Bab Bab 40 · QUEEN MARGUERITE

. QUEEN MARGUERITE

Love! In what madness do you not manage to make us find

pleasure!

Letters of a Portuguese Nun.

Julien reread his letters. "How ridiculous I must have appeared in the

eyes of that Parisian doll," he said to himself when the dinner-bell

rang. "How foolish to have really told her what I was thinking! Perhaps

it was not so foolish. Telling the truth on that occasion was worthy of

me. Why did she come to question me on personal matters? That question

was indiscreet on her part. She broke the convention. My thoughts about

Danton are not part of the sacrifice which her father pays me to make."

When he came into the dining-room Julien's thoughts were distracted

from his bad temper by mademoiselle de la Mole's mourning which was all

the more striking because none of the other members of the family were

in black.

After dinner he felt completely rid of the feeling which had obsessed

him all day. Fortunately the academician who knew Latin was at dinner.

"That's the man who will make the least fun of me," said Julien to

himself, "if, as I surmise, my question about mademoiselle de la Mole's

mourning is in bad taste."

Mathilde was looking at him with a singular expression. "So this is the

coquetry of the women of this part of the country, just as madame de

Rênal described it to me," said Julien to himself. "I was not nice to

her this morning. I did not humour her caprice of talking to me. I got

up in value in her eyes. The Devil doubtless is no loser by it.

"Later on her haughty disdain will manage to revenge herself. I defy

her to do her worst. What a contrast with what I have lost! What

charming naturalness? What naivety! I used to know her thoughts before

she did herself. I used to see them come into existence. The only rival

she had in her heart was the fear of her childrens' death. It was a

reasonable, natural feeling to me, and even though I suffered from it I

found it charming. I have been a fool. The ideas I had in my head about

Paris prevented me from appreciating that sublime woman.

"Great God what a contrast and what do I find here? Arid, haughty

vanity: all the fine shades of wounded egotism and nothing more."

They got up from table. "I must not let my academician get snapped up,"

said Julien to himself. He went up to him as they were passing into the

garden, assumed an air of soft submissiveness and shared in his fury

against the success of Hernani.

"If only we were still in the days of _lettres de cachet_!" he said.

"Then he would not have dared," exclaimed the academician with a

gesture worthy of Talma.

Julien quoted some words from Virgil's Georgics in reference to a

flower and expressed the opinion that nothing was equal to the abbé

Delille's verses. In a word he flattered the academician in every

possible way. He then said to him with the utmost indifference, "I

suppose mademoiselle de la Mole has inherited something from some uncle

for whom she is in mourning."

"What! you belong to the house?" said the academician stopping short,

"and you do not know her folly? As a matter of fact it is strange her

mother should allow her to do such things, but between ourselves, they

do not shine in this household exactly by their force of character.

Mademoiselle's share has to do for all of them, and governs them.

To-day is the thirtieth of April!" and the academician stopped and

looked meaningly at Julien. Julien smiled with the most knowing

expression he could master. "What connection can there be between

ruling a household, wearing a black dress, and the thirtieth April?" he

said to himself. "I must be even sillier than I thought."

"I must confess...." he said to the academician while he continued to

question him with his look. "Let us take a turn round the garden,"

said the academician delighted at seeing an opportunity of telling a

long and well-turned story.

"What! is it really possible you do not know what happened on the 30th

April, 1574?"

"And where?" said Julien in astonishment.

"At the place de Grève."

Julien was extremely astonished that these words did not supply him

with the key. His curiosity and his expectation of a tragic interest

which would be in such harmony with his own character gave his eyes

that brilliance which the teller of a story likes to see so much in

the person who is listening to him. The academician was delighted at

finding a virgin ear, and narrated at length to Julien how Boniface de

la Mole, the handsomest young man of this century together with Annibal

de Coconasso, his friend, a gentleman of Piedmont, had been beheaded on

the 30th April, 1574. La Mole was the adored lover of Queen Marguerite

of Navarre and "observe," continued the academician, "that mademoiselle

de La Mole's full name is Mathilde Marguerite. La Mole was at the same

time a favourite of the Duke d'Alençon and the intimate friend of

his mistress's husband, the King of Navarre, subsequently Henri IV.

On Shrove Tuesday of that year 1574, the court happened to be at St.

Germain with the poor king Charles IX. who was dying. La Mole wished

to rescue his friends the princes, whom Queen Catherine of Medici was

keeping prisoner in her Court. He advanced two hundred cavalry under

the walls of St. Germain; the Duke d'Alençon was frightened and La Mole

was thrown to the executioner.

