The Red and the Black

01 1 The Revolution of July 1830, which brought down the increasingly conservative government of Charles X

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02 2 There is no question that Stendhal began writing The Red and the Black in 1829 and completed the novel in

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03 3 (translated [and at one point corrected] from Le Rouge et Le Noir, vol. I, Paris, Larousse, 1937, p. 8)

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04 4 Professor Jean-Jacques Hamm has concluded that only fifteen of the seventy-three epigraphs in The Red and

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05 5 Retranslated from the French

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06 6 See Jonathan Keates’s entertaining account in his biography Stendhal (Carroll & Graf, 1997). A member of

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07 1 Georges-Jacques Danton (1759–94) was a celebrated revolutionary orator; leader of the radical Cordeliers and

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08 2 The epigraph was given in English, and arranged as if from a poem by Stendhal. The English philosopher

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09 3 The geography and description of Verrières suggests the town of Besançon, historic capital of the Franche-

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10 4 A small Alsatian town known for its textile production.

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11 5 The year of Waterloo marked the permanent—so it was thought—restoration of the Bourbons to the throne.

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12 6 Literally, Father Sorel, not a religious but a folksy and familiar form of address, more respectful than le vieux

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13 7 Antoine Barnave (1761–93) quickly earned a reputation as the finest young orator of the National Assembly

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14 8 “Monarchist” is given here for ultra. The ultra-royalistes were a faction that were said to be more monarchist

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15 9 This character is based on Dr. Gagnon, Stendhal’s maternal grandfather, to whom the author was extremely

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16 10 The most radical faction of the National Assembly, the Jacobin Club took its name from the former

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17 11 Founded by Bonaparte in 1802 to recognize service to the nation; although maintained by the restored

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18 12 Adolphe was the title of Benjamin Constant’s very popular sentimental novel of 1816, which tells the story of

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19 14 The name suggests two very different early-eighteenth-century ecclesiastics: Claude Fleury (1640–1723) was

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20 15 Royalists, even before 1815, would use the Italian pronunciation of the “usurper’s” name to emphasize the

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21 16 Citizen First Consul Bonaparte became the Emperor Napoleon by virtue of a plebiscite in 1804. The total

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22 17 For ecus, a coin worth three francs in the nineteenth century.

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23 18 These are curious allusions for the conservative Monsieur de Rênal: In the last years of the ancien régime,

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24 19 Madame de Montesson, morganitic second wife of Philippe Égalité’s father, introduced the young duke to her

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25 20 Parisian palace to the north of the Louvre, built by Cardinal de Richelieu and later acquired by the Orleans

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26 21 Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) is best known for The Prince, his masterpiece of cynical realpolitik.

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27 23 The peasants of ancient Egypt.

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28 24 Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, by Comte Emmanuel de Las Cases, was the author’s recounting of Napoleon’s

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29 25 One of the politically clumsy moves of the Restoration government was to cut by 50 percent the pensions of

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30 26 Quintus Ennius (239–169B .C.), a Roman poet whose work survives largely through quotations in the works

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31 27 An important question for the time. To eat with the family was a sign of status; only servants ate in the

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32 28 The autobiographical masterpiece of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78). Published posthumously, 1782–88,

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33 29 These weekly bulletins, first appearing in 1805, were the official record of the military exploits of the

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34 30 Joseph-Marie de Maistre (1753–1821) was a leading writer of the counterrevolutionary movement; his

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35 32 “La Congrégation” and similar secret organizations—on the left and the right—preoccupied the popular

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36 33 First published in 1815, this newspaper was the voice of the liberal opposition throughout the Restoration.

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37 34 The future empress, Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763–1814), widow of a general, was a celebrated beauty in

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38 35 This odd-sounding name is an anagram of Julien Sorel. Stendhal was very fond of anagrams, which

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39 36 Another meaningful name for a Rênal child? Louis-Xavier-Stanislas was the full name of King Louis XVIII

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40 1 Mozart’s Figaro, as every French reader knew, was based on the character from Beaumarchais’s wildly

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41 2 August 25; the feast days of Catholic saints were very important in France. Saint Louis, the canonized King

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42 3 Became increasingly unpopular in France throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were

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43 4 The princely Condé family were cousins of the Bourbons, Princes of the Blood Royal. The most famous

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44 5 The Baron de Besenval was a soldier and courtier at Versailles. He became an intimate and a defender of

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45 6 Or La Quotidienne, a highly conservative daily newspaper (see note for p. 65, l. 20).

