The Hotel de La MoleWhat is he doing here? might it please him? might he think toplease?

　　RONSARDIf everything seemed strange to Julien, in the noble drawing-room ofthe Hotel de La Mole, the young man himself, pale and dressed in black,seemed in turn highly singular to those who deigned to notice him. Madame de La Mole suggested that her husband should send him away onbusiness upon days when certain personages were coming to dine.

　　'I should like to carry through the experiment,' replied the Marquis.

　　'The abbe Pirard maintains that we do wrong to crush the self-respect ofthe people we admit into our households. One can lean only upon whatresists, etc. There is nothing wrong with this fellow except his uncouthappearance; he might be deaf and dumb.'

　　'If I am to keep my bearings, I must,' Julien said to himself, 'writedown the names and a few words as to the character of the people I seeappear in this drawing-room.'

　　At the head of his list he placed five or six friends of the family whopaid a desperate court to him, supposing him to be protected by somecaprice of the Marquis. These were poor devils, more or less spiritless;but, it must be said in praise of men of this class as they are to be foundtoday in the drawing-rooms of the nobility, they were not equally spiritless to all comers. Some of them would have let themselves be abused bythe Marquis, and yet would have revolted against a harsh word addressed to them by Madame de La Mole.

　　There was too much pride, there was too much boredom in the character of both host and hostess; they were too much in the habit of insultingpeople for their own distraction, to be able to expect any true friends.

　　 But, except on wet days, and in their moments of furious boredom,which were rare, they were never to be found wanting in politeness.

　　If the five or six flatterers who treated Julien with such fatherly affection had deserted the Hotel de La Mole, the Marquise would have beenleft to long hours of solitude; and, in the eyes of women of her rank,solitude is a dreadful thing: it is the badge of disgrace.

　　The Marquis behaved admirably to his wife; he saw to it that herdrawing-room was adequately filled; not with peers, he found his newcolleagues scarcely noble enough to come to his house as friends, nor entertaining enough to be admitted as subordinates.

　　It was not until much later that Julien discovered these secrets. Thepolitical questions which form the chief topic in middle-class houses arenever mentioned in houses like that of the Marquis, save in times oftrouble.

　　So powerful still, even in this age of boredom, are the dictates of theneed of amusement, that even on the evenings of dinnerparties, as soonas the Marquis had left the drawing-room, everyone else fled. So long asyou did not speak lightly of God, or of the clergy, or of the King, or ofthe men in power, or of the artists patronised by the court, or of anythingestablished; so long as you did not say anything good of Beranger, or ofthe opposition press, or of Voltaire, or of Rousseau, or of anything thatallowed 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 withfreedom.

　　There is no income of a hundred thousand crowns, no blue riband thatcan prevail against a drawing-room so constituted. The smallest livingidea seemed an outrage. Despite good tone, perfect manners, the desireto be agreeable, boredom was written upon every brow. The young menwho came to pay their respects, afraid to speak of anything that mightlead to their being suspected of thinking, afraid to reveal some forbiddenreading, became silent after a few elegantly phrased sentences on Rossiniand the weather.

　　Julien observed that the conversation was usually kept going by twoViscounts and five Barons whom M. de La Mole had known during theEmigration. 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 theChateau, 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 theordinary 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,' hethought; 'and even he is extremely boring.'

　　Julien was not the only one to be aware of the mental stagnation. Someconsoled themselves by taking quantities of ices; the others with thepleasure of being able to say for the rest of the evening: 'I have just comefrom the Hotel de La Mole, where I heard that Russia', etc., etc.

