He entered the shop of the local gunsmith, who overwhelmed him with congratulations on his recent good fortune.
It constituted the news of the locality.
Julien had much difficulty in making him understand that he wanted a pair of pistols.
At his request the gunsmith loaded the pistols.
The three peals sounded; it is a well-known signal in the villages of France, and after the various ringings in the morning announces the immediate commencement of Mass.
Julien entered the new church of Verrieres.
All the lofty windows of the building were veiled with crimson curtains.
Julien found himself some spaces behind the pew of madame de Renal.
It seemed to him that she was praying fervently The sight of the woman whom he had loved so much made Julien's arm tremble so violently that he was at first unable to execute his project.
"I cannot," he said to himself. "It is a physical impossibility."
At that moment the young priest, who was officiating at the Mass, rang the bell for the elevation of the host.
Madame de Renal lowered her head, which, for a moment became entirely hidden by the folds of her shawl.
Julien did not see her features so distinctly: he aimed a pistol shot at her, and missed her: he aimed a second shot, she fell. _____
CHAPTER LXVI
SAD DETAILS _____
Do not expect any weakness on my part. I have avenged myself.
I have deserved death, and here I am.
Pray for my soul.—Schiller _____
Julien remained motionless. He saw nothing more.
When he recovered himself a little he noticed all the faithful rushing from the church. The priest had left the altar.
Julien started fairly slowly to follow some women who were going away with loud screams.
A woman who was trying to get away more quickly than the others, pushed him roughly. He fell.
His feet got entangled with a chair, knocked over by the crowd; when he got up, he felt his neck gripped. A gendarme, in full uniform, was arresting him. Julien tried mechanically to have recourse to his little pistol; but a second gendarme pinioned his arms.
He was taken to the prison.
They went into a room where irons were put on his hands. He was left alone. The door was doubly locked on him.
All this was done very quickly, and he scarcely appreciated it at all.
"Yes, upon my word, all is over," he said aloud as he recovered himself.
"Yes, the guillotine in a fortnight ... or killing myself here."
His reasoning did not go any further. His head felt as though it had been seized in some violent grip.
He looked round to see if anyone was holding him.
After some moments he fell into a deep sleep.
Madame de Renal was not mortally wounded.
The first bullet had pierced her hat. The second had been fired as she was turning round.
The bullet had struck her on the shoulder, and, astonishing to relate, had ricocheted from off the shoulder bone (which it had, however, broken) against a gothic pillar, from which it had loosened an enormous splinter of stone.
When, after a long and painful bandaging, the solemn surgeon said to madame de Renal,
"I answer for your life as I would for my own," she was profoundly grieved.
She had been sincerely desirous of death for a long time.
The letter which she had written to M. de la Mole in accordance with the injunctions of her present confessor, had proved the final blow to a creature already weakened by an only too permanent unhappiness.
This unhappiness was caused by Julien's absence; but she, for her own part, called it remorse.
Her director, a young ecclesiastic, who was both virtuous and enthusiastic, and had recently come to Dijon, made no mistake as to its nature.
"Dying in this way, though not by my own hand, is very far from being a sin," thought madame de Renal.
"God will perhaps forgive me for rejoicing over my death."
She did not dare to add, "and dying by Julien's hand puts the last touch on my happiness."
She had scarcely been rid of the presence of the surgeon and of all the crowd of friends that had rushed to see her, than she called her maid, Elisa.
"The gaoler," she said to her with a violent blush, "is a cruel man. He will doubtless ill-treat him, thinking to please me by doing so.... I cannot bear that idea.
Could you not go, as though on your own account, and give the gaoler this little packet which contains some louis.
You will tell him that religion forbids him to treat him badly, above all, he must not go and speak about the sending of this money."
It was this circumstance, which we have just mentioned, that Julien had to thank for the humanity of the gaoler of Verrieres. It was still the same M. Noiraud, that ideal official, whom he remembered as being so finely alarmed by M. Appert's presence.
A judge appeared in the prison.
"I occasioned death by premeditation," said Julien to him. "I bought the pistols and had them loaded at so-and-so's, a gunsmith.