Yeah. Writing my review prompted me to go read some Wikipedia articles on the revolution of 1830 and the lead-up to it, which was fascinating reading. If that high-level conspiracy that Stendhal describes in that one chapter, with the high nobility of the country openly talking of asking for foreign armed intervention to crush the jacobins, was at all realistic at the time, the 1830 revolution must've been of enormous importance indeed...

My copy had some short commentary on the case that inspired Stendhal, too, though it didn't sound like the real-life case was that interesting.


Hmmm. Perhaps. But his appreciation for her never seems to go beyond a purely physical crush, and the main reason why he actually wants to have her love is that it flatters his ego to have such a high-born lady fall for him. And then when he has her, he yearns for his previous mistress instead, the mother figure, with her supposed purity and innocence. Mathilde is not the most sympathetic of characters by a long shot, but still I found myself entirely in her camp before long.


I wasn't really trying to make generalizations other than to point out a similarity I'd noted between several big classics set in more or less the same period and which I'd all read recently. It wasn't exactly intended as a these that would revolutionize literary history. About the only semi-serious conclusion I'd be inclined to draw from it is that on both sides of the Channel, those years saw some significant changes in society, with some trends that would evolve and continue to drive much of the century that followed - and that some people weren't altogether extatic about that.

I like the scare quotes. So true.