feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_15_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 21-23
feat_summary_id: chapters 21-23
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 21-23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-2123", "summary": "The marquis prepares Julien for his role as scribe and spy. Julien will accompany the marquis to a meeting of a group of ultras, where he will take notes on the conversation, condense them with the help of the marquis, memorize the contents, and, inconspicuously dressed, start out on a mission to London. On the way to the meeting, Julien recites a page from the newspaper to the marquis to demonstrate his photographic memory. At the place of rendezvous, the room gradually fills with the plotters. Julien sharpens numerous quills waiting for further orders. The marquis introduces Julien to the conspirators, and Julien demonstrates to them his prodigious memory. The twelve conspirators would plot means of strengthening the ultras' position against the ever-increasing threat of liberalism, or, as it was termed, Jacobinism. The question is whether to ask England to intervene in order to strengthen the ultra monarchy. The marquis is of the opinion that England will help only if the French help themselves by galvanizing their ultra supporters at every level of society. He would recommend severe curtailment of the liberty of the press in an effort to control public opinion. A cardinal supports the proposal of the marquis, adding the necessity of relying on the power of the Church, whose 50,000 priests have the ear of the people. He suggests that the cabinet minister, M. de Nerval, resign since he is compromising their cause. Nerval, present among the conspirators, presents himself as favoring the ultra cause against the liberal monarchy. The discussion becomes heated and lasts until three in the morning. The minister leaves, then the Bonapartist, and the remaining conspirators conjecture that the Bonapartist might betray them in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the minister. Later, Julien and the marquis edit the notes, which Julien memorizes, and the next morning Julien departs on his mission. Stopping at an inn near Metz, Julien encounters the Italian singer Geronimo, who informs Julien that their innkeeper has detained them in order to find a spy who must be apprehended. Julien awakens to find the Jesuit leader of the Besancon Congregation searching his effects. It is Geronimo who is suspected of being the spy. The singer has been drugged, having fallen into the trap that Julien has avoided. Arriving in London, Julien finally succeeds in meeting the Duke of Wellington, to whom he recites the message in the secrecy of a shabby inn. Julien follows the duke's instructions to go to Strasbourg, then return within twelve days. Julien arrives in Strasbourg, eluding the watchful Jesuits.", "analysis": "The mission to which Stendhal has previously alluded is conveniently introduced to create suspense, of course, but also to separate the lovers in order to reverse their roles. Upon his return, Julien will take the offensive. The transition between what preceded and the spy episode was constituted by Mathilde's musings on Julien's future. Julien has definitely replaced Norbert as a son worthy of the Marquis de la Mole, and for the first time, the marquis explicitly states this preference. Freudians would see in this a disavowal by Stendhal of his own father and a legitimization of his view of himself as one of the \"happy few.\" Julien gains admittance to the inner sanctum of reactionary power, but he is still an outsider, a role to which he is condemned. He is made painfully aware of this role of outsider-inside by his isolation, obvious only to himself, before the meeting begins. His embarrassment, which he aggravates by endlessly sharpening quills, aptly characterizes Julien as a very self-conscious being. The presence of the Bishop of Agde serves to remind the reader again of the distance covered by our hero since Julien was also in the role of messenger when the bishop appeared in Verrieres. The affair of the secret note affords another insight into the manner in which Stendhal utilizes actual happenings as a basis for fiction. Although the novel is set in 1830, at the end of the autocratic reign of Charles X, this episode is based upon incidents that took place during the reign of Louis XVIII , the more liberal brother of Charles. The memory of Napoleon's One Hundred Days in 1815 and Louis' liberalism actually caused the ultras to plot with foreign powers in an effort to re-establish the reactionary spirit of the \"ancien regime.\" Stendhal's conspirators are speaking \"historically,\" without naming him, of Louis XVIII, although they are \"living\" under the reign of Louis' successor, Charles X. The \"Ordonnances de Juillet\" by which Charles X attempted to revoke the Charter embodying the principles of the Revolution of '89 and to stifle freedom of the press precipitated the July Revolution of 1830, which hailed the \"bourgeois king,\" Louis-Philippe, who re-established liberalism and reigned until 1848. This incident and others of political inspiration in the novel were added by Stendhal after the July Revolution. He could hardly have included them with impunity before that date. Stendhal has a predilection for the mystery of clandestine operations, of spy intrigue, including secret rendezvous to which only the initiated are admitted. It is at once related to his own adventures  and simply an indication of the exclusiveness of the \"happy few,\" the elite of whom Stendhal counted himself as one. Although Julien has definite republican sympathies, he is in the service of legitimists. Aside from aptly describing this social pariah -- the idealist who champions the revolutionary cause but who traffics with the enemy out of necessity -- Julien's paradoxical position betrays the political ambiguities of Stendhal himself. Defender of liberalism and, at the same time, aspiring to the good old days of the monarchy, Stendhal nonetheless abhorred the idea of a democracy. Stendhal's apology for inclusion of the political discussion should not be taken too seriously by the reader. Furthermore, the political and social substrata of the novel are the context in which Julien's individual adventure is realized. This is the most illustrious role that Julien will play as an individual subservient to others. His next brief \"position\" will seem to grant him a momentary social independence. The power hierarchy, so ubiquitous in the novel, is apparent even in this assemblage of the summit. Some are deferential to others, some can be outspoken and ironic, others must be silent. It should be noted that Stendhal limits the narration strictly to Julien's perception and comprehension of the mysterious proceedings. The reader has the impression that he, too, is an outsider privileged to eavesdrop. We are rarely told any more than Julien knows. When Julien is excluded briefly during the course of the meeting, the reader is also excluded. And we take our cues from Julien, who takes his from interpreting the facial expressions and tone of voice of the Marquis de la Mole. Three minor characters have reappeared in these chapters: Castanede, Agde, Geronimo. Their reappearance reminds us of Julien's progress: He is now the very successful protege of the Marquis de la Mole, and he fulfills his mission without a hitch."}
text: CHAPTER LI
  
  THE SECRET NOTE
  
  
          I have seen everything I relate, and if I may have made
          a mistake when I saw it, I am certainly not deceiving
          you in telling you of it.
                                        _Letter to the author_.
  
  
  The marquis summoned him; M. de la Mole looked rejuvenated, his eye was
  brilliant.
  
