Book I, chapter 1: A small town
the tyranny of opinion, and what opinion!, is just as stupid in the small towns of France as in the United States of America.
Explanation and analysis
The sentence appears at the opening of the book, when the narrator is still describing Verrières and its mayor and does not yet know of the hero. He has just explained how one earns esteem in the town: by building many walls and rejecting any project brought from Italy by the masons, because the "sensible and moderate" people who dispense public esteem punish anyone who innovates with the reputation of being hardheaded. For someone who has known Paris, the text says, living in a little town like this is unbearable, and it is at this point that the comparison with the United States falls: the tyranny of opinion is just as stupid there as it is here.
What the sentence sets up for the rest of the novel is the ground on which Julien will move. In Verrières, what weighs is what the neighbors will think, more than what each person thinks or feels, and the mayor himself lives as a hostage to that gaze: all old Sorel has to do is smile at him from afar, and he begins to think he could have paid less for the land. For someone with neither a name nor money to impose his own opinion, learning to manage the opinions of others may be a matter of survival, and this is where Julien's hypocrisy stops looking like merely a flaw of character and starts to look like a tool as well. One may also read the narrator's irony as an early warning that the book will treat appearance as power: what the town thinks of a man is worth more in Verrières than what he is.
Book I, chapter 2: A mayor
Here is the great word that decides everything in Verrières: TO YIELD A PROFIT. On its own, it represents the habitual thinking of more than three quarters of the inhabitants.
Explanation and analysis
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Book I, chapter 3: A curé
I have been here fifty-six years; I have baptized almost all the inhabitants of the town, which was no more than a village when I arrived. Every day I perform the weddings of young people whose grandparents were married by me. Verrières is my family
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 4: A father and a son
looked sadly at the stream where the book had fallen; of all of them, it was the one he prized most, the Memorial of Saint Helena.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 5: A negotiation
The collection of Grande Armée bulletins and the Memorial of Saint Helena completed his Koran. He would let himself be killed for these three works. He had never believed in any other.
Explanation and analysis
Nowadays we see priests of forty earning a hundred thousand francs a year in salary, that is, three times more than Napoleon's famous division generals. [...] One has to be a priest.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 6: Boredom
What a difference from me, thought Julien. Only yesterday my father beat me. How happy these rich people are!
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 7: Elective affinities
The children adored him, he did not like them; his thoughts were elsewhere. [...] Cold, just, impassive, and yet loved, because his arrival had somehow driven boredom from the house, he was a good tutor.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 8: Small events
she thought of passions the way we think of the lottery: a sure deception and a happiness sought by fools.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 9: A night in the country
All my reputation destroyed, annihilated in a second!, thought Julien as he watched the box burn, and my reputation is my only possession, it is only for its sake that I live… And yet what a life, my God!
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 10: A great heart
I have won a battle, he said to himself as soon as he was in the woods and far from the gaze of men. I have won a battle!
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 12: A journey
With his head resting in his hands, Julien felt happier in the grotto than he had ever been in his whole life, stirred by daydreams and by the enjoyment of freedom.
Explanation and analysis
What! I would cowardly waste seven or eight years! I would reach twenty-eight that way, but at that age Bonaparte had already accomplished his greatest feats!
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 14: The English scissors
His pride would leave nothing to chance, not even to the inspiration of the moment. Based on Fouqué's confidences and on the little he had read about love in his Bible, he drew up a fairly detailed plan of campaign.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 15: The crowing of the rooster
Good God! To be happy, to be loved, is that all it is?
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 16: The next day
His love was still ambition: the joy of a poor, unhappy creature, so despised, possessing a woman so noble and so beautiful.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 17: The deputy mayor
She is good and kind, she has a lively affection for me, but she was raised in enemy territory.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 18: A king in Verrières
There was a Te Deum, clouds of incense, endless volleys of muskets and artillery; the peasants were drunk with happiness and devotion. A day like that undoes the work of a hundred issues of Jacobin newspapers.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 19: To think is to suffer
Madame de Rênal suddenly succumbed to a terrible remorse. For the first time she reproached herself firmly for her love; she seemed to grasp, as if by miracle, the enormous deception to which she had let herself be dragged. Though of a deeply religious character, until then she had not considered the dimension of her crime in the eyes of God.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 20: The anonymous letters
It is you who will arrange the anonymous letter; arm yourself with patience and a pair of scissors.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 21: Dialogue with a master
It is with blows of public contempt that a husband kills his wife in the nineteenth century, by shutting her out of the salons.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 22: Ways of acting in 1830
Julien, already very ill at ease, thought that on the other side of the dining-room wall were poor prisoners whose share of meat may have been taken to pay for all this tasteless luxury with which they meant to dazzle and overwhelm him. Perhaps they are hungry right now, he said to himself; his heart tightened, he could not eat, and he could barely speak.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 23: A civil servant's woes
By God, I always thought it better to be a Geronimo than a Rênal.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 24: A capital
For a poor devil like me, thought Julien, with no patrons and no money, there can't be much difference between the seminary and prison
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 26: The World, or What the Rich Man Lacks
Following the maxims he had set for himself, he considered his three hundred and twenty-one classmates enemies, the most dangerous of all being Abbé Pirard. A few days later, Julien had to choose a confessor and was shown a list. Oh, my God! What do they take me for?, he thought. Do they suppose I don't know where I am putting my feet? He chose Abbé Pirard.
