XX

BEYLE

PRIOR to 1830 Beyle published no imaginative work of any importance except a novel entitled Armance, an unsuccessful book, the hero of which, a gifted young man, makes the woman he loves unhappy, because he suffers from a halfphysical, half-mental ailment, the nature of which is not precisely defined, but which appears to resemble that which played a part in the lives of Swift and Kierkegaard. The year 1830, epoch-making in history, is also epoch-making in Beyle's literary career. It is the year in which he writes or plans both his great novels-Le Rouge et le Noir, published in 1831, and La Chartreuse de Parme, which was not completed till 1839, when it was published simultaneously with the most important of his Italian Chronicles, L'Abbesse de Castro.

Both of the novels deal with the period immediately succeeding Napoleon's fall, and both deal with it in the same spirit. The motto of both might be the passage from De Musset's Confession d'un Enfant du Siècle quoted in The Reaction in France: "And when the young men talked of glory they were answered: Become priests! and when they talked of honour: Become priests! and when they talked of hope, of love, of power, of life, it was always the same: Become priests!" The scene of Rouge et Noir is laid in France, that of La Chartreuse in Italy, but in both books the principal character is a young man with a secret enthusiasm for Napoleon, who would have been happy if he could have fought and distinguished himself under his hero in the bright sunlight of life, but who, now that that hero has fallen, has no chance of making a career except by playing the hypocrite. In this art the two young men gradually develop a remarkable degree of skill. Julien and Fabrice are cut

out for cavalry officers; nevertheless both become ecclesiastics; the one passes through a Catholic seminary, the other rises to be a bishop. Not without reason have Beyle's novels been called handbooks of hypocrisy. The funda mental idea inspiring them is the profound disgust and indignation which the spectacle of triumphant hypocrisy aroused in their author. Desiring to work off this feeling he gave vent to it by simply, without any display of indignation, representing hypocrisy as the ruling power of the day, to which every one who desired to rise was compelled to do homage. And he tries to play the modern Macchiavelli by frequently applauding his heroes when their attempts at impenetrable hypocrisy succeed, and expressing disapproval when they allow themselves to be surprised or carried away, and unguardedly show themselves as they are. A certain unpleasant forcedness is inseparable from this ironic style of narration.1

As Beyle's was essentially a reasoning mind, with a gift of purely philosophic observation, externalities did not impress him strongly, and he had little skill in depicting them. His one interest is in emotional and intellectual processes, and, himself an adept in the observation of these processes, he endows almost all his characters with the same skill. They as a rule have an understanding of what is happening in their own souls

1 For example: "Julien's answers to these objections were very satisfactory as far as the actual words were concerned, but the tone in which he spoke and the ill-concealed fire which gleamed in his eyes made Monsieur Chélan uneasy. Yet we must not augur too unfavourably of Julien. He had found the very expressions which a crafty hypocrite would have used. This, at his age, was not bad. As to tone and gestures, it is to be remembered that he had lived among peasants and had had no opportunity of studying the great masters. Hardly had he had the privilege of seeing these said gentlemen than he became as admirable in the matter of gesture as in that of language." On another occasion Julien is dining with a brutally cruel governor of a prison. He feels ashamed of the company he is in; he says to himself that he too may some day attain to such a position, but only by committing the same base actions to which his companions have accustomed themselves. "O Napoleon!" he ejaculates, "how glorious was thy day, when men rose to fortune by the dangers of the battle-field! But think of doing it by basely adding to the sufferings of the unfortunate!" Beyle adds: "I confess that the weakness which Julien betrays in this monologue gives me a poor opinion of him. He would be a fit colleague of those gloved conspirators who aim at completely changing the destinies of a great country, but are determined not to have even the smallest scratch to reproach themselves with."

which far surpasses that derived by ordinary mortals from experience. This conditions the peculiar construction of Beyle's novels, which consist in great part of connected monologues that are at times several pages long. He reveals all the silent working of his characters' minds, and lends words to their inmost thoughts. His monologues are never the lyric, dithyrambic outbursts which George Sand's often are; they are the questions and answers-short and concise, though entering into minute details by which silent reflection progresses.

