TTrriinniittyy CCoolllleeggee TTrriinniittyy CCoolllleeggee DDiiggiittaall RReeppoossiittoorryy Faculty Scholarship Summer 2005 SStteennddhhaall aanndd tthhee TTrriiaallss ooff AAmmbbiittiioonn iinn PPoossttrreevvoolluuttiioonnaarryy FFrraannccee Kathleen Kete Trinity College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/facpub Part of the European History Commons Stendhal and the Trials of Ambition in Postrevolutionary France Kathleen Kete ThemostaudaciousactinFrenchliteraturemaybethemostmisunder- stood.Tobesure,JulienSorel’sattemptedmurderof MmedeRênal— at the elevation of the host, at the sacrifice of the mass—was an act of passion, the act of a man maddened by ambition that was thwarted at themomentof itsclimaxbythewomanhehadloved.Thestoryof ‘‘un ambitieux’’presentsitself inLerougeetlenoirasanightmareofdemoc- racy, of aspirations grasped and lost. In the words of Michel Crouzet, Julien stands at the scene of his crime and at his trial as both ‘‘witness andvictimoftheegalitarianpassionandtheresentmentthatisitscon- 1 stituent part.’’ It is the negativity, not the savagery, of Julien’s crime that arrests readers of Le rouge et le noir and introduces Stendhal into thepantheonofFrenchintellectualswhohavechosenliberty,evenifin death, over bourgeois mediocrity and materialism: ‘‘In shooting Mme deRênal,heturnshisbackonpower,‘hesaveshimself,forever,tothe 2 pointofdeath,onemightsay,fromambition.’’’ But how discordant with nineteenth-century values was Julien’s iconic rejection of competitive individualism? The intriguing prob- lemofambitioninpostrevolutionaryFrancehasgeneratedsurprisingly littleattention,thoughitmaybecentraltothewayweunderstandlib- KathleenKete,associateprofessorofhistoryatTrinityCollegeinHartford,Connecticut,isauthor ofTheBeastintheBoudoir:PetkeepinginNineteenth-CenturyParis(Berkeley,CA,1994).Sheiscom- pletingabookontheproblemofambitioninpostrevolutionaryFrance. AnearlierversionofthisessaywaspresentedtotheNineteenth-CenturyFrenchStudies ColloquiumatPennsylvaniaStateUniversityin1998andaspartofapresentationtotheNewYork AreaSeminaronFrenchHistoryattheNewSchoolforSocialResearchin1999.Theauthorwishes tothanktheanonymousreviewersandtheguesteditorsofthisissuefortheirhelpwiththisessay andtheeditorsofFrenchHistoricalStudiesfortheirwarmencouragement.Sheisalsogratefulto PatriceHigonnet,DanMcGrath,andMarie-ClaireRohinsky. 1 MichelCrouzet,‘‘NoticesurLerougeetlenoir,’’inStendhal,Lerougeetlenoir,ed.Michel Crouzet(Paris,1964),27. 2 Ibid.,quotingfromGilbertDurand,LedécormythiquedelaChartreusedeParme(Paris,1961). FrenchHistoricalStudies,Vol.28,No.3(Summer2005) Copyright©2005bytheSocietyforFrenchHistoricalStudies 468 FRENCHHISTORICALSTUDIES eralism. More than thirty years ago Theodore Zeldin wrote about the culturalhesitationsshapingFrenchresponsetothepromiseofcompeti- tiveness, to the ‘‘free play of competition’’ ordered by the Napoleonic 3 Codes. Histwo-volumework,France,1848–1945,beganwithasection on ambition that described the expectations and desires of doctors, notaries,industrialists,bankers,bureaucrats,peasants,andworkersas a means of explaining the resilience of traditional norms in modern 4 France. Economic historians of the same generation made a similar point,stressingtheimportanceofthefamilyfirmanditsvaluesofsecu- rityandsafetyoverthebehaviorsofriskinaccountingforthecontrast between the French and British economies. In news reports today we hear echoes