These three studies analyze key themes in Stendhal's work: the glory of the heroism of dying for freedom, following in the footsteps of Ariosto, Greco-Roman antiquity and Napoleon, and the process of disillusionment; the conflict between royalists and republicans in the Vendée wars; and the despotism of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin during the Fronde, of which Cardinal de Retz was the victim.