Chapter X explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Social Class and Inequality

  Patience contrasts the genuine virtue of Edmée with the hypocrisy of nobles who proclaim philanthropy while letting the poor starve, and advocates becoming 'the people's friend.'

• Religion and Hypocrisy

  Patience accuses nobles of being 'sham paragons' who preach virtue but act selfishly, while Edmée embodies true Christian charity without ostentation.

• Gender and Power

  Edmée is described as a woman of exceptional intellect and moral strength, shaping her own character despite being deprived of her mother, and wielding influence over her father and Patience.

Characters to notice

• Patience

  Engages Bernard in a philosophical discussion about virtue, justice, and the nobility; praises Edmée's genuine goodness; moves to a cottage near Sainte-Severe after the Gazeau Tower tragedy.

• Bernard Mauprat

  Listens to Patience's wisdom, feels affection for him, struggles with jealousy of M. de la Marche, and is still brutish in his understanding of Edmée.

• Edmée de Mauprat

  Described as a perfect woman, intellectually and morally developed; loves philosophy and poetry; influences Patience; remains withdrawn and unwell after recent events.

• M. de la Marche

  Visits nearly every day; Bernard dislikes him; Edmée does not admit him to her rooms; his philosophy is contrasted with Edmée's.

• Abbé Aubert

  Has taken refuge under the chevalier's roof; urges Patience to move near Sainte-Severe; Edmée's former tutor who did not forbid her reading philosophers.

• Hubert de Mauprat

  Edmée's father, who idolizes her and allows her to lead him; offers Patience a cottage.

Key passages

• “He is a man who is always proclaiming: ‘In me behold the champion of virtue, the champion of the unfortunate, the champion of all the wise men and friends of the human race, etc., etc.’ While I—Patience—I know that he lets poor folk die of hunger at the gates of his château.”

  Patience accuses a certain noble of hypocritically claiming to be a champion of virtue and the poor, while in reality allowing people to starve at his gates.

  Patience exposes the gap between noble rhetoric and cruel reality.

• “She is a girl who gives away everything that she has; who would not wear a jewel, because with the gold in a ring a man could be kept alive for a year. And if she finds a footsore child by the roadside, she takes off her shoes and gives them to him, and goes on her way barefooted.”

  Patience describes Edmée as selflessly charitable, willing to sacrifice her own comfort to help the poor.

  Edmée's genuine goodness contrasts with the hypocrisy of other nobles.

• “I am somewhat of a Sybarite,” she would say with a smile. “I would rather have a bouquet of roses arranged for me in a vase in the early morning, than go and gather them myself from out their thorns in the heat of the sun.””

  Edmée jokingly calls herself a sybarite, preferring to enjoy the fruits of intellectual labor rather than engage in the difficult work of direct philosophical debate.

  Edmée's remark reveals her preference for contemplation over active engagement with the world.