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The red and black
Chapter       1

A Small Town

   

   The  small town  of Verrieres  may be  regarded  as  one  of the  most  at-
tractive in the Franche-Comte. Its white houses with  their high pitched
roofs of red tiles are spread over the slope of a hill, the slightest contours
of which  are indicated by  clumps  of sturdy chestnuts. The  Doubs runs
some hundreds of feet below its fortifications, built in times past by the
Spaniards, and now in ruins.

   Verrieres is sheltered on the north by  a high mountain, a spur of the
Jura. The jagged peaks of the Verra put on a mantle of snow in the first
cold  days  of  October.  A  torrent  which  comes  tearing  down  from  the
mountain passes  through Verrieres before  emptying its waters  into  the
Doubs, and supplies power to a great number of sawmills; this is an ex-
tremely simple industry, and procures a certain degree of comfort for the
majority of the inhabitants, who are of the peasant rather than of the bur-
gess class. It is not, however, the sawmills that have made this little town
rich.  It  is  to  the  manufacture  of  printed  calicoes,  known  as  Mulhouse
stuffs, that it owes the general prosperity which, since the fall of Napo-
leon, has led to the refacing of almost all the houses in Verrieres.

   No sooner has one entered the town than one is startled by the din of a
noisy machine of terrifying aspect. A score of weighty hammers, falling
with  a  clang  which  makes  the  pavement  tremble,  are  raised  aloft by  a
wheel which the water of the torrent sets in motion. Each of these ham-
mers turns out, daily, I cannot say how many thousands of nails. A bevy
of fresh, pretty girls subject to the blows of these enormous hammers, the
little scraps of iron which are rapidly transformed into nails. This work,
so rough to the outward eye, is one of the industries that most astonish
the  traveller who  ventures  for  the  first  time  among the mountains  that
divide  France  from  Switzerland.  If,  on  entering  Verrieres,  the  traveller
inquires to whom belongs that fine nail factory which deafens everybody
who passes up the main street, he will be told in a drawling accent: 'Eh!
It belongs to the Mayor.'

   Provided the traveller halts  for  a few moments  in this main  street of
Verrieres, which runs from the bank  of the Doubs nearly to the summit
of the hill, it is a hundred to one that he will see a tall man appear, with a
busy, important air.

   At the sight of him every hat is quickly raised. His hair is turning grey,
and he  is  dressed in  grey. He  is  a Companion  of several Orders, has  a
high forehead, an aquiline nose, and on the whole his face is not wanting
in a certain regularity: indeed, the first impression formed of it may be
that it  combines with  the  dignity of a village  mayor  that  sort  of charm
which may still be found in a man of forty-eight or fifty. But soon the vis-
itor from Paris is annoyed by a certain air of self-satisfaction and self-suf-
ficiency mingled with a suggestion of limitations and want of originality.
One feels, finally, that this man's talent is confined to securing the exact
payment of whatever is owed to him and to postponing payment till the
last possible moment when he is the debtor.

   Such is the Mayor of Verrieres, M. de Renal. Crossing the street with a
solemn step, he enters the town hall and passes from the visitor's sight.
But, a hundred yards higher up, if the visitor continues his stroll, he will
notice  a house  of quite imposing  appearance, and, through the  gaps in
an iron railing belonging to the house, some splendid gardens. Beyond,
there is a line of horizon formed by the hills of Burgundy, which seem to
have been  created  on purpose  to  delight  the  eye.  This  view  makes  the
visitor  forget  the  pestilential  atmosphere     of  small  financial  interests
which was beginning to stifle him.

   He  is  told  that  this house belongs  to M.  de Renal.  It  is  to  the profits
that he has made from his great nail factory that the Mayor of Verrieres
is indebted for this fine freestone house which he has just finished build-
ing. His family, they say, is Spanish, old, and was or claims to have been
established in the country long before Louis XIV conquered it.

   Since 1815 he has blushed at his connection with industry: 1815 made
him Mayor of Verrieres. The retaining walls that support the various sec-
tions  of  this  splendid  garden,  which,  in  a  succession  of  terraces,  runs
down to the Doubs, are also a reward of M. de Renal's ability as a dealer
in iron.

