CHAPTER LXIV
A MAN OF INTELLECT
The prefect said to himself as he rode along the highway on horseback, "why should I not be a minister, a president of the council, a duke? This is how I should make war … By these means I should have all the reformers put in irons."—The Globe.
No argument will succeed in destroying the paramount influence of ten years of agreeable dreaming. The marquis thought it illogical to be angry, but could not bring himself to forgive. "If only this Julien could die by accident," he sometimes said to himself. It was in this way that his depressed imagination found a certain relief in running after the most absurd chimæras. They paralysed the influence of the wise arguments of the abbé Pirard. A month went by in this way without negotiations advancing one single stage.
The marquis had in this family matter, just as he had in politics, brilliant ideas over which he would be enthusiastic for two or three days. And then a line of tactics would fail to please him because it was based on sound arguments, while arguments only found favour in his eyes in so far as they were based on his favourite plan. He would work for three days with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a poet on bringing matters to a certain stage; on the following day he would not give it a thought.
Julien was at first disconcerted by the slowness of the marquis; but, after some weeks, he began to surmise that M. de La Mole had no definite plan with regard to this matter. Madame de La Mole and the whole household believed that Julien was travelling in the provinces in connection with the administration of the estates; he was in hiding in the parsonage