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46 7 Stendhal had met Lord Byron while living in Milan.

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47 8 The medieval romance of Gabrielle de Vergy tells the story of a virtuous young peasant girl, beloved by a

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48 9 A naturalist who published a popular illustrated study of butterflies.

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49 10 Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833), a popular and successful painter during the Empire. His Aeneas Telling

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50 11 Charles le Téméraire (1433–77), the last of the great Valois dukes of Burgundy, who for four generations

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51 12 A reference to Maximilien de Robespierre (1758–94), the fanatically anti-aristocratic Jacobin politician who

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52 13 Or ecus, 150 francs.

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53 15 Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) was an important political figure during the Revolution. A priest and

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54 16 Born in 1769, Bonaparte at age twenty-eight was the hero of the revolutionary armies; he had not yet seized

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55 17 Suggests the César Vichard, Abbé de Saint-Réal (1639–92), historian, novelist, and diplomat. He was

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56 18 John Polidori was physician and secretary to Lord Byron, whom Stendhal had met in Milan in 1816. A very

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57 19 With the comic playwright Molière and the great tragedian Jean Racine, Pierre Corneille (1606–84) was one

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58 20 A poetic form based on “the minute description of the qualities of an object” (Oxford Companion to French

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59 21 Stendhal frequently used this biblical reference to describe a moment of awakening.

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60 22 Stendhal was a great admirer of Shakespeare; he wrote a study entitled Racine and Shakespeare (1825),

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61 23 The great philosophe Voltaire (1694–1778) and the legendarily debauched King Louis XV (born 1710,

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62 24 A great French victory in 1745; at Fontenoy, in Belgium, the French, commanded by the Marshal de Saxe,

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63 1 A Jansenist, used here as a sort of generic epithet, refers to the seventeenth-century Catholic sect known for

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64 2 The defeat at Leipzig (October 1813) and the victory at Montmirail (February 1814) were part of Napoleon’s

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65 3 Anticlerical feeling ran strong during the Revolution; many churches and other religious buildings were

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66 4 A port on the Mediterranean, west of Marseilles. Stendhal may have been thinking of the Cardinal de Retz,

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67 5 Third Valois Duke of Burgundy (1396–1467), father of Charles the Bold, had a reputation as a philanthopist

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68 2 In 1793, a popular uprising against the revolutionary government was brutally surpressed in Lyons.

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69 3 The year of the first fall of Napoleon, and the initial return of the Bourbons, before the Hundred Days and

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70 4 Monsieur de Rênal’s social clubs. In France, especially in the nineteenth century, “casino” referred not

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71 5 Sometimes referred to as the “White Terror,” after the color of the royal family; the early years of the

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72 6 Under the Restoration, the upper house of the legislature was the Chambre des Pairs. Monsieur de Rênal

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73 1 Italian Jesuit who spent thirty years as a missionary in Brazil. He returned to Europe to assist victims of the

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74 2 Refers to Philip II of Macedonia, who had the good fortune to find in his neighborhood Aristotle, who

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75 4 Provincial academies gave intellectuals and amateur scholars a forum for presenting and publishing the

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76 6 The verse Fables of Jean de La Fontaine (1621–95) have, since their publication, been a staple of the French

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77 7 A nod to Marie-Henri Beyle’s own mathematics tutor in Grenoble, who helped his student gain entry to the

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78 8 The Fox and the Crow,or Le Corbeau et le Renard, one of La Fontaine’s most popular fables: The clever, hungry

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79 9 Words loaded with political significance in France and Europe of the early nineteenth century; legitimists

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80 10 Or Grand Vicaire, was a priest who served as auxiliary to a bishop. When many bishops were still aristocratic

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81 1 Casti refers to a licentious poet of eighteenth-century Italy.

