Discussion Questions

Stendhal opens the novel with a town and only then reaches the hero. What does the portrait of Verrières, with its sawmills, the mayor's nail factory, and the terraced garden of walls, already say about the kind of world in which Julien will have to make his way?

Rênal has come to think he could have paid less for the land since the Sunday he saw old Sorel smile at him from afar, and the narrator speaks of the "tyranny of opinion." What does this fear of a smile show about who, in fact, rules a small town?

The narrator calls "YIELD A PROFIT" the "great word" of Verrières and says it sums up the habitual thought of more than three-quarters of the inhabitants. What does it mean, for those who live there, to have a single measure for deciding everything?

Rênal has the plane trees pruned down to the limit and, to the chief surgeon who complains, replies that he likes the shade and that, unlike the useful walnut, a tree that yields no profit serves only to give shade. What does this argument reveal about the way he looks at beauty and at what is public?

If "yielding a profit" is the moral criterion of Verrières, what can be said of Julien's hypocrisy, which also measures everything by calculation? Is the difference between the two one of degree, of awareness of one's own game, or something else?

Faced with the complaints of Rênal and Valenod, the curé Chélan answers with the fifty-six years in which he baptized and married the residents, and says he is ready to be dismissed. What kind of authority is this, one that is not measured in money, and is it enough to protect the one who holds it?

Julien is found mounted on a beam in the sawmill, reading, deaf to his father's call, and receives a blow that knocks the book into the stream. Why does the father despise in his son precisely the reading, and what does the scene show about what each of the two calls work?

When Rênal offers three hundred francs a year and meals, Father Sorel, who also manages to wring out a clothing allowance, listens "with that air of dissatisfied sadness" and asks to consult his son. What does this way of negotiating show about how a shrewd peasant treats someone richer and more powerful than he is?

Julien admires Napoleon as a model of rising through his own merit, but he hides it and feigns devotion. Is it possible to separate, in him, legitimate ambition (rising through talent, in a society that closes its doors on the poor) from corrupted ambition (rising by any means, including lies)? Where, in this chapter and the previous one, does the text already show the crack between the two?

Julien memorizes the New Testament in Latin without believing in it, and the narrator asks the reader for patience with the "horrible word" the boy has reached. In explaining the path of Julien's soul up to that point, does the narrator condemn him, excuse him, or do something else?

Madame de Rênal falls for Julien's physical delicacy before knowing who he is, and Julien calculates every gesture before her from the first day. Must the reader trust in some point of real spontaneity on his part, or is everything, already in chapter VI, staging?

Julien arrives at the Rênal house and immediately thinks: "How happy these rich people are!" In what way might the happiness he sees in others, and attributes to wealth, be shaping what he will want to win?

Madame de Rênal loves in Julien "the generosity, the nobility of soul, the humanity" that she sees in no one else around her. Is she right about his character, or is she projecting onto a calculating young man the virtues her own husband lacks?

Rênal answers the idea of giving Julien clothes by saying that one does not give presents to "a man with whom we are absolutely satisfied," and that zeal is stimulated only in one who becomes negligent. What idea of work and gratitude is built into this logic, and what does it leave for those who serve?

After Julien refuses Élisa, he hears from Chélan that, being a priest, he will have to "make a fortune in this world or in the next," and to justify the refusal he invents a slander against her. What do the curé's advice and the means Julien chooses to be rid of Élisa already show about his way of deciding?

Madame de Rênal thinks of the passions as we think of the lottery, and her excess of happiness on learning that Julien refused the maid almost takes away her reason. What does the text suggest about the distance between what she thinks she knows of love and what she is already feeling?

Julien sets himself a deadline: when the clock strikes ten, either he takes Madame de Rênal's hand or he goes up to his room and blows his brains out. Why does he treat a gesture of seduction as a question of honor, and what does this say about what he seeks in her?

Hand in hand with Julien under the linden, Madame de Rênal "thought of nothing, let herself live," while he had spent the whole day calculating. What contrast does the chapter set up between the two of them, and which of them is closer to what is usually called love?

Julien confronts Rênal in front of the servants, wrests the raise, and, in the woods, tells himself: "I have won a battle!" Why does he describe a discussion about salary as a battle, and what is gained and what is lost by seeing life this way?

