The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century

by Stendhal

  'He'll be left staring his crimes in the face,' said SaintGiraud. 'So you know Verrières, do you, young man? Well, Bonaparte--heaven confound him and all his monarchist trappings--Bonaparte made possible the reign of men like M. de Rênal and Father Chélan, which brought in its wake the reign of Valenods and Maslons.'

  This gloomy political conversation astonished Julien and kept his mind from wandering down sensuous paths.

  He was not particularly struck by the first sight of Paris glimpsed in the distance. The castles he was building in the air about the fate awaiting him had to vie with the ever vivid memory of the twenty-four hours he had just spent in Verrières. He swore to himself that he would never abandon his loved one's children, and would give up everything in order to protect them if the folly of the clergy were to land us with a republic and persecution of the nobility.

  What would have happened on the night of his arrival in Verrières if, just as he was leaning his ladder against the

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  window of Mme de Rênal's bedroom, he had found the room occupied by a stranger or by M. de Rênal?

  But then what bliss, for the first two hours, when his loved one genuinely wanted to send him away, and he pleaded his cause sitting beside her in the dark! A person of Julien's sensibility is pursued by such memories throughout a lifetime. The remainder of this encounter was already merging with the earlier phases of their affair fourteen months previously.

  Julien was roused from his deep dreaming by the coach coming to a halt. They had just driven into the courtyard of the post-house in the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 'I want to go to La Malmaison,' * he said to a cab which drew up.

  'At this hour, sir, what for then?'

  'None of your business! Get a move on.'

  All true passion is concerned only with itself. This is why, it seems to me, passions are so ridiculous in Paris, where your neighbour is always claiming you should spend time thinking of him. I shall refrain from describing Julien's emotions at La Malmaison. He wept. 'What! in spite of the ugly white walls built this year, which break up the park?' * 'Yes, sir: for Julien, as for posterity, nothing separated Arcola, St Helena and La Malmaison.'

  In the evening Julien hesitated a long time before setting foot in the theatre: he had strange ideas about this place of perdition.

  A deep-seated mistrust prevented him from admiring the living city of Paris; he was only moved by the monuments left behind by his hero.

  So here I am in the centre of intrigue and hypocrisy! This is where the protectors of Father de Frilair hold sway.

  In the evening of the third day, curiosity got the better of his plan to see everything before presenting himself to Father Pirard. The priest explained coldly to him what sort of life was awaiting him in M. de La Mole's household.

  'If in a few months' time you aren't being of use, you will return to the seminary, but by the front door. You are going to reside with the marquis, who is one of the greatest noblemen in France. You will wear a black suit, but like someone in mourning, not like a man in holy orders. I insist on your

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  continuing your theological studies three times a week in a seminary to which I shall give you an introduction. Every day at noon you will take up your post in the marquis's library; he intends to employ you to write letters in connection with lawsuits and other business. The marquis jots down briefly in the margin of each letter he receives the kind of reply that is called for. I have made the claim that in three months' time you would be in a position to draft these replies, so that out of a dozen you hand to the marquis for his signature, he'll be able to sip eight or nine. In the evening, at eight o'clock, you will tidy up his study, and at ten you will be free.

  'It may be', Father Pirard went on, 'that some old lady or some soft-spoken man will let you glimpse enormous advantages elsewhere or will quite crudely offer you gold in exchange for showing them the letters received by the marquis...'

  'Oh, sir!' exclaimed Julien, flushing.

  'It is odd', said the priest with a bitter smile, 'that for all your poverty, and after a year in a seminary, you should still go in for displays of righteous indignation. You must have been pretty blind!'

  'Could this be his blood that speaks?' the priest muttered under his breath, as if talking to himself. 'The strange thing is', he added, looking at Julien, 'that the marquis knows you... I don't know how. He's giving you a salary of one hundred louis to begin with. He's a man who only acts on impulse, that's the flaw in his character; he will vie with you in acts of childishness. If he is satisfied, your salary may rise later on to as much as eight thousand francs.

