some Rhine wine in a green glass and Madame Valenod made a point of asking him to note that this wine cost nine francs a bottle in the market. Julien held up his green glass and said to M. Valenod.
"They are not singing that wretched song any more."
"Zounds, I should think not," answered the triumphant governor. "I have made the rascals keep quiet."
These words were too much for Julien. He had the manners of his new position, but he had not yet assimilated its spirit. In spite of all his hypocrisy and its frequent practice, he felt a big tear drip down his cheek.
He tried to hide it in the green glass, but he found it absolutely impossible to do justice to the Rhine wine. "Preventing singing he said to himself: Oh, my God, and you suffer it."
Fortunately nobody noticed his ill-bred emotion. The collector of taxes had struck up a royalist song. "So this," reflected Julien's conscience during the hubbub of the refrain which was sung in chorus, "is the sordid prosperity which you will eventually reach, and you will only enjoy it under these conditions and in company like this. You will, perhaps, have a post worth twenty thousand francs; but while you gorge yourself on meat, you will have to prevent a poor prisoner from singing; you will give dinners with the money which you have stolen out of his miserable rations and during your dinners he will be still more wretched. Oh, Napoleon, how sweet it was to climb to fortune in your way through the dangers of a battle, but to think of aggravating the pain of the unfortunate in this cowardly way."
I own that the weakness which Julien had been manifesting in this soliloquy gives me a poor opinion of him. He is worthy of being the accomplice of those kid-gloved conspirators who purport to change the whole essence of a great country's existence, without wishing to have on their conscience the most trivial scratch.
Julien was sharply brought back to his rôle. He had not been invited to dine in such good company simply to moon dreamily and say nothing.
A retired manufacturer of cotton prints, a corresponding member of the Academy of Besançon and of that of Uzès, spoke to him from the other end of the table and asked him
