Chapter Chapter 22 · MANNERS OF PROCEDURE IN 1830

. MANNERS OF PROCEDURE IN 1830

Speech has been given to man to conceal his thought.

_R.P. Malagrida_.

Julien had scarcely arrived at Verrières before he reproached himself

with his injustice towards Madame de Rênal. "I should have despised

her for a weakling of a woman if she had not had the strength to go

through with her scene with M. de Rênal. But she has acquitted herself

like a diplomatist and I sympathise with the defeat of the man who is

my enemy. There is a bourgeois prejudice in my action; my vanity is

offended because M. de Rênal is a man. Men form a vast and illustrious

body to which I have the honour to belong. I am nothing but a fool." M.

Chélan had refused the magnificent apartments which the most important

Liberals in the district had offered him, when his loss of his living

had necessitated his leaving the parsonage. The two rooms which he had

rented were littered with his books. Julien, wishing to show Verrières

what a priest could do, went and fetched a dozen pinewood planks from

his father, carried them on his back all along the Grande-Rue, borrowed

some tools from an old comrade and soon built a kind of book-case in

which he arranged M. Chélan's books.

"I thought you were corrupted by the vanity of the world," said the

old man to him as he cried with joy, "but this is something which well

redeems all the childishness of that brilliant Guard of Honour uniform

which has made you so many enemies."

M. de Rênal had ordered Julien to stay at his house. No one suspected

what had taken place. The third day after his arrival Julien saw no

less a personage than M. the sub-prefect de Maugiron come all the way

up the stairs to his room. It was only after two long hours of fatuous

gossip and long-winded lamentations about the wickedness of man, the

lack of honesty among the people entrusted with the administration

of the public funds, the dangers of his poor France, etc. etc., that

Julien was at last vouchsafed a glimpse of the object of the visit.

They were already on the landing of the staircase and the poor half

disgraced tutor was escorting with all proper deference the future

prefect of some prosperous department, when the latter was pleased to

take an interest in Julien's fortune, to praise his moderation in money

matters, etc., etc. Finally M. de Maugiron, embracing him in the most

paternal way, proposed that he should leave M. de Rênal and enter the

household of an official who had children to educate and who, like King

Philippe, thanked Heaven not so much that they had been granted to him,

but for the fact that they had been born in the same neighbourhood as

M. Julien. Their tutor would enjoy a salary of 800 francs, payable

not from month to month, which is not at all aristocratic, said M. de

Maugiron, but quarterly and always in advance.

It was Julien's turn now. After he had been bored for an hour and a

half by waiting for what he had to say, his answer was perfect and,

above all, as long as a bishop's charge. It suggested everything and

yet said nothing clearly. It showed at the same time respect for M.

de Rênal, veneration for the public of Verrières and gratitude to the

distinguished sub-prefect. The sub-prefect, astonished at finding

him more Jesuitical than himself, tried in vain to obtain something

definite. Julien was delighted, seized the opportunity to practise, and

started his answer all over again in different language. Never has an

eloquent minister who wished to make the most of the end of a session

when the Chamber really seemed desirous of waking up, said less in more

words.

M. de Maugiron had scarcely left before Julien began to laugh like

a madman. In order to exploit his Jesuitical smartness, he wrote a

nine-page letter to M. de Rênal in which he gave him an account of all

that had been said to him and humbly asked his advice. "But the old

scoundrel has not told me the name of the person who is making the

offer. It is bound to be M. Valenod who, no doubt, sees in my exile at

Verrières the result of his anonymous letter."

Having sent off his despatch and feeling as satisfied as a hunter who

at six o'clock in the morning on a fine autumn day, comes out into

a plain that abounds with game, he went out to go and ask advice of

M. Chélan. But before he had arrived at the good curé's, providence,

wishing to shower favours upon him, threw in his path M. de Valenod,

to whom he owned quite freely that his heart was torn in two; a poor

lad such as he was owed an exclusive devotion to the vocation to which

it had pleased Heaven to call him. But vocation was not everything in

this base world. In order to work worthily at the vine of the Lord,

and to be not totally unworthy of so many worthy colleagues, it was

necessary to be educated; it was necessary to spend two expensive years

at the seminary of Besançon; saving consequently became an imperative

necessity, and was certainly much easier with a salary of eight hundred

francs paid quarterly than with six hundred francs which one received

monthly. On the other hand, did not Heaven, by placing him by the side

of the young de Rênals, and especially by inspiring him with a special

devotion to them, seem to indicate that it was not proper to abandon

that education for another one.