  'But you must be well aware', Father Pirard continued sourly, 'that he's not giving you all this money for nothing. You have to make yourself useful. If I were in your position, I should say very little, and above all never a word on matters about which I knew nothing.

  'Ah!' he said, 'I've made some enquiries for you; I was forgetting M. de La Mole's family. He has two children, a daughter, and a son of nineteen, the height of elegance, a sort of madman who never knows what he's going to be doing from one moment to the next. He has wits and courage; he fought in the Spanish War. * The marquis hopes, I don't know why,

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  that you will become a friend to the young Count Norbert. I said you were a great Latin scholar, perhaps he's counting on your teaching his son a few stock phrases on Cicero and Virgil.

  'In your position I should never let myself be teased by this handsome young man; and before yielding to his advances, which are exquisitely polite, yet a bit spoilt by irony, I should get him to repeat them more than once.

  'I shall not conceal from you that the young Count de La Mole is bound to despise you to begin with, because you are merely one of the lower middle classes. His own ancestor belonged at Court, and had the honour of having his head cut off in the Place de Grève * on the 26th of April 1574 for involvement in a political plot. You, on the other hand, are the son of a carpenter from Verrières, and what's more, in the pay of his father. Weigh up these differences carefully, and study the history of this family in Moreri; * all the flatterers who dine in their house make what they call delicate allusions to it from time to time.

  'Watch out how you reply to the jokes made by his lordship Count Norbert de La Mole, squadron commander in the Hussars and future peer of France, and don't come to me with your complaints later on.'

  'It seems to me', said Julien, going very red, 'that I shouldn't reply at all to a man who scorns me.'

  'You have no idea what that kind of scorn is like; it will only manifest itself through exaggerated compliments. If you were a fool, you might be taken in by them; if you wished to make your way in the world, you would have to be taken in by them.'

  'If the day comes when none of this appeals to me any more, will I be thought an ungrateful creature if I return to my little cell n° 103?'

  'It's more than likely,' replied Father Pirard, 'that all the hangers-on in the marquis's entourage will slander you, but I shall appear in person as a witness. Adsum qui feci. * I shall say that this resolution was prompted by me.'

  Julien was distressed by the bitter and almost hostile tone he detected in Father Pirard's voice; it utterly spoilt his reply.

  The fact is that Father Pirard had prickings of conscience over his affection for Julien, and suffered a kind of religious

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  terror from becoming so directly involved in the fate of another person.

  'You will also encounter', he added with the same bad grace, as if fulfilling a painful duty, 'you will also encounter her ladyship the Marquise de La Mole. She's a tall, fair-haired woman, pious, haughty, exquisitely polite and even more of a nonentity. She's the daughter of the old Duc de Chaulnes, so renowned for his aristocratic prejudices. This great lady is a kind of compendium in high relief of what constitutes the essential character of women of her rank. She doesn't conceal the fact that having ancestors who fought in the Crusades is the only ass
et she values. Money comes a long way behind: does that surprise you? We're not in the provinces any more, dear fellow.

  'In her salon you will hear a number of great lords speaking of our princes in tones of striking flippancy. Whereas Mme de La Mole lowers her voice in respect every time she names a prince and especially a princess. I shouldn't advise you to say in her presence that Philip II * or Henry VIII were monsters. They were KINGS, which gives them inalienable rights to claim respect from everyone, especially from individuals of no birth such as you and me. Nevertheless', Father Pirard added, 'we are priests, for she will take you to be one; in this capacity, she considers us as menservants necessary to her salvation.'

  'Father,' said Julien, 'it seems to me that I shall not spend long in Paris.'

