*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 54788 ***

THE MEMOIRS OF FRANÇOIS RENÉ

VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND

SOMETIME AMBASSADOR TO ENGLAND

BEING A TRANSLATION BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
OF THE MÉMOIRES D'OUTRE-TOMBE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES. In 6 Volumes. Vol. II

    "NOTRE SANG A TEINT
     LA BANNIÈRE DE FRANCE"

LONDON: PUBLISHED BY FREEMANTLE
AND CO. AT 217 PICCADILLY MDCCCCII


[Illustration: Napoléon Bonaparte.]




CONTENTS


VOLUME II

BOOK VII

I go to see my mother--Saint-Malo--Progress of the Revolution
--My marriage--Paris--Old acquaintances and new--The Abbé
Barthélemy--Saint-Ange--The theatres--Changes in Paris--The
Club des Cordeliers--Marat--Danton--Camille Desmoulins--Fabre
d'Églantine--M. de Malesherbes' opinion on the emigration--I play
and lose--Adventure of the hackney-coach--Madame Roland--Barère at
the Hermitage--Second Federation of the 14th of July--Preparations
for the emigration--I emigrate with my brother--Adventure of
Saint-Louis--We cross the frontier--Brussels--Dinner at the Baron
de Breteuil's--Rivarol--Departure for the army of the Princes--The
journey--I meet the Prussian army--I arrive at Trèves--The Army of the
Princes--A Roman amphitheatre--_Atala_--The shirts of Henry IV.--A
soldier's life--Last appearance of old military France--Commencement
of the siege of Thionville--The Chevalier de La Baronnais--Continuation
of the siege--A contrast--Saints in the woods--Battle of Bouvines--A
patrol--An unexpected encounter--Effects of a cannon-ball and a
shell--Market in camp--Night amid piled arms--The Dutch dog--A
recollection of the _Martyrs_--The nature of my company--With the
outposts--Eudora--Ulysses--Passage of the Moselle--A fight--Libba, the
deaf and dumb girl--Assault of Thionville--The siege is raised--We
enter Verdun--The Prussian evil--The retreat--Smallpox--The
Ardennes--The Prince de Ligne's baggage-wagons--The women of Namur--I
meet my brother at Brussels--Our last farewell--Ostend--I take
passage for Jersey--I land at Guernsey--The pilot's wife--Jersey--My
uncle de Bedée and his family--Description of the island--The Duc de
Berry--Lost friends and relations--The misfortune of growing old--I go
to England--Last meeting with Gesril

BOOK VIII

The Literary Fund--My garret in Holborn--Decline in health--Visit
to the doctors--Emigrants in London--Peltier--Literary labours--My
friendship with Hingant--Our excursions--A night in Westminster
Abbey--Distress--Unexpected succour--Lodging overlooking a
cemetery--New companions in misfortune--Our pleasures--My cousin
de La Boüétardais--A sumptuous rout--I come to the end of my forty
crowns--Renewed distress--Table d'hôte--Bishops-Dinner at the London
Tavern--The Camden Manuscripts--My work in the country--Death of
my brother--Misfortunes of my family--Two Frances--Letters from
Hingant--Charlotte--I return to London--An extraordinary meeting--A
defect in my character--The _Essai historique sur les révolutions_--Its
effect--Letter from Lemierre, nephew to the poet--Fontanes--Cléry


BOOK IX

Death of my mother--I return to religion--The _Génie du
Christianisme_--Letter from the Chevalier de Panat--My uncle, M. de
Bedée: his eldest daughter--English literature--Decline of the old
school--Historians--Poets--Publicists--Shakespeare--Old novels--New
novels--Richardson--Sir Walter Scott--New poetry--Beattie--Lord
Byron--England from Richmond to Greenwich--A trip with
Peltier--Blenheim--Stowe--Hampton Court--Oxford--Eton College--Private
manners--Political manners--Fox--Pitt--Burke--George III.--Return
of the emigrants to France--The Prussian Minister gives me a false
passport in the name of La Sagne, a resident of Neuchâtel in
Switzerland--Death of Lord Londonderry--End of my career as a soldier
and traveller--I land at Calais


PART THE SECOND

1800-1814

BOOK I

My stay at Dieppe--Two phases of society--The position of my
Memoirs--The year 1800--Aspect of France--I arrive in Paris--Changes in
society--The year 1801--The _Mercure_--_Atala_--Madame de Beaumont and
her circle--Summer at Savigny--The year 1802--Talma--The year 1803--The
_Génie du Christianisme_--Failure prophesied--Cause of its final
success--Defects in the work

BOOK II

The years 1802 and 1803--Country-houses--Madame de Custine--M. de
Saint-Martin--Madame de Houdetot and Saint-Lambert--Journey to
the south of France--M. de la Harpe--His death--Interview with
Bonaparte--I am appointed First Secretary of Embassy in Rome--Journey
from Paris to the Savoy Alps--From Mont Cenis to Rome--Milan to
Rome--Cardinal Fesch's palace--My occupations--Madame de Beaumont's
manuscripts--Letters from Madame de Caud--Madame de Beaumont's arrival
in Rome--Letters from my sister--Letter from Madame de Krüdener--Death
of Madame de Beaumont--Her funeral--Letters from M. de Chênedollé,
M. de Fontanes, M. Necker, and Madame de Staël--The years 1803 and
1804--First idea of my Memoirs--I am appointed French Minister to the
Valais--Departure from Rome--The year 1804--The Valais Republic--A
visit to the Tuileries--The Hôtel de Montmorin--I hear the death cried
of the Duc d'Enghien--I give in my resignation

BOOK III

Death of the Duc d'Enghien--The year 1804--General Hulin--The Duc de
Rovigo--M. de Talleyrand--Part played by each--Bonaparte, his sophistry
and remorse--Conclusions to be drawn from the whole story--Enmities
engendered by the death of the Duc D'Enghien--An article in the
_Mercure_--Change in the life of Bonaparte

BOOK IV

The year 1804--I move to the Rue de Miromesnil-Verneuil--Alexis de
Tocqueville--Le Ménil--Mézy--Mérévil--Madame de Coislin--Journey to
Vichy, in Auvergne, and to Mont Blanc--Return to Lyons--Excursion
to the Grande Chartreuse--Death of Madame de Caud--The years 1805
and 1806--I return to Paris--I leave for the Levant--I embark in
Constantinople on a ship carrying pilgrims for Syria--From Tunis to
my return to France through Spain--Reflections on my voyage--Death of
Julien




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. II

    Portrait of

    Napoleon Bonaparte
    The Comte de Rivarol
    Frederic William II
    Peltier, editor of the _Actes des Apôtres_
    William Pitt
    Edmund Burke
    George III
    The Duc D'Enghien




THE MEMOIRS OF CHATEAUBRIAND


VOLUME II


BOOK VII[1]


I go to see my mother--Saint-Malo--Progress of the Revolution--My
marriage--Paris--Old acquaintances and new--The Abbé
Barthélemy--Saint-Ange--The theatres--Changes in Paris--The
Club des Cordeliers--Marat--Danton--Camille Desmoulins--Fabre
d'Églantine--M. de Malesherbes' opinion on the emigration--I play
and lose--Adventure of the hackney-coach--Madame Roland--Barère at
the Hermitage--Second Federation of the 14th of July--Preparations
for the emigration--I emigrate with my brother--Adventure of
Saint-Louis--We cross the frontier--Brussels--Dinner at the Baron
de Breteuil's--Rivarol--Departure for the army of the Princes--The
journey--I meet the Prussian army--I arrive at Trèves--The Army of the
Princes--A Roman amphitheatre--_Atala_--The shirts of Henry IV.--A
soldier's life--Last appearance of old military France--Commencement of
the siege of Thionville--The Chevalier de La Baronnais--Continuation
of the siege--A contrast--Saints in the woods--Battle of Bouvines--A
patrol--An unexpected encounter--Effects of a cannon-ball and a
shell--Market in camp--Night amid piled arms--The Dutch dog--A
recollection of the _Martyrs_--The nature of my company--With the
outposts--Eudora--Ulysses--Passage of the Moselle--A fight--Libba, the
deaf and dumb girl--Assault of Thionville--The siege is raised--We
enter Verdun--The Prussian evil--The retreat--Smallpox--The
Ardennes--The Prince de Ligne's baggage-wagons--The women of Namur--I
meet my brother at Brussels--Our last farewell--Ostend--I take
passage for Jersey--I land at Guernsey--The pilot's wife--Jersey--My
uncle de Bedée and his family--Description of the island--The Duc de
Berry--Lost friends and relations--The misfortune of growing old--I go
to England--Last meeting with Gesril.


I wrote to my brother in Paris giving him particulars of my crossing,
telling him the reasons for my return, and asking him to lend me the
money wherewith to pay my passage. My brother answered that he had
forwarded my letter to my mother. Madame de Chateaubriand did not keep
me waiting: she enabled me to clear my debt and to leave the Havre.
She told me that Lucile was with her, also my uncle de Bedée and his
family. This intelligence persuaded me to go to Saint-Malo, so that I
might consult my uncle on the question of my proposed emigration.

Revolutions are like rivers: they grow wider in their course; I found
that which I had left in France enormously swollen and overflowing its
banks: I had left it with Mirabeau under the "Constituent," I found it
with Danton[2] under the "Legislative[3]" Assembly.

The Treaty of Pilnitz, of the 27th of August 1791, had become known in
Paris. On the 14th of December 1791, while I was being tossed by the
storms, the King announced that he had written to the Princes of the
Germanic Body, and in particular to the Elector of Trèves, touching
the German armaments. The brothers of Louis XVI., the Prince de Condé,
M. de Calonne, the Vicomte de Mirabeau, and M. de Laqueville[4] were
almost immediately impeached. As early as the 9th of November, a
previous decree had been hurled against the other Emigrants: it was to
enter these ranks, already proscribed, that I was hastening; others
might perhaps have retreated, but the threats of the stronger have
always made me take the side of the weaker: the pride of victory is
unendurable to me.

On my way from the Havre to Saint-Malo I was able to observe the
divisions and misfortunes of France: the country-seats were burnt
and abandoned; the owners, to whom distaffs had been sent, had left;
the women were living sheltered in the towns. The hamlets and small
market-towns groaned under the tyranny of clubs affiliated to the
central Club des Cordeliers, since amalgamated with the Jacobins. The
antagonist of the latter, the Société Monarchique, or des Feuillants,
no longer existed; the vulgar nickname of _sans-culotte_ had become
popular; the King was never spoken of save as "Monsieur Veto" or
"Monsieur Capet."

[Sidenote: My marriage.]

I was tenderly welcomed by my mother and my family, although they
deplored the inopportune moment which I had selected for my return.
My uncle, the Comte de Bedée, was preparing to go to Jersey with his
wife, his son, and his daughters. It was a question of finding money to
enable me to join the Princes. My American journey had made a breach
in my fortune; my property was reduced to almost nothing, where my
younger son's portion was concerned, through the suppression of the
feudal rights; and the benefices that were to accrue to me by virtue of
my affiliation to the Order of Malta had fallen, with the remainder of
the goods of the clergy, into the hands of the nation. This conjuncture
of circumstances decided the most serious step in my life: my family
married me in order to procure me the means of going to get killed in
support of a cause which I did not love.

There was living in retirement, at Saint-Malo, M. de Lavigne[5], a
knight of Saint-Louis, and formerly Commandant of Lorient. The Comte
d'Artois had stayed with him there when he visited Brittany: the Prince
was charmed with his host, and promised to grant him any favour he
might at any time demand. M. de Lavigne had two sons: one of them[6]
married Mademoiselle de La Placelière. Two daughters, born of this
marriage, were left orphans on both sides at a tender age. The elder
married the Comte du Plessix-Parscau[7], a captain in the Navy, the
son and grandson of admirals, himself to-day a rear-admiral, a red
ribbon[8] and commander of the corps of naval cadets at Brest; the
younger[9] was living with her grandfather, and was seventeen years of
age when I arrived at Saint-Malo on my return from America. She was
white, delicate, slender and very pretty: she wore her beautiful fair
hair, which curled naturally, hanging low like a child's. Her fortune
was valued at five or six hundred thousand francs.

My sisters took it into their heads to make me marry Mademoiselle de
Lavigne, who had become greatly attached to Lucile. The affair was
managed without my knowledge. I had seen Mademoiselle de Lavigne three
or four times at most; I recognised her at a distance on the "Furrow"
by her pink pelisse, her white gown and her fair hair blown out by
the wind, when I was on the beach abandoning myself to the caresses
of my old mistress, the sea. I felt myself to possess none of the
good qualities of a husband. All my illusions were alive, nothing was
spent within me; the very energy of my existence had doubled through
my travels. I was racked by the muse. Lucile liked Mademoiselle de
Lavigne, and saw the independence of my fortune in this marriage:

"Have your way!" said I.

In me the public man is inflexible; the private man is at the mercy of
whomsoever wishes to seize hold of him, and, to save myself an hour's
wrangling, I would become a slave for a century.

The consent of the grandfather, the paternal uncle and the principal
relatives was easily obtained: there remained to be overcome the
objections of a maternal uncle, M. de Vauvert[10], a great democrat,
who opposed the marriage of his niece with an aristocrat like myself,
who was not one at all. We thought ourselves able to do without him,
but my pious mother insisted that the religious marriage should be
performed by a "non-juror" priest, which could only be done in secret.
M. de Vauvert knew this, and let loose the law upon us, under pretext
of rape and breach of the laws, and pleading the imaginary state of
second childhood into which the grandfather, M. de Lavigne, had fallen.
Mademoiselle de Lavigne, who had become Madame de Chateaubriand,
without my having held any communication with her, was taken away in
the name of the law and put into the Convent of Victory at Saint-Malo,
pending the decision of the courts.

There was no rape, breach of the laws, adventure, nor love in the
whole matter; the wedding had only the bad side of a novel: truth.
The case was tried and the court pronounced the marriage civilly
valid. The members of both families being in agreement, M. de Vauvert
abandoned the proceedings. The constitutional clergyman, lavishly
feed, withdrew his protest against the first nuptial benediction, and
Madame de Chateaubriand was released from the convent, where Lucile had
imprisoned herself with her.

It was a new acquaintance that I had to make, and it brought me all
that I could wish. I doubt whether a finer intelligence than my wife's
has ever existed: she guesses the thought and the word about to spring
to the brow or the lips of the person with whom she converses; to
deceive her is impossible. Madame de Chateaubriand has an original and
cultured mind, writes most cleverly, tells a story to perfection, and
admires me without ever having read two lines of my works: she would
dread to find ideas in them that differ from hers, or to discover that
people are not sufficiently enthusiastic over my merit. Although a
passionate judge, she is well-informed and a good judge.

Madame de Chateaubriand's defects, if she have any, proceed from the
superabundance of her good qualities; my own very serious defects
result from the sterility of mine. It is easy to possess resignation,
patience, a general obligingness, equanimity of temper, when one
interests himself in nothing, when one is wearied by everything,
when one replies to good and bad fortune alike with a desperate and
despairing "What does it matter?"

Madame de Chateaubriand is better than I, although less accessible in
her intercourse with others. Have I been irreproachable in my relations
with her? Have I offered my companion all the sentiments which she
deserved and which were hers by right? Has she ever complained? What
happiness has she tasted in reward for her consistent affection? She
has shared my adversities; she has been plunged into the prisons of
the Terror, the persecutions of the Empire, the disgraces of the
Restoration; she has not known the joys of maternity to counterbalance
her sufferings. Deprived of children, which she might perhaps have had
in another union, and which she would have loved madly; having none of
the honours and affections which surround the mother of a family and
console a woman for the loss of her prime, she has travelled, sterile
and solitary, towards old age. Often separated from me, disliking
literature, to her the pride of bearing my name makes no amends. Timid
and trembling for me alone, she is deprived, through her ever-renewed
anxiety, of sleep and of the time to cure her ills: I am her chronic
infirmity and the cause of her relapses. Can I compare an occasional
impatience which she has shown me with the cares which I have caused
her? Can I set my good qualities, such as they are, against her
virtues, which support the poor, which have established the Infirmerie
de Marie-Thérèse in the face of all obstacles? What are my labours
beside the works of that Christian woman? When the two of us appear
before God, it is I who shall be condemned.

Upon the whole, when I consider my nature with all its imperfections,
is it certain that marriage has spoilt my destiny?

I should no doubt have had more leisure and repose; I should have been
better received in certain circles and by certain of the great ones of
this earth; yet in politics, though Madame de Chateaubriand may have
crossed me, she never checked me, for here, as in matters affecting
my honour, I judge only by my own feeling. Should I have produced a
greater number of works if I had remained independent, and would those
works have been any better? Have there not been circumstances, as shall
be seen, in which, by marrying outside France, I should have ceased
to write and disowned my country? If I had not married, would not my
weakness have made me the prey of some worthless creature? Should not
I have squandered and polluted my days like Lord Byron[11]? To-day,
when I am sinking into old age, all my wildness would have passed;
nothing would remain to me but emptiness and regrets: I should be an
old bachelor, unesteemed, either deceived or undeceived, an old bird
repeating my worn-out song to whosoever refused to listen to it. The
full indulgence of my desires would not have added one string more
to my lyre, nor one more earnest note to my voice. The constraint of
my feelings, the mystery of my thoughts have perhaps increased the
forcefulness of my accents, quickened my works with an internal fever,
with a hidden flame, which would have spent itself in the free air
of love. Held back by an indissoluble tie, I purchased at first, at
the cost of a little bitterness, the sweets which I taste to-day. Of
the ills of my existence I have preserved only the incurable part. I
therefore owe an affectionate and eternal gratitude to my wife, whose
attachment has been as touching as it has been profound and sincere.
She has rendered my life more grave, more noble, more honourable, by
always inspiring me with respect for duty, if not always with the
strength to perform it.

I was married at the end of March 1792, and on the 20th of April the
Legislative Assembly declared war against Francis II.[12], who had just
succeeded his father Leopold; on the 10th of the same month Benedict
Labre[13] was beatified in Rome: there you have two different worlds.
The war hurried the remaining nobles out of France. Persecutions were
being redoubled on the one hand; on the other, the Royalists were no
longer permitted to stay at home without being accounted as cowards: it
was time for me to make my way to the camp which I had come so far to
seek. My uncle de Bedée and his family took ship for Jersey, and I set
out for Paris with my wife and my sisters Lucile and Julie.

[Sidenote: We go to Paris.]

We had secured an apartment in the little Hôtel de Villette, in the
Cul-de-Sac Férou, Faubourg Saint-Germain. I hastened in search of
my first friends. I saw the men of letters with whom I had had some
acquaintance. Among new faces I noticed those of the learned Abbé
Barthélemy[14] and the poet Saint-Ange[15]. The abbé modelled the
_gynecœa_ of Athens too closely upon the drawing-rooms at Chanteloup.
The translator of Ovid was not a man without talent; talent is a gift,
an isolated thing: it can come together with other mental faculties,
it can be separated from them. Saint-Ange supplied a proof of this; he
made the greatest efforts not to be stupid, but was unable to prevent
himself. A man whose pencil I admired and still admire, Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre[16], was lacking in intelligence, and unfortunately his
character was on a level with his intelligence. How many pictures in
the _Études de la nature_ are spoilt by the writer's limited mind and
want of elevation of soul.

Rulhière had died suddenly, in 1791[17], before my departure for
America. I have since seen his little house at Saint-Denis, with the
fountain and the pretty statue of Love, at the foot of which one reads
these verses:

    D'Egmont avec l'Amour visita cette rive:
      Une image de sa beauté
    Se peignit un moment sur l'onde fugitive:
    D'Egmont a disparu; l'Amour seul est resté[18].

When I left France the theatres of Paris were still ringing with the
_Réveil d'Épiménide_[19], and with this stanza:

    J'aime la vertu guerrière
      De nos braves défenseurs,
    Mais d'un peuple sanguinaire
      Je déteste les fureurs.
    À l'Europe redoutables,
      Soyons libres à jamais,
    Mais soyons toujours aimables
      Et gardons l'esprit français[20].

When I returned, the _Réveil d'Épiménide_ had been forgotten; and, if
the stanza had been sung, the author would have been badly handled.
_Charles IX._ was now the rage. The popularity of this piece depended
principally upon the circumstances of the time: the tocsin, a nation
armed with poniards, the hatred of the kings and the priests, all these
offered a reproduction between four walls of the tragedy which was
being publicly enacted. Talma, still at the commencement of his career,
was continuing his successes.

While tragedy dyed the streets, the pastoral flourished on the stage;
there was question of little but innocent shepherds and virginal
shepherdesses: fields, brooks, meadows, sheep, doves, the golden age
beneath the thatch, were revived to the sighing of the shepherd's
pipe before the cooing Tirces and the simple-minded knitting-women
who had but lately left that other spectacle of the guillotine. Had
Sanson had time, he would have played Colin to Mademoiselle Théroigne
de Méricourt's[21] Babet. The Conventionals plumed themselves upon
being the mildest of men: good fathers, good sons, good husbands, they
went out walking with the children, acted as their nurses, wept with
tenderness at their simple games; they lifted these little lambs gently
in their arms to show them the "gee-gees" of the carts carrying the
victims to execution. They sang the praises of nature, peace, pity,
kindness, candour, the domestic virtues; these devout philanthropists,
with extreme sensibility, sent their neighbours to have their heads
sliced off for the greater happiness of mankind.

*

[Sidenote: Paris in 1792.]

Paris in 1792 no longer presented the outward aspect of 1789 and 1790:
one saw no longer the budding Revolution, but a people marching drunk
to its destinies, across abysses and by uncertain roads. The appearance
of the people was no longer tumultuous, curious, eager: it was
threatening. In the streets one met none but frightened or ferocious
figures, men creeping along the houses so as not to be seen, or others
seeking their prey: timid and lowered eyes were turned away from you,
or else harsh eyes were fixed on yours in order to sound and fathom you.

All diversity of costume had ceased; the old world kept in the
background; men had donned the uniform cloak of the new world, a
cloak which had become merely the last garment of the future victims.
Already the social license displayed at the rejuvenation of France,
the liberties of 1789, those fantastic and unruly liberties of a state
of things which is engaged in self-destruction and which has not yet
turned to anarchy were levelling themselves beneath the sceptre of the
people; one felt the approach of a plebeian tyranny, fruitful, it is
true, and filled with expectations, but also formidable in a manner
very different from the decaying despotism of the old monarchy: for,
the sovereign people being ubiquitous, when it turns tyrant the tyrant
is ubiquitous; it is the universal presence of an universal Tiberius.

With the Parisian population was mingled an exotic population of
cut-throats from the south; the advance-guard of the Marseillese, whom
Danton was bringing up for the day's work of the 10th of August and the
massacres of September, were recognisable by their rags, their bronzed
complexions, their look of cowardice and crime, but of crime of another
sun: _in vultu vitium._

In the Legislative Assembly there was no one whom I recognised;
Mirabeau and the early idols of our troubles either were no more or had
been hurled from their altars. In order to put together the thread of
history broken by my journey in America, I must trace matters a little
further back.

*

The flight of the King, on the 21st of June 1791, caused the Revolution
to take an immense step forward. Brought back to Paris on the 25th
of that month, he was then dethroned for the first time, since the
National Assembly declared that its decrees would have the force of
law without there being any need of royal sanction or acceptance. A
high court of justice, anticipating the revolutionary tribunal, was
established at Orleans. Thenceforward Madame Roland[22] demanded the
head of the Queen, until such time as her own head should be demanded
by the Revolution. The mob-gathering had taken place in the Champ de
Mars, to protest against the decree which suspended the King from his
functions instead of putting him upon his trial. The acceptance of
the Constitution, on the 14th of September, had no calming effect.
There was a question of declaring the dethronement of Louis XVI.;
had this been done, the crime of the 21st of January would not have
been committed; the position of the French people in relation to the
monarchy and in the eyes of posterity would have been different. The
Constituents who opposed the dethronement thought they were saving the
Crown, whereas they undid it; those who thought to undo it by demanding
the dethronement would have saved it. In politics the result is almost
invariably the opposite of what is foreseen.

On the 30th of that same month of September 1791, the Constituent
Assembly held its last sitting; the imprudent decree of the 17th of May
previous, which prohibited the re-election of the retiring members,
gave birth to the Convention. There is nothing more dangerous, more
inadequate, more inapplicable to general affairs than resolutions
appropriate to individuals or bodies of men, however honourable in
themselves.

The decree of the 29th of September for regulating popular societies
served only to make them more violent. This was the last act of the
Constituent Assembly: it dissolved on the following day, bequeathing to
France a revolution.

*

[Sidenote: The Legislative Assembly.]

The Legislative Assembly, installed on the 1st of October 1791,
revolved within the whirlwind which was about to sweep away the living
and the dead. Troubles stained the departments with blood; at Caen
the people were surfeited with massacres and ate the heart of M. de
Belsunce[23].

The King set his veto to the decree against the Emigrants and to that
which deprived the non-juror ecclesiastics of all emolument. These
lawful acts increased the excitement. Pétion had become Mayor of
Paris[24]. The deputies preferred a bill of impeachment against the
Emigrant Princes on the 1st of January 1792; on the 2nd, they fixed the
commencement of the Year IV. of Liberty on that same 1st of January.
About the 13th of February, red caps were seen in the streets of Paris,
and the municipality ordered pikes to be manufactured. The manifesto
of the Emigrants appeared on the 1st of March. Austria armed. Paris
was divided into more or less hostile sections[25]. On the 20th of
March 1792, the Legislative Assembly adopted the sepulchral piece of
mechanism without which the sentences of the Terror could not have been
executed; it was first tried on dead bodies, so that these might teach
it its trade. One may speak of the instrument as of an executioner,
since persons who were touched by its good services presented it with
sums of money for its support[26]. The invention of the murder-machine,
at the very moment when it had become necessary to crime, is a
noteworthy proof of the intelligence of co-ordinate facts, or rather a
proof of the hidden action of Providence when it proposes to change the
face of empires.

Minister Roland had been summoned to the King's Council at the
instigation of the Girondins[27]. On the 20th of April, war was
declared against the King of Hungary and Bohemia[28]. Marat published
the _Ami du peuple_ in spite of the decree by which he was stricken.
The Royal German Regiment and the Berchiny Regiment deserted.
Isnard[29] spoke of the perfidy of the Court, Gensonné[30] and
Brissot[31] denounced the Austrian Committee. An insurrection broke
out on the subject of the Royal Guard, which was disbanded[32]. On
the 28th of May, the Assembly declared its sittings permanent. On the
20th of June, the Palace of the Tuileries was forced by the mob of
the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, the pretext being the
refusal of Louis XVI. to sanction the proscription of the priests; the
King was in peril of his life. The country was declared in danger.
M. de La Fayette was burnt in effigy. The federates of the second
Federation were arriving; the Marseilleise, called up by Danton, were
on the march: they entered Paris on the 30th of July and were billeted
by Pétion at the Cordeliers.

*

By the side of the national tribune, two competing tribunes had sprung
up: that of the Jacobins and that of the Cordeliers, then the more
formidable because it sent members to the famous Commune of Paris and
supplied it with means of action. If the formation of the Commune had
not taken place, Paris, for want of a point of concentration, would
have split up, and the various mayoralties become rival powers.

[Sidenote: The Club of Cordeliers.]

The Club des Cordeliers had its abode in the monastery, whose church
was built in the reign of St Louis, in 1259[33], with funds paid as
damages for a murder: in 1590 it became the resort of the most famous
Leaguers. Certain places seem to be the laboratories of factions:
"Intelligence was brought," says L'Estoile (12 July 1593), "to the
Duc de Mayenne[34] of two hundred Cordeliers newly arrived in Paris,
supplying themselves with arms and concerting with the Sixteen[35],
who held council daily at the Cordeliers of Paris.... On that day the
Sixteen, assembled at the Cordeliers, cast aside their arms."

The fanatics of the League had therefore handed down the monastery of
the Cordeliers to our philosophical revolutionaries as a dead-house.

The pictures, the carved and painted images, the veils, the curtains
of the convent had been pulled down; the basilica, flayed of its
skin, presented its bare skeleton to the eye. In the apsis of the
church, where the wind and the rain entered through the broken panes
of the rose-windows, some joiners' benches served as a table for the
president, when the sittings were held in the church. On these benches
lay red caps, with which each speaker covered his head before ascending
the tribune. The latter consisted of four buttressed stop-planks,
crossed at their X by a single plank, like a scaffolding.
Behind the president, together with a statue of Liberty, one saw
so-called instruments of ancient justice, instruments whose place had
been supplied by one other, the blood-machine, in the same way as
complicated machinery has been replaced by the hydraulic ram. The Club
des Jacobins _épurés_, or purged Jacobin Club, borrowed some of these
arrangements of the Cordeliers.

*

The orators, who had met for purposes of destruction, were unable to
agree in electing their leaders or in the methods to be employed; they
treated each other as scoundrels, pickpockets, thieves, butchers, to
the cacophony of the hisses and groans of their several groups of
devils. Their metaphors were taken from the stock of murders, borrowed
from the filthiest objects of every kind of sewer and dunghill, or
drawn from the places consecrated to the prostitution of men and
women. Gestures accentuated these figures of speech; everything was
called by its name, with cynical indecency, in an obscene and impious
pageantry of oaths and blasphemies. Destruction and production, death
and generation, one distinguished naught else through the savage
slang which deafened the ears. The speech-makers, with their shrill
or thundering voices, had interrupters other than their opponents:
the little brown owls of the cloisters without monks and the steeple
without bells played in the broken windows, in the hope of booty;
they interrupted the speeches. They were first called to order by the
jingling of the impotent bell; but when they failed to stop their
clamour, shots were fired at them to compel them to silence: they fell,
throbbing, wounded and fatidical, in the midst of the pandemonium.
Broken-down timber-work, rickety pews, ramshackle stalls, fragments
of saints rolled and pushed against the walls, served as benches
for the dirty, grimy, drunken, sweating spectators, in their ragged
_carmagnoles_, with their shouldered pikes or bare crossed arms.

The most deformed of the band obtained the readiest hearing. Mental
and bodily infirmities have played a part in our troubles: wounded
self-love has made great revolutionaries.

*

Following this precedence of hideousness, there appeared in succession,
mingled with the ghosts of the Sixteen, a series of gorgon heads.
The former doctor of the Comte d'Artois' Bodyguards, the Swiss fœtus
Marat[36], his bare feet in wooden clogs or hob-nailed shoes, was the
first to hold forth, by virtue of his incontestable claims. Holding
the office of "jester" at the Court of the people, he exclaimed, with
an insipid expression and the smirk of trite politeness which the old
bringing-up set on every face:

"People, you must cut off two hundred and seventy thousand heads!"

To this Caligula of the public places succeeded the atheistical
shoemaker Chaumette[37]. He was followed by the "Attorney-General
to the Lantern," Camille Desmoulins, a stuttering Cicero, a public
counsellor of murders worn out with debauchery, a frivolous Republican
with his puns and jokes, a maker of graveyard jests, who said that, in
the massacres of September, "all had passed off orderly." He consented
to become a Spartan, provided the making of the black broth was left to
Méot the tavern-keeper[38].

Fouché[39], who had hastened up from Juilly or Nantes, studied disaster
under those doctors: in the circle of wild beasts seated attentively
round the chair he looked like a dressed-up hyena. He smelt the
effluvium of the blood to come; already he inhaled the incense of the
procession of asses and executioners, pending the day on which, driven
from the Club des Jacobins as a thief, an atheist and an assassin, he
should be chosen as a minister.

[Sidenote: Marat.]

When Marat had climbed down from his plank, that popular Triboulet[40]
became the sport of his masters: they filliped him on the nose, trod
on his feet, hustled him with "gee-ups," all of which did not prevent
him from becoming the leader of the multitude, climbing to the clock
of the Hôtel de Ville, sounding the tocsin for a general massacre, and
triumphing in the revolutionary tribunal.

Marat, like Milton's Sin, was violated by death[41]: Chénier wrote his
apotheosis, David[42] painted him in his blood-stained bath; he was
compared to the divine Author of the Gospel. A prayer was dedicated to
him: "Heart of Jesus, Heart of Marat; O Sacred Heart of Jesus, O Sacred
Heart of Marat!" This heart of Marat had for a ciborium a costly pyx
from the Royal Repository. In a grass-grown cenotaph, erected on the
Place du Carrousel, were exhibited the divinity's bust, his bath, lamp,
and inkstand. Then the wind changed: the unclean thing, poured from its
agate urn into a different vase, was emptied into the sewer.

*

The scenes at the Cordeliers, of which I witnessed some three or four,
were dominated and presided over by Danton, a Hun of Gothic stature,
with a flat nose, outspread nostrils, furrowed jaws, and the face of
a gendarme combined with that of a lewd and cruel attorney. In the
shell of his church, as it were the skeleton of the centuries, Danton,
with his three male furies, Camille Desmoulins, Marat, and Fabre
d'Églantine[43], organized the assassinations of September. Billaud de
Varennes[44] proposed to set fire to the prisons and burn all those
inside; another Conventional voted that all the untried prisoners
should be drowned; Marat declared himself in favour of a general
massacre. Danton was besought to show mercy to the prisoners:

"----the prisoners!" he replied.

As author of the circular of the Commune, he invited free men to repeat
in the departments the enormities perpetrated at the Carmelites and the
Abbaye.

Let us consider history: Sixtus V.[45] pronounced the devotion of
Jacques Clément[46] to be equal, for the salvation of mankind, to the
mystery of the Incarnation, even as Marat was compared to the Saviour
of the World; Charles IX.[47] wrote to the governors of provinces to
imitate the St. Bartholomew[48] massacres, even as Danton summoned
the patriots to copy the massacres of September. The Jacobins were
plagiaries; they were still more so when they offered up Louis XVI.
in imitation of Charles I.[49] As these crimes were connected with a
great social movement, some have, very unaptly, imagined that those
crimes produced the greatness of the Revolution, of which they were
but the hideous _pasticcios_: while watching a fine nature suffering,
passionate or systematic minds have admired only its convulsions.

Danton, more candid than the English, said:

"We will not try our King, we will kill him."

He also said:

"Those priests and nobles are not guilty, but they must die, because
they are out of place; they trammel the movement of things and obstruct
the future."

These words, beneath an appearance of horrible depth, possess no extent
of genius, for they presume that innocence is nothing, and that moral
order can be withdrawn from political order without causing the latter
to perish, which is false.

[Sidenote: Danton.]

Danton had not the conviction of the principles he maintained; he had
donned the revolutionary cloak only to make his fortune.

"Come and 'brawl' with us," he advised a young man: "when you have
grown rich, you can do as you please."

He admitted that, if he had not sold himself to the Court, it was
because it would not pay a high enough price for him: an instance
of the effrontery of a mind that knows itself and a corruption that
reveals itself open-mouthed.

Though inferior, even in ugliness, to Marat, whose agent he had been,
Danton was superior to Robespierre, without, like the latter, having
given his name to his crimes. He preserved the religious sense:

"We have not," he said, "destroyed superstition to establish atheism."

His passions might have been good ones, if only because they were
passions. We must allow for character in the actions of men; culprits
with heated imaginations like Danton seem, by reason of the very
exaggeration of their sayings and doings, to be more froward than the
cool-headed culprits, whereas in fact they are less so. This remark
applies also to the people: taken collectively, the people is a poet,
author and ardent actor of the piece which it plays or is made to play.
Its excesses partake not so much of the instinct of a native cruelty
as of the delirium of a crowd intoxicated with sights, especially when
these are tragic: a thing so true that, in popular horrors, there is
always something superfluous added to the picture and the emotion.

Danton was caught in the trap himself had laid. It availed him nothing
to flick pellets of bread at his judges' noses, to reply nobly and
courageously, to cause the tribunal to hesitate, to endanger and
terrify the Convention, to reason logically upon crimes by which the
very power of his enemies had been created, to exclaim, smitten with
barren repentance, "It was I who instituted this infamous tribunal: I
crave pardon for it of God and men!" a phrase which has been pilfered
more than once. It was before being indicted before the tribunal that
he should have declared its infamy.

It only remained to Danton to show himself as pitiless for his own
death as he had been for that of his victims, to hold his head higher
than the hanging knife: and this he did. From the stage of the Terror,
where his feet stuck in the clotted blood of the previous day, after
turning a glance of contempt and domination over the crowd, he said to
the headsman:

"Show my head to the people; it is worth showing."

Danton's head remained in the executioner's hands, while the acephalous
shade went to join the decapitated shades of his victims: a further
instance of equality. Danton's deacon and sub-deacon, Camille
Desmoulins and Fabre d'Églantine, died in the same manner as their
priest.

[Sidenote: Camille Desmoulins.]

At a time when pensions were being paid to the guillotine, when one
wore at the buttonhole of one's carmagnole, by way of a flower, a
little guillotine in gold, or else a small piece of a guillotined
person's heart; at a time when people shouted, "Hell for ever!" when
they celebrated the joyful orgies of blood, steel and fury, when they
toasted annihilation, when they danced the dance of the dead quite
naked, so as not to have the trouble of undressing when about to
join them; at that time one was bound in the end to come to the last
banquet, the last pleasantry of sorrow. Desmoulins was invited to
Fouquier-Tinville's[50] tribunal.

"What is your age?" asked the president.

"The age of the Sans-Culotte Jesus," replied Camille facetiously[51].

An avenging obsession compelled the assassins of Christians unceasingly
to confess the name of Christ.

It would be unfair to forget that Camille Desmoulins dared to defy
Robespierre and to atone for his errors by his courage. He gave the
signal for the reaction against the Terror. A young and charming wife,
full of energy, had, by making him capable of love, made him capable
of virtue and sacrifice. Indignation instilled eloquence into the
tribune's coarse and reckless irony: he attacked in the grand manner
the scaffolds he had helped to erect. Adapting his conduct to his
speech, he refused to consent to his execution; he struggled with the
headsman in the tumbril, and arrived at the edge of the last gulf with
his clothes half tom from his back.

Fabre d'Églantine, author of a play which will live[52], displayed,
quite contrary to Desmoulins, a signal weakness. Jean Roseau, public
executioner of Paris under the League, who was hanged for lending his
offices to the assassins of the Président Brisson[53], could not bring
himself to accept the rope. It seems that one does not learn how to die
by killing others.

The debates at the Cordeliers established for me the fact of a state of
society at the most rapid moment of its transformation. I had seen the
Constituent Assembly commence the murder of the kingship in 1789 and
1790; I found the body, still quite warm, of the old monarchy handed
over in 1792 to the legislative gut-workers: they disembowelled and
dissected it in the cellars of their clubs, as the halberdiers cut up
and burnt the body of the Balafré[54] in the garret of Blois Castle.

Of all the men whom I recall, Danton, Marat. Camille Desmoulins, Fabre
d'Églantine, Robespierre, not one is alive. I met them for a moment on
my passage between a nascent society in America and an expiring society
in Europe; between the forests of the New World and the solitudes of
exile: before I had reckoned a few months on foreign soil, those lovers
of death had already spent themselves in her arms. At the distance
at which I now find myself from their appearance, it seems to me as
though, after descending into the infernal regions of my youth, I
retain a confused recollection of the shades which I vaguely saw wander
by the bank of Cocytus: they complete the varied dreams of my life, and
come to be inscribed on my tablets of beyond the tomb.

*

It was a great pleasure to meet M. de Malesherbes again and speak to
him of my old projects. I stated my plans for a second journey, which
was to last nine years; all I had to do first was to take another
little journey to Germany: I was to run to the Army of the Princes, and
come back at a run to kill the Revolution; all this would be finished
in two or three months, when I should hoist my sail and return to the
New World, having got rid of a revolution and enriched myself by a
marriage.

And yet my zeal exceeded my faith; I felt that the emigration was a
stupidity and a madness:

"I was shaven on all hands," says Montaigne. "To the Ghibelin I was a
Guelf, to Guelf a Ghibelin[55]."

My distaste for absolute monarchy left me with no illusions concerning
the step I was taking. I cherished scruples, and, although resolved
to sacrifice myself to honour, I desired to have M. de Malesherbes'
opinion on the emigration. I found him much incensed: the crimes
continued under his eyes had caused the friend of Rousseau to lose his
political toleration; between the cause of the victims and that of the
butchers he did not hesitate. He believed that anything was better than
the existing state of things; he thought that, in my particular case, a
man wearing the sword was bound to join the brothers of a King who was
oppressed and delivered to his enemies. He approved of my returning to
America, and urged my brother to go with me.

I raised the ordinary objections based upon the assistance of
foreigners, the interests of the country, and so on. He replied
and, passing from general arguments to details, quoted some awkward
examples. He put before me the case of the Guelphs and Ghibhelinnes,
relying on the troops of the Emperor and the Pope; in England, the
barons rising against John Lackland. Finally, in our times, he quoted
the case of the Republic of the United States imploring the assistance
of France.

"In the same way," continued M. de Malesherbes, "the men most devoted
to liberty and philosophy, the Republicans and Protestants, have never
considered themselves to blame when they have borrowed a force which
could ensure the victory of their opinion. Would the New World be free
today without our gold, our ships, and our soldiers? I, Malesherbes,
who am speaking to you, did not I, in 1776, receive Franklin, who
came to renew the relations entered into by Silas Deane[56], and yet
was Franklin a traitor? Was American liberty any the less honourable
for being assisted by La Fayette and won by French grenadiers? Every
government which, instead of securing the fundamental laws of society,
itself transgresses the laws of equity, the rules of justice, ceases to
exist, and restores man to the state of nature. It is then lawful to
defend one's self as best one may, to resort to the means that appear
most calculated to overthrow tyranny and to restore the rights of one
and all."

[Sidenote: Talks with Malesherbes.]

The principles of natural right as set forth by the greatest
publicists, developed by such a man as M. de Malesherbes, and supported
by numerous historical examples, struck me without convincing me;
I yielded in reality only to the impulse of my age, to the point
of honour. I will add some more recent examples to those of M. de
Malesherbes: during the Spanish War of 1823, the French Republican
Party went to serve under the banner of the Cortès, and did not scruple
to bear arms against its own country; in 1830 and 1831, the Poles and
the constitutional Italians invoked the assistance of France, and the
Portuguese of the "Charter" invaded their country with the aid of
foreign money and foreign soldiers. We have two standards of weight
and measurement: we approve in the case of one idea, one system, one
interest, one man of that which we condemn in the case of another idea,
another system, another interest, another man.

These conversations between myself and the illustrious defender of the
King took place at my sister-in-law's; she had just given birth to a
second son, to whom M. de Malesherbes stood god-father and gave his
name, Christian. I was present at the baptism of this child, which
was to see its father and mother only at an age at which life leaves
no memory and appears at a distance like an ill-remembered dream. The
preparations for my departure lagged. They had thought that they were
making me contract a rich marriage: it appeared that my wife's fortune
was invested in Church securities; the nation undertook to pay them
after its own fashion. Not only that, but Madame de Chateaubriand had,
with the consent of her trustees, lent the scrip of a large portion of
these securities to her sister, the Comtesse du Plessix-Parscau, who
had emigrated. Money was still wanting, therefore; it became necessary
to borrow.

A notary procured ten thousand francs for us: I was taking them home to
the Cul-de-sac Férou, in _assignats_, when, in the Rue de Richelieu, I
met one of my old messmates in the Navarre Regiment, the Comte Achard.
He was a great gambler; he proposed that we should go to the rooms of
M----, where we could talk; the devil urged me: I went upstairs, I
played, I lost all, except fifteen hundred francs, with which, full of
remorse and humiliation, I climbed into the first coach that passed.
I had never played before: play produced in me a sort of painful
intoxication; if the passion had attacked me, it would have turned
my brain. With half-disordered wits, I stepped out of the coach at
Saint-Sulpice, and left my pocket-book behind, containing the remnant
of my treasure. I ran home and said that I had left the ten thousand
francs in a hackney-coach.

I went out again, turned down the Rue Dauphine, crossed the Pont-Neuf,
feeling half inclined to throw myself into the water; I went to the
Place du Palais-Royal, where I had taken the ill-omened vehicle. I
questioned the Savoyards who watered the screws, and described my
conveyance; they told me a number at random. The police commissary of
the district informed me that that number belonged to a job-master
living at the top of the Faubourg Saint-Denis. I went to the
man's house; I remained all night in the stable, waiting for the
hackney-coaches to return: a large number arrived in succession which
were not mine; at last, at two o'clock in the morning, I saw my chariot
drive in. I had hardly time to recognise my two white steeds, when the
poor beasts, utterly worn out, dropped down upon the straw, stiff,
their stomachs distended, their legs stretched out, as though dead.

The coachman remembered driving me. After me, he had taken up a
citizen, whom he had set down at the Jacobins; after the citizen, a
lady, whom he had taken to the Rue de Cléry, number 13; after that
lady, a gentleman, whom he had put down at the Recollects in the Rue
Saint-Martin. I promised the driver a gratuity, and, the moment
daylight had come, set out on the discovery of my fifteen hundred
francs, as I had gone in search of the North-West Passage. It seemed
clear to me that the citizen of the Jacobins had confiscated them by
right of his sovereignty. The young person of the Rue de Cléry averred
that she had seen nothing in the coach. I reached the third station
without any hope; the coachman gave a tolerably good description of the
gentleman he had driven. The porter exclaimed:

"It's the Père So-and-so!"

He led me through the passages and the deserted apartments to a
Recollect who had remained behind alone to make an inventory of the
furniture of his convent. Seated on a heap of rubbish, in a dusty
frock-coat, the monk listened to my story:

"Are you," he asked, "the Chevalier de Chateaubriand?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Here is your pocket-book," said he. "I would have brought it when I
had finished: I found your address inside."

[Sidenote: An honest monk.]

It was this hunted and plundered monk, engaged in conscientiously
counting up the relics of his cloister for his proscribes, who restored
to me the fifteen hundred francs with which I was about to make my
way to exile. Failing this small sum, I should not have emigrated:
what should I have become? My whole life would have changed. I will be
hanged if I would to-day move a step to recover a million.

This happened on the 16th of June 1792. Obeying the promptings of
my instinct, I had returned from America to offer my sword to Louis
XVI., not to associate myself with party intrigues. The disbanding of
the King's new guard, of which Murat[57] was a member; the successive
ministries of Roland[58], Dumouriez, Duport du Tertre[59]; the little
conspiracies of the Court and the great popular risings filled me
only with weariness and contempt. I heard much talk of Madame Roland,
whom I never saw: her Memoirs show that she possessed an extraordinary
strength of mind. She was said to be very agreeable: it remains to be
known whether she was sufficiently so to make at all tolerable the
cynicism of her unnatural virtues. Certainly the woman who, at the
foot of the guillotine, asked for pen and ink to describe the last
moments of her journey, to write down the discoveries she had made in
the course of her progress from the Conciergerie to the Place de la
Révolution, that woman displayed an absorption in futurity, a contempt
for life, of which there are few examples. Madame Roland possessed
character rather than genius: the first can give the second, the second
cannot give the first.

On the 19th of June, I went to the Vale of Montmorency to visit the
Hermitage of J. J. Rousseau: not that I delighted in the memories of
Madame d'Épinay[60] and of that depraved and artificial society; but
I wished to take leave of the solitude of a man whose morals were
antipathetic to mine, although he himself was endowed with a talent
whose accents stirred my youth. On the next day, the 20th of June, I
was still at the Hermitage, and there met two men walking, like myself,
in that deserted spot during the fatal day of the monarchy, indifferent
as they were or might be, thought I, to the affairs of this world:
one was M. Maret[61], of the Empire, the other M. Barère[62], of the
Republic. The amiable Barère had come, far from the uproar, in his
sentimental, philosophical way, to whisper soft revolutionary nothings
to the shade of Julie. The troubadour of the guillotine, on whose
report the Convention decreed that the Terror was the order of the
day, escaped the same Terror by hiding in the head-basket; from the
bottom of the bloody trough, beneath the scaffold, he was heard only to
croak the word, "Death!" Barère belonged to the species of tigers which
Oppian represents as born of the wind's light breath: _velocis Zephyri
proles._

Ginguené, Chamfort, my old friends among the men of letters, were
delighted with the 20th of June. La Harpe, continuing his lectures at
the Lycée, shouted in a stentorian voice:

"Fools! To all the representations of the people you answered,
'Bayonets! Bayonets!' Well, you have them now, your bayonets!"

Although my travels in America had made a less insignificant personage
of me, I was unable to rise to so great a height of principle and
eloquence. Fontanes was in danger through his former connection
with the Société Monarchique. My brother was a member of a club of
_enragés._ The Prussians were marching by virtue of a convention
between the Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin; a rather fierce engagement
had already taken place between the French and Austrians near Mons. It
was more than time for me to take a decision.

[Sidenote: My brother and I emigrate.]

My brother and I procured false passports for Lille: we were two
wine-merchants and national guards of Paris, wearing the uniform
and proposing to tender for the army supplies. My brother's valet,
Louis Poullain, known as Saint-Louis, travelled under his own name;
he came from Lamballe, in Lower Brittany, but was going to see his
family in Flanders. The day of our emigration was settled for the
15th of July, the day after the second Federation. We spent the 14th
in the Tivoli garden, with the Rosanbo family, my sisters and my
wife. Tivoli belonged to M. Boutin[63], whose daughter had married
M. de Malesherbes[64]. Towards the end of the day we saw a good many
federates wandering about after disbanding; on their hats was written
in chalk, "Pétion or death!" Tivoli, the starting-point of my exile,
was to become a centre of amusements and fêtes. Our relations took
leave of us without sadness; they were persuaded that we were going on
a pleasure-trip. My recovered fifteen hundred francs seemed a treasure
sufficient to bring me back in triumph to Paris.

On the 10th of July, at six o'clock in the morning, we climbed into the
diligence: we had booked our seats in the front part, by the guard;
the valet, whom we were supposed not to know, stuffed himself into the
inside with the other passengers. Saint-Louis walked in his sleep; in
Paris he used to go looking for his master at night, with his eyes
open, but quite asleep. He used to undress my brother and put him to
bed, sleeping all the time, answering, "I know, I know," to all that
was said to him during his attacks, and waking only when cold water was
thrown in his face: he was a man of about forty, nearly six feet high,
and as ugly as he was tall. This poor fellow, who was very respectful
by nature, had never served any master except my brother; he was quite
confused when he had to sit down to table with us at supper. The
passengers, great patriots all, talking of hanging the aristocrats from
the lanterns, increased his dismay. The thought that, at the end of all
this, he would be obliged to pass through the Austrian Army, in order
to fight in the Army of the Princes, completely turned his brain. He
drank heavily and climbed into the diligence again; we went back to the
coupé.

In the middle of the night we heard the passengers shouting, with their
heads out of the windows:

"Stop, postilion, stop!"

They stopped, the door of the diligence was opened, and immediately
male and female voices exclaimed:

"Get down, citizen, get down! We can't stand this! Get down, you beast!
He's a brigand! Get down, get down!"

We got down too, and saw Saint-Louis hustled, flung out of the coach,
stand up, turn his wide-open but sleeping eyes around him, and take
to flight in the direction of Paris, without his hat, and as fast as
his legs would carry him. We were unable to acknowledge him, or we
should have betrayed ourselves; we had to leave him to his fate. He was
caught and taken up at the first village, and stated that he was the
servant of M. le Comte de Chateaubriand, and that he lived in the Rue
de Bondy, Paris. The rural police passed him on from brigade to brigade
to the Président de Rosanbo's; the unhappy man's depositions served to
prove our emigration, and to send my brother and sister-in-law to the
scaffold.

The next day, when the diligence stopped for breakfast, we had to
listen to the whole story a score of times:

"That man had a perturbed imagination; he was dreaming out loud; he
said strange things; he was no doubt a conspirator, an assassin fleeing
from justice."

The well-bred citizenesses blushed and waved large green-paper
"Constitutional" fans. We easily recognised through these stories the
effects of somnambulism, fear and wine.

[Sidenote: We cross the frontier.]

On reaching Lille, we went in search of the person who was to take
us across the frontier. The Emigration had its agents of safety who
eventually became agents of perdition. The monarchical party was still
powerful, the question undecided: the weak and cowardly served, while
awaiting the turn of events. We left Lille before the gates were
closed: we stopped at a remote house, and did not start until ten
o'clock at night, when it was quite dark; we carried nothing with us;
we had a little cane in our hands; it was no more than a year since I,
in the same way, followed my Dutchman in the American forests.

We crossed cornfields through which wound hardly traceable footpaths.
The French and Austrian patrols were beating the country-side: we
were liable to fall in with either, or to find ourselves in front of
the pistols of a vedette. We saw single horsemen in the distance,
motionless, weapon in hand; we heard the hoofs of horses in the hollow
roads; laying our ears against the ground, we heard the regular tramp
of infantry marching. After three hours spent alternately in running
and in creeping along on tiptoe, we reached a cross-road in a wood
where some belated nightingales were singing. A troop of uhlans, posted
behind a hedge, fell upon us with raised sabres. We shouted:

"Officers going to join the Princes!"

We asked to be taken to Tournay, saying we were in a position to make
ourselves known. The officer in command placed us between his troopers
and carried us off. When day broke, the uhlans perceived our national
guards' uniforms under our surtouts, and insulted the colours in which
France was soon to dress her vassal, Europe.

In Tournaisis, the primitive kingdom of the Franks, Clovis resided
during the early years of his reign; he set out from Tournay with his
companions, summoned as he was to the conquest of the Gauls: "Arms
always have right on their side," says Tacitus. Through this town, from
which, in 486, the first King of the First Race[65] rode to found his
long and mighty monarchy, I passed in 1792 to go and join the Princes
of the Third Race on foreign soil, and I passed through it again in
1815, when the last King of the French abandoned the kingdom of the
first King of the Franks: _omnia migrant._

When we reached Tournay, I left my brother to grapple with the
authorities, and in the custody of a soldier visited the cathedral. In
days of old, Odo of Orleans, the scholasticus of the cathedral, seated
at night before the church porch, taught his disciples the course of
the planets, and pointed out to them the Milky Way and the stars.
I would rather have found this artless eleventh-century astronomer
at Tournay than the Pandours. I delight in those days in which the
chronicles tell me, under the year 1049, that, in Normandy, a man had
been transformed into a donkey: that was like to have happened to me,
as the reader knows, at the house of the Demoiselles Couppart, who
taught me to read. Hildebert[66], in 1114, saw a girl from whose ears
grew spikes of corn: perhaps it was Ceres. The Meuse, which I was
soon to cross, was suspended in mid-air in the year 1118, as witness
Guillaume de Nangis[67] and Albéric[68]. Rigord[69] assures us that,
in 1194, between Compiègne and Clermont in Beauvoisis, there fell a
storm of hail, mixed with ravens which carried charcoal and caused a
fire. If the tempest, as Gervase of Tilbury[70] tells us, was unable to
extinguish a candle on the window-sill of the priory of Saint-Michel
"de Camissa," we also know through him that, in the Diocese of Uzès,
there was a fair and clear spring which changed its place when anything
unclean was thrown into it: our latter-day consciences do not put
themselves out for so little.

Reader, I am not wasting time; I am chatting with you to keep you in
patience while waiting for my brother, who is arranging things: here
he comes, after explaining himself to the satisfaction of the Austrian
commander. We have leave to go on to Brussels, an exile purchased with
too much care and trouble.

*

[Sidenote: Brussels.]

Brussels was the head-quarters of the upper Emigration: the most
elegant women of Paris and the most fashionable men, those who were
able to march only as aides-de-camp, were awaiting amid pleasures the
moment of victory. They had fine brand-new uniforms; they paraded
the very pedantry of frivolity. Considerable sums, enough to keep
them for a few years, were squandered in a few days: it was not worth
while economizing, since we should be in Paris directly. Those gallant
knights, reversing the practice of the olden chivalry, were preparing
for glory with successes in love. They scornfully watched us trudging
on foot, knapsack on back, small provincial gentlemen that we were, or
poor officers turned into private soldiers. Those Hercules sat at the
feet of their Omphales spinning the distaffs which they had sent us and
which we handed back to them as we passed, contenting ourselves with
our swords.

In Brussels I found my scanty luggage, which had fraudulently passed
the customs ahead of me: it consisted of my Navarre uniform, a little
linen, and my precious papers, with which I could not part. I was
invited with my brother to dine at the Baron de Breteuil's; I there met
the Baronne de Montmorency, then young and beautiful, at this moment
dying; martyr bishops in watered-silk cassocks and gold crosses; young
magistrates transformed into Hungarian colonels; and Rivarol, whom I
saw only once in my life. His name had not been mentioned; I was struck
by the conversation of a man who held forth all alone and was listened
to, with some right, as an oracle. Rivarol's wit was prejudicial to his
talent, as his tongue was to his pen. Talking of revolutions, he said:

"The first blow aims at God, the second strikes only a senseless slab
of marble."

I had resumed my uniform of a petty infantry subaltern; I was to start
on rising from dinner, and my knapsack was behind the door. I was still
bronzed by the American sun and the sea air; I wore my hair uncurled
and unpowdered. My face and my silence troubled Rivarol; the Baron de
Breteuil, perceiving his restless curiosity, satisfied it:

"Where does your brother the chevalier come from?" he asked my brother.

I answered:

"From Niagara."

Rivarol cried:

"From the cataract!"

I was silent. He hazarded an uncompleted question:

"Monsieur is going----?"

"Where they are fighting," I broke in.

We rose from table.

This fatuous Emigrant society was hateful to me; I was eager to see my
peers, Emigrants like myself with six hundred francs a year. We were
very stupid, no doubt, but at least we aired our sword-blades, and, if
we had obtained any successes, we should have been the last to profit
by victory.

My brother remained at Brussels with the Baron de Montboissier[71], who
appointed him his aide-de-camp; I set out alone for Coblentz.

There is no more historic road than that which I followed; it recalled
in every part some memory or greatness of France. I passed through
Liège, one of those municipal republics which so often rose against
their bishops or against the Counts of Flanders. Louis XI.[72], the
ally of the Liégeois, was obliged to assist at the sack of their town
in order to escape from his ridiculous prison of Péronne. I was about
to join and to become one of the soldiers who glory in such things. In
1792, the relations between Liège and France were more peaceful: the
Abbot of Saint-Hubert was obliged every year to send two hounds to King
Dagobert's successors.

At Aix-la-Chapelle there was another offering, but on the part of
France: the pall that had served at the funeral of a Most Christian
King was sent to the tomb of Charlemagne as a vassal banner to the
lord's fief. Our kings thus did fealty and homage on taking possession
of the inheritance of Eternity: laying their hands between the knees
of their liege-lady, Death, they swore to be faithful to her, after
pressing the feudal kiss on her mouth. This, however, was the only
suzerain of whom France acknowledged herself the vassal.

[Illustration: Le Comte de Rivarol.]

The Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle was built by Karl the Great and
consecrated by Leo III[73]. Two prelates failing to attend the
ceremony, their places were filled by two Bishops of Maastricht, long
deceased, and resuscitated for the purpose. Charlemagne, having lost
a beautiful mistress, pressed her body in his arms and refused to be
separated from it. His passion was attributed to a charm: the young
corpse was examined, and a tiny pearl found beneath the tongue. The
pearl was flung into a marsh; Charlemagne became madly enamoured of
the marsh, and ordered it to be filled up: there he built a palace and
a church, to spend his life in one and his death in the other. The
authorities here are Archbishop Turpin[74] and Petrarch[75].

At Cologne I admired the cathedral: if it were finished, it would be
the finest Gothic monument in Europe. The monks were the painters,
the sculptors, the architects, and the masons of their basilicas;
they gloried in the title of master-mason, _cœmentarius._ It is
curious to hear ignorant philosophers and chattering democrats cry out
to-day against the monks, as though those frocked proletarians, those
mendicant orders to whom we owe almost everything, had been gentlemen!

Cologne reminded me of Caligula[76] and St. Bruno[77]; I have seen the
remains of the dykes built by the former at Baiæ, and the deserted
cell of the latter at the Grande Chartreuse.

I went up the Rhine as far as Coblentz: _Confluentia._ The Army of the
Princes was no longer there. I crossed those empty kingdoms: _inania
regna_; I saw the beautiful valley of the Rhine, the Tempe of the
barbarian muses, where the knights appeared around the ruins of their
castles, where one hears the clash of arms at night, when war is at
hand.

[Sidenote: Frederic William II.]

Between Coblentz and Trèves, I fell in with the Prussian Army: I was
passing along the column when, coming up with the guards, I noticed
that they were marching in battle order, with cannon in line; the
King[78] and the Duke of Brunswick[79] were in the centre of the
square, composed of Frederic's old grenadiers. My white uniform caught
the King's eye: he sent for me; the Duke of Brunswick and he took off
their hats and saluted the old French Army in my person. They asked me
my name, my regiment, the place where I was going to join the Princes.
This military welcome touched me: I replied with emotion that, on
learning in America of my King's misfortunes, I had returned to shed my
blood in his service. The generals and officers surrounding Frederic
William made a movement of approbation, and the Prussian sovereign said:

"Sir, one always recognises the sentiments of the French nobility."

He took off his hat again and stood uncovered and motionless, until I
had disappeared behind the mass of the grenadiers. Nowadays people cry
out against the Emigrants: they are "tigers who rent their mother's
bosom;" at the time of which I speak, men loved the examples of old,
and honour ranked as high as country. In 1792, fidelity to one's oath
was still accounted a duty; to-day, it has become so rare that it is
regarded as a virtue.

A strange scene, already rehearsed with others than myself, almost made
me retrace my steps. They refused to admit me at Trèves, where the Army
of the Princes was:

"I was one of those men who await the course of events before making
up their minds; I ought to have joined the cantonment three years ago;
I came when victory was assured. They had no use for me; they had only
too many of those heroes after the battle. Every day, squadrons of
cavalry were deserting; even the artillery was melting away in a body;
and, if that went on, they would not know what to do with those people!"

O prodigious illusionment of parties!

I met my cousin Armand de Chateaubriand: he took me under his
protection, assembled the Bretons and pleaded my cause. They sent for
me; I made my explanation: I told them that I had come from America
to have the honour of serving beside my comrades; that the campaign
was opened, not commenced, so that I was still in time for the first
fire; that, however, I would go back if they insisted, but not before
I had obtained satisfaction for an undeserved insult. The matter was
arranged: as I was a good fellow, the ranks were opened to receive
me, and my only difficulty was to make my selection.

[Illustration: Frederic William II.]

*

[Sidenote: The Emigrant army.]

The Army of the Princes was composed of gentlemen, classed by provinces
and serving as private soldiers: the nobility was harking back to its
origin and to the origin of the monarchy, at the very moment when
both the nobility and monarchy were coming to an end, even as an old
man returns to childhood. There were, moreover, brigades of Emigrant
officers of different regiments, who had also become soldiers: among
these were my messmates of Navarre, with their colonel, the Marquis
de Mortemart, at their head. I was strongly tempted to enlist with
La Martinière, even though he should still be in love; but Armorican
patriotism won the day. I enrolled myself in the seventh Breton
Company, commanded by M. de Goyon-Miniac[80]. The nobles of my province
had furnished seven companies; to these was added an eighth consisting
of young men of the Third Estate: the steel-grey uniform of this
last company differed from that of the others, which was royal blue
with ermine facings. Men attached to the same cause and exposed to
the same dangers perpetuated their political inequalities by odious
distinctions: the true heroes were the plebeian soldiers, since no
consideration of personal interest entered into the sacrifice they made.

Enumeration of our little army:

Infantry of gentlemen-soldiers and officers; four companies of
deserters, dressed in the different uniforms of the regiments
from which they came; one company of artillery; a few officers of
engineers, with some guns, howitzers, and mortars of various calibres
(the artillery and engineers, almost all of whom embraced the cause
of the Revolution, achieved its success across the borders). A very
fine cavalry, consisting of German carabineers, musketeers under
the command of the old Comte de Montmorin and naval officers from
Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon, supported our infantry. The wholesale
emigration of these last-named officers plunged naval France back into
the condition of weakness from which Louis XVI. had extricated it.
Never since the days of Duquesne and Tourville[81] had our squadrons
covered themselves with more glory. My comrades were delighted: I had
tears in my eyes when I saw pass before them those ocean dragons, who
no longer commanded the ships with which they had humbled the English
and delivered America. Instead of going in search of new continents to
bequeath to France, these companions of La Pérouse sank into the mud of
Germany. They rode the horse dedicated to Neptune; but they had changed
their element, and the land was not for them. In vain their commander
carried at their head the tattered ensign of the _Belle-Poule_, the
sacred relic of the White Flag, from whose shreds honour still hung,
but victory had fallen.

We had tents; we lacked all beside. Our muskets, of German make,
trumpery weapons and frightfully heavy, broke our shoulders, and were
often not in a condition to be fired. I went through the whole campaign
with one of these firelocks, the hammer of which refused to fall.

We remained two days at Trèves. It was a great pleasure to me to see
Roman ruins after having seen the nameless ruins of Ohio, to visit that
town so often sacked, of which Salvianus[82] said:

"O fugitives from Trèves, you ask again for theatres, you demand a
circus of the princes: for what State, I pray you; for what people, for
what city? _Theatra igitur quæritis, circum a principibus postulatis?
Cui, quæso, statut, cui populo, cui civitati?_"

Fugitives from France, where was the people for which we wished to
restore the monuments of St. Louis?

I sat down, with my musket, among the ruins; I took from my knapsack
the manuscript of my travels in America; I arranged the separate sheets
on the grass around me; I read over and corrected a description of a
forest, a passage of _Atala_, in the fragments of a Roman amphitheatre,
preparing in this way to make the conquest of France. Then I put away
my treasure, the weight of which, combined with that of my shirts, my
cloak, my tin can, my wicker bottle, and my little Homer, made me throw
up blood.

I tried to stuff _Atala_ into my cartridge-box with my useless
ammunition; my comrades made fun of me, and pulled at the sheets which
stuck out on either side of the leather cover. Providence came to my
rescue: one night, after sleeping in a hay-loft, I found, when I woke,
that my shirts were no longer in my sack; the thieves had left the
papers. I praised God: that accident assured my "fame" and saved my
life, for the sixty pounds that pressed upon my shoulders would have
driven me into a consumption.

"How many shirts have I?" asked Henry IV. of his body-servant.

"One dozen, Sire, and some of them are torn."

"And of handkerchiefs, is it not eight that I have?"

"There are only five left now."

The Bearnese won the Battle of Ivry[83] without shirts; the loss of
mine did not enable me to restore his kingdom to his descendants.

*

We received orders to march on Thionville. We did five to six leagues
a day. The weather was terrible; we tramped through the rain and
slush singing, _Ô Richard! ô mon roi!_ and _Pauvre Jacques!_[84] On
arriving at the encamping-place, having neither wagons nor provisions,
we went with donkeys, which followed the column like an Arab caravan,
to hunt for food in the farms and villages. We paid for everything
scrupulously; nevertheless I had to do fatigue duty for taking two
pears from the garden of a country-house without thinking. A great
steeple, a great river and a great lord are bad neighbours, says the
proverb.

We pitched our tents at random, and were constantly obliged to beat the
canvas in order to flatten out the threads and prevent the water from
coming through. We were ten soldiers to every tent; each in turn took
charge of the cooking: one went for meat, another for bread, another
for wood, another for straw. I made wonderful soup; I received great
compliments on it, especially when I mixed milk and cabbage with the
stew, in the Breton way. I had learnt among the Iroquois not to mind
smoke, so that I bore myself bravely before my fire of green and damp
boughs. This soldier's life is very amusing; I imagined myself still
among the Indians. As we sat at mess in our tent my comrades asked me
for tales of my travels; they told me some fine stories in return;
we all lied like a corporal in a tavern, with a conscript paying the
reckoning.

One thing tired me: washing my linen; it had to be done, and often,
for the obliging robber had left me only one shirt, borrowed from
my cousin Armand, besides the one on my back. When I lay soaping my
stockings, my pocket-handkerchiefs and my shirt by the edge of a
stream, with my head down and my loins up, I was seized with fits of
giddiness; the motion of the arms gave me an unbearable pain in the
chest. I was obliged to sit down among the horsetails and watercress;
and, in the midst of the stir of war, I amused myself by watching the
water flow peacefully past. Lope de Vega[85] makes a shepherdess wash
the bandage of Love; that shepherdess would have been very useful to me
for a little birch-cloth turban which my Floridans had given me.

An army is generally composed of soldiers of nearly the same age, the
same height, the same strength. Very different was ours, a jumbled
gathering of grown men, old men, children fresh from the dovecot,
jabbering Norman, Breton, Picard, Auvergnat, Gascon, Provençal,
Languedocian. A father served with his sons, a father-in-law with his
son-in-law, an uncle with his nephews, a brother with a brother, a
cousin with a cousin. This _arrière ban_, ridiculous as it appeared,
had something honourable and touching about it, because it was animated
with sincere convictions; it presented the spectacle of the old
monarchy and afforded a last glimpse of a dying world. I have seen old
noblemen, with stern looks, grey hair, torn coats, knapsack on back,
musket slung over the shoulder, drag themselves along with a stick and
supported by the arm by one of their sons; I have seen M. de Boishue,
the father of my schoolfellow killed at the States of Rennes in my
sight, march solitary and sad, with his bare feet in the mud, carrying
his shoes at the point of his bayonet for fear of wearing them out;
I have seen young wounded men lie under a tree, while a chaplain, in
surtout and stole, knelt by their side, sending them to St. Louis,
whose heirs they had striven to defend. The whole of this needy band,
which received not a sou from the Princes, made war at its own expense,
while the decrees finished despoiling it and threw our wives and
mothers into prison.

The old men of former times were less unhappy and less lonely than
those of to-day: if, in lingering upon earth, they had lost their
friends, there was but little changed around them besides; they
were strangers to youth, but not to society. Nowadays, a lagger in
this world has witnessed the death not only of men, but of ideas:
principles, manners, tastes, pleasures, pains, opinions, none of these
resemble what he used to know. He belongs to a race different from that
among which he ends his days.

[Sidenote: Old France.]

And yet, O nineteenth-century France, learn to prize that old France
which was as good as you. You will grow old in your turn and you will
be accused, as we were accused, of clinging to obsolete ideas. The
men whom you have vanquished are your fathers; do not deny them, you
are sprung from their blood. Had they not been generously faithful
to the ancient traditions, you would not have drawn from that native
fidelity the energy which has been the cause of your glory in the new
traditions: between the old France and the new, all that has happened
is a transformation of virtue.

*

Near our poor and obscure camp was another which was brilliant and
rich. At the staff, one saw nothing but wagons full of eatables, met
with none save cooks, valets, aides-de-camp. Nothing could have better
reproduced the Court and the provinces, the monarchy expiring at
Versailles and the monarchy dying on Du Guesclin's heaths. We had grown
to hate the aides-de-camp; whenever there was an engagement outside
Thionville, we shouted, "Forward, the aides-de-camp!" just as the
patriots used to shout, "Forward, the officers!"

I felt a chill at my heart when, arriving one dark day in sight of
some woods that lined the horizon, we were told that those woods were
in France. To cross the frontier of my country in arms had an effect
upon me which I am unable to convey. I had, as it were, a sort of
revelation of the future, inasmuch as I shared none of my comrades'
illusions, either with regard to the cause they were supporting or the
thoughts of triumph with which they deluded themselves: I was there
like Falkland[86] in the army of Charles I. There was not a Knight of
the Mancha, sick, lame, wearing a night-cap under his three-cornered
beaver, but was most firmly convinced of his ability, unaided, to
put fifty young and vigorous patriots to flight. This honourable and
agreeable pride, at another time the source of prodigies, had not
attacked me: I did not feel so sure of the strength of my invincible
arm.

We reached Thionville unconquered on the 1st of September; for we had
met nobody on the road. The cavalry encamped to the right, the infantry
to the left of the high-road running from the town towards Germany.
The fortress was not visible from the camping-ground, but, six hundred
paces ahead, one came to the ridge of a hill whence the eye swept the
Valley of the Moselle. The mounted men of the navy joined the right of
our infantry to the Austrian corps of the Prince of Waldeck[87], while
the left of the infantry was covered by 1800 horse of the Maison-Rouge
and Royal German Regiments. We entrenched our front with a fosse,
along which the arms were stalked in line. The eight Breton companies
occupied two intersecting streets of the camp, and below us was dressed
the company of the Navarre officers, my former messmates.

When these field-works, which took three days, were completed, Monsieur
and the Comte d'Artois arrived; they reconnoitred the place, which
was called upon in vain to surrender, although Wimpfen[88] seemed
willing to do so. Like the Grand Condé[89], we had not won the Battle
of Rocroi, and so we were not able to capture Thionville; but we were
not beaten under its walls, like Feuquières[90]. We took up a position
on the high-road, at the end of a village which formed a suburb of the
town, outside the horn-work which defended the bridge over the Moselle.
The troops fired at each other from the houses; our post remained in
possession of those which it had taken. I was not present at this first
action. Armand, my cousin, was there and behaved well. While they were
fighting in the village, my company was requisitioned to establish a
battery on the skirt of a wood which capped the summit of a hill. Along
the slope of this hill, vineyards ran down to the plain joining the
outer fortifications of Thionville.

[Sidenote: The siege of Thionville.]

The engineer directing us made us throw up a gazoned cavalier for
our guns; we drew a parallel open trench to place us below the
cannon-balls. These earthworks took long in making, for we were all,
young officers and old alike, unaccustomed to wield the mattock and
spade. We had no wheelbarrows and carried the earth in our coats, which
we used as sacks. Fire was opened on us from a lunette; it was the
more irksome to us in that we were unable to reply: eight-pounders and
a Cohorn howitzer, which was outranged, formed all our artillery. The
first shell we fired fell outside the glacis and aroused the jeers of
the garrison. A few days later, we were joined by some Austrian guns
and gunners. One hundred infantry men and a picket of the naval cavalry
were relieved at this battery every twenty-four hours. The besieged
prepared to attack it; we could distinguish a movement on the rampart
through the telescope. When night fell, we saw a column issue through
a postern and reach the lunette under shelter of the covert way. My
company was ordered up as a reinforcement.

At daybreak, five or six hundred patriots began operations in the
village, on the high-road above the town; then, turning to the left,
they came through the vineyards to take our battery in flank. The
sailors charged bravely, but were overthrown and unmasked us. We were
too badly armed to return the fire; we pushed forward with fixed
bayonets. The attacking party retreated, I know not why; had they held
their ground, they would have wiped us out.

We had several wounded and a few dead, among others the Chevalier de La
Baronnais[91], captain of one of the Breton companies. I brought him
ill-luck: the bullet which took his life ricochetted against the barrel
of my musket and struck him with such force as to pierce both his
temples; his brains were scattered over my face. Noble and unnecessary
victim of a lost cause! When the Maréchal d'Aubeterre[92] held the
States of Brittany, he went to M. de La Baronnais, the father, a
poor nobleman, living at Dinard, near Saint-Malo. The Marshal, who
had begged him to invite nobody, saw, on entering, a table laid for
twenty-five, and scolded his host in friendly fashion.

"Monseigneur," said M. de La Baronnais, "I have only my children to
dinner."

M. de La Baronnais had twenty-two boys and a girl, all by the same
mother. The Revolution reaped this rich family harvest before it was
ripe.

*

Waldeck's Austrian corps began operations. The attack became livelier
on our side. It was a fine spectacle at night: fire-pots lit up the
works of the place covered with soldiers; sudden gleams struck the
clouds or the blue firmament when the guns were fired, and the bombs,
crossing each other in the air, described a parabola of light. In
the intervals between the reports, one heard drums rolling, gusts of
military music, and the voices of the sentries on the ramparts of
Thionville and at our own posts; unfortunately, they called out in
French in both camps:

"_Sentinelles, prenez garde à vous!_ All's well!"

When the fighting took place, at dawn, it would happen that the lark's
morning hymn followed upon the sound of musketry, while the guns,
which had ceased firing, silently stared at us, with gaping mouths,
through the embrasures. The song of the bird, recalling the memories of
pastoral life, seemed to utter a reproach to mankind. It was the same
when I came across some dead bodies in the middle of fields of lucerne
in flower, or by the edge of a stream of water which bathed the hair of
the slain. In the woods, at a few steps from the stress of war, I found
little statues of the Saints and the Virgin. A goat-herd, a neat-herd,
a beggar carrying his wallet knelt beside these peace-makers, telling
their beads to the distant sound of cannon. A whole township once came
with its minister to present flowers to the patron of a neighbouring
parish, whose image dwelt in a wood, opposite a spring. The curate was
blind: a soldier in God's army, he had lost his sight in doing good
works, like a grenadier on the battlefield. The vicar administered
communion for his curate, because the latter could not have laid the
consecrated wafer upon the lips of the communicants. During this
ceremony, and from the depths of night, he blessed the light!

Our fathers believed that the patrons of the hamlets, John "the
Silent[93]," Dominic "Loricatus[94]," James "Intercisus[95]," Paul
"the Simple[96]," Basil "the Hermit[97]," and so many others, were no
strangers to the triumph of the arms which protect the harvests. On the
very day of the Battle of Bouvines[98], robbers broke into a convent
dedicated to St. Germanus[99] at Auxerre, and stole the consecrated
vessels. The sacristan went to the shrine of the blessed bishop and
said plaintively:

"Germanus, where wert thou when those thieves dared to violate thy
sanctuary?"

A voice issuing from the shrine replied:

"I was near Cisoing, not far from Bouvines Bridge; together with other
saints, I was helping the French and their King, to whom a brilliant
victory has been given by our aid: _cui fuit auxilio victoria præstita
nostro._"

*

[Sidenote: Fierce fighting.]

We beat the plain and pushed as far as the hamlets lying under the
first entrenchments of Thionville. The village on the high-road
crossing the Moselle was constantly being captured and recaptured. I
took part in two of these assaults. The patriots abused us as "enemies
of liberty," "aristocrats" and "Capet's satellites." We called them
"brigands," "murderers," "traitors" and "revolutionaries." Sometimes
we stopped fighting while a duel took place in the midst of the
combatants, who became impartial seconds: O strange French character,
which even passions were unable to stifle!

One day, I was on patrol in a vineyard; twenty paces from me was an
old sporting nobleman who banged the muzzle of his musket against the
vine-stocks, as though to start a hare, and then looked sharply round,
in the hope of seeing a "patriot" leap out: every one had brought his
own habits with him.

Another day, I went to visit the Austrian camp. Between the camp and
that of the naval cavalry, a wood spread its screen, against which the
place was directing an inexpedient fire; the town was shooting too
much, it believed us to be more numerous than we were, which explains
the pompous bulletins of the commander of Thionville. While crossing
this wood, I saw something move in the grass: a man lay stretched at
full length with his nose against the ground, showing only his broad
back. I thought he was wounded: I took him by the nape of the neck and
half lifted his head. He opened a pair of terror-struck eyes and raised
himself a little upon his hands. I burst out laughing: it was my cousin
Moreau! I had not seen him since our visit to Madame de Chastenay.

He had lain flat on his stomach to escape a bomb, and found it
impossible to get up again. I had all the difficulty in the world to
set him on his legs; his paunch was three times its former size. He
told me that he was serving on the commissariat, and that he was on his
way to offer some oxen to the Prince of Waldeck. In addition to this,
he carried a rosary. Hugues Métel[100] tells of a wolf which resolved
to embrace the monastic condition, but which, failing to accustom
itself to the fasting diet, became a canon.

As I returned to camp, an officer of engineers passed close by me,
leading his horse by the bridle; a cannon-ball struck the animal in
the narrowest part of the neck and cut it right off; the head and neck
remained hanging in the officer's hand and dragged him to the ground
with their weight. I had seen a bomb fall in the middle of a ring of
naval officers who were sitting eating in a circle. The mess-platter
disappeared; the officers, tumbling head over heels and run, as it
were, on a sand-bank, shouted like the old sea captain:

"Fire starboard guns, fire larboard guns, fire all guns, fire my wig!"

These singular shots seem to pertain to Thionville. In 1558, François
de Guise[101] laid siege to the place. Marshal Strozzi[102] was killed,
"while talking in the trenches to the aforesaid Sieur de Guise, who had
his hand on his shoulder at the time."

*

[Sidenote: Market in camp.]

A sort of market had been formed behind our camp. The peasants had
brought octaves of white Moselle wine, which remained on the wagons:
the horses were taken out and ate fastened to one end of the cart,
while the soldiers drank at the other end. Here and there gleamed the
fires of ovens. Sausages were fried in pans, hasty puddings boiled
in basins, pancakes tossed on iron dishes, puffcakes swollen out on
hampers. Cakes flavoured with aniseed, rye loaves at one sou, maize
cakes, green apples, red and white eggs, pipes and tobacco were sold
under a tree from whose branches hung coarse cloth great-coats, for
which the passers-by haggled. Village women, seated astride portable
stools, milked cows, while each presented his cup to the dairy-woman
and waited his turn. Before the stoves roamed cutlers in smocks and
soldiers in uniform. The canteen-women went about crying aloud in
German and French. There were groups standing, others seated at deal
tables planted askew on the uneven ground. One sought shelter at
random under a packing cloth or under branches cut in the forest, as
on Palm Sunday. I believe also that there were weddings in the covered
wagons, in memory of the Frankish kings. The patriots could easily have
followed Majorian's[103] example and carried away the bride's chariot:
_Rapit esseda victor, nubentemque nurum._[104] All sang, laughed,
smoked. The scene was extremely gay at night, between the fires which
lit up the earth and the stars shining overhead.

When I was neither on guard at the batteries nor on duty in the tent,
I liked supping at the fair. There the stories of the camp were told
again; but under the influence of liquor and good cheer they became
much finer. One of our fellows, a brevet-captain, whose name I have
forgotten in that of "Dinarzade" which we gave him, was famous for
his yarns; it would have been more correct to say "Scheherazade," but
we were not so careful as that. As soon as we saw him, we ran up to
him, fought for him: we vied with each other as to who should have him
on his score. Short of body, long of leg, with sunk cheeks, drooping
mustachios, eyebrows forming a comma at the outer angle, a hollow
voice, a huge sword in a coffee-coloured scabbard, the carriage of a
soldier poet, something between the suicide and the jolly dog, that
solemn wag Dinarzade never laughed, and it was impossible to look at
him without laughing. He was the necessary second in all the duels and
the lover of all the barmaids. He viewed all he said on the dark side,
and interrupted his recitals only to take a pull at a bottle, relight
his pipe, or swallow a sausage.

One night, when it was drizzling, we were seated round the tap of a
wine-cask tilted towards us in a cart with its shafts in the air.
A candle stuck on the cask lighted us; a piece of packing-cloth,
stretched from the end of the shafts to two posts, served us for a
roof. Dinarzade, with his sword awry after the manner of Frederic II.,
stood between one of the wheels and a horse's crupper, telling a story
to our great content. The canteen-women who brought us our rations
stayed with us to listen to our Arab. The attentive group of bacchantes
and Silenuses which formed the chorus accompanied the narrative with
marks of its surprise, approval, or disapproval.

"Gentlemen," said the story-teller, "you all knew the Green Knight, who
lived in the days of King John[105]?"

Every one said:

"Yes, yes."

Dinarzade swallowed down a rolled pancake, burning himself as he did so.

"This Green Knight, gentlemen, as you know, since you have seen him,
was very good-looking: when the wind blew back his ruddy locks over
his casque, it looked like a twist of tow round a green turban."

The audience: "Bravo!"

[Sidenote: Dinarzade's tales.]

"One evening in May, he sounded his horn at the draw-bridge of a castle
in Picardy, or Auvergne, no matter which. In that castle lived "the
Lady of Great Companies." She welcomed the knight, told her servants
to disarm him and lead him to the bath, and came and sat with him at a
splendid table; and the pages-in-waiting were mute."

The audience: "Oh, oh!"

"The lady, gentlemen, was tall, flat, lean, and shambling, like the
major's wife; otherwise she had plenty of expression and an arch look.
When she laughed and showed her long teeth beneath her stumpy nose, one
did not know what one was about. She fell in love with the knight and
the knight with her, although he was afraid of her."

Dinarzade emptied the ashes of his pipe on the rim of the wheel and
wanted to refill his cutty; they made him continue: "The Green Knight,
utterly dumfoundered, resolved to leave the castle; but, before taking
his leave, he asked the lady of the keep for an explanation of many
strange things; at the same time he made her an offer of marriage,
always provided she was not a witch."

Dinarzade's rapier was planted stiff and straight between his knees.
Seated and leaning forward with our pipes, we made a garland of
fire-flakes beneath him, like Saturn's ring. Suddenly Dinarzade
shouted, as though beside himself:

"Well, gentlemen, the Lady of Great Companies was Death!"

And the captain, breaking the ranks and shouting "Death! Death!" put
the canteen-women to flight. The meeting was closed: the uproar was
great, the laughter prolonged. We approached Thionville amid the roar
of the cannon of the place.

*

The siege continued, or rather, there was no siege, for the trenches
were not opened, and troops were wanting to invest the place regularly.
We reckoned on receiving intelligence, and waited for news of the
successes of the Prussian Army or of Clerfayt's[106] Army, with which
was the French corps of the Duc de Bourbon. Our scanty supplies were
becoming exhausted; Paris seemed to draw farther away. The bad weather
never ceased; we were flooded in the midst of our works; I sometimes
woke in a trench with water up to my neck: the next day, I was a
cripple.

Among my fellow-Bretons I had met Ferron de La Sigonnière[107], my old
class-fellow at Dinan. We slept badly under our tent; our heads went
beyond the canvas and received the rain from that sort of gutter. I
would get up and go with Ferron to walk in front of the stacked arms;
for all our evenings were not so gay as those with Dinarzade. We walked
in silence, listening to the voices of the sentries, looking at the
lights of our streets of tents as we had formerly watched the lamps
in the passages at our college. We discussed the past and the future,
the mistakes that had been made, those that would still be made; we
deplored the blindness of our Princes, who imagined that they could
return to their country with a handful of adherents and consolidate the
crown on their brother's head with the aid of the foreigner. I remember
saying to my friend, in the course of these conversations, that France
wished to imitate England, that the King would perish on the scaffold,
and that our expedition before Thionville would probably be one of the
principal counts in the indictment of Louis XVI. Ferron was struck by
my prophecy: it was the first I ever made. Since that time, I have
made many others quite as true, quite as unheeded: when the accident
occurred, the others took shelter and left me to struggle with the
misfortune which I had foreseen. When the Dutch encounter a squall
on the open sea, they retreat to the interior of the ship, close the
hatches, and drink punch, leaving a dog on deck to bark at the storm;
the danger past, Trust is sent back to his kennel in the hold, and the
captain returns to enjoy the fine weather on the quarter-deck. I have
been the Dutch dog of the Legitimist ship.

The memories of my life as a soldier have engraved themselves upon
my thoughts; I have related them in the sixth book of the _Martyrs._
Armorican barbarian in the Princes' camp as I was, I carried Homer with
my sword; I preferred "my country, the poor, small isle of Aaron, to
the hundred cities of Crete." I said with Telemachus:

"The harsh country which only feeds goats is dearer to me than those in
which horses are reared[108]."

My words would have brought a smile to the lips of the warlike
Menelaus: άγάθος Μενἐλαος.


The rumour spread that we were at last coming to action; the Prince of
Waldeck was to attempt an assault while we were to cross the river and
make a diversion by a feint attack on the place from the French side.

[Sidenote: My company.]

Five Breton companies, including mine, the company of the Picardy
and Navarre officers, and the regiment of volunteers, composed of
young Lorraine peasants and of deserters from various regiments, were
ordered up for duty. We were to be supported by the Royal Germans,
the squadrons of musketeers and the different corps of dragoons which
covered our left: my brother was with this cavalry with the Baron de
Montboissier, who had married a daughter of M. de Malesherbes, sister
to Madame de Rosanbo, and therefore aunt to my sister-in-law. We
escorted three companies of Austrian artillery with heavy guns and a
battery of three mortars.

We started at six o'clock in the evening; at ten we crossed the
Moselle, above Thionville, on a coppered pontoon bridge:

                          Amæna fluenta
    Subterlabentis tacito rumore Mosellæ[109].

At daybreak, we were drawn up in order of battle on the left bank, with
the heavy cavalry in echelons on both flanks, and the light cavalry
in front. At our second movement, we formed in column and began to
defile. At about nine o'clock, we heard a volley fired on our left.
A carabineer officer came dashing up at full speed to tell us that
a detachment of Kellermann's army was about to join issue with us,
and that the action had already begun between the skirmishers. The
officer's horse had been struck by a bullet on the forehead; it reared,
with the foam streaming from its mouth and the blood from its nostrils:
the carabineer, seated sword in hand on this wounded horse, was superb.
The corps which had come out of Metz manœuvred to take us in flank:
they had field-pieces with them, whose fire reached our volunteer
regiment. I heard the exclamations of some recruits struck by the
cannon-balls; the last cries of youth snatched living from life gave me
a feeling of profound pity: I thought of the poor mothers.

The drums beat the charge, and we rushed in disorder upon the enemy.
We came so close that the smoke did not prevent us from seeing the
terrible expression on the faces of men ready to shed your blood. The
patriots had not yet acquired the assurance that comes from the long
habit of fighting and victory. Their movements were slack, they felt
their way; fifty grenadiers of the Old Guard would have made head
against an heterogeneous mass of undisciplined nobles, old and young:
ten to twelve hundred foot-soldiers were taken aback by a few gun-shots
from the Austrian heavy artillery; they retreated; our cavalry pursued
them for two leagues.

A deaf-and-dumb German girl, called Libbe, or Libba, had become
attached to my cousin Armand and had followed him. I found her sitting
on the grass, which stained her dress with blood: her elbow rested
on her upturned knees; her hand, passed through her tangled yellow
tresses, supported her head. She wept as she looked at three or four
killed men, new deaf-mutes, lying around her. She had not heard the
clap of the thunderbolts of which she saw the effect, nor could she
hear the sighs which escaped her lips when she looked at Armand; she
had never heard the sound of the voice of him she loved, and she would
not hear the first cry of the child she bore in her womb: if the grave
contained only silence, she would not know that she had sunk into it.

For that matter, fields of slaughter lie on every hand: in the Eastern
Cemetery[110] in Paris, twenty-seven thousand tombstones, two hundred
and thirty thousand corpses, will show you the extent of the battle
which death wages day and night at your doors.

[Sidenote: The assault of Thionville.]

After a somewhat long halt, we resumed our march, and arrived under the
walls of Thionville at nightfall. The drums did not beat; the word of
command was given in a whisper. The cavalry, in order to repulse any
sortie, stole along the roads and hedges to the gate which we were to
cannonade. The Austrian artillery, protected by our infantry, took up
a position at fifty yards from the advanced works, behind a hastily
thrown-up epaulement of gabions. At one o'clock on the morning of the
1st of September, a rocket, sent up from the Prince of Waldeck's camp
on the other side of the place, gave the signal. The Prince commenced a
smart fire, to which the town made a vigorous reply. We began to fire
forthwith.

