"Great God what a contrast and what do I find here?
Arid, haughty vanity: all the fine shades of wounded egotism and nothing more."
They got up from table.
"I must not let my academician get snapped up," said Julien to himself.
He went up to him as they were passing into the garden, assumed an air of soft submissiveness and shared in his fury against the success of Hernani.
"If only we were still in the days of lettres de cachet!" he said.
"Then he would not have dared," exclaimed the academician with a gesture worthy of Talma.
Julien quoted some words from Virgil's Georgics in reference to a flower and expressed the opinion that nothing was equal to the abbe Delille's verses.
In a word he flattered the academician in every possible way. He then said to him with the utmost indifference,
"I suppose mademoiselle de la Mole has inherited something from some uncle for whom she is in mourning."
"What! you belong to the house?" said the academician stopping short, "and you do not know her folly?
As a matter of fact it is strange her mother should allow her to do such things, but between ourselves, they do not shine in this household exactly by their force of character.
Mademoiselle's share has to do for all of them, and governs them.
To-day is the thirtieth of April!" and the academician stopped and looked meaningly at Julien.
Julien smiled with the most knowing expression he could master.
"What connection can there be between ruling a household, wearing a black dress, and the thirtieth April?" he said to himself.
"I must be even sillier than I thought."
"I must confess...." he said to the academician while he continued to question him with his look.
"Let us take a turn round the garden," said the academician delighted at seeing an opportunity of telling a long and well-turned story.
"What! is it really possible you do not know what happened on the 30th April, 1574?"
"And where?" said Julien in astonishment.
"At the place de Greve."
Julien was extremely astonished that these words did not supply him with the key.
His curiosity and his expectation of a tragic interest which would be in such harmony with his own character gave his eyes that brilliance which the teller of a story likes to see so much in the person who is listening to him. The academician was delighted at finding a virgin ear, and narrated at length to Julien how Boniface de la Mole, the handsomest young man of this century together with Annibal de Coconasso, his friend, a gentleman of Piedmont, had been beheaded on the 30th April, 1574.
La Mole was the adored lover of Queen Marguerite of Navarre and "observe," continued the academician, "that mademoiselle de La Mole's full name is Mathilde Marguerite.
La Mole was at the same time a favourite of the Duke d'Alencon and the intimate friend of his mistress's husband, the King of Navarre, subsequently Henri IV.
On Shrove Tuesday of that year 1574, the court happened to be at St. Germain with the poor king Charles IX. who was dying.
La Mole wished to rescue his friends the princes, whom Queen Catherine of Medici was keeping prisoner in her Court.
He advanced two hundred cavalry under the walls of St. Germain; the Duke d'Alencon was frightened and La Mole was thrown to the executioner.
"But the thing which affects mademoiselle Mathilde, and what she has admitted to me herself seven or eight years ago when she was twelve, is a head! a head!—--and the academician lifted up his eyes to the heavens.
What struck her in this political catastrophe, was the hiding of Queen Marguerite de Navarre in a house in the place de Greve and her then asking for her lover's head.
At midnight on the following day she took that head in her carriage and went and buried it herself in a chapel at the foot of the hill at Montmartre."
"Impossible?" cried Julien really moved.
"Mademoiselle Mathilde despises her brother because, as you see, he does not bother one whit about this ancient history, and never wears mourning on the thirtieth of April.
It is since the time of this celebrated execution and in order to recall the intimate friendship of La Mole for the said Coconasso, who Italian that he was, bore the name of Annibal that all the men of that family bear that name.
And," added the academician lowering his voice, "this Coconasso was, according to Charles IX. himself, one of the cruellest assassins of the twenty-fourth August, 1572.
But how is it possible, my dear Sorel, that you should be ignorant of these things—you who take your meals with the family."
"So that is why mademoiselle de la Mole twice called her brother Annibal at dinner.
I thought I had heard wrong."
"It was a reproach.
It is strange that the marquise should allow such follies. The husband of that great girl will have a fine time of it."
This remark was followed by five or six satiric phrases.
Julien was shocked by the joy which shone in the academician's eyes.
"We are just a couple of servants," he thought, "engaged in talking scandal about our masters.
But I ought not to be astonished at anything this academy man does."
Julien had surprised him on his knees one day before the marquise de la Mole; he was asking her for a tobacco receivership for a nephew in the provinces.
In the evening a little chambermaid of mademoiselle de la Mole, who was paying court to Julien, just as Elisa had used to do, gave him to understand that her mistress's mourning was very far from being worn simply to attract attention.
This eccentricity was rooted in her character.
She really loved that la Mole, the beloved lover of the most witty queen of the century, who had died through trying to set his friends at liberty—and what friends!
The first prince of the blood and Henri IV.