　　Julien learned, from one of the flatterers, that less than six months agoMadame de La Mole had rewarded an assiduity that had lasted for morethan 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 leastthing might have offended them before, now they were no longer offended by anything. It was rare that the incivility was direct, but Julien hadalready overheard at table two or three brief little passages between theMarquis 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 thatbrought to their faces an expression of intense seriousness, blended withrespect. 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 tohis protestations that he was in no way responsible for the promotion ofthat 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'slibrary, on the endless litigation with Frilair:

　　 'Sir,' said Julien suddenly, 'is dining every evening with Madame laMarquise 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——, theAcademician, who has been paying assiduous court for the last fifteenyears, 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 lessbored at the Seminary. I see even Mademoiselle de La Mole yawn attimes, although she must be accustomed to the pretty speeches of thefriends of the family. I am afraid of falling asleep. Please be so good as toobtain 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 Julienunderstand what he felt, a slight sound made them turn their heads. Julien saw Mademoiselle de La Mole who was listening. He blushed. Shehad come in search of a book and had heard everything; she felt a certainrespect 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 shewas so kind as to speak to him. That evening, they expected a largeparty; she made him promise to remain. Girls in Paris do not care formen of a certain age, especially when they are not well dressed. Juliendid not require much sagacity to perceive that M. Le Bourguignon's colleagues, who remained in the drawing-room, had the honour to be thecustomary butt of Mademoiselle de La Mole's wit. That evening, whetherwith deliberate affectation or not, she was cruel in her treatment of thebores.

　　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 ofNorbert or his sister. These gentlemen sat upon a large blue sofa. At theend of the sofa, opposite to that occupied by the brilliant Mathilde, Julienwas silently installed upon a little cane-bottomed chair with a low seat.

　　This modest post was the envy of all the flatterers; Norbert kept hisfather's young secretary in countenance by addressing him or utteringhis 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 themountain on which the citadel of Besancon stood. Julien could not forthe life of him have said whether this mountain was higher or lower than Montmartre. Often he laughed heartily at what was being said in thelittle group; but he felt himself incapable of thinking of anything similarto say. It was like a foreign language which he could understand, butwas 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. Thefriends of the family had the preference at first, being better known. Onecan imagine whether Julien was attentive; everything interested him,both the things themselves, and the way they were made to seemridiculous.

　　'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 exposingthat 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 orthree 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'shouse, at seven o'clock on a winter morning.

　　'He hatches a quarrel, now and again, and writes seven or eight lettersto keep up the quarrel. Then he is reconciled, and produces seven oreight 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 consciencethat 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 relatesthe life of M. Descoulis since the Restoration. I shall bring him to seeyou.'

　　'Bah! I shouldn't listen to that talk; it is the professional jealousy ofsmall-minded people,' said the Comte de Caylus.

　　'M. Descoulis will have a name in history,' the Marquis went on; 'hemade the Restoration with the Abbe de Pradt and M. Talleyrand andPozzo di Borgo.'

　　'That man has handled millions,' said Norbert, 'and I cannot conceivewhy he comes here to swallow my father's epigrams, which are often appalling. "How many times have you betrayed your friends, my dearDescoulis?" he shouted at him the other day, down the whole length ofthe table.'

　　 'But is it true that he has betrayed people?' said Mademoiselle de LaMole. 'Who is there that has not?'

　　'What!' said the Comte de Caylus to Norbert, 'you have M. Sainclairhere, the notorious Liberal; what the devil can he have come for? I mustgo over to him, and talk to him, and make him talk; they say he is soclever.'

　　'But how can your mother have him in the house?' said M de Croisenois. 'His ideas are so extravagant, so enthusiastic, so independent… '

　　'Look,' said Mademoiselle de La Mole, 'there is your independent man,bowing to the ground before M. Descoulis, and seizing his hand. I almostthought he was going to raise it to his lips.'

　　'Descoulis must stand better with the authorities than we thought,' putin M. de Croisenois.

　　'Sainclair comes here to get into the Academy,' said Norbert; 'look howhe is bowing to Baron L ——, Croisenois.'

　　'He would be less servile if he went on his knees,' put in M. de Luz.

　　'My dear Sorel,' said Norbert, 'you who are a man of brains, but havejust come down from your mountains, see that you never bow to peopleas that great poet does, not even to God Almighty.'

　　'Ah! Here comes a man of brains if you like, M. le Baron Baton,' saidMademoiselle de La Mole, imitating the voice of the footman who hadjust announced him.

　　'I think even your servants laugh at him. What a name, Baron Baton!'

　　said M. de Caylus.

　　'"What's in a name?" as he said to us the other day,' retorted Mathilde.

　　'"Imagine the Duc de Bouillon announced for the first time. All the pu............