air,
-	he was certain to see vanish the distracted and irritated expression
-	which the Marechale always took care to assume when any of her
-	servants entered the room.
-
-	The boredom of a mode of life whose sole ambition was to create an
-	effect on the public, without there being at the bottom of her heart
-	any real enjoyment of this kind of success, had become so intolerable
-	since she had begun to think of Julien, that, if her maids were not to
-	be ill-treated throughout the whole of a day, it was enough that
-	during the previous evening she should have spent an hour with this
-	strange young man. His growing credit survived anonymous letters, very
-	well composed. In vain did little Tanbeau supply MM. de Luz, de
-	Croisenois, de Caylus, with two or three most adroit calumnies which
-	those gentlemen took pleasure in spreading abroad, without stopping to
-	consider the truth of the accusations. The Marechale, whose mind was
-	not framed to withstand these vulgar methods, reported her doubts to
-	Mathilde, and was always comforted.
-
-	One day, after having inquired three times whether there were any
-	letters, Madame de Fervaques suddenly decided to write to Julien. This
-	was a victory gained by boredom. At the second letter, the Marechale
-	was almost brought to a standstill by the unpleasantness of writing
-	with her own hand so vulgar an address as: 'a M. Sorel, chez M. le
-	Marquis de La Mole'.
-
-	'You must,' she said to Julien that evening in the driest of tones,
-	'bring me some envelopes with your address written on them.'
-
-	'So now I am to combine the lover and the flunkey,' thought Julien,
-	and bowed, amusing himself by screwing up his face like Arsene, the
-	Marquis's old footman.
-
-	That same evening he brought a supply of envelopes, and next day,
-	early in the morning, he received a third letter: he read five or six
-	lines at the beginning, and two or three towards the end. It covered
-	four pages in a small and very close script.
-
-	Gradually she formed the pleasant habit of writing almost every day.
-	Julien replied with faithful copies of the Russian letters, and, such
-	is the advantage of the emphatic style, Madame de Fervaques was not at
-	all surprised by the want of connection between the replies and her
-	own letters.
-
-	What would have been the irritation to her pride if little Tanbeau,
-	who had appointed himself a voluntary spy upon Julien's actions, had
-	been able to tell her that all these letters, with their seals
-	unbroken, were flung pell-mell into Julien's drawer!
-
-	One morning, the porter brought to him in the library a letter from
-	the Marechale; Mathilde met the man, saw the letter, and read the
-	address in Julien's hand. She entered the library as the porter left
-	it; the letter was still lying on the edge of the table; Julien,
-	busily engaged in writing, had not placed it in his drawer.
-
-	'This is what I cannot endure,' cried Mathilde, seizing the letter;
-	'you are forgetting me entirely, me who am your wife. Your conduct is
-	appalling, Sir.'
-
-	With these words, her pride, astonished by the fearful impropriety of
-	her action, stifled her; she burst into tears, and a moment later
-	appeared to Julien to be unable to breathe.
-
-	Surprised, confounded, Julien did not clearly distinguish all the
-	admirable and happy consequences which this scene foreboded for
-	himself. He helped Mathilde to a seat; she almost abandoned herself in
-	his arms.
-
-	The first instant in which he perceived this relaxation was one of
-	extreme joy. His second thought was of Korasoff: 'I may ruin
-	everything by a single word.'
-
-	His arms ached, so painful was the effort imposed on him by policy. 'I
-	ought not even to allow myself to press to my heart this supple and
-	charming form, or she will despise and abuse me. What a frightful
-	nature!'
-
-	And as he cursed Mathilde's nature, he loved her for it a hundred
-	times more; he felt as though he were holding a queen in his arms.
-
-	Julien's unfeeling coldness intensified the misery of wounded pride
-	which was tearing the heart of Mademoiselle de La Mole. She was far
-	from possessing the necessary coolness to seek to read in his eyes
-	what he was feeling for her at that moment. She could not bring
-	herself to look at him; she trembled lest she should meet an
-	expression of scorn.
-
-	Seated on the divan in the library, motionless and with her head
-	turned away from Julien, she was a prey to the keenest suffering that
-	pride and love can make a human heart feel. Into what a frightful
-	course of action had she fallen!
-
-	'It was reserved for me, wretch that I am, to see the most indelicate
-	advances repulsed! And repulsed by whom?' added a pride mad with
-	suffering, 'by one of my father's servants.
-
-	'That is what I will not endure,' she said aloud.
-
-	And, rising with fury, she opened the drawer of Julien's table, which
-	stood a few feet away from her. She remained frozen with horror on
-	seeing there nine or ten letters unopened, similar in every respect to
-	the letter which the porter had just brought in. On all the envelopes,
-	she recognised Julien's hand, more or less disguised.
-
-	'And so,' she cried, beside herself with rage, 'not only have you
-	found favour with her, but you despise her. You, a man of nought, to
-	despise Madame la Marechale de Fervaques!
-
-	'Ah, forgive me, my dear,' she went on, flinging herself at his
-	feet, 'despise me if you wish, but love me, I can no longer live
-	deprived of your love.' And she fell to the ground in a dead faint.
-
-	'So there she is, that proud creature, at my feet!' thought Julien.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 30
-	A Box at the Bouffes
-
-	As the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest.
-	_Don Juan_, I. 73
-
-	In the thick of all this great commotion, Julien was more bewildered
-	than happy. Mathilde's abuse of him showed him how wise the Russian
-	policy had been. '_Say little, do little_, that is my one way of
-	salvation.'
-
-	He lifted up Mathilde and without a word laid her down again on the
-	divan. Gradually she gave way to tears.
-
-	To keep herself in countenance, she took Madame de Fervaques's
-	letters in her hands; she broke the seals slowly. She gave a nervous
-	start on recognising the Marechale's handwriting. She turned over the
-	sheets of these letters without reading them; the majority of them
-	covered six pages.
-
-	'Answer me this, at least,' said Mathilde at length in the most
-	supplicating tone, but without venturing to look at Julien. 'You know
-	very well that I am proud; it is the misfortune of my position, and
-	indeed of my nature, I must admit; so Madame de Fervaques has stolen
-	your heart from me ... Has she offered you all the sacrifices to which
-	that fatal passion led me?'
-
-	A grim silence was Julien's only answer. 'By what right,' he thought,
-	'does she ask of me an indiscretion unworthy of an honourable man?'
-
-	Mathilde endeavoured to read the letters; the tears that filled her
-	eyes made it impossible for her to do so.
-
-	For a month past she had been miserable, but that proud spirit was far
-	from confessing its feelings to itself. Chance alone had brought about
-	this explosion. For an instant jealousy and love had overcome pride.
-	She was seated upon the divan and in close proximity to him. He saw
-	her hair and her throat of alabaster; for a moment he forgot all that
-	he owed to himself; he slipped his arm round her waist, and almost
-	hugged her to his bosom.
-
-	She turned her head towards him slowly: he was astonished at the
-	intense grief that was visible in her eyes, and made them quite
-	unrecognisable as hers.
-
-	Julien felt his strength begin to fail him, so colossal was the effort
-	involved in the act of courage which he was imposing on himself.
-
-	'Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain,' he
-	said to himself, 'if I allow myself to be carried away by the joy of
-	loving her.' Meanwhile, in a faint voice and in words which she had
-	barely the strength to utter, she was repeating to him at that moment
-	her assurance of all her regret for the action which an excessive
-	pride might have counselled her to take.
-
-	'I too, have my pride,' Julien said to her in a voice that was barely
-	articulate, and his features indicated the extreme limit of physical
-	exhaustion.
-
-	Mathilde turned sharply towards him. The sound of his voice was a
-	pleasure the hope of which she had almost abandoned. At that moment
-	she recalled her pride only to curse it, she would fain have
-	discovered some unusual, incredible act to prove to him how greatly
-	she adored him and detested herself.
-
-	'It is probably because of that pride,' Julien went on, 'that you have
-	singled me out for an instant; it is certainly because of that
-	courageous firmness, becoming in a man, that you respect me at this
-	moment. I may be in love with the Marechale ...'
-
-	Mathilde shuddered; her eyes assumed a strange expression. She was
-	about to hear her sentence uttered. This movement did not pass
-	unobserved by Julien; he felt his courage weaken.
-
-	'Ah!' he said to himself, listening to the sound of the vain words
-	that came from his lips, as he might have listened to a noise from
-	without; 'if I could only cover those pale cheeks with kisses, and you
-	not feel them!
-
-	'I may be in love with the Marechale,' he continued . .. and his voice
-	grew fainter and fainter; 'but certainly, of her interest in myself I
-	have no decisive proof...'
-
-	Mathilde gazed at him; he met her gaze, at least he hoped that his
-	features had not betrayed him. He felt himself penetrated by love to
-	the innermost recesses of his heart. Never had he adored her so
-	intensely; he was scarcely less mad than Mathilde. Could she have
-	found sufficient self-control and courage to manoeuvre, he would have
-	fallen at her feet, forswearing all idle play-acting. He had strength
-	enough to be able to continue to speak. 'Ah! Korasoff,' he exclaimed
-	inwardly, 'why are not you here? How I need a word of advice to direct
-	my conduct!' Meanwhile his voice was saying:
-
-	'Failing any other sentiment, gratitude would suffice to attach me to
-	the Marechale; she has shown me indulgence, she has comforted me when
-	others scorned me ... I may perhaps not repose an unbounded faith in
-	certain signs which are extremely flattering, no doubt, but also,
-	perhaps, are of very brief duration.'
-
-	'Ah! Great God!' cried Mathilde.
-
-	'Very well! What guarantee will you give me?' Julien went on in sharp,
-	firm accents, seeming to abandon for an instant the prudent forms of
-	diplomacy. 'What guarantee, what god will assure me that the position
-	which you seem disposed to restore to me at this moment will last for
-	more than two days?'
-
-	'The intensity of my love and of my misery if you no longer love me,'
-	she said, clasping his hands and turning her face towards him.
-
-	The violent movement which she thus made had slightly displaced her
-	pelerine: Julien caught a glimpse of her charming shoulders. Her hair,
-	slightly disordered, recalled to him an exquisite memory ...
-
-	He was about to yield. 'An imprudent word,' he told himself, 'and I
-	begin once more that long succession of days passed in despair. Madame
-	de Renal used to find reasons for obeying the dictates of her heart:
-	this young girl of high society allows her heart to be moved only when
-	she has proved to herself with good reasons that it ought to be
-	moved.'
-
-	He perceived this truth in a flash, and in a flash also regained his
-	courage.
-
-	He freed his hands which Mathilde was clasping in her own, and with
-	marked respect withdrew a little way from her. Human courage can go no
-	farther. He then busied himself in gathering together all Madame de
-	Fervaques's letters which were scattered over the divan, and it was
-	with a show of extreme politeness, so cruel at that moment, that he
-	added:
-
-	'Mademoiselle de La Mole will deign to permit me to think over all
-	this.' He withdrew rapidly and left the library; she heard him shut
-	all the doors in turn.
-
-	'The monster is not in the least perturbed,' she said to herself...
-
-	'But what am I saying, a monster! He is wise, prudent, good; it is I
-	who have done more wrong than could be imagined.'
-
-	This point of view persisted. Mathilde was almost happy that day, for
-	she was altogether in love; you would have said that never had that
-	heart been stirred by pride--and such pride!
-
-	She shuddered with horror when, that evening in the drawing-room, a
-	footman announced Madame de Fervaques; the man's voice seemed to her
-	to have a sinister sound. She could not endure the sight of the
-	Marechale, and quickly left the room. Julien, with little pride in his
-	hard-won victory, had been afraid lest his own eyes should betray him,
-	and had not dined at the Hotel de La Mole.
-
-	His love and his happiness increased rapidly as the hour of battle
-	receded; he had already begun to find fault with himself. 'How could I
-	resist her?' he asked himself; 'if she was going to cease to love me!
-	A single moment may alter that proud spirit, and I must confess that I
-	have treated her scandalously.'
-
-	In the evening, he felt that he absolutely must appear at the Bouffes
-	in Madame de Fervaques's box. She had given him an express invitation:
-	Mathilde would not fail to hear of his presence there or of his
-	discourteous absence. Despite the self-evidence of this argument, he
-	had not the strength, early in the evening, to plunge into society. If
-	he talked, he would forfeit half his happiness.
-
-	Ten o'clock struck: he must absolutely show his face.
-
-	Fortunately he found the Marechale's box filled with women, and was
-	relegated to a place by the door, and entirely concealed by their
-	hats. This position saved him from making a fool of himself; the
-	divine accents of despair of Carolina in _Il matrimonio segreto_ made
-	him burst into tears. Madame de Fervaques saw these tears; they were
-	in so marked a contrast to the manly firmness of his usual appearance,
-	that this spirit of a great lady long saturated in all the most
-
-	corrosive elements of the pride of an upstart was touched by them.
-	What little she had left of a woman's heart led her to speak. She
-	wished to enjoy the sound of her own voice at that moment.
-
-	'Have you seen the ladies de La Mole,' she said to him, 'they
-	are in the third tier.' Instantly Julien bent forward into the house,
-	leaning somewhat rudely upon the ledge of the box: he saw Mathilde;
-	her eyes were bright with tears.
-
-	'And yet it is not their day for the Opera,' thought Julien; 'what
-	eagerness!'
-
-	Mathilde had made her mother come to the Bouffes, despite the inferior
-	position of the box which a sycophant of their circle had made haste
-	to offer them. She wished to see whether Julien would spend that
-	evening with the Marechale.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 31
-	Making Her Afraid
-
-
-	So this is the fine miracle of your civilisation!
-	You have turned love into an ordinary matter.
-	BARNAVE
-
-	Julien hurried to Madame de La Mole's box. His eyes met first the
-	tearful eyes of Mathilde; she was weeping without restraint, there was
-	no one present but people of minor importance, the friend who had lent
-	them the box and some men of her acquaintance. Mathilde laid her hand
-	upon Julien's; she seemed to have forgotten all fear of her mother.
-	Almost stifled by her sobs, she said nothing to him but the single
-	word: 'Guarantees!'
-
-	'Whatever I do, I must not speak to her,' thought Julien, greatly
-	moved himself, and covering his eyes as best he could with his hand,
-	ostensibly to avoid the lustre that was blazing into the boxes on the
-	third tier. 'If I speak, she can no longer doubt the intensity of my
-	emotion, the sound of my voice will betray me, all may be lost once
-	more.'
-
-	His struggles were far more painful than in the morning, his spirit
-	had had time to grow disturbed. He was afraid of seeing Mathilde's
-	vanity wounded. Frantic with love and passion, he pledged himself not
-	to speak to her.
-
-	This is, to my mind, one of the finest traits of his character; a
-	person capable of such an effort to control himself may go far, _si
-	fata sinant_.
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole insisted upon taking Julien home. Fortunately
-	it was raining in torrents. But the Marquise made him sit facing
-	herself, talked to him continuously, and prevented his saying a word
-	to her daughter. One would have thought that the Marquise was
-	concerned for Julien's happiness; no longer afraid of destroying
-	everything by the intensity of his emotion, he abandoned himself to it
-	with frenzy.
-
-	Dare I say that on entering his own room Julien threw himself on his
-	knees and covered with kisses the love letters given him by Prince
-	Korasoff?
-
-	'Oh, you great man! What do I not owe to you?' he cried in his frenzy.
-
-	Gradually a little coolness returned to him. He compared himself to a
-	general who had just won the first half of a great battle. 'The
-	advantage is certain, immense,' he said to himself; 'but what is going
-	to happen tomorrow? An instant may ruin everything.'
-
-	He opened with a passionate impulse the _Memoirs dictated at Saint
-	Helena by Napoleon_, and for two solid hours forced himself to read
-	them; his eyes alone read the words, no matter, he forced himself to
-	the task. During this strange occupation, his head and heart, rising
-	to the level of everything that is most great, were at work without
-	his knowledge. 'This is a very different heart from Madame de Renal's,'
-	he said to himself, but he went no farther.
-
-	'Make her afraid,' he cried of a sudden, flinging the book from him.
-	'The enemy will obey me only so long as I make him fear me, then he
-	will not dare to despise me.'
-
-	He paced up and down his little room, wild with joy. To be frank, this
-	happiness was due to pride rather than love.
-
-	'Make her afraid!' he repeated proudly to himself, and he had reason
-	to be proud. 'Even in her happiest moments, Madame de Renal always
-	doubted whether my love were equal to hers. Here, it is a demon that I
-	am conquering, I must therefore conquer.'
-
-	He knew well that next morning, by eight o'clock, Mathilde would be in
-	the library; he did not appear there until nine, burning with love,
-	but his head controlled his heart. Not a single minute passed,
-	perhaps, without his repeating to himself: 'Always keep her mind
-	occupied with the great uncertainty: "Does he love me?" Her privileged
-	position, the flattery she receives from all who speak to her make her
-	a little too much inclined to self-assurance.'
-
-	He found her pale, calm, seated upon the divan, but incapable,
-	apparently, of making any movement. She offered him her hand.
-
-	'Dear, I have offended you, it is true; you are perhaps vexed with
-	me?'
-
-	Julien was not expecting so simple a tone. He was on the point of
-	betraying himself.
-
-	'You wish for guarantees, dear,' she went on after a silence which she
-	had hoped to see broken; 'that is only fair. Carry me off, let us
-	start for London. I shall be ruined for ever, disgraced ...' She found
-	the courage to withdraw her hand from Julien so as to hide her eyes
-	with it. All the sentiments of modesty and feminine virtue had
-	returned to her heart ... 'Very well! Disgrace me,' she said at length
-	with a sigh, 'it is a guarantee.'
-
-	'Yesterday I was happy, because I had the courage to be severe with
-	myself,' thought Julien. After a brief interval of silence, he gained
-	sufficient mastery over his heart to say in an icy tone:
-
-	'Once we are on the road to London, once you are disgraced, to use
-	your own words, who can promise me that you will love me? That my
-	company in the post-chaise will not seem to you an annoyance? I am not
-	a monster, to have ruined your reputation will be to me only an
-	additional grief. It is not your position in society that is the
-	obstacle, it is unfortunately your own nature. Can you promise
-	yourself that you will love me for a week?
-
-	'(Ah! Let her love me for a week, for a week only,' Julien murmured to
-	himself, 'and I shall die of joy. What do I care for the future, what
-	do I care for life itself? And this divine happiness may begin at this
-	moment if I choose, it depends entirely upon myself!)'
-
-	Mathilde saw him turn pensive.
-
-	'So I am altogether unworthy of you,' she said, clasping his hand.
-
-	Julien embraced her, but at once the iron hand of duty gripped his
-	heart. 'If she sees how I adore her, then I lose her.' And, before
-	withdrawing himself from her arms, he had resumed all the dignity that
-	befits a man.
-
-	On that day and the days that followed, he managed to conceal the
-	intensity of his bliss; there were moments in which he denied himself
-	even the pleasure of clasping her in his arms.
-
-	At other moments, the frenzy of happiness swept aside all the counsels
-	of prudence.
-
-	It was beside a bower of honeysuckle arranged so as to hide the
-	ladder, in the garden, that he was accustomed to take his stand in
-	order to gaze at the distant shutters of Mathilde's window and lament
-	her inconstancy. An oak of great size stood close by, and the trunk of
-	this tree prevented him from being seen by indiscreet persons.
-
-	As he passed with Mathilde by this spot which recalled to him so
-	vividly the intensity of his grief, the contrast between past despair
-	and present bliss was too strong for him; tears flooded his eyes, and,
-	carrying to his lips the hand of his mistress: 'Here I lived while I
-	thought of you; from here I gazed at that shutter, I awaited for hours
-	on end the fortunate moment when I should see this hand open it ...'
-
-	He gave way completely. He portrayed to her, in those true colours
-	which one does not invent, the intensity of his despair at that time.
-	In spasmodic utterances he spoke of his present happiness which had
-	put an end to that cruel suffering ...
-
-	'What am I doing, Great God!' said Julien, coming suddenly to his
-	senses. 'I am destroying everything.'
-
-	In the height of his alarm he thought he already saw less love in the
-	eyes of Mademoiselle de La Mole. This was an illusion; but Julien's
-	face changed rapidly and was flooded with a deathly pallor. His eyes
-	grew dull for a moment, and an expression of arrogance not devoid of
-	malice succeeded that of the most sincere, the most whole-hearted
-	love.
-
-	'Why, what is the matter with you, dear?' Mathilde tenderly, anxiously
-	inquired.
-
-	'I am lying,' said Julien savagely, 'and I am lying to you. I reproach
-	myself for it, and yet God knows that I respect you sufficiently not
-	to lie. You love me, you are devoted to me, and I have no need to make
-	fine speeches in order to please you.'
-
-	'Great God! They were only fine speeches, all the exquisite things you
-	have been saying to me for the last ten minutes?'
-
-	'And I reproach myself for them strongly, dear friend. I made them up
-	long ago for a woman who loved me and used to bore me ... That is the
-	weak spot in my character, I denounce myself to you, forgive me.'
-
-	Bitter tears streamed down Mathilde's cheeks.
-
-	'Whenever some trifle that has shocked me sets me dreaming for a
-	moment,' Julien went on, 'my execrable memory, which I could curse at
-	this moment, offers me a way of escape, and I abuse it.'
-
-	'So I have unconsciously done something that has displeased you?' said
-	Mathilde with a charming simplicity.
-
-	'One day, I remember, as you passed by these honeysuckles, you plucked
-	a flower, M. de Luz took it from you, and you let him keep it. I was
-	close beside you.'
-
-	'M. de Luz? It is impossible,' replied Mathilde with the dignity that
-	came so naturally to her: 'I never behave like that.'
-
-	'I am certain of it,' Julien at once rejoined.
-
-	'Ah, well! Then it must be true, dear,' said Mathilde, lowering her
-	eyes sadly. She was positive that for many months past she had never
-	allowed M. de Luz to take any such liberty.
-
-	Julien gazed at her with an inexpressible tenderness:
-
-	'No,' he said to himself, 'she does not love me any the less.'
