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, Mérimée, 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.
"You must understand," explained the Count, "that I do not intend to
make Fabrice an exemplary priest of the conventional kind. No, he will
above all remain a great noble; he may continue to be absolutely
ignorant if he so pleases, and will become a Bishop and an Archbishop
just the same--provided, of course, that I succeed in retaining the
Prince's confidence."
Ultimately the Duchess agreed, and undertook to persuade Fabrice to
enter the Church. The persuasion was not easy; but at length Fabrice,
having been convinced that the clerical yoke would bear but lightly upon
him, consented to the step, and as a preliminary spent three years in a
theological college at Naples.
When at the end of the three years Fabrice, now a Monsignore, returned
to Parma, matters there were at a crisis; the Raversi party were gaining
ground, and Count Mosca was in danger. Nor did the Prince's interview
with the young cleric improve matters. Ranuce Ernest IV. had two ruling
passions--an ambition to become ruler of united Italy, and a fear of
revolution. Count Mosca, the diplomatist, was the only man who could
further his hopes in the one direction; his fears in the other were
carefully kept alive by Rassi, the fiscal-general--to such an extent
that each night the Prince looked under his bed to see if by chance a
liberal were lurking there. Rassi was a man of low origin, who kept his
place partly by submitting good-humouredly to the abuse and even the
kicks of his master, and partly by rousing that master's alarms and
afterwards allaying them by hanging or imprisoning liberals, with the
ready assistance of a carefully corrupted judicial bench.
Towards this nervous Prince, Fabrice bore himself with an aristocratic
assurance, and a promptness and coolness in conversation that made a bad
impression. His political notions were correct enough, according to the
Prince's standard; but plainly, he was a man of spirit, and the Prince
did not like men of spirit; they were all cousins-germane of Voltaire
and Rousseau. He deemed Fabrice, in short, a potential if not an actual
liberal, and therefore dangerous.
Nevertheless Count Mosca carried the day against his rivals--a triumph
due less to his own efforts than to those of the Duchess, to whose
charms as the court's chief ornament the Prince was far from
insusceptible. The Count's success was Fabrice's; that youth found
himself established as co-adjutor to the Archbishop of Parma, with a
reversion to the Archbishopric on the demise of its worthy occupant.
On Fabrice's return from Naples, the Duchess had found him developed
from a boy into a young man, and the handsomest young man in Italy; her
affection for him became sisterly; she was nearly in love with him. She
had no cause for jealousy, for Fabrice, although prone to flirtation,
had no affairs of the heart. The word love, as yet, had no meaning for
him.
_II.--Giletti_
One of our hero's flirtations had consequences with a very pronounced
bearing on his after career. During a surreptitious visit to the theatre
he became captivated with the actress, Marietta Valserra. Stolen visits
of two minutes duration to Marietta's lodging on the fourth floor of an
old house behind the theatre were an agreeable variation of the monotony
of Fabrice's clerical duties, and of his visits among the most important
and least entertaining families in Parma. But the trifling little
intrigue came to the ears of Count Mosca, with the result that the
travelling company to which Marietta belonged received its passports and
was requested to move on.
In the affair, moreover, Fabrice had a rival. Giletti was the low
comedian of the company, and the ugliest member of it; he assumed
proprietorship over Marietta, who, although she did not love him, was at
any rate horribly afraid of him. Giletti several times threatened to
kill Fabrice; whereby Fabrice was not disturbed.
Count Mosca was passionately archaeological, and this taste he shared
with Fabrice, who had cultivated the hobby at Naples. It so happened
that the two were engaged in excavations near the bridge over the Po
where the main road passes into Austrian territory at Castel-Maggiore.
Early one morning Fabrice, after surveying the work that was going on in
the trenches, strolled away with a gun, intent upon lark-shooting. A
wounded bird dropped on the road; and as Fabrice followed it he
encountered a battered old carriage driving towards the frontier. In it
were Giletti, Marietta and an old woman who passed as Marietta's mother.
