BEYLE, Marie-Henri, better known as De Stendhal, the most celebrated of his many noms de plume, was born at Grenoble on the 23d January 1783. His father was an avocat at the parliament of Grenoble, and his family, though not noble, was of good descent. His early education was conducted mainly by priests, who seem to have misunderstood his very peculiar character, and for whom he ever afterwards entertained a profound aversion and contempt. At the age of twelve he was sent to the École Centrale, newly established at Grenoble, and continued in attendance for four years, during which time he distinguished himself in all his studies, z In 1799 he was preparing to become a candidate for the École Polytechnique when his plans were disturbed by an offer from Μ. Daru, a distant relative, cf some appointment connected with the ministry for war. In the following year he accompanied Μ. Daru to Milan, on the chance of some suitable post offering itself. He was present at the battle of Marengo; and carried away, apparently, by the military enthusiasm consequent on Napoleon’s brilliant victories, he suddenly enlisted . as quartermaster in a dragoon regiment. In a month’s time he was made sub-lieutenant, and for about a year and a half acted as aide-de-camp to General Michaud. But the routine of garrison life, to which he was soon afterwards condemned, made him heartily tired of a military career. On the conclusion of the peace of Amiens (1802) he threw up his commission, and went to reside with his family at Grenoble. From them he obtained means to take up his abode in Paris, where for some time he continued to devote himself to study and literary work. In 1805 he suddenly accepted a situation as clerk in a mercantile house at Marseilles, and remained there nearly a ...year,—in fact, till the actress, for whose sake he had taken this curious step, married a wealthy Russian. In the following year he again accompanied Μ. Daru into Germany, and was appointed to superintend the possessions of the emperor in Brunswick. Whatever German he.learnt there was afterwards completely forgotten. In his official capacity as connected with the commissariat he took part in the ill-fated Russian campaign of 1812, and remained loyal to the fallen emperor. He declined to lay himself out for employment under the new régime, and retired to Milan, where he resided till 1821. His early works, chiefly on painting and music, date from this period of his life. The Lettres écrites de Vienne sur Haydn, suivies d'une Vie de Mozart, &c., which appeared in 1814 under the pseudonym of Alexandre César Bombet, were mainly plagiarized from Carpani. With some slight alterations the work was reproduced in 1817 as Vies de Haydn, Mozart, et Metastase. In the same year he published, under various assumed names, Histoire de la Peinture en Italie, which contains some good but unsystematic criticism, and Rome, Naples, et Florence en 1817. In 1821 he was compelled to return to France, an unfounded suspicion that he was a French spy having somehow arisen at Milan. During the following nine years he resided at Paris, and gradually began to acquire his high reputation as an accomplished litterateur and man of the world. He was an admirable talker and full of anecdote, which in his opinion ought to form the staple of conversation. His fine analytic powers were displayed to full advantage in the curious work, De Ï Amour, which he published in 1822, but the book did not find an appreciative audience. The Vie de Rossini, which followed, was more successful; and the pamphlet Racine et Shakespeare did good service for the cause of Romanticism in its struggle with the rigid classical canons of older French literature. In 1829 appeared his Promenades dans Rome, full of information, criticism, and original observation, but somewhat chaotic in form. He was appointed consul at Trieste in 1830, and three years later he quitted that place with the greatest joy for a similar post at Civita Vecchia. There he remained till 1841, with frequent absences, one extending from 1836 to 1839, during which he paid a short visit to London. In 1841 his health gave way, and he returned to Paris, where he died on the 22d March 1842.
Beyle, during his lifetime, was known to but a very small circle of readers; within the last twenty years, however, his popularity has greatly increased, and his many fine powers have received due recognition. It is not probable that he will ever have a very extended influence; his writings are “caviare to the general,” and can only be appreciated by those qualified to take pleasure in the cynical reflections of mere egotism. For Beyle’s philosophical creed, so far as he can be said to have had one, was materialism, and his ideal of humanity aesthetically refined selfishness. His strength lay in keen criticism and in acute psychological analysis, qualities which gave value to his writings on art, but debarred him from success in the department of fiction. His principal novels, Le Rouge et le Noir, and La Chartreuse de Parme, fell comparatively dead, though the latter was received with extravagant eulogy by Balzac, and has recently become more popular. His genius was too analytic to be suited for romance writings; the novels want consistency of plot and motive power in the characters. Zα Chartreuse, however, the best of them, gives an admirable picture of the involved intrigues of a small Italian court, a subject with which Beyle was specially qualified to deal. The peculiar value of all his writings consists in the amount of thinking which they excite, though it must be confessed that the subjects are frequently unworthy of the attention devoted to them. The fullest account of Beyle is that by A. A. Paton, Henry Beyle, a Critical and Biographical Study, 1874. See also Golomb’s prefaces to La Chartreuse and the Romans et Nouvelles, Mérimée's preface to the Correspondance Inedite, and Sainte-Beuve’s articles in the Causeries du Lundi.
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