The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century

by Stendhal

  CHAPTER 45

  'I don't want to play a nasty trick on poor Father ChasBernard by summoning him here,' he said to Fouqué. 'It'd put him off his dinner for three days. But try to find me a Jansenist who's a friend of M. Pirard and impervious to intrigue.'

  Fouqué was waiting impatiently for this opening. Julien acquitted himself with propriety of everything that is owed to public opinion--in the provinces. Thanks to the Abbé de Frilair, and despite his bad choice of confessor, Julien in his cell was the protégé of the Congregation; if he had handled things better, he might have engineered his escape. But the bad air in the cell was having its effect, and his mental powers were dwindling. This increased his happiness at Mme de Rênal's return.

  'My first duty is to you,' she said, kissing him. 'I ran away from Verrières...'

  Julien had no petty pride where she was concerned, and he recounted all his moments of weakness to her. She showed him all her kindness and charm.

  That evening, as soon as she had left his prison, she summoned to her aunt's house the priest who had latched on to Julien like a predator; as he wished for nothing better than to gain credit with young women belonging to high society in Besançon, Mme de Rênal easily persuaded him to go and make a novena * at Bray-le-Haut Abbey.

  No words could express the wild excesses of Julien's love.

  By paying in gold, and using and abusing the credit of her aunt, who was a devout woman with wealth and a good name, Mme de Rênal obtained leave to see him twice a day.

  News of this fanned Mathilde's jealousy to a pitch of mad frenzy. M. de Frilair had admitted to her that his considerable credit simply did not extend to flouting propriety to the point of getting permission for her to see her friend more than once a day. Mathilde had Mme de Rênal followed to discover her every movement. M. de Frilair was exhausting all the resources of a very crafty mind in order to prove to Mathilde that Julien was unworthy of her.

  -523-

  In the midst of all these torments, she only loved him the more, and almost every day she made a hideous scene.

  Julien wanted at all costs to behave like a gentleman right to the last with this poor girl he had so strangely compromised; but at every moment his frenzied love for Mme de Rênal got the better of him. When bad arguments failed to persuade Mathilde of the innocence of her rival's visits, he said to himself: the end of the drama must be very near now; I can be excused for not being better at dissembling.

  Mlle de La Mole learned of the death of the Marquis de Croisenois. M. de Thaler with all his wealth had taken the liberty of making some disagreeable remarks about Mathilde's disappearance. M. de Croisenois went and begged him to retract them; M. de Thaler showed him some anonymous letters addressed to himself, which were full of details put together with such skill that it was impossible for the poor marquis not to glimpse the truth.

  M. de Thaler took the liberty of making some jokes quite lacking in subtlety. Mad with anger and misery, M. de Croisenois demanded so much by way of reparations that the millionaire preferred a duel. Stupidity triumphed, and one of Paris's most likeable young men met his death before reaching twenty-four.

  This death had a strange and unhealthy effect on Julien's weakened spirit.

  'Poor Croisenois', he said to Mathilde, 'was really most reasonable, and behaved like a gentleman towards us; when you were acting so rashly in your mother's salon, he ought to have hated me and picked a quarrel; for hatred bred of scorn is usually ferocious.'

  M. de Croisenois's death altered all Julien's ideas about Mathilde's future; he spent several days trying to prove to her that she ought to accept the hand of M. de Luz. 'He's a shy man, and not too jesuitical,' he said, 'and he'll no doubt throw in his chance with the rest. His is a darker and more persistent ambition than poor Croisenois's, and with no duchy in the family, he won't make any difficulties about marrying Julien Sorel's widow.'

  'A widow who despises grand passions at that,' Mathilde

  -524-

  retorted coldly, 'for she's lived long enough to see her lover prefer another woman to her after six months, and a woman who's the origin of all their suffering.'

  'You're being unfair: Mme de Rênal's visits will supply the barrister from Paris with some striking lines for my appeal; he'll depict the murderer honoured by the attentions of his victim. This may have some effect, and perhaps one day you'll see me as the subject of some melodrama, etc. etc.'

