Stendhal's second great novel, La Chartreuse de Parme, was published in 1839. He adapted the theme from a sixteenth-century Italian manuscript and set it in the period of Waterloo. Amid the intrigues of the small court of Parma the hero, Fabrizo, with his secret love for Clelia, emerges as an 'outsider' whose destiny is shaped by events in which his character plays relatively little part. Fabrizio's final withdrawal into a monastery emphasizes his lack of contact with real life and his similarity to the ingrown hero of the twentieth century.