The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
to take him as a secretary. Tanbeau used to work in a separate room,
but having heard of the favour that was vouchsafed to Julien he wished
to share it, and he had gone this morning and established his desk in
the library.
At four o'clock Julien ventured, after a little hesitation, to present
himself to Count Norbert. The latter was on the point of going riding,
and being a man of perfect politeness felt embarrassed.
"I think," he said to Julien, "that you had better go to the riding
school, and after a few weeks, I shall be charmed to ride with you."
"I should like to have the honour of thanking you for the kindness
which you have shewn me. Believe me, monsieur," added Julien very
seriously, "that I appreciate all I owe you. If your horse has not been
hurt by the reason of my clumsiness of yesterday, and if it is free I
should like to ride it this afternoon."
"Well, upon my word, my dear Sorel, you do so at your own risk and
peril; kindly assume that I have put forth all the objections required
by prudence. As a matter of fact it is four o'clock, we have no time to
lose."
As soon as Julien was on horseback, he said to the young count, "What
must one do not to fall off?"
"Lots of things," answered Norbert, bursting into laughter. "Keep your
body back for instance."
Julien put his horse to the trot. They were at the Place Louis XVI.
"Oh, you foolhardy youngster," said Norbert "there are too many
carriages here, and they are driven by careless drivers into the
bargain. Once you are on the ground their tilburies will run over your
body, they will not risk spoiling their horses' mouths by pulling up
short."
Norbert saw Julien twenty times on the point of tumbling, but in the
end the excursion finished without misadventure. As they came back the
young count said to his sister,
"Allow me to introduce a dashing dare-devil."
When he talked to his father over the dinner from one end of the table
to the other, he did justice to Julien's courage. It was the only
thing one could possibly praise about his style of riding. The young
count had heard in the morning the men who groomed the horses in the
courtyard making Julien's fall an opportunity for the most outrageous
jokes at his expense.
In spite of so much kindness Julien soon felt himself completely
isolated in this family. All their customs seemed strange to him, and
he was cognizant of none of them. His blunders were the delight of the
valets.
The abbé Pirard had left for his living. "If Julien is a weak reed,
let him perish. If he is a man of spirit, let him get out of his
difficulties all alone," he thought.
CHAPTER XXXIV
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