of these arguments as commentators cite preferences for leisure over income to explain the apparent weakness of France com- paredtotheUnitedStatesintheglobaleconomy.Theyalsoinvariably describe Jacques Chirac’s main rival as the ambitious Nicolas Sarkozy, sometimesdenigrating,sometimescelebrating,himasAnglo-Saxonin style. Despite the contemporary understanding of ambition as a pas- sion—theliberalpassionparexcellence(burnedin‘‘effigy’’alongwith selfishness, discord, and other disruptive vices at the Festival of the 5 SupremeBeingin1794) —ithasbeenoverlookedinthestudiesofthis subjectthatarebeginningtorejuvenatetheculturalhistoryofmodern- 6 izingEurope. The most noteworthy evidence about resistance to ambition as a cultural ideal can be found in the medical literature of the period, a point made by Zeldin and developed more fully by Jan Goldstein in herlandmarkhistoryof Frenchpsychiatry.7Ambitioncouldmakeone pale, shaky, blind, and eventually insane. Ambition could also lead to cancer,strokes,andheartattacks.‘‘‘Butthemostusualendofthispas- 3 WilliamM.Reddy,TheNavigationofFeeling:AFrameworkfortheHistoryofEmotions(Cam- bridge,2001),204. 4 TheodoreZeldin,France,1848–1945:AmbitionandLove(Oxford,1979).Firstpublishedas thefirstoftwosectionsofFrance,1848–1945(Oxford,1973). 5 SeethedescriptionofthisfestivalinLeguideduRoutard:Parisbalades,ed.YvesCouprie etal.(Paris,2001),73–74. 6 Recent works include Reddy, Navigation of Feeling; Philip Fisher, The Vehement Passions (Princeton,NJ,2002);andGailKernPaster,KatherineRowe,andMaryFloyd-Wilson,eds.,Read- ingtheEarlyModernPassions:EssaysintheCulturalHistoryofEmotion(Philadelphia,2004).Daniel Gordon’sworkonsociabilityaddressesearlymodernconceptionsofthepassionsandtheimpor- tanceofthesenotionsinshapingattitudestowardstateandsociety(CitizenswithoutSovereignty: EqualityandSociabilityinFrenchThought,1670–1789[Princeton,NJ,1994]).AlbertO.Hirschman, ThePassionsandtheInterest:PoliticalArgumentsforCapitalismbeforeItsTriumph(Princeton,NJ,1977), discusseschangingviewsofself-interest,andofthepassionsoverall,inearlymodernEnglandand France. 7 JanGoldstein,ConsoleandClassify:TheFrenchPsychiatricProfessionintheNineteenthCentury (Cambridge,1987),chaps.3–4. STENDHALANDTHETRIALSOFAMBITION 469 8 sionismelancholyandaboveallambitiousmonomania.’’’ Inthewords of Jean-Baptiste-FélixDescuret,authorofLamédecinedespassions:‘‘The victimofthispassionsoonbecomespaleandhisbrowfurrows,hiseyes withdrawintotheirsockets,hisgazebecomesrestlessandanxious,his cheekbones become prominent, his temples hollow, and his hair falls 9 outorwhitensprematurely.’’ Goldsteinstressestheconflationof ‘‘socialcommentaryandmedi- cal diagnosis’’ in ‘‘the perception of many lay and medical observers that individuals in post-revolutionary society were likely to fall prey to 10 the ‘torments of ambition.’’’ The critique of ambition turned on the contrast of the old regime with the new. For Etienne Esquirol—whose research helped establish the monomania diagnosis in the developing field of psychiatry—as ‘‘the dominant passions of the era’’ change, so too do its dysfunctions.The madness of Don Quixote gave way in the 11 Reformation to the madness of religious enthusiasm. In the Restora- tionandJulyMonarchy,‘‘lunaticsbyambition’’believedthattheywere Napoléons, Caesars, and dauphins, ‘‘generals, monarchs, popes, and 12 evenGod,’’Descuretwarned. ‘‘Putinmoregeneralterms,’’Goldstein writes, ‘‘the special monomania of the early nineteenth century was overweeningambitionofallsorts,stimulatedbythemorefluidsociety 13 thatwasthelegacyoftheRevolution.’’ Fashionable,bourgeois—statis- 14 ticallymoreliabletohitthemiddleclasses —monomanieambitieusewas oneofthedefiningdiseasesoftheage.Littlewonderthataquarterof thepatientsoftheBicêtrehospitalandatenthofthepatientsadmitted totheSalpêtrièrein1841–42werediagnosedasoverly,indeedinsanely, 15 ambitious. ThisessayplucksJulienfromthehistoryofrebelintellectualsand sets him down on the earthier field of postrevolutionary culture that viewedambitionasanillnesswhich,asinfluentialguidestocareersalso 16 warned,couldleadtoitsvictim’sdistress. Stendhal’snovelparallelsthe 8 Jean-Baptiste-FélixDescuret,Lamédecinedespassions;ou,Lespassionsconsidéréesdansleurs rapportsaveclesmaladies,lesloisetlareligion(Paris,1841),579.ThetranslationisZeldin’s(Ambition andLove,91). 9 Descuret,Médecinedespassions,579. 10 Goldstein,ConsoleandClassify,160.Goldsteinexplainsthatthephrasetormentsofambition comesfromthearticleonfolieintheDictionnairedessciencesmédicales(Paris,1812–22). 11 Goldstein,ConsoleandClassify,158–59.GoldsteinissummarizingEsquirol.Thequoted phraseisGoldstein’s. 12 Descuret,Médecinedespassions,579. 13 Goldstein,ConsoleandClassify,159. 14 Ibid.,161–62;Descuret,Médecinedespassions,580. 15 Goldstein,ConsoleandClassify,161. 16 SeeZeldin’sdiscussion(AmbitionandLove,88–98)ofEdouardCharton,Guidepourlechoix d’unétatoudictionnairedesprofessions(Paris,1842),andPaulJacquemart,Professionsetmétiers:Guide 470 FRENCHHISTORICALSTUDIES dramaofthepsychiatriccasestudy.ButStendhalimaginedtwofictions, notjustone,todealwiththeproblemofambition,andthatisthecen- tralclaimofthisessay.IalsolookatthestrategiesthatallowedStendhal in the course of his own life to escape the conundrum that destroyed Julien. Caught between the open sky of the liberal promise and the beckoningtombofitscritique,vocation—thequasi-religious,irrepress- ible, redeeming call to his life’s work—came to stand for Stendhal as an attractive alternative to his hero’s violent end. As Tzvetan Todorov does in his essay on Benjamin Constant, this essay treats the life of Stendhalonaparwiththeworks,‘‘asoneamongotherformsofexpres- sion,’’indeedas‘‘aparticularlyeloquent’’one,anapproachthatStend- hal,whosawhimselfashisfamily’s‘‘masterpiece,’’mightapplaud.17The focusonbiographyworkstoexplainhow,giventheresistancetocom- petitive individualism that the medical and other evidence suggests, success was possible and ambition palatable, as was flamboyantly the caseinthecapitalofmodernlife. The plot of Le rouge et le noir is well known but bears review in thecontextofourtheme.Thesonofacarpenter—apeasantoperating a sawmill on the outskirts of Verrières—Julien Sorel hates his brutal, male,andmeanfamily.Theintelligentanddelicateboy—hehasapale feminineface,markedbyluminouseyes,toppedbythickdarkhair—is patronizedbytheelderly,lovingFatherChélan,whoteacheshimLatin. Onthesly,hereadsRousseauandNapoléon(intheMémorialdeSainte- Hélène)anddreamsofescapingfromVerrières. WiththerecommendationofFatherChélan,Julien,nownineteen yearsold,becomestutortothethreesonsofthemayorofVerrières.He seducestheirmother,MmedeRênal,whofallsinlovewithhim.When scandalabouttheaffairbreaksout,FatherChélan’sinfluencegainshim entryintotheseminaryatBesançon.TheretheabbéPirard,aJansenist like Father Chélan (a thinker against the grain), becomes his