The Red and the Black (11 page)

One evening when the sun was setting, and he was sitting near his love, at the bottom of the orchard, far from all intruders, he meditated deeply. “Will such sweet moments,” he said to himself “last for ever?” His soul was engrossed in the difficulty of deciding on a calling. He lamented that great attack of unhappiness which comes at the end of childhood and spoils the first years of youth in those who are not rich.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “was not Napoleon the heaven-sent saviour for young Frenchmen? Who is to replace him? What will those unfortunate youths do without him, who, even though they are richer than I am, have only just the few crowns necessary to procure an education for themselves, but have not at the age of twenty enough money to buy a man and advance themselves in their career? Whatever one does,” he added, with a deep sigh, “this fatal memory will always prevent our being happy.”

He suddenly saw Madame de Rênal frown. She assumed a cold and disdainful air. She thought his way of looking at things typical of a servant. Brought up as she was with the idea that she was very rich, she took it for granted that Julien was so also. She loved him a thousand times more than life and set no store by money.

Julien was far from guessing these ideas, but that frown brought him back to earth. He had sufficient presence of mind to manipulate his phrases, and to give the noble lady who was sitting so near him on the grass seat to understand that the words he had just repeated had been heard by him during his journey to his friend the wood merchant. It was the logic of infidels.

“Well, have nothing to do with those people,” said Madame de Rênal, still keeping a little of that icy air which had suddenly succeeded an expression of the warmest tenderness.

This frown, or rather his remorse for his own imprudence, was the first check to the illusion which was transporting Julien. He said to himself, “She is good and sweet, she has a great fancy for me, but she has been brought up in the enemy's camp. They must be particularly afraid of that class of men of spirit who, after a good education, have not enough money to take up a career. What would become of those nobles if we had an opportunity of fighting them with equal arms. Suppose me, for example, mayor of Verrières, and as well meaning and honest as M. de Rênal is at bottom. What short shrift I should make of the vicar, M. Valenod and all their jobberies! How justice would triumph in Verrières. It is not their talents which would stop me. They are always fumbling about.”

That day Julien's happiness almost became permanent. Our hero lacked the power of daring to be sincere. He ought to have had the courage to have given battle, and on the spot; Madame de Rênal had been astonished by Julien's phrase, because the men in her circle kept on repeating that the return of Robespierre was essentially possible by reason of those over-educated young persons of the lower classes. Madame de Rênal's coldness lasted a longish time, and struck Julien as marked. The reason was that the fear that she had said something in some way or other disagreeable to him, succeeded her annoyance for his own breach of taste. This unhappiness was vividly reflected in those features which looked so pure and so naïve when she was happy and away from intruders.

Julien no longer dared to surrender himself to his dreams. Growing calmer and less infatuated, he considered that it was imprudent to go and see Madame de Rênal in her room. It was better for her to come to him. If a servant noticed her going about the house, a dozen different excuses could explain it.

But this arrangement had also its inconveniences. Julien had received from Fouqué some books, which he, as a theology student would never have dared to ask for in a bookshop. He only dared to open them at night. He would often have found it much more convenient not to be interrupted by a visit, the very waiting for which had even on the evening before the little scene in the orchard completely destroyed his mood for reading.

He had Madame de Rênal to thank for understanding books in quite a new way. He had dared to question her on a number of little things, the ignorance of which cuts quite short the intellectual progress of any young man born out of society, however much natural genius one may choose to ascribe to him.

This education given through sheer love by a woman who was extremely ignorant, was a piece of luck. Julien managed to get a clear insight into society such as it is to-day. His mind was not bewildered by the narration of what it had been once, two thousand years ago, or even sixty years ago, in the time of Voltaire and Louis XV. The scales fell from his eyes to his inexpressible joy, and he understood at last what was going on in Verrières.

In the first place there were the very complicated intrigues which had been woven for the last two years around the prefect of Besançon. They were backed up by letters from Paris, written by the cream of the aristocracy. The scheme was to make M. de Moirod (he was the most devout man in the district) the first and not the second deputy of the mayor of Verrières.

