“ Stendhal’s reputation practically rests on the two novels Le Rouge et le noir and La Chartreuse de Parme. In the former of these he borrowed his plot from events which had actually happened some years previously. Julien Sorel in the novel is tutor in a noble family and seduces his pupil’s mother. He eventually kills her to avenge a letter accusing him to the family of his betrothed, Mlle de la Mole. Julien is a picture of Beyle as he imagined himself to be. The Chartreuse de Parme has less unity of purpose than Le Rouge et le noir. ”

“ Mélanie Guilbert, however, soon abandoned him to marry a Russian, and Beyle returned to Paris. Through the influence of Daru he obtained a place in the commissariat, which he filled with some distinction from 1806 to 1814. Charged with raising a levy in Brunswick of five million francs, he extracted seven; and during the retreat from Moscow he discharged his duties with efficiency. On the fall of Napoleon he refused to accept a place under the new régime, and retired to Milan, where he met Silvio Pellico, Manzoni, Lord Byron and other men of note. ”

“ At Milan he contracted a liaison with a certain Angelina P., whom he had admired fruitlessly during his earlier residence in that city. In 1814 he published, under the pseudonym of Alexandre César Bombet, his Lettres écrites de Vienne en Autriche sur le célèbre compositeur, Joseph Haydn, suivies d’une vie de Mozart, et de considérations sur Métastase et l’état présent de la musique en Italie. ”