Chapter summary
Julien Sorel notices that no teacher appreciates his humility, except Father Chas-Bernard, director of ceremonies of the cathedral, who talks to him for hours about vestments and the old Présidente de Rubempré. On the eve of Corpus Christi, Abbé Pirard has him help decorate the cathedral. Julien works on the ladders, climbs to the canopy over the high altar to set the bouquets of feathers where the Parisian upholsterers did not dare, and shares a cheerful meal with him. During the procession, watching the north aisle of the empty church, he recognizes Madame de Rênal, who faints on hearing his footsteps, and Madame Derville harshly sends him away. Chas-Bernard, seeing Julien pale, gives up presenting him to the bishop.
Analysis
Madame de Rênal faints because, turning her head at the sound of footsteps, she recognizes Julien, and love and remorse return at once. Madame Derville sends him away harshly because she has always distrusted the affair and sees in him the cause of her friend's suffering. Chas-Bernard, seeing him pale, gives up presenting him to the bishop.
The one human exception in this world is Father Chas-Bernard, director of ceremonies, whose professional vanity (the vestments, the candlesticks, the cathedral's ornaments) is naive and sincere, not calculated. Julien, trained to sniff out ulterior motives in everyone, waits for the blow that never comes, and concludes: And yet he has worked hard, he is happy [...]. What a man! What an example for me!
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