  'That's fine! But you must be aware that the only way to fortune, for a man of our cloth, is through great lords. With that indefinable trait in your character which remains a mystery, at least to me, if you don't make your fortune, you'll be persecuted; there's no middle way for you. Don't be deceived. Men see that they cause you no pleasure in conversing with you; in a country like ours where social values are what count, you are heading for misfortune if you don't win people's respect.

  'What would have become of you at Besançon if it hadn't been for this whim of the Marquis de La Mole? One day you will understand just how extraordinary what he is doing on your behalf is, and, if you aren't a monster, you will be

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  eternally grateful to him and his family. How many poor priests, more learned than you, have lived for years in Paris on the fifteen sous from their regular mass and the ten sous from their disputations at the Sorbonne!... Remember what I told you last winter about the early years of the unruly Cardinal Dubois. * Could your pride make you imagine, by any chance, that you are more talented than he was?

  'Take me, for instance, a quiet and undistinguished man: I was expecting to die in my seminary; I was childish enough to become attached to it. Well! I was about to be removed from office when I handed in my resignation. Do you know how much my fortune amounted to? I had five hundred and twenty francs of capital, no more no less; not a single friend, and scarcely two or three acquaintances. M. de La Mole, whom I'd never set eyes on, got me out of this tight spot; he only had to breathe the word, and I was offered a living where all the parishioners are well-to-do-folk, above vulgar vices, and the income makes me feel ashamed, it's so disproportionate to the amount of work I do. I've only been speaking to you at such length in order to knock a bit of sense into that head of yours.

  'There's something else: I have the misfortune to be shorttempered; it's possible that you and I may cease to be on speaking terms.

  'If the haughty ways of the marquise or her son's bad jokes make their household totally unbearable for you, I advise you to finish your studies in some seminary thirty leagues from Paris, preferably to the north rather than the south. In the north there is more civilization, and fewer injustices; and', he added, lowering his voice, 'I have to confess that the proximity of Parisian newspapers frightens petty tyrants.

  'If we continue to take pleasure in each other's company, and the marquis's household doesn't suit you, I offer you a post as my curate, and I'll give you a half-share of what the parish brings in. I owe you this and more besides', he added, interrupting Julien's expressions of thanks, 'for the most unusual offer you made me in Besançon. If instead of five hundred and twenty francs I had had nothing, you would have saved me.'

  Father Pirard had abandoned his cruel tone of voice. To his

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  great shame, Julien felt tears coming into his eyes; he was dying to fling himself into his friend's arms; he couldn't refrain from saying to him, with as manly an air as he could muster:

  'I've been loathed by my father ever since the cradle; it was one of my great afflictions; but I shan't complain about my luck any more; I've found a new father in you, sir.'

  'Come now, come now,' said the priest in some embarrassment; then added, hitting very aptly upon the sort of remark that the master of a seminary would make: 'You must never say luck, my boy, always say Providence.'

  The hackney cab stopped; the coachman lifted the bronze knocker on an enormous door: it was the HOTEL DE LA MOLE; and so that passers-by should be in no doubt about it, these words could be read on a black marble plaque above the door.

  This piece of affectation did not go down well with Julien. They're so afraid of Jacobins! They see Robespierre and his cart * behind every hedge--to the point where it's quite ridiculous, yet there they go labelling their houses so that when there's an uprising the rabble can recognize and plunder them. He imparted this thought to Father Pirard.

  'Ah! poor boy, you will soon be my curate. What an appalling idea you've just had!'

  'It seems as simple as anything to me,' said Julien.

  The gravity of the porter and especially the cleanliness of the courtyard had filled him with admiration. It was a beautiful sunny day.

  'What magnificent architecture!' he said to his friend.

  It was one of those houses with very flat fronts in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, * built around the time of Voltaire's death. * Never have fashion and beauty been so far apart.

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  CHAPTER 2

  Entry into society

  Ridiculous and touching memory: the salon where one made one's first appearance at eighteen, alone and without patronage! A woman's glance was enough to intimidate me. The harder I tried to please, the more awkward I became. I got quite the wrong ideas about everything; either I was confiding with no justification; or I saw a man as an enemy because he had looked at me gravely. But at that time, in the midst of the terrible misfortunes caused by my shyness, how really fine a fine day was!

