On receiving the _Revue Parisienne_, Beyle at once wrote to Balzac the
letter a translation of which follows. This letter he seems to have
entrusted to his friend Romain Colomb, afterwards his literary executor,
in whose hands it still remained six months later. As published by
Colomb, the letter includes the text actually addressed to Balzac and
the draft here appended to it, and it so figures in _Stendhal: Œuvres
Posthumes: Correspondance Inédite précédée d'une Introduction par
Prosper Mérimée de l'Académie Française_: Vol. II, pp. 293-299
(Calmann-Lévy). The correct text was established by M. Paul Arbelet in
the _Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France_, Oct.-Dec., 1917, pp.
548 sqq. _La véritable lettre de Stendhal_, and reprinted by MM. G.
Grès & Cie. in their edition of _La Chartreuse de Parme_ (1922).
Civita-vecchia, 30th October, 1840.
Last night, Sir, I received a great surprise. No one, I think, has ever
been so well treated in a Review, and by the best judge of the subject.
You have taken pity on an orphan left wandering in the street. I have
made a fitting response to this kindness, I read the review last night,
and this morning I have cut down to four or five pages the fifty-four
opening pages[3] of the work which you have introduced to the world.
The confection of literature would have disgusted me with all pleasure
in writing; I have dismissed all rejoicings over the printed page, to a
time twenty or thirty years hence. Some literary rag-picker may make the
discovery of the works whose merit you so strangely exaggerate.
Your illusion goes a long way, _Phèdre_, for instance. I may admit to
you that I was shocked, I who am quite well-disposed towards the author.
Since you have taken the trouble to read this novel three times, I shall
have a number of questions to ask you at our next meeting on the
boulevard.
1. Am I allowed to call Fabrizio _our_ hero? It was a question of not
repeating the name Fabrizio too often.
2. Ought I to suppress the episode of _Fausta_, which has turned out
unduly long? Fabrizio seizes the opportunity that is offered him to shew
to the Duchessa that he is not susceptible to _love_.
3. The fifty-four opening pages seem to me a graceful introduction. I
did indeed feel some misgivings when correcting the proofs, but I
thought of those boring first half-volumes of Walter Scott, and of the
endless preamble to the divine _Princesse de Clèves_.
I abhor an involved style, and I must admit to you that many pages of
the _Chartreuse_ were printed from my original dictation. As children
say: I shall not return to it again. I think, however, that since the
destruction of the court, in 1792, the part played by form becomes more
exiguous daily. Were M. Villemain, whom I cite as the most distinguished
of our Academicians, to translate the _Chartreuse_ into French, he would
require three volumes to express what I have given in two. The majority
of scoundrels being emphatic and eloquent, people will take a dislike to
the declamatory tone. At seventeen I came near to fighting a duel over
the "indeterminate crest of the forests" of M. de Chateaubriand, who
numbered many admirers in the 6th Dragoons. I have never read _La
Chaumière indienne_, I cannot abide M. de Maistre.
My Homer is the _Memoirs_ of Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr. Montesquieu and
Fénelon's _Dialogues_ strike me as well written. Except for Madame de
Mortsauf and her companions, I have read nothing of what has been
printed in the last thirty years. I read Ariosto, whose stories I love.
The Duchessa is copied from Correggio. I see the future history of
French literature in the history of painting. We have reached the stage
of the pupils of Pietro da Cortona, who worked rapidly and strained all
his expressions, like Madame Cottin who makes the hewn stones of the
Borromean Islands walk. After this novel, I have no . . .[4] While
composing the Chartreuse, to acquire the tone, I used to read every
morning two or three pages of the _Code Civil_.
Permit a coarse expression: I do not wish to b---- the heart of the
reader. This, poor reader lets ambitious phrases pass, such as "the wind
that uproots the waves," but they come back to him after the moment of
emotion. I wish on the other hand that, if the reader thinks of Conte
Mosca, he shall find nothing to cut down.
4. I am going to introduce, in the _foyer_ of the Opera, Bassi and
Riscara, sent to Paris as spies after Waterloo by Ranuccio-Ernesto IV.
Fabrizio returning from Amiens will be struck by their Italian
appearance and clipped Milanese, which these watchers imagine to be
understood by no one. Everyone tells me that I must announce my
characters. I shall greatly reduce the good Priore Blanès. I thought
that the story needed characters who do nothing, and only touch the
heart of the reader and dispel the air of romance.
You are going to think me a monster of pride. What, your inward sense
will say, this creature, not content with what I have done for him, a
thing without parallel in this century, still wishes to be praised for
his style!
I see but one rule: _to be clear_. If I am not clear, all my world
crumbles to nothing. I wish to speak of what is occurring in the heart
of Mosca, of the Duchessa, of Clelia. It is a country into which hardly
penetrates the gaze of the newly rich, such as the Latinist Master of
the Mint, M. le Comte Roy, M. Laffitte, etc., etc., etc., the gaze of
the grocer, the worthy paterfamilias, etc., etc.
If, to the obscurity of the matter, I add the obscurities of style of M.
Villemain, of Madame Sand, etc. (supposing me to have the rare privilege
of being able to write like those _choregi_ of good style), if I add to
the difficulty of the subject the obscurities of this vaunted style, no
one in the world will understand the struggle between the Duchessa and
Ernesto IV. The style of M. de Chateaubriand and M. de Villemain seems
to me to say: 1. a number of pleasant little things, but things not
worth saying (like the style of Ausonius, Claudian, etc.); 2. a number
of little _insincerities_, pleasant to listen to. These great
Academicians would have seen the public go mad over their writings, had
they been given to the world in 1780; their chance of greatness depended
upon the old _régime_.