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82 2 Short for “ultra royaliste”; the ultra party longed for a return to absolute monarchy, including the

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83 3 The fool or clown Pulcinella was a stock character in European theatre, opera, etc.

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84 2 The year that Louis XIV took the Franche-Comté from Spain.

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85 3 Rousseau’s sentimental romance of 1761. The novel was an immediate success and continued to be widely

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86 1 Three highly regarded theologians of recent French history. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), Bishop of

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87 2 All fathers of the ancient Church, with the exception of Bonaventura (ca. 1221–74), who was a theologian and

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88 3 Pope Pius V: (1504–74); “Unam Ecclesiam”: an invention of Stendhal’s.

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89 1 The quotation given corresponds to no known author named Young. Although Stendhal typically quotes

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90 3 Saint Theresa Avila and Saint Francis of Assisi.

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91 4 Two priests who rejected the Church in favor of the Revolution. For Sieyès, see note for p. 65, Epigraph. Henri

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92 5 A liberal daily newspaper, founded in 1815 in opposition to the Bourbon government.

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93 7 An obscure country priest who found sudden fame when he published a translation of Virgil’s Georgica; he

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94 8 “See, at the Louvre Museum, François, Duke of Aquitaine, laying down his armor to take the monk’s habit.”

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95 1 Denis Diderot (1713–84), with Voltaire and Rousseau, was one of the greatest of the philosophes. Diderot

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96 3 Refers here to a presiding judge of a royal court. Members of the magistrature were referred to as the noblesse

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97 4 In France, the Fête Dieu, a religious celebration marked by the procession of the Eucharist through the streets

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98 5 1793–94.

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99 7 Seventeenth-century mathematician whose name became a byword for mathematical accuracy.

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100 1 The Precursor: a newspaper published in Lyons.

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101 2 Or l’autre, a politically prudent way of referring to Napoleon under the Restoration. Napoleon died on Saint-

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102 3 “The people” here for le peuple, the commoners or lower classes, among whom the cult of Napoleon was

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103 4 Or Garde des Sceaux, effectively the minister of justice.

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104 5 The bishop was an émigré, the name given to those aristocrats who fled France during the Revolution. The

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105 6 “La Madeleine” was written by young Delphine Gay, the future wife of Emile de Girardin—the famous

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106 7 Constantine I (ca. 275–337), the Roman emperor who converted to Christianity.

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107 9 Saint Marguerite-Marie; a Burgundian peasant girl (1647–90) who entered a convent and there had a vision

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108 1 Edinburgh Review: The quotation given is an invention, but the Edinburgh Review was a real newspaper that

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109 2 In Paris, the best apartments were located on the first floor—one flight above ground level—and the fifth

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110 1 Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–69) had already begun his long career as a writer and critic when

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111 2 Although Virgil wrote the Georgica, odes to the country life, this quote is in fact from Horace’s Satires, in

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112 3 Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau (1749–91), was already a scandalous figure when he deserted

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113 5 In 1807, Napoleon decided to create a new Imperial nobility in order to create loyalty and to aggrandize his

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114 6 A small château just west of Paris, bought by Joséphine Bonaparte soon after her marriage to Napoleon. It

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115 7 Arcola was the site of one of General Bonaparte’s Italian triumphs, in 1796. Saint-Helena is the Atlantic island

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116 8 In 1820, a liberal revolution arose against the reactionary Spanish Bourbons, seeking a stable, constitutional

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117 9 On the right bank of the Seine, the site of public tortures and executions in Paris until the guillotine was set

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118 10 The work of Louis Moreri (1643–80).

