Hypocrisy everywhere! This is a satire of the absurd impulses of youth, in the form of an ambitious small town young Frenchman - of strong personality - who wants to attain money and status in his difficult place.But most importantly, Le Rouge et Le Noir is a great satire of the superficial mess that was French society in the 1830s. Stendhal spared no one: the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, Jacobins, the Church (in its ruling faction) and the Jesuits, the Jansenists, etc etc.This is a sort of epic of a man of his century, of a man trying to navigate the world and constantly being amazed by what he's learning. If it were a modern novel the ending might have been different!At the same time irreverent and psychological, realist and romantic, I have this novel as one of my favorites.