Chapter summary
In the continuation of the secret meeting, a cardinal argues that no armed party can be formed in France without the clergy, to whom everything must be conceded, beginning with the woods: England has no more money, the kings of Europe give no more than two campaigns without English gold, and only the clergy, guided by Rome, can make fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the appointed day and move the people, who supply the soldiers. He also asks that Monsieur de Nerval, the prime minister, leave the ministry. Nerval, present, declares that he has a mission from heaven and will fulfill it, and he leaves at a quarter to two, after studying the face of Julien Sorel in a mirror. The young bishop of Agde then proposes, with fanatical ardor, to immolate Paris, the new Babylon, and the meeting ends at three in the morning.
The secret note that the Marquis de La Mole draws up from Julien's twenty-six-page minutes is not ready until a quarter to five. The next day the marquis takes Julien to an isolated château, hands him a passport with a false name and sends him alone in a calèche, with the advice to appear merely a self-important fellow traveling to pass the time, because there may have been a traitor at the meeting. As soon as he is out of the marquis's sight, Julien thinks only of the contempt of Mathilde de La Mole. In a village near Metz the postmaster claims there are no horses, and the Neapolitan singer Geronimo, whom Julien meets in the inn's kitchen, reveals to him that more than twelve men are hidden there. That night Father Castanède, former assistant director of the seminary of Besançon, together with the postmaster, searches Julien's luggage and pockets while Julien pretends to sleep, and the singer, who had drunk wine laced with laudanum, half-suffocates. Julien sets out alone, recites the four pages to the great personage in a low-class café, receives orders to be there again on the 22nd, and heads for Strasbourg. Father Castanède, chief of the Congregation's police along the entire northern frontier, fortunately did not recognize him at the inn.
Analysis
The cardinal wants the clergy in the party because he knows that the people, who supply the soldiers, obey the priest more than the world; and he asks for the woods because, without them, the clergy has nothing and is at the mercy of the minister of Finance. Julien carries the conspiracy on his back while his head is elsewhere: once he is out of the marquis's sight, he thinks only of Mathilde's contempt. He lives two dramas at once, that of the state and hers.
The cardinal: Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day set by the leaders, and the people, who after all supply the soldiers, will be moved more by the voice of their priests than by worldly little verses
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