บทที่ บทที่ 34 · THE HÔTEL DE LA MOLE

. THE HÔTEL DE LA MOLE

What is he doing here? Will he like it there? Will he

try to please?--_Ronsard_.

If everything in the aristocratic salon of the Hotel de la Mole seemed

strange to Julien, that pale young man in his black suit seemed in his

turn very strange to those persons who deigned to notice him. Madame de

la Mole suggested to her husband that he should send him off on some

business on those days when they had certain persons to dinner.

"I wish to carry the experiment to its logical conclusion," answered

the marquis. "The abbé Pirard contends that we are wrong in crushing

the self-respect of the people whom we allow around us. _One can only

lean on what resists_. The only thing against this man is his unknown

face, apart from that he is a deaf mute."

"If I am to know my way about," said Julien to himself. "I must write

down the names of the persons whom I see come to the salon together

with a few words on their character."

He put at the head of the list five or six friends of the house who

took every opportunity of paying court to him, believing that he was

protected by a whim of the marquis. They were poor dull devils. But it

must be said in praise of this class of men, such as they are found

to-day in the salons of the aristocracy, that every one did not find

them equally tame. One of them was now allowing himself to be bullied

by the marquis, who was venting his irritation at a harsh remark which

had been addressed to him by the marquise.

The masters of the house were too proud or too prone to boredom; they

were too much used to finding their only distraction in the addressing

of insults, to enable them to expect true friends. But, except on

rainy days and in rare moments of savage boredom, they always showed

themselves perfectly polite.

If the five or six toadies who manifested so paternal an affection

towards Julien had deserted the Hotel de la Mole, the marquise would

have been exposed to long spells of solitude, and in the eyes of women

of that class, solitude is awful, it is the symbol of _disgrace_.

The marquis was charming to his wife. He saw that her salon was

sufficiently furnished, though not with peers, for he did not think his

new colleagues were sufficiently noble to come to his house as friends,

or sufficiently amusing to be admitted as inferiors.

It was only later that Julien fathomed these secrets. The governing

policy of a household, though it forms the staple of conversation in

bourgeois families, is only alluded to in families of the class of that

of the marquis in moments of distress. So paramount even in this bored

century is the necessity of amusing one's self, that even on the days

of dinner-parties the marquis had scarcely left the salon before all

the guests ran away. Provided that one did not make any jests about

either God or the priests or the king or the persons in office, or the

artists who enjoyed the favour of the court, or of anything that was

established, provided that one did not praise either Béranger or the

opposition papers, or Voltaire or Rousseau or anything which involved

any element of free speech, provided that above all that one never

talked politics, one could discuss everything with freedom.

There is no income of a hundred thousand crowns a year and no blue

ribbon which could sustain a contest against such a code of salon

etiquette.

The slightest live idea appeared a crudity. In spite of the prevailing

good form, perfect politeness, and desire to please, _ennui_ was

visible in every face. The young people who came to pay their calls

were frightened of speaking of anything which might make them suspected

of thinking or of betraying that they had read something prohibited,

and relapsed into silence after a few elegant phrases about Rossini and

the weather.

Julien noticed that the conversation was usually kept alive by two

viscounts and five barons whom M. de la Mole had known at the time of

the emigration. These gentlemen enjoyed an income of from six to eight

hundred thousand francs. Four swore by the _Quotidienne_ and three

by the _Gazette de France_. One of them had every day some anecdote

to tell about the Château, in which he made lavish use of the word

_admirable_. Julien noticed that he had five crosses, the others as a

rule only had three.

By way of compensation six footmen in livery were to be seen in the

ante-room, and during the whole evening ices or tea were served every

quarter-of-an-hour, while about midnight there was a kind of supper

with champagne.

This was the reason that sometimes induced Julien to stay till the

end. Apart from this he could scarcely understand why any one could

bring himself to take seriously the ordinary conversation in this

magnificently gilded salon. Sometimes he would look at the talkers to

see if they themselves were not making fun of what they were saying.

"My M. de Maistre, whom I know by heart," he thought, "has put it a

hundred times better, and all the same he is pretty boring."

Julien was not the only one to appreciate this stifling moral

atmosphere. Some consoled themselves by taking a great quantity of

ices, others by the pleasure of saying all the rest of the evening, "I

have just come from the Hôtel de la Mole where I learnt that Russia,

etc."