  Furious jealousy that was impossible to avenge, persistent and hopeless misery (for even supposing Julien were saved, how was she to win back his heart?), shame and pain at loving this faithless lover more than ever before, had cast Mlle de La Mole into a gloomy silence from which neither the zealous attentions of M. de Frilair nor the blunt frankness of Fouqué were able to shake her.

  Julien on the other hand, apart from the moments usurped by Mathilde's presence, lived for love and had scarcely a thought for the future. Through the strange workings of this passion in its most extreme form, when totally devoid of sham, Mme de Rênal almost shared his carefree outlook and his gentle cheerfulness.

  'In those early days', Julien would say to her, 'when I could have been so happy on our walks in the woods round Vergy, an unbridled ambition carried me off to imaginary realms. Instead of pressing to my heart this lovely arm of yours which lay so close to my lips, I let the future snatch me away from you. I was deep in the countless battles I would have to fight to build a colossal fortune... No, I should have died without knowing happiness if you hadn't come to see me here in prison.'

  Two incidents occurred which disturbed this peaceful life of theirs. Julien's confessor, for all his Jansenism, was not immune to an intrigue hatched by the Jesuits, and unknowingly became their instrument.

  He came to tell Julien one day that unless he wished to fall into the dire sin of suicide, he had to take all possible steps to obtain a pardon. Now as the clergy had a great deal of influence with the Ministry of Justice in Paris, this offered an easy solution: Julien must be converted with great show.

  -525-

  'With great show!' Julien repeated. 'Ah! I've caught you at it, you too, Father--play-acting like a missionary...'

  'Your age,' the Jansenist went on gravely, 'the attractive looks bestowed on you by Providence, the very motive for your crime, which remains inexplicable, the heroic actions that Mlle de La Mole is generously performing in your interest, everything, in short, down to the astonishing friendship shown you by your victim--everything has contributed to making you the hero of the young women in Besançon. They've forgotten everything for your sake, even politics...

  'Your conversion would strike a chord in their hearts and make a deep impression here. You can be of major use to religion, and am I to be the one to hesitate for the frivolous reason that the Jesuits would take the same line in a similar instance! Thus, even in this particular case which eludes their rapacious grasp, they could still cause harm! Let it not be so... The tears shed as a result of your conversion will wipe out the corrosive effect of ten editions of the impious works of Voltaire.'

  'And what shall I be left with', Julien answered coldly, 'if I despise myself? I was ambitious, I don't want to blame myself; at that time I acted in accordance with the conventions of the day. But now I'm living from one moment to the next. And from the way things look, I'd make myself most unhappy if I went in for an act of cowardice...'

  The other incident, which affected Julien in a quite different way, was of Mme de Rênal's doing. One or other of the scheming ladies among her friends had managed to persuade this innocent and timid soul that it was her duty to set off for Saint-Cloud, and go and prostrate herself before King Charles X. *

  She had determined on the sacrifice of parting from Julien, and after so great an effort, the unpleasantness of making a spectacle of herself, which at other times would have struck her as worse than death, no longer meant anything to her.

  'I shall go to the king, I shall admit for all to hear that you are my lover: the life of
a man, and a man like Julien, should outweigh all other considerations. I shall say that jealousy was what made you try to take my life. There are plenty of

  -526-

  examples of poor young men in this predicament saved by the humanity of the jury, or of the king...'

  'I won't ever see you again, I'll have you locked out of my prison, and sure as anything I'll kill myself out of despair the very next day, unless you swear to me that you won't take any action that makes a public spectacle of us both. This idea of going to Paris doesn't come from you. Tell me the name of the little schemer who suggested it to you...

  'Let's be happy for the small number of days left in this short life. Let's hide ourselves away; my crime is only too patent. Mlle de La Mole has unlimited credit in Paris; believe me, she's doing what is humanly possible. Here in the provinces I have everyone rich and respected lined up against me. Your action would antagonize even further these rich and essentially conventional people, who have life so easy... Don't let us become a laughing-stock for the Maslons, the Valenods and countless other worthier folk.'

