“Julien’s confessor, even being the devout Jansenist he was, could not help being the screen for a Jesuit scheme, and, without knowing it, becoming the Jesuits’ instrument.
. . . . he needed to make as a big a show as possible about having reformed his sinful soul.
. . . . .
“Your awakening will find an echo in their hearts and will make a profound impression. You can be of major importance to religion, and the trifling reasoning of the Jesuits, in similar situations, does not give me pause. Even in this special case, which has escaped their rapacity, they would still act destructively. They should not be allowed to . . . . The tears that your awakening will cause to flow will wipe out the corrosive effect of ten editions of Voltaire’s impious works.”
“And what will I have left,” Julien responded coldly, “if I turn, contemptuously, against myself? I have been ambitious, but I have no intention of calling that blameworthy. I was simply following the conventions of my time. Now I live from day to day. But as people here see these things, I would be making myself seriously miserable were I to surrender to such cowardice . . . .”
The Red and the Black (482-483)