At the top of the rock, Julien envies a hawk's strength and isolation and wonders whether Napoleon's destiny will be his. What does the image of the bird of prey say about the kind of greatness he desires, and what does it leave out?

Julien decides to take Madame de Rênal's hand in front of her husband, to mock him, and back in his room he calls "pure Napoleon" the plan to exploit the battle won against Rênal, crushing the employer's pride with three days off. What does it mean to treat the household and seduction as a military campaign, and what does the narrator seem to think of it?

On discovering that she is in love, Madame de Rênal is seized with the terror of the word "adultery" and resolves to treat Julien with perfect coldness. Why does she first feel love as a threat of public punishment, and what does this show about the education she received?

Julien refuses Fouqué's offer, to be his partner or, if he prefers, to receive four thousand francs a year from him, saying that his vocation for the holy ministry does not allow him to accept. What reason seems to move the young man in truth, and why does he choose precisely the vocation as an excuse?

Alone and far from any gaze, Julien knows the greatest happiness he has had until then, made of daydreams and of the "enjoyment of freedom." Why does his greatest happiness appear where there is no one to see him, and what does this say about the life he chooses to lead among others?

On his return, Julien notices that since the day before yesterday he has not once thought of Madame de Rênal, while she, who spent the absence in torment, appears in lace stockings and Paris slippers. What does each of them reveal of himself or herself through these gestures, and why does the chapter emphasize this difference between the two?

Julien distrusts Madame de Rênal ("God knows how many lovers she has had!") and, on saying "so well-born," feels that in her eyes he is not well-born. In what way does class contaminate, in Julien, the reading he makes of other people's feelings?

Julien draws up a "plan of campaign" because his pride "would leave nothing to chance," and it is the plan that makes him clumsy before Madame de Rênal. Why does calculation get in the way precisely where he most wants to succeed?

Madame de Rênal asks whether he has no other name besides Julien, and he does not know what to answer; later she tells him, "Be prudent, it is an order!" What do the two scenes show about who leads the relationship at this moment, and about what Julien does not know how to do?

If not even the conquest of Madame de Rênal, the first great success of the book, gives Julien the happiness he expected, what does this foreshadow about the kind of ambition that drives him? Does he want something for himself, or does he only want not to lose?

Julien arrives at Madame de Rênal's room trembling, forgets the plans, falls at her feet in tears, and it is then that she accepts him. Why is the gesture without calculation the one that works, after so many plans that only left him clumsy?

At lunch the next day, Julien's conduct was "a masterpiece of prudence," while Madame de Rênal could not look at him without blushing. What difference does this scene mark between loving and performing, and what does each of the two risk by behaving this way?

The narrator says that Julien's love "was still ambition," made of the joy of possessing a woman so noble and so beautiful. Is this love worth less for being born of ambition, or does the novel suggest that no love is born pure?

When Julien praises Napoleon in the orchard, Madame de Rênal frowns, and he concludes that she was "raised in enemy territory." Can love exist between two people who see the world from opposite sides, and how does the chapter show the two of them getting around this?

Julien learns from Madame de Rênal the intrigues of Verrières and discovers that the dispute over the post of deputy mayor, between the devout Moirod and a very rich manufacturer, hides the interest of those who do not want their houses moved back for the widening of the street. Why, in this town, do devotion and interest go together, and what does Julien learn from noticing it?

Julien parades as an honor guard, on one of Valenod's Norman horses, and for a moment feels himself Napoleon's orderly; then he swaps the uniform for the cassock. What does the episode say about the young man's relationship with the two garments, and what does the town see when it sees him dressed this way?

Julien surprises the young bishop of Agde rehearsing blessings before the mirror and, instead of being disappointed, comes away dazzled. What does he see there, and why does the rehearsal, which seems to unmask the theater, not shake the prestige of the Church in his eyes?

Madame de Rênal treats adultery as a crime and at the same time says she would commit it again. Can both be sustained at once, or is one of them there for others to see?

In Cholin's petition, the holder of the lottery agency must be replaced because he is very ill and "votes badly in elections." What does the request show about what Verrières understands by merit, and what does this mean for a young man like Julien, who also has to win a place through the appearance of devotion?