Giletti leapt to the conclusion that Fabrice had come there, gun in
hand, to insult him, and possibly to carry off Marietta. He leapt out of
the carriage.
"Brigand!" he yelled, "we are only a league from the frontier--now I can
finish you!"
Fabrice saw a pistol levelled at him at a distance of three feet; he
knocked it aside with the butt of his gun, and it went off harmlessly.
Giletti then clutched the gun; the two men wrestled for it, and it
exploded close to Giletti's ear. Staggered for an instant, he quickly
recovered himself; drawing from its sheath a "property" sword, he fell
once more upon Fabrice.
"Look out! he will kill you," came an agitated whisper from Marietta;
"take this!"
A sort of hunting knife was flung out of the carriage door. Fabrice
picked it up, and was nearly stunned forthwith by a blow from the handle
of the "property" sword. Happily Giletti was too near to use his
sword-point. Pulling himself together, Fabrice gave his enemy a gash on
the thigh. Giletti, swearing furiously, injured Fabrice on the cheek.
Blood poured down our hero's face. The thought, "I am disfigured for
life!" flashed through his mind. Enraged at the idea, he thrust the
hunting knife at Giletti's breast with all his force. Giletti fell and
lay motionless.
"He is dead!" said Fabrice to himself. Then, turning to the coach, he
asked, "Have you a looking-glass?"
His eyes and teeth were undamaged; he was not permanently disfigured.
Hastily, then, he turned to thoughts of escape. Marietta gave him
Giletti's passport; obviously his first business was to get across the
frontier. And yet the Austrian frontier was no safe one for him to
cross. Were he recognised, he might expect ten years in an Imperial
fortress. But this was the less immediate danger, and he determined to
risk it.
With considerable trepidation he walked across the bridge, and presented
Giletti's passport to the Austrian gendarme.
The gendarme looked at it, and rose, "You must wait, monsieur; there is
a difficulty," he said, and left the room. Fabrice was profoundly
uncomfortable; he was nearly for bolting, when he heard the gendarme say
to another, "I am done up with the heat; just go and put your visa on a
passport in there when you have finished your pipe; I'm going for some
coffee."
This gendarme, in fact, knew Giletti, and was quite well aware that the
man before him was not the actor. But, for all he could tell, Giletti
had lent the passport for reasons of his own. The easiest way out of the
difficulty was to get another gendarme to see to the visa. This man
affixed it as a matter of course, and Fabrice escaped danger number one.
The rest was very easy, thanks to Ludovico, an old servant of the
Duchess, whom Fabrice met at an eating-house where he had turned in for
some very necessary refreshment. With the aid of this excellent fellow
Fabrice had his wounds attended to, and was safely smuggled out of
Austrian territory into Bologna.
_III.--The Citadel_
The party opposed to Count Mosca hastened to take advantage of Fabrice's
offence. He was represented as a murderer; the workmen in the trenches
who had seen the affray, and knew that Fabrice had acted in
self-defence, were either bribed or got out of the way. Rassi accused
Fabrice of being a liberal; and since the Prince was ill-disposed
towards the young man, not all the endeavours of Count Mosca could save
him from a sentence of twenty years' imprisonment, should he be so
impudent as to venture upon the territory of Parma.
Just before the sentence was presented to the Prince for final
confirmation, the Prince learnt that the Duchess of Sanseverina sought
an audience with him. He rubbed his hands; the greatest beauty of his
court had come to beg mercy for her nephew; there would be tears and
frantic appeals. For a quarter of an hour the Prince gloated over the
prospect; then he ordered that the Duchess be admitted.
She entered--in travelling costume; never had she looked more charming,
never more cheerful. "I trust your Serene Highness will pardon my
unorthodox costume," she said, smiling archly; "but as I am about to
leave Parma for a very long time, I have felt it my duty to come and
thank you ere I go for all the kindnesses you have deigned to confer
upon me."
The Prince was astonished and profoundly chagrined. "Why are you going?"
he asked, as calmly as he could.
