Queen MargueriteLove! In what folly do you not contrive to make us find pleasure?

　　Letters of a Portuguese NunJulien read over his letters. When the dinner bell sounded: 'How ridiculous I must have appeared in the eyes of that Parisian doll!' he saidto himself; 'what madness to tell her what was really in my thoughts!

　　And yet perhaps not so very mad. The truth on this occasion was worthyof me.

　　'Why, too, come and cross-examine me on private matters? Her question was indiscreet. She forgot herself. My thoughts on Danton form nopart of the sacrifice for which her father pays me.'

　　On reaching the dining-room, Julien was distracted from his ill humour by Mademoiselle de La Mole's deep mourning, which was all themore striking since none of the rest of the family was in black.

　　After dinner, he found himself entirely recovered from the fit of enthusiasm which had possessed him all day. Fortunately, the Academicianwho knew Latin was present at dinner. There is the man who will beleast contemptuous of me, if, as I suppose, my question about Mademoiselle de La Mole's mourning should prove a blunder.'

　　Mathilde was looking at him with a singular expression. 'There wehave an instance of the coquetry of the women of these parts, just as Madame de Renal described it to me,' Julien told himself. 'I was not agreeable to her this morning, I did not yield to her impulse for conversation.

　　My value has increased in her eyes. No doubt the devil loses no opportunity there. Later on, her proud scorn will find out a way of avenging itself. Let her do her worst. How different from the woman I have lost!

　　What natural charm! What simplicity! I knew what was in her mind before she did; I could see her thoughts take shape; I had no competitor, inher heart, but the fear of losing her children; it was a reasonable and natural affection, indeed it was pleasant for me who felt the same fear. Iwas a fool. The ideas that I had I formed of Paris prevented me from appreciating that sublime woman.

　　'What a difference, great God! And what do I find here? A sere andhaughty vanity, all the refinements of self-esteem and nothing more.'

　　The party left the table. 'I must not let my Academician be intercepted,'

　　said Julien. He went up to him as they were moving into the garden, assumed a meek, submissive air, and sympathised with his rage at the success of Hernani.

　　'If only we lived in the days of lettres de cachet!' he said.

　　'Ah, then he would never have dared,' cried the Academician, with agesture worthy of Talma.

　　In speaking of a flower, Julien quoted a line or two from Virgil's Georgics, and decided that nothing came up to the poetry of the abbe Delille.

　　In short, he flattered the Academician in every possible way. Afterwhich, with an air of the utmost indifference: 'I suppose,' he said to him,'that Mademoiselle de La Mole has received a legacy from some uncle forwhom she is in mourning.'

　　'What! You live in the house,' said the Academician, coming to astandstill, 'and you don't know her mania? Indeed, it is strange that hermother allows such things; but, between you and me, it is not exactly bystrength of character that they shine in this family. Mademoiselle Mathilde has enough for them all, and leads them by the nose. Today is the3Oth of April!' and the Academician broke off, looking at Julien, with anair of connivance. Julien smiled as intelligently as he was able.

　　'What connection can there be between leading a whole household bythe nose, wearing black and the 30th of April?' he asked himself. 'I mustbe even stupider than I thought.

　　'I must confess to you,' he said to the Academician, and his eye continued the question.

　　'Let us take a turn in the garden,' said the Academician, delighted tosee this chance of delivering a long and formal speech. 'What! Is it reallypossible that you do not know what happened on the 30th of April,1574?'

　　'Where?' asked Julien, in surprise.

　　'On the Place de Greve.'

　　 Julien was so surprised that this name did not enlighten him. His curiosity, the prospect of a tragic interest, so attuned to his nature, gave himthose sparkling eyes which a story-teller so loves to see in his audience.

　　The Academician, delighted to find a virgin ear, related at full length toJulien how, on the 30th of April, 1574, the handsomest young man of hisage, Boniface de La Mole, and Annibal de Coconasso, a Piedmontesegentleman, his friend, had been beheaded on the Place de Greve. 'LaMole was the adored lover of Queen Marguerite of Navarre; and observe,' the Academician added, 'that Mademoiselle de La Mole is namedMathilde-Marguerite. La Mole was at the same time the favourite of theDuc d'Alencon and an intimate friend of the King of Navarre, afterwardsHenri IV, the husband of his mistress. On Shrove Tuesday in this year,1574, the Court happened to be at Saint-Germain, with the unfortunateKing Charles IX, who was on his deathbed. La Mole wished to carry offthe Princes, his friends, whom Queen Catherine de' Medici was keepingas prisoners with the Court. He brought up two hundred horsemen under the walls of Saint-Germain, the Due d'Alencon took fright, and LaMole was sent to the scaffold.

　　'But what appeals to Mademoiselle Mathilde, as she told me herself,seven or eight years ago, when she was only twelve, for she has a head,such a head! … ' and the Academician raised his eyes to heaven. 'Whatimpresses her in this political catastrophe is that Queen Marguerite ofNavarre, who had waited concealed in a house on the Place de Greve,made bold to ask the executioner for her lover's head. And the followingnight, at midnight, she took the head in her carriage, and went to bury itwith her own hands in a chapel which stood at the foot of the hill ofMontmartre.'

　　'Is it possible?' exclaimed Julien, deeply touched.

　　'Mademoiselle Mathilde despises her brother because, as you see, hethinks nothing of all this ancient history, and never goes into mourningon the 30th of April. It is since this famous execution, and to recall the intimate friendship between La Mole and Coconasso, which Coconasso,being as he was an Italian, was named Annibal, that all the men of thisfamily have borne that name. And,' the Academician went on, loweringhis voice, 'this Coconasso was, on the authority of Charles IX, himself,one of the bloodiest assassins on the 24th of August, 1572.. But how is itpossible, my dear Sorel, that you are ignorant of these matters, you, whoare an inmate of the house?'

　　 'Then that is why twice, during the dinner, Mademoiselle de La Moleaddressed her brother as Annibal. I thought I had not heard aright.'

　　'It was a reproach. It is strange that the Marquise permits such folly …That great girl's husband will see some fine doings!'

　　This expression was followed by five or six satirical phrases. The joy atthus revealing an intimate secret that shone in the Academician's eyesshocked Julien. 'What are we but a pair of servants engaged in slandering our employers?' he thought. 'But nothing ought to surprise me that isdone by this academic gentleman.'

　　One day Julien had caught him on his knees before the Marquise de LaMole; he was begging her for a tobacco licence for a nephew in the country. That night, he gathered from a little maid of Mademoiselle de LaMole, who was making love to him, as Elisa had done in the past, thather mistress's mourning was by no means put on to attract attention.

　　This eccentricity was an intimate part of her nature. She really loved thisLa Mole, the favoured lover of the most brilliant Queen of her age, whohad died for having sought to set his friends at liberty. And whatfriends! The First Prince of the Blood and Henri IV.

　　Accustomed to the perfect naturalness that shone through the whole ofMadame de Renal's conduct, Julien saw nothing but affectation in all thewomen of Paris, and even without feeling disposed to melancholy, couldthink of nothing to say to them. Mademoiselle de La Mole was theexception.

　　He began no longer to mistake for hardness of heart the kind of beautythat goes with nobility of bearing. He had long conversations with Mademoiselle de La Mole, who would stroll with him in the garden sometimes after dinner, past the open windows of the drawing-room. She toldhim one day that she was reading d'Aubigne's History, and Brantome. 'Astrange choice,' thought Julien, 'and the Marquise does not allow her toread the nov............