Egoists, A Book of Supermen: Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Barrès, Nietzsche, Blake, Ibsen, Stirner, and Ernest Hello — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
Egoists, A Book of Supermen: Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Barrès, Nietzsche, Blake, Ibsen, Stirner, and Ernest Hello
Nietzsche · en
Marie-Henry Beyle was born at Grenoble, Dauphiny, January 23, 1783. He
died at Paris, March 23, 1842, stricken on the Rue Neuve des Capucines
by apoplexy. Colomb had his dying friend carried to his lodgings. He
was buried in Montmartre Cemetery, followed there by Mérimée, Colomb,
and one other. Upon his monument is an epitaph composed a short time
before he died. It is in Italian and reads: Arrigo Beyle, Milanese.
_Scrisse, Amò, Visse_. Ann. 59. M.2. Mori 2. 23 Marzo. MDCCCXLII.
(Harry Beyle, Milanese. Wrote, Loved, Lived. 59 years and 2 months. He
died at 2 A.M. on the 23rd of March, 1842.) This bit of mystification
was quite in line with Beyle's career. As he was baptised the English
Henry, he preferred to be known in death as the Milanese Harry. Pierre
Brun says that there was a transposition in the order of _Scrisse, Amò,
Visse_; it should read the reverse. The sculptor David d'Angers made a
medallion of the writer in 1825. It is reproduced in the Rod monograph,
and his son designed another for the tomb. This singular epitaph of a
singular man did not escape the eyes of his enemies. Charles Monselet
called him a renegade to his family and country; which is uncritical
tomfoolery. Stendhal was a citizen of the world--and to the last a
Frenchman. And not one of his cavilling contemporaries risked his life
with such unconcern as did this same Beyle in the Napoleonic campaigns.
Mérimée has drawn for us the best portrait of Stendhal, Colomb, his
earliest companion, wrote the most gossipy life. Stryienski, however,
has demonstrated that Colomb attenuated, even erased many expressions
of Stendhal's, and that he also attempted to portray his hero in
fairer colours. But deep-dyed Stendhalians will not have their master
transformed into a tame cat of the Parisian salons. His wickedness is
his chief attraction, they think. An oft-quoted saying of Stendhal's
has been, Stryienski shows, tampered with: "A party of eight or ten
agreeable persons," said Stendhal, "where the conversation is gay and
anecdotic, and where weak punch is handed around at half past twelve,
is the place where I enjoy myself the most. There, in my element, I
infinitely prefer hearing others talk to talking myself. I readily sink
back into the silence of happiness; and if I talk, it is only to pay my
ticket of admission." What Stendhal wrote was this: "Un salon de huit
ou dix personnes dont toutes les femmes ont eu les amants," etc. The
touch is unmistakable.