Chapter summary
Mathilde de La Mole imagines her love for Julien Sorel as that of Margaret of Valois for La Mole, without contract or notary, and concludes that, if he were noble, it would be only an unequal alliance. The next day, praising him to Croisenois and Norbert, she hears from her brother that if the revolution starts again, Julien will send them to the guillotine; after the shock, she decides that this is the greatest of compliments ("He'll be a Danton!"). When Caylus and the others attack Julien, she dismantles them, and the uncertainty about whether Julien loves her comes to occupy her days and drive out boredom.
Analysis
Mathilde takes her brother's warning as praise because her criterion is the opposite of the salon's: what threatens her class proves that the man has strength. That is why she dismantles Caylus and the others when they attack Julien, and the doubt about whether he loves her occupies her days and drives out boredom.
If, despite his poverty, Julien were noble, my love would be nothing more than a vulgar folly, merely an unequal alliance; that I would not accept; there would be nothing of what characterizes great passions: the enormous difficulty to be overcome and the obscure uncertainty of events.
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