Stendhal: In Quest of Henri Beyle
William Troy
W~ever
is gifted with alert and daring senses, curious to the
point of cynicism, logical almost from disgust, a solver of
enigmas, friend of the sphinx like every well-born European–
he will be compelled to
go
after
him.-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
0
N A FINE MORNING
in October, 1832, on the Janicu]um at
Rome, there might have been observed a pudgy middle-aged
Frenchman expensively attired in tight-fitting white trousers of an
English material. (The latter are important because later to be
concealed in their cuff was the sentence, written in English and
jumbled "so that it should not be understood,"
lmgo ingt obefif
ty.)
Who was this personage and of what was he thinking among so
many interesting reminders of the human past? The first of these
questions is by no means easy to answer. According to one esti–
mate the number of his pseudonyms was one hundred and sixty,
and his disguises, which included those of a Cistercian monk and a
woman of quality, were more than thirty. It is a mere accident of
literary history that of the many names attached to his published
writings one in particular should be associated with his reputation.
Less accidental perhaps, but of some significance, is the fact that
he should be remembered only as a writer; for he was in his time
a lieutenant of Dragoons, a grocer, a commissar in Napoleon's
army, a suspected police spy, a consul, and through all the self–
styled Lovelace of his age. In the arts his interest included music
and painting as well as literature--with a passion for
opera bouffe
perhaps lending a certain unity; and his works represent not only
all the known genres but also some that cannot be too easily placed.
Indeed, the difficulty of "placing" the figure on the hilltop is no
greater for us than it seems to have been for Henri Beyle himself–
to use the convention of labelling an individual by his baptismal
name. The moment is memorable because for some l.mexplained
reason-the blended influence of autumn sunlight and Roman ruins
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