"We promise," said the young girls melting into tears.
"I accept your promise in the name of the terrible God," added the bishop in a thunderous voice, and the ceremony was at an end.
The king himself was crying.
It was only a long time afterwards that Julien had sufficient self-possession to enquire "where were the bones of the Saint that had been sent from Rome to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy?"
He was told that they were hidden in the charming waxen figure.
His Majesty deigned to allow the young ladies who had accompanied him into the chapel to wear a red ribbon on which were embroidered these words, "HATE OF THE INFIDEL. PERPETUAL ADORATION."
Monsieur de la Mole had ten thousand bottles of wine distributed among the peasants.
In the evening at Verrieres, the Liberals made a point of having illuminations which were a hundred times better than those of the Royalists.
Before leaving, the king paid a visit to M. de Moirod. _____
CHAPTER XIX
THINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING _____
The grotesqueness of every-day events conceals the real unhappiness of the passions.—Barnave. _____
As he was replacing the usual furniture in the room which M. de la Mole had occupied, Julien found a piece of very strong paper folded in four.
He read at the bottom of the first page
"To His Excellency M. le Marquis de la Mole, peer of France, Chevalier of the Orders of the King, etc. etc."
It was a petition in the rough hand-writing of a cook.
"Monsieur le Marquis, I have had religious principles all my life.
I was in Lyons exposed to the bombs at the time of the siege, in '93 of execrable memory.
I communicate, I go to Mass every Sunday in the parochial church.
I have never missed the paschal duty, even in '93 of execrable memory.
My cook used to keep servants before the revolution, my cook fasts on Fridays.
I am universally respected in Verrieres, and I venture to say I deserve to be so.
I walk under the canopy in the processions at the side of the cure and of the mayor.
On great occasions I carry a big candle, bought at my own expense.
"I ask Monsieur the marquis for the lottery appointment of Verrieres, which in one way or another is bound to be vacant shortly as the beneficiary is very ill, and moreover votes on the wrong side at elections, etc. De Cholin."
In the margin of this petition was a recommendation signed "de Moirod" which began with this line, "I have had the honour, the worthy person who makes this request."
"So even that imbecile de Cholin shows me the way to go about things," said Julien to himself.
Eight days after the passage of the King of —— through Verrieres, the one question which predominated over the innumerable falsehoods, foolish conjectures, and ridiculous discussions, etc., etc., which had had successively for their object the king, the Marquis de la Mole, the ten thousand bottles of wine, the fall of poor de Moirod, who, hoping to win a cross, only left his room a week after his fall, was the absolute indecency of having foisted Julien Sorel, a carpenter's son, into the Guard of Honour.
You should have heard on this point the rich manufacturers of printed calico, the very persons who used to bawl themselves hoarse in preaching equality, morning and evening in the cafe.
That haughty woman, Madame de Renal, was of course responsible for this abomination.
The reason?
The fine eyes and fresh complexion of the little abbe Sorel explained everything else.
A short time after their return to Vergy, Stanislas, the youngest of the children, caught the fever; Madame de Renal was suddenly attacked by an awful remorse.
For the first time she reproached herself for her love with some logic. She seemed to understand as though by a miracle the enormity of the sin into which she had let herself be swept.
Up to that moment, although deeply religious, she had never thought of the greatness of her crime in the eyes of God.
In former times she had loved God passionately in the Convent of the Sacred Heart; in the present circumstances, she feared him with equal intensity.
The struggles which lacerated her soul were all the more awful in that her fear was quite irrational.
Julien found that the least argument irritated instead of soothing her. She saw in the illness the language of hell.
Moreover, Julien was himself very fond of the little Stanislas. It soon assumed a serious character.
Then incessant remorse deprived Madame de Renal of even her power of sleep. She ensconced herself in a gloomy silence: if she had opened her mouth, it would only have been to confess her crime to God and mankind.
"I urge you," said Julien to her, as soon as they got alone, "not to speak to anyone.
Let me be the sole confidant of your sufferings.
If you still love me, do not speak. Your words will not be able to take away our Stanislas' fever."
But his consolations produced no effect. He did not know that Madame de Renal had got it into her head that, in order to appease the wrath of a jealous God, it was necessary either to hate Julien, or let her son die.
It was because she felt she could not hate her lover that she was so unhappy.
"Fly from me," she said one day to Julien.
"In the name of God leave this house. It is your presence here which kills my son.
God punishes me," she added in a low voice.
"He is just. I admire his fairness.
My crime is awful, and I was living without remorse," she exclaimed.