Chapter summary
In a café on the Rue Saint-Honoré, a man in a frock coat insults Julien Sorel and throws calling cards at him. With Lieutenant Liévin as his second, Julien goes to the home of the gentleman Charles de Beauvoisis, whose name is on the cards, and finds a fop who is not the man from the café. On leaving, he recognizes in Beauvoisis's coachman the insulter (he had stolen the cards) and thrashes him with his whip; the duel takes place, and Julien takes a bullet in the arm and returns in his opponent's carriage, finding their conversation more amusing than Lieutenant Liévin's. To escape ridicule, Beauvoisis spreads that Julien is the natural son of a friend of the Marquis de La Mole, a rumor the marquis decides to lend credibility to, and which sends Julien to the Opera to rid him of provincial manners.
Analysis
Julien pursues the insult to Beauvoisis's house and whips the coachman: he treats the offense as a matter of honor, the same logic as the ten o'clock deadline beneath the linden tree, when he bound himself to take Madame de Rênal's hand or else kill himself. Beauvoisis, to escape ridicule, spreads that Julien is the natural son of a friend of the marquis; the marquis resolves to make the rumor credible, and through the duel Julien gains what his blood denied him.
After the duel, in the carriage, Julien discovers something the La Mole salon never gave him: people of the same caste who allow themselves to laugh at the Corpus Christi procession and tell racy stories without fear of ridicule. The difference between the boredom of the La Mole mansion and the lightness of Beauvoisis is not one of class but of risk: whoever is born safe can afford indecency.
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