The besieged, not thinking that we had troops on that side, and not
foreseeing this assault, had left the southern ramparts unprotected; we
did not lose for waiting: the garrison armed a double battery, which
penetrated our epaulements and dismounted two of our guns. The sky was
aflame; we were shrouded in torrents of smoke. I behaved like a little
Alexander: weakened by fatigue, I fell sound asleep, almost under the
wheels of the gun-carriage where I was on guard. A shell, bursting six
inches off the ground, sent a splinter into my right thigh. I awoke
with the shock, but felt no pain, and perceived only by my blood that I
was wounded. I bound up my thigh with my hand-kerchief. In the affair
on the plain, two bullets had struck my knapsack during a wheeling
movement. _Atala_, like a devoted daughter, placed herself between her
father and the lead of the enemy: she had still to withstand the fire
of the Abbé Morellet[111].

At four o'clock in the morning, the Prince of Waldeck's fire ceased: we
thought the town had surrendered; but the gates were not opened, and we
had to think of retiring. We returned to our positions, after a tiring
march of three days.

The Prince of Waldeck had gone as far as the edge of the ditches, which
he had tried to cross, hoping to bring about a surrender by means of
the simultaneous attack: divisions were still supposed to exist in the
town, and we flattered ourselves that the Royalist party would bring
the keys to the Princes. The Austrians, having fired in barbette, lost
a considerable number of men; the Prince of Waldeck had an arm shot
off. While a few drops of blood flowed under the walls of Thionville,
blood was flowing in torrents in the prisons of Paris: my wife and
sisters were in greater danger than I.

*

We raised the siege of Thionville and set out for Verdun, which had
been restored to the Allies on the 2nd of September. Longwy, the
birthplace of François de Mercy[112], had fallen on the 23rd of August.
Wreaths and festoons of flowers bore evidence on every side of the
passage of Frederic William. Among the peaceful trophies, I observed
the Prussian Eagle affixed to Vauban's[113] fortifications: it was
not to stay there long; as to the flowers, they were soon to see the
innocent creatures who had gathered them fade away like themselves. One
of the most atrocious murders of the Terror was that of the young girls
of Verdun.

    "Fourteen young girls of Verdun," says Riouffe[114], "of
    unexampled purity, who had the air of young virgins decked
    for a public festival, were led together to the scaffold.
    They disappeared suddenly and were gathered in their
    springtime; the 'Court of Women,' on the morrow of their
    death, looked like a garden-plot stripped of its flowers by a
    storm. Never have I witnessed such despair as that which this
    act of barbarity excited among us."

Verdun is famous for its female sacrifices. According to Gregory of
Tours[115], Deuteric, to protect his daughter from the prosecution of
Theodebert[116], placed her in a cart drawn by two untamed oxen and had
her flung into the Meuse. The instigator of the massacre of the young
girls of Verdun was the regicide poetaster Pons de Verdun[117], who was
infuriated against his native city. The number of agents of the Terror
supplied by the _Almanach des Muses_ is incredible; the unsatisfied
vanity of the mediocrities produced as many revolutionaries as the
wounded pride of the cripples and abortions: a revolt analogous to
that of the infirmities of mind and body. Pons attached the point of a
dagger to his blunt epigrams. Faithful, as it seemed, to the traditions
of Greece, the poet was willing to offer none save the blood of virgins
to his gods: for the Convention decreed, on his motion, that no woman
with child could be put on her trial. He also caused the sentence to
be annulled condemning Madame de Bonchamps to death, the widow of the
celebrated Vendean general[118]. Alas, we Royalists in the train of the
Princes attained the reverses of the Vendée without passing through its
glory!

We had not at Verdun, to pass the time, "that famous Comtesse de
Saint-Balmont[119], who laid aside her female apparel, mounted
on horseback, and herself served as an escort to the ladies who
accompanied her or whom she had left in her chariot..." We had no
passion for "old Gallic," nor did we write "notes in the language of
Amadis[120]."

The Prussian evil[121] communicated itself to our little army: I caught
it. Our cavalry had gone to join Frederic William at Valmy. We knew
nothing of what was happening, and were hourly expecting the order to
march forward: we received the order to beat a retreat.

[Sidenote: I am weakened by my wound.]

Very greatly weakened, and prevented by my troublesome wound from
walking without pain, I dragged myself as best I could in the wake of
my company, which soon dispersed. Jean Balue[122], son of a miller at
Verdun, left his father's house at a very early age with a monk, who
burdened him with his wallet. On leaving Verdun, "Ford Hill" according
to Saumaise[123], _ver dunum_, I carried the wallet of the Monarchy,
but I did not become Comptroller of Finance, nor a bishop or cardinal.

If, in the novels which I have written, I have drawn upon my own
history, in the histories which I have told I have placed memories of
the living history in which I took part. Thus, in my life of the Duc
de Berry[124], I described some of the scenes which took place before
my eyes:

    "When an army is disbanded, it returns to its homes; but had
    the soldiers of Condé's Army any homes? Whither was the stick
    to lead them which they were hardly permitted to cut in the
    forests of Germany, after laying down the musket which they
    had taken up in defense of their King?...

    "The time had come to part. The brothers-in-arms bade each
    other a last farewell, and took different roads on earth.
    All, before setting out, went to salute their father and
    captain, white-haired old Condé: the patriarch of glory gave
    his blessing to his children, wept over his dispersed tribe,
    and saw the tents of his camp fall with the grief of a man
    witnessing the destruction of his ancestral roof[125]."


Less than twenty years later, the leader of the new French Army,
Bonaparte, also took leave of his companions: so quickly do men and
empires pass, so little does the most extraordinary renown save one
from the most common destiny!

We left Verdun. The rains had broken up the roads; everywhere one saw
ammunition-wagons, gun-carriages, cannon stuck in the mire, chariots
overturned, cutler-women with their children on their backs, soldiers
dying or dead in the mud. Crossing a ploughed field, I sank down to
my knees; Ferron and another comrade dragged me out despite myself: I
begged them to leave me there; I had rather died.

On the 16th of October, at the camp near Longwy, the captain of my
company, M. de Goyon-Miniac, handed me a very honourable certificate.
At Arlon, we saw a file of wagons with their teams on the high-road:
the horses, some standing, others kneeling down, others with their
noses on the ground, were dead, and their bodies had grown stiff
between the shafts: it was as though one saw the shades of a
battlefield bivouacking on the shores of Styx.

Ferron asked me what I meant to do, and I answered that, if I could go
as far as Ostend, I would take ship for Jersey, where I should find my
uncle de Bedée; from there I should be able to join the Royalists in
Brittany.

[Sidenote: And catch the smallpox.]

The fever was sapping my strength; I could only with difficulty support
myself on my swollen thigh. I felt a new ailment lay hold of me. After
twenty-four hours' vomiting, my face and body were covered with an
eruption: confluent smallpox broke out; it appeared to be affected by
the temperature of the air. In this condition, I set out on foot to
make a journey of two hundred leagues, rich as I was to the extent
of eighteen livres Tournois: all this for the greater glory of the
Monarchy. Ferron, who had lent me my six small crowns of three francs,
left me, he having arranged to be met in Luxembourg.

*

As I was leaving Arlon, a peasant took me up in his cart for the sum of
four sous, and put me down five leagues farther on a heap of stones. I
hopped a few paces with the aid of my crutch, and washed the bandage
round my scratch, which had developed into a sore, in a spring rustling
by the roadside, which did me a great deal of good. The smallpox had
come quite out, and I felt relieved. I had not abandoned my knapsack,
the straps of which cut my shoulders.

I spent that first night in a barn, and had nothing to eat. The wife
of the farmer who owned the barn refused payment for my lodging. At
daybreak she brought me a great basin of coffee and milk, with a black
loaf which I thought excellent. I resumed my road quite merrily,
although I often fell. I was joined by four or five of my comrades,
who carried my knapsack; they were also very ill. We met villagers;
by taking cart after cart we covered a sufficient distance in the
Ardennes, in five days, to reach Attert, Flamizoul, and Bellevue. On
the sixth day I found myself alone. My smallpox had grown paler and was
less puffy.

After walking two leagues, which took me six hours, I saw a gipsy
family encamped behind a ditch around a furze fire, with two goats
and a donkey. I had no sooner reached them than I let myself drop to
the ground, and the strange creatures hastened to succour me. A young
woman in rags, lively, dark, and mischievous, sang, leaped, skipped
around, holding her child aslant upon her breast, as though it were a
hurdy-gurdy with which she was enlivening her dance; she next squatted
on her heels close by my side, examined me curiously by the light of
the fire, took my dying hand to tell me my fortune, and asked me for "a
little sou:" it was too dear. It would be difficult to possess more
knowledge, charm, and wretchedness than my sybil of the Ardennes. I
do not know when the nomads, of whom I should have been a worthy son,
left me; they were not there when I woke from my torpor at dawn. My
fortune-teller had gone away with the secret of my future. In exchange
for my "little sou," she had laid by my head an apple which served to
refresh my mouth. I shook myself, like John Rabbit, among the "thyme"
and the "dew"; but I was not able to "browse," nor to "trot," nor to
cut many "pranks[126]." Nevertheless, I rose with the intention of
"paying my court to Aurora:" she was very beautiful and I very ugly;
her rosy face proclaimed her good health; she was better than the poor
Cephalus[127] of Armorica. Although both of us young, we were old
friends, and I imagined that her tears that morning were shed for me.

I penetrated into the forest, feeling not too sad; solitude had
restored me to my own nature. I hummed the ballad by the ill-fated
Cazotte[128]:

         Tout au beau milieu des Ardennes,
    Est un château sur le haut d'un rocher[129].

Was it not in the donjon of this ghostly castle that Philip II. King
of Spain imprisoned my fellow-Breton, Captain La Noue[130], who had a
Chateaubriand for his grand-mother? Philip consented to release the
illustrious prisoner if the latter consented to have his eyes put out;
La Noue was on the point of accepting the proposal, so great was his
longing to return to his dear Brittany. Alas! I was possessed with the
same desire, and to lose my sight I needed only the ailment with which
it had pleased God to afflict me. I did not meet "Sir Enguerrand coming
from Spain[131]," but poor wretches, small pedlars who, like myself,
carried their whole fortune on their back. A wood-cutter, with felt
knee-caps, entered the woods: he should have taken me for a dead branch
and cut me down. A few carrion crows, a few larks, a few buntings, a
kind of large finches, hopped along the road or stood motionless on the
border of stones, watchful of the sparrow-hawk which hovered circling
in the sky. From time to time, I heard the sound of the horn of the
swine-herd watching his sows and their little ones acorning. I rested
in a shepherd's movable hut; I found no one at home except Puss, who
made me a thousand graceful caresses. The shepherd was standing a long
way off, in the centre of a common pasture, with his dogs sitting at
irregular distances around the sheep; by day that herdsman gathered
simples: he was a doctor and a wizard; by night, he watched the stars:
then he was a Chaldean shepherd.

[Sidenote: A weary journey.]

I stood still, half a league farther, in a pasturage of deer: hunters
went by at the other end. A spring murmured at my feet; at the bottom
of this spring Orlando (Inamorato, not Furioso) saw a palace of crystal
filled with ladies and knights. If the paladin, who joined the dazzling
water-nymphs, had at least left Golden Bridle[132] at the brink of the
well; if Shakespeare had sent me Rosalind and the Exiled Duke[133],
they would have been very helpful to me.

After taking breath I continued my road. My impaired ideas floated
in a void that was not without charm; my old phantoms, having scarce
the consistency of shades three parts effaced, crowded round me to
bid me farewell. I had no longer the power of memory; I beheld at
an indeterminate distance the aerial forms of my relations and my
friends, mingled with unknown figures. When I sat down to rest against
a mile stone, I thought I saw faces smile to me in the threshold of
the distant cabins, in the blue smoke escaping from the roofs of the
cottages, in the tree-tops, in the transparency of the clouds, in the
luminous sheaves of the sun dragging its beams over the heather like a
golden rake. These apparitions were those of the Muses coming to assist
the poet's death: my tomb, dug with the uprights of their lyres under
an oak of the Ardennes, would have fairly well suited the soldier and
the traveller. Some hazel-hens, which had strayed into the forms of
the hares under the privets, alone, with the insects, produced a few
murmurs around me: lives as slender, as unknown, as my life. I could
walk no farther; I felt extremely ill; the smallpox was turning in and
choking me.

Towards the end of the day, I lay down on my back, in a ditch, with
Atala's knapsack under my head, my crutch by my side, my eyes fixed
upon the sun, whose light was going out with my own. I greeted in all
gentleness of thought the luminary which had lighted my first youth on
my paternal moors: we retired to rest together, he to rise in greater
glory, I, according to all appearances, never to wake again. I fainted
away in a feeling of religion: the last sounds I heard were the fall of
a leaf and the whistling of a bullfinch.

*

It seems that I lay unconscious for nearly two hours. The wagons of the
Prince de Ligne[134] happened to pass; one of the drivers, stopping to
cut a birch twig, stumbled over me without seeing me: he thought me
dead and pushed me with his foot; I gave a sign of life. The driver
called his comrades and, prompted by an instinct of pity, they threw
me into a cart. The jolting revived me; I was able to talk to my
deliverers; I told them that I was a soldier of the Princes' Army, and
that if they would take me as far as Brussels, where I was going, I
would reward them for their trouble.

"All right, mate," said one of them, "but you'll have to get down at
Namur, for we're forbidden to carry anybody. We'll take you up again
t'other side of the town."

I asked for something to drink; I swallowed a few drops of brandy,
which threw the symptoms of my disease out again and relieved my chest
for a moment: nature had endowed me with extraordinary strength.

We reached the suburbs of Namur at ten o'clock in the morning. I got
down and followed the waggons at a distance; I soon lost sight of
them. I was stopped at the entrance to the town. I sat down under the
gateway, while my papers were being examined. The soldiers on guard,
seeing my uniform, offered me a scrap of ammunition bread, and the
corporal handed me some peppered brandy in a blue glass drinking-cup.
I made some ceremony about drinking out of the cup of military
hospitality:

"Catch hold!" he exclaimed angrily, accompanying his injunction with a
_Sackerment der Teufel!_

My passage through Namur was a laborious one: I walked leaning against
the houses. The first woman who saw me left her shop, gave me her arm
with a pitying air, and helped me to drag myself along. I thanked her,
and she replied:

"No, no, soldier,"

Soon other women came running up, bringing bread, wine, fruit, milk,
soup, old clothes, blankets.

"He is wounded," said some, in their Brabançon French dialect.

"He has the smallpox," cried others, and kept back their children.

"But, young man, you will not be able to walk; you will die if you do;
stay in the hospital."

[Sidenote: The women of Namur.]

They wanted to take me to the hospital, they relieved each other from
door to door, and in this way helped me to the gate of the town,
outside which I found the wagons again. You have seen a peasant-woman
succour me; you shall see another woman show me hospitality in
Guernsey. Women who have aided me in my distress, if you be still
living, may God help you in your old age and in your sorrows! If you
have departed this life, may your children share the happiness which
Heaven has long refused me!

The women of Namur assisted me to climb into the wagon, recommended me
to the driver's care, and compelled me to accept a woollen blanket.
I noticed that they treated me with a sort of respect and deference:
there is something superior, something delicate, in the nature of
Frenchmen which other nations recognise.

The Prince de Ligne's men put me down for the second time on the road
just outside Brussels, and refused to accept my last crown-piece. In
Brussels, not one inn-keeper was willing to take me in. The wandering
Jew, the popular Orestes, whom the ballad represents as going to that
town:

    Quand il fut dans la ville
    De Bruxelle en Brabant[135],

met with a better reception than I, for he had always five sous in his
pocket. I knocked: they opened; when they saw me they said, "Move on,
move on!" and shut the door in my face. I was driven out of a café. My
hair hung over my face, hidden behind my beard and mustachios; I had a
hay bandage round my thigh; over my tattered uniform I wore the blanket
of the Namur women, knotted round my throat by way of a cloak. The
beggar in the _Odyssey_ was more insolent, but not so poor as I.

I had at first presented myself to no purpose at the hotel where I had
stayed with my brother: I made a second attempt; as I approached the
door I saw the Comte de Chateaubriand stepping from a carriage with
the Baron de Montboissier. He was alarmed at my spectral appearance.
They looked for a room outside the hotel, for the proprietor absolutely
refused to admit me. A wig-maker offered me a den suited to my
wretchedness. My brother brought me a surgeon and a doctor. He had
received letters from Paris: M. de Malesherbes invited him to return
to France. He told me of the day's work of the 10th of August, the
massacres of September, and the political news, of which I knew not
a word. He approved of my plan to cross to Jersey, and advanced me
twenty-five louis. My impaired sight hardly permitted me to distinguish
my brother's features; I believed that that gloom emanated from myself,
whereas it was the shadow which Eternity was spreading around him:
without knowing it, we were seeing each other for the last time. All of
us, such as we are, have only the present moment for our own: the next
belongs to God; there are always two chances of not seeing again the
friend who is leaving us: our death and his. How many men have never
reclimbed the staircase they have descended!

Death touches us more before than after the decease of a friend:
it is a piece of ourselves that is torn away, a world of childish
recollections, of familiar intimacy, of affections and interests in
common, that dissolves. My brother preceded me in my mother's womb; he
was the first to dwell in those same sainted entrails whence I issued
after him; he sat before me by the paternal hearth; he waited several
years to welcome me, to give me my name in the Name of Jesus Christ,
and to ally himself with the whole of my youth. My blood, mingled with
his blood in the revolutionary receptacle, would have had the same
savour, like a draught of milk supplied by the pasturage of the same
mountain. But, if men caused the head of my elder, my god-father,
to fall before its time, the years will not spare mine; already my
forehead is shedding its covering; I feel an Ugolino, Time, stooping
over me and gnawing at my skull:

    ... come'l pan perf ame si manduca[136].

The doctor could not recover from his astonishment: he looked upon
that which did not kill me, which came to none of its natural crises,
as a phenomenon unprecedented in the history of medicine. Gangrene had
set in in my wound; they dressed it with quinine. Having obtained this
first aid, I insisted on departing for Ostend. Brussels was hateful to
me, I burned to leave it; it was once again filling with those heroes
of domesticity who had returned from Verdun in their carriages, and
whom I did not see in Brussels when I accompanied the King there during
the Hundred Days.

[Sidenote: I reached Guernsey.]

I travelled pleasantly to Ostend by the canals: I found some Bretons
there, my comrades-in-arms. We chartered a decked barge and went down
the Channel. We slept in the hold, on the shingle which served as
ballast. The strength of my constitution was at last exhausted. I could
no longer speak; the motion of a rough sea broke me down completely.
I swallowed scarce a few drops of water and lemon, and, when the bad
weather compelled us to put in to Guernsey, they thought I was going to
breathe my last: an emigrant priest read me the prayers for the dying.
The captain, not wishing to have me die on board his ship, ordered me
to be put down on the quay; they set me down in the sun, with my back
leaning against a wall, and my head turned towards the open sea, facing
that Isle of Alderney where, eight months before, I had beheld death in
another shape.

It would seem that I was vowed to pity. The wife of an English pilot
happened to pass by; she was moved and called her husband, who,
assisted by two or three sailors, carried me into a fisherman's house:
me, the friend of the waves; they laid me on a comfortable bed, between
very white sheets. The young barge-woman took every possible care of
the stranger: I owe her my life. The next day I was taken on board
again. My hostess almost wept on taking leave of her patient: women
have a heaven-born instinct for misfortune. My fair-haired and comely
guardian, who resembled a figure in the old English prints, pressed
my bloated and burning hands between her own, so cool and long; I was
ashamed to touch anything so charming with anything so unseemly.

We set sail and reached the westernmost point of Jersey. One of my
companions, M. du Tilleul, went to St. Helier's to my uncle. M. de
Bedée sent a carriage to fetch me the next morning. We drove across the
entire island: dying as I was, I was charmed with its groves; but I
only talked nonsense about them, having fallen into a delirium.

I lay four months between life and death. My uncle, his wife, his son
and his three daughters took it in turns to watch by my bedside. I
occupied an apartment in one of the houses which they were beginning to
build along the harbour: the windows of my room came down to the level
of the floor, and I was able to see the sea from my bed. The doctor,
M. Delattre, had forbidden them to talk to me of serious things, and
especially of politics. Towards the end of January 1793, seeing my
uncle enter my room in deep mourning, I trembled, for I thought we had
lost one of our family: he informed me of the death of Louis XVI. I was
not surprised: I had foreseen it. I asked for news of my relatives:
my sisters and my wife had returned to Brittany after the September
massacres; they had had great difficulty in leaving Paris. My brother
had gone back to France, and was living at Malesherbes. I began to get
up; the smallpox was gone; but I suffered with my chest, and a weakness
remained which I long retained.

Jersey, the Cæsarea of the Itinerary of Antoninus[137], has remained
subject to the Crown of England since the death of Robert, Duke
of Normandy[138]; we have often tried to capture it, but always
unsuccessfully. The island is a remnant of our early history: the
saints coming to Brittany-Armorica from Hibernia and Albion rested at
Jersey. St. Hélier[139], a solitary, dwelt in the rocks of Cæsarea; he
was butchered by the Vandals. In Jersey, one finds a specimen of the
old Normans; it is as though one heard William the Bastard[140] speak,
or the author of the _Roman du Rou._

The island is fertile: it has two towns and twelve parishes; it is
covered with country-houses and herds of cattle. The ocean wind, which
seems to belie its rudeness, gives Jersey exquisite honey, cream
of extraordinary sweetness, and butter deep-yellow in colour and
violet-scented. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre conjectures that the apple
came to us from Jersey; he is mistaken: we have the apple and the pear
from Greece, as we owe the peach to Persia, the lemon to Media, the
plum to Syria, the cherry to Cerasus, the chestnut to Castanea, the
quince to Canea, and the pomegranate to Cyprus.

[Sidenote: And Jersey.]

I took great pleasure in going out in the early days of May. Spring in
Jersey preserves all her youth; she might still be called by her former
name of Primavera, a name which, as she grew older, it left to her
daughter, the first flower with which it crowns itself.

*

Here I will copy for you two pages from the Life of the Duc de Berry;
it is as though I told you my own:

    "After twenty-two years of fighting, the brazen barrier with
    which France was girt about was forced: the hour of the
    Restoration drew nigh; our Princes left their retreats. Each
    of them made for a different point of the frontier, like
    travellers who, at the risk of their lives, seek to penetrate
    into a country of which marvels are related. Monsieur set out
    for Switzerland; Monseigneur le Duc d'Angoulême for Spain,
    and his brother for Jersey. In that island, in which some of
    the judges of Charles I. died unknown to their fellow-men,
    Monseigneur le Duc de Berry found French Royalists grown old
    in exile and forgotten for their virtues, as in former days
    the English regicides for their crime. He met old priests,
    henceforth consecrated to solitude; he realized with them the
    fiction of the poet who makes a Bourbon land on the island
    of Jersey after a storm. One of these confessors and martyrs
    might say to the heir of Henry IV., as the hermit of Jersey
    said to that great king:

     Loin de la cour alors, dans cette grotte obscure
     De ma religion je viens pleurer l'injure[141].

"Monseigneur le Duc de Berry spent some months in Jersey; the sea, the
winds, politics bound him there. Everything opposed his impatience; he
found himself on the point of renouncing his enterprise and taking ship
for Bordeaux. A letter from him to Madame la Maréchale Moreau gives us
a vivid idea of his occupations on his rock:

    "'8 _February_ 1814.

    "'Here I am like Tantalus, in sight of that unhappy France
    which finds so much difficulty in breaking its chains.
    You whose soul is so beautiful, so French, can judge of
    my feelings; how much it would cost me to move away from
    that shore which I should need but two hours to reach!
    When the sun lights it, I climb the tallest rocks and,
    with my spy-glass in my hand, I follow the whole coast:
    I can see the rocks of Coutances. My imagination rises,
    I see myself leaping on shore, surrounded by Frenchmen,
    wearing the white cockade in their hats; I hear the cry of
    'Long live the King!' that cry which no Frenchman has ever
    heard with composure; the loveliest woman of the province
    girds me with a white sash, for love and glory always go
    together. We march on Cherbourg; some rascally fort, with a
    garrison of foreigners, tries to defend itself: we carry it
    by assault, and a vessel puts out to fetch the King, with
    the White Ensign which recalls the days of France's glory
    and happiness! Ah, madame, when removed by but a few hours
    from so likely a dream, can one think of betaking himself
    elsewhere!'"

*

It is three years since I wrote these pages in Paris; I had gone before
M. le Duc de Berry in Jersey, the city of the exiled, by twenty-two
years; I was to leave my name behind me, since Armand de Chateaubriand
was married, and his son Frédéric born there[142].

Gaiety had not abandoned the family of my uncle de Bedée; my aunt
continued to nurse a big dog, descended from the one whose virtues I
have related: as it bit everybody and had the mange, my cousins had
it secretly hanged, notwithstanding its nobility. Madame de Bedée
persuaded herself that some English officers, charmed with Azor's
beauty, had stolen it, and that it was living, laden with honours and
dinners, in the richest castle of the Three Kingdoms. Alas, our present
hilarity was compounded only out of our past gaiety! By recalling the
scenes at Monchoix we found means of laughter in Jersey. The case is
rare enough, for in the human heart pleasures do not keep up the same
relations one to the other that sorrows do: new joys do not restore
their springtime to former joys, but recent sorrows cause old sorrows
to blossom over again.

For the rest, the Emigrants at that time excited general sympathy;
our cause appeared to be the cause of European order: an honoured
unhappiness, such as ours, is something.

M. de Bouillon[143] was the protector of the French refugees in Jersey:
he dissuaded me from my plan of crossing over to Brittany, unfit as
I was to endure a life of caves and forests; he advised me to go
to England, and there seek the opportunity of entering the regular
service. My uncle, who was very ill provided with money, began to feel
straitened with his large family; he had found himself obliged to send
his son to London to feed himself on starvation and hope. Fearing lest
I should be a burden to M. de Bedée, I decided to relieve him of my
presence.

[Sidenote: I set sail for England.]

Thirty louis, which a Saint-Malo smuggler brought me, enabled me to
put my plan into execution, and I booked a berth on the packet for
Southampton. I was deeply touched, on bidding farewell to my uncle: he
had nursed me with the affection of a father; with him were connected
the few happy moments of my childhood; he knew all I loved; I found
in his features a certain resemblance to my mother. I had left that
excellent mother, and was never to see her again; I had left my sister
Julie and my brother, and was doomed to meet them no more; I was
leaving my uncle, and his genial countenance was never again to gladden
my eyes. A few months had sufficed to bring all these losses, for the
death of our friends is not reckoned from the moment at which they die,
but from that at which we cease to live with them.

Were it possible to say to Time, "Not so fast!" one would stop it at
the hours of delight; but, as this is not possible, let us not linger
here below; let us go away before witnessing the flight of friends
and of those years which the poet considers alone worthy of life:
_Vitâ dignior ætas._ That which delights us in the age of friendships
becomes an object of suffering and regret in the age of destitution.
We no longer desire the return of the smiling months to the earth;
we dread it rather: the birds, the flowers, a fine evening at the
end of April, a fine night commencing in the evening with the first
nightingale and ending in the morning with the first swallow, those
things which give the need and longing for happiness kill one. You
still feel their charms, but they are no longer for you: youth which
tastes them by your side, and which looks down upon you with scorn,
fills you with jealousy and makes you realize the completeness of your
desolation. The grace and freshness of nature, while recalling your
past happiness, adds to the unsightliness of your misery. You have
become a mere blot upon that nature; you spoil its harmony and its
suavity by your presence, by your words, and even by the sentiments
which you venture to express. You may love, but you can no longer be
loved. The vernal fountain has renewed its waters without restoring
your youth to you, and the sight of all that is born again, of all that
is happy, reduces you to the sorrowful remembrance of your pleasures.

*

The packet on which I embarked was crowded with Emigrant families.
I there made the acquaintance of M. Hingant[144], an old colleague
of my brother's in the Parliament of Brittany, a man of taste and
intelligence, of whom I shall have much to say. A naval officer was
playing chess in the captain's room; he did not recollect my features,
so greatly was I changed; but I recognised Gesril. We had not met
since Brest; we were destined to part at Southampton. I told him of
my travels, he told me of his. This young man, born near me among the
waves, embraced his first friend for the last time in the midst of the
waves which were about to witness his glorious death. Lamba Doria[145],
admiral of the Genoese, after beating the Venetian fleet, learnt that
his son had been killed:

"Bury him in the sea," said this Roman father, as though he had said,
"Bury him in his victory."

Gesril voluntarily left the billows into which he had flung himself
only the better to show them his "victory" on shore.

[Sidenote: And land at Southampton.]

I gave the certificate of my landing from Jersey at Southampton at the
commencement of the sixth book of these Memoirs. Behold me, therefore,
after my travels in the forests of America and the camps of Germany,
arriving, as a poor Emigrant, in 1793, in the land in which I am
writing all this in 1822, and in which I am living to-day a splendid
ambassador.



[1] This book was written in London between April and September 1822,
and revised in February 1845 and December 1846.--T.

[2] Georges Jacques Danton (1759-1794), perhaps the least contemptible
of the demagogues of the time.--T.

[3] The National or Constituent Assembly passed the Constitution on
the 3rd of September 1791, the King accepting it on the 13th. This
Constitution created a Legislative Assembly, which alone was to retain
the power of making laws, subject to the veto of the Sovereign. On
the 30th of September the Constituent Assembly was dissolved and
immediately succeeded by the Legislative Assembly, which consisted of
745 deputies elected by the people, and sat from 1 October 1791 to
21 September 1792. It was in this assembly that the parties of the
Mountain and the Gironde were formed.--T.

[4] Jean Claude Marin Victor Marquis de Laqueville (1742-1810)
commanded the corps of the nobles of Auvergne under the Comte d'Artois.
He was impeached on the 1st of January 1792. He returned to France
under the Consulate, and lived in retirement until his death.--B.

[5] M. Buisson de La Vigne, a retired captain of the Indian Company's
fleet, had been ennobled in 1776.--B.

[6] Alexis Jacques Buisson de La Vigne, the Indian Company's manager at
Lorient, married in 1770 Mademoiselle Céleste Rapion de La Placelière,
of Saint-Malo.--B.

[7] Anne Buisson de La Vigne (1772-1813) married, in 1789, Hervé Louis
Joseph Marie Comte du Plessix de Parscau (1762-1831). She died at
Lymington in Hampshire, and is buried there with seven of her thirteen
children. In 1814, the Comte de Parscau married Mademoiselle de
Kermalun, a lady of forty, for the sake of the six young children left
to him.--B.

[8] Knight of St. Louis.--T.

[9] Céleste Buisson de La Vigne (1774-1847), who became Madame de
Chateaubriand.--B.

[10] Michel Bossinot de Vauvert (1724-1809), formerly a king's counsel
and attorney to the Admiralty. He was an uncle, "Brittany fashion," of
Mademoiselle Buisson de La Vigne.--B.

[11] George Gordon, sixth Lord Byron (1788-1824), the poet.--T.

[12] Francis II. Emperor of Germany (1768-1835) ascended the Imperial
Throne in 1792. In 1808 he renounced his title and assumed that of
Emperor of Austria, as Francis I.--T.

[13] Blessed Benedict Joseph Labre (1748-1783) had died, after a life
supported by unsolicited alms and spent in constant mortifications, of
a tumour in the leg resulting from his habit of being always upon his
knees.--T.

[14] The Abbé Jean Jacques Barthélemy (1716-1795), Keeper of the
Royal Cabinet of Medals, member of the French Academy and the Academy
of Inscriptions, and a distinguished archæologist. In 1788 he
published his _Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce vers le milieu du
IVe. siècle avant l'ère vulgaire_, which made his name. He
spent the greater portion of his life with the Duc and Duchesse de
Choiseul on their estate of Chanteloup, near Amboise.--T.

[15] Ange François Fariau (1747-1810), known as M. de Saint-Ange,
became a member of the French Academy just before his death. His
translations in verse of the _Metamorphoses_ and other of Ovid's works
are of great merit; but he appears to have been cursed with inordinate
vanity, in addition to the stupidity of which Chateaubriand speaks.--T.

[16] Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814), the famous
author of the _Études de la nature_ and of _Paul et Virginie._ He
preached virtue in all his works; his personal character and conduct
were far from being irreproachable.--T.

[17] 30 January 1791.--B.

[18]

"D'Egmont with Love one day this bank her presence gave;
For a moment the water stained
With the image of her beauty upon the fleeting wave:
Then D'Egmont disappeared; and Love alone remained.--T."


[19] By Carbon de Flins des Oliviers.--T.

[20]

    "Our brave defenders' warlike zeal
    Wakes pride within my breast,
    But when through gore the people reel,
    Their fury I detest.
    Let Europe of us dwell in fear,
    Let us live ever free,
    But Gallic wit our lives shall cheer,
    And amiability."--T.


[21] Anne Joseph Terwagne, Demoiselle Théroigne de Méricourt
(1762-1817), a formidable virago of the Revolution. She was fustigated
and driven insane by her fellow-bacchanals in October 1792, and died
mad at the Salpétrière.--T.

[22] Manon Jeanne Roland (1754-1793), _née_ Philipon, wife of Jean
Marie Roland de La Platière, Minister of the Interior in 1791. She and
her husband espoused the party of the Girondins; and Madame Roland
was guillotined at the instance of the Mountain, 8 November 1793. Her
husband killed himself on hearing the news.--T.

[23] Major the Comte de Belsunce (_d._ 1790). He was cut up into pieces
and his heart was eaten by a woman.--B.

[24] Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (1759-1794) was elected mayor on the
14th of November 1791. He took no step to suppress the insurrections
of June and August 1792, nor the massacres of September. Having voted,
however, at the trial of Louis XVI. for "death with delay and appeal to
the people," he became odious to the revolutionaries and was proscribed
with the Girondins, 31 May 1793. He fled and perished in the Bordeaux
marshes, where his body was half eaten by wolves.--T.

[25] Before 1789, Paris was divided into 21 quarters. On the 23rd
of April 1789 the King ruled that, for the convocation of the three
Estates, the town should be divided into 60 arrondissements, or wards,
and districts, for which, on the 27th of June 1790, the Constituent
Assembly substituted 48 sections.--B.

[26] On the 17th of Germinal Year II. (6 April 1794) a citizen
presented himself at the bar of the Convention and offered a sum
of money "towards the expenses of the support and repairing of the
guillotine" (_Moniteur_, 7 April 1794).--B.

[27] 23 March 1792.--B.

[28] Francis II., Emperor of Germany, etc., etc.--T.

[29] Maximin Isnard (1751-1825) voted for the death of the King, but,
after distinguishing himself by the violence of his language and
opinions, underwent a remarkable religious and political conversion. He
was a member of the Council of Five Hundred, but took no part in public
affairs after the advent of Bonaparte.--B.

[30] Armand Gensonné (1758-1793), the friend and confidant of
Dumouriez, executed 31 October 1793.--T.

[31] Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793), at one time editor of
the _Moniteur_ and of the _Patriote français_, and prime mover in the
declaration of war against Austria. He was guillotined on the same day
as Gensonné.--T.

[32] The decree ordering the dissolution of the King's Constitutional
Guard was voted 29 May 1792.--B.

[33] It was burnt down in 1580.--_Author's Note._

[34] Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Mayenne (1554-1611), second son of
François Duc de Guise, and head of the League.--T.

[35] A political club connected with the League and called the Sixteen
from the number of its leading members, each of whom was put in charge
of one of the then sixteen quarters of Paris.--T.

[36] Jean Paul Marat (1743-1793) was born either at Geneva or at
Boudry, near Neufchâtel, in Switzerland.--T.

[37] Pierre Gaspard Chaumette (1763-1794), the inventor of the Feast of
Reason, self-known as "Anaxagoras Chaumette," and guillotined 13 April
1794.--T.

[38] Méot kept the best tavern in Paris, in the Palais-Royal.--B.

[39] Joseph Fouché, Duc d'Otrante (1754-1820), had been a schoolmaster
at Juilly and principal of the Oratorian College at Nantes, when he was
sent to the Convention. He became subsequently a Conservative senator
under Napoleon, a duke and a peer, and was Minister of Police under the
Directory, Napoleon, and Louis XVIII.--T.

[40] Triboulet (1479-_circa_ 1536), Court Fool to Louis XII. and
Francis I.--T.

[41] _Paradise Lost_, II. 790-814, in which Sin is represented as being
violated by her own offspring, Death.--T.

[42] Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), the great painter of the
Revolution and the Empire.--T.

[43] Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d'Églantine (1755-1794), a light
dramatic poet of no mean order, acted as Danton's secretary. He was
subsequently traduced for accepting bribes from the Indian Company, and
guillotined on the same day (5 April 1794) as Danton and Desmoulins,
who protested at being "coupled with a thief."--T.

[44] Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne (1756-1819), a very bloodthirsty
member of the Convention. Billaud was transported with Collot d'Herbois
to Cayenne, and succeeded in making his escape, after twenty years,
to the Republic of San Domingo, the President of which gave him a
pension.--T.

[45] Felice Peretti, Pope Sixtus V. (1521-1590), was elected to the
Holy See on the death of Gregory XIII. in 1585. His short reign
was marked by a magnificent internal administration. In France he
patronized and encouraged the League.--T.

[46] Jacques Clément (1564-1589), the Dominican monk who assassinated
Henry III. and was himself killed on the spot. It is a fact that some
of the extreme Leaguers called for his canonization.--T.

[47] Charles IX. (1550-1574), elder brother and predecessor of Henry
III.--T.

[48] 24 August 1572.--T.

[49] King Charles I. (1600-1649) was murdered on the 30th of January
1649; King Louis XVI. on the 21st of January 1793.--T.

[50] Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville (1747-1795), Public Prosecutor
to the Revolutionary Tribunal, guillotined 6 May 1795.--T.

[51] The blasphemy was not even accurate. Desmoulins was in his
thirty-fourth year.--T.

[52] _Le Philinte de Molière, ou, la suite du Misanthrope_, a comedy
in five acts, in verse, first performed at the Théâtre Français on the
22nd of February 1790, is Fabre d'Églantine's best piece: it is one
of our good comedies of the second rank. What will live longest of
Fabre d'Églantine's is his ballad, "Il pleut, il pleut, bergère" ("O
shepherdess, 'tis raining").--B.

[53] Barnabé Brisson (1531-1591), made First President of the
Parliament of Paris by the Sixteen (_vide supra_, p. 15), when Henry
III. had left the capital, instead of Achille de Harlay, whom they had
sent to the Bastille; but they were dissatisfied with him, owing to
the attachment he preserved for the royal authority, and eventually
murdered him by hanging him.--T.

[54] Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise (1550-1588), nicknamed the
_Balafré_ from a disfiguring scar which he received at the engagement
of Dormans (1575). He was the son of François Duc de Guise, and brother
to the Duc de Mayenne (_vide supra_, p. 15) and Louis de Lorraine,
Cardinal de Guise. In 1576 he became the head of the newly formed
League. In 1588, after conducting a long and active opposition to the
Throne, he attended the States-General summoned by Henry III. at his
castle at Blois, and was murdered by the royal guards at the door of
the King's closet, 23 December 1588. His brother Louis II., Cardinal de
Guise, Archbishop of Rheims, was put to death by the King's orders on
the following day.--T.

[55] Florio's MONTAIGNE, Booke III. chap. 12: _Of Physiognomy._--T.

[56] Silas Deane (1737-1789), a member of the first American Congress,
was sent to Paris to rally the Court of France to the cause of the
insurgents. His negotiations were fruitless, and Franklin was sent to
second him. The latter was more successful, and signed two treaties
with the Cabinet of Versailles in February 1778.--B.

[57] Joachim Murat (1767-1815), later King of Naples. He was the son of
an inn-keeper, enlisted at the commencement of the Revolution, and was
a member of the King's Constitutional Guard for about a month in the
spring of 1792. He was in command of the sixty grenadiers who dispersed
the Council of Five Hundred, and Bonaparte rewarded him with the hand
of his sister Caroline. When Bonaparte became Emperor, Murat received
his marshal's baton and the title of prince. In 1808, Napoleon made him
King of the Two Sicilies. He did not cross the Straits, but reigned
peacefully on the mainland until 1812. In 1814, the Powers consented
to leave him on the throne, but, declaring in favour of Napoleon on
his return from Elba, he was defeated at Tolentino, captured at Pizzo
in Calabria, and shot, by order of King Ferdinand II., on the 13th of
October 1815.--T.

[58] Jean Marie Roland de La Platière (1734-1793), twice Minister
of the Interior, and husband of the more famous Madame Roland.
He committed suicide with a sword-stick on hearing of his wife's
execution.--T.

[59] Louis François Duport du Tertre (1754-1793), Minister of the
Interior from 1790 to 1792, and guillotined 28 November 1793. His wife
committed suicide in despair a few days later.--T.

[60] Louise Florence Pétronille de La Live d'Épinay (1725-1783), _née_
Tardieu d'Esclavelles, wife of Denis Joseph de La Live d'Épinay, a rich
farmer-general. She built the Hermitage for Rousseau in the Forest of
Montmorency, ten miles north of Paris, and lavished benefits upon him.
Eventually, however, the philosopher grew jealous of Grimm, and turned
ungrateful for the favours shown him.--T.

[61] Bernard Hugues Maret, Duc de Bassano (1763-1839). Bonaparte made
him Secretary-general to the Consuls, and, in 1804, Secretary of State,
in which capacity he accompanied the Emperor on all his campaigns. In
1811, he was created Duc de Bassano, and appointed Foreign Minister; in
1813, Minister for War. In 1815, he was exiled, returning to France in
1820. Louis Philippe made him a peer of France, and he held office for
less than a week in 1834.--T.

[62] Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac (1755-1841), one of the meanest
turn-coats and time-servers of revolutionary France. He was exiled
on the Restoration, and returned to France on the usurpation of
Louis-Philippe.--T.

[63] M. Boutin (_d._ 1794), Treasurer to the Navy, had built the Tivoli
garden in the middle of the Rue de Clichy. He was guillotined 22 July
1794.--T.

[64] This is not accurate. Madame de Malesherbes was Françoise
Thérèse Grimod, daughter of Gaspard Grimod, Seigneur de La Reynière,
farmer-general. M. and Madame de Malesherbes were married on the 4th of
February 1749.--B.

[65] Clovis I. (465-511), grandson of Merovius or Merowig, was the real
founder of the First or Merovingian Race of Kings of France (418-752).
The second was the Carlovingian Race or Dynasty (715-987); the third
the Capetians (987), who were subdivided into numerous branches, and
preserve their right to the French Throne to this day.--T.

[66] Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours (_circa_ 1057-1134), author of a
number of Latin treatises, letters, and poems.--T.

[67] Guillaume de Nangis (_d._ 1300), a Benedictine of Saint-Denis,
author of a Chronicle of the Kings of France, etc.--T.

[68] Albéric, a Cistercian monk of the Abbey of Trois-Fontaines, near
Châlons-sur-Marne, who lived in the thirteenth century, and wrote a
Chronicle which goes from the Creation to 1241.--T.

[69] Rigord, Rigordus, or Rigoltus (_d. circa_ 1207), author of a
History of Philip Augustus, in Latin, continued by Guillaume le
Breton.--T.

[70] Gervase of Tilbury (_fl._ 1211), author of the _Otia
Imperialia._--T.

[71] The Baron de Montboissier was Malesherbes' son-in-law, and uncle
by marriage to Chateaubriand's brother.--B.

[72] Louis XI., King of France (1423-1479), who had incited the town
of Liège to revolt, was enticed to Péronne by Charles the Bold, Duke
of Burgundy, on the pretext of a conference, held as a prisoner, and
released only on condition that he accompanied the Duke to the siege of
the insurgent city.--T.

[73] Pope Leo III. (_d._ 816), elected to the Papacy in 795, was
driven from Rome by a conspiracy to murder him, and took shelter with
Charlemagne. He consecrated the octagonal Cathedral of Aix in 799; and
in 800, in Rome, crowned Charles Emperor of the West.--T.

[74] John Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims (_d. circa_ 794), Charlemagne's
secretary, friend, and comrade-in-arms. He was falsely reputed the
author of the be _Vitâ Caroli Magni et Rolandi_, popularly known as
Archbishop Turpin's Chronicle.--T.

[75] Francesco Petrarca, known as Petrarch (1304-1374), tells the
legend in his poems.--T.

[76] Caligula (12-41) was the son of Germanicus and Agrippina, at whose
instance Germanicus enlarged Cologne, calling it Colonia Agrippina.--T.

[77] St. Bruno (_circa_ 1030-1101), founder of the Carthusian order,
was born at Cologne.--T.

[78] Frederic William II., King of Prussia (1744-1797), nephew and
successor (1786) of Frederic the Great.--T.

[79] Charles Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1735-1806),
Commander-in-Chief of the allied Prussian and Austrian armies. He was
mortally wounded at the Battle of Auerstadt (14 October 1806), and was
the father of "Brunswick's fated chieftain" killed at Waterloo.--T.

[80] Pierre Louis Alexandre de Gouyon (not Goyon) de Miniac (_circa_
1754-1818).--B.

[81] Anne Hilarion de Contentin, Comte de Tourville (1642-1701), a
famous French admiral; fought under Duquesne, commanded under the
Maréchal de Vivonne at Palermo (1677), went to Ireland in 1690 to
support the cause of James II., was defeated by the English at the
Battle of the Hogue (1692), but defeated them at the first Battle of
St. Vincent (1693).--T.

[82] Salvianus (_circa_ 390-484), author of the treatises, _De
Gubernatione Dei, Adversus Avaritiam_, and some letters--T.

[83] Henry IV. defeated the Leaguers at Ivry in 1590.--T.

[84] Words and music by the Marquise de Travanet, _née_ de Bombelles,
lady to Madame Élisabeth.--B.

[85] Lope Felix de Vega Carpia (1562-1635), the fertile Spanish poet,
author of the _Arcadia_ and some 2000 plays and an endless number of
poems of every description.--T.

[86] Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), Secretary of
State to Charles I. Although at first favouring the rebellion, he
joined the King's side and died fighting for Charles at Newbury.--T.

[87] Christian Augustus Prince of Waldeck (1744-1798), fought for
Austria against the Turks and against the French, lost an arm at
the siege of Thionville, took part in the attack on the lines of
Weissemberg, replaced Mack, and went to Portugal, where he died.--T.

[88] Louis Félix Baron de Wimpfen (1744-1814), a Royalist brigadier in
the Revolutionary service. He defended Thionville for fifty-five days,
until he was relieved by the victory of Valmy. He concealed himself
during the Terror. The Consulate restored him to his rank as general of
division, and Napoleon appointed him inspector of studs, and created
him a baron in 1809.--B.

[89] Louis II. Prince de Condé (1621-1686), known as the Grand Condé,
captured Thionville in 1643, after first causing the Spaniards to raise
the siege of Rocroi, and signally defeating them on the 19th of May.--T.

[90] Manassès de Pas, Marquis de Feuquières (1590-1639), besieged
Thionville in 1639, but was defeated by the garrison, and himself
wounded and taken prisoner. He died of his wounds a few months
later.--T.

[91] The Chevalier de La Baronnais was one of the numerous sons of
François Pierre Collas, Seigneur de La Baronnais, married in 1750
to Renée de Kergu. Chateaubriand is not quite accurate as to the
proportions of his family. There were twenty children in all, twelve
sons and eight daughters.--B.

[92] Joseph Henri Bouchard d'Esparbès, Maréchal Marquis d'Aubeterre
(1714-1788), after fulfilling several important embassies, was
appointed Commandant of Brittany in 1775.--T.

[93] St. John the Silent (454-_circa_ 589), so called from his love of
silence and retirement. At the age of twenty-eight he was consecrated
Bishop of Colonus, near Athens, but resigned his see in nine years, and
withdrew to the Monastery of St. Sabar in Jerusalem. His feast falls on
the 13th of May.--T.

[94] St. Dominic Loricatus (_d._ 1060) spent his life in the Apennines,
wearing a coat of mail, which he laid aside only to scourge himself. He
is honoured on the 14th of October.--T.

[95] St. James Intercisus (_d._ 421). Born in Persia, he at first
abjured Christianity in obedience to a decree of King Yezdedjerd I.;
but, repenting of his apostasy, he resumed the faith, and was condemned
to be cut to pieces while living, a martyrdom which he heroically
endured on the 27th of November 421. His feast is celebrated on the
anniversary of that day.--T.

[96] St. Paul the Simple (229-342) retired at the age of twenty-two
to the Thebaïde Desert, where he became a disciple of St. Anthony and
lived for ninety-one years. He is honoured on the 7th of March.--T.

[97] St. Basil the Hermit (_d._ circa 640), a native of Limousin, spent
forty years wrestling with the Evil One in a retreat which he had built
for himself in the neighbourhood of Verzy, in Champagne. His feast
falls on the 26th of November.--T.

[98] Philip Augustus defeated the Emperor Otho IV. and his allies at
Bouvines, 27 August 1214.--T.

[99] St. Germanus of Auxerre, Bishop of Auxerre (380-448), was Governor
of the province of Auxerre for the Emperor of the West, when he was
ordained priest by Amador, the bishop of the diocese, whom he succeeded
after the latter's death in 418. He visited England in 428 and 446
to preach against the Pelagian heresy. He is honoured on the 26th of
July.--T.

[100] Hugues Métel (1080-1157), a twelfth-century ecclesiastical
writer. The allusion is to an apologue entitled, _D'un loup qui se fit
hermite_, which stands at the head of the poems.--B.

[101] François de Lorraine, Duc de Guise (1519-1563), one of the
greatest French captains, and leader of the Catholic army. He was
assassinated at the siege of Orléans by a Huguenot nobleman called
Poltrot de Méré.--T.

[102] Pietro Strozzi (1550-1558), a marshal in the French service, and
commander-in-chief of the army of Pope Paul IV.--T.

[103] Julius Majorianus, known as the Emperor Majorian (_d._ 461)
defeated Theodoric II., King of the Visigoths, in Gaul, and was about
to attack Genseric, King of the Vandals, in Africa, when he was deposed
and put to death by Ricimer, who had raised him to power.--T.

[104] SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS.--_Author's Note._

[105] John II., King of France (1319-1364), known as John the Good,
taken prisoner at the Battle of Poitiers by Edward the Black Prince
(1356). Peace was concluded in 1360, and John returned to France,
leaving his son as a hostage. The latter escaped, and King John
voluntarily returned to London and surrendered, saying that "if good
faith was banished from the earth, it should find an asylum in the
hearts of kings." He died shortly after his arrival in London (8 April
1364).--T.

[106] François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Comte de Clerfayt
(1733-1798), created, in 1795, a field-marshal in the Austrian Army.
He was a native of Brussels, at that time the capital of the Austrian
Netherlands, and was a very fine general. Not the least of his feats
was his masterly retreat after the Battle of Jemmapes (6 November
1792). In 1795, he defeated three French army corps in succession, and
relieved Mayence, which was besieged by one of them.--T.

[107] François Prudent Malo Ferron de La Sigonnière (1768-1815).--B.

[108] Cf. _Odyssey_, IV. 606.--T.

[109] AUSONIUS, _Eidyllia_, CCCXXXIV. 21, _Ausonii Mosella._--T.

[110] Now known as the cemetery of Père Lachaise.--T.

[111] The Abbé André Morellet (1727-1819), a Member of the Academy, and
at one time a leading member of Madame Geoffrin's circle. His attacks
on Chateaubriand are mentioned later, when Chateaubriand speaks of the
publication of _Atala._--T.

[112] Field-Marshal Franz Baron von Mercy (_d._ 1645), one of the great
generals of the seventeenth century. He took service under the Elector
of Bavaria, and distinguished himself in the German wars against
France. In 1645 he defeated Turenne at Mariendal, but was himself
beaten by Condé in the plains of Nördlingen (7 August 1645), and
received a wound of which he died the next day.--T.

[113] Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707), the famous French
engineer. Longwy was one of the many fortifications constructed by
Vauban along the German frontier. He was created a marshal in 1703 by
Louis XIV., who in 1693 had founded the order of St. Louis at Vauban's
instance.--T.

[114] Honoré Jean Riouffe (1764-1813), created a baron of the Empire
in 1810; author of the _Mémoires d'un détenu, pour servir à l'histoire
de la tyrannie de Robespierre_, from which the above quotation is
taken.--B.

[115] St. Gregory of Tours (_circa_ 540--_circa_ 594), Bishop of Tours,
and author of a _History of the Franks_ extending from 417 to 591.--T.

[116] Theodebert I., King of Metz or Austrasia (_d._ 548).--T.

[117] Philippe Laurent Pons (1759-1844), known as Pons de Verdun,
was, before the Revolution, a regular contributor to the _Almanach
des Muses._ He was sent to the Convention by the Meuse and voted for
the death of the King. As a member of the Council of Five Hundred, he
rallied to the cause of Bonaparte, and became advocate-general to the
Court of Appeal under the Empire.--B.

[118] Artus de Bonchamp (1769-1793), mortally wounded outside Cholet
(17 October 1793).--T.

[119] Alberte Barbe d'Ercecourt, Dame de Saint-Balmon (1608-1660), took
up arms during her husband's absence in the Thirty Years' War, and
defended her house against the marauders.--B.

[120] Amadis of Gaul, hero of the famous prose romance written in the
fourteenth century by different authors, partly in Spanish, partly in
French.--T.

[121] A loathsome form of vermin.--T.

[122] Jean La Balue (1421-1491) became a bishop, Almoner to King
Louis XI., Intendant of Finance, and was for many years virtual Prime
Minister of France. He abolished the Pragmatic Sanction (1461), and was
created a cardinal by Pope Pius II. Subsequently he corresponded with
the King's enemies and (1469) was imprisoned by Louis XI. in an iron
cage, from which he was released only upon the King's death, eleven
years later. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII. sent La Balue to France as
legate _in latere_; but he was so badly received that he was obliged to
return to Rome.--T.

[123] Claude de Saumaise (1588-1658), known as Salmasius, or the Prince
of Commentators.--T.

[124] Charles Ferdinand Duc de Berry (1778-1820), second son of the
Comte d'Artois, later Charles X., and father of the Duc de Bordeaux,
known later as Comte de Chambord and Henry V. The Duc de Berry was
assassinated by Louvel on leaving the Opera House in Paris, 6 February
1820.--T.

[125] _Mémoires, lettres, et pièces authentiques touchant la vie et la
mort de S. A. R. Ch. F. d'Artois, fils de France, Duc de Berry_, II.
viii.--B.

[126] LA FONTAINE'S _Fables_, book VII., fab. 16: _The Cat, the Weasel,
and the Young Rabbit_, 7-9.--T.

[127] Cephalus of Thessaly, husband of Procris, and beloved by Aurora
because of his surpassing beauty.--T.

[128] Jean Cazotte (1720-1792), the facile Royalist poet, author of the
_Veillée de la Bonne femme; ou, le Réveil d'Enguerrand_, which opens
with the lines quoted.--T.

[129]

    "Right in the middle of the Ardennes
    Stands a fine castle atop of a rock."--T.


[130] François de La Noue (1531-1591), nicknamed _Bras-de-Fer_, Iron
Arm, a famous Calvinist captain. Fighting at the head of the army of
the States-General against Spain, he was captured (1578) and kept
prisoner for five years in the fortresses of Limburg and Charlemont. He
was killed at the siege of Lamballe in Brittany, where he was sent by
Henry IV.--T.

[131] CAZOTTE, _La Veillée de la Bonne femme_, supra.--T.

[132] Orlando's famous steed.--T.

[133] Most of the scenes in _As You Like It_ are laid in the Forest of
Arden.--T.

[134] Charles Joseph Prince de Ligne (1735-1844), a Flemish general in
the Austrian service, famous for his wit, his personal graces, and his
military talent. Francis II. created him a field-marshal in 1808.--T.

[135]

    "When he was in the town,
    Brussels town in Brabant."--T.


[136] DANTE, _Inferno_, XXXVII. 127.--T.

[137] Antoninus Pius, Emperor of Rome (86-161), author or originator of
the _Itinerarium Provinciarum._--T.

[138] Robert II., Duke of Normandy (_circa_ 1056-1134), nicknamed
Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror. He was defeated
by his brother, Henry I., at Tinchebray (1106), and imprisoned at
Cardiff Castle until his death in 1134.--T.

[139] St. Helerius, hermit and martyr, patron saint of Jersey. His head
was cut off by pirates. His feast falls on the 16th of July.--T.

[140] William I., the Conqueror, King of England (1027-1087), is
generally called William the Bastard by French writers. He was the
illegitimate son of Robert I. the Devil, Duke of Normandy, and Arlotta,
a washerwoman of Falaise.--T.

[141] VOLTAIRE, L'_Henriade_:

    "Then, far removed from Court, to this obscure retreat,
    I come to mourn the blows with which my creed has met."--T.


[142] Armand Louis de Chateaubriand married in Guernsey, 14 September
1795, Mademoiselle Jeanne le Brun, of Jersey; the young couple settled
in Jersey, where were born Jeanne (16 June 1796) and Frédéric (11
November 1799).--B.

[143] Philippe d'Auvergne, Prince de Bouillon (1754-1816), born in
Jersey, was the son of Charles d'Auvergne, a poor lieutenant in the
British Navy, and had been adopted by the Duc Godefroy de Bouillon, who
saw his race threatened with extinction. Philippe d'Auvergne devoted
himself whole-heartedly to the cause of his new fellow-countrymen in
their difficulties with the English governors of the island. His career
was one of inconceivable adventures, and his end, which occurred in
London, was mysterious.--B.

[144] François Marie Anne Joseph Hingant de La Tiemblais (1761-1827).
No less than twenty-two members of his family suffered as victims
of their religious and political faith. He furnished Chateaubriand
with many of the materials for the _Génie du Christianisme_, and
himself published some valuable literary and scientific works
and an interesting novel (1826), entitled _Le Capucin, anecdote
historique._--B.

[145] Lamba Doria defeated Andrea Dandola, the Venetian admiral, before
the island of Curzola, off the coast of Dalmatia, in 1298.--T.




BOOK VIII[146]


The Literary Fund--My garret in Holborn--Decline in health--Visit
to the doctors--Emigrants in London--Peltier--Literary labours--My
friendship with Hingant--Our excursions--A night in Westminster
Abbey--Distress--Unexpected succour--Lodging overlooking a
cemetery--New companions in misfortune--Our pleasures--My cousin
de La Boüétardais--A sumptuous rout--I come to the end of my forty
crowns--Renewed distress--Table d'hôte--Bishops-Dinner at the London
Tavern--The Camden Manuscripts--My work in the country--Death of
my brother--Misfortunes of my family--Two Frances--Letters from
Hingant--Charlotte--I return to London--An extraordinary meeting--A
defect in my character--The _Essai historique sur les révolutions_--Its
effect--Letter from Lemierre, nephew to the poet--Fontanes--Cléry.


A society has been formed in London for the assistance of men of
letters, both English and foreign. This society invited me to its
annual meeting[147]; I made it my duty to attend and to present my
subscription[148]. H.R.H. the Duke of York[149] occupied the chair; on
his right were the Duke of Somerset[150] and Lords Torrington[151] and
Bolton[152]; I myself sat on his left. I met my friend Mr. Canning[153]
there. The poet, orator, and illustrious minister made a speech in
which occurred the following passage, which did me too great honour,
and which was reported in the newspapers:

"Although the person of my noble friend, the Ambassador of France, is
as yet but little known here, his character and writings are well known
to all Europe. He began his career by expounding the principles of
Christianity, and continued it by defending those of monarchy; and now
he comes amongst us to unite the two countries by the common bonds of
monarchical principles and Christian virtues[154]."

*

[Sidenote: The literary fund.]

It is many years since Mr. Canning, the man of letters, improved
himself by the political lessons of Mr. Pitt[155]; it is almost the
same number of years since I began obscurely to write in that same
English capital. Both of us have attained high station and are now
members of a society devoted to the relief of unfortunate authors. Is
it the affinity of our grandeurs or the relation of our sufferings
that brought us together in this place? What should the Governor of
the East Indies and the French Ambassador be doing at the banquet
of the afflicted muses? It was rather George Canning and François
de Chateaubriand who sat down to it, in remembrance of their former
adversity and perhaps of their former happiness: they drank to the
memory of Homer singing his verses for a morsel of bread.


If the Literary Fund had existed when I arrived in London from
Southampton on the 21st of May 1793, it would perhaps have paid a
doctor's visit to the garret in Holborn in which my cousin de La
Boüétardais[156], son of my uncle de Bedée, harboured me. It had been
hoped that the change of air would do marvels towards restoring to me
the strength essential to a soldier's life; but my health, instead of
recovering, declined. My chest became involved; I was thin and pale,
I coughed frequently, I breathed with difficulty; I had attacks of
perspiration and I spat blood. My friends, who were as poor as I,
dragged me from doctor to doctor. These Hippocrates kept the band of
beggars waiting at their door, and then told me, for the price of one
guinea, that I must bear my complaint patiently, adding:

"That's all, my dear sir."

Dr. Goodwyn[157], famous for his experiments relating to drowning
people, made on his own person by his own prescriptions, was more
generous: he assisted me with his advice gratis; but he said to me,
with the harshness which he employed towards himself, that I might
"last" a few months, perhaps one or two years, provided I gave up all
fatigue.

"Do not look forward to a long career:" that was the substance of his
consultations.

The certainty of my approaching end thus acquired, while increasing the
natural gloom of my imagination, gave me an incredible peace of mind.
This inner disposition explains a passage of the note placed at the
head of the _Essai historique_[158], as well as the following passage
from the _Essai_ itself:

    "Smitten as I am with an illness which leaves me little hope,
    I behold objects with a tranquil eye; the calm atmosphere of
    the tomb is perceptible to the traveller who is but a few
    days' march removed from it[159]."

The bitterness of the reflections spread over the _Essai_ will
therefore arouse no astonishment: I wrote that work while lying under
sentence of death, between the verdict and the execution. A writer who
believed himself to be drawing near his end, amid the destitution of
his exile, could scarcely cast a smiling glance upon the world.

But how to spend the days of grace that had been granted me? I might
have lived or died promptly by my sword: I was forbidden to use it.
What remained? A pen? It was neither known nor proved, and I was
ignorant of its power. Would my innate taste for letters, the poems of
my childhood, the sketches of my travels suffice to attract the public
attention? The idea of writing a work on the comparative Revolutions
had occurred to me; I turned it over in my mind as a subject more
suited to the interests of the day; but who would undertake the
printing of a manuscript with none to extol its merits, and who would
support me during the composition of that manuscript? Even if I had
but a few days to spend on earth, I must nevertheless have some means
of support for those few days. My thirty louis, already seriously
curtailed, could not go very far, and, in addition to my own distress,
I had to support the general distress of the Emigration. My companions
in London all had occupations: some had embarked in the coal trade,
others with their wives made straw hats, others again taught the French
which they did not know. They were all merry. The fault of our nation,
its frivolity, had at that moment changed into virtue. They laughed in
Fortune's face: that thieving wench was quite abashed at carrying off
something which she was not asked to restore.

*

[Sidenote: Peltier.]

Peltier, author of the _Domine salvum fac regem_[160] and principal
editor of the _Actes des Apôtres_, continued his Parisian enterprise in
London. He was not precisely vicious: but he was devoured by a vermin
of small faults of which it was impossible to purify him; he was a
rake, a good-for-nothing, earned a great deal of money and spent it as
lavishly, was at the same time the adherent of the Legitimacy and the
ambassador of the black King Christophe[161] to George III., diplomatic
correspondent of M. le Comte de "Limonade," and drank up in champagne
the salary which was paid him in sugar[162]. This sort of M. Violet
playing the grand airs of the Revolution on a pocket violin came to see
me, and offered his services as a Breton. I spoke to him of my plan of
the _Essai_; he loudly approved of it:

"It will be superb!" he exclaimed, and offered me a room in the house
of his printer, Baylis, who would print the work piece by piece as I
wrote it.

Deboffe the bookseller should have the sale of it; he, Peltier, would
trumpet it in his paper, the _Ambigu_, while one might obtain a footing
in the London _Courrier français_, the editorship of which was soon to
be transferred to M. de Montlosier[163]. Peltier never entertained a
doubt: he spoke of getting me the Cross of St. Louis for my siege of
Thionville. My Gil Blas, tall, lean, lanky, with powdered hair and a
bald forehead, always shouting and joking, put his round hat on one
ear, took me by the arm, and carried me off to Baylis the printer,
where, without any ceremony, he hired a room for me at a guinea a month.

I was face to face with my golden future; but how to bridge over the
present? Peltier obtained translations from the Latin and the English
for me; I worked at translating by day, and at night at the _Essai
historique_, into which I introduced a portion of my travels and my
day-dreams. Baylis supplied me with the books, and I laid out a few
shillings to ill purpose on the purchase of old volumes displayed on
the bookstalls.

Hingant, whom I had met on the Jersey packet, had become intimate
with me. He cultivated literature, he was well informed, and he wrote
novels in secret and read me pages of them. He had a lodging not far
from Baylis, at the end of a street leading into Holborn. I breakfasted
with him every morning at ten o'clock; we talked about politics
and above all about my work. I told him how much I had built of my
nocturnal edifice, the _Essai_; then I reverted to my labour of the
daytime, the translations. We met for dinner, at a shilling a head, in
a public-house; thence we made for the fields. Often also we walked
alone, for we were both of us fond of musing.

I would then direct my steps towards Kensington or Westminster.
Kensington pleased me; I wandered about its solitary part, while the
part adjacent to Hyde Park became filled with a brilliant multitude.
The contrast between my penury and the display of wealth, between my
destitution and the crowd, was pleasant to me. I watched the young
Englishwomen pass in the distance with that sense of desirous confusion
which my sylph had formerly caused me to feel when, after decking
her with all my extravagances, I scarce dared lift my eyes upon my
handiwork. Death, which I thought that I was approaching, added a
mystery to this vision of a world from which I had almost departed. Did
ever a look rest upon the foreigner seated at the foot of a fir-tree?
Did some fair woman divine the invisible presence of René?

[Sidenote: A night in Westminster Abbey.]

At Westminster I found a different pastime: in that labyrinth of tombs
I thought of mine ready to open. The bust of an unknown man like myself
would never find a place amid those illustrious effigies! Then appeared
the sepulchres of the monarchs: Cromwell[164] was there no longer,
and Charles I.[165] was not there. The ashes of a traitor, Robert of
Artois[166], lay beneath the flagstones which I trod with my loyal
steps. The fate of Charles I. had just been extended to Louis XVI.; the
steel was reaping its daily harvest in France, and the graves of my
kindred were already dug.

The singing of the choir and the conversation of the visitors
interrupted my reflections. I was not able often to repeat my visits,
for I was obliged to give to the guardians of those who lived no more
the shilling which was necessary to me to live. But then I would turn
round and round outside the abbey with the rooks, or stop to gaze at
the steeples, twins of unequal height, which the setting sun stained
red with its fiery light against the black hangings of the smoke of the
City.

One day, however, it happened that, wishing towards evening to
contemplate the interior of the basilica, I became lost in admiration
of its spirited and capricious architecture. Dominated by the sentiment
of the "dowdy vastitie of our churches[167]," I wandered with slow
footsteps and became benighted: the doors were closed. I tried to find
an outlet; I called the usher, I knocked against the doors: all the
noise I made, spread and spun out in the silence, was lost; I had to
resign myself to sleeping among the dead.

After hesitating in my choice of a resting-place I stopped near Lord
Chatham's[168] mausoleum, at the foot of the rood and of the double
stair of Henry the Seventh's and the Knights' Chapel. At the entrance
to those stairs, to those aisles enclosed with railings, a sarcophagus
built into the wall, opposite to a marble figure of death armed with
its scythe, offered me its shelter. The fold of a winding-sheet, also
of marble, served me for a niche: following the example of Charles
V.[169], I inured myself to my burial. I was in the best seats for
seeing the world as it is. What a mass of greatnesses were confined
beneath those vaults! What remains of them? Afflictions are no less
vain than felicities: the hapless Jane Grey[170] is not different
from the blithe Alice of Salisbury[171] save that the skeleton is
less horrible because it has no head; her body is beautified by her
punishment and by the absence of that which constituted its beauty.
The tournaments of the victor of Crecy[172], the sports of the Field
of the Cloth of Gold of Henry VIII.[173] will not be renewed in that
theatre of funereal spectacles. Bacon[174], Newton[175], Milton[176]
are interred as deeply, have passed away as completely, as their more
obscure contemporaries. Should I, an exile, a vagabond, a pauper,
consent to be no longer the petty, forgotten, sorrowful thing that I am
in order to have been one of those famous, mighty, pleasure-sated dead?
Ah, life is not all that! If from the shores of this world we cannot
distinctly discern matters divine, let us not be astonished: time is a
veil set between ourselves and God, even as our eyelids are interposed
between our eyes and the light.

[Sidenote: Reflections and release.]

Crouching under my marble sheet, I descended from these lofty thoughts
to the simple impressions of the place and moment. My anxiety mingled
with pleasure was analogous to that which I used to experience in
winter in my turret at Combourg, as I listened to the wind: a breeze
and a shadow possess a kindred nature. Little by little I grew
accustomed to the darkness and distinguished the figures placed over
the tombs. I looked up at the vaults of this English Saint-Denis,
whence one might say that the years that have been and the issues of
the past hung down like Gothic lamps: the entire edifice was as it were
a monolithic temple of ages turned to stone.

I had counted ten o'clock, eleven o'clock by the abbey clock: the
hammer rising and falling upon the bell-metal was the only living
creature in those regions beside myself. Outside, the sound of a
carriage, the voice of the watchman: that was all; those distant sounds
of earth reached me as though from one world to another. The fog from
the Thames and the smoke of coal crept into the basilica, and spread a
denser dusk around.

At last a twilight spread out in a corner filled with the dimmest
shadows: with fixed gaze I watched the progressive growth of the light;
did it emanate from the two sons[177] of Edward IV., assassinated by
their uncle? The great tragedian says:

    "O thus," quoth Dighton, "lay the gentle babes,"--
    "Thus, thus," quoth Forrest, "girdling one another
     Within their alabaster innocent arms:
     Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
     Which, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other[178]."

God did not send me those two sad and charming souls; but the light
phantom of a scarcely adolescent woman appeared carrying a light
sheltered in a sheet of paper twisted shell-wise: it was the little
bell-ringer. I heard the sound of a kiss, and the bell tolled the break
of day. The ringer was quite terrified when I went out with her through
the gate of the cloisters. I told her of my adventure; she said she
had come to do duty for her father, who was sick: we did not speak of
the kiss.

*

I amused Hingant with the story of my adventure, and we made a plan to
lock ourselves in at Westminster; but our distress summoned us to the
dead in a less poetic manner.

My funds were becoming exhausted: Baylis and Deboffe had ventured,
against a written promise of reimbursement in case of non-sale, to
commence the printing of the _Essai_; there their generosity ended,
and very naturally; I was even astonished at their boldness. The
translations fell off; Peltier, a man of pleasure, grew weary of his
prolonged obligingness. He would willingly have given me what he had,
if he had not preferred to squander it; but to go looking here and
there for work, to do patient acts of kindness, was beyond him. Hingant
also saw his treasure diminishing; we were reduced to sixty francs
between us. We cut down our rations, as on a vessel when the passage
is prolonged. Instead of a shilling apiece, we spent only sixpence on
our dinner. With our morning tea we reduced the bread by one half,
and suppressed the butter. This abstinence vexed my friend's nerves.
His wits went wool-gathering; he would prick his ears and seem to be
listening to some one; he would burst out laughing in reply, or shed
tears. Hingant believed in magnetism, and had disordered his brain with
Swedenborg's[179] rubbish. He told me in the morning that he had heard
noises during the night; if I denied his fancies he grew angry. The
anxiety which he caused me prevented me from feeling my own sufferings.

These were great, nevertheless: that rigorous diet, combined with
the work, chafed my diseased chest; I began to find a difficulty in
walking, and yet I spent my days and a part of my nights out of doors,
so as not to betray my distress. When we came to our last shilling,
my friend and I agreed to keep it in order to make a pretense of
breakfasting. We arranged that we should buy a penny roll; that we
should have the hot water and the tea-pot brought up as usual; that we
should not put in any tea; that we should not eat the bread, but that
we should drink the hot water with a few little morsels of sugar left
at the bottom of the bowl.

Five days passed in this fashion. I was devoured with hunger; I burned
with fever; sleep had deserted me; I sucked pieces of linen which I
soaked in water; I chewed grass and paper. When I passed the bakers'
shops, the torment I endured was horrible. One rough winter's night,
I stood for two hours outside a shop where they sold dried fruits and
smoked meats, swallowing all I saw with my eyes: I could have eaten
not only the provisions, but the boxes and baskets in which they were
packed.

On the morning of the fifth day, dropping from inanition, I dragged
myself to Hingant's; I knocked at the door: it was closed. I called
out; Hingant was some time without answering: at last he rose and
opened the door. He laughed with a bewildered air; his frock-coat was
buttoned; he sat down at the tea-table.

"Our breakfast is coming," he said in a strange voice.

I thought I saw some stains of blood on his shirt; I suddenly
unbuttoned his coat: he had given himself a wound with a penknife,
two inches deep, in his left breast. I called out for help. The
maid-servant went to fetch a surgeon. The wound was dangerous.

This new misfortune obliged me to take a resolution. Hingant, who was
a counsellor to the Parliament of Brittany, had refused to take the
salary which the English Government allowed the French magistrates, in
the same way that I had declined the shilling a day doled out to the
Emigrants: I wrote to M. de Barentin[180] and disclosed my friend's
position to him. Hingant's relations hurried to his assistance and
took him away to the country. At that very moment my uncle de Bedée
forwarded me forty crowns, a touching offering from my persecuted
family. I seemed to see all the gold of Peru before my eyes: the mite
of the French prisoners supported the exiled Frenchman.

[Sidenote: Destitution.]

My destitution had impeded my work. As I delivered no more manuscript,
the printing was suspended. Deprived of Hingant's company, I did not
keep on my room at Baylis' at a guinea per month; I paid the quarter
that was due and went away. Below the needy Emigrants who had served
as my first protectors in London were others who were even more
necessitous. There are degrees among the poor as among the rich; one
can go from the man who in winter keeps himself warm with his dog
down to him who shivers in his torn rags. My friends found me a room
more suited to my diminishing fortune: one is not always at the height
of prosperity! They installed me in the neighbourhood of Marylebone
Street, in a garret whose dormer window overlooked a cemetery: every
night the watchman's rattle told me of the proximity of body-snatchers.
I had the consolation to hear that Hingant was out of danger.

Friends came to see me in my work-room. To judge from our independence
and our poverty, we might have been taken for painters on the ruins of
Rome; we were artists in wretchedness on the ruins of France. My face
served as a model, my bed as a seat for my pupils. The bed consisted of
a mattress and a blanket. I had no sheets; when it was cold my coat and
a chair, added to my blanket, kept me warm. I was too weak to make my
bed; it remained turned down as God had left it.

My cousin de La Boüétardais, turned out of a low Irish lodging for not
paying his rent, although he had put his violin in pawn, came to ask me
for a shelter against the constable: a vicar from Lower Brittany lent
him a trestle-bed. La Boüétardais, like Hingant, had been a counsellor
to the Parliament of Brittany; he did not possess a handkerchief to
tie round his head; but he had deserted with bag and baggage, that is
to say, he had brought away his square cap and his red robe, and he
slept under the purple by my side. Jocular, a good musician with a fine
voice, on nights when we could not sleep he would sit up quite naked
on his trestles, put on his square cap, and sing ballads, accompanying
himself on a guitar with only three strings. One night when the poor
fellow was in this way humming _Scendi propizia_ from Metastasio's[181]
_Hymn to Venus_, he was struck by a draught; he twisted his mouth, and
he died of it, but not at once, for I rubbed his cheek heartily. We
held counsel in our elevated room, argued on politics, and discussed
the gossip of the Emigration. In the evening, we went to our aunts and
cousins to dance, after the dresses had been trimmed with ribbons and
the hats made up.

They who read this portion of my Memoirs are not aware that I have
interrupted them twice: once to offer a great dinner to the Duke of
York, brother of the King of England; and once to give a rout on the
anniversary of the entry of the King of France into Paris, on the 8th
of July. That rout cost me forty thousand francs. Peers and peeresses
of the British Empire, ambassadors, distinguished foreigners filled
my gorgeously-decorated rooms. My tables gleamed with the glitter of
London crystal and the gold of Sèvres porcelain. The most delicate
dainties, wines and flowers abounded. Portland Place was blocked with
splendid carriages. Collinet and the band from Almack's enraptured the
fashionable melancholy of the dandies and the dreamy elegance of the
pensively-dancing ladies. The Opposition and the Ministerial majority
had struck a truce: Mrs. Canning[182] talked to Lord Londonderry, Lady
Jersey to the Duke of Wellington. Monsieur, who this year sent me his
compliments on the sumptuousness of my entertainments in 1822, did
not know in 1793 that, not far from him, lived a future minister who,
while awaiting the advent of his greatness, fasted over a cemetery for
his sin of loyalty. I congratulate myself to-day on having experienced
shipwreck, gone through war, and shared the sufferings of the humblest
classes of society, as I applaud myself for meeting with injustice and
calumny in times of prosperity. I have profited by these lessons: life,
without the ills that make it serious, is a child's bauble.

*

I was the man with the forty crowns; but since fortunes had not yet
been levelled, nor the price of commodities reduced, there was nothing
to serve as a counterpoise to my rapidly diminishing purse. I could
not reckon on further help from my family, exposed in Brittany to the
double scourge of the Chouans[183] and the Terror. I saw nothing before
me but the workhouse or the Thames.

[Sidenote: A contrast.]

Some of the Emigrants' servants, whom their masters could no longer
feed, had turned into eating-house keepers in order to feed their
masters. God knows the merry meals that were made at these ordinaries!
God knows, too, what politics were talked there! All the victories
of the Republic were turned into defeats, and, if by chance one
entertained a doubt as to an immediate restoration, he was declared a
Jacobin. Two old bishops, who looked like live corpses, were walking
one morning in St James's Park:

"Monseigneur," said one, "do you think we shall be in France by June?"

"Why, monseigneur," replied the other, after ripe reflection, "I see
nothing against it."

Peltier, the man of resource, unearthed me, or rather unnested me,
in my eyry. He had read in a Yarmouth newspaper that a society of
antiquarians was going to produce a history of the County of Suffolk,
and that they wanted a Frenchman able to decipher some French
twelfth-century manuscripts from the Camden[184] Collection. The parson
at Beccles was at the head of the undertaking; he was the man to whom
to apply.

"That will just suit you," said Peltier; "go down there, decipher that
old waste-paper, go on sending copy for the _Essai_ to Baylis; I'll
make the wretch go on with his printing; and you will come back to
London with two hundred guineas in your pocket, your work done, and go
ahead!" I tried to stammer out some objections:

"What the deuce!" cried my man. "Do you want to stay in this
_palace_, where I'm catching cold already? If Rivarol, Champcenetz,
Mirabeau-Tonneau and I had gone about pursing up our mouths, a fine
business we should have made of the _Actes des Apôtres!_ Do you know
that that story of Hingant is making the devil of a to-do? So you both
wanted to let yourself die of hunger, did you? Ha, ha, ha! Pouf!....
Ha, ha!"

Peltier, doubled in two, was holding his knees with laughter. He had
just received a hundred subscriptions to his paper from the colonies;
he had been paid for them, and jingled his guineas in his pocket. He
dragged me by main force, together with the apoplectic La Boüétardais
and two tattered Emigrants who were at hand, to dine at the London
Tavern. He made us drink port and eat roast beef and plum-pudding till
we were ready to burst.

"Monsieur le comte," he asked my cousin, "what makes you carry your
potato-trap askew like that?"

La Boüétardais, half shocked, half pleased, explained the thing as
best he could; he described how he had been suddenly seized while
singing the words, "_O bella Venere!_" My poor paralytic looked so
dead, so benumbed, so shabby, as he stammered out his "_bella Venere_"
that Peltier fell back, roaring with laughter, and almost upset the
table by striking it with his two feet underneath.

[Sidenote: I go to Beccles.]

Upon reflection, the advice of my fellow-countryman, a real character
out of my other fellow-countryman, Le Sage[185], did not appear to me
so bad. After three days spent in making inquiries and in obtaining
some clothes from Peltier's tailor, I set out for Beccles with some
money lent me by Deboffe, on the understanding that I was going on
with the _Essai._ I changed my name, which no Englishman was able to
pronounce, for that of Combourg, which had been borne by my brother,
and which reminded me of the sorrows and pleasures of my early youth.
I alighted at the inn, and handed the minister of the place a letter
from Deboffe, who was greatly esteemed in the English book-world. The
letter recommended me as a scholar of the first rank. I was very well
received, saw all the gentlemen of the district, and met two officers
of our Royal Navy who were giving French lessons in the neighbourhood.

*

My strength improved; my trips on horseback restored my health a
little. England, viewed thus in detail, was melancholy, but charming;
it was the same thing, the same outlook wherever I went. M. de Combourg
was invited to every party. I owed to study the first alleviation of
my lot. Cicero was right to recommend the commerce of letters in the
troubles of life. The women were delighted to meet a Frenchman to talk
French with.

The misfortunes of my family, which I learnt from the newspapers,
and which made me known by my real name (for I was unable to conceal
my grief), increased the interest which my acquaintances took in me.
The public journals announced the death of M. de Malesherbes; of his
daughter, Madame la Présidente de Rosanbo; of his granddaughter,
Madame de Chateaubriand; and of his grandson-in-law, the Comte de
Chateaubriand, my brother, all immolated together, on the same day,
at the same hour, on the same scaffold[186]. M. de Malesherbes was
an object of admiration and veneration among the English; my family
connection with the defender of Louis XVI. added to the kindness of my
hosts.

My uncle de Bedée informed me of the persecutions endured by the rest
of my relations. My old and incomparable mother had been flung into a
cart with other victims and carried from the depths of Brittany to the
gaols of Paris, in order to share the lot of the son whom she had loved
so well. My wife and my sister Lucile were awaiting their sentence in
the dungeons at Rennes; there had been a question of imprisoning them
at Combourg Castle, which had become a State fortress: their innocence
was accused of the crime of my emigration. What were our sorrows on
foreign soil compared with those of the French who had remained at
home? And yet, what unhappiness, amid the sufferings of exile, to know
that our very exile was made the pretext for the persecution of our kin.

Two years ago my sister-in-law's wedding ring was picked up in the
kennel of the Rue Cassette; it was brought to me, broken; the two hoops
of the ring had come apart and hung linked together; the names were
clearly legible engraved inside. How had the ring come to be found
there? When and where had it been lost? Had the victim, imprisoned at
the Luxembourg, passed by the Rue Cassette on her way to execution? Had
she dropped the ring from the tumbril? Had the ring been torn from her
finger after the execution? I was shocked at the sight of this symbol,
which, both by its broken condition and its inscription, reminded me of
a destiny so cruel. Something fatal and mysterious was attached to this
ring, which my sister-in-law seemed to send me from among the dead, in
memory of herself and my brother. I have given it to her son[187]: may
it not bring him ill-luck!

    Cher orphelin, image de ta mère,
    Au ciel pour toi, je demande, ici-bas,
    Les jours heureux retranchés à ton père
    Et les enfants que ton oncle n'a pas[188].

This halting stanza and two or three others are the only present I was
able to make my nephew on his marriage.

[Sidenote: Execution of my brother.]

Another relic remains to me of these misfortunes. The following is a
letter which M. de Contencin wrote to me when, in turning over the city
records, he found the order of the revolutionary tribunal which sent my
brother and his family to the scaffold:

    "Monsieur le vicomte,

    "There is a sort of cruelty in awaking in a mind that has
    suffered much the memory of the ills which have affected it
    most painfully. This consideration made me hesitate some time
    before offering for your acceptance a very pathetic document,
    upon which I alighted in the course of my historical
    researches. It is a death-certificate, signed before the
    decease by a man who always displayed himself as implacable
    as death itself, whenever he found illustriousness and virtue
    united in the same person.

    "I hope, monsieur le vicomte, that you will not take it too
    ill of me if I add to your family records a document which
    recalls such cruel memories. I presumed that it would have an
    interest for you, since it had a value in my eyes, and I at
    once thought of offering it to you. If I am not guilty of an
    indiscretion, I shall be doubly gratified, as this proceeding
    gives me the opportunity to express to you the feelings of
    profound respect and sincere admiration with which you have
    long inspired me, and with I am, monsieur le vicomte,

    "your most humble, obedient servant,

    "A. DE CONTENCIN.

    "Prefecture of the Seine,

    "Paris, 28 _March_ 1835."

I replied to the above letter as follows:

    "I had had the Sainte-Chapelle searched, monsieur, for the
    documents concerning the trial of my unfortunate brother and
    his wife, but the 'order' which you have been good enough to
    send me was not to be found. This order and so many others,
    with their erasures and their mangled names, have doubtless
    been presented to Fouquier before the tribunal of God; he
    will have been compelled to acknowledge his signature. Those
    are the times which people regret, and on which they write
    volumes filled with admiration! For the rest, I envy my
    brother: he, at least, has since many a long year quitted
    this sad world. I thank you infinitely, monsieur, for the
    esteem which you have shown me in your beautiful and noble
    letter, and I beg you to accept the assurance of the very
    distinguished consideration with which I have the honour to
    be, etc."



This death order is, above all, remarkable for the proof which it
affords of the levity with which the murders were committed: names
are wrongly spelt, others are effaced. These defects of form, which
would have been enough to stay the simplest sentence, did not stop
the headsmen; all they cared for was the exact hour of death: "at
five o'clock precisely." Here is the authentic document, I copy it
faithfully:

    "Executor of Criminal Judgments,

    "REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.

    "The executor of criminal judgments will not fail to go to
    the house of justice of the Conciergerie, there to execute
    the judgment which condemns Mousset, d'Esprémenil, Chapelier,
    Thouret, Hell, Lamoignon Malsherbes, the woman Lepelletier
    Rosambo, Chateau Brian, and his wife [proper name effaced
    and illegible], the widow Duchatelet, the wife of Grammont,
    formerly duke, the woman Rochechuart [Rochechouart], and
    Parmentier;--14, to the penalty of death. The execution will
    take place to-day, at five o'clock precisely, on the Place de
    la Révolution in this city.

    "H. Q. FOUQUIER,

    "Public Prosecutor.

    "Given at the Tribunal, 3 Floréal, Year II. of the French
    Republic.

    "_Two conveyances._"


The 9 Thermidor saved my mother's days; but she was forgotten at the
Conciergerie. The conventional commissary found her:

"What are you doing here, citizeness?" he asked. "Who are you? Why do
you stay here?"

My mother replied that, having lost her son, she had not inquired what
was going on, and that it was indifferent to her whether she died in
prison or elsewhere.

"But perhaps you have other children?" said the commissary.

[Sidenote: Release of my mother.]

My mother mentioned my wife and sisters detained in custody at Rennes.
An order was sent to place them at liberty, and my mother was compelled
to leave the prison.

In the histories of the Revolution, the writers have omitted to set the
picture of outer France by the side of the picture of inner France,
to depict that great colony of exiles, changing its industry and its
sorrows in accordance with the diversity of climate and the difference
in national manners.

Outside France, everything operated by individuals: changes of
condition, obscure afflictions, noiseless and unrewarded sacrifices;
and, in this variety of individuals of every rank, age and sex, one
fixed idea was preserved: that of Old France travelling with her
prejudices and her faithful sons, as formerly the Church of God had
wandered over the earth with her virtues and her martyrs.

Inside France, everything operated in the mass: Barère announcing
murders and conquests, civil wars and foreign wars; the gigantic
combats of the Vendée and on the banks of the Rhine; thrones toppling
to the sound of the march of our armies; our fleets swallowed up by the
waves; the people disinterring the monarchs at Saint-Denis and flinging
the dust of the dead kings into the eyes of the living kings to blind
them; New France, glorying in her new-found liberties, proud even of
her crimes, steadfast on her own soil, while extending her frontiers,
doubly armed with the headsman's blade and the soldier's sword.

In the midst of my family sorrows I received some letters from my
friend Hingant, to reassure me as to his fate: letters very remarkable
in themselves; he wrote to me in September 1795:

    "Your letter of the 23rd of August is full of the most
    touching feeling. I showed it to a few people, whose eyes
    filled with tears on reading it. I was almost tempted to say
    what Diderot said on the day when J. J. Rousseau came and
    cried in his prison at Vincennes:

    "'See how my friends love me.'

    "My illness, as a matter of fact, was only one of those
    nervous fevers which cause great suffering, and for which
    time and patience are the best remedies. During the fever I
    read extracts from the _Phædo_ and _Timæus_, and I said with
    Cato:

    "'It must be so, Plato; thou reason'st well[189]!'

    "I had formed an idea of my journey as one might form an idea
    of a voyage to India. I imagined that I should see many new
    objects in the 'spirit world,' as Swedenborg calls it, and
    above all that I should be free from the fatigue and dangers
    of the journey."


Eight miles from Beccles, in a little town called Bungay, lived an
English clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Ives[190], a great Hellenist and
mathematician. He had a wife who was still young, with a charming
appearance, mind and manners, and an only daughter, fifteen years of
age. I was introduced to this household, and was better received there
than anywhere else. We took our wine in the old English fashion, and
sat two hours at table after the ladies had left. Mr. Ives, who had
been to America, liked to tell of his travels, to hear the story of my
own, to talk of Newton and Homer. His daughter, who had become learned
in order to please her father, was an excellent musician, and sang as
Madame Pasta[191] sings to-day. She reappeared in time to pour out
tea, and charmed away the old parson's infectious drowsiness. Leaning
against the end of the piano, I listened to Miss Ives in silence.

When the music was over, the young lady questioned me about France,
about literature; asked me to set her plans of studies; she wished
particularly to know the Italian authors, and begged me to give her
some notes on the _Divina Commedia_ and the _Gerusalemme._ Gradually
I began to experience a timid charm that issued from the soul: I had
decked the Floridans, I should not have ventured to pick up Miss Ives's
glove; I grew confused when I tried to translate a passage from Tasso.
I was more at my ease with that chaster and more masculine genius,
Dante.

Charlotte Ives's age and my own were suited. Into friendships formed
in the midst of one's career, there enters a certain melancholy;
when two people do not meet at the very outset, the memories of the
person beloved are not mingled with that portion of our days in which
we breathed without knowing her: those days, which belong to another
society, are painful to the memory, and as though curtailed from
our existence. When there is a disproportion of age, the drawbacks
increase: the older of the two commenced life before the younger was
born; the younger is destined to remain alone in his turn: one has
walked in a solitude this side of a cradle, the other will cross a
solitude that side of a tomb; the past was a desert for the first, the
future will be a desert for the second. It is difficult to be in love
in all the conditions that produce happiness: youth, beauty, seasonable
time, harmony of hearts, tastes, character, graces, and years.

Having had a fall from my horse, I stayed some time with Mr. Ives. It
was winter; the dreams of my life began to flee before reality. Miss
Ives became more reserved; she ceased to bring me flowers; she would no
longer sing.