"But the thing which affects mademoiselle Mathilde, and what she has

admitted to me herself seven or eight years ago when she was twelve,

is a head! a head!----and the academician lifted up his eyes to the

heavens. What struck her in this political catastrophe, was the hiding

of Queen Marguerite de Navarre in a house in the place de Grève and

her then asking for her lover's head. At midnight on the following day

she took that head in her carriage and went and buried it herself in a

chapel at the foot of the hill at Montmartre."

"Impossible?" cried Julien really moved.

"Mademoiselle Mathilde despises her brother because, as you see, he

does not bother one whit about this ancient history, and never wears

mourning on the thirtieth of April. It is since the time of this

celebrated execution and in order to recall the intimate friendship

of La Mole for the said Coconasso, who Italian that he was, bore

the name of Annibal that all the men of that family bear that name.

And," added the academician lowering his voice, "this Coconasso was,

according to Charles IX. himself, one of the cruellest assassins of the

twenty-fourth August, 1572. But how is it possible, my dear Sorel, that

you should be ignorant of these things--you who take your meals with

the family."

"So that is why mademoiselle de la Mole twice called her brother

Annibal at dinner. I thought I had heard wrong."

"It was a reproach. It is strange that the marquise should allow such

follies. The husband of that great girl will have a fine time of it."

This remark was followed by five or six satiric phrases. Julien was

shocked by the joy which shone in the academician's eyes. "We are just

a couple of servants," he thought, "engaged in talking scandal about

our masters. But I ought not to be astonished at anything this academy

man does."

Julien had surprised him on his knees one day before the marquise de

la Mole; he was asking her for a tobacco receivership for a nephew in

the provinces. In the evening a little chambermaid of mademoiselle de

la Mole, who was paying court to Julien, just as Elisa had used to do,

gave him to understand that her mistress's mourning was very far from

being worn simply to attract attention. This eccentricity was rooted in

her character. She really loved that la Mole, the beloved lover of the

most witty queen of the century, who had died through trying to set his

friends at liberty--and what friends! The first prince of the blood and

Henri IV.

Accustomed as he had been to the perfect naturalness which shone

throughout madame de Rênal's whole demeanour, Julien could not help

finding all the women of Paris affected, and, though by no means of a

morose disposition, found nothing to say to them. Mademoiselle de la

Mole was an exception.

He now began to cease taking for coldness of heart that kind of beauty

which attaches importance to a noble bearing. He had long conversations

with mademoiselle de la Mole, who would sometimes walk with him in

the garden after dinner. She told him one day that she was reading

the History of D'Aubigné and also Brantôme. "Strange books to read,"

thought Julien; "and the marquis does not allow her to read Walter

Scott's novels!"

She told him one day, with that pleased brilliancy in her eyes, which

is the real test of genuine admiration, about a characteristic act of a

young woman of the reign of Henry III., which she had just read in the

memoirs of L'Étoile. Finding her husband unfaithful she stabbed him.

Julien's vanity was nattered. A person who was surrounded by so much

homage, and who governed the whole house, according to the academician,

deigned to talk to him on a footing almost resembling friendship.

"I made a mistake," thought Julien soon afterwards. "This is not

familiarity, I am simply the confidante of a tragedy, she needs to

speak to someone. I pass in this family for a man of learning. I will

go and read Brantôme, D'Aubigné, L'Étoile. I shall then be able to

challenge some of the anecdotes which madame de la Mole speaks to me

about. I want to leave off this rôle of the passive confidanté."

His conversations with this young girl, whose demeanour was so

impressive and yet so easy, gradually became more interesting. He

forgot his grim rôle of the rebel plebian. He found her well-informed

and even logical. Her opinions in the gardens were very different to

those which she owned to in the salon. Sometimes she exhibited an

enthusiasm and a frankness which were in absolute contrast to her usual

cold haughtiness.

"The wars of the League were the heroic days of France," she said

to him one day, with eyes shining with enthusiasm. "Then everyone

fought to gain something which he desired, for the sake of his party's

triumph, and not just in order to win a cross as in the days of your

emperor. Admit that there was then less egotism and less pettiness. I

love that century."

"And Boniface de la Mole was the hero of it," he said to her.

"At least he was loved in a way that it is perhaps sweet to be loved.

What woman alive now would not be horrified at touching the head of her

decapitated lover?"

Madame de la Mole called her daughter. To be effective hypocrisy

ought to hide itself, yet Julien had half confided his admiration for

Napoleon to mademoiselle de la Mole.

Julien remained alone in the garden. "That is the immense advantage

they have over us," he said to himself. "Their ancestors lift them

above vulgar sentiments, and they have not got always to be thinking

about their subsistence! What misery," he added bitterly. "I am not

worthy to discuss these great matters. My life is nothing more than a

series of hypocrisies because I have not got a thousand francs a year

with which to buy my bread and butter."

Mathilde came running back. "What are you dreaming about, monsieur?"

she said to him.

