Stendhal 
The charterhouse of Parma 

         The Charterhouse of Parma (French: La Chartreuse de Parme) is a novel by Stendhal published in 1839.[1] Telling the story of an Italian nobleman in the Napoleonic era and later, it was admired by Balzac, Tolstoy, André Gide and Henry James. It was inspired by an inauthentic Italian account of the dissolute youth of Alessandro Farnese.[2] The novel has been adapted for opera, film and television.