by
Stendhal
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After the bishop's speech and the king's reply, his Majesty took his place under the canopy; then he kneeled very devoutly on a cushion near the altar. The chancel was surrounded by stalls, and the stalls were elevated two steps above the stone floor. On the higher of these Julien was seated at M. Chelan's feet, very like a trainbearer close to his cardinal at the Sistine Chapel in Rome. There was a Te Deum, clouds of incense, and countless rounds fired by the musketry and the artillery; the peasants were drunk with happiness and piety. day like this can undo the work of a hundred editions of the Jacobin papers.
omg lol
That same night, M. de Renal received from town, along with his newspaper, a long anonymous letter, which informed him in the greatest detail of what was going on in his house. Julien saw him turn pale as he read the letter, written on bluish paper, and cast evil glances at him. Not for the whole evening did the mayor regain his composure; it was to no avail that Julien courted his favor by asking for explanations about the genealogy of the best families in Burgundy.
lol
"You are one of the most distinguished gentlemen in the province," Mme. de Renal resumed eagerly. "If the king were free and able to give birth its due, you would no doubt figure in the Chamber of Peers, etc. And in such a magnificent position, do you mean to give the town something to gossip about to their heart's content?
the 'etc' kills me
Once or twice during this great scene, Mme. de Renal was on the verge of feeling some sympathy for the very real unhappiness of this man who had been her friend for the past twelve years. But true passion is selfish. Besides, she was expecting at any moment an avowal of the anonymous letter he had received the night before, and that avowal was not forthcoming. Mme. de Renal's sense of security suffered for not knowing what ideas that letter might have suggested to the man on whom her fate depended. For in the provinces, husbands are the masters of public opinion. A husband who complains about his wife's conduct covers himself with ridicule (a thing that is becoming less dangerous every day in France); but his if he doesn't give her any money, is reduced to the condition of a working woman, at fifteen sous a day, and even then, virtuous women will hesitate to employ her.
In spite of everything, an odalisk in a harem may love the sultan; he is omnipotent; she can have no hope of escaping his authority by a series of little ruses. The master's vengeance is terrible, bloody, yet military, generous. A blow of the dagger ends all. In the nineteenth century, a husband kills his wife with blows of public scorn; by closing every door to her.
Let us leave this petty man to his petty fears. Why did he take a man of heart into his house, when what he wanted was the soul of a lackey? Why didn't he know how to pick his servants? The ordinary course of events in the nineteenth century is that when a powerful aristocrat finds a man of heart in his way, he kills him, exiles him, imprisons him, or so humiliates him that the latter is stupid enough to die of grief. By chance, it is not yet the man of heart who is suffering in this instance. The great misfortune of small towns in France, and of governments by election, like that of New York, is that you are never allowed to forget that fellows like M. de Renal exist in the world. In the midst of a city of twenty thousand inhabitants such individuals mold public opinion, and public opinion is a terrible thing in a country that has a constitution. A man endowed with a noble and generous mind, and who might have been your friend but lives a hundred leagues away, judges you according to public opinion in your town, which is shaped by the fools whom chance has caused to be born noble, rich, and conservative. Woe to anyone who stands out from the crowd!
wow
Mme. de Renal had begun to entertain gloomy thoughts. Despite her resolution, she had told Julien the whole business about the auction.* "He will make me forget all my vows," she reflected. . She would have sacrificed her life without hesitation to save her husband's had she seen him in danger. Hers was one of those noble and romantic souls for which to be aware of the possibility of doing a generous deed and not do it is a source of regret almost equal to that of a crime committed. Nevertheless, there were ill-fated days when she could not drive away a vision of the inordinate happiness she would taste if, on suddenly becoming a widow, she could marry Julien.
Except whoever might help to give his country a bicameral government, the young count considered that no one was worthy of his attention. He left Mathilde, the most fascinating woman at the ball, with pleasure, because he had seen a Peruvian general come in.
Despairing of Europe, poor Altamira had been reduced to the hope that when the nations of South America became strong and powerful, they might restore to Europe the liberty Mirabeau had sent them.
lol. sick
But neither the dance, nor the desire to please one of the handsomest men at court, nor anything else could divert Mathilde. It was impossible to be more popular. She was queen of the ball, which fact she took in coldly.
"What a dull life I shall lead with a fellow like Croisenois!' she said to herself as he led her back to her place an hour later. "Where lies pleasure," she went on sadly, "if, after an absence of six months, I cannot find it in the midst of a ball that is the envy of every woman in Paris? What is more, I am complimented on every side by a society that couldnt be better. None of the middle class is here, excepting a few peers, and one or two Juliens, perhaps. Then too,** she added with growing sadness, "what blessings has fate not bestowed upon me: an illustrious name, wealth, youth, everything, alas, but happiness.
"The most dubious of my advantages are precisely those which everyone has been pointing out to me all evening. Wit: I believe them, for it is obvious that they are all afraid of me. If they dare to broach a serious subject with me, at the end of five minutes conversation I see them, all out of breath and as if making a great discovery, arrive at the conclusion I have been repeating to them for the past hour. I am beautiful: I have that advantage for which Mme. de Stael would have sacrificed everything, and yet Is there any reason why I should be less bored if I changed my name for that of the I'm dying of boredom. Marquis de Croisenois?
What was there to wish for? Wealth, noble birth, intelligence, and beauty (so everyone said, and so she believed), all had been lavished on her by the hand of chance.
Daughter of a man of parts who might become a minister and give back the clergy their forests, Mile, de La Mole had been an object of the most excessive flattery at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. The harm done this way can never be offset. She had been persuaded that with all her advantages of birth, fortune, etc., she ought to be happier than anyone else. This notion is the source of the boredom of princes, and of all their follies.
Mathilde had not escaped the baneful influence of this idea. However intelligent one may be, one cannot at ten be on one's guard against the flattery, apparently so wellfounded, of a whole convent.