The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
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