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396 Julien did not leave with M. de la Mole before three o'clock in the morning.

The marquis seemed tired and ashamed. For the first time in his life in conversation with Julien, his tone was plaintive. He asked him for his word never to reveal the excesses of zeal, that was his expression, of which chance had just made him a witness. "Only mention it to our foreign friend, if he seriously insists on knowing what our young madmen are like. What does it matter to them if a state is overthrown, they will become cardinals and will take refuge in Rome. As for us, we shall be massacred by the peasants in our châteaus."

The secret note into which the marquis condensed Julien's full report of twenty-six pages was not ready before a quarter to five.

"I am dead tired," said the marquis, "as is quite obvious from the lack of clearness at the end of this note; I am more dissatisfied with it than with anything I ever did in my whole life. Look here, my friend," he added, "go and rest for some hours, and as I am frightened you might be kidnapped, I shall lock you up in your room."

The marquis took Julien on the following day to a lonely château at a good distance from Paris. There were strange guests there whom Julien thought were priests. He was given a passport which was made out in a fictitious name, but indicated the real destination of his journey, which he had always pretended not to know. He got into a carriage alone.

The marquis had no anxiety on the score of his memory. Julien had recited the secret note to him several times but he was very apprehensive of his being intercepted.

"Above all, mind you look like a coxcomb who is simply travelling to kill time," he said affectionately to him when he was leaving the salon. "Perhaps there was more than one treacherous brother in this evening's meeting."

The journey was quick and very melancholy. Julien had scarcely got out of the marquis's sight before he forgot his secret note and his mission, and only thought about Mathilde's disdain.

At a village some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came and told him that there were no horses. It was ten