-
-	She rebuked him that evening, with a laugh, for his fondness for
-	Madame de Fervaques: a _bourgeois_ in love with a _parvenue_. 'Hearts
-	of that class are perhaps the only ones that my Julien cannot inflame.
-	She has turned you into a regular dandy,' she said, playing with his
-	hair.
-
-	During the period in which he supposed himself to be scorned by
-	Mathilde, Julien had become one of the best-dressed men in Paris. But
-	he had an additional advantage over the other men of this sort; once
-	his toilet was performed, he never gave it another thought.
-
-	One thing still vexed Mathilde. Julien continued to copy out the
-	Russian letters, and to send them to the Marechale.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 31
-	The Tiger
-
-
-	Alas! why these things and not others!
-	BEAUMARCHAIS
-
-	An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a
-	tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a
-	loaded pistol on the table.
-
-	Julien abandoned himself to the full force of his happiness only at
-	those moments when Mathilde could not read the expression of it in his
-	eyes. He was punctilious in his performance of the duty of addressing
-	a few harsh words to her from time to time.
-
-	When Mathilde's meekness, which he observed with astonishment, and the
-	intensity of her devotion came near to destroying all his
-	self-control, he had the courage to leave her abruptly.
-
-	For the first time Mathilde was in love.
-
-	Life, which had always crawled for her at a snail's pace, now flew.
-
-	As it was essential, nevertheless, that her pride should find some
-	outlet, she sought to expose herself with temerity to all the risks
-	that her love could make her run. It was Julien who showed prudence;
-	and it was only when there was any question of danger that she did not
-	comply with his wishes; but, submissive, and almost humble towards
-	him, she showed all the more arrogance towards anyone else who came
-	near her in the house, relatives and servants alike.
-
-	In the evenings in the drawing-room, she would summon Julien, and
-	would hold long conversations with him in private.
-
-	Little Tanbeau took his place one evening beside them; she asked him
-	to go to the library and fetch her the volume of Smollett which dealt
-	with the Revolution of 1688; and as he seemed to hesitate: There is
-	no need to hurry,' she went on with an expression of insulting
-	arrogance, which was balm to Julien's spirit.
-
-	'Did you notice the look in that little monster's eyes?' he asked her.
-
-	'His uncle has done ten or twelve years of service in this
-	drawing-room, otherwise I should have him shown the door this
-	instant.'
-
-	Her behaviour towards MM. de Croisenois, de Luz, and the rest,
-	perfectly polite in form, was scarcely less provoking in substance.
-	Mathilde blamed herself severely for all the confidences she had made
-	to Julien in the past, especially as she did not dare confess to him
-	that she had exaggerated the almost wholly innocent marks of interest
-	of which those gentlemen had been the object.
-
-	In spite of the most admirable resolutions, her womanly pride
-	prevented her every day from saying to Julien: 'It was because I
-	was speaking to you that I found pleasure in the thought of my
-	weakness in not withdrawing my hand when M. de Croisenois laid his
-	hand on a marble table beside mine, and managed to touch it.'
-
-	Nowadays, whenever one of these gentlemen had spoken to her for a few
-	moments, she found that she had a question to ask Julien, and this was
-	a pretext for keeping him by her side.
-
-	She found that she was pregnant, and told the news joyfully to Julien.
-
-	'Now will you doubt me? Is not this a guarantee? I am your wife for
-	ever.'
-
-	This announcement filled Julien with profound astonishment. He was on
-	the point of forgetting his principle of conduct. 'How can I be
-	deliberately cold and offensive to this poor girl who is ruining
-	herself for me?' Did she appear at all unwell, even on the days on
-	which wisdom made her dread accents heard, he no longer found the
-	courage to address to her one of those cruel speeches, so
-	indispensable, in his experience, to the continuance of their love.
-
-	'I mean to write to my father,' Mathilde said to him one day; 'he is
-	more than a father to me; he is a friend; and so I should feel it
-	unworthy of you and of myself to seek to deceive him, were it only for
-	a moment.'
-
-	'Great God! What are you going to do?' said Julien in alarm.
-
-	'My duty,' she replied, her eyes sparkling with joy.
-
-	She felt herself to be more magnanimous than her lover.
-
-	'But he will turn me from the house in disgrace!'
-
-	'He is within his rights, we must respect them. I shall give you my
-	arm, and we shall go out by the front door, in the full light of day.'
-
-	Julien in astonishment begged her to wait for a week.
-
-	'I cannot,' she replied, 'the voice of honour speaks. I have seen what
-	is my duty, I must obey, and at once.'
-
-	'Very well! I order you to wait,' said Julien at length. 'Your honour
-	is covered, I am your husband. This drastic step is going to alter
-	both our positions. I also am within my rights. Today is Tuesday; next
-	Tuesday is the day of the Duc de Retz's party; that evening, when M.
-	de La Mole comes home, the porter shall hand him the fatal letter ...
-	He thinks only of making you a Duchess, of that I am certain; think of
-	his grief!'
-
-	'Do you mean by that: think of his revenge?'
-
-	'I may feel pity for my benefactor, distress at the thought of
-	injuring him; but I do not and never shall fear any man.'
-
-	Mathilde submitted. Since she had told Julien of her condition, this
-	was the first time that he had spoken to her with authority; never had
-	he loved her so dearly. It was with gladness that the softer side of
-	his heart seized the pretext of Mathilde's condition to forgo the duty
-	of saying a few cruel words. The idea of a confession to M. de La Mole
-	disturbed him greatly. Was he going to be parted from Mathilde? And,
-	however keen the distress with which she saw him go, a month after his
-	departure would she give him a thought?
-
-	He felt almost as great a horror of the reproaches which the Marquis
-	might justly heap upon him.
-
-	That evening, he admitted to Mathilde this second cause of his
-	distress, and then, carried away by love, admitted the other also.
-
-	She changed colour.
-
-	'Indeed,' she said, 'six months spent out of my company would be a
-	grief to you!'
-
-	'Immense, the only one in the world on which I look with terror.'
-
-	Mathilde was delighted. Julien had played his part with such
-	thoroughness that he had succeeded in making her think that of the two
-	she was the more in love.
-
-	The fatal Tuesday came. At midnight, on returning home, the Marquis
-	found a letter with the form of address which indicated that he was to
-	open it himself, and only when he was unobserved.
-
-	'MY FATHER,
-
-	'Every social tie that binds us is broken, there remain only the ties
-	of nature. After my husband, you are and will ever be the dearest
-	person in the world to me. My eyes fill with tears, I think of the
-	distress that I am causing you, but, that my shame may not be made
-	public, to give you time to deliberate and act, I have been unable to
-	postpone any further the confession that I owe you. If your affection
-	for me, which I know to be extreme, chooses to allow me a small
-	pension, I shall go and settle myself where you please, in
-	Switzerland, for instance, with my husband. His name is so obscure
-	that no one will recognise your daughter in Madame Sorel,
-	daughter-in-law of a carpenter of Verrieres. There you have the name I
-	have found it so hard to write. I dread, for Julien, your anger,
-	apparently so righteous. I shall not be a Duchess, Father; but I knew
-	it when I fell in love with him; for it was I that fell in love first,
-	it was I who seduced him. I inherit from you a spirit too exalted to
-	let my attention be arrested by what is or seems to me vulgar. It is
-	in vain that with the idea of pleasing you I have thought of M. de
-	Croisenois. Why did you place real merit before my eyes? You told me
-	yourself on my return from Hyeres: "This young Sorel is the only
-	person who amuses me"; the poor boy is as greatly distressed as
-	myself, if it be possible, by the pain which this letter must cause
-	you. I cannot prevent your being angry with me as a father; but care
-	for me still as a friend.
-
-	'Julien respected me. If he spoke to me now and again, it was solely
-	because of his profound gratitude to you: for the natural pride of his
-	character leads him never to reply save officially to anyone who is
-	placed so far above him. He has a strong and inborn sense of the
-	differences of social position. It was I, I admit, with a blush, to my
-	best friend, and never shall such an admission be made to any other,
-	it was I who one day in the garden pressed his arm.
-
-	'In twenty-four hours from now, why should you be angry with him? My
-	fault is irreparable. If you require it, I shall be the channel to
-	convey to you the assurances of his profound respect and of his
-	distress at displeasing you. You will not set eyes on him; but I shall
-	go and join him wherever he may choose. It is his right, it is my
-	duty, he is the father of my child. If in your generosity you are
-	pleased to allow us six thousand francs upon which to live, I shall
-	accept them with gratitude: otherwise, Julien intends to settle at
-	Besancon where he will take up the profession of teacher of Latin and
-	Literature. However low the degree from which he springs, I am certain
-	that he will rise. With him, I have no fear of obscurity. If there be
-	a Revolution, I am sure of a leading part for him. Could you say as
-	much for any of those who have sought my hand? They have fine estates?
-	I cannot find in that single circumstance a reason for admiration. My
-	Julien would attain to a high position even under the present form of
-	government, if he had a million and were protected by my father ...'
-
-	Mathilde, who knew that the Marquis was a man entirely governed by
-	first impressions, had written eight pages.
-
-	'What is to be done?' Julien said to himself while M. de La Mole was
-	reading this letter; 'where do, first of all, my duty, secondly, my
-	interest lie? The debt that I owe him is immense: I should have been,
-	but for him, a rascally understrapper, and not rascal enough to be
-	hated and persecuted by the rest. He has made me a man of the world.
-	My necessary rascalities will be, first of all, rarer, and secondly,
-	less ignoble. That is more than if he had given me a million. I owe to
-	him this Cross and the record of so-called diplomatic services which
-	have raised me above my rank.
-
-	'If he were to take his pen to prescribe my conduct, what would he
-	write?'
-
-	Julien was sharply interrupted by M. de La Mole's old valet.
-
-	'The Marquis wishes to see you this moment, dressed or undressed.'
-
-	The valet added in an undertone as they were side by side: 'He is
-	furious, beware.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 33
-	The Torment of the Weak
-
-	In cutting this diamond, a clumsy jeweller removed some
-	of its brightest sparkles. In the Middle Ages, what am
-	I saying? even under Richelieu, a Frenchman still had
-	the power to desire.
-	MIRABEAU
-
-	Julien found the Marquis furious: for the first time in his life,
-	perhaps, this gentleman was guilty of bad taste; he heaped on Julien
-	all the insults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished,
-	irritated, but his sense of gratitude was not shaken. 'How many fine
-	projects long cherished in his secret thoughts, the poor man sees
-	crumble in an instant. But I owe it to him to answer him, my silence
-	would increase his rage.' His answer was furnished for him from the
-	part of Tartuffe.
-
-	'_I am no angel_ ... I have served you well, you have rewarded me
-	generously ... I was grateful, but I am twenty-two years old ... In
-	this household, my thoughts were intelligible only to yourself, and to
-	that obliging person ...'
-
-	'Monster!' cried the Marquis. 'Obliging! Obliging! On the day when you
-	found her obliging, you ought to have fled.'
-
-	'I made an attempt; I asked you if I might go to Languedoc.'
-
-	Tired of pacing the room in fury, the Marquis, broken by grief, threw
-	himself into an armchair; Julien heard him murmur to himself: 'This is
-	no scoundrel.'
-
-	'No, I am not one to you,' cried Julien, falling at his feet. But he
-	felt extremely ashamed of this impulse and rose quickly.
-
-	The Marquis was really out of his mind. On seeing this movement he
-	began again to shower upon Julien atrocious insults worthy of a
-	cab-driver. The novelty of these oaths was perhaps a distraction.
-
-	'What? My daughter is to be called Madame Sorel! What! My daughter is
-	not to be a Duchess!' Whenever these two ideas presented themselves in
-	such clear terms, the Marquis was in torment, and his impulses were
-	uncontrolled. Julien began to fear a thrashing.
-
-	In his lucid intervals, and when the Marquis began to grow accustomed
-	to his disgrace, his reproaches became quite reasonable.
-
-	'You ought to have gone, Sir,' he said. 'It was your duty to go ...
-	You are the meanest of mankind ...'
-
-	Julien went to the table and wrote:
-
-	'_For a long time my life has been insupportable, I am putting an end
-	to it. I beg Monsieur le Marquis to accept, with my expression of a
-	gratitude that knows no bounds, my apologies for the trouble which my
-	death in his house may cause_.'
-
-	'Will Monsieur le Marquis deign to peruse this paper ... Kill me,'
-	said Julien, 'or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in
-	the morning, I am going to stroll in the garden towards the wall at
-	the far end.'
-
-	'Go to the devil,' the Marquis shouted after him as he left the room.
-
-	'I understand,' thought Julien; 'he would not be sorry to see me spare
-	his valet the responsibility for my death ... Let him kill me, well
-	and good, it is a satisfaction that I am offering him ... But, by
-	Jove, I am in love with life ... I owe myself to my child.'
-
-	This idea, which for the first time appeared thus clearly before his
-	imagination, completely absorbed him after the first few minutes of
-	his stroll had been devoted to the sense of danger.
-
-	This entirely novel interest made a prudent creature of him. 'I need
-	advice to guide me in dealing with that fiery man ... He has no
-	judgment, he is capable of anything. Fouque is too far off, besides he
-	would not understand the sentiments of a heart like the Marquis's.
-
-	'Conte Altamira ... Can I be sure of eternal silence? My request for
-	advice must not be a definite action, nor complicate my position.
-	Alas! There is no one left but the sombre abbe Pirard ... His mind is
-	narrowed by Jansenism ... A rascally Jesuit would know the world
-	better, and would be more to my purpose ... M. Pirard is capable of
-	beating me, at the mere mention of my crime.'
-
-	The genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's aid: 'Very well, I shall go
-	and confess to him.' This was the resolution to which he finally came
-	in the garden, after pacing it for fully two hours. He no longer
-	thought that he might be surprised by a gunshot; sleep was
-	overpowering him.
-
-	Next morning, before daybreak, Julien was several leagues from Paris,
-	knocking at the door of the stern Jansenist. He found, greatly to his
-	astonishment, that the other was not unduly surprised at his
-	confession.
-
-	'I ought perhaps to blame myself,' the abbe said to himself, more
-	anxious than angry. 'I had thought that I detected this love affair.
-	My affection for yourself, you little wretch, restrained me from
-	warning her father ...'
-
-	'What will he do?' Julien asked him boldly.
-
-	(At that moment, he loved the abbe and a scene would have been most
-	painful to him.)
-
-	'I can see three courses of action,' Julien continued: 'First of all,
-	M. de La Mole may have me put to death'; and he told the abbe of the
-	letter announcing his suicide which he had left with the Marquis;
-	'secondly, he may have me shot down by Comte Norbert, who will
-	challenge me to a duel.'
-
-	'You would accept?' said the abbe in a fury, rising to his feet.
-
-	'You do not allow me to finish. Certainly I should never fire at the
-	son of my benefactor.
-
-	'Thirdly, he may send me away. If he says to me: "Go to Edinburgh, to
-	New York," I shall obey. Then they can conceal Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole's condition; but I shall never allow them to destroy my child.'
-
-	'That, you may be sure, will be the first idea to occur to that
-	corrupt man ...'
-
-	In Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven
-	o'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter, she trembled lest he should
-	have deemed it noble to put an end to his life: 'And without my
-	permission?' she said to herself with an agony which partook of anger.
-
-	'If he is dead, I shall die,' she said to her father. 'It is you that
-	will be the cause of my death ... You will rejoice at it, perhaps ...
-	But I swear to his ghost that I shall at once put on mourning, and
-	shall be publicly _Madame veuve Sorel_ [the widow of M. Sorel], I
-	shall send out the usual announcements, you may count on that ... You
-	will not find me pusillanimous nor a coward.'
-
-	Her love rose to the pitch of madness. It was now M. de La Mole's turn
-	to be left speechless.
-
-	He began to look upon what had happened more reasonably. At luncheon
-	Mathilde did not put in an appearance. The Marquis was relieved of an
-	immense burden, and flattered as well, when he discovered that she had
-	said nothing to her mother.
-
-	Julien dismounted from his horse. Mathilde sent for him, and flung
-	herself into his arms almost in the sight of her maid. Julien was not
-	unduly grateful for this transport, he had come away most diplomatic
-	and most calculating from his long conference with the abbe Pirard.
-	His imagination was extinguished by the calculation of possibilities.
-	Mathilde, with tears in her eyes, informed him that she had seen the
-	letter announcing his suicide.
-
-	'My father may change his mind; oblige me by setting off instantly for
-	Villequier. Mount your horse, leave the premises before they rise from
-	table.'
-
-	As Julien did not in any way alter his air of cold astonishment, she
-	burst into a flood of tears.
-
-	'Allow me to manage our affairs,' she cried to him with a transport,
-	clasping him in her arms. 'You know very well that it is not of my own
-	free will that I part from you. Write under cover to my maid, let the
-	address be in a strange hand; as for me, I shall write you volumes.
-	Farewell! Fly.'
-
-	This last word wounded Julien, he obeyed nevertheless. 'It is fated,'
-	he thought, 'that even in their best moments, these people must find a
-	way of hurting me.'
-
-	Mathilde put up a firm resistance to all her father's prudent plans.
-	She steadfastly refused to set the negotiation upon any other basis
-	than this: She was to be Madame Sorel, and would live in poverty with
-	her husband in Switzerland, or with her father in Paris. She thrust
-	from her the suggestion of a clandestine confinement. 'That would pave
-	the way to the possibility of calumny and dishonour. Two months after
-	our marriage, I shall travel abroad with my husband, and it will be
-	easy for us to pretend that my child was born at a suitable date.'
-
-	Received at first with transports of rage, this firmness ended by
-	inspiring the Marquis with doubts.
-
-	In a weak moment: 'Here,' he said to his daughter, 'is a transfer of
-	ten thousand livres a year in the Funds, send it to your Julien, and
-	let him speedily make it impossible for me to reclaim it.'
-
-	To obey Mathilde, whose love of giving orders he knew, Julien had made
-	an unnecessary journey of forty leagues: he was at Villequier,
-	examining the accounts of the agents; this generosity on the part of
-	the Marquis was the occasion of his return. He went to seek asylum
-	with the abbe Pirard, who, during his absence, had become Mathilde's
-	most effective ally. As often as he was interrogated by the Marquis,
-	he proved to him that any other course than a public marriage would be
-	a crime in the sight of God.
-
-	'And happily,' the abbe added, 'the wisdom of the world is here in
-	accordance with religion. Could you reckon for an instant, knowing the
-	fiery character of Mademoiselle de La Mole, upon a secrecy which she
-	had not imposed on herself? If you do not allow the frank course of a
-	public marriage, society will occupy itself for far longer with this
-	strange misalliance. Everything must be stated at one time, without
-	the least mystery, apparent or real.'
-
-	'It is true,' said the Marquis, growing pensive. 'By this method, to
-	talk of the marriage after three days becomes the chatter of a man who
-	lacks ideas. We ought to profit by some great anti-Jacobin measure by
-	the Government to slip in unobserved in its wake.'
-
-	Two or three of M. de La Mole's friends shared the abbe Pirard's view.
-	The great obstacle, in their eyes, was Mathilde's decided nature. But
-	in spite of all these specious arguments, the Marquis could not grow
-	reconciled to abandoning the hope of a _tabouret_ for his daughter.
-
-	His memory and his imagination were full of all sorts of trickeries
-	and pretences which had still been possible in his younger days. To
-	yield to necessity, to go in fear of the law seemed to him an absurd
-	thing and dishonouring to a man of his rank. He was paying dearly for
-	those enchanting dreams in which he had indulged for the last ten
-	years as to the future of his beloved daughter.
-
-	'Who could have foreseen it?' he said to himself. 'A girl of so
-	haughty a character, so elevated a mind, prouder than myself of the
-	name she bears! One whose hand had been asked of me in advance by all
-	the most illustratious blood in France!
-
-	'We must abandon all prudence. This age is destined to bring
-	everything to confusion! We are marching towards chaos.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 34
-	A Man of Spirit
-
-
-	The prefect riding along on his horse thought to himself,
-	Why should I not be a minister, head of the Cabinet, a duke?
-	This is how I would wage war ... In that way I would have
-	innovators put in chains.
-	_Le Globe_
-
-	No argument is sufficient to destroy the mastery acquired by ten years
-	of pleasant fancies. The Marquis thought it unreasonable to be angry,
-	but could not bring himself to forgive. 'If this Julien could die by
-	accident,' he said to himself at times ... Thus it was that his
-	sorrowful imagination found some relief in pursuing the most absurd
-	chimeras. They paralysed the influence of the wise counsels of the
-	abbe Pirard. A month passed in this way without the slightest advance
-	in the negotiations.
-
-	In this family affair, as in affairs of politics, the Marquis had
-	brilliant flashes of insight which would leave him enthusiastic for
-	three days on end. At such times a plan of conduct would not please
-	him because it was backed by sound reasons; the reasons found favour
-	in his sight only in so far as they supported his favourite plan. For
-	three days, he would labour with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a
-	poet, to bring matters to a certain position; on the fourth, he no
-	longer gave it a thought.
-
-	At first Julien was disconcerted by the dilatoriness of the Marquis;
-	but, after some weeks, he began to discern that M. de La Mole had, in
-	dealing with this affair, no definite plan.
-
-	Madame de La Mole and the rest of the household thought that Julien
-	had gone into the country to look after the estates; he was in hiding
-	in the abbe Pirard's presbytery, and saw Mathilde almost every day;
-	she, each morning, went to spend an hour with her father, but
-	sometimes they remained for weeks on end without mentioning the matter
-	that was occupying all their thoughts.
-
-	'I do not wish to know where that man is,' the Marquis said to her one
-	day; 'send him this letter.' Mathilde read:
-
-	'The estates in Languedoc bring in 20,600 francs. I give 10,600 francs
-	to my daughter, and 10,000 francs to M. Julien Sorel. I make over the
-	estates themselves, that is to say. Tell the lawyer to draft two
-	separate deeds of gift, and to bring me them tomorrow; after which, no
-	further relations between us. Ah! Sir, how was I to expect such a
-	thing as this?
-
-	'LE MARQUIS DE LA MOLE'
-
-	'I thank you very much,' said Mathilde gaily. 'We are going to settle
-	in the Chateau d'Aiguillon, between Agen and Marmande. They say that
-	the country there is as beautiful as Italy.'
