"The abbé Castanède is the enemy of Pirard, who is suspected of Jansenism," added the little seminarist in a whisper. All the first steps of our hero were, in spite of the prudence on which he plumed himself, as much mistakes as his choice of a confessor. Misled as he was by all the self-confidence of a man of imagination, he took his projects for facts, and believed that he was a consummate hypocrite. His folly went so far as to reproach himself for his success in this kind of weakness.
"Alas, it is my only weapon," he said to himself. "At another period I should have earned my livelihood by eloquent deeds in the face of the enemy."
Satisfied as he was with his own conduct, Julien looked around him. He found everywhere the appearance of the purest virtue.
Eight or ten seminarists lived in the odour of sanctity, and had visions like Saint Theresa, and Saint Francis, when he received his stigmata on Mount Vernia in the Appenines. But it was a great secret and their friends concealed it. These poor young people who had visions were always in the infirmary. A hundred others combined an indefatigable application to a robust faith. They worked till they fell ill, but without learning much. Two or three were distinguished by a real talent, amongst others a student of the name of Chazel, but both they and Julien felt mutually unsympathetic.
The rest of these three hundred and twenty-one seminarists consisted exclusively of coarse persons, who were by no means sure of understanding the Latin words which they kept on repeating the livelong day. Nearly all were the sons of peasants, and they preferred to gain their livelihood by reciting some Latin words than by ploughing the earth. It was after this examination of his colleagues that Julien, during the first few days, promised himself a speedy success.
"Intelligent people are needed in every service," he said to himself, "for, after all, there is work to be done. I should have been a sergeant under Napoleon. I shall be a grand vicar among these future curés."
"All these poor devils," he added, "manual labourers as they have been since their childhood, have lived on curded milk and black bread up till they arrived here. They would only eat meat five or six times a year in their hovels. Like
