20 The highly successful novel by François-Auguste-René de Châteaubriand (1768–1848), which was a key text of the early Romantic movement. Stendhal disliked the sentimentality of Châteaubriand's work and frequently tweaked the "noble vicomte" in his own writing.
All Fouqué's grammatical errors, his country bumpkin manners, disappeared: Julien threw himself into his arms. Never have the provinces, set in comparison to Paris, received a handsomer homage. Seeing the flaring of enthusiasm in his friend's eyes, Fouqué was ecstatic; he took it as consent for an escape. Seeing this sublimity restored all Julien's strength, lost after Father Chélan's ghostly visit. He was still very young, reader, but as I see him, he was already a fine growth. Instead of proceeding, as most men do, from tender youth into crooked sticks, age would have endowed him with a kindness easily roused; he would have been cured of his insane mistrust... But is there any point to such empty predictions? Interrogations became more frequent, no matter how hard Julien tried: all his responses were intended to shorten the whole business. "I killed, or at least I tried to kill, with premeditation," he repeated every day. But above all else, the judge was a formalist. Julien's statements in no way shortened the interrogations. The judge's vanity had been roused. Julien had no knowledge of their plan to transfer him to a dark, frightful dungeon: only Fouqué's efforts forced them to leave him in his pleasant little room, reached by climbing a hundred and eighty steps. Father de Frilair was one of the many important men who bought their supply of wood from Fouqué. The good-hearted timber merchant went to see the all-powerful vicar-general. To his inexpressible delight, Father de Frilair assured him that, moved by Julien's good qualities, and by the services he had, in the past, performed for the seminary, Father de Frilair could be counted upon to commend him to the judge. Fouqué saw some chance, here, of saving his friend, and as he left he prostrated himself, begging the vicar-general to accept ten gold coins, to be expended in masses said for the accused's acquittal. Fouqué had oddly misunderstood. Father de Frilair was no Valenod. He would not take Fouqué's money; he even tried to make the good peasant understand that he'd do better to hold on to his gold. Seeing how impossible it was to be perfectly clear, without becoming seriously imprudent, he finally advised Fouqué to donate this sum as alms for poor prisoners— who lacked, in truth, everything. "This Julien is a bizarre creature, quite inexplicable," thought Father de Frilair, "though, for me, nothing ought to be that...Perhaps it will be possible to turn him into a martyr...In any case, I intend to probe this business to the bottom. Perhaps I can find a way to strike fear into this Madame de Rênal, who does not think highly of us and, underneath it all, simply detests me...Perhaps I can find, in all this, some dazzling road to reconciliation with Monsieur de La Mole, who has a weakness for this little seminarian." The lawsuit settlement had been signed some weeks earlier, and Father de Frilair had returned to Besançon, the day of the unfortunate attempt to kill Madame de Rênal, in the Verrières church; he had said nothing about Julien's mysterious birth. Only one disagreeable event remained, as Julien saw it, between him and his death, and that would be his father's visit. He consulted Fouqué about writing to the prosecutor, to be excused from receiving any more visitors. His horror at the idea of seeing his father, at such a moment, profoundly shocked the timber merchant's honest, bourgeois heart. He believed he could understand why so many people passionately hated his friend. Out of respect for the miserable fellow, he hid his feelings. "In any case," he replied stiffly, "such an order would not apply to your father." But she moves so mysteriously, and her figure is so elegant! Who can she be?
