Rouge et le noir, Le. Novel by Stendhal, published 1830, one of the summits of French fiction. Julien Sorel, a carpenter's son from the Franche-Comté, is a passionate devotee of Napoleon. Devoured by ambition, he concludes that in the post-Napoleonic age, the Church is the only road to fortune. His ability to recite the Bible by heart allows him to start his climb to success by becoming tutor to the children of the local mayor, Monsieur de Rênal. In comic imitation of his hero, he imposes his will on his master and seduces the naïve and beautiful Madame de Rênal. His next step takes him to the seminary of Besançon, where his superiority riles his fellow students. He moves to Paris, as secretary to an ultra nobleman, the marquis de la Môle, who sends him on political missions. His fire and intelligence allow him now to seduce the marquis's romantic, head-strong daughter, Mathilde; when the marquis learns that she is expecting his child, he is obliged to procure Julien an army commission under an aristocratic name. Then, at the height of his success, the hero is brought down by a letter of denunciation from Madame de Rênal to the marquis. He shoots her in a moment of alienation and gives himself up to justice. Although she is only wounded, his defiance of the jury as class enemies results in the death sentence. As he awaits his fate in the prison tower high above Besançon he is reunited in perfect love with Madame de Rênal, turning away from Mathilde and worldly ambition. She dies on the day of his execution; Mathilde, in imitation of a Renaissance ancestor, carries his severed head to burial.
The novel gives a remarkable satirical picture of different levels of French society. Stendhal was proud of his realism (in a famous aside he describes the novel as ‘un miroir qui se promène sur une grande route’)—which is shown also in the detailed exploration of the battle of love between Julien and Mathilde. But this witty, clear-eyed narrative, written in an admirably taut and rapid style, with many ironic comments from the narrator, also contains a romantic exaltation of energy and passion, and of love as the supreme value. Julien is no Tartuffe; he is more a mixture of Napoleon and Rousseau. The enigmatic title may be intended to represent the army and the Church; on a broader interpretation it sets generosity, energy, and life against boredom and oppression.
[Peter France]
