Who He Is
Vicar general of Besançon, a man of the congregation, who dreams of the bishopric. In Chapter 5 of Book I, the Ultraroyalist clerical network named in passing in Verrières will take full bodily form in him.
The dispute over the four marble columns of Verrières' new church, which Julien admires, names the power that decides who is right in town:
they became famous throughout the region, for the deadly hatred they aroused between the justice of the peace and the young vicar sent from Besançon, regarded as a spy for the congregation.
Trajectory
In Chapter 29 of Book I, he is the adversary of Abbé Pirard in the factional dispute between the clergy tied to the congregation and the Jansenist clergy.
The adversary returns the accusation in the same factional vocabulary:
This one felt outraged by the insolence, and coming from a mere little Jansenist, at that!
In the general examination, an examiner tied to him lets Julien recite Horace and marks him down for "profane studies"; Frilair demotes Julien to 198th place out of revenge against Pirard, a dispute that runs in parallel with his lawsuit against the Marquis de La Mole over an inheritance of land.
The reach of the net that sets up this revenge is described without euphemism:
that skillful man who had so wisely organized the network of the Besançon congregation, and whose letters to Paris made judges, the governor and even the officers of the garrison tremble, had written with his own hand the number 198 beside Julien's name.
In Chapter 13 of Book II, the book groups Father Castanède with Maslon and Frilair; Julien had known Castanède as deputy director of the seminary (see the seminary at Besançon). In Chapter 23 of Book II, he reappears as an agent of the congregation and is the one who searches Julien's luggage on the mission carrying the secret note.
In Chapter 38 of Book II, Mathilde de La Mole negotiates with him behind the scenes; she feels herself in Paris when she sees the luxury of the episcopal palace. He says he can manipulate a good part of the list of drawn jurors.
On the eve of the trial, in Chapter 41 of Book II, he guarantees Mathilde the jury's verdict:
Among the twelve persons charged with examining whether the crime of my protégé is beyond dispute and, above all, whether there was premeditation, I count on six friends devoted to my cause, and I have let them understand that it depends on them to bring me to the bishopric.
He names Valenod as the instrument who drags the rest of the jury along.
It is the missing piece needed to understand fully Julien's speech from the dock: when he tells the jurors that he is not being judged by his peers, the jury before him is no longer the impartial body that the law envisaged, but a majority worked on by a cleric in exchange for an ecclesiastical post, and it is Valenod who breaks the agreement, delighting in condemning his former rival now that he has the governorship in his pocket. The class accusation in the speech has, beneath it, a very concrete class manipulation, and it is this that turns against Julien.
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Power, Religion, and Justice and law.
Frilair is the thread that links Julien's three fronts: at the seminary he decides Julien's place in the examination, in Paris he is the opposing party in the marquis's lawsuit, and at the end he says he counts on six friends on the jury. The hand that wrote 198 beside Julien's name is the same that, by its own mouth, counts on the six.
Relationships
- Abbé Pirard: the Jansenist adversary, punished through him by Julien's demotion.
- Marquis de La Mole: the opposing party in the inheritance lawsuit.
- Mathilde de La Mole: who negotiates with him for Julien's salvation.
- Valenod: his instrument on the jury.
- Julien Sorel: demoted by him at the seminary and tried by the jury he claims to control.