-
-	This donation came as a great surprise to Julien. He was no longer the
-	severe, cold man that we have known. The destiny of his child absorbed
-	all his thoughts in anticipation. This unexpected fortune, quite
-	considerable for so poor a man, made him ambitious. He now saw,
-	settled on his wife or himself, an income of 30,600 francs. As for
-	Mathilde, all her sentiments were absorbed in one of adoration of her
-	husband, for thus it was that her pride always named Julien. Her
-	great, her sole ambition was to have her marriage recognised. She
-	spent her time in exaggerating the high degree of prudence that she
-	had shown in uniting her destiny with that of a superior man. Personal
-	merit was in fashion in her brain.
-
-	Their almost continuous separation, the multiplicity of business, the
-	little time that they had to talk of love, now completed the good
-	effect of the wise policy adopted by Julien in the past.
-
-	Finally Mathilde grew impatient at seeing so little of the man whom
-	she had now come to love sincerely.
-
-	In a moment of ill humour she wrote to her father, and began her
-	letter like Othello:
-
-	'That I have preferred Julien to the attractions which society offered
-	to the daughter of M. le Marquis de La Mole, my choice of him
-	sufficiently proves. These pleasures of reputation and petty vanity
-	are nothing to me. It will soon be six weeks that I have lived apart
-	from my husband. That is enough to prove my respect for you. Before
-	next Thursday, I shall leave the paternal roof. Your generosity has
-	made us rich. No one knows my secret save the estimable abbe Pirard. I
-	shall go to him; he will marry us, and an hour after the ceremony we
-	shall be on our way to Languedoc, and shall never appear again in
-	Paris save by your order. But what pierces me to the heart is that all
-	this will furnish a savoury anecdote at my expense, and at yours. May
-	not the epigrams of a foolish public oblige our excellent Norbert to
-	seek a quarrel with Julien? In that event, I know him, I should have
-	no control over him. We should find in his heart the plebeian in
-	revolt. I implore you on my knees, O my father, come and attend our
-	wedding, in M. Pirard's church, next Thursday. The point of the
-	malicious anecdote will be blunted, and the life of your only son, my
-	husband's life will be made safe,' etc., etc.
-
-	This letter plunged the Marquis in a strange embarrassment. He must
-	now at length make up his mind. AH his little habits, all his
-	commonplace friends had lost their influence.
-
-	In these strange circumstances, the salient features of his character,
-	stamped upon it by the events of his younger days, resumed their full
-	sway. The troubles of the Emigration had made him a man of
-	imagination. After he had enjoyed for two years an immense fortune and
-	all the distinctions of the Court, 1790 had cast him into the fearful
-	hardships of the Emigration. This hard school had changed the heart
-	of a man of two and twenty. Actually he was encamped amid his present
-	wealth rather than dominated by it. But this same imagination which
-	had preserved his soul from the gangrene of gold, had left him a prey
-	to an insane passion for seeing his daughter adorned with a
-	fine-sounding title.
-
-	During the six weeks that had just elapsed, urged at one moment by a
-	caprice, the Marquis had decided to enrich Julien; poverty seemed to
-	him ignoble, dishonouring to himself, M. de La Mole, impossible in the
-	husband of his daughter; he showered money upon him. Next day, his
-	imagination taking another direction, it seemed to him that Julien
-	would hear the silent voice of this generosity in the matter of money,
-	change his name, retire to America, write to Mathilde that he was dead
-	to her. M. de La Mole imagined this letter as written, and traced its
-	effect on his daughter's character ...
-
-	On the day on which he was awakened from these youthful dreams by
-	Mathilde's real letter, after having long thought of killing Julien or
-	of making him disappear, he was dreaming of building up for him a
-	brilliant future. He was making him take the name of one of his
-	properties; and why should he not secure the transmission of his
-	peerage to him? M. le Duc de Chaulnes, his father-in-law, had spoken
-	to him several times, since his only son had been killed in Spain, of
-	wishing to hand on his title to Norbert ...
-
-	'One cannot deny that Julien shows a singular aptitude for business,
-	audacity, perhaps even brilliance,' the Marquis said to himself...
-	'But at the back of that character, I find something alarming. It is
-	the impression that he produces on everyone, therefore there must be
-	something real in it' (the more difficult this reality was to grasp,
-	the more it alarmed the imaginative spirit of the old Marquis).
-
-	'My daughter expressed it to me very cleverly the other day' (in a
-	letter which we have suppressed): '"Julien belongs to no drawing-room,
-	to no set." He has not contrived to find any support against me, not
-	the slightest resource if I abandon him ... But is that due to
-	ignorance of the actual state of society? Two or three times I have
-	said to him: "There is no real and profitable candidature save that of
-	the drawing-rooms . . ."
-
-	'No, he has not the adroit and cautious spirit of a pettifogger who
-	never loses a minute or an opportunity ... It is not at all the
-	character of a Louis XI. On the other hand, I see in him the most
-	ungenerous maxims ... I lose track of him ... Does he repeat those
-	maxims to himself, to serve as a dam to his passions?
-
-	'Anyhow, one thing is clear: he cannot endure contempt, in that way I
-	hold him.
-
-	'He has not the religious feeling for high birth, it is true, he does
-	not respect us by instinct ... That is bad; but, after all, the heart
-	of a seminarist should be impatient only of the want of pleasure and
-	money. He is very different; he cannot endure contempt at any price.'
-
-	Forced by his daughter's letter, M. de La Mole saw the necessity of
-	making up his mind: 'Well, here is the great question: has Julien's
-	audacity gone the length of setting him to make love to my daughter,
-	because he knows that I love her more than anything in the world, and
-	that I have an income of a hundred thousand crowns?
-
-	'Mathilde protests the opposite ... No, master Julien, that is a point
-	upon which I wish to be under no illusion.
-
-	'Has there been genuine, unpremeditated love? Or rather a vulgar
-	desire to raise himself to a good position? Mathilde is perspicacious,
-	she felt from the first that this suspicion might ruin him with me;
-	hence that admission: it was she who thought first of loving him ...
-
-	'That a girl of so lofty a character should so far have forgotten
-	herself as to make tangible advances! ... Press his arm in the garden,
-	one evening, how horrible! As though she had not had a hundred less
-	indelicate ways of letting him know that she favoured him.
-
-	'To excuse is to accuse; I distrust Mathilde .. .' That day, the
-	Marquis's arguments were more conclusive than usual. Habit, however,
-	prevailed; he resolved to gain time and to write to his daughter; for
-	they communicated by letter between different parts of the house. M.
-	de La Mole dared not discuss matters with Mathilde and hold out
-	against her. He was afraid of bringing everything to an end by a
-	sudden concession.
-
-	'Take care not to commit any fresh act of folly; here is a commission
-	as Lieutenant of Hussars for M. le Chevalier Julien Sorel de La
-	Vernaye. You see what I am doing for him. Do not cross me, do not
-	question me. He shall start within twenty-four hours, and report
-	himself at Strasbourg, where his regiment is quartered. Here is a draft
-	upon my banker; I expect obedience.'
-
-	Mathilde's love and joy knew no bounds; she sought to profit by her
-	victory and replied at once:
-
-	'M. de La Vernaye would be at your feet, speechless with gratitude, if
-	he knew all that you are deigning to do for him. But, in the midst of
-	this generosity, my father has forgotten me; your daughter's honour is
-	in danger. A single indiscretion may leave an everlasting blot, which
-	an income of twenty thousand crowns would not efface. I shall send
-	this commission to M. de La Vernaye only if you give me your word
-	that, in the course of the next month, my marriage shall be celebrated
-	in public, at Villequier. Soon after that period, which I beg you not
-	to prolong, your daughter will be unable to appear in public save with
-	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 all. Tremble, rash girl, I do not yet know what
-	your Julien is, and you yourself know even less than I. Let him start
-	for Strasbourg, and put his best foot foremost. I shall make my wishes
-	known in a fortnight's time.'
-
-	The firmness of this reply astonished Mathilde. 'I do not know
-	Julien'; these words plunged her in a day-dream which presently ended
-	in the most enchanting suppositions; but she believed them to be the
-	truth. 'My Julien's mind has not donned the tawdry little uniform of
-	the drawing-rooms, and my father disbelieves in his superiority
-	because of the very fact which proves it ...
-
-	'Anyhow, if I do not obey this sudden impulse, I foresee the
-	possibility of a public scene; a scandal lowers my position in
-	society, and may make me less attractive in Julien's eyes. After the
-	scandal ... ten years of poverty; and the folly of choosing a husband
-	on account of his merit can only be saved from ridicule by the most
-	brilliant opulence. If I live apart from my father, at his age, he may
-	forget me ... Norbert will marry some attractive, clever woman: the
-	old Louis XIV was beguiled by the Duchesse de Bourgogne ...'
-
-	She decided to obey, but refrained from communicating her father's
-	letter to Julien; his unaccountable nature might lead him to commit
-	some act of folly.
-
-	That evening, when she informed Julien that he was a Lieutenant of
-	Hussars, his joy knew no bounds. We may form an idea of it from the
-	ambition that marked his whole life, and from the passionate love that
-	he now felt for his child. The change of name filled him with
-	astonishment.
-
-	'At last,' he thought, 'the tale of my adventures is finished, and the
-	credit is all mine. I have contrived to make myself loved by this
-	monster of pride,' he added, looking at Mathilde; 'her father cannot
-	live without her, nor she without me.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 35
-	A Storm
-
-
-	My God, give me mediocrity!
-	MIRABEAU
-
-	He was completely absorbed; he made only a half-hearted response to
-	the keen affection that she showed for him. He remained taciturn and
-	sombre. Never had he appeared so great, so adorable in the eyes of
-	Mathilde. She feared some subtle refinement of his pride which would
-	presently upset the whole position.
-
-	Almost every morning, she saw the abbe Pirard come to the Hotel.
-	Through his agency might not Julien have penetrated to some extent
-	into her father's intentions? Might not the Marquis himself, in a
-	moment of caprice, have written to him? After so great a happiness,
-	how was she to account for Julien's air of severity? She dared not
-	question him.
-
-	_Dared not_! She, Mathilde! There was, from that moment, in her feeling
-	for Julien, something vague, unaccountable, almost akin to terror.
-	That sere heart felt all the passion that is possible in one brought
-	up amid all that excess of civilisation which Paris admires.
-
-	Early next morning, Julien was in the abbe Pirard's presbytery. A pair
-	of post-horses arrived in the courtyard drawing a dilapidated chaise,
-	hired at the nearest post.
-
-	'Such an equipage is no longer in keeping,' the stern abbe told him,
-	with a cantankerous air. 'Here are twenty thousand francs, of which M.
-	de La Mole makes you a present; he expects you to spend them within
-	the year, but to try and make yourself as little ridiculous as
-	possible.' (In so large a sum, bestowed on a young man, the priest saw
-	only an occasion of sin.)
-
-	'The Marquis adds: "M. Julien de La Vernaye will have received this
-	money from his father, whom there is no use in my identifying more
-	precisely. M. de La Vernaye will doubtless think it proper to make a
-	present to M. Sorel, carpenter at Verrieres, who looked after him in
-	his childhood ..." I will undertake this part of the commission,' the
-	abbe went on; 'I have at last made M. de La Mole decide to compromise
-	with that abbe de Frilair, who is such a Jesuit. His position is
-	unquestionably too strong for us. The implicit recognition of your
-	noble birth by that man who governs Besancon will be one of the
-	implied conditions of the arrangement.'
-
-	Julien was no longer able to control his enthusiasm, he embraced the
-	abbe, he saw himself recognised.
-
-	'Fie!' said M. Pirard, and thrust him away; 'what is the meaning of
-	this worldly vanity? As for Sorel and his sons, I shall offer them, in
-	my name, an annual pension of five hundred francs, which will be paid
-	to each of them separately, so long as I am satisfied with them.'
-
-	Julien was by this time cold and stiff. He thanked the abbe, but in
-	the vaguest terms and without binding himself to anything. 'Can it
-	indeed be possible,' he asked himself, 'that I am the natural son of
-	some great nobleman, banished among our mountains by the terrible
-	Napoleon?' Every moment this idea seemed to him less improbable . . .
-	'My hatred for my father would be a proof ... I should no longer be a
-	monster!'
-
-	A few days after this monologue, the Fifteenth Regiment of Hussars,
-	one of the smartest in the Army, was drawn up in order of battle on
-	the parade ground of Strasbourg. M. le Chevalier de La Vernaye was
-	mounted upon the finest horse in Alsace, which had cost him six
-	thousand francs. He had joined as Lieutenant, without having ever been
-	a Second Lieutenant, save on the muster-roll of a Regiment of which he
-	had never even heard.
-
-	His impassive air, his severe and almost cruel eyes, his pallor, his
-	unalterable coolness won him a reputation from the first day. In a
-	short time, his perfect and entirely measured courtesy, his skill with
-	the pistol and sabre, which he made known without undue affectation,
-	removed all temptation to joke audibly at his expense. After five or
-	six days of hesitation, the general opinion of the Regiment declared
-	itself in his favour. 'This young man has everything,' said the older
-	officers who were inclined to banter, 'except youth.'
-
-	>From Strasbourg, Julien wrote to M. Chelan, the former cure of
-	Verrieres, who was now reaching the extreme limits of old age:
-
-	'You will have learned with a joy, of which I have no doubt, of the
-	events that have led my family to make me rich. Here are five hundred
-	francs which I beg you to distribute without display, and with no
-	mention of my name, among the needy, who are poor now as I was once,
-	and whom you are doubtless assisting as in the past you assisted me.'
-
-	Julien was intoxicated with ambition and not with vanity; he still
-	applied a great deal of his attention to his outward appearance. His
-	horses, his uniforms, the liveries of his servants were kept up with a
-	nicety which would have done credit to the punctiliousness of a great
-	English nobleman. Though only just a Lieutenant, promoted by favour
-	and after two days' service, he was already calculating that, in order
-	to be Commander in Chief at thirty, at latest, like all the great
-	Generals, he would need at three and twenty to be something more than
-	Lieutenant. He could think of nothing but glory and his son.
-
-	It was in the midst of the transports of the most frenzied ambition
-	that he was interrupted by a young footman from the Hotel de La Mole,
-	who arrived with a letter.
-
-	'All is lost,' Mathilde wrote to him; 'hasten here as quickly as
-	possible, sacrifice everything, desert if need be. As soon as you
-	arrive, wait for me in a cab, outside the little gate of the garden,
-	No.-- Rue ----. I shall come out to speak to you; perhaps I may be
-	able to let you into the garden. All is lost, and, I fear, beyond hope
-	of repair; count upon me, you will find me devoted and steadfast in
-	adversity. I love you.'
-
-	In a few minutes, Julien obtained leave from his Colonel, and left
-	Strasbourg at a gallop; but the fearful anxiety which was devouring him
-	did not allow him to continue this method of travel farther than Metz.
-	He flung himself into a post-chaise; and it was with an almost
-	incredible rapidity that he arrived at the appointed place, outside
-	the little gate of the garden of the Hotel de La Mole. The gate was
-	flung open, and in a moment, Mathilde, forgetting all self-respect,
-	threw herself into his arms. Fortunately, it was but five o'clock in
-	the morning and the street was still deserted.
-
-	'All is lost; my father, dreading my tears, went away on Thursday
-	night. Where? No one knows. Here is his letter; read it.' And she got
-	into the cab with Julien.
-
-	'I could forgive everything, except the plan of seducing you because
-	you are rich. That, unhappy girl, is the appalling truth. I give you
-	my word of honour that I will never consent to a marriage with that
-	man. I promise him an income of ten thousand livres if he consents to
-	live abroad, beyond the frontiers of France, or better still in
-	America. Read the letter which I have received in reply to a request
-	for information. The shameless scoundrel had himself invited me to
-	write to Madame de Renal. Never will I read a line from you about the
-	man. I have a horror of Paris and of you. I request you to cloak with
-	the greatest secrecy what must shortly happen. Renounce honestly a
-	vile fellow, and you will regain a father.'
-
-	'Where is Madame de Renal's letter?' said Julien coldly. 'Here it is.
-	I did not wish to show it to you until you were prepared.'
-
-	LETTER
-
-	'What I owe to the sacred cause of religion and morals obliges me,
-	Sir, to the painful step which I take in addressing you; a rule, which
-	admits of no relaxation, orders me at this moment to do harm to my
-	neighbour, but in order to avoid a greater scandal. The grief which I
-	feel must be overborne by a sense of duty. It is only too true, Sir,
-	the conduct of the person with regard to whom you ask me to tell the
-	whole truth may have seemed inexplicable or indeed honourable. It may
-	have been thought expedient to conceal or to disguise a part of the
-	truth, prudence required this as well as religion. But that conduct,
-	which you desire to know, has been in fact extremely reprehensible,
-	and more so than I can say. Poor and avaricious, it is by the aid of
-	the most consummate hypocrisy, and by the seduction of a weak and
-	unhappy woman, that this man has sought to make a position for himself
-	and to become somebody. It is a part of my painful duty to add that I
-	am obliged to believe that M. J---- has no religious principles. I am
-	bound in conscience to think that one of his avenues to success in a
-	household is to seek to seduce the woman who has most influence there.
-	Cloaked by a show of disinterestedness and by phrases from novels, his
-	great and sole object is to contrive to secure control over the master
-	of the house and over his fortune. He leaves in his wake misery and
-	undying regret,' etc., etc., etc.
-
-	This letter, extremely long and half obliterated by tears, was
-	certainly in the hand of Madame de Renal; it was even written with
-	greater care than usual.
-
-	'I cannot blame M. de La Mole,' said Julien when he had finished
-	reading it; 'he is just and prudent. What father would give his
-	beloved daughter to such a man! Farewell!'
-
-	Julien sprang out of the cab, and ran to his post-chaise which had
-	drawn up at the end of the street. Mathilde, whom he seemed to have
-	forgotten, followed him for a little way; but the sight of the
-	tradesmen who were coming to the doors of their shops, and to whom she
-	was known, forced her to retire in haste into the garden.
-
-	Julien had set off for Verrieres. On this rapid journey, he was unable
-	to write to Mathilde as he had intended, his hand traced nothing more
-	than an illegible scrawl on the paper.
-
-	He arrived at Verrieres on a Sunday morning. He entered the shop of
-	the local gunsmith, who congratulated him effusively on his recent
-	access to fortune. It was the talk of the town.
-
-	Julien had some difficulty in making him understand that he required a
-	brace of pistols. The gunsmith, at his request, loaded the pistols.
-
-	The _three bells_ sounded; this is a signal well known in French
-	villages, which, after the various peals of the morning, announces
-	that mass is just about to begin.
-
-	Julien entered the new church of Verrieres. All the tall windows of
-	the building were screened by crimson curtains. He found himself
-	standing a few yards behind Madame de Renal's bench. He had the
-	impression that she was praying with fervour. The sight of this woman
-	who had loved him so dearly made Julien's arm tremble so violently
-	that he could not at first carry out his design. 'I cannot,' he said
-	to himself; 'I am physically incapable of it.'
-
-	At that moment, the young clerk who was serving mass rang the bell for
-	the Elevation. Madame de Renal bowed her head which for a moment was
-	almost entirely concealed by the folds of her shawl. Her aspect was
-	less familiar to Julien; he fired a shot at her with one pistol and
-	missed her, he fired a second shot; she fell.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 36
-	Painful Details
-
-
-	Do not look for any weakness on my part. I have
-	avenged myself. I have deserved death, and here
-	I am. Pray for my soul.
-	SCHILLER
-
-	Julien remained motionless, seeing nothing. When he came to himself a
-	little, he noticed the whole congregation rushing from the church; the
-	priest had left the altar. Julien set off at a leisurely pace in the
-	wake of some women who were screaming as they went. One woman, who was
-	trying to escape faster than the rest, gave him a violent push; he
-	fell. His feet were caught in a chair overturned by the crowd; as he
-	rose, he felt himself gripped by the collar; it was a gendarme in full
-	uniform who was arresting him. Mechanically Julien's hand went to his
-	pocket pistols; but a second gendarme seized him by the arms.
-
-	He was led away to prison. They took him into a room, put irons on his
-	wrists, and left him by himself; the door was shut on him and
-	double-locked; all this was carried out quickly, and he remained
-	unconscious of it.
-
-	'Faith, all is over,' he said aloud on coming to himself... 'Yes, in a
-	fortnight the guillotine ... or suicide between now and then.'
-
-	His reasoning went no farther; he felt a pain in his head as though it
-	had been gripped with violence. He looked round to see if anyone was
-	holding it. A few moments later, he fell into a deep slumber.
-
-	Madame de Renal was not mortally wounded. The first bullet had passed
-	through her hat; as she turned round, the second shot had been fired.
-	This bullet had struck her in the shoulder, and, what was surprising,
-	had glanced back from the shoulder-blade, which nevertheless it
-	shattered, against a gothic pillar, from which it broke off a huge
-	splinter of stone.
-
-	When, after a long and painful examination, the surgeon, a grave man,
-	said to Madame de Renal: 'I answer for your life as for my own,' she
-	was deeply affected.
-
-	For a long time she had sincerely longed for death. The letter which
-	she had been ordered to write by her confessor of the moment, and had
-	written to M. de La Mole, had dealt the final blow to this creature
-	weakened by an ever-present sorrow. This sorrow was Julien's absence;
-	she herself called it remorse. Her director, a young cleric, virtuous
-	and fervent, recently arrived from Dijon, was under no illusion.
-
-	'To die thus, but not by my own hand, is not a sin,' thought Madame de
-	Renal. 'God will pardon me perhaps for rejoicing in my death.' She
-	dared not add: 'And to die by the hand of Julien is the acme of
-	bliss.'
-
-	As soon as she was rid of the presence of the surgeon, and of all her
-	friends who had come crowding round her, she sent for Elisa, her maid.
-
-	'The gaoler,' she said to her, blushing deeply, 'is a cruel man.
-	Doubtless he intends to maltreat him, thinking that by so doing he
-	will be pleasing me ... The thought of such a thing is unendurable.