Madame de Rênal, who a chapter earlier saw herself condemned, writes Julien a plan with precise orders, down to "arm yourself with patience and a pair of scissors." What does this change show about how guilt and action coexist in her?

To free Julien, Madame de Rênal assembles a second anonymous letter, cut out and pasted on paper that came from Valenod's house, so that her husband will accuse the rival. What does the ease of this lie say about the woman who invents it, and about the world she lives in?

Rênal spends the night imagining killing his wife, expelling her, or pretending to know nothing, and concludes that the scandal would cost him dearly. What does his decision show about what he loves, and about what restrains him?

The narrator says that "it is by blows of public contempt that a husband kills his wife," closing the doors of the salons to her. What does this sentence explain about the fear that moves both Madame de Rênal and her husband?

At Valenod's house, Julien weeps on hearing the director of the poorhouse say he had the prisoner who was singing silenced and, shortly afterward, recites the New Testament and becomes the fashion. What does this weeping reveal about the limits of Julien's hypocrisy?

Rênal and Valenod begin to compete for Julien as tutor, one humiliated to see his own name on the last line of the brotherhood collections, the other dependent on the vicar general. What does the dispute show about who holds power in Verrières, and what does it make possible for Julien?

Abbé Chélan settles Julien's problem by sending him away without discussing the sin with him. Is this protection, or is the Church dispatching a problem through another door?

Upon the singer Geronimo, who goes to London with a salary of sixty thousand francs after a theatrical trick, Julien thinks that it is "better to be a Geronimo than a Rênal." What does the singer offer as a model, and how does he illuminate the idea of success that Julien holds?

Julien arrives in Besançon in civilian clothes and, before the ramparts, dreams of the lieutenant's uniform. Why does he still see the world through the uniform when he is about to enter the cassock?

In Besançon, Julien recites Julie, or the New Heloise by heart to seduce Amanda, nearly fights a duel with one of her lovers, and soon thinks that between the seminary and the prison "there must not be much difference." What world does he feel he is leaving behind, and what does he fear to find?

Julien faints when Abbé Pirard stares at him and asks his name, and the narrator quotes a philosopher's explanation, "the violent impression of ugliness on a soul made to love what is beautiful," adding that the philosopher may be mistaken. What other explanation for the faint does the text allow?

Pirard is surprised by how much Julien knows of Scripture, but finds it strange that he barely knows the Fathers of the Church, and sees in this "the fatal tendency toward Protestantism" that he reproaches in Chélan. Why is knowing much of the Bible and little of the tradition suspect, and what does this show about the Church Julien is entering?

If successful hypocrisy requires training even the way one eats an egg, what is left of Julien when he finally learns to do all this without effort?

On seeing that at the seminary science is worth little, Julien thinks: "And I was a fool to be proud!", referring to his ease in grasping nonsense. What does the seminary reward that Verrières did not reward, and what does Julien lose or gain by discovering this?

The narrator says that, in one who is not much considered, the habit of reasoning is a crime, "for every good reasoning offends," and the fellow students nickname Julien Martin Luther because of his logic. Why is thinking well dangerous in this place, and who is more exposed, the one who reasons or the one who obeys?

At the first thunder, the fellow student "in the odor of sanctity" pushes Julien away, saying "every man for himself in this world." What does this scene show about the devotion of the seminary, when set beside the faith Julien saw in Madame de Rênal?

Julien watches Father Chas-Bernard, happy with vestments and candlesticks, wait for the blow that does not come, and concludes: "What a man! What an example for me!" Why does a young man who distrusts everyone recognize in this priest something he admires, and what does he lack to imitate him?

Madame Derville tells Julien that "your presence must cause her horror," speaking of Madame de Rênal, who fainted on hearing his footsteps. She is right, and what does the faint say about the matter?

Pirard warns Julien that his companions will never look at him without hating him, and that if they pretend to love him it will be only to betray him more easily. Why is the strictest man in the seminary the one who speaks to him frankly, and how does that frankness differ from the care Julien finds in the others?

The masons of the cloister recall that in Napoleon's time a mason could become an officer, and Julien repeats their nostalgia under his breath. What changes when his Bonapartism stops being a reader's taste and appears as the feeling of ordinary people?

