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STENDHAL (HENRI BEYLE)

The Chartreuse of Parma

Stendhal is the best-known pseudonym (for there were others) of the refined, somewhat eccentric, and still distinguished French author whose real name was C. Marie Henri Beyle.  Born at Grenoble on January 23, 1783, he found his way as a youth to Milan, and fought with Bonaparte at Marengo.  Afterwards he followed various occupations at Paris and Marseilles; went through the Russian campaign of 1812; and returned to Italy, where he began to establish a reputation as a critic of music and of painting.  “La Chartreuse de Parme,” his most successful work of fiction, was written in the winter of 1830.  Like his other novels, it is discursive and formless; but is considered remarkable alike for its keenness of analysis and its exposition of the acid, materialistic philosophy of its author.  A friend of that other eclectic, Merimee, Stendhal was not much thought of in his own time until the profound praises of Balzac drew all eyes upon him; and in much more recent times interest in the best of his writings has revived on account of his keen and impartial analysis of whatever subject he touched upon.  Beyle died on March 22, 1842.

I.  Fabrice del Dongo

“Three members of your family,” said Count Mosca to the Duchess of Sanseverina, “have been Archbishops of Parma.  Could a better career be open to your nephew Fabrice?”

The Duchess disliked the notion; and indeed Fabrice del Dongo seemed a person but little fitted for an ecclesiastical career.  His ambitions were military; his hero was Napoleon.  The great escapade of his life had been a secret journey into France to fight at Waterloo.  His father, the Marquis del Dongo, was loyal to the Austrian masters of Lombardy; and during Fabrice’s absence his elder brother Arcanio had laid an information against him as a conspirator against Austrian rule.  Consequently Fabrice, on his return, found himself exposed to the risk of ten years in an Austrian prison.  By his own address and by the good offices of his aunt, the Countess Pietravera, Fabrice was able to escape from Milanese territory.

Immediately afterwards the Countess wedded the aged and wealthy Duke of Sanseverina, and transferred her beauty and unbounded social talents from Milan to the court of Prince Ranuce Ernest IV., absolute ruler of Parma.  The Duke had his ambitions gratified by an appointment as Ambassador to a distant country; the Duchess, left behind at Parma, was able to devote herself to the interests of Count Mosca, the Prince’s chief Minister, and to counteract the intrigues of the celebrated Marchioness Raversi, head of the party that sought to overthrow him.

The welfare of her beloved nephew was the most cherished of all the Duchess’s aims, and she succeeded in inspiring Count Mosca with an equal enthusiasm for the prosperity of that errant youth.  But she hesitated over the project of making him an Archbishop.