The labours, during the past twenty years, of Casimir Stryienski, François de Nion, L. Bélugon, Arthur Chuquet, Henry Cordier, Pierre Brun, Ricciotto Canudo, Octave Uzanne, Hugues Rebell--to quote the names of a few devoted Stendhalians--have enabled us to decipher Stendhal's troubled life. M. Stryienski unearthed at Grenoble a mass of manuscript, journals, tales, half-finished novels, and they have been published. Was there any reason to doubt the existence of a Stendhal Club after the appearance of those two interesting books, Soirées du Stendhal Club, by Stryienski? The compact little study in the series, Les Grands Ecrivains Français, by Edouard Rod, and Colomb's biographical notice at the head of Armance, and Stryienski's Etude Biographique are the principal references for Stendhal 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 puts it. (He ill concealed his own in the presence of pictorial master-pieces or the ballets of Viganò.) Rod, after admitting the wide influence of Stendhal upon the generations that followed him, patronisingly concludes by a quotation: "Les petits livres ont leurs destinées." What, then, does he call great, if Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme are "little books"?
Marie-Henry Beyle was born at Grenoble, Dauphiny, January 23, 1783. He died at Paris, March 23, 1842, stricken on the Rue Neuve des Capucines by apoplexy. Colomb had his dying friend carried to his lodgings. He was buried in Montmartre Cemetery, followed there by Mérimée, Colomb, and one other. Upon his monument is an epitaph composed a short time before he died. It is in Italian and reads: Arrigo Beyle, Milanese. _Scrisse, Amò, Visse_. Ann. 59. M.2. Mori 2. 23 Marzo. MDCCCXLII. (Harry Beyle, Milanese. Wrote, Loved, Lived. 59 years and 2 months. He died at 2 A.M. on the 23rd of March, 1842.) This bit of mystification was quite in line with Beyle's career. As he was baptised the English Henry, he preferred to be known in death as the Milanese Harry. Pierre Brun says that there was a transposition in the order of _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 attempted to portray his hero in fairer colours. But deep-dyed Stendhalians will not have their master transformed into a tame cat of the Parisian salons. His wickedness is his chief attraction, they think. An oft-quoted saying of Stendhal's has been, Stryienski shows, tampered with: "A party of eight or ten agreeable persons," said Stendhal, "where the conversation is gay and anecdotic, and where weak punch is handed around at half past twelve, is the place where I enjoy myself the most. There, in my element, I infinitely prefer hearing others talk to talking myself. I readily sink back into the silence of happiness; and if I talk, it is only to pay my ticket of admission." What Stendhal wrote was this: "Un salon de huit ou dix personnes dont toutes les femmes ont eu les amants," etc. The touch is unmistakable.