The Leopard

by

Giuseppe Di Lampedusa

Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo Character Analysis

Chevalley is the Secretary of the Prefecture of Sicily, sent to Donnafugata in the fall of 1860 on a failed errand to invite the Prince to join the new Italian Senate. Chevalley is well-meaning but timid, easily frightened by stories of backward and violent Sicilians. Chevalley’s visit gives the Prince the opportunity to speak at length about Sicily’s weaknesses and its inability to change or improve.

Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo Quotes in The Leopard

The The Leopard quotes below are all either spoken by Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo or refer to Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cultural Survival and Decline Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4. Love at Donnafugata Quotes

“In Sicily it doesn’t matter whether things are done well or done badly; the sin which we Sicilians never forgive is simply that of ‘doing’ at all. We are old, Chevalley, very old. For more than twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of a superb and heterogeneous civilization, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own. We’re as white as you are, Chevalley, and as the Queen of England; and yet for two thousand and five hundred years we’ve been a colony. I don’t say that in complaint; it’s our fault. But even so we’re worn out and exhausted.”

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:

“This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and these monuments, even, of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing around like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction, who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn’t understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind.”

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:

I belong to an unfortunate generation, swung between the old world and the new, and I find myself ill at ease in both. And what is more, as you must have realized by now, I am without illusions; what would the Senate do with me, an inexperienced legislator who lacks the faculty of self-deception, essential requisite for wanting to guide others? We of our generation must draw aside and watch the capers and somersaults of the young around this ornate catafalque.

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

Chevalley thought, “This state of things won’t last; our lively new modern administration will change it all.” The Prince was depressed: “All this shouldn’t last; but it will, always; the human ‘always,’ of course, a century, two centuries…and after that it will be different, but worse. We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who’ll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us. Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we’ll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.”

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo (speaker)
Related Symbols: Leopards
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
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Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo Quotes in The Leopard

The The Leopard quotes below are all either spoken by Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo or refer to Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cultural Survival and Decline Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4. Love at Donnafugata Quotes

“In Sicily it doesn’t matter whether things are done well or done badly; the sin which we Sicilians never forgive is simply that of ‘doing’ at all. We are old, Chevalley, very old. For more than twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of a superb and heterogeneous civilization, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own. We’re as white as you are, Chevalley, and as the Queen of England; and yet for two thousand and five hundred years we’ve been a colony. I don’t say that in complaint; it’s our fault. But even so we’re worn out and exhausted.”

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:

“This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and these monuments, even, of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing around like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction, who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn’t understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind.”

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:

I belong to an unfortunate generation, swung between the old world and the new, and I find myself ill at ease in both. And what is more, as you must have realized by now, I am without illusions; what would the Senate do with me, an inexperienced legislator who lacks the faculty of self-deception, essential requisite for wanting to guide others? We of our generation must draw aside and watch the capers and somersaults of the young around this ornate catafalque.

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

Chevalley thought, “This state of things won’t last; our lively new modern administration will change it all.” The Prince was depressed: “All this shouldn’t last; but it will, always; the human ‘always,’ of course, a century, two centuries…and after that it will be different, but worse. We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who’ll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us. Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we’ll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.”

Related Characters: Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo (speaker)
Related Symbols: Leopards
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis: