Summary
Summary of The Red Lily — Complete
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A comfortable life leaves something missing
Thérèse Martin-Bellème has beauty, intelligence and a secure place in Paris society. Her husband is a rising politician who prefers power to her company, and she already has a lover. From outside, her life looks settled. Inside, she is bored.
The Red Lily follows what happens when an artist enters this polite arrangement. Through drawing rooms, dinner tables and a journey to Italy, Thérèse begins to discover what she wants from love, and what wanting it might put at risk.
Key idea 2
Habit takes the place of happiness
Start free to read
Key idea 3
An artist reaches beyond her wit
Start free to read
Key idea 4
Possession makes the old affair heavier
Start free to read
Key idea 5
Florence gives their feelings room
Start free to read
Key idea 6
New passion cannot erase the past
Start free to read
Key idea 7
Jealousy turns backward against love
Start free to read
Key idea 8
Society talks while the lovers feel
Start free to read
Key idea 9
Love offers a gift and danger
Start free to read
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For readers who love psychological novels about love, jealousy and manners, and who enjoy Florence, art and good talk.
What this book is
The Red Lily is a novel by Anatole France, published in 1894 in Paris. It is the third of his novels about the Parisian world of the Third Republic, and it is his longest study of a woman in love. The French title is Le Lys rouge. France wrote it at the height of his early fame, when he was a critic, a librarian's son, and a regular guest in the salons he describes.
The heroine is Thérèse Martin-Bellème, the wife of a rising politician. She is beautiful, clever and bored. She has a lover, and she has a husband who prefers power to her company. Then she meets an artist, and the polite arrangement of her life begins to fail. The book follows her through drawing rooms, dinner tables, a trip to Italy and a series of quiet and painful conversations.
What do you get from it? You get a close portrait of one mind in love, written with irony and a great deal of tenderness. You also get a lively picture of Paris society, with its gossip, its money, its poets and its politics. Let us begin with Thérèse herself and the life she has built.
In this summary
- 1Thérèse rules a polished Paris salonFree
- 2A lover who offers habit, not happiness
- 3A sculptor enters and the room changes
- 4Le Ménil grows jealous and demanding
- 5Florence gives love a place to grow
- 6Passion arrives and brings its own trouble
- 7The book asks if love can forgive the past
- 8Society, politics and talk surround the lovers
- 9A calm voice, a symbol and a sharp irony
Key point 1 of 9
Thérèse rules a polished Paris salon
The novel opens in the Paris of the 1890s, among people who have money, rank and leisure. Thérèse Martin-Bellème is at the center of this world. She is young enough to be admired and experienced enough to understand exactly what the admiration is worth. Her house is a place where politicians, writers, financiers and fashionable ladies meet.
Her husband, Monsieur Martin-Bellème, is a deputy, and he is ambitious. He gives most of his attention to parliament, to committees and to the careful climb toward a ministry. He is not cruel, and he is not a villain. He is simply a man whose passions are public ones, and his wife has learned to live beside him without asking for more.
Anatole France draws her with gentle irony. Thérèse is intelligent, and she knows it, and she is also tired of cleverness. She has a gift for seeing through people, and she uses it at dinner without ever raising her voice. Her wit is a kind of armor, and the reader soon feels how much it protects.
The salon is also where France places his talkers. Some of them are writers and thinkers who speak about religion, art, politics and history with a smile. Their conversation gives the book its intellectual air. Yet the talk always returns to the same quiet question, which is what a woman like Thérèse actually wants.
The answer is not clear to her yet. She has comfort, beauty and standing. She lacks something she cannot name, and the first chapters are built around that lack. It is the empty space into which the story will move.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Check yourself
What draws Thérèse toward Dechartre?
Right. “What draws her is his seriousness, and the sense that he cares about beauty for its own sake and not for what it brings him.”Not quite. “What draws her is his seriousness, and the sense that he cares about beauty for its own sake and not for what it brings him.”
What makes Dechartre’s jealousy different from Le Ménil’s?
Right. “Dechartre is jealous of the past, which is stranger and more painful.”Not quite. “Dechartre is jealous of the past, which is stranger and more painful.”
What role does society’s conversation play around the love story?
Right. “It sets the lovers against a background of people who treat feeling as a game.”Not quite. “It sets the lovers against a background of people who treat feeling as a game.”
Who’s who
- Thérèse Martin-Bellème
- Thérèse is an intelligent society wife whose marriage and established affair leave her longing for deeper love.
- Jacques Dechartre
- Jacques is a shy painter and sculptor whose attraction to Thérèse unsettles her carefully arranged life.
- Robert Le Ménil
- Robert is Thérèse's handsome, fashionable lover, whose attachment to her is possessive rather than tender.
- Monsieur Martin-Bellème
- Monsieur Martin-Bellème is Thérèse's husband, an ambitious deputy who gives politics more attention than their marriage.
- Choulette
- Choulette is an eccentric poet whose religious feeling and gentle mockery enliven the conversations around Thérèse.
- Paul Vence
- Paul Vence is a learned, sceptical writer who comments with quiet wit on the society surrounding Thérèse.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 78,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 5 h 10 min
- Listening time8 h 40 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about The Red Lily — Complete
What is The Red Lily about?
It is about Thérèse, a married woman in Paris society who has a lover and then falls deeply in love with a sculptor. The story follows her love, his jealousy and the cost of a past that cannot be undone.
What does the red lily mean in the novel?
The red lily is the emblem of Florence, where much of the story takes place. In the book it also stands for love at its brightest and most dangerous, tied to beauty and the city itself.
When was The Red Lily written and is it a true story?
Anatole France published it in 1894. It is fiction, but it draws on the real Paris society and the Italian travels he knew well, and some characters echo people of his circle.
Is The Red Lily hard to read?
It is not hard. The sentences are clear and balanced. Readers who like thoughtful, character-driven novels will find it easy to follow.
Who are the main characters in The Red Lily?
The main figures are Thérèse Martin-Bellème, her husband the politician, her lover Robert Le Ménil, and the sculptor Jacques Dechartre. Around them stand the poet Choulette and the writer Paul Vence.
