Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830

Chapter one A Small Town Put thousands together Less bad, But the cage less gay. Hobbes The little town of Verrieres might be one of the prettiest in all Franche-Comte. Its white houses with their sharp-pointed roofs of red tile stretch down a hillside, every faint ripple in the long slope marked by thick clusters of chestnut trees. A few hundred feet below the ruins of the ancient fortress, built by the Spanish, runs the River Doubs. To the north, Verrieres is sheltered by a great mountain, part of the Jura range. The first frosts of October cover these jagged peaks with snow. A stream that rushes down from the mountains, crossing through Verrieres and then pouring itself into the Doubs, powers a good many sawmillsan immensely simple industry that provides a modest living for most of the inhabitants, more peasant than bourgeois. But the sawmills are not what brought prosperity to the little town. It was the production of printed calico cloth, known as "Mulhouse," which ever since the fall of Napoleon has created widespread comfort and led to the refinishing of virtually every house in Verrieres. Just inside the town, there is a stunning roar from a machine of frightful appearance. Twenty ponderous hammers, falling over and over with a crash that makes the ground tremble, are lifted by a wheel that the stream keeps in motion. Every one of these hammers, each and every day, turns out I don't know how many thousands of nails. And it's pretty, smooth-cheeked young girls who offer pieces of iron to these enormous hammers, which quickly transform them into nails. This operation, visibly harsh and violent, is one of the things that most astonishes a first-time traveler, poking his way into the mountains separating France and Switzerland. And if the traveler, entering Verrieres, asks who owns this noble nail-making factory, deafening everyone who walks along the main street, he'll be told, in the drawling accent of the region, "Ahit belongs to His Honor the Mayor." If the traveler spends just a moment or two on Verrieres's grand thoroughfare, which ascends along the bank of the Doubs right up to the top of the hill, the odds are a hundred to one he'll see a tall man with an air both businesslike and important. As soon as he appears, every hat is respectfully raised. His hair is grizzled, he's dressed in gray. He wears the insignia of several knightly orders; his forehead is lofty, his nose aquiline, and taking him all in all there's a certain orderliness about him. At first sight, one even feels that he blends the dignity of mayoral status with the sort of charm still often to be found in a man of forty-five or fifty. But it does not take long for a Parisian traveler to be struck, most unfavorably, by clear signs of self-satisfaction and conceit, topped off by who knows what limitations, what lack of originality. Finally, one is aware that his talents are confined to making sure he is paid exactly what he is owed, while paying what he himself owes only at the last possible moment. This then is Monsieur de Renal, mayor of Verrieres. Crossing the street with solemn steps, he goes into City Hall and disappears from the traveler's sight. But if the traveler keeps on walking, no more than another hundred paces up the hill he will see a distinguished-looking house and, if he looks through an adjoining wrought-iron gate, a very fine garden. Beyond that, he will see a horizon shaped by Burgundian hills, which seems to have been put there expressly for the purpose of pleasing the eye. This view will help the traveler forget the foul smell of petty financial transactions, which had begun to asphyxiate him. He is informed that this houseStendhal is the author of 'Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830' with ISBN 9780394605111 and ISBN 039460511X.