But it is saved by its vivid and feeling style, and by its "precious nothings." Stendhal also wrote some more original works. De l'amour (1822) constitutes under the guise of a psychological and documented analysis, a study and a preface for his novels; physi ology is mingled with psychology. In it is also found a curious and original theory of "crystallization," a symbolic picture of the birth and growth of love.
Stendhal's first novel was an interesting study of this "crystal lization," Armance ou quelques scenes d'un salon de Paris en 1827 (1827). This was followed by a novel dealing with love and ambition—Le Rouge et le Noir (1830). In reading the Gazette des Tribunaux, which he cynically called "the golden book of French energy in the 19th century," Stendhal had noticed a tragic incident. The son of a farrier of the Dauphine, a former seminar ist, had been guillotined at Grenoble on Feb. 23, 1828, for having shot and wounded a lady whom he loved. On this scandalous material the novelist constructed his story and even wove in some personal confessions, for his Julien Sorel sometimes resembles the author. The interest of this novel is found in the energetic spirit of his characters, full of intense and unscrupulous life, in the dramatic adventures, traits of character and passion noted with precision and clearness, and in its psychological analysis.
Stendhal had already shown himself to be a pamphleteer. It was by a real pamphlet that he took his position in the Romantic battle, when he published in 1823 Racine et Shakespeare, which was re-published in 1825 with more vigour and more mordancy than ever. This work was impregnated with the Italian Romanti cism of Manzoni, Visconti and Berchet. Stendhal attempted to free the theatre from the "unities" of place and time. He con demned Alexandrine verse and recommended a national tragedy which would be modern, even topical, and by preference liberal. These ideas were not all new, but the tone and the accent were completely personal. Stendhal had protested against the indus trialism of Saint Simon in his witty work D'un nouveau complot contre les industrials (1825).
Shortly after the revolution of July 1830 Stendhal was ap pointed consul at Trieste, but since Metternich refused him his exequatur, he was sent in April 1831 to Civita-Vecchia. There he longed for Paris, the city of conversation. He wandered about Naples, made excavations in the papal territory, continually visited Rome and took holidays in Paris between 1836 and 1839. He had not yet had any true success when he was hailed as a great novelist by Balzac in an article published on Sept. 25, 1840, in the Revue Parisienne, on the Chartreuse de Parme. He had just completed an advantageous contract with the Revue des deux Mondes for "nouvelles" when he was overcome on the boulevard by an attack of apoplexy on March 22, 1842. Three friends, in cluding Merimee, followed his funeral to the cemetery of Mont martre. He counted on obtaining a little glory about 1880 or even later : "I take a ticket in the lottery, the grand prize of which may be summed up as—to be read in 1935." He was read long before this, and La Chartreuse de Panne is one of the great romances of the 19th century. The hypothesis which saw in it only an ingenious reproduction of ancient Italian chronicles which Stendhal had dug out of the libraries has been exploded. The value of the novel lies in the analysis of the grandes passions and in his pictures of contemporary manners. It differs widely from the rude and simple stories which he liked to take as his inspiration. Stendhal has put in this book his experiences and intimate feelings, his impressions of Italy revived by nostalgia.
This book was seven years in contemplation and it was finally written in Paris in seven weeks, appearing in April 1839. The first part of the book consists of memories rearranged by the author— of Milan on the morrow of Lodi, of the adventures of Fabrice, present at a great battle without seeing much of it, of France after Waterloo, of the intrigues of a little Italian court in 182o. The book is full of Stendhal's reading on Italy of former days which gives rise to certain discrepancies. The actors are original characters, even if one sees the prototype of Count Mosca in Metternich or in Count Sauron, the governor of Lombardy. The Duchess of Sanseverina differs greatly from la Vannoza, the mistress of the future Pope Alexander VI., and Fabrice del Dongo, the Napoleonic marquis who became a priest after taking part in a conspiracy, has more resemblance to Julien Sorel than to Alex ander Farnese. Stendhal excels in the delineation of souls and of exceptional and complex characters, scheming and energetic. Por traits, landscapes and Italian life play a large part in this crowded and disconcerting romance. The style is always natural, clear and limpid. The "little precise phrases, worthy of a code or of algebra" raised the enthusiasm of Taine who regarded Stendhal as a "superior spirit." From his "Italian chronicles" he repeatedly drew dark and bloody stories and horrible and romantic novels. He was amused by these stories which he published between 1829 and 1838 in the Revue de Paris: V anina Vanini, Le coifre et le revenant, Le Philtre. Vittoria Accoramboni, Les Cenci, La duchesse de Palli ano, L'Abbesse de Castro, San Francesco a Ripa, appeared in the Revue des deux Mondes (1837-53).
Stendhal's admirers have published his unpublished works and even some illegible fragments preserved in the library at Grenoble. With audacious disquieting sincerity, sometimes bordering on cynicism, Stendhal wrote autobiographies entitled La Vie d'Henri Brulard (189o), Souvenirs d'Egotisme (1892), Lucien Leuwen (1894), Journal d'Italie (19i I), in order to enjoy his past and to rescue from oblivion his "so different" personality. Lamiel (1889) is a romance in the style of Balzac and Sue of a foundling child of a seduced peasant woman. In his correspondence, vivid, primitive, amusing, passing from irony to tenderness, he paints himself with somewhat crude freedom. It is a feast for lovers of human docu ments. A place apart must be given to the Lettres a Pauline, his younger sister, whom Stendhal adored and whom he made his confidante. La Vie de Napoleon (1876) is less original than might have been expected. History is mingled with legend and gossip.
Stendhal, the "hussar of romanticism," independent of all schools, was at once behind the times and a pioneer. Disciple of the ideologues and even of the philosophers of the 18th century, he nevertheless seems to have been in advance of our own genera tion. Almost unknown during his lifetime, Stendhal the psycholo gist, an expert in unravelling and analyzing the sentiments of the human heart, curious about the "little true facts," careful to "write philosophically" for a fastidious elite, for the "happy few," was one of the introducers of romanticism and of the psy chological novel. It was all very well for him to write that "a novel is a mirror taking a walk along the high road"; his mirrors possessed a strange magic. Of him more than anyone else it may be said that he was original. There are "Stendhaliens" and "anti Stendhaliens." Henri Beyle lives to-day more than Ioo years ago.