Chapter Chapter 42 · IS HE A DANTON?

. IS HE A DANTON?

The need of anxiety. These words summed up the character

of my aunt, the beautiful Marguerite de Valois, who was

soon to marry the King of Navarre whom we see reigning

at present in France under the name of Henry IV. The

need of staking something was the key to the character

of this charming princess; hence her quarrels and

reconciliations with her brothers from the time when she

was sixteen. Now, what can a young girl stake? The most

precious thing she has: her reputation, the esteem of a

lifetime.

_Memoirs of the Duke d' Angoulème._

_the natural son of Charles IX_.

"There is no contract to sign for Julien and me, there is no notary;

everything is on the heroic plane, everything is the child of chance.

Apart from the noble birth which he lacks, it is the love of Marguerite

de Valois for the young La Mole, the most distinguished man of the

time, over again. Is it my fault that the young men of the court are

such great advocates of the conventional, and turn pale at the mere

idea of the slightest adventure which is a little out of the ordinary?

A little journey in Greece or Africa represents the highest pitch of

their audacity, and moreover they can only march in troops. As soon as

they find themselves alone they are frightened, not of the Bedouin's

lance, but of ridicule and that fear makes them mad.

"My little Julien on the other hand only likes to act alone. This

unique person never thinks for a minute of seeking help or support in

others! He despises others, and that is why I do not despise him.

"If Julien were noble as well as poor, my love would simply be a vulgar

piece of stupidity, a sheer mésalliance; I would have nothing to do

with it; it would be absolutely devoid of the characteristic traits of

grand passion--the immensity of the difficulty to be overcome and the

black uncertainty cf the result."

Mademoiselle de la Mole was so engrossed in these pretty arguments that

without realising what she was doing, she praised Julien to the marquis

de Croisenois and her brother on the following day. Her eloquence went

so far that it provoked them.

"You be careful of this young man who has so much energy," exclaimed

her brother; "if we have another revolution he will have us all

guillotined."

She was careful not to answer, but hastened to rally her brother and

the marquis de Croisenois on the apprehension which energy caused them.

"It is at bottom simply the fear of meeting the unexpected, the fear of

being non-plussed in the presence of the unexpected--"

"Always, always, gentlemen, the fear of ridicule, a monster which had

the misfortune to die in 1816."

"Ridicule has ceased to exist in a country where there are two

parties," M. de la Mole was fond of saying.

His daughter had understood the idea.

"So, gentlemen," she would say to Julien's enemies, "you will be

frightened all your life and you will be told afterwards,

"Ce n'était pas un loup, ce n'en était que l'ombre."

Matilde soon left them. Her brother's words horrified her; they

occasioned her much anxiety, but the day afterwards she regarded them

as tantamount to the highest praise.

"His energy frightens them in this age where all energy is dead. I will

tell him my brother's phrase. I want to see what answer he will make.

But I will choose one of the moments when his eyes are shining. Then he

will not be able to lie to me.

"He must be a Danton!" she added after a long and vague reverie. "Well,

suppose the revolution begins again, what figures will Croisenois and

my brother cut then? It is settled in advance: Sublime resignation.

They will be heroic sheep who will allow their throats to be cut

without saying a word. Their one fear when they die will still be the

fear of being bad form. If a Jacobin came to arrest my little Julien he

would blow his brains out, however small a chance he had of escaping.

He is not frightened of doing anything in bad form."

These last words made her pensive; they recalled painful memories and

deprived her of all her boldness. These words reminded her of the jests

of MM. de Caylus, Croisenois, de Luz and her brother; these gentlemen

joined in censuring Julien for his priestly demeanour, which they said

was humble and hypocritical.

"But," she went on suddenly with her eyes gleaming with joy, "the very

bitterness and the very frequency of their jests prove in spite of

themselves that he is the most distinguished man whom we have seen this

winter. What matter his defects and the things which they make fun of?

He has the element of greatness and they are shocked by it. Yes, they,

the very men who are so good and so charitable in other matters. It is

a fact that he is poor and that he has studied in order to be a priest;

they are the heads of a squadron and never had any need of studying;

they found it less trouble.

"In spite of all the handicap of his everlasting black suit and of that

priestly expression which he must wear, poor boy, if he isn't to die of

hunger, his merit frightens them, nothing could be clearer. And as for

that priest-like expression, why he no longer has it after we have been

alone for some moments, and after those gentlemen have evolved what

they imagine to be a subtle and impromptu epigram, is not their first

look towards Julien? I have often noticed it. And yet they know well

that he never speaks to them unless he is questioned. I am the only one

whom he speaks to. He thinks I have a lofty soul. He only answers the

points they raise sufficiently to be polite. He immediately reverts

into respectfulness. But with me he will discuss things for whole

hours, he is not certain of his ideas so long as I find the slightest

objection to them. There has not been a single rifle-shot fired all

this winter; words have been the only means of attracting attention.

Well, my father, who is a superior man and will carry the fortunes of

our house very far, respects Julien. Every one else hates him, no one

despises him except my mother's devout friends."

The Comte de Caylus had or pretended to have a great passion for

horses; he passed his life in his stables and often breakfasted there.

This great passion, together with his habit of never laughing, won for

him much respect among his friends: he was the eagle of the little

circle.