  The bad air in the cell was becoming unbearable to Julien. By good fortune, on the day he was told that he had to die, the countryside was rejoicing in bright sunshine, and Julien was in courageous vein. Stepping out in the fresh air was a delicious sensation for him, like a walk on land for the sailor who has spent long at sea. Here we go, everything's all right, he told himself, I'm not lacking in courage.

  Never had his head looked so poetic as at the moment it was due to fall. The sweetest moments he had experienced in those early days in the woods in Vergy crowded back into his mind with great vigour.

  Everything happened simply, appropriately, and with no affectation on his part.

  Two days earlier he had said to Fouqué:

  'As far as emotion goes, I can't answer for it; this cell is so ugly, so dank, it brings on attacks of fever in which I no longer recognize myself. But fear--never! I shan't be seen to turn pale.'

  He had seen to it in advance that on the morning of the last day, Fouqué would take Mathilde and Mme de Rênal away.

  'Take them off in the same carriage,' he had instructed him. 'See to it that the post horses keep up a steady gallop. They'll

  -527-

  fall into each other's arms, or else will show each other mortal hatred. In either case, the poor women will have their minds taken off their appalling grief for a while.'

  Julien had extracted a solemn promise from Mme de Rênal that she would five in order to look after Mathilde's son.

  'Who knows? Perhaps we go on having sensations after our death,' were his words to Fouqué one day. 'I'd rather like to rest, and rest is the word for it, in that little grotto in the high mountain overlooking Verrières. On several occasions, as I've told you, when I had withdrawn for the night into that grotto, and was gazing down into the distance over the richest provinces in France, my heart was fired with ambition; at that time it was my passion... Anyway, this grotto means a great deal to me, and no one would deny that its situation is most attractive to a philosopher's soul... Now then! these good Congregationists in Besançon make money out of everything; if you go about it right, they'll sell you my remains...'

  Fouqué succeeded in this sad bargain. He was spending the night alone in his room beside the body of his friend, when to his great surprise he saw Mathilde at the door. Only a few hours before he had left her ten leagues away from Besançon. She had a wild look in her eyes.

  'I want to see him,' she said.

  Fouqué did not have the strength to speak or get up. He pointed at a large blue coat there on the floor; it enveloped what remained of Julien.

  She flung herself on her knees. The memory of Boniface de La Mole and Marguerite de Navarre must have given her superhuman courage. Her trembling hands opened the coat. Fouqué looked away.

  He heard Mathilde walking hurriedly about the room. She was lighting a number of candies. When Fouqué had the strength to look at her, she had placed Julien's head on a little marble table in front of her, and she was kissing his forehead...

  Mathilde followed her lover all the way to the tomb he had chosen for himself. A large number of priests escorted the bier, and, unknown to anyone, alone in her black-draped carriage, she carried on her lap the head of the man she had loved so much.

  -528-

  Having made their way like this almost to the summit of one of the highest mountains in the Jura, in the middle of the night, twenty priests celebrated a Mass for the dead in the little grotto magnificently lit by an infinite array of candles. All the inhabitants of the little mountain villages along the path of the procession had followed on behind, drawn to it by the striking character of this strange ceremony.

  Mathilde made her appearance in the midst of them, wearing long mourning attire, and at the end of the service she had several thousand five-franc coins flung to the crowd.

  Left alone with Fouqué, she insisted on burying the head of her lover with her own hands. It almost drove Fouqué out of his mind with grief.

  Through Mathilde's good offices the wild grotto was adorned with marbles sculpted at great expense in Italy.

  Mme de Rênal was faithful to her promise. She did not seek in any way at all to take her own life; but three days after Julien, she died with her children in her arms.