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119 11 A name Stendhal borrowed from French history; the ducal Chaulnes family was prominent in the last

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120 12 The Spanish king who aggressively interfered in French politics and attempted (unsuccessfully) to suppress

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121 14 Roughly corresponding to today’s seventh arrondissement on the Left Bank, the Faubourg Saint-Germain

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122 2 As those familiar with Kant’s philosophy will immediately deduce, this citation is nowhere to be found

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123 3 (born 1551) reigned briefly during the turbulent second half of the sixteenth century. He was the third son of

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124 4 The marquis has awarded Julien an aristocratic de, the particule (sometimes des, de la, or du) that was

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125 6 Michel Ney (1769–1815), whom Napoleon called le brave des braves, made his name with the revolutionary

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126 7 Stendhal almost certainly took this name from Mathilde Dembowska, the beautiful Italian wife of a Polish

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127 8 Chapelle was a wealthy bourgeois who composed light satirical verse for the amusement of friends like the

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128 9 Robert Southey (1774–1843), minor English poet and biographer, friend of Coleridge. He and Byron,

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129 10 George IV, King of England (1820–30); Maecenas is best remembered as the great patron of the arts under

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130 11 The Doges were the elected leaders of the aristocratic oligarchy of the Venetian Republic.

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131 3 Or Rue du Bac, one of the main roads in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

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132 4 Pierre de Ronsard (1524–85), one of the greatest of French poets and a leading figure in the Pléiade school.

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133 5 Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857), immensely popular songwriter whose satirical songs reflected, and

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134 6 The operas of Gioacchino Antonio Rossini (1792–1868) gained popularity in Paris throughout the

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135 7 For the conservative La Quotidienne, see note for p. 65, l. 20. The Gazette de France, the official organ of the court,

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136 8 This was one of the cherished privileges accorded to the highest nobility of the ancien régime.

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137 9 Prince Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand Périgord (1754–1838) was the renegade bishop and legendarily agile

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138 10 One of the oldest names in France, Bouillon is also a homonym for bouillon, broth.

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139 11 A bitter, jealous hypocrite in The Barber of Seville, in both Beaumarchias’s play of 1775 and Rossini’s opera of

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140 12 An allusion to Monsieur de Tolly’s own magic act, making ballots disappear.

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141 13 A possible allusion to Comte Joseph de Villèle (1773–1854), who rose to power as an ultra in 1821, but

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142 14 Charles James Fox (1749–1806), rival of William Pitt (see note for p. 361, l. 31) and leader of the opposition

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143 15 Took the throne on the death of his brother, George IV, in 1830.

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144 16 A powerful aristocrat and accomplished soldier under the ancien régime. This phrase appears to be

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145 18 Probably modeled on the Baron de Rothschild. Thaler was an old German currency, the origin of the word

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146 1 A character in the novel Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas, by Louvret de Couvray, published in 1787. The

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147 2 Many scholars believe Altamira to be based on the Neapolitan Count di Fiore, who was a friend of

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148 1 This quote cannot be identified with any known Latin author named Gratius.

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149 2 A fashionable tailor in the rue de Richelieu.

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150 3 A success for Rossini, it debuted in 1828.

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151 2 Count Antoine de Rivarol (1743–1801), a writer and aristocrat famous for his wit and conversation. A fierce

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152 3 Characters from a 1728 play, L’école des bourgeois.

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153 4 The first is the Cross of the Legion of Honor (see note for p. 8, ll. 5–6), which was preserved by the Bourbons

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154 6 Napoleon engaged in a series of constant and petty squabbles with Lowe, whose rules and conditions the

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155 7 An invention of Stendhal’s; Stendhal had studied several English philosophers, probably including Locke.

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156 8 It appears that Valenod has aquired an aristocratic particle (de) along with his title.

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157 1 Silvio Pellico (1789–1854), Italian patriot and poet, whose liberal political activities against the Austrian

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158 3 Stendhal has again borrowed a name from French history for his duke (see note for pg. 101, l. 11).

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159 4 A strange object of veneration for the very aristocratic Mathilde. Du contrat social is Rousseau’s 1762 essay

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160 5 Lush country region just north of Paris where many nobles owned country houses, including the Duke de

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161 6 A sly reference to an incident in which an amateur scholar invented an ancient Roman king named Feretrius

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162 7 The Conti family were a branch of the Condé family (see note for p. 38, l. 33), Princes of the Blood Royal.

