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109-405: “ Lucien Leuwen ” is the second major novel written by French author Stendhal in 1834, following “ The Red and the Black ” (1830). It remained unfinished due to the political culture of the July Monarchy in the 1830s and Stendhal's fears of losing his government position by offending the administration. It was published posthumously in 1894. The book describes the career of Lucien, the son of

218-756: A military dictatorship . There are numerous opinions on the date to use as the formal beginning of the Napoleonic Wars; 18 May 1803 is often used, when Britain and France ended the only short period of peace between 1792 and 1814. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition , which was the first of the Coalition Wars against the First French Republic after Napoleon's accession as leader of France. Britain ended

327-506: A Parisian banker, in the years following the July Revolution of 1830 that brought Louis Philippe I to the throne. Lucien is expelled from the École Polytechnique after taking part in an anti-government demonstration following the funeral of General Lamarque . After two years of idleness he joins the army, and falls off a horse as his regiment enters the city of Nancy because he is gazing at ‘a young blonde with magnificent hair and

436-458: A collective war effort. Tactically, the French Army had redefined the role of artillery , while Napoleon emphasised mobility to offset numerical disadvantages, and aerial surveillance was used for the first time in warfare. The highly successful Spanish guerrillas demonstrated the capability of a people driven by fervent nationalism against an occupying force. Due to the longevity of

545-539: A country very far away from us, people are still driven to despair by love." Stendhal identified with the nascent liberalism and his sojourn in Italy convinced him that Romanticism was essentially the literary counterpart of liberalism in politics. When Stendhal was appointed to a consular post in Trieste in 1830, Metternich refused his exequatur on account of Stendhal's liberalism and anti-clericalism. Stendhal

654-675: A disdainful look’. He falls in love with this young widow, who is named Mme de Chasteller, although he is forced to renounce her. Lucien then returns to Paris and becomes principal private secretary to the Minister of the Interior. Stendhal planned a last section that would show Lucien in Italy and resolve the story with a happy reunion with Mme de Chasteller, but it was never written. Stendhal wrote Lucien Leuwen while serving as consul for Louis-Philippe in Civitavecchia . "I’m making

763-498: A dramatic miscalculation. There was one serious attempt to negotiate peace with France during the war, made by Charles James Fox in 1806. The British wanted to retain their overseas conquests and have Hanover restored to George III in exchange for accepting French conquests on the continent. The French were willing to cede Malta, Cape Colony, Tobago , and French Indian posts to Britain but wanted to obtain Sicily in exchange for

872-653: A global scale for over a decade. The British government paid out a large amount of money to other European states so that they could pay armies in the field against France. These payments are colloquially known as the Golden Cavalry of St George . The British Army provided long-term support to the Spanish rebellion in the Peninsular War of 1808–1814, assisted by Spanish guerrilla ('little war') tactics. Anglo-Portuguese forces under Arthur Wellesley supported

981-460: A great figure. His ideas are often forceful and inspired, but they are erratic, arbitrarily advanced, and, despite all their show of boldness, lacking in inward certainty and continuity. There is something unsettled about his whole nature: his fluctuation between realistic candor in general and silly mystification in particulars, between cold self-control, rapturous abandonment to sensual pleasures, and insecure and sometimes sentimental vaingloriousness,

1090-423: A letter without signing a false name." Stendhal's Journal and autobiographical writings include many comments on masks and the pleasures of "feeling alive in many versions." "Look upon life as a masked ball," is the advice that Stendhal gives himself in his diary for 1814. In Memoirs of an Egotist he writes: "Will I be believed if I say I'd wear a mask with pleasure and be delighted to change my name?...for me

1199-413: A man. Even Stendhal's autobiographical works, such as The Life of Henry Brulard or Memoirs of an Egotist , are "far more closely, essentially, and concretely connected with the politics, sociology, and economics of the period than are, for example, the corresponding works of Rousseau or Goethe ; one feels that the great events of contemporary history affected Stendhal much more directly than they did

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1308-551: A most accurate and detailed knowledge of the political situation, the social stratification, and the economic circumstances of a perfectly definite historical moment, namely, that in which France found itself just before the July Revolution." In Auerbach's view, in Stendhal's novels "characters, attitudes, and relationships of the dramatis personæ , then, are very closely connected with contemporary historical circumstances; contemporary political and social conditions are woven into

1417-545: A new alliance began, the War of the Sixth Coalition . The coalition defeated Napoleon at Leipzig , precipitating his fall from power and eventual abdication on 6 April 1814. The victors exiled Napoleon to Elba and restored the Bourbon monarchy . Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815, gathering enough support to overthrow the monarchy of Louis XVIII , triggering a seventh, and final, coalition against him . Napoleon

1526-604: A new income tax. The cost of the war amounted to £831 million. In contrast, the French financial system was inadequate and Napoleon's forces had to rely in part on requisitions from conquered lands. From London in 1813 to 1815, Nathan Mayer Rothschild was crucial in almost single-handedly financing the British war effort, organising the shipment of bullion to the Duke of Wellington's armies across Europe, as well as arranging