   You must not for a moment expect to find in France those picturesque
gardens  which  enclose  the  manufacturing  towns  of  Germany;  Leipsic,

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Frankfurt,  Nuremberg,       and  the  rest.  In  the  Franche-Comte,  the  more
walls  a man builds,  the more he makes his property bristle with stones
piled one above another, the greater title he acquires to the respect of his
neighbours.  M.  de  Renal's  gardens,  honeycombed  with  walls,  are  still
further   admired  because     he  bought,    for  their  weight   in  gold,  certain
minute  scraps  of  ground  which  they  cover.  For  instance  that  sawmill
whose  curious  position  on  the  bank       of  the  Doubs  struck  you  as  you
entered Verrieres, and on which you noticed the name Sorel, inscribed in
huge letters on a board which overtops the roof, occupied, six years ago,
the  ground  on which  at  this  moment  they  are building  the wall  of  the
fourth terrace of M. de Renal's gardens.

   For  all his  pride,  the  Mayor was  obliged to  make  many  overtures to
old  Sorel,  a  dour  and  obstinate peasant;  he  was  obliged  to  pay  him  in
fine golden louis before he would consent to remove his mill elsewhere.
As  for  the  public  lade  which  supplied  power  to  the  saw,  M.  de  Renal,
thanks to the influence he wielded  in Paris,  obtained leave to  divert it.
This favour was conferred upon him after the 182- elections.

   He   gave  Sorel  four   acres  in  exchange  for    one,  five  hundred    yards
lower down by  the bank  of the Doubs. And, albeit this site was a great
deal more advantageous for his trade in planks of firwood, Pere Sorel, as
they have begun to call him now that he is rich, contrived to screw out of
the  impatience  and  landowning  mania  which  animated  his  neighbour  a
sum of 6,000 francs.

   It  is  true  that  this  arrangement  was  adversely  criticised by  the  local
wiseacres. On one occasion, it was a Sunday, four years later, M. de Ren-
al,  as he  walked  home  from  church in his  mayoral  attire, saw  at  a  dis-
tance old Sorel, supported by his three sons, watching him with a smile.
That smile cast a destroying ray of light into the Mayor's soul; ever since
then  he  has  been    thinking  that  he  might  have  brought      about  the  ex-
change at less cost to himself.

   To win popular esteem at Verrieres, the essential thing is not to adopt
(while  still  building  plenty  of  walls)  any  plan  of  construction  brought
from Italy by those masons who in spring pass through the gorges of the
Jura on their way to Paris. Such an innovation would earn the rash build-
er  an undying  reputation  fot wrong-headedness,  and he  would be  lost
forever among the sober and moderate folk who create reputations in the
Franche-Comte.
   As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  sober  folk  wield  there  the  most  irritating
form  of  despotism;  it  is  owing  to  that  vile  word  that  residence

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towns is intolerable to anyone who has lived in that great republic which
we call Paris. The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as
fatuous  in  the  small  towns  of  France  as  it  is  in  the  United  States  of
America.

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Chapter      2

A Mayor

    Prestige!  Sir,  is  it  nothing?  To be  revered by  fools,  gaped  at by
    children, envied by the rich and scorned by the wise.

    BARNAVE

   Fortunately  for  M.  de Renal's  reputation  as  an  administrator,  a huge
retaining wall was required for the public  avenue which  skirts the hill-
side a hundred feet above the bed of the Doubs. To this admirable posi-
tion it is indebted for one of the most picturesque views in France. But,
every  spring,  torrents  of  rainwater  made  channels  across  the  avenue,
carved deep gullies in it and left it impassable. This nuisance, which af-
fected everybody alike, placed M.  de Renal under the fortunate  obliga-
tion  to  immortalise  his  administration  by  a  wall  twenty  feet  in  height
and seventy or eighty yards long.

