268
PARTISAN
R~VIEW
approval Stendhal could have cited the fact that uncritical submission
to the evil of this world, in full consciousness that it is evil, is a
typical attitude for strict Jansenists; and the Abbe Pirard is a
Jansenist. We know from the previous part of the novel that as
director of the seminary at
Besan~on
he had had to endure much
persecution and much chicanery on account of his Jansenism and
his strict piety, which no intrigues could touch; for the clergy of
the province were under the influence of the Jesuits. When the Mar–
quis de la Mole's most powerful opponent, the Abbe de Frilair,
vicar-general to the bishop, had brought suit against him, the Mar–
quis had made the Abbe de Pirard
his
confidant and had thus learned
to value his intelligence and uprightness; so that finally, to free him
from his untenable position at
Besan~on,
the Marquis had procured
him a benefice in Paris and somewhat later had taken the Abbes
favorite pupil, Julien Sorel, into his household as private secretary.
The characters, attitudes, and relationships of the dramatis
personae, then, are very closely connected with contemporary his–
torical circumstances; contemporary political and social conditions
are woven into the action in a manner more detailed and more real
than had been exhibited in any earlier novel, and indeed in any
works of literary art except those expressly purporting to be politico–
satirical tracts. So logically and systematically to situate the tragically
conceived life of a man of low social position (as here that of Julien
Sorel) within the most concrete kind of contemporary history and to
develop it therefrom-this is an entirely new and highly significant
phenomenon. The other circles in which Julien Sorel moves-his
father's family, the house of the mayor of Verrieres, M. de Renal,
the seminary at
Besan~on-are
sociologically defined in conformity
with the historical moment with the same penetration as is the
house of La Mole; and not one of the minor characters-the old priest
Chelan, for example, or the director of the
depot de mendicite,
Valenod-would be conceivable outside the particular historical situa–
tion of the Restoration period, in the manner in which they are set
before us. The same laying of a contemporary foundation for events
is to be found in Stendhal's other novels-still incomplete and too
narrowly circumscribed in
Armance,
but fully developed in the later
works: in the
Chartreuse de Parme
(which, however, since its setting
is a place not yet greatly affected by modern development, some-
