8 Paul-Louis Courier (1772–1825), a personal friend of Stendhal's and a vocal Republican as well as a Hellenist and political pamphleteer. The judge who called him a cynic knew that Courier would understand its original meaning of "dog."
Chapter Nine: The Ball
Washington.9 All I see in France is vanity. A creative man, talking easily, slips into a brilliant impropriety, and the master of the house thinks he's been insulted." At this point, the count's carriage, which was bringing Julien home, stopped in front of the de La Mole mansion. Julien had become fond of his conspiratorial acquaintance. Altamira had paid him a fine compliment, obviously born of deep conviction: "You don't have a Frenchman's trifling mind, and you understand the principle of utility. "It happened that, the night before, Julien had seen Casimir Delavigne's tragedy Marino Faliero.10 "Isn't it true that the conspirator, Israel Bertuccio, has more character than all the noble Venetians he's plotting against?" our worker revolutionary asked himself. "Yet these are the established nobility, dating back to 700, a century before Charlemagne, while the most noble of those at the Duke de Retz's ball tonight go back—and pretty limply—only as far as the thirteenth century. Well! Among all these Venetian nobles, of such lofty birth, the only one we remember is Israel Bertuccio. "A revolution cancels all a capricious society's titles and distinctions. In a revolution, a man assumes whatever rank he earns by his behavior in the face of death. The brain itself gives up much of its supremacy... "What would Danton be today, in this century of Valenods and Rênals? Not even a deputy attorney general... "What am I talking about? He'd have sold himself to the Congregation of the Holy Virgin. He'd be a government minister, because the great Danton, after all, did his share of stealing. Mirabeau sold himself, too. Napoleon stole millions, in Italy, and without that wealth, poverty would have stopped him in his tracks, according to General Pichegru. Only Lafayette never stole.11 Is stealing required? Is selling yourself inevitable?" Julien wondered. The question stopped him in his tracks. He spent the rest of the night reading the history of the French Revolution. Next day, as he wrote letters in the library, all he could think of, still, was his conversation with Count Altamira.