Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

‘What would have become of you at Besancon, but for this caprice on the part of the Marquis de La Mole? One day, you will appreciate all the singularity of what he is doing for you, and, if you are not a monster, you will feel eternal gratitude to him and his family. How many poor abbes, cleverer men than you, have lived for years in Paris, upon the fifteen sous for their mass and the ten sous for their lectures in the Sorbonne! . . . Remember what I told you, last winter, of the early years of that wretch, Cardinal Dubois. Are you, by any chance, so proud as to imagine that you have more talent than he?

‘I, for example, a peaceable and insignificant man, expected to end my days in my Seminary; I was childish enough to have grown attached to it. Very well! I was going to be turned out when I offered my resignation. Do you know what was the extent of my fortune? I had five hundred and twenty francs of capital, neither more nor less; not a friend, at most two or three acquaintances. M. de La Mole, whom I had never seen, saved me from disaster; he had only to say the word, and I was given a living in which all my parishioners are people in easy circumstances, above the common vices, and the stipend fills me with shame, so far out of proportion is it to my work. I have spoken to you at this length only to put a little ballast into that head of yours.

‘One word more; it is my misfortune to have a hasty temper; it is possible that you and I may cease to speak to one another.

‘If the arrogance of the Marquise, or the mischievous pranks of her son, make the house definitely insupportable to you, I advise you to finish your studies in some Seminary thirty leagues from Paris, and in the North, rather than in the South. You will find in the North more civilisation and fewer injustices; and,’ he added, lowering his voice, ‘I must admit it, the proximity of the Parisian newspapers makes the petty tyrants afraid.

‘If we continue to find pleasure in each other’s company, and the Marquis’s household does not agree with you, I offer you a place as my vicar, and shall divide the revenues of this living with you equally. I owe you this and more,’ he added, cutting short Julien’s expressions of gratitude, ‘for the singular offer which you made me at Besancon. If, instead of five hundred and twenty francs, I had had nothing, you would have saved me.’

The cruel tone had gone from the abbe’s voice. To his great confusion, Julien felt the tears start to his eyes; he was longing to fling himself into the arms of his friend: he could not resist saying to him, with the most manly air that he was capable of affecting:

‘I have been hated by my father from the cradle; it was one of my great misfortunes; but I shall no longer complain of fortune. I have found another father in you, Sir.’

‘Good, good,’ said the abbe, with embarrassment; then remembering most opportunely a phrase from the vocabulary of a Director of a Seminary: ‘You must never say fortune, my child, always say Providence.’

The cab stopped; the drier lifted the bronze knocker on an immense door: it was the HOTEL DE LA MOLE; and, so that the passer-by might be left in no doubt of this, the words were to be read on a slab of black marble over the door.

This affectation was not to Julien’s liking. ‘They are so afraid of the Jacobins! They see a Robespierre and his tumbril behind every hedge; often they make one die with laughing, and they advertise their house like this so that the mob shall know it in the event of a rising, and sack it.’ He communicated what was in his mind to the Abbe Pirard.

‘Ah! Poor boy, you will soon be my vicar. What an appalling idea to come into your head!’

‘I can think of nothing more simple,’ said Julien.

The gravity of the porter and above all the cleanness of the courtyard had filled him with admiration. The sun was shining brightly.

‘What magnificent architecture!’ he said to his friend.

It was one of the typical town houses, with their lifeless fronts, of the Faubourg Saint–Germain, built about the date of Voltaire’s death. Never have the fashionable and the beautiful been such worlds apart.

FIRST APPEARANCE IN Society

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Absurd and touching memory: one’s first appearance, at eighteen, alone and unsupported, in a drawing-room! A glance from a woman was enough to terrify me. The more I tried to shine, the more awkward I became. I formed the most false ideas of everything; either I surrendered myself for no reason, or I saw an enemy in a man because he had looked at me with a serious expression. But then, amid all the fearful sufferings of my shyness, how fine was a fine day!

KANT

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JULIEN STOPPED IN CONFUSION in the middle of the courtyard.

‘Do assume a reasonable air,’ said the Abbe Picard; ‘you take hold of horrible ideas, and you are only a boy! Where is the nil mirari of Horace?’ (That is: no enthusiasm.) ‘Reflect that this tribe of flunkeys, seeing you established here, will try to make a fool of you; they will regard you as an equal, unjustly set over them. Beneath a show of good nature, of good advice, of a wish to guide you, they will try to catch you out in some stupid blunder.’

‘I defy them to do so,’ said Julien, biting his lip; and he recovered all his former distrust.

The drawing-rooms through which our friends passed on the first floor, before coming to the Marquis’s study, would have seemed to you, gentle reader, as depressing as they were magnificent. Had you been made a present of them as they stood, you would have refused to live in them; they are the native heath of boredom and dreary argument. They redoubled Julien’s enchantment. ‘How can anyone be unhappy,’ he thought, ‘who lives in so splendid a residence?’

Finally, our friends came to the ugliest of the rooms in this superb suite: the daylight barely entered it; here, they found a wizened little man with a keen eye and a fair periwig. The abbe turned to Julien, whom he presented. It was the Marquis. Julien had great difficulty in recognising him, so civil did he find him. This was no longer the great nobleman, so haughty in his mien, of the Abbey of Bray-le-Haut. It seemed to Julien that there was far too much hair in his wig. Thanks to this impression, he was not in the least intimidated. The descendant of Henri III’s friend struck him at first as cutting but a poor figure. He was very thin and greatly agitated. But he soon remarked that the Marquis showed a courtesy even more agreeable to the person he was addressing than that of the Bishop of Besancon himself. The audience did not occupy three minutes. As they left the room, the abbe said to Julien:

‘You looked at the Marquis as you would have looked at a picture. I am no expert in what these people call politeness, soon you will know more about it than I; still, the boldness of your stare seemed to me to be scarcely polite.’

They had returned to their vehicle; the driver stopped by the boulevard; the abbe led Julien through a series of spacious rooms. Julien remarked that they were unfurnished. He was looking at a magnificent gilt clock, representing a subject that in his opinion was highly indecent, when a most elegant gentleman approached them with an affable expression. Julien made him a slight bow.

The gentleman smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder. Julien quivered and sprang back. He was flushed with anger. The abbe Pirard, for all his gravity, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. The gentleman was a tailor.