with men like Manzoni, Monti, and Silvio Pellico.  Unfortunately, his relations with certain Italian patriots aroused the suspicions of the Austrian police, and he was abruptly banished.  He returned to Paris, where to his surprise life proved more than tolerable, and where he made many valuable acquaintances, such as Benjamin Constant, Destutt de Tracy, and Prosper Merimee.  The revolution of July brought him a change of fortune; for he was in sympathy with Louis Philippe, and did not scruple to accept the consulship offered him at Civita Vecchia.  He soon found, however, that a small Mediterranean seaport was a poor substitute for his beloved Milan, while its trying climate undoubtedly shortened his life.  In 1841 failing health forced him to abandon his duties and return to Paris, where he died of apoplexy on March 23d, 1842.

So much at least of Stendhal’s life must be known in order to understand his writings; all of which, not excepting the novels, belong to what Ferdinand Brunetiere stigmatizes as “personal literature.”  Indeed, the chief interest of many of his books lies in the side-lights they throw upon his curious personality.  He was a man of violent contrasts, a puzzle to his best friends; one day making the retreat from Moscow with undaunted zeal, the next settling down contentedly in Milan, to the very vie de cafe he affected to despise.  He was a strange combination of restless energy and philosophic contemplation; hampered by a morbid sensibility which tended to increase, but which he flattered himself that he “had learned to hide under an irony imperceptible to the vulgar,” yet continually giving offense to others by his caustic tongue.  He seemed to need the tonic of strong emotions, and was happiest when devoting himself heart and soul to some person or cause, whether a Napoleon, a mistress, or a question of philosophy.  His great preoccupation was the analysis of the human mind, an employment which in later years became a positive detriment.  He was often led to attribute ulterior motives to his friends, a course which only served to render him morbid and unjust; while his equally pitiless dissection of his own sensations often robbed them of half their charm.  Even love and war, his favorite emotions, left him disillusioned, asking “Is that all it amounts to?” He always had a profound respect for force of character, regarding even lawlessness as preferable to apathy; but he was implacable towards baseness or vulgarity.  Herein lies, perhaps, the chief reason for Stendhal’s ill success in life; he would never stoop to obsequiousness or flattery, and in avoiding even the semblance of self-interest, allowed his fairest chances to pass him by.  “I have little regret for my lost opportunities,” he wrote in 1835.  “In place of ten thousand, I might be getting twenty; in place of Chevalier, I might be Officer of the Legion of Honor:  but I should have had to think three or four hours a day of those platitudes of ambition which are dignified by the name of politics; I should have had to commit many base acts:”  a brief but admirable epitome of Stendhal’s whole life and character.