He had for a competitor a very rich manufacturer whom it was essential to push back into the place of second deputy.

Julien understood at last the innuendoes which he had surprised, when the high society of the locality used to come and dine at M. de Rênal's. This privileged society was deeply concerned with the choice of a first deputy, while the rest of the town, and above all, the Liberals, did not even suspect its possibility. The factor which made the matter important was that, as everybody knows, the east side of the main street of Verrières has to be put more than nine feet back since that street has become a royal route.

Now if M. de Moirod, who had three houses liable to have their frontage put back, succeeded in becoming first deputy and consequently mayor in the event of M. de Rênal being elected to the chamber, he would shut his eyes, and it would be possible to make little imperceptible repairs in the houses projecting on to the public road, as the result of which they would last a hundred years. In spite of the great piety and proved integrity of M. de Moirod, everyone was certain that he would prove amenable, because he had a great many children. Among the houses liable to have their frontage put back, nine belonged to the cream of Verrières society.

In Julien's eyes this intrigue was much more important than the history of the battle of Fontenoy, whose name he now came across for the first time in one of the books which Fouqué had sent him. There had been many things which had astonished Julien since the time five years ago when he had started going to the curé's in the evening. But discretion and humility of spirit being the primary qualities of a theological student, it had always been impossible for him to put questions.

One day Madame de Rênal was giving an order to her husband's valet, who was Julien's enemy.

“But, Madame, to-day is the last Friday in the month,” the man answered in a rather strange manner.

“Go,” said Madame de Rênal.

“Well,” said Julien, “I suppose he's going to go to that corn shop which was once a church, and has recently been restored to religion, but what is he going to do there? That's one of the mysteries which I have never been able to fathom.”

“It's a very literary institution, but a very curious one,” answered Madame de Rênal. “Women are not admitted to it. All I know is, that everybody uses the second person singular. This servant, for instance, will go and meet M. Valenod there, and the haughty prig will not be a bit offended at hearing himself addressed by Saint-Jean in that familiar way, and will answer him in the same way. If you are keen on knowing what takes place, I will ask M. de Maugiron and M. Valenod for details. We pay twenty francs for each servant, to prevent their cutting our throats one fine day.”

Time flew. The memory of his mistress's charms distracted Julien from his black ambition. The necessity of refraining from mentioning gloomy or intellectual topics since they both belonged to opposing parties, added, without his suspecting it, to the happiness which he owed her, and to the dominion which she acquired over him.

On the occasions when the presence of the precocious children reduced them to speaking the language of cold reason, Julien looking at her with eyes sparkling with love, would listen with complete docility to her explanations of the world as it is. Frequently, in the middle of an account of some cunning piece of jobbery, with reference to a road or a contract, Madame de Rênal's mind would suddenly wander to the very point of delirium. Julien found it necessary to scold her. She indulged when with him in the same intimate gestures which she used with her own children. The fact was that there were days when she deceived herself that she loved him like her own child. Had she not repeatedly to answer his naïve questions about a thousand simple things that a well-born child of fifteen knows quite well? An instant afterwards she would admire him like her master. His genius would even go so far as to frighten her. She thought she could see more clearly every day the future great man in this young Abbé. She saw him Pope; she saw him first minister like Richelieu. “Shall I live long enough to see you in your glory?” she said to Julien. “There is room for a great man; church and state have need of one.”

On the 3rd of September at ten o'clock in the evening, a gendarme woke up the whole of Verrières by galloping up the main street. He brought the news that His Majesty the King of——would arrive the following Sunday, and it was already Tuesday. The prefect authorised, that is to say, demanded the forming of a Guard of Honour. They were to exhibit all possible pomp. An express messenger was sent to Vergy. M. de Rênal arrived during the night and found the town in a commotion. Each individual had his own pretensions; those who were less busy hired balconies to see the King.