1635-481: A particular attachment to Italy, where he spent much of the remainder of his career. His novel The Charterhouse of Parma , written in 52 days, is set in Italy, which he considered a more sincere and passionate country than Restoration France. An aside in that novel, referring to a character who contemplates suicide after being jilted, speaks about his attitude towards his home country: "To make this course of action clear to my French readers, I must explain that in Italy,

1744-487: A rational analysis of romantic passion that was based on his unrequited love for Mathilde, Countess Dembowska, whom he met while living at Milan . Later, he would also suffer "restlessness in spirit" when one of his childhood friends, Victorine got married. In a letter to Pauline, he described her as the woman of his dreams and wrote that he would have discovered happiness if he became her husband. This fusion of, and tension between, clear-headed analysis and romantic feeling

1853-454: A reference to Canto 11 of Lord Byron 's Don Juan , which refers to "the thousand happy few" who enjoy high society, or to the "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" line of William Shakespeare 's Henry V , but Stendhal's use more likely refers to The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith , parts of which he had memorized in the course of teaching himself English. In The Vicar of Wakefield , "the happy few" refers ironically to

1962-526: A retention of Malta for at least ten years, the permanent acquisition of the island of Lampedusa from the Kingdom of Sicily, and the evacuation of Holland. They also offered to recognise French gains in Italy if they evacuated Switzerland and compensated the King of Sardinia for his territorial losses. France offered to place Malta in the hands of Russia to satisfy British concerns, pull out of Holland when Malta

2071-641: A series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte (1804–1815) and a fluctuating array of European coalitions . The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe . The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after

2180-751: A standing army of 220,000 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, of whom less than 50% were available for campaigning. The rest were necessary for garrisoning Ireland and the colonies and providing security for Britain. France's strength peaked at around 2,500,000 full-time and part-time soldiers including several hundred thousand National Guardsmen whom Napoleon could draft into the military if necessary. Both nations enlisted large numbers of sedentary militia who were unsuited for campaigning and were mostly employed to release regular forces for active duty. The Royal Navy disrupted France's extra-continental trade by seizing and threatening French shipping and colonial possessions , but could do nothing about France's trade with

2289-526: A way which no one had done before him. Vladimir Nabokov was dismissive of Stendhal, in Strong Opinions calling him "that pet of all those who like their French plain". In the notes to his translation of Eugene Onegin , he asserts that Le Rouge et le Noir is "much overrated", and that Stendhal has a "paltry style". In Pnin Nabokov wrote satirically, "Literary departments still labored under

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2398-608: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . Stendhal Marie-Henri Beyle was born in Grenoble, Isère, on 23 January 1783, into the family of the advocate and landowner Chérubin Beyle and his wife Henriette Gagnon. He was an unhappy child, disliking his "unimaginative" father and mourning his mother, whom he loved fervently, and who died in childbirth in 1790, when he

2507-419: Is both so profoundly romantic and so decidedly feminist; feminists are usually rational minds that adopt a universal point of view in all things; but it is not only in the name of freedom in general but also in the name of individual happiness that Stendhal calls for women's emancipation." Yet, Beauvoir criticises Stendhal for, although wanting a woman to be his equal, her only destiny he envisions for her remains

2616-439: Is not always easy to put up with; his literary style is very impressive and unmistakably original, but it is short-winded, not uniformly successful, and only seldom wholly takes possession of and fixes the subject. But, such as he was, he offered himself to the moment; circumstances seized him, tossed him about, and laid upon him a unique and unexpected destiny; they formed him so that he was compelled to come to terms with reality in

2725-572: Is our imagination inclined to overrate their worth. In a word, in Bologna "crystallization" has not yet begun. When the journey begins, love departs. One leaves Bologna, climbs the Apennines , and takes the road to Rome. The departure, according to Stendhal, has nothing to do with one's will; it is an instinctive moment. This transformative process actuates in terms of four steps along a journey: This journey or crystallization process (shown above)

2834-543: Is typical of Stendhal's great novels; he could be considered a Romantic realist. Stendhal suffered miserable physical disabilities in his final years as he continued to produce some of his most famous work. He contracted syphilis in December 1808. As he noted in his journal, he was taking iodide of potassium and quicksilver to treat his sexual disease, resulting in swollen armpits, difficulty swallowing, pains in his shrunken testicles, sleeplessness, giddiness, roaring in

2943-679: The Austrian Empire out of the war , and formally dissolving the Holy Roman Empire. Within months, Prussia declared war, triggering a War of the Fourth Coalition . This war ended disastrously for Prussia, which had been defeated and occupied within 19 days of the beginning of the campaign. Napoleon subsequently defeated Russia at Friedland , creating powerful client states in Eastern Europe and ending

