3 According to Plutarch, Julius Caesar ordered his hardened veterans to slash at the faces of his enemy Pompey's soldiers, who were reputed to be vain young Roman patricians.
Chapter Fifteen: Is it a Conspiracy?
My friend: Don't open the letter, here enclosed, unless there's been an accident and you hear that something strange has happened to me. In that event, erase the names from the manuscript I'm sending you, and make eight copies, to be sent to the newspapers in Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Brussels, etc. Ten days later, have the manuscript printed and send the first copies to the Marquis de La Mole. And fifteen days later, strew the other copies, at night, along the streets of Verrières. The short manuscript he had enclosed, explaining and justifying, and which Fouqué was only to read in case of accident, had been written as a narrative; he had made it as minimally compromising as possible for Mademoiselle de La Mole, but nevertheless it clearly stated his own position. Julien had finished sealing this package just as the dinner bell sounded; it made his heart beat. Preoccupied with the narration he had just been composing, his imagination was full of tragic foreboding. He could see himself seized by the servants, tied, carried down to a cellar, a gag in his mouth. Once there, one of the servants would stand guard over him, and if the honor of the noble family required a tragic ending, it would be easy to finish him off with a poison that left no traces. Then they could say he'd died of some illness, and they'd bring him back to his room, dead. Moved by his own narrative, like a playwright by his drama, Julien entered the dining room with a feeling of genuine fear. He looked at all the servants, in their full regalia. He examined their faces. "Which of these people have been picked for tonight's expedition?" he asked himself. "In this family, memories of Henry III's court are so much alive, so often recalled, that if they believe there has been an outrage against the family, they're likely to be more decisive than other people of their rank." He looked at Mademoiselle de La Mole, trying to read the family's plans in her eyes. She was pale and looked thoroughly medieval. He'd never seen her looking so noble and grand; she was truly beautiful, and imposing. He almost fell in love with her. "Pallida morte futura,4 her pallor prophesies death," he said to himself. After dinner, though he pretended to spend time walking in the garden, it was useless; Mademoiselle de La Mole did not appear. Had he been able to talk to her, just then, it would have taken a great weight from his heart. Why not admit it? He was afraid. Since he was determined to go ahead with it, he shamelessly indulged his fear. "Provided that, when it's time to act, I have the courage to carry me through," he told himself, "what difference does it make what I'm feeling right now?" He checked the location, hefting the ladder to be sure of its weight. "This is a tool," he said to himself, laughing, "which it seems to be my destiny to make use of! Here, just as, before, in Verrières. But what a difference! Then," he continued, sighing, "there was no need to mistrust the person for whom I endangered myself. And what a difference, also, in the danger! "I might have been killed, in Monsieur de Rênal's gardens, without necessarily being dishonored. They could perfectly well have made my death unexplainable. Here, what abominable stories they're going to be telling, at the de Cayluses, the de Chaulneses, the de Retzes, etc.—indeed, everywhere. I will go down in history as a monster. "Or maybe only for two or three years," he answered himself, laughing once again, but this time at himself. But the thought made him feel suddenly weak. "And I, where will I find anyone to argue for me? Supposing Fouqué prints my little pamphlet, posthumously, why, that will be yet another infamy. What! I'm welcomed into the house, and to pay back the hospitality they gave me, the kindness they showered on me, I print a pamphlet about what