Chapter summary
A month passes without the negotiation advancing, because the Marquis de La Mole alternates three-day enthusiasms and cannot forgive. In one of them he writes, donating the Languedoc estates, which yield twenty thousand six hundred francs, to his daughter and to Julien Sorel. Hidden in the presbytery of Abbé Pirard, Julien sees Mathilde de La Mole almost every day. The unexpected fortune makes him ambitious, while she, impatient, threatens to leave her father's house and marry with Pirard's help. After first thinking of making Julien disappear and then, the same day, of giving him a fortune and even a peerage, the marquis sends a commission as lieutenant in the hussars to the chevalier Julien Sorel de La Vernaye, with orders to leave for Strasbourg within twenty-four hours. Mathilde demands that the marriage be made public within a month, but her father replies that he will retract everything if he is not obeyed. She yields and hides Julien's letter. On learning that he is a lieutenant and has changed his name, Julien concludes that his romance is over.
Analysis
The marquis gives away the lands and sends the commission because he can neither forgive nor refuse. He alternates three-day enthusiasms and resolves the impasse with a name and a regiment, which give his future son-in-law a place that blood did not give him. Mathilde demands a public marriage within a month. Her father retracts everything if he is not obeyed, and she yields and hides Julien's letter.
Refrain from further follies. Here is a lieutenant's commission in the hussars for the Chevalier Julien Sorel de La Vernaye. [...] Let him leave within the next twenty-four hours to report to Strasbourg, where his regiment is stationed.
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