9 Saint Marguerite-Marie; a Burgundian peasant girl (1647–90) who entered a convent and there had a vision of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who ordered her to establish a feast day in honor of the Sacred Heart. She succeeded in 1686.
The Red and the Black
Chapter Thirty: An Ambitious Man There's only one true nobility, and that's someone who's a duke; being a "marquis" is a joke, but people turn their heads at the word duke. —Edinburgh Review1 The Marquis de La Mole received Father Pirard without any of those "great man" mannerisms, so very very polite and yet so rude to those who understand them. This would have been a waste of time, and the marquis was sufficiently deep in matters of high import that, truthfully, he had no time to waste. For six months he'd been scheming to have both the king and the country accept a certain ruling ministry, which would then, in gratitude, have him made a duke. For many years, the marquis had been asking, in vain, to have his Besançon lawyer give him a clear, precise analysis of his Franche-Comté lawsuit. But how could the famous lawyer have explained to him what he did not understand himself? Father Pirard gave him a little slip of paper that explained everything. "My dear Father," said the marquis, after complying, in less than five minutes, with all the formulas of politeness and queries about personal matters, "my dear Father, in the midst of my so-called prosperity, I don't have the time to seriously concern myself with two minor matters, which are however of some importance: namely, my family and my finances. I look after my family's fortune, and most intensively: I can accomplish a lot, in these regards. I look after my own pleasures, which ought to be most important of all, at least to me," he added, surprising and even astonishing Father Pirard. Although a sensible man, the priest was amazed to hear an old man speaking so frankly of his pleasures. "There are people who work, here in Paris," continued the great man, "but only those roosting high on the fifth floor. As soon as I establish relations with a man, he gets himself an apartment on the second floor,2 and his wife announces a day for receiving visitors, and then there's no more working, and no doing anything more than being—or appearing to be—a man of the world. That's all they care about, as soon as they have enough to eat. "As for my lawsuit, to tell the truth, and even more for each one among them, separately considered, I have lawyers who are killing themselves: one of them died of consumption just the day before yesterday. But as to my financial affairs in general, would you believe, sir, that three years ago I gave up all hope of finding a man who, as he writes my letters, bothers to think seriously, even just a little, about just what he's doing? Now, this is simply a preface. "I think very well of you and, I dare say, although I'm seeing you for the first time, I like you. Would you become my secretary, with a salary of eight thousand francs—or even double that? I will still come out ahead, I swear to you, and I'll make it my business to save your fine new parish for you, in case there comes a day when we don't get along anymore." The priest declined. But toward the end of the conversation, the marquis's very real difficulty made him think of an alternative. "Back in my seminary, I've left a poor young man who, unless I deceive myself, will be harshly persecuted. If he were no more than a simple monk, he'd already be in pace [at peace: i.e., dead].