Julien learnt from one of the toadies that scarcely six months ago

madame de la Mole had rewarded more than twenty years of assiduous

attention by promoting the poor baron Le Bourguignon, who had been a

sub-prefect since the restoration, to the rank of prefect.

This great event had whetted the zeal of all these gentlemen.

Previously there were few things to which they would have objected,

now they objected to nothing. There was rarely any overt lack of

consideration, but Julien had already caught at meals two or three

little short dialogues between the marquis and his wife which were

cruel to those who were seated near them. These noble personages did

not conceal their sincere contempt for everyone who was not sprung

from people who were entitled to ride in the carriages of the king.

Julien noticed that the word crusade was the only word which gave their

face an expression of deep seriousness akin to respect. Their ordinary

respect had always a touch of condescension. In the middle of this

magnificence and this boredom Julien was interested in nothing except

M. de la Mole. He was delighted to hear him protest one day that he

had had nothing to do with the promotion of that poor Le Bourguignon,

it was an attention to the marquise. Julien knew the truth from the

abbé Pirard.

The abbé was working in the marquis's library with Julien one morning

at the eternal de Frilair lawsuit.

"Monsieur," said Julien suddenly, "is dining every day with madame la

marquise one of my duties or a special favour that they show to me?"

"It's a special honour," replied the scandalised abbé. "M. the

Academician, who has been cultivating the family for fifteen years, has

never been able to obtain so much for his M. Tanbeau."

"I find it, sir, the most painful part of my employment. I was less

bored at the seminary. Some times I see even mademoiselle de la Mole

yawn, and yet she ought to be accustomed to the social charms of the

friends of the house. I am frightened of falling asleep. As a favour,

obtain permission for me to go and get a forty sous' dinner in some

obscure inn."

The abbé who was a true snob, was very appreciative of the honour of

dining with a great lord. While he was endeavouring to get Julien to

understand this point of view a slight noise made them turn round.

Julien saw mademoiselle de la Mole listening. He reddened. She had come

to fetch a book and had heard everything. She began to entertain some

respect for Julien. "He has not been born servile," she thought, "like

that old abbé. Heavens, how ugly he is."

At dinner Julien did not venture to look at mademoiselle de la Mole

but she was kind enough to speak to him. They were expecting a lot

of visitors that day and she asked him to stay. The young girls of

Paris are not at all fond of persons of a certain age, especially when

they are slovenly. Julien did not need much penetration to realise

that the colleagues of M. le Bourguignon who remained in the salon

had the privilege of being the ordinary butt of mademoiselle de la

Mole's jokes. On this particular day, whether or not by reason of some

affectation on her part, she proved cruel to bores.

Mademoiselle de la Mole was the centre of a little knot which used to

form nearly every evening behind the marquise's immense arm-chair.

There were to be found there the marquis de Croisenois, the comte

de Caylus, the vicomte de Luz and two or three other young officers,

the friends of Norbert or his sister. These gentlemen used to sit

down on a large blue sofa. At the end of the sofa, opposite the part

where the brilliant Mathilde was sitting, Julien sat in silence on a

little, rather low straw chair. This modest position was envied by all

the toadies; Norbert kept his father's young secretary in countenance

by speaking to him, or mentioning him by name once or twice in the

evening. On this particular occasion mademoiselle de la Mole asked him

what was the height of the mountain on which the citadel of Besançon

is planted. Julien had never any idea if this mountain was higher or

lower than Montmartre. He often laughed heartily at what was said in

this little knot, but he felt himself incapable of inventing anything

analagous. It was like a strange language which he understood but could

not speak.

On this particular day Matilde's friends manifested a continuous

hostility to the visitors who came into the vast salon. The friends of

the house were the favoured victims at first, inasmuch as they were

better known. You can form your opinion as to whether Julien paid

attention; everything interested him, both the substance of things and

the manner of making fun of them.

"And there is M. Descoulis," said Matilde; "he doesn't wear a wig any

more. Does he want to get a prefectship through sheer force of genius?

He is displaying that bald forehead which he says is filled with lofty

thoughts."

"He is a man who knows the whole world," said the marquis de

Croisenois. "He also goes to my uncle the cardinal's. He is capable of

cultivating a falsehood with each of his friends for years on end, and

he has two or three hundred friends. He knows how to nurse friendship,

that is his talent. He will go out, just as you see him, in the worst

winter weather, and be at the door of one of his friends by seven

o'clock in the morning.