  "Let us discuss your memory a little," he said to Julien, "it is said
  to be prodigious. Could you learn four pages by heart and go and say
  them at London, but without altering a single word?"
  
  The marquis was irritably fingering, the day's _Quotidienne_, and was
  trying in vain to hide an extreme seriousness which Julien had never
  noticed in him before, even when discussing the Frilair lawsuit.
  
  Julien had already learned sufficient manners to appreciate that he
  ought to appear completely taken in by the lightness of tone which was
  being manifested.
  
  "This number of the _Quotidienne_ is not very amusing possibly, but if
  M. the marquis will allow me, I shall do myself the honour to-morrow
  morning of reciting it to him from beginning to end."
  
  "What, even the advertisements?"
  
  "Quite accurately and without leaving out a word."
  
  "You give me your word?" replied the marquis with sudden gravity.
  
  "Yes, monsieur; the only thing which could upset my memory is the fear
  of breaking my promise."
  
  "The fact is, I forgot to put this question to you yesterday: I am
  not going to ask for your oath never to repeat what you are going to
  hear. I know you too well to insult you like that. I have answered for
  you. I am going to take you into a salon where a dozen persons will he
  assembled. You will make a note of what each one says.
  
  "Do not be uneasy. It will not be a confused conversation by any means.
  Each one will speak in his turn, though not necessarily in an orderly
  manner," added the marquis falling back into that light, subtle manner
  which was so natural to him. "While we are talking, you will write out
  twenty pages and will come back here with me, and we will get those
  twenty pages down to four, and those are the four pages you will recite
  to me to-morrow morning instead of the four pages of the _Quotidienne_.
  You will leave immediately afterwards. You must post about like a
  young man travelling on pleasure. Your aim will be to avoid attracting
  attention. You will arrive at the house of a great personage. You will
  there need more skill. Your business will then be to take in all his
  entourage, for among his secretaries and his servants are some people
  who have sold themselves to our enemies, and who spy on our travelling
  agents in order to intercept them.
  
  "You will have an insignificant letter of introduction. At the moment
  his Excellency looks at you, you will take out this watch of mine,
  which I will lend you for the journey. Wear it now, it will be so much
  done; at any rate give me yours.
  
  "The duke himself will be good enough to write at your dictation the
  four pages you have learnt by heart.
  
  "Having done this, but not earlier, mind you, you can, if his
  Excellency questions you, tell him about the meeting at which you are
  now going to be present.
  
  "You will be prevented from boring yourself on the journey between
  Paris and the minister's residence by the thought that there are people
  who would like nothing better than to fire a shot at M. the abbe Sorel.
  In that case that gentleman's mission will be finished, and I see a
  great delay, for how are we to know of your death, my dear friend? Even
  your zeal cannot go to the length of informing us of it.
  
  "Run straight away and buy a complete suit," went on the marquis
  seriously. "Dress in the fashion of two years ago. To-night you must
  look somewhat badly groomed. When you travel, on the other hand, you
  will be as usual. Does this surprise you? Does your suspiciousness
  guess the secret? Yes, my friend, one of the venerable personages you
  are going to hear deliver his opinion, is perfectly capable of giving
  information as the result of which you stand a very good chance of
  being given at least opium some fine evening in some good inn where you
  will have asked for supper."
  
  "It is better," said Julien, "to do an extra thirty leagues and not
  take the direct road. It is a case of Rome, I suppose...." The marquis
  assumed an expression of extreme haughtiness and dissatisfaction which
  Julien had never seen him wear since Bray-le-Haut.
  
  "That is what you will know, monsieur, when I think it proper to tell
  you. I do not like questions."
  
  "That was not one," answered Julien eagerly. "I swear, monsieur, I was
  thinking quite aloud. My mind was trying to find out the safest route."
  
  "Yes, it seems your mind was a very long way off. Remember that an
  emissary, and particularly one of your age should not appear to be a
  man who forces confidences."
  
  Julien was very mortified; he was in the wrong. His vanity tried to
  find an excuse and did not find one.
  
  "You understand," added monsieur de la Mole, "that one always falls
  back on one's heart when one has committed some mistake."
  
  An hour afterwards Julien was in the marquis's ante-chamber. He looked
  quite like a servant with his old clothes, a tie of a dubious white,
  and a certain touch of the usher in his whole appearance. The marquis
  burst out laughing as he saw him, and it was only then that Julien's
  justification was complete.
  
  "If this young man betrays me," said M. de la Mole to himself, "whom is
  one to trust? And yet, when one acts, one must trust someone. My son
  and his brilliant friends of the same calibre have as much courage and
  loyalty as a hundred thousand men. If it were necessary to fight, they
  would die on the steps of the throne. They know everything--except
  what one needs in emergency. Devil take me if I can find a single one
  among them who can learn four pages by heart and do a hundred leagues
  without being tracked down. Norbert would know how to sell his life as
  dearly as his grandfathers did. But any conscript could do as much."
  
  The marquis fell into a profound reverie. "As for selling one's life
  too," he said with a sigh, "perhaps this Sorel would manage it quite as
  well as he could.
  
  "Let us get into the carriage," said the marquis as though to chase
  away an unwanted idea.
  
  "Monsieur," said Julien, "while they were getting this suit ready for
  me, I learnt the first page of to-days _Quotidienne_ by heart."
  
  The marquis took the paper. Julien recited it without making a single
  mistake. "Good," said the marquis, who this night felt very diplomatic.
  "During the time he takes over this our young man will not notice the
  streets through which we are passing."
  
  They arrived in a big salon that looked melancholy enough and was
  partly upholstered in green velvet. In the middle of the room
  a scowling lackey had just placed a big dining-table which he
  subsequently changed into a writing-table by means of an immense green
  inkstained tablecloth which had been plundered from some minister.
  
  The master of the house was an enormous man whose name was not
  pronounced. Julien thought he had the appearance and eloquence of a
  man who ruminated. At a sign from the marquis, Julien had remained at
  the lower end of the table. In order to keep himself in countenance,
  he began to cut quills. He counted out of the corner of his eye seven
  visitors, but Julien could only see their backs. Two seemed to him
  to be speaking to M. de la Mole on a footing of equality, the others
  seemed more or less respectful.
  