-	Could you not go, as though on your own behalf, and give the gaoler
-	this packet which contains a few louis? You will tell him that
-	religion does not permit his maltreating him ... But on no account
-	must he mention this gift of money.'
-
-	It was to this circumstance that Julien was indebted for the humanity
-	of the gaoler of Verrieres; he was still that M. Noiroud, the loyal
-	supporter of the government, whom we have seen thrown into such a
-	panic by the arrival of M. Appert.
-
-	A magistrate appeared in the prison. 'I have taken life with
-	premeditation,' Julien said to him; 'I bought the pistols and had them
-	loaded by So-and-so, the gunsmith. Article 1342. of the Penal Code is
-	quite clear, I deserve death and await it.' The magistrate, surprised
-	by the character of this reply, sought to multiply his questions so
-	that the accused might contradict himself in his answers.
-
-	'But don't you see,' Julien said to him with a smile, 'that I am
-	making myself out as guilty as you can wish? Go, Sir, you shall not
-	lack the quarry that you are pursuing. You shall have the pleasure of
-	passing sentence. Spare me your presence.
-
-	'I have still a tiresome duty to perform,' thought Julien, 'I must
-	write to Mademoiselle de La Mole.
-
-	'I have avenged myself,' he told her. 'Unfortunately, my name will
-	appear in the newspapers, and I cannot escape from this world
-	incognito. I shall die within two months. My revenge has been
-	terrible, like the grief of being parted from you. From this moment, I
-	forbid myself to write and to utter your name. Never speak of me, even
-	to my son: silence is the only way of honouring me. To the average man
-	I shall be a common murderer ... Allow me to tell the truth in this
-	supreme moment: you will forget me. This great catastrophe, as to
-	which I recommend you never to open your lips to a living soul, will
-	suppress for some years all the romantic and unduly adventurous
-	element that I saw in your character. You were made to live among the
-	heroes of the Middle Ages; show in this crisis their firmness of
-	character. Let what is bound to happen be accomplished in secret and
-	without compromising you. You will take a false name and dispense with
-	a confidant. If you must absolutely have the assistance of a friend, I
-	bequeath to you the abbe Pirard.
-
-	'Do not speak to anyone else, especially to men of your own class; de
-	Luz or Caylus.
-
-	'A year after my death, marry M. de Croisenois; I order you as your
-	husband. Do not write to me at all, I should not answer you. Though
-	far less of a villain than Iago, or so it seems to me, I shall say
-	like him: _From this time forth I never will speak word_.
-
-	'No one shall see me either speak or write; you will have had my last
-	words, with my last adoration.
-
-	'J. S.'
-
-	It was after he had sent off this letter that for the first time,
-	Julien, having slightly recovered himself, became extremely unhappy.
-	One by one, each of the hopes of his ambition must be wrenched from
-	his heart by those solemn words: 'I am to die.' Death, in itself, was
-	not _horrible_ in his eyes. His whole life had been merely a long
-	preparation for misfortune, and he had certainly never forgotten what
-	is reckoned the greatest misfortune of all.
-
-	'Why!' he said to himself, 'if in sixty days I had to fight a duel
-	with a man who was a champion fencer, should I be so weak as to think
-	of it incessantly and with terror in my soul?'
-
-	He spent more than an hour in seeking to discover his exact sentiments
-	in this connection.
-
-	When he had seen clearly into his soul, and the truth appeared before
-	his eyes as sharply defined as one of the pillars of his prison, he
-	thought of remorse.
-
-	'Why should I feel any? I have been outraged in a terrible manner; I
-	have taken life, I deserve death, but that is all. I die after having
-	paid my reckoning with humanity. I leave behind me no unfulfilled
-	obligation, I owe nothing to anyone; there is nothing shameful in my
-	death but the instrument of it: that by itself, it is true, will amply
-	suffice to shame me in the eyes of the townsfolk of Verrieres; but,
-	from an intellectual point of view, what could be more contemptible?
-	There remains one way of acquiring distinction in their eyes: namely,
-	by scattering gold coins among the crowd on my way to the scaffold. My
-	memory, linked with the thought of gold, will then be resplendent to
-	them.'
-
-	After this consideration, which at the end of a minute seemed to him
-	conclusive: 'I have nothing more to do on earth,' Julien said to
-	himself and fell into a deep slumber.
-
-	About nine o'clock in the evening, the gaoler awakened him by bringing
-	in his supper.
-
-	'What are they saying in Verrieres?'
-
-	'Monsieur Julien, the oath that I took before the Crucifix, in the
-	King's court, the day I was installed in my post, compels me to keep
-	silence.'
-
-	He was silent, but remained in the room. The spectacle of this vulgar
-	hypocrisy amused Julien. 'I must,' he thought, 'keep him waiting a
-	long time for the five francs which he wants as the price of his
-	conscience.'
-
-	When the gaoler saw the meal come to an end without any attempt at
-	corruption:
-
-	'The friendship that I feel for you, Monsieur Julien,' he began, with
-	a false, winning air, 'obliges me to speak; although they may say that
-	it is against the interests of justice, because it may help you to
-	arrange your defence ... Monsieur Julien, who has a good heart, will
-	be glad if I tell him that Madame de Renal is going on well.'
-
-	'What! She is not dead?' cried Julien, beside himself with amazement.
-
-	'What! Didn't you know?' said the gaoler with an air of stupidity
-	which presently turned to one of joyful greed. 'It would only be right
-	for Monsieur to give something to the surgeon who, according to law
-	and justice, ought not to speak. But, to oblige Monsieur, I went to
-	his house, and he told me everything ...'
-
-	'In short, the injury is not mortal,' said Julien, losing patience,
-	'you answer for that with your life?'
-
-	The gaoler, a giant six feet in stature, took fright and retreated
-	towards the door. Julien saw that he was going the wrong way to reach
-	the truth, he sat down again and tossed a napoleon to M. Noiroud.
-
-	As the man's story began to convince Julien that Madame de Renal's
-	injury was not mortal, he felt himself overcome by tears. 'Leave me!'
-	he said suddenly.
-
-	The gaoler obeyed. As soon as the door was shut: 'Great God! She is
-	not dead!' exclaimed Julien; and he fell on his knees, weeping hot
-	tears.
-
-	In this supreme moment he was a believer. What matter the hypocrisies
-	of the priests? Can they destroy anything of the truth and sublimity
-	of the idea of God?
-
-	Only then did Julien begin to repent of the crime that he had
-	committed. By a coincidence which saved him from despair, at that
-	moment only had passed away the state of irritation and semi-insanity
-	in which he had been plunged since leaving Paris for Verrieres.
-
-	His tears sprang from a generous source, he had no doubt as to the
-	sentence that was in store for him.
-
-	'And so she will live!' he said to himself ... 'She will live to pardon
-	me and to love me.'
-
-	Late next morning, when the gaoler awakened him:
-
-	'You must have a wonderful heart, Monsieur Julien,' the man said to
-	him. 'Twice I have come in and did not want to wake you. Here are two
-	bottles of excellent wine which M. Maslon, our cure, sends you.'
-
-	'What? Is that rascal here still?' said Julien.
-
-	'Yes, Sir,' replied the gaoler, lowering his voice, 'but do not speak
-	so loud, it may damage you.'
-
-	Julien laughed heartily.
-
-	'At the stage I have reached, my friend, you alone could damage me, if
-	you ceased to be gentle and human ... You shall be well paid,' Julien
-	broke off, resuming his imperious air. This air was immediately
-	justified by the gift of a small coin.
-
-	M. Noiroud told him once more, going into the fullest detail, all that
-	he had heard about Madame de Renal, but he did not mention Miss
-	Elisa's visit.
-
-	This man was as menial and submissive as possible. An idea came into
-	Julien's head: 'This sort of ungainly giant may earn three or four
-	hundred francs, for his prison is never crowded; I can guarantee him
-	ten thousand francs, if he cares to escape to Switzerland with me ...
-	The difficulty will be to persuade him of my sincerity.' The thought
-	of the long colloquy that he would have to hold with so vile a
-	creature filled Julien with disgust, he turned his mind to other
-	things.
-
-	That evening, there was no longer time. A post-chaise came to fetch
-	him at midnight. He was charmed with the gendarmes, his travelling
-	companions. In the morning, when he arrived at the prison of Besancon,
-	they were so kind as to lodge him on the upper floor of a gothic
-	dungeon. He guessed the architecture to date from the beginning of the
-	fourteenth century; he admired its grace and pointed airiness. Through
-	a narrow gap between two walls on the farther side of a deep
-	courtyard, there was a glimpse of a superb view.
-
-	Next day he was examined, after which, for several days, he was left
-	to himself. His spirit was calm. He could find nothing that was not
-	quite simple in his case: 'I sought to kill, I must be killed.'
-
-	His thoughts did not linger to consider this argument. The trial, the
-	annoyance of appearing in public, the defence, he regarded as so many
-	trifling embarrassments, tiresome ceremonies of which it would be time
-	to think when the day came. The prospect of death detained him almost
-	as little: 'I shall think of that after the sentence.' Life was by no
-	means tedious to him, he looked at everything in a fresh light. He had
-	no ambition left. He thought rarely of Mademoiselle de La Mole. His
-	remorse occupied him a great deal and often called up before him the
-	image of Madame de Renal, especially in the silence of the night,
-	disturbed only, in this lofty dungeon, by the cry of the osprey!
-
-	He thanked heaven for not having let him wound her mortally. 'An
-	astonishing thing!' he said to himself, 'I thought that by her letter
-	to M. de La Mole she had destroyed my future happiness for all time,
-	and, in less than a fortnight after the date of that letter, I no
-	longer think of all that was occupying my mind ... Two or three
-	thousand livres a year to live quietly in a mountain village like
-	Vergy ... I was happy then ... I did not recognise my own happiness!'
-
-	At other moments, he would rise with a bound from his chair. 'If I had
-	wounded Madame de Renal mortally, I should have killed myself ... I
-	require that certainty to make me feel a horror of myself. ,,,
-
-	'Kill myself! That is the great question,' he said to himself. Those
-	judges so steeped in formalities, so thirsty for the blood of the
-	wretched prisoner, who would have the best of citizens hanged in order
-	to hang a Cross from their own buttonholes ... I should remove myself
-	from their power, from their insults in bad French, which the local
-	newspaper will proceed to call eloquence.
-
-	'I may live for five or six weeks still, more or less ... Kill
-	myself! Faith, no,' he said to himself after a few days, 'Napoleon
-	lived...
-
-	'Besides, life is pleasant to me; this is a quiet spot to stay in; I
-	have no worries,' he added, laughing, and set to work to make a list
-	of the books which he wished to have sent to him from Paris.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 37
-	A Dungeon
-
-
-	The tomb of a friend.
-	STERNE
-
-	He heard a great din in the corridor; it was not the hour for visiting
-	his cell; the osprey flew away screaming, the door opened, and the
-	venerable cure Chelan, trembling all over and leaning upon his cane,
-	flung himself into Julien's arms.
-
-	'Ah, great God! Is it possible, my child ... Monster, I ought to
-	say.'
-
-	And the good old man could not add another word. Julien was afraid of
-	his falling. He was obliged to lead him to a chair. The hand of time
-	had fallen heavily upon this man, so vigorous in days gone by. He
-	appeared to Julien to be only the ghost of his former self.
-
-	When he had recovered his breath: 'Only the day before yesterday, I
-	received your letter from Strasbourg, with your five hundred francs for
-	the poor of Verrieres; it was brought to me up in the mountains at
-	Liveru, where I have gone to live with my nephew Jean. Yesterday, I
-	learned of the catastrophe ... Oh, heavens! Is it possible?' The old
-	man's tears ceased to flow, he seemed incapable of thought and added
-	mechanically: 'You will need your five hundred francs, I have brought
-	them back to you.'
-
-	'I need to see you, Father!' Julien exclaimed with emotion. 'I have
-	plenty of money.'
-
-	But he could not extract any coherent answer. From time to time, M.
-	Chelan shed a few tears which rolled in silence down his cheeks; then
-	he gazed at Julien, and was almost stupefied at seeing him take his
-	hands and raise them to his lips. That countenance, once so lively,
-	and so vigorous in its expression of the noblest sentiments, was no
-	longer to be aroused from a state of apathy. A sort of peasant came
-	presently to fetch the old man. 'It does not do to tire him,' he said
-	to Julien, who realised that this was the nephew. This visit left
-	Julien plunged in bitter grief which stopped his tears. Everything
-	seemed to him sad and comfortless; he felt his heart freeze in his
-	bosom.
-
-	This was the most cruel moment that he had experienced since the
-	crime. He had seen death face to face, and in all its ugliness. All
-	the illusions of greatness of soul and generosity had been scattered
-	like a cloud before the storm.
-
-	This fearful situation lasted for some hours. After moral poisoning,
-	one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne. Julien would
-	have deemed himself a coward had he had recourse to them. Towards the
-	end of a horrible day, the whole of which he had spent in pacing the
-	floor of his narrow dungeon: 'What a fool I am!' he exclaimed. 'It
-	would be if I expected to die in my bed that the sight of that poor
-	old man ought to make me so utterly wretched; but a swift death in the
-	springtide of life is the very thing to save me from that miserable
-	decrepitude.'
-
-	Whatever arguments he might thus advance, Julien found that he was
-	moved like any pusillanimous creature and made wretched in consequence
-	by this visit.
-
-	There was no longer any trace of rugged grandeur in him, any Roman
-	virtue; death appeared to him on a higher plane, and as a thing less
-	easily to be won.
-
-	'This shall be my thermometer,' he said to himself. This evening I am
-	ten degrees below the level of courage that must lead me to the
-	guillotine. This morning, I had that courage. What does it matter,
-	after all? Provided that it returns to me at the right moment.' This
-	idea of a thermometer amused him and succeeded finally in distracting
-	him.
-
-	Next morning, on waking, he was ashamed of his behaviour the day
-	before. 'My happiness, my tranquillity are at stake.' He almost made
-	up his mind to write to the Attorney-General to ask that nobody should
-	be admitted to his cell. 'And Fouque?' he thought. 'If he can manage
-	to come to Besancon, how distressed he will be.'
-
-	It was perhaps two months since he had given Fouque a thought. 'I was
-	an utter fool at Strasbourg, my thoughts never went beyond my coat
-	collar.' Memories of Fouque kept recurring to his mind and left him in
-	a more tender mood. He paced the floor with agitation. 'Now I am
-	certainly twenty degrees below the level of death ... If this weakness
-	increases, it will pay me better to kill myself. What a joy for the
-	abbe Maslons and the Valenods if I die here like a rat!'
-
-	Fouque arrived; the simple, honest fellow was shattered by grief. His
-	sole idea, if he had one at all, was to sell all that he possessed in
-	order to corrupt the gaoler and so save Julien's life. He spoke to him
-	for hours of the escape of M. de Lavalette.
-
-	'You distress me,' Julien said to him; 'M. de Lavalette was innocent,
-	I am guilty. Without meaning to do so, you make me realise the
-	difference ...
-
-	'But is it true? What! You would sell all that you have?' said Julien,
-	suddenly becoming observant and suspicious once more.
-
-	Fouque, delighted to see his friend at last responsive to his dominant
-	idea, explained to him in full detail, and to within a hundred francs
-	or so, what he expected to receive for each of his properties.
-
-	'What a sublime effort in a small landowner!' thought Julien. 'How
-	many savings, how many little cheese-parings, which made me blush so
-	when I saw him make them, he is willing to sacrifice for me! None of
-	those fine young fellows whom I used to see at the Hotel de La Mole,
-	who read _Rene_, would have any of his absurdities; but apart from
-	those of them who are very young and have inherited fortunes, as well,
-	and know nothing of the value of money, which of those fine Parisians
-	would be capable of such a sacrifice?'
-
-	All Fouque's mistakes in grammer, all his vulgar mannerisms vanished,
-	he flung himself into his arms. Never have the provinces, when
-	contrasted with Paris, received a nobler homage. Fouque, delighted by
-	the enthusiasm which he read in his friend's eyes, mistook it for
-	consent to an escape.
-
-	This glimpse of the _sublime_ restored to Julien all the strength of
-	which M. Chelan's visit had robbed him. He was still very young; but,
-	to my mind, he was a fine plant. Instead of his advancing from
-	tenderness to cunning, like the majority of men, age would have given
-	him an easy access to emotion, he would have been cured of an insane
-	distrust ... But what good is there in these vain predictions?
-
-	The examinations became more frequent, in spite of the efforts of
-	Julien, whose answers were all aimed at cutting the whole business
-	short. 'I have taken life, or at least I have sought to take life, and
-	with premeditation,' he repeated day after day. But the magistrate was
-	a formalist first and foremost. Julien's statements in no way cut
-	short the examinations; the magistrate's feelings were hurt. Julien
-	did not know that they had proposed to remove him to a horrible
-	cellar, and that it was thanks to Fouque's intervention that he was
-	allowed to remain in his charming room one hundred and eighty steps
-	from the ground.
-
-	M. l'abbe de Frilair was one of the important persons who contracted
-	with Fouque for the supply of their firewood. The honest merchant had
-	access even to the all-powerful Vicar-General. To his inexpressible
-	delight, M. de Frilair informed him that, touched by the good
-	qualities of Julien and by the services which he had rendered in the
-	past to the Seminary, he intended to intervene on his behalf with the
-	judges. Fouque saw a hope of saving his friend, and on leaving his
-	presence, bowing to the ground, begged the Vicar-General to expend
-	upon masses, to pray for the acquittal of the prisoner, a sum of ten
-	louis.
-
-	Fouque was strangely in error. M. de Frilair was by no means a
-	Valenod. He refused, and even tried to make the worthy peasant
-	understand that he would do better to keep his money in his pocket.
-	Seeing that it was impossible to make his meaning clear without
-	indiscretion, he advised him to distribute the sum in alms, for the
-	poor prisoners, who, as a matter of fact, were in need of everything.
-
-	'This Julien is a strange creature, his action is inexplicable,'
-	thought M. de Frilair, 'and nothing ought to be inexplicable to me ...
-	Perhaps it will be possible to make a martyr of him ... In any case, I
-	shall get to the true _inwardness_ of this business and may perhaps
-	find an opportunity of inspiring fear in that Madame de Renal, who has
-	no respect for us, and detests me in her heart... Perhaps I may even
-	discover in all this some sensational means of reconciliation with M.
-	de La Mole, who has a weakness for this little Seminarist.'
-
-	The settlement of the lawsuit had been signed some weeks earlier, and
-	the abbe Pirard had left Besancon, not without having spoken of the
-	mystery of Julien's birth, on the very day on which the wretched
-	fellow tried to kill Madame de Renal in the church of Verrieres.
-
-	Julien saw only one disagreeable incident in store for him before his
-	death, namely a visit from his father. He consulted Fouque as to his
-	idea of writing to the Attorney-General, asking to be excused any
-	further visitors. This horror at the sight of a father, at such a
-	moment, shocked the honest and respectable heart of the
-	timber-merchant profoundly.
-
-	He thought he understood why so many people felt a passionate hatred
-	of his friend. Out of respect for another's grief, he concealed his
-	feelings.
-
-	'In any case,' he replied coldly, 'an order for solitary confinement
-	would not apply to your father.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 38
-	A Man of Power
-
-
-	But there is such mystery in her movements,
-	such elegance in her form. Who can she be?
-	SCHILLER
-
-	The doors of the dungeon were thrown open at a very early hour the
-	next morning. Julien awoke with a start.
-
-	'Oh, good God,' he thought, 'here comes my father. What a disagreeable
-	scene!'
-
-	At that moment, a woman dressed as a peasant flung herself into his
-	arms; he had difficulty in recognising her. It was Mademoiselle de La
-	Mole.
-
-	'Miscreant, it was only from your letter that I learned where you
-	were. What you call your crime, though it is nothing but a
-	noble revenge which shows me all the loftiness of the heart that beats
-	in your bosom, I learned only at Verrieres ...'
-
-	Notwithstanding his prejudices against Mademoiselle de La Mole,
-	prejudices of which, moreover, he had not himself formed any definite
-	idea, Julien found her extremely good-looking. How could he fail to
-	see in all this manner of speech and action a noble, disinterested
-	sentiment, far above anything that a petty, vulgar spirit would have
-	dared? He imagined once again that he was in love with a queen, and
-	after a few moments it was with a rare nobility of speech and thought
-	that he said to her:
-
-	'The future was tracing itself quite clearly before my eyes. After my
-	death, I married you to Croisenois, who would be marrying a widow. The
-	noble but slightly romantic spirit of this charming widow, startled
-	and converted to the service of common prudence by an event at once
-	singular, tragic and for her momentous, would have deigned to
-	appreciate the quite genuine merit of the young Marquis. You would
-	have resigned yourself to enjoying the happiness of the rest of the
-	world: esteem, riches, high rank ... But, dear Mathilde, your coming
-	to Besancon, if it is suspected, is going to be a mortal blow to M. de
-	La Mole, and that is what I will never forgive myself. I have already
-	caused him so much sorrow! The Academician will say that he has been
-	warming a serpent in his bosom.'
-
-	'I must confess that I hardly expected so much cold reasoning, so much
-	thought for the future,' said Mademoiselle de La Mole, half annoyed.
-	'My maid, who is almost as prudent as yourself, procured a passport
-	for herself, and it is in the name of Madame Michelet that I have
-	travelled post.'
-
-	'And Madame Michelet found it so easy to make her way in to me?'
-
-	'Ah! You are still the superior man, the man of my choice! First of
-	all, I offered a hundred francs to a magistrate's secretary, who
-	assured me that it was impossible for me to enter this dungeon. But
-	after taking the money, this honest man made me wait, raised
-	objections, I thought that he meant to rob me ...' She broke off.
-
-	'Well?' asked Julien.
-
-	'Do not be angry with me, my little Julien,' she said, embracing him,
-	'I was obliged to give my name to this secretary, who took me for a
-	young milliner from Paris, enamoured of the handsome Julien ...
-	Indeed, those are his very words. I swore to him that I was your wife,
-	and I am to have permission to see you every day.'
