The Theme in the Work
Madame de Rênal, married at sixteen, had never felt anything like love (Book I, ch. 7), and she discovers it almost without noticing: the disproportionate joy when Julien Sorel refuses Élisa (ch. 8), the hand that stays in his under the linden tree (ch. 9), the terror of the word adultery (ch. 11). Julien starts from the other side, out of duty and vanity, with a written plan (chs. 13 and 14), and the narrator warns that, even in love, his love is still ambition (ch. 16). The illness of the youngest son makes the two of them more somber (ch. 19), and the anonymous letter ends up separating them (ch. 23).
Mathilde de La Mole is the opposite experience. She decides to love in order to escape the boredom of her class (Book II, ch. 11), chooses Julien precisely because he is not noble (ch. 12), and makes every step a test of courage: the ladder at one in the morning (ch. 16), the cruel confidences (ch. 18), the declaration that she no longer loves him (ch. 20). The narrator calls this feeling cerebral love (ch. 19), and Julien wins her back only by pretending, with Korasoff's letters (chs. 24 to 29). The contrast between the two loves is formulated by Julien himself (ch. 30).
Madame de Rênal's letter to the Marquis de La Mole undoes the marriage and leads to the shot in the church at Verrières (ch. 35). In prison the order is reversed: Mathilde's devotion wearies Julien (ch. 39), Madame de Rênal writes to the jurors (ch. 40) and comes to beg him to appeal (ch. 43). In the end, Mathilde kisses her lover's head and has the grotto adorned with marble; Madame de Rênal dies three days after him, embracing her children (ch. 45).
The two loves are the central experiment of the novel, and Stendhal does not say which is worth more: the ending only shows which of the two Julien returns to. One is born without knowing it is love; the other is born from a project and a reading; one lives on impulse, the other needs a new motive in every chapter. Julien spends the book betting on the second, which confirms his ambition, and only discovers in his cell that the first was the only place where he did not have to calculate. The shot is the point where the two lines cross: he himself cannot say whether he fired out of ambition or out of love for Mathilde (ch. 42), and it is the love for Madame de Rênal that survives the shot.
Where It Appears
- Book I, chapter 7: Elective affinities: Madame de Rênal, married at sixteen, had never felt anything like love, and so she does not reproach herself for the embarrassed silence beside Julien.
- Book I, chapter 8: Small events: On learning that Julien refuses Élisa, Madame de Rênal almost loses the reason for her happiness and asks herself whether she loves him; Julien decides that it is his duty to make sure she never withdraws her hand again.
- Book I, chapter 9: A night in the country: Under the linden tree, Julien takes Madame de Rênal's hand as one who meets a deadline, and she, hand in hand with him, thinks of nothing and lets herself live.
- Book I, chapter 11: A night: Julien kisses Madame de Rênal's arm and hand in front of her husband, and she discovers that she is in love and is terrified by the word adultery.
- Book I, chapter 13: The lace stockings: Madame de Rênal appears in lace stockings and a new dress, and Julien decides, out of vanity and duty, to become her lover.
- Book I, chapter 14: The English scissors: Julien writes a seduction plan and, after lunch, touches Madame de Rênal's foot with his boot, and she drops the English scissors.
- Book I, chapter 15: The crowing of the rooster: Julien enters Madame de Rênal's room barefoot at two in the morning, forgets his plans, falls in tears at her feet, and she soon throws herself into his arms.
- Book I, chapter 16: The next day: Within a few days Julien is madly in love, although his love is still largely ambition.
- Book I, chapter 19: To think is to suffer: When the youngest son, Stanislas, falls ill, Madame de Rênal is seized with remorse and sees the fever as God's punishment for adultery, and her love and Julien's becomes more intense and somber.
- Book I, chapter 20: The anonymous letters: Threatened by the anonymous letter, Madame de Rênal plans the defense of the two of them and agrees with Julien on a white handkerchief in the dovecote.
- Book I, chapter 23: A civil servant's woes: On the orders of the curé Chélan, Julien leaves Verrières, but returns on the third day for a farewell night in which Madame de Rênal, icy, seems to him a living corpse.
- Book I, chapter 28: A procession: At the Corpus Christi procession, Julien recognizes Madame de Rênal in the cathedral, and she faints at the sound of his footsteps.
- Book I, chapter 30: An ambitious man: Julien buys a ladder and enters Madame de Rênal's room at dawn; she repels him with religious horror and yields when he announces, with calculated coldness, that he is leaving forever.
- Book II, chapter 10: Queen Margaret: Mathilde appears in deep mourning on the anniversary of the beheading of Boniface de La Mole, and Julien wavers between suspecting a hoax and thinking that she is courting him.
- Book II, chapter 11: The empire of a young woman: Mathilde decides, in a flash of joy, that she is in love, and concludes that only a heroic love will free her from boredom.