"I have had the project for some time," she replied, "and a little
insult paid to Monsignor del Dongo has hastened it."
The Prince was beside himself. What would his court be without the
Duchess? At all costs he must check her flight.
At this moment Count Mosca, pale with anxiety, begged admittance. He had
just heard of the Duchess's intention to leave Parma.
"Let me speak as a friend to friends," said the Prince, collecting
himself; "what can I do, Madame, to arrest your hasty resolution?"
"If your highness were to write a gracious letter revoking the unjust
sentence upon Fabrice del Dongo, I might re-consider my decision; and,
let me add, if the Marchioness Raversi were advised by you to retire to
the country early to-morrow morning for the benefit of her health--"
"Was there ever such a woman?" cried the Prince, stamping up and down
the room.
But he agreed. At his orders Count Mosca sat down and wrote the letter
required. The Prince objected to the phrase "unjust sentence," and Count
Mosca, courtier-like, abstained from using it. The Prince did not mind
the banishment of the Marchioness Raversi; he liked exiling people.
At seven o'clock next morning the Prince summoned Rassi, and dictated to
him another letter. The sentence of twenty years, upon the criminal del
Dongo was to be reduced by the Prince's clemency, at the supplication of
the Duchess Sanseverina, to twelve years; and the police were instructed
to do their utmost to arrest the offender.
The only difficulty was that of tempting Fabrice into the territory of
Parma. A hint to the Marchioness Raversi and her associates removed the
obstacle. A forged letter, purporting to be from the Duchess, reached
Fabrice at Bologna, telling him that there would be little danger in his
meeting her at Castelnovo, within the frontier. Fabrice repaired
joyfully to Castelnovo. That night he lay a prisoner in the citadel of
Parma; while the Duchess, alone in her room with locked door, sobbed her
heart out and raved helplessly against the treachery of princes.
"So long as her nephew is in the citadel," said the Prince to himself,
"the Duchess will be in Parma."
The citadel of Parma is a colossal building with a flat roof 180 feet
above the level of the ground. On this roof are erected two structures:
one, the governor's residence; the other, the Famese tower, a prison
specially erected for a recalcitrant prince of earlier days. In this
tower Fabrice, as a prisoner of importance, was confined; and as he
looked from the window on the evening of his arrival and beheld the
superb panorama of the distant Alps, he reflected pleasantly that he
might have found a worse dungeon.
On the next morning his attention was absorbed by something nearer at
hand. His window overlooked one belonging to the governor's palace; in
this window were many bird cages, and at eleven o'clock a maiden came to
feed the birds. Fabrice recognised her as Celia Conti, the governor's
daughter. He succeeded in attracting her attention; she blushed and
withdrew. But next day she came again at the same hour. On the third
day, however, a heavy wooden shutter was clapped upon the window.
Nothing daunted, Fabrice proceeded patiently to cut a peep-hole in the
shutter by aid of the mainspring of his watch. When he had succeeded in
removing a square piece of the wood, he looked with delight upon Clelia
gazing at his window with eyes of profound pity, unconscious that she
was observed.
Gradually he broke down the maiden's reserve. She discovered the secret
of the peep-hole; she consented to communicate with him; finally the two
conversed by a system of signals. Fabrice even dared to tell Clelia that
he loved her--and truly he was in love, for the first time in his life.
The worst of it was that these declarations were apt to bring the
conversation to an end; so Fabrice was sparing of them.
Clelia, meanwhile, was in sore perplexity. Her father, General Fabio
Conti the governor, was a political opponent of Count Mosca, and had
ambitions of office. These ambitions might be forwarded, he deemed, by
the successful marriage of his daughter. He did not desire that she
should remain a lovely recluse, feeding birds on the top of the citadel.
Accordingly he had presented to her an ultimatum; either she must marry
the Marquis Crescenzi, the wealthiest nobleman of Parma, who sought her
hand, or she must retire to a convent.
The signalled conversations with Fabrice, therefore, could not last
long. And yet she had beyond doubt fallen deeply in love with Fabrice.