[Sidenote: Charlotte Ives.]

If I could have been told that I should pass the rest of my life
unknown in the bosom of this retiring family, I should have died of
pleasure: love needs but permanency to become at once an Eden before
the fall and an Hosanna without end. Contrive that beauty lasts, that
youth remains, that the heart can never weary, and you reproduce
Heaven. Love is so surely the sovereign felicity that it is pursued
by the phantom of perpetuity; it will consent to pronounce only
irrevocable vows; in the absence of joys, it seeks to make endless
its sorrows; a fallen angel, it still speaks the language it spoke
in the incorruptible abode; its hope is that it may never cease; in
its twofold nature and its twofold illusion here below, it strives to
perpetuate itself by immortal thoughts and never-failing generations.

I beheld with dismay the moment approach when I should be obliged to
go. On the eve of the day announced for my departure, our dinner was a
gloomy one. To my great surprise, Mr. Ives withdrew at dessert, taking
his daughter with him, and I remained alone with Mrs. Ives: she was
extremely embarrassed. I thought she was going to reproach me with
an inclination which she might have discovered, although I had never
mentioned it. She looked at me, lowered her eyes, blushed; herself
bewitching in her confusion, there was no sentiment which she might not
by right have claimed for herself. At last, overcoming with an effort
the obstacle which had prevented her from speaking:

"Sir," she said in English, "you behold my confusion: I do not know if
Charlotte pleases you, but it is impossible to deceive a mother's eyes;
my daughter has certainly conceived an attachment for you. Mr. Ives and
I have consulted together: you suit us in every respect; we believe you
will make our daughter happy. You no longer possess a country; you have
lost your relations; your property is sold: what is there to take you
back to France? Until you inherit what we have, you will live with us."

Of all the sorrows that I had undergone, this was the sorest and
greatest. I threw myself at Mrs. Ives's feet; I covered her hands with
my kisses and my tears. She thought I was weeping with happiness, and
herself began to sob for joy. She stretched out her arm to pull the
bell-rope; she called her husband and daughter:

"Stop!" I cried. "I am a married man!"

She fell back fainting.

I went out and, without returning to my room, left the house on foot I
reached Beccles and took the mail for London, after writing a letter to
Mrs. Ives of which I regret that I did not keep a copy.

I have retained the sweetest, the tenderest, the most grateful
recollection of that event. Before I made my name, Mr. Ives's family
was the only one that bore me good-will and welcomed me with genuine
affection. Poor, unknown, proscribed, with neither beauty nor
attraction, I was offered an assured future, a country, a charming
wife to take me out of my loneliness, a mother almost as beautiful to
fill the place of my old mother, a father full of information, loving
and cultivating literature, to replace the father of whom Heaven had
bereaved me: what did I bring to set off against all that? No illusion
could possibly enter into the choice they made of me; there was no
doubt that I was loved. Since that time, I have met with but one
attachment sufficiently lofty to inspire me with the same confidence.
As to any interest of which I may subsequently have been the object, I
have never been able to make out whether outward causes, a noisy fame,
official finery, the glamour of a high literary or political position
were not the covering which attracted the attentions shown to me.

For the rest, if I had married Charlotte Ives, my part on earth would
have been changed: buried in an English county, I should have become a
sporting gentleman; not a single line would have fallen from my pen; I
should even have forgotten my language, for I wrote in English, and
my ideas were beginning to take shape in English in my head. Would
my country have lost much by my disappearance? If I could put on one
side that which has consoled me, I would say that I should already
have numbered days of calm, instead of the troubled days that have
fallen to my share. The Empire, the Restoration, the divisions and
quarrels of France: what would all that have mattered to me? I should
not each morning have to palliate faults, to contend with errors. Is
it certain that I possess a real talent, and that that talent is worth
the sacrifice of my whole life? Shall I outlast my tomb? If I do go
beyond it, in the transformation which is now being brought about, in
a changed world occupied with very different things, will there be a
public to hear me? Shall I not be a man of the past, unintelligible to
the new generations? Will not my ideas, my opinions, my very style seem
tedious and antiquated to a scornful posterity? Will my shade be able
to say, as the shade of Virgil said to Dante:

    "_Poeta fui e cantai_: I was a poet and I sang?"[192]


*

[Sidenote: I return to London.]

I returned to London, but found no repose: I had fled from my fate as
a miscreant from his crime. How painful it must have been to a family
so worthy of my homage, of my respect, of my gratitude, to receive a
sort of refusal from the unknown man whom they had welcomed, to whom
they had offered a new home with a simplicity, an absence of suspicion,
of precaution, almost patriarchal in character! I imagined Charlotte's
grief, the just reproaches with which I was liable and deserved to
be covered: for, after all, I had taken pleasure in yielding to an
inclination of which I knew the insuperable unlawfulness. Had I, in
fact, made a vain attempt at seduction, without taking into account the
heinousness of my conduct? But whether I stopped, as I did, in order to
remain an honest man, or overcame all obstacles in order to surrender
to an inclination stigmatized beforehand through my conduct, I could
only have plunged the object of that seduction into sorrow or regret.

From these bitter reflections I abandoned myself to other thoughts no
less filled with bitterness: I cursed my marriage, which, according to
the false perception of a mind at that time very sick, had thrown me
out of my course and was robbing me of happiness. I did not reflect
that, on account of the ailing temperament to which I was subject, and
the romantic notions of liberty which I cherished, a marriage with Miss
Ives would have been as painful to me as a more independent union.

One thing within me remained pure and charming, although profoundly
sad: the image of Charlotte; that image ended by prevailing over my
revolts against my fate. I was tempted a hundred times to return to
Bungay, not to appear before the troubled family, but to hide by the
road-side to see Charlotte pass, to follow her to the temple where
we had the same God, if not the same altar, in common, to offer that
woman, through the medium of Heaven, the inexpressible ardour of my
vows, to pronounce, at least in thought, the prayer from the nuptial
benediction which I might have heard from a clergyman's lips in that
temple:

    "O God,... look mercifully upon this thy handmaid. ... now to
    be joined in wedlock.... May it be to her a yoke of love and
    peace.... May she be fruitful in offspring ... that they may
    both see their children's children unto the third and fourth
    generation, and arrive at a desired old age[193]."

Wavering between resolve and resolve, I wrote Charlotte long letters
which I tore up. A few unimportant notes which I had received from her
served me as a talisman; attached to my steps by my thought, Charlotte,
gracious and compassionate, followed me along the paths of my sylph,
purifying them as she went. She absorbed my faculties; she was the
centre through which my intelligence made its way, in the same way as
the blood passes through the heart; she disgusted me with all else, for
I made of her a perpetual object of comparison to her advantage. A real
and unhappy passion is a poisoned leaven which remains at the bottom of
the soul, and which would poison the bread of the angels.

The spots by which I had wandered, the hours and words which I had
exchanged with Charlotte, were engraved on my memory: I saw the smile
of the wife who had been destined for me; I respectfully touched
her black tresses; I pressed her shapely arms to my breast, like a
chain which I might have worn round my neck. No sooner was I in some
sequestered spot than Charlotte, with her white hands, came to sit by
my side. I divined her presence, as at night one inhales the perfume of
unseen flowers.

I had lost Hingant's company, and my walks, more solitary than before,
left me full liberty to carry with me the image of Charlotte. There was
not a common, a road, a church, within thirty miles of London, that I
did not visit. The most deserted places, a field of nettles, a ditch
planted with thistles, all that was neglected by men, became favourite
spots for me, and in those spots Byron already drew breath. Leaning my
head upon my hand, I contemplated the scorned sites; when their painful
impression affected me too greatly, the memory of Charlotte came to
enchant me: I was then like the pilgrim who, on reaching a solitude
within view of the rocks of Mount Sinai, heard the nightingale sing.

In London, my habits aroused surprise. I looked at nobody, I never
replied, I did not know what was said to me: my old associates
suspected me of madness.

*

What happened at Bungay after my departure? What became of that family
to which I had brought joy and mourning?

You will have remembered that I am at present Ambassador to the Court
of George IV., and that I am writing in London, in 1822, of what
happened to me in London in 1795.

Some matters of business obliged me, a week ago, to interrupt the
narrative which I resume to-day. During this interval, my man came and
told me one morning, between twelve and one o'clock, that a carriage
had stopped at my door and that an English lady was asking to see me.
As I have made it a rule, in my public position, to deny myself to
nobody, I ordered the lady to be shown up.

[Sidenote: Lady Sutton.]

I was in my study, when Lady Sutton was announced; I saw a lady in
mourning enter the room, accompanied by two handsome boys also in
mourning: one might have been sixteen, the other fourteen years of age.
I went towards the stranger; her perturbation was such that she could
hardly walk. She said to me, in faltering accents:

"My lord, do you remember me?"

Yes, I remembered Miss Ives! The years which had passed over her head
had left only their spring-time behind. I took her by the hand, I made
her sit down, and I sat down by her side. I could not speak; my eyes
were full of tears; I gazed at her in silence through those tears; I
felt how deeply I had loved her by what I was now experiencing. At last
I was able to say, in my turn:

"And you, madam, do you remember me?"

She raised her eyes, which till then she had kept lowered, and for sole
reply gave me a smiling and melancholy glance, like a long remembrance.
Her hand still lay between mine. Charlotte said to me:

"I am in mourning for my mother; my father has been dead many years.
These are my children."

At these words, she drew away her hand and sank back into her chair,
covering her eyes with her handkerchief. Soon she resumed:

"My lord, I am now speaking to you in the language which I practised
with you at Bungay. I am ashamed: excuse me. My children are the sons
of Admiral Sutton[194], whom I married three years after your departure
from England. But I am not sufficiently self-possessed to-day to tell
you the details. Permit me to come again."

I asked her for her address, and gave her my arm to take her to her
carriage. She trembled, and I pressed her hand to my heart.

I called on Lady Sutton the next day; I found her alone. Then there
began between us a long series of those "Do you remember?" questions
which cause a whole life-time to revive. At each "Do you remember?"
we looked at one another; we sought to discover in each other's
faces those traces of time which so cruelly mark the distance from
the starting-point and the length of the road traversed. I said to
Charlotte:

"How did your mother tell you?"

Charlotte blushed, and hastily interrupted me:

"I have come to London to ask you to interest yourself on behalf of
Admiral Sutton's children. The eldest would like to go to Bombay. Mr.
Canning, who has been appointed Governor-General of India, is your
friend; he might consent to take my son with him. I should be very
grateful to you, and I should like to owe to you the happiness of my
first child."

She laid a stress on these last words.

"Ah, madam," I replied, "of what do you remind me? What a subversion of
destinies! You, who received a poor exile at your father's hospitable
board; you, who did not scorn his sufferings; you, who perhaps thought
of raising him to a glorious and unhoped-for rank: it is you who now
ask his protection in your own country! I will see Mr. Canning; your
son, however much it costs me to give him that name, your son shall go
to India, if it only depends on me. But tell me, madam, how does my new
position affect you? In what light do you look upon me at present? That
word, 'my lord,' which you employ seems very harsh to me."

Charlotte replied:

"I don't think you changed, not even aged. When I spoke of you to my
parents during your absence, I always gave you the title of 'my lord;'
it seemed to me that you had a right to bear it: were you not to me the
same as a husband, 'my lord and master'."

[Sidenote: Sentimental memories.]

That graceful woman reminded me of Milton's Eve, as she uttered these
words: she was not born in the womb of another woman; her beauty bore
the imprint of the divine hand that had moulded it.

I went to Mr. Canning and to Lord Londonderry; they made as many
difficulties about a small place as would have been made in France,
but they promised, as people promise at Court. I gave Lady Sutton an
account of the measures I had taken. I saw her three times more: at
my fourth visit, she told me she was returning to Bungay. This last
interview was a sad one. Charlotte talked to me once more of the past,
of our secret life, of our reading, our walks, our music, the flowers
of yester-year, the hopes of bygone days.

"When I knew you," she said, "no one spoke your name; now, who has
not heard it? Do you know that I have a work and several letters in
your handwriting? Here they are." And she handed me a packet. "Do not
be offended if I prefer to keep nothing of yours." She began to weep.
"Farewell, farewell," she said. "Think of my son. I shall not see you
again, for you will not come to see me at Bungay."

"I will," I cried; "I shall come to bring you your son's appointment."

She shook her head with an air of doubt, and withdrew. On returning to
the Embassy, I locked myself in and opened the packet. It contained
only a few unimportant notes from myself and a scheme of studies, with
remarks on the English and Italian poets. I had hoped to find a letter
from Charlotte: there was none; but, in the margins of the manuscript,
I perceived some notes in English, French, and Italian: the age of the
ink and the youthfulness of the hand in which they were written showed
that it was long since they had been inscribed upon those margins.

That is the story of my relations with Miss Ives. As I finish telling
it, it seems to me as though I were losing a second Charlotte in the
same island in which I lost the first. But between that which I feel at
this moment and that which I felt at the hours whose tenderness I have
recalled lies the whole space of innocence: passions have interposed
themselves between Miss Ives and Lady Sutton. I could no longer bring
to an artless woman the candour of desire, the sweet ignorance of a
love that did not surpass the limits of a dream. I was writing then on
the wave of sadness; I am now no longer tossed on the wave of life.
Well, if I had pressed in my arms, as a wife and a mother, her who was
destined for me as a virgin and a bride, it would have been with a sort
of rage, to blight, to fill with sorrow, to crush out of existence
those seven-and-twenty years which had been given to another after
having been offered to me.

I must look upon the sentiment which I have just recalled as the first
of that kind which entered my heart; it was nevertheless in no way
sympathetic with my stormy nature: the latter would have corrupted it
and made me incapable of long enjoying such sacred delectations. It
was then that, embittered as I was by misfortunes, already a pilgrim
from beyond the seas, having begun my solitary travels, it was then
that I became obsessed by the mad ideas depicted in the mystery of
René, which turned me into the most tormented being on the face of the
earth. However that may be, the chaste image of Charlotte, by causing a
few rays of true light to penetrate to the depths of my soul, at first
dissipated a cloud of phantoms: my dæmon, like an evil genius, plunged
back into the abyss, and awaited the effects of time in order to renew
her apparitions.

*

My relations with Deboffe in connection with the _Essai sur les
révolutions_ had never been completely interrupted, and it was
important for me to resume them in London at the earliest possible
moment to support my material existence. But whence had my last
misfortune arisen? From my obstinate bent for silence. In order to
understand this it is necessary to enter into my character.

At no time of my life have I been able to overcome the spirit of
reticence and of mental solitude which prevents me from talking of my
private affairs.

[Sidenote: My reserved nature.]

No one can state without lying that I have told what most people tell
in a moment of pain, pleasure, or vanity. A name, a confession of any
seriousness never issues, or issues but rarely, from my lips. I never
talk to casual people of my interests, my plans, my work, my ideas,
my attachments, my joys, my sorrows, being persuaded of the profound
weariness which one causes to others by talking of one's self. Sincere
and truthful though I be, I am lacking in openness of heart: my soul
incessantly tends to close up; I do not tell anything wholly, and I
have never allowed my complete life to transpire, except in these
Memoirs. If I try to begin a story, I am suddenly terrified at the
idea of its length; after four words, the sound of my voice becomes
unendurable to me, and I am silent. As I believe in nothing except
religion, I distrust everything: malevolence and disparagement are the
two distinctive qualities of the French mind; derision and calumny, the
certain result of a confidence.

But what have I gained by my reserved nature? To become, because I was
impenetrable, a fantastic something, having no relation with my real
being? My very friends are mistaken in me, when they think that they
are making me better known and when they adorn me with the illusions
of their love for me. All the small intellects of the ante-chambers,
the public offices, the newspapers, the cafés have assigned ambition
to me, whereas I have none at all. Cold and dry in matters of everyday
life, I have nothing of the enthusiast or the sentimentalist: my clear
and swift perception quickly pierces men and facts, and strips them of
all importance. Far from carrying me away, from idealizing apposite
truths, my imagination disparages the loftiest events and baffles
even myself; I see the petty and ridiculous side of things first of
all; great geniuses and great things scarcely exist in my eyes. While
I show myself polite, encomiastic and full of admiration for the
self-conceited minds which proclaim themselves superior intelligences,
my secret contempt laughs at all those faces intoxicated with incense,
and covers them with Callot[195] masks. In politics, the warmth of my
opinions has never exceeded the length of my speech or my pamphlet.
In the inner and theoretical life, I am the man of all the dreams; in
the outer and practical life, I am the man of realities. Adventurous
and orderly, passionate and methodical, I am the most chimerical and
the most positive, the most ardent and the most icy being that ever
existed, a whimsical androgynus, formed out of the different blood of
my mother and my father.

The portraits, utterly without resemblance, that have been made of me,
are due in the main to the reticence of my speech. The crowd is too
thoughtless, too inattentive, to see individuals as they are. Whenever,
by chance, I have endeavoured to rectify some of these false judgments
in my prefaces, I have not been believed. In the ultimate result, all
things being indifferent to me, I have not insisted; an "as you please"
has always rid me of the irksomeness of persuading anyone or of seeking
to establish a truth. I return to my spiritual tribunal, like a hare
to its form: there I resume my contemplation of the moving leaf or the
bending blade of grass.

I do not make a virtue of my guardedness, which is as invincible as it
is involuntary: although it is not deceitful, it has the appearance of
being so; it is not in harmony with natures happier, more amiable, more
facile, more candid, more ample, more communicative than mine. It has
often injured me in matters of sentiment and business, because I have
never been able to endure explanations, reconciliations brought about
by protests and elucidations, lamentations and tears, verbiage and
reproaches, details and apologies.

In the case of the Ives family, this obstinate silence of mine
concerning myself proved extremely fatal to me. A score of times
Charlotte's mother had inquired into my family and given me the
opportunity of speaking openly. Not foreseeing whither my silence would
lead me, I contented myself, as usual, with replying in short, vague
sentences. Had I not been the victim of that odious mental perversity,
all misunderstanding would have become impossible, and I should not
have appeared to wish to deceive the most generous hospitality; the
truth, as I told it at the last moment, did not excuse me: genuine harm
had none the less been done.

I resumed my work in the midst of my grief and of the just reproaches
with which I covered myself. I even took pleasure in this work, for
it struck me that, by achieving renown, I should be giving the Ives
family less cause to repent the interest which they had shown me.
Charlotte, with whom I thus sought to be reconciled through my glory,
presided over my studies. Her image was seated before me while I wrote.
When I raised my eyes from the paper, I lifted them upon the adored
image, as though the original were in fact there. The inhabitants
of Ceylon one morning saw the luminary of day rise in extraordinary
splendour; its orb opened out, and from it issued a dazzling being, who
said to the Cingalese:

"I have come to reign over you."

Charlotte, issuing from a ray of light, reigned over me.

Let us leave these memories; memories grow old and dim like hopes. My
life is about to change, to speed under other skies, in other valleys.
First love of my youth, you flee with all your charms! I have just
seen Charlotte again, it is true; but after how many years did I see
her again? Sweet glimpse of the past, pale rose of the twilight which
borders the night, long after the sun has set!

*

[Sidenote: The _Essai Historique._]

Life has often been represented (by me first of all) as a mountain
which we climb on one side and descend on the other: it would be as
true to compare it to an Alp, to the bare, ice-crowned summit which
has no reverse. Following up this figure, the traveller always climbs
upwards and never down; he then sees more clearly the space which he
has covered, the paths which he has not taken, although by doing so
he could have risen by a gentler slope: he looks down with sorrow and
regret upon the point where he commenced to stray. Thus I must mark
at the publication of the _Essai historique_ the first step which led
me out of the peaceful road. I finished the first part of the great
work which I had planned; I wrote the last word between the idea of
death (I had fallen ill again) and a vanished dream: _In somnis venit
imago conjugis._[196] The _Essai_, printed by Baylis, was published by
Deboffe in 1797[197]. This date marks one of the turning-points in my
life. There are moments at which our destiny, whether because it yields
to society, or obeys the laws of nature, or begins to make us what we
shall have to remain, suddenly turns aside from its first line, like a
river which changes its course with a sudden bend.

The _Essai_ offers the compendium of my existence as a poet, a
moralist, a publicist, and a politician. To say that I hoped, in so far
at least as I am capable of hoping, to make a great success with the
work, goes without saying: we authors, petty prodigies of a prodigious
era, make a claim to keep up intelligence with future races; but we do
not, I firmly believe, know where posterity lives, and we put the wrong
address. When we grow numb in our graves, death will freeze our words,
written or sung, so hard that they will not melt like the "frozen
words" of Rabelais.

The _Essai_ was to be a sort of historical encyclopædia. The only
volume published is in itself a fairly wide inquiry; I had the sequel
in manuscript; then came, beside the researches and annotations of the
annalist, the lays and roundelays of the poet, the _Natchez_, and so
on. I am hardly able to understand to-day how I could give myself up
to such extensive studies amid an active wandering life, subject to so
many reverses. My obstinacy in working explains this fertility: in my
young days I often wrote for twelve or fifteen hours without leaving
the table at which I sat, scratching out and recommencing the same page
ten times over. Age has not caused me to lose any part of this faculty
of application: to this day my diplomatic correspondence, which in no
way interrupts my literary composition, is entirely from my own hand.

The _Essai_ made a stir among the Emigration: it was opposed to the
opinions of my companions in misfortune; in the different social
positions which I have occupied, my independence has nearly always
offended the men with whom I went. I have by turns been the leader of
different armies of which the soldiers did not belong to my side: I
have led the Old Royalists to the conquest of the public liberties, and
especially of the liberty of the press, which they detested; I have
rallied the Liberals, in the name of that same liberty, to the standard
of the Bourbons, whom they hold in abhorrence. As it happened, Emigrant
opinion attached itself to my person through self-love: the English
reviews having spoken of me with praise, the commendation was reflected
over the whole body of the "faithful."

I had sent copies of the _Essai_ to La Harpe, Ginguené, and de
Sales. Lemierre[198], nephew of the poet of the same name[199], and
translator of Gray's _Poems_, wrote to me from Paris, on the 15th of
July 1797, that my _Essai_ had had the greatest success. One thing is
certain, that, if the _Essai_ became for a moment known, it was almost
immediately forgotten: a sudden shadow swallowed up the first ray of my
glory.

[Sidenote: Mrs. O'Larry.]

As I had become almost a personage, the upper Emigration began to seek
me out in London. I made my way from street to street; I first left
Holborn and Tottenham Court Road, and advanced as far as the Hampstead
Road. Here I stopped for some months at the house of Mrs. O'Larry, an
Irish widow, the mother of a very pretty daughter of fourteen, and
tenderly devoted to cats. Linked by this common passion, we had the
misfortune to lose two beautiful kittens, white all over, like two
ermines, with black tips to their tails.

Mrs. O'Larry was visited by old ladies of the neighbourhood with whom
I was obliged to drink tea in the old-fashioned style. Madame de Staël
has depicted this scene in _Corinne_ at Lady Edgermond's:

    "'My dear, do you think the water has boiled long enough to
    pour it on the tea?'

    "'My dear, I think it is a little too early[200].'"


There also came to these evenings a tall and beautiful young
Irishwoman, called Mary Neale, in the charge of her guardian. She
noticed a wound lurking in my gaze, for she said to me:

"You carry your heart in a sling."

I carried my heart anyhow.

Mrs. O'Larry left for Dublin; then, moving once more from the
neighbourhood of the colony of the poor Emigration of the east, I
arrived, from lodging to lodging, in the quarter of the rich Emigration
of the west, among the bishops, the Court families, and the West
Indian planters. Peltier had come back to me: he had got married as
a joke; he was the same boaster as always, lavishly obliging, and
frequenting his neighbours' pockets rather than their society. I made
several new acquaintances, particularly in the society in which I had
family connections: Christian de Lamoignon[201], who had been seriously
wounded in the leg in the engagement at Quiberon, and who is now my
colleague in the House of Lords, became my friend. He presented me
to Mrs. Lindsay, who was attached to Auguste de Lamoignon[202], his
brother: the Président Guillaume[203] was not installed in this fashion
at Basville, in the midst of Boileau[204], Madame de Sévigné, and
Bourdaloue[205].

Mrs. Lindsay, a lady of Irish descent, with a material mind and a
somewhat snappish humour, an elegant figure and attractive features,
was gifted with nobility of soul and elevation of character: the
Emigrants of quality spent their evenings by the fireside of the
last of the Ninons[206]. The old monarchy was going under, with all
its abuses and all its graces. It will be dug up one day, like those
skeletons of queens, decked with necklaces, bracelets and ear-rings,
which they exhume in Etruria. At Mrs. Lindsay's I met M. Malouet[207]
and Madame du Belloy, a woman worthy of affection, the Comte de
Montlosier and the Chevalier de Panat[208]. The last had a well-earned
reputation for wit, dirtiness, and gluttony; he belonged to that
audience of men of taste who used formerly to sit with folded arms in
the presence of French society: idlers whose mission was to look on at
everything and criticize everything; they exercised the functions which
the newspapers fulfill to-day, without the same bitterness, but also
without attaining their great popular influence.

[Sidenote: The Comte de Montlosier.]

Montlosier continued to ride cock-horse on his famous phrase of the
"wooden cross," a phrase somewhat smoothed down by me, when I revived
it, but true at bottom. On leaving France he went to Coblentz: he was
badly received by the Princes, had a quarrel, fought a duel at night on
the bank of the Rhine, and was run through. Being unable to move and
quite unable to see, he asked the seconds if the point of the sword was
sticking out behind:

"Only three inches," said they, feeling him.

"Then it's nothing," replied Montlosier. "Sir, withdraw your weapon."

Thus badly received for his royalism, Montlosier went to England,
and took refuge in literature, the great almshouse of the Emigrants,
in which I had a pallet next to his. He obtained the editorship of
the _Courrier français._[209] In addition to his newspaper, he wrote
physico-politico-philosophical works: in one of these works he proved
that blue is the colour of life, because our veins turn blue after
death, life coming to the surface of the body in order to evaporate and
return to the blue sky; as I am very fond of blue, I was quite charmed.

Feudally liberal, aristocratic and democratic, with a motley mind, made
up of shreds and patches, Montlosier is delivered, with difficulty,
of incongruous ideas; but, once he has succeeded in extricating them
from their after-birth, they are sometimes fine, above all energetic:
an anti-clerical as a noble, a Christian through sophistry and as a
lover of the olden times, he would, in the days of paganism, have been
an eager partisan of freedom in theory and of slavery in practice, and
would have had the slave thrown to the lampreys in the name of the
liberty of the human race. Wrong-headed, cavilling, stiff-necked, and
hirsute, the ex-deputy of the nobles of Riom nevertheless indulges
in condescendences to the powers that be; he knows how to look after
his interests, but he does not suffer others to perceive this, and he
shelters his weaknesses as a man beneath his honour as a gentleman. I
do not wish to speak ill of my "smoky Auvernat," with his novels of the
_Mont-d'Or_ and his polemics of the _Plaine_; I like his heteroclitous
person. His long and obscure setting forth and twisting of ideas, with
parentheses, clearings of the throat, and tremulous "oh, ohs," bore me
(I abominate the tenebrous, the involved, the vaporous, the laborious);
but, on the other hand, I am amused by this naturalist of volcanoes,
this abortive Pascal, this mountain orator who holds forth in the
tribune as his little fellow-countrymen sing in the chimney-tops[210];
I love this gazetteer of peat-bogs and castle-keeps, this Liberal
explaining the Charter through a Gothic window, this shepherd-lord half
married to his milkmaid, himself sowing his barley in the snow, in his
little pebbly field; I shall always thank him for dedicating to me, in
his chalet in the Puy-de-Dôme, an old black rock taken from a cemetery
of the Gauls discovered by himself.

The Abbé Delille, another fellow-countryman of Sidonius Apollinarius,
of the Chancelier de l'Hospital, of La Fayette, of Thomas, of
Chamfort[211], had also come to settle in London, after being driven
from the Continent by the inundation of the Republican victories.
The Emigration was proud to number him in its ranks: he sang our
misfortunes, a reason the more for loving his muse. He did a great deal
of work; he could not help himself, for Madame Delille locked him up
and did not release him until he had earned his day's keep by writing
a certain number of verses. I called on him one day, and was kept
waiting; then he appeared with very red cheeks: it is said that Madame
Delille used to box his ears; I know nothing about it; I only say what
I saw.

Who has not heard the Abbé Delille recite his verses? He told a very
good story: his ugly, irregular features, lit up by his imagination,
went admirably with his affected delivery, with the character of
his talent, and with his clerical profession. The Abbé Delille's
masterpiece is his translation of the _Georgics_, with the exception
of the sentimental pieces; but it is as though you were reading Racine
translated into the language of Louis XV.

[Sidenote: The Abbé Delille.]

The literature of the eighteenth century, saving a few fine talents
which dominate it, standing as it does between the classical literature
of the seventeenth century and the romantic literature of the
nineteenth, without lacking naturalness lacks nature; given up wholly
to arrangements of words, it was neither sufficiently original as a new
school, nor sufficiently pure as an ancient school. The Abbé Delille
was the poet of the modern country-houses, in the same way as the
troubadours were the poets of the old castles; the verses of the one
and the ballads of the other point the difference which existed between
aristocracy in its prime and aristocracy in its decrepitude: the abbé
describes the pleasures of reading and chess in the manor-houses in
which the troubadours sang of tourneys and crusades.

The distinguished persons of our Church militant were at that time in
England: the Abbé Carron, who wrote the life of my sister Julie; the
Bishop of Saint-Pol-de-Léon[212], a stern and narrow-minded prelate,
who contributed more and more to estrange M. le Comte d'Artois from his
country; the Archbishop of Aix[213], slandered perhaps because of his
success in society; another learned and pious bishop, but so avaricious
that, had he had the misfortune to lose his soul, he would never have
bought it back. Nearly all misers are men of wit: I must be a great
fool.

Among the Frenchwomen in the West End was Madame de Boigne[214],
amiable, witty, filled with talent, extremely pretty, and the youngest
of them all; she has since, together with her father, the Marquis
d'Osmond[215], represented the Court of France in England much better
than my unsociability has done. She is writing now, and her talents
will reproduce admirably all that she has seen[216].

Mesdames de Caumont[217], de Gontaut[218], and du Cluzel also
inhabited the quarter of the exiled felicities, if at least I am
mistaking Madame de Caumont and Madame du Cluzel, both of whom I had
seen for a moment in Brussels. What is quite certain is that Madame la
Duchesse de Duras[219] was in London at that time: I was not to know
her till ten years later. How often in one's life one passes by that
which would constitute its charm, even as the navigator cuts through
the waters of a heaven-favoured land which he has only missed by one
horizon and one day's sail! I am writing this on the banks of the
Thames, and to-day a letter will go by post to tell Madame de Duras, on
the banks of the Seine, that I have come across my first memory of her.

*

From time to time the Revolution sent us Emigrants of new kinds and
opinions; different layers of exiles were formed: the earth contains
beds of sand or clay left behind by the waves of the Deluge. One of
those waves brought me a man whose loss I mourn to-day, a man who
was my guide in literature, and whose friendship was both one of the
honours and one of the consolations of my life.

You have read, in an earlier book of these Memoirs, that I had known
M. de Fontanes in 1789: it was in Berlin, last year, that I learnt
the news of his death. He was born at Niort of a noble Protestant
family: his father had had the misfortune to kill his brother-in-law
in a duel. Young Fontanes, brought up by a brother of great merit,
came to Paris. He saw Voltaire[220] die, and that great representative
of the eighteenth century inspired his first verses: his poetic
attempts attracted the notice of La Harpe. He undertook some work for
the stage, and became intimate with a charming actress, Mademoiselle
Desgarcins. Living near the Odéon, wandering around the Chartreuse
he celebrated its solitude. He had made a friend destined to become
mine, M. Joubert[221]. When the Revolution occurred, the poet became
entangled with one of those stationary parties which always remain
torn by the progressive party which pulls them forwards and the
retrograde party which draws them back. The monarchists attached M. de
Fontanes to the staff of the _Modérateur._ When the bad days began,
he took refuge at Lyons, where he married. His wife was confined of
a son: during the siege of the town, which the revolutionaries had
called "Commune-Affranchie[222]," in the same way as Louis XI., when
banishing the citizens, had called Arras "Ville-Franchise[223]," Madame
de Fontanes was obliged to move her nursling's cradle in order to
place it within shelter from the bombs. Returning to Paris after the 9
Thermidor, M. de Fontanes established the _Mémorial_[224] with M. de
La Harpe and the Abbé de Vauxelles[225]. He was proscribed on the 18
Fructidor, and England became his haven of refuge.

[Sidenote: The Marquis de Fontanes.]

M. de Fontanes, together with Chénier, was the last writer of the
classic school in the elder line: his prose and verse resemble each
other and have a similar merit. His thoughts and images have a
melancholy unknown to the century of Louis XIV., which knew only the
austere and holy sadness of religious eloquence. That melancholy is
mingled with the works of the chanter of the _Jours des Morts_, as it
were the imprint of the period in which he lived: it fixes the date of
his coming; it shows that he was born after Rousseau, while connected
by taste with Fénelon. If the writings of M. de Fontanes were reduced
to two very small volumes, one of prose, the other of verse, it would
be the most graceful funeral monument that could be raised upon the
tomb of the classic school[226].

Among the papers which my friend left are several cantoes of his poem
of the _Grèce Sauvée_, books of odes, scattered poems, and so on.
He would not have published any more himself: for that critic, so
acute, so enlightened, so impartial when not blinded by his political
opinions, had a horrible dread of criticism. He was superlatively
unjust to Madame de Staël. An envious article by Garat[227] on the
_Forêt de Navarre_ almost stopped him short at the outset of his
political career. Fontanes, so soon as he appeared, killed the affected
school of Dorat[228], but he was unable to restore the classic
school, which was hastening to its end together with the language of
Racine[229].

If one thing in the world was likely to be antipathetic to M. de
Fontanes, it was my manner of writing. With me began the so-called
romantic school, a revolution in French literature: nevertheless, my
friend, instead of revolting against my barbarism, became enamoured
of it. I could see a great wonderment on his face when I read to him
fragments of the _Natchez, Atala_ and _René_; he was unable to bring
those productions within the scope of the common rules of criticism,
but he felt that he was entering into a new world; he saw a new form of
nature; he understood a language which he could not speak. He gave me
excellent advice; I owe to him such correctness of style as I possess;
he taught me to respect the reader's ear; he prevented me from falling
into the extravagance of invention and the ruggedness of execution of
my disciples.

It was a great joy to me to see him again in London, received with open
arms by the Emigration; they asked him for cantoes from the _Grèce
Sauvée_; they crowded to hear him. He came to live near me; we became
inseparable. We were present together at a scene worthy of those
days of misfortune: Cléry[230], who had lately landed, read us his
Memoirs in manuscript. Imagine the emotion of an audience of exiles,
listening to the valet of Louis XVI. telling, as an eye-witness, of
the sufferings and death of the prisoner of the Temple! The Directory,
alarmed by Cléry's Memoirs, published an interpolated edition, in
which it made the author talk like a lackey and Louis XVI. like
a street-porter: this is, perhaps, one of the dirtiest of all the
instances of revolutionary turpitude.


[Sidenote: Emigrant society.]

M. du Theil[231], who had charge of the affairs of M. le Comte d'Artois
in London, had hastened to seek out Fontanes; the latter asked me
to take him to the agent of the Princes. We found him surrounded by
all the defenders of the Throne and the Altar who were idling about
Piccadilly, by a crowd of spies and sharpers who had escaped from Paris
under various names and disguises, and by a swarm of adventurers,
Belgians, Germans, Irishmen, dealers in the Counter-revolution. In a
corner of the crowd was a man of thirty or thirty-two, at whom nobody
looked, and who himself seemed interested only in an engraving of the
Death of General Wolfe. Struck by his appearance, I asked who he was:
one of my neighbours answered:

"It's nobody; it's a Vendean peasant who has brought a letter from his
leaders."

This man, who was "nobody," had seen the deaths of Cathelineau[232],
the first general of the Vendée and a peasant like himself; Bonchamps,
in whom Bayard had come to life again; Lescure[233], armed with a
hair-cloth which was not bullet-proof; d'Elbée[234], shot in an
armchair, his wounds not permitting him to embrace death standing; La
Rochejacquelein[235], whose body was ordered to be "verified" in order
to reassure the Convention in the midst of its victories. That man,
who was "nobody," had assisted at two hundred captures and recaptures
of towns, villages, and redoubts, at seven hundred skirmishes, and
seventeen pitched battles; he had fought against three hundred thousand
regular troops and six or seven hundred thousand recruits and national
guards; he had assisted in taking one hundred guns and fifty thousand
muskets; he had passed through the "infernal columns," companies of
incendiaries commanded by Conventional; he had been in the midst of
the ocean of fire which, three several times, rolled its waves over
the woods of the Vendée; lastly, he had seen three hundred thousand
Hercules of the plough, the associates of his work, die, and one
hundred square leagues of fertile country change into a desert of ashes.

The two Frances met upon this soil levelled by them. All that remained
in blood and memory of the France of the Crusades fought against the
new blood and hopes of the France of the Revolution. The conqueror
recognised the greatness of the conquered. Turreau[236], the Republican
general, declared that "the Vendeans would take their place in history
in the first rank of soldier peoples." Another general wrote to Merlin
de Thionville[237]:

"Troops which have beaten such Frenchmen as those may well hope to beat
all other nations."

The legions of Probus[238], in their song, said as much of our fathers.
Bonaparte called the combats of the Vendée "combats of giants."

[Sidenote: A Vendean peasant.]

In the crowd in the parlour, I was the only one to look with admiration
and respect upon the representative of those ancient "Jacques[239],"
who, while breaking the yoke of their lords, repelled the foreign
invasion under Charles V.[240]: I seemed to see a child of the Commons
of the time of Charles VII.[241], who, with the small provincial
nobility, foot by foot, furrow by furrow, reconquered the soil of
France. He wore the indifferent air of the savage; his look was grey
and inflexible as steel rod; his lower lip trembled over his clenched
teeth; his hair hung down from his head like a mass of torpid snakes,
ready, however, to dart erect again; his arms, hanging by his sides,
gave nervous jerks to a pair of huge fists slashed with sword-cuts:
one would have taken him for a sawyer. His physiognomy expressed a
homely, rustic nature, employed, by force of manners, in the service
of interests and ideas contrary to that nature; the native fidelity of
the vassal, the Christian's simple faith were mingled with the rough
plebeian independence accustomed to value itself and to take the law
into its own hands. The feeling of liberty in him seemed to be merely
the consciousness of the strength of his hand and the intrepidity of
his heart. He spoke no more than a lion; he scratched himself like
a lion, yawned like a lion, sat on his flank like a bored lion, and
seemed to dream of blood and forests.

What men, in every party, were the French of that time, and what a race
are we to-day! But the Republicans had their principle in themselves,
in the midst of themselves, while the principle of the Royalists was
outside France. The Vendeans sent deputations to the exiles; the giants
sent to ask leaders of the pigmies. The rude messenger upon whom I
gazed had seized the Revolution by the throat and cried:

"Enter; pass behind me; she will not hurt you; she shall not move; I
have got hold of her!"

No one was willing to pass: then Jacques Bonhomme let go the
Revolution, and Charette[242] broke his sword.

*

While I was making these reflections on this tiller of the soil, as
I had made others of a different kind at the sight of Mirabeau and
Danton, Fontanes obtained a private audience of him whom he pleasantly
called "the controller-general of finance:" he came out of it greatly
satisfied, for M. du Theil had promised to encourage the publication of
my works, and Fontanes thought only of me. It was impossible to be a
better man than he: timid where he himself was concerned, he became all
courage in matters of friendship; he proved this to me at the time of
my resignation on the occasion of the death of the Duc d'Enghien[243].
In conversation, he burst into ludicrous fits of literary rage. In
politics, he reasoned falsely: the crimes of the Convention had
inspired him with a horror of liberty. He detested the newspapers,
the band of false philosophers, the whole science of ideas, and he
communicated that hatred to Bonaparte, when he became connected with
the master of Europe.

We went for walks in the country; we stopped under some of those
spreading elm-trees scattered about the fields. Leaning against the
trunk of these elms, my friend told me of his early journey to England
before the Revolution, and of the verses he then addressed to two young
ladies who had grown old in the shadow of the towers of Westminster:
towers which he found standing as he had left them, while at their base
lay buried the illusions and the hours of his youth.

We often dined at some solitary tavern in Chelsea, on the Thames, where
we talked of Milton and Shakespeare: they had seen what we saw; they
had sat, like ourselves, on the bank of that stream, a foreign stream
to us, the national stream to them. We returned to London, at night, by
the faltering rays of the stars, drowned one after the other in the fog
of the city. We reached our lodging, guided by uncertain glimmers which
scarcely showed us the road across the coal smoke hovering red around
every lamp: thus speeds the poet's life.

We saw London in detail; as an old exile, I acted as _cicerone_ to
the new recruits of banishment which the Revolution demanded, young
or old: there is no legal age for misfortune. In the course of one
of these excursions, we were surprised by a rain-storm, mingled with
thunder, and obliged to take shelter in the passage of a mean house,
of which the door had been left open by accident. There we met the Duc
de Bourbon[244]: I saw for the first time, at this Chantilly[245], a
prince who was not yet the Last of the Condés.

[Sidenote: The Duc of Bourbon.]

The Duc de Bourbon, Fontanes and I, all three outlaws, seeking a
shelter from the same storm, on foreign soil, under a poor man's roof!
_Fata viam invenient._

Fontanes was recalled to France. He embraced me, expressing wishes for
a speedy meeting. On arriving in Germany, he wrote me the following
letter:

    "28 July 1798.

    "If you have experienced any regrets at my departure from
    London, I swear to you that mine have been no less real. You
    are the second person in whom, in the course of my life, I
    have found an imagination and a heart corresponding to my
    own. I shall never forget the consolation you brought me in
    exile and in a foreign land. My fondest and most constant
    thoughts, since I have left you, have turned upon the
    Natchez. What you have read to me, especially of recent days,
    is admirable and will not leave my memory. But the charm of
    the poetic ideas which you left in my mind disappeared for a
    moment on my arrival in Germany.

    "The most hideous news from France followed on that which I
    showed you on leaving you. I spent five or six days in the
    cruellest perplexity. I even feared for persecutions directed
    against my family. My fears are now greatly diminished. The
    evil has even been very slight; they threaten rather than
    strike, and it is not those of my 'date' whom they wish to
    see exterminated. The last post has brought me assurances of
    peace and good-will. I can continue my journey, and shall
    set out early next month. I shall live near the Forest of
    Saint-Germain, among my family, Greece, and my books: why
    can I not also say the _Natchez!_ The unexpected storm which
    has just taken place in Paris was due, I am certain, to the
    follies of the agents and leaders you know of. I have a
    clear proof of this in my hands. Convinced as I am of this,
    I am writing to Great Pulteney Street[246] with all possible
    politeness, but also with all the caution which prudence
    demands. I wish to escape all correspondence in the coming
    month, and I leave the greatest doubt upon the steps which I
    am going to take and the residence which I intend to select.

    "For the rest, I am again speaking of you in the accents of
    friendship, and I wish from the bottom of my heart that the
    hopes of future usefulness which they may place in me may
    revive the favourable dispositions which they showed me in
    this matter, and which are so certainly due to your person
    and your great talents. Work, work, my dear friend, and
    become illustrious. You have it in your power: the future
    is in your hands. I hope that the word so often given by
    the 'controller-general of finance' has been at least in
    part redeemed. That part consoles me, for I cannot bear the
    thought of a fine work delayed for the sake of a little
    assistance. Write to me; let our hearts be in communication,
    let our muses remain ever friends. Do not doubt but that,
    when I am able to move about freely in my country, I shall
    prepare a hive and flowers for you beside my own. My
    attachment is unalterable. I shall be alone so long as I am
    not with you. Talk to me of your work. I want to gladden you
    in conclusion: I wrote half of a new canto on the banks of
    the Elbe, and I am better pleased with it than with all the
    rest.

    "Farewell, I embrace you tenderly, and am your friend.

    "FONTANES."

Fontanes tells me that he wrote verses on changing the spot of his
banishment. One can never take everything from the poet: he takes his
lyre with him. Leave the swan his wings; each evening unknown streams
will re-echo the melodious plaints which he would rather have sung to
Eurotas.

"The future is in your hands": did Fontanes speak truly? Am I to
congratulate myself on his prophecy? Alas! That promised future is
already past: shall I have another?

*

[Sidenote: Death of Fontanes.]

This first and affectionate letter from the first friend whom I had in
my life, the friend who walked by my side for twenty-three years from
the date of that letter, reminds me painfully of my gradual isolation.
Fontanes is no more; a profound sorrow, the tragic death of a son,
cast him into an untimely grave. Almost all the persons of whom I have
spoken in these Memoirs have disappeared; I am keeping an obituary
register. A few years more and I, doomed to catalogue the dead, shall
leave none to write my name in the book of the departed.

But if it must be that I remain alone, if not one being who has loved
me is to stay by me to lead me to my last resting-place, I have less
need than another of a guide: I have inquired the road, I have studied
the places through which I should have to pass; I wished to see what
happens at the last moment. Often, by the side of a pit into which a
coffin was being lowered with ropes, I have heard the death-rattle of
those ropes; next, I have caught the sound of the first spadeful of
earth falling on the coffin: at each new spadeful the hollow sound
decreased; the earth, as it filled up the vault, gradually drove the
eternal silence to the surface of the grave.

Fontanes, you wrote to me, "Let our muses remain ever friends:" you
have not written to me in vain.



[146] This book was written in London between April and September 1822,
and revised in December 1846.--T.

[147] The anniversary dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern, 21 May 1822.--T.

[148] The amount of M. de Chateaubriand's donation was £20.--T.

[149] Field-Marshal Frederick Duke of York and Albany, Bishop
of Osnaburg, K.G. (1763-1827), second son of George III., and
Commander-in-Chief of the army. A military commander of no capacity;
four defeats stand to his debit: Hondschoote (8th September 1793),
Turcoing (1794), Alxmaar (1799), Castricum (1799), not to mention the
scandals in connection with Mrs. Clarke and the sale of commissions in
the army.--T.

[150] Edward Adolphus Seymour, eleventh Duke of Somerset, K.G.
(1775-1855).--T.

[151] Vice-Admiral George Byng, sixth Viscount Torrington
(1768-1831).--T.

[152] William Powlett Orde-Powlett, second Lord Bolton (1782-1850).--T.

[153] George Canning (1770-1827), appointed Viceroy of India, but did
not take up the appointment. He became Premier in 1827.--T.

[154] _Times_, 22nd May 1822. Chateaubriand had asked Canning to
return thanks on his behalf for the toast of "the illustrious foreign
personages who honoured the society with their company." These were
Chateaubriand and the Tripolitan Ambassador, who also "returned thanks
through the medium of another gentleman."--T.

[155] Canning entered Parliament as a member of Pitt's party in 1793,
and joined his ministry as Under-Secretary of State in 1796. Pitt used
to speak of Canning and Arthur Wellesley as "the boys."--T.

[156] Marie Joseph Annibal de Bedée, Comte de La Boüétardais
(1758-1809). He emigrated in 1790, after the death of his wife, never
returned to France, and died in London, 6 January 1809.--B.

[157] Dr. Edmund Goodwyn (1756-1829), author of _Dissertatio Medica de
morte Submersorum_ (1786), and of a translation of the same work in
English (1788). He is supposed to have been the original of Thackeray's
Dr. Goodenough.--T.

[158] "For the rest, my health, disturbed by much travel and many
cares, vigils and studies, is so deplorable that I fear I shall be
unable to fulfil forthwith my promise concerning the other volumes of
the _Essai historique._"--B.

[159] _Essai historique sur les révolutions_, Book I. part i.,
Introduction.--B.

[160] One of Peltier's first pamphlets, published October 1789, and
denouncing the Duc d'Orléans and Mirabeau as the principal authors of
the day's work of the 5th and 6th of October.--B.

[161] Henri Christophe (1767-1820), King of Haiti under the title of
Henry I. He led the negro insurrection in 1790, caused himself to be
proclaimed President in 1806, assumed the title of Emperor in 1811, and
reigned until 1820, when he committed suicide to escape being put to
death by his subjects.--T.

[162] Peltier was paid his salary as Haitian Minister by shipments
of sugar and coffee, the sale of which brought him in some eight
thousand pounds a year. One of his epigrams against Louis XVIII., who
received him coldly after the Restoration, happening to be applicable
to Christophe, the supplies were stopped together with his ministerial
powers, and he died a poor man.--B.

[163] François Dominique Reynaud, Comte de Montlosier (1755-1838). He
came to London after going through the campaign of the Princes, and
became editor, not of the _Courrier français_, but of the _Courrier de
Londres_, which had been founded by the Abbé de Calonne.--B.

[164] Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was buried in Westminster, but dug up
at the Restoration, hanged at Tyburn, and buried under the gallows.--T.

[165] The remains of King Charles I. are buried in St. George's Chapel,
Windsor.--T.

[166] Robert, Count of Artois ( 1287-1343), endeavoured to recover
from his brother-in-law, Philip VI. of France, the county of Artois,
which had been taken from him in a former reign. He was sentenced to
perpetual banishment, but had before this fled from the kingdom and
began plotting against the King of France. Philip pursued him from
county to county, causing the various princes to refuse him refuge,
until he fled to England, where he was welcomed by Edward III. (1333).
In 1336 Philip proclaimed Robert of Artois a traitor and an enemy of
France, and forbade all his vassals of whatever rank, in or out of
France, to receive or aid him on penalty of confiscation of their
fiefs. Edward accepted the insult as addressed to himself, prepared for
war, proclaimed himself King of France in 1337, and invaded France in
1339, thus commencing the Hundred Years' War.--T.

[167] Florio's MONTAIGNE, Booke II. Chap. xii.: _An Apologie of Raymond
Sebond._--T.

[168] William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham (1708-1778). His monument by
Bacon stands in the North Transept near the entrance to the chapels
which lead to the Chapel of Henry VII. and the Knights of the Bath.--T.

[169] Charles V., Emperor of Germany (1500-1558), abdicated in 1556
and retired to the neighbourhood of the Monastery of San Yuste in
Estremadura. One month before his death (which occurred on the 21st
of September 1558) he was seized with a fancy for going through the
ceremonies of his own funeral, and, attired in a monk's dress, he
joined in the chants of the community around an empty coffin placed in
the convent chapel.--T.

[170] Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554) was buried after her execution,
together with her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, in the Chapel of St.
Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London.--T.

[171] Catharine, not Alice, Countess of Salisbury (_d._ _circa_ 1350),
_née_ Grandison, wife of William de Montacute, first Earl of Salisbury,
and heroine of the spurious Garter story, was buried in her husband's
foundation at Bisham.--T.

[172] Edward III., King of England (1312-1377), is buried in the Chapel
of St. Edward the Confessor.--T.

[173] Henry VIII., King of England (1491-1547), is buried in St.
George's Chapel, Windsor.--T.

[174] Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, first Viscount St. Albans
(1561-1626), is buried in St. Michael's Church, St. Albans.--T.

[175] Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is buried in the North Aisle of
Westminster Abbey. His monument is by Rysbrack.--T.

[176] John Milton (1608-1674) has a monumental bust by Rysbrack in
Poets' Corner. He is buried in St. Giles's Church, Cripplegate.--T.

[177] Edward V. King of England (1471-1483) and Richard Duke of York
(1474-1483), smothered in the Tower of London by order of their uncle
Richard Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III. Some bones, presumed to
be theirs, were found in the White Tower or Keep and removed to Henry
the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster, where they now lie.--T.

[178] Shakespeare, _Life and Death of King Richard III._, Act IV. sc.
3.--T.

[179] Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), the mystic theosophist. His
doctrines made a certain amount of way in England, and he died in
London.--T.

[180] Charles Louis François de Barentin (1738-1819). He had opened the
States-General, as Keeper of the Seals, in 1789. He emigrated after
Mirabeau had denounced him, on the 15th of July, as an enemy of the
people.--B.

[181] Pietro Bonaventure Trapassi (1698-1782), known as Metastasio, one
of the most graceful and charming of the Italian dramatic poets. He
settled in Vienna in 1730, by invitation of the Emperor Charles VI.,
who gave him the title of _Poeta Cesareo_, and there wrote a multitude
of lyrical tragedies, operas, oratorios, and poems of all kinds.--T.

[182] Mrs. Canning, _née_ Joan Scott, a sister to the Duchess of
Portland, married to Mr. Canning 8 July 1800.--T.

[183] The insurrectionary Royalists in Brittany had adopted this
name from their rallying-cry, which imitated the note of the
_chat-huant_, or screech-owl. Their marauding excursions were somewhat
indiscriminate, and their presence not always welcome even to the loyal
inhabitants.--T.

[184] William Camden (1551-1623), the famous antiquary, first
head-master of Westminster School and later Clarencieux King-at-Arms.
He has been surnamed the Strabo and the Pausanias of England.--T.

[185] Alain René Le Sage (1668-1747), author of the _Aventures de Gil
Blas_, to whom Peltier has already been compared by Chateaubriand. Le
Sage was born at Sarzeau, in Brittany: hence Chateaubriand speaks of
him as his "fellow-countryman."--T.

[186] 22 April 1794.--B.

[187] The Comte Louis de Chateaubriand (1790-1873) followed a military
career. In 1823 King Louis XVIII. created him heir-presumptive to his
uncle's peerage. In 1830 he resigned his commission at the same time
that his uncle withdrew from the House of Peers. In 1870, when eighty
years of age, he refused to leave Paris, and inscribed his name on
the register of the defenders of the besieged capital. He died at the
Château de Malesherbes, 14 October 1873.--B.

[188]

    "Dear orphan, of thy mother the close type,
    Of Heaven above I ask for thee below
    The happy days snatched from thy sire ere ripe,
    The children whom your uncle may not know."--T.

[189] ADDISON, _Cato_, Act V. sc. I.--T.

[190] Rev. John Clement Ives (_d._ 1812) was incumbent of Ilketshall
St. Margaret, near Bungay, and of Great Holland in Essex.--T.

[191] Giuditta Pasta (1798-1865), _née_ Negri, a famous Italian
operatic singer of Jewish birth. Her celebrity commenced in 1822, the
year in which Chateaubriand is writing, and lasted until 1835, when she
retired into private life.--T.

[192] _Inferno_, I.--B.

[193] Order of Marriage according to the Catholic ritual.--T.

[194] Admiral Sir John Sutton was gazetted an Admiral of the Blue on
the 12th of August 1819. I have no certainty that either Ives or Sutton
(spelt Sulton in the original) are the real names of the individuals of
whom Chateaubriand speaks, although I have succeeded in establishing
that there was a clergyman of the name of Ives residing at Bungay in
1795, and an Admiral Sir John Sutton on the Navy List in 1822.--T.

[195] Jacques Callot (1593-1635), a painter, engraver, and etcher of
the first order; his works amount to nearly 1600 pieces, and include an
array of immensely powerful grotesque subjects, in which he caricatures
the vices and absurdities of mankind.--T.

[196] VIR., _Æn._, I. 357.--B.

[197] Chateaubriand began to write the _Essai_ in 1794; the work was
printed in London in 1796, and published in the beginning of 1797. It
formed one volume, large 8vo, of 681 pages, without counting prefaces,
tables of contents, etc. The full title ran: _Essai historique,
politique et moral sur les Révolutions anciennes et modernes,
considérées dans leur rapports avec la Révolution françaises. Dédié à
tous les partis._ With this epigraph: _Experti invicem sumus ego et
fortuna._--TACITE. And at the foot of the title-page: _A Londres: Se
trouve chez_ J. DEBOFFE, _Gerrard-Street_; J. DEBRETT, _Piccadilly_;
Mme. LOWES, _Pall-Mall_; A. DULAU ET CO., _Wardour-Street_; BODSEY,
_Broad-Street_; et J.-F. FAUCHE, _à Hambourg._ The author's name did
not appear in the first edition.--B.

[198] Auguste Jacques Lemierre (_circa_ 1760-1815). He also translated
Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_ and some German works. He died
in hospital, under a false name, of a disease arising from his
excesses.--T.

[199] Antoine Marin Lemierre (1723-1793), the author of two didactic
poems and several tragedies, some of which achieved great success. His
versification is considered incorrect and harsh, but some of his poems
contain passages of great beauty.--T.

[200] _Corinne_, XIV. i.--B.

[201] Anne Pierre Christian Vicomte de Lamoignon (1770-1827), third son
of Chrétien François de Lamoignon, Marquis de Basville. Louis XVIII.
created him a peer of France in 1815. He never wholly recovered from
his wound.--B.

[202] René Chrétien Auguste Marquis de Lamoignon (1765-1845),
Christian's elder brother, made a peer of France by Louis-Philippe in
1832.--B.

[203] Guillaume I. de Lamoignon (1617-1677), First President of the
Parliament of Paris, and founder of the Lamoignon-de Basville-de
Malesherbes family.--T.

[204] Nicolas Boileau (1636-1711), surnamed Despréaux, the
distinguished poet and critic, and friend of Lamoignon.--T.

[205] Louis Bourdaloue (1632-1704), the eminent Jesuit preacher.--T.

[206] Ninon de Lenclos (1616-1706) was a lady of loose morals and
decent manners who retained her charms and her lovers to her dying day.
Her salon was frequented by the ladies of Louis XIV.'s Court and the
whole society of the time, and she was a distinguished protectress of
the contemporary men of letters.--T.

[207] Pierre Victor Baron Malouet (1740-1814), Intendant of the
Navy before the Revolution and Commissary-General of the Navy under
Napoleon. Louis XVIII. appointed him Minister of the Navy in 1814, but
he died shortly after his nomination.--T.

[208] The Chevalier de Panat (1762-1834) was a naval officer of
distinction. He became a rear-admiral and Secretary-General to the
Admiralty in 1814. He neglected his person to such an extent that
Rivarol said of him that he would stain mud.--T.

[209] Or rather, the _Courrier de Londres_, as explained above.--B.

[210] The Auvergnat lads in Paris were employed as chimney-sweeps.--T.

[211] The Comte de Montlosier and the Abbé Delille were both born at
Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne; Sidonius Apollinarius (430-489) was
born near Lyons, and became Bishop of Clermont; Michel de l'Hôpital
(1505-1573), Chancellor of France, was born near Aigueperse in
Auvergne; La Fayette was born in the same province, as were Thomas and
Chamfort.--T.

[212] Jean François de La Marche, Comte de Léon (1729-1805), Bishop of
Saint-Pol-de-Léon. The bishopric was suppressed in 1790 and was not
restored.--T.

[213] Jean-de-Dieu Raymond de Boisgelin de Cicé (1732-1804), Archbishop
of Aix, and a member of the French Academy. After the Concordat he
became Archbishop of Tours and a cardinal.--T.

[214] Madame de Boigne was the wife of Bénoît, Comte de Boigne
(1741-1831), who had seen service in India under one of the native
princes, and returned laden with colossal riches.--B.

[215] The Marquis d'Osmond (1751-1838) was French Minister at the Hague
at the outbreak of the Revolution. In 1791 he was appointed Ambassador
in St. Petersburg, but resigned before going out, and emigrated. He
filled several diplomatic posts under the Empire, was Minister at Turin
under the First Restoration, and in 1815 was created a peer of France
and Ambassador to England, where he remained until January 1819.--B.

[216] The Comtesse de Boigne wrote some novels, of which the chief
was _Une Passion dans le grand monde._ They were published after her
death under the Second Empire, none of them attaining the smallest
success.--B.

[217] Marie Constance de Caumont La Force (1774-1823), _née_ de
Lamoignon, wife of François Philibert Bertrand Nompar de Caumont,
Marquis de La Force.--B.

[218] The Duchesse de Gontaut, _née_ de Montault Navailles, married the
Vicomte de Gontaut-Biron in London in 1794. She became Governess of the
Children of France under the Restoration after the birth of the Duc de
Bordeaux, and Louis XVIII. gave her the rank and title of duchess.--B.

[219] Claire Duchesse de Duras (1777-1828), _née_ Lechat de Kersaint,
the friend of Madame de Staël, and author of two novels, _Ottrika_ and
_Édouard_, which attained a great success.--T.

[220] François Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known as Voltaire. He was
refused burial in Paris, and his remains were interred in the abbey
at Scellières and removed to the Panthéon, where they still lie, in
1791.--T.

[221] Joseph Joubert (1754-1824), author of the _Pensées_, published in
1838, thanks to the care of Chateaubriand.--T.

[222] 1793--The town was nearly destroyed, its 200,000 inhabitants
almost decimated by the commissaries of the Convention, and its name
changed as stated.--T.

[223] 1477.--T.

[224] The _Mémorial historique, politique et littéraire_ ran from 20
May to 4 September 1797. It is full of articles of the rarest merit,
especially those by La Harpe, which are masterpieces.--B.

[225] Jacques Bourlet, Abbé de Vauxelles (1734-1802).--T.

[226] It has been raised by the filial piety of Madame Christine de
Fontanes. M. Sainte-Beuve has adorned the frontal of the monument with
his ingenious notice.--_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1839).

[227] Dominique Joseph Garat (1749-1833), Minister of Justice under
the Revolution in succession to Danton, Minister of the Interior in
succession to Roland, and a writer of merit. He was elected a member of
the French Academy in 1806, but excluded at the Restoration.--T.

[228] Claude Joseph Dorat (1734-1780), an artificial, fastidious, and
somewhat monotonous follower of Voltaire.--T.

[229] I omit a reference to Fontanes' _Anniversaire de sa naissance_
and a quotation from that ode.--T.

[230] Jean Baptiste Cléry (1759-1809), the King's valet. His Memoirs
were published in London, in 1799; with the title. _Journal de ce qui
s'est passé à la Tour du Temple pendant la captivité de Louis XVI., roi
de France_, and printed the same year in France. In order to destroy
the interest attached to this publication, the Directory caused a
spurious edition to be disseminated, entitled _Mémoires de M. Cléry
sur la détention de Louis XVI._, and filled with matter calculated to
injure the memory of the unhappy Sovereign and the Royal Family. Cléry
protested against this with indignation so soon as it reached his
ears, his protest appearing in July 1801 in the _Spectateur du Nord_,
published in Hamburg.--B.

[231] Jean François du Theil (_circa_ 1760-1822) emigrated in 1790,
returned to France in 1792, during the captivity of Louis XVI., and
exposed himself to the greatest dangers in order to communicate with
the King. After escaping arrest, almost by a miracle, inside the Temple
itself, he returned to Germany, where he joined the Comte d'Artois. He
and the Duc d'Harcourt were together charged with the affairs of the
Comte d'Artois and the Comte de Provence (Louis XVIII.) in connection
with the British Government.--B.

[232] Jacques Cathelineau (1758-1793), a weaver by trade and
Commander-in-Chief of the Vendéan Army. He was mortally wounded in the
assault upon Nantes (29 June 1793).--T.

[233] Louis Marie Marquis de Lescure (1766-1793), a brilliant Vendéan
general, killed at the Tremblaye (3 November 1793).--T.

[234] Gigot d'Elbée (1752-1794), nicknamed General Providence, from his
habit of relying on Providence for victory. He succeeded Cathelineau as
general-in-chief, but was a far from capable commander. He was wounded
at Chollet, and captured and shot on the island of Noirmoutiers.--T.

[235] Henri du Vergier, Comte de La Rochejacquelein (1773-1794)
succeeded Lescure and repeatedly defeated the troops of the Republic.
He was killed at the fight of Nouaillé, near Chollet, 4 March 1794.--T.

[236] Louis Marie Baron Turreau de Garambouville (1756-1816),
Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the West (1793). He was French
Ambassador to the United States from 1804 to 1810.--T.

[237] Merlin de Thionville (1762-1833), the Conventional, so called to
distinguish him from Merlin de Douay, the jurisconsult.--T.

[238] Marcus Aurelius Probus, Emperor of Rome (_circa_ 232-282),
conquered and pacified Gaul, restoring the vineyards destroyed by order
of Domitian.--T.

[239] The "Jacquerie" was a faction which ravaged France during the
captivity of King John in England (1358). It consisted of peasants
who had revolted against their feudal lords, and was led by a certain
Guillaume Caillet, nicknamed "Jacques Bonhomme," after whom the
"Jacques" called themselves.--T.

[240] Charles V., King of France (1337-1380), known as Charles the
Wise, son and successor of John II. He successfully resisted the
English invasion under Edward III., and recovered a large portion of
the country, leaving Bordeaux, Calais, Cherbourg, Bayonne, and several
fortresses in the hands of the English at his death.--T.

[241] Charles VII., King of France (1403-1461), surnamed Charles the
Victorious, with the assistance of Joan of Arc, drove the English out
of all France, with the sole exception of Calais.--T.

[242] François Athanase Charette de La Contrie (1763-1796) was at the
head of the Poitou peasants in the rising of the Vendée and joined
forces with Cathelineau. Discords broke out between the Royalist
chiefs, and Charette left the army with his division and fought alone,
capturing the Republican camp at Saint-Christophe, near Challans, in
1794. In 1796, Hoche utterly destroyed his small force, and Charette
himself was taken prisoner and shot at Nantes.--T.

[243] Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon-Condé, Duc d'Enghien (1772-1804),
son of the Duc de Bourbon and grandson of the Prince de Condé. He
was arrested on neutral territory and shot, after a mock trial, at
Vincennes, by order of Napoleon (21 March 1804). Chateaubriand resigned
his diplomatic appointment, as will appear, immediately after learning
the news of this crime.--T.

[244] The Duc de Bourbon, father of the Duc d'Enghien, became "the Last
of the Condés" on the latter's death.--T.

[245] Chantilly was the seat of the Condé family: the Duc de Bourbon
left it on his death (1830) to the Duc d'Aumale, who bequeathed it to
the French Nation.--T.

[246] The street in which M. du Theil lived.--_Author's Note._




BOOK IX[247]


Death of my mother--I return to religion--The _Génie du
Christianisme_--Letter from the Chevalier de Panat--My uncle, M. de
Bedée: his eldest daughter--English literature--Decline of the old
school--Historians--Poets--Publicists--Shakespeare--Old novels--New
novels--Richardson--Sir Walter Scott--New poetry--Beattie--Lord
Byron--England from Richmond to Greenwich--A trip with
Peltier--Blenheim--Stowe--Hampton Court--Oxford--Eton College--Private
manners--Political manners--Fox--Pitt--Burke--George III.--Return
of the emigrants to France--The Prussian Minister gives me a false
passport in the name of La Sagne, a resident of Neuchâtel in
Switzerland--Death of Lord Londonderry--End of my career as a soldier
and traveller--I land at Calais.


    Alloquar? audiero nunquam tua facta loquentem?
       Nunquam ego te, vita frater amabilior,
    Aspiciam posthac? At certe semper amabo[248].


I have just taken leave of a friend, I am about to take leave of
a mother: one has constantly to repeat the verses which Catullus
addressed to his brother. In our vale of tears, as in Hell, there
is a strange, eternal wailing, which forms the accompaniment or the
prevailing note of human lamentations; it is heard unceasingly, and it
would continue when all other created sorrows had come to be silent.

A letter from Julie, which I received soon after that from Fontanes,
confirmed my sad remark on my gradual isolation: Fontanes urged me
to "work, to become illustrious;" my sister begged me to "give up
writing:" one put glory before me, the other oblivion. This train of
thought is described in the story of Madame de Farcy; she had grown to
hate literature, because she regarded it as one of the temptations of
her life.

    "SAINT-SERVAN, 1 _July_ 1798.

    "Dear, we have just lost the best of mothers: I grieve to
    inform you of this fatal blow. When you cease to be the
    object of our solicitude, we shall have ceased to live. If
    you knew how many tears your errors had caused our venerable
    mother to shed; how deplorable they appear to all who think
    and profess not only piety, but reason: if you knew this,
    perhaps it would help to open your eyes, to induce you
    to give up writing; and if Heaven, moved by our prayers,
    permitted us to meet again, you would find in the midst of us
    all the happiness one is allowed on earth; you would give us
    that happiness, for there is none for us so long as you are
    not with us and we have cause to be anxious as to your fate."

Ah, why did I not follow my sister's advice? Why did I continue to
write? Had my age remained without my writings, would anything have
been changed in the events and spirit of that age?

And so I had lost my mother; and so I had distressed the last hour
of her life! While she was drawing her last breath far from her last
son, and praying for him, what was I doing in London? Perhaps I was
strolling in the cool morning air at the moment when the sweat of death
covered my mother's forehead without having my hand to wipe it away!

[Sidenote: The _Génie du Christianisme._]

The filial affection which I preserved for Madame de Chateaubriand was
deep. My childhood and youth were intimately linked with the memory
of my mother. The idea that I had poisoned the old days of the woman
who bore me in her womb filled me with despair: I flung copies of the
_Essai_ into the fire with horror, as the instrument of my crime;
had it been possible for me to destroy the whole work, I should have
done so without hesitation. I did not recover from my distress until
the thought occurred to me of expiating my first work by means of a
religious work: this was the origin of the _Génie du Christianisme._

*

"My mother," I said, in the first preface to that work, "after being
flung, at the age of seventy-two years, into dungeons where she saw
part of her children die, expired at last on a pallet to which her
misfortunes had reduced her. The recollection of my errors cast a
great bitterness over her last days; when dying, she charged one of
my sisters to call me back to the religion in which I was brought up.
My sister acquainted me with my mother's last wish. When the letter
reached me across the sea, my sister herself was no more; she too had
died from the effects of her imprisonment. Those two voices from the
tomb, that death which acted as death's interpreter impressed me. I
became a Christian. I did not yield, I admit, to great supernatural
enlightenment: my conviction came from the heart; I wept and I
believed."

*

I exaggerated my fault: the _Essai_ was not an impious book, but a book
of doubt, of sorrow. Through the darkness of that book glides a ray
of the Christian light that shone upon my cradle. It needed no great
effort to return from the scepticism of the _Essai_ to the certainty of
the _Génie du Christianisme._

*

When, after receiving the sad news of Madame de Chateaubriand's death,
I resolved suddenly to change my course, the title of _Génie du
Christianisme_, which I found on the spot, inspired me: I set to work;
I toiled with the ardour of a son building a mausoleum to his mother.
My materials were since long collected and rough-hewn by my previous
studies. I knew the works of the Fathers better than they are known in
our times; I had even studied them in order to oppugn them, and having
entered upon that road with bad intentions, instead of leaving it as a
victor, I left it vanquished.

As to history properly so-called, I had occupied myself with it
specially in composing the _Essai sur les Révolutions._ The Camden
originals which I had lately examined had made me familiar with the
manners and institutions of the Middle Ages. Lastly, my terrible
manuscript of the _Natchez_, in 2393 pages folio, contained all that I
needed for the _Génie du Christianisme_ in the way of descriptions of
nature; I was able to draw largely upon that source, as I had done for
the _Essai_.

I wrote the first part of the _Génie du Christianisme._ Messrs.
Dulau[249], who had become the booksellers of the French emigrant
clergy, undertook the publication. The first sheets of the first volume
were printed. The work thus begun in London in 1799 was completed
only in Paris in 1802: see the different prefaces to the _Génie du
Christianisme._ I was devoured by a sort of fever during the whole
time of writing: no one will ever know what it means to carry at the
same time in one's brain, in one's blood, and in one's soul, _Atala_
and _René_, and to combine with the painful child-birth of those fiery
twins the labour of conception attending the other parts of the _Génie
du Christianisme._ The memory of Charlotte penetrated and warmed all
that, and to give me the finishing stroke, the first longing for fame
inflamed my exalted imagination.

This longing came to me from filial affection: I wanted a great renown,
so that it might rise till it reached my mother's dwelling-place, and
that the angels might carry her my solemn expiation.

As one study leads to another, I could not occupy myself with my French
scholia without taking note of the literature and men of the country
in which I lived: I was drawn into these fresh researches. My days and
nights were spent in reading, in writing, in taking lessons in Hebrew
from a learned priest, the Abbé Capelan, in consulting libraries and
men of attainments, in roaming about the fields with my everlasting
reveries, in paying and receiving visits. If such things exist as
retroactive and symptomatic effects of future events, I might have
foreseen the bustle and uproar created by the book which was to make my
name from the seething of my mind and the throbbing of my inner muse.

Reading aloud to others my first rough drafts helped to enlighten
me. Reading aloud is an excellent form of instruction, when one does
not take the necessary compliments for gospel. Provided an author
be in earnest, he will soon feel, through the impression which he
instinctively receives from the others, which are the weak places in
his work, and especially whether that work is too long or too short,
whether he keeps, does not reach, or exceeds the right dimensions.

[Sidenote: A letter from Panat.]

I have discovered a letter from the Chevalier de Panat on the readings
from a work at that time so unknown. The letter is charming: the dirty
chevalier's positive and scoffing spirit did not seem susceptible of
thus rubbing itself with poetry. I have no hesitation in giving this
letter, a document of my history, although it is stained from end to
end with my praises, as though the sly author had taken pleasure in
emptying his ink-pot over his epistle:

    "_Monday._

    "Heavens, what an interesting reading I owed to your extreme
    kindness this morning! Our religion had numbered among
    its defenders great geniuses, illustrious Fathers of the
    Church: those athletes had wielded with vigour all the arms
    of reasoning; incredulity was vanquished; but that was not
    enough: it was still necessary to show all the charms of
    that admirable religion; it was necessary to show how suited
    it is to the human heart and what magnificent pictures it
    offers to the imagination. It is no longer a theologian in
    the school, it is the great painter and the man sensitive to
    impressions who open up a new horizon for themselves. Your
    work was wanted, and you were called upon to write it. Nature
    has eminently endowed you with the great qualities which this
    work requires: you belong to another age....

    "Ah, if the truths of sentiment rank first in the order of
    nature, none will have proved better than yourself those of
    our religion; you will have confounded the unbelievers at the
    gate of the Temple and introduced delicate minds and sensible
    hearts into the sanctuaries. You bring back to me those
    ancient philosophers who gave their lessons with their heads
    crowned with flowers, their hands filled with sweet perfumes.
    This is a very feeble image of your suave, pure and classic
    mind.

    "I congratulate myself daily on the happy circumstance which
    made me acquainted with you; I can never forget that it was
    Fontanes who did me that kindness; I shall love him for it
    the more, and my heart will never separate two names whom the
    same glory is bound to unite, if Providence re-opens to us
    the doors of our native land.

    "CHEV. DE PANAT."


The Abbé Delille also heard some fragments of the _Génie du
Christianisme_ read. He seemed surprised, and did me the honour,
soon after, to put into verse the prose which had pleased him. He
naturalized my wild American flowers in his various French gardens, and
put my somewhat hot wine to cool in the frigid water from his clear
spring.

The unfinished edition of the _Génie du Christianisme_, commenced in
London, was a little different, in the order of the contents, from the
edition published in France. The consular censure, which soon became
imperial, showed itself very touchy on the subject of kings: their
persons, their honour and their virtue were dear to it beforehand.
Already Fouché's police saw the white pigeon, the symbol of Bonaparte's
candour and revolutionary innocence, descend from Heaven with the
sacred phial. The true believers who had taken part in the Republican
processions of Lyons compelled me to cut out a chapter entitled the
_Rois athées_, and to distribute paragraphs from it here and there in
the body of the work.

*

Before continuing these literary investigations I must interrupt
them for a moment to take leave of my uncle de Bedée; alas, that
means taking leave of the first joy of my life: _freno non remorante
dies_[250]! See the old sepulchres in the old crypts: themselves
overcome by age, decrepit and without memory, having lost their
epitaphs, they have forgotten the very names of those whose ashes they
contain.

I had written to my uncle on the subject of my mother's death: he
replied with a long letter containing some touching words of regret;
but three-quarters of his double folio sheet were devoted to my
genealogy. He begged me above all, when I should return to France,
to look up the title-deeds of the "Bedée quartering," entrusted to
my brother. And so, to this venerable Emigrant, exile, ruin, the
destruction of his kin, the sacrifice of Louis XVI. alike failed to
make the fact of the Revolution clear to him; nothing had happened,
nothing come to pass; he had gone no farther than the States of
Brittany and the Assembly of the Nobles. This fixity of ideas in man is
very striking in the midst and as it were in presence of the alteration
of his body, the flight of his years, the loss of his relations and
friends.

[Sidenote: Death of my uncle de Bedée.]

On his return from the Emigration, my uncle de Bedée went to live at
Dinan, where he died, six leagues from Monchoix, without having seen it
again. My cousin Caroline[251], the oldest of my three cousins, still
lives. She has remained an old maid in spite of the formal requests
for her hand made in her former youth. She writes me letters, badly
spelt, in which she addresses me in the second person singular, calls
me "chevalier," and talks to me of our good time: _in illo tempore._
She was endowed with a pair of fine dark eyes and a comely figure; she
danced like the Camargo[252], and she seems to recollect that I bore
a fierce passion for her in secret. I reply in the same tone, laying
aside, in imitation of her, my years, my honours and my reputation:

"Yes, dear Caroline, your chevalier," etc.

It must be some six or seven lustres since we met: Heaven be praised
for it, for God alone knows, if we came to embracing, what kind of
figure we should cut in each other's eyes!

Sweet, patriarchal, innocent, creditable family friendship, your age
is past! We no longer cling to the soil by a multitude of blossoms,
sprouts and roots; we are born and die singly nowadays. The living
are in haste to fling the deceased to Eternity, and to be rid of his
corpse. Of his friends, some go and await the coffin at the church,
grumbling the while at being put out and disturbed in their habits;
others carry their devotion so far as to follow the funeral to the
cemetery: the grave once filled up, all recollection is obliterated.
You will never return, O days of religion and affection, in which the
son died in the same house, in the same arm-chair, by the same fireside
where died his father and his grandfather before him, surrounded, as
they had been, by weeping children and grandchildren, upon whom fell
the last paternal blessing!

Farewell, my beloved uncle! Farewell, family of my mother, which are
disappearing like the other portion of my family! Farewell, my cousin
of days long past, who love me still as you loved me when we listened
together to our kind aunt de Boistelleul's ballad of the Sparrow-hawk,
or when you assisted at my release from my nurse's vow at the Abbey
of Nazareth! If you survive me, accept the share of gratitude and
affection which I here bequeath to you. Attach no belief to the false
smile outlined on my lips in speaking of you: my eyes, I assure you,
are full of tears.

*

My studies correlative to the _Génie du Christianisme_ had gradually,
as I have said, led me to make a more thorough examination of English
literature. When I took refuge in England in 1793, it became necessary
for me to redress most of the judgments which I had drawn from the
criticisms. As regards the historians, Hume[253] was reputed a Tory
and reactionary writer: he was accused, as was Gibbon, of over-loading
the English language with gallicisms; people preferred his continuer,
Smollett[254]. Gibbon[255], a philosopher during his lifetime, became a
Christian on his death-bed, and in that capacity was duly convicted of
being a sorry individual. Robertson[256] was still spoken of, because
he was dry.

[Sidenote: English literature.]

Where the poets were concerned, the "elegant extracts" served as a
place of banishment for a few pieces by Dryden[257]; people refused to
forgive Pope[258] for his verse, although they visited his house at
Twickenham and cut chips from the weeping-willow planted by him and
withered like his fame.

Blair[259] was looked upon as a tedious critic with a French style; he
was placed far below Johnson[260]. As to the old _Spectator_[261], it
was relegated to the lumber-room.

English political works have little interest for us. The economic
treatises are less stinted in their scope: their calculations on the
wealth of nations, the employment of capital, the balance of trade,
are applicable in part to the different European societies. Burke[262]
emerged from the national political individuality: by declaring himself
opposed to the French Revolution, he dragged his country into the long
road of hostilities which ended in the plains of Waterloo.

However, great figures remained. One met with Milton and Shakespeare
on every hand. Did Montmorency[263], Byron[264], Sully[265], by turns
French Ambassadors to the Courts of Elizabeth[266] and James I.[267],
ever hear speak of a merry-andrew who acted in his own and other
writers' farces? Did they ever pronounce the name, so outlandish in
French, of Shakespeare? Did they suspect that there was here a glory
before which their honours, pomps and ranks would become as nothing?
Well, the comedian who undertook the part of the Ghost in _Hamlet_ was
the great spectre, the shade of the Middle Ages which rose over the
world like the evening star, at the moment when the Middle Ages were at
last descending among the dead: giant centuries which Dante[268] opened
and Shakespeare closed.

In the Memorials of Whitelock[269], the contemporary of the singer of
Paradise Lost, we read of "one Mr. Milton, a blind man, parliamentary
secretary for Latin despatches."

Molière[270], the "stage-player," performed his Pourceaugnac in the
same way that Shakespeare, the "buffoon," clowned his Falstaff.

Those veiled travellers, who come from time to time to sit at our
board, are treated by us as ordinary guests; we remain unaware of their
nature until the day of their disappearance. On leaving the earth, they
become transfigured, and say to us, as the angel from heaven said to
Tobias:

"I am one of the seven who stand before the Lord[271]."

But, though misunderstood by men on their passage, those divinities do
not fail to recognise one another. Milton asks:

    What needs my Shakespeare, for his honour'd bones,
    The labour of an age in piled stones[272]?

Michael Angelo[273], envying Dante's lot and genius, exclaims:

    Pur fuss'io tal...
    Per l'aspro esilio suo con sua virtute
    Darci del mondo più felice stato.

Tasso celebrates Camoëns, as yet almost unknown, and acts as his
"Fame." Is there anything more admirable than the society of
illustrious people revealing themselves, one to the other, by means of
signs, greeting one another and communing with each other in a language
understood by themselves alone?

[Sidenote: Shakespeare.]

Was Shakespeare lame, like Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott[274], and the
Prayers, the daughters of Jupiter? If he was so in fact, the "Boy"
of Stratford, far from being ashamed of his infirmity, as was Childe
Harold, is not afraid to remind one of his mistresses of it:

    So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite[275].

Shakespeare must have had many loves, if we were to count one for each
sonnet. The creator of Desdemona and Juliet grew old without ceasing
to be in love. Was the unknown woman to whom he addresses his charming
verses proud and happy to be the object of Shakespeare's Sonnets? It
may be doubted: glory is to an old man what diamonds are to an old
woman; they adorn, but cannot make her beautiful. Says the English
tragic poet to his mistress:

    No longer mourn for me when I am dead
     .      .      .      .      .      .
    Nay, if you read this line, remember not
    The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
    That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
    If thinking on me then should make you woe.
    O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
    When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
    Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
    But let your love even with my life decay[276].

Shakespeare loved, but believed no more in love than he believed in
other things: a woman to him was a bird, a zephyr, a flower, a thing
that charms and passes. Through his indifference to, or ignorance of,
his fame, through his condition, which set him without the pale of
society and of a position to which he could not hope to attain, he
seemed to have taken life as a light, unoccupied hour, a swift and
gentle leisure.

Shakespeare, in his youth, met old monks driven from their cloister,
who had seen Henry VIII., his reforms, his destructions of monasteries,
his "fools," his wives, his mistresses, his headsmen. When the poet
departed from life, Charles I. was sixteen years of age. Thus, with one
hand, Shakespeare was able to touch the whitened heads once threatened
by the sword of the second of the Tudors and, with the other, the
brown head of the second of the Stuarts, destined to be laid low by
the axe of the Parliamentarians. Leaning upon those tragic brows, the
great tragedian sank into the tomb; he filled the interval of the days
in which he lived with his ghosts, his blind kings, his ambitious
men punished, his unfortunate women, so as to join together, through
analogous fictions, the realities of the past and of the future.

Shakespeare is of the number of the five or six writers who have
sufficed for the needs and nutriment of thought: those parent
geniuses seem to have brought forth and suckled all the others. Homer
impregnated antiquity: Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes,
Horace, Virgil are his sons. Dante engendered Modern Italy, from
Petrarch to Tasso. Rabelais created French literature: Montaigne, La
Fontaine, Molière descend from him. England is all Shakespeare, and in
these later days he has lent his language to Byron, his dialogue to
Walter Scott.

Men often disown these supreme masters; they rebel against them; they
reckon up their faults: they accuse them of tediousness, of length,
of extravagance, of bad taste, what time they plunder them and deck
themselves in their spoils; but they struggle in vain against their
yoke. Everything wears their colours; they have left their traces
everywhere; they invent words and names which go to swell the general
vocabulary of the nations; their expressions become proverbs, their
fictitious characters change into real characters, with heirs and a
lineage. They open out horizons whence burst forth sheaves of light;
they sow ideas, the germs of a thousand others; they supply all the
arts with imaginations, subjects, styles: their works are the mines or
the bowels of the human mind.

These geniuses occupy the first rank; their vastness, their variety,
their fruitfulness, their originality cause them to be accepted from
the very first as laws, models, moulds, types of the various forms of
intellect, even as there are four or five races of men issuing from one
single stock, of which the others are only branches. Let us take care
how we insult the disorders into which these mighty beings sometimes
fall: let us not imitate Ham, the accursed; let us not laugh if we see
the sole and solitary mariner of the deep lying naked and asleep, in
the shadow of the Ark resting upon the mountains of Armenia. Let us
respect that diluvial navigator, who recommenced the Creation after the
flood-gates of Heaven were shut up: let us, as pious children, blessed
by our father, modestly cover him with our cloak.

Shakespeare, in his lifetime, never thought of living after his life:
what signifies to him to-day my hymn of admiration? Admitting every
supposition, reasoning from the truths or falsehoods with which the
human mind is penetrated or imbued, what cares Shakespeare for a renown
of which the sound cannot rise to where he is? A Christian? In the
midst of eternal bliss, does he think of the nothingness of the world?
A deist? Freed from the shades of matter, lost in the splendours of
God, does he cast down a look upon the grain of sand over which he
passed? An atheist? He sleeps the sleep without breathing or awakening
which we call death. Nothing therefore is vainer than glory beyond the
tomb, unless it have kept friendship alive, unless it have been useful
to virtue, helpful to misfortune, unless it be granted to us to rejoice
in Heaven in a consoling, generous, liberating idea left behind by us
upon earth.

*

[Sidenote: Samuel Richardson.]

Novels, at the end of the last century, had been included in
the general proscription. Richardson[277] slept forgotten: his
fellow-countrymen discovered in his style traces of the inferior
society in which he had spent his life. Fielding[278] maintained his
success; Sterne[279], the purveyor of eccentricity, was out of date.
The _Vicar of Wakefield_ was still read[280].

If Richardson has no style, a question of which we foreigners are
unable to judge, he will not live, because one lives only by style. It
is vain to rebel against this truth: the best-composed work, adorned
with life-like portraits, filled with a thousand other perfections, is
still-born if the style be wanting. Style, and there are a thousand
kinds, is not learnt; it is the gift of Heaven, it is talent. But,
if Richardson has only been forsaken because of certain homely turns
of expression, insufferable to an elegant society, he may revive:
the revolution which is being worked, in lowering the aristocracy
and raising the middle classes, will render less apparent, or cause
entirely to disappear, the traces of homespun habits and of an inferior
language.

From _Clarissa_ and _Tom Jones_ sprang the two principal branches of
the family of modern English novels: the novels of family pictures and
domestic dramas, and the novels of adventure and pictures of general
society. After Richardson, the manners of the West End invaded the
domain of fiction: the novels became filled with country-houses, lords
and ladies, scenes at the waters, adventures at the races, the ball,
the opera, Ranelagh, with a never-ending chit-chat and tittle-tattle.
The scene was rapidly changed to Italy; the lovers crossed the Alps
amid terrible dangers and sorrows of the soul calculated to move lions:
"the lion shed tears!" A jargon of good company was adopted.

Of the thousands of novels which have flooded England since the last
fifty years, two have kept their places: _Caleb Williams_[281] and the
_Monk._ I did not see Godwin during my stay in London; but I twice
met Lewis[282]. He was a young member of the House of Commons, very
pleasant, with the air and manners of a Frenchman. The works of Ann
Radcliffe[283] are of a class apart Those of Mrs. Barbauld[284], Miss
Edgeworth[285], Miss Burney[286], etc., have a chance of living.

*

"There should," says Montaigne, "be some correction appointed by the
laws against foolish and unprofitable writers, as there is against
vagabonds and loiterers; so should both my selfe and a hundred others
of our people be banished.... Scribbling seemeth to be a symptome or
passion of an irregular and licentious age[287]."

*

[Sidenote: Sir Walter Scott.]

But these different schools of sedentary novelists, of novelists
travelling by diligence or calash, of novelists of lakes and mountains,
ruins and ghosts, of novelists of cities and drawing-rooms, have
come to be lost in the new school of Walter Scott, even as poetry
has precipitated itself in the steps of Lord Byron. The illustrious
painter of Scotland started his career in literature during my exile
in London with his translation of Goethe's _Berlichingen._[288] He
continued to make himself known by poetry, and ultimately the bent of
his genius led him towards the novel. He seems to me to have created a
false manner: the romancer set himself to write historical romances,
and the historian romantic histories. If, in reading Walter Scott, I
am sometimes obliged to skip interminable conversations, the fault is
doubtless mine; but one of Walter Scott's great merits, in my eyes, is
that he can be placed in the hands of everybody. It requires greater
efforts of talent to interest while keeping within the limits of
decency than to please when exceeding all bounds; it is less easy to
rule the heart than to disturb it.

Burke kept the politics of England in the past. Walter Scott
drove back the English to the Middle Ages; all that they wrote,
manufactured, built, became Gothic: books, furniture, houses,
churches, country-seats. But the barons of Magna Charta are to-day the
fashionables of Bond Street, a frivolous race camping in the ancient
manor-houses while awaiting the arrival of the new generations which
are preparing to drive them out.

*

At the same time that the novel was passing into the "romantic" stage,
poetry was undergoing a similar transformation. Cowper[289] abandoned
the French in order to revive the national school; Burns[290] commenced
the same revolution in Scotland. After them came the restorers of the
ballads. Several of those poets of 1792 to 1800 belonged to what was
called the "Lake school," a name which survived, because the romantic
poets lived on the shores of the Cumberland and Westmoreland lakes,
which they sometimes sang.

Thomas Moore[291], Campbell[292], Rogers[293], Crabbe[294],
Wordsworth[295], Southey[296], Hunt[297], Knowles[298], Lord
Holland[299], Canning[300], Croker[301] are still living to do honour
to English literature; but one must be of English birth to appreciate
the full merit of an intimate class of composition which appeals
specially to men born on the soil.

None is a competent judge, in living literature, of other than works
written in his own tongue. It is in vain that you believe yourself
thoroughly acquainted with a foreign idiom: you lack the nurse's milk,
together with the first words which she teaches you at her breast and
in your swaddling-clothes; certain accents belong to the mother country
alone. The English and Germans have the strangest notions concerning
our men of letters: they worship what we despise, and despise what
we worship; they do not understand Racine nor La Fontaine, nor even
Molière completely. It is ludicrous to know who are considered our
great writers in London, Vienna, Berlin, St Petersburg, Munich,
Leipzig, Göttingen, Cologne, to know what is read there with avidity
and what not at all.