The Red and the Black
—Schiller The tower doors opened very early, the next day. Julien woke with a start. "Oh, Good God!" he thought. "Here's my father. What unpleasantness!" Just then, a woman dressed like a peasant threw herself into his arms; he could just barely recognize her. It was Mademoiselle de La Mole. "You're wicked! I couldn't tell from your letter where you were. This crime, as you call it, is simply a noble act of vengeance, and shows me all the loftiness of the heart beating in your breast. I only found out in Verrières..." Despite his bias against Mademoiselle de La Mole (which, incidentally, he never directly admitted to himself), Julien found her extremely pretty. How could he not see, in everything she did, and everything she said, noble, unaffected feelings far beyond what a petty, vulgar soul could have dared? He still believed he had loved a queen; after a few moments, he said to her, with a rare nobility of both speech and thought: "I saw the future wonderfully clearly. After my death, I saw you remarried to Monsieur de Croisenois, who would be marrying a widow. The noble but a bit romantic soul of this charming widow had been so shocked by a bizarre occurrence, for her both tragic and great, that she became a convert to the cult of common prudence, and took the trouble to understand the real worth of the young marquis. You would have been resigned to everyday happiness: respect, wealth, a lofty rank...But, my dear Mathilde, your coming here, should it be suspected, would be a fatal blow for Monsieur de La Mole, and for that he will never forgive me. I've already caused him so much sorrow! The academician will be saying he nourished a serpent in his breast." "I confess I did not expect so much cold reasoning, so much concern for the future," said Mademoiselle de La Mole, almost angry. "My chambermaid, virtually as cautious as you are, took herself a passport, and I've been traveling, as fast as I could, under the name Madame Michelet." "And Madame Michelet was able to arrive where she now is, just as easily as that?" "Ah, you're always the superior man I favored! First, I offered a hundred francs to a judge's secretary, who acted as if my getting in here was an impossibility. But once the money was in his hand, this respectable man kept me waiting, and raised all sorts of objections. I wondered if he was thinking of robbing me..." She stopped. "And?" said Julien. "Don't be angry, my little Julien," she said, hugging him. "I had to give the secretary my name: he thought I was some young working girl from Paris, who'd fallen in love with handsome Julien...In fact, those are his words. I swore I was your wife, and I have permission to see you every day." "The idiocy is complete," thought Julien. "I haven't been able to stop it. But after all, Monsieur de La Mole is such a great lord that the newspapers, and their readers, will know how to invent excuses when a young colonel marries this charming widow. My imminent death will muffle everything else." He abandoned himself, delighted, to Mathilde's love, which contained madness, greatness of soul, everything strangest and most remarkable. She seriously proposed dying with him. After the first ecstasies, and when her happiness at seeing Julien had been sated, a lively curiosity suddenly seized her mind. She looked her lover over and found him far beyond what she had been imagining. Boniface de La Mole seemed to be resuscitated in him, but even more heroic. She visited the region's leading lawyers, and offended them by offering gold rather too crudely. But they ultimately accepted the case.
She quickly decided that, in Besançon, any dealings of a doubtful nature, in which important matters were at stake, were completely dependent on Father de Frilair. Using her obscure assumed name, she at first experienced insurmountable difficulties, and could not reach the Congregation of the Holy Virgin's all-powerful agent. But rumors had soon spread all over town about the beautiful, young, fashionable dressmaker, come to Besançon from Paris, wild with love, to console the young ecclesiastic, Julien Sorel. Mathilde hurried, alone and on foot, along the streets of Besançon; she hoped no one would recognize her. In any case, she thought it unwise for her cause to produce a great impression on ordinary people. She was foolish enough to dream of starting a revolution, to rescue Julien as he was going to his death. Mademoiselle de La Mole fancied herself dressed simply, as befitted a woman who was suffering; she was in fact dressed to catch every eye. In Besançon, she was the center of attention everywhere she went, until finally, after a week of petitioning, she obtained an audience with Father de Frilair. No matter how courageous she might be, two ideas—powerful men in the Congregation of the Holy Virgin, and foxlike wickedness—were so strongly linked in her mind that she shook as she stood at the episcopal palace door and rang the bell. She could barely walk when she had to climb the stairway leading to the vicar-general's rooms. The palace's empty silence gave her chills. "I'll sit in an armchair, and the chair will take hold of me. I'll disappear. To whom can my chambermaid go, seeking news of me? The police captain will be careful not to do anything...I am totally alone in this great town!" Her first glimpse of the vicar-general's rooms reassured her. First, the door was opened by a servant in very elegant livery. The drawing room where one waited displayed a subtle, delicate luxury to be found, in Paris, only in the best houses. The moment she saw Father de Frilair, who approached her