Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

For the next forty-eight hours, he was in a fever of uncertainty. Finally, he wrote to M. de La Mole and composed, for the Bishop’s benefit, a letter, a masterpiece of ecclesiastical diction, though a trifle long. It would have been difficult to find language more irreproachable, or breathing a more sincere respect. And yet this letter, intended to give M. de Frilair a trying hour with his patron, enumerated all the serious grounds for complaint and descended to the sordid little pinpricks which, after he had borne them, with resignation, for six years, were forcing the abbe Pirard to leave the diocese.

They stole the wood from his shed, they poisoned his dog, etc., etc.

This letter written, he sent to awaken Julien who, at eight o’clock in the evening, was already asleep, as were all the seminarists.

‘You know where the Bishop’s Palace is?’ he said to him in the best Latin; ‘take this letter to Monseigneur. I shall not attempt to conceal from you that I am sending you amongst wolves. Be all eyes and ears. No prevarication in your answers; but remember that the man who is questioning you would perhaps take a real delight in trying to harm you. I am glad, my child, to give you this experience before I leave you, for I do not conceal from you that the letter which you are taking contains my resignation.’

Julien did not move; he was fond of the abbe Pirard. In vain might prudence warn him:

‘After this worthy man’s departure, the Sacred Heart party will degrade and perhaps even expel me.’

He could not think about himself. What embarrassed him was a sentence which he wished to cast in a polite form, but really he was incapable of using his mind.

‘Well, my friend, aren’t you going?’

‘You see, Sir, they say,’ Julien began timidly, ‘that during your long administration here, you have never put anything aside. I have six hundred francs.’

Tears prevented him from continuing.

‘That too will be noticed,’ said the ex-Director of the Seminary coldly. ‘Go to the Palace, it is getting late.’

As luck would have it, that evening M. l’abbe de Frilair was in attendance in the Bishop’s parlour; Monseigneur was dining at the Prefecture. So that it was to M. de Frilair himself that Julien gave the letter, but he did not know who he was.

Julien saw with astonishment that this priest boldly opened the letter addressed to the Bishop. The fine features of the Vicar–General soon revealed a surprise mingled with keen pleasure, and his gravity increased. While he was reading, Julien, struck by his good looks, had time to examine him. It was a face that would have had more gravity but for the extreme subtlety that appeared in certain of its features, and would actually have suggested dishonesty, if the owner of that handsome face had ceased for a moment to control it. The nose, which was extremely prominent, formed an unbroken and perfectly straight line, and gave unfortunately to a profile that otherwise was most distinguished, an irremediable resemblance to the mask of a fox. In addition, this abbe who seemed so greatly interested in M. Pirard’s resignation, was dressed with an elegance that greatly pleased Julien, who had never seen its like on any other priest.

It was only afterwards that Julien learned what was the abbe de Frilair’s special talent. He knew how to amuse his Bishop, a pleasant old man, made to live in Paris, who regarded Besancon as a place of exile. This Bishop was extremely short-sighted, and passionately fond of fish. The abbe de Frilair used to remove the bones from the fish that was set before Monseigneur.

Julien was silently watching the abbe as he read over again the letter of resignation, when suddenly the door burst open. A lackey, richly attired, passed rapidly through the room. Julien had barely time to turn towards the door; he saw a little old man, wearing a pectoral cross. He fell on his knees: the Bishop bestowed a kind smile upon him as he passed through the room. The handsome abbe followed him, and Julien was left alone in this parlour, the pious magnificence of which he could now admire at his leisure.

The Bishop of Besancon, a man of character, tried, but not crushed by the long hardships of the Emigration, was more than seventy-five, and cared infinitely little about what might happen in the next ten years.

‘Who is that clever-looking seminarist, whom I seemed to see as I passed?’ said the Bishop. ‘Ought they not, by my orders, to be in their beds at this hour?’

‘This one is quite wide awake, I assure you, Monseigneur, and he brings great news: the resignation of the only Jansenist left in your diocese. That terrible abbe Pirard understands at last the meaning of a hint.’

‘Well,’ said the Bishop with a laugh, ‘I defy you to fill his place with a man of his quality. And to show you the value of the man, I invite him to dine with me tomorrow.’

The Vicar–General wished to insinuate a few words as to the choice of a successor. The prelate, little disposed to discuss business, said to him:

‘Before we put in the next man, let us try to discover why this one is going. Fetch me in that seminarist, the truth is to be found in the mouths of babes.’

Julien was summoned: ‘I shall find myself trapped between two inquisitors,’ he thought. Never had he felt more courageous.

At the moment of his entering the room, two tall valets, better dressed than M. Valenod himself, were disrobing Monseigneur. The prelate, before coming to the subject of M. Pirard, thought fit to question Julien about his studies. He touched upon dogma, and was amazed. Presently he turned to the Humanities, Virgil, Horace, Cicero. ‘Those names,’ thought Julien, ‘earned me my number 198. I have nothing more to lose, let us try to shine.’ He was successful; the prelate, an excellent humanist himself, was enchanted.

At dinner at the Prefecture, a girl, deservedly famous, had recited the poem of La Madeleine. [5]He was in the mood for literary conversation, and at once forgot the abbe Pirard and everything else, in discussing with the seminarist the important question, whether Horace had been rich or poor. The prelate quoted a number of odes, but at times his memory began to fail him, and immediately Julien would recite the entire ode, with a modest air; what struck the Bishop was that Julien never departed from the tone of the conversation; he said his twenty or thirty Latin verses as he would have spoken of what was going on in his Seminary. A long discussion followed of Virgil and Cicero. At length the prelate could not refrain from paying the young seminarist a compliment.

‘It would be impossible to have studied to better advantage.’

‘Monseigneur,’ said Julien, ‘your Seminary can furnish you with one hundred and ninety-seven subjects far less unworthy of your esteemed approval.’

‘How so?’ said the prelate, astonished at this figure.

‘I can support with official proof what I have the honour to say before Monseigneur.

‘At the annual examination of the Seminary, answering questions upon these very subjects which have earned me, at this moment, Monseigneur’s approval, I received the number 198.’

‘Ah! This is the abbe Pirard’s favourite,’ exclaimed the Bishop, with a laugh, and with a glance at M. de Frilair; ‘we ought to have expected this; but it is all in fair play. Is it not the case, my friend,’ he went on, turning to Julien, ‘that they waked you from your sleep to send you here?’

‘Yes, Monseigneur. I have never left the Seminary alone in my life but once, to go and help M. l’abbe Chas–Bernard to decorate the Cathedral, on the feast of Corpus Christi.’

‘Optime,’ said the Bishop; ‘what, it was you that showed such great courage, by placing the bunches of plumes on the baldachino? They make me shudder every year; I am always afraid of their costing me a man’s life. My friend, you will go far; but I do not wish to cut short your career, which will be brilliant, by letting you die of hunger.’