Who was to command the Guard of Honour? M. de Rênal at once realised how essential it was in the interests of the houses liable to have their frontage put back that M. Moirod should have the command. That might entitle him to the post of first deputy-mayor. There was nothing to say against the devoutness of M. de Moirod. It brooked no comparison, but he had never sat on a horse. He was a man of thirty-six, timid in every way, and equally frightened of falling and of looking ridiculous. The mayor had summoned him as early as five o'clock in the morning.

“You see, monsieur, I ask your advice, as though you already occupy that post to which all the people on the right side want to carry you. In this unhappy town, manufactures are prospering, the Liberal party is becoming possessed of millions, it aspires to power; it will manage to exploit everything to its own ends. Let us consult the interests of the King, the interest of the monarchy, and above all, the interest of our holy religion. Who do you think, monsieur, could be entrusted with the command of the Guard of Honour?”

In spite of the terrible fear with which horses inspired him, M. de Moirod finished by accepting this honour like a martyr. “I shall know how to take the right tone,” he said to the mayor. There was scarcely time enough to get ready the uniforms which had served seven years ago on the occasion of the passage of a prince of the blood.

At seven o'clock, Madame de Rênal arrived at Vergy with Julien and the children. She found her drawing-room filled with Liberal ladies who preached the union of all parties and had come to beg her to urge her husband to grant a place to theirs in the Guard of Honour. One of them actually asserted that if her husband was not chosen he would go bankrupt out of chagrin. Madame de Rênal quickly got rid of all these people. She seemed very engrossed.

Julien was astonished, and what was more, angry that she should make a mystery of what was disturbing her, “I had anticipated it,” he said bitterly to himself. “Her love is being overshadowed by the happiness of receiving a King in her house. All this hubbub overcomes her. She will love me once more when the ideas of her caste no longer trouble her brain.”

An astonishing fact, he only loved her the more.

The decorators began to fill the house. He watched a long time for the opportunity to exchange a few words. He eventually found her as she was coming out of his own room, carrying one of his suits. They were alone. He tried to speak to her. She ran away, refusing to listen to him. “I am an absolute fool to love a woman like that, whose ambition renders her as mad as her husband.”

She was madder. One of her great wishes which she had never confessed to Julien for fear of shocking him, was to see him leave off, if only for one day, his gloomy black suit. With an adroitness which was truly admirable in so ingenuous a woman, she secured first from M. de Moirod, and subsequently, from M. the sub-prefect de Maugiron, an assurance that Julien should be nominated a Guard of Honour in preference to five or six young people, the sons of very-well-off manufacturers, of whom two at least, were models of piety. M. de Valenod, who reckoned on lending his carriage to the prettiest women in the town, and on showing off his fine Norman steeds, consented to let Julien (the being he hated most in the whole world) have one of his horses. But all the Guards of Honour, either possessed or had borrowed, one of those pretty sky-blue uniforms, with two silver colonel epaulettes, which had shone seven years ago. Madame de Rênal wanted a new uniform, and she only had four days in which to send to Besançon and get from there the uniform, the arms, the hat, etc., everything necessary for a Guard of Honour. The most delightful part of it was that she thought it imprudent to get Julien's uniform made at Verrières. She wanted to surprise both him and the town.

Having settled the questions of the Guards of Honour, and of the public welcome, the mayor had now to organise a great religious ceremony. The King of——did not wish to pass through Verrières without visiting the famous relic of St. Clement, which is kept at Bray-le-Haut barely a league from the town. The authorities wanted to have a numerous attendance of the clergy, but this matter was the most difficult to arrange. M. Maslon, the new curé, wanted to avoid at any price the presence of M. Chélan. It was in vain that M. de Rênal tried to represent to him that it would be imprudent to do so. M. the Marquis de la Mole whose ancestors had been governors of the province for so many generations, had been chosen to accompany the King of——. He had known the Abbé Chélan for thirty years. He would certainly ask news of him when he arrived at Verrières, and if he found him disgraced he was the very man to go and rout him out of the little house to which he had retired, accompanied by all the escort that he had at his disposition. What a rebuff that would be!