Julien reached such a degree of perfection in that particular kind of

eloquence which has succeeded the drastic quickness of the empire, that

he finished by boring himself with the sound of his own words.

On reaching home he found a valet of M. Valenod in full livery who had

been looking for him all over the town, with a card inviting him to

dinner for that same day.

Julien had never been in that man's house. Only a few days before

he had been thinking of nothing but the means of giving him a sound

thrashing without getting into trouble with the police. Although

the time of the dinner was one o'clock, Julien thought it was more

deferential to present himself at half-past twelve at the office of M.

the director of the workhouse. He found him parading his importance in

the middle of a lot of despatch boxes. His large black whiskers, his

enormous quantity of hair, his Greek bonnet placed across the top of

his head, his immense pipe, his embroidered slippers, the big chains

of gold crossed all over his breast, and the whole stock-in-trade of

a provincial financier who considers himself prosperous, failed to

impose on Julien in the least: They only made him think the more of the

thrashing which he owed him.

He asked for the honour of being introduced to Madame Valenod. She

was dressing and was unable to receive him. By way of compensation he

had the privilege of witnessing the toilet of M. the director of the

workhouse. They subsequently went into the apartment of Madame Valenod,

who introduced her children to him with tears in her eyes. This lady

was one of the most important in Verrières, had a big face like a

man's, on which she had put rouge in honour of this great function. She

displayed all the maternal pathos of which she was capable.

Julien thought all the time of Madame de Rênal. His distrust made him

only susceptible to those associations which are called up by their

opposites, but he was then affected to the verge of breaking down.

This tendency was increased by the sight of the house of the director

of the workhouse. He was shown over it. Everything in it was new and

magnificent, and he was told the price of every article of furniture.

But Julien detected a certain element of sordidness, which smacked of

stolen money into the bargain. Everybody in it, down to the servants,

had the air of setting his face in advance against contempt.

The collector of taxes, the superintendent of indirect taxes, the

officer of gendarmerie, and two or three other public officials arrived

with their wives. They were followed by some rich Liberals. Dinner was

announced. It occurred to Julien, who was already feeling upset, that

there were some poor prisoners on the other side of the dining-room

wall, and that an illicit profit had perhaps been made over their

rations of meat in order to purchase all that garish luxury with which

they were trying to overwhelm him.

"Perhaps they are hungry at this very minute," he said to himself. He

felt a choking in his throat. He found it impossible to eat and almost

impossible to speak. Matters became much worse a quarter of an hour

afterwards; they heard in the distance some refrains of a popular song

that was, it must be confessed, a little vulgar, which was being sung

by one of the inmates. M. Valenod gave a look to one of his liveried

servants who disappeared and soon there was no more singing to be

heard. At that moment a valet offered Julien some Rhine wine in a green

glass and Madame Valenod made a point of asking him to note that this

wine cost nine francs a bottle in the market. Julien held up his green

glass and said to M. Valenod,

"They are not singing that wretched song any more."

"Zounds, I should think not," answered the triumphant governor. "I have

made the rascals keep quiet."

These words were too much for Julien. He had the manners of his new

position, but he had not yet assimilated its spirit. In spite of all

his hypocrisy and its frequent practice, he felt a big tear drip down

his cheek.

He tried to hide it in the green glass, but he found it absolutely

impossible to do justice to the Rhine wine. "Preventing singing he said

to himself: Oh, my God, and you suffer it."

Fortunately nobody noticed his ill-bred emotion. The collector of

taxes had struck up a royalist song. "So this," reflected Julien's

conscience during the hubbub of the refrain which was sung in chorus,

"is the sordid prosperity which you will eventually reach, and you will

only enjoy it under these conditions and in company like this. You

will, perhaps, have a post worth twenty thousand francs; but while you

gorge yourself on meat, you will have to prevent a poor prisoner from

singing; you will give dinners with the money which you have stolen out

of his miserable rations and during your dinners he will be still more

wretched. Oh, Napoleon, how sweet it was to climb to fortune in your

way through the dangers of a battle, but to think of aggravating the

pain of the unfortunate in this cowardly way."

I own that the weakness which Julien had been manifesting in this

soliloquy gives me a poor opinion of him. He is worthy of being the

accomplice of those kid-gloved conspirators who purport to change the

whole essence of a great country's existence, without wishing to have

on their conscience the most trivial scratch.

Julien was sharply brought back to his rôle. He had not been invited to

dine in such good company simply to moon dreamily and say nothing.

A retired manufacturer of cotton prints, a corresponding member of the

Academy of Besançon and of that of Uzès, spoke to him from the other

end of the table and asked him if what was said everywhere about his

astonishing progress in the study of the New Testament was really true.

A profound silence was suddenly inaugurated. A New Testament in Latin

was found as though by magic in the possession of the learned member

of the two Academies. After Julien had answered, part of a sentence

in Latin was read at random. Julien then recited. His memory proved

faithful and the prodigy was admired with all the boisterous energy of

the end of dinner. Julien looked at the flushed faces of the ladies. A

good many were not so plain. He recognised the wife of the collector,

who was a fine singer.

"I am ashamed, as a matter of fact, to talk Latin so long before these

ladies," he said, turning his eyes on her. "If M. Rubigneau," that was

the name of the member of the two Academies, "will be kind enough to

read a Latin sentence at random instead of answering by following the

Latin text, I will try to translate it impromptu." This second test

completed his glory.

Several Liberals were there, who, though rich, were none the less the

happy fathers of children capable of obtaining scholarships, and had

consequently been suddenly converted at the last mission. In spite of

this diplomatic step, M. de Rênal had never been willing to receive

them in his house. These worthy people, who only knew Julien by name

and from having seen him on horseback on the day of the king of ----'s

entry, were his most noisy admirers. "When will those fools get tired

of listening to this Biblical language, which they don't understand in

the least," he thought. But, on the contrary, that language amused them

by its strangeness and made them smile. But Julien got tired.

As six o'clock struck he got up gravely and talked about a chapter in

Ligorio's New Theology which he had to learn by heart to recite on the

following day to M. Chélan, "for," he added pleasantly, "my business is

to get lessons said by heart to me, and to say them by heart myself."

There was much laughter and admiration; such is the kind of wit which

is customary in Verrières. Julien had already got up and in spite of

etiquette everybody got up as well, so great is the dominion exercised

by genius. Madame Valenod kept him for another quarter of an hour. He

really must hear her children recite their catechisms. They made the

most absurd mistakes which he alone noticed. He was careful not to

point them out. "What ignorance of the first principles of religion,"

he thought. Finally he bowed and thought he could get away; but they

insisted on his trying a fable of La Fontaine.

"That author is quite immoral," said Julien to Madame Valenod. A

certain fable on Messire Jean Chouart dares to pour ridicule on

all that we hold most venerable. He is shrewdly blamed by the best

commentators. Before Julien left he received four or five invitations

to dinner. "This young man is an honour to the department," cried all

the guests in chorus. They even went so far as to talk of a pension

voted out of the municipal funds to put him in the position of

continuing his studies at Paris.

While this rash idea was resounding through the dining-room Julien

had swiftly reached the front door. "You scum, you scum," he cried,

three or four times in succession in a low voice as he indulged in the

pleasure of breathing in the fresh air.

He felt quite an aristocrat at this moment, though he was the very

man who had been shocked for so long a period by the haughty smile of

disdainful superiority which he detected behind all the courtesies

addressed to him at M. de Rênal's. He could not help realising the

extreme difference. Why let us even forget the fact of its being money

stolen from the poor inmates, he said to himself as he went away, let

us forget also their stopping the singing. M. de Rênal would never

think of telling his guests the price of each bottle of wine with

which he regales them, and as for this M. Valenod, and his chronic

cataloguing of his various belongings, he cannot talk of his house, his

estate, etc., in the presence of his wife without saying, "Your house,

your estate."

This lady, who was apparently so keenly alive to the delights of

decorum, had just had an awful scene during the dinner with a servant

who had broken a wine-glass and spoilt one of her dozens; and the

servant too had answered her back with the utmost insolence.

"What a collection," said Julien to himself; "I would not live like

they do were they to give me half of all they steal. I shall give

myself away one fine day. I should not be able to restrain myself from

expressing the disgust with which they inspire one."

It was necessary, however, to obey Madame de Rênal's injunction and be

present at several dinners of the same kind. Julien was the fashion; he

was forgiven his Guard of Honour uniform, or rather that indiscretion

was the real cause of his successes. Soon the only question in

Verrières was whether M. de Rênal or M. the director of the workhouse

would be the victor in the struggle for the clever young man. These

gentlemen formed, together with M. Maslon, a triumvirate which had

tyrannised over the town for a number of years. People were jealous of

the mayor, and the Liberals had good cause for complaint, but, after

all, he was noble and born for a superior position, while M. Valenod's

father had not left him six hundred francs a year. His career had

necessitated a transition from pitying the shabby green suit which had

been so notorious in his youth, to envying the Norman horses, his gold

chains, his Paris clothes, his whole present prosperity.

