20 Parisian palace to the north of the Louvre, built by Cardinal de Richelieu and later acquired by the Orleans family. In the last years of the ancien régime, under the future Philippe Égalité, the Palais-Royal was known as a hotbed of liberal politics and libertine society. With the help of Marquis Ducrest [ sic,né du Crest ], brother of Madame de Genlis, the duke turned the palace into a public gathering place by renting out space in the public galleries to shops and cafés. The galleries and gardens of the Palais-Royal were frequented by prostitutes and by radical orators such as Camille Desmoulins.
The Red and the Black
since he was extremely polite, except when the topic was money, he was very properly thought of as the most aristocratic person in all Verrières. Chapter Four: A Father Andson And am I to blame If that's how things are? —MACHIAVELLI21 "My wife really has a head on her shoulders!" the mayor of Verrières said to himself, at six o'clock the next morning, as he walked down to Père Sorel's sawmill. "Though I told her I had, so as to maintain my natural superiority, it really had not occurred to me that if I didn't hire this little priest—who's said to command Latin like an angel—the director of the Pauper's Bureau, that restless soul, might very well have had the same idea and stolen him away. With what self-satisfaction he'd have talked about his children's tutor! ... Will my tutor, once he's in the house, wear a cassock?" Monsieur de Rênal was pondering this question when he saw, in the distance, a peasant, a man nearly six feet tall, who from the first light of dawn had apparently been hard at work, measuring lengths of wood laid out along the bank of the Doubs. The peasant22 did not seem particularly pleased to see His Honor the Mayor coming toward him, because his timber was blocking the towpath and had been put there in violation of town laws. Père Sorel, for it was indeed him, was very surprised—and even more pleased—by the strange arrangement Monsieur de Rênal proposed for his son. All the same, he listened with that air of downcast discontent, and absolutely no interest, which the shrewd inhabitants of these mountains understood only too well how to drape over themselves. They had been enslaved, ever since the days of Spanish domination, and they preserved this physiological trait of the fedayin of Egypt.23 Sorel's first response was merely a long recitation of all the formulas of respect, which he knew by heart. While he was repeating these meaningless words, with a stupid smile that nicely supplemented the look of dishonesty, even of roguery, so profoundly natural to him, the old peasant's lively spirit tried to figure out what could have led so important a man to take in his good-for-nothing son. He was totally disillusioned with Julien—and here was Monsieur de Rênal offering the incredible salary of three hundred francs a year, plus food and board, and even clothing. This last claim, which Père Sorel had the quick wit to suddenly include, even before negotiations had been concluded, was agreed to by Monsieur de Rênal just the same. The mayor had been struck by the demand. "Since Sorel is hardly delighted and gratified by my proposal, as in the nature of things he ought to be," he said to himself, "it's clear that he's had offers from elsewhere, and from whom could they have come, if not from Valenod?" Monsieur de Rênal urged Sorel to settle things on the spot, but he would not: the wily old peasant stubbornly refused, saying he had to consult his son—as if, in the countryside, a wealthy father ever consulted a penniless son, except for the sake of appearances. Water-powered sawmills are sheds on the banks of a stream. The roof sits on a frame built around four big wooden pillars. At a height of eight or ten feet, in the middle of the shed, one sees a saw rising and coming down, while an extremely simple device pushes a piece of wood against the blade. A wheel turned by the running stream is what operates both parts of