3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

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      These young peasants who lived in such fear of the hard toil and poverty of their fathers, were taught that day by the abbe Castanede that that being so terrible in their eyes, the Government, had no real or legitimate power save what was delegated to it by God’s Vicar on Earth.

      ‘Render yourselves worthy of the Pope’s bounties by the sanctity of your lives, by your obedience, be like a rod in his hands,’ he went on, ‘and you will attain to a superb position where you will be in supreme command, under no man’s control; a permanent position, of which the Government pays one third of the emoluments, and the faithful, roused by your preaching, the other two thirds.’

      On leaving his classroom, M. Castanede stopped in the courtyard.

      ‘You may well say of a cure, each man gets what he deserves,’ he said to the students who gathered round him. ‘I myself have known mountain parishes where the fees came to more than those of many town cures. There was as much in money, not to speak of the fat capons, eggs, fresh butter, and endless little delicacies; and there the cure takes the first place without challenge: no good meal to which he is not invited, made much of,’ etc.

      No sooner had M. Castanede gone up to his own room, than the students divided into groups. Julien belonged to none of these; they drew away from him as from a tainted wether. In each of the groups, he saw a student toss a copper in the air, and if he guessed head or tail aright, his companions concluded that he would soon have one of these livings with fat fees.

      Stories followed. One young priest, barely a year in orders, having presented a domestic rabbit to an old cure’s servant, had got the cure to ask for him as his assistant, and a few months afterwards, for the cure had died almost immediately, had succeeded him in a good living. Another had managed to have his name put forward for the eventual succession to the curacy of a prosperous country town, by attending all the meals of the paralytic old cure and carving his chickens for him gracefully.

      The seminarists, like young men in every profession, exaggerated the effect of these little stratagems when they were out of the ordinary and struck the imagination.

      ‘I must,’ thought Julien, ‘take part in these conversations.’ When they were not discussing sausages and rich livings, their talk ran on the worldly side of ecclesiastical teaching; the differences between Bishops and Prefects, mayors and cures. Julien saw lurking in their minds the idea of a second God, but of a God far more to be feared and far more powerful than the first; this second God was the Pope. It was said, but with lowered voice, and when the speaker was quite certain of not being overheard by M. Pirard, that if the Pope did not take the trouble to appoint all the Prefects and all the mayors in France, it was because he had delegated the King of France for that duty, by naming him the Eldest Son of the Church.

      It was about this time that Julien thought he might derive some benefit from his admiration for M. de Maistre’s book on the Pope. He did, as a matter of fact, astonish his fellow-students; but this was a fresh misfortune. He annoyed them by expressing their opinions better than they could themselves. M. Chelan had been a rash counsellor for Julien as he had been for himself. After training him to the habit of reasoning accurately and not letting himself be taken in by vain words, he had omitted to tell him that in a person of little repute this habit is a crime; for sound reasoning always gives offence.

      Julien’s fine speech was therefore only another crime against him. His companions, being compelled to think about him, succeeded in finding two words to express all the horror with which he filled them: they nicknamed him Martin Luther; ‘chiefly,’ they said, ‘because of that infernal logic of which he is so proud.’

      Several young seminarists had fresher complexions and might be reckoned better looking than Julien; but he had white hands, and could not hide certain habits of personal cleanliness. This distinction was none at all in the grim dwelling into which destiny had cast him. The unclean peasants among whom he lived declared that he had extremely lax morals. We are afraid to tire the reader by an account of our hero’s endless mishaps. To take one instance, the more vigorous among his companions tried to make a practice of thrashing him; he was obliged to arm himself with a metal compass and to inform them, but only by signs, that he would use it. Signs cannot be represented, in a spy’s report, so damningly as words.

      Chapter 28

      A PROCESSION

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      All hearts were moved. God’s presence seemed to have come down into these narrow, gothic streets, decked on every side, and strewn with sand through the good offices of the faithful.

      YOUNG

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      IN VAIN MIGHT JULIEN make himself small and foolish, he could not give satisfaction, he was too different. ‘And yet,’ he said to himself, ‘all these Professors are men of great discernment, and picked men, each of them one in a thousand; how is it they do not like my humility?’ One alone seemed to him to be taking advantage of his readiness to believe anything and to appear taken in by everything. This was the abbe Chas–Bernard, Master of Ceremonies at the Cathedral, where, for the last fifteen years, he had been kept in hopes of a Canonry; in the meantime, he taught sacred eloquence at the Seminary. In the period of his blindness, this class was one of those in which Julien most regularly came out at the top. The abbe Chas had been led by this to show a partiality for him, and, at the end of his class, would gladly take his arm for a turn in the garden.

      ‘What can his object be?’ Julien asked himself. He found with amazement that, for hours on end, the abbe talked to him of the ornaments which the Cathedral possessed. It had seventeen apparelled chasubles, apart from the vestments worn at requiems. They had great hopes of President de Rubempre’s widow; this lady, who was ninety years old, had preserved for at least seventy of those years her wedding garments of superb Lyons stuffs, figured in gold. ‘Just imagine, my friend,’ said the abbe Chas coming to a standstill and opening his eyes wide, ‘these stuffs stand by themselves, there is so much gold in them. It is common opinion in Besancon that, under the Presidente’s will, the treasury of the Cathedral will be enriched with more than ten chasubles, not to mention four or five copes for the greater feasts. I will go farther,’ the abbe Chas added, lowering his voice. ‘I have good reason to think that the Presidente will bequeath to us eight magnificent silver-gilt candlesticks, which are supposed to have been bought in Italy, by the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, whose favourite minister was an ancestor of hers.’

      ‘But what is this man really aiming at behind all this frippery?’ Julien wondered. ‘This careful preparation has been going on for an age, and nothing comes of it. He must have singularly little faith in me! He is cleverer than any of the others, whose secret purposes one can see so plainly after a fortnight. I understand, this man’s ambition has been in torment for fifteen years.’

      One evening, in the middle of the armed drill, Julien was sent for by the abbe Pirard, who said to him:

      ‘Tomorrow is the feast of Corpus Christi. M. l’abbe Chas–Bernard requires you to help him to decorate the Cathedral; go and obey.’

      The abbe Pirard called him back, and added, in a tone of compassion:

      ‘It is for you to decide whether you wish to seize the opportunity of taking a stroll through the town.’

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