elong passions which furnish the
clew to much that is enigmatic in his character.

During the ensuing years, while he followed the fortunes of Napoleon
throughout the Prussian campaign and until after the retreat from
Moscow, Italy was always present in his thoughts, and when Waterloo
ended his political and military aspirations he hastened back to Milan,
declaring that he "had ceased to be a Frenchman," and settled down to a
life of tranquil Bohemianism, too absorbed in the paintings of Correggio
and in the operas of Rossini to be provident of the future. The
following years, the happiest of his life, were also the period of
Stendhal's chief intellectual growth,--due quite as much to the
influence exerted on him by Italian art and music as by his contact with
men like Manzoni, Monti, and Silvio Pellico. Unfortunately, his
relations with certain Italian patriots aroused the suspicions of the
Austrian police, and he was abruptly banished. He returned to Paris,
where to his surprise life proved more than tolerable, and where he made
many valuable acquaintances, such as Benjamin Constant, Destutt de
Tracy, and Prosper Merimee. The revolution of July brought him a change
of fortune; for he was in sympathy with Louis Philippe, and did not
scruple to accept the consulship offered him at Civita Vecchia. He soon
found, however, that a small Mediterranean seaport was a poor substitute
for his beloved Milan, while its trying climate undoubtedly shortened
his life. In 1841 failing health forced him to abandon his duties and
return to Paris, where he died of apoplexy on March 23d, 1842.

So much at least of Stendhal's life must be known in order to understand
his writings; all of which, not excepting the novels, belong to what
Ferdinand Brunetiere stigmatizes as "personal literature." Indeed, the
chief interest of many of his books lies in the side-lights they throw
upon his curious personality. He was a man of violent contrasts, a
puzzle to his best friends; one day making the retreat from Moscow with
undaunted zeal, the next settling down contentedly in Milan, to the very
_vie de cafe_ he affected to despise. He was a strange combination of
restless energy and philosophic contemplation; hampered by a morbid
sensibility which tended to increase, but which he flattered himself
that he "had learned to hide under an irony imperceptible to the
vulgar," yet continually giving offense to others by his caustic tongue.
He seemed to need