The Theme in the Work
The ambition of Julien Sorel has a model before it has an object. The book that his father knocks into the stream is the Memorial of Saint Helena (Book I, ch. 4), and in the next chapter the narrator explains the choice that organizes the novel: the military career that made Bonaparte is no longer open to a carpenter's son, and Julien concludes, by calculation and not by faith, that he must become a priest (ch. 5). The title names the two ladders, the uniform and the cassock, and he climbs the second without ceasing to dream of the first: he parades as an honor guard and for a moment feels himself Napoleon's orderly (ch. 18), and he reaches Besançon sighing that he will not enter there as a sub-lieutenant (ch. 24).
Ambition contaminates everything it touches. It decides his refusal of a partnership with Fouqué, measured against the age at which Bonaparte had already accomplished the essential (ch. 12), and it enters love: after the first night with Madame de Rênal, the narrator warns that Julien's love is still ambition (ch. 16). In the seminary it changes its method, because merit is suspect there and a personality must be fabricated (chs. 26 and 27), and it earns the first promotion (ch. 29) and the summons to Paris (ch. 30). In Book II the horizon widens: the bishopric associated with his name in the mind of the Marechale de Fervaques (ch. 27), the lands in Languedoc, the name of chevalier de La Vernaye and a lieutenant's commission in the hussars (ch. 34). Two days later, he is already calculating the next rank (ch. 35).
The shot in the church at Verrières interrupts the climb at its highest point. In the tower at Besançon, Julien realizes that he no longer thinks about what occupied him fifteen days earlier (ch. 36), and the narrator says bluntly that ambition has died and that the remorse that takes its place is another passion (ch. 39). Around him the ambition of others keeps working: Abbé de Frilair sees in the trial a quick route to the episcopate (ch. 38). During Madame de Rênal's visits to the prison, Julien himself takes stock of what ambition cost him in the woods of Vergy (ch. 45).
Julien's ambition is almost entirely imitation: he does not want things, he wants to have been somebody, and the yardstick is always that of another man, dead on Saint Helena. That is why no victory satisfies him for more than two days, and why the book can only bring it to an end with death in sight. Stendhal does not condemn it as a vice; he shows that it occupies the exact place where happiness would be, and that Julien discovers this only when there is no future left to calculate.
Where It Appears
- Book I, chapter 4: A father and a son: Father Sorel knocks the Memorial of Saint Helena, the book Julien prizes most, into the stream with one blow, when he finds him reading on a beam at the sawmill instead of working.
- Book I, chapter 5: A negotiation: Seeing the old justice of the peace disgrace himself out of fear of displeasing a young vicar, Julien understands that the military career is closed and concludes that he must become a priest.
- Book I, chapter 8: Small events: The curé Chélan warns Julien that, as a priest, he will have to choose between making his fortune in this world or the next, and Julien refuses to marry Élisa, who has just come into an inheritance.
- Book I, chapter 10: A great heart: After forcing Rênal's raise, Julien climbs to an isolated rock, tells himself that he has won a battle, and wonders, watching a hawk, whether Napoleon's destiny will be his.
- Book I, chapter 12: A journey: Julien refuses Fouqué's offer, a partnership or four thousand francs a year, measuring himself against the age at which Bonaparte had already achieved his greatest feats.
- Book I, chapter 16: The next day: Within a few days Julien is hopelessly in love, but the narrator warns that his love was still ambition: the joy of possessing, poor and despised, a woman so noble and so beautiful.
- Book I, chapter 17: The deputy mayor: An outburst in favor of Napoleon escapes Julien in the orchard, and Madame de Rênal even sees him as a pope or a prime minister like Richelieu.
- Book I, chapter 18: A king in Verrières: Named honor guard for the king's visit, Julien parades on horseback, feels for a moment like Napoleon's orderly, and then exchanges the uniform for the cassock.
- Book I, chapter 24: A capital: On reaching Besançon, Julien walks the ramparts and the citadel dreaming of a sub-lieutenant's uniform, before shutting himself up in the seminary.
- Book I, chapter 26: The world, or what the rich man lacks: Julien discovers that in the seminary being first in one's studies is a sin and that a face of blind faith is worth more than learning, and he begins to construct a new personality, even in the way he looks.
- Book I, chapter 27: First experience of life: Julien thinks of becoming a Latin teacher, but decides that this would mean bidding farewell to his career and to the future of his imagination, and that it would be like dying.
- Book I, chapter 29: The first promotion: Abbé Pirard appoints Julien tutor in the New and Old Testaments, his first promotion in the seminary, and warns him that envy will pursue him.
- Book I, chapter 30: An ambitious man: On Pirard's recommendation, the marquis de La Mole agrees to take Julien to Paris as a companion to his son, and the bishop congratulates the young man on the destiny awaiting him.
- Book II, chapter 9: The ball: Before Altamira, Julien argues that whoever wants the end wants the means, and he spends the night reading the history of the Revolution.
- Book II, chapter 27: The best positions in the Church: While Julien copies letters for the Marechale de Fervaques, the idea of a bishopric is linked to his name for the first time, in the mind of a woman who will one day distribute the best positions in the Church.
- Book II, chapter 34: A man of wit: The marquis de La Mole gives the Languedoc lands to his daughter and to Julien and sends him a lieutenant's commission in the hussars, and the unexpected fortune makes Julien ambitious.
- Book II, chapter 35: A storm: Lieutenant for two days, Julien already calculates what he lacks to become commander in chief by thirty, until a note from Mathilde sends him running to Paris to read Madame de Rênal's letter.
- Book II, chapter 36: Sad details: Lodged at the top of a tower in Besançon, Julien, without ambition, thinks of Madame de Rênal and sets suicide aside for now, because Napoleon lived.
- Book II, chapter 38: A powerful man: Abbé de Frilair, reading the Minister of War's letters to Monsieur de La Vernaye and realizing that Mathilde is a friend of the Marechale de Fervaques, sees a quick route to the episcopate.
- Book II, chapter 39: The intrigue: Ambition is dead in Julien's breast and another passion rises from the ashes, which he calls remorse for having shot Madame de Rênal.
Passages
The choice that gives the book its title, made by calculation and with Napoleon's yardstick:
Nowadays we see priests of forty drawing a hundred thousand francs a year, three times what Napoleon's famous division generals earned. [...] One must become a priest.
The same yardstick decides his refusal of a partnership with Fouqué:
Come now, 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 deeds!
It even enters his first love:
His love was still ambition; it was the joy of a poor, unhappy creature, so despised, in possessing a woman so noble and so beautiful.
At the highest point of the climb, victory is no longer enough:
He had barely become a lieutenant, through favor and for two days, when he was already calculating that to be commander in chief by thirty, at the latest, like all the great generals, he had to be more than a lieutenant at twenty-three.
In prison, the narrator announces the end of ambition and names what takes its place:
Ambition was dead in his breast, another passion had risen from the ashes; he called it remorse for having shot Madame de Rênal.