[3] Stendhal began to write Memoirs of an Egotist on June 20, 1832, approximately one year after having taken a post as French Consul in Civitavecchia.

He was forty-nine and undertook to describe his years in Paris between 1821 and 1830, but sometimes misremembered the dates of events and included incidents that happened earlier.

Métilde Dembowski, for whom Stendhal conceived a great passion while in Milan, either did not reciprocate his love or was unwilling to consummate it.

"[5] Stendhal lists his bad characteristics next to his admirable ones, and does not shrink from describing moments of humiliation or silliness, including an account of a visit to a brothel that occasioned a short-lived reputation for impotence among his friends.

During this time in Paris, Stendhal was becoming known as a writer of works on music and art, but he received savage reviews, which he cushioned by musing that "one or other of us must be wrong".

Only then was the memory of Métilde less rending..." He also describes a trip to England, with which he hoped to combat his low spirits, and to see the plays of Shakespeare.