"Il ne faut jamais dire le hasard, mon enfant, dites toujours la Providence": sense and coincidence in Le Rouge et le Noir.(Critical Essay) From: French Forum | Date: March 22, 2003| Author: Lee, Susanna | COPYRIGHT 2003 University of Nebraska Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

In 1830, the question of what sort of explanatory narratives were viable or believable was much at the fore of French cultural consciousness. For one, political posturing since the Revolution had compromised the notion of an absolute truth, of a definitive version of how the world is and how it should be. The rationales of the Ancien Regime gave way to the Revolution, were then revived, and then eliminated once more. Within the Restoration period, laws were introduced and then aban...