3 Aristocratic convent east of Paris. The Regent Duke d'Orléan's daughter Louise-Adélaïde was Abbess of Chelles in the early eighteenth century.
"This vase," he told her, "has been destroyed forever, as has also been destroyed a feeling that used to be master of my heart. Please accept my apologies for all the stupidities I have committed." And he left. "One might say, really," said Madame de La Mole as he walked out, "that this Monsieur Sorel is both proud and pleased by what he's just done." Her words fell directly on Mademoiselle de La Mole's heart. "It's true," she said to herself. "My mother has guessed correctly: that was exactly how he felt." And then the joy she had been feeling, because of the scene she'd created for him the night before, ceased to exist. "So, it's all over," she told herself, apparently quite calmly. "What remains to me is a frightful warning. This is a ghastly mistake, and humiliating! It ought to be enough to keep me sensible, and for the whole rest of my life." "Why didn't I speak the truth?" thought Julien. "Why does the love I had for this crazy female still torment me?" This love, far from flickering out, as he had hoped it would, made rapid progress. "She's crazy, of course she is," he told himself. "But does that make her less adorable? Is it possible to be prettier? Isn't every vivid pleasure the most elegant of civilizations can offer—isn't all of it absolutely, perfectly united in Mademoiselle de La Mole?" These memories of past happiness overwhelmed Julien, and rapidly tore down what reason had tried to erect. Reason fights in vain against memories of this kind. Its hardest labors only add to their charm. Twenty-four hours after the old Japanese vase was broken, Julien was without question one of the most miserable men on earth.
Because everything I'm telling you, I've seen for myself. And if I might have been deceiving myself, seeing it, I certainly won't deceive you, telling it. —A Letter to the Author The marquis summoned him. Monsieur de La Mole seemed rejuvenated, his eyes were sparkling. "Let's talk about that memory of yours," he said to Julien. "I'm told it's prodigious! Could you learn four pages by heart, and go to London, and recite them back? But not changing a word..." The marquis was irritably crumpling up that day's The Legitimist, and trying, unsuccessfully, to disguise an intense seriousness, unlike anything Julien had ever seen in him, even when they'd been dealing with the de Frilair lawsuit. Julien had seen enough of how these things were done; he felt sure he was supposed to appear taken in by all the marquis's casual talk. "That issue of The Legitimist may not be very interesting. But, if monsieur will allow me, tomorrow morning I will have the honor to recite it back to you, complete and entire." "Ha! Even the advertisements?" "Word for word, and not one missing." "On your honor?" replied the marquis, suddenly very serious indeed. "Yes, sir. What might trouble my memory, and only this, would be worrying that I might somehow fail to keep my word." "It's only that, yesterday, I forgot to ask you the question. Nor need I ask you to swear never to repeat what you're going to hear: I know you too well to thus insult you. I have answered for you. I'm going to conduct you to a drawing room, in which there will be twelve people. You will take notes on what each of them says. "Don't be concerned: this will not be a disorderly conversation; each will speak when his turn arrives. I don't mean in some formal sequence," the marquis added, returning to the light, subtle way so natural to him. "While we are speaking, you will write perhaps twenty pages. We'll come back here, you and I, and we'll reduce those twenty pages to four. These are the four pages you will recite back to me, tomorrow morning, instead of the whole issue of The Legitimist. You'll leave for London soon afterward. You will have to travel as a young pleasure seeker. Your goal: not to be noticed by anyone. In London, you will go to a very great person. Once there, you'll need a good deal more skill. It will be a question of deceiving all those who surround him: whether among his secretaries, or whether among his servants, there are people who have been bought by our enemies, and who are on the watch for our agents, whenever they come, so as to intercept them. "You will carry a letter of recommendation, of no significance. "The moment His Excellency looks at you, you will take out my watch, which I hereby lend you for this trip. Take it, now, while we're on the subject, and let me have yours. "The duke himself will be prepared to write down, while you dictate to him, the four pages you will have memorized. That done, but—note this carefully—not before, you may, if His Excellency questions you, tell him about the meeting you are going to attend. "It may help you to avoid boredom, along the way, to be aware that, between Paris and the minister's house, there are people who would ask for nothing better than to put a bullet into Father Sorel. For then his mission would be over, and everything would be much delayed—you see, my dear fellow, how would we know you're dead? Your zeal won't be much help, then, in sending us notice.