  KANT *

  JULIEN stood dumbfounded in the middle of the courtyard.

  'Do try to look as if you had your wits about you,' said Father Pirard; 'you have these horrible ideas, and then you act just like a child! What's happened to Horace's nil mirari? * (Never show any enthusiasm.) Just think that this tribe of lackeys, on seeing you established here, will try to make fun of you; they will see in you an equal who has been unjustly put above them. Beneath outward appearances of good nature, kind advice, and a desire to guide you, they will try to get you to put your foot in it in a big way.'

  'I defy them to,' said Julien, biting his lip, and he resumed all his wariness.

  The rooms which these gentlemen went through on the first floor before reaching the marquis's study would have seemed to you, my good reader, as dismal as they were magnificent. Were you to be offered them just as they are, you would refuse to inhabit them; they are a land of yawns and of dreary argument. They increased Julien's delight. How can anyone be unhappy, he thought, who inhabits so splendid a realm!

  At length the gentlemen reached the ugliest of the rooms in this superb suite: it had scarcely any daylight. There they found a small thin man, with bright eyes and a fair wig. Father Pirard turned to Julien and introduced him. It was the

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  marquis. Julien had great difficulty in recognizing him, he had such an air of civility about him. He no longer looked like the great lord of lofty mien whom he remembered from Bray-leHaut Abbey. It seemed to Julien that his wig had far too much hair in it. Thanks to this impression he was not in the least intimidated. This descendant of Henry III's friend * struck him at first as having a rather unimpressive appearance. He was exceedingly thin and never kept still. But Julien soon observed that the marquis's civility was far more agreeable to his interlocutor than even the Bishop of Besançon's. The interview was over in three minutes. As they went out, Father Pirard said to Julien:

  'You stared at the marquis as if he were a picture. I'm no great expert in what these people call politeness--you'll soon know more about it than I do--but all the same, the boldness of your gaze struck me as far from polite.'

  They had got back into a hackney cab again; the driver stopped near the boul
evard. Father Pirard showed Julien into a suite of large rooms. Julien noticed that there was no furniture. He was looking at a magnificent gilded clock depicting a subject he thought highly indecent, when a most elegant gentleman came up to him wreathed in smiles. Julien made a half-bow.

  The gentleman smiled and put his hand on his shoulder. Julien started and leapt backwards. He flushed with anger. Father Pirard, despite his gravity, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. The gentleman was a tailor.

  'I'm giving you your freedom again for two days,' the priest told Julien as they went out; 'only then can you be introduced to Mme de La Mole. Anyone else would watch over you as if you were a girl during these first moments of your sojourn in this new Babylon. Go and sin right away, if sin is to be your fate, and I shall be delivered from the weakness that makes me concerned about you. The day after tomorrow, in the morning, this tailor will have two suits brought to you; you will give five francs to the boy who fits them. And by the way, don't let these Parisians come to know the sound of your voice. If you say a word, they'll discover the secret of making fun of you. They have a way of it. Be at my lodgings at noon the day after

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  tomorrow... Go on, go and sin... I was forgetting, go and order some boots, some shirts and a hat from the addresses noted here.'

  Julien was looking at the handwriting.

  'It's the marquis's hand,' said Father Pirard; 'he's an active man who foresees everything, and who prefers to do things himself than to give orders. He's taking you on in order for you to spare him this kind of bother. Will you have sufficient wits to carry out properly all the things that this quick thinker will indicate to you by the merest hints? Only the future will tell: watch out for yourself!'

  Julien presented himself without a single word to the tradesmen indicated by the addresses; he noticed that this caused him to be received with respect, and the bootmaker wrote his name down in his book as M. Julien de Sorel.