this age of boredom, are the dictates of the need of amusement, that even on the evenings of dinnerparties, as soon as the Marquis had left the drawing-room, everyone else fled. So long as you did not speak lightly of God, or of the clergy, or of the King, or of the men in power, or of the artists patronised by the court, or of anything established; so long as you did not say anything good of Beranger, or of the opposition press, or of Voltaire, or of Rousseau, or of anything that allowed itself the liberty of a little freedom of speech; so long, above all, as you did not talk politics, you could discuss anything you pleased with freedom.
There is no income of a hundred thousand crowns, no blue riband that can prevail against a drawing-room so constituted. The smallest living idea seemed an outrage. Despite good tone, perfect manners, the desire to be agreeable, boredom was written upon every brow. The young men who came to pay their respects, afraid to speak of anything that might lead to their being suspected of thinking, afraid to reveal some forbidden reading, became silent after a few elegantly phrased sentences on Rossini and the weather.
Julien observed that the conversation was usually kept going by two Viscounts and five Barons whom M. de La Mole had known during the Emigration. These gentlemen enjoyed incomes of from six to eight thousand livres; four of them swore by the Quotidienne, and three by the Gazette de France. One of them had some new story to tell every day of the Chateau, in which the word ‘admirable’ was lavishly used. Julien remarked that this man wore five Crosses, whereas the others, as a rule, had no more than three.
On the other hand, you saw in the ante-room ten footmen in livery, and all through the evening you had ices or tea every quarter of an hour; and, at midnight, a sort of supper with champagne.
It was for this reason that Julien sometimes remained to the end; otherwise, he failed to understand how anyone could listen seriously to the ordinary conversation of this drawing-room, so magnificently gilded. Now and again he would watch the speakers, to see whether they themselves were not laughing at what they were saying. ‘My M. de Maistre, whom I know by heart, has said things a hundred times better,’ he thought; ‘and even he is extremely boring.’
Julien was not the only one to be aware of the mental stagnation. Some consoled themselves by taking quantities of ices; the others with the pleasure of being able to say for the rest of the evening: ‘I have just come from the Hotel de La Mole, where I heard that Russia’, etc., etc.
Julien learned, from one of the flatterers, that less than six months ago Madame de La Mole had rewarded an assiduity that had lasted for more than twenty years by securing a Prefecture for poor Baron Le Bourguignon, who had been a Sub–Prefect ever since the Restoration.
This great event had rekindled the zeal of these gentlemen; the least thing might have offended them before, now they were no longer offended by anything. It was rare that the incivility was direct, but Julien had already overheard at table two or three brief little passages between the Marquis and his wife, wounding to those who were placed near them. These noble personages did not conceal their sincere contempt for everyone that was not the offspring of people who rode in the King’s carriages. Julien observed that the word Crusade was the only one that brought to their faces an expression of intense seriousness, blended with respect. Their ordinary respect had always a shade of condescension.
In the midst of this magnificence and this boredom, Julien was interested in nothing but M. de La Mole; he listened with pleasure one day to his protestations that he was in no way responsible for the promotion of that poor Le Bourguignon. This was a delicate attention to the Marquise: Julien had learned the truth from the abbe Pirard.
One morning when the abbe was working with Julien, in the Marquis’s library, on the endless litigation with Frilair:
‘Sir,’ said Julien suddenly, ‘is dining every evening with Madame la Marquise one of my duties, or is it a favour that they show me?’
‘It is a signal honour!’ replied the abbe, greatly shocked. ‘M. N— — the Academician, who has been paying assiduous court for the last fifteen years, has never been able to obtain it for his nephew M. Tanbeau.’
‘It is to me, Sir, the most tedious part of my employment. I was less bored at the Seminary. I see even Mademoiselle de La Mole yawn at times, although she must be accustomed to the pretty speeches of the friends of the family. I am afraid of falling asleep. Please be so good as to obtain leave for me to go and dine for forty sous in some obscure inn.’
The abbe, a regular parvenu, was highly sensible of the honour of dining with a great nobleman. While he was endeavouring to make Julien understand what he felt, a slight sound made them turn their heads. Julien saw Mademoiselle de La Mole who was listening. He blushed. She had come in search of a book and had heard everything; she felt a certain respect for Julien. ‘This fellow was not born on his knees,’ she thought, ‘like that old abbe. Heavens! How ugly he is.’
At dinner, Julien dared not look at Mademoiselle de La Mole, but she was so kind as to speak to him. That evening, they expected a large party; she made him promise to remain. Girls in Paris do not care for men of a certain age, especially when they are not well dressed. Julien did not require much sagacity to perceive that M. Le Bourguignon’s colleagues, who remained in the drawing-room, had the honour to be the customary butt of Mademoiselle de La Mole’s wit. That evening, whether with deliberate affectation or not, she was cruel in her treatment of the bores.
Mademoiselle de La Mole was the centre of a little group that assembled almost every evening behind the Marquise’s immense armchair. There, you would find the Marquis de Croisenois, the Comte de Caylus, the Vicomte de Luz and two or three other young officers, friends of Norbert or his sister. These gentlemen sat upon a large blue sofa. At the end of the sofa, opposite to that occupied by the brilliant Mathilde, Julien was silently installed upon a little cane-bottomed chair with a low seat. This modest post was the envy of all the flatterers; Norbert kept his father’s young secretary in countenance by addressing him or uttering his name once or twice in the course of the evening. On this occasion, Mademoiselle de La Mole asked him what might be the height of the mountain on which the citadel of Besancon stood. Julien could not for the life of him have said whether this mountain was higher or lower than Montmartre. Often he laughed heartily at what was being said in the little group; but he felt himself incapable of thinking of anything similar to say. It was like a foreign language which he could understand, but was unable to speak.
Mathilde’s friends were that evening in a state of constant hostility towards the people who kept arriving in this vast drawing-room. The friends of the family had the preference at first, being better known. One can imagine whether Julien was attentive; everything interested him, both the things themselves, and the way they were made to seem ridiculous.
‘Ah! Here comes M. Descoulis,’ said Mathilde; ‘he has left off his wig; can he be hoping to secure a Prefecture by his genius? He is exposing that bald brow which he says is filled with lofty thoughts.’
‘He is a man who knows the whole world,’ said the Marquis de Croisenois; ‘he comes to my uncle, the Cardinal’s, too. He is capable of cultivating a lie with each of his friends, for years on end, and he has two or three hundred friends. He knows how to foster friendship, that is his talent. You ought to see him, covered in mud, at the door of a friend’s house, at seven o’clock on a winter morning.
‘He hatches a quarrel, now and again, and writes seven or eight letters to keep up the quarrel. Then he is reconciled, and produces seven or eight letters for the transports of affection. But it is in the frank and sincere expansion of an honest man who can keep nothing on his conscience that he shines most. This is his favourite device when he has some favour to ask. One of my uncle’s Vicars–General is perfect when he relates the life of M. Descoulis since the Restoration. I shall bring him to see you.’
‘Bah! I shouldn’t listen to that talk; it is the professional jealousy of small-minded people,’ said the Comte de Caylus.
‘M. Descoulis will have a name in history,’ the Marquis went on; ‘he made the Restoration with the Abbe de Pradt and M. Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo.’
‘That man has handled millions,’