The Charterhouse of Parma

The Charterhouse of Parma is a novel by Stendhal. Telling the story of an Italian nobleman in the Napoleonic era and later it was admired by Balzac Tolstoy André Gide di Lampedusa and Henry James. It was inspired by an inauthentic Italian account of the dissolute youth of Alessandro Farnese. The book begins with the French army sweeping into Milan and stirring up the sleepy region of Lombardy which was allied with Austria. Fabrice grows up surrounded by intrigues and alliances for and against the French—his father the Marchese comically fancies himself a spy for the Viennese. It is broadly hinted at that Fabrice may have actually been fathered by a visiting French lieutenant. The novels early section describes Fabrices rather quixotic effort to join Napoleon when the latter returns to France in March 1815 (the Hundred Days). Fabrice at seventeen is idealistic rather naïve and speaks poor French. However he will not be stopped and leaves his home on Lake Como to travel north with false papers.