‘That line of Latin will be your lightning conductor in this place, when I have gone.
‘Erit tibi, fili mi, successor meus tanquam leo quaerens quern devoret. (My successor will be to you, my son, as a lion seeking whom he may devour.)’
On the following morning, Julien detected something strange in the manner in which his companions addressed him. This made him all the more reserved. ‘Here,’ he thought, ‘we have the effect of M. Pirard’s resignation. It is known throughout the place, and I am supposed to be his favourite. There must be an insult behind this attitude’; but he could not discover it. There was, on the contrary, an absence of hatred in the eyes of all whom he encountered in the dormitories. ‘What can this mean? It is doubtless a trap, we are playing a close game.’ At length the young seminarist from Verrieres said to him with a laugh: ‘Cornelii Taciti opera omnia (Complete Works of Tacitus).’
At this speech, which was overheard, all the rest seemed to vie with one another in congratulating Julien, not only upon the magnificent present which he had received from Monseigneur, but also upon the two hours of conversation with which he had been honoured. It was common knowledge, down to the most trifling details. From this moment, there was no more jealousy; everyone paid court to him most humbly; the abbe Castanede who, only yesterday, had treated him with the utmost insolence, came to take him by the arm and invited him to luncheon.
Owing to a weakness in Julien’s character, the insolence of these coarse creatures had greatly distressed him; their servility caused him disgust and no pleasure.
Towards midday, the abbe Pirard took leave of his pupils, not without first delivering a severe allocution. ‘Do you seek the honours of this world,’ he said to them, ‘all social advantages, the pleasure of commanding men, that of defying the laws and of being insolent to all men with impunity? Or indeed do you seek your eternal salvation? The most ignorant among you have only to open their eyes to distinguish between the two paths.’
No sooner had he left than the devotees of the Sacred Heart of Jesus went to chant a Te Deum in the chapel. Nobody in the Seminary took the late Director’s allocution seriously. ‘He is very cross at being dismissed,’ was what might be heard on all sides. Not one seminarist was simple enough to believe in the voluntary resignation of a post which provided so many opportunities for dealing with the big contractors.
The abbe Pirard took up his abode in the best inn in Besancon; and on the pretext of some imaginary private affairs, proposed to spend a couple of days there.
The Bishop invited him to dinner, and, to tease his Vicar–General, de Frilair, endeavoured to make him shine. They had reached the dessert when there arrived from Paris the strange tidings that the abbe Pirard was appointed to the splendid living of N— — within four leagues of the capital. The worthy prelate congratulated him sincerely. He saw in the whole affair a well played game which put him in a good humour and gave him the highest opinion of the abbe’s talents. He bestowed upon him a magnificent certificate in Latin, and silenced the abbe de Frilair, who ventured to make remonstrances.
That evening, Monseigneur carried his admiration to the drawing-room of the Marquise de Rubempre. It was a great piece of news for the select society of Besancon; people were lost in conjectures as to the meaning of this extraordinary favour. They saw the abbe Pirard a Bishop already. The sharper wits supposed M. de La Mole to have become a Minister, and allowed themselves that evening to smile at the imperious airs which M. l’abbe de Frilair assumed in society.
Next morning, the abbe Pirard was almost followed through the streets, and the tradesmen came out to their shop-doors when he went to beg an audience of the Marquis’s judges. For the first time, he was received by them with civility. The stern Jansenist, indignant at everything that he saw around him, spent a long time at work with the counsel whom he had chosen for the Marquis de La Mole, and then left for Paris. He was so foolish as to say to two or three lifelong friends who escorted him to the carriage and stood admiring its heraldic blason, that after governing the Seminary for fifteen years he was leaving Besancon with five hundred and twenty francs in savings. These friends embraced him with tears in their eyes, and then said to one another: The good abbe might have spared himself that lie, it is really too absurd.’
The common herd, blinded by love of money, were not fitted to understand that it was in his sincerity that the abbe Pirard had found the strength to fight single-handed for six years against Marie Alacoque, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Jesuits and his Bishop.
Chapter 30
AMBITION
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There is only one true nobility left; namely, the title of Duke; Marquis is absurd, at the word Duke one turns one’s head.
The Edinburgh Review
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THE MARQUIS DE LA MOLE received the abbe Pirard without any of those little mannerisms of a great gentleman, outwardly so polite, but so impertinent to him who understands them. It would have been a waste of time, and the Marquis was so far immersed in public business as to have no time to waste.
For six months he had been intriguing to make both King and nation accept a certain Ministry, which, as a mark of gratitude, would make him a Duke.
The Marquis had appealed in vain, year after year, to his lawyer at Besancon for a clear and definite report on his lawsuits in the Franche–Comte. How was the eminent lawyer to explain them to him, if he did not understand them himself?
The little slip of paper which the abbe gave him explained everything.
‘My dear abbe,’ said the Marquis, after polishing off in less than five minutes all the polite formulas and personal inquiries, ‘my dear abbe, in the midst of my supposed prosperity, I lack the time to occupy myself seriously with two little matters which nevertheless are of considerable importance: my family and my affairs. I take the greatest interest in the fortunes of my house, I may carry it far; I look after my pleasures, and that is what must come before everything else, at least in my eyes,’ he went on, noticing the astonishment in the eyes of the abbe Pirard. Although a man of sense, the abbe was amazed to see an old man talking so openly of his pleasures.
‘Work does no doubt exist in Paris,’ the great nobleman continued, ‘but perched in the attics; and as soon as I come in contact with a man, he takes an apartment on the second floor, and his wife starts a day; consequently, no more work, no effort except to be or to appear to be a man of fashion. That is their sole interest once they are provided with bread.
‘For my lawsuits, to be strictly accurate, and also for each lawsuit separately, I have lawyers who work themselves to death; one of them died of consumption, the day before yesterday. But, for my affairs in general, would you believe, Sir, that for the last three years I have given up hope of finding a man who, while he is writing for me, will deign to think a little seriously of what he is doing. However, all this is only a preamble.
‘I respect you, and, I would venture to add, although we meet for the first time, I like you. Will you be my secretary, with a salary of eight thousand francs, or indeed twice that sum? I shall gain even more, I assure you; and I shall make it my business to keep your fine living for you, for the day on which we cease to agree.’
The abbe declined, but towards the end of the conversation, the sight of the Marquis’s genuine embarrassment suggested an idea to him.
‘I have left down in my Seminary a poor young man who, if I be not mistaken, is going to be brutally persecuted. If he were only a simple monk he would be already in pace.
‘At present this young man knows only Latin and the Holy Scriptures; but it is by no means impossible that one day he may display great talent, either for preaching or for the guidance of