  A new person entered without being announced. "This is strange,"
  thought Julien. "People are not announced in this salon. Is this
  precaution taken in my honour?" Everybody got up to welcome the new
  arrival. He wore the same extremely distinguished decoration as three
  of the other persons who were in the salon. They talked fairly low. In
  endeavouring to form an opinion of the new comer, Julien was reduced to
  seeing what he could learn from his features and his appearance. He was
  short and thick-set. He had a high colour and a brilliant eye and an
  expression that looked like a malignant boar, and nothing else.
  
  Julien's attention was partly distracted by the almost immediate
  arrival of a very different kind of person. It was a tall very thin
  man who wore three or four waistcoats. His eye was caressing, his
  demeanour polite.
  
  "He looks exactly like the old bishop of Besancon," thought Julien.
  This man evidently belonged to the church, was apparently not more than
  fifty to fifty-five years of age, and no one could have looked more
  paternal than he did.
  
  The young bishop of Agde appeared. He looked very astonished when,
  in making a scrutiny of those present, his gaze fell upon Julien. He
  had not spoken to him since the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. His look of
  surprise embarrassed and irritated Julien. "What!" he said to himself,
  "will knowing a man always turn out unfortunate for me? I don't feel
  the least bit intimidated by all those great lords whom I have never
  seen, but the look of that young bishop freezes me. I must admit that I
  am a very strange and very unhappy person."
  
  An extremely swarthy little man entered noisily soon afterwards and
  started talking as soon as he reached the door. He had a yellow
  complexion and looked a little mad. As soon as this ruthless talker
  arrived, the others formed themselves into knots with the apparent
  object of avoiding the bother of listening to him.
  
  As they went away from the mantelpiece they came near the lower end
  of the table where Julien was placed. His countenance became more and
  more embarrassed, for whatever efforts he made, he could not avoid
  hearing, and in spite of all his lack of experience he appreciated
  all the moment of the things which they were discussing with such
  complete frankness, and the importance which the high personages whom
  he apparently had under his observation must attach to their being kept
  secret.
  
  Julien had already cut twenty quills as slowly as possible; this
  distraction would shortly be no longer available. He looked in vain at
  M. de la Mole's eyes for an order; the marquis had forgotten him.
  
  "What I am doing is ridiculous," he said to himself as he cut his
  quills, "but persons with so mediocre an appearance and who are
  handling such great interests either for themselves or for others must
  be extremely liable to take offence. My unfortunate look has a certain
  questioning and scarcely respectful expression, which will doubtless
  irritate them. But if I palpably lower my eyes I shall look as if I
  were picking up every word they said."
  
  His embarrassment was extreme, he was listening to strange things.
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LII
  
  THE DISCUSSION
  
  
          The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice
          everything for the public welfare, there are thousands
          and millions who think of nothing except their
          enjoyments and their vanity. One is requested in Paris
          by reason of the qualities not of one's self but of
          one's carriage.
                                          --NAPOLEON, Memorial.
  
  
  The footman rushed in saying "Monsieur the duke de ----"
  
  "Hold your tongue, you are just a fool," said the duke as he entered.
  He spoke these words so well, and with so much majesty, that Julien
  could not help thinking this great person's accomplishments were
  limited to the science of snubbing a lackey. Julien raised his
  eyes and immediately lowered them. He had so fully appreciated the
  significance of the new arrival that he feared that his look might be
  an indiscretion.
  
  The duke was a man of fifty dressed like a dandy and with a jerky
  walk. He had a narrow head with a large nose and a face that jutted
  forward; it would have been difficult to have looked at the same time
  more insignificant. His arrival was the signal for the opening of the
  meeting.
  
  Julien was sharply interrupted in his physiognomical observations by
  de la Mole's voice. "I present to you M. the abbe Sorel," said the
  Marquis. "He is gifted with an astonishing memory; it is scarcely an
  hour ago since I spoke to him of the mission by which he might be
  honoured, and he has learned the first page of the _Quotidienne_ by
  heart in order to give proof of his memory."
  
  "Ah! foreign news of that poor N--" said the master of the house. He
  took up the paper eagerly and looked at Julien in a manner rendered
  humorous by its own self-importance. "Speak, monsieur," he said to him.
  
  The silence was profound, all eyes were fixed on Julien. He recited
  so well that the duke said at the end of twenty lines, "That is
  enough." The little man who looked like a boar sat down. He was the
  president, for he had scarcely taken his place before he showed Julien
  a card-table and signed to him to bring it near him. Julien established
  himself at it with writing materials. He counted twelve persons seated
  round the green table cloth.
  
  "M. Sorel," said the Duke, "retire into next room, you will be called."
  
  The master of the house began to look very anxious. "The shutters
  are not shut," he said to his neighbour in a semi-whisper. "It is no
  good looking out of the window," he stupidly cried to Julien--"so
  here I am more or less mixed up in a conspiracy," thought the latter.
  "Fortunately it is not one of those which lead to the Place-de-Greve.
  Even though there were danger, I owe this and even more to the marquis,
  and should be glad to be given the chance of making up for all the
  sorrow which my madness may one day occasion him."
  
  While thinking of his own madness and his own unhappiness he regarded
  the place where he was, in such a way as to imprint it upon his memory
  for ever. He then remembered for the first time that he had never heard
  the lackey tell the name of the street, and that the marquis had taken
  a fiacre which he never did in the ordinary way. Julien was left to
  his own reflections for a long time. He was in a salon upholstered in
  red velvet with large pieces of gold lace. A large ivory crucifix was
  on the console-table and a gilt-edged, magnificently bound copy of M.
  de Maistre's book _The Pope_ was on the mantelpiece. Julien opened it
  so as not to appear to be eavesdropping. From time to time they talked
  loudly in the next room. At last the door was opened and he was called
  in.
  
  "Remember, gentlemen," the president was saying "that from this moment
  we are talking in the presence of the duke of ----. This gentleman,"
  he said, pointing to Julien, "is a young acolyte devoted to our sacred
  cause who by the aid of his marvellous memory will repeat quite easily
  our very slightest words."
  
  "It is your turn to speak, Monsieur," he said pointing to the paternal
  looking personage who wore three or four waistcoats. Julien thought it
  would have been more natural to have called him the gentleman in the
  waistcoats. He took some paper and wrote a great deal.
  
  (At this juncture the author would have liked to have put a page of
  dots. "That," said his publisher, "would be clumsy and in the case of
  so light a work clumsiness is death."
  
  "Politics," replies the author, "is a stone tied round the neck of
  literature which submerges it in less than six months. Politics in the
  midst of imaginative matter is like a pistol shot in the middle of a
  concert. The noise is racking without being energetic. It does not
  harmonise with the sound of any instrument. These politics will give
  mortal offence to one half of the readers and will bore the other half,
  who will have already read the ideas in question as set out in the
  morning paper in its own drastic manner."
  
  "If your characters don't talk politics," replied the publisher, "they
  cease to be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book is no longer a mirror as
  you claim?")
  
  Julien's record ran to twenty-six pages. Here is a very diluted
  extract, for it has been necessary to adopt the invariable practice of
  suppressing those ludicrous passages, whose violence would have seemed
  either offensive or intolerable (see the _Gazette des Tribunaux_).
  
  The man with the waistcoats and the paternal expression (he was perhaps
  a bishop) often smiled and then his eyes, which were surrounded with
  a floating forest of eyebrows, assumed a singular brilliance and an
  unusually decided expression. This personage whom they made speak first
  before the duke ("but what duke is it?" thought Julien to himself) with
  the apparent object of expounding various points of view and fulfilling
  the functions of an advocate-general, appeared to Julien to fall into
  the uncertainty and lack of definiteness with which those officials
  are so often taxed. During the course of the discussion the duke went
  so far as to reproach him on this score. After several sentences of
  morality and indulgent philosophy the man in the waistcoats said,
  
  "Noble England, under the guiding hand of a great man, the immortal
  Pitt, has spent forty milliards of francs in opposing the revolution.
  If this meeting will allow me to treat so melancholy a subject with
  some frankness, England fails to realise sufficiently that in dealing
  with a man like Buonaparte, especially when they have nothing to
  oppose him with, except a bundle of good intentions there is nothing
  decisive except personal methods."
  
  "Ah! praising assassination again!" said the master of the house
  anxiously.
  
  "Spare us your sentimental sermons," cried the president angrily. His
  boarlike eye shone with a savage brilliance. "Go on," he said to the
  man with the waistcoats. The cheeks and the forehead of the president
  became purple.
  
  "Noble England," replied the advocate-general, "is crushed to-day:
  for each Englishman before paying for his own bread is obliged to pay
  the interest on forty milliards of francs which were used against the
  Jacobins. She has no more Pitt."
  
  "She has the Duke of Wellington," said a military personage looking
  very important.
  
  "Please, gentlemen, silence," exclaimed the president. "If we are still
  going to dispute, there was no point in having M. Sorel in."
  
  "We know that monsieur has many ideas," said the duke irritably,
  looking at the interrupter who was an old Napoleonic general. Julien
  saw that these words contained some personal and very offensive
  allusion. Everybody smiled, the turncoat general appeared beside
  himself with rage.
  
  "There is no longer a Pitt, gentlemen," went on the speaker with all
  the despondency of a man who has given up all hope of bringing his
  listeners to reason. "If there were a new Pitt in England, you would
  not dupe a nation twice over by the same means."
  
  "That's why a victorious general, a Buonaparte, will be henceforward
  impossible in France," exclaimed the military interrupter.
  
  On this occasion neither the president nor the duke ventured to get
  angry, though Julien thought he read in their eyes that they would
  very much like to have done so. They lowered their eyes, and the duke
  contented himself with sighing in quite an audible manner. But the
  speaker was put upon his mettle.
  
  "My audience is eager for me to finish," he said vigorously, completely
  discarding that smiling politeness and that balanced diction that
  Julien thought had expressed his character so well. "It is eager for
  me to finish, it is not grateful to me for the efforts I am making to
  offend nobody's ears, however long they may be. Well, gentlemen, I will
  be brief.
  
  "I will tell you in quite common words: England has not got a sou with
  which to help the good cause. If Pitt himself were to come back he
  would never succeed with all his genius in duping the small English
  landowners, for they know that the short Waterloo campaign alone cost
  them a milliard of francs. As you like clear phrases," continued the
  speaker, becoming more and more animated, "I will say this to you: Help
  yourselves, for England has not got a guinea left to help you with,
  and when England does not pay, Austria, Russia and Prussia--who will
  only have courage but have no money--cannot launch more than one or two
  campaigns against France.
  
  "One may hope that the young soldiers who will be recruited by the
  Jacobins will be beaten in the first campaign, and possibly in the
  second; but, even though I seem a revolutionary in your prejudiced
  eyes, in the third campaign--in the third campaign I say--you will have
  the soldiers of 1794 who were no longer the soldiers enlisted in 1792."
  
  At this point interruption broke out simultaneously from three or four
  quarters.
  
  "Monsieur," said the president to Julien, "Go and make a precis in the
  next room of the beginning of the report which you have written out."
  
  Julien went out to his great regret. The speaker was just dealing
  with the question of probabilities which formed the usual subject
  for his meditations. "They are frightened of my making fun of them,"
  he thought. When he was called back, M. de la Mole was saying with a
  seriousness which seemed quite humorous to Julien who knew him so well,
  
  "Yes, gentlemen, one finds the phrase, 'is it god, table or tub?'
  especially applicable to this unhappy people. '_It is god_' exclaims
  the writer of fables. It is to you, gentlemen, that this noble and
  profound phrase seems to apply. Act on your own initiative, and noble
  France will appear again, almost such as our ancestors made her, and as
  our own eyes have seen her before the death of Louis XVI.
  
  "England execrates disgraceful Jacobinism as much as we do, or at any
  rate her noble lords do. Without English gold, Austria and Prussia
  would only be able to give battle two or three times. Would that be
  sufficient to ensure a successful occupation like the one which M. de
  Richelieu so foolishly failed to exploit in 1817? I do not think so."
  
  At this point there was an interruption which was stifled by the hushes
  of the whole room. It came again from the old Imperial general who
  wanted the blue ribbon and wished to figure among the authors of the
  secret note.
  
  "I do not think so," replied M. de la Mole, after the uproar had
  subsided. He laid stress on the "I" with an insolence which charmed
  Julien.
  
  "That's a pretty piece of acting," he said to himself, as he made his
  pen almost keep pace with the marquis' words.
  
  M. de la Mole annihilated the twenty campaigns of the turncoat with a
  well turned phrase.
  
  "It is not only on foreign powers," continued the marquis in a more
  even tone, "on whom we shall be able to rely for a new military
  occupation. All those young men who write inflammatory articles
  in the _Globe_ will provide you with three or four thousand young
  captains among whom you may find men with the genius, but not the good
  intentions of a Kleber, a Hoche, a Jourdan, a Pichegru."
  
  "We did not know how to glorify him," said the president. "He should
  have been immortalized."
  
  "Finally, it is necessary for France to have two parties," went on M.
  de la Mole; "but two parties not merely in name, but with clear-cut
  lines of cleavage. Let us realise what has got to be crushed. On
  the one hand the journalists and the electors, in a word, public
  opinion; youth and all that admire it. While it is stupefying itself
  with the noise of its own vain words, we have certain advantages of
  administrating the expenditure of the budget."
  
  At this point there was another interruption.
  
  "As for you, monsieur," said M. de la Mole to the interrupter, with an
  admirable haughtiness and ease of manner, "you do not spend, if the
  words chokes you, but you devour the forty thousand francs put down to
  you in the State budget, and the eighty thousand which you receive from
  the civil list."
  
  "Well, monsieur, since you force me to it, I will be bold enough to
  take you for an example. Like your noble ancestors, who followed Saint
  Louis to the crusade, you ought in return for those hundred and twenty
  thousand francs to show us at any rate a regiment; a company, why, what
  am I saying? say half a company, even if it only had fifty men, ready
  to fight and devoted to the good cause to the point of risking their
  lives in its service. You have nothing but lackeys, who in the event of
  a rebellion would frighten you yourselves."
  
  "Throne, Church, Nobility are liable to perish to-morrow, gentlemen,
  so long as you refrain from creating in each department a force of
  five hundred devoted men, devoted I mean, not only with all the French
  courage, but with all the Spanish constancy.
  
  "Half of this force ought to be composed of our children, our nephews,
  of real gentlemen, in fact. Each of them will have beside him not a
  little talkative bourgeois ready to hoist the tricolor cockade, if 1815
  turns up again, but a good, frank and simple peasant like Cathelineau.
  Our gentleman will have educated him, it will be his own foster brother
  if it is possible. Let each of us sacrifice the fifth of his income in
  order to form this little devoted force of five hundred men in each
  department. Then you will be able to reckon on a foreign occupation.
  The foreign soldier will never penetrate even as far as Dijon if he
  is not certain of finding five hundred friendly soldiers in each
  department.
  
  "The foreign kings will only listen to you when you are in a position
  to announce to them that you have twenty thousand gentlemen ready to
  take up arms in order to open to them the gates of France. The service
  is troublesome, you say. Gentlemen, it is the only way of saving our
  lives. There is war to the death between the liberty of the press and
  our existence as gentlemen. Become manufacturers, become peasants, or
  take up your guns. Be timid if you like, but do not be stupid. Open
  your eyes.
  
  "'_Form your battalions_,' I would say to you in the words of the
  Jacobin songs. Some noble Gustavus Adolphus will then be found who,
  touched by the imminent peril of the monarchical principle, will make
  a dash three hundred leagues from his own country, and will do for
  you what Gustavus did for the Protestant princes. Do you want to go
  on talking without acting? In fifty years' time there will be only
  presidents or republics in Europe and not one king, and with those
  three letters R. O. I. you will see the last of the priests and the
  gentlemen. I can see nothing but candidates paying court to squalid
  majorities.
  
  "It is no use your saying that at the present time France has not
  a single accredited general who is universally known and loved,
  that the army is only known and organised in the interests of the
  throne and the church, and that it has been deprived of all its old
  troopers, while each of the Prussian and Austrian regiments count fifty
  non-commissioned officers who have seen fire.
  
  "Two hundred thousand young men of the middle classes are spoiling for
  war--"
  
  "A truce to disagreeable truths," said a grave personage in a pompous
  tone. He was apparently a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, for M.
  de la Mole smiled pleasantly, instead of getting angry, a circumstance
  which greatly impressed Julien.
  
  "A truce to unpleasant truths, let us resume, gentlemen. The man who
  needs to have a gangrened leg cut off would be ill advised to say to
  his surgeon, 'this disease is very healthy.' If I may use the metaphor,
  gentlemen, the noble duke of ---- is our surgeon."
  
  "So the great words have at last been uttered," thought Julien. "It is
  towards the ---- that I shall gallop to-night."
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER LIII
  
  THE CLERGY, THE FORESTS, LIBERTY
  
  
          The first law of every being, is to preserve itself and
          live. You sow hemlock, and expect to see ears of corn
          ripen.--_Machiavelli_.
  
  
  The great personage continued. One could see that he knew his subject.
  He proceeded to expound the following great truths with a soft and
  tempered eloquence with which Julien was inordinately delighted:--
  
  "1. England has not a guinea to help us with; economy and Hume are
  the fashion there. Even the saints will not give us any money, and M.
  Brougham will make fun of us.
  
  "2. The impossibility of getting the kings of Europe to embark on more
  than two campaigns without English gold; two campaigns will not be
  enough to dispose of the middle classes.
  
  "3. The necessity of forming an armed party in France. Without this,
  the monarchical principle in Europe will not risk even two campaigns.
  
  "The fourth point which I venture to suggest to you, as self-evident,
  is this:
  
  "The impossibility of forming an armed party in France without the
  clergy. I am bold enough to tell you this because I will prove it to
  you, gentlemen. You must make every sacrifice for the clergy.
  
  "Firstly, because as it is occupied with its mission by day and by
  night, and guided by highly capable men established far from these
  storms at three hundred leagues from your frontiers----"
  
  "Ah, Rome, Rome!" exclaimed the master of the house.
  
  "Yes, monsieur, Rome," replied the Cardinal haughtily. "Whatever more
  or less ingenious jokes may have been the fashion when you were young,
  I have no hesitation in saying that in 1830 it is only the clergy,
  under the guidance of Rome, who has the ear of the lower classes.
  
  "Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day appointed by
  their chiefs, and the people--who after all provide soldiers--will be
  more touched by the voices of its priests than by all the versifying in
  the whole world." (This personality provoked some murmurs.)
  
  "The clergy has a genius superior to yours," went on the cardinal
  raising his voice. "All the progress that has been made towards this
  essential point of having an armed party in France has been made by
  us." At this juncture facts were introduced. "Who used eighty thousand
  rifles in Vendee?" etc., etc.
  
  "So long as the clergy is without its forests it is helpless. At
  the first war the minister of finance will write to his agents that
  there is no money to be had except for the cure. At bottom France
  does not believe, and she loves war. Whoever gives her war will be
  doubly popular, for making war is, to use a vulgar phrase, the same as
  starving the Jesuits; making war means delivering those monsters of
  pride--the men of France--from the menace of foreign intervention."
  
  The cardinal had a favourable hearing. "M. de Nerval," he said, "will
  have to leave the ministry, his name irritates and to no purpose."
  
  At these words everybody got up and talked at the same time. "I will be
  sent away again," thought Julien, but the sapient president himself had
  forgotten both the presence and existence of Julien.
  
  All eyes were turned upon a man whom Julien recognised. It was M. de
  Nerval, the prime minister, whom he had seen at M. the duc de Retz's
  ball.
  
  The disorder was at its height, as the papers say when they talk of the
  Chamber. At the end of a long quarter of an hour a little quiet was
  established.
  
  Then M. de Nerval got up and said in an apostolic tone and a singular
  voice:
  
  "I will not go so far as to say that I do not set great store on being
  a minister.
  
  "It has been demonstrated to me, gentlemen, that my name will double
  the forces of the Jacobins by making many moderates divide against
  us. I should therefore be willing to retire; but the ways of the Lord
  are only visible to a small number; but," he added, looking fixedly
  at the cardinal, "I have a mission. Heaven has said: 'You will either
  loose your head on the scaffold or you will re-establish the monarchy
  of France and reduce the Chambers to the condition of the parliament of
  Louis XV.,' and that, gentlemen, I shall do."
  
  He finished his speech, sat down, and there was a long silence.
  
  "What a good actor," thought Julien. He made his usual mistake of
  ascribing too much intelligence to the people. Excited by the debates
  of so lively an evening, and above all by the sincerity of the
  discussion, M. de Nerval did at this moment believe in his mission.
  This man had great courage, but at the same time no sense.
  
  During the silence that followed the impressive words, "I shall do it,"
  midnight struck. Julien thought that the striking of the clock had in
  it a certain element of funereal majesty. He felt moved.
  
  The discussion was soon resumed with increasing energy, and above all
  with an incredible naivety. "These people will have me poisoned,"
  thought Julien at times. "How can they say such things before a
  plebian."
  
  They were still talking when two o'clock struck. The master of the
  house had been sleeping for some time. M. de la Mole was obliged to
  ring for new candles. M. de Nerval, the minister, had left at the
  quarter to two, but not without having repeatedly studied Julien's face
  in a mirror which was at the minister's side. His departure had seemed
  to put everybody at their ease.
  
  While they were bringing new candles, the man in the waistcoats,
  whispered to his neighbour: "God knows what that man will say to the
  king. He may throw ridicule upon us and spoil our future."
  
  "One must own that he must possess an unusual self-assurance, not to
  say impudence, to put in an appearance here There were signs of it
  before he became a minister; but a portfolio changes everything and
  swamps all a man's interests; he must have felt its effect."
  
  The minister had scarcely left before the general of Buonaparte closed
  his eyes. He now talked of his health and his wounds, consulted his
  watch, and went away.
  
  "I will wager," said the man in the waistcoats, "that the general is
  running after the minister; he will apologise for having been here and
  pretend that he is our leader."
  
  "Let us now deliberate, gentlemen," said the president, after the
  sleepy servants had finished bringing and lighting new candles. "Let us
  leave off trying to persuade each other. Let us think of the contents
  of the note which will be read by our friends outside in forty-eight
  hours from now. We have heard ministers spoken of. Now that M. de
  Nerval has left us, we are at liberty to say 'what we do care for
  ministers.'"
  
  The cardinal gave a subtle smile of approval.
  
  "Nothing is easier it seems to me than summing up our position," said
  the young bishop of Agde, with the restrained concentrated fire of the
  most exalted fanaticism. He had kept silent up to this time; his eye,
  which Julien had noticed as being soft and calm at the beginning, had
  become fiery during the first hour of the discussion. His soul was now
  bubbling over like lava from Vesuvius.
  
  "England only made one mistake from 1806 to 1814," he said, "and that
  was in not taking direct and personal measures against Napoleon. As
  soon as that man had made dukes and chamberlains, as soon as he had
  re-established the throne, the mission that God had entrusted to him
  was finished. The only thing to do with him was to sacrifice him.
  The scriptures teach us in more than one place how to make an end of
  tyrants" (at this point there were several Latin quotations).
  
  "To-day, gentlemen, it is not a man who has to be sacrificed, it
  is Paris. What is the use of arming your five hundred men in each
  department, a hazardous and interminable enterprise? What is the good
  of involving France in a matter which is personal to Paris? Paris alone
  has done the evil, with its journals and it salons. Let the new Babylon
  perish.
  
  "We must bring to an end the conflict between the church and Paris.
  Such a catastrophe would even be in the worldly interests of the
  throne. Why did not Paris dare to whisper a word under Buonaparte? Ask
  the cannon of Saint-Roch?"
  
  Julien did not leave with M. de la Mole before three o'clock in the
  morning.
  
  The marquis seemed tired and ashamed. For the first time in his life
  in conversation with Julien, his tone was plaintive. He asked him for
  his word never to reveal the excesses of zeal, that was his expression,
  of which chance had just made him a witness. "Only mention it to our
  foreign friend, if he seriously insists on knowing what our young
  madmen are like. What does it matter to them if a state is overthrown,
  they will become cardinals and will take refuge in Rome. As for us, we
  shall be massacred by the peasants in our chateaus."
  
  The secret note into which the marquis condensed Julien's full report
  of twenty-six pages was not ready before a quarter to five.
  
  "I am dead tired," said the marquis, "as is quite obvious from the lack
  of clearness at the end of this note; I am more dissatisfied with it
  than with anything I ever did in my whole life. Look here, my friend,"
  he added, "go and rest for some hours, and as I am frightened you might
  be kidnapped, I shall lock you up in your room."
  
  The marquis took Julien on the following day to a lonely chateau at a
  good distance from Paris. There were strange guests there whom Julien
  thought were priests. He was given a passport which was made out in a
  fictitious name, but indicated the real destination of his journey,
  which he had always pretended not to know. He got into a carriage alone.
  
  The marquis had no anxiety on the score of his memory. Julien
  had recited the secret note to him several times but he was very
  apprehensive of his being intercepted.
  
  "Above all, mind you look like a coxcomb who is simply travelling to
  kill time," he said affectionately to him when he was leaving the
  salon. "Perhaps there was more than one treacherous brother in this
  evening's meeting."
  
  The journey was quick and very melancholy. Julien had scarcely got
  out of the marquis's sight before he forgot his secret note and his
  mission, and only thought about Mathilde's disdain.
  
  At a village some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came and told him
  that there were no horses. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Julien
  was very annoyed and asked for supper. He walked in front of the door
  and gradually without being noticed passed into the stable-yard. He did
  not see any horses there.
  
  "That man looked strange though," thought Julien to himself. "He was
  scrutinizing me with his brutal eyes."
  
  As one sees he was beginning to be slightly sceptical of all he heard.
  He thought of escaping after supper, and in order to learn at any rate
  something about the surrounding country, he left his room to go and
  warm himself at the kitchen fire. He was overjoyed to find there the
  celebrated singer, signor Geronimo.
  
  The Neopolitan was ensconced in an armchair which he had had brought
  near the fire. He was groaning aloud, and was speaking more to himself
  than to the twenty dumbfounded German peasants who surrounded him.
  
  "Those people will be my ruin," he cried to Julien, "I have promised to
  sing to-morrow at Mayence. Seven sovereign princes have gone there to
  hear me. Let us go and take the air," he added, meaningly.
  
  When he had gone a hundred yards down the road, and it was impossible
  to be overheard, he said to Julien:
  
  "Do you know the real truth, the postmaster is a scoundrel. When I went
  out for a walk I gave twenty sous to a little ragamuffin who told me
  everything. There are twelve horses in the stable at the other end of
  the village. They want to stop some courier."
  
  "Really," said Julien innocently.
  
  Discovering the fraud was not enough; the thing was to get away, but
  Geronimo and his friends could not succeed in doing this.
  
  "Let us wait for daybreak," said the singer at last, "they are
  mistrustful of us. It is perhaps you or me whom they suspect. We will
  order a good breakfast to-morrow morning, we will go for a walk while
  they are getting it ready, we will then escape, we will hire horses,
  and gain the next station."
  
  "And how about your luggage?" said Julien, who thought perhaps Geronimo
  himself might have been sent to intercept him. They had to have supper
  and go to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep when he was woken
  up with a start by the voices of two persons who were speaking in his
  room with utmost freedom.
  
  He recognised the postmaster armed with a dark lantern. The light was
  turned on the carriage-seat which Julien had had taken up into his
  room. Beside the postmaster was a man who was calmly searching the open
  seat. Julien could see nothing except the sleeves of his coat which
  were black and very tight.
  
  "It's a cassock," he said to himself and he softly seized the little
  pistol which he had placed under his pillow.
  
  "Don't be frightened of his waking up, cure," said the postmaster, "the
  wine that has been served him was the stuff prepared by yourself."
  
  "I can't find any trace of papers," answered the cure. "A lot of linen
  and essences, pommades, and vanities. It's a young man of the world
  on pleasure bent. The other one who effects an Italian accent is more
  likely to be the emissary."
  
  The men approached Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat.
  He felt very tempted to kill them for thieves. Nothing could be safer
  in its consequences. He was very desirous of doing so.... "I should
  only be a fool," he said to himself, "I should compromise my mission."
  "He is not a diplomatist," said the priest after searching his coat. He
  went away and did well to do so.
  
  "It will be a bad business for him," Julien was saying to himself, "if
  he touches me in my bed. He may have quite well come to stab me, and I
  won't put up with that."
  
  The cure turned his head, Julien half opened his eyes. He was
  inordinately astonished, he was the abbe Castanede. As a matter of
  fact, although these two persons had made a point of talking in a
  fairly low voice, he had thought from the first that he recognised one
  of the voices. Julien was seized with an inordinate desire to purge the
  earth of one of its most cowardly villains; "But my mission," he said
  to himself.
  
  The cure and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour afterwards
  Julien pretended to have just woken up. He called out and woke up the
  whole house.
  
  "I am poisoned," he exclaimed, "I am suffering horribly!" He wanted an
  excuse to go to Geronimo's help. He found him half suffocated by the
  laudanum that had been contained in the wine.
  
  Julien had been apprehensive of some trick of this character and had
  supped on some chocolate which he had brought from Paris. He could not
  wake Geronimo up sufficiently to induce him to leave.
  
  "If they were to give me the whole kingdom of Naples," said the singer,
  "I would not now give up the pleasure of sleeping."
  
  "But the seven sovereign princes?"
  
  "Let them wait."
  
  Julien left alone, and arrived at the house of the great personage
  without other incident. He wasted a whole morning in vainly soliciting
  an audience. Fortunately about four o'clock the duke wanted to take
  the air. Julien saw him go out on foot and he did not hesitate
  to ask him for alms. When at two yards' distance from the great
  personage he pulled out the Marquis de la Mole's watch and exhibited
  it ostentatiously. "_Follow me at a distance_," said the man without
  looking at him.
  
  At a quarter of a league's distance the duke suddenly entered a little
  _coffee-house_. It was in a room of this low class inn that Julien had
  the honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished
  he was told to "_start again and go more slowly_."
  
  The prince took notes. "Reach the next posting station on foot. Leave
  your luggage and your carriage here. Get to Strasbourg as best you can
  and at half-past twelve on the twenty-second of the month (it was at
  present the tenth) come to this same coffee-house. Do not leave for
  half-an-hour. Silence!"
  
  These were the only words which Julien heard. They sufficed to inspire
  him with the highest admiration. "That is the way," he thought, "that
  real business is done; what would this great statesman say if he were
  to listen to the impassioned ranters heard three days ago?"
  
  Julien took two days to reach Strasbourg. He thought he would have
  nothing to do there. He made a great detour. "If that devil of an abbe
  Castanede has recognised me he is not the kind of man to loose track
  of me easily.... And how he would revel in making a fool of me, and
  causing my mission to fail."
  
  Fortunately the abbe Castanede, who was chief of the congregational
  police on all the northern frontier had not recognised him. And the
  Strasbourg Jesuits, although very zealous, never gave a thought to
  observing Julien, who with his cross and his blue tail-coat looked
  like a young military man, very much engrossed in his own personal
  appearance.
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 21-23
target: The marquis prepares Julien for his role as scribe and spy. Julien will accompany the marquis to a meeting of a group of ultras, where he will take notes on the conversation, condense them with the help of the marquis, memorize the contents, and, inconspicuously dressed, start out on a mission to London. On the way to the meeting, Julien recites a page from the newspaper to the marquis to demonstrate his photographic memory. At the place of rendezvous, the room gradually fills with the plotters. Julien sharpens numerous quills waiting for further orders. The marquis introduces Julien to the conspirators, and Julien demonstrates to them his prodigious memory. The twelve conspirators would plot means of strengthening the ultras' position against the ever-increasing threat of liberalism, or, as it was termed, Jacobinism. The question is whether to ask England to intervene in order to strengthen the ultra monarchy. The marquis is of the opinion that England will help only if the French help themselves by galvanizing their ultra supporters at every level of society. He would recommend severe curtailment of the liberty of the press in an effort to control public opinion. A cardinal supports the proposal of the marquis, adding the necessity of relying on the power of the Church, whose 50,000 priests have the ear of the people. He suggests that the cabinet minister, M. de Nerval, resign since he is compromising their cause. Nerval, present among the conspirators, presents himself as favoring the ultra cause against the liberal monarchy. The discussion becomes heated and lasts until three in the morning. The minister leaves, then the Bonapartist, and the remaining conspirators conjecture that the Bonapartist might betray them in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the minister. Later, Julien and the marquis edit the notes, which Julien memorizes, and the next morning Julien departs on his mission. Stopping at an inn near Metz, Julien encounters the Italian singer Geronimo, who informs Julien that their innkeeper has detained them in order to find a spy who must be apprehended. Julien awakens to find the Jesuit leader of the Besancon Congregation searching his effects. It is Geronimo who is suspected of being the spy. The singer has been drugged, having fallen into the trap that Julien has avoided. Arriving in London, Julien finally succeeds in meeting the Duke of Wellington, to whom he recites the message in the secrecy of a shabby inn. Julien follows the duke's instructions to go to Strasbourg, then return within twelve days. Julien arrives in Strasbourg, eluding the watchful Jesuits.
feat_summary_analysis: The mission to which Stendhal has previously alluded is conveniently introduced to create suspense, of course, but also to separate the lovers in order to reverse their roles. Upon his return, Julien will take the offensive. The transition between what preceded and the spy episode was constituted by Mathilde's musings on Julien's future. Julien has definitely replaced Norbert as a son worthy of the Marquis de la Mole, and for the first time, the marquis explicitly states this preference. Freudians would see in this a disavowal by Stendhal of his own father and a legitimization of his view of himself as one of the "happy few." Julien gains admittance to the inner sanctum of reactionary power, but he is still an outsider, a role to which he is condemned. He is made painfully aware of this role of outsider-inside by his isolation, obvious only to himself, before the meeting begins. His embarrassment, which he aggravates by endlessly sharpening quills, aptly characterizes Julien as a very self-conscious being. The presence of the Bishop of Agde serves to remind the reader again of the distance covered by our hero since Julien was also in the role of messenger when the bishop appeared in Verrieres. The affair of the secret note affords another insight into the manner in which Stendhal utilizes actual happenings as a basis for fiction. Although the novel is set in 1830, at the end of the autocratic reign of Charles X, this episode is based upon incidents that took place during the reign of Louis XVIII , the more liberal brother of Charles. The memory of Napoleon's One Hundred Days in 1815 and Louis' liberalism actually caused the ultras to plot with foreign powers in an effort to re-establish the reactionary spirit of the "ancien regime." Stendhal's conspirators are speaking "historically," without naming him, of Louis XVIII, although they are "living" under the reign of Louis' successor, Charles X. The "Ordonnances de Juillet" by which Charles X attempted to revoke the Charter embodying the principles of the Revolution of '89 and to stifle freedom of the press precipitated the July Revolution of 1830, which hailed the "bourgeois king," Louis-Philippe, who re-established liberalism and reigned until 1848. This incident and others of political inspiration in the novel were added by Stendhal after the July Revolution. He could hardly have included them with impunity before that date. Stendhal has a predilection for the mystery of clandestine operations, of spy intrigue, including secret rendezvous to which only the initiated are admitted. It is at once related to his own adventures  and simply an indication of the exclusiveness of the "happy few," the elite of whom Stendhal counted himself as one. Although Julien has definite republican sympathies, he is in the service of legitimists. Aside from aptly describing this social pariah -- the idealist who champions the revolutionary cause but who traffics with the enemy out of necessity -- Julien's paradoxical position betrays the political ambiguities of Stendhal himself. Defender of liberalism and, at the same time, aspiring to the good old days of the monarchy, Stendhal nonetheless abhorred the idea of a democracy. Stendhal's apology for inclusion of the political discussion should not be taken too seriously by the reader. Furthermore, the political and social substrata of the novel are the context in which Julien's individual adventure is realized. This is the most illustrious role that Julien will play as an individual subservient to others. His next brief "position" will seem to grant him a momentary social independence. The power hierarchy, so ubiquitous in the novel, is apparent even in this assemblage of the summit. Some are deferential to others, some can be outspoken and ironic, others must be silent. It should be noted that Stendhal limits the narration strictly to Julien's perception and comprehension of the mysterious proceedings. The reader has the impression that he, too, is an outsider privileged to eavesdrop. We are rarely told any more than Julien knows. When Julien is excluded briefly during the course of the meeting, the reader is also excluded. And we take our cues from Julien, who takes his from interpreting the facial expressions and tone of voice of the Marquis de la Mole. Three minor characters have reappeared in these chapters: Castanede, Agde, Geronimo. Their reappearance reminds us of Julien's progress: He is now the very successful protege of the Marquis de la Mole, and he fulfills his mission without a hitch.