feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_74_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 45
feat_summary_id: part 2, chapter 45
feat_summary: {"name": "Part 2, Chapter 45", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-45", "summary": "Julien mentions to his buddy Fouqe that he's willing to consider a last second escape from prison. Fouqe runs off to make the arrangements. Madame de Renal comes to visit Julien one last time. She's even run away from home to see him. Mathilde hears about how often Madame is visiting Julien and she goes crazy with jealousy. Worse yet, the guy back in Paris who wants to marry Mathilde has died in a duel. There are lots of last-second plans to stop Julien's execution, but to no avail. The day quickly comes, and Julien is beheaded. It's kind of abrupt, but yeah, he's dead. The funeral procession takes Julien's body to be buried. But Fouqe manages to get a hold of Julien's body before it's buried. Mathilde visits the house and holds Julien's head in her arms, just like one of her ancestors was rumored to have done for her lover's head a hundred years earlier. Three days after Julien's death, Madame de Renal drops dead for unknown reasons. She's hugging her children at the time. Yeah, pretty grim ending for sure.", "analysis": ""}
text: CHAPTER LXXV
  
  
  "I cannot play such a trick on that poor abbe Chas-Bernard, as to
  summon him," he said to Fouque: "it would prevent him from dining for
  three whole days.--But try and find some Jansenist who is a friend of
  M. Pirard."
  
  Fouque was impatiently waiting for this suggestion. Julien acquitted
  himself becomingly of all the duty a man owes to provincial opinion.
  Thanks to M. the abbe de Frilair, and in spite of his bad choice of a
  confessor, Julien enjoyed in his cell the protection of the priestly
  congregation; with a little more diplomacy he might have managed to
  escape. But the bad air of the cell produced its effect, and his
  strength of mind diminished. But this only intensified his happiness at
  madame de Renal's return.
  
  "My first duty is towards you, my dear," she said as she embraced him;
  "I have run away from Verrieres."
  
  Julien felt no petty vanity in his relations with her, and told her all
  his weaknesses. She was good and charming to him.
  
  In the evening she had scarcely left the prison before she made the
  priest, who had clung on to Julien like a veritable prey, go to her
  aunt's: as his only object was to win prestige among the young women
  who belonged to good Besancon society, madame de Renal easily prevailed
  upon him to go and perform a novena at the abbey of Bray-le-Haut.
  
  No words can do justice to the madness and extravagance of Julien's
  love.
  
  By means of gold, and by using and abusing the influence of her aunt,
  who was devout, rich and well-known, madame de Renal managed to see him
  twice a day.
  
  At this news, Mathilde's jealousy reached a pitch of positive madness.
  M. de Frilair had confessed to her that all his influence did not go
  so far as to admit of flouting the conventions by allowing her to
  see her sweetheart more than once every day. Mathilde had madame de
  Renal followed so as to know the smallest thing she did. M. de Frilair
  exhausted all the resources of an extremely clever intellect in order
  to prove to her that Julien was unworthy of her.
  
  Plunged though she was in all these torments, she only loved him the
  more, and made a horrible scene nearly every day.
  
  Julien wished, with all his might, to behave to the very end like an
  honourable man towards this poor young girl whom he had so strangely
  compromised, but the reckless love which he felt for madame de Renal
  swept him away at every single minute. When he could not manage to
  persuade Mathilde of the innocence of her rival's visits by all his
  thin excuses, he would say to himself: "at any rate the end of the
  drama ought to be quite near. The very fact of not being able to lie
  better will be an excuse for me."
  
  Mademoiselle de La Mole learnt of the death of the marquis de
  Croisenois. The rich M. de Thaler had indulged in some unpleasant
  remarks concerning Mathilde's disappearance: M. de Croisenois went
  and asked him to recant them: M. de Thaler showed him some anonymous
  letters which had been sent to him, and which were full of details so
  artfully put together that the poor marquis could not help catching a
  glimpse of the truth.
  
  M. de Thaler indulged in some jests which were devoid of all taste.
  Maddened by anger and unhappiness, M. de Croisenois demanded such
  unqualified satisfaction, that the millionaire preferred to fight a
  duel. Stupidity triumphed, and one of the most lovable of men met with
  his death before he was twenty-four.
  
  This death produced a strange and morbid impression on Julien's
  demoralised soul.
  
  "Poor Croisenois," he said to Mathilde, "really behaved very reasonably
  and very honourably towards us; he had ample ground for hating me and
  picking a quarrel with me, by reason of your indiscretion in your
  mother's salon; for the hatred which follows on contempt is usually
  frenzied."
  
  M. de Croisenois' death changed all Julien's ideas concerning
  Mathilde's future. He spent several days in proving to her that she
  ought to accept the hand of M. de Luz. "He is a nervous man, not too
  much of a Jesuit, and will doubtless be a candidate," he said to her.
  "He has a more sinister and persevering ambition than poor Croisenois,
  and as there has never been a dukedom in his family, he will be only
  too glad to marry Julien Sorel's widow."
  
