small notice. He had published in 1838 Mémoires d’un touriste, and in 1839 La Chartreuse de Parme (2 vols.), which was the last of his publications, and the first to secure any popular success, though his earlier writings had been regarded as significant by a limited public. It was enthusiastically reviewed by Balzac in his Revue Parisienne (1840). Beyle remained at Civita Vecchia, discharging his duties as consul perfunctorily and with frequent intervals of absence until his death, which took place in Paris on the 23rd of March 1842. He wrote his own epitaph,[1] describing himself as a Milanese.
His posthumous works include a fragmentary Vie de Napoléon (1875); Mélanges d’art et de littérature (1867); Chroniques italiennes (1885), including “L’Abbesse de Castro,” “Les Cenci,” “Vittoria Accoramboni,” “Vanina Vanini,” “La Duchesse de Palliano,” some of which has appeared separately; Romans et nouvelles and Nouvelles inédites (1855); Correspondance (2 vols., 1855); Lamiel (ed. C. Stryienski, 1889); his Journal 1801–1814 (ed. Stryienski and F. de Nion, 1888), of which the section dealing with the Russian and German campaigns is unfortunately lost; Vie de Henri Brulard (1890), a disguised autobiography, chiefly the history of his numerous love affairs; Lettres intimes (1892); Lucien Leuwen (ed. J. de Mitty, 1894); Souvenirs d’égotisme (ed. C. Stryienski, 1892), autobiography and unpublished letters.
Stendhal’s reputation practically rests on the two novels Le Rouge et le noir and La Chartreuse de Parme. In the former of these he borrowed his plot from events which had actually happened some years previously. Julien Sorel in the novel is tutor in a noble family and seduces his pupil’s mother. He eventually kills her to avenge a letter accusing him to the family of his betrothed, Mlle de la Mole. Julien is a picture of Beyle as he imagined himself to be. The Chartreuse de Parme has less unity of purpose than Le Rouge et le noir. For its setting the author drew largely on his own experiences. Fabrice’s experiences at Waterloo are his own in the Italian campaign, and the countess Pietranera is his Milanese Angelina. But of the two novels it is more picturesque and has been more popular. Stendhal’s real vogue dates from the early sixties, but his importance is essentially literary. In spite of his egotism and the limitations of his ideas, his acute analysis of the motives of his personages has appealed to successive generations of writers, and a great part of the development of the French novel must be traced to him. Brunetière has pointed out (Manual of French Lit., Eng. trans., 1898) that Stendhal supplied the Romanticists with the notion of the interchange of the methods and effects of poetry, painting and music, and that in his worship of Napoleon he agreed with their glorification of individual energy. Stendhal, however, thoroughly disliked the Romanticists, though Sainte-Beuve acknowledged (Causeries du lundi, vol. ix.) that his books gave ideas. Taine (Essais de critique et d’histoire, 1857) found in him a great psychologist; Zola (Romanciers naturalistes, 1881) actually claimed him as the father of the naturalist school; and Paul Bourget (Essais de psychologie contemporaine, 1883) cited Le Rouge et le noir as one of the classic novels of analysis.
The 1846 edition of La Chartreuse de Parme contains a prefatory notice by R. Colomb, and a reprint of Balzac’s article. In addition to the authorities already mentioned see the essay on Beyle (1850) by Prosper Mérimée; A. A. Paton, Henry Beyle, a Critical and Biographical Study (1874); Adolphe Paupe, Histoire des œuvres de Stendhal (1903); A. Chuquet, Stendhal-Beyle (1902); a review by R. Doumic (Revue des deux mondes, February 1902), deprecating the excessive attention paid to Beyle’s writings; and Edouard Rod, Stendhal (1892) in the “Grands écrivains français” series. See also Correspondance de Stendhal, 1800–1842, with preface by M. Barrés (Paris, 1908).
