Manners and Customs in 1830Speech was given to man to enable him to conceal his thoughts.
MALAGRIDA, S.J.
The first thing that Julien did on arriving in Verrieres was to reproachhimself for his unfairness to Madame de Renal. 'I should have despisedher as a foolish woman if from weakness she had failed to bring off thescene with M. de Renal! She carried it through like a diplomat, and mysympathies are with the loser, who is my enemy. There is a streak ofmiddle-class pettiness in my nature; my vanity is hurt, because M. deRenal is a man! That vast and illustrous corporation to which I have thehonour to belong; I am a perfect fool.'
M. Chelan had refused the offers of hospitality which the most respected Liberals of the place had vied with one another in making him, whenhis deprivation drove him from the presbytery. The pair of rooms whichhe had taken were littered with his books. Julien, wishing to show Verrieres what it meant to be a priest, went and fetched from his father's storea dozen planks of firwood, which he carried on his back the wholelength of the main street. He borrowed some tools from an old friendand had soon constructed a sort of bookcase in which he arranged M.
Chelan's library.
'I supposed you to have been corrupted by the vanity of the world,'
said the old man, shedding tears of joy; 'this quite redeems the childishness of that dazzling guard of honour uniform which made you so manyenemies.'
M. de Renal had told Julien to put up in his house. No one had anysuspicion of what had happened. On the third day after his arrival, therecame up to his room no less a personage than the Sub-Prefect, M. deMaugiron. It was only after two solid hours of insipid tittle-tattle, andlong jeremiads on the wickedness of men, on the lack of honesty in thepeople entrusted with the administration of public funds, on the dangers besetting poor France, etc., etc., that Julien saw him come at length to thepurpose of his visit. They were already on the landing, and the poor tutor, on the verge of disgrace, was ushering out with all due respect thefuture Prefect of some fortunate Department, when it pleased the lattergentleman to occupy himself with Julien's career, to praise his moderation where his own interests were concerned, etc., etc. Finally M. deMaugiron, taking him in his arms in the most fatherly manner, suggestedto him that he should leave M. de Renal and enter the household of anofficial who had children to educate, and who, like King Philip, wouldthank heaven, not so much for having given him them as for havingcaused them to be born in the neighbourhood of M. Julien. Their tutorwould receive a salary of eight hundred francs, payable not month bymonth, 'which is not noble,' said M. de Maugiron, but quarterly, and inadvance to boot.
It was now the turn of Julien who, for an hour and a half, had beenwaiting impatiently for an opportunity to speak. His reply was perfect,and as long as a pastoral charge; it let everything be understood, and atthe same time said nothing definite. A listener would have found in it atonce respect for M. de Renal, veneration for the people of Verrieres andgratitude towards the illustrious Sub-Prefect. The said Sub-Prefect, astonished at finding a bigger Jesuit than himself, tried in vain to obtainsomething positive. Julien, overjoyed, seized the opportunity to try hisskill and began his answer over again in different terms. Never did themost eloquent Minister, seeking to monopolise the last hours of a sittingwhen the Chamber seems inclined to wake up, say less in more words.
As soon as M. de Maugiron had left him, Julien broke out in helplesslaughter. To make the most of his Jesuitical bent, he wrote a letter of ninepages to M. de Renal, in which he informed him of everything that hadbeen said to him, and humbly asked his advice. 'Why, that rascal nevereven told me the name of the person who is making the offer! It will beM. Valenod, who sees in my banishment to Verrieres the effect of his anonymous letter.'
His missive dispatched, Julien, as happy as a hunter who at six in themorning on a fine autumn day emerges upon a plain teeming withgame, went out to seek the advice of M. Chelan. But before he arrived atthe good cure's house, heaven, which was anxious to shower its blessings on him, threw him into the arms of M. Valenod, from whom he didnot conceal the fact that his heart was torn; a penniless youth like himselfwas bound to devote himself entirely to the vocation which heaven hadplaced in his heart, but a vocation was not everything in this vile world.
To be a worthy labourer in the Lord's vineyard, and not to be altogetherunworthy of all one's learned fellow-labourers, one required education;one required to spend in the seminary at Besancon two very expensiveyears; it became indispensable, therefore, to save money, which was considerably easier with a salary of eight hundred francs paid quarterly,than with six hundred francs which melted away month by month. Onthe other hand, did not heaven, by placing him with the Renal boys, andabove all by inspiring in him a particular attachment to them, seem to indicate to him that it would be a mistake to abandon this form of education for another? …Julien arrived at such a pitch of perfection in this kind of eloquence,which has taken the place of the swiftness of action of the Empire, thathe ended by growing tired of the sound of his own voice.
