Marie-Henri Beyle was born in Grenoble on 23 January 1783 to Henriette Gagnon – the educated daughter of a well-respected doctor – and Chérubin Beyle, a reasonably prosperous advocate and landowner, increasingly given to agricultural experiments. Marie-Henri was the couple’s second son: a first Henri had been born a year before him, but had only survived for a few days. Marie-Henri appears, at the very least retrospectively, to have adored his mother and detested his father. In the Vie de Henry Brulard – an autobiographical text written between November 1835 and May 1836, in part modelled on Rousseau’s Les Confessions – Brulard dates the start of his moral life to Henriette’s death in childbirth in 1790, when he was still only seven (Rousseau’s mother had died giving birth to him). But an earlier episode in...
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Citation: Manzini, Francesco. "Stendhal". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 October 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4209, accessed 14 December 2025.]
