Chapter summary
Freed from the priest, Julien Sorel weeps because he is going to die, and he laments that Madame de Rênal is not in Besançon to hear the confession of his weakness. Mathilde de La Mole tells him what the Abbé de Frilair said about Valenod and about the speech, and he sends her away, and then Fouqué, because he needs to be alone. The next day the old carpenter, Father Sorel, arrives with reproaches, and Julien disarms him by speaking of his savings and of the will, but the father still presents the bill for education expenses. After the visit, Julien has two galley convicts brought into his cell, along with champagne. He concludes that there is no natural right, and that the salons live on crimes like those of the galley convicts. On a night when he thinks of killing himself, he reviews religion and hypocrisy until he concludes that what isolates him is the absence of Madame de Rênal, and he laughs like Mephistopheles. When Fouqué arrives, Julien is strong and resolute, like a man who sees clearly into his own soul.
Analysis
Julien sends away Mathilde and Fouqué because he needs to be alone to weep over his own weakness and over Madame de Rênal's absence. He disarms his father by speaking of the will, and the father presents the bill. He accepts the champagne the jailer offers after the visit of his parents, has two galley convicts brought in, and, having heard the story of one of them, concludes that the honest men of the salons live on equal crimes. The night in which he thinks of killing himself ends with the conclusion that what isolates him is her absence.
Mathilde later tells Julien what happened within Frilair's arrangement, which was meant to acquit him:
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