   The parapet of this wall, to secure which M. de Renal was obliged to
make three journeys  to Paris, for the Minister of the Interior before  last
had sworn a deadly enmity to the Verrieres avenue; the parapet of this
wall  now  rises  four  feet  above  the  ground.  And,  as  though  to  defy  all
Ministers past  and present,  it is being  finished off at this moment with
slabs of dressed stone.

   How    often, my   thoughts    straying  back   to  the  ball-rooms   of  Paris,
which  I  had  forsaken  overnight,  my  elbows  leaning  upon  those  great
blocks of stone of a fine grey with a shade of blue in it, have I swept with
my gaze the vale of the Doubs! Over there, on the left bank,  are five or
six winding valleys, along the folds of which the eye can make out quite
plainly a number of little streams. After leaping from rock to rock, they
may  be  seen  falling  into  the  Doubs.  The  sun  is  extremely  hot  in  these
mountains; when  it is  directly overhead, the traveller's rest is sheltered
on this terrace by  a row of magnificent planes. Their rapid growth, and
handsome foliage of a bluish tint are due to the artificial soil with which
the Mayor has filled in the space behind his immense retaining wall, for,

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despite the opposition of the town council, he has widened  the avenue
by  more than six feet  (although he  is  an Ultra  and I myself  a Liberal, I
give him credit for it), that is why, in his opinion and in that of M. Valen-
od,  the  fortunate  governor  of  the  Verrieres  poorhouse,  this  terrace  is
worthy to be compared with that of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

   For my part, I have only one fault to find with the Cours de la Fidelite;
one reads this, its official title, in fifteen or twenty places, on marble slabs
which  have  won  M.  de  Renal  yet  another  Cross;  what  I  should be  in-
clined to condemn in the Cours de la Fidelite is the barbarous manner in
which the authorities keep these sturdy plane trees trimmed and pollar-
ded. Instead of suggesting, with their low, rounded, flattened heads, the
commonest of kitchen garden vegetables, they would like nothing better
than  to  assume  those  magnificent  forms  which  one  sees  them  wear  in
England. But the Mayor's will is despotic, and twice a year every tree be-
longing  to  the  commune  is  pitilessly  lopped.  The  Liberals  of  the  place
maintain, but they exaggerate, that the hand of the official gardener has
grown much more  severe since the Reverend Vicar  Maslon  formed the
habit of appropriating the clippings.

   This young cleric was sent from Besancon, some years ago, to keep an
eye upon  the  abbe Chelan  and certain parish  priests  of the  district. An
old Surgeon-Major of the Army of Italy, in retirement at Verrieres, who
in his time had been  simultaneously, according to the Mayor, a Jacobin
and a Bonapartist, actually ventured one day to complain to him of the
periodical mutilation of these fine trees.

   'I like shade,' replied M. de Renal with the touch of arrogance appro-
priate  when  one  is  addressing  a  surgeon,  a  Member  of  the  Legion  of
Honour;  'I like shade, I have my trees cut so as to give shade, and I do
not  consider that  a tree is made  for  any other purpose,  unless,  like  the
useful walnut, it yields a return.'

   There you have the great phrase that decides everything at Verrieres:
YIELD A RETURN; it by  itself represents the habitual  thought of more
than three fourths of the inhabitants.

   Yielding a return is the consideration that settles everything in this little
town which seemed to you, just now, so attractive. The stranger arriving
there,  beguiled  by  the  beauty  of  the  cool,  deep  valleys  on  every  side,
imagines at first that the inhabitants are influenced by the idea of beauty;
they  are  always  talking  about  the  beauty  of  their  scenery:  no  one  can
deny that they make a great to-do about it; but this is because it attracts a
certain number  of visitors whose  money  goes to enrich the innkeepers,

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and thus, through the channel of the rate-collector, yields a return to the
town.

   It was  a fine day in autumn and M. de Renal was  strolling along the
Cours de la Fidelite, his lady on his arm. While she listened to her hus-
band, who was speaking with an air of gravity, Madame de Renal's eye
was  anxiously following the movements of three little boys.  The eldest,
who  might be  about eleven, was  continually running  to  the parapet  as
though  about  to  climb  on  top.  A  gentle  voice  then  uttered  the  name
Adolphe,  and  the  child  abandoned  his  ambitious  project.  Madame  de
Renal looked like a woman of thirty, but was still extremely pretty.