3052-633: The Consulate and transforming the republic into a de facto dictatorship. He further reorganised the French military forces, establishing a large reserve army positioned to support campaigns on the Rhine or in Italy. Russia had already been knocked out of the war , and, under Napoleon's leadership, the French decisively defeated the Austrians in June 1800 , crippling Austrian capabilities in Italy. Austria

3161-705: The Directory , suffered from heavy levels of corruption and internal strife . The new republic also lacked funds, no longer enjoying the services of Lazare Carnot , the minister of war who had guided France to its victories during the early stages of the Revolution . Bonaparte, commander of the Armée d'Italie in the latter stages of the First Coalition, had launched a campaign in Egypt , intending to disrupt

3270-637: The Erster Napoleonischer Krieg ("First Napoleonic War"). In Dutch historiography, it is common to refer to the 7 major wars between 1792 and 1815 as the Coalition Wars ( coalitieoorlogen ), referring to the first two as the French Revolution Wars ( Franse Revolutieoorlogen ). Napoleon was, and remains, famous for his battlefield victories, and historians have spent enormous attention in analysing them. In 2008, Donald Sutherland wrote: The ideal Napoleonic battle

3379-596: The Seven Years' War , which historians term a " world war ". In response to the naval blockade of the French coasts enacted by the British government on 16 May 1806, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree on November 21, 1806, which brought into effect the Continental System . This policy aimed to eliminate the threat from Britain by closing French-controlled territory to its trade. Britain maintained

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3488-516: The Swiss Confederation . Austria joined the alliance after the annexation of Genoa and the proclamation of Napoleon as King of Italy on 17 March 1805. Sweden, which had already agreed to lease Swedish Pomerania as a military base for British troops against France, entered the coalition on 9 August. The Austrians began the war by invading Bavaria on 8 September 1805 with an army of about 70,000 under Karl Mack von Leiberich , and

3597-830: The Treaty of Amiens , declaring war on France in May 1803. Among the reasons were Napoleon's changes to the international system in Western Europe, especially in Switzerland , Germany, Italy , and the Netherlands . Historian Frederick Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleon's assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, even though King George III

3706-419: The "birth of love", in which the love object is 'crystallized' in the mind, as being a process similar or analogous to a trip to Rome. In the analogy, the city of Bologna represents indifference and Rome represents perfect love : When we are in Bologna, we are entirely indifferent; we are not concerned to admire in any particular way the person with whom we shall perhaps one day be madly in love; even less

3815-591: The 1812 invasion of Russia. Upon arriving, Stendhal witnessed the burning of Moscow from just outside the city as well as the army's winter retreat. He was appointed Commissioner of War Supplies and sent to Smolensk to prepare provisions for the returning army. He crossed the Berezina River by finding a usable ford rather than the overwhelmed pontoon bridge, which probably saved his life and those of his companions. He arrived in Paris in 1813, largely unaware of

3924-538: The Black , Stendhal refers to a novel as a mirror being carried in a basket. The metaphor of the realistic novel as a mirror of contemporary reality, accessible to the narrator, has certain limitations, which the artist is aware of. A valuable realistic work exceeds the Platonic meaning of art as a copy of reality. A mirror does not reflect reality in its entirety, nor is the artist's aim to document it fully. In The Red and

4033-478: The Black , the writer emphasizes the significance of selection when it comes to describing reality, with a view to realizing the cognitive function of a work of art, achieved through the categories of unity, coherence and typicality". Stendhal was an admirer of Napoleon and his novel Le Rouge et le Noir is considered his literary tribute to the emperor. Today, Stendhal's works attract attention for their irony and psychological and historical dimensions. Stendhal

4142-421: The British army, in accordance with the orders which had subsequently been countermanded. On 8 March they ordered military preparations to guard against possible French retaliation and justified them by falsely claiming that it was only in response to French preparations and that they were conducting serious negotiations with France. In a few days, it was known that Cape Colony had been surrendered in accordance with

4251-512: The British control of India . Pressed from all sides, the Republic suffered a string of successive defeats against revitalised enemies, who were supported by Britain's financial help. Bonaparte returned to France from Egypt on 23 August 1799, his campaign there having failed . He seized control of the French government on November 9, in a bloodless coup d'état , replacing the Directory with

4360-602: The British fleet away from the English Channel . A complex plan to distract the British by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an indecisive action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805. The Royal Navy blockaded Villeneuve in Cádiz until he left for Naples on 19 October; the British squadron caught and overwhelmingly defeated

4469-564: The British from evacuating it after three months as stipulated in the treaty. The Helvetic Republic was set up by France when it invaded Switzerland in 1798 . France had withdrawn its troops, but violent strife broke out against the government , which many Swiss saw as overly centralised. Bonaparte reoccupied the country in October 1802 and imposed a compromise settlement . This caused widespread outrage in Britain, which protested that this