Julien was tired of despising himself. Through sheer pride he frankly

told her his thoughts. He blushed a great deal while talking to such

a person about his own poverty. He tried to make it as plain as he

could that he was not asking for anything. Mathilde never thought

him so handsome; she detected in him an expression of frankness and

sensitiveness which he often lacked.

Within a month of this episode Julien was pensively walking in the

garden of the hôtel; but his face had no longer the hardness and

philosophic superciliousness which the chronic consciousness of his

inferior position had used to write upon it. He had just escorted

mademoiselle de la Mole to the door of the salon. She said she had hurt

her foot while running with her brother.

"She leaned on my arm in a very singular way," said Julien to himself.

"Am I a coxcomb, or is it true that she has taken a fancy to me? She

listens to me so gently, even when I confess to her all the sufferings

of my pride! She too, who is so haughty to everyone! They would be

very astonished in the salon if they saw that expression of hers. It

is quite certain that she does not show anyone else such sweetness and

goodness."

Julien endeavoured not to exaggerate this singular friendship. He

himself compared it to an armed truce. When they met again each day,

they almost seemed before they took up the almost intimate tone of the

previous day to ask themselves "are we going to be friends or enemies

to-day?" Julien had realised that to allow himself to be insulted

with impunity even once by this haughty girl would mean the loss of

everything. "If I have got to quarrel would it not be better that it

should be straight away in defending the rights of my own pride,

than in parrying the expressions of contempt which would follow the

slightest abandonment of my duty to my own self-respect?"

On many occasions, on days when she was in a bad temper Mathilde, tried

to play the great lady with him. These attempts were extremely subtle,

but Julien rebuffed them roughly.

One day he brusquely interrupted her. "Has mademoiselle de la Mole any

orders to give her father's secretary?" he said to her. "If so he must

listen to her orders, and execute them, but apart from that he has not

a single word to say to her. He is not paid to tell her his thoughts."

This kind of life, together with the singular surmises which it

occasioned, dissipated the boredom which he had been accustomed to

experience in that magnificent salon, where everyone was afraid, and

where any kind of jest was in bad form.

"It would be humorous if she loved me but whether she loves me or

not," went on Julien, "I have for my confidential friend a girl of

spirit before whom I see the whole household quake, while the marquis

de Croisenois does so more than anyone else. Yes, to be sure, that

same young man who is so polite, so gentle, and so brave, and who has

combined all those advantages of birth and fortune a single one of

which would put my heart at rest--he is madly in love with her, he

ought to marry her. How many letters has M. de la Mole made me write

to the two notaries in order to arrange the contract? And I, though I

am an absolute inferior when I have my pen in my hand, why, I triumph

over that young man two hours afterwards in this very garden; for,

after all, her preference is striking and direct. Perhaps she hates

him because she sees in him a future husband. She is haughty enough

for that. As for her kindness to me, I receive it in my capacity of

confidential servant.

"But no, I am either mad or she is making advances to me; the colder

and more respectful I show myself to her, the more she runs after me.

It may be a deliberate piece of affectation; but I see her eyes become

animated when I appear unexpectedly. Can the women of Paris manage to

act to such an extent. What does it matter to me! I have appearances in

my favour, let us enjoy appearances. Heavens, how beautiful she is!

How I like her great blue eyes when I see them at close quarters, and

they look at me in the way they often do? What a difference between

this spring and that of last year, when I lived an unhappy life among

three hundred dirty malicious hypocrites, and only kept myself afloat

through sheer force of character, I was almost as malicious as they

were."

"That young girl is making fun of me," Julien would think in his

suspicious days. "She is acting in concert with her brother to make

a fool of me. But she seems to have an absolute contempt for her

brother's lack of energy. He is brave and that is all. He has not a

thought which dares to deviate from the conventional. It is always

I who have to take up the cudgels in his defence. A young girl of

nineteen! Can one at that age act up faithfully every second of the

day to the part which one has determined to play. On the other hand

whenever mademoiselle de la Mole fixes her eyes on me with a singular

expression comte Norbert always goes away. I think that suspicious.

Ought he not to be indignant at his sister singling out a servant of

her household? For that is how I heard the Duke de Chaulnes speak about

me. This recollection caused anger to supersede every other emotion. It

is simply a fashion for old fashioned phraseology on the part of the

eccentric duke?"

"Well, she is pretty!" continued Julien with a tigerish expression, "I

will have her, I will then go away, and woe to him who disturbs me in

my flight."

This idea became Julien's sole preoccupation. He could not think of

anything else. His days passed like hours.

Every moment when he tried to concentrate on some important matter

his mind became a blank, and he would wake up a quarter of an hour

afterwards with a beating heart and an anxious mind, brooding over this

idea "does she love me?"