There was scarcely time enough to get ready the uniforms which had served seven years ago on the occasion of the passage of a prince of the blood.
At seven o'clock, Madame de Renal arrived at Vergy with Julien and the children.
She found her drawing room filled with Liberal ladies who preached the union of all parties and had come to beg her to urge her husband to grant a place to theirs in the guard of honour.
One of them actually asserted that if her husband was not chosen he would go bankrupt out of chagrin.
Madame de Renal quickly got rid of all these people.
She seemed very engrossed.
Julien was astonished, and what was more, angry that she should make a mystery of what was disturbing her,
"I had anticipated it," he said bitterly to himself.
"Her love is being over-shadowed by the happiness of receiving a King in her house.
All this hubbub overcomes her.
She will love me once more when the ideas of her caste no longer trouble her brain."
An astonishing fact, he only loved her the more.
The decorators began to fill the house.
He watched a long time for the opportunity to exchange a few words.
He eventually found her as she was coming out of his own room, carrying one of his suits.
They were alone.
He tried to speak to her.
She ran away, refusing to listen to him.
"I am an absolute fool to love a woman like that, whose ambition renders her as mad as her husband."
She was madder. One of her great wishes which she had never confessed to Julien for fear of shocking him, was to see him leave off, if only for one day, his gloomy black suit.
With an adroitness which was truly admirable in so ingenuous a woman, she secured first from M. de Moirod, and subsequently, from M. the sub-perfect de Maugiron, an assurance that Julien should be nominated a guard of honour in preference to five or six young people, the sons of very well-off manufacturers, of whom two at least, were models of piety.
M. de Valenod, who reckoned on lending his carriage to the prettiest women in the town, and on showing off his fine Norman steeds, consented to let Julien (the being he hated most in the whole world) have one of his horses.
But all the guards of honour, either possessed or had borrowed, one of those pretty sky-blue uniforms, with two silver colonel epaulettes, which had shone seven years ago.
Madame de Renal wanted a new uniform, and she only had four days in which to send to Besancon and get from there the uniform, the arms, the hat, etc., everything necessary for a Guard of Honour.
The most delightful part of it was that she thought it imprudent to get Julien's uniform made at Verrieres. She wanted to surprise both him and the town.
Having settled the questions of the guards of honour, and of the public welcome finished, the mayor had now to organise a great religious ceremony.
The King of —— did not wish to pass through Verrieres without visiting the famous relic of St. Clement, which is kept at Bray-le-Haut barely a league from the town.
The authorities wanted to have a numerous attendance of the clergy, but this matter was the most difficult to arrange. M. Maslon, the new cure, wanted to avoid at any price the presence of M. Chelan.
It was in vain that M. de Renal tried to represent to him that it would be imprudent to do so.
M. the Marquis de La Mole whose ancestors had been governors of the province for so many generations, had been chosen to accompany the King of ——.
He had known the abbe Chelan for thirty years.
He would certainly ask news of him when he arrived at Verrieres, and if he found him disgraced he was the very man to go and route him out in the little house to which he had retired, accompanied by all the escort that he had at his disposition.
What a rebuff that would be?
"I shall be disgraced both here and at Besancon," answered the abbe Maslon, "if he appears among my clergy.
A Jansenist, by the Lord."
"Whatever you can say, my dear abbe," replied M. de Renal, "I'll never expose the administration of Verrieres to receiving such an affront from M. de la Mole.
You do not know him. He is orthodox enough at Court, but here in the provinces, he is a satirical wit and cynic, whose only object is to make people uncomfortable.
He is capable of covering us with ridicule in the eyes of the Liberals, simply in order to amuse himself."
It was only on the night between the Saturday and the Sunday, after three whole days of negotiations that the pride of the abbe Maslon bent before the fear of the mayor, which was now changing into courage.
It was necessary to write a honeyed letter to the abbe Chelan, begging him to be present at the ceremony in connection with the relic of Bray-le-Haut, if of course, his great age and his infirmity allowed him to do so.
M. Chelan asked for and obtained a letter of invitation for Julien, who was to accompany him as his sub-deacon.
From the beginning of the Sunday morning, thousands of peasants began to arrive from the neighbouring mountains, and to inundate the streets of Verrieres.
It was the finest sunshine.
Finally, about three o'clock, a thrill swept through all this crowd. A great fire had been perceived on a rock two leagues from Verrieres.
This signal announced that the king had just entered the territory of the department.
At the same time, the sound of all the bells and the repeated volleys from an old Spanish cannon which belonged to the town, testified to its joy at this great event.
Half the population climbed on to the roofs.
All the women were on the balconies.
The guard of honour started to march, The brilliant uniforms were universally admired; everybody recognised a relative or a friend.
They made fun of the timidity of M. de Moirod, whose prudent hand was ready every single minute to catch hold of his saddle-bow.