The Red and the Black, Stendhal, 1830

Introduction

The Red and the Black, a French novel written by Stendhal and published in 1830, is a social and psychological novel, investigating the socioeconomic structure of France and the psychology of its main characters separately and in interaction. 

I’ve wanted to read this book for many years. To some extent, the reason I studied French language in school was because my father suggested it in order to read French literature, including Stendhal. He said that he regretted being unable to read in French - I think he may have preferred The Charterhouse of Parma. For some of the time reading this book, I went back and forth between the English translation and the original French. While I noticed that the writing in both French and English are a bit old and formal, the English seemed far more so. I’m not sure if this is due to my greater familiarity with English or due to the quality of the French prose. Either way, the French writing was more clearly beautiful than the English translation. 

During grade school I enjoyed French and was impressed by French accomplishments ranging from cuisine to science to culture. I studied the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and related topics like the Haitian Revolution and the French and Indian War. In recent years, I haven’t been as drawn to the French tradition. Western European novels have been less relatable than Central and Eastern European literature recently. Overall, I found it hard to be highly engaged in the book in this read-through. 

Narrative

The story follows a young provincial peasant named Julien Sorel. He is ambitious, intelligent, but somewhat naive. Born to a poor family, son of a carpenter who despises him, Julien venerates the memory of Napoleon. He laments the fact that he was born too late to take part in what he sees as the heroism of Napoleon’s age and the ease of social mobility via the Napoleonic military. Julien often compares that martial time to his own, as well as that of the ancien régime - in particular, the prioritization of meritocracy. Stendhal compares the characteristics of men that allow one to rise in the world in different times. 

In the post-war Bourbon restoration, Julien believes that the church hierarchy is the means for him to ascend. The Catholic church had been rehabilitated after the revolution and gained back its leading role in the state and largely so in society. Thus, he befriends the local abbe, Chélan. We first see here one of Julien’s key skills - to develop paternal, maternal, or otherwise loving feelings towards him with those in an advantageous position to assist him. This skill appears intuitive rather than cynically intentional. It is worth drawing a connection with the Lyndon Johnson of the Robert Caro biography. Caro describes Johnson as displaying this same skill, calling it being a “professional son,” although Johnson was a much more scheming practitioner than Julien. 

Julien begins his journey by capitalizing on his memorization of the Bible and knowledge of Latin to secure a job as a tutor for the children of Monsieur de Rênal, the Mayor of Verrieres, the town of Julien’s birth and upbringing. An affair develops between Julien, only a little over twenty years old, and Madame de Rênal, about thirty years old. 

Julien plots against Madame de Rênal, seeking to seduce her for several reasons - to assist his ambitions, to stoke his ego, to spite her upper class husband. Madame de Rênal is naive and innocent, despite being much older than Julien, and is described as hardly even having read a novel. However, despite its less-than-idealistic origins, their love becomes highly authentic for them both. They risk everything to be with each other in a world regulated by strict social mores and class hierarchy. While Julien is ostensibly the more directly religious of the two, it is Madame de Rênal who is sincere in her religious beliefs. Her sin of adultery creates an internal conflict that continues to haunt her throughout the novel. 

The affair is exposed and Julien must flee Verrieres. He is assisted by Abbé Chélan in securing a place at a seminary in Bésançon, a larger city in the vicinity of Verrieres. At first Julien views this as a step up in the world, but he soon finds himself isolated in the seminary. Julien’s intelligence and individualism are not well received by the other students who are variously jealous, resentful, and disdainful of him. His knowledge of the holy Latin of the Bible and secular Latin literature, as well as his personal arrogance, alienates both the Jesuit and Jansenist factions within the seminary. Nonetheless, Julien’s key skill serves him again in cultivating a friendship with the head of the seminary, Abbé Pirard. When the political situation shifts against Pirard and he must leave the seminary, he arranges for Julien to leave to serve as the personal secretary of an associate of Pirard’s in Paris, the nobleman Marquis de la Mole. 

Julien moves to Paris to live in the house of the de la Mole family where he works as a manager and assistant in M. de la Mole’s various enterprises. We learn about aristocratic Parisian life, especially the idleness and boredom of the upper classes. They are shown to be very social - partaking in salons, concerts, and dinner parties every night - yet devoid of meaningful discussion, obsessed with ancient family lineages, and governed by strict cultural norms of politeness. Julien excels  and grows close to the Marquis de la Mole, despite his awareness of his lower class birth and the resulting limitations. 