When an author's merit lies especially in his diction, no foreigner
will ever understand that merit. The more intimate, individual,
rational a talent is, the more do its mysteries escape the mind which
is not, so to speak, that talent's fellow-countryman. We admire the
Greeks and Romans on trust; our admiration comes to us by tradition,
and the Greeks and Romans are not there to laugh at our barbarian
judgments. Which of us has an idea of the harmony of the prose of
Demosthenes and Cicero, of the cadence of the verses of Alcæus and
Horace, as they were caught by a Greek or Latin ear? Men maintain that
real beauties are of all times, all countries: yes, beauties of feeling
and of thought; not beauties of style. Style is not cosmopolitan like
thought: it has a native land, a sky, a sun of its own.

Burns, Mason[302], Cowper died during my emigration, before 1800 and
in 1800: they ended the century; I commenced it. Darwin[303] and
Beattie[304] died two years after my return from exile.

[Sidenote: James Beattie.]

Beattie had announced the new era of the lyre. The _Minstrel, or the
Progress of Genius_ is the picture of the first effects of the muse
upon a young bard who is as yet unaware of the inspiration with which
he is tossed. Now the future poet goes and sits by the sea-shore during
a tempest; again he leaves the village sports to listen in some lonely
spot to the distant sound of the pipes. Beattie has run through the
entire series of reveries and melancholy ideas of which a hundred other
poets have believed themselves the discoverers. Beattie proposed to
continue his poem; he did, in fact, write the second canto: Edwin one
evening hears a grave voice ascend from the bottom of the valley; it
is the voice of a solitary who, after tasting the illusions of the
world, has buried himself in that retreat, there to collect his soul
and to sing the marvels of the Creator. This hermit instructs the young
minstrel and reveals to him the secret of his genius. Beattie was
destined to shed tears; the death of his son broke his paternal heart:
like Ossian, after the loss of his son Oscar, he hung his harp on the
branches of an oak. Perhaps Beattie's son was the young minstrel whom a
father had sung and whose footsteps he no longer saw on the mountain.

*

Lord Byron's verses contain striking imitations of the Minstrel. At the
time of my exile in England, Lord Byron was living at Harrow School,
in a village ten miles from London. He was a child, I was young and
as unknown as he; he had been brought up on the heaths of Scotland,
by the sea-side, as I in the marshes of Brittany, by the sea-side; he
first loved the Bible and Ossian, as I loved them; he sang the memories
of his childhood in Newstead Abbey, as I sang mine in Combourg Castle:

    When I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath.
       And climb'd thy steep summit, O Morven of snow!
    To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath,
       Or the mist of the tempest that gather'd below[305].

In my wanderings in the neighbourhood of London, when I was so unhappy,
I passed through the village of Harrow a score of times, without
suspecting the genius it contained. I have sat in the churchyard at the
foot of the elm beneath which, in 1807, Lord Byron wrote these verses,
at the time when I was returning from Palestine:

    Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
    Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;
    Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,
    With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod.
    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
    When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast,
    And calm its cares and passions into rest,
    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
    .     .     .     .     here my heart might lie;
    Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose,
    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
    Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved;
    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
    Deplored by those in early days allied,
    And unremembered by the world beside[306].

And I shall say: Hail, ancient elm, at whose foot the child Byron
indulged in the fancies of his age, while I was dreaming of _René_
beneath thy shade, the same shade beneath which later, in his turn, the
poet came to dream of _Childe Harold!_ Byron asked of the churchyard,
which witnessed the first sports of his life, an unknown grave: a
useless prayer, which fame will not grant. Nevertheless, Byron is no
longer what he has been; I had come across him in all directions living
at Venice: at the end of a few years, in the same town where I had
met with his name on every hand, I found him everywhere eclipsed and
unknown. The echoes of the Lido no longer repeat his name and, if you
ask after him of the Venetians, they no longer know of whom you speak.
Lord Byron is entirely dead for them; they no longer hear the neighing
of his horse: it is the same thing in London, where his memory is
fading. That is what we become.

If I have passed by Harrow without knowing that the child Byron was
drawing breath there, Englishmen have passed by Combourg without
suspecting that a little vagabond, brought up in those woods, would
leave any trace. Arthur Young[307], the traveller, when passing through
Combourg, wrote:

    "To Combourg [from Pontorson] the country has a savage
    aspect; husbandry has not much further advanced, at least in
    skill, than among the Hurons, which appears incredible amidst
    inclosures; the people almost as wild as their country, and
    their town of Combourg one of the most brutal filthy places
    that can be seen; mud houses, no windows, and a pavement so
    broken as to impede all passengers, but ease none-yet here is
    a chateau, and inhabited; who is this Mons. de Chateaubriand,
    the owner, that has nerves strung for a residence amidst such
    filth and poverty? Below this hideous heap of wretchedness is
    a fine lake, surrounded by well-wooded inclosures[308]."


That M. de Chateaubriand was my father; the residence which seemed so
hideous to the ill-humoured agriculturist is none the less a fine and
stately home, sombre and grave though it may be. As for me, a feeble
ivy-shoot commencing to climb at the foot of those fierce towers, would
Mr. Young have noticed me, he who was interested only in inspecting our
harvests?

[Sidenote: Lord Byron.]

Give me leave to add to the above pages, written in England in 1822,
the following written in 1824 and 1840: they will complete the portion
relating to Lord Byron; this portion will be more particularly
perfected when the reader has perused what I shall have to say of the
great poet on passing to Venice.

There may perhaps be some interest in the future in remarking the
coincidence of the two leaders of the new French and English schools
having a common fund of nearly parallel ideas and destinies, if not of
morals: one a peer of England, the other a peer of France; both Eastern
travellers, not infrequently near each other, yet never seeing one
another: only, the life of the English poet has been connected with
events less great than mine.

Lord Byron visited the ruins of Greece after me: in _Childe Harold_
he seems to embellish with his own pigments the descriptions in the
_Itinéraire._ At the commencement of my pilgrimage I gave the Sire de
Joinville's farewell to his castle: Byron bids a similar farewell to
his Gothic home.

In the _Martyrs_, Eudore sets out from Messenia to go to Rome:

    "Our voyage was long," he says; "... we saw all those
    promontories marked by temples or tombstones.... My young
    companions had heard speak of nought save the metamorphoses
    of Jupiter, and they understood nothing of the remains they
    saw before them; I myself had already sat, with the prophet,
    on the ruins of devastated cities, and Babylon taught me to
    know Corinth[309]."


The English poet is like the French prose-writer, following the letter
of Sulpicius to Cicero[310]: a coincidence so perfect is a singularly
proud one for me, because I anticipated the immortal singer on the
shore where we gathered the same memories and celebrated the same ruins.

I have again the honour of being connected with Lord Byron in our
descriptions of Rome: the _Martyrs_ and my _Lettre sur la campagne
romaine_ possess, for me, the inestimable advantage of having divined
the aspirations of a fine genius.

The early translators, commentators and admirers of Lord Byron were
careful not to point out that some pages of my works might have
lingered for a moment in the memory of the painter of _Childe Harold_;
they would have thought that they were depreciating his genius. Now
that the enthusiasm has grown a little calmer this honour is not so
consistently refused to me. Our immortal song-writer[311], in the last
volume of his Chansons, says:

    "In one of the foregoing stanzas I speak of the 'lyres' which
    France owes to M. de Chateaubriand. I do not fear that that
    verse will be contradicted by the new poetic school, which,
    born beneath the eagle's wings, has often and rightly prided
    itself on that origin. The influence of the author of the
    _Génie du Christianisme_ has also made itself felt abroad,
    and it would perhaps be just to recognise that the singer of
    _Childe Harold_ belongs to the family of _René._"

In an excellent article on Lord Byron, M. Villemain[312] re-echoes M.
de Béranger's remark:

    "Some incomparable pages in _René_" he says, "had, it is
    true, exhausted that poetic character. I do not know whether
    Byron imitated them or revived them with his genius."

[Sidenote: Literary affinity.]

What I have just said as to the affinity of imagination and destiny
between the chronicles of _René_ and the singer of _Childe Harold_
does not detract in the smallest degree from the fame of the immortal
bard. What harm can my pedestrian and luteless muse do to the muse of
the Dee[313], furnished with a lyre and wings? Lord Byron will live
whether, a child of his century like myself, he gave utterance, like
myself and like Goethe before us, to its passion and misfortune, or
whether my circumnavigation and the lantern of my Gallic bark showed
the vessel of Albion the track across unexplored waters.

Besides, two minds of an analogous nature may easily have similar
conceptions without being reproached with slavishly following the same
road. It is permitted to take advantage of ideas and images expressed
in a foreign language, in order with them to enrich one's own: that has
occurred in all ages and at all times. I recognise without hesitation
that, in my early youth, Ossian[314], _Werther_[315], the _Rêveries du
promeneur solitaire_[316] and the _Études de la nature_[317] may have
allied themselves to my ideas; but I have hidden or dissimulated none
of the pleasure caused me by works in which I delighted.

If it were true that _René_ entered to some extent into the groundwork
of the one person represented under different names in _Childe-Harold,
Conrad, Lara, Manfred_, the _Giaour_; if, by chance, Lord Byron had
made me live in his own life, would he then have had the weakness never
to mention me[318]? Was I then one of those fathers whom men deny
when they have attained to power? Can Lord Byron have been completely
ignorant of me when he quotes almost all the French authors who are his
contemporaries? Did he never hear speak of me, when the English papers,
like the French papers, have resounded a score of times in his hearing
with controversies on my works, when the _New Times_ drew a parallel
between the author of the _Génie du Christianisme_ and the author of
_Childe-Harold?_

No intelligence, however favoured it be, but has its susceptibilities,
its distrusts: one wishes to keep the sceptre, fears to share it,
resents comparisons. In the same way, another superior talent has
avoided the mention of my name in a work on Literature[319]. Thank God,
rating myself at my just value, I have never aimed at empire; since
I believe in nothing except the religious truth, of which liberty is
a form, I have no more faith in myself than in any other thing here
below. But I have never felt a need to be silent, where I have admired;
that is why I proclaim my enthusiasm for Madame de Staël and Lord
Byron. What is sweeter than admiration? It is love in Heaven, affection
raised to a cult; we feel ourselves thrilled with gratitude for the
divinity which extends the bases of our faculties, opens out new views
to our souls, gives us a happiness so great and so pure, with no
admixture of fear or envy.

For the rest, the little cavil which I have raised in these Memoirs
against the greatest poet whom England has possessed since Milton
proves only one thing: the high value which I would have attached to
the recollection of his muse.

[Sidenote: The real Byron.]

Lord Byron started a deplorable school: I presume he has been as much
distressed at the Childe-Harolds to whom he gave birth as I am at the
Renés who rave around me.

The life of Lord Byron is the object of much investigation and calumny:
young men have taken magic words seriously; women have felt disposed
to allow themselves affrightedly to be seduced by that "monster," to
console that solitary and unhappy Satan. Who knows? He had perhaps
not found the woman he sought, a woman fair enough, a heart as big as
his own. Byron, according to the phantasmagorial opinion, is the old
serpent of seduction and corruption, because he sees the corruption
of the human race; he is a fatal and suffering genius, placed between
the mysteries of matter and mind, who is unable to solve the enigma of
the universe, who looks upon life as a frightful and causeless irony,
as a perverse smile of evil; he is the son of despair, who despises
and denies, who, bearing an incurable wound within himself, seeks his
revenge by leading through voluptuousness to sorrow all who approach
him; he is a man who has not passed through the age of innocence, who
has never had the advantage of being rejected and cursed by God: a
man who, issuing reprobate from nature's womb, is the damned soul of
nihility.

This is the Byron of heated imaginations: it is by no means, to my
mind, the Byron of truth. Two different men are united in Lord Byron,
as in the majority of men: the man of _nature_ and the man of _system._
The poet, perceiving the part which the public made him play, accepted
it and began to curse the world which at first he had only viewed
dreamily: this progress can be traced in the chronological order of his
works. His _genius_, far from having the extent attributed to it, is
fairly reserved; his poetic thought is no more than a moan, a plaint,
an imprecation; in that quality it is admirable: one must not ask the
lyre what it thinks, but what it sings. His _mind_ is sarcastic and
diversified, but of an exciting nature and a baneful influence: the
writer had read Voltaire to good purpose, and imitates him.

Gifted with every advantage, Lord Byron had little with which to
reproach his birth; the very accident which made him unhappy and which
allied his superiority to the infirmity of mankind ought not to have
vexed him, since it did not prevent him from being loved. The immortal
singer knew from his own case the truth of Zeno's maxim: "The voice is
the flower of beauty."

A deplorable thing is the rapidity with which, nowadays, reputations
pass away. At the end of a few years-what am I saying?--of a few
months, the infatuation disappears and disparagement follows upon
it. Already Lord Byron's glory is seen to pale; his genius is better
understood by ourselves; he will have altars longer in France than
in England. Since _Childe-Harold_ excels mainly in the depicting
of sentiments peculiar to the individual, the English, who prefer
sentiments common to all, will end by disowning the poet whose cry is
so deep and so sad. Let them look to it: if they shatter the image of
the man who has brought them to life again, what will they have left?

*

When, during my sojourn in London, in 1822, I wrote my opinion of
Lord Byron, he had no more than two years to live upon earth: he died
in 1824, at the moment when disenchantment and disgust were about to
commence for him. I preceded him in life; he preceded me in death; he
was called before his turn: my number was higher than his, and yet
his was drawn first. Childe-Harold should have remained; the world
could lose me without noticing my disappearance. On continuing my road
through life, I met Madame Guiccioli[320] in Rome, Lady Byron[321] in
Paris. Frailty and virtue thus appeared to me: the former had perhaps
too many realities, the latter too few dreams.

*

Now, after having talked to you of the English writers, at the period
when England served me as an asylum, it but remains for me to tell you
of England herself at that period, of her appearance, her sites, her
country-seats, her private and political manners.

The whole of England may be seen in the space of four leagues, from
Richmond, above London, down to Greenwich and below.

Below London lies industrial and commercial England, with her docks,
her warehouses, her custom-houses, her arsenals, her breweries, her
factories, her foundries, her ships; the latter, at each high tide,
ascend the Thames in three divisions: first, the smallest; then, the
middle-sized; lastly, the great vessels which graze with their sails
the columns of the Old Sailors' Hospital and the windows of the tavern
where the visitors dine.

Above London lies agricultural and pastoral England, with her
meadows, her flocks and herds, her country-houses, her parks, whose
shrubs and lawns are bathed twice a day by the rising waters of the
Thames. Between these two opposite points, Richmond and Greenwich,
London blends all the characteristics of this two-fold England: the
aristocracy in the West End, the democracy in the East; the Tower of
London and Westminster Abbey are landmarks between which is laid the
whole history of Great Britain.

[Sidenote: Richmond.]

I passed a portion of the summer of 1799 at Richmond with Christian
de Lamoignon, occupying myself with the _Génie du Christianisme._ I
went on the Thames in a rowing-boat, or walked in Richmond Park. I
could have wished that Richmond by London had been the Richmond of
the treaty _Honor Richemundiæ_, for then I should have found myself
in my own country, and for this reason: William the Bastard made a
grant to Alan[322] Duke of Brittany, his son-in-law, of 442 English
feudal estates, which since formed the County of Richmond[323]: the
Dukes of Brittany, Alan's successors, enfeoffed these domains to Breton
knights, cadets of the families of Rohan, Tinténiac, Chateaubriand,
Goyon, Montboucher. But, in spite of my inclinations, I must look in
Yorkshire for the County of Richmond, raised to a duchy by Charles
II.[324] in favour of a bastard[325]: the Richmond on the Thames is
the Old Sheen of Edward III. There, in 1377, died Edward III., that
famous King robbed by his mistress, Alice Perrers[326], who was not
the same as the Alice or Catharine of Salisbury of the early days of
the life of the victor of Crecy: you should only love at the age when
you can be loved. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth also died at Richmond:
where does one not die? Henry VIII. took pleasure in this residence.
The English historians are greatly embarrassed by that abominable man:
on the one hand, they are unable to conceal the tyranny and servitude
to which the Parliament was subjected; on the other hand, if they too
heartily anathematized the Head of the Reformation, they would condemn
themselves in condemning him:

    Plus l'oppresseur est vil, plus l'esclave est infâme[327].

In Richmond Park is shown the mound which served Henry VIII. as an
observatory from which to spy for the news of the execution of Anne
Boleyn[328]. Henry leapt for joy when the signal shot up from the Tower
of London. What delight! The steel had cut through the slender neck,
and covered with blood the beautiful tresses to which the poet-King had
fastened his fatal kisses.

In the deserted park at Richmond I awaited no murderous signal, I would
not even have wished the slightest harm to any who might have betrayed
me. I strolled among the peaceful deer: accustomed to run before a
pack of hounds, they stopped when they were tired; they were carried
back, very gay and quite amused with this game, in a cart filled with
straw. I went at Kew to see the kangaroos, ridiculous animals, the
exact opposite to the giraffe: these innocent four-footed grass hoppers
peopled Australia better than the old Duke of Queensberry's[329]
prostitutes peopled the lanes of Richmond. The Thames bathed the
lawn of a cottage half-hidden beneath a cedar of Lebanon and amidst
weeping-willows: a newly married couple had come to spend the honeymoon
in that paradise.

One evening, as I was strolling over the swards of Twickenham, Peltier
appeared, holding his handkerchief to his mouth:

"What an everlasting deuce of a fog!" he cried, so soon as he was
within earshot. "How the devil can you remain here? I have made out my
list: Stowe, Blenheim, Hampton Court, Oxford; with your dreamy ways,
you might live with John Bull _in vitam æternam_ and not see a thing!"

[Sidenote: A journey with Peltier.]

I asked in vain to be excused, I had to go. In the carriage, Peltier
enumerated his hopes to me; he had relays of them; no sooner had
one croaked beneath him than he straddled another, and on he would
go, a leg on either side, to his journey's end. One of his hopes,
the robustest, eventually led him to Bonaparte, whom he took by the
coat-collar: Napoleon had the simplicity to hit back[330]. Peltier
took Sir James Mackintosh[331] as his second; he was condemned by the
courts, and made a new fortune (which he incontinently ran through) by
selling the documents relating to his trial.

Blenheim[332] was distasteful to me; I suffered so much the more from
an ancient reverse of my country in that I had had to endure the
insult of a recent affront: a boat going up the Thames caught sight
of me on the bank; seeing a Frenchman, the oarsmen gave cheers; the
news had just been received of the naval battle of Aboukir: these
successes of the foreigner, which might open the gates of France to me,
were hateful to me. Nelson[333], whom I had often met in Hyde Park,
wrapped his victories in Lady Hamilton's[334] shawl at Naples, while
the _lazzaroni_ played at ball with human heads. The admiral died
gloriously at Trafalgar[335], and his mistress wretchedly at Calais,
after losing beauty, youth and fortune. And I, taunted on the Thames
with the victory of Aboukir, have seen the palm-trees of Libya edging
the calm and deserted sea which was reddened with the blood of my
fellow-countrymen.

Stowe Park[336] is famous for its ornamental buildings: I prefer its
shades. The cicerone of the place showed us, in a gloomy ravine, the
copy of a temple of which I was to admire the original in the dazzling
valley of the Cephisus. Beautiful pictures of the Italian school pined
in the darkness of some uninhabited rooms, whose shutters were kept
closed: poor Raphael, imprisoned in a castle of the ancient Britons,
far from the skies of the Farnesina[337]!

At Hampton Court was preserved the collection of portraits of the
mistresses of Charles II.: you see how that Prince took things on
emerging from a revolution which cut off his father's head, and which
was to drive out his House.

At Slough we saw Herschel[338], with his learned sister[339] and his
great forty-foot telescope; he was looking for new planets: this made
Peltier laugh, who kept to the seven old ones.

We stopped for two days at Oxford. I took pleasure in this republic of
Alfred the Great[340]; it represented the privileged liberties and the
manners of the literary institutions of the Middle Ages. We hurried
through the twenty colleges, the libraries, the pictures, the museum,
the botanic garden. I turned over with extreme pleasure, among the
manuscripts of Worcester College, a life of the Black Prince, written
in French verse by the Prince's herald-at-arms.

Oxford, without resembling them, recalled to my memory the modest
Colleges of Dol, Rennes and Dinan. I had translated Gray's[341] _Elegy
written in a Country Church-yard_:

    The curfew tolls the knell of parting day[342],

which is imitated from Dante's

                        Squilla di lontano
    Che paja'l giorno pianger che si musre[343].


[Sidenote: Oxford.]

Peltier had hastened to trumpet my translation in his paper. At sight
of Oxford I remembered the same poet's _Ode on a distant Prospect of
Eton College_:

    Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
       Ah, fields beloved in vain!
    Where once my careless childhood strayed,
       A stranger yet to pain!

    I feel the gales that from ye blow,
    .     .      .      .      .      .
    My weary soul they seem to soothe,
    And redolent of joy and youth,
       To breathe a second spring.

    Say, Father Thames,...
    .     .      .      .      .      .
    What idle progeny succeed
    To chase the rolling circle's speed
       Or urge the flying ball?

    Alas! regardless of their doom
       The little victims play!
    No sense have they of ills to come,
       Nor care beyond to-day[344].

Who has not experienced the feelings and regrets here expressed with
all the sweetness of the muse? Who has not softened at the recollection
of the games, the studies, the loves of his early years? But can they
be revived? The pleasures of youth reproduced by the memory are ruins
seen by torchlight.

*

Separated from the Continent by a long war, the English at the end
of the last century preserved their national manners and character.
There was still but one people, in whose name the sovereign power was
wielded by an aristocratic government; only two great friendly classes
existed, bound by a common interest: the patrons and the dependents.
That jealous class called the bourgeoisie in France, which is beginning
to arise in England, was then not known: nothing came between the rich
land-owners and the men occupied with their trades. Everything had not
yet become machinery in the manufacturing professions, folly in the
privileged classes. Along the same pavements where one now sees dirty
faces and men in surtouts, passed little girls in white cloaks, with
straw-hats fastened under the chin with a ribbon, a basket on their
arm, containing fruit or a book; all kept their eyes lowered, all
blushed when one looked at them:

"Britain," says Shakespeare, is "in a great pool, a swan's nest[345]."

Surtouts without coats beneath were so little worn in London in 1793
that a woman who was weeping bitterly over the death of Louis XVI. said
to me:

"But, my dear sir, is it true that the poor King was dressed in a
surtout when they cut off his head?"

The "gentlemen farmers" had not yet sold their patrimony in order to
come and live in London; in the House of Commons they still formed the
independent fraction which, acting in opposition to the Ministry, kept
up ideas of liberty, order and property. They hunted the fox or shot
pheasants in autumn, ate fat geese at Christmas, shouted "Hurrah" for
roast beef, grumbled at the present, praised the past, cursed Pitt and
the war, which sent up the price of port, and went to bed drunk to
begin the same life over again next day. They were firmly convinced
that the glory of Great Britain would never fade so long as they sang
_God save the King_, maintained the rotten boroughs, kept the game laws
in vigour, and sent hares and partridges to market by stealth under the
name of "lions" and "ostriches."

The Anglican clergy was learned, hospitable, and generous; it had
received the French clergy with true Christian charity. The University
of Oxford printed at its own cost and distributed gratis among the
curés a New Testament, according to the Latin Vulgate, with the
imprint, "_In usum cleri Gallicani in Anglia exulantis._" As to the
life of the English upper classes, I, a poor exile, saw nothing of
it but the outside. On the occasion of receptions at Court or at the
Princess of Wales's[346], ladies went by seated sideways in Sedan
chairs; their great hoop-petticoats protruded through the door of the
chair like altar-hangings. They themselves, on those altars of their
waists, resembled madonnas or pagodas. Those fine ladies were the
daughters whose mothers the Duc de Guiche and the Duc de Lauzun had
adored; those daughters are, in 1822, the mothers and grandmothers of
the little girls who now come to my house to dance in short frocks to
the sound of Collinet's clarinet, swift generations of flowers.

[Illustration: William Pitt.]

[Sidenote: English statesmen.]

The England of 1688 was, at the end of the last century, at the apogee
of its glory. As a poor emigrant in London, from 1793 to 1800, I heard
Pitt, Fox[347], Sheridan[348], Wilberforce[349], Grenville[350],
Whitbread[351], Lauderdale[352], Erskine[353]; as a magnificent
ambassador in London to-day, in 1822, I could not say how far I am
impressed when, instead of the great orators whom I used to admire, I
see those get up who were their seconds at the time of my first visit,
the pupils in the place of the masters. General ideas have penetrated
into that particular society. But the enlightened aristocracy placed at
the head of this country since one hundred and forty years will have
shown to the world one of the finest and greatest societies that have
done honour to mankind since the Roman patricians. Perhaps some old
family, seated in the depths of its county, will recognise the society
which I have depicted and regret the time whose loss I here deplore.

In 1792[354] Mr. Burke parted from Mr. Fox. The question at issue was
the French Revolution, which Mr. Burke attacked and Mr. Fox defended.
Never had the two orators, who till then had been friends, displayed
such eloquence. The whole House was moved, and Mr. Fox's eyes were
filled with tears when Mr. Burke concluded his speech with these words:

    "The right honourable gentleman in the speech he has just
    made has treated me in every sentence with uncommon harshness
    ... by declaring a censure upon my whole life, conduct, and
    opinions. Notwithstanding this great and serious, though
    on my part unmerited, attack.... I shall not be dismayed;
    I am not yet afraid to state my sentiments in this House
    or anywhere else.... I will tell all the world that the
    Constitution is in danger.... It certainly is indiscretion
    at any period, but especially at my time of life, to provoke
    enemies, or to give my friends occasion to desert me; yet
    if my firm and steady adherence to the British Constitution
    places me in such a dilemma, I will risk all; and as public
    duty and public prudence teach me, with my last words
    exclaim, 'Fly from the French Constitution!'"

Mr. Fox having said that there was "no loss of friends," Mr. Burke
exclaimed:

    "Yes, there is a loss of friends! I know the price of my
    conduct; I have done my duty at the price of my friend; our
    friendship is at an end.... I warn the two right honourable
    gentlemen who are the great rivals in this House, that
    whether they hereafter move in the political atmosphere as
    two flaming meteors, or walk together like brethren hand in
    hand, to preserve and cherish the British Constitution, to
    guard against innovation, and to save it from the danger of
    these new theories[355]."

A memorable time in the world's history!

[Illustration: Edmund Burke.]

Mr. Burke, whom I knew towards the close of his life, crushed by the
death of his only son, had founded a school for the benefit of the
children of the poor Emigrants. I went to see what he called his
"nursery." He was amused at the vivacity of the foreign race which was
growing up under his paternal genius. Looking at the careless little
exiles hopping, he said to me:

"Our boys could not do that."

And his eyes filled with tears. He thought of his son who had set out
for a longer exile.

[Sidenote: William Pitt.]

Pitt, Fox, and Burke are no more, and the British Constitution has
undergone the influence of the "new theories." One must have witnessed
the gravity of the parliamentary debates of that time, one must have
heard those orators whose prophetic voices seemed to announce a coming
revolution, to form an idea of the scene which I am recalling. Liberty,
confined within the limits of order, seemed to struggle, at Westminster
under the influence of anarchical liberty, which spoke from the still
blood-stained rostrum of the Convention.

Mr. Pitt was tall and thin, and wore a sad and mocking look.
His utterance was cold, his intonation monotonous, his gestures
imperceptible; nevertheless, the lucidity and fluency of his thought,
the logic of his arguments, suddenly lighted with flashes of eloquence,
raised his talent to something out of the common. I used often to see
Mr. Pitt, when he went from his house on foot across St. James's Park,
to wait upon the King. George III.[356], on his side, arrived from
Windsor after drinking beer out of a pewter pot with the neighbouring
farmers; he drove through the ugly court-yards of his ugly palace in
a dowdy carriage followed by a few Horse-guards. That was the master
of the Kings of Europe, as five or six City merchants are the masters
of India. Mr. Pitt, in a black coat, a steel-hilted sword at his side,
his hat under his arm, climbed the stairs, taking two or three steps at
a time. On his way he found only three or four unemployed Emigrants:
casting a scornful look in their direction, he went on, with his nose
in the air, and his pale face.

The great financier maintained no order in his own affairs, had no
regular hours for his meals or his sleep. Over head and ears in debt,
he paid nobody, and could not bring himself to add up a bill. A footman
kept house for him. Badly dressed, with no pleasures, no passions,
greedy only for power, he scorned honours, and refused to be more than
plain William Pitt.

Lord Liverpool, in the month of June last, 1822, took me to dine at
his country-place: when we were crossing Putney Heath, he showed me
the little house in which died, a poor man, the son of Lord Chatham,
the statesman who had taken Europe into his pay and with his own hand
distributed all the millions in the world[357].

George III. survived Mr. Pitt, but he had lost his reason and his
sight. Every session, at the opening of Parliament, the ministers read
to the silent and moved Houses the bulletin of the King's health. One
day I had gone to visit Windsor: a few shillings persuaded an obliging
door-keeper to hide me so that I might see the King. The monarch,
white-haired and blind, appeared, wandering like King Lear through his
palace and groping with his hands along the walls of the apartments.
He sat down to a piano, of which he knew the position, and played some
portions of a sonata by Handel[358]: a fine ending for Old England!


I began to turn my eyes towards my native land. A great revolution had
been operated. Bonaparte had become First Consul and was restoring
order by means of despotism; many exiles were returning; the upper
Emigration, especially, hastened to go and collect the remnants of its
fortune: loyalty was dying at the head, while its heart still beat in
the breasts of a few half-naked country-gentlemen. Mrs. Lindsay had
left; she wrote to Messrs, de Lamoignon to return; she also invited
Madame d'Aguesseau[359], sister of Messrs, de Lamoignon, to cross the
Channel. Fontaines wrote to me to finish the printing of the _Génie
du Christianisme_ in Paris. While remembering my country, I felt no
desire to see it again; gods more powerful than the paternal lares
kept me back; I had neither goods nor refuge in France; my motherland
had become to me a bosom of stone, a breast without milk: I should not
find my mother there, nor my brother, nor my sister Julie. Lucile still
lived, but she had married M. de Caud and no longer bore my name; my
young "widow" knew me only through a union of a few months, through
misfortune and through an absence of eight years.

[Illustration: George III.]

Had I been left to myself, I do not know that I should have had
the strength to leave; but I saw my little circle dissolving; Madame
d'Aguesseau proposed to take me to Paris: I let myself go. The
Prussian Minister procured me a passport in the name of La Sagne, an
inhabitant of Neuchâtel. Messrs. Dulau stopped the printing of the
_Génie du Christianisme_, and gave me the sheets that had been set up.
I separated the sketches of _Atala_ and _René_ from the _Natchez_; the
remainder of the manuscript I locked into a trunk, of which I entrusted
the deposit to my hosts in London, and I set out for Dover with Madame
d'Aguesseau: Mrs. Lindsay was awaiting us at Calais.

[Sidenote: I return to France.]

It was thus that I quitted England in 1800; my heart was differently
occupied from the manner in which it is at the time of writing, in
1822. I brought back from the land of exile only dreams and regrets;
to-day my head is filled with scenes of ambition, of politics, of
grandeurs and Courts, so ill suited to my nature. How many events are
heaped up in my present existence! Pass, men, pass; my turn will come.
I have unrolled only one-third of my days before your eyes; if the
sufferings which I have borne have weighed upon my vernal serenity,
now, entering upon a more fruitful age, the germ of _René_ is about
to develop, and bitterness of another kind will be blended with my
narrative! What shall I not have to tell in speaking of my country;
of her revolutions, of which I have already shown the fore-ground;
of the Empire and of the gigantic man whom I have seen fall; of the
Restoration in which I played so great a part, that Restoration
glorious to-day, in 1822, although nevertheless I am able to see it
only through I know not what ill-omened mist?

I end this book, which touches the spring of 1800. Arriving at the
close of my first career, I see opening before me the writer's career;
from a private individual I am about to become a public man; I leave
the virginal and silent retreat of solitude to enter the dusty and
noisy cross-roads of the world; broad day is about to light up my
dreamy life, light to penetrate my kingdom of shadows. I cast a melting
glance upon those books which contain my unremembered hours; I seem to
be bidding a last farewell to the paternal house; I take leave of the
thoughts and illusions of my youth as of sisters, of loving women, whom
I leave by the family hearth and whom I shall see no more.

We took four hours to cross from Dover to Calais. I stole into my
country under the shelter of a foreign name: doubly hidden beneath the
obscurity of the Swiss La Sagne and my own, I entered France with the
century[360].



[247] This book was written in London between April and September 1822,
and revised in February 1845.--T.

[248] Cat. LXV. 9-11.--T.

[249] M. A. Dulau was a Frenchman, and had been a Benedictine at Sorèze
College. He emigrated and opened a shop in Wardour Street, London.--B.

[250] OV., _Fasti_, VI. 772.--T.

[251] Charlotte Suzanne Marie de Bedée (1762-1849), whom Chateaubriand
called Caroline, survived him, and died at Dinan on the 28th of April
1849.--B.

[252] Marie Anne Cuppi (1710-1770), known as the Camargo, and a famous
dancer, was born in Brussels of a reputed noble Spanish family. She
made her first appearance at the Opera in Pans in 1734, and continued
to dance there until 1751, when she retired from her profession.
Voltaire addressed a piece of verse to her.--T.

[253] David Hume (1711-1776). His History of England, published from
1754 to 1761, goes down to 1688, whence it is continued by Smollett.--T.

[254] Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771). That portion of his complete
_History of England_ which embraces the period from the Revolution to
the death of George II. is generally treated as carrying on Hume's
History, and is printed as a continuation of that work.--T.

[255] Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of the _Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire._--T.

[256] William Robertson (1721-1793), a "moderate" historian, author
of a History of Scotland, a History of Charles V., and a History of
America.--T.

[257] John Dryden (1631-1700), Poet-Laureate.--T.

[258] Alexander Pope (1688-1744). His house at Twickenham stood on
the site of the modern Pope's Villa, now the property of Mr. Henry
Labouchere, M.P. The willow became rotten and was cut down.--T.

[259] The Rev. Hugh Blair ( 1718-1800), Professor of Rhetoric at
Edinburgh University, and author of the _Lectures on Rhetoric_ and a
collection of famous Sermons.--T.

[260] Dr. Samuel Johnson ( 1709-1783), author of the Dictionary and the
_Lives of the English Poets._--T.

[261] Addison and Steele's _Spectator_ ran for nearly two years, from
January 1711 to December 1712.--T.

[262] Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the great statesman. His _Reflections
on the Revolution in France_ appeared in 1790.--T.

[263] François Duc de Montmorency (_circa_ 1530-1579) was Ambassador to
England in 1572, when Shakespeare was still a child.--T.

[264] Charles de Gontaut, Duc de Biron (_circa_ 1562-1602), was
Ambassador from Henry IV. to Elizabeth at the close of the sixteenth
century. He was beheaded, 31 July 1602, at the Bastille, for conspiring
against the King.--T.

[265] Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully (1560-1641), Henry IV.'s
great minister.--T.

[266] Elizabeth, Queen of England (1533-1603), reigned from 1558 to
1603, and the plays produced by Shakespeare during her reign include
_Love's Labours Lost_, the _Comedy of Errors_, _King Henry VI._, the
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, the _Midsummer Alight's Dream_, the _Life
and Death of King Richard III._, _Romeo and Juliet_, the _Life and
Death of King Richard II._, _King John_, the _Merchant of Venice_,
_King Henry IV._, _King Henry V._, the _Taming of the Shrew_, the
_Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It,
Twelfth Night, or, What You Will, Julius Cæsar, All's Well that Ends
Well_, and _Hamlet Prince of Denmark._--T.

[267] James I. King of England and VI. of Scotland (1566-1625). In
his reign were produced _Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida,
Othello, the Moor of Venice, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra,
Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Pericles Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline_, the
_Tempest_, the _Winters Tale_, and _King Henry VIII._--T.

[268] Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) flourished exactly three centuries
before Shakespeare.--T.

[269] Bulstrode Whitelock (1605-1675), a prominent member of the Long
Parliament, and author of the _Memorials of the English Affairs_,
in which mention is made of the fact that the Swedish Ambassador
complains, in 1656, of the delay caused in the translation of certain
articles into Latin through their being entrusted to a blind man.--T.

[270] Jean Baptiste Poquelin (1622-1673), known as Molière, played the
principal part in his own comedies. _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_, one of
the most farcical of these, was produced in 1669.--T.

[271] JOB. XIII. 15.--T.

[272] _An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet William Shakespeare_,
1-2.--T.

[273] Michael Angelo Buonarotti (1474-1563) left a number of slight
poems in addition to his vast works of sculpture, painting, and
architecture.--T.

[274] Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) lost the use of his right leg when
eighteen months old.--T.

[275] _Sonnets_, XXXVII. 3.--T.

[276] _Sonnets_, LXXI, I, 5-12.--T.

[277] Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), the voluminous author of _Pamela,
Clarissa Harlowe_, and the _History of Sir Charles Grandison. Clarissa
Harlowe_ was published in 1748.--T.

[278] Henry Fielding (1707-1754), author of _Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones_
(1749), etc.--T.

[279] Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), author of _Tristram Shandy_
(1759-1767), etc.--T.

[280] Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ had appeared in 1766.--T.

[281] Godwin's _Caleb Williams_ was published in 1794.--T.

[282] Matthew Gregory Lewis (1773-1818), familiarly known as Monk Lewis
from the _Monk_, his principal novel, published in 1795.--T.

[283] Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), _née_ Ward, author of the
_Mysteries of Udolpho_ (1794)--T.

[284] Mrs. Anna Lætitia Barbauld (1743-1825), _née_ Aiken, author of
_Evenings at Horne_, etc.--T.

[285] Maria Edgeworth (1766-1849), author of _Moral Tales, Castle
Rackrent, Tales of Fashionable Life_, etc., etc.--T.

[286] Madame Fanny d'Arblay (1752-1840), _née_ Burney, author of
_Evelina_ (1778), _Cecilia_, and an interesting Diary and Letters.--T.

[287] Florio's MONTAIGNE, Booke III. chap. IX.: _Of Vanitie._--T.

[288] Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) published his tragedy of
_Goetz von Berlichingen_ in 1773; Sir Walter Scott's translation
appeared in 1799.--T.

[289] William Cowper (1731-1800), author of the _Task._--T.

[290] Robert Burns (1759-1796), the Ayrshire ploughman-poet.--T.

[291] Thomas Moore (1779-1852), the popular Irish poet, had published
his translation of Anacreon at the time of which Chateaubriand writes.
His Irish Melodies began to appear in 1807, and _Lalla Rookh_ was
published in 1817.--T.

[292] Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) had published his _Pleasures of Hope_
in 1799.--T.

[293] Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), the banker-poet, was known at this
time by the _Pleasures of Memory_, published in 1792.--T.

[294] George Crabbe (1754-1832) had published the _Library_ and the
_Village._--T.

[295] William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Poet-Laureate (1843). The Lyrical
Ballads, composed with Coleridge, whom Chateaubriand omits to mention,
were published in 1798.--T.

[296] Robert Southey (1774-1843), Poet-Laureate (1813). _Wat Tyler_
and _Joan of Arc_ both appeared before the close of the eighteenth
century.--T.

[297] James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) had not begun to write at this
time.--T.

[298] James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862), author of the _Hunchback_ and
other once much admired plays.--T.

[299] Henry Richard Vassall Fox, third Lord Holland (1773-1840), Lord
Privy Seal in the ministry of his nephew Charles James Fox (1806), and
author of some translations from the Spanish poets.--T.

[300] Canning was the author of a number of satirical poems, many of
which appeared in the _Anti-Jacobin._--T.

[301] John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), Secretary to the Admiralty from
1809 to 1829, and one of the founders of the _Quarterly Review_ (1809)
and of the Athenæum Club (1824). He published occasional poems on
British victories, such as Trafalgar and Talavera.--T.

[302] William Mason (1724-1797), a minor poet, author of the _English
Garden_ and of two tragedies, _Elfrida_ and _Caractacus._--T.

[303] Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin,
and author of the _Botanic Garden_ and the _Zoonomia, or the Laws of
Organic Life._--T.

[304] James Beattie (1735-1803). The _Minstrel_ appeared in 1774 to
1777.--T.

[305] _Hours of Idleness_, "When I roved a young Highlander," 1-4.--T.

[306] _Hours of Idleness_, "Lines written beneath the Elm in the
Churchyard of Harrow," 1-4, 17-18, 24-25, 30, 33-34--T.

[307] Arthur Young (1741-1820), a famous writer on agriculture, and
Secretary to the Board of Agriculture on its establishment in 1793.--T.

[308] Arthur Young, _Travels in France during the Years_ 1787, 1788,
1789. The author passed by Combourg Castle on the 1st of September
1788.--T.

[309] _Martyrs_, book IV.--T.

[310] _Ad Familiares_, IV. 5: "In my return out of Asia, as I was
sailing from Ægina towards Megara, I amused myself with contemplating
the circumjacent countries. Behind me lay Ægina, before me Megara; on
my right I saw Piræus, and on my left Corinth. These cities, once so
flourishing and magnificent, now presented nothing to my view but a sad
spectacle of desolation" (MELMOTH's translation).--T.

[311] Pierre Jean de Béranger (1780-1857), the national French
song-writer. The extract quoted occurs in the notes to Béranger's song,
_À M. de Chateaubriand_ (September 1831), which is quoted in a later
volume.--T.

[312] Abel François Villemain (1790-1870), perpetual secretary of the
French Academy from 1835, and author of the notice of Lord Byron in the
_Biographie universelle_, from which the above sentences are quoted.--T.

[313] Byron spent his childhood at Aberdeen.--T.

[314] MACPHERSON's _Ossian_ was published in 1760.--T.

[315] GOETHE's _Sorrows of Werther_ appeared in 1774.--T.

[316] Rousseau's posthumous work, published in 1782.--T.

[317] By Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1784).--T.

[318] Chateaubriand cannot have read the _Age of Bronze_: it is true
that this poem was written in 1823, at Genoa, a year later than the
earlier portion of these remarks. In Stanza XVI. of the _Age of Bronze,
or Carmen Seculare et Annus haud Mirabilis_, treating of the Congress
of Verona (1822), occur the following lines:

     There Metternich, power's foremost parasite,
     Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight;
     There Chateaubriand forms new books of martyrs;
     And subtle Greeks intrigue for stupid Tartars.

And Byron appends the following note:

"Monsieur de Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the
minister, receives a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary
sovereign: 'Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand
who-who-who has written _something?_' (_écrit quelque chose!_). It
is said that the author of _Atala_ repented him for a moment of his
legitimacy."--T.

[319] _De la Littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec l'état moral
et politique des nations_, by Madame de Staël. As this book appeared in
1800, before _Atala_ and the _Génie du Christianisme_, Madame de Staël
may well be excused for not mentioning Chateaubriand's name in it.--B.

[320] Teresa Contessa Guiccioli (1799-1873), _née_ Gamba, who became
famous by her _liaison_ with Lord Byron. In 1831, widowed of both her
husband and Lord Byron, she married the Marquis de Boissy, who had been
an attache to Chateaubriand's embassy in Rome. The Countess Guiccioli
published her Recollections of Lord Byron in 1863.--B.

[321] Anne Isabella Lady Byron (1792-1860), _née_ Milbanke, daughter
of Sir Ralph Milbanke-Noel, and heiress of her mother, Judith Noel,
Viscountess Wentworth. She married Lord Byron on the 2nd of January
1815, and left him in January 1816, soon after the birth of their
daughter Augusta Ada.--T.

[322] Alan IV. Duke of Brittany (_d._ 1112), known as Alan Rufus,
son-in-law and nephew of William the Conqueror, was created Earl of
Richmond and founded the borough of Richmond or Rich Mount.--T.

[323] See _Domesday Book.--Author's Note._

[324] Charles II. King of England (1630-1685) created the Duchy of
Richmond in favour of...

[325] Charles Lennox, first Duke of Richmond (peerage of England) and
Lennox (peerage of Scotland) in 1675. He was the illegitimate son
of the King and of Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth and
Duchesse d'Aubigny. This last title of Aubigny was re-confirmed to the
fifth duke by King Louis XVIII. in 1816.--T.

[326] Alice Perrers (d. 1400), married later to William de Windsor,
became Edward III.'s mistress in 1366. She stole the rings from off his
fingers when he was dying.--T.

[327] LA HARPE, _Le Triomphe de la Religion, ou le Roi martyr_:

    "The viler the oppressor, the more infamous the slave."--T.


[328] Queen Anne Boleyn (1507-1536), second wife of Henry VIII.,
executed on Tower Hill for adultery.--T.

[329] William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry, K.T. (1724-1810),
known as "Old Q.," the notorious veteran debauchee.--T.

[330] Peltier attacked Bonaparte in the _Ambigu_, which he published
in London at the end of 1802. The First Consul, then at peace with
England, asked for his expulsion, or at least his indictment before a
British jury. Peltier was brought before the Court of King's Bench, was
brilliantly defended by Sir James Mackintosh, and was sentenced to pay
a trifling fine (21 February 1803).--B.

[331] Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832) abandoned medicine for the
law. He received an Indian judgeship in 1804, and in 1811 returned
to England, entering Parliament in 1812. He was the author of some
masterly writings, including the famous _Dissertation on Ethics in the
Encyclopædia Britannica._--T.

[332] Blenheim was founded in 1704 and bestowed by Parliament on John
Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, in recognition of his military
and diplomatic services. It was named after the signal victory at
Blenheim over the French and Bavarian troops (2 August 1704).--T.

[333] Admiral Horatio Viscount Nelson (1758-1805) destroyed the French
fleet in the battle known indifferently as the Battle of Aboukir or the
Nile (1 August 1798). For this he was created Baron Nelson by the King
of England and Duke of Bronte by the King of Naples.--T.

[334] Emma Lady Hamilton (1763-1815), _née_ Lyon or Hart, the beautiful
mistress of Charles Greville and of his uncle, Sir William Hamilton,
foster-brother to George IV., and Minister at Naples from 1764 to 1800.
Sir William Hamilton married Emma Hart in 1791. Her intimacy with
Nelson began in 1793, and their daughter Horatia was born in 1801.--T.

[335] 21 October 1805.--T.

[336] At that time the residence of the Duke of Buckingham and
Chandos.--T.

[337] The Farnesina Palace, in Rome, where Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520)
died.--T.

[338] Sir William Herschel (1738-1822), the famous astronomer, had
discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.--T.

[339] Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), Sir William's sister, assisted him
in recording his observations.--T.

[340] King Alfred (849-901), known as the Great, is said to have
founded the University of Oxford in 872.--T.

[341] Thomas Gray (1716-1771).--T.

[342] _Elegy_, I.--T.

[343] _Purgatorio_, VIII. 5.--B.

[344] _Ode_, 11-15, 18-21, 28-30, 51-55.--T.

[345] _Cymbeline_, III. 4.--T.

[346] Queen Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1768-1821) married the
Prince of Wales, afterwards King George IV., in 1795. The Prince and
Princess of Wales separated by mutual consent in 1796, after the birth
of Princess Charlotte.--T.

[347] Charles James Fox (1749-1806) entered Parliament for Midhurst in
1768; held office under North, but left him and joined Burke in his
opposition to the American War; was Foreign Secretary in the Rockingham
Ministry; joined North's short-lived Coalition Ministry of 1783; and
during the next fourteen years distinguished himself as the great and
eloquent opponent of Pitt's Government. On Pitt's death, in 1806, he
again came into office as Foreign Secretary, but himself died shortly
after.--T.

[348] Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (1751-1816) had produced all his
plays and was owner of Drury Lane Theatre when he entered Parliament
in 1780 under Fox's patronage. In 1782 he became Under Secretary for
Foreign Affairs in Rockingham's Ministry. His two most famous speeches
were those impeaching Warren Hastings in 1787 and supporting the French
Revolution in 1794.--T.

[349] William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the antagonist of the
slave-trade, entered Parliament as Member for Hull in 1780. He first
introduced his Abolition Bill in 1789; it was passed by the House of
Commons in 1801 and by the House of Lords in 1807.--T.

[350] William Wyndham, first Lord Grenville (1759-1834), entered
Parliament in 1782. In 1789 he was Speaker of the House of Commons. In
1790 Pitt made him Home Secretary and a peer; in 1791 he was Foreign
Secretary, and Premier from 1806 to 1807.--T.

[351] Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815) entered Parliament in 1790 as Member
for Bedford, and attached himself to Fox, to the maintenance of peace,
and to the cause of the Princess of Wales. He cut his throat on the 6th
of July 1815.--T.

[352] James Maitland, eighth Earl of Lauderdale, K.T. (1759-1839),
entered the House of Commons in 1780 for Newport, and supported
Fox. In 1789 he succeeded to the Scottish peerage and was elected
a representative peer in 1790, and in 1806 created a peer of Great
Britain and Ireland. He veered from Whig to Tory over the Queen
Caroline question, and received the Thistle in reward.--T.

[353] Thomas first Lord Erskine (1750-1823) was Attorney-General to the
Prince of Wales (1783), Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall (1802), and
in 1806 became Lord Chancellor and a peer.--T.

[354] This should be 1791. _Vide note infra._--T.

[355] 21 April 1791, in the course of an excursion on the French
Revolution during the debate on the Quebec Government Bill.--T.

[356] George III., King of England (1738-1820). His frequent fits of
insanity began in 1810.--T.

[357] Pitt died at his house at Putney on the 23rd of January 1806.--T.

[358] George Frederick Handel (1684-1759), a German musician who
attained and still maintains great vogue in England.--T.

[359] Marie Catherine Marouise d'Aguesseau (1759-1849), _née_ de
Lamoignon, married to the Marquis d'Aguesseau, who became a senator of
the Empire (1805) and a peer of the Restoration (1814).--B.

[360] 8 May 1800.--B.




PART THE SECOND


1800-1814




BOOK I[361]


My stay at Dieppe--Two phases of society--The position of my
Memoirs--The year 1800--Aspect of France--I arrive in Paris--Changes in
society--The year 1801--The _Mercure_--_Atala_--Madame de Beaumont and
her circle--Summer at Savigny--The year 1802--Talma--The year 1803--The
_Génie du Christianisme_--Failure prophesied--Cause of its final
success--Defects in the work.


You know that I have often moved from spot to spot while writing
these Memoirs; that I have often described those spots, spoken of the
feelings with which they inspired me, and recalled my memories, thus
mingling the history of my thoughts and of my wandering habitations
with the history of my life.

You see where I am living now. Walking this morning on the cliffs
behind Dieppe Castle, I saw the postern which communicates with
the cliffs by means of a bridge thrown over a ditch: Madame de
Longueville[362] escaped by that way from Queen Anne of Austria[363];
embarking secretly at the Havre, she landed at Rotterdam, and joined
the Maréchal de Turenne[364] at Stenay. The great captain's laurels
were no longer innocent, and the fair but caustic outlaw treated the
culprit none too well.

Madame de Longueville, who had recovered from the Hôtel de Rambouillet,
the Throne of Versailles, and the Municipality of Paris, became smitten
with the author of the _Maximes_[365], and was as faithful to him as
she was able. The latter lives less by his "thoughts" than by the
friendship of Madame de La Fayette[366], Madame de Sévigné, the verses
of La Fontaine, and the love of Madame de Longueville: see whither
illustrious attachments lead.

The Princesse de Condé[367], when on the point of death, said to Madame
de Brienne[368]:

    "My dear friend, acquaint that poor wretch who is at Stenay
    of the state in which you see me, and let her learn how to
    die."

Fine words; but the Princess forgot that she herself had been loved by
Henry IV., and that, when her husband carried her to Brussels, she had
wanted to rejoin the Bearnese, "to escape at night by a window, and
then to do thirty or forty leagues on horse-back;" she was at that time
a "poor wretch" of seventeen.

Descending the cliff, I found myself on the high-road to Paris; it
ascends swiftly on leaving Dieppe. On the right, on the rising slope
of a bank, stands the wall of a cemetery; by the side of that wall was
fixed the wheel of a rope-walk. Two rope-spinners, walking backwards
in line, and swinging from leg to leg, were softly singing together. I
listened: they had come to that couplet of the _Vieux caporal_, a fine
poetic lie, which has brought us to our present state:

    Qui là-bas sanglote et regarde?
    Eh! c'est la veuve du tambour, etc[369].

Those men uttered the refrain:

    Conscrits au pas; ne pleurez pas
    . . . Marchez au pas, au pas[370],

in a voice so manly and so pathetic that the tears came to my eyes.
Whilst themselves keeping step and twisting their hemp, they appeared
to be spinning out the old corporal's dying moments: there was
something, I cannot say what, in that glory peculiar to Béranger, thus
lonesomely revealed by two sailors singing a soldier's death within
view of the sea.

[Sidenote: Dieppe.]

The cliff reminded me of a monarchical greatness, the road of
a plebeian celebrity: I compared in thought the men at the two
extremities of society, and I asked myself to which of those eras
I should have preferred to belong. When the present shall have
disappeared like the past, which of those two renowns will the most
attract the notice of posterity?

And yet, if facts were all, if, in history, the value of names did
not counterbalance the value of events, what a difference between my
time and the time which elapsed between the deaths of Henry IV. and
Mazarin[371]! What are the troubles of 1648 compared to that Revolution
which has devoured the old world, of which it, the Revolution, will die
perhaps, leaving behind it neither an old nor a new state of society?
Had not I to paint in my Memoirs pictures of incomparably higher
importance than the scenes related by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld[372]?
At Dieppe itself, what was the careless and voluptuous idol of seduced
and rebellious Paris by the side of Madame la Duchesse de Berry[373]?
The salvoes of artillery which announced to the sea the presence of the
royal widow resound no longer[374]; the flattery of powder and smoke
has left nothing upon the shore save the moaning of the waves.

The two daughters of Bourbon, Anne Geneviève and Marie Caroline, have
departed; the two sailors singing the song of the plebeian poet will
plunge into the abyss; Dieppe no longer contains myself: it was another
"I," an "I" of my early days, now past, that formerly inhabited these
regions, and that "I" has succumbed, for our days die before ourselves.
Here you have seen me, a sub-lieutenant in the Navarre Regiment,
drilling recruits on the pebbles; you have seen me here again, exiled
under Bonaparte; you shall find me here again when the days of July
surprise me in this place. Behold me here once more; I here resume my
pen to continue my confessions.

In order that we may understand one another, it is well to cast a
glance at the present state of my Memoirs.

*

What happens to every contractor working on a large scale has happened
to me: I have, in the first place, built the outer wings of my
edifice, and then, removing and restoring my scaffoldings in different
positions, I have raised the stone and the mortar for the intermediate
structures: it used to take several centuries to complete a Gothic
cathedral. If Heaven grant me life, the work will be finished by
stages of my various years; the architect, always the same, will have
changed only in age. For the rest, it is a punishment to preserve one's
intellectual being intact, imprisoned in a worn-out material covering.
St Augustine, feeling that his clay was falling from him, said to God,
"Be Thou a tabernacle unto my soul," and to men he said, "When you
shall have known me in this book, pray for me."

Thirty-six years must be reckoned between the things which commence
my Memoirs and those upon which I am now engaged. How shall I resume
with any spirit the narration of a subject formerly replete for me
with passion and fire, when it is no longer with living beings that I
am about to converse, when it becomes a question of arousing lifeless
effigies from the depths of Eternity, of descending into a funeral
vault there to play at life? Am I not myself almost dead? Have my
opinions not changed? Do I see objects from the same point of view?
Have not the general and prodigious events which have accompanied or
followed the personal events that so greatly perturbed me diminished
their importance in the eyes of the world, as well as in my own eyes?
Whosoever prolongs his career feels his hours grow cold; he no longer
finds on the morrow the interest which he felt on the eve. When I
seek in my thoughts, there are names and even persons that escape my
memory, and yet they may have caused my heart to throb: vanity of man
forgetting and forgotten! It is not enough to say to one's dreams, to
love, "Revive!" for them to come to life again: the realm of shadows
can be opened only with the golden bough, and it needs a young hand to
pluck it.

    _Aucuns venants des Lares patries_[375].

[Sidenote: Aspect of France in 1800.]

Imprisoned for eight years in Great Britain, I had seen only the
English world, so different, especially at that time, from the European
world. As the Dover packet approached Calais, in the spring of 1800,
my gaze preceded me on shore. I was struck by the needy aspect of the
country: scarce a few masts were to be seen in the harbour; inhabitants
in carmagnole jackets and cotton caps came along the jetty to meet
us: the conquerors of the Continent made themselves known to me by a
clatter of wooden shoes. When we came alongside, the gendarmes and
custom-house officers leapt on deck to inspect our luggage and our
passports: in France a man is always suspected, and the first thing we
perceive in our business, as well as in our amusements, is a cocked hat
or a bayonet.

Mrs. Lindsay was waiting for us at the inn; the next day we set out
with her for Paris: Madame d'Aguesseau, a young kinswoman of hers, and
I. On the road one saw hardly any men; blackened and sun-burnt women,
bare-footed, their heads bare or covered with a kerchief, were tilling
the fields: one would have taken them for slaves. I ought rather to
have been struck by the independence and virility of that land where
the women wielded the mattock while the men wielded the musket. The
villages looked as though a conflagration had passed over them; they
were wretched and half demolished: mud or dust on every hand, dunghills
and rubbish-heaps.

To the right and left of the road appeared overthrown country mansions;
of their levelled thickets there remained only some squared trunks,
upon which children played. One saw battered enclosure walls, deserted
churches, from which the dead had been expelled, steeples without
bells, cemeteries without crosses, headless saints that had been
stoned in their niches. The walls were smeared with those Republican
inscriptions that had already grown old: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY,
OR DEATH. Sometimes they had attempted to efface the word DEATH, but
the red or black letters showed through the coating of lime. This
nation, which seemed on the point of extinction, was commencing a new
world, like those peoples which issued from the dusk of the savagery
and destruction of the Middle Ages.

Approaching the capital, between Écouen and Paris, the elms had not
been cut down; I was struck by those fine roadside avenues, unknown on
English soil. France was as new to me, as in former days, the forests
of America. Saint-Denis was laid bare, its windows were broken; the
rain penetrated into its grass-grown naves, and there were no more
tombs: I have since seen there the bones of Louis XVI., the Cossacks,
the coffin of the Duc de Berry, and the catafalque of Louis XVIII.

Auguste de Lamoignon came to meet Mrs. Lindsay. His well-appointed
carriage formed a contrast with the clumsy carts, the dirty,
broken-down diligences, drawn by hacks harnessed with ropes, which I
had met since leaving Calais. Mrs. Lindsay lived at the Ternes. I was
put down on the Chemin de la Révolte, and made my way to my hostess'
house across the fields. I stayed with her for four-and-twenty hours; I
there met a great fat Monsieur Lasalle, whom she employed in arranging
emigrant business. She sent to inform M. de Fontanes of my arrival; in
eight-and-forty hours he came to fetch me in a little room which Mrs.
Lindsay had hired for me at an inn almost at her door.

[Sidenote: Paris once more.]

It was a Sunday: we entered Paris on foot by the Barrière de l'Étoile
at about three o'clock in the afternoon. We have no idea to-day of
the impression which the excesses of the Revolution had made on men's
minds in Europe, and chiefly among those absent from France during the
Terror: I felt literally as though I were about to descend into Hell.
I had, it is true, witnessed the beginnings of the Revolution; but the
great crimes had then not yet been accomplished, and I had remained
under the yoke of subsequent events as these had been related in the
midst of the peaceful and orderly society of England.

Proceeding under my false name, and convinced that I was compromising
my friend Fontanes, to my great astonishment, on entering the
Champs-Élysées, I heard the sound of violins, horns, clarionets and
drums. I saw public balls, at which men and women were dancing; farther
on, the Tuileries Palace appeared to my eyes, against the background
of its two great clumps of chestnut-trees. As for the Place Louis
XV.[376], it was bare: it had the decay, the melancholy and deserted
look of an old amphitheatre; one crossed it quickly; I was quite
surprised to hear no moans; I was afraid of stepping in the blood of
which not a trace remained; my eyes could not tear themselves from
the place in the sky where the instrument of death had raised its
head; I thought I saw my brother and my sister-in-law in their shirts,
standing, bound, beside the blood-stained machine: it was there that
the head of Louis XVI. had fallen. In spite of the gaiety in the
streets the church-steeples were dumb; it seemed to me as though I had
returned on the day of infinite sorrow, on Good Friday.

M. de Fontanes lived in the Rue Saint-Honoré, near Saint-Roch. He took
me home with him, introduced me to his wife, and then took me to his
friend, M. Joubert, where I found a temporary shelter: I was received
like a traveller of whom one has heard speak.

The next day I went to the police, under the name of La Sagne, to
lodge my foreign passport and to receive in exchange a permit to
remain in Paris, which was renewed from month to month. In a few days
I hired an _entre-sol_ in the Rue de Lille, on the side of the Rue des
Saints-Pères.

I had brought with me the _Génie du Christianisme_ and the first sheets
of the work, printed in London. I was directed to M. Migneret[377], a
worthy man, who consented to recommence the interrupted printing, and
to advance me something to live on. Not a soul knew of my _Essai sur
les révolutions_, notwithstanding what M. Lemierre had written to me. I
unearthed the old philosopher, Delisle de Sales, who had just published
his _Mémoire en faveur de Dieu_, and went to call on Ginguené. He
lodged in the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Germain, near the Hôtel du Bon La
Fontaine. His porter's box still bore this inscription:

    "Here we honour each other with the title of citizen and say
    thee and thou. Shut the door behind thee, if you please."

I went up: M. Ginguené, who hardly recognised me, spoke to me from
the height of the grandeur of all that he was and had been. I humbly
retired, and did not endeavour to renew such disproportionate relations.

I continued at the bottom of my heart to cherish regretful memories
of England; I had lived so long in that country that I had adopted
its habits: I could not reconcile myself to the dirt of our houses,
our staircases, our tables, to our uncleanliness, our noisiness, our
familiarity, the indiscretion of our loquacity; I was English in
manners, in taste, and to a certain degree in thought; for, if, as it
is said, Lord Byron sometimes drew inspiration for his _Childe-Harold_
from _René_ it is also true to say that my eight years' residence
in Great Britain, preceded by a journey in America, together with
my long habit of talking, writing, and even thinking in English,
had necessarily influenced the turn and expression of my ideas. But
gradually I came to relish the good-fellowship for which we are
distinguished, that charming, swift, easy commerce of thought, that
utter absence of arrogance and prejudice, that heedlessness of fortune
and names, that natural level of all ranks, that equality of mind which
makes French society incomparable and redeems our faults: after a few
months' residence among us, one feels that he can no longer live except
in Paris.

*

I locked myself into my _entre-sol_ and gave myself up entirely to
work. In my intervals of rest, I went and reconnoitred in various
directions. The Circus in the middle of the Palais-Royal had been
filled up; Camille Desmoulins no longer held forth in the open air; one
no longer saw bands of prostitutes going round, virginal attendants of
the goddess Reason, and walking under the conduct of David, costumier
and corybant. At the outlet of each alley, in the galleries, one met
men crying sights: "galanty shows," "peep-shows," "physical cabinets,"
"strange animals;" in spite of all the heads that had been cut off,
idlers still remained. From the cellars of the Palais-Marchand came
bursts of music, accompanied by the double diapason of the big
drums: it was perhaps there that dwelt the giants whom I sought, and
whom immense events must necessarily have produced. I went down: an
underground ball was jigging amidst seated spectators drinking beer.
A little hunchback, perched on a table, played the violin and sang a
hymn to Bonaparte, which ended with these lines:

    Par ses vertus, par ses attraits.
    Il méritait d'être leur père[378]!

He was given a sou after the _ritornello._ Such is the ground-work of
the human society which bore Alexander and was then bearing Napoleon.

[Sidenote: Changes in Paris.]

I visited the places where I had taken the reveries of my early years.
In my old-time convents, the club-men had been driven out after
the monks. Wandering behind the Luxembourg, my footsteps led me to
the Chartreuse: its demolition was being completed. The Place des
Victoires and the Place Vendôme mourned the missing effigies of the
Great King; the community-house of the Capuchins was sacked: the inner
cloisters served as a retreat for Robertson's[379] dissolving views.
At the Cordeliers, I inquired in vain for the Gothic nave where I had
seen Marat and Danton in their prime. On the Quai des Théatins[380],
the church of that Order[381] had been turned into a café and a
rope-dancers' theatre. At the door was a coloured poster representing
acrobats dancing on the tight-rope, with, in big letters, ADMISSION
FREE. I elbowed my way among the crowd into that perfidious cave: I had
no sooner taken my seat than waiters entered, napkin in hand, shouting
like mad-men--

"Give your orders, gentlemen, give your orders!"

I did not wait to be told a second time, and I pitiably made my
escape amid the jeering cries of the assembly, because I had no money
wherewith to "give my orders."

*

The Revolution has become divided into three parts which have nothing
in common between them: the Republic, the Empire, and the Restoration;
those three different worlds, each as completely finished as the
others, seem separated by centuries. Each of these three worlds has had
its fixed principle: the principle of the Republic was equality, that
of the Empire force, that of the Restoration liberty. The Republican
era is the most original, and has made the deepest impression because
it has been unique in history: never had there been seen, nor ever will
be again, physical order produced by moral disorder, unity issuing from
the government of the multitude, the scaffold substituted for the law
and obeyed in the name of humanity.

In 1801, I assisted at the second social transformation. The jumble was
a strange one: by an agreed travesty, a host of people became persons
who they were not; each carried his assumed or borrowed name hung
round his neck, as the Venetians at the carnival carry a little mask
in their hand to show that they are masked. One was reputed an Italian
or a Spaniard, another a Prussian or a Dutchman: I was a Swiss. The
mother passed for her son's aunt, the father for his daughter's uncle;
the owner of an estate was only its steward. This movement reminded
me, in an opposite sense, of the movement of 1789, when the monks and
religious issued from their cloisters and the old society was invaded
by the new: the latter, after supplanting the former, was supplanted in
its turn.

Nevertheless, the orderly world commenced to spring up again; people
left the cafés and the streets to return to their houses; they gathered
together the remains of their family; they readjusted their inheritance
by collecting its remnants, as, after a battle, the troop is beaten
and the losses counted. Such churches as remained whole were opened:
I had the happiness to sound the trumpet at the gate of the Temple.
One distinguished the old republican generations which were retiring,
imperial generations which were coming to the front Generals of the
Requisition[382], poor, rude of speech, stern of mien, who, from all
their campaigns, had brought back nothing save wounds and ragged
coats, passed officers glittering with the gold lace of the Consular
Army. The returned Emigrant chatted quietly with the assassins of some
of his kindred. The porters, all great partisans of the late M. de
Robespierre, regretted the sights on the Place Louis XV., where they
cut off the heads of "women who," my own _concierge_ in the Rue de
Lille told me, "had necks white as chicken's flesh."

The men of September, changing their names and their districts, sold
baked potatoes at the street-corners; but they were often obliged to
pack off, because the people, recognising them, upset their stalls
and tried to kill them. The Revolutionaries who had waxed rich began
to move into the great mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain that
had been sold. On the road to become barons and counts, the Jacobins
spoke only of the horrors of 1793, of the necessity for chastising the
proletarians and putting down the excesses of the populace. Bonaparte,
placing the Brutuses and Scævolas in his police, was preparing to
bedizen them with ribands, to befoul them with titles, to force them
to betray their opinions and dishonour their crimes. Amid all this,
sprang up a vigorous generation sown in blood and growing up to shed
none save that of the foreigner: from day to day, the metamorphosis was
accomplished which turned Republicans into Imperialists and the tyranny
of all into the despotism of one.

*

[Sidenote: My letter to Madame de Staël.]

While occupied in curtailing, expanding, altering the sheets of the
_Génie du Christianisme_, I was driven by necessity to busy myself with
other work. M. de Fontanes was then editing the _Mercure de France_:
he suggested that I should write in that paper. These combats were not
without a certain danger: the only way to touch politics was through
literature, and half a word was enough for Bonaparte's police. A
singular circumstance, which prevented me from sleeping, lengthened my
hours and gave me more leisure. I had bought two turtle-doves; they
cooed a great deal: I enclosed them in vain at night in my little
travelling-trunk; they only cooed the more. In one of the moments of
sleeplessness which they caused me, I bethought myself of writing for
the _Mercure_ a letter to Madame de Staël[383]. This freak caused me
suddenly to emerge from the shade; a few pages in a newspaper did what
my two thick volumes on the Revolution had been unable to do. My head
showed a little above obscurity.

This first success seemed to foretell that which was to follow. I was
engaged in correcting the proofs of _Atala_ (an episode contained, as
was _René_, in the _Génie du Christianisme_), when I perceived that
some sheets were missing. I was seized with fright: I thought they had
stolen my novel, assuredly a very ill-founded dread, for no one thought
that I was worth robbing. Be this as it may, I determined to publish
_Atala_ separately, and I declared my resolution in a letter addressed
to the _Journal des Débats_[384] and the _Publiciste._

Before venturing to expose the work to the light of day, I showed it to
M. de Fontanes: he had already read fragments of it in manuscript in
London. When he came to Father Aubry's speech beside Atala's deathbed,
he said brusquely, in a rough voice:

"That's not right; it's bad: write that over again!"

I went away disconsolate; I did not feel capable of doing better. I
wanted to throw the whole thing into the fire; I spent from eight till
eleven o'clock in the evening in my entresol, seated at my table, with
my forehead resting on the back of my hands opened and spread out over
my paper. I was angry with Fontanes; I was angry with myself; I did not
even try to write, so great was my despair of self. Towards midnight, I
heard the voice of my turtle-doves, softened by distance and rendered
more plaintive by the prison in which I kept them confined: inspiration
returned to me; I then and there wrote the speech of the missionary,
without a single interlineation, without erasing a word, just as it
remained and as it stands to-day. With a beating heart, I took it in
the morning to Fontanes, who exclaimed:

"That's it, that's right! I told you you could do better!"

The noise which I have made in this world dates from the publication
of _Atala._[385] I ceased to live for myself and my public career
commenced. After so many military successes, a literary success seemed
a prodigy: people were hungering for it. The uncommon nature of the
work added to the surprise of the crowd. _Atala_, falling into the
midst of the literature of the Empire, of that classic school whose
very sight, like that of a rejuvenated old woman, inspired boredom, was
a sort of production of an unknown kind. People did not know whether
to class it among the "monstrosities" or among the "beauties:" was it
a Gorgon or a Venus? The assembled academicians discoursed learnedly
upon its sex and its nature, in the same way as they made reports
upon the _Génie du Christianisme._ The old century rejected, the new
welcomed it.

[Illustration: Napoléon.]

[Sidenote: I publish _Atala._]

_Atala_ became so popular that, with the Brinvilliers[386] she went
to swell Curtius' collection[387]. The wagoners' inns were decorated
with red, green and blue prints representing Chactas, Father Aubry,
and the daughter of Simaghan. My characters were displayed in wax, in
wooden boxes, on the quays, as images of the Virgin and the saints
are displayed at the fair. In a boulevard theatre, I saw my savage
woman, in a headdress of cock's feathers, talking to a savage of her
own kind of "the soul of solitude," in a way that brought the sweat to
my brow with confusion. At the Variétés, they played a piece in which
a little girl and a little boy, leaving their boarding-school, went
off by track-boat to get married in a small town; as, on landing, they
spoke with a wild look of nothing but crocodiles, storks and forests,
their parents thought that they had gone mad. I was overwhelmed with
parodies, caricatures and ridicule. The Abbé Morellet, in order to
confound me, took his maid-servant on his knees and was unable to
hold the young virgin's feet in his hands, as Chactas held Atala's
feet during the storm: if the Chactas of the Rue d'Anjou had had his
portrait painted in this attitude, I would have forgiven him his
criticism.

All this bustle served to increase the fuss attendant upon my
appearance. I became the fashion. My head was turned: I was
unaccustomed to the delights of self-love and became intoxicated with
it I loved fame like a woman, like a first love. And yet, coward that I
was, my affright equalled my passion: I was a conscript and stood the
fire badly. My natural timidity, the doubts I have always had of my
talent, made me humble in the midst of my triumphs. I shrank from my
splendour; I wandered in lonely places, trying to extinguish the halo
with which my head was crowned. In the evenings, with my hat thrust
down over my eyes, lest the great man should be recognised, I went
to a public smoking-room to read my praises in secret, in some small,
unknown paper. Alone with my renown, I prolonged my walks as far as the
steam-pump at Chaillot[388], on the same road where I had suffered so
much on going to Court: I was no more at my ease with my new honours.
When my superiority dined for thirty sous in the Latin Quarter it
swallowed its food the wrong way, troubled as it was by the staring of
which it thought itself the object. I watched myself, I said to myself:

"And yet it is you, extraordinary being, eating like any one else!"

In the Champs-Élysées was a café which I liked because of some
nightingales which hung in a cage inside the coffee-room; Madame
Rousseau, who kept the place, knew me by sight, without knowing who
I was. At ten o'clock in the evening, they used to bring me a cup of
coffee, and I looked for _Atala_ in the _Petites-Affiches_, to the
sound of the voices of my half-dozen Philomelas. Alas! I soon saw poor
Madame Rousseau die; our society of the nightingales and of the fair
Indian who sang, "Sweet habit of loving, so needful to life!" lasted
but a moment.

If success had no power to prolong in me this stupid infatuation of
vanity, or to pervert my reason, it was attended with dangers of
another kind: those dangers increased on the appearance of the _Génie
du Christianisme_ and on my resignation after the death of the Duc
d'Enghien. Then came thronging around me, together with the young
women who cry over novels, the crowd of Christian women, and those
other noble enthusiasts whose breast beats high at the sight of an
honourable action. The young girls of thirteen or fourteen were the
most dangerous; for, knowing neither what they want nor what they want
with you, they enticingly mingle your image with a multitude of fables,
ribbons and flowers. Jean Jacques Rousseau speaks of the declarations
which he received on the publication of the _Nouvelle Héloïse_[389] and
of the conquests which were offered him: I do not know if empires would
have been thus yielded to me, but I do know that I was buried beneath a
heap of scented notes; if those notes were not, to-day, notes from so
many grand-mothers, I should be puzzled how to relate, with becoming
modesty, how they fought for a line in my hand, how they picked up an
envelope addressed by me, and how, blushing and with lowered head,
they hid it beneath a flowing veil of long tresses. If I have not been
spoilt, it must be because my nature is good.

[Sidenote: And become the fashion.]

Whether from genuine politeness or inquisitive weakness, I sometimes
went so far as to think myself obliged to call and thank the unknown
ladies who signed the flattery they addressed to me with their names.
One day, I found a bewitching creature under her mother's wing, on a
fourth floor, where I have never set foot since. A fair Pole received
me in silk-hung rooms; half-odalisk, half-Valkyrie, she looked like
a snowdrop with its white flowers, or like one of those graceful
heather-blooms which replace the other daughters of Flora when the
season of the latter has not yet come or has passed: that female
chorus, varied in age and beauty, was the realisation of my former
sylph. The two-fold effect upon my vanity and my feelings was so much
the more to be dreaded inasmuch as, until then, excepting one serious
attachment, I had been neither sought out nor distinguished by the
crowd. At the same time I am bound to say that, even though it were
easy for me to take advantage of a passing illusion, my sincerity
revolted against the idea of a voluptuousness that would have come to
me by the chaste paths of religion: to be loved through the _Génie du
Christianisme_, loved for the _Extrème Onction_, loved for the _Fête
des Morts!_ I could never have been so shameful a Tartuffe.

I knew a Provençal physician, Dr. Vigaroux[390]; he had arrived at an
age when every pleasure means the loss of a day, and he said "that
he had no regret for the time thus lost; without troubling himself
whether he gave the happiness which he received, he went towards the
death of which he hoped to make his last delight." Nevertheless, I was
a witness of his poor tears when he breathed his last; he could not
hide his affliction from me; it was too late: his white hairs were
not long enough to conceal and wipe away his tears. The only one to
be really unhappy on leaving the earth is the unbeliever: for the man
without faith, existence is terrible in this, that it carries a sense
of annihilation; if one had not been born, he would not experience
the horror of ceasing to be: the life of the atheist is a frightful
lightning-flash, which serves but to reveal an abyss.

O great and merciful God, Thou hast not cast us upon earth for unworthy
troubles and a miserable happiness! Our inevitable disenchantment
admonishes us that our destinies are more sublime. Whatever may have
been our errors, if we have preserved a serious spirit and thought of
Thee in the midst of our weaknesses, we shall, whenever Thy goodness
sets us free, be carried to that region where attachments endure for
ever!

*

It was not long before I received the punishment of my literary
vanity, the most detestable of all, if not the most foolish: I had
thought that I should be able to relish in _petto_ the satisfaction
of being a sublime genius, not by wearing, as they do to-day, a beard
and an eccentric coat, but by remaining dressed like decent people,
distinguished only by superiority. Useless hope! My pride was to be
chastened; the correction was administered by the political persons
whom I was obliged to know: celebrity is a benefice with the cure of
souls.

M. de Fontanes was acquainted with Madame Bacciochi[391]; he introduced
me to Bonaparte's sister, and soon after to the First Consul's brother
Lucien[392]. The latter had a country-place near Senlis le Plessis,
where I was coerced to go and dine; the château had once belonged to
the Cardinal de Bernis[393]. Lucien had in his garden the tomb of his
first wife[394], a lady half German and half Spanish, and the memory of
the poet-cardinal. The nutrient nymph of a stream dug with the spade
was a mule which drew water from a well: that was the commencement of
all the rivers which Bonaparte was to cause to flow in his Empire.
Efforts were being made to have my name struck off the lists; I was
already called, and called myself aloud, Chateaubriand, forgetting
that I ought to call myself Lassagne. Emigrants came to see me: among
others, Messrs, de Bonald[395] and de Chênedollé[396]. Christian de
Lamoignon, my companion in exile in London, took me to Madame Récamier:
the curtain fell suddenly between her and me.

[Sidenote: The Comtesse de Beaumont.]

The person who filled the largest place in my existence, on my
return from the Emigration, was Madame la Comtesse de Beaumont[397].
She lived during a part of the year at the Château de Passy, near
Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, which M. Joubert inhabited during the summer.
Madame de Beaumont returned to Paris, and expressed a wish to meet me.

So that my life might be one long chain of regrets, Providence willed
it that the first person who received me kindly at the outset of my
public career should also be the first to disappear. Madame de Beaumont
opens the funeral procession of those women who have passed away before
me. My most distant memories rest upon ashes, and they have continued
to fall from grave to grave: like the Indian pundit, I recite the
prayers for the dead until the flowers of my chaplet are faded.

Madame de Beaumont was the daughter of Armand Marc de Saint-Hérem,
Comte de Montmorin, French Ambassador in Madrid, commandant in
Brittany, member of the Assembly of Notables in 1787, and Foreign
Minister under Louis XVI., by whom he was much liked: he perished on
the scaffold, where he was followed by a portion of his family[398].

Madame de Beaumont was ill rather than well-favoured, and very like
her portrait by Madame Lebrun[399]. Her face was thin and pale; her
eyes were almond-shaped and would have perhaps been too brilliant, if
an extraordinary suavity of expression had not half extinguished her
glances and caused them to shine languidly, as a ray of light becomes
mellowed by passing through crystal water. Her character had a sort of
rigidity and impatience, which arose from the strength of her feelings
and from the inward suffering which she experienced. Endowed with
loftiness of soul and great courage, she was born for the world, from
which her spirit had withdrawn through choice and unhappiness; but when
a friendly voice evoked that secluded intelligence, it came and spoke
to you in words from Heaven. Madame de Beaumont's extreme weakness
made her slow of expression, and this slowness was touching. I knew
this afflicted woman only at the moment of her flight; she was already
stricken with death, and I devoted myself to her sufferings. I had
taken a lodging in the Rue Saint-Honoré, at the Hôtel d'Étampes, near
the Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg. In this latter street, Madame de Beaumont
occupied an apartment looking out upon the gardens of the Ministry
of Justice. I called to see her every evening, with her friends
and mine, M. Joubert, M. de Fontanes, M. de Bonald, M. Molé[400],
M. Pasquier[401], M. de Chênedollé, men who have filled a place in
literature and public life.

[Sidenote: Joseph Joubert.]

Full of oddities and eccentricities, M. Joubert will be an eternal
loss to those who knew him. He had an extraordinary grip upon one's
mind and heart; and, when once he had seized hold of you, his image
was there, like a fixed thought, like an obsession that refused to be
driven away. He made great pretensions to calmness, and no one was
so easily perturbed as he: he watched himself in order to stop those
emotions of the mind, which he thought injurious to his health, and
constantly his friends came and disturbed the precautions which he
had taken to keep well, for he could not prevent himself from being
affected by their sadness or joy: he was an egoist who troubled himself
only about others. In order to recover his strength, he often thought
himself obliged to close his eyes and refrain from speaking for hours
at a time. Heaven knows what noise and movement passed inwardly within
him during this repose and silence which he laid upon himself. M.
Joubert at every moment changed his diet and regimen, living one day
on milk, another on minced meat, causing himself to be jolted at full
speed over the roughest roads, or drawn at a snail's pace along the
smoothest alleys. When he read, he tore out of his books the leaves
which displeased him, thus forming a library for his own use, composed
of scooped-out works, contained in bindings too large for them.

A profound metaphysician, his philosophy, thanks to an elaboration
peculiar to himself, became painting or poetry; a Plato with the heart
of a La Fontaine, he had formed an idea of perfection which prevented
him from finishing anything. In manuscripts found after his death, he
said:

"I am like an Æolian harp, which gives forth a few beautiful sounds
and plays no tune."

Madame Victorine de Chastenay[402] maintained that "he had the
appearance of a soul which had met with a body by accident, and put up
with it as best it could:" a definition both charming and true.

We laughed at the enemies of M. de Fontanes, who tried to pass him off
for a deep and dissembling politician: he was simply an irascible poet,
frank to the pitch of anger, with a mind hedged in by contrariety, and
as little able to conceal its opinion as to accept that of others. The
literary principles of his friend Joubert were not his: the latter
found some good everywhere and in every writer; Fontanes, on the
contrary, held such and such a doctrine in abhorrence, and could not
hear the names mentioned of certain authors. He was the sworn enemy of
the principles of modern composition: to place before the reader's
eyes material action, the crime at work or the gibbet with its rope,
seemed to him so many enormities; he maintained that objects should
never be seen except amid poetic surroundings, as though under a
crystal globe. Sorrow spending itself mechanically through the eyes
seemed to him a sensation fit only for the Cirque or the Grève; he
understood the tragic sentiment only as ennobled by admiration and
changed, through the medium of art, into "a charming pity." I quoted
the Greek vases to him: in the arabesques of those vases one sees
Hector's body drawn behind the car of Achilles, while a little figure,
flying in the air, represents the shade of Patrocles, consoled by the
vengeance of the son of Thetis.

"Well, Joubert," cried Fontanes, "what do you say to that metamorphosis
of the muse? How those Greeks respected the soul!"

Joubert thought himself attacked, and placed Fontanes in contradiction
with himself by reproaching him with his indulgence for me.

These discussions, highly comical as they often were, never came to an
end: one evening, at half-past eleven, when I lived on the Place Louis
XV., in the attic floor of Madame de Coislin's house, Fontanes climbed
up my eighty-four stairs again to come furiously, with many raps of his
cane, to finish an argument which he had left interrupted: it concerned
Picard[403], whom at that moment he placed far above Molière; he would
have taken good care not to have written a single word of what he said:
Fontanes talking and Fontanes pen in hand were two different men.

It was M. de Fontanes, I like to repeat, who encouraged my first
attempts: it was he who announced the publication of the _Génie du
Christianisme_; it was his muse which, full of astonished devotion,
directed mine in the new paths along which it had precipitated itself:
he taught me to conceal the deformity of objects by the manner of
throwing light upon them; to put classic language into the mouths of my
romantic characters as far as in me lay.

In former days there were men who were guardians of taste, like the
dragons who watched over the golden apples in the garden of the
Hesperides; they did not allow youth to enter until it was able to
touch the fruit without spoiling it.

[Sidenote: And other literary friends.]

My friend's writings take you by a happy road: the mind experiences
a sense of well-being, and finds itself in an harmonious situation
where everything charms and nothing wounds. M. de Fontanes incessantly
revised his productions; none was more convinced than that master of
the old days of the excellence of the maxim, "Hasten slowly." What,
then, would he say to-day when, both morally and physically, we exert
ourselves to do away with distances, and when we think we can never
go fast enough. M. de Fontanes preferred to travel at the will of a
delicious measure. You have read what I said of him when I found him
in London; the regrets which I expressed then I must repeat now: life
obliges us ever to weep in anticipation or in remembrance.

M. de Bonald had a shrewd intelligence; his ingenuity was mistaken for
genius; he had dreamt out his political metaphysics with the Army of
Condé, in the Black Forest, in the same way as those Jena and Göttingen
professors who have since marched at the head of their pupils and let
themselves be killed for the liberty of Germany. An innovator, although
he had been a musketeer under Louis XVI., he looked upon the ancients
as children in politics and literature; and he maintained, while he was
the first to employ the fatuousness of the language now in use, that
the Grand-master of the University was "not yet sufficiently advanced
to understand that."

Chênedollé, with knowledge and talent, not native but acquired, was so
sad that he nicknamed himself the "Crow[404]:" he went freebooting in
my works. We had made a compact: I yielded him my skies, my mists,
my clouds; but it was arranged that he should leave me my zephyrs, my
waves, and my forests.

I am now speaking only of my literary friends; as to my political
friends, I do not know whether I shall tell you about them: principles
and speeches have sunk abysses between us!

Madame Hocquart[405] and Madame de Vintimille[406] came to the meetings
in the Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg. Madame de Vintimille, one of the women
of olden time, of whom few remain, went into the world and brought us
news of what was going on: I asked her if people were "still building
cities." The descriptions of little scandals upon which she entered
with a poignant but inoffensive raillery made us the more heartily
appreciate our own security. Madame de Vintimille had been sung,
together with her sister, by M. de La Harpe. Her language was guarded,
her character restrained, her wit acquired; she had lived with Mesdames
de Chevreuse[407], de Longueville, de La Vallière, de Maintenon[408],
with Madame Geoffrin[409] and Madame du Defiant[410]. She blended well
with a company whose charm depended upon the variety of its wits and
the combination of their different values. Madame Hocquart had been
fondly loved by Madame de Beaumont's brother[411], who had occupied
himself with the lady of his thoughts to the very scaffold, as Aubiac
had gone to the gallows kissing a sleeve of soft blue velvet which
remained to him from the favours of Margaret of Valois[412].

[Sidenote: Who are no more.]

Never again will there assemble under the same roof so many
distinguished persons belonging to different ranks and of different
destinies, able to talk of the commonest as of the loftiest things: a
simplicity of speech which came not from poverty but from choice. It
is perhaps the last company in which the French genius of olden time
has appeared. Among the new French will not be found that urbanity
which is the fruit of education, and which was transformed by long
usage into aptness of character. What has become of that company? Make
plans, bring friends together: you but prepare for yourself an eternal
mourning! Madame de Beaumont is no more, Joubert is no more, Chênedollé
is no more, Madame de Vintimille is no more. I used to visit M. Joubert
at Villeneuve during the vintage; I walked with him on the Yonne Hills;
he picked mushrooms in the copses, and I yellow saffron in the fields.
We talked of everything, and particularly of our friend Madame de
Beaumont, for ever absent; we recalled the memory of our former hopes.
At night we returned to Villeneuve, a town surrounded by broken-down
walls, of the time of Philip Augustus[413], and by half-razed towers,
from above which rose the smoke from the vintagers' hearths. Joubert
showed me, in the distance from the hill, a sandy path among the woods
which he used to take when going to see his neighbour, who hid herself
at the Château de Passy during the Terror.

I have passed four or five times through the Senonais since the death
of my dear host. I saw the hills from the high-road: Joubert walked
there no longer; I recognised the trees, the fields, the vines, the
little heaps of stones on which we used to rest ourselves. Driving
through Villeneuve, I have cast a glance on the deserted street and
the closed house of my friend. The last time when that happened, I was
going on an embassy to Rome: ah, if he had been at home, I would have
taken him with me to Madame de Beaumont's grave! It has pleased God to
open a celestial Rome to M. Joubert, even better suited to his soul,
which abandoned Platonism for Christianity. I shall not meet him again
here below:

"I shall go to him rather: but he shall not return to me[414]."

The success of _Atala_ having decided me to start afresh on the _Génie
du Christianisme_, of which two volumes were already in print, Madame
de Beaumont offered to give me a room in the country, in a house which
she had hired at Savigny[415]. I spent six months with her in this
retreat, with M. Joubert and our other friends.

The house stood at the entrance to the village, on the Paris side,
near an old high-road known in that part as the Chemin de Henri IV.:
it leant against a vine-clad slope, and faced Savigny Park, ending in
a wooded screen, and crossed by the little River Orge. On the left,
the plain of Viry spread out as far as the springs of Juvisy. In every
direction, in this part of the country, lie valleys, where we used to
go in the evenings in search of new walks.

In the morning, we breakfasted together; after breakfast, I withdrew to
my work; Madame de Beaumont had the goodness to copy out the quotations
which I marked for her. This noble woman offered me a shelter when I
had none: without the peace which she gave me, I should perhaps never
have finished a work which I had been unable to complete during my
misfortunes.

I shall evermore remember certain evenings passed in this refuge of
friendship: on returning from walking we gathered near a fresh-water
basin, which stood in the middle of a grass-plot in the kitchen-garden.
Madame Joubert, Madame de Beaumont and I sat down on a bench; Madame
Joubert's son rolled on the grass at our feet; that child has already
disappeared. M. Joubert walked alone on a gravel path; two watch-dogs
and a cat played around us, while pigeons cooed on the edge of the
roof. What happiness for a man newly landed from exile, after spending
eight years in profound abandonment, excepting a few days quickly
lapsed! It was generally on these evenings that my friends made me
talk of my travels: I have never described the desert of the New
World so well as at that time. At night, when the windows of our
rustic drawing-room were opened, Madame de Beaumont noted different
constellations, telling me that I should remember one day that she had
taught me to know them: since I have lost her, I have several times,
not far from her grave in Rome, in the midst of the Campagna, looked
in the firmament for the stars whose names she told me: I have seen
them shining above the Sabine Hills; the protracted rays of those
stars shot down and struck the surface of the Tiber. The spot where I
saw them over the woods of Savigny, the spots where I have seen them
since, the fitfulness of my destinies, that sign which a woman had left
for me in the sky to remind me of her: all this broke my heart. By
what miracle does man consent to do what he does upon earth, he who is
doomed to die?

One day, in our retreat, we saw a man enter stealthily by one window
and go out by another: it was M. de Laborie[416]; he was escaping from
Bonaparte's claws. Shortly after appeared one of those souls in pain
which are of a different species from other souls and which, on their
passage, mingle their unknown misfortune with the vulgar sufferings of
mankind: it was Lucile, my sister.

[Sidenote: I meet my sisters.]

After my arrival in France, I had written to my family to inform them
of my return. Madame la Comtesse de Marigny, my eldest sister, was the
first to come to me, went to the wrong street, and met five Messieurs
Lassagne, of whom the last climbed up through a cobbler's trap-door to
answer to his name. Madame de Chateaubriand came in her turn: she was
charming, and full of the qualities calculated to give me the happiness
which I found with her after we came together again. Madame la Comtess
de Caud, Lucile, came next. M. Joubert and Madame de Beaumont became
smitten with a passionate fondness and a tender pity for her. Then
commenced between them a correspondence which ended only with the death
of the two women who had bent over towards one another like two flowers
of the same species on the point of fading away. Madame Lucile having
stopped at Versailles on the 30th of September 1802, I received this
note from her:

    "I write to beg you to thank Madame de Beaumont on my behalf
    for the invitation she has sent me to go to Savigny. I hope
    to have that pleasure in about a fortnight, unless there be
    any objection on Madame de Beaumont's side."

Madame de Caud came to Savigny as she had promised.

I have told you how, in my youth, my sister, a canoness of the Chapter
of the Argentière, and destined for that of Remiremont, cherished an
attachment for M. de Malfilâtre, a counsellor to the Parliament of
Brittany, which, remaining locked within her breast, had increased
her natural melancholy. During the Revolution she married M. le Comte
de Caud, and lost him after fifteen months of marriage. The death of
Madame la Comtesse de Farcy, a sister whom she fondly loved, added
to Madame de Caud's sadness. She next attached herself to Madame de
Chateaubriand, my wife, and gained an empire over the latter which
became painful, for Lucile was violent, masterful, unreasonable, and
Madame de Chateaubriand, subject to her caprices, hid from her in order
to render her the services which a richer shows to a susceptible and
less happy friend.

Lucile's genius and character had almost reached the pitch of madness
of Jean Jacques Rousseau; she thought herself exposed to secret
enemies: she gave Madame de Beaumont, M. Joubert, myself, false
addresses at which to write to her; she examined the seals, seeking to
discover whether they had not been broken; she wandered from one home
to the other, unable to remain either with my sisters or my wife; she
had taken an antipathy to them, and Madame de Chateaubriand, after
showing her a devotion surpassing all that one could imagine, had ended
by breaking down under the burden of so cruel an affection.

Another fatality had struck Lucile: M. de Chênedollé, then living
near Vire, had gone to see her at Fougères; soon there was talk of a
marriage, which fell through. Everything failed my sister at once, and,
thrown back upon herself, she no longer had the strength to bear up.
This plaintive spectre rested for a moment on a stone, in the smiling
solitude of Savigny: there were so many hearts there which would have
joyfully received her! They would so gladly have restored her to a
sweet reality of existence! But Lucile's heart could beat only in
an atmosphere made expressly for her and never breathed by others.
She swiftly devoured the days of the world apart in which Heaven had
placed her. Why had God created a being only to suffer? What mysterious
relation can there be between a long-suffering nature and an eternal
principle?

My sister had not changed in any way; she had only taken the fixed
expression of her ills: her head had sunk a little, like a head on
which the hours had weighed heavily. She reminded me of my parents:
those first family memories, evoked from the grave, surrounded me like
wraiths which had gathered round at night to warm themselves at the
dying flame of a funeral pile. As I watched her, I seemed to see in
Lucile my whole childhood, looking out at me from behind her somewhat
wild eyes.

The vision of pain faded away: that woman, borne down by life, seemed
to have come to fetch the other dejected woman whom she was to take
with her.

*

[Sidenote: Talma.]

The summer passed: according to custom, I promised myself to begin it
again next year; but the hand of the clock does not return to the hour
which we would wish to call back. During the winter, in Paris, I made
some new acquaintances. M. Jullien, a rich man, obliging, and a jovial
table-companion, although belonging to a family in which they killed
themselves, had a box at the Français; he used to lend it to Madame de
Beaumont: I went four or five times to the play with M. de Fontanes
and M. Joubert. When I entered the world, old-fashioned comedy was in
all its glory; I found it again in a state of complete decomposition.
Tragedy still kept up, thanks to Mademoiselle Duchesnois[417] and,
above all, to Talma, who had attained the highest level of dramatic
talent. I had seen him when he made his first appearances; he was less
handsome and, so to speak, less young than at the age when I saw him
again: he had acquired the distinction, the nobility, and the gravity
of years.

The portrait of Talma which Madame de Staël has drawn in her work on
Germany is only half true: the brilliant writer saw the great actor
through a woman's imagination, and attributed to him what he lacked.

Of the intermediate world Talma did not know what to make: he did
not understand the man of gentle birth; he did not know our old-time
society; he had not sat at the table of high-born ladies, in the Gothic
tower enshrined in the wood; he knew nothing of the flexibility, the
variety of expression, the gallantry, the light charm of manner, the
ingenuousness, the tenderness, the heroism based upon honour, the
Christian devotion of chivalry: he was not Tancred, or Coucy, or at
least he turned them into heroes of a middle-age of his own creation;
his Othello was placed in the heart of Vendôme.

Then what was Talma? Himself, his century and antiquity. He had the
deep and concentrated passions of love and of patriotism; they burst
from his breast with the force of an explosion. He had the baleful
inspiration, the deranged genius of the Revolution through which he
had passed. The terrible spectacles with which he was once surrounded
were renewed in his talent with the lamentable and distant accents
of the choruses of Sophocles and Euripides. His grace, which was not
conventional grace, took hold of you like misfortune. Dark ambition,
remorse, jealousy, melancholy of soul, physical pain, madness produced
by the gods and adversity, human affliction: those were what he knew.
His mere entrance upon the stage, the mere sound of his voice were
mightily tragic. Suffering and thought were mingled on his brow,
breathed in his immovability, in his poses, his gestures, his steps.
As a Greek, he would arrive, panting and ominous, from the ruins
of Argos, an immortal Orestes, tormented for three thousand years
by the Eumenides; as a Frenchman, he would come from the solitudes
of Saint-Denis, where the Parcæ of 1793 had cut the thread of the
sepulchral life of the Kings. The very picture of sorrow awaiting
something unknown, but decreed by an unjust Heaven, he went his way,
the galley-slave of fate, inexorably chained between fatality and
terror.

Time casts an inevitable obscurity over the older dramatic
masterpieces: its projected shadow changes the purest Raphaëls into
Rembrandts[418]; but for Talma, a part of the marvels of Corneille
and Racine would have remained unknown. Dramatic talent is a torch:
it fires other half-extinguished torches and revives geniuses which
enrapture you with their renewed splendour.

We owe to Talma the perfection of the actor's dress. But are stage
realism and rigour of costume so necessary to art as is supposed?
Racine's characters derive nothing from the cut of their clothes: in
the pictures of the first painters, the back-grounds are neglected and
the costumes incorrect. The "furies" of Orestes, or the "prophecies" of
Joad, read in a drawing-room by Talma in a dress-coat, made as great an
impression as when declaimed upon the stage by Talma in a Greek mantle
or a Jewish robe. Iphigenia was attired like Madame de Sévigné, when
Boileau addressed those fine verses to his friend:

    Jamais Iphigénie en Aulide immolée
    N'a coûté tant de pleurs à la Grèce assemblée
    Que, dans l'heureux spectacle à nos yeux étalé,
    N'en a fait sous son nom verser la Champmeslé[419].

This correctness in the representation of inanimate objects is the
spirit of the arts of our time: it points to the decadence of lofty
poetry and of the true drama; we are content with lesser beauties, when
we are impotent to achieve the greater; we imitate armchairs and velvet
to perfection, when we are no longer able to paint the expression of
the man seated on that velvet and in those armchairs. Nevertheless,
once one has descended to that truthfulness of material forms, one
finds one's self obliged to reproduce it; for the public, itself
materialized, demands it.


[Sidenote: Comments on the _Génie._]

Meanwhile I was finishing the _Génie du Christianisme_: Lucien asked
to see some of the proofs; I sent them to him; he added some rather
common-place notes in the margins.

Although the success of my big book was as brilliant as that of my
little _Atala_, it was nevertheless more widely contested: this was a
serious work, in which I no longer fought the principles of the old
literature and of philosophy with a novel, but attacked them directly
with arguments and facts. The Voltairean empire uttered a cry and flew
to arms. Madame de Staël was mistaken as to the future of my religious
studies: they brought her the work uncut; she pushed her fingers
between the pages, came upon the chapter headed the _Virginité_, and
said to M. Adrien de Montmorency[420], who was with her:

"Oh Heavens! Our poor Chateaubriand! That will fall to the ground!"

The Abbé de Boulogne[421], who was shown some portions of my work
before it was sent to press, said to the bookseller who asked his
opinion:

"If you want to ruin yourself, print that."

And the Abbé de Boulogne has since written an all too splendid eulogy
of my book.

Everything, in fact, seemed to prophesy failure. What hope could I
have, I with no name and no extollers, of destroying the influence
of Voltaire, which had prevailed for more than half a century,
of Voltaire, who had raised the huge edifice completed by the
Encyclopædists and consolidated by all the famous men in Europe?
What! were the Diderots, the d'Alemberts, the Duclos[422], the
Dupuis[423], the Helvétius[424], the Condorcets[425] minds that carried
no authority? What! was the world to return, to the Golden Legend, to
renounce the admiration it had acquired for masterpieces of science and
reason? How could I ever win a case which Rome armed with its thunders,
the clergy with its might, had been unable to save: a case defended
in vain by the Archbishop of Paris, Christophe de Beaumont[426],
supported by the decrees of the Parliament and the armed force and
name of the King? Was it not as ridiculous as it was rash on the part
of an unknown man to set himself against a philosophical movement so
irresistible as to have produced the Revolution? It was curious to see
a pygmy "toughen his little arms" to stifle the progress of a century,
stop civilization, and thrust back the human race! Thank God, a word
would be enough to pulverize the madman: wherefore M. Ginguené, when
trouncing the _Génie du Christianisme_ in the _Décade_[427] declared
that the criticism came too late, since my tautologous production
was already forgotten. He said this five or six months after the
publication of a work which the attack of the whole French Academy, on
the occasion of the decennial prizes, was not able to kill.

[Sidenote: I publish my chief work.]

It was amid the ruins of our temples that I published the _Génie du
Christianisme._[428] The faithful thought themselves saved: men at that
time felt a need of faith, a thirsting for religious consolations,
which arose from the want of those consolations experienced since
long years. What supernatural strength was required to bear all the
adversities undergone! How many mutilated families had to go to the
Father of mankind in search of the children they had lost! How many
broken hearts, how many solitary souls, were calling for a divine
hand to cure them! One threw one's self into the house of God, as one
enters a doctor's house on the outbreak of an infection. The victims
of our disturbances (and how many different kinds of victims!) saved
themselves at the altar: shipwrecked men clinging to the rock on which
they seek for salvation.

Bonaparte, at that time hoping to found his power on the first basis
of society, had just made arrangements with the Court of Rome: he at
first raised no obstacle against the publication of a work calculated
to enhance the popularity of his schemes; he had to struggle against
the men about him and against the declared enemies of religion; he was
glad therefore to be defended from the outside by the opinion called up
by the _Génie du Christianisme._ Later, he repented him of his mistake;
ideas of regular monarchy had sprung into being together with ideas of
religion.

An episode in the _Génie du Christianisme_, which at the time caused
less stir than _Atala_, fixed one of the characters of modern
literature; but I may say that, if _René_ did not exist, I should not
now write it: if it were possible for me to destroy it, I would do so.
A family of Renés, poets and prose-writers, has swarmed into being:
we have heard nothing but mournful and desultory phrases; it has been
a question of nothing but winds and storms, of unknown words directed
to the clouds and the night. No scribbler fresh from college but has
imagined himself the unhappiest of men; no babe of sixteen but has
believed himself to have exhausted life and to be tormented by his
genius, but has, in the abyss of his thoughts, abandoned himself to
the "wave of his passions," struck his pale and dishevelled brow, and
astonished stupefied mankind with a misfortune of which he did not know
the name, nor they either.

In _René_ I had laid bare one of the infirmities of my century; but
it was a different madness in the novelists to try to make universal
such transcendental afflictions. The general sentiments which compose
the basis of humanity, paternal and maternal affection, filial
piety, friendship, love, are inexhaustible; but particular ways of
feeling, idiosyncrasies of mind and character, cannot be spread out
and multiplied over wide and numerous scenes. The small undiscovered
corners of the human heart are a narrow field; there is nothing left to
gather in that field after the hand which has been the first to mow it.
A malady of the soul is not a permanent nor natural state: one cannot
reproduce it, make a literature of it, make use of it as of a general
passion constantly modified at the will of the artists who handle it
and change its form.

Be that as it may, literature became tinged with the colours of
my religious paintings, even as public affairs have retained the
phraseology of my writings on citizenship: the _Monarchy according to
the Charter_ has been the rudiment of our representative government,
and my article in the _Conservateur_, on "Moral Interests and Material
Interests," has bequeathed those two designations to politics.

Writers did me the honour of imitating _Atala_ and _René_, in the
same way that the pulpit borrowed my accounts of the missions and
advantages of Christianity. The passages in which I show that, by
driving the pagan divinities from the woods, our broader religion has
restored nature to its solitudes; the paragraphs where I discuss the
influence of our religion upon our manner of seeing a painting, where
I examine the changes wrought in poetry and eloquence; the chapters
which I devote to inquiries into the foreign sentiments introduced
into the dramatic characters of antiquity contain the germ of the new
criticism. Racine's characters, as I have said, both are and are not
Greek characters: they are Christian characters; that is what no one
had understood.

[Sidenote: Effects of the publication.]

If the effect of the _Génie du Christianisme_ had been only a
reaction against doctrines to which the revolutionary misfortunes
were attributed, that effect would have ceased so soon as the cause
was removed; it would not have been prolonged to the time at which
I am writing. But the action of the _Génie du Christianisme_ upon
public opinion was not confined to the momentary resurrection of a
religion supposed to be in its grave: a more lasting metamorphosis was
operated. If the work contained innovations of style, it also contained
changes of doctrine; not only the manner, but the matter, was altered;
atheism and materialism were no longer the basis of the belief or
unbelief of young minds; the idea of God and of the immortality of
the soul resumed its empire: whence came an alteration in the chain
of ideas linked one to the other. A man was no longer riveted to his
place by an anti-religious prejudice; he no longer thought himself
obliged to remain a mummy of annihilation, wrapped in philosophical
swathing-bands; he permitted himself to examine any system, however
absurd it might seem to him, _even though it were Christian._

Besides the faithful who returned at the sound of their shepherd's
voice, there were formed, by this right of free examination, other
_à priori_ faithful. Lay down God as a principle, and the Word will
follow. The Son proceeds necessarily from the Father.

The various abstract combinations succeed only in substituting for
the Christian mysteries other mysteries still more difficult of
comprehension. Pantheism, which, besides, exists in three or four
shapes, and which it is the fashion nowadays to ascribe to enlightened
intelligences, is the absurdest of Eastern dreams brought back to
light by Spinoza[429]. One has but to read the article by the sceptic
Bayle[430] on that Jew of Amsterdam. The positive tone in which
certain people speak of all these things would be revolting, were
it not that it arises from want of study; they take up words which
they do not understand, and imagine themselves to be transcendental
geniuses. Be assured that Abélard, that St. Bernard, that St.
Thomas Aquinas and their fellows brought to bear upon the study of
metaphysics a superiority of judgment which we do not approach;
that the Saint-Simonian[431], Phalansterian, Fourieristic[432],
Humanitarian[433] systems were discovered and practised by the
different heresies; that what is placed before us as progress and
discovery is so much old lumber hawked about for fifteen centuries
in the schools of Greece and the colleges of the Middle Ages.
The misfortune is that the first sectaries could not succeed in
founding their Neo-Platonic Republic, when Gallienus[434] permitted
Plotinus[435] to make the experiment in Campania; later, people made
the great mistake of burning the sectaries when they proposed to
establish the community of goods and to pronounce prostitution holy, by
urging that a woman cannot, without sin, refuse a man who asks of her a
transient union in the name of Jesus Christ: all that was needed, said
they, to accomplish this union was to annihilate one's soul and deposit
it for a moment in the bosom of God.

The shock which the _Génie du Christianisme_ gave to men's minds caused
the eighteenth century to emerge from the old road and flung it for
ever out of its path. People began again, or rather they began for the
first time to study the sources of Christianity; on re-reading the
Fathers (presuming that they had read them before) they were struck at
meeting with so many curious facts, so much philosophical science, so
many beauties of style of every kind, so many ideas which, by a more
or less perceptible gradation, produced the transition from ancient
to modern society: an unique and memorable era of humanity, in which
Heaven communicates with earth through the medium of souls set in men
of genius.

Beside the crumbling world of paganism there arose, in former times,
as though outside society, another world, looking on at those great
spectacles, poor, retiring, secluded, taking no part in the business
of life except when its lessons or its succour were needed. It was a
marvellous thing to see those early bishops, almost all honoured with
the name of saints and martyrs, those simple priests watching over the
relics and cemeteries; those monks and hermits in their convents or
in their caves, laying down laws of peace, morals, charity, when all
was war, corruption, barbarism; going between the tyrants of Rome and
the leaders of the Tartars and Goths, to prevent the injustice of the
former and the cruelty of the latter; stopping armies with a wooden
cross and a peaceful word; the weakest of men, and protecting the world
against Attila[436]; placed between two universes to be the link that
joined them, to console the last moments of an expiring society and
support the first steps of a society in its cradle.

*

[Sidenote: My own criticism.]

It was impossible but that the truths unfolded in the _Génie du
Christianisme_ should contribute to a change of ideas. Again, it is to
this work that the present love for the buildings of the Middle Ages
is due: it is I who have called upon the young century to admire the
old temples. If my opinion has been misused; if it is not true that
our cathedrals approach the Parthenon in beauty; if it is false that
those churches teach us unknown facts in their documents of stone; if
it is madness to maintain that those granite memories reveal to us
things that escaped the learned Benedictines; if by dint of eternally
repeating the word Gothic people grow wearied to death of it: that
is not my fault. For the rest, with respect to the arts, I know the
shortcomings of the _Génie du Christianisme_; that portion of my work
is faulty, because, in 1800, I was not acquainted with the arts:
I had not seen Italy, nor Greece, nor Egypt. Also, I did not make
sufficient use of the lives of the saints and of the legends, although
they offered me a number of marvellous instances: by selecting with
taste, one could there reap a plentiful harvest. This field of the
wealth of mediæval imagination surpasses the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid
and the Milesian fables in fruitfulness. My work, moreover, contains
some scanty or false judgments, such as that which I pronounce upon
Dante, to whom I have since paid a brilliant tribute. In the serious
respect, I have completed the _Génie du Christianisme_ in my _Études
historiques_, one of my writings that has been least spoken of and most
plundered.

The success of _Atala_ had delighted me, because my soul was still
fresh; that of the _Génie du Christianisme_ was painful to me: I was
obliged to sacrifice my time to a more or less useless correspondence
and to irrelevant civilities. A so-called admiration did not atone to
me for the vexations that await a man whose name the crowd remembers.
What good can supply the place of the peace which you have lost by
admitting the public to your intimacy? Add to that the restlessness
with which the Muses love to afflict those who attach themselves
to their cult, the worries attendant upon a compliant character,
inaptitude for fortune, loss of leisure, an uncertain temper, livelier
affections, unreasonable melancholy, groundless joys: who, if he had
the choice, would purchase on those conditions the uncertain advantages
of a reputation which you are not sure of obtaining, which will be
contested during your life, which posterity will refuse to confirm, and
which your death will snatch from you for ever?

The literary controversy on innovations of style which _Atala_
had aroused was renewed upon the publication of the _Génie du
Christianisme._

A characteristic feature of the imperial school, and even of the
republican school, must be noted: while society advanced for better or
for worse, literature remained stationary; foreign to the change of
the ideas, it did not belong to its own time. In comedy, the squires
of the village, the Colins, the Babets, or else the intrigues of the
drawing-rooms, which were no longer known, were played, as I have
already remarked, before coarse and blood-thirsty men, themselves the
destroyers of the manners whose picture was presented to them; in
tragedy, a plebeian pit interested itself in the families of nobles and
kings.

Two things kept literature at the date of the eighteenth century: the
impiety which it derived from Voltaire and the Revolution, and the
despotism with which Bonaparte struck it. The head of the State found a
profit in those subordinate letters which he had put in barracks, which
presented arms to him, which sallied forth at the command of "Turn
out, the guard!" which marched in rank, and which went through their
evolutions like soldiers. Any form of independence seemed a rebellion
against his power; he would no more consent to a riot of words and
ideas than he suffered insurrection. He suspended the Habeas Corpus for
thought as well as for individual liberty. Let us also recognise that
the public, weary of anarchy, was glad to submit again to the yoke of
law and order.

[Sidenote: New forms in literature.]

The literature which expresses the new era did not commence to reign
until forty or fifty years after the time of which it was the idiom.
During that half-century, it was employed only by the opposition.
It was Madame de Staël, it was Benjamin Constant[437], it was
Lemercier[438], it was Bonald, it was myself, in short, who were the
first to speak that language. The alteration in literature of which
the nineteenth century boasts came to it from the Emigration and from
exile: it was M. de Fontanes who brooded on those birds of a different
species from himself, because, by going back to the seventeenth
century, he had gained the strength of that fertile period and lost the
barrenness of the eighteenth. One portion of the human intelligence,
that which treats of transcendental matters, alone advanced with an
even step with civilisation; unfortunately, the glory of knowledge
was not without stain: the Laplaces[439], the Lagranges[440], the
Monges[441], the Chaptals[442], the Berthollets[443], all the
prodigies, once haughty democrats, became Napoleon's most obsequious
servants. Let it be said to the honour of Letters: the new literature
was free, science was servile; character did not correspond with
genius, and they whose thought had sped to the uppermost sky were not
able to raise their souls above the feet of Bonaparte: they pretended
to have no need of God, that was why they needed a tyrant.

The Napoleonic classic was the genius of the nineteenth century dressed
up in the periwig of Louis XIV., or curled as in the days of Louis
XV. Bonaparte had ordained that the men of the Revolution should not
appear at Court save in full dress, sword at side. One saw nothing
of the France of the moment; it was not order, it was discipline.
Nor could anything be more tiresome than that pale resuscitation of
the literature of former days. That cold copy, that unproductive
anachronism, disappeared when the new literature broke in noisily with
the _Génie du Christianisme._ The death of the Duc d'Enghien had for
me this advantage that, by causing me to step aside, it left me free
in my solitude to follow my own inspiration, and prevented me from
enlisting in the regular infantry of old Pindus: I owed my moral to my
intellectual liberty.

In the last chapter of the _Génie du Christianisme_, I discuss what
would have become of the world if the Faith had not been preached at
the time of the invasion of the Barbarians; in another paragraph,
I speak of an important work to be undertaken on the changes
which Christianity introduced in the laws after the conversion of
Constantine[444].

Supposing religious opinion to exist in its present form, if the _Génie
du Christianisme_ were yet to be written, I would compose it quite
differently: instead of recalling the benefits and the institutions
of our religion in the past, I would show that Christianity is the
thought of the future and of human liberty; that that redeeming and
Messianic thought is the only basis of social equality; that it alone
can establish the latter, because it places by the side of that
equality the necessity of duty, the corrective and regulator of the
democratic instinct. Legality is no sufficient restraint, because
it is not permanent; it derives its strength from the law: now, the
law is the work of men who pass away and differ. A law is not always
obligatory; it can always be changed by another law: as opposed to
that, morals are constant; they have their force within themselves,
because they spring from the immutable order: they alone, therefore,
can ensure permanency.

I would show that, wherever Christianity has prevailed, it has changed
ideas, rectified notions of justice and injustice, substituted
assertion for doubt, embraced the whole of humanity in its doctrines
and precepts. I would try to conjecture the distance at which we still
are from the total accomplishment of the Gospel, by calculating the
number of evils that have been destroyed and of improvements that have
been effected in the eighteen centuries which have elapsed on this side
of the Cross. Christianity acts slowly, because it acts everywhere; it
does not cling to the reform of any particular society, it works upon
society in general; its philanthropy is extended to all the sons of
Adam: that is what it expresses with a marvellous simplicity in its
commonest petitions, in its daily prayers, when it says to the crowd in
the temple:

"Let us pray for every suffering thing upon earth."

What religion has ever spoken in this way? The Word was not made flesh
in the man of pleasure, it became incarnate in the man of sorrow, with
a view to the enfranchisement of all, to an universal brotherhood and
an infinite salvation.

If the _Génie du Christianisme_ had only given rise to such
investigations, I should congratulate myself on having published it.
It remains to be seen whether, at the time of the appearance of the
book, a different _Génie du Christianisme_, raised on the new plan the
outline of which I have barely indicated, would have obtained the same
success. In 1803, when nothing was granted to the old religion, when it
was the object of scorn, when none knew the first word of the question,
would one have done well to speak of future liberty as descending from
Calvary, at a time when people were still bruised from the excesses of
the liberty of the passions? Would Bonaparte have suffered such a work
to appear? It was perhaps useful to stimulate regrets, to interest the
imagination in a cause so misjudged, to call attention to the despised
object, to render it endearing before showing how serious it was, how
mighty and how salutary.

Now, supposing that my name leaves some trace behind it, I shall owe
this to the _Génie du Christianisme_: with no illusion as to the
intrinsic value of the work, I admit that it possesses an accidental
value; it came just at the right moment. For this reason it caused me
to take my place in one of those historic periods which, mixing an
individual with things, compel him to be remembered. If the influence
of my work was not limited to the change which, in the past forty
years, it has produced among the living generations; if it still served
to resuscitate among late-comers a spark of the civilizing truths of
the earth; if the slight symptom of life which one seems to perceive
was there sustained in the generations to come, I should depart full of
hope in the divine mercy. O reconciled Christian, do not forget me in
thy prayers, when I am gone; my faults, perhaps, will stop me outside
those gates where my charity cried on thy behalf:

"Be ye lifted up, O eternal gates[445]!"



[361] This book was begun at Dieppe in 1836 and finished in Paris in
1837. It was revised in December 1846.--T.

[362] Anne Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, Duchesse de Longueville
(1619-1679), sister of the great Condé, had intrigued against the
Court, and played a great part in the war of the Fronde (1648-1652).
The escape took place in 1650. Eventually, Mazarin defeating all her
intrigues, the Duchesse de Longueville withdrew into retirement and a
convent--T.

[363] Queen Anne of Austria (1602-1666), daughter of King Philip III.
of Spain, and wife of Louis XIII. of France, whom she married in 1615.
She gave birth to Louis XIV. in 1638, after twenty-three years of
marriage, and became Regent of the Kingdom on the death of Louis XIII.
in 1643.--T.

[364] Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Maréchal Vicomte de Turenne
(1611-1688), joined the Fronde on Madame de Longueville's persuasion,
but returned to his allegiance the next year (1651). He was born a
Protestant, was converted by Bossuet, but abjured the Catholic Faith in
1678.--T.

[365] François Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1605 or 1613-1680). He played
a small part in the Fronde through his infatuation for Madame de
Longueville. The _Maxims_ were published in 1665, under the title of
_Réflexions et sentences, ou Maximes morales._ He spent his old age in
the society of Madame de La Fayette and Madame de Sévigné.--T.

[366] Marie Madeleine Comtesse de La Fayette (1634-1693), _née_ Pioche
de La Vergne, author of a number of successful novels and a History of
Henrietta of England.--T.

[367] Charlotte Marguerite Princesse de Condé (1594-1650), _née_ de
Montmorency, and married in 1609 to Henry II. Prince de Condé, who
removed her to Brussels out of the reach of King Henry IV. "That poor
wretch," the Duchesse de Longueville, was her daughter.--T.

[368] Madame de Brienne was the wife of Henri Auguste Comte de Loménie
de Brienne, author of the curious Memoirs.--T.

[369] BÉRANGER, _Le Vieux Caporal_, 49, 50:

    "Who is sobbing and weeping down yonder?
    Ah, 'tis the drummer's widow so sad."--T.


[370] BÉRANGER, _Le Vieux Caporal_, chorus:

    "Conscripts, keep step; do not weep;
    . . . Keep step, the step keep."
--T.

[371] Jules Cardinal Mazarin (1602-1661), Prime Minister to the Regent
Anne of Austria, and eventual victor over the Fronde.--T.

[372] The Duc de La Rochefoucauld left _Mémoires sur la règne d'Anne
d'Autriche_, in addition to the _Maximes._--T.

[373] Marie Caroline Ferdinande Louise Duchesse de Berry (1798-1870),
daughter of King Ferdinand I. of Naples, and married to the Duc de
Berry in 1816.--T.

[374] The Duchesse de Berry brought Dieppe into fashion in the later
years of the Restoration; she visited it yearly, with her children,
during the bathing season.--B.

[375] RABELAIS.--_Author's Note._

[376] Now the Place de la Concorde.--T.

[377] Migneret's book-shop was at No. 1186, Rue Jacob. The houses were
at that time numbered by districts, not by streets.--B.

[378]

"Both through his virtues and his charms
To be their father he deserved."
--T.

[379] Étienne Gaspard Robertson (1762-1837), a professor of physics who
perfected or improved the Archimedean mirror, the magic-lantern, and
the parachute.--T.

[380] Now the Quai Malaquais.--T.

[381] The Theatines, or "Regular Clerks," a very strict congregation,
founded in 1524 by St. Cajetan and Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, Bishop of
Chieti, or Theate, from which the Order takes its name.--T.

[382] The Requisition was a sort of levy in mass decreed by the
Committee of Public Safety on the 23rd of August 1793, and produced
1,400,000 men. It was the immediate forerunner of the Conscription.--T.

[383] The title of this letter was _Lettre à M. de Fontanes sur la
deuxième édition de l'ouvrage de Mme. de Staël_ (_De la littérature
considérée dans ses rapports avec la morale_, etc.), and it was signed,
l'_Auteur du Génie du Christianisme._ It was printed in the _Mercure_
of 1 Nivoise Year IX. (22 December 1800), and now figures in all the
editions of the _Génie du Christianisme._ It is one of Chateaubriand's
most eloquent writings.--B.

[384] The letter appeared in the _Journal des Débats_ of 10 Germinal
Year IX. (31 March 1801).--B.

[385] The volume is announced as "just out" in the _Journal des Débats_
of 27 Germinal (17 April). It was a small duodecimo, of XXIV. +210
pages, with the title _Atala, ou les Amours de deux sauvages dans le
désert._--B.

[386] Marie Marguerite Marquise de Brinvilliers (1630-1676), _née_
Dreux d'Avray, a famous poisoner, who with her lover, Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix, poisoned the marquise's father, sister, and two brothers.
The crimes were discovered on the death of Sainte-Croix in 1670. The
Brinvilliers took to flight, but was captured at Liège, brought back to
Paris, and tried and executed in 1676.--T.

[387] A waxwork show established in the Palais-Royal and on the
Boulevard du Temple in 1770 by a German who called himself Curtius. The
establishment on the Boulevard du Temple remained open until the end of
the reign of Louis-Philippe. The figures are still sometimes met with
at village fairs.--B.

[388] Chaillot, which now forms part of Paris, was at that time a
village at the gates, to the west, on the road to Versailles.--T.

[389] The _Nouvelle Héloïse_, Rousseau's most popular work, was
published in 1759--T.

[390] Dr. Joseph Marie Joachim Vigaroux (1759-1829), a native of
Montpellier, in Provence, and author of some medical works of no
special value.--T.

[391] Marie Anne Elisa Bacciochi (1774-1820), Bonaparte's eldest
sister, married Felix Pascal Prince Bacciochi in 1797. Her husband
became Prince of Lucca and Piombino in 1805, Elisa exercising the real
power; and in 1808 Napoleon made her Grand-duchess of Tuscany. She was
dethroned in 1814, and assumed the title of Countess of Compignano.
Prince Bacciochi died in Rome in 1841.--T.

[392] Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840), Napoleon's second brother, created
Prince of Canino in 1804, a prisoner in England from 1810 to 1814. He
was twice married to ladies of middle-class family (_vide infra_), by
whom he had eleven children.--T.

[393] François Joachim Cardinal de Pierres de Bernis (1715-1794),
Anacreontic poet and religious controversialist. He had been Madame de
Pompadour's lover, and owed his advancement to her. Voltaire called him
Babet la Bouquetière, owing to the profusion of flowers of rhetoric
which he employed in his verses.--T.

[394] Madame Lucien Bonaparte (_d._ 1800), _née_ Christine Éléonore
Boyer, married Lucien in 1794, and was the sister of the woman who kept
the inn at Saint-Maximin, where Lucien, then under age, was staying.
The marriage took place without the consent of Madame Bonaparte, the
mother, and was invalid by French law. Lucien's second wife, whom he
married in 1802, was Marie Alexandrine Charlotte Louise Laurence de
Bleschamp (1778-1855), the divorced wife of Jean François Hippolyte
Jouberthon, a retired stockbroker.--B.

[395] Louis Gabriel Amboise, Vicomte de Bonald (1753-1840), a
distinguished monarchical writer, created a peer of France in 1823, and
a member of the French Academy.--T.

[396] Charles Lioult de Chênedollé (1769-1833), author of the _Génie de
l'homme_ and other poems.--T.

[397] Pauline Marie Michelle Frédérique Ulrique de
Montmorin-Saint-Hérem, Comtesse de Beaumont (1768-1803).--T.

[398] The Comte de Montmorin did not die on the scaffold, but was
butchered at the Abbaye on the 2nd of September 1792. On the next day
his cousin, Louis Victor Hippolyte Luce de Montmorin, had his throat
cut at the Conciergerie, where he had been taken after his acquittal
by the Criminal Tribunal on the 17th of August. Madame de Montmorin,
Madame de Beaumont's mother, was guillotined on the 10th of May 1794;
her second son was guillotined with her. Her daughter, wife of the
Comte de La Luzerne, died on the 10th of July 1794, at the Archbishop's
Palace, which had been turned into the prison hospital.--B.

[399] Madame Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1756-1842), _née_ Vigée, the
famous French portrait painter. She left nearly 700 portraits, in
addition to some historical pictures and a crowd of landscapes.--T.

[400] Matthieu Louis Molé (1781-1855), created a Count of the Empire
in 1813, when he became Minister of Justice, and held successive
ministries under the Restoration and Louis-Philippe. He was a moderate
statesman of much dignity of character and of great distinction of
person, manners, and speech. He was elected a member of the French
Academy in 1840.--T.

[401] Étienne Duc Pasquier (1767-1862), appointed Prefect of Police in
1810. After holding various ministerial offices under the Restoration,
he was made President of the Chamber of Peers by Louis-Philippe in
1830, Chancellor in 1837, and a duke in 1844. Elected to the French
Academy in 1842.--T.

[402] Louise Marie Victorine Comtesse de Chastenay-Lanty (1771-1855)
was never married. Her title of madame is due to the fact that
she became a canoness at an early age (1785). Her observation to
Chateaubriand on the subject of Joubert will be found repeated
in almost precisely the same words in Madame de Chastenay's
recently-published Memoirs (1896), vol. II. p. 82.--T.

[403] Louis Bénoît Picard (1769-1828), an actor, theatrical manager,
and author of some eighty stage-plays of varying merit. He was received
into the French Academy in 1807.--T.

[404] In the "small company" which, at the beginning of the
century, met in the drawing-room of Madame de Beaumont, in the Rue
Neuve-du-Luxembourg, or at Chateaubriand's, in his little apartment in
the Hôtel Coislin, on the Place Louis XV., or again, in the summer,
at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, under M. Joubert's roof, each one, according
to an ancient fashion, had his nickname. Chateaubriand was called _le
chat_, the "Cat," by way of abbreviation of his name, or possibly
because of his illegible handwriting; Madame de Chateaubriand, who
had claws, was the "She-cat." Chênedollé and Gueneau de Mussy, more
melancholy than René, had received the names of the "Big" and the
"Little Crow;" sometimes also Chateaubriand was called the "Illustrious
Crow of the Cordilleras," by allusion to his travels in America.
Fontanes was thickset, and had something athletic in his short stature.
His friends jestingly compared him to the boar of Erymanthus, and
called him the "Boar." Thin and slender, skimming over the earth which
she was soon to leave, Madame de Beaumont had received the nickname
of the "Swallow." Joubert, a lover of the woods, and at that time a
great walker, was the "Stag;" while his wife, who was goodness and
wit personified, but of a somewhat fierce humour, laughed when she
was called the "She-wolf." Never was so intellectual a collection of
"animals" seen before.--B.

[405] Madame Hocquart was a lady possessed of many charms of beauty and
mind. She was the daughter of Pourrat and the sister of Madame Laurent
Lecoulteux.--B.

[406] The Comtesse de Vintimille du Luc, _née_ de La Live de Jully, was
niece to Madame Hocquart.--B.

[407] Marie Duchesse de Chevreuse (1600-1679), _née_ de
Rohan-Montbazon, married in 1617 to Albert Duc de Luynes, Constable
of France, and in 1622 to Claude de Lorraine, Duc de Chevreuse. The
Duchesse de Chevreuse was a favourite of Anne of Austria, and is famed
for her beauty and her wit.--T.

[408] Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon (1635-1719), the last
mistress and eventual wife (1684-1685) of Louis XIV.--T.

[409] Madame Geoffrin (1699-1777), _née_ Rodet, head of the famous
literary _salon_ in the Rue Saint-Honoré.--T.

[410] Marie Marquise du Deffant (1697-1780), _née_ de Vichy-Chamroud,
a celebrated leader of eighteenth-century society in France. Her
correspondence with Walpole, Voltaire, d'Alembert, etc., was published
in 1809 to 1811.--T.

[411] Antoine Hugues Calixte de Montmorin (1772-1794), guillotined 10th
May 1794.--B.

[412] Margaret of Valois (1552-1615), Queen of France and Navarre,
daughter of King Henry II. of France. She married in 1672 the Prince
of Béarn, afterwards King of Navarre and of France (Henry IV.), who
imprisoned her at Usson, in Auvergne, and eventually divorced her
(1599). She left Memoirs of the period from 1565 to 1587, first
published in 1658.--T.

[413] Philip II. (Augustus), King of France (1165-1223).--T.

[414] Kings XII. 23.--T.

[415] Chateaubriand and Madame de Beaumont took up their abode at
Savigny on the 22nd of May 1801.--B.

[416] Antoine Athanase Roux de Laborie (1769-1840), a protégé of
Talleyrand's, who attained to some distinction as a politician. He had
been compromised in a Royalist conspiracy with the two brothers Bertin,
with whom he afterwards founded the _Journal des Débats._--T.

[417] Catherine Joséphine Rafin (1777-1835), known as Mademoiselle
Duchesnois, made her first appearance in 1802 as Phèdre. She was an
ugly woman, but a fine actress. She continued to play until 1830.--T.

[418] Paul Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1674); the allusion being to
Rembrandt's famous distribution of light and shade.--T.

[419]

    "Ne'er did Iphigenia in Aulis laid dead
    Cause so many tears in all Greece to be shed
    As, in the fine spectacle shown us to-day,
    We have wept at the bidding of our Champmeslé."

Marie Desmare (1644-1698), known as Mademoiselle Champmeslé, made
her first appearance in 1669, and created the title-rôle in Racine's
_Iphigénie_ in 1674, under the poet's directions.--T.

[420] Anne Pierre Adrien Prince de Montmorency, later Duc de Laval
(1767-1837), French Ambassador successively in Madrid (1814), Rome
(1821), Vienna (1828), and London (1829). He became a member of the
Chamber of Peers in 1820, in succession to his father, deceased, and
resigned his peerage, together with his diplomatic functions, in
1830.--B.

[421] Étienne Antoine de Boulogne (1747-1825) was made Bishop of Troyes
by Napoleon in 1808. In 1811, Bonaparte imprisoned him at Vincennes,
until 1814, for protesting against the arrest of Pope Pius VII. He
resumed his see under the Restoration, became Archbishop of Vienne in
1817, and was raised to the peerage in 1822.--T.

[422] Charles Pineau Duclos (1704-1772), admitted to the French Academy
in 1747, and appointed its perpetual secretary in 1755, was author of
the _Considérations sur le Mœurs_, etc., and took the leading part in
the editing of the Dictionary.--T.

[423] Charles François Dupuis (1742-1809), member of the Institute and
of the Academy of Inscriptions, and author of the _Origine de tous les
cultes, ou la Religion universelle._--T.

[424] Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715-1771), one of the leaders of the
French philosophy of the eighteenth century, and author of the book
_De l'Esprit_ (1758), condemned by the Sorbonne, the Pope, and the
Parliament of Paris, and burned by the public hangman in 1759.--T.

[425] Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet
(1743-1794), perpetual secretary of the Academy of Science, and a
principal contributor to the Encyclopædia. The best known of his
voluminous works is the _Esquisse des progrès de l'esprit humain._ He
was arrested as a Girondin, and poisoned himself in prison (28 March
1794).--T.

[426] Christophe de Beaumont (1703-1781), successively Bishop of
Bayonne, Archbishop of Vienne, and Archbishop of Paris (1746), the
redoubtable adversary of both the Jansenists and Philosophers.--T.

[427] In Nos. 27, 28, and 29 of the Year X. (1802) of the _Décade
philosophique, littéraire et politique._ The articles were subsequently
collected into a pamphlet.--B.

[428] It was published on the 24th of Germinal Year X. (14 April
1802), by Migneret, 28, rue du Sépulcre, Faubourg Saint-Germain and Le
Normant, 43, rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, in five volumes
8vo (the fifth volume consisting entirely of notes and elucidations),
with the title, _Génie du Christianisme, ou Beautés de la religion
chrétienne_, by François Auguste Chateaubriand. The first page of each
volume bore the following epigraph, suppressed in the later editions:

    "Chose admirable! la religion chrétienne, qui ne semble avoir
    d'objet que la félicité de l'autre vie, fait encore notre
    bonheur dans celle-ci."

MONTESQUIEU, _Esprit des Lois_, XXIV., iii.--B.

[429] Baruch, or Benedict, Spinoza (1632-1677), the Portuguese-Jewish
philosopher of Amsterdam. His system of pantheism is set forth in his
_Ethica_ and other works.--T.

[430] Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) was born a Protestant, became a
Catholic, and then a professional sceptic. His reputation rests upon
his famous _Dictionnaire historique et critique_ (1697), with which he
paved the way for Voltaire and his friends.--T.

[431] Claude Henri Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was the founder of
a sect, based upon more or less Socialistic principles, extinguished
by ridicule, and finally dissolved by the Courts for its attacks upon
public morals in 1833. Its author attempted suicide in 1823, but
escaped with the loss of an eye.--T.

[432] Charles Fourier (1768-1837) was the author of the Phalansterian
movement, based upon the Communistic principle.--T.

[433] The system maintaining the simple humanity of Christ, and denying
His divinity.--T.

[434] Publius Licinius Gallienus, Roman Emperor (233-268), gave leave
to Plotinus to build a town in Campania, to be recalled Platonopolis;
but the project fell through.--T.

[435] Plotinus (_circa_ 205--_circa_ 270) opened his school of
Neo-Platonic philosophy in Rome about the year 245.--T.

[436] Attila, King of the Huns (_d._ 453), when descending into Italy
in 452 after his defeat in France, was stopped outside Rome by Pope
St. Leo the Great, who persuaded him to return back after exacting a
tribute from the Emperor Valentinian III.--T.

[437] Henri Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (1767-1830), the well-known
publicist and Liberal politician.--T.

[438] Népomucène Louis Lemercier (1772-1840), a member of the French
Academy, and author of a number of plays and poems all of a remarkable
character. The finest is his tragedy of Agamemnon. He was one of the
first to break through Boileau's rule of the three unities in dramatic
literature.--T.

[439] Pierre Simon Marquis de Laplace (1749-1827), a profound
geometrician and a _protégé_ of d'Alembert, was Minister of the
Interior for six weeks after the 18 Brumaire, entered the Senate in
1799, and became President of that body. He was a member of the French
Academy, and was created a marquis and a peer by Louis XVIII. on
becoming its President (1817).--T.

[440] Joseph Louis Comte Lagrange (1736-1813), another famous
mathematician. He was for twenty years President of the Berlin Academy
(1766-1786). Napoleon made him a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour,
a count, and a senator. He and Laplace may be said to have completed
Newton's work.--T.

[441] Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (1746-1818), a member of the
Academy of Science, was for a month Minister of Marine under the
Revolution (1792). During the wars of the Republic he devoted his
knowledge to elaborating the national means of defense, was one of the
founders of the Polytechnic School, accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt, and
became President of the Cairo Institute. Napoleon gave him his title,
created him a senator, and loaded him with honours, all of which he
lost at the Restoration.--T.

[442] Jean Antoine Chaptal, Comte de Chanteloup (1756-1832), a
distinguished chemist and statesman. He was placed at the head of
the gunpowder factory at Grenelle in 1793, and there displayed an
incredible activity. In 1798 he became one of the original members of
the Institute, Minister of the Interior in 1800, a senator in 1805, and
a peer of France under the Restoration (1819).--T.

[443] Claude Louis Comte Berthollet (1748-1822), another celebrated
chemist, worked with Monge and Chaptal in the fabrication of gunpowder
and the multiplication of the means of defense during the Republican
wars. He also accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt, where he made many
important researches. The Emperor made him a senator in 1805, and he
received his peerage under the Restoration.--T.

[444] Constantine I. Emperor of the West (274-337), known as
Constantine the Great, was converted, by a sign of the Cross in the
sky, in the year 312.--T.

[445] Ps. XXIII. 7, 9.--T.




BOOK II[446]


The years 1802 and 1803--Country-houses--Madame de Custine--M. de
Saint-Martin--Madame de Houdetot and Saint-Lambert--Journey to
the south of France--M. de la Harpe--His death--Interview with
Bonaparte--I am appointed First Secretary of Embassy in Rome--Journey
from Paris to the Savoy Alps--From Mont Cenis to Rome--Milan to
Rome--Cardinal Fesch's palace--My occupations--Madame de Beaumont's
manuscripts--Letters from Madame de Caud--Madame de Beaumont's arrival
in Rome--Letters from my sister--Letter from Madame de Krüdener--Death
of Madame de Beaumont--Her funeral--Letters from M. de Chênedollé,
M. de Fontanes, M. Necker, and Madame de Staël--The years 1803 and
1804--First idea of my Memoirs--I am appointed French Minister to the
Valais--Departure from Rome--The year 1804--The Valais Republic--A
visit to the Tuileries--The Hôtel de Montmorin--I hear the death cried
of the Duc d'Enghien--I give in my resignation.


My life became quite disturbed so soon as it ceased to belong to
myself. I had a crowd of acquaintances outside my customary circle. I
was invited to the country-houses which were being restored. One did as
best he could in those half-unfurnished, half-furnished manor-houses,
in which old arm-chairs and new stood side by side. Nevertheless, some
of these manor-houses had remained intact, such as the Marais[447],
which had come into the possession of Madame de La Briche[448], an
excellent woman, whom happiness could never succeed in shaking off. I
remember that my immortality went to the Rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer
to take a seat for the Marais in a wretched hired coach, where I met
Madame de Vintimille and Madame de Fezensac[449]. At Champlâtreux[450]
M. Molé was having some small rooms on the second floor rebuilt.
His father[451], who had been killed in the revolutionary style, was
replaced, in a dilapidated drawing-room, by a picture in which Matthieu
Molé was represented stopping a riot with his square cap: a picture
which brought home the difference in the times. A splendid intersection
of roads lined with lime-trees had been cut down; but one of the
avenues still remained in all the magnificence of its old shade; new
plantations have since been mixed with it: this is the age of poplars.

On returning from the Emigration, there was no exile so poor but
laid out the winding walks of an English garden in the ten feet of
land or court-yard which he had recovered: did I myself, in days
past, not plant the Vallée-aux-Loups? Was it not there that I began
these Memoirs? Did I not continue them in Montboissier Park, whose
appearance, disfigured by neglect, its owners were then trying to
revive? Did I not lengthen them in the park at Maintenon[452], quite
recently restored, a new prey for the returning democracy? The castles
burnt in 1789 ought to have warned what remained of the castles to
remain hidden in their ruins: but the steeples of engulfed villages
which pierce through the lava of Vesuvius do not prevent new steeples
and new hamlets from being planted on the surface of that same lava.

[Sidenote: The Marquise de Custine.]

Among the bees adjusting their hive was the Marquise de Custine[453],
the heiress of the long tresses of Margaret of Provence[454], wife of
St. Louis, whose blood flowed in her veins. I was present when she took
possession of Fervacques[455], and I had the honour of sleeping in the
bed of the Bearnese, as I had of sleeping in Queen Christina's[456]
bed at Combourg. The journey was no trifling matter: we had to take
on board the carriage Astolphe de Custine[457], then a child, M.
Berstoecher, his tutor, an old Alsatian nurse, who spoke only German,
Jenny, the lady's maid, and Trim, a famous dog which ate up the
provisions for the journey. Would one not have thought that this colony
was going to Fervacques for good? And yet the furnishing of the house
was not quite finished when the signal for removal was given. I saw her
who faced the scaffold with such great courage[458], I saw her, whiter
than one of the Fates, dressed in black, her figure made thin by death,
her head adorned only with her silken tresses; I saw her smile to me
with her pale lips and her beautiful teeth when she left Sécherons,
near Geneva, to breathe her last at Bex, at the entrance to the Valais;
I heard her coffin pass at night along the deserted streets of Lausanne
to take up its eternal place at Fervacques: she was hastening to hide
herself in a property which she had possessed for but a moment, like
her life. I had read on the corner of a chimney-piece in the _château_
those bad rhymes attributed to the lover of Gabrielle:

    La dame de Fervacques
    Mérite de vives attacques[459].

The soldier-king had said as much to many others: passing declarations
of men, soon effaced and descending from beauty to beauty down to
Madame de Custine. Fervacques has been sold.

I also met the Duchesse de Châtillon[460], who adorned my valley
at Aulnay during my absence in the Hundred Days. Mrs. Lindsay,
whom I continued to see, introduced me to Julie Talma[461]. Madame
de Clermont-Tonnerre invited me. We had a common grandmother, and
she was good enough to call me cousin. The widow of the Comte de
Clermont-Tonnerre[462], she was married again, later, to the Marquis
de Talaru[463]. She had converted M. de La Harpe in prison. It was
through her that I knew Neveu, the painter, who was enrolled among the
number of her _cicisbei_: Neveu brought me into momentary connection
with Saint-Martin[464].

M. de Saint-Martin thought he had discovered in _Atala_ a certain
cant which was far from my thoughts, but which to his mind proved an
affinity of doctrine between us. Neveu, in order to bring two brothers
together, asked us to dinner in a top room which he occupied in the
out-houses of the Palais-Bourbon. I reached the trysting-place at six
o'clock; the heavenly philosopher was at his post. At seven o'clock, a
discreet man-servant placed a tureen of soup upon the table, withdrew,
and closed the door. We sat down and began to eat in silence. M. de
Saint-Martin, who, for the rest, had a very fine manner, pronounced
only a few oracular phrases. Neveu replied with exclamations, uttered
with a painter's attitudes and grimaces. I said not a word.

After half an hour, the necromancer returned, removed the soup, and
placed another dish on the table. The courses succeeded each other
in this way, one by one, and at long intervals. M. de Saint-Martin,
becoming gradually more excited, began to talk after the manner of
an archangel; the more he talked, the more obscure did his language
become. Neveu had hinted to me, squeezing my hand, that we should see
extraordinary things, that we should hear sounds. For six mortal hours
I listened and discovered nothing. At midnight, the man of visions
suddenly rose to his feet. I thought that the spirit of darkness or the
heavenly spirit was descending, that the bells were about to ring out
through the mysterious passages; but M. de Saint-Martin declared that
he was exhausted, and that we would resume the conversation another
time: he put on his hat and went away. Unhappily for himself, he was
stopped at the door and obliged to come back by an unexpected visit:
nevertheless he was not long in disappearing. I never saw him again: he
went off to die in the garden of M. Lenoir-Laroche[465], my neighbour
at Aulnay.

[Sidenote: Swedenborgian nonsense.]

I am a refractory subject for Swedenborgianism; the Abbé Faria[466], at
a dinner at Madame de Custine's, boasted of being able to kill a canary
by magnetizing it; the canary was the stronger of the two, and the
abbé, beside himself, was obliged to leave the party for fear of being
killed by the canary. The sole presence of myself, the Christian, had
rendered the tripod powerless.

Another time, the celebrated Gall[467], again at Madame de Custine's,
dined next to me, without knowing me, mistook my facial angle,
took me for a frog, and tried, when he knew who I was, to patch up
his science in a way which made me blush for him. The shape of the
head can assist one in distinguishing the sex in individuals, in
indicating what belongs to the beast, to the animal passions; as to
the intellectual faculties, phrenology will never know them. If one
could collect the different skulls of the great men who have died since
the commencement of the world, and were to place them before the eyes
of the phrenologists without telling them to whom they belonged, they
would not forward one brain to its right address: the examination of
the "bumps" would produce the most comical mistakes.

I feel conscience-smitten: I spoke of M. de Saint-Martin a trifle
scoffingly; I am sorry for it. That love of scoffing, which I am
constantly thrusting back and which incessantly returns to me, is a
cause of suffering to me; for I hate the satirical spirit as being the
pettiest, commonest, and easiest of all: of course, I am bringing no
charge against high comedy. M. de Saint-Martin was, when all is said
and done, a man of great merit, of noble and independent character. His
ideas, when they were explicable, were lofty and of a superior nature.
Ought I not to sacrifice the two foregoing pages to the generous and
much too flattering declaration of the author of the _Portrait de M.
de Saint-Martin fait par lui-même[468]?_ I should not hesitate to
suppress them, if what I say were able to do the smallest hurt to
the serious reputation of M. de Saint-Martin and to the esteem which
will always cling to his memory. I am glad, for the rest, to see that
my recollection has not deceived me: M. de Saint-Martin may not have
received quite the same impressions as myself at the dinner of which I
speak; but you will see that I have not invented the scene, and that M.
de Saint-Martin's account resembles mine at bottom:

    "On the 27th of January 1803," he says, "I had an interview
    with M. de Chateaubriand at a dinner arranged for the purpose
    at M. Neveu's, in the Polytechnic School[469]. It would have
    been a great advantage to me to have known him earlier: he
    is the only irreproachable man of letters with whom I have
    come into contact in my existence, and even then I enjoyed
    his conversation only during the meal. For, immediately
    afterwards, there came a visit which made him dumb for the
    rest of the evening, and I do not know when the occasion will
    return, because the king of this world takes great care to
    put a spoke in the wheel of my cart. For the rest, of whom do
    I stand in need except God?"

M. de Saint-Martin is worth a thousand of me: the dignity of his last
sentence crushes my harmless banter with all the weight of a serious
nature.

I had seen M. de Saint-Lambert[470] and Madame de Houdetot[471] at the
Marais. Both represented the opinions and the freedom of days gone
by, carefully packed up and preserved: it was the eighteenth century
dying and married after its own fashion. One need but hold on to life
for unlawfulness to become lawful. Men feel an infinite esteem for
immorality because it has not ceased to exist and because time has
adorned it with wrinkles. In truth, a virtuous husband and wife, who
are not husband and wife, but who remain together out of consideration
for their fellow-creatures, suffer a little from their venerable
condition; they bore and detest each other cordially with all the
ill-humour of old age; that is God's justice:

    Malheur à qui le ciel accorde de longs jours[472]!

[Sidenote: Madame de Houdetot.]

It became difficult to understand certain pages of the _Confessions_
when one had seen the object of Rousseau's transports. Had Madame de
Houdetot kept the letters which Jean Jacques wrote to her, and which he
says were more brilliant than those in the _Nouvelle Héloïse?_ It is
believed that she made a sacrifice of them to Saint-Lambert.

When nearly eighty years of age, Madame de Houdetot still cried in
agreeable verses:

           Et l'amour me console!
    Rien ne pourra me consoler de lui[473].

She never went to bed without striking the floor three times with her
slipper and saying, "Good-night, dear!" to the late author of the
_Saisons._ That was what the philosophy of the eighteenth century
amounted to in 1803.

The society of Madame de Houdetot, Diderot, Saint-Lambert, Rousseau,
Grimm[474], and Madame d'Épinay rendered the Valley of Montmorency
insupportable to me, and though, with regard to facts, I am very glad
that a relic of the Voltairean times should have come under my notice,
I do not regret those times. I have lately again seen the house in
which Madame de Houdetot used to live at Sannois; it is now a mere
empty shell, reduced to the four walls. A deserted hearth is always
interesting; but what can we gather from hearth-stones by whose side
beauty has never sat, nor the mother of a family, nor religion, and
whose ashes, if they were not dispersed, would carry back the memory
only to days which were capable of nought save destruction?

*

A piracy of the _Génie du Christianisme_ at Avignon took me to the
south of France in the month of October 1802. I knew only my poor
Brittany and the northern provinces through which I had passed when
leaving my country. I was about to see the sun of Provence, the sky
which was to give me a fore-taste of Italy and Greece, towards
which my instinct and my muse alike urged me. I was in a happy mood;
my reputation made life seem light to me: there are many dreams
in the first intoxication of fame, and one's eyes at first become
rapturously filled with the rising light; but should that light become
extinguished, it leaves you in the dark: if it last, the habit of
seeing it soon renders you unmindful of it.

Lyons pleased me extremely. I renewed my acquaintance with those works
of the Romans which I had not seen since the day when I read some
sheets of _Atala_ out of my knapsack in the amphitheatre at Trèves.
Sailing-boats crossed from one bank of the Saône to the other, carrying
a light at night; they were steered by women; a sailor lass of eighteen
who took me on board, at each turn of the helm, adjusted a nosegay
of flowers badly fastened to her hat. I was awakened in the morning
by the sound of bells. The convents poised upon the slopes seemed to
have recovered their solitary inmates. The son of M. Ballanche[475],
the owner, after M. Migneret, of the _Génie du Christianisme_, had
become my host: he has become my friend. Who does not know to-day the
Christian philosopher whose writings glow with that placid clearness on
which one loves to fix his eyes, as on the ray of a friendly star in
the sky?

On the 27th of October the post-barge which was taking me to Avignon
was obliged to stop at Tain, owing to a storm. I thought myself
in America: the Rhone reminded me of my great wild rivers. I was
put into a little river-side inn; a conscript was standing at the
chimney-corner; he had his sack on his back, and was on his way to join
the Army of Italy. I wrote with the bellows of the chimney for a table,
opposite the landlady, who sat silently before me and showed her regard
for the traveller by preventing the dog and cat from making a noise.
What I was writing was an article which I had almost finished while
going down the Rhone, and which related to M. de Bonald's _Législation
primitive._ I foresaw what has since come to pass:

    "French literature," I said, "is about to change its aspect;
    with the Revolution new thoughts will come into being, new
    views of men and things. It is easy to foresee that our
    writers will become divided. Some will strive to leave the
    beaten paths; others will try to copy the old models, while
    nevertheless displaying them in a new light. It is very
    probable that the latter will end by getting the better
    of their adversaries, because, in leaning upon the great
    traditions and the great men, they will have surer guides and
    more fruitful documents."

The lines ending my travelling criticism are history; my mind was
beginning to move with my century:

    "The author of this article," I said, "cannot resist an
    image drawn from the circumstances in which he finds himself
    placed. At the very moment at which he is writing these
    concluding words he is descending one of the greatest rivers
    of France. On two opposite mountains stand two ruined towers;
    at the top of those towers are fastened little bells,
    which the mountaineers ring as we pass. This river, those
    mountains, those sounds, those Gothic monuments, divert the
    eyes of the spectators for a moment; but not one stops to go
    whither the bell-tower calls him. Thus the men who to-day
    preach morality and religion in vain give the signal from
    the top of their ruins to those whom the torrent of the age
    carries with it; the traveller is amazed at the grandeur of
    the ruins, at the sweetness of the sounds that issue from
    them, at the majesty of the memories that rise above them,
    but he does not interrupt his journey, and at the first turn
    in the stream all is forgotten[476]."

[Sidenote: Avignon.]

When I arrived at Avignon, on the eve of All Saints' Day, a child
hawking books offered them to me: I then and there bought three
different pirated editions of a little novel called _Atala_. By going
from one bookseller to the other, I unearthed the pirate, to whom I was
not known. He sold me the four volumes of the _Génie du Christianisme_
at the reasonable price of nine francs per copy, and praised both book
and author highly to me. He lived in a fine house standing in its own
grounds. I thought I had made a great discovery: after four-and-twenty
hours, I grew weary of following fortune, and made terms for next to
nothing with the robber.

I saw Madame de Janson, a little wizened, white-haired, determined
woman, who struggled with the Rhone for her estate, exchanged
musket-shots with the inhabitants of the banks, and defended herself
against the years.

Avignon reminded me of my fellow-countryman. Du Guesclin was good for
more than Bonaparte, because he rescued France from her conquerors. On
reaching the city of the Popes with the adventurers whom his glory was
leading to Spain, he said to the provost sent by the Pontiff to meet
him:

*

"'Brother, do not deceive me: whence comes that treasure? Has the Pope
taken it from his treasure?'

"And he answered no, and that the commons of Avignon had paid it, each
his portion.

"'Then, provost,' said Bertrand, 'I promise you that we will not take
a farthing of it as we live, and wish that this money got together
be restored to them that paid it, and tell the Pope that he have it
restored to them; for if I knew that any other were done, it would lie
heavy on me; and had I crossed the sea, yet would I return thence.'

"Thus was Bertrand paid with the Pope's money, and his folk absolved
again, and the said first absolution again confirmed."

*

In former days Avignon was considered the commencement of a Transalpine
journey: it was the entrance to Italy. The geographies say:

"The Rhone belongs to the King, but the City of Avignon is watered by a
branch of the river, the Sorgue, which belongs to the Pope."

Is the Pope very certain of long preserving the ownership of the Tiber?
At Avignon they used to visit the Celestine[477] monastery. Good King
René[478], who reduced the taxes when the tramontane wind blew, had
painted a skeleton in one of the halls of the Celestine monastery: it
was that of a woman of great beauty whom he had loved[479].

*

I looked for the Palace of the Popes and was shown the _ice-house_:
the Revolution has done away with celebrated places; the memories
of the past are obliged to shoot up through it and to reblossom over
dead bones[480]. Alas, the groans of the victims die soon after them!
They scarcely reach some echo that causes them to survive a little
while after the voice from which they issued is extinguished for ever.
But, while the cry of sorrow was expiring on the banks of the Rhone,
one heard in the distance the sound of Petrarch's lute: a solitary
_canzone_, escaping from the tomb, continued to charm Vaucluse[481]
with an immortal melancholy and the love sorrows of olden time.

Alain Chartier[482] had come from Bayeux to be buried at Avignon in the
Church of St. Anthony. He had written the _Belle Dame sans mercy_, and
the kiss of Margaret of Scotland[483] made him live.

[Sidenote: Marseilles.]

From Avignon I went to Marseilles. What is left to be desired by a town
to which Cicero addressed these words, of which the oratorical manner
was imitated by Bossuet:

"Nor will I forget thee, O Massilia, who in virtue and dignity shouldst
rank not only before Greece, but for aught I know before the whole
world[484]!"

Tacitus, in the Life of Agricola, also praises Marseilles as combining
the Greek urbanity with the economy of the Latin provinces. Daughter of
Hellas, foundress of Gaul, celebrated by Cicero, captured by Cæsar, is
not that sufficient glory united? I hastened to climb to _Notre Dame de
la Garde_, to admire the sea which the smiling coasts of all the famous
countries of antiquity line with their ruins. The sea, which does not
move, is the source of mythology, even as the ocean, which rises twice
a day, is the abyss to which Jehovah said:

"Thou shalt go no farther[485]."

In this same year, 1838, I climbed again to that summit; I saw again
that sea which I now know so well, and at the end of which rose the
Cross and the Tomb victorious. The mistral was blowing; I went into
the fort built by Francis I., where no longer a veteran of the army of
Egypt kept guard, but where stood a conscript destined for Algiers and
lost under the gloomy vaults. Silence reigned in the restored chapel,
while the wind moaned without. The hymn of the Breton sailors to Our
Lady of Succour returned to my mind; you know when and how I have
already quoted that plaint of my early ocean days:

    Je mets ma confiance,
    Vierge, en votre secours.

How many events it had needed to bring me back to the feet of the "Star
of the Sea," to whom I had been vowed in my childhood! When I gazed at
those votive offerings, those paintings of ship-wrecks hung all around
me, it was as though I were reading the story of my life. Virgil places
the Trojan hero beneath the Porches of Carthage, moved at the sight
of a picture representing the burning of Troy, and the genius of the
singer of Hamlet has made use of the soul of the singer of Dido.

I no longer recognised Marseilles at the foot of that rock once covered
with a forest sung by Lucan: I could no longer lose my way in its long,
wide, straight streets. The harbour was crowded with ships; thirty-six
years ago I should with difficulty have found a "boat," steered by a
descendant of Pytheas[486], to carry me to Cyprus like Joinville[487]:
time rejuvenates cities, reversing its action upon men. I preferred my
old Marseilles, with its memories of the Bérengers[488], the Duke of
Anjou[489], King René, Guise and d'Épernon[490], with the monuments of
Louis XIV. and the virtues of Belsunce[491]: the wrinkles on its brow
pleased me. Perhaps, in regretting the years which it has lost, I but
bewail those which I have found. Marseilles received me graciously, it
is true; but the rival of Athens has grown too young for me.

If the _Memoirs_ of Alfieri[492] had been published in 1802 I should
not have left Marseilles without visiting the rock from which the poet
used to bathe. That rugged man once succeeded in attaining the charm of
reverie and of expression:

    "After the performance," he writes, "one of my amusements,
    at Marseilles, was to bathe almost every evening in the
    sea; I had found a very agreeable spot, on a neck of land
    situated to the right of the harbour, where, seated on the
    sand, with my back leaning against a rock, which prevented
    me from being seen from the land side, I could behold
    the sky and sea without interruption. Between those two
    immensities, embellished by the rays of the setting sun, I
    passed delicious hours dreaming of future delights; and there
    I might unquestionably have become a poet, could I have given
    any language whatever to my thoughts and feelings[493]."

[Sidenote: Jean Reboul.]

I returned through Languedoc and Gascony. At Nîmes, the Arena[494] and
the Maison Carrée[495] had not yet been extricated: in the present
year, 1838, I have seen them exhumed. I have also looked up Jean
Reboul[496]. I had my doubts concerning those workmen poets, who are
generally neither poets nor workmen: I owe M. Reboul a reparation. I
found him in his bakery; I spoke to him without knowing whom I was
addressing, failing to distinguish him from his fellow-worshippers of
Ceres. He took my name and said he would go and see if the person for
whom I was asking was there. He returned soon after and introduced
himself: he took me into his shop; we wended our way through a
labyrinth of flour-sacks, and clambered up a sort of ladder into a
little closet resembling the upper room of a wind-mill. There we sat
down and talked. I was as happy as in my garret in London, and happier
than in my ministerial armchair in Paris. M. Reboul drew a manuscript
from a chest of drawers, and read me some powerful verses from a poem
which he is writing on the _Dernier Jour._ I congratulated him on his
religion and his talent[497].

I had to take leave of my host, not without wishing him the gardens
of Horace. I would have better loved to see him dream beside the
Cascade at Tivoli than gather the wheat crushed by the wheel above that
cascade. It is true that Sophocles was perhaps a blacksmith in Athens,
and that Plautus, in Rome, was a harbinger of Reboul at Nîmes[498].

Between Nîmes and Montpellier, I passed, on my left, Aigues-Mortes,
which I have visited in 1838. This town is still quite intact, with its
towers and its surrounding rampart; it resembles a large ship stranded
on the sands where St. Louis, time and the sea have left it. The
Saint-king gave "usages" and statutes to the town of Aigues-Mortes:

"He wills that the prison be such that it serve not for the
extermination of the person, but for its safe-keeping; that no
information be granted for mere injurious words; that adultery itself
be not enquired into, except in certain cases; and that he who violates
a maid, _volente vel nolente_, shall not lose his life, nor any of his
members, _sed alio modo puniatur._"

At Montpellier I again saw the sea, to which I would gladly have
written in the words of the Most Christian King to the Swiss
Confederation: "My trusty ally and well-beloved friend." Scaliger[499]
would have liked to make Montpellier "the nest of his old age." It
received its name from two virgin saints, _Mons puellarum_: hence the
beauty of its women. Montpellier[500], falling before the Cardinal de
Richelieu, witnessed the death of the aristocratic constitution of
France.

On the road from Montpellier to Narbonne, I had a return to my native
disposition, an attack of my dreaminess. I should have forgotten that
attack if, like certain imaginary invalids, I had not entered the day
of my crisis on a tiny bulletin, the only note of that time which I
have found to aid my memory. This time it was an arid space covered
with fox-gloves that made me forget the world: my eyes glided over
that sea of purple stalks, and encountered at the distance only the
blue chain of the Cantal Mountains. In nature, with the exception
of the sky, the sea and the sun, it is not the immense objects that
inspire me; they give me only a sensation of greatness, which flings
my own littleness distraught and disconsolate at the feet of God. But a
flower which I pick, a stream of water hiding among the rushes, a bird
alternately flying and resting before my eyes lead me on towards all
kinds of dreams. Is it not better to be moved for no definite reason
than to go through life seeking blunted interests, chilled by their
repetition and their number? All is worn out nowadays, even misfortune.

At Narbonne I reached the Canal des Deux-Mers[501]. Corneille, singing
this work, adds his own greatness to that of Louis XIV.[502]

[Sidenote: Toulouse.]

At Toulouse, from the bridge over the Garonne, I could see the line of
the Pyrenees; I was to cross it four years later: our horizons succeed
one another like our days. They offered to show me, in a cave, the
dried body of Fair Paule[503]: blessed are they that have not seen and
have believed! Montmorency[504] had been beheaded in the courtyard of
the town-hall: that head struck off must have been very important,
since they still speak of it after so many other heads have been taken
off? I do not know if, in the history of criminal proceedings, there
exists an eye-witness' evidence which has more clearly established a
man's identity:

    "The fire and smoke which covered him," said Guitaut,
    "prevented me from recognising him; but seeing a man who,
    after breaking six of our ranks, was still killing soldiers
    in the seventh, I thought that it could be only M. de
    Montmorency; I knew it for certain when I saw him thrown to
    the ground under his dead horse."

The deserted Church of St. Sernin impressed me by its architecture.
This church is connected with the history of the Albigenses, which the
poem so well translated by M. Fauriel[505] revives:

    "The gallant young count, his father's heir and the light of
    his eyes, with the cross and the sword, enter together by
    one of the doors. Not a single young girl remains in chamber
    or on landing; the inhabitants of the town, great and small,
    all come out to gaze upon the count as on a fair and blooming
    rose."

It is to the time of Simon de Montfort[506] that the loss of the
_langue d'Oc_ dates back:

"Simon, seeing himself lord of so many lands, bestowed them among the
gentle men, both French and others, _atque loci leges dedimus_," say
the eight signatory archbishops and bishops.

I should have liked to have had time to inquire at Toulouse after one
of my great admirations, Cujas[507], writing, flat on the ground, with
his books spread around him. I do not know whether the memory has
been preserved of his twice-married daughter Suzanne. Constancy had
no great attractions for Suzanne, she set it at naught; but she kept
one of her husbands alive with the same infidelities which caused the
other's death. Cujas was protected by the daughter of Francis I.[508],
Pibrac by the daughter of Henry II.[509]: two Margarets of the blood
of the Valois, the true blood of the Muses. Pibrac[510] is famous
through his quatrains, which have been translated into Persian. I was
perhaps lodged in the house of the president his father. That "good
Lord of Pibrac," according to Montaigne, was "a man of so quaint and
rare wit, of so sound judgment, and of so mild and affable behaviour."
His mind was "so dissonant and different in proportion from our
deplorable corruption, and so farre from agreeing with our tumultuous
stormes[511]." And Pibrac wrote the apology of St. Bartholomew's Night!

I hurried on without being able to stop: fate threw me back to 1838
to admire in detail the city of Raimond de Saint-Gilles[512], and to
speak of the new acquaintances I made there: M. de Lavergne[513], a
man of talent, wit, and sense; Mademoiselle Honorine Gasc[514], the
Malibran of the future. The latter reminded me, in my new quality of a
follower of Clémence Isaure[515], of those verses which Chapelle and
Bachaumont[516] wrote in the isle of Ambijoux, near Toulouse:

    Hélas! que l'on serait heureux
    Dans ce beau lieu digne d'envie,
    Si, toujours aimé de Sylvie,
    On pouvait, toujours amoureux,
    Avec elle passer sa vie[517]!

Let Mademoiselle Honorine be on her guard against her beautiful voice!
Talents are "gold of Toulouse:" they bring misfortune.

[Sidenote: Bordeaux.]

Bordeaux was as yet scarce rid of its scaffolds and its dastardly
Girondins. All the towns which I saw had the appearance of beautiful
women lately risen from a violent malady, and hardly commencing to
breathe again. In Bordeaux, Louis XIV. had caused the Palais des
Tutelles to be razed, in order to build the Chateau Trompette[518];
Spon[519] and the lovers of antiquity groaned:

Pourquoi démolit-on ces colonnes des dieux,
Ouvrage des Césars, monument tutélaire[520]?

There were but a few remains of the Arena to be seen. Were we to offer
a token of regret to all that falls, life would be too short for our
tears.

I took ship for Blaye. I saw the castle, then unknown, to which in 1833
I addressed these words:

"O captive of Blaye[521], I am sorrow-stricken to be able to do nothing
to forward your present destinies!"

I travelled towards Rochefort, and went on to Nantes through the Vendée.

This district bore the mutilations and scars due to its valour, like an
old warrior. Bones bleached by time and ruins blackened by fire met the
gaze. When the Vendeans were on the point of attacking the enemy, they
knelt down to receive the blessing of a priest. Prayers uttered under
arms were not reckoned as weakness, for the Vendean who raised his
sword towards Heaven asked for victory, not for life.

The diligence in which I found myself interred was full of travellers
who related the rapes and murders with which they had glorified their
lives in the wars of the Vendée. My heart throbbed when, after crossing
the Loire at Nantes, we entered Brittany. I passed by the College of
Rennes, which witnessed the last years of my childhood. I was able to
remain for only four-and-twenty hours with my wife and sisters, and I
returned to Paris.

*

I arrived in time for the death of a man who belonged to those superior
names of the second rank in the eighteenth century which, forming a
solid rear-line in society, gave it a certain fulness and consistency.

I had known M. de La Harpe in 1789: like Flins, he had become smitten
with a great passion for my sister, Madame la Comtesse de Farcy.
He used to come up with three large volumes of his works under his
little arms, quite astounded to find that his glory did not triumph
over the most rebellious hearts. Loud-voiced, and eager in manner,
he thundered against every abuse, ordered an omelette to be made
for him at the ministers' houses when the dinner had not been to his
taste, eating with his fingers, dragging his cuffs in the dishes,
talking philosophical scurrilities to the greatest lords, who doted
on his impertinences; but, when all was said, his was an upright
and enlightened mind, impartial amid all its passions, with a quick
sense for talent, capable of admiration, of shedding tears over fine
poetry or a fine action, and possessing a foundation fit to support
repentance. He was not wanting at the end; I saw him die the death
of a brave Christian, with his taste enlarged by religion, and
retaining no pride except as against impiety, no hatred except that of
"Revolutionary language[522]."

[Sidenote: Death of M. de La Harpe.]

On my return from the Emigration, religion had disposed M. de La Harpe
in favour of my works: the illness which attacked him did not prevent
him from working himself; he read me passages from a poem which he was
writing on the Revolution[523]; in it occurred notably some pithy lines
directed against the crimes of the age and the "worthy men" who had
permitted them:

    Mais s'ils ont tout osé, vous avez tout permis:
    Plus l'oppresseur est vil, plus l'esclave est infâme[524].

Forgetting that he was ill, dressed in a wadded spencer, with a white
cotton night-cap on his head, he recited with all his might; then,
dropping his copy-book, he said in a voice that hardly reached the ear:

"I can't go on; I feel a grip of iron in my side."

And if, unfortunately, a maid-servant should happen to pass by, he
would resume his stentorian voice and roar:

"Go away! Shut the door!"

I said to him one day:

"You will live for the good of religion."

"Ah, yes," he replied, "it would certainly be for God; but He does not
wish it, and I shall die within these few days."

Falling back into his chair, and drawing his night-cap over his ears,
he expiated his former pride by his present resignation and humility.

At a dinner at Migneret's, I had heard him speak of himself with
the greatest modesty, declaring that he had done nothing out of
the common, but that he believed that art and the language had not
degenerated in his hands.

M. de La Harpe quitted this life on the 11th of February 1803; the
author of the _Saisons_ died almost at the same time, fortified with
all the consolations of philosophy, as M. de La Harpe died fortified
with all the consolations of religion: the one was visited by men, the
other by God.

M. de La Harpe was buried on the 12th of February 1803 in the cemetery
at the Barrière de Vaugirard. The coffin was placed beside the grave
on the little mound of earth that was soon to cover it, and M. de
Fontanes delivered a funeral oration. It was a dismal scene: whirling
snow-flakes fell from the clouds and covered the pall with white, while
the wind blew it upwards, to allow the last words of friendship to
reach the ears of death. The cemetery has been destroyed and M. de La
Harpe disinterred: there was hardly anything left of his poor ashes.
M. de La Harpe had been married under the Directory, and had not been
happy with his beautiful wife; she had been seized with loathing at the
sight of him, and had persisted in refusing him any of his rights[525].

For the rest, M. de La Harpe, like everything else, had diminished
by the side of the Revolution, which was ever growing in dimensions:
reputations hastily shrank away before the representative of that
Revolution, even as dangers lost their power before him.

*

While we were engrossed with vulgar life and death, the gigantic
progress of the world was being realized; the Man of the Time was
taking the head of the table at the banquet of the human race. Amid
vast commotions, precursors of the universal displacement, I had landed
at Calais to bear my part in the general action, within the limits set
to each soldier. I arrived, in the first year of the century, at the
camp where Bonaparte was beating the destinies to arms: soon after, he
became First Consul for life.

After the adoption of the Concordat by the Legislative Body in 1802,
Lucien, then Minister of the Interior, gave an entertainment to his
brother; I was invited, as having rallied the Christian forces and led
them back to the charge. I was in the gallery when Napoleon entered:
he struck me pleasantly; I had never seen him except at a distance.
His smile was beautiful and caressing; his eyes were admirable, owing
especially to the manner in which they were placed beneath his forehead
and framed in his eyebrows. There was as yet no charlatanism in his
glance, nothing theatrical or affected. The _Génie du Christianisme_,
which was then making a great stir, had worked upon Napoleon. A
prodigious imagination animated that so frigid politician: he would
not have been what he was, if the Muse had not been there; reason
but carried out the poet's ideas. All those men who lead the large
life are always a compound of two natures, for they must be capable
of inspiration and of action: one conceives the plan, the other
accomplishes it.

[Sidenote: The First Consul.]

Bonaparte saw me and recognised me, I know not by what. When he turned
in my direction no one knew whom he was making for; the ranks opened
successively; each hoped that the Consul would stop at him; he appeared
to feel a certain impatience with those misconceptions. I hid behind my
neighbours; suddenly Bonaparte raised his voice and said:

"Monsieur de Chateaubriand!"

I then remained standing out alone, for the crowd withdrew, and soon
formed again in a circle around the speakers. Bonaparte addressed
me with simplicity: without paying me any compliments, without idle
questions, without preamble, he spoke to me at once of Egypt and the
Arabs, as though I had been one of his intimates, and as though he were
only continuing a conversation already commenced between us.

"I was always much impressed," he said, "when I saw the sheiks fall on
their knees in the middle of the desert, turn towards the East, and
touch the sand with their foreheads. What was that unknown thing which
they worshipped in the East?"

Bonaparte interrupted himself and broached another idea without any
transition:

"Christianity! Have not the ideologists tried to make a system of
astronomy of it? And if that should be so, do they think they can
persuade me that Christianity is small? If Christianity is the allegory
of the movement of the spheres, the geometry of the stars, the
free-thinkers may say what they please: in spite of themselves, they
have still left tolerable greatness to 'the infamous thing.'"

Incontinently Bonaparte moved away. As with Job, in my night "a spirit
passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up. There stood one whose
countenance I knew not ... and I heard the voice as it were of a
gentle wind[526]."

My days have been but a series of visions; Hell and Heaven have
continually opened up beneath my feet or over my head, without giving
me time to explore their darkness or their light. One single time, on
the shore of the two worlds, I met the man of the last and the man of
the new century: Washington and Napoleon. I conversed for a moment with
each; both sent me back to solitude: the first through a kindly wish,
the second through a crime.

I observed that, when going round among the crowd, Bonaparte cast
deeper glances on me than those which he had fixed upon me while
talking to me. I too followed him with my eyes:

    Chi è quel grande che non par che curi
    L'incendio[527]?

In consequence of this interview, Bonaparte thought of me for Rome:
he had decided at a glance where and how I could be of use to him. It
mattered little to him that I had no experience of public affairs, that
I was entirely unacquainted with practical diplomacy; he believed that
a given mind always understands and has no need of apprenticeship. He
was a great discoverer of men: but he wished them to possess talent
only for him, and even then on condition that that talent was not much
discussed; jealous of every renown, he regarded it as an usurpation
over his own: there was to be none save Napoleon in the universe.

Fontanes and Madame Bacciochi spoke to me of the pleasure the Consul
had found in "my conversation:" I had not opened my mouth; that meant
that Bonaparte was pleased with himself. They urged me to avail myself
of fortune. The idea of being anything had never occurred to me; I
flatly refused. Then they persuaded an authority to speak whom it was
difficult for me to resist.

The Abbé Émery[528], the superior of the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice,
came and entreated me, in the name of the clergy, to accept, for
the good of religion, the post of first secretary to the embassy
which Bonaparte had reserved for his uncle, Cardinal Fesch[529]. He
gave me to understand that the cardinal's intelligence was not very
remarkable and that I should soon find myself the master of affairs.
A singular chance had brought me into connection with the Abbé Émery:
I had crossed to the United States with the Abbé Nagat and several
seminarists, as you know. That remembrance of my obscurity, my youth,
my life as a traveller, which reflected itself in my public life,
seized hold of my imagination and my heart. The Abbé Émery, who was
esteemed by Bonaparte, was subtle by nature and by reason of his cloth
and of the Revolution; but he used that threefold subtlety only on
behalf of his true merit; ambitious only to do good, he acted only in
the most prosperous circle of a seminary. Circumspect as he was in his
actions and words, it would have been superfluous to do violence to the
Abbé Émery, for he always held his life at your disposal, in exchange
for his will, which he never surrendered: his strength lay in waiting
for you, seated on his tomb.

[Sidenote: I am sent to Rome.]

He failed in his first attempt; he returned to the charge, and his
patience ended by persuading me. I accepted the place which he had
been commissioned to offer me, without being in the smallest degree
convinced of my usefulness in the post to which I was called: I am no
good at all in the second rank. I might perhaps have again withdrawn,
if the thought of Madame de Beaumont had not come to put an end to my
scruples. M. de Montmorin's daughter was dying; she had been told that
the climate of Italy would be favourable to her; if I went to Rome she
would make up her mind to cross the Alps. I sacrificed myself to the
hope of saving her. Madame de Chateaubriand prepared to come to join
me; M. Joubert spoke of accompanying her; and Madame de Beaumont set
out for Mont-Dore[530], in order afterwards to complete her cure on the
banks of the Tiber.

M. de Talleyrand[531] occupied the Ministry for Foreign Affairs; he
sent me my nomination. I dined with him: he has always maintained in
my mind the place which he occupied at our first meeting. For the
rest, his fine manners made a contrast with those of the ruffians of
his environment; his profligacy assumed an astounding importance: in
the eyes of a brutal gang, moral corruption seemed genius, frivolity
profundity. The Revolution was over-modest; it did not sufficiently
appreciate its superiority: it is not the same thing to stand above
crimes or beneath them.

I saw the ecclesiastics attached to the cardinal's person; I remarked
the gay Abbé de Bonnevie[532]: formerly, in his capacity as chaplain
to the Army of the Princes, he had taken part in the retreat from
Verdun; he had also been grand-vicar to the Bishop of Châlons, M. de
Clermont-Tonnerre[533], who set out behind us in order to claim a
pension from the Holy See, in his quality as a "Chiaramonte[534]." So
soon as my preparations were completed I started: I was to precede
Napoleon's uncle to Rome.

*

In Lyons I again saw my friend M. Ballanche. I witnessed the revival of
Corpus Christi: I felt as though I had in some way contributed to those
posies of flowers, to that joy of Heaven which I had called back to
earth.

I continued my journey, finding a cordial welcome wherever I went:
my name was linked with the restoration of the altars. The keenest
pleasure which I have experienced has been to feel myself honoured in
France and abroad with marks of serious interest. It has sometimes
happened that, while resting in a village inn, I saw a father and
mother enter with their son: they told me they were bringing their
child to thank me. Was it self-conceit that then gave me the pleasure
of which I speak? How did it affect my vanity that lowly and honest
people should give me a token of their satisfaction on the high-road,
in a place where none overheard them? What did touch me, at least I
venture to think so, was that I had done some little good, consoled
a few distressed, caused the hope to revive in a mother's yearnings
of bringing up a Christian son: that is to say, a submissive son,
respectful, attached to his parents. Should I have tasted this pure joy
if I had written a book which morals or religion would have had cause
to bewail?

[Sidenote: My journey to Rome.]

The road is somewhat dreary on leaving Lyons: after leaving the
Tour-du-Pin, as far as Pont-de-Beauvoisin, it is shady and wooded. At
Chambéry, where Bayard's chivalrous soul showed itself so fine, a man
was welcomed by a woman, and by way of payment for the hospitality
received at her hands, thought himself philosophically obliged to
dishonour her. That is the danger of literature: the desire to make
a stir gets the better of generous sentiment; if Rousseau had never
become a celebrated writer, he would have buried in the valleys of
Savoy the frailties of the woman who had fed him; he would have
sacrificed himself to the very faults of his friend; he would have
relieved her in her old age, instead of contenting himself with giving
her a snuff-box and running away. Ah, may the voice of friendship
betrayed never be raised against our tombstones!

After passing Chambéry, one comes to the stream of the Isère. On every
hand, in the valleys, one meets with road-side crosses and lady-statues
fixed in the trunks of the pine-trees. The little churches, surrounded
with trees, form a touching contrast with the great mountains. When the
winter whirlwinds come sweeping down from those ice-laden summits, the
Savoyard takes shelter in his rustic temple and prays.

The valleys which one enters above Montmélian are hemmed by mountains
of different shapes, sometimes half bare, sometimes clad in forests.
Aiguebelle seems to shut in the Alps; but, on turning round an isolated
rock, fallen in the middle of the road, you catch sight of new valleys
attached to the course of the Arc. The mountains on either side stand
erect; their flanks become perpendicular; their barren summits begin to
display a few glaciers: torrents come rushing down to swell the Arc,
which runs madly along. Amid this tumult of the waters, one remarks
a light cascade which falls with infinite grace beneath a curtain of
willows.

After crossing Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne I arrived towards sunset at
Saint-Michel, and found no horses. I was obliged to stop, and went for
a stroll outside the village. The air became transparent on the ridge
of the mountains; their denticulation was outlined with extraordinary
clearness, while a great darkness, issuing from their feet, rose
towards their crests. The note of the nightingale was heard below, the
cry of the eagle above; the blossoming lote-tree stood in the valley,
the white snow on the mountain. A castle, popularly believed to be the
work of the Carthaginians, showed upon the sheer-cut redan. There,
incorporated with the rock, had stood one man's hatred, overcoming all
obstacles. The vengeance of the human race weighed down upon a free
people, which was able to build its greatness only with the slavery and
blood of the rest of the world.

I left at day-break and arrived at about two o'clock in the afternoon
at Lans-le-Bourg, at the foot of Mont Cenis. On entering the village,
I saw a peasant who held an eaglet by the feet; a pitiless band struck
the young king, insulted his youthful weakness and fallen majesty; the
father and mother of the noble orphan had been killed. They offered
to sell him to me: he died of the ill-treatment to which he had been
subjected before I was able to deliver him. I then remembered poor
little Louis XVII.; to-day I think of Henry V.: what swiftness of
downfall and misfortune!

Here one begins to ascend Mont Cenis and leave the little River Arc,
which brings you to the foot of the mountain. On the other side of Mont
Cenis, the Dora opens the entrance of Italy to you. Rivers are not only
"moving high-roads," as Pascal calls them, but they also mark the road
for men.

Standing for the first time on the summit of the Alps, I was seized
with a strange emotion. I was like the lark which had just crossed
the frozen upland, and which, after singing its little burden of the
plains, had alighted amid the snows, instead of dropping down upon the
harvest. The stanzas with which those mountains inspired me in 1822
reflect with some accuracy my feeling on the same spot in 1803:

    Alpes, vous n'avez point subi mes destinées!
       Le temps ne vous peut rien;
    Vos fronts légèrement ont porté les années
       Qui pèsent sur le mien.

    Pour la première fois, quand, rempli d'espérance,
       Je franchis vos remparts,
    Ainsi que l'horizon, un avenir immense
       S'ouvrait à mes regards.

    L'Italie à mes pieds, et devant moi le monde[535]!

That world, have I really penetrated into it? Christopher Columbus saw
an apparition which showed him the land of his dreams before he had
discovered it; Vasco de Gama met the giant of the storms on his road:
which of those two great men presaged my future? What I should have
loved above all would have been a life glorious through a brilliant
result, and obscure through its destiny. Do you know which were the
first European ashes to rest in America? They were those of Bjorn the
Scandinavian: he died on landing at Winland, and was buried by his
companions on a promontory. Who knows that[536]? Who knows of him whose
sail preceded the vessel of the Genoese pilot to the New World? Bjorn
sleeps on the point of an unknown cape, and since a thousand years his
name has been handed down to us only by the sagas of the poets, in a
language no longer spoken.

*

[Sidenote: Italy.]

I had begun my wanderings in an opposite direction to that of other
travellers. The old forests of America had displayed themselves to
me before the old cities of Europe. I happened upon the latter when
they were at the same time renewing their youth and dying in a fresh
revolution. Milan was occupied by our troops; they were completing the
demolition of the castle, that witness to the wars of the Middle Ages.

The French army was settling in the plains of Lombardy as a military
colony. Guarded here and there by their comrades on sentry, these
strangers from Gaul, with forage-caps on their heads and sabres by way
of reaping-hooks over their round jackets, presented the appearance
of gay and eager harvesters. They moved stones, rolled guns, drove
waggons, ran up sheds and huts of brushwood. Horses pranced, curveted,
reared among the crowd, like dogs fawning on their masters. Italian
women sold fruit on their flat baskets at the market of that armed
fair; our soldiers made them presents of their pipes and steels, saying
to them as the ancient barbarians, their ancestors, said to their
beloved:

"I, Fotrad, son of Eupert, of the race of the Franks, give to
thee, Helgine, my dear wife, in honour of thy beauty (_in honore
pulchritudinis tuæ_), my dwelling in the quarter of the Pines[537]."