"He quarrels from time to time and he writes seven or eight letters

for each quarrel. Then he has a reconciliation and he writes seven or

eight letters to express his bursts of friendship. But he shines most

brilliantly in the frank and sincere expansiveness of the honest man

who keeps nothing up his sleeve. This manœuvre is brought into play

when he has some favour to ask. One of my uncle's grand vicars is very

good at telling the life of M. Descoulis since the restoration. I will

bring him to you."

"Bah! I don't believe all that, it's professional jealousy among the

lower classes," said the comte de Caylus.

"M. Descoulis will live in history," replied the marquis. "He brought

about the restoration together with the abbé de Pradt and messieurs de

Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo."

"That man has handled millions," said Norbert, "and I can't conceive

why he should come here to swallow my father's epigrams which are

frequently atrocious. 'How many times have you betrayed your friends,

my dear Descoulis?' he shouted at him one day from one end of the table

to the other."

"But is it true that he has played the traitor?" asked mademoiselle de

la Mole. "Who has not played the traitor?"

"Why!" said the comte de Caylus to Norbert, "do you have that

celebrated Liberal, M. Sainclair, in your house. What the devil's he

come here for? I must go up to him and speak to him and make him speak.

He is said to be so clever."

"But how will your mother receive him?" said M. de Croisenois. "He has

such extravagant, generous and independent ideas."

"Look," said mademoiselle de la Mole, "look at the independent man who

bows down to the ground to M. Descoulis while he grabs hold of his

hand. I almost thought he was going to put it to his lips."

"Descoulis must stand better with the powers that be than we thought,"

answered M. de Croisenois.

"Sainclair comes here in order to get into the academy," said Norbert.

"See how he bows to the baron L----, Croisenois."

"It would be less base to kneel down," replied M. de Luz.

"My dear Sorel," said Norbert, "you are extremely smart, but you come

from the mountains. Mind you never bow like that great poet is doing,

even to God the Father."

"Ah there's a really witty man, M. the Baron Bâton," said mademoiselle

de la Mole, imitating a little the voice of the flunkey who had just

announced him.

"I think that even your servants make fun of him. What a name Baron

Bâton," said M. de Caylus.

"What's in a name?" he said to us the other day, went on Matilde.

"Imagine the Duke de Bouillon announced for the first time. So far as I

am concerned the public only need to get used to me."

"Julien left the vicinity of the sofa."

Still insufficiently appreciative of the charming subtleties of a

delicate raillery to laugh at a joke, he considered that a jest ought

to have some logical foundation. He saw nothing in these young peoples'

conversation except a vein of universal scandal-mongering and was

shocked by it. His provincial or English prudery went so far as to

detect envy in it, though in this he was certainly mistaken.

"Count Norbert," he said to himself, "who has had to make three drafts

for a twenty-line letter to his colonel would be only too glad to have

written once in his whole life one page as good as M. Sainclair."

Julien approached successively the several groups and attracted no

attention by reason of his lack of importance. He followed the Baron

Bâton from a distance and tried to hear him.

This witty man appeared nervous and Julien did not see him recover

his equanimity before he had hit upon three or four stinging phrases.

Julien thought that this kind of wit had great need of space.

The Baron could not make epigrams. He needed at least four sentences of

six lines each, in order to be brilliant.

"That man argues, he does not talk," said someone behind Julien. He

turned round and reddened with pleasure when he heard the name of the

comte Chalvet. He was the subtlest man of the century. Julien had often

found his name in the _Memorial of St. Helena_ and in the portions of

history dictated by Napoleon. The diction of comte Chalvet was laconic,

his phrases were flashes of lightning--just, vivid, deep. If he talked

about any matter the conversation immediately made a step forward; he

imported facts into it; it was a pleasure to hear him. In politics,

however, he was a brazen cynic.

"I am independent, I am," he was saying to a gentleman with three

stars, of whom apparently he was making fun. "Why insist on my having

to-day the same opinion I had six weeks ago. In that case my opinion

would be my master."

Four grave young men who were standing round scowled; these gentlemen

did not like flippancy. The comte saw that he had gone too far. Luckily

he perceived the honest M. Balland, a veritable hypocrite of honesty.

The count began to talk to him; people closed up, for they realised

that poor Balland was going to be the next victim.