BEYRICH, HEINRICH ERNST VON (1815–1896), German geologist, was born at Berlin on the 31st of August 1815, and educated at the university in that city, and afterwards at Bonn, where he studied under Goldfuss and Nöggerath. He obtained his degree of Ph.D. in 1837 at Berlin, and was subsequently employed in the mineralogical museum of the university, becoming director of the palaeontological collection in 1857, and director of the museum in 1875. He was one of the founders of the German Geological Society in 1848. He early recognized the value of palaeontology in stratigraphical work; and he made important researches in the Rhenish mountains, in the Harz and Alpine districts. In later years he gave special attention to the Tertiary strata, including the Brown Coal of North Germany. In 1854 he proposed the term Oligocene for certain Tertiary strata intermediate between the Eocene and Miocene; and the term is now generally adopted. In 1865 he was appointed professor of geology and palaeontology in the Berlin University, where he was eminently successful as a teacher; and when the Prussian Geological Survey was instituted in 1873 he was appointed co-director with Wilhelm Hauchecorne (1828–1900). He published Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Versteinerungen des rheinischen Übergangs-gebirges (1837); Über einige böhmische Trilobiten (1845); Die Conchylien des norddeutschen Tertiärgebirges (1853–1857). He died on the 9th of July 1896.
BEYSCHLAG, WILLIBALD (1823–1900), German Protestant divine, was born at Frankfort-on-Main on the 5th of September 1823. He studied theology at Bonn and Berlin (1840–1844), and in 1856 was appointed court-preacher at Karlsruhe. In 1860, he moved to Halle as professor ordinarius of practical theology. A theologian of the mediating school, he became leader of the Mittelpartei, and with Albrecht Wolters founded as its organ the Deutschevangelische Blätter. As a representative of this party, he took a prominent part in the general synods of 1875 and 1879. His championship of the rights of the laity and his belief in the autonomy of the church led him to advocate the separation of church and state. He died at Halle on the 25th of November 1900. Among his numerous works are Die Christologie des Neuen Testaments (1866), Der Altkatholicismus (three editions, 1882–1883), Leben Jesu (2 vols., 1885; 3rd ed., 1893), Neutestamentliche Theologie (2 vols., 1891–1892; 2nd ed., 1896), Christenlehre auf Grund des kleinen luth. Katechismus (1900), and an autobiography Aus meinem Leben (2 parts, 1896–1898).
See P. Schaff, Living Divines (1887); Lichtenberger, Hist. Germ. Theol. (1889); Calwer-Zeller, Kirchenlexikon.
BEZA (de Bèsze), THEODORE (1519–1605), French theologian, son of bailli Pierre de Bèsze, was born at Vezelai, Burgundy, on the 24th of June 1519. Of good descent, his parents were known for generous piety. He owed his education to an uncle, Nicolas de Bèsze, counsellor of the Paris parlement, who placed him (1529) under Melchior Wolmar at Orleans, and later at Bourges. Wolmar, who had taught Greek to Calvin, grounded Beza in Scripture from a Protestant standpoint; after his return to Germany (1534) Beza studied law at Orleans (May 1535 to August 1539), beginning practice in Paris (1539) as law licentiate. To this period belong his exercises in Latin verse, in the loose taste of the day, foolishly published by him as Juvenilia in 1548. Though not in orders, he held two benefices. A severe illness wrought a change; he married his mistress, Claude Desnoz, and joined the church of Calvin at Geneva (October 1548). In November 1549 he was appointed Greek professor at Lausanne, where he acted as Calvin’s adjutant in various publications, including his defence of the burning of Servetus, De Haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis (1554). In 1558 he became professor in the Geneva academy, where his career was brilliant. His conspicuous ability was shown in the abortive Colloquy of Poissy (1561). On Calvin’s death (1564) he became his biographer and administrative successor. As a historian, Beza, by his chronological inexactitude, has been the source of serious mistakes; as an administrator, he softened the rigour of Calvin. His editions and Latin versions of the New Testament had a marked influence on the English versions of Geneva (1557 and 1560) and London (1611). The famous codex D. was presented by him (1581) to Cambridge University, with a characteristically dubious account of the history of the manuscript. His works are very numerous, but of little moment, except those already mentioned. He resigned his offices in 1600, and died on the 13th of October 1605. He had taken a second wife (1588), Catherine del Piano, a widow, but left no issue. He was not the author of the Histoire ecclésiastique (1580), sometimes ascribed
- ↑ Quì giace Arrigo Beyle Milanese; visse, scrisse, amò.
