The Charterhouse of Parma, novel by Stendhal, published in French as La Chartreuse de Parme in 1839. It is generally considered one of Stendhal's masterpieces, second only to The Red and the Black, and is remarkable for its highly sophisticated rendering of human psychology and its subtly drawn portraits.The novel is set mainly in the court of Parma, Italy, in the early 19th century. It follows the fortunes of Fabrice del Dongo, a young aristocrat and ardent admirer of Napoleon. He fights at Waterloo and returns to Parma, where he joins the church for worldly advantage. In the course of the story he kills a rival, fathers a child, and eventually retires to the Carthusian monastery, or charterhouse, of Parma, where he dies.