We are curious enemies: we are at first considered rather insolent,
rather too gay, too restless; but we have no sooner turned our backs
than we are regretted. Lively, witty, intelligent, the French soldier
mixes in the occupations of the inhabitant on whom he is billeted: he
draws water at the well, as Moses did for the daughters of Madian,
drives away the shepherds, takes the lambs to the washing-place, chops
the wood, lights the fire, watches the pot, carries the baby in his
arms, or sends it to sleep in its cradle. His good humour and activity
put life into everything; one grows to look upon him as a conscript of
the family. Does the drum beat? The lodger runs to his musket, leaves
his host's daughters weeping on the threshold, and quits the cabin of
which he will never think again until he is admitted to the Invalides.

On my passage through Milan, a great people aroused was for a moment
opening its eyes. Italy was recovering from her sleep, and remembering
her genius as it were a heavenly dream: useful to our reviving
country, she brought to the shabbiness of our poverty the grandeur
of the Transalpine nature, nurtured as she was, that Ausonia, on the
master-pieces of the arts and the lofty reminiscences of the famous
motherland. Austria has come; she has again laid her cloak of lead
over the Italians; she has forced them back into their coffin. Rome
has re-entered her ruins, Venice her sea. Venice sank down, while
beautifying the sky with her last smile; she set all charming in her
waves, like a star doomed to rise no more.

General Murat was in command at Milan. I had a letter for him from
Madame Bacciochi. I spent the day with the aides-de-camp; these were
not so poor as my comrades before Thionville. French politeness
reappeared under arms; it was bent upon showing that it still belonged
to the days of Lautrec[538].

I dined in state, on the 23rd of June, with M. de Melzi[539], on the
occasion of the christening of a son of General Murat[540]. M. de
Melzi had known my brother; the manners of the Vice-President of the
Cisalpine Republic were distinguished; his household resembled that of
a prince who had never been anything else. He treated me politely and
coldly; he found me in exactly the same disposition as himself.

[Sidenote: First glimpses of Rome.]

I reached my destination on the evening of the 27th of June, the day
before the eve of St. Peter's Day[541]. The Prince of Apostles was
awaiting me, even as my indigent patron[542] received me since at
Jerusalem. I had followed the road of Florence, Siena, and Radicofani.
I hastened to go to call upon M. Cacault[543], whom Cardinal Fesch was
succeeding, while I was replacing M. Artaud[544].

On the 28th of June, I ran about all day, and cast a first glance upon
the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Trajan Column, and the Castle of St.
Angelo. In the evening, M. Artaud took me to a ball at a house in the
neighbourhood of the Piazza San-Pietro. One saw the fiery girandole of
the dome of Michael Angelo in between the whirling waltzes spinning
before the open windows; the rockets of the fireworks on the Molo
d'Adriano spread out brilliantly at Sant' Onofrio, over Tasso's tomb:
silence, solitude and night filled the Roman Campagna.

The next day, I assisted at the St. Peter's Mass. Pius VII.[545], pale,
sad and religious, was the real pontiff of tribulations. Two days later
I was presented to His Holiness: he made me sit beside him. A volume
of the _Génie du Christianisme_ lay open, in an obliging fashion, upon
his table. Cardinal Consalvi[546], supple and firm, gently and politely
resistant, was the living embodiment of the old Roman policy, minus the
faith of those days and plus the tolerance of the century.

When going through the Vatican, I stopped to contemplate those
staircases which one can ascend on mule-back, those sloping galleries
folding one upon the other, adorned with master-pieces, along which
the popes of old used to pass with all their pomp, those _loggie_
decorated by so many immortal artists, admired by so many illustrious
men, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, Montaigne, Milton, Montesquieu, and
queens and kings, mighty or fallen, and a whole people of pilgrims from
the four quarters of the globe: all that now without movement or sound;
a theatre whose deserted tiers, open to solitude alone, are scarce
visited by a ray of the sun.

I had been advised to take a walk by moonlight: from the top of the
Trinità-del-Monte, the distant buildings looked like a painter's
sketches or like softened coast-lines seen from the deck of a ship at
sea. The orb of night, that globe supposed to be an extinct world,
turned its pale deserts above the deserts of Rome; it cast its light
upon streets without inhabitants, closes, squares, gardens where none
passed, monasteries where the voices of the cenobites were no longer
heard, cloisters as mute and desolate as the porticoes of the Coliseum.

What happened, eighteen centuries ago, at this very hour and in this
very spot? What men have here crossed the shadow of those obelisks,
after that shadow had ceased to fall upon the sands of Egypt? Not
only is Ancient Italy no more, but the Italy of the Middle Ages has
disappeared. Nevertheless, traces of the two Italies still linger in
the Eternal City: where modern Rome shows its St. Peter's and its
master-pieces, ancient Rome boasts its Pantheon and its remains;
where, on the one hand, the consuls walked down from the Capitol, on
the other, the pontiffs issued from the Vatican. The Tiber separates
the two glories: seated in the same dust, pagan Rome sinks deeper
and deeper into its tombs, and Christian Rome glides slowly into its
catacombs.

*

Cardinal Fesch had hired the Palazzo Lancelotti, not far from the
Tiber: I have since seen the Principessa Lancelotti there, in 1828.
The top floor of the palace was allotted to me; when I entered, so
large a number of fleas hopped on to my legs that my white trousers
were quite black with them. The Abbé de Bonnevie and I did the best
we could to get our lodging washed down. I had a feeling as though I
had returned to my kennel in the New Road; this memory of my poverty
was not altogether unpleasant. Once settled in this diplomatic corner,
I began to deliver pass-ports and to busy myself with functions of
similar importance. My handwriting was an obstacle to my talents, and
Cardinal Fesch shrugged his shoulders whenever he saw my signature. As
I had almost nothing to do in my aerial chamber, I looked across the
roofs at some washing-girls in a neighbouring house, who made signs to
me; a future opera-singer, practising her voice, persecuted me with her
everlasting _solfeggio_; I was happy when some funeral passed by for a
change! From my lofty window I saw, in the abyss of the street below,
the convoy of a young mother: she was carried, her face uncovered,
between two files of white pilgrims; her new-born babe, dead too and
crowned with flowers, lay at her feet.

[Sidenote: My work at the embassy.]

I committed a great mistake: I very innocently believed it my duty to
call upon illustrious personages; I coolly went and paid the tribute of
my respects to the ex-King of Sardinia[547]. This unusual proceeding
caused a terrible hubbub; the diplomatists all drew themselves up.

"He is lost! he is lost!" whispered all the train-bearers and
_attachés_, with the charitable pleasure which men take in the mishaps
of any of their fellow-creatures. No diplomatic dunce but thought
himself superior to me by the full height of his stupidity. Every
one hoped for my fall, notwithstanding that I was nobody and counted
as nobody; no matter, it was some one who fell, and that is always
agreeable. I, in my simplicity, had no notion of my crime, nor, as ever
since, would I have given a straw for any place whatever. Kings, to
whom I was believed to attach so great an importance, had in my eyes
only that of misfortune. My shocking blunders were reported from Rome
to Paris: luckily I had to do with Bonaparte; what should have been my
ruin saved me.

However, if at once and at the first leap to become First Secretary
of Embassy under a prince of the Church, an uncle of Napoleon, seemed
something, it was nevertheless as though I had been a copying-clerk in
a prefect's office. In the contests that were at hand, I might have
found work; but I was initiated into no mysteries. I was perfectly
satisfied to be set to the litigious business of the _chancellerie_:
but what was the use of wasting my time over details within the
capacity of all the clerks?

On returning from my long walks and my rambles along the Tiber, all
that I found to interest me was the cardinal's parsimonious worrying,
the heraldic boasting of the Bishop of Châlons, and the incredible
lying of the future Bishop of Morocco[548]. The Abbé Guillon, taking
advantage of a similarity between his name and one almost identical
in sound, pretended that he was the man who, after escaping by a
miracle from the massacre at the Carmes, gave absolution to Madame de
Lamballe[549] at the Force. He bragged that he had been the author of
Robespierre's speech to the Supreme Being. I bet one day that I would
make him say that he had been to Russia: he did not quite agree to
this, but he modestly confessed that he had spent a few months in St.
Petersburg.

M. de La Maisonfort[550], a man of intelligence, then in hiding,
applied to me for assistance, and soon M. Bertin the Elder[551],
proprietor of the _Débats_, helped me with his friendly offices in a
painful circumstance. Exiled to the island of Elba by the man who, when
himself returned from Elba, drove him to Ghent, M. Bertin, in 1803, had
obtained from the Republican M. Briot[552], whom I have known, leave
to complete his exile in Italy. With him I visited the ruins of Rome,
and was present at the death of Madame de Beaumont: two things which
have connected his life with mine. A refined critic, he gave me, as
did his brother, excellent advice about my works. Had he been elected
to Parliament, he would have shown a real talent for oratory. He had
long been a Legitimist, had undergone the trial of imprisonment in the
Temple and transportation to Elba, and his principles have in reality
remained the same. I will be true to the companion of my sad days; it
would be paying too high a price for all the political opinions of the
world to sacrifice one hour of sincere friendship: it is enough that
my opinions will never vary, and that I shall remain attached to my
memories.

[Sidenote: The Princesse Borghèse.]

About the middle of my stay in Rome, the Princesse Borghèse[553]
arrived; I had some shoes to deliver to her from Paris. I was
presented to her; she made her toilet in my presence; the slippers
which she put on her young and pretty feet were but for a moment to
tread this ancient soil.

At last a sorrow came to give me occupation: we can always rely upon
that resource.

*

At the time of my departure from France we had greatly blinded
ourselves regarding Madame de Beaumont's condition; she cried much,
and her will has proved that she believed herself to be condemned.
Nevertheless her friends, refraining from communicating their fears
to one another, sought to console each other; they believed in the
miraculous powers of the waters, to be perfected later by the Italian
sun; they separated and took different roads; appointments were made in
Rome.

Fragments written by Madame de Beaumont in Paris, at Mont-Dore, in
Rome, and discovered among her papers, display her state of mind:

    "PARIS.

    "For some years past my health has been perceptibly
    declining. Symptoms which I thought to be the signal for
    departure have supervened before I am ready to depart. The
    illusions increase as the illness progresses. I have seen
    many examples of that singular weakness, and I perceive that
    they will avail me nothing. Already I find myself taking
    remedies which are as irksome as they are insignificant, and
    I shall doubtless have no greater strength to protect myself
    against the cruel remedies with which they never fail to
    martyrize those condemned to die of consumption. Like the
    others, I shall abandon myself to hope: to hope! Can I, then,
    wish to live? My past life has been a series of misfortunes,
    my present life is full of excitements and disturbances:
    peace of mind has fled from me for ever. My death would be a
    momentary sorrow to a few, a boon to others, and the greatest
    of boons to myself.

    "This 21st of Floréal, 10 May, is the anniversary of the
    death of my mother and brother:

    Je péris la dernière et la plus misérable[554]!

    [Sidenote: Illness of madame de Beaumont.]

    "Oh, why have I not the courage to die? This illness,
    which I was almost weak enough to dread, has subsided, and
    perhaps I am condemned still to live long; it seems to me,
    nevertheless, that I would gladly die:

    Mes jours ne valent pas qu'il m'en coûte un soupir[555].

    "None has more cause than I to complain of nature: by
    refusing me everything, it has given me the sense of all
    I lack. At every moment I feel the weight of the complete
    mediocrity to which I am condemned. I know that self-content
    and happiness are often the price of this mediocrity of which
    I complain so bitterly; but by not adding to it the gift of
    illusion, nature, in my case, has turned it into a torture.
    I am like a fallen creature who cannot forget what he has
    lost, and who has not the force to recover it. That absolute
    lack of illusion, and hence of enthusiasm, is the cause of my
    unhappiness in a thousand ways. I judge myself as a stranger
    might do, and I see my friends as they are. My only value
    lies in an extreme kindness of heart, which is not active
    enough to command appreciation, nor to be of any real use,
    and which loses all its charm owing to the impatience of my
    character: my suffering from the misfortunes of others is
    greater than my power to relieve them. Nevertheless, I owe to
    it the few real joys that have occurred in my life; I owe to
    it especially my ignorance of envy, the common attribute of
    conscious mediocrity."

    "MONT DORE.

    "I had intended to enter into a few details concerning
    myself, but _ennui_ causes the pen to drop from my fingers.

    "All the bitterness and painfulness of my position would
    change to happiness if I were sure that I had but a few
    months to live.

    "Even if I had the strength myself to end my sorrows in
    the only possible way, I should not exert it: it would
    be defeating my own intention, showing the measure of my
    suffering, and leaving too grievous a wound in the heart
    which I have deemed worthy to sustain me in my trials.

    "I 'beseech myself in tears' to take a step which is as
    rigorous as it is inevitable. Charlotte Corday says that
    'every act of self-sacrifice bestows more pleasure in the
    execution than it has cost pain in the conception;' but her
    death was near at hand, and I may still live long. What will
    become of me? Where can I hide? What tomb shall I choose? How
    can I shut out hope? What power can block up the door?

    "To go away in silence, to court oblivion, to bury myself
    for ever, that is the duty laid upon me which I hope to have
    the courage to fulfill. If the cup is too bitter, once I am
    forgotten, nothing can compel me to empty it to the dregs,
    and who knows but my life may, after all, not be so long as I
    fear.

    "If I had decided upon the place of my retirement, I believe
    I should be more calm; but the difficulty of the moment adds
    to the difficulties that arise from my weakness, and it
    requires something supernatural to act against one's self
    with vigour, to treat one's self as harshly as a violent and
    cruel enemy could do."

    "ROME, 28 _October._

    "During the past ten months I have never ceased to suffer.
    During the last six, all the symptoms of consumption, and
    some in the last degree: I lack only the illusions, and maybe
    I have some!"

M. Joubert, alarmed at this desire for death which was torturing Madame
de Beaumont, addressed these words to her in his _Pensées_:

    "Love life and respect it, if not for its own sake, at least
    for that of your friends. In whatever state your own may
    be, I shall always prefer to know that you are occupied in
    spinning it out rather than in tearing it to pieces."

At the same time my sister was writing to Madame de Beaumont. I have
the correspondence, which death placed in my hands. The poetry of the
ancients pictures one of the Nereids as a flower floating on the deep;
Lucile was that flower. In comparing her letters with the fragments
just quoted, one is struck by the similarity of heart-heaviness
expressed in the different language of those unhappy angels. When I
think that I have lived in the company of such minds as those, I am
surprised at my own insignificance. My eyes never light without bitter
grief upon those pages written by two superlative women, who vanished
from this earth at a short distance one from the other.

    "LASCARDAIS, 30 _July._

    "I was so much charmed, madame, at last to receive a letter
    from you that I did not allow myself the time to have the
    pleasure of reading it through at once: I interrupted its
    perusal to go and tell all the inmates of this house that I
    had heard from you, without considering that my gladness is
    of but little importance here, and that hardly anyone even
    knows that I am in correspondence with you. Seeing that I was
    surrounded by indifferent faces, I went back to my room, and
    determined to be glad by myself. I sat down to finish reading
    your letter, and, although I have read it over many times,
    in truth, madame, I do not know the whole contents. The joy
    which I constantly feel at the sight of this so long desired
    letter interferes with the attention which I ought to give to
    it.

    [Sidenote: Letters from Lucile.]

    "And so you are going away, madame? Do not, once you have
    reached Mont-Dore, forget your health; give it all your care,
    I entreat you, with all the fervour and affection of my
    heart. My brother has written to me that he hopes to see you
    in Italy. Fate and nature alike are pleased to distinguish
    him from me in a very favourable manner. But at least I will
    not yield to my brother the happiness of loving you: that I
    will share with him all my life. Alas, madame, how oppressed
    and downcast is my heart! You cannot know the good your
    letters do me, the contempt with which they inspire me for my
    ills! The idea that you think of me, that you are interested
    in me, exalts my courage extraordinarily. Write to me
    therefore, madame, so that I may cherish an idea so essential
    to me.

    "I have not yet seen M. Chênedollé; I long greatly for
    his arrival. I shall be able to tell him of you and of M.
    Joubert: that will be a great pleasure to me. Allow me,
    madame, once more to urge you to think of your health, the
    bad condition of which incessantly afflicts me and occupies
    my thoughts. How can you not love yourself? You are so
    lovable and so dear to all: have the justice, then, to do
    much for yourself.

    "LUCILE."

    "2 _September._

    "What you tell me, madame, of your health alarms and saddens
    me; however, I reassure myself by thinking of your youth and
    remembering that, although you are very delicate, you are
    full of life.

    "I am disconsolate at your being in a country which you do
    not like. I would wish to see you surrounded with objects
    calculated to distract and to cheer you. I hope that, when
    your health recovers, you will become reconciled to Auvergne:
    there is no spot incapable of presenting some beauty to such
    eyes as yours. I am now living at Rennes: my loneliness suits
    me fairly well. I change my residence frequently, madame, as
    you see; it looks much as though I were out of place on the
    earth: in reality, it is long since I first began to look
    upon myself as one of its superfluous products. I believe,
    madame, that I spoke to you of my sorrows and perturbations.
    At present, all that is over, and I enjoy an inward peace of
    which none has it any longer in his power to rob me. In spite
    of my age, having, through circumstances and taste, almost
    constantly led a solitary life, I knew nothing whatever,
    madame, of the world: I have at last made that disagreeable
    acquaintance. Fortunately, reflection came to my aid. I asked
    myself in what way that world could be so formidable and
    where lay the worth of a world which can never, in evil and
    good alike, be aught but an object of pity. Is it not true,
    madame, that man's judgment is as shallow as the rest of his
    being, as changeable and of an incredulity as great as its
    ignorance? All these reasons, good or bad, have enabled me
    to fling behind me with ease the fantastic garment in which
    I had arrayed myself. I found myself full of sincerity and
    strength; I am no longer capable of being troubled. I am
    working with all my might to recover possession of my life,
    to obtain entire control of it.

    "You must also, madame, believe that I am not too much to
    be pitied, since my brother, the best part of myself, is
    agreeably placed, and since I have eyes left with which to
    admire the marvels of nature, God for my support, and for an
    asylum a heart full of peace and gentle memories. If you have
    the kindness, madame, to continue to write to me, that will
    be a great added happiness to me."

*

Mystery of style, a mystery everywhere perceptible, nowhere present;
the revelation of a painfully privileged nature; the ingenuousness of
a girl whom one might imagine to be in her first youth; and the humble
simplicity of a genius unaware of its own power, all breathe out of
these letters, a large number of which I have suppressed. Did Madame
de Sévigné write to Madame de Grignan with a more grateful affection
than Madame de Caud to Madame de Beaumont? "Her tenderness might well
pretend to keep pace with her own." My sister loved my friend with all
the passion of the tomb, for she felt that she was going to die. Lucile
had hardly ever left the neighbourhood of the Rochers[556]; but she was
the daughter of her century and the Sévigné of solitude.

*

A letter from M. Ballanche, dated 30 Fructidor, informed me of the
arrival of Madame de Beaumont, who had come from Mont Dore on her
way to Italy. He told me that I need not fear the misfortune which I
dreaded, and that the health of the sufferer seemed to be improving. On
reaching Milan, Madame de Beaumont met M. Bertin, who had been called
there on business: he had the kindness to take charge of the poor
traveller and to escort her to Florence, where I had gone to meet her.
I was shocked at the sight of her. She had but sufficient strength left
to smile. After a few days' rest, we left for Rome, travelling at a
foot-pace, in order to avoid the jolting. Madame de Beaumont received
assiduous attentions everywhere: a charm interested you in this lovable
woman, so suffering and so forlorn. The very maids at the inns gave way
to this sweet commiseration.

[Sidenote: Mournful days.]

My feelings may be easily guessed: we have all accompanied friends to
the grave, but they were mute, and no remnant of inexplicable hope came
to render your sorrow more keen. I no longer saw the fine landscape
through which we passed. I had taken the Perugian road: what was Italy
to me? I still thought her climate too severe, and, if the wind blew
ever so little, its breezes seemed storms to me. At Terni, Madame de
Beaumont spoke of going to see the cascade; she made an effort to lean
on my arm, and sat down again, saying:

"We must leave the waters to flow without us."

I had hired for her in Rome a lonely house near the Piazza d'Espagna,
at the foot of the Monte Pincio[557]; it had a little garden with
orange-trees growing against the walls, and a court-yard in which stood
a fig-tree. There I set down my dying charge. I had had much difficulty
in procuring this retreat, for there is a prejudice in Rome against
diseases of the chest, which are considered as infectious.

At that period of the revival of social order, all that had belonged
to the old monarchy was sought after. The Pope sent to inquire after
the daughter of M. de Montmorin; Cardinal Consalvi and the members
of the Sacred College followed His Holiness' example; Cardinal Fesch
himself showed Madame de Beaumont, to the day of her death, marks of
deference and respect which I should not have expected of him. I had
written to M. Joubert of the anxiety with which I was torn before
Madame de Beaumont's arrival:

    "Our friend writes to me from Mont Dore," I said, "letters
    that shatter my soul: she says that she feels 'that there
    is no more oil in the lamp;' she speaks of 'the last throbs
    of her heart.' Why was she left alone on this journey? Why
    did you not write to her? What will become of us if we lose
    her? Who will console us for her? We realize the value of our
    friends only at the moment when we are threatened with their
    loss. We are even mad enough, when all is well, to think
    that we can leave them with impunity. Heaven punishes us; it
    snatches them from us, and we are appalled at the solitude
    which they leave around us. Forgive me, my dear Joubert:
    to-day I feel as though my heart were twenty years old; this
    Italy has made me young again; I love all that is dear to
    me with the same vehemence as in my early years. Sorrow is
    my element: I am myself again only when I am unhappy. My
    friends at present are of so rare a sort that the mere dread
    of seeing them taken from me freezes my blood. Bear with my
    lamentations: I am sure you are as unhappy as I. Write to me,
    and write also to that other Breton unfortunate."


At first, Madame de Beaumont felt a little relieved. The sufferer
herself began again to believe in her life. I had the satisfaction
of thinking that at least Madame de Beaumont would not leave me
again: I expected to take her to Naples in the spring, and from there
to send in my resignation to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. M.
d'Agincourt[558], that true philosopher, came to see the light bird
of passage, which had stopped at Rome before proceeding to the unknown
land; M. Boquet, already the oldest of our painters, called. These
relays of hope kept up the sufferer, and lulled her with an illusion
which at the bottom of her soul she no longer retained. Letters, cruel
to read, expressing hopes and fears, reached me from every side. On the
4th of October, Lucile wrote to me from Rennes:

*

[Sidenote: Letters from Lucile.]

    "I commenced a letter for you the other day; I have just made
    a useless search for it; in it I spoke to you of Madame de
    Beaumont, and complained of her silence towards me. Dear,
    what a sad, strange life I have led for some months! And the
    words of the prophet are constantly recurring to my mind: 'He
    will crown thee with tribulation, he will toss thee like a
    ball[559].' But let us leave my troubles and speak of your
    anxieties. I cannot persuade myself that they are justified.
    I always see Madame de Beaumont full of life and youth, and
    almost incorporeal; my heart can feel no foreboding where
    she is concerned. Heaven, which knows our feelings for her,
    will doubtless preserve her for us. Dear, we shall not lose
    her; I seem to have an inward sense that that is certain.
    I sincerely hope that, when you receive this letter, your
    anxiety will have disappeared. Tell her from me of all the
    real and tender interest I take in her; tell her that to
    me her memory is one of the most beautiful things in this
    world. Keep your promise and do not fail to let me have news
    of her as often as possible. Alas, what a long time will
    elapse before I receive a reply to this letter! How cruel a
    thing is distance! What makes you speak of your return to
    France? You are trying to humour me, you are deceiving me.
    Amid all my troubles there arises one sweet thought, that of
    your friendship, the thought that I exist in your memory in
    the shape in which it has pleased God to fashion me. Dear, I
    see no other safe shelter for me upon earth but your heart;
    I am a stranger and unknown to all the rest. Adieu, my poor
    brother. Shall I see you again? This idea does not present
    itself to my mind very distinctly. If you see me again, I
    fear you will find me quite out of my senses. Adieu, you to
    whom I owe so much! Adieu, unmixed felicity! O memories of my
    happy days, can you not now lighten a little my sad hours?

    "I am not one of those who exhaust all their sorrow at the
    moment of separation; each day adds to the grief which I feel
    at your absence and, if you were to stay in Rome a hundred
    years, you would not come to the end of that grief. In order
    to delude myself as to absence, not a day passes but I read
    some pages of your work: I make every effort to imagine that
    I hear you speak. My love for you is very natural: ever since
    our childhood you have been my protector and my friend; you
    have never cost me a tear, never made a friend but he has
    become mine. My kind brother, Heaven, which is pleased to
    make sport of all my other felicities, wills that I should
    find my happiness wholly in you, that I should trust myself
    to your heart. Give me news soon of Madame de Beaumont.
    Address your letters to me at Mademoiselle Lamotte's,
    although I do not know how long I shall be able to remain
    there. Since our last separation, I have always, where my
    house is concerned, been like a quicksand that gives way
    beneath my feet: assuredly to anyone who does not know me I
    must appear incomprehensible; nevertheless I vary only in
    form, for inwardly I remain constantly the same."


The song of the swan preparing to die was conveyed by me to the dying
swan: I was the echo of that last ineffable music!

*

[Sidenote: And Madame de Krüdener.]

Another letter, very different from the above, but written by a woman
who has played an extraordinary part, Madame de Krüdener[560], shows
the empire which Madame de Beaumont, with no strength of beauty, fame,
power, or wealth, exercised over people's minds:

    "PARIS, 24 _November_ 1803.

    "I learnt two days ago from M. Michaud[561], who has returned
    from Lyons, that Madame de Beaumont was in Rome and that she
    was very, very ill: that is what he told me. I was deeply
    grieved by this; I had a nervous shock, and I thought a great
    deal of this charming woman, whom I had not known long,
    but whom I loved truly. How often have I wished for her
    happiness! How often have I hoped that she might cross the
    Alps and find beneath the sky of Italy the sweet and profound
    emotions which I myself have there experienced! Alas, can
    she have reached that delightful country only to know pain
    and to be exposed to dangers which I dread! I cannot tell
    you how this idea grieves me. Forgive me if I have been so
    much absorbed by this that I have not yet spoken to you of
    yourself, my dear Chateaubriand; you must know my sincere
    attachment for you, and to show you the genuine interest
    which I take in Madame de Beaumont is to touch you more than
    I should have done by writing of yourself. I have that sad
    spectacle before my eyes; I have the secret of sorrow, and
    my soul is always torn at the sight of those souls to which
    nature gives the power of suffering more than others. I had
    hoped that Madame de Beaumont would enjoy the privilege which
    she had received, of being happier; I had hoped that she
    would recover some little health with the sun of Italy and
    the happiness of having you by her side. Ah, reassure me,
    speak to me; tell her that I love her sincerely, that I pray
    for her! Has she had my letter written in reply to hers to
    Clermont? Address your answer to Michaud: I ask you only for
    one word, for I know, my dear Chateaubriand, how sensitive
    you are, and how you suffer. I thought she was better; I did
    not write to her; I was overwhelmed with business; but I
    thought of the happiness she would find in seeing you again,
    and I imagined how it would be. Tell me something of your own
    health; believe in my friendship, in the interest which I
    have vowed to you for ever, and do not forget me.

    "B. KRÜDENER."

The improvement which the air of Rome had produced in Madame
de Beaumont did not last: true, the indications of an immediate
dissolution disappeared; but it seems that the last moment always
lingers as it were to deceive us. Two or three times, I had tried the
effect of a drive with the patient; I strove to divert her thoughts
by pointing out the country and the sky to her: she no longer cared
for anything. One day I took her to the Coliseum: it was one of those
October days that are to be seen only in Rome. She contrived to alight,
and went and sat upon a stone facing one of the altars placed in
the circle. She raised her eyes and turned them slowly around those
porticoes which had themselves so many years been dead, and which had
seen so many die; the ruins were adorned with briers and columbines
saffroned by autumn and bathed in light. The dying woman next lowered
her eyes, which had left the sun, stage by stage, till they came to the
arena; she fixed them upon the altar cross, and said:

"Let us go; I am cold."

I took her home again; she went to bed and rose no more. I was in
correspondence with the Comte de La Luzerne[562]; I sent him from Rome,
by each mail, the bulletin of his sister-in-law's health. He had taken
my brother with him when Louis XVI. charged him with a diplomatic
mission to London: André Chénier was a member of this embassy.

The doctors, whom I called together again after the experiment of the
drive, declared to me that nothing but a miracle could save Madame de
Beaumont. She was impressed with the idea that she would not outlive
All Souls' Day, the 2nd of November; then she remembered that one of
her kinsmen, I do not know which, had died on the 4th of November. I
told her that her imagination was troubled; that she would come to see
the falsity of her alarms; she replied, to console me:

"Ah, yes, I shall go farther!"

She noticed a few tears which I was trying to conceal from her; she
held out her hand to me, and said:

"You are a child; were you not prepared for it?"

On the eve of her death, Thursday the 3rd of November, she seemed more
composed. She spoke to me of the disposal of her property, and said,
speaking of her will, "that all was settled, but that all had to be
done, and that she would have liked to have had only two hours in which
to see to it."

In the evening, the doctor told me that he felt obliged to warn the
sufferer that the time had come for her to think of setting her
conscience in order: I broke down for a minute; I was staggered by the
fear of hastening the few moments which Madame de Beaumont had still to
live by the formal preparations for death. I railed at the doctor, and
then entreated him to wait at least till the next day.

I passed a cruel night, with this secret locked in my bosom. The
patient did not permit me to spend it in her room. I remained outside,
trembling at every sound I heard: when the door was half opened, I
perceived the feeble gleam of an expiring night-light.

[Sidenote: The last scene.]

On Friday the 4th of November, I entered, followed by the doctor.
Madame de Beaumont observed my agitation, and said:

"Why do you look like that? I have had a good night."

The doctor thereupon intentionally told me aloud that he wished to
speak to me in the next room. I went out: when I returned, I no longer
knew if I lived. Madame de Beaumont asked me what the doctor wanted. I
flung myself at her bedside and burst into tears. She lay for a moment
without speaking, looked at me, and said in a firm voice, as though she
wished to give me strength:

"I did not think that it was quite so near; well, the time has come to
say good-bye. Send for the Abbé de Bonnevie."

The Abbé de Bonnevie, having obtained powers, went to Madame de
Beaumont. She told him that she had always had a deep religious feeling
at heart, but that the extraordinary misfortunes which had befallen
her during the Revolution had led her for some time to doubt the
justice of Providence; that she was ready to admit her errors and to
recommend herself to the eternal mercy; that she hoped, however, that
the ills which she had suffered in this world would shorten her time of
expiation in the next. She made a sign to me to withdraw, and remained
alone with her confessor.

I saw him come back an hour later, wiping his eyes, and saying that he
had never heard more beautiful language, nor seen such heroism. The
parish priest was sent for to administer the sacraments. I returned to
Madame de Beaumont. When she saw me, she asked:

"Well, are you pleased with me?"

She spoke feelingly of what she deigned to call "my kindness" to her:
ah, if I had at that moment been able to buy back a single one of her
days by the sacrifice of all my own, how gladly would I have done
so! Madame de Beaumont's other friends, who were not present at this
sight, had at all events but once to weep for her: whereas I stood at
the head of the bed of pain in which man hears his last hour strike,
and each smile of the patient restored me to life and made me lose it
again as it died away. One lamentable thought distracted me: I noticed
that Madame de Beaumont had not until her last breath suspected the
real attachment which I bore for her; she did not cease to show her
surprise, and she seemed to die disconsolate and charmed. She had
believed herself a burden to me, and had wished to go to set me free.

The priest arrived at eleven o'clock: the room filled with that
indifferent crowd of idlers which cannot be prevented from running
after the priest in Rome. Madame de Beaumont faced the formidable
solemnity without the least sign of fear. We fell upon our knees, and
the patient received Communion and Extreme Unction at once. When all
had retired, she made me sit on the edge of her bed and spoke to me for
half an hour of my affairs and of my plans with the greatest elevation
of mind and the most touching friendship; she urged me, above all, to
live with Madame de Chateaubriand and M. Joubert: but was M. Joubert
himself to live?

She asked me to open the window, as she felt oppressed. A sun-ray came
and lit up her bed: this seemed to cheer her. She then reminded me of
plans for retiring to the country which we had sometimes discussed, and
she began to cry.

Between two and three in the afternoon, Madame de Beaumont asked to be
changed to another bed by Madame Saint-Germain[563], an old Spanish
lady's-maid, who waited on her with the affection worthy of so kind
a mistress: the doctor forbade this, fearing lest Madame de Beaumont
might die during the moving. She then told me that she felt the agony
approach. Suddenly she flung back her blanket, held out her hand to me,
pressed mine convulsively; her eyes wandered. With her one free hand
she made signs to some one whom she saw standing at the foot of her
bed; then, bringing the hand back to her breast, she said:

"It is there!"

[Sidenote: Death of madame de Beaumont.]

Dismayed, I asked her if she knew me: a faint smile broke through her
delirium; she gave me a little nod of the head: her speech already was
no longer of this world. The convulsions lasted only a few minutes. We
supported her in our arms, the doctor, the nurse, and myself: one of my
hands lay upon her heart, which could be felt against her wasted frame;
it beat swiftly, like a clock winding off its broken chain. Oh, moment
of fear and horror, I felt it stop! We let down upon her pillow the
woman who had found rest; her head drooped. Some locks of her uncurled
hair fell over her forehead; her eyes were closed, night had set in for
ever. The doctor held a mirror and a light to the stranger's mouth: the
mirror was not dimmed with the breath of life and the light remained
unmoved. All was ended.

*

Generally those who weep are able to indulge their tears in peace;
there are others to take upon themselves to attend to the last cares
of religion: as representing for France the Cardinal Minister, then
absent, and as the sole friend of M. de Montmorin's daughter and
responsible to her family, I was obliged to superintend everything; I
had to fix the place of burial, to look after the depth and width of
the grave, to order the winding-sheet and to give the carpenter the
dimensions of the coffin.

Two monks watched by the coffin, which was to be carried to San Luigi
dei Francesi. One of these fathers was from Auvergne and a native of
Montmorin itself. Madame de Beaumont had expressed the wish to be
buried in a piece of cloth which her brother Auguste[564], the only
one to escape the scaffold, had sent her from the Mauritius. This
cloth was not in Rome; only a piece of it was found, which she always
carried with her. Madame Saint-Germain fastened this strip around the
body with a cornelian containing some of M. de Montmorin's hair. The
French ecclesiastics were invited; the Princesse Borghèse lent the
funeral car of her family; Cardinal Fesch had left orders, in case
of an accident but too clearly foreseen, to send his livery and his
carriages. On Saturday the 5th of November, at seven o'clock in the
evening, by the gleam of torch-light and amidst a large crowd, Madame
de Beaumont passed along the road where we have all to pass. On Sunday
the 6th of November, the burial mass was celebrated. The funeral would
have been less French in Paris than it was in Rome. That religious
architecture which displays in its ornaments the arms and inscriptions
of our ancient country; those tombs on which are inscribed the names of
some of the most historic families of our annals; that church, under
the protection of a great saint, a great king and a great man: all this
did not console misfortune, but honoured it. I had wished that the last
scion of a once exalted race should at least find some support in my
humble attachment, and that friendship should not fail it as fortune
had done.

The people of Rome, accustomed to strangers, accept them as brothers
and sisters. Madame de Beaumont left a pious memory behind her on
that soil so hospitable to the dead; she is still remembered: I have
seen Leo XII.[565] pray at her tomb[566]. In 1828[567], I visited the
monument of her who was the soul of a vanishing society; the sound of
my footsteps around this silent monument, in a lonely church, was a
warning to me:

"I shall always love thee," says the Greek epitaph; "but thou, among
the dead, drink not, I pray thee, of the cup which would cause thee to
forget thy former friends[568]."

If the calamities of a private life were to be measured by the scale
of public events, those calamities would hardly deserve a word in a
writer's Memoirs. Who has not lost a friend? Who has not seen him die?
Who could not recall a similar scene of mourning? The comment is just,
yet no one has ever corrected himself of telling his own adventures:
sailors on board the ship that carries them have a family on shore of
whom they think and of whom they talk with one another. Every man has
within himself a world apart, foreign to the laws and to the general
destinies of the ages. It is, moreover, a mistake to believe that
revolutions, famous accidents, resounding catastrophes are the only
records of our nature: we all labour singly at the chain of our common
history, and all these separate existences together compose man's
universe in the eyes of God.

[Sidenote: Letters of sympathy.]

To collect regrets around the ashes of Madame de Beaumont is but to lay
upon her tomb the wreaths intended for her:

    M. DE CHÊNEDOLLÉ TO CHATEAUBRIAND.

    "You can have no doubt, my dear', unhappy friend, of the
    great part which I take in your affliction. My grief is not
    so great as yours, because that is impossible; but I am very
    deeply afflicted by this loss, which darkens yet further this
    existence which for so long has been nothing but suffering to
    me. It is thus that all that is good, lovable and sensitive
    vanishes from the face of the earth. My poor friend, hasten
    back to France; come and seek consolation with your old
    friend. You know how well I love you: come.

    "I was excessively anxious about you: it was more than three
    months since I had heard from you, and three of my letters
    have remained unanswered. Have you received them? Madame de
    Caud suddenly ceased writing to me two months ago. This hurt
    me mortally, and yet I cannot think that I have done anything
    to offend her. But, whatever she may do, she can never take
    from me the fond and respectful friendship which I have vowed
    to her for life. Fontanes and Joubert also no longer write to
    me; so that all whom I loved seem to have combined to forget
    me at once. Do not you forget me, O my good friend: leave
    me one heart upon which I can rely in this vale of tears!
    Farewell, I embrace you weeping. Be sure, my good friend,
    that I feel your loss as it should be felt.

    "23 _November_ 1803."

    M. DE FONTANES TO CHATEAUBRIAND.

    "I share all your regrets, my dear friend: I feel the
    painfulness of your position. To die so young, and after
    outliving all her family! But, at any rate, that interesting
    and unhappy woman did not lack the help and the remembrance
    of friendship. Her memory will live in hearts worthy of her.
    I have forwarded to M. de La Luzerne the touching account
    intended for him. Old Saint-Germain, your friend's servant,
    has taken it with him. That faithful attendant made me shed
    tears when talking of his mistress. I told him that he
    had a legacy of ten thousand francs; but he did not give
    it a single thought. If it were possible to talk of money
    matters under such mournful circumstances, I would say that
    it would have been very natural to have given you at least
    the use of a fortune which will have to pass to distant and
    almost unknown collaterals[569]. I approve of your conduct;
    I know your delicacy; but I cannot be as disinterested for
    my friend as he is for himself. I confess that this omission
    surprises and pains me[570]. Madame de Beaumont spoke to you
    on her death-bed, with the eloquence of a last farewell,
    of the future and of your destinies. Her voice must needs
    have greater strength than mine. But did she advise you to
    throw up a salary of eight or ten thousand francs just when
    your path was cleared of its first thorns? Could you rashly,
    my dear friend, take so momentous a step? You know what a
    pleasure it would be to me to see you again. Were I only
    to consult my own happiness, I would say, 'Come at once.'
    But your interests are as dear to me as my own, and I see
    no immediate prospects for you which could make good the
    advantages which you are voluntarily surrendering. I know
    that your talents, your name and your industry will never
    leave you in want of the first necessities; but in all that
    I see more fame than fortune. Your education, your habits,
    demand some little expenditure. Reputation alone will not
    provide the wants of life, and the wretched science of 'bread
    and cheese' takes precedence of all others, if you want to be
    independent and at ease. I trust that nothing will persuade
    you to seek your fortune among foreigners. Believe me, my
    friend, after the first blandishments, they are worth even
    less than one's fellow-countrymen. If your loving friend
    made all these reflections, her last moments must have been
    somewhat disturbed; but I hope that, at the foot of her
    grave, you will find lessons and lights superior to any which
    your remaining friends could give you. That amiable woman
    loved you: she will advise you well. Her memory and your
    heart will be a safe guide to you: I have no more concern if
    you listen to them both. Adieu, my dear friend, I embrace you
    tenderly."

M. Necker wrote me the only letter which I ever received from him.
I had witnessed the delight of the Court at the dismissal of this
minister, the disregard of whose honest warnings contributed to the
overthrow of the monarchy. He had been M. de Montmorin's colleague. M.
Necker was shortly to die at the place whence his letter was dated; not
at that time having Madame de Staël by his side, he found some tears
for his daughter's friend:

[Sidenote: M. Necker, Madame de Staël.]

    M. NECKER TO CHATEAUBRIAND.

    "SIR,

    "My daughter, when setting out for Germany, asked me to
    open any packets of large size that might be addressed to
    her, so as to decide whether they were worth the trouble
    of forwarding by post. This is the reason of my learning
    the news of Madame de Beaumont's death before she does. I
    forwarded your letter to her, sir, at Frankfort, whence it
    will probably be sent on farther to her, perhaps to Weimar or
    Berlin. Do not, therefore, be surprised, sir, if you do not
    receive a reply from Madame de Staël as early as you have the
    right to expect. You must be assured, sir, of the grief which
    Madame de Staël will feel on hearing of the loss of a friend
    of whom I have always heard her speak with profound feeling.
    I join in her sorrow, I join, sir, in yours, and I have my
    own particular share when I think of the unhappy fate of the
    whole family of my friend M. de Montmorin.

    "I see, sir, that you are on the point of leaving Rome to
    return to France: I hope you will choose your road through
    Geneva, where I shall spend the winter. I should be very
    eager to do you the honours of a town where you are already
    known by reputation. But where, sir, are you not so known?
    Your last work, sparkling with incomparable beauties, is in
    the hands of all who love to read.

    "I have the honour, sir, to offer you the assurance and the
    homage of my most distinguished sentiments.

    "NECKER.

    "Coppet, 27 _November_ 1803."

    MADAME DE STAËL TO CHATEAUBRIAND.

    "FRANKFORT, 3 _December_ 1803.

    "Ah, Heavens, my dear Francis[571] with what sorrow was I
    smitten on receiving your letter! Already, yesterday, this
    frightful news was burst upon me through the papers, and now
    comes your heart-rending narrative to engrave it for ever in
    letters of blood on my heart. Can you, can you speak to me of
    different opinions on religion, on the priests? Are there two
    opinions where there is but one sentiment? I have read your
    account through the most sorrowful tears. My dear Francis,
    think of the time at which you felt the greatest friendship
    for me; above all, do not forget that at which my whole heart
    was drawn towards you, and tell yourself that those feelings,
    more tender, more profound than ever, remain for you at the
    bottom of my soul. I loved, I admired the character of Madame
    de Beaumont: I knew not one more generous, more grateful,
    more passionately sensitive. Since I first entered into
    the world, I never ceased to have relations with her, and
    I always felt, even in the midst of some differences, that
    we held together by the same roots. My dear Francis, give
    me a place in your heart. I admire you, I love you, I loved
    her whom you regret. I am a devoted friend, I will be a
    sister to you. I must respect your opinions more than ever.
    Matthieu[572], who holds them, has been an angel to me in
    this last sorrow which I have felt. Give me a new reason for
    showing them my consideration: let me be useful or agreeable
    to you in some way. Did you hear that I had been banished to
    a distance of forty leagues from Paris[573]? I have taken
    the occasion to go round Germany; but in the spring I shall
    have returned to Paris itself, if my exile be ended, or near
    Paris, or to Geneva. Arrange that, in some manner, we may
    meet. Do you not feel that my mind and my soul understand
    yours, and do you not feel wherein we resemble each other,
    notwithstanding the differences? M. de Humboldt[574] wrote me
    a letter a few days ago in which he spoke to me of your work
    with an admiration which must flatter you in a man of his
    merit and opinions. But why speak to you of your successes at
    such a moment? Yet she loved those successes of yours, and
    attached her own fame to them. Farewell, my dear François. I
    will write to you from Weimar, in Saxony. Write to me there,
    to the care of Messrs. Desport, bankers. What harrowing
    phrases your story contains! And then your resolve to keep
    poor Saint-Germain: you must bring her to my house one day.

    "Farewell, affectionately: and sorrowfully, farewell.

    "M. DE STAËL."


This eager and affectionately informal letter, written by an
illustrious woman, redoubled my emotion. Madame de Beaumont would have
been very happy at that moment had Heaven permitted her to return to
life! But our attachments, which are perceived by the dead, cannot free
them from their bonds: when Lazarus rose from the tomb he was bound
feet and hands with winding-bands, and his face was bound about with a
napkin; but friendship cannot say, as Christ said to Martha and Mary:

"Loose him and let him go[575]."

My consolers have also passed away, and they claim for themselves the
regrets which they gave to another.

*

[Sidenote: My grief.]

I had determined to leave this official career in which personal
misfortunes had come in addition to the triviality of the work and to
paltry political annoyances. One does not know what desolation of the
heart means until one has remained alone, wandering through spots once
inhabited by a person who accepted your life: you seek her and do not
find her; she speaks to you, smiles to you, accompanies you; all that
she has worn or touched presents her image; between her and you there
is only a transparent curtain, but so heavy that you cannot raise it.
The remembrance of the first friend who has left you on the road is a
cruel one; for if your days have been prolonged, you have necessarily
suffered other losses: the dead who have followed each other become
linked to the first, and you mourn at one time and in one person all
those whom you have successively lost.

At this distance from France, the arrangements which I was making
progressed slowly; meanwhile I remained forlorn among the ruins of
Rome. When I first walked out, the aspect of things seemed changed to
me: I did not recognise the trees, nor the monuments, nor the sky; I
wandered through the fields, along the cascades and aqueducts, as I
had done before beneath the overhanging forests of the New World. Then
I re-entered the Eternal City, which now added one more extinguished
life to so many spent existences. By dint of my many rambles in the
solitudes of the Tiber, they became so clearly engraved upon my memory
that I was able to describe them fairly accurately in my Letter to M.
de Fontanes[576]:

    "If the traveller be unhappy," I said, "if he have
    mingled the ashes that he loved with so many ashes of the
    illustrious, what a charm will he not find in passing from
    the tomb of Cæcilia Metella to the grave of an ill-fortuned
    woman!"


It was also in Rome that I first formed the idea of writing the Memoirs
of my Life; I find a few lines jotted down at random, from which I
decipher these few words:

    "After wandering over the world, spending the best years of
    my youth far from my native land, and suffering nearly all
    that man can suffer, not excluding hunger, I returned to
    Paris in 1800."

In a letter to M. Joubert[577] I thus sketched my plan:

    "My only pleasure is to snatch a few hours wherein to busy
    myself with a work which alone can bring some assuagement
    to my grief: it is the Memoirs of my Life. Rome will have a
    place in it; it is in this way only that I can henceforth
    speak of Rome. Have no fear; there will be no confessions
    likely to give pain to my friends: if I am to count for
    anything in the future, my friends' names will therein appear
    glorified and respected. Nor shall I entertain posterity
    with the details of my frailties; I shall say of myself only
    what becomes my dignity as a man, and, I dare say it, the
    elevation of my heart. One should show to the world only what
    is beautiful; it is no lie against God to unveil of one's
    life no more than may lead our fellows towards noble and
    generous feelings. Not that, in truth, I have anything to
    conceal: I have not caused the dismissal of a servant-girl
    for a stolen ribbon, nor left my friend to die in the street,
    nor dishonoured the woman who sheltered me, nor taken my
    bastards to the Foundling Hospital[578]; but I have had my
    moments of weakness, of faint-heartedness: one sigh over
    myself will be sufficient to make others understand those
    common miseries, meant to be left behind the veil. What would
    society gain by the reproduction of sores that occur on every
    side? There is no lack of examples, where it is a question of
    triumphing over our poor human nature."

*

[Sidenote: I decide to write my memoirs.]

In this plan which I made for myself I omitted my family, my childhood,
my youth, my travels, and my exile: yet these are the recitals in which
I took most pleasure.

I had been like a happy slave: accustomed to apply his liberty to the
vine-stocks, he no longer knows what to do with his leisure when his
chains are broken. Whenever I decided to set to work, a figure came and
placed itself before me, and I could not take my eyes from it: religion
alone held me by its gravity and by the reflections of a higher order
which it suggested to me.

And yet, while occupied with the thought of writing my Memoirs, I felt
the price which the ancients attached to the value of their name: there
is perhaps a touching reality in this perpetuity of the memories which
one may leave on the way. Perhaps, among the great men of antiquity,
this idea of an immortal life among the human race supplied the place
of the immortality of the soul which for them remained a problem.
If fame is but a small thing when it relates to ourselves, it must
nevertheless be agreed that to give an imperishable existence to all
that it has loved is one of the finest privileges attached to the
friendship of genius.

I undertook a commentary upon certain books of the Bible, beginning
with _Genesis._ Upon the verse, "Behold, Adam is become as one of
us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth
his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for
ever[579]," I remarked the tremendous irony of the Creator: "Behold
Adam is become as one of us, etc. Lest perhaps the man put forth his
hand and take of the tree of life." Why? Because he has tasted of the
fruit of knowledge, and knows good and evil, he is now loaded with
ills: "therefore, lest perhaps he live for ever." What a blessing from
God is death!

There are prayers begun, some for "disquietude of soul," others "to
strengthen one's self against the prosperity of the wicked." I sought
to bring back to a centre of repose the thoughts which strayed beyond
me.

As God was not pleased to let my life end there, reserving it for
prolonged trials, the storms which had arisen abated. Suddenly the
Cardinal Ambassador changed his manner towards me; I had an explanation
with him, and declared my resolve to resign. He opposed this: he
maintained that my resignation at that moment would have the appearance
of a disgrace; that I should be delighting my enemies, that the First
Consul would take offense, which would prevent me from remaining
undisturbed in the places to which I proposed to retire. He suggested
that I should go to spend a fortnight or a month at Naples.

Just at this moment, I was being sounded on behalf of Russia with a
view to my accepting the place of governor to a grand-duke: it was as
much as I would have done had I proposed to sacrifice to Henry V. the
last years of my life.

While wavering between a thousand resolutions, I received the news
that the First Consul had appointed me Minister to the Valais. He had
at first flown into a passion on the faith of some denunciations; but,
returning to his senses, he understood that I was of the race which
is of value only in the front rank, that I should not be mixed with
others, as otherwise I could never be used to advantage. There was no
place vacant: he created one, and, choosing it in conformity with my
instinct for solitude and independence, he placed me in the Alps; he
gave me a Catholic republic, in a world of torrents: the Rhone and our
soldiers would cross at my feet, the one descending towards France,
the others climbing towards Italy, while the Simplon opened its daring
road before me. The Consul was to allow me as frequent leave as I might
wish to travel in Italy, and Madame Bacciochi sent me a message through
Fontanes that the first important embassy available was reserved for
me. I thus won this first diplomatic victory without either expecting
or intending it; true that, at the head of the State, was a lofty
intelligence, which was not willing to sacrifice to official intrigues
another intelligence which it knew to be but too well disposed to
secede from the government.

[Sidenote: Cardinal Fesch.]

This remark is all the more true in that Cardinal Fesch, to whom I do
justice in these Memoirs in a manner upon which, perhaps, he did not
reckon, had sent two malicious dispatches to Paris, almost at the very
moment at which his manners had become more obliging, after the death
of Madame de Beaumont. Did his true thought lie in his conversations,
when he gave me leave to go to Naples, or in his diplomatic missives?
The conversations and the missives bear the same date and are
contradictory. It would have been easy for me to set M. le Cardinal,
right with himself by destroying all traces of the reports that
concerned me: I had but to remove the Ambassador's lucubrations from
the _cartons_ at the time when I was Minister for Foreign Affairs; I
should have done only what M. de Talleyrand did in the matter of his
correspondence with the Emperor. I did not consider that I had the
right to turn my power to my own advantage. If, by chance, any one
should look up these documents, he would find them in their place. That
this conduct is self-deceiving I readily admit; but, in order not to
make a merit of a virtue which I do not possess, I must say that this
respect for the correspondence of my detractors arises more from my
contempt than from my generosity. I have also seen, in the archives
of the Berlin Embassy, offensive letters from M. le Marquis de Bonnay
concerning myself: far from considering my own feelings, I shall make
them public.

M. le Cardinal Fesch was no more reticent as to the poor Abbé Guillon
(the Bishop of Morocco): the latter was marked out as "a Russian
agent." Bonaparte called M. Lainé[580] "an English agent:" these are
instances of the gossip of which that great man had taken the bad habit
from the police reports. But was there nothing to be said against M.
Fesch himself? The Cardinal de Clermont-Tonnerre was at Rome like
myself, in 1803: what did he not write of Napoleon's uncle! I have the
letters.

For the rest, to whom do these contentions, buried since forty years
in worm-eaten files, matter? Of the several actors of that period, one
alone will remain: Bonaparte. All of us who make pretensions to live
are dead already: can the insect's name be read by the feeble light
which it sometimes drags with it as it crawls?

When M. le Cardinal Fesch met me again I was Ambassador to Leo XII.; he
gave me marks of his esteem: I on my side made a point of outdoing him
in deference. It is natural, moreover, that I should have been judged
with a severity which I have never spared myself. All this is past and
done with: I do not wish even to recognise the handwriting of those
who, in 1803, served as official or semi-official secretaries to M. le
Cardinal Fesch.

I set out for Naples: there began a year without Madame de Beaumont,
a year of absence to be followed by so many others! I have never seen
Naples again since that time, although I was on the threshold of that
same town in 1828, having promised myself to go there with Madame de
Chateaubriand. The orange-trees were covered with their fruits, the
myrtles with their flowers. Baie, the Campi Elysei, and the sea were
delights of which I no longer had any one to whom to speak. I have
described the Bay of Naples in the _Martyrs._[581] I climbed Vesuvius
and descended into its crater. I pilfered from myself: I was enacting a
scene in _René._

At Pompeii I was shown a skeleton in irons, and mutilated Latin words
scribbled by soldiers on the walls. I returned to Rome. Canova[582]
permitted me to visit his studio while he was working at the statue of
a nymph. Elsewhere the models for the marbles of the tomb which I had
ordered had already attained much expression. I went to pray over ashes
at San Luigi, and I left for Paris on the 21st of January 1804, another
day of misfortune.

Behold a prodigious misery: five and thirty years have sped since the
date of those events. Did not I flatter myself, in those distant days
of grief, that the bond just broken would be my last? And yet how soon
have I, not forgotten, but replaced what was dear to me! Thus man
goes from weakness to weakness. When he is young and drives his life
before him, a shadow of an excuse remains to him; but when he gets
between the shafts and laboriously drags it behind him, how is he to be
excused? The poverty of our nature is so intense that in our volatile
infirmities, in order to express our new affections, we can employ only
words which we have already worn threadbare in our former attachments.
There are words, nevertheless, which ought to be used but once: they
become profaned by repetition. Our betrayed and neglected friendships
reproach us with the new companionships that we have formed; our hours
arraign one another: our life is one perpetual blush, because it is one
continued fault.

As my intention was not to remain in Paris, I alighted at the Hôtel de
France[583], in the Rue de Beaune, where Madame de Chateaubriand came
to join me to accompany me to the Valais. My former society, already
half dispersed, had lost the link which held it together.

Bonaparte was marching towards the Empire; his genius rose in the
measure that events increased in importance: he was able, like
gunpowder when it expands, to carry away the world; already immense,
and yet not feeling himself at his zenith, he was tormented by his
strength; he groped, he seemed to be feeling his way; when I arrived in
Paris he was dealing with Pichegru and Moreau; through petty envy he
had consented to admit them as rivals: Moreau, Pichegru, and Georges
Cadoudal, who was greatly their superior, were arrested.

This vulgar train of conspiracies, which we encounter in all the
affairs of life, was very distasteful to me, and I was glad to seek
flight in the mountains.

The council of the town of Sion wrote to me. The simplicity of this
despatch has made a document of it to me; I was entering politics
through religion: the _Génie du Christianisme_ had opened the doors for
me.

[Sidenote: I am promoted.]

    "REPUBLIC OF THE VALAIS.

    "SION, 20 _February_ 1804.

    "COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF SION.

    "_To Monsieur Chateaubriand, Secretary of Legation of the
    French Republic in Rome._

    "SIR,

    "An official letter from our High Bailiff apprizes us of your
    nomination to the post of French Minister to our Republic.
    We hasten to express to you the very complete satisfaction
    which this choice gives us. We see in this nomination a
    precious token of the good-will of the First Consul towards
    our Republic, and we congratulate ourselves on the honour of
    having you within our walls: we draw from it the happiest
    auguries for the welfare of our country and of our town.
    In order to give you a proof of these sentiments, we have
    resolved to have a provisional lodging prepared for you,
    worthy to receive you, fitted with furniture and effects
    suited for your use, in so far as the locality and our
    circumstances permit, pending the time when you will yourself
    have been able to make arrangements to your own convenience.

    "Pray, sir, accept this offer as a proof of our sincere
    inclination to honour the French Government in the person
    of its envoy, the choice of whom must needs be peculiarly
    pleasing to a religious people. We beg you to be so good as
    to acquaint us with the date of your arrival in this town.

    "Accept, sir, the assurances of our respectful consideration.

    "DE RIEDMATTEN,

    "President of the Town Council of Sion.


    "By order of the Town Council:

    "DE TORRENTÉ,

    "Secretary to the Council."

Two days before the 21st of March[584], I dressed to go to take leave
of Bonaparte at the Tuileries; I had not seen him again since the
moment during which he had spoken to me at Lucien's. The gallery in
which he was receiving was full; he was accompanied by Murat and a
principal aide-de-camp; he passed through almost without stopping.
As he approached me, I was struck by the alteration in his face:
his cheeks were sunk and livid, his eyes hard, his complexion pale
and muddy, his aspect gloomy and terrible. The attraction which had
previously urged me towards him ceased; instead of remaining on his
passage, I made a movement to avoid him. He threw a glance at me as
though to seek to recognise me, took a few steps towards me, then
turned and walked away. Had I appeared to him as a warning? His
aide-de-camp noticed me: when the crowd covered me, the aide-de-camp
tried to catch sight of me between the persons standing before me, and
again drew the Consul in my direction. This sport continued for nearly
a quarter of an hour, I always drawing back, Napoleon always following
me without knowing it. I have never been able to explain to myself what
idea had struck the aide-de-camp. Did he take me for a suspicious man
whom he had never seen? Did he, if he knew who I was, wish to force
Bonaparte to speak to me? However this may be, Napoleon passed on to
another apartment. Content to have done my duty in presenting myself
at the Tuileries, I withdrew. From the joy which I have always felt at
leaving palaces, it is evident that I was not made to enter them.

[Sidenote: Bonaparte.]

On returning to the Hôtel de France, I said to several of my friends:

"Something strange must be happening, of which we do not know, for
Bonaparte cannot have changed to that extent, unless he be ill."

M. de Bourrienne[585] knew of my singular foresight: he has only
confused the dates; here is his sentence:

    "On returning from the First Consul's, M. de Chateaubriand
    declared to his friends that he had remarked a great
    alteration in the First Consul, and something very sinister
    in his look[586]."

Yes, I remarked it: a superior intelligence does not bring forth evil
without pain, because that is not its natural fruit, and it ought not
to bear it.

Two days later, on the 21st of March[587], I rose early, for the sake
of a memory that was sad and dear to me. M. de Montmorin had built
himself a house at the corner of the Rue Plumet, on the new Boulevard
des Invalides. In the garden of that house, which was sold during the
Revolution, Madame de Beaumont, then almost a child, had planted a
cypress-tree, and she had sometimes taken pleasure in showing it to
me as we passed: it was to this cypress-tree, of which I alone knew
the origin and the history, that I went to bid adieu. It still exists,
but it is pining away, and scarce rises to the level of the casement
beneath which a hand which has vanished loved to tend it. I distinguish
that poor tree from among three or four others of its species; it seems
to know me and to rejoice when I approach; mournful breezes bend its
yellowed head a little towards me, and it murmurs at the window of the
deserted room: a mysterious intelligence reigns between us, which will
cease when one or the other shall have fallen.

Having paid my pious tribute, I went down the Boulevard and Esplanade
des Invalides, crossed the Pont Louis XV. and the Tuileries Gardens,
which I left, near the Pavilion Marsan, by the gate which now opens
into the Rue de Rivoli. There, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the
morning, I heard a man and a woman crying official news; passers-by
were stopping, suddenly petrified by these words:

    "Verdict of the special military commission summoned at
    Vincennes, condemning to pain of death THE MAN KNOWN AS LOUIS
    ANTOINE HENRI DE BOURBON, BORN ON THE 2ND OF AUGUST 1772 AT
    CHANTILLY."

[Sidenote: Death of the Duc D'Enghien.]

This cry fell upon me like a thunderbolt; it changed my life, as it
changed Napoleon's. I returned home; I said to Madame Chateaubriand:

"The Duc d'Enghien has been shot."

I sat down to a table and began to write my resignation[588]. Madame
de Chateaubriand raised no objection, and with great courage watched
me writing. She did not blind herself to my danger: General Moreau and
Georges Cadoudal were being prosecuted[589]; the lion had tasted blood,
this was not the moment to irritate him.

M. Clausel de Coussergues[590] arrived in the interval; he also had
heard the sentence cried. He found me pen in hand: my letter, from
which, out of compassion for Madame de Chateaubriand, he made me
suppress certain angry phrases, was despatched; it was addressed to
the Minister of Foreign Relations. The wording mattered little: my
opinion and my crime lay in the fact of my resignation: Bonaparte made
no mistake as to that. Madame Bacciochi exclaimed loudly on hearing
of what she called my "disloyalty;" she sent for me and made me the
liveliest reproaches. M. de Fontanes at first went almost mad with
fear: he already saw me shot, with all the persons who were attached to
me. During several days, my friends went in dread of seeing me carried
off by the police; they called on me from one minute to the other,
always trembling as they approached the porter's lodge. M. Pasquier
came and embraced me on the day after my resignation, saying he was
happy to have such a friend as I. He remained for a fairly considerable
time in an honourably moderate opposition, removed from place and power.

Nevertheless, the movement of sympathy which impels us to praise a
generous action came to an end. I had, in consideration of religion,
accepted a place outside France, a place conferred upon me by a mighty
genius, the conqueror of anarchy, a leader sprung from the popular
principle, the _consul_ of a _republic_, and not a king continuing an
usurped _monarchy_; at that time I stood alone in my feeling, because
I was consistent in my conduct; I retired when the conditions to which
I was able to subscribe altered; but, so soon as the hero had changed
himself into a murderer, there came a rush for his ante-chamber. Six
months after the 21st of March, one might have thought that there was
only one opinion in society, but for a few malicious jests in which
people indulged in private. _Fallen_ persons pretended to have been
_violated_, and only they, it was said, were _violated_ who possessed a
great name or great importance, and each one, to prove his importance
or his quarterings, contrived to be _violated_ by dint of solicitation.

Those who had most loudly applauded me fell away; my presence was a
reproach to them: prudent people find imprudence in those who yield
to honour. There are times in which loftiness of soul is a real
infirmity; no one understands it; it passes for a sort of narrowness
of mind, for a prejudice, an unintelligent trick of education, a
crotchet, a whim which interferes with the judgment: an honourable
imbecility, perhaps, but a stupid helotism. What capacity can any one
find in shutting your eyes, in remaining indifferent to the march of
the century, to the movement of ideas, to the change of manners, to
the progress of society? Is it not a deplorable mistake to attach to
events an importance which they do not possess? Barricaded behind
your narrow principles, your mind as limited as your judgment, you
are like a man living at the back of a house, looking out only on a
little yard, unaware of what happens in the street or of the noise to
be heard outside. That is what a little independence reduces you to,
an object of pity to the average man: as to the great minds with their
affectionate pride and their haughty eyes, _oculos sublimes_[591],
their compassionate disdain forgives you, because they know that "you
cannot hear[592]." I therefore shrank back humbly into my literary
career, a poor Pindar destined in my first Olympic to praise "the
excellence of water," leaving wine to the happy.

[Sidenote: I resign my Embassy.]

Friendship put fresh heart into M. de Fontanes; Madame Bacciochi placed
her kindness between her brother's anger and my resolution; M. de
Talleyrand, through indifference or calculation, kept my resignation
for several days before speaking of it: when he announced it to
Bonaparte the latter had had time to reflect. On receiving from me the
only direct sign of blame from an honest man who was not afraid to defy
him, he uttered merely these two words:

"Very well."

Later, he said to his sister:

"Were you very much alarmed for your friend?"

Long after, in conversation with M. de Fontanes, he confessed that
my resignation was one of the things that had impressed him most
M. de Talleyrand had an official letter sent to me in which he
gracefully reproached me for depriving his department of my talents
and services[593]. I returned the expenses of installation, and all
was apparently finished. But, in daring to leave Bonaparte, I had
placed myself upon his level, and he was incensed against me with all
the strength of his perfidy, as I against him with all that of my
loyalty. Till the day of his fall, he held the sword suspended over
my head: sometimes he returned to me by a natural leaning and tried to
drown me in his fatal prosperity; sometimes I was drawn to him by the
admiration with which he inspired me, by the idea that I was assisting
at a transformation of society, not at a mere change of dynasty: but
antipathetic in so many respects, our respective natures gained the
upper hand, and if he would gladly have had me shot, I should have felt
no great compunction in killing him.

Death makes a great man or unmakes him; it stops him on the stair which
he was about to descend, or on the step which he was about to climb:
his is a destiny that has succeeded or failed; in the first case, one
is reduced to examine what it has been, in the second to conjecture
what it might have become.

If, in doing my duty, I had been prompted by far-seeing views of
ambition, I should have deceived myself. Charles X. learnt only at
Prague what I had done in 1804: he had but lately been King.

"Chateaubriand," he said to me at the Castle of Hradschin, "had you
served Bonaparte?"

"Yes, Sire."

"Did you resign on the death of M. le Duc d'Enghien?"

"Yes, Sire."

Misfortune instructs or restores the memory. I have told you how one
day in London, when I had taken shelter with M. de Fontanes in a
passage during a storm, M. le Duc de Bourbon came and sought cover
under the same refuge: in France, his gallant father and he, who
so politely thanked whoever wrote a funeral oration on M. le Duc
d'Enghien, did not send me one word of remembrance; they were doubtless
unaware of my conduct: true, I never told them of it.



[446] This book was commenced in Paris in 1837, continued and completed
in Paris in 1838, and revised in February 1845 and December 1846.--T.

[447] The Château du Marais was built by M. Le Maître, a very rich
man, who left it to Madame de La Briche, his niece. It stands in the
commune of the Val-Saint-Maurice, canton of Dourdan, Department of
Seine-et-Oise, and is now the property of the Dowager Duchesse de
Noailles.--B.

[448] Adélaïde Edmée de La Briche, _née_ Prévost, widow of Alexis
Janvier de La Live de La Briche, Introducer of Ambassadors and Private
Secretary to the Queen.--B.

[449] Louise Joséphine Comtesse de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1764-1832),
_née_ de La Live de Jully, sister to Madame de Vintimille.--B.

[450] The Château de Champlâtreux, in the commune of
Épinay-Champlâtreux, canton of Luzarches, Department of Seine-et-Oise,
was the old seat of the Molé family. It belongs now to M. le Duc de
Noailles. The Comte Molé died there, 25 November 1855.--B.

[451] Édouard François Matthieu Molé de Champlâtreux (_d._ 1794), a
President in the Parliament of Paris, guillotined 20 April 1794.--B.

[452] The domain, now in the Department of Eure-et-Loir, presented to
Madame de Maintenon by Louis XIV.--T.

[453] Louise Éléonore Mélanie Marquise de Custine (1770-1826), _née_ de
Sabran, married in 1787 to Amand Louis Philippe François de Custine,
guillotined 4 January 1794.--B.

[454] Margaret Queen of France (1219-1295), daughter of Raymond
Berengarius IV. Count of Provence, and married in 1234 to King Louis
IX.: a virtuous queen in every way worthy of her spouse.--T.

[455] The Château de Fervacques is near Lisieux in Calvados. Madame
de Custine bought it of the Duc de Montmorency-Laval and his sister
the Duchesse de Luynes. It is now the property of M. le Comte de
Montgomery.--T.

[456] Christina Queen of Sweden (1626-1689) spent some years in France
after her abdication in 1654.--T.

[457] Astolphe Louis Léonor Marquis de Custine (1793-1857), author of
an excellent book on La Russie en 1839, in 4 volumes (1843), and many
other remarkable works that obtained a well-deserved success.--B.

[458] Madame de Custine had been imprisoned at the Carmelites and had
escaped execution thanks only to the Revolution of 9 Thermidor.--T.

[459]

    "The lady of Fervacques
    Deserves a brisk attack."--T.


[460] Afterwards Madame de Bérenger.--B.

[461] Louise Julie Talma (_d._ 1805), _née_ Carreau, married Talma on
the 19th of April 1791. They were divorced on the 6th of February 1801
by mutual consent. Talma married next year (16 June 1802) Charlotte
Vanhove, the divorced wife of Louis Sébastien Olympe Petit, from whom
he was also separated shortly afterwards on the same terms.--B.

[462] Stanislas Marie Adélaïde Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre (1747-1792),
a Monarchical member of the Constituent Assembly, butchered by the
populace on the 10th of August 1792.--T.

[463] Louis Justin Marie Marquis de Talaru (1769-1850), for some time
French Ambassador in Madrid under the Restoration. He was created a
peer of France on the same day as Chateaubriand (17 August 1815).--B.

[464] Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (1743-1803), known as the Unknown
Philosopher, the exponent of "pure spiritualism." His principal works
are _Des Erreurs et de la vérité_ (1775), the _Homme de désir_ (1790),
and the _Ministère de l'Homme-Esprit_ (1802).--T.

[465] Jean Jacques Comte Lenoir-Laroche (1749-1825) held office for a
few days in 1797, was a Conservative member of the Senate (1799-1814),
was made a count by Napoleon, and a peer of France by Louis XVIII.
(4 June 1814). On the 31st of August 1817, this dignity was declared
hereditary in his family.--B.

[466] The Abbé Joseph Faria (_circa_ 1755-1819), a native of Goa, and
a famous magnetizer. He plays an important part in _Monte Cristo_, in
which Dumas makes him die at the Château d'If. He died, in fact, in
Paris.--B.

[467] Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), a German doctor (naturalized a
Frenchman in 1819) who invented the science of craniology, now known as
phrenology.--T.

[468] _Mon portrait historique et philosophique_, M. de Saint-Martin's
posthumous work, printed in a very much mutilated and incomplete
form.--B.

[469] The Polytechnic School was installed at the time at the
Palais-Bourbon, and removed to the building of the former Collège de
Navarre in 1804.--B.

[470] Henri François Marquis de Saint-Lambert (1717-1803), author
of a poem, the _Saisons_, which secured his admission to the French
Academy (1770), and of several philosophical works of a pronounced
materialistic tendency.--T.

[471] Élisabeth Françoise Sophie Comtesse de Houdetot (1730-1813),
_née_ de La Live de Bellegarde. She married Lieutenant-General the
Comte de Houdetot in 1748. She was the author of a few _Pensées_,
but owes her reputation rather to the lively passion with which she
inspired Rousseau and to her liaison with Saint-Lambert, which lasted
nearly half a century.--T.

[472]

    "Woe be unto him to whom Heaven grants long days!"--T.


[473]

    "And love consoles me still!
    But nought will e'er console me for love's loss."--T.


[474] Friedrich Melchior Baron Grimm (1723-1807), the friend of
Rousseau and Diderot, created a baron by the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, whom
he represented at the French Court from 1776-1790. In 1795 the Empress
Catherine II. made him her minister in Lower Saxony. His diverting
correspondence with both potentates was published in 1812-1813.--T.

[475] Pierre Simon Ballanche (1778-1847) started life as a printer at
Lyons, where he published the second and third editions of the _Génie
du Christianisme._ He began to devote himself to literature in 1813,
wrote several notable works of Christian philosophy, and became elected
a member of the French Academy in 1844.--T.

[476] The article on the _Législation primitive_ appeared in the
_Mercure_ of the 18 Nivôse Year XI. (8 January 1803).--B.

[477] The Celestines were suppressed in 1778. They were founded in 1244
by Pietro di Murrhone, the hermit Pope, who was elected to the Holy
See in 1294, when nearly eighty years of age, and assumed the title of
Celestine V. He was canonized in 1313.--T.

[478] René I. Duke of Anjou, titular King of Naples (1408-1480), known
as Good King René, and father of Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI.
of England.--T.

[479] I omit two or three pages devoted mainly to quotations from
Petrarch.--T.

[480] A terrible revolutionary massacre took place at Avignon in
1791.--T.

[481] Petrarch immortalized the source of the Sorgue, which rises near
Vaucluse, and is known as the Fountain of Vaucluse.--T.

[482] Alain Chartier (1386-1458), the "Father of French Eloquence," an
early French poet, and Secretary to the Household to King Charles VI.
Margaret kissed him on the mouth, as he lay sleeping, to show the value
she set upon the mouth from which so many fair speeches had issued.--T.

[483] Margaret of Scotland (1418-1445), daughter of James I. King of
Scots, was married to the Dauphin, later King Louis XI. of France, as a
child, in 1428, but was not united to him until 1436. He made her very
unhappy.--T.

[484] _Pro. L. Flacco_, XXVI. 36.--T.

[485] JOB XXXVIII. II.--T.

[486] Pytheas (_circa_ 350 B.C.), the famous Greek navigator, was a
native of Massilia or Marseilles.--T.

[487] Jean Sire de Joinville (_circa_ 1223--_circa_ 1319) accompanied
St. Louis on the Seventh Crusade (1248), which took Cyprus in its
course.--T.

[488] Berengarius I. and II., Kings of Italy and Marquises of Ivrea in
the tenth century.--T.

[489] Louis II., Duke of Anjou and titular King of Naples (1377-1417),
father of Good King René.--T.

[490] Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, Duc d'Épernon (1554-1642),
one of the favourites of Henry III., was the head of a Languedoc family
and governor of Provence, of which Marseilles was one of the chief
cities.--T.

[491] Henri François Xavier de Belsunce de Castel Moron, Bishop of
Marseilles (1671-1755), distinguished himself by his courage and zeal
during the plague which ravaged the city in the years 1720 and 1721,
and by his vigorous opposition to the Jansenistic doctrines.--T.

[492] Vittorio Conte Alfieri (1749-1803), the Italian tragic poet,
secretly married in 1788 to the Countess of Albany, widow of Prince
Charles Edward Stuart. His _Memoirs_ were published in 1804.--T.

[493] ALFIERI, _Memoirs_, chap. IV.--T.

[494] The Roman amphitheatre or bull-arena at Nîmes was laid in ruins
by the English during their occupation in 1417.--T.

[495] The famous Roman remains, in the Corinthian style.--T.

[496] Jean Reboul (1796-1864), the baker-poet, author of _Poésies_
(1836), the _Dernier Jour_ (1839), the _Martyre de Vivia_, a mystery
play, performed at the Odéon (1850), and the _Traditionnelles_
(1857). He continued his trade throughout. In 1848 he was sent to the
Constituent Assembly as Royalist member for the Department of the
Gard.--B.

[497] I omit a quotation from Reboul.--T.

[498] Plautus spent some years in the service of a baker in Rome.--T.

[499] Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609), the Protestant philosopher,
Professor of Literature at the University of Leyden, a distinguished
philologist and founder of the system of modern chronology.--T.

[500] 1622.--T.

[501] The Canal des Deux-Mers, also known as the Canal du Midi or de
Languedoc, joins the Atlantic and Mediterranean.--T.

[502] The project of the canal, first formed under Francis I., was
executed by Colbert's orders under Louis XIV. in the years 1666-1681. I
omit the quotation from Corneille.--T.

[503] Paule Baronne de Fontenille (1518-1610), _née_ de Viguier,
nicknamed Fair Paule by King Francis I., who saw her as a child. She
married first the Sire de Bayganuet, and later Philippe de Laroche,
Baron de Fontenille. Her beauty, which she retained until extreme old
age, was so intense that her resolution to stay at home, in order to
save herself from being pestered with the admiration of the people, was
checkmated by a resolution of the _Capitouls_ or municipal officers of
Toulouse, who ordered her to show herself in public, with uncovered
features, two days in the week. _La Belle Paule_ was as virtuous as she
was beautiful.--T.

[504] Henri II. Maréchal Duc de Montmorency (1595-1632), revolted
against Louis XIII., was defeated and taken prisoner at Castelnaudary,
and tried and beheaded at Toulouse.--T.

[505] Claude Fauriel (1772-1844), a capable literary critic and
considerable linguist. He translated and published in 1837 the
_Histoire de la croisade contre les hérétiques albigeois, écrits en
vers provençaux par un poète contemporain_, from which the above
extract is taken.--T.

[506] Simon Baron, later Comte, de Montfort (_d._ 1218), known as
the Machabee of his century, the leader of the crusade against the
Albigenses, of whom he put some 60,000 or more to the sword. Simon de
Montfort was killed at Toulouse, 25 June 1218.--T.

[507] Jacques de Cujas (1522-1590), the famous jurist.--T.

[508] Margaret of France, Duchesse de Berry, afterwards Duchess of
Savoy (1523-1574), married in 1559 to Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of
Savoy. Her subjects named her the Mother of the Peoples.--T.

[509] Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre (1552-1615), married in 1572
to the Prince of Béarn, afterwards Henry IV., and III. King of France
and Navarre.--T.

[510] Gui du Faur, Seigneur de Pibrac (1529-1584), represented France
at the Council of Trent and accompanied Henry III. to Poland. His
_Quatrains moraux_ have been universally translated, and he also
published various political writings.--T.

[511] Florio's MONTAIGNE, the Third Booke, chap. IX.: _Of Vanitie._--T.

[512] Raymond IV. Count of Toulouse, Duke of Bordeaux, and Marquis of
Provence (_circa_ 1042-1105), one of the leaders of the First Crusade
(1096), and one of the first to storm the walls of Jerusalem.--T.

[513] Louis Gabriel Léonce Guilhaud de Lavergne (1809-1880), a member
of the Right in the Chamber of Deputies, became "reconciled" to the
Republic, and was ultimately elected a Life Senator in 1875.--B.

[514] Mademoiselle Honorine Gasc, the owner of an admirable voice,
married Herr Ol de Kop, Danish Consul at Bordeaux and Paris.--B.

[515] Clémence Isaure, a wealthy lady of Toulouse, who restored the
Floral Games at Toulouse in 1490, and left large sums of money to the
town to provide for the expenses of annual competitions in the art of
poetry.--T.

[516] Claude Emmanuel Luillier Chapelle (1626-1686) and François Le
Coigneux de Bachaumont (1624-1702), joint authors of the _Voyage_ and
other Epicurean pieces.--T.

[517]

    "Ah, how happy one would be
    In this fair seductive spot
    If, by Sylvia ne'er forgot,
    Loving to eternity,
    With her he could cast his lot!"--T


[518] The Chateau Trompette has also since been destroyed.--T.

[519] Joseph Spon (1647-1685), a French Protestant antiquarian.--T.

[520]

"Ah, why do they throw down those columns of the gods,
The work of the great Cæsars, a tutelary shrine?"--T.


[521] The Duchesse de Berry was imprisoned at Blaye Castle in 1833.--T.

[522] In 1797 La Harpe had published his eloquent _Du Fanatisme dans la
langue révolutionnaire._--B.

[523] This poem appeared in 1814, with the title, _Le Triomphe de la
Religion, ou le Roi martyr._--B.

[524]

"But if they ventured all, 'twas you permitted all:
The viler the oppressor, the more infamous the slave."--T.


[525] On the 9th of August 1797, La Harpe, then a widower and
fifty-seven years of age, married, at the instance of his friend M.
Récamier, Mademoiselle de Hatte-Longuerue, a very beautiful girl
of twenty-three. Her mother, a penniless widow, concealed from the
bridegroom any repugnance that Mademoiselle de Longuerue entertained
for the match; but three weeks after the marriage the latter declared
this repugnance to be invincible, and asked for a divorce. La Harpe
behaved like a gallant gentleman and a Christian: he was unable to lend
himself to the divorce, forbidden as it was by the religious law; but
he allowed it to take place, and forgave the young lady the outcry and
scandal produced by this rupture.--B.

[526] JOB IV. 15, 16.--T.

[527] DANTE, _Inferno_, XIV. 46.--B.

[528] The Abbé Jacques André Émery (1732-1811), author of the
_Esprit_ (later _Pensées) de Leibnitz_, the _Christianisme de Bacon_,
the _Pensées de Descartes_, and many other works of a religious
tendency.--T.

[529] Joseph Cardinal Comte Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons (1763-1839), was
the half-brother of Madame Bonaparte, Napoleon's mother. He was made
Archbishop of Lyons in 1802, a cardinal and Ambassador to Rome in 1803,
Grand Almoner of the Empire, a count, and a senator in 1805. Later he
refused the Archbishopric of Paris, opposed Napoleon's wishes with
regard to Pius VII. in 1810, was disgraced and sent into exile in his
diocese, where he remained till 1814. After the Emperor's abdication,
he retired to Rome, where he lived for twenty-five years, refusing to
surrender his archbishopric till the day of his death, 13 May 1839.--T.

[530] In Auvergne.--T.

[531] Talleyrand was Foreign Minister from 1796 to 1807.--T.

[532] The Abbé Pierre Étienne de Bonnevie (1761-1849), a great friend
of M. and Madame de Chateaubriand, and a very witty priest.--B.

[533] Anne Antoine Jules Duc de Clermont-Tonnerre, Bishop of
Châlons-sur-Marne (1749-1830). Before returning from the Emigration, he
had placed his resignation in the hands of the Sovereign Pontiff, in
accordance with the terms of the Concordat. Under the Restoration he
became a peer of France (1814), Archbishop of Toulouse (1820), and a
cardinal (1822).--B.

[534] Pope Pius VII. (_vide infra_, p. 220) was a Chiaramonti. This
name is the Italian equivalent for Clermont.--T.

[535]

"Alps, ye have not by my hard fate been torn!
On you time leaves no sign;
The years have lightly by your brows been borne
That heavy weigh on mine.

When first across your rugged walls I passed,
Dazzled with hope's bright rays,
Like the horizon, a future, boundless, vast,
Lay spread before my gaze."

Italy at my feet, and all the world before me!"--T.


[536] Chateaubriand himself had probably not known "that" long, and had
learnt it from his young friend Jean Jacques Ampère, the only man in
France who at that time interested himself in Scandinavian matters.--B.

[537] This "Fotrad, son of Eupert," is a little far-fetched. When the
author was writing this part of his Memoirs his mind was still full
of his long and learned researches preparatory to the writing of his
_Études historiques_ and his chapters on the Franks.--B.

[538] Odet de Foix, Maréchal Vicomte de Lautrec (1485-1528), was
Lieutenant-General in Italy under Francis I., and subdued a part of the
Duchy of Milan.--T.

[539] Francesco di Melzi, Duca di Lodi (1753-1826), was Vice-president
of the Cisalpine Republic, organized by General Bonaparte in 1797,
which in 1802 took the name of the Italian Republic. When, in 1805, it
became the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon for its King and Eugène de
Beauharnais for its Viceroy, Melzi was appointed Grand Chancellor and
Keeper of the Seals. In 1807 he was created a duke.--B.

[540] Napoleon Charles Lucien Prince Murat (1803-1873), second son of
Joachim Murat, was born 16 May 1803. He was made a senator in 1852, and
a member of the civil family of the Emperor Napoleon III. in 1853, with
the title of Imperial Highness. He was Grand Master of Freemasons from
1852 to 1862.--B.

[541] The feast of SS. Peter and Paul falls on the 29th of June.--T.

[542] St. Francis of Assisi, honoured on the 4th of October.--T.

[543] François Cacault (1743-1805), French Minister Plenipotentiary in
Rome from 1801 to 1803.--B.

[544] The Chevalier Artaud de Montor, author of several works, of which
the most important is his _Histoire du pape Pie VII._--B.

[545] Gregorio Luigi Barnaba Chiaramonti, Pope Pius VII. (1740-1823),
was elected to the Papacy in 1800. He signed the Concordat with
Bonaparte in 1801, crowned him Emperor in Paris in 1804, but
excommunicated him in 1809, after the invasion of the Papal States.
Napoleon had him kidnapped and taken to Savona, and thence to
Fontainebleau, where Pope Pius was kept in captivity until 1814. On
returning to his States he had the generosity to give an asylum to the
members of his persecutor's family.--T.

[546] Ercole Cardinal Consalvi (1757-1824), Secretary of State to
Pius VII., and one of the greatest statesmen of the century. He too
signed the famous Concordat, and he too was imprisoned for some time by
Napoleon. He represented the Pope at the Congress of Vienna in 1814.--T.

[547] Charles Emanuel IV., King of Sardinia (1751-1819), succeeded
his father Victor Amedeus III. in 1796, was obliged to surrender his
continental possessions to the French Republic in 1798, and retired to
Sardinia. In 1802 he abdicated and was succeeded by his brother Victor
Emanuel I. He ended his days in Rome as a Jesuit. Charles Emanuel IV.
became Heir in Line of the House of Stuart on the death of the Cardinal
of York (Henry IX.) in 1807, and appears in the Jacobite Calendars as
Charles IV. King of England.--T.

[548] The Abbé Nicolas Silvestre Guillon (1760-1847) had been chaplain,
reader, and librarian to the Princesse de Lamballe. He hid himself
under the Terror and reappeared in 1801 to publish his _Recherches sur
le Concordat_, which caused him to be confined in the Temple for four
months. On returning from Rome he became Professor of Rhetoric at the
new University. In 1810 he was appointed to the Faculty of Theology in
Paris, and for thirty years professed sacred eloquence in that faculty,
of which he ultimately became the dean. He became chaplain to the
Orleans Family in 1818, and in 1831 Louis-Philippe named him for the
See of Beauvais, which, owing to a technical misdemeanour, he was not
allowed to accept. Having confessed his error, he was in the course of
the next year installed as Bishop of Morocco _in partibus._--T.

[549] Marie Thérèse Princesse de Lamballe, _née_ Princesse de
Savoie-Carignan (1749-1792), was murdered at the prison of the Force in
September 1792.--T.

[550] Antoine François Philippe Dubois-Descours, Marquis de La
Maisonfort (1778-1827), had returned from the Emigration at the
commencement of the Consulate, and was arrested and confined in the
island of Elba, whence he escaped to Rome. Under the Restoration,
he sat for a time in Parliament and represented France as Minister
Plenipotentiary at Florence.--B.

[551] Louis François Bertin (1766-1841), usually known as Bertin the
Elder, to distinguish him from his brother Pierre Louis Bertin de Vaux,
together with whom he bought the _Journal des Débats_ in 1799, and
immeasurably improved the property. He was deprived of it in 1811, but
revived the paper in 1814, and vigorously supported the Restoration
until 1830, when he allied himself to Louis-Philippe and the new
monarchy.--T.

[552] Pierre Joseph Briot (1771-1827) opposed Bonaparte in the Council
of the Five Hundred, but nevertheless obtained his appointment as
Government Commissary-General in Elba through the influence of Lucien
Bonaparte. On Napoleon's coronation as Emperor, Briot went to Italy,
and held various offices under Joseph and Joachim Murat, Kings of
Naples. He refused to accept titles or decorations from either of these
monarchs, which is probably the reason why Chateaubriand speaks of him
as "the Republican" Briot.--B.

[553] The Princesse Pauline Borghèse (1780-1825), _née_ Bonaparte,
was Napoleon's second sister. She married General Leclerc in 1797,
and shortly after his death married Prince Camille Borghèse (1803),
from whom she soon separated, leaving Italy to reside at the Château
de Neuilly. She enjoyed the title of Duchess of Guastalla from 1806
to 1814. In the latter year, she devoted herself wholly to Napoleon,
accompanying him to Elba, and placing her diamonds at his disposal.
In her later years, she became reconciled to her husband and lived
with him at Florence. Pauline Borghèse was one of the most beautiful
of women of her time. She sat to Canova for a nude Venus, and was
doubtless in no way shy of "making her toilet" before Chateaubriand.--T.

[554]

    "I perish last and most wretched of all!"--T.


[555]

    "My days do not warrant the price of a sigh."--T.


[556] Madame de Sévigné's seat in Brittany.--B.

[557] This house stood near the Trinità-del-Monte, and was known by the
name of the Villa Margherita.--B.

[558] Jean Baptiste Louis Georges Seroux d'Agincourt (1730-1814),
a distinguished antiquarian and archæologist. He had been a
farmer-general under Louis XV., and amassed a huge fortune, which
he devoted to study and the cultivation of the arts. After visiting
England, Holland, Germany, and Italy, he settled in Rome, in 1778,
where he became intimate with the Cardinal de Bernis and Azara, the
Spanish Ambassador and art-patron, and compiled his great work, the
_Histoire de l'Art par les Monuments, depuis le IVe siècle
jusqu'au XVIe_, in 6 volumes folio, with 336 plates.--T.

[559] ISAIAS XXII. 18.--T.

[560] Barbara Juliana Baroness Krüdener (1764-1824), _née_ von
Vietinghoff-Scheel, a famous Russian mystic, was married, when fourteen
years of age, to Baron Krüdener, Russian Ambassador in Berlin. After
leading a very dissipated life, and publishing her well-known novel,
_Valérie, ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernest de G._ (1803),
she suddenly, in 1807, withdrew from the world, gave way to exalted
devotion, and pretended to have received from Heaven a mission for the
regeneration of Christianity. She travelled through Germany, visiting
the prisons, preaching in the open air, and converting men by the
thousand. In 1814, she came into contact with the foreign sovereigns
then in Paris, exercised a great ascendant over the Emperor Alexander,
foretold to him the return of Napoleon from Elba and his ultimate
fall, and inspired him with the idea of the Holy Alliance. She next
resumed her travels through Switzerland and the various States of
Germany, but her extraordinary influence began to be dreaded, and she
was expelled wherever she went. In 1822, she took refuge in the Crimea,
where she founded an institution for sinners and criminals, and died at
Karasu-Bazar on Christmas Day 1824.--T.

[561] Joseph Michaud (1767-1839), author of the _Printemps d'un
proscrit_ and a History of the Crusades, and a member of the French
Academy. In 1795, he was condemned to death for professing Royalist
opinions in his paper, the _Quotidienne_, but succeeded in evading
execution of the sentence, which was revoked in 1796. He was appointed
Press Censor under the Restoration.--T.

[562] The Comte Guillaume de La Luzerne, who in 1787 married Madame de
Beaumont's elder sister, Mademoiselle Victoire de Montmorin, was the
nephew of the Comte de La Luzerne, the ambassador, and son of César
Henri de La Luzerne, Minister of Marine under Louis XVI. Chateaubriand
appears to have confused the two.--B.

