Frederick Moreau Timeline and Summary
MoreFrederick Moreau Timeline and Summary
- Right off the bat, Frederick meets and falls in love with Madame Arnoux on a river boat. And there's the hook.
- Next up, he goes to Nogent to see his mother. (Bor-ing.)
- He visits Deslauriers, and together, they make plans for sharing a life together in Paris. It's going to be awesome.
- Our guy Returns to Paris. Look at that architecture! Oh, and where's Madame Arnoux?
- He finds law school boring and makes his way into Parisian society.
- The sneak that he is, he hangs out at L'Art Industriel and finally receives an invitation from the Arnouxes for dinner.
- Woe is Frederick: should he be a lawyer or a poet? (He decides to go with whatever impresses Marie Arnoux.)
- A few up and downs come around: he returns to provincial life, believes he will be poor forever but then lands a good-sized inheritance, and gets to know Louise.
- Eventually, he heads back to Paris and becomes part of the high society, getting himself invited to some pretty swanky parties.
- He gets to know Marie Arnoux, but she's not going along with his desires. Well, that's not going to stop him.
- To pass the time, he starts hanging out with Rosanette. She'll do for now.
- Then there's that duel with Cisy, which ends in some embarrassment on both sides.
- Frederick spends a dreamy Autumn hanging out with Madame Arnoux. Insert sappy violin music.
- He becomes Rosanette's lover and watches the revolution go by. What a combo: flailing detached limbs of rebels and hardcore romance.
- After Monsieur Dambreuse dies, he hooks up with Madame Dambreuse, but finds out she is even shallower than he thought. Is that possible?
- He becomes fiancé to Louise, lover—then fiancé—to Madame Dambreuse, and father to a courtesan's child. This guy has a lot of balls in the air, so to speak.
- Frederick severs all of his relations with Rosanette, Madame Dambreuse, Louise, and Deslauriers.
- Plans promptly collapse.
- Twenty years later, he's visited by Madame Arnoux in old age and basically rejects her. Ah, the horror of grey hair!
- In the last scene, he reminisces with Deslauriers, and they realize that they didn't really live life to the fullest.