Finally, seeing that there was nothing more to be gained, he took his leave.
He finished his last bow with these words:
"I will send my son to the Chateau."
The Mayor's officials called his house by this designation when they wanted to humour him.
When he got back to his workshop, it was in vain that Sorel sought his son.
Suspicious of what might happen, Julien had gone out in the middle of the night.
He wished to place his Cross of the Legion of Honour and his books in a place of safety. He had taken everything to a young wood-merchant named Fouque, who was a friend of his, and who lived in the high mountain which commands Verrieres.
"God knows, you damned lazy bones," said his father to him when he re-appeared, "if you will ever be sufficiently honourable to pay me back the price of your board which I have been advancing to you for so many years.
Take your rags and clear out to M. the Mayor's."
Julien was astonished at not being beaten and hastened to leave.
He had scarcely got out of sight of his terrible father when he slackened his pace.
He considered that it would assist the role played by his hypocrisy to go and say a prayer in the church.
The word hypocrisy surprises you?
The soul of the peasant had had to go through a great deal before arriving at this horrible word.
Julien had seen in the days of his early childhood certain Dragoons of the 6th with long white cloaks and hats covered with long black plumed helmets who were returning from Italy, and tied up their horses to the grilled window of his father's house. The sight had made him mad on the military profession.
Later on he had listened with ecstasy to the narrations of the battles of Lodi, Arcola and Rivoli with which the old surgeon-major had regaled him. He observed the ardent gaze which the old man used to direct towards his cross.
But when Julien was fourteen years of age they commenced to build a church at Verrieres which, in view of the smallness of the town, has some claim to be called magnificent.
There were four marble columns in particular, the sight of which impressed Julien. They became celebrated in the district owing to the mortal hate which they raised between the Justice of the Peace and the young vicar who had been sent from Besancon and who passed for a spy of the congregation.
The Justice of the Peace was on the point of losing his place, so said the public opinion at any rate.
Had he not dared to have a difference with the priest who went every fortnight to Besancon; where he saw, so they said, my Lord the Bishop.
In the meanwhile the Justice of the Peace, who was the father of a numerous family, gave several sentences which seemed unjust: all these sentences were inflicted on those of the inhabitants who read the
"Constitutionnel."
The right party triumphed.
It is true it was only a question of sums of three or five francs, but one of these little fines had to be paid by a nail-maker, who was god-father to Julien.
This man exclaimed in his anger "What a change! and to think that for more than twenty years the Justice of the Peace has passed for an honest man."
The Surgeon-Major, Julien's friend, died.
Suddenly Julien left off talking about Napoleon. He announced his intention of becoming a priest, and was always to be seen in his father's workshop occupied in learning by heart the Latin Bible which the cure had lent him.
The good old man was astonished at his progress, and passed whole evenings in teaching him theology.
In his society Julien did not manifest other than pious sentiments.
Who could not possibly guess that beneath this girlish face, so pale and so sweet, lurked the unbreakable resolution to risk a thousand deaths rather than fail to make his fortune.
Making his fortune primarily meant to Julien getting out of Verrieres: he abhorred his native country; everything that he saw there froze his imagination.
He had had moments of exultation since his earliest childhood.
He would then dream with gusto of being presented one day to the pretty women of Paris. He would manage to attract their attention by some dazzling feat: why should he not be loved by one of them just as Buonaparte, when still poor, had been loved by the brilliant Madame de Beauharnais.
For many years past Julien had scarcely passed a single year of his life without reminding himself that Buonaparte, the obscure and penniless lieutenant, had made himself master of the whole world by the power of his sword.
This idea consoled him for his misfortune, which he considered to be great, and rendered such joyful moments as he had doubly intense.
The building of the church and the sentences pronounced by the Justice of the Peace suddenly enlightened him. An idea came to him which made him almost mad for some weeks, and finally took complete possession of him with all the magic that a first idea possesses for a passionate soul which believes that it is original.
"At the time when Buonaparte got himself talked about, France was frightened of being invaded; military distinction was necessary and fashionable.
Nowadays, one sees priests of forty with salaries of 100,000 francs, that is to say, three times as much as Napoleon's famous generals of a division.
They need persons to assist them.
Look at that Justice of the Peace, such a good sort and such an honest man up to the present and so old too; he sacrifices his honour through the fear of incurring the displeasure of a young vicar of thirty.
I must be a priest."
On one occasion, in the middle of his new-found piety (he had already been studying theology for two years), he was betrayed by a sudden burst of fire which consumed his soul.
It was at M. Chelan's. The good cure had invited him to a dinner of priests, and he actually let himself praise Napoleon with enthusiasm.
He bound his right arm over his breast, pretending that he had dislocated it in moving a trunk of a pine-tree and carried it for two months in that painful position.
After this painful penance, he forgave himself.
This is the young man of eighteen with a puny physique, and scarcely looking more than seventeen at the outside, who entered the magnificent church of Verrieres carrying a little parcel under his arm.
He found it gloomy and deserted.
All the transepts in the building had been covered with crimson cloth in celebration of a feast. The result was that the sun's rays produced an effect of dazzling light of the most impressive and religious character.
Julien shuddered.
Finding himself alone in the church, he established himself in the pew which had the most magnificent appearance. It bore the arms of M. de Renal.