Travels in the South of France

Stendhal

The Orion Press, hardcover, illustrated.


Introduction

Stendhal would certainly have been pleased to learn that his unassuming Travels in the South of France could, over a century later, be read as social history. Not that these pages offer any theoretical development or even any systematic analyses. Stendhal, by temperament, prefers the digressive, even the flippant comment; he moves with speed from one observation to another, rarely on the same level, often with conscious irrelevance. Yet the reader, curious about travel conditions in mid­century France, about the distinctive characteristics of certain towns and regions, about social classes and their fluidity, will find here some interesting and amusing observations. Eating habits at the table d'hóte, the unpleasant paving stones in Toulouse, the quality of water in various cities, how people make a fortune in Bordeaux, the cost of travel and hotels, digressions on politics and regional myths - all these are thrown pell-mell. Sometimes, as when the inhabitants of Marseille are praised for their reliability and plain, sober speech, the reader can also measure the distance that separates certain myths or clichés of the 19th century and of our own period. Stendhal who is always fascinated by historicaI evolution and relativism would certainly also have been pleased to know that his text provides this kind of perspective.

It is hardly surprising that so many incidental details, such sporadic writing, such fondness for disconnected anecdotes, should not be con­ducive to a unified or even structured work. The Stendhalian qualities are obvious: incisive cultural diagnoses, comparisons between Paris and the Provinces (an important dialectical factor in his novels ), anti-clerical sallies, typical allusions to his private sentimental life. Only the initiated Stendhal fan will understand the full meaning of passing references to Angela Pietragrua (the easy-virtued Milanese who betrayed him), to Count Daru, his early protector, to Mathilde Dembowski, the inacces­sible lady he would never forget, to the Italian interlude of 1814-1821 when he frequented the Carbonaro activists. None of this, of course, has anything to do with travels in the south of France. But that is how Stendhal enjoyed writing, especially when he settled down to what was an "alimentary" literary exercise. The more commercial the enterprise, the more he delighted in transforming it into an intensely private affair. ...........................................