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4578-662: The Continental System, led to Napoleon invading Russia in June 1812. The invasion was an unmitigated disaster for Napoleon; scorched earth tactics, desertion, French strategic failures and the onset of the Russian winter compelled Napoleon to retreat with massive losses . Napoleon suffered further setbacks: French power in the Iberian Peninsula was broken at the Battle of Vitoria the following summer, and

4687-449: The Continental System, prompting Napoleon to launch a massive invasion of Russia in 1812. The resulting campaign ended in disaster for France and the near-destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armée . Encouraged by the defeat, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia formed the Sixth Coalition and began a new campaign against France, decisively defeating Napoleon at Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France from

4796-654: The Fourth Coalition. Concurrently, the refusal of Portugal to commit to the Continental System, and Spain 's failure to maintain it, led to the Peninsular War and the outbreak of the War of the Fifth Coalition . The French occupied Spain and formed a Spanish client kingdom , ending the alliance between the two. Heavy British involvement in the Iberian Peninsula soon followed, while a British effort to capture Antwerp failed. Napoleon oversaw

4905-705: The French Revolution had been received with great alarm by the rulers of Europe's continental powers, further exacerbated by the execution of Louis XVI , and the overthrow of the French monarchy . In 1793, Austria , the Kingdom of Sardinia , the Kingdom of Naples , Prussia , the Kingdom of Spain , and the Kingdom of Great Britain formed the First Coalition to curtail the growing power of revolutionary France. Measures such as mass conscription , military reforms, and total war allowed France to defeat

5014-545: The French army marched out from Boulogne in late July 1805 to confront them. At Ulm (25 September – 20 October) Napoleon surrounded Mack's army, forcing its surrender without significant losses. With the main Austrian army north of the Alps defeated (another army under Archduke Charles fought against André Masséna 's French army in Italy ), Napoleon occupied Vienna on 13 November. Far from his supply lines, he faced

5123-517: The French government believed that cutting Britain off from the Continent would end its economic influence over Europe and isolate it. A key element in British success was its ability to mobilise the nation's industrial and financial resources, and apply them to defeating France. Though the UK had a population of approximately 16 million against France's 30 million, the French numerical advantage

5232-622: The German city of Stendal , birthplace of Johann Joachim Winckelmann , an art historian and archaeologist famous at the time. However, it is not clear whether he chose the name in honour of Winckelmann or simply knew the place as a centre of communications between Berlin and Hanover. Stendhal added an additional "H" to make the Germanic pronunciation more clear. Stendhal used many aliases in his autobiographical writings and correspondence, and often assigned pseudonyms to friends, some of whom adopted

5341-653: The Italian peninsula . The war in Iberia greatly weakened Spanish power, and the Spanish Empire began to unravel; Spain would lose nearly all of its American possessions by 1833 . The Portuguese Empire also shrank, with Brazil declaring independence in 1822. The wars revolutionised European warfare; the application of mass conscription and total war led to campaigns of unprecedented scale, as whole nations committed all their economic and industrial resources to

5450-509: The Novel as such was capable of being regarded as a means of profoundly serious and many-sided discussion and therefore as a medium of profoundly serious investigation into the human case." Erich Auerbach considers modern "serious realism" to have begun with Stendhal and Balzac . In Mimesis , he remarks of a scene in The Red and the Black that "it would be almost incomprehensible without

5559-490: The Royal Navy, doubling the number of frigates , adding 50 per cent more large ships of the line , and increasing the number of sailors from 15,000 to 133,000 in eight years after the war began in 1793. France saw its navy shrink by more than half. The smuggling of finished products into the continent undermined French efforts to weaken the British economy by cutting off markets. Subsidies to Russia and Austria kept them in

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5668-461: The Spanish, who campaigned successfully against the French armies, eventually driving them from Spain and allowing Britain to invade southern France. By 1815, the British Army played the central role in the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Beyond minor naval actions against British imperial interests, the Napoleonic Wars were much less global in their scope than preceding conflicts such as

5777-547: The Third Coalition. In December 1805, Napoleon defeated the allied Russo-Austrian army at Austerlitz , thus forcing Austria to make peace. Concerned about increasing French power, Prussia led the creation of the Fourth Coalition, which resumed war in October 1806. Napoleon soon defeated the Prussians at Jena-Auerstedt and the Russians at Friedland , bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. The treaty had failed to end

5886-496: The action in a manner more detailed and more real than had been exhibited in any earlier novel, and indeed in any works of literary art except those expressly purporting to be politico-satirical tracts." Simone de Beauvoir uses Stendhal as an example of a feminist author. In The Second Sex de Beauvoir writes "Stendhal never describes his heroines as a function of his heroes: he provides them with their own destinies." She furthermore points out that it "is remarkable that Stendhal

5995-654: The anti-French press. Malta was captured by Britain during the war and was subject to a complex arrangement in the 10th article of the Treaty of Amiens, where it was to be restored to the Knights of St. John with a Neapolitan garrison and placed under the guarantee of third powers. The weakening of the Knights of St. John by the confiscation of their assets in France and Spain along with delays in obtaining guarantees prevented