Julien sees in Fouqué's warning only the "narrowness of mind of a provincial bourgeois," since he was about to finally act on the "stage of great events." What does he gain, and what does he lose, by seeing his own life as a stage?

Julien overcomes Madame de Rênal's resistance only when he announces, with calculated coldness, that he is leaving forever, and the narrator says that her return to tender feelings and the erasing of her remorse, obtained through artifice, "were no more than a pleasure." Did he win or lose that night?

In the stagecoach, Saint-Giraud says that Bonaparte "made possible the reign of the Rênals and the Chélans, which brought in the reign of the Valenods and the Maslons." What chain of causes does he trace, and how can Julien, who venerates Napoleon, accept that account?

Faced with the family's name engraved in black marble above the mansion's door, Julien thinks: "They are so afraid of the Jacobins!" How does that fear explain the way these people display themselves, and what does it reveal about the world Julien is about to serve?

Julien is delighted by the library, but the marquis, seeing him misspell a word, thinks the whole experiment was wasted time, and only at dinner does he discover that Julien knows Latin. What does the scene suggest about what counts as knowledge in the La Mole house?

At the first dinner, a discussion of Horace restores Julien's confidence and the marquis's esteem. Why is it Latin, and not salon conversation, that gives him a voice there, and what does that say about the place he occupies in the house?

Mathilde tries in vain to hide a laugh at Julien's fall and, indiscreetly, wants details; he tells everything with simplicity and ends up laughing with her. What does that simplicity achieve that a subtler calculation perhaps could not?

Julien feels "totally isolated" in a family that treats him with kindness, and his blunders are the servants' delight. What makes everyone's kindness insufficient for him to feel welcome?

Julien notes the names and character of the salon's regulars to find his bearings, and the narrator says that there a living idea, however slight, "seemed like rudeness." What kind of society needs to forbid the idea, and what does it protect by doing so?

Pirard calls the salon a den and warns that the marquis does not like scribblers, and Julien goes up to his room and burns a manuscript of his own. What does he sacrifice at that moment, and what does the gesture recall from other times when he hid or burned something that was his?

Count Altamira, condemned to death in his country, is a liberal and at the same time devout, and Julien is surprised, since for him the idea of religion was linked "to hypocrisy and the hope of making money." What does Altamira's figure shake in Julien's image of faith?

The La Mole salon gives Julien a "deadly boredom," and he resolves never to speak to Mathilde. Why does he choose silence as his defense, and what is gained and lost by that choice?

On the way to the duel, in the opponent's carriage, Julien finds these gentlemen less tedious than the marquis's guests and concludes that they "allow themselves to be indecent." Why are the boredom of some and the lightness of others part of the same class, and what does that say about what fear does to people?

To escape ridicule, Beauvoisis spreads that Julien is the natural son of a friend of the marquis, and the rumor passes without difficulty. What does the episode show about the value of birth in a society that claims to measure everything by lineage?

The marquis compares his affection for Julien to what one might feel for "a fine cocker spaniel," and asks where the impropriety lies. What kind of attachment is this, and what place does it give Julien in the house?

After giving the Verrières lottery to old Cholin without knowing that the post had been requested for someone else, Julien concludes that "it will be necessary to commit just as many injustices" if he wants to win. How does this lesson change the way he sees power and his own merit?

At the ball, Mathilde thinks that only a death sentence honors a man, because it is "the one thing that cannot be bought." Why does this seem to her the only true honor, and what does her maxim leave out?

Surrounded by homage, Mathilde thinks fortune has given her everything, "except happiness." Is her boredom that of someone who has too much, or of someone raised never to need to desire anything?

Altamira says there are no longer true passions in the nineteenth century, and that the greatest cruelties are committed "but without cruelty," and he cites his own sister, who danced on hearing of Marshal Ney's execution. What does he mean, and how does the example support his thesis?

Julien says that "whoever wants the end wants the means" and that, with power, he would have three men hanged to save four; then he asks himself whether the man who wants to expel ignorance and crime should "pass like the storm." What moral is he testing, and what does the text leave open?

Mathilde, in mourning on April 30, says she loves the century of the wars of the Holy League and laments that no woman today would touch the head of her beheaded lover. What does she look for in a story from centuries ago, and what does the present deny her?