The fundamental characteristic of Beyle's principal personages, who, measured by the current standards of morality, have no conscience and no morals, is, that they have evolved a moral standard for themselves. This is what every human being ought to be capable of doing, but what only the most highly developed attain to; and it is this capacity of theirs which gives Beyle's characters their remarkable superiority over other characters whom we have met with in books or in real life. They keep an ideal, which they have created for themselves, constantly before their eyes, endeavour to follow it, and have no peace until they have won self-respect. Hence Julien, who is executed for an atrocious attempt to murder a defenceless woman, is able to comfort himself in the hour of his death with the thought that his life has not been a lonely life; the idea of "duty" has been constantly present with him.

It is evident that Beyle found this feature which he has bestowed on his heroes in his own character. In a letter written in 1820, after remarking that he detests large hotels because of the incivility shown in them to travellers, he adds: "A day in the course of which I have been in a passion is a lost day for me; and yet when I am insolently treated I imagine that I shall be despised if I do not get angry." This is precisely the manner in which Julien and Fabrice reason. With some such thought in his mind Julien compels himself to lay his hand caressingly on Madame de Rênal's, Fabrice compels himself defiantly to repeat the true but contemptuous words he had used in speaking of the flight of the French soldiers at Waterloo.

Julien is French, and acts with full consciousness of what he is about; Fabrice is Italian and naïve, but they both possess the quality to which we may give the name of moral productivity. Julien says to himself in prison: "The duty which I, rightly or wrongly, prescribed to myself, has been like the trunk of a strong tree against which I have leaned during the storm"; the light-hearted Fabrice, reproaching himself with a momentary feeling of fear, says to himself: "My aunt tells me that what I need most is to learn to forgive myself. I am always comparing myself with a perfect model, a being who cannot possibly exist." Mademoiselle de la Mole in Rouge et Noir and Mosca in La Chartreuse de Parme are distinguished by the same superiority and self-reliance. Mosca, a character in whom Beyle's contemporaries naïvely saw a portrait of Metternich, is, in spite of his position as prime minister of a small legitimist state, quite as free from prejudice in his views of the system he serves as Beyle's young heroes are. The object of his private hero-worship is Napoleon, in whose army he held a commission in his youth. He jests as he puts on the broad yellow ribbon of his order. "It is not for us to destroy the prestige of power; the French newspapers are doing that quite fast enough; the reverence mania will scarcely last out our time."

But whether the personages described be eminently or only ordinarily gifted human beings, the manner in which their inner life is revealed is unique. We not only see into their souls, but we perceive (as in the writings of no other author) the psychological laws which oblige them to act or feel as they do. No other novelist offers his readers so much of the pleasure which is produced by perfect understanding.

Madame de Rênal loves Julien, her children's tutor. We are told that "she discovered with shame and alarm that she loved her children more than ever because they were so devoted to Julien." Mathilde de la Mole tortures Julien by confiding to him her feelings for her former lovers. "If molten lead had been injected into his veins he would not have suffered so much. How was the poor fellow to guess

that it was because she was talking to him that it gave Mademoiselle de la Mole so much pleasure to recall her flirtations with Monsieur de Caylus and Monsieur de Luz?" Both these passages elucidate a psychological law.

Julien has entered the Church from ambitious motives, and secretly detests the profession he has embraced. On the occasion of some festival he sees a young bishop kneeling in the village church, surrounded by charming young girls who are lost in admiration of his beautiful lace, his distinguished manners, and his refined, gentle face. "At this sight the last remnant of our hero's reason vanished. At that moment he would, in all good faith, have fought in the cause of the Inquisition." The addition "in all good faith" is especially admirable. A parallel passage is to be found in La Chartreuse. After the death of a Prince whom he has always despised and who has actually been poisoned by his (Mosca's) mistress, Mosca has been obliged to put himself at the head of the troops and quell a revolt against the young Prince, whose character is as despicable as his predecessor's. In the letter in which he communicates the occurrence to his mistress, he writes: "But the comical part of the matter is that I, at my age, actually had a moment of enthusiasm whilst I was making my speech to the guard and tearing the epaulettes from the shoulders of that coward, General P. At that moment I would, without hesitation, have given my life for the Prince. I confess now that it would have been a very foolish way of ending it." In both these passages we are shown with remarkable sagacity how an artificial enthusiasm dazzles and is, as it were, caught by infection.

No other novelist approaches Beyle in the gift of unveiling the secret struggles of ideas and of the emotions which the ideas produce. He shows us, as if through a microscope, or in an anatomical preparation where the minutest veins are made visible by the injection of colouring matter, the fluctuations of the feelings of happiness and unhappiness in acting, suffering human beings, and also their relative strength. Mosca has received an anonymous letter which tells him that his mistress loves another. This in