Egoists

Ricciotto Canudo, Octave Uzanne, Hugues Rebell-to quote the names of a few devoted Stendhalians-have enabled us to decipher Stendhal's tro

l students. And this, too, despite the evident lack of sympathy in the case of M. Rod. It is a minute, painstaking étude, containing much fair criticism; fervent Stendhalians need to be reminded of their master's defects and of the danger of self-dupery. If Stendhal were alive, he would be the first to mock at his disciples' enthusiasm-the enthusiasm of the parvenu, as he pu

f Scrisse, Amò, Visse; it should read the reverse. The sculptor David d'Angers made a medallion of the writer in 1825. It is reproduced in the Rod monograph, and his son designed another for the tomb. This singular epitaph of a singular man did not escape the eyes of his enemies. Charles Monselet called him a renegade to his family and country; which is uncritical tomfoolery. Stendhal was a citizen of the world-and to the last a Frenchman. And not one of his cavilling contemporaries risked his life with such unconcern as did this same Beyle in the Napoleonic campaigns. Mérimée has drawn for us the best portrait of Stendhal, Colomb, his earliest companion, wrote the most gossipy life. Stryienski, however, has demonstrated that Colomb attenuated, even erased many expressions of Stendhal's, and that he also att

dhal. Not a lovable boy, certainly, and, it is said, scarcely a moral one. At school they nick-named him "la Tour ambulante," because of his thick-set figure. He preferred mathematics to all other studies, as he contemplated entering l'Ecole Polytechnique. November 10, 1799, found him in Paris with letters for his cousins Daru. They proved friendly. He was afterward, through the influence of Pierre Daru, minister of war, made lieutenant of cavalry, commissary and auditor of the Council of State. He served in the Italian campaign, following Napoleon through the Saint Bernard pass two days later. Aide-de-camp of General Michaud, he displayed sang-froid under fire. He was present at Jena and Wagram, and asked, during a day of fierce fighting, "Is that all?" War and love only provoked from this nonchalant person the same question. He was always disappointed by reality; and, as Rod adds, "Is that all?" might be the leit motiv of his life. Forced by sickness to retire to Vienna, he was at the top-notch of his life in Paris and Milan, 1810-1812. He left a brilliant position to rejoin the Emperor in Russia. In 1830 he was nominated consul at Trieste; but Metternich objected because of Stendhal's reputation as a political intrigant in Milan, ten years earlier-a reputation he never deserved. He was sent to Cività Vecchia, where he led a dull existence, punctuated by trips to Rome, and, at long int

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rulard, Souvenirs d'Egotisme, and the Journal (1801-1814). In their numerous pages-for he was an indefatigable graphomaniac-may be found the thousand and one experiences in love, war, diplomacy that made up his life. His boasted impassibility, like Flaubert's,

, who, though seventy-five, was in love with a Portuguese girl of nineteen. The same desire to startle that animated Baudelaire kept Beyle in hot water. He was a visitor at the home of Madame Cabanis, of M. Cuvier, of Madame Ancelot, Baron Gérard, and Castellane, and on Sundays, at the salon of Etienne Délacluze, the art critic of the Débats, and a daily visitor at Madame Pasta's. He disliked, in his emphatic style, Victor Cousin, Thiers, and his host Délacluze. For Beyle to dislike a man was to announce the fact to the four winds

la made him miserable by her coquetries. The feminine characters in his novels and tales are drawn from life. His essay on Love is a centaine of experiences crystallised into maxims and epigrams. This man of too expansive heart, who confessed to trepidation in the presence of a woman he loved, displayed surprising delicacy. Wh

an. She remembered him, this amusing mature friend of her girlhood. The daughters of Madame de Montijo, Eugénie and Paca, met Beyle through Mérimée, who was intimate with their mother. The two girls liked him; he spun for them his best yarns, he initiated them into new games; in a word, he was a welcome guest in t

n enemy of poetry, of the lyric, of the "ideal." The ice was not broken during the evening. Beyle had an antipathy for Hugo, Hugo thoroughly disliked Beyle. And if we had the choice to-day between talking with Hugo or Beyle, is there any doubt as to the selection?-Beyle the raconteur of hi