"Go, right now, and buy yourself totally new clothes," the marquis continued seriously. "Make yourself look like a fashionable young man of two years ago. For tonight, you must seem rather unkempt. Once you're on your way, on the other hand, you will dress as you usually do. Are you startled? Will your sense of mistrust help you guess? Yes, my friend: one of the venerable people you're going to be listening to, telling us his opinions, is very capable of sending out information, as a result of which you might very well be given a dose of opium, tonight, in some nice little inn where you'll have ordered yourself supper." "It might be better," said Julien, "to go forty or fifty miles farther, rather than by the direct route. It's Rome I'll be going to, I suppose..." The marquis looked at him with a haughtiness, and a dissatisfaction, that Julien had not seen since Upper Bray. "You'll know that, sir, when I consider it proper to tell you. I don't like questions." "That wasn't a question," Julien replied volubly. "I swear it, sir. I was thinking out loud, trying in my head to find the safest route." "Yes, it did seem that your mind was far away. Do not forget that an ambassador, and above all one of your age, should never seem to be seeking information he has not been offered." Julien was deeply mortified: he had been wrong. His vanity hunted for some excuse, and found none. "Realize, also," added Monsieur de La Mole, "that we always tend to appeal to our hearts, when we've done something foolish." An hour later, Julien came back to the marquis, dressed like a very junior employee, in old clothes, with a tie not entirely white, and a generally priggish appearance. The marquis roared with laughter, seeing him, and only then was Julien's vindication complete. "If this young man betrays me," Monsieur de La Mole said to himself, "in whom might I trust? Yet when it comes to doing what must be done, somebody has to be trusted. My son and his glowing friends are every one of them brave, they've got loyalty enough for a hundred thousand men. If they have to fight, they'll die on the steps of the throne. They understand everything. .. except exactly what, right now, needs to be done. I'll be damned if I can see one of them who's capable of memorizing four pages and traveling a hundred and fifty miles without being sniffed out. Norbert would know how to get himself killed, as his ancestors did—but so can a peasant drafted into the army..." The marquis dropped into deep thoughtfulness: "And still, when it comes to getting himself killed, perhaps this young Sorel would do that as well as my son..." "Let's get into the carriage," said the marquis, as if repelling an unwelcome idea. "Sir," said Julien, "while they were mending this suit, I memorized the first page of today's Legitimist." The marquis took the paper; Julien recited it, without a word out of place. "Good," said the marquis, very diplomatic that evening. "While we've been doing this," he thought, "the young man has been paying no attention to the streets we're traveling along." They came to a large, rather dismal drawing room, one part of it paneled and another draped in green velvet. In the center of the room, a sullen servant finished setting up a large table, meant for dining, which, by means of a huge green tablecloth, heavily ink-spotted, plainly discarded by some minister's office, he then changed into a table at which business could be conducted.
