isition; but what is absorbing is the sense that comes to one, as
one reads it, of the presence, running through it all, of a restless and
problematical spirit. 'Le Beylisme' is certainly not susceptible of any
exact definition; its author was too capricious, too unmethodical, in
spite of his _lo-gique_, ever to have framed a coherent philosophy; it
is essentially a thing of shreds and patches, of hints, suggestions, and
quick visions of flying thoughts. M. Barres says that what lies at the
bottom of it is a 'passion de collectionner les belles energies.' But
there are many kinds of 'belles energies,' and some of them certainly do
not fit into the framework of 'le Beylisme.' 'Quand je suis arrete par
des voleurs, ou qu'on me tire des coups de fusil, je me sens une grande
colere contre le gouvernement et le cure de l'endroit. Quand au voleur,
il me plait, s'il est energique, car il m'amuse.' It was the energy of
self-assertiveness that pleased Beyle; that of self-restraint did not
interest him. The immorality of the point of view is patent, and at
times it appears to be simply based upon the common selfishness of an
egotist. But in reality it was something more significant than that. The
'chasse au bonheur' which Beyle was always advocating was no respectable
epicureanism; it had about it a touch of the fanatical. There was
anarchy in it--a hatred of authority, an impatience with custom, above
all a scorn for the commonplace dictates of ordinary morality. Writing
his memoirs at the age of fifty-two, Beyle looked back with pride on the
joy that he had felt, as a child of ten, amid his royalist family at
Grenoble, when the news came of the execution of Louis XVI. His father
announced it:

--C'en est fait, dit-il avec un gros soupir, ils l'ont assassine.

Je fus saisi d'un des plus vifs mouvements de joie que j'ai eprouve
en ma vie. Le lecteur pensera peut-etre que je suis cruel, mais tel
j'etais a 5 X 2, tel je suis a 10 X 5 + 2 ... Je puis dire que
l'approbation des etres, que je regarde comme faibles, m'est
absolument indifferente.

These are the words of a born rebel, and such sentiments are constantly
recurring in his books. He is always discharging his shafts against some
established authority; and, of course, he reserved his bitterest hatred
for the proudest and most insidious of all authorities--the Roman
Catholic Church. It is odd to find some of the 'Beylistes' solemnly
hailing the