The Plot of Ultras in "The Red and the Black" by Stendhal

In Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir the chapters XXI to XXIII form a distinct whole, the socalled "Complot des ultras". They constitute a parenthesis within the novel, when Julien Sorel loses Mathilde de La Mole, his sole obsession, to execute a political service by which he is completely unconcerned. Secondary to the plot, these three chapters connect the novel to the hurried flow of history. The chiefs of the royalist party are depicted as puppets plotting a coup d'etat, which makes their move involuntary comical. Rewarded for his service, but denounced for his ambition without scruples, Julien shoots Mme de Renal while she is praying in a church. He is then imprisoned and sentenced to death. Julien's destiny plays the country's destiny in a minor key. He dies while France escapes the plot of the ultras. A diversion of history towards novel and of novel towards history. Stendhal's novel is placed in this ephemerality and in this solution that leaves the future unanswered.