-
-	'That finishes everything,' thought Julien; 'I could not prevent it.
-	After all, M. de La Mole is so great a nobleman that public opinion
-	will easily find an excuse for the young Colonel who will wed this
-	charming widow. My approaching death will cover everything'; and he
-	abandoned himself with ecstasy to Mathilde's love; there followed
-	madness, magnanimity, everything that was most strange. She seriously
-	proposed to him that she should die with him.
-
-	After these first transports, and when she had grown used to the
-	happiness of seeing Julien, a keen curiosity suddenly took possession
-	of her soul. She examined her lover, and found him far superior to
-	what she had imagined. Boniface de La Mole seemed to her reincarnate
-	in him, but in a more heroic mould.
-
-	Mathilde saw the leading counsel of the place, whom she insulted by
-	offering them gold too crudely; but they ended by accepting.
-
-	She speedily came to the conclusion that in doubtful matters of high
-	import, everything in Besancon depended upon M. l'abbe de Frilair.
-
-	Under the obscure name of Madame Michelet, she at first found
-	insuperable obstacles in the way to the presence of the all-powerful
-	leader of the Congregation. But the rumour of the beauty of a young
-	milliner, madly in love, who had come from Paris to Besancon to
-	comfort the young abbe Julien Sorel, began to spread through the town.
-
-	Mathilde went alone and on foot through the streets of Besancon; she
-	hoped that she might not be recognised. In any event, she thought that
-	it must help her cause to create a strong impression upon the
-	populace. In her folly she thought of making them revolt, to save
-	Julien on his way to the scaffold. Mademoiselle de La Mole imagined
-	herself to be dressed simply and in a manner becoming a woman stricken
-	with grief; she was dressed in such a fashion as to attract every eye.
-
-	She was the sole object of attention in Besancon, when, after a week
-	of solicitation, she obtained an audience of M. Frilair.
-
-	Great as her courage might be, the idea of an influential head of the
-	Congregation and that of a profound and cautious rascality were so
-	closely associated in her mind that she trembled as she rang the bell
-	at the door of the Bishop's palace. She could barely stand when she
-	had to climb the stair that led to the First Vicar-General's
-	apartment. The loneliness of the episcopal palace chilled her with
-	fear. 'I may sit down in an armchair, and the armchair grip me by the
-	arms, I shall have vanished. Of whom can my maid ask for news of me?
-	The Captain of Police will decline to interfere ... I am all alone in
-	this great town!'
-
-	Her first sight of the apartment set Mademoiselle de La Mole's heart
-	at rest. First of all, it was a footman in the most elegant livery
-	that had opened the door to her. The parlour in which she was asked to
-	wait displayed that refined and delicate luxury, so different from
-	vulgar magnificence, which one finds in Paris only in the best houses.
-	As soon as she caught sight of M. de Frilair, who came towards her
-	with a fatherly air, all thoughts of a dastardly crime vanished. She
-	did not even find on his handsome countenance the imprint of that
-	energetic, that almost wild virtue, so antipathetic to Parisian
-	society. The half-smile that animated the features of the priest who
-	was in supreme control of everything at Besancon, betokened the man
-	used to good society, the cultured prelate, the able administrator.
-	Mathilde imagined herself in Paris.
-
-	It needed only a few minutes for M. de Frilair to lead Mathilde on to
-	admit to him that she was the daughter of his powerful adversary, the
-	Marquis de La Mole.
-
-	'I am not, as a matter of fact, Madame Michelet,' she said, resuming
-	all the loftiness of her bearing, 'and this admission costs me little,
-	for I have come to consult you, Sir, as to the possibility of
-	procuring the escape of M. de La Vernaye. In the first place he is
-	guilty of nothing worse than a piece of stupidity; the woman at whom
-	he fired is doing well. In the second place, to corrupt the
-	subordinates, I can put down here and now fifty thousand francs, and
-	bind myself to pay double that sum. Lastly, my gratitude and the
-	gratitude of my family will consider no request impossible from the
-	person who has saved M. de La Vernaye.'
-
-	M. de Frilair appeared to be surprised at this name. Mathilde showed
-	him a number of letters from the Ministry of War, addressed to M.
-	Julien Sorel de La Vernaye.
-
-	'You see, Sir, that my father undertook to provide for his future. I
-	married him secretly, my father wished him to be a senior officer
-	before making public this marriage, which is a little odd for a La
-	Mole.'
-
-	Mathilde remarked that the expression of benevolence and of a mild
-	gaiety speedily vanished as M. de Frilair began to arrive at important
-	discoveries. A subtlety blended with profound insincerity was
-	portrayed on his features.
-
-	The abbe had his doubts, he perused the official documents once more
-	slowly.
-
-	'What advantage can I gain from these strange confidences?' he asked
-	himself. 'Here I am suddenly brought into close personal contact with
-	a friend of the famous Marechale de Fervaques, the all-powerful niece
-	of the Lord Bishop of ----, through whom one becomes a Bishop in
-	France.
-
-	'What I have always regarded as hidden in the future suddenly presents
-	itself. This may lead me to the goal of all my ambition.'
-
-	At first Mathilde was alarmed by the rapid change in the physiognomy
-	of this powerful man, with whom she found herself shut up alone in a
-	remote part of the building. 'But why!' she said to herself presently,
-	'would it not have been worse to have made no impression upon the cold
-	egoism of a priest sated with the enjoyment of power?'
-
-	Dazzled by this rapid and unexpected avenue to the episcopate that was
-	opening before his eyes, astonished at Mathilde's intelligence, for a
-	moment M. de Frilair was off his guard. Mademoiselle de La Mole saw
-	him almost at her feet, trembling nervously with the intensity of his
-	ambition.
-
-	'Everything becomes clear,' she thought, 'nothing will be impossible
-	here for a friend of Madame de Fervaques.' Despite a sense of jealousy
-	that was still most painful, she found courage to explain that Julien
-	was an intimate friend of the Marechale, and almost every evening used
-	to meet, in her house, the Lord Bishop of ----.
-
-	'If you were to draw by lot four or five times in succession a list of
-	thirty-six jurymen from among the principal inhabitants of this
-	Department,' said the Vicar-General with the harsh glare of ambition,
-	dwelling upon each of his words, 'I should consider myself most
-	unfortunate if in each list I did not find eight or nine friends, and
-	those the most intelligent of the lot. Almost invariably I should have
-	a majority, more than that, even for a verdict of guilty; you see,
-	Mademoiselle, with what ease I can secure an acquittal ..."
-
-	The abbe broke off suddenly, as though startled by the sound of his
-	words; he was admitting things which are never uttered to the profane.
-
-	But Mathilde in turn was stupefied when he informed her that what was
-	most astonishing and interesting to Besancon society in Julien's
-	strange adventure, was that in the past he had inspired a grand
-	passion in Madame de Renal, which he had long reciprocated. M. de
-	Frilair had no difficulty in perceiving the extreme distress which his
-	story produced.
-
-	'I have my revenge!' he thought. 'Here, at last, is a way of
-	controlling this decided young person; I was trembling lest I should
-	not succeed in finding one.' Her distinguished air, as of one not
-	easily led, intensified in his eyes the charm of the rare beauty which
-	he saw almost suppliant before him. He recovered all his
-	self-possession and had no hesitation in turning the knife in the
-	wound.
-
-	'I should not be surprised after all,' he said to her lightly, 'were
-	we to learn that it was from jealousy that M. Sorel fired two shots at
-	this woman whom once he loved so dearly. She must have had some
-	relaxation, and for some time past she had been seeing a great deal of
-	a certain abbe Marquinot of Dijon, a sort of Jansenist, utterly
-	without morals, like all of them.'
-
-	M. de Frilair went on torturing with voluptuous relish and at his
-	leisure the heart of this beautiful girl, whose weak spot he had
-	discovered.
-
-	'Why,' he said, fixing a pair of burning eyes on Mathilde, 'should M.
-	Sorel have chosen the church, if not because at that very moment his
-	rival was celebrating mass there? Everyone agrees in ascribing
-	boundless intelligence and even more prudence to the man who is so
-	fortunate as to enjoy your protection. What more simple than to
-	conceal himself in M. de Renal's gardens, which he knows so well?
-	There, with almost a certainty of not being seen, nor caught, nor
-	suspected, he could have inflicted death on the woman of whom he was
-	jealous.'
-
-	These arguments, apparently so well founded, reduced Mathilde to utter
-	despair. Her spirit, haughty enough but saturated with all that dry
-	prudence which passes in society as a faithful portrayal of the human
-	heart, was not made to understand in a moment the joy of defying all
-	prudence which can be so keen a joy to an ardent soul. In the upper
-	classes of Parisian society, in which Mathilde had lived, passion can
-	only very rarely divest itself of prudence, and it is from the attics
-	on the fifth floor that girls throw themselves out of windows.
-
-	At last the abbe de Frilair was sure of his control. He gave Mathilde
-	to understand (he was probably lying) that he could influence as he
-	chose the Crown Counsel, who would have to support the charge against
-	Julien.
-
-	After the names of the thirty-six jurors for the assize had been drawn
-	by lot, he would make a direct and personal appeal to at least thirty
-	of them.
-
-	If M. de Frilair had not thought Mathilde so good-looking, he would
-	not have spoken to her in such plain terms until their fifth or sixth
-	interview.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 39
-	Intrigue
-
-
-	Castres, 1676.--He that endeavoured to kill his sister in our
-	house, had before killed a man, and it had cost his father
-	five hundred ecus to get him off; by their secret distribution,
-	gaining the favour of the counsellors.
-	LOCKE, _Travels in France_ [Trans. footnote: I am indebted to
-	the patience and ingenuity of Mr. Vyvyan Holland, who has
-	traced the original text of this motto in _The Life of John
-	Locke, with extracts from his Correspondence, Journals and
-	Commonplace Books by Lord King_ (new edition, 1830) C. K. S. M.]
-
-	On leaving the Bishop's palace, Mathilde did not hesitate to send a
-	messenger to Madame de Fervaques; the fear of compromising herself did
-	not restrain her for a second. She implored her rival to obtain a
-	letter for M. de Frilair, written throughout in the hand of the Lord
-	Bishop of ----. She even went the length of beseeching the other to
-	hasten, herself, to Besancon. This was a heroic measure on the part of
-	a proud and jealous spirit.
-
-	On the advice of Fouque, she had taken the precaution of saying
-	nothing about what she was doing to Julien. Her presence was
-	disturbing enough in itself. A more honourable man at the approach of
-	death than he had been during his life, he now felt compunction at the
-	thought not only of M. de La Mole, but also of Mathilde.
-
-	'What is this?' he asked himself, 'I experience in her company moments
-	of abstraction and even of boredom. She is ruining herself for me, and
-	it is thus that I reward her. Can I indeed be wicked?' This question
-	would have troubled him little when he was ambitious; then, not to
-	succeed in life was the only disgrace in his eyes.
-
-	His moral uneasiness, in Mathilde's presence, was all the more marked,
-	in that he inspired in her at that moment the most extraordinary and
-	insensate passion. She could speak of nothing but the strange
-	sacrifices which she was anxious to make to save him.
-
-	Carried away by a sentiment of which she was proud and which
-	completely overbore her pride, she would have liked not to allow a
-	moment of her life to pass that was not filled with some extraordinary
-	action. The strangest plans, the most perilous to herself, formed the
-	theme of her long conversations with Julien. His gaolers, well
-	rewarded, allowed her to have her way in the prison. Mathilde's ideas
-	were not confined to the sacrifice of her reputation; it mattered
-	nothing to her though she made her condition known to the whole of
-	society. To fling herself on her knees to crave pardon for Julien, in
-	front of the King's carriage as it came by at a gallop, to attract the
-	royal attention, at the risk of a thousand deaths, was one of the
-	tamest fancies of this exalted and courageous imagination. Through
-	her friends who held posts at court, she could count upon being
-	admitted to the reserved parts of the park of Saint-Cloud.
-
-	Julien felt himself to be hardly worthy of such devotion, to tell the
-	truth he was tired of heroism. It would have required a simple,
-	artless, almost timid affection to appeal to him, whereas on the
-	contrary, Mathilde's proud spirit must always entertain the idea of a
-	public, of what _people would say_.
-
-	In the midst of all her anguish, of all her fears for the life of this
-	lover, whom she was determined not to outlive, she had a secret
-	longing to astonish the public by the intensity of her love and the
-	sublimity of her actions.
-
-	He resented the discovery that he was unable to feel at all touched by
-	all this heroism. What would his resentment have been, had he known of
-	all the follies with which Mathilde overpowered the devoted, but
-	eminently reasonable and limited mind of the good Fouque?
-
-	The latter could scarcely find fault with Mathilde's devotion; for he,
-	too, would have sacrificed his whole fortune and exposed his life to
-	the greatest risks to save Julien. He was stupefied by the quantity of
-	gold which Mathilde scattered abroad. At first, the sums thus spent
-	impressed Fouque, who had for money all the veneration of a
-	provincial.
-
-	Later, he discovered that Mademoiselle de La Mole's plans often
-	varied, and, to his great relief, found a word with which to reproach
-	this character which was so exhausting to him: she was _changeable_. To
-	this epithet, that of _wrongheaded_, the direst anathema in the
-	provinces, is the immediate sequel.
-
-	'It is strange,' Julien said to himself one day as Mathilde was
-	leaving his prison, 'that so warm a passion, and one of which I am the
-	object, leaves me so unmoved! And I worshipped her two months ago! I
-	have indeed read that at the approach of death we lose interest in
-	everything; but it is frightful to feel oneself ungrateful and to be
-	unable to change. Can I be an egoist?' He heaped on himself, in this
-	connection, the most humiliating reproaches.
-
-	Ambition was dead in his heart, another passion had risen from its
-	ashes; he called it remorse for having murdered Madame de Renal.
-
-	As a matter of fact, he was hopelessly in love with her. He found a
-	strange happiness when, left absolutely alone and without any fear of
-	being disturbed, he could abandon himself entirely to the memory of
-	the happy days which he had spent in the past at Verrieres or at
-	Vergy. The most trifling incidents of that time, too swiftly flown,
-	had for him a freshness and a charm that were irresistible. He never
-	gave a thought to his Parisian successes; they bored him.
-
-	This tendency, which grew rapidly stronger, was not entirely hidden
-	from the jealous Mathilde. She saw quite plainly that she had to
-	contend with the love of solitude. Now and again, she uttered with
-	terror in her heart the name of Madame de Renal. She saw Julien
-	shudder. From that moment, her passion knew no bounds nor measure.
-
-	'If he dies, I die after him,' she said to herself with absolute
-	sincerity. 'What would the drawing-rooms of Paris say, to see a girl
-	of my rank carry to such a point her adoration of a lover condemned to
-	death? To find such sentiments, we must go back to the days of the
-	heroes; it was love of this nature that set hearts throbbing in the
-	age of Charles IX and Henri III.'
-
-	Amid the most impassioned transports, when she pressed Julien's head
-	to her heart: 'What!' she said to herself with horror, 'can this
-	precious head be doomed to fall? Very well!' she added, inflamed by a
-	heroism that was not devoid of happiness, 'my lips, which are now
-	pressed against these dear locks, will be frozen within twenty-four
-	hours after.'
-
-	Memories of these moments of heroism and fearful ecstasy seized her in
-	an ineluctable grip. The thought of suicide, so absorbing in itself,
-	and hitherto so remote from that proud spirit, penetrated its defences
-	and soon reigned there with an absolute sway. 'No, the blood of my
-	ancestors has not grown lukewarm in its descent to me,' Mathilde told
-	herself proudly.
-
-	'I have a favour to ask you,' her lover said to her one day: Put your
-	child out to nurse at Verrieres, Madame de Renal will look after the
-	nurse.'
-
-	'That is a very harsh saying . . .' Mathilde turned pale.
-
-	'True, and I ask a thousand pardons,' cried Julien, awakening from his
-	dream and pressing her to his bosom.
-
-	Having dried her tears, he returned to the subject of his thoughts,
-	but with more subtlety. He had given the conversation a turn of
-	melancholy philosophy. He spoke of that future which was soon to close
-	for him. 'You must agree, my dear friend, that the passions are an
-	accident in life, but this accident is to be found only in superior
-	beings ... The death of my son would be in reality a relief to the
-	pride of your family, so much the subordinate agents will perceive.
-	Neglect will be the lot of that child of misery and shame ... I hope
-	that at a date which I do not wish to specify, which however I have
-	the courage to anticipate, you will obey my final behest: You will
-	marry the Marquis de Croisenois.'
-
-	'What, dishonoured!'
-
-	'Dishonour can have no hold over such a name as yours. You will be a
-	widow, and the widow of a madman, that is all. I shall go farther: my
-	crime, being free from any pecuniary motive, will be in no way
-	dishonouring. Perhaps by that time some philosophical legislator will
-	have secured, from the prejudices of his contemporaries, the
-	suppression of capital punishment. Then, some friendly voice will
-	cite as an instance: "Why, Mademoiselle de La Mole's first husband was
-	mad, but not a wicked man, he was no criminal. It was absurd to cut
-	his head off ..." Then my memory will cease to be infamous; at least,
-	after a certain time ... Your position in society, your fortune, and,
-	let me say, your genius will enable M. de Croisenois to play a part,
-	once he is your husband, to which by himself he could not hope to
-	attain.
-
-	He has only his birth and his gallantry, and those qualities by
-	themselves, which made a man accomplished in 1729, are an anachronism
-	a hundred years later, and only give rise to pretensions. A man must
-	have other things besides if he is to place himself at the head of the
-	youth of France.
-
-	'You will bring the support of a firm and adventurous character to the
-	political party in which you will place your husband. You may succeed
-	the Chevreuses and Longuevilles of the Fronde ... But by then, my
-	dear friend, the heavenly fire which animates you at this moment will
-	have cooled a little.
-
-	'Allow me to tell you,' he went on, after many other preliminary
-	phrases, 'in fifteen years from now you will regard as an act of
-	folly, pardonable but still an act of folly, the love that you have
-	felt for me ...'
-
-	He broke off abruptly and returned to his dreams. He found himself
-	once again confronted by that idea, so shocking to Mathilde: 'In
-	fifteen years Madame de Renal will adore my son, and you will have
-	forgotten him.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 40
-	Tranquillity
-
-
-	It is because I was foolish then that I am now wise.
-	O philosopher who see nothing save in a flash, how
-	short is your vision! Your eye is not made to follow
-	the underground working of the passions.
-	FRAU VON GOETHE
-
-	This conversation was interrupted by a judicial examination, followed
-	by a conference with the lawyer retained for the defence. These were
-	the only absolutely disagreeable moments in a heedless existence full
-	of tender fantasies.
-
-	'It was murder, and premeditated murder,' said Julien to magistrate
-	and counsel alike. 'I am sorry, gentlemen,' he added, smiling; 'but
-	this reduces your task to a very small matter.
-
-	'After all,' thought Julien, when he had succeeded in ridding himself
-	of these two persons, 'I must be brave, and braver, evidently, than
-	these two men. They regard as the worst of evils, as the _king of
-	terrors_, this duel to a fatal issue, of which I shall begin to think
-	seriously only upon the day itself.
-
-	'That is because I have known a greater evil,' Julien continued,
-	philosophising to himself. 'I suffered far more keenly on my first
-	journey to Strasbourg, when I thought that I had been abandoned by
-	Mathilde ... And to think that I longed with such passion for this
-	perfect intimacy which today leaves me so unmoved! Indeed, I am
-	happier by myself than when that lovely girl shares my solitude ...'
-
-	The lawyer, a man of rules and formalities, thought him mad, and
-	supposed, with the rest of the public, that it was jealousy that had
-	put the pistol in his hand. One day, he ventured to suggest to Julien
-	that this allegation, whether true or false, would be an excellent
-	line of defence. But the prisoner became in a flash passionate and
-	incisive.
-
-	'On your life, Sir,' cried Julien beside himself with rage, 'bear in
-	mind never again to utter that abominable falsehood.' The prudent
-	advocate was afraid for a moment of being murdered himself.
-
-	He prepared his defence, because the decisive moment was rapidly
-	approaching. Besancon and the whole Department could talk of nothing
-	but this cause celebre. Julien was in ignorance of this, he had begged
-	that no one should ever speak to him of such matters.
-
-	That very day, Fouque and Mathilde having sought to inform him of
-	certain public rumours, which seemed to them to furnish grounds for
-	hope, Julien had cut them short at the first word.
-
-	'Leave me to enjoy my ideal life. Your petty bickerings, your details
-	of real life, all more or less irritating to me, would bring me down
-	from heaven. One dies as best one can; as for me, I wish to think of
-	death only in my own way. What do I care for other people? My
-	relations with other people are soon to be cut short. For pity's sake,
-	do not speak to me of them again: it is quite enough to have to see
-	the magistrate and my counsel.
-
-	'Indeed,' he said to himself, 'it appears to be my destiny to die in a
-	dream. An obscure creature, like myself, sure of being forgotten
-	within a fortnight, would indeed be foolish, one must admit, were he
-	to play a part ...
-
-	'It is strange, all the same, that I have learned the art of enjoying
-	life only now that I see its term draw so near.'
-
-	He spent these last days in pacing the narrow terrace on the roof of
-	his dungeon, smoking some excellent cigars for which Mathilde had sent
-	a courier to Holland, and with no suspicion that his appearance was
-	daily awaited by all the telescopes in the town. His thoughts were at
-	Vergy. Never did he speak of Madame de Renal to Fouque, but on two or
-	three occasions this friend told him that she was recovering rapidly,
-	and these words echoed in his heart.
-
-	While Julien's spirit was almost always completely lost in the world
-	of ideas, Mathilde, occupied with realities, as becomes an
-	aristocratic heart, had contrived to increase the intimacy of the
-	direct correspondence between Madame de Fervaques and M. de Frilair to
-	such a point that already the mighty word Bishopric had been uttered.
-
-	The venerable prelate, in whose hands was the list of benefices, added
-	as a postscript to one of his niece's letters: 'That poor Sorel is
-	nothing worse than a fool, I hope that he will be restored to us.'
-
-	At the sight of these lines, M. de Frilair was almost out of his mind.