M. Balland, although he was horribly ugly and his first steps in the

world were almost unmentionable, had by dint of his morals and his

morality married a very rich wife who had died; he subsequently married

a second very rich one who was never seen in society. He enjoyed, in

all humility, an income of sixty thousand francs, and had his own

flatterers. Comte Chalvet talked to him pitilessly about all this.

There was soon a circle of thirty persons around them. Everybody was

smiling, including the solemn young men who were the hope of the

century.

"Why does he come to M. de la Mole where he is obviously only a

laughing stock?" thought Julien. He approached the abbé Pirard to ask

him.

M. Balland made his escape.

"Good," said Norbert, "there is one of the spies of my father gone;

there is only the little limping Napier left."

"Can that be the key of the riddle?" thought Julien, "but if so, why

does the marquis receive M. Balland?"

The stern abbé Pirard was scowling in a corner of the salon listening

to the lackeys announcing the names.

"This is nothing more than a den," he was saying like another Basil, "I

see none but shady people come in."

As a matter of fact the severe abbé did not know what constitutes

high society. But his friends the Jansenites, had given him some very

precise notions about those men who only get into society by reason

of their extreme subtlety in the service of all parties, or of their

monstrous wealth. For some minutes that evening he answered Julien's

eager questions fully and freely, and then suddenly stopped short

grieved at having always to say ill of every one, and thinking he was

guilty of a sin. Bilious Jansenist as he was, and believing as he did

in the duty of Christian charity, his life was a perpetual conflict.

"How strange that abbé Pirard looks," said mademoiselle de la Mole, as

Julien came near the sofa.

Julien felt irritated, but she was right all the same. M. Pirard was

unquestionably the most honest man in the salon, but his pimply face,

which was suffering from the stings of conscience, made him look

hideous at this particular moment. "Trust physiognomy after this,"

thought Julien, "it is only when the delicate conscience of the abbé

Pirard is reproaching him for some trifling lapse that he looks so

awful; while the expression of that notorious spy Napier shows a pure

and tranquil happiness." The abbé Pirard, however, had made great

concessions to his party. He had taken a servant, and was very well

dressed.

Julien noticed something strange in the salon, it was that all eyes

were being turned towards the door, and there was a semi silence. The

flunkey was announcing the famous Barron Tolly, who had just become

publicly conspicuous by reason of the elections. Julien came forward

and had a very good view of him. The baron had been the president of

an electoral college; he had the brilliant idea of spiriting away

the little squares of paper which contained the votes of one of the

parties. But to make up for it he replaced them by an equal number of

other little pieces of paper containing a name agreeable to himself.

This drastic manœuvre had been noticed by some of the voters, who had

made an immediate point of congratulating the Baron de Tolly. The good

fellow was still pale from this great business. Malicious persons had

pronounced the word galleys. M. de la Mole received him coldly. The

poor Baron made his escape.

"If he leaves us so quickly it's to go to M. Comte's,"[1] said Comte

Chalvet and everyone laughed.

Little Tanbeau was trying to win his spurs by talking to some silent

noblemen and some intriguers who, though shady, were all men of wit,

and were on this particular night in great force in M. de la Mole's

salon (for he was mentioned for a place in the ministry). If he had not

yet any subtlety of perception he made up for it as one will see by the

energy of his words.

"Why not sentence that man to ten years' imprisonment," he was saying

at the moment when Julien approached his knot. "Those reptiles should

be confined in the bottom of a dungeon, they ought to languish to death

in gaol, otherwise their venom will grow and become more dangerous.

What is the good of sentencing him to a fine of a thousand crowns? He

is poor, so be it, all the better, but his party will pay for him. What

the case required was a five hundred francs fine and ten years in a

dungeon."

"Well to be sure, who is the monster they are speaking about?" thought

Julien who was viewing with amazement the vehement tone and hysterical

gestures of his colleague. At this moment the thin, drawn, little face

of the academician's nephew was hideous. Julien soon learnt that they

were talking of the greatest poet of the century.

"You monster," Julien exclaimed half aloud, while tears of generosity

moistened his eyes. "You little rascal," he thought, "I will pay you

out for this."

"Yet," he thought, "those are the unborn hopes of the party of which

the marquis is one of the chiefs. How many crosses and how many

sinecures would that celebrated man whom he is now defaming have

accumulated if he had sold himself--I won't say to the mediocre

ministry of M. de Nerval--but to one of those reasonably honest

ministries which we have seen follow each other in succession."