  "A widow, though, who scorns the grand passions," answered Mathilde
  coldly, "for she has lived long enough to see her lover prefer to
  her after six months another woman who was the origin of all their
  unhappiness."
  
  "You are unjust! Madame de Renal's visits will furnish my advocate
  at Paris, who is endeavouring to procure my pardon, with the subject
  matter for some sensational phrases; he will depict the murderer
  honoured by the attention of his victim. That may produce an
  impression, and perhaps some day or other, you will see me provide the
  plot of some melodrama or other, etc., etc."
  
  A furious and impotent jealousy, a prolonged and hopeless unhappiness
  (for even supposing Julien was saved, how was she to win back his
  heart?), coupled with her shame and anguish at loving this unfaithful
  lover more than ever had plunged mademoiselle de la Mole into a gloomy
  silence, from which all the careful assiduity of M. de Frilair was as
  little able to draw her as the rugged frankness of Fouque.
  
  As for Julien, except in those moments which were taken up by
  Mathilde's presence, he lived on love with scarcely a thought for the
  future.
  
  "In former days," Julien said to her, "when I might have been so happy,
  during our walks in the wood of Vergy, a frenzied ambition swept my
  soul into the realms of imagination. Instead of pressing to my heart
  that charming arm which is so near my lips, the thoughts of my future
  took me away from you; I was engaged in countless combats which I
  should have to sustain in order to lay the foundations of a colossal
  fortune. No, I should have died without knowing what happiness was if
  you had not come to see me in this prison."
  
  Two episodes ruffled this tranquil life. Julien's confessor, Jansenist
  though he was, was not proof against an intrigue of the Jesuits, and
  became their tool without knowing it.
  
  He came to tell him one day that unless he meant to fall into the awful
  sin of suicide, he ought to take every possible step to procure his
  pardon. Consequently, as the clergy have a great deal of influence with
  the minister of Justice at Paris, an easy means presented itself; he
  ought to become converted with all publicity.
  
  "With publicity," repeated Julien. "Ha, Ha! I have caught you at it--I
  have caught you as well, my father, playing a part like any missionary."
  
  "Your youth," replied the Jansenist gravely, "the interesting
  appearance which Providence has given you, the still unsolved mystery
  of the motive for your crime, the heroic steps which mademoiselle de
  la Mole has so freely taken on your behalf, everything, up to the
  surprising affection which your victim manifests towards you, has
  contributed to make you the hero of the young women of Besancon.
  They have forgotten everything, even politics, on your account. Your
  conversion will reverberate in their hearts and will leave behind it a
  deep impression. You can be of considerable use to religion, and I was
  about to hesitate for the trivial reason that in a similar circumstance
  the Jesuits would follow a similar course. But if I did, even in the
  one case which has escaped their greedy clutches they would still be
  exercising their mischief. The tears which your conversation will
  cause to be shed will annul the poisonous effect of ten editions of
  Voltaire's works."
  
  "And what will be left for me," answered Julien, coldly, "if I despise
  myself? I have been ambitious; I do not mean to blame myself in any
  way. Further, I have acted in accordance with the code of the age. Now
  I am living from day to day. But I should make myself very unhappy
  if I were to yield to what the locality would regard as a piece of
  cowardice...."
  
  Madame de Renal was responsible for the other episode which affected
  Julien in quite another way. Some intriguing woman friend or other had
  managed to persuade this naive and timid soul that it was her duty
  to leave for St. Cloud, and go and throw herself at the feet of King
  Charles X.
  
  She had made the sacrifice of separating from Julien, and after
  a strain as great as that, she no longer thought anything of the
  unpleasantness of making an exhibition of herself, though in former
  times she would have thought that worse than death.
  
  "I will go to the king. I will confess freely that you are my lover.
  The life of a man, and of a man like Julien, too, ought to prevail over
  every consideration. I will tell him that it was because of jealousy
  that you made an attempt upon my life. There are numerous instances of
  poor young people who have been saved in such a case by the clemency of
  the jury or of the king."
  
  "I will leave off seeing you; I will shut myself up in my prison,"
  exclaimed Julien, "and you can be quite certain that if you do not
  promise me to take no step which will make a public exhibition of us
  both, I will kill myself in despair the day afterwards. This idea of
  going to Paris is not your own. Tell me the name of the intriguing
  woman who suggested it to you.
  
  "Let us be happy during the small number of days of this short life.
  Let us hide our existence; my crime was only too self-evident.
  Mademoiselle de la Mole enjoys all possible influence at Paris. Take
  it from me that she has done all that is humanly possible. Here in
  the provinces I have all the men of wealth and prestige against me.
  Your conduct will still further aggravate those rich and essentially
  moderate people to whom life comes so easy.... Let us not give the
  Maslons, the Valenods, and the thousand other people who are worth more
  than they, anything to laugh about."
  