Julien compares the present spring with the one of the previous year, lived among three hundred hypocrites, and adds: "I was almost as wicked as they were." What does this self-assessment reveal about the way he judges his own past?

After amusing herself walking with Julien, Mathilde decides, in an "outburst of incredible joy," that she is in love. Can one call love a feeling that is born as a decision?

Mathilde is bored by the identical letters of Croisenois, Caylus and the others, comparing them unfavorably to the acts of greatness of Imperial times. What does her boredom reveal about what her class has lost, and why is the remedy sought in the past?

Mathilde thinks that, if Julien were noble, her love would be "an unequal alliance," without "the enormous difficulty to be overcome" that characterizes great passions. Why does she need an obstacle to love, and what does that say about the nature of her passion?

On hearing from her brother that if the revolution starts again Julien will send them to the guillotine, Mathilde decides that it is the greatest of compliments ("He'll be a Danton!"). What leads her to take as praise what threatens her own class?

Julien completes Mathilde's charm by imagining her as a Catherine de' Medici, and, on receiving the declaration, he fears a trap, has the letter copied and sends the original hidden in a Bible. What prevents him from accepting being loved?

On receiving the declaration, Julien thinks that "the poor carpenter from the Jura has won," and earlier he kept repeating that each is for himself "in this desert of selfishness they call life." What kind of victory does he feel, and over whom?

Mathilde thinks that the suitors face danger "at the head of a brilliant squadron of steel," but recoil before "solitary, singular, unforeseen danger." What kind of courage does she demand of them, and does she herself have it?

Mathilde imagines that, if Julien one day has full power over her, she will say, like Medea, "there remains ME." What does this quotation say about the image she has of herself and about the kind of surrender she accepts?

Julien thinks that if he refuses the invitation, he will despise himself afterward, because "such doubt is the most humiliating of misfortunes." The honor he despises in the salon is the same that pushes him up the ladder. What does that say about his values?

Julien compares the risk of the night to a duel: "there is a defense for everything, as my fencing master says; but God [...] makes one of the two forget to defend himself." What does this image say about how he understands love?

If both know, each in their own way, that they are playing a role, what remains to call that love, and why does the text still insist on calling it so?

Julien thinks he is not triumphing over Croisenois as he imagined, that "I am only succeeding him," and soon comforts himself with the rage the rival will feel at having a successor. What does his vanity feed on more, Mathilde's love or the defeat of others?

Why does nearly being killed rekindle Mathilde's desire more strongly than any declaration of love could have?

Julien concludes that, for Mathilde, religion serves the "interests of her caste." He, who used the cassock as a disguise, is in a position to judge her. What does his diagnosis say about him?

Why does Julien's most frank declaration, the one that should move her, make Mathilde pass from the pleasure of tormenting him to contempt?

Julien hears Mathilde's confidences on the same avenue where he had waited for the hour to strike before entering her room, and then watches her through a small window, behind closed shutters. What makes him accept the role of listener and watcher, and what does this show of the power she holds over him?

Is this involuntary drawing proof that there is, after all, something spontaneous beneath the calculation, or is it just one more material that Mathilde herself will use to convince herself of her passion?

The narrator argues that "a novel is a mirror carried along a great road," and that one should accuse the mud, not the mirror. What responsibility does he refuse, what does he assume, and how does this apply to what the reader has just read about Mathilde and Julien?

Before the broken vase, Julien tells Mathilde that he "is destroyed forever, just as the feeling that once reigned in my heart." Does he speak the truth, lie, or use a lie to tell the truth?

Madame de La Mole remarks that Julien seems proud and satisfied with the damage, and Mathilde recognizes in this the feeling that animates him. Why is his pride, and not his suffering, the sign she knows how to read?

The marquis tests Julien's memory with a whole issue of La Quotidienne, down to the advertisements, before entrusting him with a secret mission. Why does the talent that served hypocrisy in the seminary now make him useful to the conspiracy, and what does the marquis risk in trusting him?

In the meeting room, Julien observes that people "of such mediocre countenance" are entrusted with "such lofty interests." What does the contrast between faces and missions suggest about the power he sees up close for the first time?

In the middle of the minutes, the narrator interrupts the account to say that politics in a novel is "a pistol shot in the middle of a concert," and the editor replies that without it the characters would not be Frenchmen of their time. To whom does the book give the argument, and what does this discussion say about the novel being read?

