(no subject)

Another one--in Stendhal's will, in fact a series of them he wrote between 1832 and '34:

Testament de M. H. M. Beyle, consul de France.

Je donne et legue tout ce que je possede a Rome, a M. Abraham Constantin. Je meurs dans la religion protestante, confession d'Augsbourg, et demande a etre enterre pres de mon ami Shelley (Piramide de Cestius) Rome le dix decembre 1832. H. Beyle. En marge H. Beyle.

Testament de M. Beyle.

Je donne tout ce que je possede a Rome a M. Ab. Constantin, chevalier de la Legion d'honneur. Je meurs protestant dans la communion d'Augsbourg et demande a etre enterre a cote de M. Shelley (Piramide de Cestius). Rome le onze decembre 1832. M. Beyle. En marge. M Beyle.

[etc.]

Was Henri ("The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist") Beyle going to pretend to be protestant just to be pres de son ami Shelley? It may be the most beautiful place to be dead in the whole world, granted, but there's no evidence they ever met. This was quite a gesture. If gesture's even the word--commitment, perhaps, but for the pun. Where you're buried tends to be sacred even for atheists (e.g. Shelley).

He quotes Shelley briefly in Memoirs of an Egoist and briefly mentions the drowning in a letter, but there's nothing else that would have led one to expect that. They say his long short story The Cenci shows no influence of Shelley's treatment from ten years before, though he would have known it existed.

(no subject)

And did I ever mention Daisy Miller is buried there? And, more easily located, Gramsci, Goethe's poor son August, and (if I remember correctly) Wilhelm von Homboldt.