22 Stendhal was a great admirer of Shakespeare; he wrote a study entitled Racine and Shakespeare (1825), forcefully attacking the traditional stature given to Racine and setting up Shakespeare, instead, as a model for young writers (of the third decade of the nineteenth century) to emulate.
Chapter Seventeen: The First Deputy
that we could certainly see Robespierre's return, precisely because of the lower-class people who are being elevated far too high. Madame de Rênal's coldness lasted a long time, and seemed to Julien unusually obvious. And the fear of having spoken unpleasantly to him, even indirectly, was followed by her disgust at what he had said. Unhappiness was clearly displayed on her face, so cloudless and simple when she was happy and untroubled. Julien did not dare, now, to daydream unguardedly. Calmer, and less loving, he thought it unwise to go to her room that night. It would be better if she came to his: if a servant saw her hurrying through the house, there would be twenty different excuses for so quick paced a walk. But this arrangement, too, had its difficulties. Fouqué had sent Julien volumes that he, as a student of theology, had never been able to ask for, at a bookshop. He dared open them only at night. He was deeply pleased that no visitor could interrupt him; before the little episode in the orchard, any such expectation would have rendered him unable to focus on what he was reading. Madame de Rênal had shown him an entirely new way to understand these books. He had ventured to ask her a horde of questions: they were all about small issues, but ignorance of them simply checked the mind of a young man not born into good society—no matter the natural genius he seemed to have. This education, administered by love and given him by a wonderfully ignorant woman, was sheer happiness. Julien immediately began to perceive society as, today, it actually is. His insights were not blurred by an account of what it had once been like, whether two thousand years ago or merely sixty years, in the days of Voltaire and Louis XV.23 To his inexpressible pleasure, a veil dropped away from his eyes: he at last understood what had been going on in Verrières. To begin with, there were complex machinations, set in motion two years earlier by the governor at Besançon. These had the support of letters from Paris, written by men at the very highest levels. It was all about arranging for Monsieur de Moirod—the most pious man in the whole region—to be the first (not the second, but the first) deputy to the mayor of Verrières. He was in competition with a certain very wealthy manufacturer, who absolutely had to be shoved down into the post of second assistant. This allowed Julien to understand, at last, the hints he'd overheard when the region's high society came to dinner at Monsieur de Rênal's. These men of privilege were deeply concerned with who got the first deputy's post, though neither the rest of the town, and above all the liberals, suspected even the possibility of such an issue. What made this so important a matter, as everyone knows, was that the eastern side of Verrières's main street needed to be moved back a good nine feet, that thoroughfare having been designated a national highway. Now, if Monsieur de Moirod, who owned three houses that would have to be moved to widen the road, should manage to become first deputy, he would automatically become mayor, should Monsieur de Rênal be elected to the Chamber of Deputies, and he would close his eyes, and the houses jutting out into the public road would be quietly and invisibly repaired, in assorted small ways, so they could stay where they were for another hundred years. For all Monsieur de Moirod's well-known probity, and his reputation for high piety, there was no doubt that he would go along, because he had a great many children. Nine of the houses scheduled to be moved were owned by the best people in Verrières.