6104-509: The bulk of French troops present in Spain, Napoleon seized the opportunity to turn against his former ally, depose the reigning Spanish royal family , and declare his brother King of Spain in 1808 as José I . The Spanish and Portuguese thus revolted, with British support, and expelled the French from Iberia in 1814 after six years of fighting . Concurrently, Russia , unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, routinely violated

6213-406: The city. "I have no inclination, now, except for Minette, for this blonde and charming Minette, this soul of the north, such as I have never seen in France or Italy." He was named an auditor with the Conseil d'État on 3 August 1810, and thereafter took part in the French administration and in the Napoleonic wars in Italy. He travelled extensively in Germany and was part of Napoleon 's army in

6322-433: The coalition, despite the concurrent civil war in France . Napoleon , then a general of the French Revolutionary Army , forced the Austrians to sign the Treaty of Campo Formio , leaving only Great Britain opposed to the fledgling French Republic. A Second Coalition was formed in 1798 by Great Britain, Austria, Naples, the Ottoman Empire , the Papal States , Portugal , Russia , and Sweden . The French Republic, under

6431-412: The coalitions arrayed against him. The so-called Continental System formed a League of Armed Neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France. The British responded by capturing the Danish fleet , breaking up the league, and later secured dominance over the seas , allowing it to freely continue its strategy. Napoleon won the War of the Third Coalition at Austerlitz , forcing

6540-402: The coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition , War of the Fourth Coalition , War of the Fifth Coalition , War of the Sixth Coalition , War of the Seventh Coalition , the Peninsular War , and the French invasion of Russia . The first stage of the war broke out when Britain declared war on France on 18 May 1803, alongside

6649-448: The combined enemy fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October (the British commander, Lord Nelson , died in the battle). Napoleon never again had the opportunity to challenge the British at sea, nor to threaten an invasion. He again turned his attention to the enemies on the Continent. In April 1805, Britain and Russia signed a treaty with the aim of removing the French from the Batavian Republic (roughly present-day Netherlands) and

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6758-442: The counter-orders, but it was too late. Bonaparte berated the British ambassador in front of 200 spectators over the military preparations. The Addington ministry realised they would face an inquiry over their false reasons for the military preparations, and during April unsuccessfully attempted to secure the support of William Pitt to shield them from damage. In the same month, the ministry issued an ultimatum to France, demanding

6867-446: The cultural richness of Florence he encountered when he first visited the Tuscan city. As he described in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio : As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart (that same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of the nerves); the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to

6976-426: The date according to the Republican Calendar then in use; 18 May 1803, when Britain and France ended the one short period of peace between 1792 and 1814; or 2 December 1804, when Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor . British historians occasionally refer to the nearly continuous period of warfare from 1792 to 1815 as the Great French War, or as the final phase of the Anglo-French Second Hundred Years' War , spanning

7085-441: The ears, racing pulse and "tremors so bad he could scarcely hold a fork or a pen". Modern medicine has shown that his health problems were more attributable to his treatment than to his syphilis. He is said to have sought the best treatment in Paris, Vienna and Rome. Stendhal died on 23 March 1842, a few hours after collapsing with a seizure in the street in Paris. He is interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre . Before settling on

7194-453: The east , while the Peninsular War spilled over into southwestern France . Coalition troops captured Paris at the end of March 1814, forced Napoleon to abdicate in April, exiled him to the island of Elba , and restored power to the Bourbons . Napoleon escaped in February 1815 and reassumed control of France for around one Hundred Days . The allies formed the Seventh Coalition, which defeated him at Waterloo in June 1815, and exiled him to

7303-488: The first draft too long," Stendhal wrote about Lucien Leuwen in his journal. "In Marseilles, in 1828 I think, I made the manuscript of the Rouge too short. When I wanted to get it printed in Lutèce [Paris], I had to add to it instead of cutting a few pages and correcting the style ... That is why I’m making this 200 pages too long, so that when I take it to Paris, after either I or the J [July Monarchy] fall, I will have only two things to do: 1. Cut pages and phrases; 2. Make

7412-408: The fundamental reorganization of German and Italian territories into larger states, and the introduction of radically new methods of conducting warfare. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna redrew Europe's borders and brought a relative peace to the continent, lasting until the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War in 1853. Napoleon seized power in 1799, establishing

7521-454: The general fiasco that the retreat had become. Stendhal became known, during the Russian campaign, for keeping his wits about him, and maintaining his "sang-froid and clear-headedness." He also maintained his daily routine, shaving each day during the retreat from Moscow. After the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau , he left for Italy, where he settled in Milan . In 1830, he was appointed as French consul at Trieste and Civitavecchia. He formed