At the same time, two stories develop concerning Julien. The first is a romance between the daughter of the Marquis de la Mole, Mathilde. The second is a monarchical conspiracy to further roll back revolutionary reforms involving de la Mole. Mathilde becomes enamored of Julien in comparison to the aristocrats with whom she’s familiar - she finds him interesting and exciting. He represents a forbidden love for her due to his poor birth, but he is ambitious, intelligent, and energetic. Julien’s thoughts on the romance are somewhat ambiguous, as are his intentions. At the same time, an affair with the daughter of his employer is very risky and potentially lucrative - it could destroy him or elevate him into wealth. At first he has no feelings towards her. But as Mathilde gives him her attention, Mathilde’s beautiful eyes and extreme wit, coupled with her interest in Julien, are enough to pique his interest. When Julien returns her favor, she grows disinterested since the primary mover of her love is thrill. 

Julien gets caught up in this affair because his attraction to Mathilde is flared and extinguished several times as she comes in and out of love with him. He careens from despair to happiness and back again. All the while, he assists his employer in communicating with other reactionary noblemen, even participating in a central conspiratorial meeting and delivering secret messages. Julien is distracted by the affair with Mathilde and by his ambitions and he fails to see that this plot is anathema to his revolutionary and Napoleonic political philosophy. He works against his own class. 

Julien finally dedicates himself to the conquest of Mathilde’s love, revealing himself to be capable of sociopathic manipulation. He follows the instructions of a Russian nobleman friend and writes love letters to another woman, igniting Mathilde’s jealousy and reigniting her love for Julien. The key to her interest is revealed to be a lack of any certainty that she may possess him - after all, she possesses everything else in the world. Mathilde divulges that she is pregnant with Julien’s child, and the Marquis de la Mole learns of the affair.

After an initial fury, it appears that Julien’s future is secured - M. de la Mole comes around to the idea of his daughter marrying Julien. The Marquis de la Mole begins to construct a noble backstory for Julien, gets him placed as an officer of the Hussars, grants him a rich income and estate, and so on. Julien appears to enter the nobility. At this moment of triumph, a letter arrives from Madame de Rênal detailing their previous affair and accuses Julien of repeatedly seducing beneficially positioned women in pursuit of his career. All is ruined. 

Julien rushes to Verrieres where he attempts to assassinate Madame de Rênal, shooting at her during church service. He is arrested and believes he has killed Madame de Rênal, resigning himself to execution. However, it is revealed that Madame de Rênal survived. Mathilde comes to Verrieres to attempt to save Julien by hiring lawyers, bribing and conspiring with the corrupt local leadership, but Julien stubbornly refuses to cooperate. Madame de Rênal herself visits Julien and professes her absolute love for him which reinvigorates Julien and his love for her, inspiring some will to life again. Madame de Rênal seeks to influence the trial and acquit alongside Mathilde, who is again jealous and distraught by the love between Julien and Madame de Rênal. 

In the end, Julien condemns himself on the stand during the trial, and plays into the contemptful jury who dislike him for his efforts towards upheaval of the social structure. Julien is guillotined. Mathilde reenacts a medieval legend of the de la Mole family, burying Julien’s body and kissing his severed head. Madame de Rênal, despite a promise to Julien to refrain from suicide, dies three days afterwards. 

Class and Socialism

There are early socialist themes to the novel, insofar as there are class-conscious critiques throughout. Julien is acutely aware of the mismatch between ability and birth - one’s class of birth determines one’s future rather than one’s merit. At the same time, the novel has negative and positive portrayals of all French social classes, and the set of classes doesn’t match those of today.   

There is ample criticism of the hypocritical materialism within the Church, its lack of focus on religion for its own sake, and its heavy involvement in the world of politics. The nobility’s lack of substance, the boredom and inactivity of its members serve to demonstrate its vestigiality. Likewise, the author has a harsh word for the money grubbing attitudes of the bourgeois and merchants in Verrieres. Unlike some strictly socialist literature, the workers and peasants are shown as uneducated and gullible, easily manipulated by the other elements of society. A clear but minor example is how an enterprising preacher takes advantage of the hubbub around Julien’s imprisonment to get attention for himself.

Veneration of the past

One commonality across the classes and factions in The Red and the Black is a tendency towards the veneration of prior eras. It reminded me of a similar theme in the film Midnight in Paris - the characters are nostalgic for the era just past, but when they themselves are transported back into that time, they find those alive then to feel nostalgia for an even further past time. It is the effect of rose tinted glasses. Julien has this veneration of Napoleon and the revolution, despite the devastation and destruction. Many of the church and aristocracy pine for the days of the ancien régime, while the de la Mole family reflect on the heroic Medieval era and their deeds in the crusades. It seems that in these cases, the characters fail to appreciate the trends of the present due to the distractions of the past. This is human nature. 

Love

Love is a primary theme of the book, interrogated via Julien’s two affairs. We don’t see a fairy tale love story, nor do we see overt Machiavellianism. Instead, the affairs are full of twists and turns between authentic love, manipulation, despair, and indifference. However, Julien’s affair with Madame de Rênal is, in the end, authentic, while his with Mathilde is born of ambition and convenience. Stendhal suggests at times that love is most strongly felt in its unrequited and forbidden forms, that it is its most ecstatic when mutual in short bursts of passion. There are also pragmatic dimensions to love, such as marriages of alliance. But in the end, I think Stendhal clearly believes in love’s power, so much so that it has the power to make one live or die.

