"The marquis adds this: 'M. Julien de la Vernaye will have received this money from his father, whom it is needless to call by any other name. M. de la Vernaye will perhaps think it proper to give a present to M. Sorel, a carpenter of Verrières, who cared for him in his childhood.…' I can undertake that commission," added the abbé. "I have at last prevailed upon M. de la Mole to come to a settlement with that Jesuit, the abbé de Frilair. His influence is unquestionably too much for us. The complete recognition of your high birth on the part of this man, who is in fact the governor of B will be one of the unwritten terms of the arrangement." Julien could no longer control his ecstasy. He embraced the abbé. He saw himself recognised.
"For shame," said M. Pirard, pushing him away. " What is the meaning of this worldly vanity? As for Sorel and his sons, I will offer them in my own name a yearly allowance of five hundred francs, which will be paid to each of them as long as I am satisfied with them."
Julien was already cold and haughty. He expressed his thanks, but in the vaguest terms which bound him to nothing. "Could it be possible," he said to himself, "that I am the natural son of some great nobleman who was exiled to our mountains by the terrible Napoleon?" This idea seemed less and less improbable every minute.… "My hatred of my father would be a proof of this.… In that case, I should not be an unnatural monster after all."
A few days after this soliloquy the Fifteenth Regiment of Hussars, which was one of the most brilliant in the army, was being reviewed on the parade ground of Strasbourg. M. the chevalier de La Vernaye sat the finest horse in Alsace, which had cost him six thousand francs. He was received as a lieutenant, though he had never been sub-lieutenant except on the rolls of a regiment of which he had never heard.
His impassive manner, his stern and almost malicious eyes, his pallor, and his invariable self-possession, founded his reputation from the very first day. Shortly afterwards his perfect and calculated politeness, and his skill at shooting and fencing, of which, though without any undue ostentation, he made his comrades aware, did away, with all idea of making fun of him openly. After hesitating for five or six days, the public opinion of the regiment declared itself in his favour.
