5 The bishop was an émigré, the name given to those aristocrats who fled France during the Revolution. The first notable émigré was Louis XVI's brother, the Comte d'Artois, who fled almost immediately after the fall of the Bastille, and in 1824 had become King Charles X. Many émigrés returned after Robespierre's downfall, many more when Bonaparte declared an amnesty in 1801. Among ultras, it was a badge of honor, a sign of right-thinking loyalty, to have remained in exile until 1814.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The First Forward Step
Julien was summoned. "I'm going to have an inquisitor on each side of me," he thought. But he had never felt braver. As he entered, two valets, better dressed than Monsieur Valenod himself, were disrobing the bishop. Before he got to the question of Father Pirard, His Lordship felt it his duty to inquire into Julien's studies. He mentioned a few issues of dogma, and was surprised by what he heard in response. Soon he turned to the humanities, to Virgil, to Horace, to Cicero. "These writers," thought Julien, "earned me my one-hundred-ninety-eighth place. I've got nothing to lose: Why not try to shine?" He succeeded. The bishop, himself a fine humanist, was enchanted. Earlier that evening, when the bishop had dined with the governor, a young woman, deservedly celebrated, had recited a contemporary poem on Mary Magdalene.6 He was more than ready to discuss literature, and at once forgot about Father Pirard and everything connected with him, so he could consider, together with this seminarian, whether Horace had been rich or poor. The bishop quoted from several odes, but sometimes his memory was sluggish, and Julien each time promptly recited, always modestly, the entire ode. What particularly struck the bishop was that, when thus reciting, Julien maintained his conversational tone: he would speak twenty or thirty Latin verses exactly as he might have told what went on in his seminary. They spoke at length about Virgil, and about Cicero. Finally, the bishop could not help but pay the seminarian a compliment. "To have pursued your studies better would be impossible." "My lord," Julien said, "your seminary can present you with one hundred and ninety-seven students much less unworthy of such high approval." "What?" said the bishop, astonished at this figure. "What I've had the honor to tell Your Lordship can be fully supported, by official proof. "At our annual examinations, responding to questions on precisely these matters, for which Your Lordship has just praised me, I was placed one hundred ninety-eighth." "Ah," the bishop cried, laughing and glancing over at Father de Frilair, "you're Father Pirard's favorite. I should have realized. But it's an amusing war. Isn't it true, my young friend," he added, turning back to Julien, "that you had to be awakened in order to be sent here?" "Yes, my lord. I have left the seminary unaccompanied only once before, to assist Father Chas-Bernard in decorating the cathedral, the day of Corpus Christi." "Optime, wonderful," said the bishop. "But was that you, who had the courage to put those feather clusters on top of the canopy? Every year, they make me shudder: I always worry they'll cost me someone's life. My friend, you'll go far—but I have no desire to check your career, which will be brilliant, by making you die of hunger." And at the bishop's order, biscuits and Malaga wine were brought, to which Julien did honor, and Father de Frilair even more so, for he knew his bishop loved to see people eating happily and with a good appetite. Happier and happier with how his evening was ending, the bishop spoke for a bit about Church history. He saw that Julien did not understand. He went on to the moral condition of the Roman Empire, under the emperors of Constantine's7 time. Paganism's fall had been accompanied by the same uncertainty and doubt that, in the nineteenth century, afflicted sorrowful, weary minds. His Lordship noted that Julien barely knew Tacitus's name.