He saluted with much respect and went out without looking at his employer.
This incident amused the marquis.
He told it in the evening to the abbe Pirard.
"I must confess one thing to you, my dear abbe.
I know Julien's birth, and I authorise you not to regard this confidence as a secret."
His conduct this morning is noble, thought the marquis, so I will ennoble him myself.
Some time afterwards the marquis was able to go out.
"Go and pass a couple of months at London," he said to Julien.
"Ordinary and special couriers will bring you the letters I have received, together with my notes.
You will write out the answers and send them back to me, putting each letter inside the answer.
I have ascertained that the delay will be no more than five days."
As he took the post down the Calais route, Julien was astonished at the triviality of the alleged business on which he had been sent.
We will say nothing about the feeling of hate and almost horror with which he touched English soil.
His mad passion for Bonaparte is already known.
He saw in every officer a Sir Hudson Low, in every great noble a Lord Bathurst, ordering the infamies of St. Helena and being recompensed by six years of office.
At London he really got to know the meaning of sublime fatuity.
He had struck up a friendship with some young Russian nobles who initiated him.
"Your future is assured, my dear Sorel," they said to him.
"You naturally have that cold demeanour, a thousand leagues away from the sensation one has at the moment, that we have been making such efforts to acquire."
"You have not understood your century," said the Prince Korasoff to him.
"Always do the opposite of what is expected of you.
On my honour there you have the sole religion of the period.
Don't be foolish or affected, for then follies and affectations will be expected of you, and the maxim will not longer prove true."
Julien covered himself with glory one day in the Salon of the Duke of Fitz-Folke who had invited him to dinner together with the Prince Korasoff.
They waited for an hour.
The way in which Julien conducted himself in the middle of twenty people who were waiting is still quoted as a precedent among the young secretaries of the London Embassy.
His demeanour was unimpeachable.
In spite of his friends, the dandies, he made a point of seeing the celebrated Philip Vane, the one philosopher that England has had since Locke.
He found him finishing his seventh year in prison.
The aristocracy doesn't joke in this country, thought Julien.
Moreover Vane is disgraced, calumniated, etc.
Julien found him in cheery spirits. The rage of the aristocracy prevented him from being bored.
"There's the only merry man I've seen in England," thought Julien to himself, as he left the prison.
"The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God," Vane had said to him.
We suppress the rest of the system as being cynical.
"What amusing notion do you bring me from England?" said M. la Mole to him on his return.
He was silent.
"What notion do you bring me, amusing or otherwise?" repeated the marquis sharply.
"In the first place," said Julien, "The sanest Englishman is mad one hour every day. He is visited by the Demon of Suicide who is the local God.
"In the second place, intellect and genius lose twenty-five per cent. of their value when they disembark in England.
"In the third place, nothing in the world is so beautiful, so admirable, so touching, as the English landscapes."
"Now it is my turn," said the marquis.
"In the first place, why do you go and say at the ball at the Russian Ambassador's that there were three hundred thousand young men of twenty in France who passionately desire war?
Do you think that is nice for the kings?"
"One doesn't know what to do when talking to great diplomats," said Julien.
"They have a mania for starting serious discussions.
If one confines oneself to the commonplaces of the papers, one is taken for a fool.
If one indulges in some original truth, they are astonished and at a loss for an answer, and get you informed by the first Secretary of the Embassy at seven o'clock next day that your conduct has been unbecoming."
"Not bad," said the marquis laughing.
"Anyway I will wager Monsieur Deep-one that you have not guessed what you went to do in England."