Character guide

Julie d'Aiglemont

major

Also known as Julie, poor Julie, the Marquise, Madame la Marquise, Madame d'Aiglemont, Marquise, Madame

A young wife who weds a soldier for love and discovers too late that marriage can be a slow, elegant form of abandonment.

Charles de Vandenesse

major

Also known as Charles, M. Charles de Vandenesse, Vandenesse, M. de Vandenesse

A rising diplomat of thirty who has schooled himself to cool calculation, yet finds his carefully guarded heart ambushed by a woman already bound to another.

Colonel Victor d'Aiglemont

major

Also known as Victor, Colonel d'Aiglemont, Victor d'Aiglemont, the General, General, D'Aiglemont

A dashing officer who wins Julie in a whirlwind courtship, then leaves her to the long silence of a marriage he never learned to inhabit.

Hélène d'Aiglemont

supporting

Also known as Hélène, little Hélène

Julie's eldest daughter, a dark-eyed, vehement child whose sombre intensity and hungry heart set her on a course her mother cannot forgive.

Lord Grenville

supporting

Also known as Arthur, Monsieur Arthur

An English nobleman abroad in France whose passion for Hélène collides with the d'Aiglemont family's pride and Julie's bitter experience.

Moïna de Saint-Héreen

supporting

Also known as Little Moïna, Moïna, The Comtesse Moïna de Saint-Héreen, la Comtesse

Julie's youngest and most beloved daughter, beautiful and instinctive, whose effortless charm becomes the axis of her mother's late, anxious devotion.

Madame de Sérizy

supporting

Also known as Mme. d'Aiglemont, Mme, de Sérizy, Mme. de Saint-Héreen

Madame de Sérizy moves through Parisian drawing rooms as a mother whose grown daughter, Moïna, has become the reigning attraction — her salon, her box at the Italiens, her flirting. The dowager's devotion is genuine but costly: she is admired for her patience and quietly pitied for her solitude, her own musical past and social standing displaced by the younger woman's brilliance. Her tender, self-effacing love, and the gossip it provokes, sets the emotional weather of the novel's later movement, where maternal sacrifice and filial indifference are weighed without easy verdict.

Marquis de Vandenesse

minor

Also known as The Marquis de Vandenesse, Marquis, de Vandenesse

Charles's elder brother, a conservative aristocrat.

Crottat

minor

A notary or legal figure involved in family affairs.

Alfred de Vandenesse

minor

Also known as Alfred

A younger relative of Charles, appearing in social scenes.

Louisa de Wimphen

minor

Also known as Louisa, de Wimphen

A friend of Julie's family, involved in social intrigues.

Ronquerolles

minor

Also known as M. de Ronquerolles, M. d'Aiglemont

A nobleman and occasional advisor to the d'Aiglemont family.

Madame de Listomère

minor

Also known as Mme. de Listomère, Mme. de Listomère-Landon

A society matron and relative of the Vandenesse family.

Captain Gomez

minor

Also known as Gomez

A Spanish officer who courts Hélène during her travels.

Abel d'Aiglemont

minor

Also known as Abel, little Abel

Julie and Victor's young son, who dies in childhood.

Pauline

minor

A servant or companion in the d'Aiglemont household.

Gustave

minor

A young man briefly associated with Moïna's social circle.

Fox

minor

Also known as young Fox

An English acquaintance of Lord Grenville.