n, of feeble appearance, with irregular but
delicate features, and an aquiline nose; ... who could have divined that
that girlish face, so pale, and gentle, hid an indomitable resolution to
expose himself to a thousand deaths sooner than not make his fortune?"
His only schooling is gained from a cousin, an old army surgeon, who
taught him Latin and inflamed his fancy with stories of Napoleon, and
from the aged Abbe Chelan who grounds him in theology,--for Julien had
proclaimed his intention of studying for the priesthood. By unexpected
good luck, his Latin earned him an appointment as tutor to the children
of M. de Renal, the pompous and purse-proud Mayor of Verrieres. Julien
is haunted by his peculiar notions of duties which he owes it to himself
to perform as steps towards his worldly advancement; for circumstances
have made him a consummate hypocrite. One of these duties is to make
love to Mme. de Renal: "Why should he not be loved as Bonaparte, while
still poor, had been loved by the brilliant Mme. de Beauharnais?" His
pursuit of the Mayor's gentle and inexperienced wife proves only too
successful, but at last reaches the ears of the Abbe Chelan, whose
influence compels Julien to leave Verrieres and go to the Seminary at
Besancon, to finish his theological studies. His stay at the Seminary
was full of disappointment, for "it was in vain that he made himself
small and insignificant, he could not please: he was too different." At
last he has a chance to go to Paris, as secretary to the influential
Marquis de La Mole, who interests himself in Julien and endeavors to
advance him socially. The Marquis has a daughter, Mathilde, a female
counterpart of Stendhal's heroes; with exalted ideas of duty, and a
profound reverence for Marguerite of Navarre, who dared to ask the
executioner for the head of her lover, Boniface de La Mole, executed
April 30th, 1574. Mathilde always assumed mourning on April 30th. "I
know of nothing," she declared, "except condemnation to death, which
distinguishes a man: it is the only thing which cannot be bought."
Julien soon conceives it his duty to win Mathilde's affections, and the
love passages which ensue between these two "esprits superieurs" are
singular in the extreme: they arrive at love only through a complicated
intellectual process, in which the question of duty, either to
themselves or to each other, is always paramount. At last it becomes
necessary to confess their affection to the Marq