Explanation and analysis
So science is worth nothing here? [...] My only merit consisted in [...] grasping these twaddles. [...] And I was a fool to be proud!
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 27: First experience of life
Having instilled in him the habit of reasoning correctly and of not being satisfied with empty words, he took no care to tell him that, in one who is not much esteemed, this habit is a crime; for every good argument offends.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 28: A procession
Your presence must horrify her, she was so happy before she knew you!
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 29: The first promotion
his classmates will never look at him without hating him; if they pretend to love him, it will be to betray him all the better.
Explanation and analysis
In the other's time, now that was something! A mason would become an officer, would become a general; people saw it happen.
Explanation and analysis
Book I, chapter 30: An ambitious man
If Madame de Rênal's return to tender feelings and the eclipse of her remorse had come a little sooner, they would have been a divine happiness; obtained this way, through artifice, they were no more than a pleasure.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 1: The pleasures of the country
His ancestor was at court and had the honor of having his head cut off at the Place de Grève, on April 26, 1574, because of a political intrigue. And you, sir, are the son of a carpenter from Verrières, and what is more, in the service of his father.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 3: The first steps
If Julien is a fragile reed, let him break; if he is a man of character, let him manage on his own
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 4: The La Mole mansion
Neither a hundred thousand écus a year nor a decoration can stand against this rule of the salon. A living idea, however slight, seemed like rudeness.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 5: Sensibility and a Devout Great Lady
Julien was surprised; the idea of religion was, in his mind, unquestionably tied to hypocrisy and to the hope of earning money.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 6: Manner of pronunciation
"Those gentlemen, though very noble," thought Julien, "are not as tedious as the people who dine at Monsieur de La Mole's mansion; and I see why, [...] They allow themselves to be indecent."
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 7: A gout attack
it will be necessary to commit just as many injustices if one wants to win, and also to know how to hide them beneath fine sentimental words
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 8: Which decoration is the most honorable
I think only a death sentence honors a man [...], it is the one thing that cannot be bought.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 9: The ball
You and I, at this dinner, will be the only ones without a stain of blood, but I will be despised and almost hated as a bloodthirsty Jacobin monster, and you, despised simply as a man of the people, an intruder in good society.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 11: The empire of a young woman
I have the happiness of loving!, she thought one day, in a rush of incredible joy. I am in love, I am in love, of course!
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 12: He'll be a Danton
If, despite his poverty, Julien were noble, my love would be nothing more than a vulgar folly, merely an unequal alliance; that I would not accept; there would be nothing of what characterizes great passions: the enormous difficulty to be overcome and the obscure uncertainty of events.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 13: A conspiracy
our merits, mine and the marquis's, were weighed, and the poor carpenter from the Jura won.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 14: Thoughts of a young woman
What will your pretensions be, if one day you have all power over me? Very well! I shall say, as Medea does: amid so many dangers, I still have ME.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 15: Will it be a conspiracy?
if I refuse, I will despise myself afterward. I will think about this affair for the rest of my life with some doubt, and for me, a doubt like that is the most humiliating of misfortunes. Was it not what I suffered because of Amanda's lover? I think I would forgive a clear crime more easily; once confessed, I would no longer think about it.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 16: One in the morning
It was not, it is true, that volupté of the soul he had sometimes found with Madame de Rênal. Nothing tender was in his feelings in that first moment. It was the most lively joy of ambition, and Julien was above all ambitious.
Explanation and analysis
In truth, her enthusiasm was somewhat deliberate. Passionate love, more than a reality, was still a model one imitated.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 18: Cruel moments
His words, so frank but so stupid, changed everything in an instant: Mathilde, certain now of being loved, despised him completely.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 19: The Opéra Bouffe
Cerebral love is undoubtedly wittier than true love, but it has only a few moments of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it judges itself without ceasing; instead of leading thought astray, it is built only by the force of thoughts.
Explanation and analysis
Very well, sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a great highway. It can reflect, in your eyes, the blue of the sky as well as the filth of the mire on the road. Could the man who carries the mirror in his baggage be accused of immorality? The mirror shows the dirt, and you accuse the mirror? You should accuse the long road where the mire forms and, above all, the road inspector who lets the water stagnate and the sludge accumulate.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 20: The Japanese vase
is destroyed forever, just as the feeling that once reigned in my heart is; I beg you to accept my apologies for all the follies it led me to commit
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 22: The argument
"Politics," the author continues, "is a stone tied around the neck of literature, which in less than six months makes it sink. Politics, among the interests of the imagination, is a pistol shot in the middle of a concert. That noise is dissonant without being forceful. It does not harmonize with the sound of any instrument. This politics will mortally offend half the readers and bore the other half, who found it much more interesting and lively in the morning newspaper." "If your characters do not speak of politics," the editor continues, "they will no longer be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book will no longer be a mirror, as you wished…"
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 23: The Clergy, the Woods, Liberty
Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day indicated by the leaders, and the people, who after all supply the soldiers, will be moved more by the voice of their priests than by the trivial verses of the world
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 24: Strasbourg
Remember the great principle of the century: show yourself the opposite of what they expect of you. Act exactly as you acted eight days before being honored with her favors.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 28: Manon Lescaut
...Remember, sir, that whoever loves me must not love Napoleon; at most he may accept him as a necessity imposed by Providence. Besides, that man did not have a soul elegant enough to feel the masterpieces of the arts.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 29: Boredom
So here is that proud woman, at my feet!, thought Julien.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 30: A box at the Opéra Bouffe
Madame de Rênal found reasons to do what her heart dictated. This young woman of high society lets her heart be moved only after finding good reasons for it to be moved.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 31: To frighten her
"TO FRIGHTEN HER," he suddenly exclaimed, throwing the book far away. "The enemy will obey me only to the extent that I frighten him, so he will not dare to despise me."
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 32: The tiger
An English traveler reported the intimacy in which he lived with a tiger. He had raised it and stroked it, but he always kept a loaded pistol on his table.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 33: The hell of weakness
But, God help me, I love life... I must keep it for my son.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 34: A man of wit
After all, he thought, my romance is over, and the merit is all mine.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 35: A storm
He had become a lieutenant, by favor, barely two days earlier, and already he was calculating that to be commander in chief by thirty at the latest, like all the great generals, one had to be more than a lieutenant by twenty-three.
Explanation and analysis
Julien no longer recognized her so well. He fired once and missed; he fired a second time, and she fell.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 36: Sad details
Only then did Julien begin to repent of the crime he had committed.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 38: A powerful man
Mathilde felt herself in Paris.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 39: The intrigue
Ambition was dead in his breast, another passion had risen from the ashes; he called it remorse for having shot Madame de Rênal.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 40: Tranquility
Still, it is strange that I have known the art of enjoying life only after seeing its end draw near.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 41: The trial
I have no illusions, death awaits me: it will be just. I was capable of attacking the life of the woman most worthy of all respect, of all homage. [...] My crime is atrocious and was premeditated. I deserve, therefore, death, gentlemen of the jury. [...] But, even if I were less guilty, I see men who, without taking into account what my youth might deserve in mercy, will want to punish in me and discourage forever this class of young men who, born into a lower class and somehow oppressed by poverty, have the good fortune to obtain a good education and the audacity to mingle with what the pride of the rich calls good society.
Explanation and analysis
This is my crime, gentlemen, and, in truth, it will be punished even more severely for not being judged by my peers. I see on the jury benches no enriched peasant, but only indignant bourgeois...
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 42
After an act like that, how can I persuade her that it is only her I love? For, after all, did I want to kill her out of ambition or out of love for Mathilde?
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 43
Could we not spend two months together in a delightful way? Two months are a lot of days. I will never have been so happy.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 44
There is no natural right: that expression is nothing but an old folly, worthy of the prosecutor who accused me that day, and whose ancestor was enriched by a confiscation under Louis XIV. There is only a right when there is a law that forbids doing something under penalty of punishment.
Explanation and analysis
Book II, chapter 45
when I could have been so happy on our walks in the woods of Vergy, an impetuous ambition carried my soul off to imaginary regions. [...] No, I would die without knowing happiness if you had not come to see me in this prison.
Explanation and analysis
When Fouqué gathered the courage to look, she had placed, on a small marble table before her, Julien's head, and she was kissing it on the forehead...
Explanation and analysis
Madame de Rênal remained faithful to her promise. She did not in any way attempt against her life; but three days later she died, embracing her children.