“I shall be disgraced both here and at Besançon,” answered the Abbé Maslon, “if he appears among my clergy. A Jansenist, by the Lord.”

“Whatever you can say, my dear Abbé,” replied M. de Rênal, “I'll never expose the administration of Verrières to receiving such an affront from M. de la Mole. You do not know him. He is orthodox enough at Court, but here in the provinces, he is a satirical wit and cynic, whose only object is to make people uncomfortable. He is capable of covering us with ridicule in the eyes of the Liberals, simply in order to amuse himself.”

It was only on the night between the Saturday and the Sunday, after three whole days of negotiations that the pride of the Abbé Maslon, bent before the fear of the mayor, was now changing into courage. It was necessary to write a honeyed letter to the Abbé Chélan, begging him to be present at the ceremony in connection with the relic of Bray-le-Haut, if of course, his great age and his infirmity allowed him to do so. M. Chélan asked for and obtained a letter of invitation for Julien, who was to accompany him as his sub-deacon.

From the beginning of the Sunday morning, thousands of peasants began to arrive from the neighbouring mountains, and to inundate the streets of Verrières. It was the finest sunshine. Finally, about three o'clock, a thrill swept through all this crowd. A great fire had been perceived on a rock two leagues from Verrières. This signal announced that the King had just entered the territory of the department. At the same time, the sound of all the bells and the repeated volleys from an old Spanish cannon which belonged to the town, testified to its joy at this great event. Half the population climbed on to the roofs. All the women were on the balconies. The Guard of Honour started to march. The brilliant uniforms were universally admired; everybody recognised a relative or a friend. They made fun of the timidity of M. de Moirod, whose prudent hand was ready every single minute to catch hold of his saddle-bow. But one remark resulted in all the others being forgotten; the first cavalier in the ninth line was a very pretty, slim boy, who was not recognised at first. He soon created a general sensation, as some uttered a cry of indignation, and others were dumbfounded with astonishment. They recognised in this young man, who was sitting one of the Norman horses of M. Valenod, little Sorel, the carpenter's son. There was a unanimous out-cry against the mayor, above all on the part of the Liberals. What, because this little labourer, who masqueraded as an Abbé, was tutor to his brats, he had the audacity to nominate him Guard of Honour to the prejudice of rich manufacturers like so-and-so and so-and-so! “Those gentlemen,” said a banker's wife, “ought to put that insolent gutter-boy in his proper place.”

“He is cunning and carries a sabre,” answered her neighbour. “He would be dastardly enough to slash them in the face.”

The conversation of aristocratic society was more dangerous. The ladies began to ask each other if the mayor alone was responsible for this grave impropriety. Speaking generally, they did justice to his contempt for lack of birth.

Julien was the happiest of men, while he was the subject of so much conversation. Bold by nature, he sat a horse better than the majority of the young men of this mountain town. He saw that, in the eyes of the women, he was the topic of interest.

His epaulettes were more brilliant than those of the others, because they were new. His horse pranced at every moment. He reached the zenith of joy.

His happiness was unbounded when, as they passed by the old rampart, the noise of the little cannon made his horse prance outside the line. By a great piece of luck he did not fall; from that moment he felt himself a hero. He was one of Napoleon's officers of artillery, and was charging a battery.