   'He may  live  to  rue  the  day,  that  fine  gentleman  from  Paris,'  M.  de
Renal was saying in a tone of annoyance, his cheek paler even than was
its wont. 'I myself am not entirely without friends at Court… .'

   But  albeit I  mean  to  speak  to you  of provincial  life  for  two hundred
pages, I shall not be so barbarous as to inflict upon you the tedium and
all the clever turns of a provincial dialogue.

   This  fine  gentleman from Paris,  so  odious to the Mayor  of Verrieres,
was none other than M. Appert, 1 who, a couple of days earlier, had con-

trived  to  make  his  way  not  only  into  the  prison  and  the  poorhouse  of
Verrieres,  but   also  into  the  hospital,  administered  gratuitously  by  the
Mayor and the principal landowners of the neighbourhood.

   'But,' Madame de Renal put in timidly, 'what harm can this gentleman
from Paris do you, since you provide for the welfare of the poor with the
most scrupulous honesty?'

   'He has only come to cast blame, and then he'll go back and have art-
icles put in the Liberal papers.'

   'You never read them, my dear.'

   'But people tell us about those Jacobin articles; all that distracts us, and
hinders us from doing good. 2 As for me, I shall never forgive the cure.'

1.A contemporary philanthropist and prison visitor.

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2.authentic
Chapter      3

The Bread of the Poor

    A  virtuous  priest  who  does  not  involve  himself  in  intrigue  is  a
    blessing for the village.

    FLEURY

   It should be explained that the cure of Verrieres, an old man of eighty,
but blessed by the keen air of his mountains with an iron character and
strength, had the right to visit at any hour of the day the prison, the hos-
pital,  and even the poorhouse. It was  at six o'clock in the morning pre-
cisely that M. Appert, who was armed with an introduction to the cure
from Paris, had had the good sense to arrive in an inquisitive little town.
He had gone at once to the presbytery.

   As he read the letter addressed to him by M. le Marquis de La Mole, a
Peer  of France,  and the wealthiest  landowner  in  the province,  the  cure
Chelan sat lost in thought.

   'I  am  old  and  liked  here,'  he  murmured  to  himself  at  length,   'they
would  never  dare!'  Turning  at  once  to  the  gentleman  from  Paris,  with
eyes in which, despite his great age, there burned that sacred fire which
betokens   the  pleasure   of  performing    a  fine  action  which   is  slightly
dangerous:

   'Come with me, Sir, and, in the presence of the gaoler and especially of
the superintendents of the poorhouse, be  so good as not to express any
opinion of the things we shall see.' M. Appert realised that he had to deal
with  a  man  of  feeling;  he  accompanied  the  venerable  cure,  visited  the
prison, the hospital, the poorhouse, asked many questions and, notwith-
standing strange answers, did not  allow himself to utter the least word
of reproach.

   This visit  lasted  for  some hours.  The  cure  invited  M.  Appert  to  dine
with him, but  was  told that his  guest had  some letters to write: he  did
not wish to compromise his kind friend any further. About three o'clock,

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the gentlemen went back to complete their inspection of the poorhouse,
after  which  they  returned  to  the  prison.  There  they  found  the  gaoler
standing in the doorway; a giant six feet tall, with bandy legs; terror had
made his mean face hideous.

   'Ah, Sir,' he said to the cure, on catching sight of him, 'is not this gen-
tleman, that I see with you, M. Appert?'

   'What if he is?' said the cure.

   'Because yesterday I received the most definite instructions, which the
Prefect sent down by a gendarme who had to gallop all night long, not to
allow M. Appert into the prison.'

   'I declare to you, M. Noiroud,' said the cure, 'that this visitor, who is in
my company, is M. Appert. Do you admit that I have the right to enter
the  prison  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  bringing  with  me  whom  I
please?'
   'Yes, M. le cure,' the gaoler murmured in a subdued tone, lowering his
head like a bulldog brought reluctantly to obedience by fear of the stick.
'Only, M. le cure, I have a wife and children, if I am reported I shall be
dismissed; I have only my place here to live on.'