Returning to the house he found one of M. Valenod's servants in fulllivery, who had been looking for him all over the town, with a note inviting him to dinner that very day.
Never had Julien set foot in the man's house; only a few days earlier,his chief thought was how he might give him a thorough good thrashingwithout subsequent action by the police. Although dinner was not to beuntil one o'clock, Julien thought it more respectful to present himself athalf past twelve in the study of the Governor of the Poorhouse. He foundhim displaying his importance amid a mass of papers. His huge blackwhiskers, his enormous quantity of hair, his night-cap poised askew onthe top of his head, his immense pipe, his embroidered slippers, theheavy gold chains slung across his chest in every direction, and all theequipment of a provincial financier, who imagines himself to be a ladies'
man, made not the slightest impression upon Julien; he only thought allthe more of the thrashing that he owed him.
He craved the honour of being presented to Madame Valenod; shewas making her toilet and could not see him. To make up for this, he hadthe privilege of witnessing that of the Governor of the Poorhouse. Theythen proceeded to join Madame Valenod, who presented her children tohim with tears in her eyes. This woman, one of the most importantpeople in Verrieres, had a huge masculine face, which she had plasteredwith rouge for this great ceremony. She displayed all the pathos of maternal feelings.
Julien thought of Madame de Renal. His distrustful nature made himscarcely susceptible to any memories save those that are evoked by contrast, but such memories moved him to tears. This tendency was increased by the sight of the Governor's house. He was taken through it.
Everything in it was sumptuous and new, and he was told the price ofeach article. But Julien felt that there was something mean about it, ataint of stolen money. Everyone, even the servants, wore a bold air thatseemed to be fortifying them against contempt.
The collector of taxes, the receiver of customs, the chief constable andtwo or three other public officials arrived with their wives. They werefollowed by several wealthy Liberals. Dinner was announced. Julien,already in the worst of humours, suddenly reflected that on the otherside of the dining-room wall there were wretched prisoners, whose rations of meat had perhaps been squeezed to purchase all this tastelesssplendour with which his hosts sought to dazzle him.
'They are hungry perhaps at this moment,' he said to himself; histhroat contracted, he found it impossible to eat and almost to speak. Itwas much worse a quarter of an hour later; they could hear in the distance a few snatches of a popular and, it must be admitted, not too refined song which one of the inmates was singing. M. Valenod glanced atone of his men in full livery, who left the room, and presently the soundof singing ceased. At that moment, a footman offered Julien some Rhinewine in a green glass, and Madame Valenod took care to inform him thatthis wine cost nine francs the bottle, direct from the grower. Julien, thegreen glass in his hand, said to M. Valenod:
'I don't hear that horrid song any more.'
'Gad! I should think not, indeed,' replied the Governor triumphantly.
'I've made the rascal shut up.'
This was too much for Julien; he had acquired the manners but hadnot yet the heart appropriate to his station. Despite all his hypocrisy,which he kept in such constant practice, he felt a large tear trickle downhis cheek.
He tried to hide it with the green glass, but it was simply impossiblefor him to do honour to the Rhine wine. 'Stop the man singing!' he murmured to himself, 'O my God, and Thou permittest it!'
Fortunately for him, no one noticed his ill-bred emotion. The collectorof taxes had struck up a royalist ditty. During the clamour of the refrain,sung in chorus: 'There,' Julien's conscience warned him, 'you have thesordid fortune which you will achieve, and you will enjoy it only in theseconditions and in such company as this! You will have a place worthperhaps twenty thousand francs, but it must be that while you gorge torepletion you stop the poor prisoner from singing; you will give dinner parties with the money you have filched from his miserable pittance, andduring your dinner he will be more wretched still! O Napoleon! Howpleasant it was in your time to climb to fortune through the dangers of abattle; but meanly to intensify the sufferings of the wretched!'
I admit that the weakness which Julien displays in this monologuegives me a poor opinion of him. He would be a worthy colleague forthose conspirators in yellow gloves, who profess to reform all the conditions of life in a great country, and would be horrified at having to undergo the slightest inconvenience themselves.
Julien was sharply recalled to his proper part. It was not that he mightdream and say nothing that he had been invited to dine in such goodcompany.
A retired calico printer, a corresponding member of the Academy ofBesancon and of that of Uzes, was speaking to him, down the wholelength of the table, inquiring whether all that was commonly reported asto his astonishing prowess in the study of the New Testament was true.
