e, wider spread in 1839 than in 1836, and greater,
would suffice to assure a similar result. Author and editor combined,
he made the three numbers of his review, which were all he was able to
bring out, at any rate the equal of the older established monthlies.
In the three appeared his _Z. Marcas_, and _A Prince of Bohemia_, the
former a resuscitation of the _Louis Lambert_ species of hero
transformed into a politician. The _Russian Letters_, likewise
political, furnish a very exact and comprehensive sketch of the
general state of mind in Europe at the commencement of the Forties.
One article of criticism praised to the skies Stendhal's _Chartreuse
de Parme_ published in the previous year. A letter he had addressed to
Stendhal in April 1839 was more moderate in its tone, though
eulogistic with its well-turned compliment: "I make a fresco, and you
have made Italian statues." He blamed the writer in his letter for
situating the plot of the _Chartreuse_ in Parma. "Neither state or
town," he told him, "should have been named. It should have been left
to the imagination to discover the Prince of Modena and his minister.
Hoffman never failed to obey this law without exception in the rules
of the novel. If everything be left undefined as regards reality, then
everything becomes real." In short, notwithstanding parts that were
too long drawn out, he found the whole a fine piece of work; and, if a
modern Machiavelli were to write a novel, it would be, he said, the
_Chartreuse de Parme_.

Between the judicious language employed in the letter and the article
of the _Revue Parisienne_, the difference was so enormous that Beyle
himself remarked: "This astonishing notice, such as never one writer
had from another, I read, let me own it, amid bursts of laughter.
Whenever I came to fresh flights of eulogy--and I met with them in
every paragraph--I could not help thinking how my friends would look
when they saw them." "The reason for this augmented enthusiasm must be
sought," says Sainte-Beuve, "in the fact that Stendhal lent or gave
Balzac a sum of five thousand francs in the interval, and thus
received back a service of _amour propre_ for the service rendered in
cash. Since the proof of this gift or loan was found in Beyle's
papers, at his death, Sainte-Beuve's explanation seems well grounded;
and yet, for Balzac's credit, one could have wished his praise more
spontaneous."

The cessation of the _Revue Parisienne_ forced its founder