  THE END 1

  ____________________ 1 The disadvantage with the reign of public opinion--which, incidentally, procures Liberty--is that it meddles in things that are not its concern, for instance: private life. This explains the gloom in America and England. To avoid interfering with private life, the author has invented a little town, Verrières; and whenever he needed a bishop, a jury or an assize court, he situated them all in Besaçon, where he has never set foot. [ Stendhal's footnote.]

  -529-

  EXPLANATORY NOTES

  CURRENCY

  franc: basic unit of the French monetary system since 1803.

  pound (Fr. livre): older unit still used in Stendhal's time as the equivalent of a franc.

  crown (Fr. écu): silver coin of variable worth, commonly either 3 or 6 francs.

  louis or napoléon: gold coin worth 20 francs.

  centime: coin worth one hundredth of a franc.

  sou: coin worth 5 centimes.

  DISTANCES

  league (Fr. lieue): a variable measure, usually about 4 kilometres. 1to the Happy Few: this dedication is in English in the original. It appears on the last page of the novel, at the end of the table of contents (printed according to French custom at the back of the book). It occurs similarly elsewhere in Stendhal's writings. He is believed to have borrowed it not so much from Shakespeare ('we few, we happy few, we band of brothers', Henry V, IV. iii) as from Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield: 'tracts . . . read only by the happy few' (ch. ii).

  2Publisher's Note: fictitious.

  2events of July: the 1830 revolution which put Louis-Philippe on the French throne in place of Charles X.

  2 1827: the novel was in fact written in 1829-30.

  3 Danton: 1759-94, leading statesman and orator of the French Revolution (1789). Like the majority of Stendhal's epigraphs, this one appears to have been invented by him to suit his own text: only 15 of the 73 epigraphs in the novel have been traced to the works of the authors credited with them.

  3 Franche-Comté: one of the former provinces in eastern France, extending from Burgundy to the Swiss border (capital: Besançon). Although there are two places called Verrières in this region, Stendhal's little town bears no resemblance to either of them. Some critics have identified Dole (on the road from Besançon to Dijon) as the model for Verrières. Others point out

  -530-

  that many of the features of the locality described by Stendhal are more reminiscent of the French Alps near Grenoble than of the Jura.

  3Mulhouse tradition: production of painted fabrics had started in Mulhouse in the mid-18th c. and spread throughout the Rhine valley and surrounding mountain regions.


  4orders of knighthood: visible as insignia worn on the coat.

  5conquered by Louis XIV: in 1678.

  5events of 1815: final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, and Second Restoration of Louis XVIII. Under the Restoration, the new industrial ethos was championed by the liberal party, from which M. de Rênal strongly dissociates himself.

  5182- elections: the general election of 1824, which consolidated the power of the Ultra-royalists.

  6mindless: Stendhal's italicization is sometimes idiosyncratic, and is not always followed in this translation.

  7 Barnave: 1761-93, born in Grenoble; friend of Stendhal's family. Revolutionary orator in favour of constitutional monarchy. See also epigraphs to chapters I. 19, 24, 11. 31.

  8Ultra: the Ultras, or pure royalists, stood for the ideals of counterrevolution and the Catholic establishment. Their leader, Villèle, was head of the Cabinet from 1822 to 1827.

  8Saint-Germain-en-Laye: the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, département of Seine-et-Oise, was built in 1539 and served as a royal residence. It has a famous terrace by Le Nôtre ( 1613-1700).

  8Jacobin: member of a revolutionary political society founded in Paris in 1790. The name derives from their meeting-place: a former 'Jacobin' (Dominican) convent. The Jacobins advocated absolute power for the people.

  8Legion of Honour. founded by Napoleon in 1802 to reward civil and military exploits. The Legion of Honour cross is attached to a red ribbon.

  9M. Appert: a well-known figure of the period. His campaigns for prison reform took him round prisons throughout France.

  11Fleury: the Abbé Fleury ( 1640-1723) was Louis XV's confessor and author of an Ecclesiastical History.

  12eight hundred pounds: for a note on currency, see p. 530.

  12at the age of eighty: at the end of the 1820s, old priests educated