-	He had no doubt of his ability to save Julien.
-
-	'But for that Jacobinical law which prescribes the registration of an
-	endless list of jurors, and has no other real object than to take
-	away all influence from well-born people,' he said to Mathilde, on the
-	eve of the drawing by lot of the thirty-six jurors for the assize, 'I
-	could have answered for the verdict. Did I not secure the acquittal of
-	the cure N---- ?'
-
-	It was with pleasure that, on the following day, among the names drawn
-	from the urn, M. de Frilair found those of five members of the
-	Congregation of Besancon, and, among those who were strangers to the
-	town, the names of MM. Valenod, de Moirod and de Cholin. 'I can
-	answer at once for these eight jurors,' he told Mathilde. 'The first
-	five are _machines_. Valenod is my agent, Moirod owes all he has to me,
-	Cholin is an imbecile, who is afraid of everything.'
-
-	The newspaper published throughout the Department the names of the
-	jurors, and Madame de Renal, to the inexpressible terror of her
-	husband, decided to come to Besancon. All that M. de Renal could
-	obtain from her was that she would not leave her bed, so that she
-	might not be exposed to the nuisance of being summoned to give
-	evidence. 'You do not understand my position,' said the former Mayor
-	of Verrieres. 'I am now a Liberal of the defection, as they call it;
-	no doubt but that rascal Valenod and M. de Frilair will easily
-	persuade the Attorney General and the Judges to anything that can be
-	unpleasant for me.'
-
-	Madame de Renal yielded without protest to her husband's orders, '�f I
-	were to appear at the Assize Court,' she told herself, 'I should seem
-	to be demanding vengeance.'
-
-	Notwithstanding all the promises of prudence made to her spiritual
-	director and to her husband, no sooner had she arrived in Besancon
-	than she wrote with her own hand to each of the thirty-six jurors:
-
-	'I shall not appear in Court upon the day of the trial, Sir, because
-	my presence might prejudice M. Sorel's case. I desire but one thing in
-	the world, and that passionately, namely his acquittal. Be assured of
-	this, the terrible thought that on my account an innocent man has been
-	sent to his death would poison the remainder of my life, and would
-	doubtless shorten it. How could you sentence him to death, while I
-	still live? No, beyond question, society has not the right to take
-	life, especially from such a man as Julien Sorel. Everyone at
-	Verrieres has seen him in moments of distraction. This poor young man
-	has powerful enemies; but, even among his enemies (and how many they
-	are!) who is there that has any doubt of his admirable talents and his
-	profound learning? It is not an ordinary person that you are about to
-	judge, Sir. For nearly eighteen months we have all known him to be
-	pious, wise, studious; but, two or three times in the year, he was
-	seized by fits of melancholy which bordered on insanity. The whole
-	town of Verrieres, all our neighbours at Vergy where we go in the fine
-	weather, all my family, the Sub-Prefect himself, will bear testimony
-	to his exemplary piety; he knows by heart the whole of the Holy Bible.
-	Would an unbeliever have applied himself for years on end to learning
-	the Holy Scriptures? My sons will have the honour to present this
-	letter to you: they are children. Deign to question them, Sir, they
-	will furnish you with all the details relative to this poor young man
-	that may still be necessary to convince you of the barbarity of
-	condemning him. Far from avenging me, you would be sentencing me to
-	death.
-
-	'What is there that his enemies can advance in rebuttal of the
-	following fact? The injury that ensued from one of those moments of
-	insanity which my children themselves used to remark in their tutor
-	was so far from dangerous that within less than two months, it has
-	allowed me to post from Verrieres to Besancon. If I learn, Sir, that
-	you have even the slightest hesitation in saving from the barbarity of
-	our laws a person who is so little guilty, I shall leave my bed, to
-	which I am confined solely by my husband's orders, and shall come to
-	throw myself at your feet.
-
-	'Declare, Sir, that the premeditation is not proven, and you will not
-	have to reproach yourself with the blood of an innocent man,' etc.,
-	etc.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 41
-	The Trial
-
-	The country will remember this celebrated trial for a
-	long time to come. Interest in the accused reached fever
-	pitch; this was because his crime was astonishing and yet
-	not atrocious. Even if it had been, the young man was so
-	handsome! His great destiny abruptly cut short heightened
-	the pity felt for him. Will he be condemned? the women
-	would ask the men of their acquaintance and one could see
-	them grow pale as they awaited the reply.
-	SAINTE-BEUVE
-
-	At length the day dawned so dreaded by Madame de Renal and Mathilde.
-
-	The strange appearance of the town increased their terror, and did not
-	leave even Fouque's stout heart unmoved. The whole Province had
-	swarmed into Besancon to witness the trial of this romantic case.
-
-	For some days past there had not been a bed to be had in the inns. The
-	President of the Assize Court was assailed with requests for cards of
-	admission; all the ladies of the town wished to be present at the
-	trial; Julien's portrait was hawked through the streets, etc., etc.
-
-	Mathilde was keeping in reserve for this supreme moment a letter
-	written throughout in the hand of the Lord Bishop of ----. This
-	Prelate, who controlled the Church in France and appointed Bishops,
-	deigned to ask for the acquittal of Julien. On the eve of the trial,
-	Mathilde took this letter to the all-powerful Vicar-General.
-
-	At the close of the interview, as she was leaving the room in a flood
-	of tears: 'I answer for the verdict of the jury,' M. de Frilair told
-	her, emerging at length from his diplomatic reserve, and almost
-	showing signs of emotion himself. 'Among the twelve persons charged
-	with the duty of finding whether your protege's crime is proven, and
-	especially whether there was premeditation, I number six friends
-	devoted to my welfare, and I have given them to understand that it
-	rested with them to raise me to the episcopate. Baron de Valenod,
-	whom I have made Mayor of Verrieres, has entire control over two of
-	his subordinates, MM. de Moirod and de Cholin. To tell the truth,
-	chance has given us, for dealing with this affair, two jurors who are
-	extremely disaffected; but, although Ultra-Liberals, they loyally obey
-	my orders on great occasions, and I have sent word asking them to vote
-	with M. Valenod. I learn that a sixth juror of the industrial class,
-	an immensely rich and garrulous Liberal, is secretly hoping for a
-	contract from the Ministry of War, and no doubt he would not wish to
-	vex me. I have let him know that M. Valenod has my last word.'
-
-	'And who is this M. Valenod?' said Mathilde, anxiously.
-
-	'If you knew him, you would have no doubt of our success. He is a bold
-	speaker, impudent, coarse, a man made to be the leader of fools. 1814
-	raised him from penury, and I am going to make him a Prefect. He is
-	capable of thrashing the other jurors if they refuse to vote as he
-	wishes.'
-
-	Mathilde was somewhat reassured.
-
-	There was another discussion in store for her that evening. In order
-	not to prolong a painful scene, the outcome of which appeared to him
-	certain, Julien was determined not to open his mouth.
-
-	'My counsel will speak, that is quite sufficient,' he said to
-	Mathilde. 'As it is, I shall be all too long exposed as a spectacle to
-	my enemies. These provincials are shocked by the rapid advancement
-	which I owe to you, and, believe me, there is not one of them that
-	does not wish for my conviction, except that he will cry like a fool
-	when I am led to the scaffold.'
-
-	'They wish to see you humiliated, it is only too true,' replied
-	Mathilde, 'but I do not believe that they are cruel. My presence in
-	Besancon and the spectacle of my grief have interested all the women;
-	your handsome face will do the rest. If you say but one word before
-	your judges, the whole court will be on your side,' etc., etc.
-
-	The following morning at nine o'clock, when Julien came down from his
-	prison to enter the great hall of the Law Courts, it was with the
-	utmost difficulty that the gendarmes succeeded in clearing a passage
-	through the immense crowd that packed the courtyard. Julien had slept
-	well, he was quite calm, and felt no other sentiment than one of
-	philosophical piety towards this crowd of envious persons who, without
-	cruelty, were ready to applaud his sentence of death. He was quite
-	surprised when, having been detained for more than a quarter of an
-	hour among the crowd, he was obliged to admit that his presence was
-	inspiring a tender pity in the assembly. He did not hear a single
-	unpleasant remark. 'These provincials are less evil-minded than I
-	supposed,' he said to himself.
-
-	On entering the court, he was struck by the elegance of the
-	architecture. It was pure gothic, with a number of charming little
-	pillars carved in stone with the most perfect finish. He imagined
-	himself in England.
-
-	But presently his whole attention was absorbed in twelve or fifteen
-	pretty women who, seated opposite the dock, filled the three galleries
-	above the bench and the jurybox. On turning round towards the public
-	seats, he saw that the circular gallery which overhung the well of the
-	court was filled with women; most of them were young and seemed to him
-	extremely pretty; their eyes were bright and full of interest. In the
-	rest of the court, the crowd was enormous; people were struggling at
-	the doors, and the sentries were unable to preserve silence.
-
-	When all the eyes that were looking for Julien became aware of his
-	presence, on seeing him take his place on the slightly raised bench
-	reserved for the prisoner, he was greeted with a murmur of
-	astonishment and tender interest.
-
-	One would have said that morning that he was not yet twenty; he was
-	dressed quite simply, but with a perfect grace; his hair and brow were
-	charming; Mathilde had insisted on presiding in person over his
-	toilet. His pallor was intense. As soon as he had taken his seat on
-	the bench, he heard people say on all sides: 'Lord, how young he is!
-	...' 'But he is a boy.' 'He is far better looking than his portrait.'
-
-	'Prisoner,' said the gendarme seated on his right, 'do you see those
-	six ladies who are on that balcony?' The gendarme pointed to a little
-	gallery which jutted out above the amphitheatre in which the jury was
-	placed. 'That is the Prefect's lady,' the gendarme continued; 'next to
-	her, Madame la Marquise de M ---- ; that one loves you dearly. I heard
-	her speak to the examining magistrate. Next to her is Madame
-	Derville.'
-
-	'Madame Derville,' exclaimed Julien, and a vivid blush suffused his
-	brow. 'When she leaves the court,' he thought, 'she will write to
-	Madame de Renal.' He knew nothing of Madame de Renal's arrival at
-	Besancon.
-
-	The witnesses were quickly heard. At the first words of the speech for
-	the prosecution made by the counsel for the prosecution, two of the
-	ladies seated on the little balcony burst into tears. 'Madame Derville
-	is not so easily moved,' thought Julien. He noticed, however, that she
-	was extremely flushed.
-
-	The counsel for the prosecution was labouring an emotional point in
-	bad French about the barbarity of the crime that had been committed;
-	Julien noticed that Madame Derville's neighbours showed signs of
-	strong disapproval. Several of the jury, evidently friends of these
-	ladies, spoke to them and seemed to reassure them. 'That can only be a
-	good sign,' thought Julien.
-
-	Until then he had felt himself penetrated by an unmixed contempt for
-	all the men who were taking part in this trial. The insipid eloquence
-	of the counsel for the prosecution increased this sense of disgust.
-	But gradually the sereneness of Julien's heart melted before the marks
-	of interest of which he was plainly the object.
-
-	He was pleased with the firm expression of his counsel. 'No fine
-	language,' he murmured to him as he stood up to speak.
-
-	'All the emphasis stolen from Bossuet, which has been displayed
-	against you, has helped your case,' said the counsel. And indeed, he
-	had not been speaking for five minutes before almost all the ladies
-	had their handkerchiefs in their hands. The counsel, encouraged by
-	this, addressed the jury in extremely strong language. Julien
-	shuddered, he felt that he was on the point of bursting into tears.
-	'Great God! What will my enemies say?'
-
-	He was about to yield to the emotion that was overpowering him, when,
-	fortunately for himself, he caught an insolent glance from M. Valenod.
-
-	'That wretch's eyes are ablaze,' he said to himself; 'what a triumph
-	for that vile nature! Had my crime led to this alone, I should be
-	bound to abhor it. Heaven knows what he will say of me to Madame de
-	Renal!'
-
-	This thought obliterated all the rest. Shortly afterwards, Julien was
-	recalled to himself by sounds of approval from the public. His counsel
-	had just concluded his speech. Julien remembered that it was the
-	correct thing to shake hands with him. The time had passed quickly.
-
-	Refreshments were brought to counsel and prisoner. It was only then
-	that Julien was struck by a curious circumstance: none of the women
-	had left the court for dinner.
-
-	'Faith, I am dying of hunger,' said his counsel, 'and you?'
-
-	'I am also,' replied Julien.
-
-	'Look, there is the Prefect's lady getting her dinner, too,' his
-	counsel said to him, pointing to the little balcony. 'Cheer up,
-	everything is going well.' The trial was resumed.
-
-	As the President was summing up, midnight struck. He was obliged to
-	pause; amid the silence of the universal anxiety, the echoing notes of
-	the clock filled the court.
-
-	'Here begins the last day of my life,' thought Julien. Presently he
-	felt himself inflamed by the idea of duty. He had kept his emotion in
-	check until then, and maintained his determination not to speak; but
-	when the President of the Assizes asked him if he had anything to say,
-	he rose. He saw in front of him the eyes of Madame Derville, which, in
-	the lamplight, seemed to shine with a strange brilliance. 'Can she be
-	crying, by any chance,' he wondered.
-
-	'Gentlemen of the Jury,
-
-	'My horror of the contempt which I believed that I could endure at the
-	moment of my death, impels me to speak. Gentlemen, I have not the
-	honour to belong to your class, you see in me a peasant who has risen
-	in revolt against the lowliness of his station.
-
-	'I ask you for no mercy,' Julien went on, his voice growing stronger.
-	'I am under no illusion; death is in store for me; it will be a just
-	punishment. I have been guilty of attempting the life of the woman
-	most worthy of all respect, of all devotion. Madame de Renal had been
-	like a mother to me. My crime is atrocious, and it was _premeditated_.
-	I have, therefore, deserved death, Gentlemen of the Jury. But, even
-	were I less guilty, I see before me men who, without pausing to
-	consider what pity may be due to my youth, will seek to punish in me
-	and to discourage forever that class of young men who, born in an
-	inferior station and in a sense burdened with poverty, have the good
-	fortune to secure a sound education, and the audacity to mingle with
-	what the pride of rich people calls society.
-
-	'That is my crime, Gentlemen, and it will be punished with all the
-	more severity inasmuch as actually I am not being tried by my peers. I
-	do not see, anywhere among the jury, a peasant who has grown rich, but
-	only indignant bourgeois ...'
-
-	For twenty minutes Julien continued to speak in this strain; he said
-	everything that was in his heart; the counsel for the prosecution, who
-	aspired to the favour of the aristocracy, kept springing from his
-	seat; but in spite of the somewhat abstract turn which Julien had
-	given the debate, all the women were dissolved in tears. Madame
-	Derville herself had her handkerchief pressed to her eyes. Before
-	concluding, Julien returned to the question of premeditation, to his
-	repentance, to the respect, the filial and unbounded adoration which,
-	in happier times, he had felt for Madame de Renal ... Madame
-	Derville uttered a cry and fainted.
-
-	One o'clock struck as the jury retired to their waiting-room. None of
-	the women had left their seats; several of the men had tears in their
-	eyes. The general conversation was at first most lively; but
-	gradually, as the jury delayed their verdict, the feeling of weariness
-	spread a calm over the assembly. It was a solemn moment; the lamps
-	burned more dimly. Julien, who was dead tired, heard them discussing
-	round him whether this delay augured well or ill. He noticed with
-	pleasure that everyone was on his side; the jury did not return, and
-	still not a woman left the court.
-
-	Just as two o'clock had struck, a general stir was audible. The little
-	door of the jury-room opened. M. le Baron de Valenod advanced with a
-	grave, theatrical step, followed by the rest of the jury. He coughed,
-	then declared that on his soul and conscience the unanimous opinion of
-	the jury was that Julien Sorel was guilty of murder, and of murder
-	with premeditation: this verdict inferred a sentence of death; it was
-	pronounced a moment later. Julien looked at his watch, and remembered
-	M. de Lavalette; it was a quarter past two. Today is Friday,' he
-	thought.
-
-	'Yes, but this is a lucky day for Valenod, who is sentencing
-	me ... I am too closely guarded for Mathilde to be able to effect my
-	escape, like Madame de Lavalette . .. And so, in three days, at this
-	same hour, I shall know what to think of the _great hereafter_.'
-
-	At that moment, he heard a cry and was recalled to the things of this
-	world. The women round him were sobbing; he saw that every face was
-	turned towards a little gallery concealed by the capital of a gothic
-	pilaster. He learned afterwards that Mathilde had been hidden there.
-	As the cry was not repeated, everyone turned back to look at Julien,
-	for whom the gendarmes were trying to clear a passage through the
-	crowd.
-
-	'Let us try not to give that rascal Valenod any food for laughter,'
-	thought Julien. 'With what a contrite and coaxing air he uttered the
-	verdict that involved the death penalty! Whereas that poor president,
-	even though he has been a judge for all these years, had tears in his
-	eyes when he sentenced me. What a joy for Valenod to have his revenge
-	for our old rivalry for Madame de Renal! And so I shall never see her
-	any more! It is all finished ... A last farewell is impossible between
-	us, I feel it ... How happy I should have been to express to her all
-	the horror I feel for my crime!
-
-	'These words only: I feel that I am justly condemned.'
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 42
-	In the Prison
-
-
-	When Julien was lee back to prison he had been put in a cell reserved
-	for those under sentence of death. He, who, as a rule, observed the
-	most trifling details, had never noticed that he was not being taken
-	up to his old dungeon. He was thinking of what he would say to Madame
-	de Renal, if, before the fatal moment, he should have the good fortune
-	to see her. He felt that she would not allow him to speak, and was
-	seeking a way of expressing his repentance in the first words he would
-	utter. 'After such an action, how am I to convince her that I love her
-	and her only? For after all I sought to kill her either out of
-	ambition or for love of Mathilde.'
-
-	On getting into bed he found himself between sheets of a coarse cloth.
-	The scales fell from his eyes. 'Ah! I am in the condemned cell,' he
-	said to himself, 'awaiting my sentence. It is right ...
-
-	'Conte Altamira told me once that, on the eve of his death, Danton
-	said in his loud voice: "It is strange, the verb to guillotine cannot
-	be conjugated in all its tenses; one can say: I shall be guillotined,
-	thou shalt be guillotined, but one does not say: I have been
-	guillotined."
-
-	'Why not,' Julien went on, 'if there is another life? Faith, if I meet
-	the Christian Deity, I am lost: He is a tyrant, and, as such, is full
-	of ideas of vengeance; His Bible speaks of nothing but fearful
-	punishments. I never loved Him! I could never even believe that anyone
-	did love Him sincerely. He is devoid of pity.' (Here Julien recalled
-	several passages from the Bible.) 'He will punish me in some
-	abominable manner ...
-
-	'But if I meet the God of Fenelon! He will say to me perhaps: "Much
-	shall be pardoned thee, because thou hast loved much ..."
-
-	'Have I loved much? Ah! I did love Madame de Renal, but my conduct has
-	been atrocious. There, as elsewhere, I abandoned a simple and modest
-	merit for what was brilliant ...
-
-	'But then, what a prospect! Colonel of Hussars, should we go to war;
-	Secretary of Legation in time of peace; after that, Ambassador ... for
-	I should soon have learned the business ... and had I been a mere
-	fool, need the son-in-law of the Marquis de La Mole fear any rival?
-	All my foolish actions would have been forgiven me, or rather counted
-	to me as merits. A man of distinction, enjoying the most splendid
-	existence in Vienna or London ...
-
-	'Not precisely that, Sir, to be guillotined in three days' time.'
-
-	Julien laughed heartily at this sally of his own wit. 'Indeed, man has
-	two different beings inside him,' he reflected. 'What devil thought of
-	that malicious touch?
-
-	'Very well, yes, my friend, guillotined in three days' time,' he
-	replied to the interrupter. 'M. de Cholin will hire a window, sharing
-	the expense with the abbe Maslon. Well, for the cost of hiring that
-	window, which of those two worthies will rob the other?'
-
-	A passage from Rotrou's _Venceslas_ entered his head suddenly.
-
-	_Ladislas_: My soul is well prepared.
-	_The King (his father)_: So is the scaffold; lay your head thereon.
-
-	'A good answer,' he thought, and fell asleep. Someone awakened him in
-	the morning by shaking him violently.
-
-	'What, already!' said Julien, opening a haggard eye. He imagined
-	himself to be in the headsman's hands.
-
-	It was Mathilde. 'Fortunately, she did not understand.' This
-	reflection restored all his presence of mind. He found Mathilde
-	changed as though after six months of illness: she was positively
-	unrecognisable.
-
-	'That wretch Frilair has betrayed me,' she said to him, wringing her
-	hands; rage prevented her from speaking.
-
-	'Was I not fine yesterday when I rose to speak?' replied Julien. 'I
-	was improvising, and for the first time in my life! It is true that
-	there is reason to fear it may also be the last.'
-
-	At this moment Julien was playing upon Mathilde's nature with all the
-	calm of a skilled pianist touching the keys of a piano ... 'The
-	advantage of noble birth I lack, it is true,' he went on, 'but the
-	great heart of Mathilde has raised her lover to her own level. Do you
-	suppose that Boniface de La Mole cut a better figure before his
-	judges?'
-
-	Mathilde, that morning, was tender without affectation, like any poor
-	girl dwelling in an attic; but she could not win from him any simpler
-	speech. He paid her back, unconsciously, the torment that she had
-	often inflicted on him.
-
-	'We do not know the source of the Nile,' Julien said to himself; 'it
-	has not been granted to the eye of man to behold the King of Rivers in
-	the form of a simple rivulet: similarly no human eye shall ever see
-	Julien weak, if only because he is not weak. But I have a heart that
-	is easily moved; the most commonplace words, if they are uttered with
-	an accent of truth, may soften my voice and even make my tears begin
-	to flow. How often have not the sere hearts despised me for this
-	defect! They believed that I was begging for mercy: that is what I
-	cannot endure.
-
-	'They say that the thought of his wife overcame Danton at the foot of
-	the scaffold; but Danton had given strength to a nation of coxcombs,
-	and prevented the enemy from reaching Paris . . I alone know what I
-	might have managed to do ... To others, I am at best only a
-	might-have-been.
