This article analyses Stendhal's various representations of work, idleness, and play in Lucien Leuwen, showing how these serve to structure the novel's analysis of power. The article begins by exploring the utilitarian discourses of (over)work and aristocratic discourses of idleness foregrounded in the novel. It goes on to explore the novel's beyliste discourse of playfulness articulated by François Leuwen, Lucien's manipulative banker father. It will be argued that Stendhal, far from endorsing M. Leuwen's ludism, works to undermine it by distinguishing between types of play and, in particular, by placing the difference between play and play-acting at the centre of his narrative: Lucien plays like an absorbed child, whereas his father play-acts like an adult, determined to control how he is perceived by others.