Julien thought that he had discovered one honest man in the whirlpool

of this novel world. He was a geometrist named Gros, and had the

reputation of being a Jacobin. Julien, who had vowed to say nothing

but that which he disbelieved himself, was obliged to watch himself

carefully when speaking to M. Gros. He received big packets of

exercises from Vergy. He was advised to visit his father frequently,

and he fulfilled his unpleasant duty. In a word he was patching his

reputation together pretty well, when he was thoroughly surprised to

find himself woken up one morning by two hands held over his eyes.

It was Madame de Rênal who had made a trip to the town, and who,

running up the stairs four at a time while she left her children

playing with a pet rabbit, had reached Julien's room a moment before

her sons. This moment was delicious but very short: Madame de Rênal

had disappeared when the children arrived with the rabbit which

they wanted to show to their friend. Julien gave them all a hearty

welcome, including the rabbit. He seemed at home again. He felt that

he loved these children and that he enjoyed gossiping with them. He

was astonished at the sweetness of their voices, at the simplicity

and dignity of their little ways; he felt he needed to purge his

imagination of all the vulgar practices and all the unpleasantnesses

among which he had been living in Verrières. For there everyone was

always frightened of being scored off, and luxury and poverty were at

daggers drawn.

The people with whom he would dine would enter into confidences over

the joint which were as humiliating for themselves as they were

nauseating to the hearer.

"You others, who are nobles, you are right to be proud," he said to

Madame de Rênal, as he gave her an account of all the dinners which he

had put up with.

"You're the fashion then," and she laughed heartily as she thought of

the rouge which Madame Valenod thought herself obliged to put on each

time she expected Julien. "I think she has designs on your heart," she

added.

The breakfast was delicious. The presence of the children, though

apparently embarrassing, increased as a matter of fact the happiness of

the party. The poor children did not know how to give expression to the

joy at seeing Julien again. The servants had not failed to tell them

that he had been offered two hundred francs a year more to educate the

little Valenods.

Stanislas-Xavier, who was still pale from his illness, suddenly asked

his mother in the middle of the breakfast, the value of his silver

cover and of the goblet in which he was drinking.

"Why do you want to know that?"

"I want to sell them to give the price to M. Julien so that he shan't

be _done_ if he stays with us."

Julien kissed him with tears in his eyes. His mother wept

unrestrainedly, for Julien took Stanislas on his knees and explained to

him that he should not use the word "done" which, when employed in that

meaning was an expression only fit for the servants' hall. Seeing the

pleasure which he was giving to Madame de Rênal, he tried to explain

the meaning of being "done" by picturesque illustrations which amused

the children.

"I understand," said Stanislas, "it's like the crow who is silly enough

to let his cheese fall and be taken by the fox who has been playing the

flatterer."

Madame de Rênal felt mad with joy and covered her children with kisses,

a process which involved her leaning a little on Julien.

Suddenly the door opened. It was M. de Rênal. His severe and

discontented expression contrasted strangely with the sweet joy

which his presence dissipated. Madame de Rênal grew pale, she felt

herself incapable of denying anything. Julien seized command of the

conversation and commenced telling M. the mayor in a loud voice the

incident of the silver goblet which Stanislas wanted to sell. He was

quite certain this story would not be appreciated. M. de Rênal first

of all frowned mechanically at the mere mention of money. Any allusion

to that mineral, he was accustomed to say, is always a prelude to some

demand made upon my purse. But this was something more than a mere

money matter. His suspicions were increased. The air of happiness which

animated his family during his absence was not calculated to smooth

matters over with a man who was a prey to so touchy a vanity. "Yes,

yes," he said, as his wife started to praise to him the combined grace

and cleverness of the way in which Julien gave ideas to his pupils. "I

know, he renders me hateful to my own children. It is easy enough for

him to make himself a hundred times more loveable to them than I am

myself, though after all, I am the master. In this century everything

tends to make _legitimate_ authority unpopular. Poor France!"

Madame de Rênal had not stopped to examine the fine shades of the

welcome which her husband gave her. She had just caught a glimpse of

the possibility of spending twelve hours with Julien. She had a lot of

purchases to make in the town and declared that she positively insisted

in going to dine at the tavern. She stuck to her idea in spite of all

her husband's protests and remonstrances. The children were delighted

with the mere word tavern, which our modern prudery denounces with so

much gusto.

