None of the insults which were addressed to him was wasted on his burning soul.
He would have handed in his resignation a hundred times over, but he believed that he was useful in the place where Providence had set him.
"I prevent the progress of Jesuitism and Idolatry," he said to himself.
At the time of the examinations, it was perhaps nearly two months since he had spoken to Julien, and nevertheless, he was ill for eight days when, on receipt of the official letter announcing the result of the competition, he saw the number 198 placed beside the name of that pupil whom he regarded as the glory of his town.
This stern character found his only consolation in concentrating all his surveillance on Julien.
He was delighted that he discovered in him neither anger, nor vindictiveness, nor discouragement.
Julien felt a thrill some months afterwards when he received a letter. It bore the Paris post-mark.
Madame de Renal is remembering her promises at last, he thought.
A gentleman who signed himself Paul Sorel, and who said that he was his relative, sent him a letter of credit for five hundred francs.
The writer went on to add that if Julien went on to study successfully the good Latin authors, a similar sum would be sent to him every year.
"It is she. It is her kindness," said Julien to himself, feeling quite overcome.
"She wishes to console me.
But why not a single word of affection?"
He was making a mistake in regard to this letter, for Madame de Renal, under the influence of her friend, Madame Derville, was abandoning herself absolutely to profound remorse.
She would often think, in spite of herself, of that singular being, the meeting with whom had revolutionized her life. But she carefully refrained from writing to him.
If we were to talk the terminology of the seminary, we would be able to recognise a miracle in the sending of these five hundred francs and to say that heaven was making use of Monsieur de Frilair himself in order to give this gift to Julien.
Twelve years previously the abbe de Frilair had arrived in Besancon with an extremely exiguous portmanteau, which, according to the story, contained all his fortune.
He was now one of the richest proprietors of the department.
In the course of his prosperity, he had bought the one half of an estate, while the other half had been inherited by Monsieur de la Mole.
Consequently there was a great lawsuit between these two personages.
M. le Marquis de la Mole felt that, in spite of his brilliant life at Paris and the offices which he held at Court, it would be dangerous to fight at Besancon against the Grand Vicar, who was reputed to make and unmake prefects.
Instead of soliciting a present of fifty thousand francs which could have been smuggled into the budget under some name or other, and of throwing up this miserable lawsuit with the abbe Frilair over a matter of fifty thousand francs, the marquis lost his temper.
He thought he was in the right, absolutely in the right.
Moreover, if one is permitted to say so, who is the judge who has not got a son, or at any rate a cousin to push in the world?
In order to enlighten the blindest minds the abbe de Frilair took the carriage of my Lord the Bishop eight days after the first decree which he obtained, and went himself to convey the cross of the Legion of Honour to his advocate.
M. de la Mole, a little dumbfounded at the demeanour of the other side, and appreciating also that his own advocates were slackening their efforts, asked advice of the abbe Chelan, who put him in communication with M. Pirard.
At the period of our story the relations between these two men had lasted for several years.
The abbe Pirard imported into this affair his characteristic passion.
Being in constant touch with the Marquis's advocates, he studied his case, and finding it just, he became quite openly the solicitor of M. de la Mole against the all-powerful Grand Vicar.
The latter felt outraged by such insolence, and on the part of a little Jansenist into the bargain.
"See what this Court nobility who pretend to be so powerful really are," would say the abbe de Frilair to his intimates.
M. de la Mole has not even sent a miserable cross to his agent at Besancon, and will let him be tamely turned out.
None the less, so they write me, this noble peer never lets a week go by without going to show off his blue ribbon in the drawing-room of the Keeper of Seal, whoever it may be.
In spite of all the energy of the abbe Pirard, and although M. de la Mole was always on the best of terms with the minister of justice, and above all with his officials, the best that he could achieve after six careful years was not to lose his lawsuit right out.
Being as he was in ceaseless correspondence with the abbe Pirard in connection with an affair in which they were both passionately interested, the Marquis came to appreciate the abbe's particular kind of intellect.
Little by little, and in spite of the immense distance in their social positions, their correspondence assumed the tone of friendship. The abbe Pirard told the Marquis that they wanted to heap insults upon him till he should be forced to hand in his resignation.
In his anger against what, in his opinion, was the infamous stratagem employed against Julien, he narrated his history to the Marquis.
Although extremely rich, this great lord was by no means miserly.
He had never been able to prevail on the abbe Pirard to accept even the reimbursement of the postal expenses occasioned by the lawsuit.
He seized the opportunity of sending five hundred francs to his favourite pupil.
M. de la Mole himself took the trouble of writing the covering letter.
This gave the abbe food for thought.
One day the latter received a little note which requested him to go immediately on an urgent matter to an inn on the outskirts of Besancon.
He found there the steward of M. de la Mole.
"M. le Marquis has instructed me to bring you his carriage," said the man to him.
"He hopes that after you have read this letter you will find it convenient to leave for Paris in four or five days.
I will employ the time in the meanwhile in asking you to be good enough to show me the estates of M. le Marquis in the Franche-Comte, so that I can go over them."
The letter was short:—
"Rid yourself, my good sir, of all the chicanery of the provinces and come and breathe the peaceful atmosphere of Paris.
I send you my carriage which has orders to await your decision for four days.