A certain something in his character is traceable to the influence of the province in which he was born and in which his family had been settled for at least two centuries. The natives of Dauphiné are a keen, obstinate, argumentative race, as different from their neighbours of Provence as they are from the Parisians. The Provençal gives noisy or eloquent expression to his feelings; he rails and curses when he is angry or hurt; the Parisian is polite, witty, brilliantly superficial; the character of the native of Dauphiné is distinguished by a peculiar obstinacy; there is both depth and refinement in it; he remembers an insult and avenges it, but his anger never finds vent in abusive language. Beyle's mother, who read Dante and Ariosto in the original, a very uncommon accomplishment for a provincial lady in those days, was understood to be of Italian descent. This may in part explain Beyle's strong leaning to everything Italian; but it is also to be remembered that until 1349 Dauphiné did not form part of France, and was in its politics a semi-Italian state. It was one of Beyle's fancies that Louis XI, who, as Dauphin, governed the little country for several years, had imparted to its inhabitants something of his own distinguishing quality of prudence, of distrust of first inspirations. Improbable as this is, the surmise is in itself characteristic. Circumstances early intensified the tendency to distrust with which Henri's home life had imbued him. When he at last attained to the liberty after which he had so long aspired, that is to say, when he was sent to school, a bitter disappointment awaited him. The little strong, thick-set, heavily built boy with the bright, speaking face (nicknamed "the walking tower" on account of his determined step, herculean limbs, and round Hercules head) was, in spite of the ironic expression of his mouth, an enthusiast. And in his schoolfellows he did not find the gay, amiable, noble-minded comrades he had pictured to himself, but a troop of selfish young whelps. When telling his friend Colomb this, he added: "It was a disappointment which has gone on repeating itself throughout my whole life." "Nor was I any luckier," he continued, "in the impression I made on my schoolfellows; I can see now that I displayed a ridiculous mixture of haughtiness and desire to amuse myself. To the other boys' coarse selfishness I responded with my Spanish hidalgo ideas of honour; and I was overwhelmed with despair when they went off to play together and simply ignored me." Compare this utterance with the bitter disappointment of young Fabrice (in _La Chartreuse de Parme_, published in 1839), when, during the battle of Waterloo, he begs some soldiers whom he meets for a piece of bread and is answered with a coarse jest: "These cruel words and the general laugh which followed were too much for Fabrice. War was not, then, it appeared, that noble, mutual impulse of souls who loved glory above