most paternally, all her notions of horrible criminality disappeared. The appearance of this handsome man did not in the least evoke a sense of energetic virtue, more than a little barbaric, so obnoxious to Paris society. The half smile on the priest's face—he who controlled everything in Besançon—proclaimed a man of good manners, the learned prelate, the crafty administrator. Mathilde felt herself back in Paris. It did not take more than a few moments before Mathilde admitted that she was the daughter of his powerful adversary, Marquis de La Mole. "I am not in fact Madame Michelet," she said, resuming her haughty bearing, "and that admission costs me very little, for I have come to consult you, sir, about the possibility of arranging Monsieur de La Vernaye's escape. First of all, he is guilty of nothing more than thoughtlessness: the woman he fired at is doing well. Secondly, in order to bribe underlings I will give you, here and now, fifty thousand francs, and pledge myself to doubling that. And, finally, my gratitude and that of my family will find nothing impossible for whoever saves Monsieur de La Vernaye." The vicar-general was astonished at this name. Mathilde showed him several letters from the minister of war, addressed to Monsieur Julien Sorel de La Vernaye. "You can see, sir, that my father has made himself responsible for the accused's fortunes. I married him, in secret: my father wished him to be a commissioned senior officer before announcing this marriage—not at all a usual one for a de La Mole." Mathilde saw the kindly, pleasantly sweet-tempered expression fade swiftly away, step by step, as Father de Frilair made these important discoveries. Shrewdness, blended with profound duplicity, settled onto his face. The vicar-general was uncertain; he reread the official documents, slowly.
The Red and the Black
"How should I act, in the face of these strange revelations? This sets me in a familiar relationship, all of a sudden, with a woman who is a friend of the famous Madame de Fervaques, niece of the all-powerful Bishop of ———, he who creates bishops here in France. "That which has seemed to be the remote future has unexpectedly materialized. This could lead me to everything I have wished for." Mathilde was initially frightened, seeing how this powerful man's face kept changing: she was alone with him in a secluded room. "But Good Lord!" she soon told herself. "Wouldn't it be the worst thing that could have happened, had I made no impression at all on the cold egotism of a power- and pleasure-glutted priest?" Dazed by the swift, unexpected vision of actually becoming a bishop, stunned by Mathilde's quick intelligence, for a moment Father de Frilair's defenses were no longer fully operational. Mademoiselle de La Mole saw him virtually at her feet, ambitious and eager to the point of nervous trembling. "It's all quite apparent," she thought. "Nothing will be impossible, here, for Madame de Fervaques's friend." Although still moved by gloomy jealousy, she was courageous enough to explain that Julien was on intimate terms with Marshall de Fervaques's widow, and had met, almost daily, the Bishop of ———. "Any list of thirty-six jurors, drawn by chance even four or five times over, and representative of the most important residents of this district," said the vicar-general, grasping ambition visible on his face as he carefully stressed each and every word, "would be extremely unlikely not to include eight or ten of my friends, who would be the most sensible of the whole lot. I would usually have a majority—even more than that, indeed—of the necessary votes. You see, mademoiselle, I can very easily pardon and exonerate—" He suddenly stopped himself, as if amazed by what he was saying: he'd been admitting things never spoken of in front of secular people. Then Mathilde was stunned, in turn, when Father de Frilair disclosed that, above all other things, what had astounded, and interested, Besançon society about Julien's bizarre adventures was that he had begun by inspiring a grand passion in Madame de Rênal, and for a long time had reciprocated it. The priest had no trouble seeing how this account produced a strong reaction. "Now I can even the score!" he thought. "Finally, I have a way of managing this very determined little lady: I was quivering, afraid of not finding one." The noble and rather unmanageable charm of this beautiful woman doubled, in his eyes, as he saw her virtually a supplicant. He recovered his cold collectedness, and did not hesitate to twist the dagger in her heart. "I wouldn't be surprised, in the end," he said casually, "if we learned that jealousy was behind Monsieur Sorel's having fired two shots at this woman, once so dearly beloved. It's not likely that she has deprived herself of all human pleasures, and of late she very often saw a certain young priest from Dijon, a kind of Jansenist without manners or morals, as of course they all are." Father de Frilair took vast sensuous delight in torturing, very slowly, this pretty young girl, whose weak side he took by surprise. "And why," he said, fastening his burning eyes on Mathilde, "why would Monsieur Sorel have chosen a church, if it hadn't been because, at exactly that moment, his rival was there, celebrating mass? Everyone agrees on the vast intelligence, and even more on the good sense, of this happy man you are shielding. What could be simpler than to hide himself in Monsieur de Rênal's gardens, which he knew so well? There, with the virtual certainty of not being seen, or arrested, or even suspected, he could have killed the woman who had made him so jealous."