A profound silence fell instantly; a New Testament appeared asthough by magic in the hands of the learned member of the twoacademies. Julien having answered in the affirmative, a few words inLatin were read out to him at random. He began to recite: his memorydid not betray him, and this prodigy was admired with all the noisy energy of the end of a dinner. Julien studied the glowing faces of the women. Several of them were not ill-looking. He had made out the wife ofthe collector who sang so well.
'Really, I am ashamed to go on speaking Latin so long before theseladies,' he said, looking at her. 'If M. Rubigneau' (this was the member ofthe two academies) 'will be so good as to read out any sentence in Latin,instead of going on with the Latin text, I shall endeavour to improvise atranslation.'
This second test set the crown of glory on his achievement.
There were in the room a number of Liberals, men of means, but thehappy fathers of children who were capable of winning bursaries, and inthis capacity suddenly converted after the last Mission. Despite this brilliant stroke of policy, M. de Renal had never consented to have them inhis house. These worthy folk, who knew Julien only by reputation andfrom having seen him on horseback on the day of the King of ——'s visit,were his most vociferous admirers. 'When will these fools tire of listening to this Biblical language, of which they understand nothing?' he thought. On the contrary, this language amused them by its unfamiliarity; they laughed at it. But Julien had grown tired.
He rose gravely as six o'clock struck and mentioned a chapter of thenew theology of Liguori, which he had to learn by heart in order to repeat it next day to M. Chelan. 'For my business,' he added pleasantly, 'isto make other people repeat lessons, and to repeat them myself.'
His audience laughed heartily and applauded; this is the kind of witthat goes down at Verrieres. Julien was by this time on his feet, everyoneelse rose, regardless of decorum; such is the power of genius. MadameValenod kept him for a quarter of an hour longer; he really must hear thechildren repeat their catechism; they made the most absurd mistakeswhich he alone noticed. He made no attempt to correct them. 'What ignorance of the first principles of religion,' he thought. At length he saidgood-bye and thought that he might escape; but the children must nextattempt one of La Fontaine's Fables.
'That author is most immoral,' Julien said to Madame Valenod; 'in oneof his Fables on Messire Jean Chouart, he has ventured to heap ridiculeon all that is most venerable. He is strongly reproved by the bestcommentators.'
Before leaving the house Julien received four or five invitations to dinner. 'This young man does honour to the Department,' his fellow-guests,in great hilarity, were all exclaiming at once. They went so far as to speakof a pension voted out of the municipal funds, to enable him to continuehis studies in Paris.
While this rash idea was making the dining-room ring, Julien hadstolen away to the porch. 'Oh, what scum! What scum!' he murmuredthree or four times, as he treated himself to the pleasure of drinking inthe fresh air.
He felt himself a thorough aristocrat for the moment, he who for longhad been so shocked by the disdainful smile and the haughty superioritywhich he found lurking behind all the compliments that were paid himat M. de Renal's. He could not help feeling the extreme difference. 'Evenif we forget,' he said to himself as he walked away, 'that the money hasbeen stolen from the poor prisoners, and that they are forbidden to singas well, would it ever occur to M. de Renal to tell his guests the price ofeach bottle of wine that he offers them? And this M. Valenod, in goingover the list of his property, which he does incessantly, cannot refer tohis house, his land and all the rest of it, if his wife is present, withoutsaying your house, your land.'
This lady, apparently so conscious of the joy of ownership, had justmade an abominable scene, during dinner, with a servant who hadbroken a wineglass and spoiled one of her sets; and the servant hadanswered her with the most gross insolence.
'What a household!' thought Julien; 'if they were to give me half of allthe money they steal, I wouldn't live among them. One fine day I shouldgive myself away; I should be unable to keep back the contempt they inspire in me.'
He was obliged, nevertheless, obeying Madame de Renal's orders, toattend several dinners of this sort; Julien was the fashion; people forgavehim his uniform and the guard of honour, or rather that imprudent display was the true cause of his success. Soon, the only question discussedin Verrieres was who would be successful in the struggle to secure thelearned young man's services, M. de Renal or the Governor of the Poorhouse. These two gentlemen formed with M. Maslon a triumvirate whichfor some years past had tyrannised the town. People were jealous of theMayor, the Liberals had grounds for complaint against him; but after allhe was noble and created to fill a superior station, whereas M. Valenod'sfather had not left him an income of six hundred livres. He had been obliged to pass from the stage of being pitied for the shabby apple-greencoat in which everybody remembered him in his younger days to that ofbeing envied for his Norman horses, his gold chains, the clothes heordered from Paris, in short, all his present prosperity.