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163 8 “Cette feuille, composée le 25 juillet 1830, a été imprimée le 4 août. —Note de l’éditeur.” [This page, written

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164 9 Conradin (1252–68), son of Conrad IV, king of Sicily, failed in an attempt to regain his father’s throne and

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165 10 i.e., recently ennobled commoners.

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166 11 Germaine Necker, Baroness de Staël-Holstein (1766–1817), author of Corinne and Delphine. Immensely rich, a

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167 1 Another invented quote, perhaps suggested by the Zurich composer J. M. Usteri’s Schweizer-Reise (Swiss

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168 2 For Danton, see note for p. 1, Epigraph. Danton was in fact quite ugly, and guilty of complicity in much of the

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169 3 See note for p. 249, l. 23. Nerval in this scene seems to resemble Jules de Polignac, the most reactionary of

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170 4 The knightly Order of the Golden Fleece was established by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1429.

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171 5 This is a malcontent speaking. Tartuffe is a Molière masterpiece, concerning the religious hypocrite Tartuffe,

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172 6 The first Bourbon king (born 1553, reigned 1589–1610). He brought an end to the Wars of Religion when he

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173 7 Appellation given to the moderates in the convention. As the principle opponents of the Jacobins—their

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174 8 Paul-Louis Courier (1772–1825), a personal friend of Stendhal’s and a vocal Republican as well as a Hellenist

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175 9 The revolutionary and postrevolutionary generations greatly admired George Washington, chiefly for his

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176 10 An 1829 play, controversial chiefly because it defied the traditional rules of the theater. Marino Faliero told

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177 11 Danton (see note for p. 1, Epigraph) was arrested and executed on charges of embezzlement that, after his

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178 12 Lazare Carnot (1753–1823), revolutionary politician with remarkable survival skills. De facto war minister

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179 13 Refers to the failed liberal uprisings in both countries in the early 1820s.

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180 2 The premiére of Victor Hugo’s play (1830), which flouted the rules of classical French drama, caused such

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181 3 The story of Boniface de La Mole (or La Molle) is set against the turbulent era of the Wars of Religion, or

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182 4 Joseph de Boniface, seigneur de La Mole, was, according to legend, one of Queen Marguerite’s many lovers,

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183 5 the fourth son of Henri II and Catherine de Médici; it was his death in 1584 that lead Henri III to name Henri

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184 6 Théodore-Agrippa d’Aubigné (1552–1630) was a Huguenot nobleman, historian, and poet; a friend of Henri

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185 7 The historical novels of Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)—Ivanhoe, et al.—enjoyed immense popularity in France,

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186 8 Pierre de l’Etoile (1546–1611), a Parisian bourgeois, left a detailed diary of his time.

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187 1 Prosper Mérimée (1803–70), one of the great French writers of the nineteenth century, was known especially

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188 3 Clichés of Romantic literature, especially after Châteaubriand’s immensely popular short novels, René and

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189 4 One of Napoleon’s last significant victories was the Battle of Wagram, fought against Austria in 1809. The

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190 5 Then on the outskirts of Paris, these woods were a fashionable place to ride (and to see and be seen) for the

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191 6 Manon Lescaut, by the abbé Prévost, Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse, and Diderot’s Lettres d’une religieuse

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192 7 Wife of Henri II and mother of three kings of France (see note for p. 289, ll. 9–10). She was said to have brought

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193 9 An Atlantic coastal region just south of Brittany that was a center of counterrevolutionary insurrection.

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194 10 The Charte, or Constitution, of 1815 was a thorn in the side of the ultras despite the fact that they maintained

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195 1 Charles de Valois (1573–1650).

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196 2 Many Spanish noblemen, including most of the royal family, were Napoleon’s prisoners after he invaded the

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197 3 Coblenz, Germany, was the center of the émigré community in the early years of the Revolution. The so-

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198 2 Fraudulent memoirs of famous personages of the revolutionary era proliferated in the early nineteenth

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199 3 A famous actress of the Parisian theaters.