[563] The Saint-Germains, husband (Germain Couhaillon) and wife, had
been for thirty-eight years in the service of the Montmorin family.
Chateaubriand afterwards took them into his own service, which they
never left.--B.

[564] Auguste de Montmorin (_d._ 1793), a naval officer, had perished
in a storm when returning from the Mauritius.--B.

[565] Annibale della Genga, Pope Leo XII. (1760-1829), succeeded Pope
Pius VII. in 1823.--T.

[566] This tomb, which faces that of the Cardinal de Bernis at San
Luigi dei Francesi, was erected by Chateaubriand himself at a cost of
some nine thousand francs.--B.

[567] And not in 1827, as is given in all the earlier editions of the
Memoirs. Chateaubriand spent the whole of the year 1827 in Paris. It
was not until 1828, under the Mortignac Ministry, that he was appointed
to the Embassy in Rome.--B.

[568] _Greek Anthology_, VII. 346.--B.

[569] M. de Fontanes' friendship goes much too far: Madame de Beaumont
knew me better; she no doubt felt that, if she had left me her fortune,
I should not have accepted it.--_Author's Note._

[570] Madame de Beaumont left her books to Chateaubriand in her will,
dated Paris, 15 May 1802.--B.

[571] The words italicized are in English.--T.

[572] Baron Matthieu de Staël, Madame de Staël's second son, who died
while still very young.--T.

[573] In 1802, for her opposition to Bonaparte.--T.

[574] Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Baron von Humboldt
(1767-1835), the eminent Prussian diplomatist and philologist, and the
friend and correspondent of all the literary eminences of his time.--T.

[575] JOHN XI. 44.--T.

[576] The _Lettre à M. de Fontanes_, on the Roman Campagna, is dated to
January 1804, and first appeared in the Mercure de France, in its issue
of March 1804.--B.

[577] Rome, December 1803.--B.

[578] Cf. ROUSSEAU'S _Confessions._--T.

[579] _Gen._ III. 22.--T.

[580] Jean Henri Joachim Hostein Vicomte Lainé (1767-1835) displayed
considerable independence in the Legislative Body, of which he was a
member for the Department of the Gironde. Under the Restoration, he
was Minister of the Interior from 1816 to 1818. In 1823, he was made
a viscount and a peer of France. He had become a member of the French
Academy in 1818, although he had never produced any literary work,
properly speaking.--T.

[581] _Martyrs_, V.--B.

[582] Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the famous sculptor. In 1819 he was
sent to Paris as a special ambassador from the Pope.--T.

[583] Now the Hôtel de France et de Lorraine, at No. 5, Rue de
Beaune.--B.

[584] Not the 20th, as the previous editions and the manuscript of the
Memoirs have it. This was clearly a slip of the pen. The execution of
the Duc d'Enghien took place, not on the 20th, but on the 21st of March
1804.--B.

[585] Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne (1769-1834), private
secretary to Napoleon I. and Minister of State under Louis XVIII. The
Revolution of 1830 and the consequent loss of his fortune caused him
to lose his reason, and he died in a madhouse. His Memoirs, written by
himself and revised by M. de Villemarest were published in ten volumes,
1829-1831.--T.

[586] _Mémoires de M. de Bourrienne_, vol. V. p. 348.--B.

[587] Here again the manuscript gives the 20th of March in error.--B.

[588] Chateaubriand's letter of resignation ran as follows:

    "CITIZEN MINISTER,

    "The doctors have just stated that Madame de Chateaubriand's
    state of health is such as to raise fears for her life. As
    it is absolutely impossible for me to leave my wife in these
    circumstances, or to expose her to the danger of a journey,
    I beg Your Excellency to approve that I return to you the
    credentials and instructions which you have sent me for the
    Valais. I also trust to your extreme kindness to persuade the
    First Consul to accept _the painful reasons_ which prevent me
    to-day from undertaking the mission with which he was pleased
    to honour me. As I do not know whether my position requires
    me to take any other steps, I venture to appeal to your usual
    indulgence, Citizen Minister, for orders and advice; I shall
    receive these with the gratitude which I shall not cease to
    feel for your past kindnesses.

    "I have the honour to greet you respectfully,

    "CHATEAUBRIAND.

    "HÔTEL DE FRANCE, RUE DE BEAUNE, PARIS.

    "1 _Germinal Year XII_ [22 _March_ 1804]."--B.



[589] Moreau had been arrested on the 15th of February; Pichegru on the
28th of February; and Georges Cadoudal on the 9th of March 1804.--B.

[590] Jean Claude Clausel de Coussergues (1759-1846), a distinguished
magistrate and orator. Under the Restoration, he became a deputy and
a member of the Court of Appeal. He resigned after the Revolution of
1830.--B.

[591] _Prov._ VI. 17.--T.

[592] JOHN VIII. 43.--T.

[593] Talleyrand's letter did not arrive until ten days after the
letter of resignation, and was thus worded:

    "12 _Germinal_ [2 _April_ 1804].

    "CITIZEN,

    "I have brought to the notice of the First Consul the motives
    which prevent you from accepting the Legation in the Valais,
    to which you had been appointed.

    "The Citizen Consul had been pleased to give you a proof of
    confidence. The same feelings of good-will have caused him
    to learn with regret the reasons which do not permit you to
    fulfill that mission.

    "I must also express to you the great interest which I
    attached to the new relations which I should have had to
    maintain with you; and to this regret, which is personal to
    myself, I add that of seeing my department deprived of your
    talents and services."--B.






BOOK III[594]


Death of the Duc d'Enghien--The year 1804--General Hulin--The Duc de
Rovigo--M. de Talleyrand--Part played by each--Bonaparte, his sophistry
and remorse--Conclusions to be drawn from the whole story--Enmities
engendered by the death of the Duc D'Enghien--An article in the
_Mercure_--Change in the life of Bonaparte.


Like the migratory birds, I am seized in the month of October with a
restlessness which would oblige me to change my clime, were I still
strong on the wing and swift as the hours: the clouds flitting across
the sky make me long to flee. In order to cheat this instinct, I made
for Chantilly. I have wandered on the lawn, where old keepers crawl
along the border of the woods. Some crows, flying in front of me over
broom, coppice and glades, have led me to the Commelle Ponds. Death
has breathed upon the friends who used to accompany me to the castle
of Queen Blanche[595]: the sites of these solitudes were but a sad
horizon, half-opened for a moment on the side of my past. In the days
of René, I should have found mysteries of life in the little stream of
the Thève: it steals hidden among horse-tails and mosses; reeds screen
it from sight; it dies in the ponds which it feeds with its youth, ever
expiring, ever renewed: those ripples used to charm me when I bore
within myself the desert with the phantoms which smiled to me, for all
their melancholy, and which I decked with flowers.

Walking back along the hedges, now scarcely traced, I was surprised by
the rain; I took shelter beneath a beech: its last leaves were falling
like my years; its top was stripping itself like my head; its trunk
was marked with a red circle, to be cut down like myself. Now that
I have returned to my inn, with a harvest of autumn plants and in a
mood little suited for joy, I will tell you of the death of M. le Duc
d'Enghien while within sight of the ruins of Chantilly.

*

[Sidenote: Protest of Louis XVIII.]

This death at first froze all hearts with terror; men dreaded a return
of the reign of Robespierre. Paris thought it was seeing again one
of those days which men do not see more than once, the day of the
execution of Louis XVI. Bonaparte's servants, friends and family were
struck with consternation. Abroad, though the language of diplomacy
promptly stifled the popular feeling, the latter none the less stirred
the hearts of the crowd. In the exiled family of the Bourbons, the
blow struck through and through: Louis XVIII. returned to the King of
Spain[596] the Order of the Golden Fleece, with which Bonaparte had
just been decorated; it was accompanied by a letter which did honour to
the royal mind:

    "SIR AND DEAR COUSIN,

    "There can be nothing in common between me and the great
    criminal whom audacity and fortune have placed on a throne
    which he has had the barbarity to stain with the blood of a
    Bourbon, the Duc d'Enghien. Religion may prompt me to forgive
    an assassin; but the tyrant of my people must always be my
    enemy. Providence, for inexplicable reasons, can condemn me
    to end my days in exile; but never shall my contemporaries
    nor posterity be able to say that I showed myself in time of
    adversity unworthy to occupy, till my last breath, the throne
    of my ancestors."

We must not forget another name connected with that of the Duc
d'Enghien: Gustavus Adolphus[597], since dethroned and exiled, was the
only one of the kings then reigning who dared to raise a voice to save
the young French Prince. He dispatched an aide-de-camp from Carlsruhe
bearing a letter for Bonaparte; the letter arrived too late: the last
of the Condés was no more. Gustavus Adolphus returned the ribbon of the
Black Eagle to the King of Prussia[598], as Louis XVIII. had returned
the Golden Fleece to the King of Spain. Gustavus declared to the heir
of Frederic the Great that, "according to the laws of chivalry, he
could not consent to be the brother-in-arms of the butcher of the Duc
d'Enghien[599]." There is an inexpressibly bitter irony in these almost
mad memories of chivalry, everywhere extinct, save in the heart of an
unhappy king for a murdered friend; honour to the noble sympathies of
misfortune, which stand aloof, not understood, in a world unknown to
men!

Alas, we had undergone too many different tyrannies; our characters,
broken by a succession of hardships and oppressions, lacked sufficient
energy to allow our grief long to wear mourning for the death of
young Condé: gradually the tears dried up; fear overflowed with
congratulations on the dangers from which the First Consul had just
escaped; it wept with gratitude at having been saved by a so sacred
immolation. Nero[600], at Seneca's[601] dictation, wrote to the Senate
a letter of apology for the murder of Agrippina[602]; the Senators,
delighted, heaped blessings upon the magnanimous son who had not feared
to pluck out his heart by so salutary an act of parricide! Society soon
returned to its pleasures; it was afraid of its mourning: after the
Terror, the victims who had been spared danced, forced themselves to
appear happy and, fearing lest they should be suspected guilty of the
crime of memory, displayed the same gaiety as when they went to the
scaffold.

[Sidenote: The Duc D'Enghien's arrest.]

The Duc d'Enghien was not arrested point-blank and without
precautions: Bonaparte had had a report drawn up of the number of
Bourbons in Europe. In a council to which Messieurs de Talleyrand and
Fouché were summoned, it was recognised that the Duc d'Angoulême was at
Warsaw, with Louis XVIII.; the Comte d'Artois and the Duc de Berry in
London, with the Princes de Condé and de Bourbon. The youngest of the
Condés was at Ettenheim, in the Duchy of Baden. It was found that two
English agents, Messrs. Taylor and Drake, had conducted intrigues in
that quarter. On the 16th of June 1803 the Duc de Bourbon[603] warned
his grandson against a possible arrest by means of a note addressed
to him from London, which is still preserved. Bonaparte summoned the
two Consuls, his colleagues, to his side. He first bitterly reproached
M. Réal[604] for having left him in ignorance of what was being
planned against him. He patiently listened to the objections. The
one to express himself with the greatest vigour was Cambacérès[605].
Bonaparte thanked him and took no further notice. This is what I have
seen in the Memoirs of Cambacérès, which one of his nephews, M. de
Cambacérès, a peer of France, has permitted me to consult with an
obligingness of which I retain a grateful recollection. The bomb once
thrown does not return: it goes where the engineer flings it, and
falls. To execute Bonaparte's orders, it was necessary to violate the
territory of Germany, and the territory was violated forthwith. The
Duc d'Enghien was arrested at Ettenheim. With him were found, instead
of General Dumouriez, only the Marquis de Thumery and some other
Emigrants of little note: this ought to have shown the mistake. The Duc
d'Enghien was taken to Strasburg. The beginning of the catastrophe of
Vincennes has been narrated by the Prince himself: he has left a little
road-journal from Ettenheim to Strasburg; the hero of the tragedy steps
before the curtain to recite this prologue:

    "Thursday 15 March, at Ettenheim, my house surrounded," says
    the Prince, "by a detachment of dragoons and some pickets of
    gendarmes, total about two hundred men, two generals, the
    colonel of the dragoons, Colonel Chariot of the Strasburg
    Gendarmerie, at five o'clock[606]. At half-past five, doors
    broken in, taken to the Mill, near the Tile-works. My papers
    taken away, sealed up. Taken in a cart, between two lines of
    fusiliers, to the Rhine. Put on board a boat for Rhisnau.
    Landed and marched on foot as far as Pfortsheim. Breakfasted
    at the inn. Got into a carriage with Colonel Chariot, the
    quarter-master of the gendarmes, a gendarme on the box and
    Grunstein. Arrived at Strasburg, at Colonel Chariot's,
    about half-past five. Transferred half an hour after, in a
    hackney-coach, to the citadel.

    . . . . . . . .

    "Sunday 18, they come to fetch me at half-past one in the
    morning. They do not give me time to dress. I embrace my
    unhappy companions, my servants. I leave alone with two
    officers of gendarmes and two gendarmes. Colonel Chariot
    told me that we were going to the general of division,
    who has received orders from Paris. Instead of that, I
    find a carriage with six post-horses in the Church Square.
    Lieutenant Petermann gets in beside me, Blitersdorff the
    quarter-master on the box, two gendarmes inside, the other
    out."


Here the ship-wrecked man, on the point of being engulfed, interrupts
his log.

The carriage arrived at about four o'clock in the evening at one of the
barriers of the capital, where the Strasburg road ends, and instead
of driving into Paris, followed the outer boulevard and stopped at
Vincennes Castle. The Prince alighted from the carriage in the inner
court-yard and was taken to a room of the fortress, where he was locked
in and went to sleep. As the Prince was approaching Paris, Bonaparte
affected an air of calmness which was not natural.

On the 18th of March, which was Palm Sunday, he went to the Malmaison.
Madame Bonaparte[607], who, with all her family, was informed of the
Prince's arrest, spoke to him of this arrest. Bonaparte replied:

"You don't understand politics."

Colonel Savary[608] had become one of Bonaparte's intimates. Why?
Because he had seen the First Consul weep at Marengo. Exceptional
men should distrust their tears, which place them beneath the yoke
of vulgar men. Tears are one of those weaknesses which enable an
eyewitness to make himself master of a great man's resolutions.

[Sidenote: He is taken to Vincennes.]

They say that the First Consul himself had all the orders for Vincennes
drawn up. One of these orders provided that, if the expected sentence
was a death sentence, it was to be executed on the spot.

I believe this version, although I cannot vouch for its truth, since
those orders are missing. Madame de Rémusat[609], who was playing chess
with the First Consul at the Malmaison on the evening of the 20th of
March, heard him mutter some verses on the clemency of Augustus[610];
she thought that Bonaparte was coming to himself again and that the
Prince was saved[611]. No, destiny had pronounced its oracle!

When Savary reappeared at Malmaison, Madame Bonaparte divined the whole
misfortune. The First Consul had locked himself up alone for many
hours. And then the wind blew, and all was ended.

*

An order of Bonaparte, dated 29 Ventôse, Year XII[612], had decreed
that a military commission, consisting of seven members appointed by
General the Governor of Paris[613] should meet at Vincennes to try
"the _ci-devant_ Duc d'Enghien, accused of bearing arms against the
Republic," etc.

In fulfilment of this decree, Joachim Murat on the same day, 29
Ventôse, appointed the seven officers who were to form the said
commission, namely:

General Hulin[614], commanding the Foot Grenadiers of the Consular
Guard, president;

Colonel Guitton, commanding the 1st Regiment of Cuirassiers;

Colonel Bazancourt, commanding the 4th Regiment of Light Infantry;

Colonel Ravier, commanding the 18th Regiment of Infantry of the Line;

Colonel Barrois, commanding the 96th Regiment of Infantry of the Line;

Colonel Rabbe, commanding the 2nd Regiment of the Municipal Guard of
Paris;

Citizen Dautancourt, Major of the Gendarmerie d'Élite, with the
functions of captain-judge-advocate.

Captain Dautancourt, Major Jacquin of the Légion d'Élite, two foot
gendarmes of the same corps, Lerva and Tharsis, and Citizen Noirot, a
lieutenant in the same corps, went to the Duc d'Enghien's and awoke
him: he had but four hours to wait before returning to his sleep. The
judge-advocate, assisted by Molin, a captain in the 18th Regiment,
chosen as registrar by the aforesaid judge-advocate, examined the
Prince.

[Sidenote: And examined.]

_Asked_: His surname, Christian names, age, and birthplace?

_Answered_: That his name was Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Duc
d'Enghien, born 2 August 1772 at Chantilly.

_Asked_: Where he had resided since he left France?

_Answered_: That, after accompanying his relations, Condé's Corps
having been formed, he had served through the whole war, and that,
before that, he had been through the campaign of 1792, in Brabant, with
Bourbon's Corps.

_Asked_: If he had not gone to England, and if that Power did not still
allow him a salary?

_Answered_: That he had never been there; that England still allowed
him his pay, which was all he had to live upon.

_Asked_: What rank he filled in Condé's Army?

_Answered_: Commander of the Advance Guard in 1796; before that
campaign, as a volunteer at his grandfather's headquarters; and, ever
since 1796, Commander of the Advance Guard.

_Asked_: If he knew General Pichegru, and if he had had relations with
him?

_Answered_: "I have never seen him, to my knowledge. I have had no
relations with him. I know that he wished to see me. I am glad that I
never knew him, because of the base methods which he is said to have
wished to employ, if true."

_Asked_: If he knew ex-General Dumouriez, and if he had had relations
with him?

_Answered_: "Not with him either."

*

"Whence," continues the report, "were drawn up these presents, which
have been signed by the Duc d'Enghien, Major Jacquin, Lieutenant
Noirot, the two gendarmes, and captain-judge-advocate.

"Before signing this present report the Duc d'Enghien said:

"'I earnestly make a request to be granted a private audience of the
First Consul. My name, my rank, my way of thinking and the horror of my
situation make me hope that he will not refuse my request.'"


At two o'clock on the morning of the 21st of March, the Duc d'Enghien
was taken to the room in which the commission sat, and repeated what
he had said in examination by the judge-advocate. He persisted in his
declaration: he added that he was willing to make war, and that he
wished for service in the new war of England against France.

"Asked whether he had anything to put forward in the plea of his
defense; answered that he had nothing more to say.

"The president ordered the prisoner to withdraw; the council
deliberated with closed doors; the president took the votes, commencing
with the junior in rank; next, the president having given his opinion
last, the Duc d'Enghien was unanimously declared guilty, and the
Court applied Article ... of the law of the... thus worded.... and
in consequence condemned him to the penalty of death. Ordered, on
the demand of the captain-judge-advocate, that the present sentence,
after being read to the condemned man, shall be executed directly, in
presence of the different detachments of the corps of the garrison.

"Given, concluded, and tried at one sitting, at Vincennes, on the day,
month and year as above, as witness our hands."

*

The grave having been "dug, filled up, and closed," ten years of
forgetfulness, of general assent and of unexampled glory sat down upon
it; the grass sprang up to the sound of the salvoes which proclaimed
victories, by the light of the illuminations which shed their lustre
over the pontifical coronation, the marriage of the daughter of the
Cæsars[615], and the birth of the King of Rome[616]. Only some rare
sympathizers rambled in the wood, hazarding a furtive glance at the
bottom of the moat in the direction of the lamentable spot, while a few
prisoners watched them from the top of the donjon in which they were
confined. Then came the Restoration: the earth of the tomb was stirred,
and with it men's consciences; each then thought it his duty to explain
himself.

[Illustration: Duc D'Enghien.]

M. Dupin the Elder[617] published his Discussion; M. Hulin, the
president of the military commission, spoke; M. le Duc de Rovigo
entered into the controversy by accusing M. de Talleyrand; a third
party replied on behalf of M. de Talleyrand; and Napoleon raised his
mighty voice on the rock of St. Helena.

These documents must be reproduced and studied, in order to assign to
each the part due to him and the place which he should occupy in this
drama. It is night, and we are at Chantilly; it was night when the Duc
d'Enghien was at Vincennes.

[Sidenote: M. Dupin's pamphlet.]

When M. Dupin published his pamphlet he sent it to me with the
following letter:

    "PARIS, 10 _November_ 1823.

    "MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

    "Pray accept a copy of my publication relative to the murder
    of the Duc d'Enghien.

    "It would have appeared long ago, had I not desired above all
    to respect the wish of Monseigneur le Duc de Bourbon, who,
    having been informed of my work, had communicated to me his
    desire that this deplorable affair might not be disinterred.

    "But Providence having permitted others to take the
    initiative, it has become necessary to make the truth known,
    and after assuring myself that it was no longer insisted that
    I should remain silent, I have spoken with frankness and
    sincerity.

    "I have the honour to be, with profound respect,

    "monsieur le vicomte,

    "Your Excellency's most humble and obedient servant,

    "DUPIN."

M. Dupin, whom I congratulated and thanked, revealed in his covering
letter an unknown and touching instance of the noble and merciful
virtues of the victim's father. M. Dupin commences his pamphlet thus:

    "The death of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien is one of the
    most afflicting events that ever befel the French nation: it
    dishonoured the consular government.

    "A young prince, in the flower of his age, surprised by
    treachery on foreign soil, where he was sleeping in peace
    under the protection of the Law of Nations; dragged violently
    to France; indicted before pretended judges, who could in
    no case be his; accused of imaginary crimes; denied the
    assistance of counsel; examined and sentenced behind closed
    doors; put to death at night in the moat of the castle which
    was used as a State prison; so many virtues unheeded, such
    fond hopes destroyed, will ever stamp this catastrophe as one
    of the most revolting acts that an absolute government ever
    ventured to commit.

    "If no form was respected; if the judges were incompetent;
    if they did not even take the trouble to mention in their
    judgment the date and text of the laws upon which they
    affected to ground their condemnation; if the unhappy Duc
    d'Enghien was shot in pursuance of a sentence _signed in
    blank._... and only made regular after execution! then we
    have to do not only with the innocent victim of judicial
    error; the thing assumes its true name: it is an odious
    murder."

This eloquent exordium brings M. Dupin to the examination of the
documents. He first proves the illegality of the arrest: the Duc
d'Enghien was not arrested in France; he was in no way a prisoner of
war, since he had not been taken with arms in his hands; he was not a
prisoner in the civil sense, for no extradition had been demanded; it
was a violent seizure of the person, comparable to the captures made
by the pirates of Tunis and Algiers, an inroad of robbers, _incursio
latronum._

The jurist proceeds to discuss the incompetency of the military
commission: cognizance of alleged plots hatched against the State has
never been conferred upon military commissions.

Next follows the analysis of the judgment.

*

    "The examination," continues M. Dupin, "took place on the 29
    Ventôse at midnight. On the 30 Ventôse, at two o'clock in the
    morning, the Duc d'Enghien was brought before the military
    commission.

    "On the minutes of the judgment we read, 'This day, the 30
    Ventôse, Year XII of the Republic, _at two o'clock in the
    morning._' The words, 'at two o'clock in the morning,' which
    were only inserted because it was in fact that time, are
    obliterated on the minutes without being replaced by any
    other indication.

    "Not a single witness was heard or produced against the
    prisoner.

    "The accused 'was declared guilty!' Guilty of what? The
    judgment does not say.

    "Every judgment that pronounces a penalty is bound to contain
    a reference to the law by virtue of which such penalty is
    inflicted.

    [Sidenote: A scathing indictment.]

    "Well, in this case, none of these forms has been fulfilled:
    nothing in the official report bears witness that the
    commissioners had _a copy of the law_ before them; nothing
    shows that the president _read the text_ of the law before
    applying it. Far from it: the judgment in its material form
    affords the proof that the commissioners convicted without
    knowing either the date or the tenor of the law; for, in
    the minutes of the judgment, they have _left in blank_ the
    date of the law, the number of the article, and the place
    in which the precise words should have been quoted. And yet
    it was on the minutes of a sentence framed in this state of
    imperfection that the noblest blood was shed by butchers!

    "The deliberation must be secret, but the judgment must be
    pronounced in public: again, it is the law that speaks. Now
    the judgment of the 30 Ventôse certainly says, 'The council
    deliberated _with closed doors_;' but it does not mention
    that the doors were opened again, or intimate that the result
    of the deliberation was pronounced in a public sitting. Even
    had it said so, who would believe it? A public sitting at two
    o'clock in the morning, in the donjon of Vincennes, while
    all the issues of the castle were being guarded by gendarmes
    d'élite! But the fact is that they did not even take the
    precaution to resort to a lie: the judgment is silent on this
    point.

    "This judgment is signed by the president and the six other
    commissioners, including the judge-advocate; but observe
    that the minutes _are not signed by the registrar_, whose
    concurrence, however, is necessary to give them authenticity.

    "The sentence concludes with this terrible formula:
    '_shall be executed_ FORTHWITH, _under the care of the
    captain-judge-advocate._'

    "FORTHWITH! Cruel word, the work of the judges! FORTHWITH!
    And an express law, that of the 15 Brumaire, Year VI, granted
    the right of appeal for a new trial against any military
    judgment!"

Passing to the execution, M. Dupin continues as follows:

    "Examined at night and tried at night, the Duc d'Enghien
    was also killed at night. This horrible sacrifice was to be
    consummated in the dark, in order that it might be said that
    all laws had been infringed, all, even those which prescribed
    that executions shall take place in public."

The jurist comes to the irregularities in the preliminaries:

    "Article 19 of the law of the 13 Brumaire, Year V, declares
    that, after closing the examination, the judge-advocate shall
    tell the prisoner to 'choose a friend as his defender.' The
    prisoner shall have 'the power to choose that defender' among
    every class of citizen present on the spot; if he declares
    that he is unable to make that choice, the judge-advocate
    shall make it for him.

    "Ah, no doubt the Prince had no _friends_[618] among those
    who surrounded him; this fact was cruelly declared to him by
    one of the abettors of that horrible scene!... Alas, why were
    we not present! Why was the prince not allowed to make an
    appeal to the bar of Paris! There he would have found friends
    of his unhappiness, defenders of his misfortune. ... It was
    apparently with a view to making the judgment presentable
    in the eyes of the public that a new edition was drawn up
    at leisure.... The tardy substitution of a second form of
    judgment, in appearance more regular than the first (although
    equally unjust), in no way detracts from the heinousness of
    having put the Duc d'Enghien to death by virtue of a rough
    draft of a judgment, hastily signed, and not even signed by
    all the requisite parties."

*

Such is M. Dupin's luminous pamphlet. Nevertheless I do not know
that, in an act of the nature of that which the author examines, the
greater or lesser regularity holds an important place: whether the
Duc d'Enghien was strangled in a post-chaise between Strasburg and
Paris or killed in the wood of Vincennes makes no difference. But is
it not providential to see men, after long years, some showing the
irregularity of a murder in which they had taken no part, others
hastening, unasked, to the bar of public accusal? What, then have they
heard? What voice from on high has summoned them to appear?

*

After the great jurist, here comes a blind veteran: he has commanded
the Grenadiers of the Old Guard; what that means brave men know. His
last wound he received from Malet[619], whose powerless lead remained
lost in a face which had never turned from the fire. "Afflicted with
blindness, withdrawn from the world, consoled only by the care of his
family," to use his own words, the judge of the Duc d'Enghien appears
to issue from his tomb at the call of the sovereign judge; he pleads
his cause[620] without self-delusion or excuses:

[Sidenote: General Hulin's pamphlet.]

    "Let there be no mistake," he says, "as to my intentions. I
    am not writing through fear, since my person is under the
    protection of laws emanating from the Throne itself, and
    since, under the government of a righteous king, I have
    nothing to dread from violence or lawlessness.... I write to
    tell the truth, even in what may be to my own detriment! So I
    do not pretend to justify even the form or the substance of
    the judgment; but I wish to show under what a powerful union
    of circumstances it was delivered; I wish to remove from
    myself and my colleagues the suspicion of having acted as
    party men. If we are still to receive blame, I wish also that
    men should say of us:

    "'They were very unfortunate.'"

*

General Hulin asserts that he was appointed president of a military
commission without knowing its object; that when he arrived at
Vincennes he was no wiser; that the other members of the commission
knew as little; that M. Harel[621], the governor of the castle, told
him, on being asked, that he knew nothing himself, adding:

"What can I do? I am nobody here now. Everything is done without my
orders or participation: another man is in command here."

It was ten o'clock at night when General Hulin was relieved from
his uncertainty by the communication of the documents. The hearing
was opened at midnight, when the examination of the prisoner by the
judge-advocate had been finished.

    "The reading of the documents," says the president of the
    commission, "gave rise to an incident. We observed that, at
    the end of his examination before the judge-advocate, the
    Prince, before signing, _wrote with his own hand some lines
    in which he expressed a wish to have an explanation with the
    First Consul._ One of the members proposed that this request
    should be forwarded to the Government. The commission agreed;
    but at the same moment General --------, who had come and
    placed himself behind my chair, pointed out to us that this
    request was 'inopportune.' Moreover, we found no provision in
    the law authorizing us to suspend judgment. The commission
    therefore proceeded, reserving to itself the right to satisfy
    the prisoner's wishes after the trial."

*

So far General Hulin. Now, in a pamphlet by the Duc de Rovigo we read
the following passage:

    "There were, indeed, so many people that, as I arrived among
    the last, I found it difficult to make my way to the back of
    the president's chair, where I ultimately placed myself."

And so it was the Duc de Rovigo who had "placed himself behind the
chair" of the president? But had he, or any other not forming one
of the commission, the right to interfere in the proceedings of the
commission, and to point out that a request was "inopportune"?

Let us hear the commander of the Grenadiers of the Old Guard speak of
the courage of the young son of the Condés; he was a judge of it:

[Sidenote: The Duc D'Enghien's courage.]

    "I proceeded to examine the prisoner; I must say that
    he stood up to us with a noble confidence, spurned the
    accusation that he had been directly or indirectly implicated
    in a plot to assassinate the First Consul; but also admitted
    that he had borne arms against France, saying, with a courage
    and a pride which did not for a moment permit us, in his
    own interest, to shake him on this point, 'that he had
    supported the rights of his family, and that a Condé could
    never re-enter France without arms in his hands. My birth and
    convictions,' he added, 'make me for ever the enemy of your
    government.'

    "His resolute confessions distressed his judges to the
    utmost. Ten times did we give him the opportunity to revise
    his statements, but throughout he persisted unshaken:

    "'I perceive,' he said at intervals, 'the honourable
    intentions of the members of the commission; but I cannot
    avail myself of the terms they offer me.'

    "And on being warned that military commissions judged without
    appeal:

    "'I know that,' he replied, 'and I am quite aware of the
    danger which I am running; I only wish to have an interview
    with the First Consul.'"

Does the whole of our history contain a more pathetic page? New
France sitting in judgment upon Old France, doing homage to her,
presenting arms to her, saluting her colours, even while condemning
her; the tribunal set up in the fortress in which the great Condé,
when a prisoner, cultivated flowers; the General of the Grenadiers
of Bonaparte's Guard seated face to face with the last descendant of
the victor of Rocroi, feeling himself moved with admiration before
the prisoner left without a defender and abandoned by the world,
questioning him while the sound of the gravedigger digging the grave
mingled with the young soldier's firm replies! A few days after the
execution, General Hulin exclaimed:

"Oh, the brave young man! What courage! I should like to die like that!"

General Hulin, after speaking of the "minutes" and of the "second
edition" of the judgment, says:

    "As to the second edition, the only true one, as it did not
    convey the order _for immediate execution, but only for the
    immediate reading of the judgment_ to the condemned man,
    the immediate execution could not have been the act of the
    commission, but only of those who took upon themselves the
    responsibility of hastening the fatal execution.

    "Alas, our thoughts were engaged elsewhere! The judgment was
    scarcely signed when I began to write a letter in which, with
    the unanimous consent of the commission, I wrote to inform
    the First Consul of the desire which the Prince had expressed
    to have an interview with him, and also to entreat him to
    remit a penalty which the difficulty of our position did not
    permit us to elude.

    "At that moment a man, who had never left the council-hall,
    and whom I would name at once did I not consider that, even
    when defending myself, I ought not to become an accuser,
    approached me and asked:

    "'What are you doing there?'

    "'I am writing to the First Consul,' I replied, 'to convey to
    him the wishes of the council and of the condemned man.'

    "'Your business is done,' said he, taking the pen; 'this is
    now my affair.'

    "I protest that I thought, as did several of my colleagues,
    that he meant to say, 'This is my affair, to inform the First
    Consul.' Taken in this sense, the reply left us the hope that
    the information would be none the less conveyed. And how
    could it have occurred to us that there was any one among us
    _that had orders to neglect the formalities prescribed by
    law?_"


The whole secret of this mournful catastrophe lies in this deposition.
The veteran who, in daily expectation of dying on the battlefield, had
learned from death the language of truth, concludes with these final
words:

    "I was talking of what had just happened, in the lobby
    adjoining the hall in which we had deliberated. Separate
    conversations were going forward; I was waiting for my
    carriage, which had not been allowed to drive into the inner
    court-yard, nor had those of the other members, thus delaying
    my departure and theirs. We were closed in, none of us having
    means to communicate with the outside, when an explosion was
    heard: a terrible noise that resounded at the bottom of our
    souls and froze them with terror and affright.

    "Yes, I swear, in the name of all my colleagues, that this
    execution was not authorized by us: our judgment stated
    that a copy of it should be sent to the Minister for War,
    to the Chief Judge the Minister for Justice, and to the
    General-in-Chief the Governor of Paris.

    "The order of execution could be given regularly only by
    the last-named; the copies had not yet been dispatched;
    they could not be finished before a portion of the day had
    elapsed. On my return to Paris I should have gone in search
    of the Governor, the First Consul, anybody! And suddenly
    a dreadful sound comes to reveal to us that the Prince no
    longer lives!

    "We did not know whether he who so cruelly hastened on
    this fatal execution _had orders: if he had none, he alone
    was responsible; if he had orders, the commission, knowing
    nothing of those orders, the commission, forcibly and
    illegally detained_, the commission, whose last wish was for
    the Prince's safety, could neither foresee nor prevent their
    effect. It cannot be accused of the result.

    "The lapse of twenty years has not allayed the bitterness of
    my regret!... Let me be accused of ignorance, of error, I
    acquiesce; let me be reproached with an obedience from which
    to-day, under similar circumstances, I should certainly know
    how to escape; with my attachment to a man whom I thought
    destined to promote the happiness of my country; with my
    loyalty to a government which I then considered lawful, and
    which had received my oath; but let some allowance be made to
    me, and also to my colleagues, for the fatal circumstances
    under which we were summoned to decide."

A weak defense, but you repent, general: peace be with you! If your
sentence became the marching-orders of the last of the Condés, you will
join the last conscript of our old mother-land in the advance-guard
of the dead. The young soldier will gladly share his couch with the
grenadier of the Old Guard: the France of Freiburg[622] and the France
of Marengo will sleep together.

[Sidenote: Enter the Duc de Rovigo.]

M. le Duc de Rovigo, beating his breast, takes his place in the
procession that comes to confess at the tomb. I had long been under the
power of the Minister of Police; he fell under the influence which
he supposed to be restored to me on the return of the Legitimacy:
he communicated a portion of his Memoirs to me. Men in his position
speak with wonderful candour of what they have done; they have no
idea of what they are saying against themselves: accusing themselves
without perceiving it, they do not suspect the existence of an opinion
differing from theirs, both as regards the functions which they had
undertaken and the line of conduct which they have observed. If
they have been wanting in loyalty, they do not think that they have
broken their oath; if they have taken upon themselves parts which are
repugnant to other characters, they believe that they have done great
services. Their ingenuousness does not justify them, but it excuses
them.

M. le Duc de Rovigo consulted me on the chapters in which he treats of
the death of the Duc d'Enghien: he wished to know my mind, precisely
because he knew how I had acted; I valued this mark of his esteem and,
repaying frankness with frankness, I advised him to publish nothing:

"Leave all this," said I, "to die out; in France, oblivion is not slow
in coming. You imagine that you will clear Napoleon of a reproach, and
throw back the fault upon M. de Talleyrand; but you do not sufficiently
exonerate the former, nor do you sufficiently accuse the latter. You
lay yourself open to attack from your enemies; they will not fail to
reply to you. Why need you remind the public that you were in command
of the Gendarmerie d'Élite at Vincennes? They were not aware of the
direct part which you played in this fatal deed, and now you tell them
of it. Throw the manuscript into the fire, general: I speak in your own
interest."

Steeped in the maxims of the imperial government, the Duc de Rovigo
thought that those maxims could be as well applied to the legitimate
throne; he felt convinced that his pamphlet[623] would reopen the doors
of the Tuileries to him.

It is partly by the light of this publication that posterity will trace
the outlines of the phantoms of grief. I offered to hide the suspect
who had come to ask shelter of me during the night; he did not accept
the protection of my house.

M. de Rovigo tells the story of the departure of M. de
Caulaincourt[624], whom he does not mention by name: he speaks of the
kidnapping at Ettenheim, the prisoner's passing through Strasburg, and
his arrival at Vincennes. After an expedition on the coast of Normandy,
General Savary had returned to the Malmaison. He was summoned, at
five o'clock in the evening of the 19th of March 1804, to the closet
of the First Consul, who handed him a sealed letter to be carried to
General Murat, the Governor of Paris. He flew to the general, crossing
with the Minister of Foreign Relations on his way, and received the
order to take the Gendarmerie d'Élite and go to Vincennes. He went
there at eight o'clock in the evening, in time to see the members of
the commission arrive. He soon made his way into the hall where the
Prince was being tried, at one o'clock in the morning of the 21st,
and took a seat behind the president. He gives the Duc d'Enghien's
replies in about the same terms as they are given in the report of
the one sitting. He told me that the Prince, after making his final
explanations, with a quick movement took off his cap, laid it on the
table and, with the air of a man resigning his life, said to the
president:

[Sidenote: His pitiful defense.]

"I have nothing more to say, sir."

M. de Rovigo insists upon it that this sitting was in no way secret:


"The doors of the hall," he declares, "were open and free to any who
cared to attend _at that hour._"


M. Dupin had already pointed out the confusion of this argument. In
this connection M. Achille Roche[625], who appears to write for M. de
Talleyrand, exclaims:

"The sitting was in no way secret! At midnight! Held in the inhabited
portion of the castle, in the inhabited portion of a prison! Who, then,
was present at this sitting? Gaolers, soldiers, executioners!"

*

No one was in a position to give more exact details concerning the
moment and place of the thunder-clap than M. le Duc de Rovigo; let us
hear what he says:

"After sentence had been pronounced, I withdrew with the officers of
my corps, who like myself had been present during the proceedings,
and joined the troops stationed on the esplanade of the castle. The
officer who commanded the infantry of my legion came and told me, with
deep emotion, that a piquet of men was required of him to execute the
sentence of the military commission:

"'Give it,' I replied.

"'But where am I to post it?'

"'Where you may be sure to hurt nobody.'

"For already the roads were full of inhabitants of the populous
environs of Paris on their way to attend the different markets.

"After carefully examining the ground, the officer chose the moat as
the place where there was least danger of any one being hurt. M. le Duc
d'Enghien was taken there by the stairs of the entrance-tower, on the
park side, and there heard the sentence pronounced, which was put into
effect."

*

Below this paragraph, the author of the memorial appends the following
footnote:

"Between the passing of the sentence and its execution, a grave was
dug, which gave rise to the report that it had been prepared prior to
the judgment."

Unfortunately, we meet here with deplorable inaccuracies:

    "M. de Rovigo contends," says M. Achille Roche, M. de
    Talleyrand's apologist, "that he obeyed orders! Who conveyed
    to him the order for the execution? It appears that it was
    a certain M. Delga, killed at Wagram. But whether it be M.
    Delga or not, if M. Savary is mistaken in mentioning M. Delga
    to us, no one, doubtless, to-day, will lay claim to the fame
    conferred upon that officer. M. de Rovigo is accused of
    having hastened the execution; it was not he, he replies: a
    man who is now dead told him that orders had been given to
    hasten it."

The Duc de Rovigo is not well inspired on the subject of the execution,
which he describes as taking place in daylight; that would, besides,
have altered nothing in the fact, and would simply mean the absence of
a torch at the punishment.

"At the hour of sunrise, in the open air," asks the general, "what
need was there for a lantern to see a man _at six paces!_ Not that
the sun," he adds, "was altogether bright and clear; a fine rain had
fallen all night, and a damp mist still retarded, in some degree, its
appearance. The execution took place at six o'clock in the morning:
this fact is witnessed by irrefutable documents."

*

[Sidenote: The execution.]

But the general neither produces these documents nor tells us where to
find them. The course of the trial shows that the Duc d'Enghien was
tried at two o'clock in the morning and shot forthwith. Those words,
"two o'clock in morning," which originally appeared on the first
minutes of the sentence, were subsequently erased from the minutes.
The official report of the exhumation proves, by the depositions of
three witnesses, Madame Bon, the Sieur Godard and the Sieur Bounelet
(the latter had helped to dig the grave), that the death penalty was
effected at night. M. Dupin the Elder records the circumstance of a
lantern fastened over the Duc d'Enghien's heart to serve as a mark, or
held, with the same object, in the Prince's firm hand. Stories were
told of a heavy stone taken from the grave with which the victim's head
was crushed in. Lastly, the Duc de Rovigo is supposed to have boasted
of possessing some of the spoils of the sacrifice; I myself have
believed in these rumours; but the legal documents prove that they were
unfounded.

From the official report, dated Wednesday the 20th of March 1816,
of the physicians and surgeons entrusted with the exhumation of the
corpse, it has been certified that the skull was broken, that "the
upper jaw, separated entirely from the facial bones, contained twelve
teeth; that the lower jaw, fractured in the middle, was divided in two,
and showed only three teeth."

The body was lying flat upon its abdomen, the head being lower than the
feet; there was a gold chain around the vertebrae of the neck.

The second official report of the exhumation (of the same date, 20
March 1816), "the general report," states that with the remains of the
skeleton were found a purse in morocco-leather containing eleven pieces
of gold, seventy pieces of gold enclosed in sealed rolls, some hair,
shreds of clothing, remnants of his cap bearing marks of the bullets by
which it had been pierced.

M. de Rovigo therefore took none of the spoils; the earth which had
held them has restored them, and has borne witness to the general's
honesty; no lantern was fastened over the Prince's heart, its
fragments would have been found, as were those of the perforated cap;
no heavy stone was taken from the grave; the fire of the piquet _at six
paces_ was enough to blow the head to pieces, to "separate the upper
jaw from the facial bones," and so on.

To complete this mockery of human vanities were needed only the similar
immolation of Murat, the Governor of Paris, the death of Bonaparte in
captivity, and the inscription engraved upon the Duc d'Enghien's coffin:

"Here lies the _body_ of the most high and mighty Prince of the Blood,
Peer of France, _died_ at Vincennes, 21 March 1804; aged 31 years, 7
months and 19 days."

The "body" was mere bare and shattered bones; the "high and mighty
Prince," the broken fragments of a soldier's carcase; not a word to
recall the catastrophe, not a word of blame or grief in this epitaph
carved by a sorrowing family; a prodigious result of the respect which
the century shows to the works and susceptibilities of the Revolution!
In the same way, no time was lost in removing all traces of the
mortuary chapel of the Duc de Berry.

What a sum total of annihilation! Bourbons, who returned to so little
purpose to your palaces, you have busied yourselves with naught save
exhumations and funerals: your time of life was passed. God has willed
it so! The ancient glory of France perished beneath the eyes of the
shade of the Great Condé, in a moat at Vincennes: perhaps at the very
place where Louis IX., "to whom men resorted as to a saint.... seated
himself at the foot of an oak, and where all who had any business with
him came without ceremony and without hindrance from any usher or
others; and whenever he heard anything that could be amended in the
speeches of those who pleaded for others he most graciously corrected
it himself, and all the people who had a cause to bring before him
stood round him[626]."

The Duc d'Enghien asked leave to speak to Bonaparte: "he had a cause
to bring before him;" he was not heard! Who, standing at the edge
of the ravelin, looked down into the moat upon those muskets, those
soldiers dimly lighted by a lantern in the mist and gloom, as in night
everlasting? Where was the light placed? Did the Duc d'Enghien stand
over his open grave? Was he obliged to step across it to place himself
at the distance of "six paces" specified by the Duc de Rovigo.

There exists a letter written by M. le Duc d'Enghien, at the age of
nine, to his father the Duc de Bourbon; he says:

"All the Enguiens[627] are _lucky_; the one[628] of the Battle of
Cerizoles, the one who won the Battle of Rocroi[629]: I hope to be so
too."

Is it true that the victim was refused a priest? Is it true that he
only with difficulty found a hand willing to convey to a woman a last
pledge of affection? What did the executioners care for sentiments of
religion or love? They were there to kill, the Duc d'Enghien to die.

The Duc d'Enghien had been secretly married, through the offices of
a priest, to the Princesse Charlotte de Rohan[630]: in those days of
a roving mother-land, a man, by the very reason of his elevation,
was impeded by a thousand political obstacles; to enjoy that which
society accords to all, he was obliged to hide himself. This lawful
marriage, to-day no more a secret, enhances the splendour of a tragic
doom; it substitutes the glory for the clemency of Heaven: religion
perpetuates the pomp of misfortune when, after the catastrophe has been
accomplished, the cross rises on the deserted spot.

*

[Sidenote: The Duc de Talleyrand.]

M. de Talleyrand, according to M. de Rovigo's pamphlet, had presented
a vindicatory memorial to Louis XVIII.; this memorial, which I have
not seen, should have thrown light upon everything, and threw light
upon nothing. In 1820, when I was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary
to Berlin, I discovered in the archives of the embassy a letter from
"the Citizen Laforest[631]," addressed to "the Citizen Talleyrand,"
on the subject of the Duc d'Enghien. This strongly-worded letter does
its author the more credit in that he did not fear to compromise his
career, without earning the reward of public opinion, since the step he
had taken was to remain unknown: a noble act of self-denial on the part
of a man who, through his very obscurity, had relegated to obscurity
the good which he had done.

M. de Talleyrand took his lesson, and kept silence; at least, I found
nothing from him in the same archives concerning the death of the
Prince. The Minister of Foreign Relations had nevertheless, on the 2
Ventôse, informed the Minister of the Elector of Baden "that the First
Consul had thought it necessary to order some detachments to proceed
to Offenburg and Ettenheim, there to seize the instigators of the
scandalous conspiracies which, by their character, place without the
pale of the Law of Nations all those who have manifestly taken part in
them."

A passage from Generals Gourgaud[632], Montholon[633], and D. Ward,
brings Bonaparte upon the scene:

    "My Minister," says the latter, "strongly represented to
    me the need for seizing the Duc d'Enghien, although he was
    upon neutral territory. But I continued to hesitate, and the
    Prince de Bénévent twice brought me the order for his arrest
    for signature. Nevertheless I consented to sign it only after
    convincing myself of the urgency of this act."

According to the _Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_[634], the following words
must have dropped from Bonaparte:

    "The Duc d'Enghien bore himself before the tribunal with
    great gallantry. On his arrival at Strasburg, he wrote me a
    letter; this letter was handed to Talleyrand, who kept it
    until the execution."

*

I have no great belief in this letter: Napoleon probably turned into a
letter the request made by the Duc d'Enghien to speak to the conqueror
of Italy, or rather the few lines expressing this request which, before
signing the examination undergone before the judge-advocate, the Prince
had written with his own hand. Nevertheless, the fact that this letter
was not to be found should not lead us too vigorously to conclude that
it was never written:

    "I know," says the Duc de Rovigo, "that in the early days
    of the Restoration, in 1814, one of M. de Talleyrand's
    secretaries was incessantly making researches in the archives
    under the gallery of the Museum. I have this fact from the
    man who received the order to pass him in. The same thing was
    done at the repository of the War Office for the documents of
    the trial of M. le Duc d'Enghien, of which only the sentence
    remained."

[Sidenote: Talleyrand's complicity.]

The fact is true; all the diplomatic papers, and notably the
correspondence of M. de Talleyrand with the "Emperor" and the "First
Consul," were transferred from the archives of the Museum to the house
in the Rue Saint-Florentin[635]; part of them were destroyed; the
remainder were put into a stove, to which they forgot to set light;
this was all that the Minister's prudence could do against the Prince's
indifference. The documents that were not burned were recovered; some
one thought it was right to preserve them: I have held in my hands
and read with my eyes a letter from M. de Talleyrand, dated 8 March
1804, and treating of the arrest, not yet carried out, of M. le Duc
d'Enghien. The Minister invites the First Consul to deal vigorously
with his enemies. I was not permitted to keep the letter, and I have
retained only these two passages in my memory:

    "If justice obliges us to punish vigorously, policy exacts
    that we should punish without exception.................... I
    will suggest to the First Consul M. de Caulaincourt, to whom
    he might give his orders, and who would execute them with as
    much discretion as fidelity."


Will this report of the Prince de Talleyrand one day be published in
full? I do not know; but what I do know is that it was in existence no
more than two years ago.

There was a meeting of the Council for the arrest of the Duc d'Enghien.
Cambacérès, in his unpublished Memoirs, declares, and I believe him,
that he opposed the arrest; but, while recording what he said, he does
not say what the others replied.

For the rest, the _Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_ denies the entreaties
for mercy to which Bonaparte is said to have been exposed. The
pretended scene of Joséphine on her knees asking for pardon for the Duc
d'Enghien, clinging to the skirt of her husband's coat and allowing
that inexorable husband to drag her about, is one of those melodramatic
inventions with which our latter-day fabulists compose veracious
history. Joséphine did not know, on the evening of the 19th of March,
that the Duc d'Enghien was to be judged; she only knew that he had
been arrested. She had promised Madame de Rémusat to interest herself
in the Prince's fate. As this lady was returning to the Malmaison
with Joséphine on the evening of the 19th, it was noticed that the
future Empress, instead of being preoccupied solely with the perils of
the prisoner of Vincennes, frequently put her head to the window of
the carriage to look out at a general riding in her suite: a woman's
coquetry had carried elsewhere the thought which might have saved the
Duc d'Enghien's life. It was not until the 21st of March that Bonaparte
said to his wife:

"The Duc d'Enghien has been shot."

These Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat, whom I have known, contained
extremely curious details on the inner life of the imperial Court. The
author burnt them during the Hundred Days[636], and afterwards wrote
them anew: they are now no more than memories reproduced by memories;
their colour has faded; but Bonaparte is throughout exposed to the
light and judged with impartiality.

Men attached to Napoleon say that he knew of the death of the Duc
d'Enghien only after the Prince's execution: this story would
seem to derive some value from the anecdote related by the Duc de
Rovigo concerning Réal's going to Vincennes, if the anecdote were
true[637]. Once the death had taken place through the intrigues of
the revolutionary party, Bonaparte recognised the accomplished fact,
so as not to irritate men whom he thought powerful: this ingenious
explanation is not admissible.

*

[Sidenote: Bonaparte's responsibility.]

Now, to resume these facts, here is what they have proved to me:
Bonaparte wished the Duc d'Enghien's death; no one had made that death
a condition of his mounting the throne. To suppose this condition is
one of the subtleties of the politicians who claim to find occult
causes for everything. Nevertheless it is probable that certain
compromised persons did not without a certain pleasure see the First
Consul sever himself for good from the Bourbons. The Vincennes sentence
was an instance of Bonaparte's violent temperament, an outburst of cold
anger fed by the reports of his Minister.

M. de Caulaincourt is guilty only of having executed the order for the
arrest.

Murat has to reproach himself only with conveying general orders and
with not having had the strength to withdraw: he was not at Vincennes
during the trial.

The Duc de Rovigo found himself charged with the execution; he probably
had secret orders: General Hulin hints as much. What man would have
dared to take upon himself to order the execution _forthwith_ of a
sentence of death upon the Duc d'Enghien, if he had not acted on an
imperative mandate?

As to M. de Talleyrand, priest and nobleman, he inspired and prepared
the murder by persistently alarming Bonaparte: he feared the return
of the Legitimacy. It would be possible, by collecting what Napoleon
said at St. Helena and the letters written by the Bishop of Autun,
to prove that the latter took a very great part in the death of
the Duc d'Enghien. It would be vain to object that the Minister's
light-heartedness, character, and education ought to make him averse
to violence, that his corruption ought to take away his energy; it
would remain none the less a fact that he persuaded the Consul to the
fatal arrest. This arrest of the Duc d'Enghien on the 15th of March was
not unknown to M. de Talleyrand: he was in daily communication with
Bonaparte and conferred with him; during the interval that elapsed
between the arrest and the execution, did M. de Talleyrand, he, the
instigating Minister, repent, did he say a single word to the First
Consul in favour of the unhappy Prince? It is natural to believe that
he applauded the execution of the sentence.

The military commission sentenced the Duc d'Enghien, but with sorrow
and repentance.

This, conscientiously, impartially and strictly considered, is the
exact part played by each. My fate has been too closely connected with
this catastrophe that I should not endeavour to throw light upon its
dark places and to lay bare its details. If Bonaparte had not killed
the Duc d'Enghien, if he had brought me closer and closer to him (and
his inclination prompted him to do so), what would have been the result
for me? My literary career would have been ended; I should at one
jump have entered the political career, in which I have proved what I
could have done by the Spanish War; and I should have become rich and
powerful. France might have been the gainer by my association with the
Emperor; I should have been the loser. Possibly I might have succeeded
in maintaining some ideas of liberty and moderation in the great man's
head; but my life, ranking among those which are called happy, would
have been deprived of that which has constituted its character and its
honour: poverty, strife and independence.

*

Lastly, the principal accused rises after all the others; he brings
up the rear of the blood-stained penitents. Suppose that a judge
were to have brought up before him "the man named Bonaparte," as
the captain-judge-advocate had brought up before him "the man named
d'Enghien;" suppose that the minutes of the later examination copied
upon the former had been preserved to us; compare and read:

_Asked_: His surname and Christian names?

_Answered_: That his name was Napoleon Bonaparte.

_Asked_: Where he had resided since he had left France?

_Answered_: At the Pyramids, in Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, Moscow, St
Helena.

_Asked_: What rank he filled in the army?

_Answered_: Commander in the advance-guard of the armies of God. No
other reply issues from the prisoner's lips.

*

[Sidenote: Bonaparte defended.]

The different actors in the tragedy mutually accused each other:
Bonaparte alone throws the blame for it upon nobody; he preserves his
greatness beneath the weight of malediction; he does not bow his head
but stands erect; he exclaims with the stoic, "Pain, I will never admit
that thou art an evil!" But that which, in his pride, he refuses to
admit to the living he is constrained to confess to the dead. This
Prometheus, with the vulture at his breast, who stole the fire from
heaven, thought himself superior to all things, and he is compelled to
reply to the Duc d'Enghien, whom he has made into dust before his time:
the skeleton, the trophy over which he stumbled, questions him and
dominates him by a providential dispensation.

Personal attendance and the army, the ante-room and the tent had their
representatives at St. Helena: a servant, estimable for his fidelity to
the master he had chosen, had come to place himself near Napoleon as
an echo at his service. Simplicity repeated the fable, while giving it
an accent of sincerity. Bonaparte was "Destiny;" like the latter, he
deceived men's fascinated minds in _outward form_, but at the bottom of
his impostures this inexorable truth was heard to resound: "I am!" And
the universe felt its weight.

The author of the most credited work on St. Helena sets forth the
theory which Napoleon invented for the murderer's benefit; the
voluntary exile accepts as Gospel truth an homicidal talk, with
pretensions to profundity, which would only explain Napoleon's life as
he wished to arrange it, and as he contended that it should be written.
He left instructions for his neophytes: M. le Comte de Las Cases[638]
learnt his lesson without being aware of it; the stupendous captive,
wandering along solitary paths, drew his credulous worshipper after him
by means of lies, even as Hercules hung men to his mouth by chains of
gold.

*

"The first time," says the honest chamberlain, "that I heard
Napoleon pronounce the name of the Duc d'Enghien, I turned red with
embarrassment. Fortunately I was walking behind him in a narrow path;
otherwise, he would certainly have observed my confusion. Nevertheless,
when the Emperor for the first time developed the whole of this
incident, with all its details and accessories; when he set forth
his various motives with his close, luminous, persuasive reasoning,
I must confess that the matter seemed to me gradually to assume a
new aspect.... The Emperor often resumed this subject, which gave me
an opportunity of observing in him certain very pronounced shades of
character. I was able on this occasion, and repeatedly, most distinctly
to see in him the private individual struggling with the public man,
and the natural sentiments of his heart contending against those of
his pride and of the dignity of his position. In the confidence of
intimacy, he did not show himself indifferent to the unfortunate
Prince's fate; but so soon as it became a question of the public, it
was quite a different thing. One day, after talking with me of the
untimely end and of the youth of this ill-fated man, he concluded by
saying:

"'And I have since learnt, my dear fellow, that he was rather in my
favour; I have been told that he spoke of me with some admiration; such
is retributive justice here below!'

"And the last words were spoken with so much feeling, all the features
of his face displayed such harmony with the words that, if he whom
Napoleon was pitying had at that moment been in his power, I am quite
sure that, whatever his intentions or his acts, he would have been
eagerly pardoned.... The Emperor used to consider this matter from two
very different points of view: that of common law, or the established
rules of justice, and that of the law of nature, or acts of violence...."

[Sidenote: By the Comte de Las Cases.]

    "To us, in the intimacy of private conversation, the Emperor
    would say that the blame in France might be ascribed to an
    excess of zeal in those around him, or to private objects or
    mysterious intrigues. He said that he had been precipitately
    urged in this affair; that they had as it were taken his mind
    unawares, hastened his measures, anticipated their result....

    "'Without doubt,' he said, 'if I had been informed in time
    of certain particulars concerning the Prince's opinions and
    disposition; more still, if I had seen the letter which
    he wrote to me and which, God knows for what reason, was
    not handed to me until after he was no more, I should most
    certainly have pardoned him.'

    "It was easy for us to see that it was the Emperor's heart
    and nature alone which dictated these words, and that they
    were intended only for us; for he would have felt humiliated
    to think that any one could for an instant believe that he
    was trying to shift the burden from his own shoulders, or
    condescending to justify himself; his fear in this respect,
    or his susceptibility, was such that, in speaking of it to
    strangers, or dictating on this matter for the public, he
    confined himself to saying that, if he had known of the
    Prince's letter, he would perhaps have pardoned him, in
    view of the great political advantages which he could have
    derived from it; and when, writing with his own hand his last
    thoughts, which he concludes will be recorded in the present
    age and reach posterity, he states, with reference to this
    subject, which he regards as one of the most delicate for his
    memory, that, if it were to be done over again, he would do
    it again."

This passage, in so far as the writer is concerned, possesses all the
characteristics of the most perfect sincerity; this shines through
to the very phrase in which M. le Comte de Las Cases declared that
Bonaparte would have eagerly pardoned a man who was not guilty. But
the theories of the master are subtleties by aid of which an effort
is made to reconcile the irreconcilable. In making the distinction
between "common law or established justice, and natural law or the
errors of violence," Napoleon seemed to be content with a piece of
sophistry which in reality did not content him! He was unable to
subject his conscience as he had subjected the world. A weakness
natural to superior men and to little men, when they have committed
a fault, is to wish to represent it as a work of genius, a vast
combination beyond the understanding of the vulgar. Pride says those
things, and folly believes them. Bonaparte doubtless regarded as the
mark of the ruling mind the sentence which he delivered in his great
man's compunction: "My dear fellow, such is retributive justice here
below!" O truly philosophical emotion! What impartiality! How well
it justifies, by laying it to the charge of destiny, the evil which
has sprung from ourselves! A man nowadays thinks it an all-sufficient
excuse to exclaim, "After all, it was my nature, it was the infirmity
of mankind." When he has killed his father he repeats, "I am made
like that!" And the crowd stands open-mouthed, and they examine the
mighty man's bumps, and they recognise that he was "made like that."
And what care I that you are made like that! Must I submit to this
manner of being? The world would be a fine chaos if all the men who are
"made like that" were to take it into their heads to force themselves
one upon the other. Those who are unable to wipe out their errors
deify them: they make a dogma of their evil-doing, they turn acts of
sacrilege into religion, and they would think themselves apostates were
they to renounce the cult of their iniquities.

*

There is a serious lesson to be drawn from Bonaparte's life. Two
actions, both bad, began and caused his fall: the death of the Duc
d'Enghien and the war with Spain. It was vain for him to ride over them
with his glory: they remained there to ruin him. He perished on the
very side in which he thought himself strong, profound, invincible,
when he violated the moral law while neglecting and scorning his real
strength, that is, his superior qualities of order and equity. So long
as he confined himself to attacking anarchy and foreigners hostile to
France, he was victorious; he found himself robbed of his vigour so
soon as he entered upon the paths of corruption: the shaving of the
locks by Delilah is nothing other than the loss of virtue. Every crime
bears within itself a radical incapacity and a germ of misfortune: let
us then practise good to be happy, and let us be just to be able.

In proof of this truth, observe that, at the very moment of the
Prince's death, commenced the dissent which, growing in proportion
to ill-fortune, decided the fall of the ordainer of the tragedy of
Vincennes. The Russian Cabinet, in reference to the arrest of the Duc
d'Enghien, addressed vigorous representantions against the violation
of the territory of the Empire: Bonaparte felt the blow, and replied in
the _Moniteur_ with a fulminating article bringing up the death of Paul
I[639]. A funeral service had been celebrated in St. Petersburg for
young Condé. On the cenotaph was read:

"To the Duc d'Enghien _quem devoravit bellua Corsica._"

The two mighty adversaries subsequently became reconciled in
appearance; but the mutual wound which policy had inflicted and
insult-enlarged remained in their hearts. Napoleon did not think
himself revenged until he came to sleep in Moscow; Alexander[640] was
not satisfied before he entered Paris.

[Sidenote: European indignation.]

The hatred of the Cabinet of Berlin arose from the same origin: I have
spoken of the noble letter of M. de Laforest, in which he told M. de
Talleyrand of the effect which the murder of the Duc d'Enghien had
produced at the Court of Potsdam. Madame de Staël was in Prussia when
the news from Vincennes arrived:

    "I was living in Berlin," he said, "on the Spree Quay, and
    my apartment was on the ground floor. At eight o'clock
    one morning, they woke me to tell me that Prince Louis
    Ferdinand[641] was under my windows on horse-back, and asked
    me to come and speak to him....

    "'Do you know,' he asked, 'that the Duc d'Enghien has been
    kidnapped on Baden territory, handed over to a military
    commission, and shot within four-and-twenty hours after his
    arrival in Paris?'

    "'What nonsense!' I replied. 'Do you not see that this can
    only be a rumour spread by the enemies of France?'

    "In fact, I admit that my hatred of Bonaparte, strong as it
    was, did not go so far as to make me credit the possibility
    of his committing so great a crime.

    "'As you doubt what I tell you,' replied Prince Louis, 'I
    will send you the _Moniteur_, in which you can read the
    sentence.'

    "With these words he left me, and the expression of his
    face was the presage of vengeance or death. A quarter of an
    hour later, I had in my hands the _Moniteur_ of the 21st of
    March (30 Pluviôse), which contained a sentence of death
    passed by the military commission, sitting at Vincennes,
    upon 'the man called Louis d'Enghien!' It was thus that
    Frenchmen described the descendant of heroes who were the
    glory of their country! Even if one were to abjure all the
    prejudices in favour of illustrious birth which the return of
    monarchical forms would necessarily recall, was it possible
    thus to blaspheme the memories of the Battle of Lens[642]
    and of Rocroi? This Bonaparte, who has won so many battles,
    does not even know how to respect them; for him there is
    neither past nor future; his imperious and scornful soul will
    recognise nothing for opinion to hold sacred; he admits only
    respect for the force in power. Prince Louis wrote to me,
    beginning his note with these words: 'The man called Louis
    of Prussia begs Madame de Staël,' etc. He felt the insult
    offered to the Blood Royal whence he sprang, to the memory of
    the heroes among whom he was longing to enroll himself. How,
    after this horrible deed, could a single king in Europe ally
    himself with such a man? Necessity, you will say. There is a
    sanctuary in the soul to which its empire may not penetrate;
    were this not so, what would virtue be upon this earth? A
    liberal amusement, suited only to the peaceful leisure of
    private men[643]."


This resentment on the part of the Prince, for which he was to pay with
his life, was still lasting when the Prussian Campaign opened in 1806.
Frederic William, in his manifesto of the 9th of October, said:

"The Germans have not revenged the death of the Duc d'Enghien; but the
memory of that crime will never fade among them."

These historical particulars, rarely observed, deserved to be so;
for they explain enmities of which one would be puzzled to discover
the primary cause elsewhere, and at the same time they disclose the
steps by which Providence leads a man's destiny from the crime to the
expiation.

*

Happy, at least, my life, which was not troubled by fear, nor attacked
by contagion, nor carried away by examples! The satisfaction which I
experience to-day at what I did then is my warrant that my conscience
is no illusion. More content than all those potentates, than all those
nations fallen at the feet of the glorious soldier, I turn again
with pardonable pride to this page, which I have retained as my only
belonging and which I owe only to myself. In 1807, with my heart still
moved by the murder which I have just related, I wrote the following
lines; they caused the _Mercure_ to be suppressed, and jeopardized my
liberty once more:

[Sidenote: I utter my protest.]

    "When, amid the silence of abjection, no sound is heard
    save that of the chains of the slave and the voice of the
    informer; when all tremble before the tyrant, and when
    it is as dangerous to incur his favour as to deserve his
    displeasure, the historian appears, entrusted with the
    vengeance of the nations. Nero prospers in vain, Tacitus
    already is born within the Empire; he grows up unknown beside
    the ashes of Germanicus, and already a just Providence has
    surrendered to an obscure child the glory of the master of
    the world. If the historian's part is fine, it is often
    dangerous; but there are altars such as that of honour which,
    although deserted, demand further sacrifices: the god is
    not annihilated because the temple is empty. Wherever there
    remains a chance for fortune, there is no heroism in trying
    it; magnanimous actions are those of which adversity and
    death are the foreseen result After all, what do reverses
    matter, if our name, pronounced by posterity, makes one
    generous heart beat two thousand years after our life[644]?"

The death of the Duc d'Enghien, by introducing a new principle into
Bonaparte's conduct, marred the correctness of his intelligence: he
was obliged to adopt as a shield maxims of which he had not the whole
force at his disposal, for his glory and his genius incessantly blunted
them. He was looked upon with suspicion, with fear; men lost confidence
in him and in his destiny; he was constrained to see, if not to seek
out, men whom he would never have seen, and who, through his action,
considered themselves to have become his equals: the contagion of
their defilement was overtaking him. His great qualities remained the
same, but his good dispositions became impaired and no longer upheld
his great qualities: under the influence of the corruption of that
original stain his nature deteriorated. God commanded his angels to
disturb the harmonies of that world, to change its laws, to tilt it on
its poles. As Milton says:

                      They with labour push'd
    Oblique the centric Globe: some say, the Sun
    Was bid turn reins from th' equinoctial road
    Like distant breadth.   .     .     .     .
    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
    Boreas and Cæcias and Argestes loud
    And Thrascias rend the woods, and seas upturn[645].

Will the ashes of Bonaparte be exhumed, as were those of the Duc
d'Enghien? If I had been the master, the latter victim would still
be sleeping unhonoured in the moat of Vincennes Castle. That
"excommunicated one" would have been left, like Raymond of Toulouse,
in an open coffin; no man's hand would have dared to conceal beneath
a plank the sight of the witness to the incomprehensible judgments
and angers of God. The abandoned skeleton of the Duc d'Enghien and
Napoleon's deserted tomb at St Helena would be the counterpart of each
other: there would be nothing more commemorative than those remains,
face to face, at opposite ends of the earth.

At least the Duc d'Enghien did not remain on foreign soil, like the
exiled of kings: the latter took care to restore the former to his
country, a little harshly, it is true; but will it be for ever? France
(how much dust winnowed by the breath of the Revolution bears witness
to it) is not faithful to the bones of the dead. Old Condé, in his
will, declares "that he is not sure which country he will be inhabiting
on the day of his death." O Bossuet, what would you not have added to
the masterpiece of your eloquence, if, when you were speaking over the
grave of the Great Condé, you had been able to foresee the future!

*

It was at this very spot, at Chantilly, that the Duc d'Enghien
was born: "Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, born 2 August 1772, at
Chantilly," says the sentence of death. It was on this lawn that
he played in childhood; the traces of his footsteps have become
obliterated. And the victor of Friburg, of Nördlingen, of Lens, of
Senef, where has he gone with his "victorious and now feeble hands"?
And his descendants, the Condé of Johannisberg and of Bentheim[646],
and his son, and his grandson, where are they? That castle, those
gardens, those fountains "which were silent neither by day nor by
night:" what has become of them? Mutilated statues, lions with a claw
or a jaw restored; trophies of arms sculptured in a crumbling wall;
escutcheons with obliterated fleurs-de-lis; foundations of razed
turrets; a few marble coursers above the empty stables no longer
livened by the neighing of the steed of Rocroi; near a riding-school,
a high unfinished gate: that is what remains of the memories of
an heroic race; a will tied with a rope changed the owners of the
inheritance[647].

The whole forest has repeatedly fallen under the axe. Persons of bygone
times have run over those once resounding chases, mute to-day. What was
their age, what their passions, when they stopped at the foot of those
oaks? O my useless Memoirs, I should not now be able to say to you:

    Qu'à Chantilly Condé vous lise quelquefois;
    Qu'Enghien en soit touché[648]!

Obscure men that we are, what are we beside those famous men? We shall
disappear never to return; you, sweet William, who lie upon my table
beside this paper, whose belated little flower I have gathered among
the heather will blossom again; but we, we shall not come to life again
with the perfumed solitary which has diverted my thoughts.



[594] This book was written at Chantilly in November 1838.--T.

[595] Blanche of Castile, Queen of France (1187-1252), daughter of
Alphonsus IX. King of Castile, wife of Louis VIII. King of France, and
mother of St. Louis IX. A hunting-lodge, at Chantilly, stands on the
site of the old Castle of Queen Blanche, near the Commelle Ponds.--T.

[596] Charles IV. King of Spain (1748-1819). On the 18th of March
1808, forced by the revolt of Aranjuez, he abdicated in favour of his
son Ferdinand. Napoleon compelled him to withdraw this abdication and
to make a fresh one in favour of himself (5 May 1808), after which
Napoleon's brother Joseph was placed on the throne of Spain. Charles
IV. was sent to Compiègne and Marseilles, and died in Rome in 1819. On
the fall of Joseph, in 1813, Charles's son Ferdinand VII. ascended the
throne.--T.

[597] Gustavus IV. (1778-1837) was the last Legitimist King of Sweden.
A revolt of the nobles in 1809 compelled him to abdicate, and his
uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, was proclaimed King with the title of
Charles XIII., ultimately adopting General Bernadotte as his heir.
Gustavus spent the remaining years of his life in Germany, Holland, and
Switzerland, under the names of Count of Holstein-Gottorp and Colonel
Gustawson. He died at Saint-Gall in 1837.--T.

[598] Frederic William III. King of Prussia (1770-1840), son of
Frederic William II. and grand-nephew to Frederic the Great. He
was married to the beautiful Queen Louisa, daughter of the Duke of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz.--T.

[599] Bonaparte had the Black Eagle.--_Authors Note._

[600] Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus Nero, later Nero Claudius Cæsar
Drusus Germanicus, Roman Emperor (37-68), son of Domitius Ahenobarbus
and Agrippina, by whose uncle and third husband, the Emperor Claudius,
he was adopted, succeeding him, to the exclusion of the natural heir,
Britannicus, in 54.--T.

[601] Lucius Annæus Seneca (3-65), the Stoic philosopher, was Nero's
tutor and principal minister. He is accused, not only of writing the
apology for the murder of Agrippina, but of approving the poisoning of
Britannicus in 55.--T.

[602] Julia Agrippina (_circa_ 15-59 or 60), daughter of the Emperor
Germanicus and of Agrippina, grand-daughter of Augustus. She poisoned
Claudius to secure the Empire for Nero, her son by her first husband,
and was herself murdered by Nero's orders in 59.--T.

[603] The Duc de Bourbon was the Due d'Enghien's father, not his
grandfather. The grandfather was the Prince de Condé, the writer of the
letter in question. Chateaubriand's mistake is due to a slip of the
pen, which we occasionally find in more than one other historian of the
period.--B.

[604] Pierre François Comte Réal (1765-1834) was an attorney at the
Châtelet at the outbreak of the Revolution. He attached himself to
Danton and became Public Accuser and Solicitor to the Commune of Paris.
He was imprisoned by Robespierre and released on the 9 Thermidor.
Bonaparte made him a State Councillor and appointed him a deputy at the
Ministry of Police. In 1804 Réal discovered the conspiracy of Georges
Cadoudal. He was made Prefect of Police during the Hundred Days, and
was exiled under the Second Restoration. He returned to Paris in
1818.--T.

[605] Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès (1753-1824), an eminent jurist
and a moderate revolutionary, who voted for the reprieve at the trial
of Louis XVI. He was Minister of Justice under the Directory. Bonaparte
chose him as Second Consul in 1799, with Lebrun as Third Consul. When
Napoleon became Emperor he appointed Cambacérès Arch-chancellor and
created him a Prince of the Empire and Duke of Parma. Cambacérès is
responsible for the greater portion of the Code civil. He was exiled by
the Bourbons and recalled in 1818.--T.

[606] In the morning.--_Author's Note._

[607] Madame Joséphine Bonaparte (1763-1814), _née_ Tascher de La
Pagerie, and widow of Alexandre Vicomte de Beauharnais, who was
guillotined in 1794. She married Bonaparte in 1796, was crowned Empress
in 1804, and was divorced in 1809.--T.

[608] Anne Jean Marie René Savary, Duc de Rovigo (1774-1833), was in
1804 Colonel of the Gendarmerie d'Élite, in which capacity he was
charged with the execution of the sentence on the Duc d'Enghien. At the
battle of Marengo (14 June 1800) he was aide-de-camp to General Desaix,
and was by his side when that general was shot through the heart. He
became a general of brigade in 1803, a general of division in 1805, a
duke in 1808, and succeeded Fouché as Minister of Police in 1810. He
followed the Emperor on to the _Bellérophon_ in 1815, but was separated
from him and kept a prisoner for seven months in Malta, where he drew
up the plan of his Memoirs (published in 1828). On the Restoration,
he was sentenced to death in his absence. He returned to France in
1819 in order to obtain the quashing of the sentence. A pamphlet
which he subsequently wrote upon the death of the Duc d'Enghien,
accusing Talleyrand of complicity, brought about his disgrace, and he
was obliged to retire to Rome. He returned once more to France after
the Revolution of 1830, and in 1831 received from Louis-Philippe the
command-in-chief of the Army of Algiers, which he retained till his
death in 1833.--T.

[609] Claire Élisabeth Jeanne Comtesse de Rémusat (1780-1821), _née_
Gravier de Vergennes, wife of the Comte de Rémusat, Chamberlain to
Napoleon and Superintendent of Theatres, and lady-in-waiting to the
Empress Joséphine. She was the author of an _Essai sur l'éducation des
femmes_ (1823) and of some excellent Memoirs (1880).--T.

[610] Cf. CORNEILLE, _Cinna_, Act II. Sc. I.--T.

[611] Cf. _Mémoires de Madame de Rémusat_, vol. I.--B.

[612] 20 March 1804.--B.

[613] Murat.--_Author's Note._

[614] Lieutenant-General Pierre Auguste Comte Hulin (1758-1841) was
one of the foremost among the conquerors of the Bastille on the 14th
of July 1789, and at the end of the same year was made Commander of
the National Guard of Paris. He accompanied Bonaparte to Italy as
Adjutant-General, was appointed Commander of Milan in 1797 and 1798,
and in 1803 became a general of division and Commander of the Consular
Guard. He took part in the several German campaigns, and was selected
for the command of the places around Vienna and of Berlin (1806). He
was at the head of the armed forces in Paris when the Malet conspiracy
broke out in 1812, and caused the plot to fail, having his lower
jaw shattered by Malet with a pistol-shot. Hulin lost the command
of the City of Paris on the return of the Bourbons, and was obliged
to leave France in 1816. He returned in 1819, and ended his days in
retirement.--T.

[615] Marie Louise Empress of the French (1791-1847), daughter of
Francis I. Emperor of Austria, and married to Napoleon in 1810. She
left him after his first abdication, protested against his restoration
and, in reward for her docility, received the Duchy of Parma at
the hands of the Congress of Vienna. There she spent the remainder
of her days, living with the Count von Niepperg, whom she married
morganatically after Napoleon's death.--T.

[616] Francis Charles Joseph Napoleon Duke of Reichstadt (1811-1832),
son of Napoleon and Marie Louise, was proclaimed King of Rome at his
birth. On his father's abdication there was an idea of proclaiming
him Emperor, as Napoleon II.; but this was speedily abandoned and he
was brought up at the Court of his maternal grandfather, who in 1818
gave him the title of Duke of Reichstadt, together with a regiment of
cavalry.--T.

[617] André Marie Jean Jacques Dupin (1783-1865), known as Dupin the
Elder, was a deputy from 1827 to 1848, a member of the Constituent
Assembly of 1848 and of the Legislative Assembly of 1849, a senator of
the Second Empire (1857), and Attorney-General to the Court of Appeal
from 1830 to 1852. He resigned the latter post in order to dissociate
himself from the decrees confiscating the possessions of the Orleans
Family; but resumed it five years later when summoned to the Imperial
Senate. He had been a member of the French Academy since 1832. The
pamphlet to which Chateaubriand refers was published in 1823, and
entitled, _Pièces judiciaires et historiques relatives au procès du
duc dEnghien, avec le Journal de ce prince depuis l'instant de son
arrestation; précédées de la Discussion des actes de la commission
militaire instituée en l'an XII, par le gouvernement consulaire, pour
juger le duc d'Enghien, par l'auteur de l'opuscule intitulé: "De la
Libre Défense des accusés._"--B.

[618] An allusion to the abominable reply said to have been made to M.
le Duc d'Enghien.--_Author's Note._

The Duke is reported to have cried, "Shoot straight, my friends," to
the soldiers about to fire their volley.

"You have no friends here," replied the officer in command!--T.

[619] General Claude François de Malet (1754-1812) played a
distinguished part in the campaigns of the Revolution, became a general
of brigade in 1799, and was appointed Governor of Pavia by Masséna
in 1805. His republicanism, however, made him suspect in the eyes of
Napoleon, who had him imprisoned in Paris in 1808. Availing himself
of the facilities awarded him by his transfer to a mad-house, he
organized a conspiracy against the Empire, involving Generals Guidal
and Lahorie in the plot. He escaped from prison on the night of the
23rd of October 1812, rapidly visited the Paris barracks, spreading the
news of Napoleon's death, and was on the point of succeeding, when the
resistance of General Hulin, who was at the head of the Staff, caused
the whole plot to fail. Malet was brought before a military commission
and shot on the 29th of October 1812.--T

[620] General Hulin's pamphlet, published in 1823, is entitled,
_Explications offertes aux hommes impartiaux par M. le Comte Hulin, au
sujet de la Commission militaire institute en l'an XII pour juger le
duc d'Enghien._--B.

[621] Jacques Harel (_b._ 1755) had received the command of Vincennes
Castle in 1800 as his reward for his services in betraying his
fellow-conspirators in a plot to kill the First Consul. The story is
told at length in the Memoirs of M. de Bourrienne.--B.

[622] Freiburg-in-Breisgau (Baden), where the great Condé defeated the
Imperial forces in 1644.--T.

[623] Savary's pamphlet appeared in the same year as General Hulin's
and M. Dupin's, and was entitled, _Extrait des Mémoires du duc de
Rovigo, concernant le catastrophe de M. le duc d'Enghien._--B.

[624] Armand Augustin Louis Marquis de Caulaincourt, Duc de Vicence
(1773-1827), had in his youth been a page to the Prince de Condé. He
took part in nearly all the wars of the Revolution, and was made Master
of the Horse by Napoleon when the latter assumed the imperial crown, a
general of division, a duke (1805), and Ambassador to Russia (1807).
In 1813, he became Foreign Minister, and represented France at the
Congress of Châtillon in 1814.--T.

[625] Achille Roche (1801-1834), a publicist and secretary to
Benjamin Constant. The work from which Chateaubriand quotes is a
pamphlet entitled, _De Messieurs le duc de Rovigo et le prince de
Talleyrand._--B.

[626] JOINVILLE, _Memoirs of Louis IX., King of France_, Part I.--T.

[627] Misspelt as printed: _Enguiens_ for Enghien, proper names not
taking the plural in French.--T.

[628] François de Bourbon-Vendôme, Comte d'Enghien (1519-1545), brother
of Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, defeated the Imperial forces at
Cérisoles in 1544--T.

[629] The Great Condé was Duc d'Enghien when he defeated the Spaniards
at Rocroi in 1643.--T.

[630] The Princesse Charlotte de Rohan-Rochefort. The Prince de Condé
refused to acknowledge the marriage, although he himself had married a
Rohan. After the death of the Duc d'Enghien, the Duc de Bourbon tardily
offered to acknowledge his son's marriage, but the Princess refused the
offer. Nevertheless she visited the Duchesse de Bourbon in the early
days of the Restoration, when the latter addressed her as "my daughter"
(_Cf._ MURET, _Histoire de l'armée de Condé_). The Duchess of Madrid
(_de jure_ Queen of Spain and France), _née_ Princesse Marie Berthe de
Rohan, and married to the Duke of Madrid in 1894, is a member of the
same (Rochefort) branch of the Rohan family. Their motto is, _Roi ne
puis, prince ne daigne, Rohan suis._--T.

[631] Antoine René Charles Mathurin Comte de Laforest (1756-1846)
entered the diplomatic service under Louis XVI. He was Consul-General
in the United States, Secretary of Legation to Joseph Bonaparte at the
Congress of Lunéville, and Chargé-d'affaires Extraordinary at Munich
and Ratisbon. He was Ambassador in Berlin from 1805 to 1808, and in
Madrid from 1808 to 1813. Napoleon created him a count in 1808. On
the fall of the Empire, in 1814, he directed the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs for six weeks _ad interim_, and was charged by the King to
prepare the Treaty of Paris. Under the Second Restoration, he was sent
as Minister Plenipotentiary to various Powers. He was made a peer of
France in 1819, and a minister of State and privy councillor in 1825.
He lost his places and dignities at the Revolution of 1830.--B.

[632] Gaspard Baron Gourgaud (1783-1852), a distinguished artillery
officer who had twice saved Napoleon's life, at Moscow and Brienne. He
accompanied Napoleon to St. Helena, where he remained until 1817, and
where he wrote the _Campagne de 1815_, published in 1818, which was
the cause of his being struck off the roll of the French army by Louis
XVIII. Louis-Philippe reinstated him and made him his aide-de-camp,
and in 1840 he accompanied the Prince de Joinville to St. Helena to
bring back the remains of Napoleon. On his return, he was raised
to the peerage. Gourgaud is part-author, together with Montholon,
of the _Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France sous Napoléon_
(1823-1825), from which the above quotation is taken.--T.

[633] Charles Tristan Comte de Montholon (1782-1853), Gourgaud's
collaborator, was one of Napoleon's bravest and most reckless officers.
He too accompanied Napoleon to St Helena, remained with him to the day
of his death, and was one of his executors and the depositary of his
manuscripts, which were subsequently published in eight volumes under
the title given in the preceding note. In 1840, Montholon took part
in Louis Napoleon's futile descent at Boulogne, and suffered a short
confinement.--T.

[634] LAS CASES, _Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_ (8 volumes, 1822-1824).--T.

[635] Talleyrand's residence.--T.

[636] Lest they should compromise her friends. See M. Paul de Rémusat's
Preface to the Memoirs.--T.

[637] This is the anecdote:

"After the execution of the sentence," says the Duc de Rovigo, "I took
the road back to Paris. I was approaching the barriers, when I met
M. Réal going to Vincennes in the dress of a councillor of State. I
stopped him to ask him where he was going:

"'To Vincennes,' he replied; 'I received orders yesterday to repair
there to examine the Duc d'Enghien.'

"I told him what had just happened, and he appeared as much astonished
at what I had told him as I at what he had told me. I began to ponder.
My meeting with the Minister of Foreign Relations at General Murat's
recurred to my mind, and I began to doubt whether the death of the Duc
d'Enghien was the work of the First Consul."--B.

[638] Emmanuel Augustin Dieudonné Comte de Las Cases (1766-1842) was
a lieutenant in the navy when he emigrated in 1789 and joined Condé's
Army. He returned to France after the 18 Brumaire, and devoted himself
for several years to literary work, until in 1809 he enlisted as a
volunteer to assist in repelling the English, who were threatening
a descent upon Flushing. He attracted the notice of Napoleon, who
made him one of his chamberlains, and he was one of the four men who
followed Napoleon into exile. He remained eighteen months at St.
Helena, gathering the talk that fell from Napoleon's lips into his
famous _Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_; but losing favour with Sir Hudson
Lowe, he was removed from Napoleon's service, taken to the Cape of
Good Hope, and thence to Europe, where he was kept for some time in
confinement. Las Cases was not allowed to return to France until after
the Emperor's death. In 1830 he was returned for the Seine to the
Chamber of Deputies, where he sat in the Opposition.--T.

[639] Paul I. Emperor of Russia (1754-1801), son of Catherine II. and
Peter III. On the death of Catherine in 1796, he placed himself at the
head of the second coalition against France; but in 1799, suddenly
smitten with a passionate admiration for Bonaparte, he contracted an
alliance with him, and paved the way for the treaties of Lunéville and
Amiens. He was strangled by some of his nobles on the 23rd of March
1801.--T.

[640] Alexander I. Emperor of Russia (1777-1825), was at war with
Napoleon from 1805 to 1807, and in alliance with him from 1807 to
1812, when war broke out anew. The retreat from Moscow took place in
the latter year, and Alexander entered Paris at the head of the allied
forces on the 31st of March 1814.--T.

[641] Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1772-1806), son of Prince
Ferdinand, brother to Frederic the Great, was killed in 1806 at the
Battle of Saalfeld.--T.

[642] The Great Condé defeated the Imperial forces at Lens in 1648.--T.

[643] MADAME DE STAËL, _Dix années d'exil._--B.

[644] These lines are taken from the article, published by
Chateaubriand in the _Mercure_ of 4 July 1807, on M. Alexandre de
Laborde's _Voyage pittoresque et historique en Espagne._--B.

[645] MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, X., 670-673, 698-699.--T.

[646] The Prince de Condé co-operated with the Prince de Soubise in
winning the Battle of Johannisberg, during the Seven Years' War, in
1762, and performed prodigies of valour to no purpose at Bentheim in
1799.--T.

[647] The Duc de Bourbon was found hanged or strangled in his apartment
a few days after the Revolution of 1830. He left Chantilly and the
greater part of his fortune to the late Duc d'Aumale, fourth son of
Louis Philippe.--T.

[648] BOILEAU, _Ep. VII. A.M. Racine_:

"May Condé sometimes at Chantilly read you;
And may Enghien be touched."
--T.




BOOK IV[649]


The year 1804--I move to the Rue de Miromesnil-Verneuil--Alexis de
Tocqueville--Le Ménil--Mézy--Mérévil--Madame de Coislin--Journey to
Vichy, in Auvergne, and to Mont Blanc--Return to Lyons--Excursion
to the Grande Chartreuse--Death of Madame de Caud--The years 1805
and 1806--I return to Paris--I leave for the Levant--I embark in
Constantinople on a ship carrying pilgrims for Syria--From Tunis to
my return to France through Spain--Reflections on my voyage--Death of
Julien.


Henceforth removed from active life, and nevertheless saved from
Bonaparte's anger by the protection of Madame Bacciochi, I left my
temporary lodging in the Rue de Beaune and went to live in the Rue
de Miromesnil. The little house which I hired was occupied later by
M. De Lally-Tolendal and Madame Denain, his "best-beloved," as they
said in the days of Diane de Poitiers[650]. My garden abutted on a
timber-yard, and near my window I had a tall poplar-tree, which M. de
Lally-Tolendal, in order to breathe a less moist air, himself felled
with his coarse hand, which to his eyes was transparent and fleshless:
it was an illusion like any other. The pavement of the street at that
time came to an end before my door; higher up, the street or road wound
across a piece of waste-land called the Butte-aux-Lapins, or Rabbit
Hill. The Butte-aux-Lapins, sprinkled with a few isolated houses,
joined on the right the Jardin de Tivoli, whence I had set out with my
brother for the emigration, and on the left the Parc de Monceaux. I
strolled pretty often in that abandoned park, where the Revolution had
commenced among the orgies of the Duc d'Orléans: this retreat had been
embellished with marble nudities and mock ruins, a symbol of the light
and vicious policy which was about to cover France with prostitutes and
wreckage.

I busied myself with nothing: at the utmost I conversed in the park
with some pine-trees, or talked of the Duc d'Enghien with three rooks
at the edge of an artificial river hidden beneath a carpet of green
moss. Deprived of my Alpine Legation and of my Roman friendships, even
as I had been suddenly separated from my attachments in London, I did
not know how to dispose of my imagination and my feelings; I sent them
every evening after the sun, and its rays were unable to carry them
over the seas. I returned indoors and tried to fall asleep to the sound
of my poplar tree.

Nevertheless my resignation had increased my reputation; in France a
little courage always looks well. Some of the members of Madame de
Beaumont's former company introduced me to new country-houses.

[Sidenote: The Tocqueville family.]

M. de Tocqueville[651], my brother's brother-in-law, and guardian
of my two orphaned nephews, occupied Madame de Senozan's[652]
country-seat[653]. On every hand were scaffold legacies. There I saw
my nephews grow up with their three Tocqueville cousins, among whom
Alexis[654], the author of the _Démocratie en Amérique_, was prominent.
He was more spoilt at Verneuil than I had been at Combourg. Is this the
last renown that I shall have seen unknown in its swaddling clothes?
Alexis de Tocqueville has travelled through the civilized America, of
which I have travelled through the forests.

Verneuil has changed masters; it has become the property of Madame
de Saint-Fargeau, famous through her father[655] and through the
Revolution, which adopted her as its daughter.

Near Mantes, at the Ménil[656], was Madame de Rosanbo: my nephew, Louis
de Chateaubriand, eventually married Mademoiselle d'Orglandes there,
niece to Madame de Rosanbo; the latter no longer airs her beauty around
the pond and under the beeches of the manor: it has passed. When I went
from Verneuil to the Ménil, I came to Mézy[657] on the road: Madame
de Mézy was romance wrapped up in virtue and maternal grief. If only
her child, which fell from a window and broke its head, had been able,
like the young quails which we shot, to fly over the _château_ and take
refuge in the Île-Belle, the smiling island of the Seine: _Coturnix per
stipulas pascens!_

On the other side of the Seine, not far from the Marais, Madame de
Vintimille had introduced me to Méréville[658]. Méréville was an
oasis created by the smile of a muse, but of one of those muses whom
the Gallic poets call "the learned fairies." Here the adventures of
Blanca[659] and of Velléda were read before fashionable generations
which, falling one from the other like flowers, to-day listen to the
wailing of my years.

