4 Pierre de Ronsard (1524–85), one of the greatest of French poets and a leading figure in the Pléiade school.
Chapter Four: The De La Mole Mansion
praise the satirist Béranger,5 or the opposition newspapers, or Voltaire, or Rousseau, or anyone who indulged himself, even a very little bit, in freedom of speech—and provided, above all, that you never discussed politics—in the marquis's dining room, you were free to talk about anything you liked. No income of a quarter of a million francs, nor the possession of the noblest decoration awarded by the state, had the power to oppose the de La Moles' house rules. Any idea with a scrap of vitality seemed gross coarseness. Despite polished manners, complete courtesy, and a desire to please, boredom could be seen on every face. Young people who came because it was their duty, terrified at the prospect of saying something that might dimly resemble an idea, or that might disclose their knowledge of a banned book, said a few elegant words about Rossini,6 or about the weather, and then said nothing at all. Julien observed that conversation was usually kept alive by two viscounts and five barons, all of whom Monsieur de La Mole had known during their exile, during the Revolution. These gentlemen had incomes ranging from six to eight hundred thousand francs; four of them favored Today's News,7 and three preferred The French Gazette. One told a story, every day, about the sixteenth-century court of Charles IX, in which the word wonderful was freely used. Julien noted that this man wore five decorations; in general, the others limited themselves to three. On the other hand, there were regularly ten uniformed servants in attendance, and every quarter of an hour the diners were offered tea and ices. Just before midnight, they were served a sort of supper, with champagne. This was why, sometimes, Julien stayed to the very end; mostly, he could not quite fathom how anyone could listen, seriously, to the conversation regularly heard in this magnificently gilded dining room. Occasionally, he would watch the people who were talking, to see whether they were making fun of what they themselves were saying. "My de Maistre," he thought, "whose book I know by heart, is a thousand times better, and still he's quite boring." Julien wasn't the only one aware of the moral asphyxiation. Some took comfort in eating a great many ices, others in saying, the whole rest of the night, "I've just left the de La Moles, where I understood that Russia," etc., etc. One of the hangers-on told Julien that, just six months ago, after twenty years of regular attendance at her dinners, Madame de La Mole had repaid poor Baron Le Bourguignon, an assistant governor since the Revolution, by having him promoted to a governorship. This noble event had strengthened the zeal of all these gentlemen: if they'd been irritated, before, by almost anything, now they were irritated by nothing. Lack of respect for them was seldom blunt, but Julien had already been startled, two or three times, by brief exchanges between the marquis and his wife, which were hard on those seated around them. These aristocrats never disguised their honest scorn for everyone not descended from those who rode in the king's carriage.8 Julien could see that the word Crusade was the only one at which their