patron. When both Pirard and Julien are about to be forced out of Besan- çon,Pirard’sinfluencelandsJulienthepositionofprivatesecretaryin ParistothemarquisdeLaMole,amemberofoneoftheoldestaristo- cratic families. Julien seduces the daughter of the marquis, Mathilde, who falls in love with him.They become engaged to be married, and, Mathilde being pregnant, the marquis gives his consent. He changes pratiquepourlechoixd’unecarrièreàl’usagedesfamillesetdelajeunesse(Paris,1892).Goldsteindescribes Charton’sGuideas‘‘apopularpracticalhandbookonchoosingacareer’’(ConsoleandClassify,13). 17 TzvetanTodorov,BenjaminConstant:Lapassiondémocratique(Paris,1997),30;Stendhal, ViedeHenryBrulard,inOeuvresintimes,ed.VictordelLitto,vol.2(Paris,1982),777(onStendhal ashisgrandfather’sproduction,see906). STENDHALANDTHETRIALSOFAMBITION 471 Julien’s name to the chevalier de La Vernaye, buys him a commission inthecavalry,andbeginstoarrangeforthemarriagesettlement. As Julien is congratulating himself and plotting further advance- ment, the marquis receives a letter from Mme de Rênal denouncing Julienasaseducerandadventurer.‘‘Poorandcovetous,’’MmedeRênal writes to Mathilde’s father, ‘‘it was by means of the most consummate hypocrisy and through the seduction of a weak, unhappy woman that thatmansoughttofurtherhimselfandbecomesomebody.’’Advisedby Mathildethat‘‘allislost,’’JulientravelstoVerrièresandshootsMmede 18 Rênalatchurch. ThepassiontosucceedpropelsJulienfromonepointinthestory to the other, as readers will notice. Ambition dominates his thoughts. It is the most striking aspect of his personality, from the moment we are introduced to him in chapter 4.There Julien has just set aside his dreamsofmilitarysuccessandbegunhisstudieswithChélan.‘‘Onefine day,’’ the narrator tells us, Julien stopped talking about Napoléon: he announcedhisintentionof becomingapriestandwastobeseencon- stantlyinhisfather’ssawmill,busymemorizingtheLatinBiblethecuré 19 hadloanedhim.’’ Julien is keen on taking holy orders because he calculates that in the context of the Restoration, the priesthood will reward him most. ‘‘WhenpeoplebegantotalkaboutBonaparte,’’hereflects,‘‘Francewas afraid of being invaded; military talent was badly needed and in fash- ion. But today, you see priests at forty with incomes of one hundred thousandfrancs;thatis,gettingthreetimesasmuchasthemostfamous generals in Napoléon’s divisions.’’ But the idea that, like Napoléon, he could rise from nothing to greatness—‘‘that Bonaparte, an unknown andpennilesslieutenant,hadmadehimselfmasteroftheworldbyhis sword’’—continuestoabsorbhisthoughtsevenduringsexualencoun- 20 ters with Mme de Rênal. Stendhal allows Julien only briefly to forget hisobsessionwithsuccess,ashedoesinthememorablydarkgardenat Vergyintheaftermathof kissingthenakedarmof MmedeRênal: Julien gave no further thought to his dark ambition, or to his scheme,sodifficultofexecution.Forthefirsttimeinhislife,hewas sweptawaybythepowerofbeauty.... Butthisemotionwaspleasureandnotpassion.Onthewayback tohisroom,hehadbutonedelightinmind,thatofreturningtohis favoritebook[theMémorialdeSainte-Hélène];attwenty,one’sideaof 18 Stendhal,TheRedandtheBlack,trans.LloydC.Parks(NewYork,1970),450,449. 19 Ibid.,33. 20 Ibid.,34. 472 FRENCHHISTORICALSTUDIES theworldandtheimpressiononeintendstomakeonitprevailover 21 everythingelse. Stendhal continually allows Julien to be stimulated by the sight of worldly success, as when the bishop comes to Verrières. ‘‘His ambi- tion [was] roused again by the example of the bishop’s youth. . . . So young . . . to be Bishop of Agde!’’ Julien exclaims. ‘‘And what does the 22 livingcometo?Twoorthreehundredthousandfrancs,perhaps.’’ Indeed, ambition drives Julien’s lust. Again in the dark garden at Vergy, when for the first time Mme de Rênal herself secretly takes his handandholdsit,Julien’sambitionagaindominateshisfeelings:‘‘This action roused the ambitious youth;he wished it could be witnessed by all those proud nobles who, at table, when he was sitting at the lower endwiththechildren,wouldlookathimwithsuchapatronizingsmile.’’ Asthenarratortellsusinchapter16,‘‘TheNextDay,’’Julienis‘‘stillin love with ambition,’’ not with Mme de Rênal, or he is unaware of his 23 loveforherbecauseoftheholdambitionhasoverhim. ThediseaseofambitionisrevealedinthecourseittakesinJulien’s life.ThenarratorasksustoimaginethatJulienhasbeenmadbyambi- tion intermittently since his youth. ‘‘From his earliest childhood on,’’ thenarratortellsus,‘‘hehadhadmomentsofexaltation.’’Hewouldsee himself in Paris ‘‘as Napoléon had one day done, attracting beautiful womenbyhisglamorousfeats.’’Fromtheageoffourteen,whenhereal- ized that the (liberal) justice of the peace has been corrupted by the legitimists, his ambition became a monomania: ‘‘The building of the church and the justice of the peace’s decisions suddenly made things clear to him. A notion came to his mind that drove him almost crazy for weeks, and finally took hold of him with the overwhelming force 24 ofthefirstideathatapassionatesoulimaginesithasdiscovered.’’ As Shoshana Felman points out, the word folie (madness) and its variants appear209timesinLerougeetlenoir.Asintheothercompletednovels, Armance and Charterhouse of Parma, ‘‘the frequency increases from one section to another. A pattern, a schema, of frequency emerges as a constant that seems to mark a structural tendency of the Stendhalian 25 novel—thatofagrowingfrequency,ofacrescendoof ‘folie.’’’ The breaking point for Julien, the moment when ambition be- comes insanity, comes at the exact moment when he is within reach 21 Ibid.,75. 22 Ibid.,115. 23 Ibid.,88,99. 24 Ibid.,33,34. 25 ShoshanaFelman,La‘‘folie’’dansl’oeuvreromanesquedeStendhal(Paris,1971),24,26. STENDHALANDTHETRIALSOFAMBITION 473 of his goals. ‘‘Julien was drunk with ambition,’’ the narrator tells us whendescribinghimatthecampoftheFifteenthRegimentofHussars. ‘‘Lieutenantforbarelytwodaysandthroughafavor,’’heisdreamingof becoming a commander in chief. He is in the ‘‘middle of a rapture of 26 themostunbridledambition’’whenMathilde’smessagereacheshim. Andhesetsofftokill. Julien’s behavior—his determination to succeed, his suicidal vio- lence when thwarted—would not have surprised a French psychiatrist inthe1820s,certainlynotEsquirol,whoseroleindevelopingthepro- fession of psychiatry was equaled only by that of his mentor, Philippe Pinel.Inhis1819essayonmonomaniaEsquiroldescribesthetempera- mentofmonomaniacsinwaysthatwillremindusofJulien’sown:‘‘Their ideas are exaggerated.Their passions are very strong.They are domi- natedbyambitionandpride.Theseindividualswillbecomemonomani- acs when stimulated by thoughts of greatness, of riches, of bliss.’’ Like Julien,whoisdistantfromhisfamily,hardtogetcloseto,andemotion- allylabile,monomaniacsarealienated:‘‘Theyexpresslittleaffectionfor theirfriendsandrelationsorelsetheirattachmentsareextreme.Often they treat with disdain the people they cherish the most.’’ They are quicktoanger,‘‘easilyoffended,extremelyirritable....highlyimpres- sionable, strong-willed, defiant toward restraint, easily angered, they slipquicklyintofury.’’27IsthisnotJulien,whoseangerJulesC.Alciatore hasshowninhisessay‘‘StendhaletPinel’’tofitthedescriptionofangry lunatics drawn by Pinel in the Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation 28 mentale,oulamanie? The shape of Julien’s life fits the pathology of lunacy clearly de- scribed in the Dictionnaire des sciences médicales.There Esquirol explains that certain people are especially predisposed to monomania by ‘‘self- esteem,vanity,pride,ambition;theyabandonthemselvestotheirideas, to their exaggerated hopes, to their outrageous pretensions.’’ Disease setsin,typically,onlyafterareversaloffortune.‘‘Itisremarkable,how- ever,thatalmostalwaysthoseindividualswhofallintomonomaniahave been stricken by some reversal of fortune, have been stripped of their 29 hopes,beforebecomingsick.’’ 26 Stendhal,RedandtheBlack,449. 27 EtienneEsquirol,‘‘Monomanie,’’inDictionnairedessciencesmédicales,vol.34(Paris,1819), 116. 28 JulesC.Alciatore,‘‘StendhaletPinel,’’ModernPhilology45(1947):130–33.Alciatorealso showshowStendhalborrowsdirectlyfromPinelbothinHistoiredelapeintureenItalieandinVie deRossinitodescribethe‘‘dangersdugénie.’’Heargues,however,thatStendhalsufferedfrom melancholy.Alciatoredoesnotmentionmonomania. 29 Esquirol,‘‘Monomanie,’’124. 474 FRENCHHISTORICALSTUDIES Esquirol explains as well that before the lunatic’s final step into insanity(démence),hebehavesreasonably,retaininghisgriponreality: 30 ‘‘Hereasonsandmakesdecisionsverywell.’’ IsthisnotJulien,whose whole life, up to the moment of the crime, is marked by a series of successes checked by failure but always guided forward by cold, effec- tivelogic? Esquirol abstracts the monomaniacal personality in the Diction- nairedessciencesmédicales,butmoretypicallyPinelandEsquiroldescribe the disease by presenting case studies—historiettes (little stories), Pinel called them in his Traité—such as the following, which for the most 31 part are gathered under the rubric ‘‘stifled ambition.’’ For example, we meet a law student friend of Pinel’s youth who is so obsessed with succeeding at his studies in Paris that he spends his days and nights studying—totheexclusionofeatingandsleeping.Naturally,hishealth suffers. His alarmed and loving parents return him to the provinces, thusprecludinghissuccessatlaw.Distraught,inconsolableathisfailure tosucceed,hewalksintothewoodsandshootshimselfdead. Pinelalsopresentsthecaseofa‘‘herooftheBastille,’’asoldierwho hadparticipatedintheattackontheBastillebutwhohasgoneinsane because his heroism was not rewarded by a promotion to colonel.We alsoreadaboutasixteenth-centurymerchantwhosuffersacommercial setback and becomes mad—a madness marked by his conviction that heisbankruptdespitepatentevidencetothecontrary. ThatStendhalsharedaninterestinPineliswellknown.Victordel LittoexplainsthatinJanuary1805Stendhalwenttothemedicalschool to read Pinel’s Traité, but the doors were closed to him. A year later, afterbeingurgedbyhisfriend,FélixFaure,‘‘whosesisterwasshowing signs of mental illness,’’ he read the book, recommending it as well to 32 hisownsister,Pauline.In1810hereaditagain. What particularly impressed Stendhal was the chapter ‘‘Art of CounterbalancingtheHumanPassionsbyOthersofEqualorSuperior Force, an Important Part of Medicine,’’ where Pinel explains that the doctor ‘‘often sees no other remedy than to not restrain the patient’s natural inclinations, or to counterbalance them by even stronger im- 33 pulses.’’ Weknowthatthisinsightof Pinel’simpressedStendhal.Del Litto explains that ‘‘shortly after reading [Pinel], Stendhal makes allu- 30 Ibid.,125. 31 ‘‘Stifledambition’’and‘‘littlestories’’areGoldstein’stranslationsofPinel’sterms.Gold- steinsummarizesPinel’scasestudiesdiscussedhereinConsoleandClassify,80–84. 32 VictordelLitto,LavieintellectuelledeStendhal:Genèseetévolutiondesesideés,1802–1821 (Paris,1962),287nn63,65;288. 33 Pinel, Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale, ou la manie (1800; rpt. Geneva, 1980),237,238. STENDHALANDTHETRIALSOFAMBITION 475 sioninalettertoPaulinetoacorollaryoftheseideas,’’writingthat‘‘‘it isaquestionofformingnewhabits,thatisthemostimportantthing— read La manie by Pinel, and you will perceive the importance of this principle.’’’DelLittoshowsaswellthat,‘‘inanticipationofapplyingthe principles taken from La manie he had particularly made note of the page that addressed the problem of treating the passions.’’ Finally, del LittonotesStendhal’sJanuary1806 Journalentry:‘‘Iobservedyesterday evening...‘thestormsofpassions,’...thosegrandpassionsthatmay 34 behealedonlybythemeansindicatedbyPinelinLamanie.’’ In the case of the soldier at the Bastille, Pinel explained, lunacy could be cured by satisfying his ambition and giving him a commis- sion in the army.The sixteenth-century merchant could be healed by replacing one passion with another. In the latter case, Pinel found ‘‘a 35 fortuitous operation of the strategy of counterbalancing.’’ The mer- chant, not cured by being shown that his coffers were indeed full of gold, recovered nicely when the passion for religion replaced his pas- 36 sionforcommercialsuccess. The cure of lunacy by ambition—monomanie ambitieuse—entailed eitherthesatisfactionofambitionoritsreplacementbyotherpassions. Inthecuringofmonomania,Pinelarguedthatthedramaticelementis very important.The staging of ‘‘pious frauds,’’ ‘‘innocent ruses’’—that is, the setting up of a fictive event to ‘‘strongly jolt the imagination’’— was a practice for which Pinel became known. As Goldstein explains, ‘‘An insanity viewed as imagination gone awry can be countered by a procedure that ‘shakes up’ the imagination in order to dislodge the erroneous idea that has taken hold or to rupture the ‘vicious chain of ideas.’’’37 Pinel reported the case of a tailor convinced during the Terror thathewastobebroughtbeforetheRevolutionaryTribunalforhaving made an unpatriotic remark. No longer working, no longer eating, he had been spending his days prostrate on the pavement outside his home waiting for his arrest when he was placed in the asylum.To cure him, Pinel staged an interrogation by members of the tribunal, whose parts were played by young doctors being trained by Pinel.They came totheBicêtredressedinblackrobesandwithallthetrappingsoftheir officetoexaminethetailoronhisbusiness,hisactivities,thejournalshe had been reading—in general, on his patriotism. Afterward, in Pinel’s 34 DelLitto,VieintellectuelledeStendhal,289,288,289. 35 ThephraseisGoldstein’s(ConsoleandClassify,88). 36 Pinel,Traité,239. 37 Goldstein,ConsoleandClassify,93.Pinelwasinfluencedbythepracticesof(English)char- latans(ibid.,84).