In the welter of this world so new to Julien he thought he had discovered an honest man; this was a geometrician, was named Gros andwas reckoned a Jacobin. Julien, having made a vow never to say anything except what he himself believed to be false, was obliged to make ashow of being suspicious of M. Gros. He received from Vergy largepackets of exercises. He was advised to see much of his father, and complied with this painful necessity. In a word, he was quite redeeming hisreputation, when one morning he was greatly surprised to find himselfawakened by a pair of hands which were clapped over his eyes.
It was Madame de Renal who had come in to town and, running upstairs four steps at a time and leaving her children occupied with a favourite rabbit that they had brought with them, had reached Julien'sroom a minute in advance of them. The moment was delicious but all toobrief: Madame de Renal had vanished when the children arrived withthe rabbit, which they wanted to show to their friend. Julien welcomedthem all, including the rabbit. He seemed to be once more one of a family party; he felt that he loved these children, that it amused him to join intheir chatter. He was amazed by the sweetness of their voices, the simplicity and nobility of their manners; he required to wash his imaginationclean of all the vulgar behaviour, all the unpleasant thoughts the atmosphere of which he had to breathe at Verrieres. There was always thedread of bankruptcy, wealth and poverty were always fighting for theupper hand. The people with whom he dined, in speaking of the joint ontheir table, made confidences humiliating to themselves, and nauseatingto their hearers.
'You aristocrats, you have every reason to be proud,' he said to Madame de Renal. And he told her of all the dinners he had endured.
'Why, so you are in the fashion!' And she laughed heartily at thethought of the rouge which Madame Valenod felt herself obliged to puton whenever she expected Julien. 'I believe she has designs on yourheart,' she added.
Luncheon was a joy. The presence of the children, albeit apparently anuisance, increased as a matter of fact the general enjoyment. These poorchildren did not know how to express their delight at seeing Julienagain. The servants had not failed to inform them that he was beingoffered two hundred francs more to educate the little Valenods.
In the middle of luncheon, Stanislas Xavier, still pale after his seriousillness, suddenly asked his mother what was the value of his silverspoon and fork and of the mug out of which he was drinking.
'Why do you want to know?'
'I want to sell them to give the money to M. Julien, so that he shan't bea dupe to stay with us.'
Julien embraced him, the tears standing in his eyes. The mother weptoutright, while Julien, who had taken Stanislas on his knees, explained tohim that he must not use the word dupe, which, employed in that sense,was a servant's expression. Seeing the pleasure he was giving Madamede Renal, he tried to explain, by picturesque examples, which amusedthe children, what was meant by a dupe.
'I understand,' said Stanislas, 'it's the crow who is silly and drops hischeese, which is picked up by the fox, who is a flatterer.'
Madame de Renal, wild with joy, smothered her children in kisses,which she could hardly do without leaning slightly upon Julien.
Suddenly the door opened; it was M. de Renal. His stern, angry faceformed a strange contrast with the innocent gaiety which his presence banished. Madame de Renal turned pale; she felt herself incapable ofdenying anything. Julien seized the opportunity and, speaking veryloud, began to tell the Mayor the incident of the silver mug which Stanislas wanted to sell. He was sure that this story would be ill received. Atthe first word M. de Renal frowned, from force of habit at the mere nameof silver. 'The mention of that metal,' he would say, 'is always a preliminary to some call upon my purse.'
But here there was more than money at stake; there was an increase ofhis suspicions. The air of happiness which animated his family in his absence was not calculated to improve matters with a man dominated byso sensitive a vanity. When his wife praised the graceful and witty manner in which Julien imparted fresh ideas to his pupils:
'Yes, yes, I know, he is making me odious to my children; it is veryeasy for him to be a hundred times pleasanter to them than I, who am,after all, the master. Everything tends in these days to bring lawful authority into contempt. Unhappy France!'
Madame de Renal did not stop to examine the implications of herhusband's manner. She had just seen the possibility of spending twelvehours in Julien's company. She had any number of purchases to make inthe town, and declared that she absolutely must dine in a tavern; in spiteof anything her husband might say or do, she clung to her idea. The children were in ecstasies at the mere word tavern, which modern pruderyfinds such pleasure in pronouncing.