The marquis proposes forming in each department a force of five hundred devoted men, half of them noblemen, paid with a fifth of each noble's income. What does the plan reveal about what he understands by defending the throne, and who is left out of that defense?

The marquis entrusts Julien with a mission that not even his own son could carry out, to memorize four pages and travel a hundred leagues without being discovered, but he never invites him to give an opinion on the conspiracy, only to carry it. What does this say about the place politics reserves for Julien's merit, even when that merit is indispensable?

The cardinal argues that without the clergy no armed party can be formed in France, and that everything must be conceded to it: "Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day indicated by the leaders." What does the cardinal mean by strength, and how does this fit with the Church Julien has known until now?

Can a method of seduction copied from a foreigner who never truly loved anyone produce real love in the one who applies it, or does it only produce one more character for Julien to play?

Korasoff offers Julien the hand of a rich cousin from Moscow and the promise of making him a colonel within two years, and Julien thinks: "I will not marry the millions Korasoff offers me," but he follows his advice. What ambition does he refuse there, and which one does he keep?

Bustos poses the riddle on which Julien's entire future would depend: would the Marechale be "a devout woman tired of her office and wicked because she is unhappy"? Why does Julien agree to base a plan of conquest on the portrait drawn by a rejected suitor and an acquaintance of hers?

Mathilde, who had forgotten him during the trip and was prepared to accept the marriage to Croisenois, changes her mind as soon as she sees Julien again. What makes her desire again someone who seems not to desire her, and what does this show about her love?

The Marechale finds it strange that the family is charmed by the "little priest," who only knows how to pay attention, and Julien sees in her the patrician calm of someone who knows no lively emotion; she finds him distinguished only on the evening he speaks like an angel to Mathilde. What does this say about the milieu he wants to conquer?

Julien copies Korasoff's letters, falls asleep in the middle of the copying and laughs at the homily on virtue, and yet faithfully carries out the ritual of delivery, with a contrite air. What happens to a person who performs a role that they themselves find ridiculous?

Julien comes close to what he has always wanted, a woman whose uncle, a bishop, distributes the best posts in the Church, and the dinner is mediocre and the conversation exasperating. What does the distance between prize and pleasure say about his ambition?

Reading the Marechale's vague letters, Julien concludes that "the only thing I perceive as true is an abominable fear of ridicule." What does the fear of ridicule explain about the high society he wants to conquer?

If every word Julien says to the Marechale is, in the narrator's own account, a lie or a disguise, what exactly is Mathilde admiring when she is struck by his Machiavellianism?

The Marechale tells Julien that "whoever loves me must not love Napoleon." Why, in a devout salon, does admiration for Napoleon become a test of loyalty, and what does that change for the one who kept it in secret?

The narrator attributes the marechale's surrender to the boredom of a life that "aspires only to the effect on the public." So it is boredom, and not seduction, that opens Fervaques's lock. What does that say about what the letters copied by Julien do to her?

Mathilde discovers Julien's drawer of Fervaques's unopened letters and falls at his feet, and he thinks: "So here is that proud woman, at my feet!" What does Julien feel at this moment, love, victory, or both, and how does the text indicate it?

If Julien wins by sheer discipline of method, without feeling for a single second the detachment he feigns, is this victory his, or is it Prince Korasoff's, who never appears in the scene?

After resisting Mathilde, Julien blames himself: "How could I have resisted her?" Why does his love grow as he moves away from the moment of battle, and what does that say about what he loves in her?

After forcing himself through the Memorial of Saint Helena, Julien exclaims: "The enemy will obey me only to the extent that I frighten him." Why does he call Mathilde an enemy, and what does the choice of word show about how he loves?

Julien's coldness gives way among the honeysuckles, where the memory of past despair makes him weep. He covers it by saying those tender phrases were prepared earlier, for another woman. Why does he prefer to confess a lie rather than confess the emotion?

The narrator compares Julien to an English traveler who raised a tiger and stroked it, "but always kept a loaded pistol on his table." Who is the tiger in this image, who is the traveler, and what does the pistol protect?

Julien played his part so well that Mathilde comes to think that, of the two, she is the one who loves more. What does he gain, and what does he lose, by being loved only for the character he plays?

