Stendhal

Overview

Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle, 1783–1842), French novelist and essayist, author of Le Rouge et le Noir and De l'amour (1822), an essay on how love is born and on its kinds, with the concepts of cristallisation and amour-passion (Britannica, «Stendhal»; en.wikipedia «De l'amour (Stendhal)»; Project Gutenberg 60882). He is Marie's guide to her own heart in the second half of 1883. The Mon Journal t.15 index has «Stendhal (Henri Beyle dit), écrivain : 303, 305–306, 309, 324», t.16 «5–6, 11, 17, 32, 64, 90, 92, 150».

Relevance to Marie

• 14–17 July 1883: «Avez-vous lu "L'amour" de Stendhal ? Je le lis à présent» (100.0330). He is «plus délicat que Balzac, plus véritable, plus harmonieux et plus poétique ... Il exprime divinement ce que tout le monde a senti, même moi» (100.0332). She distinguishes amour-goût (which she has felt) from amour-passion (still to come) (100.0349), summarises his account of how love is born (100.0351), and tests her own heartbeats against his (100.0366, 100.0382). She dislikes the word cristallisation but accepts that it saves a long phrase (100.0359). «Je l'adore, lui Stendhal, et Balzac aussi parce qu'ils expriment mes pensées en un langage clair et admirable» (100.0354).
• August–September 1883: after reading him she goes to see Raphael at the Louvre and cannot like him (100.0542, 100.0544); she reads «les histoires de la peinture de Stendhal» (101.0006) and «l'histoire de Michel-Ange par Stendhal», which makes her want to kill herself for lack of genius (101.0157). She follows «les préceptes de Stendhal» in a meeting with a man (101.0018) and writes «ô cristallisations ! Stendhal tu es vrai» (101.0051); on 13 September she reads that sorrows seem less bitter when idealised (101.0333).
• October 1883 to February 1884: a marginal note, «ce sont tout bonnement les cristallisations de Stendhal» (102.0055); she re-reads L'amour on 2 December, finds the chapter on engouement describes her feelings, and says she has felt almost everything he calls amour-passion (102.0408, 102.0409). On 25 February 1884 she blushes at a name, as he says lovers do (103.0401).

References in Diary

• 1883-07-14 to 1883-12-02 (100.0330–102.0409, 24 paragraphs in all); 1884-02-25 (103.0401)

Sources

Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stendhal-French-author); en.wikipedia «De l'amour (Stendhal)» (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_l%27amour_(Stendhal)); Project Gutenberg 60882; Mon Journal t.15–16 indexes.