8 h 56 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 56 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a young man treats another person's heart as an experiment?
Adrien Sixte lives quietly among his books, certain that human choices follow natural causes. Robert Greslou, a gifted and proud young reader, takes that belief as a guide to life. In Paul Bourget's The Disciple, the distance between a philosopher's study and a prison cell becomes a troubling question: what responsibility does a thinker bear for another person's acts?
As tutor in the Marquis de Jussat's household, Greslou enters a world of trust, honor and loyalty. His attention turns to Charlotte, the Marquis's sheltered daughter. He wants to test whether arranging causes can produce a chosen feeling. With Greslou accused of a serious crime, documents and his own account from confinement draw you into the thought behind the act.
What you’ll discover
- Ideas with human consequences Follow a theory beyond the study, where other people must bear its weight.
- A proud young disciple Enter Greslou's searching account of a mind that turns belief into a dangerous experiment.
- Trust under pressure Meet Charlotte de Jussat, whose sheltered world becomes the setting for Greslou's test.
- A philosopher's moral burden Consider whether Sixte can separate the books he writes from the choices they inspire.
- Confession and consequence Explore a layered narrative that brings psychological scrutiny to questions of guilt and blame.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this book if you like psychological novels, courtroom suspense, nineteenth-century Paris and the old argument over whether ideas shape conduct.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A pupil brings ideas into court
- Sixte keeps life at a distance
- The judge questions a teacher’s responsibility
- A mother interrupts detached curiosity
- A new doctrine replaces lost faith
- The tutor studies his new household
- Charlotte becomes a dangerous experiment
- Remorse resists the language of mechanisms
- Ideas cannot leave people behind
Who’s who
- Adrien SixteA famous Paris philosopher who lives by strict routine and denies free will, and who is now asked to answer for his pupil.
- Robert GreslonA brilliant young tutor from Clermont who admires Sixte and treats his own feelings as experiments, now held in prison.
- Madame GreslonRobert's devoted, simple mother, who begs the philosopher to make her silent son speak and clear his name.
- Charlotte de JussatThe marquis's gentle, romantic daughter, engaged to an officer, who trusts the new tutor and feels everything deeply.
- Count André de JussatCharlotte's proud elder brother, a dragoon captain who values honor and character and distrusts the tutor.
- Marquis de JussatA talkative, hypochondriac old nobleman who hires Greslon and cannot see what is happening in his own house.
- M. ValetteThe stylish investigating judge who questions Sixte and thinks the philosopher's doctrines may be dangerous.
- Mariette TrapenardSixte's loyal servant, who guards her master's comfort and prays for the soul of a man she thinks a pagan.
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The Disciple
by Paul Bourget · 1889
A philosopher who never reads the papers learns that his pupil stands accused of poisoning a girl.
Challenging5–10 hours to read2 languages
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In short
Why would a quiet philosopher who never reads a newspaper board a night train to a provincial court? Because a young man he met only twice stands accused of poisoning a girl, and that young man says he learned to think from the philosopher's books.
The Disciple at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 5 min4 h fast, 6 h slow
- Length
- 72,400 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1889by Paul Bourget
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A hermit philosopher who lives by the clock
Adrien Sixte lives on the fourth floor of a house beside the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Born in 1839 in Nancy, the son of a watchmaker, he came here to think and to do nothing else. The whole street sets its clocks by his comings and goings.
His day never changes. He works from six in the morning, walks among the monkey cages, receives students three afternoons a week and puts out his lamp at ten. He reads no newspaper and has cut every tie with his family. His housekeeper even sews blessed medals into his vests without his knowledge.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 13 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1889
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 45 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Bourget, Paul. The Disciple. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-disciple.
Bourget, P. (2026). The disciple. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-disciple (Original work published 1889)
Bourget, Paul. The Disciple. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-disciple.
@book{bourget2026disciple,
author = {Bourget, Paul},
title = {The Disciple},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-disciple},
note = {First published 1889}
}
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What is The Disciple by Paul Bourget about?
It tells of a Paris philosopher whose pupil, a young tutor, is accused of poisoning a girl. The pupil's confession shows how the master's ideas shaped him, and the philosopher must face what he owes to the mind he has taught.
Who is Adrien Sixte in The Disciple?
Sixte is a fictional philosopher, born in Nancy, who lives in a quiet Paris street, never reads newspapers and writes books claiming that human acts are fixed. He is modeled on thinkers of Bourget's day, such as Taine and Spencer.
Is The Disciple based on a true story?
The characters and the trial are invented, though Bourget says in his dedication that similar events had occurred in real life. He finished it in 1889 as a study of how ideas can shape young minds.
The author
Paul Bourget
1852–1935 · French novelist and critic
Paul Bourget was a French novelist, playwright and critic. He was born in Amiens in 1852 and died in Paris in 1935. He wrote essays and novels, including The Disciple, published in 1889. He was elected to the Académie française in 1894 and lived in Paris for much of his life.
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