When the marquis showers him with insults, Julien answers "in the manner of Tartuffe," and it is still "the genius of Tartuffe" that, in the garden, suggests he go and confess to Pirard. What does the memory of Tartuffe reveal about the way Julien reads his own situation?

Pirard, to whom Julien lays out three ways out, death, a duel, or exile, becomes Mathilde's most useful ally and convinces the marquis that only a public marriage is prudent. Why does the austere Jansenist work so hard for this union, and what does that say about what he values?

The marquis alternates three-day enthusiasms and cannot forgive. At times he thinks of making Julien disappear, at others of giving him a fortune and even a peerage. What does the back-and-forth show about the struggle between class vanity and the affection he feels for Julien?

On receiving the commission and the name La Vernaye, Julien thinks: "My romance is over, and the merit is all mine." Why does he call his own life a romance, and what does the narrator suggest by placing the phrase at the highest point of his rise?

The version of Julien's origins agreed with the marquis leaves out the real father: Sorel becomes only the carpenter who looked after the boy. What does the new biography buy, and what does it erase?

After reading the letter that describes him as "poor and ambitious" and says he tried to rise "with the help of the most consummate hypocrisy," Julien buys pistols and goes to the church of Verrières. Why does he answer with a shot, and what does the gesture show about the limit of the calculation that guided him up to then?

To the judge, Julien declares the premeditation, cites the article of the code, and says he deserves death. He begins to repent only when he knows that Madame de Rênal is alive. What does the order of these movements say about what he understands by guilt?

Before knowing that Madame de Rênal has survived, Julien writes Mathilde a farewell letter in which he tells her to marry Croisenois one year after his death. What kind of gesture is this: generous, vain, or cold?

Abbé Chélan arrives so aged that he can barely speak, and the visit leaves Julien with the vision of death "in all its ugliness," while Fouqué's devotion restores his strength. Why does his friend's loyalty strengthen him, and why does the presence of the old priest wear him down?

Vicar general Frilair refuses the money for masses and thinks of making Julien a martyr to reconcile himself with the marquis. What use does the clerical network make of a condemned man, and what does this say about the relationship between faith and interest in the book?

In the episcopal palace of Vicar General Frilair, Mathilde "felt herself in Paris." What does the phrase suggest about the relationship between the Parisian aristocracy and the provincial clergy, which the book so often sets in opposition?

Frilair states that among the thirty-six jurors drawn, he would count on eight or ten friends, and that he could personally work on at least thirty. What does justice become in a place where the draw already has an owner?

Mathilde asks her rival, the Marechale de Fervaques, to obtain a letter from the bishop and to come to Besançon. The narrator says that her proud soul "always needed the idea of an audience and of others." Is this heroism any less real for having an audience?

The narrator says that ambition died in Julien and that another passion rose from the ashes: "he called it remorse" for having shot Madame de Rênal. Why does he refuse the name of what he feels, and what does the word "remorse" allow him to avoid?

In prison, Julien thinks that he only learned "the art of enjoying life" after seeing its end draw near. Why does happiness arrive when the future disappears, and what does he begin to do with the days he has left?

Julien furiously refuses the lawyer's suggestion to plead jealousy and insists that there was premeditation. Why does he prefer a defense that condemns him to one that might have saved him, and what does he protect with this choice?

Julien tells the jurors that he is not judged by his peers and that they want to punish in him his origin, and Madame Derville faints. Is the speech one of defense, of accusation, or of testament, and to whom does he in fact speak?

Julien declares that he judges himself justly condemned and, in the same speech, denounces the class that judges him. Why does he accept the penalty and denounce the tribunal at the same time, and how do the two attitudes fit together?

Julien refuses to appeal because "at this moment I feel I have the courage to die without provoking much laughter at my expense," and no one guarantees he will have it two months from now. What idea of courage is this, and what does it show about what matters to him at the end?

Julien asks himself how to persuade Madame de Rênal that he loves only her, if he "wanted to kill her out of ambition or out of love for Mathilde." What does the question show about the uncertainty he has regarding his own motives?

Facing the intriguing priest who prays on his knees in the mud at the prison door, Julien cries out: "Oh, my country! How barbarous you still are!" What does his anger show about how much the gaze of others still weighs on someone who is about to die?