7630-636: The ground. The condition was diagnosed and named in 1979 by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini , who had noticed similar psychosomatic conditions (racing heart beat, nausea and dizziness ) amongst first-time visitors to the city. In homage to Stendhal, Trenitalia named their overnight train service from Paris to Venice the Stendhal Express, though there is no physical distress connected to it. [REDACTED] Category Napoleonic wars Other coalition members: 100,000 regulars and militia at peak strength (1813) [REDACTED] French Empire : The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were

7739-420: The impression that Stendhal, Galsworthy , Dreiser , and Mann were great writers." Michael Dirda considers Stendhal "the greatest all round French writer – author of two of the top 20 French novels, author of a highly original autobiography ( Vie de Henry Brulard ), a superb travel writer, and as inimitable a presence on the page as any writer you'll ever meet." In 1817 Stendhal was reportedly overcome by

7848-406: The international system unstable, and forcing Britain to the sidelines. Numerous scholars have argued that Napoleon's aggressive posture made him enemies and cost him potential allies. As late as 1808, the continental powers affirmed most of his gains and titles, but the continuing conflict with Britain led him to start the Peninsular War and the invasion of Russia , which many scholars see as

7957-534: The island of Saint Helena , where he died six years later in 1821. The wars had profound consequences on global history, including the spread of nationalism and liberalism , advancements in civil law , the rise of Britain as the world's foremost naval and economic power , the appearance of independence movements in Spanish America and the subsequent decline of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires ,

8066-461: The major continental economies, and posed little threat to French territory in Europe. France's population and agricultural capacity greatly outstripped Britain's. Britain had the greatest industrial capacity in Europe, and its mastery of the seas allowed it to build up considerable economic strength through trade. This ensured that France could never consolidate its control over Europe in peace. Many in

8175-552: The monarchy later on. The military and theatrical worlds of the First French Empire were a revelation to Beyle. As an assistant war commissioner, he served in the administration of the Kingdom of Westphalia , one of Napoleon's client states in Germany. From 1807 to 1808, Beyle lived in Braunschweig (Brunswick), where he fell in love with Wilhelmine von Griesheim, whom he called Minette, and for whose sake he remained in

8284-535: The names for themselves. Stendhal used more than a hundred pseudonyms, which were astonishingly diverse. Some he used no more than once, while others he returned to throughout his life. "Dominique" and "Salviati" served as intimate pet names. He coins comic names "that make him even more bourgeois than he really is: Cotonnet, Bombet, Chamier." He uses many ridiculous names: "Don phlegm", " Giorgio Vasari ", "William Crocodile", "Poverino", "Baron de Cutendre". One of his correspondents, Prosper Mérimée , said: "He never wrote

8393-521: The orders to not restore Cape Colony. At the same time, Russia finally joined the guarantee regarding Malta. Concerned that there would be hostilities when Bonaparte found out that Cape Colony had been retained , the British began to procrastinate on the evacuation of Malta. In January 1803, a government paper in France published a report from a commercial agent which noted the ease with which Egypt could be conquered. The British seized on this to demand satisfaction and security before evacuating Malta, which

8502-463: The other two; Rousseau did not live to see them, and Goethe had managed to keep aloof from them." Auerbach goes on to say: We may ask ourselves how it came about that modern consciousness of reality began to find literary form for the first time precisely in Henri Beyle of Grenoble. Beyle-Stendhal was a man of keen intelligence, quick and alive, mentally independent and courageous, but not quite

8611-400: The payment of British financial subsidies to their continental allies. Britain gathered allies to form the Third Coalition against The French Empire after Napoleon was self-proclaimed as emperor. In response, Napoleon seriously considered an invasion of Great Britain , massing 180,000 troops at Boulogne . Before he could invade, he needed to achieve naval superiority—or at least to pull

8720-408: The pen name Stendhal, he published under many pen names , including "Louis Alexandre Bombet" and "Anastasius Serpière". The only book that Stendhal published under his own name was The History of Painting (1817). From the publication of Rome, Naples, Florence (September 1817) onwards, he published his works under the pseudonym "M. de Stendhal, officier de cavalerie ". He borrowed this pen name from

8829-632: The period 1689 to 1815. Historian Mike Rapport (2013) suggested using the term "French Wars" to unambiguously describe the entire period from 1792 to 1815. In France, the Napoleonic Wars are generally integrated with the French Revolutionary Wars: Les guerres de la Révolution et de l'Empire . German historiography may count the War of the Second Coalition (1798/9–1801/2), during which Napoleon had seized power, as

8938-456: The process by which even a smaller French army could defeat the enemy's forces one by one. After 1807, Napoleon's creation of a highly mobile, well-armed artillery force gave artillery usage an increased tactical importance. Napoleon, rather than relying on infantry to wear away the enemy's defences, could now use massed artillery as a spearhead to pound a break in the enemy's line. Once that was achieved he sent in infantry and cavalry. Britain