   'I too should be very sorry to lose mine,' replied the worthy cure, in a
voice swayed by ever increasing emotion.

   'What  a  difference!'  the  gaoler  answered  promptly;  'why  you,  M.  le
cure, we know that you have an income of 800 livres, a fine place in the
sun … '

   Such  are the  events which,  commented  upon,  exaggerated  in  twenty
different ways, had been  arousing for the last two days all the evil pas-
sions of the little town of Verrieres. At that moment they were serving as
text for the little discussion which M. de Renal was having with his wife.
That  morning,  accompanied by  M.  Valenod,  the  governor  of  the  poor-
house, he had  gone to the cure's house,  to inform him  of their extreme
displeasure.  M.  Chelan  was  under  no  one's  protection;  he  felt  the  full
force of their words.

   'Well, gentlemen, I shall be the third parish priest, eighty years of age,
to be  deprived of his living in this district. I have been here for six and
fifty years;  I have   christened   almost   all the inhabitants   of  the town,
which  was  no  more  than  a  village  when      I  came.  Every  day  I  marry
young couples whose grandparents I married long ago. Verrieres is my
family; but I said to myself, when I saw the stranger: "This man, who has

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come  from  Paris,  may  indeed  be  a  Liberal,  there  are  far  too  many  of
them; but what harm can he do to our poor people and our prisoners?"'

   The reproaches of M. de Renal, and above all those of M. Valenod, the
governor of the poorhouse, becoming more and more bitter:

   'Very well, gentlemen, have me deprived,' the old cure had cried, in a
quavering voice. 'I shall live in the town all the same. You all know that
forty-eight  years  ago  I  inherited  a  piece  of  land  which  brings  me  800
livres; I shall live on that income. I save nothing out of my stipend, gen-
tlemen,  and that may be  why  I  am less  alarmed when people  speak of
taking it from me.'

   M.  de Renal lived  on excellent terms with his wife; but  not  knowing
what answer to make to the question, which she timidly repeated: 'What
harm  can  this  gentleman  from  Paris  do  to  the  prisoners?'  he  was  just
about to lose his temper altogether when she uttered a cry. Her second
son  had  climbed  upon  the  parapet  of  the  wall  of  the  terrace,  and  was
running along it, though this wall  rose more than twenty feet from the
vineyard beneath.  The fear of alarming her son and so making him fall
restrained  Madame  de  Renal  from  calling  him.  Finally  the  child,  who
was laughing at his own prowess, turned to look at his mother, noticed
how pale she was, sprang down upon the avenue and ran to join her. He
was well scolded.

   This little incident changed the course of the conversation.

   'I am quite determined to engage young Sorel, the sawyer's son,' said
M. de Renal; 'he will look after the children, who are beginning to be too
much  of  a handful  for  us.  He  is  a young  priest  or  thereabouts,  a  good
Latin scholar, and will bring the children on; for he has a strong charac-
ter, the cure says. I shall give him 300 francs and his board. I had some
doubts as to his morals; for he was the Benjamin of that old surgeon, the
Member of the Legion of Honour who on pretence of being their cousin
came to live with the Sorels. He might quite well have been nothing bet-
ter than a secret agent of the Liberals; he said that our mountain air was
good for his asthma; but  that has never been proved. He had served in
all  Buonaparte's  campaigns  in  Italy,   and  they  even   say  that  he  voted
against the Empire in his day. This Liberal taught young Sorel Latin, and
left him all the pile of books he brought here with him. Not that I should
ever have dreamed of having the carpenter's son with my children; but
the  cure,  only  the  day  before  the  scene  which  has  made  a  permanent
breach between us, told me that this Sorel has been studying theology for

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the last three years, with the idea of entering the Seminary; so he is not a
Liberal, and he is a Latin scholar.

   'This arrangement suits me in more ways than one,' M. de Renal went
on,  looking  at his  wife  with  an  air  of  diplomacy;  'Valenod is  tremend-
ously proud  of  the  two  fine  Norman  horses  he  has just  bought  for his
calash. But he has not got a tutor for his children.'

