3 (born 1551) reigned briefly during the turbulent second half of the sixteenth century. He was the third son of Henri II and Catherine de Médici to take the throne of France, becoming king after the death of his brother, Charles IX. Some of the worst battles of the Wars of Religion took place under his reign. He was assassinated by the fanatical Catholic monk Jacques Clément. His friends, known as mignons, were his companions in debauchery.
The Red and the Black
The man laughed and put his hand on the young man's shoulder. Julien winced and jumped back. He was red with anger. Father Pirard, for all his sobriety, laughed until he cried. The man was a tailor. "You are now free for two days," Father Pirard said as they were leaving. "Only then can you be presented to Madame de La Mole. Someone else might watch over you as if you were a young girl, in these initial moments of your stay in this new Babylon. Ruin yourself right away, if you need to ruin yourself, and then I'll be released from this weakness of thinking about you. The day after tomorrow, in the morning, this tailor will deliver two suits of clothing; give five francs to the young fellow who'll see how they fit you. For the rest, don't let these Parisians hear the sound of your voice. Say one word, and they'll know exactly how to make fun of you. It's their special gift. Come to me at noon, that day...Go, ruin yourself...I've been forgetting: go order some boots, and shirts, and a hat, at these addresses." Julien looked at the handwriting. "The marquis wrote these," the priest said. "He's an active man who thinks of everything, who likes to do things rather than order that they be done by others. He's hiring you to spare him all that trouble. Will you be intelligent enough to properly do all the things this lively man will tell you to do, in only a very few words? Only time will tell. Be careful!" Julien went to the craftsmen at the addresses he'd been given, not saying a word. He noted how respectfully they received him, and how the bootmaker, recording his name in an account book, wrote "Monsieur Julien de Sorel."4 At the Père Lachaise Cemetery,5 a most obliging man, and even more assertively a liberal, offered to show Julien the tomb of Marshall Ney,6 Napoleon's general, to whom wise politicians have denied an epitaph. But after leaving this liberal gentleman, who embraced him tightly, tears in his eyes, Julien no longer had his watch. Two days later, at noon, enriched by these experiences, he presented himself to Father Pirard, who carefully looked him over. "You're well on the way to becoming a fop," the priest told him, severely. Julien looked like a very young man in deep mourning. He seemed quite presentable, but the good priest was himself too much of a provincial to be aware that Julien still hunched his shoulders, which in the provinces is considered a sign of both elegance and importance. When the marquis saw the young man, he evaluated Julien's gracefulness very differently. He said to Father Pirard: "Would you mind if Monsieur Sorel took dance lessons?" The priest stood dumbfounded. "No," he said at last. "Julien's not a priest." Going up two steps at a time, the marquis ascended a small, secret staircase, in order to personally show our hero a pretty attic room that looked out on the building's huge garden. Then he asked Julien how many shirts he'd bought at the linen shop. "Two," Julien answered, self-conscious at seeing so great a lord descend to such details.