Abstract: The Red and the Black presents in succession "the love of the heart" that was gestated between Julien Sorel and Mme. de Rênal in the small town of Verrières, and "the love of the mind" that burst forth between Julien Sorel and Mathilde in Paris. These two facets of love constitute the Gallic identity incarnated in Julien Sorel, the spiritual son of Stendhal, who devoted himself to passionate love while examining himself and his emotion with a rational mind. Mme. de Rênal, who carried "the love of the heart", was the personification of the natural. She was true to herself at every moment. This unpretentious love of the heart inspired Julien's impulsion to extricate himself from the hypocrisy, and also resulted in a love affair oscillating between the natural and the hypocritical. Mathilde, who incarnated "the love of the mind", challenged Julien to win his laurels with her unique sharpness and intellect, while at the same time discerned the annihilation of these honors during the Bourbon Restoration. These two storylines are symmetrical in the book, but simultaneously interlace with one another, showing the three protagonists inspiring each other in a stormy and passionate love and reflecting the spirit of the new and old in the post-revolutionary era. The love stimulated them to overcome the vanity and the egotism, to free themselves from the hypocrisy and affectation prevailing during the time of the Bourbon Restoration, as well as to uncover their deepest motivations and original impulses. This passionate love is accompanied with inner struggles at different aspects of the self that inspire the emergence of the authentic self to rid of the annihilation or even the alienation of the self under the pressure of social convention and public opinions, and finally accomplish the spiritual crystallization of the authentic self.

Key words: The Red and the Black, the authentic self, the love of the heart, the love of the mind, Stendhal