14 Roughly corresponding to today's seventh arrondissement on the Left Bank, the Faubourg Saint-Germain was the most aristocratic neighborhood in Paris. The neighborhood became a metaphor for aristocratic society and ultra politics.
Chapter Two: Entering Society138F
Chapter Two: Entering Society1 A ridiculous, moving memory: the first drawing room in which, at eighteen, one appeared, alone and without any support! A woman's glance was enough to intimidate me. The more I wanted to please, the more awkward I became. I argued for all the silliest ideas: either I jabbered senselessly, or I felt that every man who looked at me seriously was my enemy. But just the same, buried by my shyness in frightful misery, how fine a fine day could be! —Kant2 Julien stopped, dumbfounded, in the middle of the courtyard. "Try to at least look sensible," said Father Pirard. "Horrible ideas come to you and then you're simply a child! What happened to Horace's nil mirari, never show your enthusiasm? Think how this horde of servants, seeing you pitch your tent right there, will work at making fun of you. They'll see you as one of their equals, mistakenly set above them. Pretending to be kind, to be giving you good advice, from a desire to help and guide you, they'll get you to fall into the most grotesque stupidities." "Just let them try," said Julien, biting at his lips; he drew deep on his sense of mistrust. The rooms through which these gentlemen walked, on the ground floor, before arriving at the marquis's private office, would have seemed to you, oh my reader, quite as melancholy as they were magnificent. If they were offered to you, exactly as they are, you'd refuse to live in them: this is the land of yawning and dreary formalisms. Julien's enchantment grew still stronger. "How can anyone be unhappy," he thought, "when they live in such splendor!" The gentlemen finally came to the ugliest of all the rooms in this magnificent place: daylight scarcely reached it. And there they found a small, lean man, with sparkling eyes and a blond wig. Father Pirard turned to Julien and presented him. It was the marquis. He was so courteous that Julien was hard put to recognize him. He was no longer the high and mighty lord of Upper Bray, who carried himself so haughtily. Julien thought there was too much hair in his wig, and this impression helped him lose his shyness. At first, this descendant of Henry III's3 friend seemed to him distinctly shabby. He was really very lean and rather excitable. But he soon noticed that the marquis spoke to people so politely that, indeed, it was pleasanter than even the Bishop of Besançon himself. The interview took no more than three minutes. As they left, Father Pirard said to Julien: "You were staring at the marquis as one stares at a picture. I am not particularly adept at what people here call good manners, and you will soon know more than I do, but nevertheless your bold staring seemed to me not really polite." They got back into the cab; the coachman pulled up near the boulevard; the priest brought Julien to a suite of large sitting rooms. Julien observed that there was no furniture. He was looking at a huge gilt clock, adorned in what seemed to him gross indecency, when a most elegant man came cheerfully over to him. Julien made him a faint bow.