As soon as they had reassembled the following day behind madame de la

Mole's armchair, M. de Caylus, supported by Croisenois and by Norbert,

began in Julien's absence to attack sharply the high opinion which

Mathilde entertained for Julien. He did this without any provocation,

and almost the very minute that he caught sight of mademoiselle de la

Mole. She tumbled to the subtlety immediately and was delighted with it.

"So there they are all leagued together," she said to herself, "against

a man of genius who has not ten louis a year to bless himself with and

who cannot answer them except in so far as he is questioned. They are

frightened of him, black coat and all. But how would things stand if he

had epaulettes?"

She had never been more brilliant, hardly had Caylus and his allies

opened their attack than she riddled them with sarcastic jests. When

the fire of these brilliant officers was at length extinguished she

said to M. de Caylus,

"Suppose that some gentleman in the Franche-Comté mountains finds out

to-morrow that Julien is his natural son and gives him a name and

some thousands of francs, why in six months he will be an officer of

hussars like you, gentlemen, in six weeks he will have moustaches like

you gentlemen. And then his greatness of character will no longer be

an object of ridicule. I shall then see you reduced, monsieur the

future duke, to this stale and bad argument, the superiority of the

court nobility over the provincial nobility. But where will you be

if I choose to push you to extremities and am mischievous enough to

make Julien's father a Spanish duke, who was a prisoner of war at

Besançon in the time of Napoleon, and who out of conscientious scruples

acknowledges him on his death bed?" MM. de Caylus, and de Croisenois

found all these assumptions of illegitimacy in rather bad taste. That

was all they saw in Mathilde's reasoning.

His sister's words were so clear that Norbert, in spite of his

submissiveness, assumed a solemn air, which one must admit did not

harmonise very well with his amiable, smiling face. He ventured to say

a few words.

"Are you ill? my dear," answered Mathilde with a little air of

seriousness. "You must be very bad to answer jests by moralizing."

"Moralizing from you! Are you soliciting a job as prefect?"

Mathilde soon forgot the irritation of the comte de Caylus, the bad

temper of Norbert, and the taciturn despair of M. de Croisenois. She

had to decide one way or the other a fatal question which had just

seized upon her soul.

"Julien is sincere enough with me," she said to herself, "a man at

his age, in a inferior position, and rendered unhappy as he is by an

extraordinary ambition, must have need of a woman friend. I am perhaps

that friend, but I see no sign of love in him. Taking into account the

audacity of his character he would surely have spoken to me about his

love."

This uncertainty and this discussion with herself which henceforth

monopolised Mathilde's time, and in connection with which she found new

arguments each time that Julien spoke to her, completely routed those

fits of boredom to which she had been so liable.

Daughter as she was of a man of intellect who might become a minister,

mademoiselle de la Mole had been when in the convent of the Sacred

Heart, the object of the most excessive flattery. This misfortune can

never be compensated for. She had been persuaded that by reason of all

her advantages of birth, fortune, etc., she ought to be happier than

any one else. This is the cause of the boredom of princes and of all

their follies.

Mathilde had not escaped the deadly influence of this idea. However

intelligent one may be, one cannot at the age of ten be on one's guard

against the flatteries of a whole convent, which are apparently so well

founded.

From the moment that she had decided that she loved Julien, she

was no longer bored. She congratulated herself every day on having

deliberately decided to indulge in a grand passion. "This amusement

is very dangerous," she thought. "All the better, all the better, a

thousand times. Without a grand passion I should be languishing in

boredom during the finest time of my life, the years from sixteen

to twenty. I have already wasted my finest years: all my pleasure

consisted in being obliged to listen to the silly arguments of my

mother's friends who when at Coblentz in 1792 were not quite so strict,

so they say, as their words of to-day."

It was while Mathilde was a prey to these great fits of uncertainty

that Julien was baffled by those long looks of hers which lingered upon

him. He noticed, no doubt, an increased frigidity in the manner of

comte Norbert, and a fresh touch of haughtiness in the manner of MM. de

Caylus, de Luz and de Croisenois. He was accustomed to that. He would

sometimes be their victim in this way at the end of an evening when, in

view of the position he occupied, he had been unduly brilliant. Had it

not been for the especial welcome with which Mathilde would greet him,

and the curiosity with which all this society inspired him, he would

have avoided following these brilliant moustachioed young men into the

garden, when they accompanied mademoiselle de La Mole there, in the

hour after dinner.

"Yes," Julien would say to himself, "it is impossible for me to deceive

myself, mademoiselle de la Mole looks at me in a very singular way.

But even when her fine blue open eyes are fixed on me, wide open with

the most abandon, I always detect behind them an element of scrutiny,

self-possession and malice. Is it possible that this may be love? But

how different to madame de Rênal's looks!"

One evening after dinner Julien, who had followed M. de la Mole into

his study, was rapidly walking back to the garden. He approached

Mathilde's circle without any warning, and caught some words pronounced

in a very loud voice. She was teasing her brother. Julien heard his

name distinctly pronounced twice. He appeared. There was immediately

a profound silence and abortive efforts were made to dissipate it.

Mademoiselle de la Mole and her brother were too animated to find

another topic of conversation. MM. de Caylus, de Croisenois, de Luz,

and one of their friends, manifested an icy coldness to Julien. He went

away.