Fabrizio del Dongo is seventeen, half in love with Napoleon, and desperate to see a real battlefield — so he runs off to Waterloo and gets exactly what he wanted, confused, terrifying, and nothing like the glory he pictured. What follows is a long education in the far more dangerous game of Italian court politics, prison, and a love affair conducted partly through a telescope, as Fabrizio tries to find his footing in a world where charm and family connections matter more than any battle ever could.Stendhal wrote it in 52 days and it's lost none of its speed — a sweeping, sharply funny novel of post-Napoleonic Europe that both Balzac and later critics ranked among the greatest novels in the French language.