9047-566: The restoration of Hanover, a condition which the British refused. Unlike its many coalition partners, Britain remained at war during the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Protected by naval supremacy (in the words of Admiral Jervis to the House of Lords "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea"), Britain did not have to spend the entire war defending itself and could thus focus on supporting its embattled allies, maintaining low-intensity land warfare on

9156-491: The right choice for Britain because, in the long run, Napoleon's intentions were hostile to the British national interest. Napoleon was not ready for war, and so this was the best time for Britain to stop them. Britain seized upon the Malta issue, refusing to follow the terms of the Treaty of Amiens and evacuate the island. The deeper British grievance was their perception that Napoleon was taking personal control of Europe, making

9265-748: The situation in Iberia, defeating the Spanish , and expelling the British from the Peninsula. Austria, eager to recover territory lost during the War of the Third Coalition, invaded France's client states in Eastern Europe in April 1809. Napoleon defeated the Fifth Coalition at Wagram . Plans to invade British North America pushed the United States to declare war on Britain in the War of 1812 , but it did not become an ally of France. Grievances over control of Poland , and Russia's withdrawal from

9374-565: The small number of people who read the title character's obscure and pedantic treatise on monogamy. As a literary critic, such as in Racine and Shakespeare , Stendhal championed the Romantic aesthetic by unfavorably comparing the rules and strictures of Jean Racine 's classicism to the freer verse and settings of Shakespeare, and supporting the writing of plays in prose. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas: "In his novel The Red and

9483-462: The style clearer still and more flowing, less abrupt." Stendhal wound up only revising the first part. The July Monarchy lasted until the French Revolution of 1848 , six years after Stendhal's death, and Stendhal could not afford to risk his official post in Civitavecchia. The novel as we have it consists of the original draft of the first two parts. This article about an 1830s novel

9592-569: The supreme happiness would be to change into a lanky, blonde German and to walk about like that in Paris." Contemporary readers did not fully appreciate Stendhal's realistic style during the Romantic period in which he lived . He was not fully appreciated until the beginning of the 20th century. He dedicated his writing to "the Happy Few" (in English in the original). This can be interpreted as

9701-570: The tension, and war broke out again in 1809, with the Austrian-led Fifth Coalition. At first, the Austrians won a significant victory at Aspern-Essling but were quickly defeated at Wagram . Hoping to isolate and weaken Britain economically through his Continental System , Napoleon launched an invasion of Portugal , the only remaining British ally in continental Europe. After occupying Lisbon in November 1807, and with

9810-602: The uneasy truce created by the Treaty of Amiens when it had declared war on France in May 1803. The British were increasingly angered by Napoleon's reordering of the international system in Western Europe, especially in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Kagan argues that Britain was especially alarmed by Napoleon's assertion of control over Switzerland. The British felt insulted when Napoleon said it deserved no voice in European affairs (even though King George

9919-884: The various implausibilities of the novels and Stendhal's clear authorial intervention. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche refers to Stendhal as "France's last great psychologist" in Beyond Good and Evil (1886). He also mentions Stendhal in the Twilight of the Idols (1889) during a discussion of Dostoevsky as a psychologist, saying that encountering Dostoevsky was "the most beautiful accident of my life, more so than even my discovery of Stendhal". Ford Madox Ford , in The English Novel , asserts that to Diderot and Stendhal "the Novel owes its next great step forward...At that point it became suddenly evident that

10028-470: The war, the Kingdom of Prussia rose to become a great power , while Great Britain, with its unequalled Royal Navy and growing Empire , became the world's dominant superpower , beginning the Pax Britannica . The Holy Roman Empire had been dissolved, and the philosophy of nationalism that emerged early in the war contributed greatly to the later unification of the German states , and those of

10137-455: The war. The British budget in 1814 reached £98 million, including £10 million for the Royal Navy, £40 million for the army, £10 million for the allies, and £38 million as interest on the national debt, which had soared to £679 million, more than double the GDP. This debt was supported by hundreds of thousands of investors and taxpayers, despite the higher taxes on land and

10246-420: The wars, the extent of Napoleon's conquests, and the popularity of the ideals of the French Revolution , the period had a deep impact on European social culture. Many subsequent revolutions, such as that of Russia , looked to the French as a source of inspiration, while its core founding tenets greatly expanded the arena of human rights and shaped modern political philosophies in use today. The outbreak of

10355-510: Was definitively defeated that December , by Moreau 's forces in Bavaria . The Austrian defeat was sealed by the Treaty of Lunéville early the following year, further compelling the British to sign the Treaty of Amiens with France, establishing a tenuous peace. No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. Possible dates include 9 November 1799, when Bonaparte seized power on 18 Brumaire ,

10464-478: Was a convenient stepping stone to Egypt. France disclaimed any desire to seize Egypt and asked what sort of satisfaction was required, but the British were unable to give a response. There was still no thought of going to war; Prime Minister Henry Addington publicly affirmed that Britain was in a state of peace. In early March 1803, the Addington ministry received word that Cape Colony had been reoccupied by