One person was happier than he. She had first seen him pass from one of the folding windows in the Hotel de Ville. Then taking her carriage and rapidly making a long detour, she arrived in time to shudder when his horse took him outside the line. Finally she put her carriage to the gallop, left by another gate of the town, succeeded in rejoining the route by which the King was to pass, and was able to follow the Guard of Honour at twenty paces distance in the midst of a noble dust. Six thousand peasants cried “Long live the King,” when the mayor had the honour to harangue his Majesty. An hour afterwards, when all the speeches had been listened to, and the King was going to enter the town, the little cannon began again to discharge its spasmodic volleys. But an accident ensued, the victim being, not one of the cannoneers who had proved their mettle at Leipsic and at Montreuil, but the future deputy-mayor, M. de Moirod. His horse gently laid him in the one heap of mud on the high road, a somewhat scandalous circumstance, inasmuch as it was necessary to extricate him to allow the King to pass. His Majesty alighted at the fine new church, which was decked out today with all its crimson curtains. The King was due to dine, and then afterwards take his carriage again and go and pay his respects to the celebrated relic of Saint Clement. Scarcely was the King in the church than Julien galloped towards the house of M. de Rênal. Once there he doffed with a sigh his fine sky-blue uniform, his sabre and his epaulettes, to put on again his shabby little black suit. He mounted his horse again, and in a few moments was at Bray-le-Haut, which was on the summit of a very pretty hill. “Enthusiasm is responsible for these numbers of peasants,” thought Julien. It was impossible to move a step at Verrières, and here there were more than ten thousand round this ancient abbey. Half ruined by the vandalism of the Revolution, it had been magnificently restored since the Restoration, and people were already beginning to talk of miracles. Julien rejoined the Abbé Chélan, who scolded him roundly and gave him a cassock and a surplice. He dressed quickly and followed M. Chélan, who was going to pay a call on the young bishop of Agde. He was a nephew of M. de la Mole, who had been recently nominated, and had been charged with the duty of showing the relic to the King. But the bishop was not to be found.

The clergy began to get impatient. It was awaiting its chief in the sombre Gothic cloister of the ancient abbey. Twenty-four curés had been brought together so as to represent the ancient chapter of Bray-le-Haut, which before 1789, consisted of twenty-four canons. The curés, having deplored the bishop's youth for three-quarters of an hour, thought it fitting for their senior to visit Monseigneur to apprise him that the King was on the point of arriving, and that it was time to betake himself to the choir. The great age of M. Chélan gave him the seniority. In spite of the bad temper which he was manifesting to Julien, he signed him to follow. Julien was wearing his surplice with distinction. By means of some trick or other of ecclesiastical dress, he had made his fine curling hair very flat, but by a forgetfulness, which redoubled the anger of M. Chélan, the spurs of the Guard of Honour could be seen below the long folds of his cassock.

When they arrived at the bishop's apartment, the tall lackeys with their lace-frills scarcely deigned to answer the old curé to the effect that Monseigneur was not receiving. They made fun of him when he tried to explain that in his capacity of senior member of the chapter of Bray-le-Haut, he had the privilege of being admitted at any time to the officiating bishop.

Julien's haughty temper was shocked by the lackeys' insolence. He started to traverse the corridors of the ancient abbey, and to shake all the doors which he found. A very small one yielded to his efforts, and he found himself in a cell in the midst of Monseigneur's valets, who were dressed in black suits with chains on their necks. His hurried manner made these gentlemen think that he had been sent by the bishop, and they let him pass. He went some steps further on, and found himself in an immense Gothic hall, which was extremely dark, and completely wainscotted in black oak. The ogive windows had all been walled in with brick except one. There was nothing to disguise the coarseness of this masonry, which offered a melancholy contrast to the ancient magnificence of the woodwork. The two great sides of this hall, so celebrated among Burgundian antiquaries, and built by the Duke, Charles the Bold, about 1470 in expiation of some sin, were adorned with richly sculptured wooden stalls. All the mysteries of the Apocalypse were to be seen portrayed in wood of different colours.

This melancholy magnificence, debased as it was by the sight of the bare bricks and the plaster (which was still quite white) affected Julien. He stopped in silence. He saw at the other extremity of the hall, near the one window which let in the daylight, a movable mahogany mirror. A young man in a violet robe and a lace surplice, but with his head bare, was standing still three paces from the glass. This piece of furniture seemed strange in a place like this, and had doubtless been only brought there on the previous day. Julien thought that the young man had the appearance of being irritated. He was solemnly giving benedictions with his right hand close to the mirror.