THIS PAPER seeks to investigate the social and revolutionary implications of a predisposition toward violence (variously called “virtu” or “énergie”) so typical of Stendhal's characters. It will aim at showing that when the individual's psychological need for action is frustrated by a stagnant society, he will attempt to shatter the structure that confines him to inaction. Such a temperamental predisposition is all the more likely to become a revolutionary act when the “times are out of joint.”1 Indeed, an important aspect of the revolutionary mentality is what one might call the “chiliastic” experience of time.2