   'He is quite capable of taking this one from us.'

   'Then you approve of my plan?'  said M. de Renal, thanking his wife,
with a smile, for the excellent idea that had just  occurred to her.  'There,
that's settled.'

   'Oh, good gracious, my dear, how quickly you make up your mind!'

   'That is because I have a strong character, as the cure has had occasion
to see. Let us make no pretence about it, we are surrounded by Liberals
here. All these cloth merchants are jealous  of me, I am certain of it; two
or three  of them  are growing rich; very well,  I wish  them to  see M.  de
Renal's children go by, out walking in the care of their tutor. It will make
an  impression.  My  grandfather  used  often  to  tell  us  that  in  his  young
days he had had a tutor. It's a hundred crowns he's going to cost me, but
that  will  have  to  be  reckoned  as  a  necessary  expense  to  keep  up  our
position.'

   This sudden decision plunged Madame de Renal deep in thought. She
was a tall, well-made woman, who had been the beauty of the place, as
the saying is in this mountain district. She had a certain air of simplicity
and bore  herself  like  a girl; in the  eyes  of a Parisian, that  artless grace,
full  of  innocence  and  vivacity,  might  even  have  suggested  ideas  of  a
mildly passionate nature. Had she had wind of this kind of success, Ma-
dame  de  Renal  would  have  been  thoroughly  ashamed  of  it.  No  trace
either of coquetry or of affectation had ever appeared in her nature. M.
Valenod, the wealthy governor of the poorhouse, was supposed to have
paid  his  court  to her, but  without  success,  a failure which  had  given  a
marked distinction to her virtue; for this M. Valenod, a tall young man,
strongly built,  with  a vivid  complexion and bushy black  whiskers, was
one  of  those  coarse,  brazen,  noisy  creatures  who  in  the  provinces  are
called fine men.

   Madame de Renal, being extremely shy and liable to be swayed by her
moods, was offended chiefly by  the restless movements and loud voice
of M. Valenod. The distaste that she felt for what at Verrieres goes by the
name of gaiety had won her the reputation of being extremely proud of
her birth.  She never  gave it  a thought, but  had been  greatly pleased

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see  the  inhabitants  of  Verrieres  come  less  frequently  to  her  house.  We
shall not attempt to conceal the fact that she was reckoned a fool in the
eyes  of  their  ladies, because,  without  any  regard  for  her  husband's  in-
terests,  she  let  slip  the  most  promising  opportunities  of procuring  fine
hats from Paris or Besancon. Provided that she was left alone to stroll in
her fine garden, she never made any complaint.

   She was a simple soul, who had never risen even to the point of criti-
cising  her  husband,   and  admitting  that  he  bored     her. She  supposed,
without telling herself so, that between husband and wife there could be
no more tender relations. She was especially fond of M. de Renal when
he spoke to her of his plans for their children, one of whom he intended
to  place  in  the army,  the  second  on  the  bench,    and  the  third  in  the
church. In short, she found M. de Renal a great deal less boring than any
of the other men of her acquaintance.

   This  wifely  opinion  was  justified.  The  Mayor  of  Verrieres  owed  his
reputation for wit, and better still for good tone, to half a dozen pleasant-
ries  which  he  had  inherited  from  an  uncle.  This  old  Captain  de  Renal
had  served before  the  Revolution  in  the  Duke  of Orleans's  regiment  of
infantry, and, when he went to Paris, had had the right of entry into that
Prince's drawing-rooms. He had there seen Madame de Montesson, the
famous Madame de Genlis, M. Ducrest, the 'inventor' of the Palais-Royal.
These personages figured all too frequently in M. de Renal's stories. But
by degrees these memories of things that it required so much delicacy to
relate had become  a burden to him, and for some time now it was only
on solemn occasions that he would repeat his anecdotes of the House of
Orleans. As he was in other respects most refined, except when the talk
ran on money, he was regarded, and rightly, as the most aristocratic per-
sonage in Verrieres.

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明天继续~