11 Founded by Bonaparte in 1802 to recognize service to the nation; although maintained by the restored Bourbons, the Legion of Honor was necessarily scorned by conservatives such as Monsieur de Rênal.
The Red and the Black
One fine autumn day Monsieur de Rênal strolled along Loyalty Walkway, his wife on his arm. While listening to her husband, who addressed her in serious tones, Madame de Rênal's glance anxiously followed the movements of her three little boys. The oldest, who might have been eleven, kept coming over to the stone wall, clearly thinking about climbing up on top. Her gentle voice called out, "Adolphe,"12 and the child gave up his ambitious project. Madame de Rênal seemed to be about thirty, but still quite pretty. "He's going to regret it, this fine gentleman from Paris," said Monsieur de Rênal, obviously offended, his cheeks even paler than usual. "I'm not entirely without friends at the castle..." But though I propose to tell you about provincial life for some hundreds of pages, I will not barbarously submit you to the prolixity, the wise heavy-footedness of country conversation. This fine gentleman from Paris, so unbearable to the mayor of Verrières, was none other than Monsieur Appert, who two days earlier had found a way not only to push himself into both Verrières's prison and its Pauper's Bureau, but also into the hospital, which the mayor and the principal landowners administered free of charge. "But," said Madame de Rênal timidly, "what harm could this gentleman from Paris possibly do you, since you look after the welfare of the poor with such scrupulous integrity?" "He's come here just to dig up scandal, and then he'll have articles appearing in the liberal newspapers." "You never read them, my dear." "But people talk to us about those Jacobin articles; it's distracting, and it keeps us from doing good.13 And as for me, I'm never going to forgive the parish priest." Chapter Three: A Priest A priest who's virtuous and not a schemer is a heavenly gift to a small town. —FLEURY14 You need to know that Verrières's parish priest, an old man of eighty, who owed his health and his iron will to the brisk air of these mountains, had the right to visit the prison, the hospital, and even the Pauper's Bureau at any time he wished. Monsieur Appert, who had been recommended to the parish priest by people in Paris, had the good sense to arrive in this gossipy little town at exactly six o'clock in the morning. And he went straight to the rectory. Father Chélan read the letter from Marquis de La Mole, a French nobleman and the largest landowner in the province, then sat quietly contemplating it. "I'm an old man, and well loved here," he finally murmured. "They wouldn't dare!" Quickly looking up at the gentleman from Paris, his eyes were gleaming, despite his age, with a special consecrated fire that showed how delightful he found it, plunging himself into something both good and rather risky: "Come with me, sir, and in the presence of the jailer and, above all, of the superintendents at the Pauper's Bureau, please express no opinion whatsoever on the things we will be seeing."