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200 4 King Louis IX (born 1214, reigned 1226–70), who led two crusades, one to Egypt, where he was captured and

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201 5 Born in Besançon, the sixteenth-century prelate Antoine Perronet de Granvelle rose to become a trusted and

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202 6 “Tartuffe aussi fut perdu par une femme.” A stunning sentence for anyone familiar with Tartuffe, as most of the

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203 8 An officer executed for conspiring against the government. Stendhal saw Caron, like Fontan and Magalon, as

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204 2 or Hôtel de Nesle, a huge sixteenth-century town house that belonged to Catherine de Médici; the

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205 3 The French colonization of North Africa began in 1830. Algiers fell to the French on July 4, 1830.

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206 4 A defeat for the Imperial Army in Spain in July 1809. Napoleon was as infuriated by the treaty, by which the

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207 5 A misquotation of Corneille’s Médée. (For Corneille, see note for p. 79, l. 3.)

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208 1 Father of the hero in Le Cid, a noble old soldier who, as a true Cornelian, puts honor before everything.

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209 2 As a young priest, Pierre Abélard (1079–1142 or 44) was hired to tutor Héloïse (1101–64), the bright niece of a

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210 3 According to Plutarch, Julius Caesar ordered his hardened veterans to slash at the faces of his enemy

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211 4 From Virgil’s Aeneid, the phrase describes Dido.

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212 1 Philip Massinger (1583–1640), a British playwright, and a contemporary of Shakespeare.

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213 2 A very successful and fashionable café in the Boulevard des Italiens, Café Tortoni opened in 1804 and

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214 3 The French lost the colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, to Toussiant Louverture’s insurrection in 1791.

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215 4 Rousseau’s sentimental novel of love, thought risqué in some circles. The title alludes to Abélard’s Héloïse

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216 1 The political turbulence of seventeenth-century Britain—the execution of Charles I, Cromwell’s protectorate,

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217 2 Jean-Marie Roland de La Platière (1734–93) was a leader of the Girondin party (see note for p. 282, l. 26),

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218 3 Madame de Staël’s (see note for p. 278, l. 1) list of reputed lovers included Talleyrand, the Count de Narbonne,

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219 4 Domenico Cimarosa (1749–1801), Italian composer. He and Mozart were Stendhal’s favorite composers; his

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220 5 Mathilde’s aria has not been found in any known opera.

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221 6 “C’est donc toi!” in French; Mathilde uses the intimate tu form with Julien for the first time.

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222 7 Again, the cordon bleu of the Order of the Holy Spirit (see note for p. 264, ll. 14–15).

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223 8 Forest west of Paris, near Saint-Cloud.

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224 2 Czar Alexander I (born 1777, reigned 1801–25), grew increasingly mystic and erratic in his later years. His

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225 3 Aristocratic convent east of Paris. The Regent Duke d’Orléan’s daughter Louise-Adélaïde was Abbess of

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226 1 William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) succeeded his father as prime minister at age twenty-four; he took an

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227 2 Arthur Wellesley (1769–1852), hero of the battle of Waterloo. The “Iron Duke” had a long career in British

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228 3 Many of Napoleon’s generals, whether out of political ambition or disgust with the emperor’s relentless

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229 4 The revolutionary armies acquired skills and talented leaders in the two years of war against allied royalist

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230 5 The Duke de Richelieu in question (1766–1822), descendant of the great cardinal, was Louis XVIII’s prime

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231 7 Four non-nobles who rose quickly through the meritorious ranks of the revolutionary armies. The Alsatian

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232 8 Refers to the Civil List, a rich source of income for politically connected aristocrats ruined by the Revolution.

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233 9 i.e., another revolution or threat to the Bourbons, referring to Napoleon’s return from Elba in March 1815.

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234 11 Under the ancien régime, wealthy parents sent their newborns to the country to be nursed, and then raised

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235 12 Like the tricolor flag, the “Marseillaise” was considered to be a symbol of the worst excesses of the

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236 13 Stendhal—or the marquis—seems to be blurring the lives of two kings of Sweden. Gustavus IV Adolphus

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237 1 A rationalist and skeptic, the great Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–76) was no friend to the sort of

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238 4 The anticlericalism of the philosophes was widespread in the late eighteenth century, especially among the

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239 5 Wood being the basic fuel and construction material of the time, woodlands (bois) were the most valuable

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240 6 In the early years of the Consulate, many royalists hoped that Bonaparte would fulfill the role played by

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241 7 On October 5, 1795— 13 vendémiaire according to the revolutionary calendar still in effect—troops under

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242 9 The post in question is a relay stop, where coaches could changes horses and passengers could stop for a

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243 10 Mainz, important German city at the confluence of the Rhine and the Main Rivers.