She knew he was her father's prisoner, and belonged to the party hostile
to her father; she was ashamed, as a daughter, of her love for him. But
she admired him, and pitied him; she was well aware that he was a victim
of political intrigue, for why should a nobleman of Fabrice's standing
be thus punished for killing a mere actor? The stolen interviews with
the captive were as dear to her as to him; and so dear were they to him
that, after months of imprisonment he declared that he had never been so
happy in his life.
_IV.--The Escape_
One night, as Fabrice looked through his peep-hole, he became aware of a
light flashing from the town. Obviously some attempt was being made at
signalling. He observed the flashes, counting them in relation to the
order of the letters in the alphabet--one for A, two for B, and so on.
He discovered that the message was from the Duchess, and was directed to
himself. He replied, on the same system, by passing his lantern in front
of the peep-hole. The answer from the distance was important;
arrangements were being made for his escape. But he did not want to
escape.
Next day he told Clelia of his message, and of his unwillingness to
leave the prison. She gave no answer, but burst into tears. How could
she tell him that she herself must presently leave--for marriage or a
convent?
Next day, Fabrice, by his gaoler's connivance, received a long letter
from Clelia. She urged him to escape, declaring that at any time the
Prince might order his execution, and in addition that he was in danger
of death by poison. Straightway he sought an interview with Clelia, with
whom he had not hitherto conversed save by signals from their windows.
The gaoler arranged that they should meet when Fabrice was being
conducted from his cell to the roof of the Farnese tower, where he was
occasionally allowed to take exercise.
"I can speak but few words to you," she said trembling, with tears in
her eyes. "Swear that you will obey the Duchess, and escape when she
wishes and as she wishes."
"And condemn myself to live far away from her whom I love?"
"Swear it! for my sake, swear it!" she implored hint.
"Well then, I swear it!"
The preparations were quickly advanced. Three knotted ropes were
smuggled with Clelia's aid into Fabrice's cell--one for descending the
35 feet between his window and the roof of the citadel; another for
descending the tremendous wall of 180 feet between the roof and the
ramparts; a third for the 30 feet between the top of the ramparts and
the ground.
A feast-day, when the garrison of the citadel would presumably be drunk,
was chosen for the attempt. Fabrice spent the time of waiting in cutting
a hole in his shutter large enough to enable him to get through.
Fortunately, on the night of the feast-day a thick fog arose and
enveloped the citadel. The Duchess had seen to it that the garrison was
plentifully supplied with wine.
Fabrice attached one of the shorter ropes to his bed, and struggled
through the shutter--an ungainly figure, for round his body was wound
the immense rope necessary for the long descent. Once on the
roof-platform he made his way along the parapet until he came to a new
stove which he had been told marked the best spot for lowering the rope.
He could hear the soldiers talking near at hand, but the fog made him
invisible. Unrolling his rope, and fastening his rope to the parapet by
threading it through a water-duct, he flung it over; then, with a prayer
and a thought of Clelia, he began to descend.
At first he went down mechanically, as if doing the feat for a wager.
About half-way down, his arms seemed to lose their strength; he nearly
let go--he might have fallen had he not supported himself by clinging to
the vegetation on the wall. From time to time he felt horrible pain
between the shoulders. Birds hustled against him now and then; he feared
at the first contact with them that pursuers were coming down the rope
after him. But he reached the rampart undamaged save for bleeding hands.
He was quite exhausted; for a few minutes he slept. On waking and
realising the situation, he attached his third rope to a cannon, and
hurried down to the ground. Two men seized him just as he fainted at the
foot.
A few hours afterwards a carriage crossed the frontier with Ludovico on
the box, and within it the Duchess watching over the sleeping Fabrice.
The journey did not end until they had reached Locarno on Lake Maggiore.
_V.--Clelia's Vow_
To Locarno soon afterwards came die news that Ranuce Ernest IV. was
dead. Fabrice could now safely return, for the young Ranuce Ernest V.
was believed to be entirely under the influence of Count Mosca, and was
an honest youth without the tyrannical instincts of his father.