The abbé Pirard motioned to Julien from some distance off; M. de la

Mole had just said something to him. But when Julien, who was listening

at the moment with downcast eyes to the lamentations of the bishop,

had at length got free and was able to get near his friend, he found

him monopolised by the abominable little Tanbeau. The little beast

hated him as the cause of Julien's favour with the marquis, and was now

making up to him.

"_When will death deliver us from that aged rottenness_," it was in

these words of a biblical energy that the little man of letters was

now talking of the venerable Lord Holland. His merit consisted in an

excellent knowledge of the biography of living men, and he had just

made a rapid review of all the men who could aspire to some influence

under the reign of the new King of England.

The abbé Pirard passed in to an adjacent salon. Julien followed him.

"I warn you the marquis does not like scribblers, it is his only

prejudice. Know Latin and Greek if you can manage it, the history of

the Egyptians, Persians, etc., he will honour and protect you as a

learned man. But don't write a page of French, especially on serious

matters which are above your position in society, or he will call you

a scribbler and take you for a scoundrel. How is it that living as you

do in the hotel of a great lord you don't know the Duke de Castries'

epigram on Alembert and Rousseau: 'the fellow wants to reason about

everything and hasn't got an income of a thousand crowns'!"

"Everything leaks out here," thought Julien, "just like the seminary."

He had written eight or six fairly drastic pages. It was a kind of

historical eulogy of the old surgeon-major who had, he said, made a man

of him. "The little note book," said Julien to himself, "has always

been locked." He went up to his room, burnt his manuscript and returned

to the salon. The brilliant scoundrels had left it, only the men with

the stars were left.

Seven or eight very aristocratic ladies, very devout, very affected,

and of from thirty to thirty-five years of age, were grouped round

the table that the servants had just brought in ready served. The

brilliant maréchale de Fervaques came in apologising for the lateness

of the hour. It was more than midnight: she went and sat down near

the marquise. Julien was deeply touched, she had the eyes and the

expression of madame de Rênal.

Mademoiselle de la Mole's circle was still full of people. She was

engaged with her friends in making fun of the unfortunate comte de

Thaler. He was the only son of that celebrated Jew who was famous for

the riches that he had won by lending money to kings to make war on the

peoples.

The Jew had just died leaving his son an income of one hundred thousand

crowns a month, and a name that was only too well known. This strange

position required either a simple character or force of will power.

Unfortunately the comte was simply a fellow who was inflated by all

kinds of pretensions which had been suggested to him by all his toadies.

M. de Caylus asserted that they had induced him to make up his mind to

ask for the hand of mademoiselle de la Mole, to whom the marquis de

Croisenois, who would be a duke with a hundred thousand francs a year,

was paying his attentions.

"Oh, do not accuse him of having a mind," said Norbert pitifully.

Will-power was what the poor comte de Thaler lacked most of all. So

far as this side of his character went he was worthy of being a king.

He would take council from everybody, but he never had the courage to

follow any advice to the bitter end.

"His physiognomy would be sufficient in itself," mademoiselle de la

Mole was fond of saying, "to have inspired her with a holy joy." It

was a singular mixture of anxiety and disappointment, but from time to

time one could distinguish gusts of self-importance, and above all that

trenchant tone suited to the richest man in France, especially when he

had nothing to be ashamed of in his personal appearance and was not yet

thirty-six. "He is timidly insolent," M. de Croisenois would say. The

comte de Caylus, Norbert, and two or three moustachioed young people

made fun of him to their heart's content without him suspecting it, and

finally packed him off as one o'clock struck.

"Are those your famous Arab horses waiting for you at the door in this

awful weather?" said Norbert to him.

"No, it is a new pair which are much cheaper," said M. de Thaler. "The

horse on the left cost me five thousand francs, while the one on the

right is only worth one hundred louis, but I would ask you to believe

me when I say that I only have him out at night. His trot you see is

exactly like the other ones."

Norbert's remark made the comte think it was good form for a man like

him to make a hobby of his horses, and that he must not let them get

wet. He went away, and the other gentleman left a minute afterwards

making fun of him all the time. "So," thought Julien as he heard them

laugh on the staircase, "I have the privilege of seeing the exact

opposite of my own situation. I have not got twenty louis a year and I

found myself side by side with a man who has twenty louis an hour and

they made fun of him. Seeing a sight like that cures one of envy."

[1] celebrated conjuror.