STENDHAL (1783-1842) the pseudonym of HENRI-MARIE BEYLE, who borrowed the name from a small German town, the birthplace of Winckelmann, and who chose for his epitaph, Qui glace, Arrigo Beyle Milanese; visse, scrisse, amo. He was one of the most original and distinguished of French essayists and novel ists. He was born at Grenoble on Jan. 23, 1783.
From Nov. 1796 to 1799, he attended the Ecole Centrale at Grenoble, where he was brilliantly successful. Here he was initi ated into mathematics and accurate thinking. He arrived in Paris soon after the 18th Brumaire to study for the Ecole Polytech nique, but he soon gave up this scheme. Pierre Daru, the future grand administrateur of the empire, was a relation and his patron, and obtained a post for him in the War Office; later, in 1799, he sent him to Italy which became the chosen country of this cos mopolitan. He lived at Novara and Milan, in the autumn of i800 became a sub-lieutenant, but resigned in 1802 and lived in Paris, where he frequented the salons and the theatres. After attempting business in Marseilles, in Aug. 1805, out of infatuation for an actress, he became a deputy to the commissaire des (1806). He then lived for two years beyond the Rhine in Bruns wick. He asked vainly for a post in Spain, was appointed auditor to the Conseil d'Etat in 181o, took part in the Russian campaign and became intendant at Sagan in 1813. He had received his bap tism of fire in the Alps; he had heard the cannon at Marengo, and seen close at hand the horrors of war at the burning of Ebersberg, Smolensk and Moscow. During the tragic hours at the Beresina, he presented himself, freshly shaved, to Daru, who by this recog nized in him. an homme de coeur. After the empire fell, having lost all hope of being appointed a prefect, he went to live in Italy (1814-21) ; he spent six years in Milan, where he became acquainted with Byron, Madame de Stael, Silvio Pellico, Manzoni and Monti, whom he calls "the greatest living poet." In 1814, he published in Paris les Lettres ecrites de Vienne en Autriclie sur le célèbre compositeur, Joseph Haydn, suivies d'une vie de Mozart et de considerations sur Metastase et l'etat present de la musique et en Italie, par L. C. A. Bombet. Herein
he pillaged Carpani, Schlichtegroll, Winckler and Cramer. His plagiarisms would have brought him less reproach if he had acknowledged them more generously. L'histoire de la peinture en Italie, par M.B.A.A. (Beyle, ancien auditeur), appeared in 1817. Stendhal explains and animates the works of the abbe Lanzi and Vasari ; he adds trivial or profound reflections to his borrow ings from Lavater and Bossi. In Rome, Naples et Florence (1817), Stendhal supplemented his recollections with abundant documentary research; the work contains a wealth of fine, in genious and vivid impressions on life, music, Italian patriotism, and on the charm of the delicious life he was enjoying. In this respect, this work seems to contain the matter of and to be a commentary on La Chartreuse de Parme.
In 1821 Stendhal was suspected of carbonarisme and espionage, and had to return to Paris. Exiled from his terrestrial paradise in Italy, he visited the houses of La Pasta, de Tracy and Delecluze, and made friends of Merimee and Jacquemont. A brilliant and paradoxical talker, he both pleased and scandalized. He attempted to reconcile his dandyism with his poverty. He travelled in Eng land in 1821 and 1826 and sent regular accounts and articles to the various English reviews, and to French journals.
He continued to publisholiterary hack-work : the amusing and anecdotal Vie de Rossini (1823) in which his dilettante spirit demanded from music a sentimental pleasure and poetic reverie.
Les Promenades dans Rome (1829) was a partial success. The "cicerone of intelligence and taste" was not content with anec dotes; he described manners, customs and the art of the "Chasse an bonheur" in Italy; and the guide may again be seen in the account of the landscapes and monuments which enchanted the author. In 1838 appeared Les Memoires d'un Touriste. Stendhal had travelled extensively through either alone or in com pany with Merimee, who instructed him in the Gothic. In addition to choses vues, the description of his native province, the Dau phine, and the fair of Beaucaire, the work contains many stories clipped from journals or taken from the impressions of others.