What It Is
The head of Boniface de La Mole, ancestor of the family of Mathilde de La Mole, executed in 1574 over a political intrigue, and the legend that Queen Margaret of Navarre, his lover, buried it with her own hands. At the end of the novel, the head is that of Julien Sorel.
Where It Appears
In Chapter 5 of Book I, Julien finds in the church a newspaper scrap about the execution of Louis Jenrel, an anagram of his own name.
A brief passage, almost lost in the middle of the chapter, works as an omen: in the church of Verrières (see the church of Verrières), Julien finds a folded sheet of printed paper on a prie-dieu, about the execution of a certain Louis Jenrel, an anagram of Julien Sorel's own name.Details of the execution and the last moments of Louis Jenrel, executed in Besançon on the…
Julien reacts with a remark that sounds like an omen:
Poor wretch [...], his name ends as mine does…
In Chapter 1 of Book II, the ancestor is introduced to Julien.
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. You are the son of a carpenter from Verrières and, what is more, in the service of his father.
Ch. X. Note 88 of the edition, on the historical origin of Queen Margaret:
The events narrated below are strictly historical. The adventures and loves of La Mole and Coconasso served as the theme, fifteen years after Stendhal's book was published, for Alexandre Dumas's novel La Reine Margot.
Mathilde dresses in black every April 30, the day of Boniface's death, and asks what woman today would not be horrified to touch the head of her beheaded lover. Her yardstick for a man comes from there.
I think only a sentence of death honors a man [...], it is the only thing that cannot be bought.
When Norbert says that, if the revolution starts again, Julien will send them all to the guillotine, Mathilde avoids answering and mocks her brother's fear, in the chapter called "He'll be a Danton?". The dread of Robespierre's cart is what Julien reads on the door of the house.
Such ostentation displeased Julien. They are so afraid of the Jacobins! They see a Robespierre and his cart behind every hedge; they are always joking about everything, and they display their house in this way so that the rabble will recognize it in case of riot, and plunder it.
In Chapter 17 of Book II, almost being killed by Julien takes Mathilde back to the age of her ancestor, and in Chapter 19 of Book II she imagines herself in the role of Madame Roland.
So I was nearly killed by my lover!, she said to herself. This idea carried her off to the fine times of Charles IX and Henri III.
If there is a revolution, why should Julien Sorel not play the part of Roland, and I that of Madame Roland?
Ch. XIX. Note 108 of the edition, on the Rolands:
The political figure and economist Jean-Marie Roland (1734-93), leader of the Girondins, married Manon Roland (1754-93), herself an important figure of the French Revolution. It was she who, before being guillotined, uttered the famous phrase: "O liberty, how many crimes are committed in your name!"
In Chapter 45 of Book II, after Julien's execution, Mathilde reenacts the legend.
When Fouqué summoned the courage to look, she had placed, on a small marble table before her, Julien's head, and was kissing it on the forehead…
The real case behind the plot, that of Antoine Berthet, ended with the defendant guillotined in Grenoble in 1828.
What It Means
In Chapter 10 of Book II, Mathilde already has a script ready: the passion that defies death, the beheaded hero and the brave queen. She spends Chapters 1 to 15 of Book II looking for an actor for the missing role: she needs a hero who can be beheaded so as not to die of boredom.
The head appears first as a family fact, then as Mathilde's yardstick for judging men, and only at the end as an object on a table. Before all of that, the forgotten newspaper in the prie-dieu had already placed an execution in Besançon under Julien's anagrammed name.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Death, Memory and the past, Passion.
- Characters: Mathilde de La Mole, Julien Sorel, Marquis de La Mole.
- Alexandre Dumas: the legend of La Mole and Margaret becomes, fifteen years later, La Reine Margot.
- Neighboring symbols: the church of Verrières and the La Mole salon.