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244 1 Louis-Charles-Antoine des Aix, nobleman who joined the revolutionary armies—and so altered the spelling

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245 2 Small town on the German side of the Rhine, just across from Strasbourg.

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246 3 Certainly the great age of French libertinage, but the mode of rich men keeping actresses as their mistresses

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247 4 What a name, indeed; the combination of the aristocratic “de” with the quintessentially bourgeois “Dubois”

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248 5 The site of a summer residence of the English royal family, known for its gardens along the Thames.

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249 2 A writer of popular songs in the eighteenth century.

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250 1 The famous memorialist of the court of Louis XIV and the Regency, the Duke de Saint-Simon (1675–1755)

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251 1 François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715) was a clergyman and writer of mystical tendencies

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252 2 The tragic heroine of the abbé Prévost’s 1765 novel of the same name (see note for p. 297, l. 33). Manon Lescaut

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253 3 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1743–99), a German physicist and author of sharp satires of metaphysical and

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254 5 In the early nineteenth century, novels were still considered immoral and artistically inferior by political and

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255 6 Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy, known as Girodet-Trioson (1767–1824), is more famous for his painting than

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256 7 Opera by Domenico Cimarosa (see note for p. 341, l. 3); Stendhal’s favorite opera.

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257 8 As dictated to the Comte de Montholon, who published them in 1822–25.

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258 9 Pierre-Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–99), famous wit, financier, and literary celebrity of the late

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259 10 Tobias George Smollett (1721–71), versatile English writer known for his satirical novels and a multivolume

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260 11 Among the busy society of the Parisian monde, many aristocrats reserved one day a week when they

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261 13 It is actually Desdemona who writes a letter.

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262 14 Known as the Spider King, Louis XI (born 1423, reigned 1461–83) was a shrewd and ruthless politician who

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263 15 Wife of the old king’s grandson, the Duchess of Burgundy became a favorite of—but certainly not a mistress

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264 16 This quotation is difficult to imagine from the mouth or pen of Mirabeau.

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265 17 The jealous false friend of Othello, who persuades him of the innocent Desdemona’s betrayal. Julien implies

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266 19 Condemned to death by the Bourbon government for having rallied to Napoleon during the Hundred Days,

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267 20 The highly successful novel by François-Auguste-René de Châteaubriand (1768–1848), which was a key text

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268 21 John Locke (1632–1704); his Trip to France is found in Peter King’s 1676 The Life of John Locke, with extracts

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269 22 Civil wars brought about by the power vaccuum of the minority of Louis XIV, from 1648 to 1653.

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270 23 In the original French, the word foolish (fou) appears in the masculine form in this quote attributed to

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271 24 Fénelon was a humanistic but devout Christian; the love Julien has felt was probably not the sort Fénelon

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272 25 One of the most popular and enduring plays of Jean Rotrou (1609–50). Venceslas, aging King of Poland,

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273 26 An inexact quotation from Voltaire’s play Mahomet.

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274 28 A soldier (1775–1827) of the Revolution who became one of the leading orators of the liberal opposition

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275 29 An unhappily married man in a comic tale by La Fontaine.

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276 30 Son of Napoleon and Marie-Louise, proclaimed “King of Rome” by his father even before his birth in 1811.

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277 32 The virtuous Massillon (see note for p. 391, l. 20) consecrated the dissolute abbé Dubois as a bishop at the

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278 33 The Duke de Saint-Simon (see note for p. 388, l. 14, and note for p. 391, Epigraph) was decidedly partisan in all

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279 34 Julien’s story was inspired, in part, by the trial of Antoine Berthet, which took place in Grenoble in 1827.

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