In &quot;The Abbess of Castro&quot;, Stendhal tells the story set in Lazio (Italy) of two doomed young lovers&mdash;one the daughter of the wealthiest man in the district, the other a brigand. It&rsquo;s a genuinely moving tale of impossible love&mdash;with plenty of sword fights thrown in&mdash;that&rsquo;s unique in Stendhal&rsquo;s oeuvre, not least in its portrait of an intelligent woman who, ill-starred in love, turns to worldly power. There&rsquo;s also some sparkling analysis of the conditions that produced the great art of the Renaissance.<br /><br />But &quot;The Abbess of Castro&quot; &mdash;first published in the same year as Stendhal&rsquo;s novel &quot;The Charterhouse of Parma&quot;&mdash;is also characterised by themes that pervade his longer novels: political and familial machinations, a profoundly unsentimental view of war, ambitious individuals undone by passion.&nbsp;