Road to Fame

Road to Fame

STENDHAL; The Life of an Egoist-Rudolf Kayser--Henry Holt ($3).

Henri-Marie Beyle, who called himself, among other pseudonyms, Baron de Stendhal--sensualist, cynic, soldier, exile, diplomat, author--wrote his first novel at 44 and said of himself: "Je serai compris ners 1900 [I shall be understood about 1900]."

Henri's father, whom he always disliked and later spoke of usually as "the bastard," was a royalist who escaped the fury of the French Revolution only because he was a citizen of out-of-the-way Grenoble. There Henri was born in 1783, and naturally grew up as a republican, to pique his father. He was difficult, even as a child. When told to kiss the plump cheek of a grown-up female relative, he bit it. His mother's death, when he was 5, plunged him into despair and atheism. His only childhood friend was his grandfather's valet, who was killed by falling from a mulberry tree. At school Henri won a prize at mathematics, and at 16 was allowed to go to Paris, ostensibly to enter L'Ecole Polytechnique, really "with the firm intention of becoming a seducer of women." He did neither; in 1800 his cousin Pierre Daru got him a clerk's job in the Ministry of War; a little later had him transferred to the Italian Army under General Bonaparte, shortly before the battle of Marengo.

In Milan, Henri entered the lists of love and was badly thrown; for a time he was under doctor's care. "He took little part in the fighting, though he distinguished himself at Castelfranco." When the campaign finished, he sent in his papers. Back in Paris once more, he fell in love with an actress. They went together to Marseilles, where Henri had a job in a wholesale grocery, and were happy for some time. Then Melanie got an engagement in Paris and they parted. In Napoleon's 1806 campaign against Prussia, Henri was once again with the army, in the commissary department. That little business over, he returned to Italy, where he took by storm a lady he had formerly been unable to subdue. He entered the fact thus in his diary: "Victory at 11:30 on the night of the 21st."

This cynic admired one man: Napoleon. In the disastrous campaign against Russia, Henri followed him, this time as a member of the Emperor's staff. With the abdication of Napoleon, Henri took refuge in Italy, turned to literature. His first book, under the pseudonym Louis Alexandre Cesar Bombet, was proved to be a plagiarism from one Carpani. From Henri's point of view, however his version was merely a brilliant condensation of a dull book. He was looked on with suspicion by the Austrian authorities in Italy, who thought he might be a Carbonaro, and finally was expelled from Milan. Later, when he had openly renounced his loyalty to Bonaparte and had been made consul at Trieste, suspicious Diplomat Metternich again forced his removal. He ended his days as consul of Civitavecchia, near Rome.

Heavyset, square-faced, unhandsome, awkward, Henri Beyle had many mistresses, but in his whole life loved only one woman besides his mother: Mathilde Visconti. She was faithful to her husband, and would have none of Henri. Proud of his English, he could not make himself understood in London when he wanted to buy a jar of jam. His books were not successful; the publisher of one of them wrote to him: "The book must be sacred--nobody seemed even to dare to touch it." His friends were not sure of him: his remarks, written and printed, might have been irony but seemed to some people like treachery. Though he was a conscientious consul, he was perfectly cynical about politics, which never excited him. He died of a stroke on a Paris streetcorner, to the jeers of ragamuffins who thought he was drunk. Author of many books, he wrote at least two which are still read, which are perhaps "beginning to be understood": The Red and the Black, On Love.

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