10573-469: Was a dandy and wit about town in Paris, as well as an obsessive womaniser. His genuine empathy towards women is evident in his books; Simone de Beauvoir spoke highly of him in The Second Sex . She credited him for perceiving a woman as just a woman and simply a human being. Citing Stendhal's rebellious heroines, she maintained that he was a feminist writer. One of his early works is On Love ,

10682-454: Was a violation of the Treaty of Lunéville. Although continental powers were unprepared to act, the British decided to send an agent to help the Swiss obtain supplies, and also ordered their military not to return Cape Colony to Holland as they had committed to do in the Treaty of Amiens. Swiss resistance collapsed before anything could be accomplished, and, after a month, Britain countermanded

10791-588: Was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire ) and sought to restrict the London newspapers that were vilifying him. Britain had a sense of loss of control, as well as loss of markets, and was worried by Napoleon's possible threat to its overseas colonies . McLynn argues that Britain went to war in 1803 out of a "mixture of economic motives and national neuroses—an irrational anxiety about Napoleon's motives and intentions." McLynn concludes that it proved to be

10900-440: Was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire . For its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers. The British hastily enforced a naval blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britain's Continental allies to break

11009-625: Was an avid fan of music, particularly the works of the composers Domenico Cimarosa , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gioacchino Rossini . He wrote a biography of Rossini, Vie de Rossini (1824), now more valued for its wide-ranging musical criticism than for its historical content. He also idealized aristocracy, noting its antiegalitarianism but appreciating how it is liberal in its love of liberty. In his works, Stendhal reprised excerpts appropriated from Giuseppe Carpani , Théophile Frédéric Winckler , Sismondi and others. Stendhal's brief memoir, Souvenirs d'Égotisme ( Memoirs of an Egotist ),

11118-578: Was detailed by Stendhal on the back of a playing card while speaking to Madame Gherardi, during his trip to the Salzburg salt mine. Hippolyte Taine considered the psychological portraits of Stendhal's characters to be "real, because they are complex, many-sided, particular and original, like living human beings." Émile Zola concurred with Taine's assessment of Stendhal's skills as a "psychologist", and although emphatic in his praise of Stendhal's psychological accuracy and rejection of convention, he deplored

11227-525: Was evacuated, and form a convention to give satisfaction to Britain on other issues. The British falsely denied that Russia had made an offer, and their ambassador left Paris. Desperate to avoid a war, Bonaparte sent a secret offer where he agreed to let Britain retain Malta if France could occupy the Otranto peninsula in Naples. All efforts were futile, and Britain declared war on 18 May 1803. Britain ended

11336-522: Was irritated by several French actions following the Treaty of Amiens . Bonaparte annexed Piedmont and Elba , made himself President of the Italian Republic , a state in northern Italy that France had set up, and failed to evacuate Holland , as it had agreed to do in the treaty. France then continued to interfere with British trade despite peace having been made and complained about Britain harbouring certain individuals and not cracking down on

11445-503: Was offset by British subsidies that paid for many of the Austrian and Russian soldiers, peaking at about 450,000 men in 1813. Under the Anglo–Russian agreement of 1803, Britain paid a subsidy of £1.5 million for every 100,000 Russian soldiers in the field. British national output continued to be strong, and the well-organised business sector channeled products into what the military needed. Britain used its economic power to expand

11554-524: Was published posthumously in 1892. Also published was a more extended autobiographical work, thinly disguised as the Life of Henry Brulard . His other works include short stories, journalism, travel books ( A Roman Journal ), a famous collection of essays on Italian painting, and biographies of several prominent figures of his time, including Napoleon , Haydn , Mozart , Rossini and Metastasio . In Stendhal's 1822 classic On Love he describes or compares

11663-598: Was seven. He spent "the happiest years of his life" at the Beyle country house in Claix near Grenoble. His closest friend was his younger sister, Pauline, with whom he maintained a steady correspondence throughout the first decade of the 19th century. His family was part of the bourgeois class of the Ancien Regime , which explains his ambiguous attitude toward Napoleon , the Bourbon Restoration , and

11772-464: Was then decisively defeated at Waterloo , and he abdicated again on 22 June. On 15 July, he surrendered to the British at Rochefort , and was permanently exiled to remote Saint Helena . The Treaty of Paris , signed on 20 November 1815, formally ended the war. The Bourbon monarchy was once again restored, and the victors began the Congress of Vienna to restore peace to Europe. As a direct result of

11881-422: Was to manipulate the enemy into an unfavourable position through manoeuvre and deception, force him to commit his main forces and reserve to the main battle and then undertake an enveloping attack with uncommitted or reserve troops on the flank or rear. Such a surprise attack would either produce a devastating effect on morale or force him to weaken his main battle line. Either way, the enemy's own impulsiveness began

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