Chapter summary
Julien Sorel arrives for dinner and sees Mathilde de La Mole in full mourning, the only one in black in the family. The academician tells him it is April 30, the day Boniface de La Mole and Coconasso were beheaded at the Place de Grève, in 1574, and that Queen Margaret of Navarre, La Mole's lover, is said to have buried his head herself. In the following weeks, Mathilde walks with Julien in the garden, reads Brantôme and d'Aubigné, and confesses that she loves the century of the wars of the Holy League, while Julien wavers between suspecting a hoax and thinking she is courting him.
Analysis
Mathilde dresses in mourning on April 30 to honor La Mole, her beheaded lover, and the scene is the heroic love script she already has. Julien, unaware, helps her by completing the line about the hero of the century. He wavers between suspecting a hoax and thinking he is being courted, because, coming from below, he has no way of knowing what she wants.
Mathilde had already seen in this story, before Julien arrived at the house, the model of love she accepts: "The wars of the Holy League are the heroic times of France [...] Each then fought to obtain what he desired [...] I love that century." To which Julien adds, unaware of the effect, "Whose hero was Boniface de La Mole." Mathilde replies: "At least he was loved as one should be loved. What woman today would not shudder to touch the head of her beheaded lover?"
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