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Plotting
This argument, apparently so legitimate, drove Mathilde out of control. Her soul was lofty, but saturated in the sterile prudence which, in sophisticated society, is considered an accurate depiction of the human heart: it had not been fashioned to understand, quickly or easily, the joy of mocking such prudence, which to a burning soul can be so inspiriting. In the upper ranks of Paris high society, where Mathilde had always dwelled, passion can only very rarely cut through prudence. People who throw themselves out of windows always leap from the upper stories. The vicar-general was finally sure he had everything under control. He let Mathilde know (and was surely lying) that he could do as he liked, in dealing with the public official who was prosecuting Julien's case. If he had not thought Mathilde so very pretty, Father de Frilair would not have spoken to her so openly until, at least, the fifth or sixth interview. Chapter Thirty-Nine: Plotting Castres, 1676: A man had just murdered his sister, in the house next to mine; this gentleman had previously been guilty of murder. His father, by having five hundred francs distributed, in secret, among the town councillors, saved his son's life. —Locke, A Trip To France21 Leaving the bishop's palace, Mathilde had no hesitation about sending a courier to Madame de Fervaques: fear of compromising herself did not hold her back for a second. She begged her rival to secure a letter for Father de Frilair, handwritten by the Bishop of ———. She went so far as to plead that Madame de Fervaques herself hurry to Besançon. For a soul so jealous, and so proud, this was an heroic act. Following Fouqué's advice, she had been careful not to tell Julien about any of these proceedings. Her presence sufficiently disturbed him, without adding more. Far more respectable in the face of death than ever before in his life, Julien felt remorseful not only toward Monsieur de La Mole, but toward Mathilde as well. "What's this?" he said to himself. "I find myself paying no attention to her, and even feeling bored. She's ruining herself for me, and this is how I repay her! Am I as bad as all that?" He had not been much concerned about this, when he'd been ambitious: in those days, the only shame he felt was for not achieving success. His moral discomfort, when he was with Mathilde, was even more marked because, at those very moments, he was inspiring in her the most extraordinary and most insane passion. All she talked about was the wild, exotic sacrifices she wished she could make to save him. Excited by feelings that she cherished, and that swept before them all her pride, she wished she could fill every second of her life with some dramatic development. The weirdest plans, and the most perilous for her, filled her long sessions with Julien. The jailers, who had been well paid, let her do what she liked. Mathilde's ideas did not stop at the sacrifice of her reputation: she did not care if every member of good society knew how things were with her. Falling on her knees in front of the king's carriage, as it galloped along, and begging for Julien's pardon, catching the king's eye at the risk of being crushed a thousand times over, was one of the least extravagant daydreams concocted by her exalted, courageous heart. By making use of friends with posts close to the king, she was sure she could get into areas of the castle closed to the public.