Psychology

The Red and The Black is famed for being an early example of psychological literature. There are a few moments when the author interrupts as the narrator and gives omniscient and comedic commentary. There are also third person descriptions of events. But much time is spent within the thoughts of Julien and a few other key characters. In the last few portions of the novel, during the frenzy of the culmination of Julien’s affair with Mathilde and after Julien’s climactic attempt on the life of Madame de la Mole, there is much psychological material to study. I found the waffling and agonizing around the love affair to drag somewhat, as I did the depressed delirium within the jail cell. 

I noticed many parallels with the internal monologues of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The feeling of guilt and conscience and a desire to commit crime and be punished for it is a strange element of human nature shared by Julien and Rodion. Stendhal and Dostoevksy both consider forms of thinking whereby morality is determined by utility in the pursuit of personal goals. In other words, what is right and wrong is whatever helps the subject achieve something, rather than traditional religious values. This is less pronounced in The Red and the Black but I think a good argument exists to tie these works together. 

Historical Context

Throughout reading the novel, I felt an acute sense of missing context across many domains, including historial, literary, cultural, and religious. There were ample footnotes included in my copy, evidence of the need for some context. With regard to the historical context, I watched a relevant series of historical videos on YouTube by the channel Historia Civilis and did some background reading on Wikipedia. 

The Historia Civilis series seeks to investigate the long period of 1815-1914, during which no great power conflict occurred in Europe. That ninety-nine year stretch is sandwiched by the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars beforehand and the First World War afterwards, each the deadliest European war up to its occurrence. Historia Civilis points out that such a long stretch is highly unusual and may be the longest period in history, followed by the current period since the end of the Second World War.

A great power conflict refers to an extended war between states that rank among the most powerful in their time and setting. Such conflicts have historically been extremely deadly, destructive, and all-consuming for many years. They have simultaneously ended and inaugurated historical epochs due to their transformative power. As such, they should be avoided at all costs and closely studied, for their reverberations define society for years afterwards. Stendhal’s novel investigates a French society at some temporal distance from the preceding Napoleonic wars, right before the July Revolution of 1830. 

I am no expert on the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. I believe the context needed to appreciate the novel is that Napoleon was a general during the Revolution who took power in a military coup. He continued many of the reforms of the Revolution and implemented a widespread rationalization of law and administration, creating the Napoleonic Code. He was a military genius and conquered nearly the entirety of continental Europe for about ten years. The conquest was famously turned back during his invasion of Russia, immortalized in Russian art such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The other European powers, including Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia formed several coalitions during the course of the Napoleonic Wars to resist France. Finally, in 1814, one such coalition overwhelmed the French army and occupied eastern France, exiling Napoleon. Napoleon left a complex legacy in France and in the world, including in the mind of Julien Sorel. 

This peace was inaugurated by the Congress of Vienna and its implementation of the Concert of Europe. The overarching political goals of the Congress included (1) the maintenance of peace in Europe and (2) the reinforcement of conservative monarchies. Peace would rely on the establishment of a balance of power between the great powers and would be enforced by the threat of coalitionary retaliation by the other great powers if any one attempted to expand. 

France, despite being the defeated enemy in the prior war, was returned to its status as a great power and not forced into extreme reparations or territory loss. The Bourbon monarchy was restored. Out of political pragmatism, many revolutionary reforms were retained and the new Napoleonic elite was joined by the return of the pre-revolution nobility. This moved France in the direction of an English-style constitutional monarchy, one that the Bourbons wished to resist and return to absolute monarchy. The Marquis de la Mole exemplifies the efforts of the conservative aristocracy and Church to gradually roll back revolutionary reductions to their powers and privileges. While it does not figure directly in the narrative of the book, all of this prefigures the July revolution of 1830. Bourbon overreach prompted a short-lived revolution culminating in the overthrow of the Bourbons and their replacement by the Orleans branch, who committed to constitutional monarchy. 

The other great powers don’t play a significant role in the narrative outside of the policial conspiracy meeting that Julien attends, during which the aristocrats contemplate whether England and the other powers could stomach another colationary war to support the French regime. 

There is a great irony and naive hypocrisy in Julien’s political position. He professes to admire Napoleon and the revolution, but is more enamored by idealized romantic heroism and glory. This ideal can be applied across the political regimes and is the same ideals espoused by the aristocratic and conservative de la Mole family towards their Medieval Crusader origins. Julien finds himself at the center of politics and conspiracy as de la Mole’s secretary and confidant, but he fails to see it. He is too distracted by youthful love affairs and political daydreaming. Nonetheless, he somewhat unknowingly directly aids the conservatives against his own political faction and begins to rapidly ascend, as was his ambition.