The Charterhouse of Parma

The Charterhouse of Parma is a novel by the French writer Stendhal from the year 1839.

Content

The novel begins in Milan of 1796, after Napoleon had conquered the city. During the Marchese del Dongo and his older son Ascanio as nationalists and reactionaries detest the revolutionary troops and retire to the country, welcomed the younger son Fabrizio, the French army as a liberator of the Italians of political backwardness. Fabrizio's mother and his aunt, the Contessa Pietranera who is secretly in love with him, sympathize with him and his views, but without openly oppose the Marchese.

Finally, Fabrizio reports as a volunteer in the army of Napoleon, fighting at the Battle of Waterloo. However, his hopes of glory to be disappointed. Fabrizio is called by his aunt to the court of Parma and begins with the support of the Prince of Parma a career within the church. However, he also influential enemies at court. When he begins an affair with a small actress, he becomes entangled by their jealous lover in a fight and kills the attacker. His opponents accuse him of the court of murder and achieve a lawsuit against him, as a result, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison. He is captured and imprisoned in a citadel in Parma.

Here he falls in love with Clelia, to escape the daughter of the prison governor, who helps him. Soon after, Clelia marries a marquis, and Fabrizio versa using his aunt back to Parma, is reinstated in his old offices and dignities, and finally ascends to the Archbishop. Clelia has a child, the outputs it as legitimate, by Fabrizio, with whom she meets in secret. Three years they live together so secretly, then the child and soon dies out Clelia. Fabrizio thereupon to all its offices and withdraws into a Carthusian monastery. After barely a year, he also dies.

Films

The novel was filmed in 1948 under the same title by Christian - Jaque and 1982 as a television series of the same name.

Translations into German

• 2009 by Elisabeth Edl: The Charterhouse of Parma, ISBN 978-3-423-13776-8.