  Julien came to find the bad air of the cell unbearable. Fortunately,
  nature was rejoicing in a fine sunshine on the day when they announced
  to him that he would have to die, and he was in a courageous vein.
  He found walking in the open air as delicious a sensation as the
  navigator, who has been at sea for a long time, finds walking on the
  ground. "Come on, everything is going all right," he said to himself.
  "I am not lacking in courage."
  
  His head had never looked so poetical as at that moment when it was on
  the point of falling. The sweet minutes which he had formerly spent in
  the woods of Vergy crowded back upon his mind with extreme force.
  
  Everything went off simply, decorously, and without any affectation on
  his part.
  
  Two days before he had said to Fouque: "I cannot guarantee not to
  show some emotion. This dense, squalid cell gives me fits of fever in
  which I do not recognise myself, but fear?--no! I shall not be seen to
  flinch."
  
  He had made his arrangements in advance for Fouque to take Mathilde and
  madame de Renal away on the morning of his last day.
  
  "Drive them away in the same carriage," he had said. "Do you see that
  the post-horses do not leave off galloping. They will either fall into
  each other's arms, or manifest towards each other a mortal hatred.
  In either case the poor women will have something to distract them a
  little from their awful grief."
  
  Julien had made madame de Renal swear that she would live to look after
  Mathilde's son.
  
  "Who knows? Perhaps we have still some sensations after our death," he
  had said one day to Fouque. "I should like to rest, for rest is the
  right word, in that little grotto in the great mountain which dominates
  Verrieres. Many a time, as I have told you, I have spent the night
  alone in that grotto, and as my gaze would plunge far and wide over the
  richest provinces of France, ambition would inflame my heart. In those
  days it was my passion.... Anyway, I hold that grotto dear, and one
  cannot dispute that its situation might well arouse the desires of the
  philosopher's soul.... Well, you know! those good priests of Besancon
  will make money out of everything. If you know how to manage it, they
  will sell you my mortal remains."
  
  Fouque succeeded in this melancholy business. He was passing the night
  alone in his room by his friend's body when, to his great surprise, he
  saw Mathilde come in. A few hours before he had left her ten leagues
  from Besancon. Her face and eyes looked distraught.
  
  "I want to see him," she said.
  
  Fouque had not the courage either to speak or get up. He pointed with
  his finger to a big blue cloak on the floor; there was wrapped in it
  all that remained of Julien.
  
  She threw herself on her knees. The memory of Boniface de la Mole, and
  of Marguerite of Navarre gave her, no doubt, a superhuman courage. Her
  trembling hands undid the cloak. Fouque turned away his eyes.
  
  He heard Mathilde walking feverishly about the room. She lit several
  candles. When Fouque could bring himself to look at her, she had placed
  Julien's head on a little marble table in front of her, and was kissing
  it on the forehead.
  
  Mathilde followed her lover to the tomb which he had chosen. A great
  number of priests convoyed the bier, and, alone in her draped carriage,
  without anyone knowing it, she carried on her knees the head of the man
  whom she had loved so much.
  
  When they arrived in this way at the most elevated peak of the high
  mountains of the Jura, twenty priests celebrated the service of the
  dead in the middle of the night in this little grotto, which was
  magnificently illuminated by a countless number of wax candles.
  Attracted by this strange and singular ceremony, all the inhabitants
  of the little mountain villages which the funeral had passed through,
  followed it.
  
  Mathilde appeared in their midst in long mourning garments, and had
  several thousands of five-franc pieces thrown to them at the end of the
  service.
  
  When she was left alone with Fouque, she insisted on burying her
  lover's head with her own hands. Fouque nearly went mad with grief.
  
  Mathilde took care that this wild grotto should be decorated with
  marble monuments that had been sculpted in Italy at great expense.
  
  Madame de Renal kept her promise. She did not try to make any attempt
  upon her life; but she died embracing her children, three days after
  Julien.
  
  
  THE END.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Part 2, Chapter 45
target: Julien mentions to his buddy Fouqe that he's willing to consider a last second escape from prison. Fouqe runs off to make the arrangements. Madame de Renal comes to visit Julien one last time. She's even run away from home to see him. Mathilde hears about how often Madame is visiting Julien and she goes crazy with jealousy. Worse yet, the guy back in Paris who wants to marry Mathilde has died in a duel. There are lots of last-second plans to stop Julien's execution, but to no avail. The day quickly comes, and Julien is beheaded. It's kind of abrupt, but yeah, he's dead. The funeral procession takes Julien's body to be buried. But Fouqe manages to get a hold of Julien's body before it's buried. Mathilde visits the house and holds Julien's head in her arms, just like one of her ancestors was rumored to have done for her lover's head a hundred years earlier. Three days after Julien's death, Madame de Renal drops dead for unknown reasons. She's hugging her children at the time. Yeah, pretty grim ending for sure.