Nevertheless the Duchess returned first, to make certain of Fabrice's
security. She employed her whole influence to hasten forward the wedding
of Clelia with the Marquis Crescenzi; she was jealous of the ascendancy
the girl had gained over her beloved nephew.
Fabrice, on reaching Parma, was well received by the young Prince.
Witnesses, he was told, had been found who could prove that he had
killed Giletti in self-defence. He would spend a few days in a purely
nominal confinement in the city gaol, and then would be tried by
impartial judges and released.
Imagine the consternation of the Duchess when she learnt that Fabrice,
having to go to prison, had deliberately given himself up at the
citadel!
She saw the danger clearly. Fabrice was in the hands of Count Mosca's
political opponents, among whom General Conti was still a leading
spirit. They would not suffer him to escape this time. Fabrice would be
poisoned.
Clelia, too, knew that this would be his fate. When she saw him once
again at the old window, happily signalling to her, she was smitten with
panic terror. Her alarm was realised when she learnt of a plot between
Rassi and her father to poison the prisoner.
On the second day of his confinement Fabrice was about to eat his dinner
when Clelia, in desperate agitation, forced her way into his cell.
"Have you tasted it?" she cried, grasping his arm.
Fabrice guessed the state of affairs with delight. He seized her in his
arms and kissed her.
"Help me to die," he said.
"Oh, my beloved," she answered, "let me die with you."
"Let me not spoil our happiness with a lie," said he as he embraced her.
"I have not yet tasted."
For an instant Clelia looked at him in anger; then she fell again into
his arms.
At that instant there came a sound of men hurrying. There entered the
Prince's aide-de-camp, with order to remove Fabrice from the citadel and
to seize the poisoned food. The Duchess had heard of the plot, and had
persuaded the Prince to take instant action.
Clelia, when her father was in danger of death on account of the plot,
vowed before the Virgin Mary never again to look upon the face of
Fabrice. Her father escaped with a sentence of banishment; and Clelia,
to the profound satisfaction of the Duchess, was wedded to the Marquis
Crescenzi. The Duchess was now a widow, Count Mosca a widower. Their
long friendship, after Fabrice's triumphant acquittal, was cemented by
marriage.
The loss of Clelia left Fabrice inconsolable. He shunned society; he
lived a life of religious retirement, and gained a reputation for piety
that even inspired the jealousy of his good friend the Archbishop.
At length Fabrice emerged from his solitude; he came forth as a
preacher, and his success was unequalled. All Parma, gentle and simple,
flocked to hear the famous devotee--slender, ill-clad, so handsome and
yet so profoundly melancholy. And ere he began each sermon, Fabrice
looked earnestly round his congregation to see if Clelia was there.
But Clelia, adhering to her vow, stayed away. It was not until she was
told that a certain Anetta Marini was in love with the preacher, and
that gossip asserted that the preacher was smitten with Anetta Marini,
that she changed her mind.
One evening, as Fabrice stood in the pulpit, he saw Clelia before him.
Her eyes were filled with tears; he looked so pale, so thin, so worn.
But never had he preached as he preached that night.
After the sermon he received a note asking him to be at a small garden
door of the Crescenzi Palace at midnight on the next night. Eagerly he
obeyed; when he reached the door, a voice called him enter. The darkness
was intense; he could see nothing.
"I have asked you to come here," said the voice, "to say that I still
love you. But I have vowed to the Virgin never to see your face; that is
why I receive you in this darkness. And let me beg you--never preach
again before Anetta Marini.
"My angel," replied the enraptured Fabrice, "I shall never preach again
before anyone; it was only in the hope of seeing you that I preached at
all."
During the following three years the two often met in darkness. But
twice, by accident, Clelia again broke her vow by looking on Fabrice's
face. Her conscience preyed upon her; she wore away and died.
A few days afterwards Fabrice resigned his reversion to the
Archbishopric, and retired to the Chartreuse of Parma. He ended his days
in the monastery only a year afterwards.
* * * * *