-
-	'If Madame de Renal had been here, in my cell, instead of Mathilde,
-	should I have been able to control myself? The intensity of my despair
-	and of my repentance would have appeared in the eyes of the Valenods,
-	and of all the patricians of the neighbourhood, a craven fear of
-	death; they are so proud, those feeble hearts, whom their financial
-	position places out of reach of temptation! "You see what it is," M.
-	de Moirod and M. de Cholin, who have just sentenced me to death, would
-	have said, "to be born the son of a carpenter! One may become
-	learned, clever, but courage! ... Courage is not taught at school."
-	Even this poor Mathilde, who is now weeping, or rather who can no
-	longer weep,' he said, looking at her red eyes ... and he took her in
-	his arms: the sight of genuine grief made him forget his syllogism.
-	'She has been weeping all night, perhaps,' he said to himself: 'but
-	one day how ashamed she will be when she remembers! She will regard
-	herself as having been led astray, in early youth, by the low opinions
-	of a plebeian ... Croisenois is weak enough to marry her, and, i'
-	faith, he will do well for himself. She will make him play a part,
-
-	"By that right
-	Which a firm spirit planning vast designs
-	Has o'er the loutish minds of common men."
-
-	'Ah, now; here is a pleasant thing: now that I am to die, all the
-	poetry I ever learned in my life comes back to me. It must be a sign
-	of decadence ...'
-
-	Mathilde kept on saying to him in a faint voice: 'He is there, in the
-	next room.' At length he began to pay attention to her words. 'Her
-	voice is feeble,' he thought, 'but all her imperious nature is still
-	in its accents. She lowers her voice in order not to lose her temper.
-
-	'Who is there?' he asked her gently.
-
-	'The lawyer, to make you sign your appeal.'
-
-	'I shall not appeal.'
-
-	'What! You will not appeal,' she said, rising to her feet, her eyes
-	ablaze with anger, 'and why not, if you please?'
-
-	'Because at this moment I feel that I have the courage to die without
-	exciting undue derision. And who can say that in two months' time,
-	after a long confinement in this damp cell, I shall be so well
-	prepared? I foresee interviews with priests, with my father ... I can
-	imagine nothing so unpleasant. Let us die.'
-
-	This unexpected obstinacy awoke all the latent pride in Mathilde's
-	nature. She had not been able to see the abbe de Frilair before the
-	hour at which the cells in the prison of Besancon were opened; her
-	anger fell upon Julien. She adored him, and for the next quarter of an
-	hour he was reminded by her imprecations against his character, her
-	regrets that she had ever loved him, of that proud spirit which in the
-	past had heaped such poignant insults upon him, in the library of the
-	Hotel de La Mole.
-
-	'Heaven owed it to the glory of your race to bring you into the world
-	a man,' he told her.
-
-	'But as for myself,' he thought, 'I should be a rare fool to live two
-	months longer in this disgusting abode, the butt of all the infamous
-	and humiliating lies that the patrician faction is capable of
-	inventing, [Footnote: A Jacobin is speaking. (Stendhal's note.)]
-	my sole comfort the imprecations of this madwoman ... Well, the day
-	after tomorrow, I shall be fighting a duel in the morning with a man
-	well known for his coolness and for his remarkable skill ... Very
-	remarkable,' whispered Mephistopheles, 'he never misses his stroke.
-
-	'Very well, so be it, all's well that ends well.' (Mathilde's
-	eloquence continued to flow.) 'Begad, no,' he said to himself, 'I
-	shall not appeal.'
-
-	Having made this decision, he relapsed into his dreams ... 'The
-	postman on his rounds will bring the newspaper at six o'clock, as
-	usual; at eight, after M. de Renal has read it, Elisa, entering the
-	room on tiptoe, will lay it down on her bed. Later, she will awake:
-	suddenly, as she reads, she will grow troubled; her lovely hand will
-	tremble; she will come to the words: _At five minutes past ten he had
-	ceased to live_.
-
-	'She will shed hot tears, I know her; in vain did I seek to murder
-	her, all will be forgotten, and the person whose life I sought to take
-	will be the only one who will weep sincerely for my death.
-
-	'Ah, this is a paradox!' he thought, and, for the next quarter of an
-	hour, while Mathilde continued to make a scene, he thought only of
-	Madame de Renal. In spite of himself, and albeit frequently replying
-	to what Mathilde said to him, he could not free his mind from the
-	memory of that bedroom at Verrieres. He saw the _Gazette de Besancon_
-	lying on the counterpane of orange taffeta. He saw that snowy hand
-	clutching it with a convulsive movement; he saw Madame de Renal weep
-	... He followed the course of each tear over that charming face.
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole, having failed to get anything out of Julien,
-	made the lawyer come in. He was fortunately an old Captain of the Army
-	of Italy, of 1796, when he had served with Manuel.
-
-	For the sake of form, he opposed the condemned man's decision. Julien,
-	wishing to treat him with respect, explained all his reasons to him.
-
-	'Faith, one may think as you do,' M. Felix Vaneau (this was the
-	lawyer's name) said to him at length. 'But you have three clear days
-	in which to appeal, and it is my duty to come back each day. If a
-	volcano opened beneath the prison, in the next two months, you would
-	be saved. You may die a natural death,' he said, looking at Julien.
-
-	Julien shook his hand. 'I thank you, you are an honest man. I shall
-	think it over.'
-
-	And when Mathilde left him, finally, with the lawyer, he felt far more
-	affection for the lawyer than for her.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 43
-	Last Adieux
-
-
-	An hour later, when he was fast asleep, he was awakened by the tears
-	which he felt trickling over his hand. 'Ah! Mathilde again,' he
-	thought to himself, half awake. 'She has come, faithful to her theory,
-	to attack my resolve by force of tender sentiments.' Irritated by the
-	prospect of this fresh scene in the pathetic manner, he did not open
-	his eyes. The lines of Belphegor flying from his wife came into his
-	mind.
-
-	He heard a strange sigh; he opened his eyes; it was Madame de Renal.
-
-	'Ah! Do I see you again before my death? Is it a phantom?' he cried,
-	as he flung himself at her feet.
-
-	'But forgive me, Madame, I am nothing but a murderer in your eyes,' he
-	at once added, regaining his composure.
-
-	'Sir, ... I have come to implore you to appeal, I know that you do not
-	wish to ...' She was choked by her sobs; she was unable to speak.
-
-	'Deign to forgive me.'
-
-	'If you wish me to forgive you,' she said to him, rising and throwing
-	herself into his arms, 'appeal at once from the sentence of death.'
-
-	Julien covered her with kisses.
-
-	'Will you come and see me every day during the next two months?'
-
-	'I swear it to you. Every day, unless my husband forbids me.'
-
-	'Then I sign!' cried Julien. 'What! You forgive me! Is it possible?'
-
-	He clasped her in his arms; he was mad. She uttered a faint cry.
-
-	'It is nothing,' she told him, 'you hurt me.'
-
-	'In your shoulder,' cried Julien, bursting into tears. He stepped back
-	from her, and covered her hand with burning kisses. 'Who would ever
-	have said, last time I saw you, in your bedroom, at Verrieres ... ?'
-
-	'Who would ever have said then that I should write M. de La Mole that
-	infamous letter ... ?'
-
-	'Know that I have always loved you, that I have never loved anyone but
-	you.'
-
-	'Is it really possible?' cried Madame de Renal, equally enraptured.
-	She bowed herself over Julien, who was kneeling at her feet, and for a
-	long time they wept in silence.
-
-	At no time in his life had Julien experienced such a moment.
-
-	After a long interval, when they were able to speak:
-
-	'And that young Madame Michele!' said Madame de Renal, 'or rather
-	that Mademoiselle de La Mole; for I am beginning really to believe
-	this strange tale!'
-
-	'It is true only in appearance,' replied Julien. 'She is my wife, but
-	she is not my mistress ...'
-
-	And, each interrupting the other a hundred times, they managed with
-	difficulty, each of them, to tell what the other did not know. The
-	letter sent to M. de La Mole had been written by the young priest who
-	directed Madame de Renal's conscience, and then copied out by her.
-	'What a terrible crime religion has made me commit!' she said to him;
-	'though I did modify the worst passages in the letter....'
-
-	Julien's transports of joy proved to her how completely he forgave
-	her. Never had he been so madly in love.
-
-	'And yet I regard myself as pious,' Madame de Renal told him in the
-	course of their conversation. 'I believe sincerely in God; I believe
-	equally, indeed it has been proved to me, that the crime I am
-	committing is fearful, and yet, as soon as I set eyes on you, even
-	after you have fired at me twice with a pistol...' Here, in spite of
-	her resistance, Julien covered her with kisses.
-
-	'Let me alone,' she went on, 'I wish to argue with you, before I
-	forget ... As soon as I set eyes on you, all sense of duty vanishes,
-	there is nothing left of me but love for you, or rather love is too
-	feeble a word. I feel for you what I ought to feel only for God: a
-	blend of respect, love, obedience ... In truth, I do not know what
-	feeling you inspire in me. Were you to bid me thrust a knife into your
-	gaoler, the crime would be committed before I had had time to think.
-	Explain this to me in simple terms before I leave you, I wish to see
-	clearly into my own heart; for in two months we must part ... For that
-	matter, need we part?' she said, with a smile.
-
-	'I take back my word,' cried Julien, springing to his feet; 'I shall
-	not appeal from the sentence of death, if by poison, knife, pistol,
-	charcoal or any other means whatsoever, you seek to put an end to, or
-	to endanger your life.'
-
-	Madame de Renal's expression altered suddenly; the warmest affection
-	gave place to a profound abstraction.
-
-	'If we were to die at once?' she said to him at length.
-
-	'Who knows what we shall find in our next life?' replied Julien;
-	'torments perhaps, perhaps nothing at all. Can we not spend two months
-	together in a delicious manner? Two months, that is ever so many days.
-	Never shall I have been so happy.'
-
-	'You will never have been so happy?'
-
-	'Never,' replied Julien with rapture, 'and I am speaking to you as I
-	speak to myself. Heaven preserve me from exaggeration.'
-
-	'To speak so is to command me,' she said with a timid and melancholy
-	smile.
-
-	'Very well! You swear, by the love that you bear me, not to attempt
-	your life by any direct means, or indirect means ... Remember,' he
-	added, 'that you are compelled to live for my son, whom Mathilde will
-	abandon to the care of servants as soon as she is Marquise de
-	Croisenois.'
-
-	'I swear,' she replied coldly, 'but I mean to take away with me your
-	appeal written and signed by your hand. I shall go myself to the
-	Attorney-General.'
-
-	'Take care, you will compromise yourself.'
-
-	'After coming publicly to see you in prison, I am for ever, for
-	Besancon and the whole of the Franche-Comte, a heroine of anecdotes,'
-	she said with an air of profound distress. 'I have gone beyond the
-	last limits of modesty ... I am a woman who has forfeited her honour;
-	it is true that it was for your sake ...'
-
-	Her tone was so melancholy that Julien embraced her with a happiness
-	that was quite new to him. It was no longer the intoxication of love,
-	it was extreme gratitude. He had just realised, for the first time,
-	the full extent of the sacrifice that she had made for him.
-
-	Some charitable soul doubtless informed M. de Renal of the long visits
-	which his wife was paying to Julien's prison; for, after three days,
-	he sent his carriage for her, with express orders that she was to
-	return immediately to Verrieres.
-
-	This cruel parting had begun the day ill for Julien. He was informed,
-	two or three hours later, that a certain intriguing priest, who for
-	all that had not succeeded in making any headway among the Jesuits of
-	Besancon, had taken his stand that morning outside the gate of the
-	prison, in the street. It was raining hard, and outside there the man
-	was trying to pose as a martyr. Julien was out of temper, this piece
-	of foolishness moved him profoundly.
-
-	That morning he had already refused a visit from the priest, but the
-	man had made up his mind to hear Julien's confession, and to make a
-	name for himself among the young women of Besancon, on the strength of
-	all the confidences which he would pretend to have received.
-
-	He declared in a loud voice that he was going to remain day and night
-	at the gate of the prison: 'God has sent me to touch the heart of this
-	other apostate.' And the lower orders, always curious spectators of a
-	scene, began to assemble in crowds.
-
-	'Yes, my brethren,' he said to them, 'I shall spend the day here, and
-	the night, and every day and night from now onwards. The Holy Spirit
-	has spoken to me. I have a mission from on high; it is I that am to
-	save the soul of young Sorel. Join with me in my prayers,' etc., etc.
-
-	Julien had a horror of scandal, and of anything that might attract
-	attention to himself. He thought of seizing the opportunity to escape
-	from the world unknown; but he had still some hope of seeing Madame de
-	Renal again, and was desperately in love.
-
-	The gate of the prison was situated in one of the most frequented
-	streets. The thought of that mud-bespattered priest, drawing a crowd
-	and creating a scandal, was torture to his soul. 'And, without a
-	doubt, at every instant he is repeating my name!' This moment was more
-	painful than death itself.
-
-	He called two or three times, at intervals of an hour, for a turnkey
-	who was devoted to him, to send him out to see whether the priest were
-	still at the gate of the prison.
-
-	'Sir, he is on both his knees in the mud,' was the turnkey's
-	invariable answer; 'he is praying aloud, and repeating Litanies for
-	your soul.' 'The impertinent fellow!' thought Julien. At that moment,
-	indeed, he heard a dull roar, it was the crowd responding to the
-	Litany. To increase his impatience, he saw the turnkey move his lips
-	as he repeated the Latin words. 'They are beginning to say,' the
-	turnkey added, 'that your heart must indeed be hardened if you refuse
-	the succour of this holy man.'
-
-	'O my country! How barbarous you still are!' cried Julien in a frenzy
-	of rage. And he continued his reasoning aloud, without a thought of
-	the turnkey's presence.
-
-	'The man wants an article in the paper, and now he is certain of
-	obtaining it.
-
-	'Oh, cursed provincials! In Paris, I should not have been subjected to
-	all these vexations. They are more adept there in charlatanism.
-
-	'Let this holy priest come in,' he said at length to the turnkey, and
-	the sweat trickled in great drops from his brow. The turnkey made the
-	sign of the Cross, and left the cell radiant.
-
-	The holy priest proved to be hideously ugly, and was even more foul
-	with mud. The cold rain outside intensified the darkness and dampness
-	of the cell. The priest tried to embrace Julien, and began to show
-	emotion as he spoke to him. The vilest hypocrisy was all too evident;
-	never in his life had Julien been in such a rage.
-
-	A quarter of an hour after the priest had entered, Julien found
-	himself a complete coward. For the first time death appeared to him
-	horrible. He thought of the state of putrefaction in which his body
-	would be two days after his execution, etc., etc.
-
-	He was on the point of betraying himself by some sign of weakness, or
-	of flinging himself upon the priest and strangling him with his chain,
-	when it occurred to him to beg the holy man to go and say a good
-	forty-franc mass for him, that very day.
-
-	As it was almost midday, the priest decamped.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 44
-	The Shadow of the Guillotine
-
-	As soon as he had gone, Julien began to weep copiously, at the thought
-	of dying. After a while he said to himself that, if Madame de Renal
-	had been at Besancon, he would have confessed his weakness to her. ...
-
-	At the moment when he most regretted the absence of that beloved
-	woman, he heard Mathilde's step.
-
-	'The worst drawback of a prison,' he thought, 'is that one can never
-	close one's door.' All that Mathilde had to say served only to
-	irritate him.
-
-	She informed him that, on the day of the trial, M. de Valenod, having
-	in his pocket his appointment as Prefect, had ventured to defy M. de
-	Frilair and indulge himself in the pleasure of condemning Julien to
-	death.
-
-	'"Whatever induced your friend," M. de Frilair said to me just now,
-	"to go and arouse and attack the petty vanity of that middle-class
-	aristocracy? Why speak of caste? He showed them what they ought to do
-	in their own political interest: the fools had never thought of it,
-	and were ready to cry. This caste interest blinded their eyes to the
-	horror of condemning a man to death. You must admit that M. Sorel
-	shows great inexperience. If we do not succeed in saving him by an
-	appeal to clemency, his death will be a sort of suicide ..."'
-
-	Mathilde did not, of course, mention to Julien a thing which she
-	herself did not yet suspect; namely, that the Abbe de Frilair, seeing
-	Julien irremediably lost, thought that it would serve his own ambition
-	to aspire to become his successor.
-
-	Almost out of his mind with helpless rage and vexation: 'Go and hear a
-	mass for me,' he said to Mathilde, 'and leave me a moment's peace.'
-	Mathilde, who was extremely jealous already at Madame de Renal's
-	visits and had just heard of her departure, realised the cause of
-	Julien's ill humour and burst into tears.
-
-	Her grief was genuine, Julien saw this and was all the more irritated.
-	He felt a compelling need of solitude, and how was he to secure it?
-
-	Finally Mathilde, having tried every argument to soften him, left him
-	to himself, but almost at that moment Fouque appeared.
-
-	'I want to be alone,' he said to this faithful friend. And, as he saw
-	him hesitate: 'I am composing a memorial for my appeal to clemency ...
-	but anyhow ... do me a favour, never to speak to me of death. If I
-	want any special services on the day, let me be the first to mention
-	them.'
-
-	When Julien had at length secured solitude, he found himself more
-	crushed and more of a coward than before. What little strength
-	remained to his enfeebled spirit had been used up in the effort to
-	conceal his condition from Mademoiselle de La Mole and Fouque.
-
-	Towards evening, a comforting thought came to him:
-
-	'If this morning, at the moment when death seemed so ugly, I had been
-	warned to prepare for execution, _the eye of the public would have been
-	the incentive to glory_; my gait might perhaps have been a little
-	heavy, like that of a timid fop on entering a drawing-room. A few
-	perspicacious people, if there be any such among these provincials,
-	might have guessed my weakness ... but _no one would have seen it_.'
-
-	And he felt himself relieved of part of his load of misery. 'I am a
-	coward at this moment,' he chanted to himself, 'but no one will know
-	of it.'
-
-	An almost more disagreeable incident was in store for him on the
-	morrow. For a long time past, his father had been threatening a
-	visit; that morning, before Julien was awake, the white-haired old
-	carpenter appeared in his cell.
-
-	Julien felt utterly weak, he expected the most unpleasant reproaches.
-	To complete his painful sensation, that morning he felt a keen remorse
-	at not loving his father.
-
-	'Chance has placed us together on this earth,' he said to himself
-	while the turnkey was making the cell a little tidy, 'and we have done
-	one another almost all the harm imaginable. He comes in the hour of my
-	death to deal me his final blow.'
-
-	The old man's severe reproaches began as soon as they were left
-	without a witness.
-
-	Julien could not restrain his tears. 'What unworthy weakness!' he said
-	to himself angrily. 'He will go about everywhere exaggerating my want
-	of courage; what a triumph for Valenod and for all the dull hypocrites
-	who reign at Verrieres! They are very great people in France, they
-	combine all the social advantages. Until now I could at least say to
-	myself: They receive money, it is true, all the honours are heaped
-	upon them, but I have nobility at heart.
-
-	'And here is a witness whom they will all believe, and who will assure
-	the whole of Verrieres, exaggerating the facts, that I have been weak
-	in the face of death! I shall be said to have turned coward in this
-	trial which they can all understand!'
-
-	Julien was almost in despair. He did not know how to get rid of his
-	father. And to make-believe in such a way as to deceive this
-	sharp-witted old man was, for the moment, utterly beyond his power.
-
-	His mind ran swiftly over all the possible ways of escape. 'I have
-	saved money!' he exclaimed suddenly.
-
-	This inspired utterance altered the old man's expression and Julien's
-	own position.
-
-	'How ought I to dispose of it?' he continued, with more calm: the
-	effect produced by his words had rid him of all sense of inferiority.
-
-	The old carpenter was burning with a desire not to allow any of this
-	money to escape, a part of which Julien seemed to wish to leave to his
-	brothers. He spoke at great length and with heat. Julien managed to
-	tease him.
-
-	'Well, the Lord has given me inspiration for making my testament. I
-	shall give a thousand francs to each of my brothers, and the remainder
-	to you.'
-
-	'Very good,' said the old man, 'that remainder is my due; but since
-	God has been graciously pleased to touch your heart, if you wish to
-	die like a good Christian, you ought first to pay your debts. There is
-	still the cost of your maintenance and education, which I advanced,
-	and which you have forgotten ...'
-
-	'So that is a father's love!' Julien repeated to himself with despair
-	in his heart, when at length he was alone. Soon the gaoler appeared.
-
-	'Sir, after a visit from the family, I always bring my lodgers a
-	bottle of good champagne. It is a trifle dear, six francs the bottle,
-	but it rejoices the heart.'
-
-	'Bring three glasses,' Julien told him with boyish glee, 'and send in
-	two of the prisoners whom I hear walking in the corridor.'
-
-	The gaoler brought him in two gaolbirds who had repeated their offence
-	and were waiting to be sent back to penal servitude. They were a merry
-	pair of scoundrels and really quite remarkable for cunning, courage
-	and coolness.
-
-	'If you give me twenty francs,' one of them said to Julien, 'I will
-	tell you the whole story of my life. It is as good as a play.'
-
-	'But you will tell me lies?' said Julien.
-
-	'Not at all,' was the answer; 'my friend here, who wants my twenty
-	francs, will give me away if I don't tell the truth.'
-
-	His history was abominable. It revealed a courageous heart, in which
-	there survived but a single passion, the lust for money.
-
-	After they had left him, Julien was no longer the same man. All his
-	anger with himself had vanished. The piercing grief, envenomed by
-	cowardice, to which he had been a prey since the departure of Madame
-	de Renal, had turned to melancholy.
-
-	'If I had only been less taken in by appearance,' he told himself, 'I
-	should have seen that the drawing-rooms of Paris are inhabited by
-	honest people like my father, or by able rascals like these gaolbirds.
-	They are right, the men in the drawing-rooms never rise in the morning
-	with that poignant thought: "How am I to dine today?" And they boast
-	of their probity! And, when summoned to a jury, they proudly condemn
-	the man who has stolen a silver fork because he felt faint with
-	hunger!