M. de Renal left his wife in the first linen-draper's shop that sheentered, to go and pay some calls. He returned more gloomy than in themorning; he was convinced that the whole town was thinking aboutnothing but himself and Julien. As a matter of fact, no one had as yet allowed him to form any suspicion of the offensive element in the popularcomments. Those that had been repeated to the Mayor had dealt exclusively with the question whether Julien would remain with him at sixhundred francs or would accept the eight hundred francs offered by theGovernor of the Poorhouse.
The said Governor, when he met M. de Renal in society, gave him thecold shoulder. His behaviour was not without a certain subtlety; there isnot much thoughtless action in the provinces: sensations are so infrequent there that people suppress them.
M. Valenod was what is called, a hundred leagues from Paris, a faraud;this is a species marked by coarseness and natural effrontery. His triumphant existence, since 1815, had confirmed him in his habits. He reigned, so to speak, at Verrieres, under the orders of M. de Renal; butbeing far more active, blushing at nothing, interfering in everything,everlastingly going about, writing, speaking, forgetting humiliations,having no personal pretensions, he had succeeded in equalling the creditof his Mayor in the eyes of ecclesiastical authority. M. Valenod had asgood as told the grocers of the place: 'Give me the two biggest foolsamong you'; the lawyers: 'Point me out the two most ignorant'; the officers of health: 'Let me have your two biggest rascals.' When he had collected the most shameless representatives of each profession, he had saidto them: 'Let us reign together.'
The manners of these men annoyed M. de Renal. Valenod's coarsenature was offended by nothing, not even when the young abbe Maslongave him the lie direct in public.
But, in the midst of this prosperity, M. Valenod was obliged to fortifyhimself by little insolences in points of detail against the harsh truthswhich he was well aware that everyone was entitled to address to him.
His activity had multiplied since the alarms which M. Appert's visit hadleft in its wake. He had made three journeys to Besancon; he wrote several letters for each mail; he sent others by unknown messengers whocame to his house at nightfall. He had been wrong perhaps in securingthe deprivation of the old cure Chelan; for this vindictive action hadmade him be regarded, by several pious ladies of good birth, as a profoundly wicked man. Moreover this service rendered had placed him inthe absolute power of the Vicar-General de Frilair, from whom he received strange orders. He had reached this stage in his career when heyielded to the pleasure of writing an anonymous letter. To add to his embarrassment, his wife informed him that she wished to have Julien in thehouse; the idea appealed to her vanity.
In this situation, M. Valenod foresaw a final rupture with his formerconfederate M. de Renal. The Mayor would address him in harsh language, which mattered little enough to him; but he might write to Besancon, or even to Paris. A cousin of some Minister or other might suddenly descend upon Verrieres and take over the Governorship of thePoorhouse. M. Valenod thought of making friends with the Liberals; itwas for this reason that several of them were invited to the dinner atwhich Julien recited. He would find powerful support there against theMayor. But an election might come, and it went without saying that thePoorhouse and a vote for the wrong party were incompatible. The history of these tactics, admirably divined by Madame de Renal, had beenimparted to Julien while he gave her his arm to escort her from one shop to another, and little by little had carried them to the Cours de la Fidelite,where they spent some hours, almost as peaceful as the hours at Vergy.
At this period, M. Valenod was seeking to avoid a final rupture withhis former chief, by himself adopting a bold air towards him. On the dayof which we treat, this system proved successful, but increased theMayor's ill humour.
Never can vanity, at grips with all the nastiest and shabbiest elementsof a petty love of money, have plunged a man in a more wretched statethan that in which M. de Renal found himself, at the moment of his entering the tavern. Never, on the contrary, had his children been gayer ormore joyful. The contrast goaded him to fury.
'I am not wanted in my own family, so far as I can see!' he said as heentered, in a tone which he sought to make imposing.
By way of reply, his wife drew him aside and explained to him the necessity of getting rid of Julien. The hours of happiness she had just enjoyed had given her back the ease and resolution necessary for carryingout the plan of conduct which she had been meditating for the last fortnight. What really and completely dismayed the poor Mayor of Verriereswas that he knew that people joked publicly in the town at the expenseof his attachment to hard cash: M. Valenod was as generous as a robber,whereas he had shown himself in a prudent rather than a brilliant lightin the last five or six subscription lists for the Confraternity of SaintJoseph, the Congregation of Our Lady, the Congregation of the BlessedSacrament, and so forth.
Among the country gentlemen of Verrieres and the neighbourhood,skilfully classified in the lists compiled by the collecting Brethren, according to the amount of their offerings, the name of M. de Renal hadmore than once been seen figuring upon the lowest line. In vain might heprotest that he earned nothing. The clergy allow no joking on that subject.