Both of the novels deal with the period immediately succeeding Napoleon's fall, and both deal with it in the same spirit. The motto of both might be the passage from De Musset's _Confession d'un Enfant du Siècle_ quoted in _The Reaction in France_: "And when the young men talked of glory they were answered: Become priests! and when they talked of honour: Become priests! and when they talked of hope, of love, of power, of life, it was always the same: Become priests!" The scene of _Rouge et Noir_ is laid in France, that of _La Chartreuse_ in Italy, but in both books the principal character is a young man with a secret enthusiasm for Napoleon, who would have been happy if he could have fought and distinguished himself under his hero in the bright sunlight of life, but who, now that that hero has fallen, has no chance of making a career except by playing the hypocrite. In this art the two young men gradually develop a remarkable degree of skill. Julien and Fabrice are cut out for cavalry officers; nevertheless both become ecclesiastics; the one passes through a Catholic seminary, the other rises to be a bishop. Not without reason have Beyle's novels been called handbooks of hypocrisy. The fundamental idea inspiring them is the profound disgust and indignation which the spectacle of triumphant hypocrisy aroused in their author. Desiring to work off this feeling he gave vent to it by simply, without any display of indignation, representing hypocrisy as the ruling power of the day, to which every one who desired to rise was compelled to do homage. And he tries to play the modern Macchiavelli by frequently applauding his heroes when their attempts at impenetrable hypocrisy succeed, and expressing disapproval when they allow themselves to be surprised or carried away, and unguardedly show themselves as they are. A certain unpleasant forcedness is inseparable from this ironic style of narration.[1] As Beyle's was essentially a reasoning mind, with a gift of purely philosophic observation, externalities did not impress him strongly, and he had little skill in depicting them. His one interest is in emotional and intellectual processes, and, himself an adept in the observation of these processes, he endows almost all his characters with the same skill. They as a rule have an understanding of what is happening in their own souls which far surpasses that derived by ordinary mortals from experience. This conditions the peculiar construction of Beyle's novels, which consist in great part of connected monologues that are at times several pages long. He reveals all the silent working of his characters' minds, and lends words to their inmost thoughts. His monologues are never the lyric, dithyrambic outbursts which George Sand's often are; they are the questions and answers--short and concise, though entering into minute details--by which silent reflection progresses.