VILNIUS: HISTORY ON THE WALL- STENDHAL

I knew I had heard of the man but I was not quite sure? Stendhal had stayed in Vilnius in year 1812. The information was presented to me written on the wall of a building in the city of Vilnius, Lithuania. What was he doing here in Vilnius? I remembered the name. I had  studied French literature at the former Library school in Oslo. Stendhal has written the famous novel, Le Rouge et le Noir, in 1830. The book has been translated to Norwegian by Paul Rene Gauguin in 1974. A masterpiece in the literature of the world. The title of the novel in Norwegian is,Rødt og sort. So, he too, had paid the city of Vilnus a visit. An interesting observation. But I do not think he came here as a French tourist. No. He was a soldier in the  French army of Napoleon on the way to occupy Russia. Not a nice action, I think. Stendhal is pseudonym for Henri-Marie Beyle. He was born in 1783 and died in 1842. Famous for his writings only? No. He is even more famous for an illness named ” Stendhal syndrome”.  He had visited Florence in Italy in 1817 where he was overcome with emotion viewing Giotto’s frescoes for the first time. ”… I was in a sort of ecstacy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen ( Machiavelli, Michelango and Galileo) – absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty…”. In Vilnius in 1812 he was preoccupied working for the French army bound for Moskva. He was an officer making war against Russia. People of Vilnius and Russia must have forgiven him years ago since his name is put on the wall for all tourists to notice: Here, he was, the famous French author. No information given that he was not writing here, but making preparations for the French invasion of Russia!