-
-	'But when there is a Court, when it is a question of securing or
-	losing a Portfolio, my honest men of the drawing-rooms fall into
-	crimes precisely similar to those which the want of food has inspired
-	in this pair of gaolbirds ...
-
-	'There is no such thing as _natural law_: the expression is merely a
-	hoary piece of stupidity well worthy of the Advocate-General who
-	hunted me down the other day, and whose ancestor was made rich by one
-	of Louis XIV's confiscations. There is no _law_, save when there is a
-	statute to prevent one from doing something, on pain of punishment.
-	Before the statute, there is nothing natural save the strength of the
-	lion, or the wants of the creature who suffers from hunger, or cold;
-	in a word, necessity ... No, the men whom we honour are merely
-	rascals who have had the good fortune not to be caught red-handed. The
-	accuser whom society sets at my heels has been made rich by a
-	scandalous injustice ... I have committed a murderous assault, and I
-	am rightly condemned, but, short of murder only, the Valenod who
-	condemned me is a hundred times more injurious to society.
-
-	'Ah, well,' Julien added sorrowfully, but without anger, 'for all his
-	avarice, my father is worth more than any of those men. He has never
-	loved me. I am now going to fill his cup to overflowing, in
-	dishonouring him by a shameful death. That fear of being in want of
-	money, that exaggerated view of the wickedness of mankind which we
-	call avarice, makes him see a prodigious source of consolation and
-	security in a sum of three or four hundred louis which I may leave to
-	him. On Sunday afternoons he will display his gold to all his envious
-	neighbours in Verrieres. "To this tune," his glance will say to them,
-	"which of you would not be charmed to have a son guillotined?"'
-
-	This philosophy might be true, but it was of a nature to make a man
-	long for death. In this way passed five endless days. He was polite
-	and gentle to Mathilde, whom he saw to be exasperated by the most
-	violent jealousy. One evening Julien thought seriously of taking his
-	life. His spirit was exhausted by the profound dejection into which
-	the departure of Madame de Renal had cast him. Nothing pleased him any
-	more, either in real life or in imagination. Want of exercise was
-	beginning to affect his health and to give him the weak and excitable
-	character of a young German student. He was losing that manly pride
-	which repels with a forcible oath certain degrading ideas by which the
-	miserable are assailed.
-
-	'I have loved the Truth ... Where is it to be found? ... Everywhere
-	hypocrisy, or at least charlatanism, even among the most virtuous,
-	even among the greatest'; and his lips curled in disgust ... 'No, man
-	cannot place any trust in man.
-
-	'Madame de ----, when she was making a collection for her poor
-	orphans, told me that some Prince had just given her ten louis; a lie.
-	But what am I saying? Napoleon at Saint-Helena! ... Pure charlatanism,
-	a proclamation in favour of the King of Rome.
-
-	'Great God! If such a man as he, at a time, too, when misfortune ought
-	to recall him sternly to a sense of duty, stoops to charlatanism, what
-	is one to expect of the rest of the species?
-
-	'Where is Truth? In religion ... Yes,' he added with a bitter smile
-	of the most intense scorn, 'in the mouths of the Maslons, the
-	Frilairs, the Castanedes ... Perhaps in true Christianity, whose
-	priests would be no more paid than were the Apostles? But Saint Paul
-	was paid with the pleasure of commanding, of speaking, of hearing
-	himself spoken of ...
-
-	'Ah! If there were a true religion ... Idiot that I am! I see a gothic
-	cathedral, storied windows; my feeble heart imagines the priest from
-	those windows ... My soul would understand him, my soul has need of
-	him. I find only a fop with greasy hair . .. little different, in
-	fact, from the Chevalier de Beauvoisis.
-
-	'But a true priest, a Massillon, a Fenelon. ... Massillon consecrated
-	Dubois. The _Memoires de Saint-Simon_ have spoiled Fenelon for me; but
-	still, a true priest ... Then the tender hearts would have a
-	meeting-place in this world ... We should not remain isolated ...
-	This good priest would speak to us of God. But what God? Not the God
-	of the Bible, a petty despot, cruel and filled with a thirst for
-	vengeance ... but the God of Voltaire, just, good, infinite ... '
-
-	He was disturbed by all his memories of that Bible which he knew by
-	heart ... 'But how, whenever three are gathered together, how is one
-	to believe in that great name of GOD, after the frightful abuse that
-	our priests make of it?
-
-	'To live in isolation! ... What torture! ...
-
-	'I am becoming foolish and unjust,' said Julien, beating his brow. 'I
-	am isolated here in this cell; but I have not _lived in isolation_ on
-	this earth; I had always the compelling idea of _duty_. The duty that
-	I had laid down for myself, rightly or wrongly, was like the trunk of
-	a strong tree against which I leaned during the storm; I tottered, I
-	was shaken. After all, I was only a man ... but I was not carried
-	away.
-
-	'It is the damp air of this cell that makes me think of isolation ...
-
-	'And why be a hypocrite still when I am cursing hypocrisy? It is not
-	death, nor the cell, nor the damp air, it is the absence of Madame de
-	Renal that is crushing me. If I were at Verrieres, and, in order to
-	see her, were obliged to live for weeks on end hidden in the cellars
-	of her house, should I complain?
-
-	'The influence of my contemporaries is too strong for me,' he said
-	aloud and with a bitter laugh. 'Talking alone to myself, within an
-	inch of death, I am still a hypocrite ... Oh, nineteenth century!
-
-	'A hunter fires his gun in a forest, his quarry falls, he runs forward
-	to seize it. His boot strikes an anthill two feet high, destroys the
-	habitation of the ants, scatters the ants and their eggs to the four
-	winds ... The most philosophical among the ants will never understand
-	that black, enormous, fearful body--the hunter's boot which all of a
-	sudden has burst into their dwelling with incredible speed, preceded
-	by a terrifying noise, accompanied by a flash of reddish flame ...
-
-	'So it is with death, life, eternity, things that would be quite
-	simple to anyone who had organs vast enough to conceive them ...
-
-	'An ephemeral fly is born at nine o'clock in the morning, on one of
-	the long days of summer, to die at five o'clock in the afternoon; how
-	should it understand the word _night_?
-
-	'Grant it five hours more of existence, it sees and understands what
-	night is.
-
-	'And so with myself, I am to die at three and twenty. Grant me five
-	years more of life, to live with Madame de Renal.'
-
-	Here he gave a satanic laugh. What folly to discuss these great
-	problems!
-
-	'_Imprimis_: I am a hypocrite just as much as if there was someone in
-	the cell to hear me.
-
-	'_Item_: I am forgetting to live and love, when I have so few days
-	left of life ... Alas! Madame de Renal is absent; perhaps her husband
-	will not allow her to come to Besancon again, and disgrace herself
-	further.
-
-	'That is what is isolating me, that and not the absence of a just,
-	good, all-powerful God, who is not wicked, not hungry for vengeance ...
-
-	'Ah! If He existed ... Alas! I should fall at His feet. I have
-	deserved death, I should say to him; but, great God, good God,
-	indulgent God, restore to me her whom I love!'
-
-	The night was by now far advanced. After an hour or two of peaceful
-	slumber, Fouque arrived.
-
-	Julien felt himself to be strong and resolute like a man who sees
-	clearly into his own heart.
-
-
-
-
-	CHAPTER 45
-	Exit Julien
-
-	'I will not play that poor abbe Chas-Bernard the unkind trick of
-	sending for him,' he said to Fouque; 'he would not be able to eat his
-	dinner for three days afterwards. But try to find me a Jansenist, a
-	friend of M. Pirard and beyond the reach of intrigue.'
-
-	Fouque had been awaiting this development with impatience. Julien
-	acquitted himself in a decent fashion of everything that is due to
-	public opinion in the provinces. Thanks to M. l'abbe de Frilair, and
-	in spite of his unfortunate choice of a confessor, Julien, in his
-	cell, was under the protection of the Congregation; with a little more
-	of the spirit of action, he might have made his escape. But, as the
-	bad air of the cell produced its effect, his mental powers dwindled.
-	This made him all the happier on the return of Madame de Renal.
-
-	'My first duty is towards you,' she said to him as she embraced him;
-	'I have fled from Verrieres ...'
-
-	Julien had no petty vanity in his relations with her, he told her of
-	all his weak moments. She was kind and charming to him.
-
-	That evening, immediately upon leaving the prison, she summoned to her
-	aunt's house the priest who had attached himself to Julien as to a
-	prey; as he wished only to acquire a reputation among the young women
-	belonging to the best society of Besancon, Madame de Renal easily
-	persuaded him to go and offer a novena at the abbey of Bray-le-Haut.
-
-	No words could express the intensity and recklessness of Julien's
-	love.
-
-	By spending money freely, and by using and abusing the reputation of
-	her aunt, well known for her piety and riches, Madame de Renal
-	obtained permission to see him twice daily.
-
-	On hearing this, Mathilde's jealousy rose to the pitch of insanity. M.
-	de Frilair had assured her that in spite of his position he dared not
-	flout all the conventions so far as to permit her to see her friend
-	more than once daily. Mathilde had Madame de Renal followed, so as to
-	be kept informed of her most trivial actions. M. de Frilair exhausted
-	every resource of a most cunning mind, in trying to prove to her that
-	Julien was unworthy of her.
-
-	In the midst of all these torments, she loved him all the more, and,
-	almost every day, created a horrible scene in his cell.
-
-	Julien wished at all costs to behave like an honourable man until the
-	end towards this poor girl whom he had so seriously compromised; but,
-	at every moment, the unbridled passion that he felt for Madame de
-	Renal overcame him. When, through some flaw in his argument, he failed
-	to convince Mathilde of the innocence of her rival's visits: 'At this
-	stage, the end of the play must be very near,' he said to himself;
-	'that is some excuse for me if I cannot act better.'
-
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole learned of the death of M. de Croisenois. M.
-	de Thaler, that man of boundless wealth, had taken the liberty of
-	saying unpleasant things about Mathilde's disappearance; M. de
-	Croisenois called on him with a request that he would withdraw them:
-	M. de Thaler showed him certain anonymous letters addressed to
-	himself, and full of details so skilfully put together that it was
-	impossible for the poor Marquis not to discern the true facts.
-
-	M. de Thaler indulged in pleasantries that were distinctly broad. Mad
-	with rage and misery, M. de Croisenois insisted upon reparations so
-	drastic that the millionaire preferred a duel. Folly proved
-	triumphant; and one of the men in Paris most worthy of a woman's love
-	met his death in his twenty-fourth year.
-
-	This death made a strange and morbid impression on Julien's weakened
-	spirits.
-
-	'Poor Croisenois,' he said to Mathilde, 'did really behave quite
-	reasonably and honourably towards us; he had every right to hate me
-	after your imprudent behaviour in your mother's drawing-room, and to
-	seek a quarrel with me; for the hatred that follows on contempt is
-	generally furious.'
-
-	The death of M. de Croisenois altered all Julien's ideas with regard
-	to Mathilde's future; he devoted several days to proving to her that
-	she ought to accept the hand of M. de Luz. 'He is a shy man, not too
-	much of a Jesuit,' he told her, 'and a man who no doubt intends to
-	climb. With a more sober and persistent ambition than poor Croisenois,
-	and with no dukedom in his family, he will make no difficulty about
-	marrying Julien Sorel's widow.'
-
-	'And a widow who scorns grand passions,' replied Mathilde coldly; 'for
-	she has lived long enough to see, after six months, her lover prefer
-	another woman, and a woman who was the origin of all their troubles.'
-
-	'You are unjust; Madame de Renal's visits will furnish the barrister
-	from Paris, who has been engaged to conduct my appeal, with some
-	striking phrases; he will describe the murderer honoured by the
-	attentions of his victim. That may create an effect, and perhaps one
-	day you will see me the hero of some melodrama,' etc., etc.
-
-	A furious jealousy and one that was incapable of wreaking vengeance,
-	the prolongation of a hopeless misery (for, even supposing Julien to
-	be saved, how was she to recapture his heart?), the shame and grief of
-	loving more than ever this faithless lover, had plunged Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole in a grim silence from which the zealous attentions of M.
-	de Frilair were no more capable than the rude frankness of Fouque, of
-	making her emerge.
-
-	As for Julien, except during the moments usurped by the presence of
-	Mathilde, he was living upon love and with hardly a thought of the
-	future. A curious effect of this passion, in its extreme form and
-	free from all pretence, was that Madame de Renal almost shared his
-	indifference and mild gaiety.
-
-	'In the past,' Julien said to her, 'when I might have been so happy
-	during our walks in the woods of Vergy, a burning ambition led my soul
-	into imaginary tracts. Instead of my pressing to my heart this lovely
-	arm which was so near to my lips, the thought of my future tore me
-	away from you; I was occupied with the countless battles which I
-	should have to fight in order to build up a colossal fortune ... No, I
-	should have died without knowing what happiness meant, had you not
-	come to visit me in this prison.'
-
-	Two incidents occurred to disturb this tranquil existence. Julien's
-	confessor, for all that he was a Jansenist, was not immune from an
-	intrigue by the Jesuits, and quite unawares became their instrument.
-
-	He came one day to inform him that if he were not to fall into the
-	mortal sin of suicide, he must take every possible step to obtain a
-	reprieve. Now, the clergy having considerable influence at the
-	Ministry of Justice in Paris, an easy method offered itself: he must
-	undergo a sensational conversion ...
-
-	'Sensational!' Julien repeated. 'Ah! I have caught you at the same
-	game, Father, play-acting like any missionary ...'
-
-	'Your tender age,' the Jansenist went or gravely, 'the interesting
-	appearance with which Providence has blessed you, the motive itself of
-	your crime, which remains inexplicable, the heroic measures of which
-	Mademoiselle de La Mole is unsparing on your behalf, everything, in
-	short, including the astonishing affection that your victim shows for
-	you, all these have combined to make you the hero of the young women
-	of Besancon. They have forgotten everything for you, even politics ...
-
-	'Your conversion would strike an echo in their hearts, and would leave
-	a profound impression there. You can be of the greatest service to
-	religion, and am I to hesitate for the frivolous reason that the
-	Jesuits would adopt the same course in similar circumstances! And so,
-	even in this particular case which has escaped their rapacity, they
-	would still be doing harm! Let such a thing never be said ... The
-	tears which will flow at your conversion will annul the corrosive
-	effect of ten editions of the impious works of Voltaire.'
-
-	'And what shall I have left,' replied Julien coldly, 'if I despise
-	myself? I have been ambitious, I have no wish to reproach myself; I
-	acted then according to the expediency of the moment. Now, I am living
-	from day to day. But, generally speaking, I should be making myself
-	extremely unhappy, if I gave way to any cowardly temptation ...'
-
-	The other incident, which affected Julien far more keenly, arose from
-	Madame de Renal. Some intriguing friend or other had managed to
-	persuade this simple, timid soul that it was her duty to go to
-	Saint-Cloud, and to throw herself at the feet of King Charles X.
-
-	She had made the sacrifice of parting from Julien, and after such an
-	effort, the unpleasantness of making a public spectacle of herself,
-	which at any other time would have seemed to her worse than death, was
-	no longer anything in her eyes.
-
-	'I shall go to the King, I shall confess proudly that you are my
-	lover: the life of a man, and of such a man as Julien, must outweigh
-	all other considerations. I shall say that it was out of jealousy that
-	you attempted my life. There are endless examples of poor young men
-	who have been saved in such cases by the humanity of a jury, or by
-	that of the King ...'
-
-	'I shall cease to see you, I shall bar the door of my prison against
-	you,' cried Julien, 'and most certainly I shall kill myself in
-	despair, the day after, unless you swear to me that you will take no
-	step that will make us both a public spectacle. This idea of going to
-	Paris is not yours. Tell me the name of the intriguing woman who
-	suggested it to you .. .
-
-	'Let us be happy throughout the few remaining days of this brief life.
-	Let us conceal our existence; my crime is only too plain. Mademoiselle
-	de La Mole has unbounded influence in Paris, you may be sure that she
-	is doing all that is humanly possible. Here in the provinces, I have
-	all the wealthy and respectable people against me. Your action would
-	embitter still further these wealthy and above all moderate men, for
-	whom life is such an easy matter ... Let us not give food for
-	laughter to the Maslons, the Valenods, and a thousand people better
-	worth than they.'
-
-	The bad air of the cell became insupportable to Julien. Fortunately
-	on the day on which he was told that he must die, a bright sun was
-	gladdening the earth, and he himself was in a courageous mood. To
-	walk in the open air was a delicious sensation to him, as is treading
-	solid earth to A mariner who has long been at sea. 'There, all is
-	well,' he said to himself, 'I am not lacking in courage.'
-
-	Never had that head been so poetic as at the moment when it was about
-	to fall. The most precious moments that he had known in the past in
-	the woods of Vergy came crowding into his mind with an extreme
-	vividness.
-
-	Everything passed simply, decorously, and without affectation on his
-	part.
-
-	Two days earlier, he had said to Fouque: 'For my emotions I cannot
-	answer; this damp and hideous cell gives me moments of fever in which
-	I am not myself; but fear, no; no one shall see me blench.'
-
-	He had made arrangements in advance that on the morning of the last
-	day, Fouque should carry off Mathilde and Madame de Renal.
-
-	'Take them in the same carriage,' he had told him. 'Arrange that the
-	post-horses shall gallop all the time. They will fall into one
-	another's arms, or else will show a deadly hatred for one another. In
-	either case, the poor women will have some slight distraction from
-	their terrible grief.'
-
-	Julien had made Madame de Renal swear that she would live to look
-	after Mathilde's child.
-
-	'Who knows? Perhaps we continue to have sensation after our death,' he
-	said one day to Fouque. 'I should dearly like to repose, since repose
-	is the word, in that little cave in the high mountain that overlooks
-	Verrieres. Many a time, as I have told you, retiring by night to that
-	cave, and casting my gaze afar over the richest provinces of France, I
-	have felt my heart ablaze with ambition: it was my passion then ...
-	Anyhow, that cave is precious to me, and no one can deny that it is
-	situated in a spot that a philosopher's heart might envy ... Very
-	well! These worthy members of the Congregation of Besancon make money
-	out of everything; if you know how to set about it, they will sell you
-	my mortal remains ...'
-
-	Fouque was successful in this grim transaction. He was spending the
-	night alone in his room, by the body of his friend, when to his great
-	surprise, he saw Mathilde appear. A few hours earlier, he had left her
-	ten leagues from Besancon. There was a wild look in her eyes.
-
-	'I wish to see him,' she said to him.
-
-	Fouque had not the courage to speak or to rise. He pointed with his
-	finger to a great blue cloak on the floor; in it was wrapped all that
-	remained of Julien.
-
-	She fell upon her knees. The memory of Boniface de La Mole and of
-	Marguerite de Navarre gave her, no doubt, a superhuman courage. Her
-	trembling hands unfolded the cloak. Fouque turned away his eyes.
-
-	He heard Mathilde walking rapidly about the room. She lighted a number
-	of candles. When Fouque had summoned up the strength to look at her,
-	she had placed Julien's head upon a little marble table, in front of
-	her, and was kissing his brow ...
-
-	Mathilde followed her lover to the tomb which he had chosen for
-	himself. A great number of priests escorted the coffin and, unknown to
-	all, alone in her draped carriage, she carried upon her knees the head
-	of the man whom she had so dearly loved.
-
-	Coming thus near to the summit of one of the high mountains of the
-	Jura, in the middle of the night, in that little cave magnificently
-	illuminated with countless candles, a score of priests celebrated the
-	Office of the Dead. All the inhabitants of the little mountain
-	villages, through which the procession passed, had followed it, drawn
-	by the singularity of this strange ceremony.
-
-	Mathilde appeared in their midst in a flowing garb of mourning, and,
-	at the end of the service, had several thousands of five franc pieces
-	scattered among them.
-
-	Left alone with Fouque, she insisted upon burying her lover's head
-	with her own hands. Fouque almost went mad with grief.
-
-	By Mathilde's orders, this savage grot was adorned with marbles
-	sculptured at great cost, in Italy.
-
-	Madame de Renal was faithful to her promise. She did not seek in any
-	way to take her own life; but, three days after Julien, died while
-	embracing her children.
-
-
-
-
-	TO THE HAPPY FEW
-
-	The drawback of the reign of opinion, which however procures
-	_liberty_, is that it interferes in matters with which it has no
-	concern; such as private life. Hence the gloom of America and
-	England. To avoid touching upon private life, the author has invented
-	a small town, _Verrieres_, and when he required a Bishop, a jury, an
-	Assize Court, has placed them all in Besancon, where he has never
-	been.
-
-
-	TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
-
-	This translation has been made from the text of Le Rouge et le Noir,
-	Chronique du XIXe Siecle texte etabli et annote avec une preface et
-	une bibliographie par Henri Martineau.... Editions Bossard, 140
-	Boulevard Saint-Germain, 140, Paris, 1925. This is a reprint of the
-	first edition; the footnotes, giving the corrections and alterations
-	afterwards made in manuscript by Beyle himself, have been incorporated
-	in the text of the translation, the proofs of which have also been
-	collected with the text edited by M. Jules Marsan and published by M.
-	Edourard Champion.
-
-	_Le Rouge et le Noir_ was first published by A. Levavasseur, Paris, in
-	1831, in two volumes octavo, and was reprinted in the same year in six
-	volumes 16mo. It has been many times reprinted by different
-	publishers, among the principal editions being the one issued by
-	Alphonse Lemerre in 1886, with a preface by Paul Bourget, and _Le
-	Rouge et le Noir_, texte etabli et annote avec une introduction
-	historique par Jules Marsan, Preface de Paul Bourget, de l'Academie
-	Francaise Paris, Libraire ancienne Honore Champion, Edouard Champion
-	... 5, Quai Malaquais, vie, 1923, 2 vol. in-8. This last forms part
-	of the complete and _definitive_ edition in 35 volumes, the first of
-	which appeared in 1912.
-
-	C. K. S. M.
-
-
-
-	THE END

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Current revision

The Red and the Black (C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation)