Part 2 Chapter 38
A Man of PowerBut there is such mystery in her movements, such elegance in herform. Who can she be?
SCHILLERThe doors of the dungeon were thrown open at a very early hour thenext morning. Julien awoke with a start.
'Oh, good God,' he thought, 'here comes my father. What a disagreeable scene!'
At that moment, a woman dressed as a peasant flung herself into hisarms; he had difficulty in recognising her. It was Mademoiselle de LaMole.
'Miscreant, it was only from your letter that I learned where you were.
What you call your crime, though it is nothing but a noble revengewhich shows me all the loftiness of the heart that beats in your bosom, Ilearned only at Verrieres … '
Notwithstanding his prejudices against Mademoiselle de La Mole, prejudices of which, moreover, he had not himself formed any definite idea,Julien found her extremely good-looking. How could he fail to see in allthis manner of speech and action a noble, disinterested sentiment, farabove anything that a petty, vulgar spirit would have dared? He imagined once again that he was in love with a queen, and after a few moments it was with a rare nobility of speech and thought that he said toher:
'The future was tracing itself quite clearly before my eyes. After mydeath, I married you to Croisenois, who would be marrying a widow.
The noble but slightly romantic spirit of this charming widow, startledand converted to the service of common prudence by an event at oncesingular, tragic and for her momentous, would have deigned to appreciate the quite genuine merit of the young Marquis. You would have resigned yourself to enjoying the happiness of the rest of the world: esteem, riches, high rank … But, dear Mathilde, your coming to Besancon,if it is suspected, is going to be a mortal blow to M. de La Mole, and thatis what I will never forgive myself. I have already caused him so muchsorrow! The Academician will say that he has been warming a serpent inhis bosom.'
'I must confess that I hardly expected so much cold reasoning, somuch thought for the future,' said Mademoiselle de La Mole, half annoyed. 'My maid, who is almost as prudent as yourself, procured a passport for herself, and it is in the name of Madame Michelet that I havetravelled post.'
'And Madame Michelet found it so easy to make her way in to me?'
'Ah! You are still the superior man, the man of my choice! First of all, Ioffered a hundred francs to a magistrate's secretary, who assured me thatit was impossible for me to enter this dungeon. But after taking themoney, this honest man made me wait, raised objections, I thought thathe meant to rob me … ' She broke off.
'Well?' asked Julien.
'Do not be angry with me, my little Julien,' she said, embracing him, 'Iwas obliged to give my name to this secretary, who took me for a youngmilliner from Paris, enamoured of the handsome Julien … Indeed, thoseare his very words. I swore to him that I was your wife, and I am to havepermission to see you every day.'
'That finishes everything,' thought Julien; 'I could not prevent it. Afterall, M. de La Mole is so great a nobleman that public opinion will easilyfind an excuse for the young Colonel who will wed this charming widow. My approaching death will cover everything'; and he abandonedhimself with ecstasy to Mathilde's love; there followed madness, magnanimity, everything that was most strange. She seriously proposed tohim that she should die with him.
After these first transports, and when she had grown used to the happiness of seeing Julien, a keen curiosity suddenly took possession of hersoul. She examined her lover, and found him far superior to what shehad imagined. Boniface de La Mole seemed to her reincarnate in him,but in a more heroic mould.
Mathilde saw the leading counsel of the place, whom she insulted byoffering them gold too crudely; but they ended by accepting.
She speedily came to the conclusion that in doubtful matters of highimport, everything in Besancon depended upon M. l'abbe de Frilair.
Under the obscure name of Madame Michelet, she at first found insuperable obstacles in the way to the presence of the all-powerful leader ofthe Congregation. But the rumour of the beauty of a young milliner,madly in love, who had come from Paris to Besancon to comfort theyoung abbe Julien Sorel, began to spread through the town.
Mathilde went alone and on foot through the streets of Besancon; shehoped that she might not be recognised. In any event, she thought that itmust help her cause to create a strong impression upon the populace. Inher folly she thought of making them revolt, to save Julien on his way tothe scaffold. Mademoiselle de La Mole imagined herself to be dressedsimply and in a manner becoming a woman stricken with grief; she wasdressed in such a fashion as to attract every eye.
She was the sole object of attention in Besancon, when, after a week ofsolicitation, she obtained an audience of M. Frilair.
Great as her courage might be, the idea of an influential head of theCongregation and that of a profound and cautious rascality were soclosely associated in her mind that she trembled as she rang the bell atthe door of the Bishop's palace. She could barely stand when she had toclimb the stair that led to the First Vicar-General's apartment. The loneliness of the episcopal palace chilled her with fear. 'I may sit down in anarmchair, and the armchair grip me by the arms, I shall have vanished.
Of whom can my maid ask for news of me? The Captain of Police willdecline to interfere … I am all alone in this great town!'
Her first sight of the apartment set Mademoiselle de La Mole's heart atrest. First of all, it was a footman in the most elegant livery that hadopened the door to her. The parlour in which she was asked to wait displayed that refined and delicate luxury, so different from vulgar magnificence, which one finds in Paris only in the best houses. As soon as shecaught sight of M. de Frilair, who came towards her with a fatherly air,all thoughts of a dastardly crime vanished. She did not even find on hishandsome countenance the imprint of that energetic, that almost wildvirtue, so antipathetic to Parisian society. The half-smile that animatedthe features of the priest who was in supreme control of everything atBesancon, betokened the man used to good society, the cultured prelate,the able administrator. Mathilde imagined herself in Paris.
It needed only a few minutes for M. de Frilair to lead Mathilde on toadmit to him that she was the daughter of his powerful adversary, theMarquis de La Mole.
'I am not, as a matter of fact, Madame Michelet,' she said, resuming allthe loftiness of her bearing, 'and this admission costs me little, for I havecome to consult you, Sir, as to the possibility of procuring the escape ofM. de La Vernaye. In the first place he is guilty of nothing worse than apiece of stupidity; the woman at whom he fired is doing well. In thesecond place, to corrupt the subordinates, I can put down here and nowfifty thousand francs, and bind myself to pay double that sum. Lastly,my gratitude and the gratitude of my family will consider no request impossible from the person who has saved M. de La Vernaye.'
M. de Frilair appeared to be surprised at this name. Mathilde showedhim a number of letters from the Ministry of War, addressed to M. JulienSorel de La Vernaye.
'You see, Sir, that my father undertook to provide for his future. I married him secretly, my father wished him to be a senior officer beforemaking public this marriage, which is a little odd for a La Mole.'
Mathilde remarked that the expression of benevolence and of a mildgaiety speedily vanished as M. de Frilair began to arrive at importantdiscoveries. A subtlety blended with profound insincerity was portrayedon his features.
The abbe had his doubts, he perused the official documents once moreslowly.
'What advantage can I gain from these strange confidences?' he askedhimself. 'Here I am suddenly brought into close personal contact with afriend of the famous Marechale de Fervaques, the all-powerful niece ofthe Lord Bishop of ——, through whom one becomes a Bishop in France.
'What I have always regarded as hidden in the future suddenlypresents itself. This may lead me to the goal of all my ambition.'
At first Mathilde was alarmed by the rapid change in thephysiognomy of this powerful man, with whom she found herself shutup alone in a remote part of the building. 'But why!' she said to herselfpresently, 'would it not have been worse to have made no impressionupon the cold egoism of a priest sated with the enjoyment of power?'
Dazzled by this rapid and unexpected avenue to the episcopate thatwas opening before his eyes, astonished at Mathilde's intelligence, for amoment M. de Frilair was off his guard. Mademoiselle de La Mole saw him almost at her feet, trembling nervously with the intensity of hisambition.
'Everything becomes clear,' she thought, 'nothing will be impossiblehere for a friend of Madame de Fervaques.' Despite a sense of jealousythat was still most painful, she found courage to explain that Julien wasan intimate friend of the Marechale, and almost every evening used tomeet, in her house, the Lord Bishop of ——.
'If you were to draw by lot four or five times in succession a list ofthirty-six jurymen from among the principal inhabitants of this Department,' said the Vicar-General with the harsh glare of ambition, dwellingupon each of his words, 'I should consider myself most unfortunate if ineach list I did not find eight or nine friends, and those the most intelligent of the lot. Almost invariably I should have a majority, more thanthat, even for a verdict of guilty; you see, Mademoiselle, with what ease Ican secure an acquittal … "The abbe broke off suddenly, as though startled by the sound of hiswords; he was admitting things which are never uttered to the profane.
But Mathilde in turn was stupefied when he informed her that whatwas most astonishing and interesting to Besancon society in Julien'sstrange adventure, was that in the past he had inspired a grand passionin Madame de Renal, which he had long reciprocated. M. de Frilair hadno difficulty in perceiving the extreme distress which his storyproduced.
'I have my revenge!' he thought. 'Here, at last, is a way of controllingthis decided young person; I was trembling lest I should not succeed infinding one.' Her distinguished air, as of one not easily led, intensified inhis eyes the charm of the rare beauty which he saw almost suppliant before him. He recovered all his self-possession and had no hesitation inturning the knife in the wound.
'I should not be surprised after all,' he said to her lightly, 'were we tolearn that it was from jealousy that M. Sorel fired two shots at this woman whom once he loved so dearly. She must have had some relaxation,and for some time past she had been seeing a great deal of a certain abbeMarquinot of Dijon, a sort of Jansenist, utterly without morals, like all ofthem.'
M. de Frilair went on torturing with voluptuous relish and at his leisure the heart of this beautiful girl, whose weak spot he had discovered.
'Why,' he said, fixing a pair of burning eyes on Mathilde, 'should M.
Sorel have chosen the church, if not because at that very moment hisrival was celebrating mass there? Everyone agrees in ascribing boundlessintelligence and even more prudence to the man who is so fortunate as toenjoy your protection. What more simple than to conceal himself in M.
de Renal's gardens, which he knows so well? There, with almost a certainty of not being seen, nor caught, nor suspected, he could have inflicted death on the woman of whom he was jealous.'
These arguments, apparently so well founded, reduced Mathilde to utter despair. Her spirit, haughty enough but saturated with all that dryprudence which passes in society as a faithful portrayal of the humanheart, was not made to understand in a moment the joy of defying allprudence which can be so keen a joy to an ardent soul. In the upperclasses of Parisian society, in which Mathilde had lived, passion can onlyvery rarely divest itself of prudence, and it is from the attics on the fifthfloor that girls throw themselves out of windows.
At last the abbe de Frilair was sure of his control. He gave Mathilde tounderstand (he was probably lying) that he could influence as he chosethe Crown Counsel, who would have to support the charge againstJulien.
After the names of the thirty-six jurors for the assize had been drawnby lot, he would make a direct and personal appeal to at least thirty ofthem.
If M. de Frilair had not thought Mathilde so good-looking, he wouldnot have spoken to her in such plain terms until their fifth or sixthinterview.
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