32 "La Congrégation" and similar secret organizations—on the left and the right—preoccupied the popular imagination of early-nineteenth-century France. In The Red and the Black, the Congregation obliquely refers to the Jesuits—who were widely resented as a secretive, power-hungry shadow government—and their allies. A royalist organization known as La Congrégation actually existed; formed in 1801, dissolved by order of Napoleon in 1814, they regrouped under the Restoration and broke up in 1830. A similar group was the Chevaliers de la Foi (The Knights of the Faith), a group of devout royalists formed under the Empire who exercised some influence under the Restoration. Many Chevaliers were also members of the Congrégation, which contributed to the reputation of the latter for secretive political activism.
Chapter 35