The master of the house was an enormous man, never named; Julien thought both his face and his speech showed someone who was slow to act, concerned mostly with his own digestive processes. The marquis had signaled Julien to remain at the lower end of the table. To keep from seeming out of place, he busied himself, sharpening quill pens. Out of the corner of his eyes he counted seven participants, though he could see only their backs. Two of them were speaking to Monsieur de La Mole as if they were his equals; the others seemed more or less deferential. A new participant entered; there was no announcement. How odd, Julien thought: no one is ever announced in this drawing room. Is this a precaution taken in my honor? To welcome this latest attendee, everyone rose. Like three others, he wore the most exalted of all medals. Conversation was hushed. All Julien could go on, as he sought to shape an opinion of the newcomer, was his face and his bearing. He was short, stocky, of very high color; his eyes sparkled and showed no expression but the malice of a wild boar. Julien's attention was diverted by the immediate arrival of someone utterly different. This was a tall and exceedingly thin man, wearing three or four vests. His eyes were gentle, his movements polished. "He looks a lot like the old Bishop of Besançon," thought Julien. He was obviously an ecclesiastic, apparently of no more than fifty or fifty-five: no one could have looked more paternal. The young Bishop of Agde appeared, and seemed distinctly surprised, looking down the table, to see Julien. He had not spoken a word to our hero since the ceremony at Upper Bray. His startled glance embarrassed and irritated Julien. "Lord!" he said to himself. "Is knowing someone always going to be a disaster? All these great lords, none of whom I've ever seen, don't intimidate me a bit, and yet this young bishop's glance freezes my bones! I'm obliged to agree with him; I'm an odd fellow, and a most unfortunate one." A very short man with exceedingly dark skin soon came in, accompanied by a good deal of noise and fuss. He began speaking the moment he was inside the door. His complexion was yellowish; he seemed rather mad. As soon as this unstoppable talker entered, the earlier arrivals clustered in groups, apparently to avoid the boredom of having to listen to him. As they moved away from the fireplace, they came closer to the end of the table where Julien sat. He grew more and more embarrassed: in the end, no matter what efforts he made, he could not fail to understand their words, and no matter how little experience he possessed, he could not fail to understand, and quite fully, the importance of the things they were very openly discussing. Yet how strongly these seemingly lofty persons, though under his surveillance, must desire their proceedings to remain secret! Working slowly, carefully, Julien had already sharpened twenty quill pens. His supply of pens was going to run out. He tried to see some directive in Monsieur de La Mole's glance, but the marquis had forgotten him. "What I'm doing is ridiculous," Julien told himself while sharpening his pens. "But people with rather mediocre faces, and given—by others or by themselves—such huge responsibilities, are surely highly sensitive. There's something unfortunately too inquisitive, and too little respectful, about the way I look at people, and obviously I annoy them. But if I sit here with my eyes lowered, it will seem as if I'm trying to soak up their words." His embarrassment was intense: he was hearing some bizarre things.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Discussion The Republic: for each person, today, prepared to sacrifice everything for the public good, there are thousands—millions—who acknowledge nothing but their pleasure, their vanity. Your reputation, in Paris, is based on your horse and carriage, and not on your virtue. —Napoleon, Memoirs A servant hurried in, calling: "Monsieur the Duke of ———." "Shut up: you're nothing but a fool," said the duke as he came in. He spoke these words so well, and so majestically that, in spite of himself, Julien understood that knowing how to display anger at a servant was all the knowledge this great man possessed. Julien raised his eyes, then quickly lowered them. He had so well grasped the new arrival's importance that, trembling, he hoped his glance had not been an indiscretion. The duke was a man of fifty, dressed like a dandy, with a jaunty step. His head was narrow, his nose was large and aquiline, as was his face: it would have been difficult to have a bearing nobler or less significant. His coming signaled the meeting's start. Julien's psychophysiological observations were interrupted by Monsieur de La Mole's voice: "Let me introduce you to Monsieur Sorel," the marquis said. "He has been endowed with an astonishing memory. I spoke to him only an hour ago, about the mission with which he's to be honored, and in order to give me proof of his memory, he learned by heart the first page of today's Legitimist." "Ah, the news from abroad, about that poor fellow, N———," said the master of the house. He picked up the newspaper, hurriedly, and gave Julien an amused glance, wanting to demonstrate his importance: "Speak, sir," he directed. There was total