3 Pope Pius V: (1504–74); "Unam Ecclesiam": an invention of Stendhal's.
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Seminary
Julien looked down and saw his trunk right in front of him. He'd been looking at the trunk for three hours, and never recognized it. Number 103 was a tiny room, eight feet square, on the building's top floor. Julien noticed that it looked out on the fortress walls, and beyond that he could see the lovely plain, separated from the city by the Doubs. "What a charming view!" he exclaimed to himself, and in saying the words he was not aware of what they expressed. All the violent emotions he'd been experiencing, in the short time he'd been in Besançon, had completely drained his strength. He sat down near the window, on the single wooden chair in his cell, and sitting there fell into a deep sleep. He did not hear the dinner bell, nor that for evening services. He had been forgotten. When the first rays of the sun woke him, the next morning, he found himself lying on the wooden floor.
The Red and the Black
Chapter Twenty-Six: The World, or What the Rich Man is Missing I'm alone in the world, no one bothers to think about me. All who I see growing wealthy possess a boldness and a flinty heartedness I do not feel. They hate me because of my easy kindness. Ah! Soon I'll die, maybe of hunger, maybe at the sight of such hard men. —Young1 He hurriedly brushed his cassock and went down. He was late. An assistant master scolded him sharply. Instead of trying to justify himself, Julien crossed his arms on his chest: "Peccavi, pater optime, I have sinned, kind Father, I confess my fault," he said with a contrite air. His debut was a great success. The clever folk among the seminarians saw they were dealing with a man not at their profession's starting line. Recess came. Julien noted that he was the object of universal curiosity. But he was neither withdrawn nor silent. According to the principles he'd evolved for himself, his three hundred and twenty-one colleagues were his enemies, the most dangerous of whom, in his eyes, was Father Pirard. A few days later, Julien had to choose a confessor. He was presented with a list. "Oh, Good Lord! What do they take me for?" he said to himself. "Do they think I can't take a hint?" And he chose Father Pirard. Although he did not know it, this was a decisive step. A small and very young seminarian, a native of Verrières who from the first day had declared himself Julien's friend, informed him that, had he chosen Father Castaneda, the assistant director of the seminary, he might have done better. "Father Castaneda is Father Pirard's enemy. He suspects Pirard of Jansenism,"2 added the little fellow, bending close to Julien's ear. Our hero considered himself wonderfully cautious, but all his first steps were, like his choice of a confessor, distinctly careless. Misled by the intense vanity of an imaginative mind, he took his intentions for accomplished facts, believing himself a consummate hypocrite. His foolishness went so far that he took himself to task for succeeding in this weaklings' art: "Alas! It's my only weapon. In some other age," he thought, "I would have earned my bread by deeds that spoke for themselves, right in my enemy's face." Satisfied with his own conduct, Julien looked around, seeing everywhere the appearance of virtue in its purest form. Eight or ten of the seminarians lived as if already canonized, and had saintly visions like those of Saint Theresa, or Saint Francis3 when he received the stigmata of the Crucifixion, on Mount Verna in the Apennines. But this was a great secret, hidden by their friends. The poor young visionaries were almost always in the infirmary. A hundred of the others combined sturdy faith with indefatigable hard work. They studied, indeed, to the point of making themselves ill, though without learning much. Two or three were noteworthy for real talent, including one named Chazel, but Julien felt himself quite unlike any of them, and they shared that judgment. The remainder of the three hundred and twenty-one seminarians were simply rough- hewn fellows, never quite sure they'd understood the Latin words they kept repeating all day