In proportion as the semi-intelligent become more numerous, the part
played by form decreases. If the _Chartreuse_ were translated into
French by Madame Sand, she would make it a success, but, in order to
express what there is in my two volumes, she would need three or four.
Weigh this excuse.
The semi-intelligent puts above everything else the verse of Racine, for
he can understand what is meant by an unfinished line; but every day his
verse becomes a less important factor in Racine's merit. The public, as
it grows more numerous, less sheeplike, requires a greater quantity of
_little actual facts_, as to a passion, a situation in real life, etc.
How often do we find Voltaire, Racine, etc., all of them in fact except
Corneille, obliged to _cap_ their lines for the sake of the rhyme; well,
these capping lines occupy the place that should properly be filled by
little actual facts.
In fifty years' time M. Bignan, and the Bignans who write in prose will
have so wearied their public with productions that are elegant and
devoid of any other merit, that the semi-intelligent will be in great
difficulties; their vanity requiring them always to speak of literature
and to make a pretence of thought, what will become of them when they
can no longer attach themselves to form? They will end by making their
god of Voltaire. Wit lasts no more than two centuries; in 1978, Voltaire
will be Voiture; but _Le Père Goriot_ will still be _Le Père Goriot_.
Perhaps the semi-intelligent will be so distressed at no longer having
their beloved rules to admire that it is highly possible that they will
grow disgusted with literature and take to religion. All political
rascals having a declamatory and eloquent tone, people will have grown
sick of this in 1880. Then perhaps they will read the _Chartreuse_.
[The following passage occurs among the Beyle manuscripts at Grenoble,
and was added to the printed text of the letter by Colomb. It appears
rather to be alternative to some of the preceding paragraphs.]
The part played by _form_ becomes more exiguous daily. Take Hume;
imagine a History of France from 1780 to 1840, written with Hume's sound
sense; it would be read, even if it were written in patois; it[5] is
written like the _Code Civil_. I am going to correct the style of the
_Chartreuse_, since it hurts you, but I shall find it most difficult. I
do not admire the style now in fashion, I have no patience with it. I
see Claudians, Senecas, Ausoniuses. I have been told for the last year
that one ought now and then to relax the reader's attention by
describing scenery, dresses. These things have bored me so in other
writers! I shall try.
As for immediate success, of which I should never have thought but for
the _Revue Parisienne_, it is quite fifteen years since I said to
myself: I should become a candidate for the Academy if I won the hand of
Mademoiselle Bertin, who would have my praises sung three times weekly.
When society is no longer tainted with common upstarts, valuing above
everything else nobility, just because they are ignoble, it will no
longer be on its knees before the press of the aristocracy. Before 1793
good company was the true judge of books, now it is haunted by the fear
of another 1793, it is frightened, it is no longer a judge. Look at the
catalogue which a little bookseller near Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin (Rue du
Bac, about No. 110) supplies to the nobility, his neighbours. It is the
argument that has most convinced me of the impossibility of pleasing
these timid creatures, stupefied by idleness.
I have not in the least copied M. de Metternich, whom I have not seen
since 1810, at Saint-Cloud, when he wore a bracelet of the hair of
Caroline Murat, who was such a beauty then. I feel no regret for all
that is destined not to happen. I am a fatalist, and hide from it. I
imagine that I shall perhaps have a little success about 1860 or '80.
Then there will be very little said of M. de Metternich, and even less
of the petty Prince. Who was Prime Minister of England in the time of
Malherbe? If I have not the misfortune to hit upon a Cromwell, I am sure
of a nonentity.
Death makes us change places with these people. They can do anything
with our bodies during their lives, but, at the moment of death,
oblivion enwraps them for ever. Who will speak of M. de Villèle, of M.
de Martignac, in a hundred years' time? M. de Talleyrand himself will be
preserved only by his _Memoirs_, if he has left good ones, while _Le
Roman comique_ is to-day what _Le Père Goriot_ will be in 1980. It is
Scarron who makes known the name of the Rothschild of his day, M. de
Montauron, who was also, to the extent of fifty louis, the protector of
Corneille.
You have well felt, Sir, with the tact of a man who has acted, that the
_Chartreuse_ could not deal with a great State, such as France, Spain,
Vienna, on account of the administrative detail. I was left with the
petty Princes of Germany and Italy.
But the Germans are so much on their knees before a riband, they are
such fools! I spent several years among them, and have forgotten their
language, out of contempt for them. You can easily see that my
characters could not be Germans. If you follow this idea, you will find
that I have been led by the hand to an extinct dynasty, to a Farnese,
the least obscure of these _extinct_ personages, on account of the
Generals, his grandsires.
I take a character well-known to myself, I leave him the habits he has
contracted in the art of going out every morning in pursuit of pleasure,
then I give him more intelligence. I have never seen Signora di
Belgiojoso. Rassi was a German; I have talked to him hundreds of times.
I picked up the Prince while staying at Saint-Cloud in 1810 and 1811.
Ouf! I hope that you will have read this treatise three times. You say,
Sir, that you do not know English: you have in Paris the _bourgeois_
style of Walter Scott in the heavy prose of M. Delécluze, editor of the
_Débats_, and author of a _Mademoiselle de Liron_ which has something
in it. Walter Scott's prose is inelegant and above all pretentious. One
sees a dwarf who is determined not to lose an inch of his stature.
This astounding article, such as no writer has ever received from
another, I have read, I now make bold to confess to you, with shouts of
laughter, whenever I came to an encomium that was at all strong, and I
met them at every turn. I could see the expression on the faces of my
friends as they read it.
For instance the Minister d'Argout, being then Auditor to the Council of
State, was my equal and, moreover, what is known as a friend; 1830
comes, he is a Minister, his clerks, whom I do not know, think that
there are at least thirty artists. . . .
[Footnote 3: _i.e._, Chapters I and II.