  A prevailing description of the stripe phase in underdoped cuprate
superconductors is that the charge carriers (holes) phase segregate on a
microscopic scale into hole rich and hole poor regions. We report resonant
elastic x-ray scattering measurements of stripe-ordered
La$_{1.475}$Nd$_{0.4}$Sr$_{0.125}$CuO$_4$ at the Cu $L$ and O $K$ absorption
edges that identify an additional feature of stripe order. Analysis of the
energy dependence of the scattering intensity reveals that the dominant
signature of the stripe order is a spatial modulation in the energies of Cu 3d
and O 2p states rather than the large modulation of the charge density
(valence) envisioned in the common stripe paradigm. These energy shifts are
interpreted as a spatial modulation of the electronic structure and may point
to a valence-bond-solid interpretation of the stripe phase.