M. de Rênal left his wife in the first draper's shop which she entered

and went to pay some visits. He came back more morose than he had

been in the morning. He was convinced that the whole town was busy

with himself and Julien. As a matter of fact no one had yet given him

any inkling as to the more offensive part of the public gossip. Those

items which had been repeated to M. the mayor dealt exclusively with

the question of whether Julien would remain with him with six hundred

francs, or would accept the eight hundred francs offered by M. the

director of the workhouse.

The director, when he met M. de Rênal in society, gave him the cold

shoulder. These tactics were not without cleverness. There is no

impulsiveness in the provinces. Sensations are so rare there that they

are never allowed to be wasted.

M. le Valenod was what is called a hundred miles from Paris a _faraud_;

that means a coarse imprudent type of man. His triumphant existence

since 1815 had consolidated his natural qualities. He reigned, so

to say, in Verrières subject to the orders of M. de Rênal; but as

he was much more energetic, was ashamed of nothing, had a finger in

everything, and was always going about writing and speaking, and

was oblivious of all snubs, he had, although without any personal

pretensions, eventually come to equal the mayor in reputation in the

eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities. M. Valenod had, as it were,

said to the local tradesmen "Give me the two biggest fools among your

number;" to the men of law "Show me the two greatest dunces;" to the

sanitary officials "Point out to me the two biggest charlatans." When

he had thus collected the most impudent members of each separate

calling, he had practically said to them, "Let us reign together."

The manners of those people were offensive to M. de Rênal. The

coarseness of Valenod took offence at nothing, not even the frequency

with which the little abbé Maslon would give the lie to him in public.

But in the middle of all this prosperity M. Valenod found it necessary

to reassure himself by a number of petty acts of insolence on the

score of the crude truths which he well realised that everybody was

justified in addressing to him. His activity had redoubled since the

fears which the visit of M. Appert had left him. He had made three

journeys to Besançon. He wrote several letters by each courier; he sent

others by unknown men who came to his house at nightfall. Perhaps he

had been wrong in securing the dismissal of the old curé Chélan. For

this piece of vindictiveness had resulted in his being considered an

extremely malicious man by several pious women of good birth. Besides,

the rendering of this service had placed him in absolute dependence

on M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair from whom he received some strange

commissions. He had reached this point in his intrigues when he had

yielded to the pleasure of writing an anonymous letter, and thus

increasing his embarrassment. His wife declared to him that she wanted

to have Julien in her house; her vanity was intoxicated with the idea.

Such being his position M. Valenod imagined in advance a decisive

scene with his old colleague M. de Rênal. The latter might address

to him some harsh words, which he would not mind much; but he might

write to Besançon and even to Paris. Some minister's cousin might

suddenly fall down on Verrières and take over the workhouse. Valenod

thought of coming to terms with the Liberals. It was for that purpose

that several of them had been invited to the dinner when Julien was

present. He would have obtained powerful support against the mayor but

the elections might supervene, and it was only too evident that the

directorship of the workhouse was inconsistent with voting on the wrong

side. Madame de Rênal had made a shrewd guess at this intrigue, and

while she explained it to Julien as he gave her his arm to pass from

one shop to another, they found themselves gradually taken as far as

the _Cours de la Fidélité_ where they spent several hours nearly as

tranquil as those at Vergy.

At the same time M. Valenod was trying to put off a definite crisis

with his old patron by himself assuming the aggressive. These tactics

succeeded on this particular day, but aggravated the mayor's bad

temper. Never has vanity at close grips with all the harshness and

meanness of a pettifogging love of money reduced a man to a more sorry

condition than that of M. de Rênal when he entered the tavern. The

children, on the other hand, had never been more joyful and more merry.

This contrast put the finishing touch on his pique.

"So far as I can see I am not wanted in my family," he said as he

entered in a tone which he meant to be impressive.

For answer, his wife took him on one side and declared that it was

essential to send Julien away. The hours of happiness which she had

just enjoyed had given her again the ease and firmness of demeanour

necessary to follow out the plan of campaign which she had been

hatching for a fortnight. The finishing touch to the trouble of the

poor mayor of Verrières was the fact that he knew that they joked

publicly in the town about his love for cash. Valenod was as generous

as a thief, and on his side had acquitted himself brilliantly in the

last five or six collections for the Brotherhood of St. Joseph, the

congregation of the Virgin, the congregation of the Holy Sacrament,

etc., etc.

M. de Rênal's name had been seen more than once at the bottom of the

list of gentlefolk of Verrières, and the surrounding neighbourhood

who were adroitly classified in the list of the collecting brethren

according to the amount of their offerings. It was in vain that he said

that he was _not making money_. The clergy stands no nonsense in such

matters.