- Book II, chapter 12: He'll be a Danton: Mathilde imagines her love for Julien as that of Margaret of Valois for La Mole, without contract or notary.
- Book II, chapter 13: A conspiracy: Mathilde sends Julien a declaration of love, and he, fearing a trap, has the letter copied and sends the original, hidden in a Bible, to a servant of Fouqué.
- Book II, chapter 14: Thoughts of a young woman: After struggling against her pride, Mathilde writes Julien a note summoning him to her room by the gardener's great staircase.
- Book II, chapter 15: Will it be a conspiracy?: Julien spends the afternoon weighing whether the note is a trap and, at dinner, faced with Mathilde's pallor, he nearly falls in love.
- Book II, chapter 16: One in the morning: Julien climbs to Mathilde's room with a pistol in his hand, and the night ends without complaint or tenderness.
- Book II, chapter 17: An old sword: After pretending not to see Julien, Mathilde quarrels with him, and only then does he discover that he loves her; in the library he throws himself at an old sword, draws back, and she gazes at him without hatred.
- Book II, chapter 18: Cruel moments: Mathilde takes Julien for a walk in the garden and tells him of her enthusiasms for Croisenois, Caylus and Luz, and then, certain of being loved, despises him completely.
- Book II, chapter 19: The Opéra Bouffe: The narrator calls Mathilde's love cerebral, and she, after the second climb up the ladder, throws Julien a lock of hair as a sign of obedience.
- Book II, chapter 20: The Japanese vase: Mathilde enters the library in the morning and tells Julien that she no longer loves him, humiliating him with calculated contempt.
- Book II, chapter 24: Strasbourg: In Strasbourg, Julien, who has Mathilde alone in his soul, confesses to Korasoff that he is in love and rejected, and accepts from him the recipe for winning her back.
- Book II, chapter 26: Moral love: Before the Marechale de Fervaques, Julien speaks only to reach Mathilde, who moves to a small table beside the Marechale's armchair.
- Book II, chapter 29: Boredom: Mathilde finds the Marechale's unopened letters, falls at Julien's feet, and says she can no longer live without his love.
- Book II, chapter 30: A box at the Opéra Bouffe: The narrator contrasts the two women: Madame de Rênal found reasons to do what her heart dictated, while Mathilde lets her heart be moved only after finding good reasons.
- Book II, chapter 31: To frighten her: Mathilde offers to leave with Julien for London, and he, after answering coldly, weeps by the honeysuckle in the garden and covers his slip.
- Book II, chapter 32: The tiger: Mathilde, for the first time truly in love, is submissive with Julien, discovers that she is pregnant, and writes to her father, the marquis de La Mole, an eight-page letter.
- Book II, chapter 35: A storm: After learning of Madame de Rênal's letter to the marquis, Julien buys pistols, enters the church at Verrières during Mass, and shoots twice at the woman he loved most.
- Book II, chapter 36: Sad details: On learning that Madame de Rênal did not die, Julien falls to his knees weeping and begins to repent.
- Book II, chapter 39: The intrigue: Mathilde's boundless devotion wearies Julien, and the memory of Vergy and Verrières takes the place of ambition.
- Book II, chapter 40: Tranquility: Madame de Rênal, who had promised her husband not to leave her bed, goes to Besançon and writes to each of the thirty-six jurors asking them to declare that the premeditation of Julien's crime is not incontestable.
- Book II, chapter 42: Julien rehearses what he would say to Madame de Rênal and wonders how to persuade her that it is her he loves, after having wanted to kill her.
- Book II, chapter 43: Madame de Rênal comes to the prison to beg him to appeal, the two forgive each other, and Julien says that he will never have been so happy.
- Book II, chapter 44: On the night he thinks of killing himself, Julien concludes that what isolates him is the absence of Madame de Rênal.
- Book II, chapter 45: Julien tells Madame de Rênal all his weaknesses, and she dies three days after him, embracing her children.
Passages
Madame de Rênal's starting point, when she did not know what it was to love:
Madame de Rênal, the wealthy heiress of a devout aunt, married at sixteen to a good gentleman, had never in her life felt or seen anything that resembled love in the slightest.
The first night under the linden tree, from her side:
As for Madame de Rênal, hand in hand with Julien, she thought of nothing; she let herself live.
The name the narrator gives to Mathilde's love:
Cerebral love is no doubt more witty than true love, but it has only a few moments of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it judges itself constantly; instead of leading thought astray, it is built only by the force of thoughts.
The contrast between the two loves, as Julien himself thinks it through:
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.
Madame de Rênal's end, without scene or speech:
Madame de Rênal kept her promise. She made no attempt whatsoever on her own life; but three days later she died, embracing her children.