7 Arcola was the site of one of General Bonaparte's Italian triumphs, in 1796. Saint-Helena is the Atlantic island where the deposed emperor spent the last six years of his life in exile.
The Red and the Black
to write these replies in such a fashion that, of any twelve you present to the marquis for his signature, he will be able to sign eight or nine. Every evening at eight, you will put his desk in order. And at ten you will be free. "It may be," continued Father Pirard, "that some ancient lady, or some man with a gentle voice, will draw to your attention certain immense advantages, or flagrantly offer you money to show him letters received by the marquis—" "Ah! Sir!" exclaimed Julien, blushing. "How strange," said the priest with a bitter smile, "that poor as you are, and after a year in the seminary, you still feel such virtuous indignation. You really must have been quite blind! "Could this be caused by heredity?" Father Pirard murmured under his breath, and as if talking to himself. "Now, it is odd, but the marquis seems to know you...I have no idea how. To begin with, he will pay you four hundred francs a month. This is a man who regularly indulges his whims: this is his flaw. He will compete with you, in the matter of childish pranks. If he is pleased, your salary may rise, in time, to eight thousand francs. "But as you know perfectly well," the priest resumed sourly, "he's not going to pay you all that money on account of your beautiful eyes. It all depends on being useful. Were I in your place, I would speak very little—and above all, I would never talk about things I knew nothing about. "Oh yes," the priest said. "I have looked into things for you. I was forgetting Monsieur de La Mole's family. He has two children, a daughter, and a nineteen-year-old son, extraordinarily stylish and a kind of fool, never certain at noon what he's likely to be doing at two o'clock. He's spirited, he's brave; he fought in the war with Spain.8 The marquis hopes, I have no notion why, that you might become the young Count Norbert's friend. I've told him you were a fine Latinist, so perhaps he expects you'll teach his son some ready-made phrases from Cicero and Virgil. "In your place, I should never allow this fine young man to trifle with me. And before yielding to his advances, no matter how perfectly polite (though marred by a bit of irony), I would make him ask more than once. "I will not hide from you that, at first, young Count de La Mole is surely going to look down at you, since you're only a petty bourgeois. One of his ancestors was a courtier, and had the honor of being beheaded in the Place de Grève,9 on the twenty-sixth of April, 1574, for his participation in a political intrigue. You, you're the son of a Verrières carpenter who, what's even worse, began by working for his father. Consider these differences carefully, and read this family's history, in Moreri's biographical dictionary10—a book to which all the sycophants who dine there will, from time to time, make what they call discerning references. "Be careful how you respond to jests made by Count Norbert de La Mole, who is a major in a cavalry regiment and a future peer of France, and don't come complaining to me, afterward." "It would seem to me," said Julien, turning very red, "that I need not reply at all to a man who shows himself contemptuous of me."