silence; all eyes were fixed on Julien, who recited so accurately that, after twenty lines: "That will do," said the duke. The very short man with the eyes of a wild boar sat down. He was to preside, and was hardly in his chair when he pointed out, for Julien, a card table, and gestured that it be brought near. Julien set himself at this smaller table, with his writing materials. He counted twelve people sitting around the green cloth. "Monsieur Sorel," said the duke. "Please retire to the adjoining room. You will be summoned." The master of the house grew excited. "The shutters haven't been closed," he murmured to his neighbor. "You'll learn nothing by peering through the window!" he shouted, stupidly, at Julien. "Here I am," thought our hero, "caught up in a conspiracy, or maybe something more. Luckily, it's not the sort that leads to the executioner's block. But even if there's danger, I owe the marquis that, and more. Happily, I'll have the chance to atone for all the sorrows I may bring him, some day." Julien went into the next room. His mind occupied with his own sorrows, and his misery, he stared all around him, so intently that he'd never forget the place. Only then did he recall not having heard the marquis tell the coachman where they were to go, and that the marquis had ordered a cab, which he'd never done before. Julien spent a long time alone with his thoughts. He was in a drawing room hung with red velvet, striped with gold braid. A side table along the wall bore a large ivory crucifix; on the fireplace mantel was de Maistre's On the Pope, with gilt edges and magnificently bound. Julien opened it, in order not to seem as if he'd been listening. From time to time they spoke quite loudly, in the next room. Finally, the door was opened; he was called.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Discussion
"Say to yourselves, gentlemen," said the chairman, "that as we speak we are in the presence of the Duke of ———. This gentleman," he said, gesturing toward Julien, "is a young cleric, devoted to our holy cause, who will readily repeat, by means of his amazing memory, even the least of our remarks. "You have the floor, sir," he said, indicating the man with the fatherly appearance, the one who wore three or four vests. To Julien, it would have seemed most natural to call him "the triple-vested man." Julien took a sheet of paper and wrote, and wrote. (The author would have preferred, at this point, to insert a page consisting of nothing but ellipses. "That would look awful," said the publisher, "and, for such a lightweight book, looking bad is, quite simply, death." — "Politics," the author replied, "is a stone tied around literature's neck, and in less than six months, it sinks under the weight. Politics set among the imagination's concerns is like a pistol shot fired at a concert. The noise mangles without energizing. It does not harmonize with the sound of any instrument in the orchestra. Politics will mortally offend half your readers, and bore the other half, who would have found the discussion fascinating, and wonderfully lively, in the morning newspaper..." — "If your characters don't talk politics," responded the publisher, "they'll cease to be the Frenchmen of 1830, and your book will no longer be a mirror, as you claim it is...") Julien had twenty-six pages of notes. What follows are some thoroughly pallid excerpts, since it has been necessary, as always, to suppress absurdities, for too many of them would have seemed obnoxious, or even unreal (see Reports from the Law Courts). The triple-vested man, who bore a paternal look (a bishop, more than likely), laughed a good deal, and when he laughed his eyes, under their wavering lids, turned very bright and far less indecisive than usual. This man, the first to speak, after the duke was done ("but duke of what?" Julien asked himself), apparently so he could express the general opinion and serve the function of an assistant public prosecutor, seemed, to Julien's mind, to fall into the vagueness and absence of definite conclusions for which, so often, such officers of the court are reproved. As the discussion continued, indeed, the duke went so far as to scold him on just that account. After several remarks of a moral nature, rather glibly philosophical, the triple-vested man declared: "Noble England, led by so great a man as the immortal Pitt,1 spent forty billion francs to check the Revolution. If my colleagues will allow me to broach, with a certain degree of frankness, a melancholy notion, England did not clearly understand how, with a man like Bonaparte—especially when all one has with which to oppose him are an assemblage of good intentions—only personal measures can be decisive..." "Ah!" said the master of the house, looking uncomfortable. "So we're still praising assassination!" "Spare us your sentimental sermons," exclaimed the chairman, distinctly annoyed. His wild boar eyes glittered ferociously. "Go on," he said to the triple-vested man. The chairman's cheeks and forehead had turned purple. "Noble England," the speaker resumed, "has been crushed, today, because every Englishman, before he buys his bread, is compelled to pay the interest on the forty billion francs which were employed against the Jacobins. They no longer have a Pitt—"