Julien conditions the appeal on the oath that Madame de Rênal will not attempt her own life. Why does he make this request, and what does it reveal about what he knows of her and of himself?

In the cell, Julien concludes that "there is no natural right," and that a right exists only where a law forbids something under penalty of punishment. Why does such an idea come to him precisely there, and what does it return to the trial that condemned him?

The elder Sorel visits his condemned son and presents the bill for the food and education expenses he advanced. Why does the novel reserve this scene for the father, and what does it close regarding the way he has treated Julien since the beginning of the book?

On the morning of the execution, Julien asks Fouqué to put Mathilde and Madame de Rênal in the same carriage, and he demands of Madame de Rênal the oath to live for Mathilde's son. Why does his last request join the two women, and what does he do with the love of each?

Mathilde enters the room where Fouqué keeps vigil over the body, places Julien's head on a small marble table, and kisses it on the forehead. Is this love, theater, or both? And what changes in the way we remember Julien depending on how one answers?

Question. Julien trades an arena where he measured everything by money and votes for another where none of that counts. What changes, in fact, in the nature of the war he wages, and what remains exactly the same war in a new vocabulary?

Question. The Marquis de La Mole is dismayed by the spelling mistake of the new secretary and, the same day, excuses the stockings he did not wear to dinner. What weighs more in this class, form or content, when it defines itself by possession of content (books, Latin, history)?

Question. If the salon punishes any living idea with the stigma of bad taste, what room is left for a conviction like Altamira's, which has already cost him a death sentence? Does the salon tolerate it, ignore it, or need it as a spectacle?

Question. The marquis compares his affection for Julien to affection for a handsome and original pet dog, said with genuine warmth. To what extent is this comparison also the exact measure of the ceiling Julien will never break through in this house?

Question. Mathilde decides that only a death sentence proves character, and no one in the salon, except Altamira, has paid that price. What does it mean to found an ideal of greatness on a proof that the very social condition of whoever formulates it makes almost impossible to fulfill?

Question. If Mathilde already loved the legend before loving Julien, what does she love in him: the man, or the role of Boniface de La Mole that he, without meaning to, begins to fill?

Question. Mathilde despises her brother and her suitors for not bearing "the solitary, singular, unforeseen danger," yet she herself never ran any risk beyond the social risk of an indiscreet letter. To what extent is her ideal of courage sincere, and to what extent is it one more class ornament, like the Golden Fleece ribbon of the Prince of Araceli?

Question. Julien only allows himself joy after rereading his victory over Croisenois as a weighing of merits, never as reciprocated affection. What does this reveal about what he actually seeks in Mathilde: her love, or proof that he can overcome her birth?

Question. After fifteen chapters of watching Julien measure, item by item, the value the aristocracy gives itself (birth, the ritual duel, the decoration ribbon), he decides to act out of honor, the most aristocratic currency of all. Did he win the game of the faubourg, or was he absorbed by it?

Is the novel describing how love actually works in the Parisian aristocracy of 1830, or is it drawing a caricature in order to make the episode at Verrières stand out by comparison?

To what extent is Julien genuinely in love with Mathilde, and to what extent is he in love with the victory over a class that despises him?

If Julien's ambition was never only for money or for a title, what exactly did he win when he became La Vernaye? And why does this victory, at the very moment it is completed, already sound like a farewell?

Why does a man who plans every gesture of his own life choose, in the one moment he acts beside himself, an act that condemns him? What does the shot free Julien from?

Abbé de Frilair helps Julien out of career calculation, not out of justice. Does this make the help less real, or is the novel saying that in this world there is no help that is not self-interested?

Julien tells the jurors that he deserves death for the shot, but that they want to punish in him, with even greater rigor, the class of poor young men who dare to rise. Is the speech a truth about the trial, or is it the last and greatest rhetorical construction of a man who has built personas of himself his whole life?

If Julien's happiness appears only when the future (ambition, calculation, life plan) is removed from the equation, what does this say about the price he paid, throughout the whole novel, for pursuing that future?

Madame de Rênal does not kill herself, but she dies within three days all the same. Did she keep her oath to Julien, or did her own body disagree with the oath her head made?