By degrees my brain, wearying of rest in my Rue de Miromesnil, saw
phantoms form before it in the distance. The _Génie du Christianisme_
inspired me with the idea of proving that work by mixing Christian
and mythological characters together. A shade which long afterwards I
called Cymodocée sketched itself vaguely in my head; not one of its
features was fixed. Cymodocée once conceived, I shut myself up with
her, as I always do with the daughters of my imagination; but, before
they have issued from the dreamy state and arrived from the banks
of Lethe through the ivory portals, they often change their shape.
If I create them through love, I undo them through love, and the one
cherished object which I, later, present to the light is the offspring
of a thousand infidelities.

I remained only a year in the Rue de Miromesnil, because the house was
sold. I arranged with Madame la Marquise de Coislin[660], who let me
the top floor of her house on the Place Louis XV[661].

*

[Sidenote: The Marquise de Coislin.]

Madame de Coislin was a woman of the grandest air. She was nearly
eighty years of age, and her proud and domineering eyes bore an
expression of wit and irony. Madame de Coislin was in no way lettered,
and took pride in the fact; she had passed through the Voltairean
age without being aware of it; if she had conceived any idea of it
whatever, it was that of a time of a voluble middle-class. Not that she
ever spoke of her birth; she was too great to make herself ridiculous:
she very well knew how to see "small people" without compromising
her rank; but, after all, she was born of the Premier Marquis of
France[662]. If she was descended from Drogon de Nesle, killed in
Palestine in 1096; from Raoul de Nesle[663], the Constable, knighted
by Louis IX.; from Jean II. de Nesle, Regent of France during the last
crusade of St. Louis, Madame de Coislin vowed that this was a stupidity
on the part of fate for which she ought not to be held responsible; she
was naturally of the Court, as others, more happy, are of the streets,
as one may be a thorough-bred mare or a cab-hack: she could not help
this accident, and had no choice but to endure the ill with which
Heaven had been pleased to afflict her.

Had Madame de Coislin had relations with Louis XV.? She never owned so
much to me: she admitted, however, that she had been very much loved,
but she pretended that she had treated the royal lover with the utmost
harshness.

"I have seen him at my feet," she would say to me; "he had charming
eyes, and his language was seductive. He offered one day to give me a
porcelain dressing-table, like that which Madame de Pompadour had.

"'Oh, Sire,' cried I, 'then I must use it to hide under!'"

By a singular chance I came across this dressing-table at the
Marchioness Conyngham's in London; she had received it from George IV.,
and showed it to me with amusing simplicity.

Madame de Coislin occupied in her house a room opening under the
colonnade corresponding to the colonnade of the Wardrobe. Two
sea-pieces by Vernet[664], which Louis "the Well-beloved" had given to
the noble dame, were hung up on an old green satin tapestry. Madame
de Coislin remained lying till two o'clock in the afternoon in a
large bed, with curtains also of green silk, seated and propped up by
pillows; a sort of nightcap, badly fastened to her head, allowed her
grey hairs to escape. Sprigs of diamonds mounted in the old-fashioned
way fell upon the shoulder-pieces of her bed-cloak, all covered with
snuff, as in the time of the fashionable ladies of the Fronde. Around
her, on the bed-clothes, lay scattered the addresses of letters, torn
off the letters themselves, and on these addresses Madame de Coislin
wrote down her thoughts in every direction: she bought no stationery,
the post supplied her with it. From time to time a little dog called
Lili put her nose outside the sheets, came to bark at me for five or
six minutes, and crept back growling into her mistress' kennel. Thus
had time settled the young loves of Louis XV.

Madame de Châteauroux[665] and her two sisters were cousins of Madame
de Coislin; the latter would not have been of the humour, as was
Madame de Mailly[666], repentant and a Christian, to reply to a man who
insulted her with a coarse name in the church of Saint-Roch:

"My friend, since you know me, pray to God for me."

Madame de Coislin, miserly as are many people of wit, piled up her
money in cupboards. She lived all devoured by a vermin of crown-pieces
which clung to her skin; her servants relieved her. When I found
her plunged in a maze of figures, she reminded me of the miser
Hermocrates[667], who, when dictating his will, appointed himself his
own heir. Nevertheless she gave a dinner occasionally; but she would
rail against coffee, which nobody liked, according to her, and which
served only to prolong the repast.

Madame de Chateaubriand took a journey to Vichy with Madame de Coislin
and the Marquis de Nesle; the marquis went on ahead, and had excellent
dinners prepared. Madame de Coislin came after, and asked only for half
a pound of cherries. On leaving, she was presented with huge bills, and
then there was a terrible outcry. She would not hear of anything except
the cherries; the landlord maintained that, whether you ate or did not
eat, the custom was, at an inn, to pay for your dinner.

Madame de Coislin had invented a form of illuminism to her own taste.
Credulous and incredulous, she was led by her want of faith to laugh
at those beliefs the superstition of which frightened her. She had met
Madame de Krüdener; the mysterious Frenchwoman was illuminated only
under reserve; she did not please the fervent Russian, whom she herself
liked no better. Madame de Krüdener said passionately to Madame de
Coislin:

"Madame, who is your inside confessor?"

"Madame," replied Madame de Coislin, "I know nothing about my inside
confessor; I only know that my confessor is in the inside of his
confessional."

Thereupon the two ladies saw each other no more.

Madame de Coislin prided herself on having introduced a novelty at
Court, the fashion of floating chignons, in spite of Queen Marie
Leczinska[668], who was very pious and who opposed this dangerous
innovation. She held that formerly no genteel person would ever have
thought of paying her doctor. Crying out against the plentifulness of
women's linen:

"That smacks of the upstart," she said; "we women of the Court had only
two shifts: when they were worn out, we renewed them; we were dressed
in silk gowns, and we did not look like grisettes, like the young
ladies of nowadays."

Madame Suard[669], who lived in the Rue Royale, had a cock whose
crowing annoyed Madame de Coislin. She wrote to Madame Suard:

"Madame, have your cock's throat cut."

Madame Suard sent back the messenger with this note:

"Madame, I have the honour to reply to you that I shall not have my
cock's throat cut."

The correspondence went no further. Madame de Coislin said to Madame de
Chateaubriand:

"Ah, my heart, what a time we live in! And yet it's that Panckoucke
girl, the wife of that member of the Academy[670], you know."

M. Hennin[671], a former clerk at the Foreign Office, and as tedious
as a protocol, used to scribble fat novels. One day he was reading a
description to Madame de Coislin: a tearful and abandoned love-lorn
woman was mournfully fishing a salmon. Madame de Coislin, who was
growing impatient, and who disliked salmon, interrupted the author and
said with the serious air which made her so comical:

"Monsieur Hennin, could you not make that lady catch a different fish?"

The stories which Madame de Coislin told could not be recollected,
for there was nothing in them; all lay in the pantomime, the accent,
and the expression of the narrator: she never laughed. There was one
dialogue between "Monsieur and Madame Jacqueminot," the perfection
of which surpassed everything. When, in the conversation between
the husband and wife, Madame Jacqueminot rejoined, "But, _Monsieur
Jacqueminot!_" the name was pronounced in such a tone that you were
seized with immoderate laughter. Obliged to let this pass, Madame de
Coislin gravely waited, taking snuff.

Reading in a newspaper of the death of several kings, she took off her
spectacles, and blowing her nose, said:

"There is an epizootic among crowned cattle."

[Sidenote: Death of Madame de Coislin.]

At the moment when she was ready to breathe her last, they were
maintaining by her bedside that one succumbed only through letting
one's self go; that, if one paid great attention, and never lost sight
of the enemy, one would not die at all.

"I believe it," she said; "but I fear that something would distract me."

She expired.

I went down to her room the next day; I found Monsieur[672] and Madame
d'Avaray, her brother-in-law and sister, sitting before the fire-place,
with a little table between them, counting the louis in a bag which
they had taken from a hollow wainscoting. The poor dead woman was there
in her bed, behind the half-closed curtains: she no longer heard the
sound of the gold which ought to have awaked her, and which fraternal
hands were counting.

Among the thoughts written down by the defunct on margins of printed
paper and addresses of letters were some which were extremely
beautiful. Madame de Coislin showed me what remained of the Court of
Louis XV. under Bonaparte and after Louis XVI., even as Madame de
Houdetot had enabled me to see what still lingered, in the nineteenth
century, of philosophic society.

*

In the summer of the year 1805, I went to join Madame de Chateaubriand
at Vichy, where Madame de Coislin had taken her, as I have said. I
did not find Jussac, Termes, Flamarens there, whom Madame de Sévigné
had "before and behind her" in 1677: they had been sleeping since one
hundred and twenty and so many years. I left my sister, Madame de Caud,
in Paris, where she had fixed her residence since the autumn of 1804.
After a short stay at Vichy, Madame de Chateaubriand proposed that we
should travel, in order to be away for some time from the political
troubles.

Two little _Journeys_[673] which I then took in Auvergne and to Mont
Blanc have been collected in my works. After an absence of thirty-four
years, I have lately received at Clermont, from men unacquainted with
my person, the reception usually shown to an old friend. He who has
long occupied himself with the principles which the human race enjoys
in common has friends, brothers and sisters in every family; for, if
man is thankless, humanity is grateful. To those who have connected
themselves with you through a kindly reputation, and who have never
seen you, you are always the same; you have always the age which they
ascribed to you; their attachment, which is not disturbed by your
presence, always beholds you young and beautiful, like the sentiments
which they love in your writings.

When I was a child, in my Brittany, and heard speak of Auvergne, I
imagined it a very distant, very distant country, where one saw strange
things, where one could not go without great danger, and travelling
under the protection of the Blessed Virgin. I never meet without a
sort of melting curiosity those little Auvergnats who go to seek their
fortunes in this great world with a small deal chest. They have little
besides hope in their box, as they climb down their rocks: lucky are
they if they bring it back with them!

Alas, Madame de Beaumont had not lain two years on the bank of the
Tiber when I trod her natal soil in 1805; I was at but a few leagues
from that Mont Dore where she had come in search of the life which
she lengthened a little in order to reach Rome. Last summer, in 1838,
I once more travelled through this same Auvergne. Between those two
dates, 1805 and 1838, I can place the transformations which society has
undergone around me.

We left Clermont and, on our way to Lyons, passed through Thiers
and Roanne. This road, then little frequented, followed at intervals
the banks of the Lignon. The author of the _Astrée_[674], who is not
a great genius, nevertheless invented places and persons that live:
such is the creative power of fiction, when it is appropriate to the
age in which it appears. There is, moreover, something ingeniously
fantastic in that resurrection of the nymphs and naiads who mingle with
shepherds, ladies and knights: those different worlds go well together,
and one is agreeably pleased with the fables of mythology united to the
lies of fiction; Rousseau has related how he was taken in by d'Urfé.

[Sidenote: Geneva.]

At Lyons, we again found M. Ballanche: he made the excursion to Geneva
and Mont Blanc with us. He went wherever one took him, without having
the smallest business there. At Geneva, I was not received at the
gate of the city by Clotilda, the betrothed of Clovis: M. de Barante,
senior[675], had become Prefect of the Léman. At Coppet, I went to see
Madame de Staël: I found her alone, buried in her castle, which was
built round a melancholy court-yard. I spoke to her of her fortune and
of her solitude as a precious means of independence and happiness: I
offended her. Madame de Staël loved society; she looked upon herself
as the most wretched of women, in an exile with which I should have
been enchanted. Where in my eyes was the unhappiness of living on one's
property with all the comforts of life? Where was the misfortune of
enjoying fame, leisure, peace, in a sumptuous retreat within sight of
the Alps, in comparison with those thousands of breadless, nameless,
helpless victims, banished to all the corners of Europe, while their
parents had perished on the scaffold? It is sad to be attacked by
an ill which the crowd cannot understand. For the rest, that ill is
therefore only the more intense: it is not lessened by being confronted
with other ills; one is not judged by another's pain; that which
afflicts the one rejoices the other; hearts have varied secrets,
incomprehensible to other hearts. Let us deny none his sufferings; it
is with sorrows as with countries: each man has his own.

Madame de Staël called the next day on Madame de Chateaubriand at
Geneva, and we left for Chamouny. My opinion on the scenery of the
mountains caused it to be said that I was seeking to make myself
singular. It will be seen, when I come to speak of the Saint-Gothard,
that I have kept to my opinion. In the _Voyage au Mont-Blanc_ appears
a passage which I will recall as linking together the past events of
my life and the events of that same life then still future, and to-day
also past:

    "There is one circumstance alone in which it is true that the
    mountains produce an oblivion of earthly troubles: that is
    when one withdraws far from the world to consecrate himself
    to religion. An anchorite devoting himself to the service
    of mankind, a saint wishing to meditate in silence on the
    greatness of God, may find peace and joy on desert rocks;
    but it is not then the tranquillity of the spot that passes
    into the soul of those solitaries: it is, on the contrary,
    their soul that diffuses its serenity through the region of
    storms....

    "There are mountains which I would still visit with extreme
    pleasure: those, for instance, of Greece and Judæa. I should
    like to go over the spots with which my new studies lead
    me daily to occupy myself: I would gladly seek, upon the
    Tabor and Taygetus, other colours and other harmonies, after
    painting the unfamed mountains and unknown valleys of the New
    World."

The last phrase foretold the voyage which, in fact, I performed in the
next year, 1806.

[Sidenote: The Comte de Forbin.]

On our return to Geneva, without being able to see Madame de Staël
again at Coppet, we found the inns crammed. But for the cares of
M. de Forbin[676], who arrived unexpectedly and procured us a bad
dinner in a dark waiting-room, we should have left the birth-place of
Rousseau without eating. M. de Forbin was at that time in a state of
beatitude; he displayed in his looks the inner felicity with which he
was inundated; his feet did not touch the ground. Wafted on his talent
and his blissfulness, he came down from the mountain as though from
the sky, with his close-fitting painter's jacket, his pallet on his
thumb, his brushes in a quiver. A good fellow, nevertheless, although
excessively happy, preparing to imitate me one day, when I should
have made my voyage to Syria, wishing even to go as far as Calcutta,
to make his loves return to him by an uncommon road, when they failed
him on the beaten track. His eyes showed a protecting pity: I was
poor, humble, uncertain of myself, and I did not hold the hearts of
princesses in my mighty hands. In Rome, I have had the honour of
returning M. de Forbin his lake-side dinner; I had the merit of having
become an ambassador. In these days one sees the poor devil whom one
has left that morning in the street turned into a king by evening.

The noble gentleman, a painter in right of the Revolution, began
that generation of artists who dress themselves up like sketches,
grotesques, caricatures. Some wear prodigious mustachioes: one would
think they were going to conquer the world; their brushes are halberds,
their erasing-knives sabres: others have huge beards, and hanging or
puffed-out hair; they smoke a cigar by way of vulcano. These "cousins
of the rainbow," as our old Régnier[677] says, have their heads filled
with deluges, seas, rivers, forests, cataracts, tempests, or else with
carnages, executions and scaffolds. In their rooms they have human
skulls, foils, mandolines, morions, and dolmans. Bragging, pushing,
uncivil, liberal (as far as the portrait of the tyrant whom they are
painting), they endeavour to form a separate species between the
ape and the satyr; they are anxious to make it understood that the
secrecy of the studio has its dangers, and that there is no safety
for the models. But how handsomely do they not redeem these oddities
by a fevered existence, a suffering and sensitive nature, an entire
abnegation of self, an incalculable devotion to the miseries of others,
a delicate, superior, idealized manner of feeling, a poverty proudly
welcomed and nobly endured; lastly, sometimes by immortal talents: the
offspring of work, passion, genius, and solitude!

Leaving Geneva at night to return to Lyons, we were stopped at the foot
of the Fort de l'Écluse, waiting for the gates to be opened. During
this stay of the witches in _Macbeth_ on the heath, strange things
passed within me. My dead years came to life again and surrounded me
like a band of phantoms; my burning seasons returned to me in their
flame and sadness. My life, hollowed out by the death of Madame de
Beaumont, had remained empty: airy forms, houris or dreams, issuing
from that abyss, took me by the hand and led me back to the days of
the sylph. I was no longer in the spot which I occupied, I dreamed of
other shores. Some secret influence urged me to the regions of the
Dawn, whither I was drawn besides by the plan of my new work and the
religious voice which released me from the vow of the village woman,
my foster-mother. As all my faculties had extended, as I had never
misused life, it superabounded with the pith of my intelligence, and
art, triumphing in my nature, added to the poet's inspirations. I had
what the Fathers of the Thebaïde called "ascensions" of the heart.
Raphael--forgive the blasphemy of the simile--Raphael, before the
Transfiguration only sketched upon the easel, could not have been more
electrified by his master-piece than was I by Eudore and Cymodocée,
whose names I did not yet know and whose images I dimly saw through an
atmosphere of love and fame.

Thus does the native genius which tormented me in the cradle sometimes
return on its steps after deserting me; thus are my former sufferings
renewed; nothing heals within me; if my wounds close instantly, they
open again suddenly like those of the crucifixes of the Middle Ages,
which bleed on the anniversary of the Passion. I have no alternative,
to obtain relief during these crises, but to give a free course to the
fever of my thoughts, in the same way as one has his veins lanced when
the blood rushes to the heart or rises to the head. But of what am I
speaking! O religion, where then are thy powers, thy restraints, thy
balsams! Am I not writing all these things at a distance of countless
years from the hour at which I gave birth to René? I had a thousand
reasons to believe myself dead, and I live! 'Tis a great pity. Those
afflictions of the isolated poet, condemned to suffer the spring in
spite of Saturn, are unknown to the man who does not go outside the
common laws; for him the years are ever young:

"The young kids," says Oppian, "watch over the author of their being;
when he comes to fall into the huntsman's net, they offer him in their
mouths the tender, flowering grass, which they have gone to gather from
afar, and bring him in their lips fresh water, drawn from the adjacent
brook[678]."

*

On my return from Lyons I found letters from M. Joubert: they informed
me that it was not possible for him to be at Villeneuve before
September. I replied:

[Sidenote: Lyons and M. Saget.]

    "Your departure from Paris is too remote and distresses me;
    you well know that my wife will never consent to arrive at
    Villeneuve before you: she has a head of her own, and since
    she has been with me, I find myself at the head of two heads
    very difficult to govern. We shall remain at Lyons, where
    they make us eat so prodigiously that I hardly have the
    courage to leave this excellent town. The Abbé de Bonnevie is
    here, back from Rome; he is wonderfully well; he is merry, he
    preachifies, and no longer thinks of his woes; he embraces
    you and will write to you. In short, everybody is in high
    spirits, except myself; you are the only one to grumble. Tell
    Fontanes that I have dined with M. Saget."

This M. Saget was the providence of the canons; he lived on the hill of
Sainte-Foix, in the district of the good wine. The way to his house led
up near the spot where Rousseau had spent the night on the banks of the
Saône:

    "I remember," he says, "spending a delightful night outside
    the town, on a road which skirted the Saône. Gardens raised
    terrace-wise bordered the road on the opposite side: it had
    been very warm that day; the evening was charming, the dew
    moistened the parched grass; no wind, a quiet night; the
    air was cool without being chill; the sun after setting
    had left red vapours in the sky, and their reflection made
    the water rose-coloured; the trees on the terraces were
    laden with nightingales which replied one to the other. I
    walked along in a sort of ecstasy, abandoning my senses and
    my heart to the enjoyment of all this, and only sighing a
    little with regret at enjoying it alone. Absorbed in my
    sweet reverie, I prolonged my walk well into the night,
    without perceiving that I was tired. I perceived it at last:
    I lay down voluptuously on the shelf of a sort of niche or
    false door, sunk into a terrace-wall; the canopy of my bed
    consisted of the tops of the trees, a nightingale was exactly
    over my head; I fell asleep to its singing: my slumbers were
    sweet, my awakening even more so. It was broad day-light: my
    eyes on opening beheld the water, the verdure, an admirable
    landscape."

*

With Rousseau's charming itinerary in one's hand, one arrived at M.
Saget's. This ancient and lean bachelor, formerly married, wore a
green cap, a grey camlet coat, nankeen pantaloons, blue stockings and
beaver shoes. He had lived long in Paris, and had been intimate with
Mademoiselle Devienne[679]. She wrote him very witty letters, scolded
him, and gave him very good advice: he ignored it, for he did not take
the world seriously, believing apparently, like the Mexicans, that
the world had already used four suns, and that at the fourth (which
is lighting us at present) men had been changed into maggots. He did
not trouble his mind about the martyrdom of St. Pothin[680] and St.
Ireneus[681], nor of the massacre of the Protestants drawn up side by
side by order of Mandelot[682], the Governor of Lyons, all of them
having their throats cut on the same side. Opposite the field of the
shooting at the Brotteaux[683], he would tell me details of it, while
strolling among his vines, mingling with his narrative verses of Loyse
Labbé[684]: he would not have missed a single mouthful during the last
misfortunes of Lyons, under the Charte-Vérité.

On certain days a certain calf's head was served up at Sainte-Foix,
after being soused for five nights, boiled in madeira, and stuffed
full of exquisite things; very pretty peasant-girls waited at table;
they served excellent homegrown wine out of demi-johns the size of
three bottles. We swooped upon the Saget banquet, I and the cassocked
chapter: the hill-side was quite black with us.

Our _dapifer_ soon came to the end of his provisions: in the ruin of
his last moments he was taken in by two or three of the old mistresses
who had plundered his life, "a kind of women," says St. Cyprian[685],
"who live as though they could be loved: _quæ sic vivis ut possis
adamari._"


*

[Sidenote: The Grande Chartreuse.]

We tore ourselves from the delights of Capua to go and see the
Chartreuse, still accompanied by M. Ballanche. We hired a calash whose
disjointed wheels made a lamentable noise. On reaching Voreppe we
stopped at an inn at the top of the town. The next morning, at break of
day, we mounted on horseback and set out preceded by a guide. At the
village of Saint-Laurent, at the bottom of the Grande-Chartreuse, we
crossed the threshold of the valley, and passing between two walls of
rocks, followed the road leading up to the monastery. When speaking of
Combourg, I have told you what I experienced in that spot. The deserted
buildings were cracking under the supervision of a kind of farmer
of the ruins. A lay-brother had remained to take care of an infirm
solitary who had just died: religion had imposed loyalty and obedience
upon friendship. We saw the narrow grave freshly covered over: Napoleon
was just about to dig a huge one at Austerlitz. We were shown the
convent enclosure, the cells, each with its garden and workshop; we
noticed joiners' boards and turners' wheels: the hand had dropped the
chisel. In a gallery were displayed the portraits of the superiors of
the Chartreuse. The ducal palace at Venice preserves the series of the
_ritratti_ of the doges: what different spots and memories! Higher
up, at some distance, we were taken to the chapel of Le Sueur's[686]
immortal recluse[687].

After dining in an immense kitchen, we set out again and met, carried
in a palanquin like a rajah, M. Chaptal, formerly an apothecary, then a
senator, next owner of Chanteloup and inventor of beetroot sugar, the
greedy heir of the beautiful Indian reed-canes of Sicily, perfected by
the Otaheitan sun. As I descended from the forests, my thoughts turned
to the cenobites of old; for centuries, they carried, together with a
little earth, in the skirts of their gowns, fir plants which have grown
into trees on the rocks. Happy O ye who travelled noiselessly through
the world, nor even turned your heads in passing!

No sooner had we reached the entrance to the valley than a storm burst;
a deluge dashed down, and vexed torrents rushed roaring from every
ravine. Madame de Chateaubriand, becoming reckless for very fear,
galloped through the flint stones, the water and the lightning-flashes.
She had flung away her umbrella the better to hear the thunder; the
guide cried to her:

"Recommend your soul to God! In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost!"

We reached Voreppe to the sound of the tocsin; what remained of the
cloven storm lay before us. In the distant landscape, we saw a blazing
village and the moon rounding out the upper portion of his disc above
the clouds, like the pale, bald forehead of St. Bruno, the founder of
the order of silence. M. Ballanche, all dripping with rain, said with
his immovable placidity:

"I am like a fish in the water."

I have just seen Voreppe again, in this year 1838: the storm was
there no longer; but two witnesses of it still remain, Madame de
Chateaubriand and M. Ballanche. I mention this because I have too
often, in these Memoirs, had to call attention to the dead.

On returning to Lyons we left our companion there, and went to
Villeneuve. I have told you about this little town, my walks and my
regrets on the banks of the Yonne with M. Joubert. Three old maids
used to live there, Mesdemoiselles Piat; they reminded me of my
grandmother's three friends at Plancoët, saving the difference in
social position. The virgins of Villeneuve died one after the other,
and I thought of them when I saw a grass-grown flight of steps, running
up outside their empty house. What used these village damsels to talk
about in their time! They spoke of a dog, and of a muff which their
father had once bought them at Sens Fair. To me this was as charming
as the council of the same town at which St. Bernard had Abélard, my
fellow-Breton, condemned. The maids of the muff were Heloïses perhaps;
perhaps they loved, and their letters, brought to light, will one day
entrance posterity. Who knows? Perhaps they wrote to their "lord, also
their father, also their brother, also their spouse: _domino suo, imo
patri_," etc., that they felt honoured by the name of friend, by the
name of "mistress" or of "courtesan: _concubinæ vel scorti._"

"In the midst of his learning," says a grave doctor, "I find that
Abélard played an admirably foolish prank when he suborned with love
his pupil Héloïse."

[Sidenote: Illness of Lucile.]

A great and new sorrow surprised me at Villeneuve. To tell it you,
I must go back to a few months before my Swiss journey. I was still
occupying the house in the Rue Miromesnil when, in the autumn of
1804, Madame de Caud came to Paris. The death of Madame de Beaumont
had finished the affecting of my sister's reason; she was very near
refusing to believe in the death, suspecting some mystery in the
disappearance, or including Heaven in the number of the enemies who
mocked at her misfortunes. She had nothing; I had chosen an apartment
in the Rue Caumartin for her, deceiving her as to the rent and as
to the arrangements which I told her to make with the keeper of an
eating-house. Like a flame ready to expire, her genius shed the
brightest light; she was all illumined with it. She would write a few
lines which she threw into the fire, or else copy from books some
thoughts in harmony with the disposition of her soul. She did not
remain long in the Rue Caumartin; she went to live with the Dames
Saint-Michel, in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques: Madame de Navarre
was the superior of the convent. Lucile had a little cell overlooking
the garden: I noticed that she followed with her eyes, with I know
not what gloomy longing, the nuns who walked in the enclosure around
the vegetable beds. One could guess that she envied the saints and,
going further, aspired to the angels. I will sanctify these Memoirs by
deposing in them, as relics, the following letters of Madame de Caud,
written before she had taken flight for her eternal country:

    "17 _January._

    "I had placed all my happiness in you and in Madame de
    Beaumont; I fled from my cares and my sorrows in the thought
    of you two: my whole occupation was to love you. Last night
    I made long reflections upon your character and your ways.
    As you and I are always near each other, it needs some time,
    I think, to know me, such is the variety of ideas in my
    head! Such is the opposition of my timidity and my peculiar
    external weakness to my real inner strength! Too much about
    myself. My illustrious brother, accept my fondest thanks for
    all the favours and all the marks of friendship which you
    have never ceased to show me. This is the last letter you
    will receive from me in the morning. Albeit I communicate
    my ideas to you, they nevertheless remain quite completely
    within myself."

    (_No date._)

    "Do you seriously, dear, think me safe from some impertinence
    on the part of M. Chênedollé? I am quite determined not to
    invite him to continue his visits; I resign myself to look
    upon Tuesday's as the last. I do not wish to trouble his
    politeness. I am closing for ever the book of my fate, and
    sealing it with the seal of reason; I shall now consult its
    pages no more on the trifles than on the important things of
    life. I give up all my foolish notions; I wish neither to
    occupy nor to vex myself with those of other people; I will
    abandon myself with heart and soul to all the events of my
    passage through this world. What a pity that I should pay
    myself so much attention! God can now afflict me only in you.
    I thank Him for the precious, kind and dear present which He
    has made me in your person and for having preserved my life
    without stain: those are all my treasures. I could take for
    an emblem of my life the moon in a cloud, with this device:
    'Often obscured, never tarnished.' Farewell, dear. You will
    perhaps be surprised at my words since yesterday morning.
    Since I saw you, my heart has raised itself to God, and I
    have laid it wholly at the foot of the Cross, its sole and
    true place."

    "_Thursday._

    "Good-morning, dear. What colour are your ideas this morning?
    As for me, I remember that the only person who was able to
    relieve me when I was fearing for Madame de Farcy's life was
    she who said to me, 'But it is within the range of possible
    things that you may die before her.' Could any one have
    spoken more to the point? There is nothing, dear, like the
    idea of death to rid us of the future. I hasten to rid you of
    myself this morning, for I feel myself too much in the mood
    to say fine things. Good-bye, my poor brother. Keep joyful."

    (_No date._)

    "While Madame de Farcy lived, always by her side, I had not
    noticed the need of being in communion of thought with some
    one. I possessed that advantage unconsciously. But since we
    lost that friend, and circumstances having separated me from
    you, I have known the torture of never being able to refresh
    and renew one's mind in some one's conversation; I feel that
    my ideas hurt me when I am unable to get rid of them; this
    has surely to do with my bad organization. Nevertheless I am
    fairly satisfied, since yesterday, with my courage. I pay no
    attention to my grief and to the sort of inward faintness
    which I feel. I have abandoned myself. Continue to be always
    kind to me: before long it will be humanity. Good-bye, dear.
    Till soon, I hope."

[Sidenote: Lucile's letters.]

    (_No date._)

    "Be easy, dear; my health is recovering visibly. I often ask
    myself why I take so much pains to bolster it up. I am like a
    madman who should build a fortress in the middle of a desert.
    Farewell, my poor brother."

    (_No date._)

    "As I have a bad headache to-night, I have just simply, and
    at haphazard, written down some thoughts of Fénelon's for
    you, so as to keep my promise:

    '"We are confined within narrow limits when we shut ourselves
    up in our own existence; on the contrary, we feel at liberty
    when we quit this prison to enter into the immensity of God.'

    "'We shall soon find once more all that we have lost We are
    daily approaching it with rapid strides. Yet a little while,
    and we shall no more have cause to weep. It is we who die:
    what we love still lives and shall never die.'

    "'You impart to yourself a deceitful strength, such as a
    raging fever gives to a sick man. For some days past, a
    sort of convulsive movement has been visible in you, from
    the effort to affect an air of gaiety and courage, whilst a
    silent anguish filled your soul.'

    "That is as much as my head and my bad pen permit me to
    write to you this evening. If you like, I will begin again
    to-morrow, and perhaps tell you some more. Good-evening,
    dear. I shall never cease telling you that my heart
    prostrates itself before that of Fénelon, whose tenderness
    seems to me so profound, and his virtue so exalted. Good-bye,
    dear.

    "I am awake, and offer you a thousand loves and a hundred
    blessings. I feel well this morning and am anxious as to
    whether you will be able to read me, and whether those
    thoughts of Fénelon's will seem to you well chosen. I fear my
    heart has concerned itself too much with the selection."

    (_No date._)

    "Could you think that since yesterday I have been madly
    occupied in correcting you? The Blossacs have trusted me
    with one of your novels in the greatest secrecy. As I do not
    think that you have made the most of your ideas, I am amusing
    myself by trying to render them in their full value. Can
    audacity go further than that? Forgive me, great man, and
    remember that I am your sister, and that I have some little
    right to make an ill use of your riches."

    "SAINT-MICHEL.

    "I will no longer say, 'Do not come to see me again,'
    because, having from now but a few days to spend in Paris,
    I feel that your presence is essential to me. Do not come
    to-day until four; I expect to be out till then. Dear, I have
    in my head a thousand contradictory ideas touching things
    which seem to me to exist and not to exist, which to me have
    the effect of objects of which one only caught sight in a
    glass, and of which, consequently, one could not make sure,
    however distinctly one saw them. I wish to trouble about all
    this no longer; from this moment I abandon myself. Unlike
    you, I have not the resource of changing banks, but I feel
    sufficient courage to attach no importance to the persons
    and things on my shore, and to fix myself entirely and
    irrevocably in the Author of all justice and all truth. There
    is only one displeasure to which I fear that I shall grow
    insensible with great difficulty, that of unintentionally, in
    passing, striking against the destiny of some other person,
    not because of any interest that might be taken in me: I am
    not mad enough for that."

    "SAINT-MICHEL.

    "Dear, never did the sound of your voice give me so much
    pleasure as when I heard it yesterday on my staircase. My
    ideas then strove to overcome my courage. I was seized with
    content to feel you so near me; you appeared, and my whole
    inner being returned to orderliness. I sometimes feel a great
    repugnance at heart to drinking my cup. How can that heart,
    which is so small a space, contain so much existence and so
    much grief? I am greatly dissatisfied with myself, greatly
    dissatisfied. My affairs and my ideas carry me away; I
    scarcely occupy myself with God now, and I confine myself to
    saying to Him a hundred times a day, 'O Lord, make haste to
    hearken unto my prayer, for my spirit waxeth faint.'"

[Sidenote: More letters from Lucile.]


    (_No date._)

    "Brother, do not grow weary of my letter, nor of my company;
    think that soon you will be for ever released from my
    importunities. My life is casting its last light, like a
    lamp which has burnt out in the darkness of a long night,
    and which sees the rise of the dawn in which it is to die.
    Please, brother, cast a single glance at the early moments
    of our existence; remember that we have often been seated
    on the same lap, and pressed both together to the same
    bosom; that already you added tears to mine, that from
    the earliest days of your life you protected and defended
    my frail existence, that our games united us and that I
    shared your first studies. I will not speak to you of our
    adolescence, of the innocence of our thoughts and of our
    joys, nor of our mutual need to see each other incessantly.
    If I retrace the past, I candidly confess, brother, that
    it is to make me revive the more in your heart. When you
    left France for the second time, you placed your wife in my
    hands, you made me promise never to part from her. True to
    this dear engagement, I voluntarily stretched out my hands
    to the irons, and entered into the regions destined alone
    for the victims vowed to death. In those abodes I have had
    no anxiety save as to your fate; incessantly I questioned
    the forebodings of my heart touching yourself. When I had
    recovered my liberty, amidst the ills which came to overwhelm
    me, the thought alone of our meeting kept me up. To-day, when
    I am irretrievably losing the hope of running my course by
    your side, bear with my griefs. I shall become resigned to my
    destiny, and it is only because I am still fighting against
    it that I suffer such cruel anguish; but when I shall have
    grown submissive to my fate.... And what a fate! Where are
    my friends, my protectors and my treasures! To whom matters
    my existence, that existence abandoned by all, and weighing
    down entirely upon itself? My God, are not my present woes
    enough for my weakness, without yet adding to them the dread
    of the future? Forgive me, my too dear friend, I will resign
    myself; I will fall asleep, in a slumber as of death, upon
    my destiny. But, during the few days which I have to spend in
    this town, let me seek my last consolations in you; let me
    believe that my presence is sweet to you. Believe me, among
    the hearts that love you, none approaches the sincerity and
    tenderness of my impotent friendship for you. Fill my memory
    with agreeable recollections, which prolong my existence
    beside you. Yesterday, when you spoke to me of coming to
    you, you seemed to me anxious and serious, while your words
    were affectionate. Why, brother, could I be to you also a
    subject of aversion and annoyance? You know it was not I
    that proposed the amiable distraction of going to see you,
    and that I promised you to make no ill use of it; but, if
    you have changed your opinion, why did you not tell me so
    frankly? I have no courage to set against your politeness.
    Formerly you used to distinguish me a little more from the
    common herd and to do me more justice. As you reckon upon me
    to-day, I will come to see you presently, at eleven o'clock.
    We will arrange together what seems best to you for the
    future. I have written to you, feeling sure that I should not
    have the courage to say to you a single word of what this
    letter contains."

This so affecting and quite admirable letter is the last which I
received; it alarmed me through the increase of sadness of which it
bears the impress. I hurried to the Dames Saint-Michel; my sister was
walking in the garden with Madame de Navarre; she went in when she knew
that I had gone up to her room. She made visible efforts to collect her
ideas, and at intervals she had a slight convulsive movement of the
lips. I entreated her to return entirely to reason, to cease writing
such unjust things to me, things that rent my heart, to cease thinking
that I could ever grow weary of her. She appeared to grow a little
calmer at the words which I repeated to distract and console her. She
told me that she believed that the convent was doing her harm, that she
would feel better living alone, in the neighbourhood of the Jardin des
Plantes, there where she could see doctors and walk about. I urged her
to please her own taste, adding that in order to help Virginie, her
maid, I would give her old Saint-Germain. This proposal seemed to give
her great pleasure, in memory of Madame de Beaumont, and she assured me
that she would go to look out for her new lodging. She asked me how I
was thinking of spending the summer. I said that I should go to Vichy
to join my wife, and then to M. Joubert at Villeneuve, to return to
Paris from there. I suggested to her to accompany us. She answered that
she wished to spend the summer alone, and that she was going to send
Virginie back to Fougères. I left her; she was more at ease.

Madame de Chateaubriand left for Vichy, and I prepared to follow her.
Before leaving Paris I went again to see Lucile. She was affectionate;
she spoke to me of her little writings. I encouraged the great poet to
work; she kissed me, wished me a good journey, made me promise to come
back soon. She saw me to the landing of the staircase, leant over the
baluster, and quietly watched me go down. When I reached the bottom I
stopped, and lifting my head, cried to the unhappy woman who was still
looking at me:

"Farewell, dear sister! I shall see you soon! Take great care of
yourself! Write to me at Villeneuve. I will write to you. I hope that
next winter you will agree to live with us."

[Sidenote: Death of Lucile.]

That evening I saw the worthy Saint-Germain; I gave him orders and some
money, so that he might secretly reduce the prices of anything she
might require. I enjoined him to keep me informed of everything and not
to fail to call me back in case he should want to see me. Three months
passed. When I reached Villeneuve, I found two fairly tranquillizing
letters about Madame de Caud's health: but Saint-Germain forgot to
speak to me of my sister's new lodging. I had begun to write her a long
letter, when suddenly Madame de Chateaubriand fell dangerously ill: I
was at her bedside when I was brought a new letter from Saint-Germain;
I opened it: a withering line told me of the sudden death of Lucile.

I have cared for many tombs in my life: it fell to my lot and to my
sister's destiny that her ashes should be flung to the skies. I was not
in Paris when she died; I had no relations there; kept at Villeneuve by
my wife's critical condition, I was unable to go to the sacred remains;
orders sent from a distance arrived too late to prevent a common
burial. Lucile knew no one and had not a friend; she was known only to
Madame de Beaumont's old servant: it was as though he had been charged
to link two destinies. He alone followed the forsaken coffin, and he
himself was dead before Madame de Chateaubriand's sufferings allowed me
to bring her back to Paris.

My sister was buried among the poor: in what grave-yard was she laid?
In what motionless wave of an ocean of dead was she swallowed up? In
what house did she die, after leaving the community of the Dames de
Saint-Michel? If, by making researches, if, by examining the archives
of the municipalities, the registers of the parishes, I should come
across my sister's name, what would that avail me[688]? Should I
find the same keeper of the cemetery? Should I find the man who dug
a grave that remained nameless and unlabelled? Would the rough hands
that were the last to touch so pure a clay have remembered it? What
nomenclator of the shades could point out to me the obliterated tomb?
Might he not make a mistake as to the dust? Since Heaven has willed it
so, let Lucile be for ever lost! I find in this absence of locality a
distinction from the burials of my other friends. My predecessor in
this world and in the next is praying to the Redeemer for me; she is
praying to Him from the midst of the pauper remains among which her
own lie confounded: even so does Lucile's mother and mine rest lost
among the preferred of Jesus Christ. God will certainly have been able
to recognise my sister; and she, who was so little attached to earth,
ought to leave no trace there. She has left me, that sainted genius.
Not a day has passed but I have wept for her. Lucile loved to hide
herself; I have made her a solitude in my heart: she shall leave it
only when I shall have ceased to live[689].

Those are the true, the only events of my real life! What mattered
to me, at the moment when I was losing my sister, the thousands of
soldiers falling on the battlefields, the destruction of thrones, the
changes in the face of the world?

Lucile's death struck at the sources of my soul: it was my childhood
in the midst of my family, the first vestiges of my existence, that
were disappearing. Our life resembles those frail buildings, shored
up in the sky by flying buttresses: they do not crumble at once, but
become loose piecemeal; they still support some gallery or other, while
already they have become separated from the chancel or vault of the
edifice. Madame de Chateaubriand, still bruised by Lucile's imperious
whims, saw only a deliverance for the Christian who had gone to rest in
the Lord. Let us be gentle if we would be regretted; the loftiness of
genius and the higher qualities are mourned only by the angels. But I
cannot enter into the consolation of Madame de Chateaubriand.

*

[Sidenote: My journey to the East.]

When, returning to Paris by the Burgundy road, I caught sight of the
cupola of the Val-de-Grâce and the dome of Sainte-Geneviève, which
overlooks the Jardin des Plantes, my heart was broken: one more
companion of my life left on the wayside! We went back to the Hôtel de
Coislin, and although M. de Fontanes, M. Joubert, M. de Clausel, M.
Molé came to spend the evenings with me, I was distraught by so many
memories and thoughts that I was utterly exhausted. Remaining alone
behind the objects that had quitted me, like a foreign mariner whose
engagement has expired, and who has neither home nor country, I struck
the shore with my foot; I longed to swim in a new ocean to refresh
myself and cross it. Nursed on Mount Pindus, a crusader to Hierosolyma,
I was impatient to go to mingle my loneliness with the ruins of Athens,
my tears with those of the Magdalen.

I went to see my family[690] in Brittany, returned to Paris, and
left for Trieste on the 13th of July 1806; Madame de Chateaubriand
accompanied me as far as Venice, where M. Ballanche came to join her.

As my life is set forth hour by hour in the _Itinéraire_, I should
have no more to say here, if I had not kept some hitherto unknown
letters written or received during and after my voyage. Julien, my
servant and companion, wrote his own Itinerary side by side with mine,
just as passengers on a vessel keep their private logs on a journey
of discovery. The little manuscript which he places at my disposal
will serve as a check upon my narrative: I shall be Cook, he will be
Clarke[691].

In order to bring into clearer light the different manner in which one
is impressed according to one's place in the social order and in the
intellectual hierarchy, I will mingle my narrative with Julien's[692].
I shall let him begin by speaking first, because he relates some days'
sailing without me from Modon to Smyrna.

    JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

    "We went on board[693] on Friday the 1st of August; but,
    the wind not being favourable to leave harbour, we waited
    until daybreak the next morning. Then the harbour-pilot
    came to tell us that he could bring us out. As I had never
    been on the sea, I had formed an exaggerated idea of the
    danger, for I saw none during two days. But, on the third, a
    tempest rose; lightning, thunder and, in short, a terrible
    storm attacked us and beat up the sea frightfully. Our
    crew consisted of only eight sailors, a captain, a mate, a
    pilot and a cook, and five passengers, including Monsieur
    and myself, which made seventeen men in all. Then we all
    set ourselves to help the seamen in furling the sails, in
    spite of the rain with which we were soon drenched, having
    taken off our coats to move more freely. This work filled my
    thoughts and made me forget the danger, which, indeed, is
    more terrible through the idea which one forms of it than it
    is in reality. The storms followed one another during two
    days, which seasoned me in my first days of sea-faring; I was
    in no way inconvenienced. Monsieur was afraid lest I should
    be ill at sea; when calm set in again, he said to me:

    "'Now I am reassured about your health; as you have borne
    these two stormy days so well, you can set your mind at rest
    as to any other mischance.'

    "None occurred during the remainder of our crossing to
    Smyrna. On the 10th, which was a Sunday, Monsieur made them
    heave-to near a Turkish town called Modon, where he landed to
    go to Greece. Among the passengers who were with us were two
    Milanese, who were going to Smyrna to follow their trade of
    tinmen and pewter-founders. One of the two, called Joseph,
    spoke the Turkish language fairly well, and Monsieur proposed
    that he should go with him as servant interpreter, and
    mentions him in his _Itinéraire._ He told us, on leaving us,
    that the journey would only take a few days, that he would
    join the vessel at an island where we were to pass in four
    or five days, and that he would wait for us in that island
    if he arrived there before us. As Monsieur found that man to
    suit him for that short journey[694], he left me on board
    to continue my voyage to Smyrna and to look after all our
    luggage. He had given me a letter of recommendation to the
    French Consul, in case he did not join us, which was what
    happened. On the fourth day, we arrived at the appointed
    island and Monsieur was not there. We passed the night and
    waited for him till seven o'clock in the morning. The captain
    went back on shore to leave word that he was compelled to
    go on, having a fair wind and being obliged to take his
    crossing into consideration. Besides, he saw a pirate who was
    trying to approach us, and it was urgent that we should place
    ourselves promptly on the defensive. He made the men load his
    four pieces of cannon and bring on deck his muskets, pistols
    and side-arms; but, as the wind favoured us, the pirate gave
    us up. We arrived, on Monday the 18th, at seven o'clock in
    the evening, at the port of Smyrna."

    *

    [Sidenote: Greece.]

    After crossing Greece, and touching Zea and Chio, I found
    Julien at Smyrna. To-day I see Greece in my memory as one
    of those dazzling circles which one sometimes beholds on
    closing one's eyes. Against that mysterious phosphorescence
    are outlined ruins of a delicate and admirable architecture,
    the whole rendered still more resplendent by I know not
    what brightness of the Muses. When shall I see again the
    thyme of Mount Hymettus, the oleanders of the banks of the
    Eurotas? One of the men whom I have left with the greatest
    envy on foreign shores is the Turkish custom-house officer
    of the Piræus: he lived alone, the guardian of three
    deserted ports, turning his gaze over bluey isles, gleaming
    promontories, golden seas. There I heard nought save the
    sound of the billows in the shattered tomb of Themistocles
    and the murmur of distant memories; in the silence of the
    ruins of Sparta, fame itself was dumb.

    In the cradle of Melesigene I left my poor dragoman,
    Joseph, the Milanese, at his tinman's shop, and set out for
    Constantinople. I went to Pergamos, wishing first to go to
    Troy, from motives of poetic piety; a fall from my horse
    awaited me at the commencement of my road; not that Pegasus
    stumbled, but I slept. I have recalled this accident in my
    _Itinéraire_; Julien relates it also, and he makes remarks
    concerning the roads and the horses to the exactness of which
    I can certify.

    JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

    "Monsieur, who had fallen asleep on his horse, tumbled off
    without waking. His horse stopped forthwith, as did mine,
    which followed it. I at once alighted to know the reason, for
    it was impossible for me to see it at a fathom's distance.
    I saw Monsieur half asleep beside his horse, and quite
    astonished to find himself on the ground; he assured me that
    he had not hurt himself. His horse did not try to run away,
    which would have been dangerous, for there were precipices
    very near to the spot where we were."

    On leaving the Soma, after passing Pergamos, I had the
    dispute with my guide which I describe in the _Itinéraire._
    Here is Julien's version:

    JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

    "We left that village very early, after renewing our canteen.
    A little way from the village, I was greatly surprised to
    see Monsieur angry with our guide; I asked him the reason.
    Monsieur then told me that he had arranged with the guide,
    at Smyrna, that he would take him to the plains of Troy on
    the way, and that he was now refusing, saying that the plains
    were infested with brigands. Monsieur declined to believe
    a word of it, and would listen to no one. As I saw that he
    was getting more and more out of temper, I made a sign to
    the guide to come near the interpreter and the janissary to
    explain to me what he had been told about the dangers to be
    risked in the plains which Monsieur wished to visit. The
    guide told the interpreter that he had been assured that one
    had to be in great numbers not to be attacked; the janissary
    told me the same thing. Thereupon I went to Monsieur and
    told him what they had all three said, and that, besides, we
    should find a little village at a day's march where there
    was a sort of consul who would be able to inform us of the
    truth. After this statement, Monsieur composed himself, and
    we continued our road till we reached that place. He at
    once went to the consul, who told him of all the dangers he
    would risk if he persisted in his wish to go in such small
    numbers to those plains of Troy. Thereupon Monsieur was
    obliged to abandon his project, and we continued our road for
    Constantinople."

[Sidenote: Constantinople.]

I arrived at Constantinople.

    MY ITINERARY.

    "The almost total absence of women, the dearth of wheeled
    carriages, and the packs of ownerless dogs were the three
    distinctive characteristics that first struck me in this
    extraordinary town. As nearly every one walks in papouches,
    as there is no noise of carriages and carts, as there are
    no bells and scarcely any hammering trades, the silence
    is continual. You see around you a voiceless crowd which
    seems to wish to pass unnoticed, and which always looks as
    though it were stealing away from its master's sight. You
    constantly come to a bazaar or a cemetery, as though the
    Turks were only there to buy, sell, or die. The cemeteries,
    unwalled and placed in the middle of the streets, are
    magnificent cypress-woods: the doves build their nests in the
    cypress-trees and share the peace of the dead. Here and there
    one discovers some ancient monuments which have no connection
    with the modern men, nor with the new monuments by which they
    are surrounded; it is as though they had been transported to
    this eastern town by the working of a talisman. No sign of
    joy, no appearance of happiness shows itself to your eyes;
    what you see is not a people but a herd whom an iman drives
    and a janissary slays. Amidst the prisons and the gaols rises
    a seraglio, the capitol of servitude: it is there that a
    sacred guardian carefully preserves the germs of pestilence
    and the primitive laws of tyranny."

Julien does not soar so near the clouds[695].

    MY ITINERARY.

    "We were about two hundred passengers on the ship, men,
    women, children and old people. As many mats lay ranged in
    rows on both sides of the steerage. In this kind of republic,
    each kept house as he pleased: the women looked after their
    children, the men smoked or prepared their dinners, the
    popes talked together. On every side was heard the sound
    of mandolines, fiddles and lyres. They sang, they danced,
    they laughed, they prayed. Every one was joyful. They said
    to me, 'Jerusalem!' pointing to the south; and I replied,
    'Jerusalem!' In short, but for the fright, we should have
    been the happiest people in the world; but at the least wind
    the seamen furled the sails, the pilgrims cried, '_Christos,
    Kyrie eleison!_' When the storm had passed, we resumed our
    boldness."

Here I am beaten by Julien.

    JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

    "We had to busy ourselves with our departure for Jaffa, which
    took place on Thursday the 18th of September. We embarked on
    board a Greek ship, where there were at least, men, women,
    and children, one hundred and fifty Greeks who were going on
    a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which caused much disturbance on
    board.

    "Like the other passengers, we too had our supply of
    provisions and our cooking utensils, which I had bought in
    Constantinople. I had, besides, a further and fairly complete
    supply which M. l'Ambassadeur had given us, consisting of
    very fine biscuits, hams, sausages, saveloys, different sorts
    of wine, rum, sugar, lemons, and even quinine-wine against
    the fever. I was therefore furnished with a very plentiful
    provision, which I husbanded and only consumed with great
    economy, knowing that we had more than this one crossing to
    make: everything was locked up where the passengers were not
    allowed to go.

    "Our crossing, which lasted only thirteen days, seemed
    very long to me through all sorts of unpleasantness and
    uncleanliness on board. During several days of bad weather
    which we encountered, the women and children were sick,
    throwing up everywhere, so much so that we were obliged to
    leave our cabin and sleep on deck. There we took our meals
    much more comfortably than elsewhere, as we decided to wait
    until all our Greeks had finished their littering."

[Sidenote: Mount Carmel.]

I passed through the Dardanelles, touched at Rhodes, and took a pilot
for the Syrian coast. We were stopped by a calm below the Asiatic
continent, almost opposite the old Cape Chelidonia. We remained two
days at sea without knowing where we were.

    MY ITINERARY.

    "The weather was so fine and the air so mild that all the
    passengers spent the night on deck. I had contended for a
    place on the quarter-deck with two fat caloyers, who yielded
    it to me only after much grumbling. I was lying asleep there
    at six o'clock in the morning on the 30th of September,
    when I was aroused by a confused noise of voices: I opened
    my eyes, and saw the pilgrims looking towards the prow of
    the vessel. I asked what it was; they shouted '_Signor,
    il Carmelo!_' Mount Carmel! The wind had risen at eight
    o'clock the previous evening, and we had arrived in sight of
    the Syrian coast during the night. As I was sleeping fully
    dressed, I was soon on my feet, asking the whereabouts of the
    sacred mountain. Everyone was eager to point it out to me;
    but I perceived nothing, owing to the sun which was beginning
    to rise opposite to us. That moment had about it something
    religious and august: all the pilgrims, their beads in their
    hands, had remained silently in the same attitude, awaiting
    the apparition of the Holy Land; the chief of the popes
    prayed aloud: one heard only that prayer and the sound of the
    running of the vessel, which the most favourable wind was
    impelling across a dazzling sea. From time to time a shout
    rose from the prow, when one caught sight of Mount Carmel
    again. At last I myself perceived the mountain, like a round
    patch beneath the rays of the sun. I then went on my knees in
    the manner of the Latins. I did not feel the peculiar trouble
    which I experienced on discovering the coast of Greece: but
    the sight of the cradle of the Israelites and the native land
    of the Christians filled me with joy and respect. I was about
    to step upon the land of prodigies, near the sources of the
    most astounding poetry, in the region where, even humanly
    speaking, the greatest event took place that ever changed the
    face of the world. . . . . . . . . . .

    "The wind dropped at noon; it rose again at four o'clock; but
    through the ignorance of the pilot we went beyond our aim....
    At two o'clock in the afternoon we saw Jaffa again.

    "A boat left the shore with three monks. I stepped into the
    launch with them; we entered the harbour through an opening
    effected between the rocks, and dangerous even for a ship's
    boat.

    "The Arabs on the beach came out into the water to their
    waists, in order to take us on their shoulders. Then there
    followed a rather laughable scene: my servant was dressed in
    a whitish frock-coat; white being the colour of distinction
    among the Arabs, they deemed that Julien was the sheik. They
    caught hold of him and carried him off in triumph, despite
    his protests, while, thanks to my blue coat, I made my escape
    humbly on the back of a ragged beggar."

Now let us hear Julien, the principal actor in the scene:

    JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

    "What surprised me greatly was to see six Arabs come to carry
    me on land, while there were only two for Monsieur, which
    amused him much, to see me carried like a reliquary. I do not
    know whether my apparel seemed to them more brilliant than
    Monsieur's: he wore a brown frock-coat and buttons of the
    same; mine was whitish, with buttons of white metal which
    gave off a certain gleam in the bright sunshine: this may, no
    doubt, have caused the mistake.

    "We went, on Wednesday the 1st of October, to the monks of
    Jaffa, who belong to the Order of Cordeliers, speaking Latin
    and Italian, but very little French. They received us very
    well, and did all that in them lay to procure for us all we
    needed."

I arrived in Jerusalem. On the advice of the Fathers of the convent,
I passed quickly through the Holy City to go to the Jordan. After
stopping at the monastery at Bethlehem, I set out with an Arab escort;
I stopped at St. Sabas. At midnight, I found myself on the shore of the
Dead Sea.

    MY ITINERARY.

    "When one travels in Judæa, at first the heart is seized
    with a great sense of tediousness; but when, as you pass from
    solitude to solitude, space stretches limitless before your
    eyes, that feeling gradually wears away, and you experience
    a secret terror which, far from casting down the soul, gives
    courage and raises the spirit. Extraordinary views discover
    on every side a land laboured by miracles: the burning sun,
    the swooping eagle, the barren fig-tree, all the poetry, all
    the scenes of the Scriptures are there. Every name contains
    a mystery; every grotto declares the future; every summit
    resounds with a prophet's accents. God Himself has spoken on
    those shores: the dried-up torrents, the cleft rocks, the
    half-open tombs testify to the working of wonders; the desert
    appears to be still mute with terror, and it is as though
    it had not ventured to break the silence since it heard the
    voice of the Almighty.

    "We descended from the brow of the mountain, in order to go
    to spend the night on the shore of the Dead Sea, and next to
    go up to the Jordan[696].

    . . . . . . . . . .

    "We broke up our camp, and made our way for an hour and a
    half with excessive difficulty through a fine white dust.
    We were proceeding towards a small wood of balsam-trees and
    tamarinds, which I saw to my great astonishment rising from
    the midst of a sterile soil. Suddenly the Bethlemites stopped
    and pointed to something which I had not perceived, at the
    bottom of a ravine. Without being able to say what it was, I
    caught a glimpse as though of a kind of sand moving over the
    immobility of the soil. I approached this singular object,
    and I saw a yellow river which I had some difficulty in
    distinguishing from the sand of its two banks. It was deeply
    embanked, and flowed slowly in a thick stream: it was the
    Jordan....

    "The Bethlemites stripped and plunged into the Jordan. I did
    not dare to follow their lead, because of the fever which
    still troubled me."

[Sidenote: Jerusalem.]

We returned to Jerusalem; Julien was not much struck with the sacred
places: like a true philosopher, he was dry[697].

I left Jerusalem, arrived at Jaffa, and took ship for Alexandria. From
Alexandria I went to Cairo, and I left Julien with M. Drovetti, who had
the kindness to charter an Austrian vessel for me for Tunis. Julien
continued his journal at Alexandria:

"There are Jews here," he says, "who gamble in stocks, as they do
wherever they are. Half a league from the city stands Pompey's Column,
which is in reddish granite, mounted on a block of hewn stone."

    MY ITINERARY.

    "On the 23rd of November, at midday, the wind having
    become favourable, I went on board the vessel. I embraced
    M. Drovetti on the shore, and we made mutual promises of
    friendship and remembrance: I am paying my debt to-day.

    "We heaved the anchor at two o'clock. A pilot brought us
    out of harbour. The wind was faint and southerly. We kept
    for three days within sight of Pompey's Column, which we
    discovered on the horizon. On the evening of the third day we
    heard the evening gun of the port of Alexandria. This was as
    it were the signal for our definite departure, for the north
    wind rose and we made sail for the west.

    "On the 1st of December, the wind, veering due west, stopped
    our way. Gradually it fell to the south-west and turned into
    a tempest which did not cease until we reached Tunis. To
    occupy my time, I copied out and set in order my notes on
    this voyage and my descriptions for the _Martyrs._ At night,
    I walked the deck with the mate, Captain Dinelli. Nights
    spent amid the waves, on a vessel beaten by the storm, are
    not barren; the uncertainty of our future gives objects
    their true value: the land, contemplated from the midst of a
    tempestuous sea, resembles life as it presents itself to a
    man about to die[698]."

We continued our voyage and anchored before the Kerkenna Isles.

    MY ITINERARY.

    "A gale rose, to our great delight, from the south-east, and
    in five days we arrived in the waters of the island of Malta.
    We came into sight of it on Christmas Eve; but, on Christmas
    Day, the wind, shifting to west-north-west, drove us to the
    south of Lampedusa. We remained for eighteen days off the
    east coast of the Kingdom of Tunis, between life and death.
    I shall never in my life forget the day of the 28th.

    "We cast anchor before the Kerkenna Isles. For eight days
    we lay at anchor in the Gulf of Cabes, where I saw the
    commencement of the year 1807. Under how many planets and
    amid what varied fortunes had I already seen the years renew
    for me, years which pass so quickly or which are so long!
    How far away from me were those times of my childhood in
    which, with a heart beating with joy, I received the paternal
    blessing and the paternal gifts! How I used to look forward
    to New Year's Day! And now, on a foreign vessel, in the
    middle of the sea, within sight of a barbarous land, that New
    Year's Day sped for me without witnesses, without pleasures,
    without the kisses of my family, without the fond wishes of
    happiness which a mother shapes with such sincerity for her
    sons! That day, born in the womb of the tempests, let fall on
    my head nought but cares, regrets and silver hairs."


[Sidenote: The Kerkenna Isles.]

Julien is exposed to the same fate, and he rebukes me for one of those
fits of impatience of which I have, fortunately, corrected myself.

    JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

    "We were very near the island of Malta, and we had reason
    to fear that we might be seen by some English vessel, which
    could have forced us to enter the harbour; but we encountered
    none. Our crew was greatly exhausted, and the wind continued
    to be unfavourable to us. The captain, seeing on his chart
    an anchorage called Kerkenna, from which we were at no great
    distance, made sail for it without telling Monsieur, who,
    seeing that we were approaching that anchorage, became angry
    at not having been consulted, and said to the captain that
    he ought to continue his course, having been through worse
    weather. But we had gone too far to resume our course, and
    besides, the captain's prudence was highly approved, for
    that night the wind grew much stronger and the sea very bad.
    Finding that we were obliged to remain in the anchoring-place
    four-and-twenty hours longer than was foreseen, Monsieur gave
    the captain lively marks of his discontent, in spite of the
    good reasons which the latter gave him.

    "We had been a month at sea, and we only wanted seven or
    eight hours to reach the port of Tunis. Suddenly the wind
    became so violent that we were obliged to stand out to sea,
    and we remained three weeks without being able to touch the
    port. Thereupon Monsieur once more reproached the captain
    with having wasted thirty-six hours at the anchorage. It was
    impossible to persuade him that a greater misfortune would
    have befallen us if the captain had been less foreseeing.
    The misfortune which I anticipated was to see our provisions
    diminishing, without knowing when we should arrive."

At last I trod Carthaginian soil. I found the most generous hospitality
at the hands of M. and Madame Devoise. Julien describes my host well;
he also speaks of the country and the Jews:

"They pray and weep," says he.

An American man-of-war brig gave me a passage on board, and I crossed
the lake of Tunis to go to the port.

"On the way," says Julien, "I asked Monsieur if he had taken the gold
which he had put into the writing-table in his bed-room; he told me he
had forgotten it, and I was obliged to return to Tunis."

I can never keep money in my mind.

When I arrived from Alexandria, we cast anchor opposite the ruins of
the city of Hannibal[699]. I looked at them from the deck without
guessing what they were. I saw a few Moorish huts, a Mussulman
hermitage on the point of a prominent head-land, some sheep grazing
among ruins, ruins so unapparent that I could hardly distinguish them
from the ground on which they stood: that was Carthage. I visited it
before embarking for Europe.

    MY ITINERARY.

    "From the top of Byrsa, the eye embraces the ruins of
    Carthage, which are more numerous than is generally believed:
    they resemble those of Sparta, having nothing in a good state
    of preservation, but occupying a considerable space. I saw
    them in the month of February; the fig-trees, olive-trees,
    and carobs were already putting out their young leaves;
    large angelicas and acanthas formed tufts of verdure among
    the ruins of marble of every colour. In the distance, I
    turned my gaze over the isthmus, a two-fold sea, far islands,
    a smiling country-side, bluey lakes, azured mountains; I
    descried forests, ships, aqueducts, Moorish villages,
    Mohammedan hermitages, minarets, and the white houses of
    Tunis. Millions of starlings, gathered into battalions and
    resembling clouds, flew above my head. Surrounded by the
    greatest and most touching memories, I thought of Dido[700],
    of Sophonisba[701], of Hasdrubal's noble spouse[702]; I
    viewed the vast plains in which the legions of Hannibal,
    Scipio[703], and Cæsar[704] lie buried; my eyes tried to
    recognise the site of the Palace of Utica. Alas, the remains
    of the palace of Tiberius[705] still exist at Capri, and we
    look in vain at Utica for the spot where stood Cato's[706]
    house! Lastly, the terrible Vandals, the light Moors passed
    in turn before my memory, which showed me, as a final
    picture, St. Louis dying on the ruins of Carthage[707]."

*

[Sidenote: The ruins of Carthage.]

Julien, like myself, takes his last view of Africa at Carthage[708].

Julien briefly narrates our passage from Tunis to the Bay of Gibraltar;
from Algeciras he promptly arrives at Cadiz, and from Cadiz at Granada.
Careless of Blanca, he observes only that "the Alhambra and other lofty
buildings stand on rocks of immense height." My own _Itinéraire_ does
not give many more details on Granada; I content myself with saying:

"The Alhambra seems to me to be worthy of note, even after the temples
of Greece. The valley of Granada is delightful, and much resembles
that of Sparta: it is easy to conceive that the Moors regret so fine a
country."

I have described the Alhambra in the _Dernier des Abencerages._[709]
The Alhambra, the Generalife, the Monte-Santo are impressed upon my
mind like those fantastic landscapes of which often, at peep of day,
one imagines that one catches a glimpse in the first brilliant ray of
the dawn. I still feel that I possess sufficient sense of nature to
paint the Vega[710]; but I should not dare to attempt it, for fear
of "the Archbishop of Granada[711]." During my stay in the town of
the sultanas, a guitar-player, driven by an earthquake from a village
through which I had just passed, had devoted himself to me. Deaf as a
post, he followed me wherever I went: when I sat down on a ruin in the
Palace of the Moors, he stood and sang by my side, accompanying himself
on his guitar. The harmonious vagrant would not perhaps have composed
the symphony of the _Creation_[712], but his dusky skin showed through
his tattered cloak, and he would have had a great need to write as did
Beethoven[713] to Fraülein Breuning:

"Revered Eleonora, my dearest friend, how gladly would I be the
possessor of a rabbits'-wool waistcoat of your knitting."

I travelled from end to end of that Spain in which, sixteen years
later, Heaven reserved to me a great part, that of aiding in stamping
out anarchy in a noble nation and delivering a Bourbon: the honour of
our arms was restored, and I should have saved the Legitimacy, had the
Legitimacy been able to understand the conditions of its continuance.

Julien does not allow me to escape until he has brought me back to
the Place Louis XV. at three o'clock in the afternoon of the 5th of
June 1807. From Granada he conducts me to Aranjuez, to Madrid, to the
Escurial, whence he jumps to Bayonne.

    "We left Bayonne," he says, "on Tuesday the 9th of May, for
    Pau, Tarbes, Barèges and Bordeaux, where we arrived on the
    18th, very tired, and both with a touch of fever. We left on
    the 19th and went to Angoulême and Tours, and we arrived on
    the 28th at Blois, where we slept. On the 31st we continued
    our journey to Orleans, and later we spent our last night at
    Angerville."

*

[Sidenote: Back in France.]

I was there, at one stage from a country-seat[714] whose inhabitants
my long voyage had not caused me to forget. But the gardens of Armida,
where were they? Two or three times, when returning to the Pyrenees,
I have caught sight of the Column of Méréville[715]; like Pompey's
Column, it acquainted me with the presence of the desert: like my
fortunes at sea, all has changed.

I reached Paris before the news I sent of myself: I had out-distanced
my life. Insignificant as are the letters which I wrote, I go
through them as one looks over inferior sketches representing the
places one has visited. Those notes, dated from Modon, Athens, Zea,
Constantinople, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Tunis, Granada, Madrid,
and Burgos, those lines written on every manner of paper, with every
manner of ink, carried by all the winds, interest me. I love unrolling
even my very firmans: it is a pleasure to me to touch the vellum, to
observe the elegant caligraphy, to wonder at the pomp of the style.
How great a personage I must have been! And what poor devils we are,
with our letters and our forty-sou passports, beside those lords of the
turban!

Osman Seïd, Pasha of Morea, thus addresses to whomsoever it may concern
my firman for Athens:

    "Men of law of the townships of Misitra[716] and Argos,
    cadis, nadirs, and eflendis, of whom may the wisdom ever
    increase; you who are the honour of your peers and our
    great men, vaïvodes, and you through whose eyes your master
    sees, who replace him in each of your jurisdictions, public
    officers and business men, whose credit can only grow greater.

    "We inform you that of the nobles of France, one noble in
    particular from Paris, the bearer of this order, accompanied
    by an armed janissary and by a servant as his escort, has
    solicited permission and explained his intention to pass
    through some of the places and localities which are within
    your jurisdictions in order to go to Athens, which is an
    isthmus lying beyond and separated from your jurisdictions.

    "Wherefore, effendis, vaïvodes, and all others
    above-mentioned, when the aforesaid person shall arrive at
    the places subject to your jurisdiction, you shall take the
    greatest care that he be treated with all the particular
    consideration of which friendship makes a law, etc., etc

    "Year 1221 of the Hegira."

My passport from Constantinople for Jerusalem says:

    "To the sublime tribunal of His Grandeur the Cadi of
    Kouds[717], Scherif and Most Excellent Effendi:

    "Most Excellent Effendi, may Your Grandeur seated on your
    august tribunal accept our sincere blessings and our
    affectionate greetings.

    "We inform you that a noble personage from the Court of
    France, named François Auguste de Chateaubriand, is at
    present on his way towards you to make the _holy_ pilgrimage
    (of the Christians)."

Would we extend a like protection to the unknown traveller with the
mayors and gendarmes who inspect his passport? In these firmans we can
also read the revolutions of the nations: how many "permits" has it
required that God should grant to the empires, before a Tartar slave
could lay orders upon a vaïvode of Misistra, that is, a magistrate of
Sparta; before a Mussulman could recommend a Christian to the Cadi of
Kouds, that is, of Jerusalem!

The _Itinéraire_ has entered into the elements that compose my life.
When I set out in 1806, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem appeared a great
undertaking. Now that the crowd has followed in my steps and that the
whole world is in the diligence, the wonder of it has vanished; I have
little left of my own save Tunis: people have travelled less in that
direction, and it has been allowed that I pointed out the real sights
of the ports of Carthage. This creditable letter proves it:

    "MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

    "I have just received a plan of the ground and ruins of
    Carthage, giving the exact outlines and inclinations of the
    soil; it has been taken trigonometrically on a basis of
    1500 meters, and rests upon barometrical observations made
    with corresponding barometers. It is a work of ten years
    of precision and patience; and it confirms your opinions
    regarding the position of the ports of Byrsa.

    "With this exact plan I have gone over all the ancient texts,
    and have, I believe, determined the outer circumference and
    the other portions of the Cothon, Byrsa, Megara, etc., etc.
    I wish to do you the right which is your due upon so many
    scores.

    "If you are not afraid to see me swoop down upon your genius
    with my trigonometry and my heavy erudition, I will be with
    you at the first sign from yourself. If we, my father[718]
    and I, follow you in literature _longissimo intervallo_,
    at least we shall have tried to imitate you in the noble
    independence of which you set France so fine an example.

    "I have the honour to be, and I am proud of it, your frank
    admirer,

    "DUREAU DE LA MALLE[719]."

[Sidenote: My geographical accuracy.]

So accurate a rectification of localities would formerly have been
sufficient to give me a name in geography. From this time forward,
if I still had a mania for being talked about, I do not know where
I could go in order to attract the attention of the public: perhaps
I should resume my old plan of discovering the passage to the North
Pole; perhaps I should ascend the Ganges. There I should see the long,
straight, dark line of the woods which defend the approach to the
Himalayas; when, after reaching the neck which joins the two principal
peaks of Mount Ganghur, I descried the immeasurable amphitheatre of
the eternal snows, and should ask my guides, as did Heber[720], the
Anglican Bishop of Calcutta, the name of the other mountains in the
East, they would reply that they marked the border of the Chinese
Empire: well and good! But to return from the Pyramids is as though
you returned from Montlhéry[721]. By the by, I remember that a pious
antiquary, who lived near Saint-Denis in France wrote to me to ask if
Pontoise did not resemble Jerusalem.

The last page of the _Itinéraire_ is as though I had written it this
moment, so exactly does it reproduce my present sentiments.

    "For twenty years," I said, "I have devoted myself to study
    amid hazards and troubles of every kind, _diversa exsilia et
    desertas quærere terras_: many of the pages of my books have
    been written under canvas, in the deserts, upon the ocean; I
    have often held the pen without knowing how I should for a
    few instants prolong my existence.... If Heaven grant me a
    repose which I have never tasted, I will try in silence to
    raise a monument to my country; if Providence refuse me that
    repose, I must think only of shielding my last days from the
    cares which have embittered the first. I am no longer young,
    I no longer have the love of fame; I know that literature,
    the commerce of which is so sweet when it is secret, only
    draws down storms upon us from the outside. In any case, I
    have written enough if my name is to live; far too much if it
    is to die."

It is possible that my _Itinéraire_ may survive as a manual for the
use of Wandering Jews like myself: I have scrupulously noted the
halting-places, and drawn a map of the roads. All the travellers to
Jerusalem have written to congratulate me and thank me for my accuracy;
I will quote one witness[722].

*

I see before me, of the sites of Syria, Egypt and Carthage, only
the spots in harmony with my solitary nature; these pleased me
independently of antiquity, art or history. The Pyramids struck me not
so much on account of their size, as of the desert against which they
were set; Diocletian's Column did not catch my eye as did the segments
of the sea along the sands of Lybia. At the Pelusian mouth of the Nile,
I should not have wished fora monument to remind me of the scene thus
depicted by Plutarch:

    "The enfranchised slave, casting his eyes over the shore,
    spied the old remains of a fishing-boat, which, though not
    large, would make a sufficient pile for a poor naked body
    that was not quite entire. While he was collecting the pieces
    of plank, and putting them together, an old Roman, who had
    made some of his first campaigns under Pompey, came up, and
    said to Philip:

    "Who are you that are preparing the funeral of Pompey the
    Great?'

    "Philip answered:

    "'I am his freedman.'

    "'But you shall not,' said the old Roman, 'have this honour
    entirely to yourself. As a work of piety offers itself, let
    me have a share in it; that I may not absolutely repent my
    having passed so many years in a foreign country; but, to
    compensate many misfortunes, may have the consolation of
    doing some of the last honours to the greatest general Rome
    ever produced[723].'"

Cæsar's rival no longer has a tomb near Lybia, and a young Lybian
slave-girl has received burial at the hands of a Pompey not far from
the Rome whence the great Pompey was banished. From these freaks of
fortune one conceives how the Christians used to go and hide themselves
in the Thebaïde[724].

The winds have scattered the personages of Europe, Asia, Africa,
amid whom I appeared and of whom I have told you: one fell from the
Acropolis at Athens, another from the shore of Chios, another flung
himself from Mount Sion, yet another will never emerge from the waves
of the Nile or the tanks of Carthage. The places themselves have
changed: in the same way, as in America, cities have sprung up where I
saw forests, an empire is being formed on those sands of Egypt where
my eyes encountered only "horizons bare and rounded like the boss of a
shield," as the Arab poems say, "and wolves so thin that their jaws are
like a cleft stick." Greece has recovered the liberty which I wished
her when travelling across her under the guard of a janissary. But
does she enjoy her national liberty, or has she merely changed her yoke?

[Sidenote: The future of the East.]

In some measure I am the last visitor of the Turkish Empire under
its old customs. The revolutions which have everywhere immediately
preceded, or followed upon, my footsteps have spread over Greece,
Syria, Egypt. Is a new East about to be formed? What will it bring
forth? Shall we receive our just punishment for having taught
the modern art of warfare to nations whose social state is based
upon slavery and polygamy? Have we carried civilization beyond
our boundaries, or have we brought barbarism within the circle of
Christianity? What will result from the new interests, the new
political relations, the creation of the Powers which may spring up in
the Levant? No one can tell. I do not allow myself to be dazzled by
steam-boats and railways, by the sale of the produce of manufactures,
and by the fortunes of a few French, English, German, Italian soldiers
enrolled in a pasha's service: all that is not civilization. Perhaps we
shall behold the return, through the aid of the disciplined troops of
future Ibrahims, of the perils which threatened Europe at the time of
Charles the Hammer[725], and from which we were saved by the generous
Poland. I pity the travellers who shall succeed me: the harem will no
longer hide its secrets from them; they will not have seen the old sun
of the East and the turban of Mahomet. The little Bedouin called out to
me in French, when I passed into the mountains of Judæa:

"Forward, march!"

The order was given, and the East marched.

*

[Sidenote: _MEMENTO MORI._]

What became of Ulysses' companion, Julien? He asked, when handing me
his manuscript, to be made _concierge_ of my house in the Rue d'Enfer:
this place was occupied by an old porter and his family, whom I could
not send away. The wrath of Heaven having made Julien headstrong and
a drunkard, I supported him for a long time; at last we were obliged
to part. I gave him a small sum, and granted him a little pension on
my privy purse, a somewhat light one, but always copiously filled
with excellent notes mortgaged on my castles in Spain. I obtained
Julien's admission, at his wish, to the Old Men's asylum: there
he finished the last great journey. I shall soon go to occupy his
empty bed, even as, in the camp of Etnir-Capi, I slept on a mat from
which a plague-stricken Mussulman had just been removed. My vocation
is positively for the almshouse, in which the old society lies. It
pretends to live, but is none the less at death's door. When it has
expired, it will decompose in order to be reproduced under new forms,
but it must first succumb; the first necessity for peoples, as for man,
is to die:

"When God bloweth, there cometh frost," says Job[726].



[649] This book was written in Paris in 1839, and revised in December
1846.--T.

[650] Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566) was the daughter of Jean de
Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint-Vallier, and married in 1512 Louis de
Brézé, Comte de Maulevrier, who died in 1531. Some years later she
became mistress to Henry II., then Duc d'Orléans, who shortly after
his accession created her Duchesse de Valentinois. She retained her
empire over the King and her power in France until Henry's death, which
occurred in 1559.--T.

[651] Hervé Louis François Joseph Bonaventure Clérel, Comte de
Tocqueville (1772-1856) was made a peer of France and a prefect
under the Restoration. He was married to Mademoiselle de Rosanbo, a
grand-daughter of Malesherbes.--T.

[652] Anne Nicole Marquise de Senozan (1718-1794), _née_ de Lamoignon
de Blancménil, sister to Malesherbes and wife of the Président de
Senozan. She mounted the scaffold on the 10th of May 1794, on the same
day as Madame Élisabeth, at the age of seventy-six, and her estate
passed later into the possession of her grand-nephew, the Comte de
Tocqueville.--B.

[653] The Château de Verneuil in the Department of Seine-et-Oise.--B.

[654] Alexis Charles Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was
appointed an assistant judge, and in 1831 was sent to America, in
company with Gustave de Beaumont, to study the penal system on that
continent. On his return he published a treatise on this subject, and
in 1835 appeared his great work on American Democracy, which secured
his election to the Academy of Moral Science in 1839 and to the French
Academy in 1841. Two years earlier he had been sent to the Chamber
as deputy for the Arrondissement of Valognes, in Normandy, in which
his father's property of Tocqueville was situated, and this seat he
retained until his withdrawal from political life in 1851. He was
Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Presidency of Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte from June to October 1849.--T.

[655] Michel Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau (1760-1793), a renegade
representative of the Paris nobility, which sent him to the
States-General in 1789. In 1792 he became a member of the Convention,
where he voted in favour of the death of Louis XVI.; and on the 20th
of January 1793, the day before the execution of the King, he was
assassinated in a restaurant by an old Bodyguard called Paris. His body
was conveyed to the Pantheon in state, and the Convention adopted his
daughter, then eight years old.--T.

[656] The Château du Ménil is in the commune of Fontenay-Saint-Père,
canton of Limay, Arrondissement of Mantes, Department of Seine-et-Oise.
It is now the property of M. le Marquis de Rosanbo.--B.

[657] The Château de Mézy is in the canton of Meulan, Department of
Seine-et-Oise.--B.

[658] The Château de Méréville is in Beauce. It had formerly belonged
to a celebrated Court banker, Jean Joseph de La Borde, guillotined in
1794, who had turned it into a dwelling of finished splendour. The
park, laid out by Robert, the landscape-painter, was a marvel. One of
La Borde's daughters had married the Comte de Noailles, later Duc de
Mouchy.--B.

[659] Blanca is the heroine of the _Aventures du dernier
Abencerage._--T.

[660] Marie Anne Louise Adélaïde Marquise de Coislin (1732-1817), _née_
de Mailly, of the Rubempré and Nesle branch, was the daughter of Louis
de Mailly, Comte de Rubempré and cousin to the four Mesdemoiselles de
Mailly, daughters of the Marquis de Nesle--the Comtesse de Mailly, the
Comtesse de Vintimille, the Duchesse de Lauraguais, and the Marquise
de La Tournelle, afterwards Duchesse de Châteauroux--who successively
became mistresses to Louis XV. She married first, in 1750, Charles
Georges René de Cambout, Marquis de Coislin, who died in 1771, leaving
no children living. More than twenty years later, in 1793, the Marquise
de Coislin, then over sixty, married one of her cousins, twelve years
younger than herself, Louis Marie Duc de Mailly, who died and left her
a widow for the second time in 1795. There is reason to believe that
this marriage was never legally consecrated, as the Duchesse de Mailly
continued to be called Marquise de Coislin.--B.

[661] Now the Place de la Concorde. The house stands at the corner
of the Rue Royale, facing the Ministry of Marine, formerly the Crown
Wardrobe.--T.

[662] This title is the appanage of the Marquisate of Nesle.--T.

[663] Killed at the Battle of Courtrai in 1302.--T.

[664] Claude Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), the father of Carle and
grandfather of Horace Vernet. Louis XV. commissioned him to paint the
principal French ports. The majority of his sea-pieces are now at the
Louvre.--T.

[665] Marie Anne de Mailly (1719-1744) married the Marquis de La
Tournelle in 1734. He left her a widow at the age of twenty-three,
and she became mistress, in succession to her sisters Mesdames de
Vintimille and de Mailly, to Louis XV., who created her Duchesse de
Châteauroux. She obtained the support of the Duc de Richelieu, and was
for a time all-powerful at Court, accompanying Louis at the head of
his armies in Flanders and Alsace. In 1744, when the King fell ill,
she was sent back to Paris in disgrace, but was restored to favour on
his recovery, and was on the point of becoming Superintendent of the
Dauphiness' Household, when she died a sudden death, attributed by some
to poison.--T.

[666] Louise Julie Comtesse de Mailly (1710-1751), the first of the
Nesle family to become the mistress of Louis XV. She amended her life
when deserted in favour of one of her sisters, and was doubtless the
most estimable and sympathetic of the four.--T.

[667] A reference to an epigram in the Anthology.--B.

[668] Queen Marie Leczinska (1703-1768), daughter of Stanislaus
Leczinski, ex-King of Poland, and married to Louis XV. in 1725.--T.

[669] Madame Suard (1750-1830), _née_ Panckoucke, sister of Panckoucke,
the printer, founder of the _Moniteur universel_, and herself
the author of several agreeable works. Her salon was a favourite
meeting-place of the Encyclopædists under Louis XVI.--B.

[670] Jean Baptiste Antoine Suard (1734-1817) took part in the editing
of an English newspaper printed in Paris, became a member of the
Academy in 1772, and obtained a censorship in 1774. At the Revolution,
he became a moderate member of the new party. In 1803 he was appointed
perpetual secretary to the Institute. His works consist mainly of
translations from the English: Cook's _Voyages_, Robertson's _History
of America_, etc.--T.

[671] Pierre Michel Hennin (1728-1807) was Secretary of Embassy in
Poland in 1759, Resident at Warsaw in 1763, Resident at Geneva in
1765, and in 1779 became First Clerk at the Foreign Office, a post
in which he did eminent service until 1792, when he was dismissed by
General Dumouriez. He was obliged to sell his collections, and took to
"scribbling fat novels" for a livelihood, working at learning languages
and at his writing until his death, on the 5th of July 1807, at the age
of nearly eighty.--B.

[672] Claude Antoine de Bésiade, Duc d'Avaray (1740-1829), brother to
the Comte d'Avaray, Louis XVIII.'s companion in exile and chief agent.
D'Avaray was imprisoned during the Terror, recovered his liberty on the
9 Thermidor, and emigrated, returning to France in 1814. Louis XVIII.
raised him to the peerage in 1815, created him a duke in 1817, and made
him his First Chamberlain in 1820.--B.

[673] _Cinq jours à Clermont (Auvergne) 2, 3, 4, 5 et 6 août_ 1805 and
_Le Mont-Blanc, paysages de montagnes, fin d'août_ 1805. They appear in
Vol. VI. of the complete works.--B.

[674] Honoré d'Urfé (1567-1625), after a life spent in war and
diplomacy, wrote the famous pastoral romance of the _Astrée_, in which
he depicted the happiness of the shepherds of the Lignon. The singular
book was received with the greatest favour, and gave rise to a whole
school of bucolic novelists. D'Urfé died before completing his work,
and his secretary, Baro, finished it from the author's manuscripts or
his own imagination.--T.

[675] Claude Ignace Brugière de Barante (1745-1814). Napoleon dismissed
him because of the indulgence shown by him to Madame de Staël, and he
died at the moment when the return of the Bourbons appeared to promise
him a just reparation.--B.

[676] Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste Comte de Forbin (1779-1841), a
successful writer and painter, and a member of the Academy of Fine
Arts. Under the Restoration he became Director of the Museums.--T.

[677] Mathurin Régnier (1573-1613), the first of the French satiric
poets. He received the tonsure at the age of thirteen, obtained a rich
canonry before he was thirty, and died at forty of his pleasures and
excesses.--T.

[678] OPPIAN, _Cynegetica_, II. 348.--B.

[679] Jeanne Françoise Thévenin (1763-1841), known as Sophie Devienne,
acted at the Comédie Française from 1785 to 1813, and was one of the
best "waiting-maids" at that classic theatre.--B.

[680] St. Pothin (87-177), one of the first apostles to the Gauls,
became Bishop of Lyons, where he suffered martyrdom at the age of
nearly ninety years. He is honoured on the 2nd of June.--T.

[681] St. Ireneus (_circa_ 120--_circa_ 202) succeeded St. Pothin in
the Bishopric of Lyons, and suffered martyrdom like his predecessor,
his feast falling on the 28th of June.--T.

[682] François de Mandelot (1520-1588), Governor of Lyonnais,
distinguished himself by his wholesale murder of the Lyons Protestants
on St. Bartholomew's Night.--T.

[683] The Allées des Brotteaux, Lyons, where the condemned were shot
under the Revolution.--T.

[684] Loyse Labbé (1526-1566), known as _la Belle Cordière_, married a
rich merchant cord-spinner of Lyons called Perrin. She had been well
educated, devoted herself to literature, and left a number of poems.--T.

[685] St. Cyprian (_circa_ 200-258), Bishop of Carthage, persecuted
under Decius, and exiled and martyred under Valerian. He was the author
of the famous treatise on the Lapsed from which the above quotation is
taken. St. Cyprian is honoured on the 16th of September.--T.

[686] Eustache Le Sueur (1617-1655), known as the French Raphael, the
first painter of the French school under Louis XIV. Persecuted by his
envious rivals, he retired to the Chartreuse on the death of his wife,
and painted for the monastery his greatest work, the Life of St. Bruno,
in twenty-two pictures.--T.

[687] St. Bruno (_circa_ 1040-1101), Founder of the Carthusian Order,
and honoured on the 6th of October.--T.

[688] The certificate of death has since been discovered. Madame de
Caud died in the Marais, at No. 6, Rue d'Orléans, on the 18 Brumaire,
Year XIII (9 November 1804).--B.

[689] On the 13th of November 1804, Chateaubriand, who was then staying
at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne with his friend Joubert, wrote to Chênedollé:

    "Madame de Caud is no more. She died in Paris on the 9th. We
    have lost the most beautiful soul, the most exalted genius,
    that ever existed. You see that I am born for every sorrow.
    In how few days has Lucile gone to join Pauline [Madame
    de Beaumont]! Come, my dear friend, and weep with me this
    winter, in January. You will find a man who is inconsolable,
    but who is your friend for life.--Joubert sends you a million
    loves."--B.

[690] Chateaubriand's family at that date comprised Madame la Comtesse
de Marigny; Madame la Comtesse de Chateaubourg, and their children; the
daughter of the Comtesse Julie de Farcy; and the sons of the Comte de
Chateaubriand.--B.

[691] The juxtaposition of the names of Julien and Clarke, is somewhat
forced. Edward Clarke was not Cook's valet, but his companion and his
rival in fame. He three times circumnavigated the world. Both left
Plymouth together, on the 12th of July 1776, Captain Cook commanding
the _Discovery_ and Captain Clarke the _Resolution._ After the death of
Cook, killed by the natives of Owhyhee, on the 14th of February 1779,
Clarke succeeded him in the command of the expedition, and himself died
as he was arriving in Kamchatka. The _Discovery_ and the _Resolution_
returned to England on the 4th of October 1780.--B.

[692] I omit a portion of the extracts from the servant's Itinerary.
These will be indicated in their places.--T.

[693] At Trieste.--T.

[694] _De Sparte et d'Athènes._--_Author's Note._

[695] I omit Julien's description of the streets of Constantinople.--T.

[696] I omit a quotation from Julien's narrative.--T.

[697] I omit Julien's observations here.--T.

[698] I omit a quotation from Julien's Itinerary.--T.

[699] Hannibal (247-183 B.C.), the famous Carthaginian general.--T.

[700] Dido Queen of Tyre founded Carthage _circa_ 860 B.C.--T.

[701] Sophonisba (235-203 B.C.), daughter of the third Hasdrubal,
was betrothed to Masinissa King of Massylia and Numidia, but married
in his stead his rival Syphax. Masinissa recaptured his domains from
the latter, and with them his wife, whom he married. When Scipio,
however, insisted upon Sophonisba's appearance in his triumph in Rome,
Masinissa, to save her from this disgrace, sent her poison. Her story
is the subject of one of Voltaire's tragedies.--T.

[702] When the fourth Hasdrubal (170-100 B.C.), then commander of
Carthage, surrendered to Scipio, his wife, horrified at his treachery,
killed her children before his eyes, and then threw herself into the
flames, 146 B.C.--T.

[703] Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (_circa_ 235-184 B.C.).--T.

[704] Caius Julius Cæsar (100-44 B.C.) defeated Metellus Scipio and
Cato at Carthage in 46 B.C.--T.

[705] Tiberius Claudius Nero (42 B.C.-37 A.D.), the second Roman
Emperor. Capri contains the ruins of his twelve palaces.--T.

[706] Marcus Portius Cato (95-46 B.C.), known as Cato the Younger, or
Uticensis, sided against Cæsar with Pompey, and retired to Utica after
the defeat of the latter. He prepared to resist Cæsar in Africa, but
when Metellus had been beaten, stabbed himself rather than fall into
his enemy's hands.--T.

[707] In 1270, on his way to Palestine, in the course of his second
(the Eighth) Crusade.--T.

[708] I omit this portion of Julien's Itinerary.--T.

[709] Written under the Empire, but first published in 1827, in Volume
XVI. of the Complete Works, with the title, _Les Aventures du dernier
Abencerage._--B.

[710] The beautiful valley overlooking Granada referred to above.--T.

[711] _Cf._ LE SAGE, _Gil Blas._--T.

[712] By Joseph Haydn (1732-1809).--T.

[713] Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), the great composer.--T.

[714] The Château de Malesherbes, situated at six kilometers from
Angerville, and belonging to Louis de Chateaubriand, the writer's
nephew. It is to-day the property of Madame la Marquise de Beaufort,
_née_ de Chateaubriand.--T.

[715] The column standing in the grounds of the Château de Méréville,
equalling the column of the Place Vendôme in height, and commanding a
view of over twenty leagues in extent.--B.

[716] Sparta.--_Author's Note._

[717] Jerusalem.--_Author's Note._

[718] Jean Baptiste René Dureau de La Malle (1742-1807), a native of
San Domingo, who settled in Paris and devoted his large fortune to
literature. He published translations of Seneca (1776), Sallust (1808),
and Tacitus (1793), the last of which was twice reprinted (1808 and
1816), and he was at work on a translation of Livy when he died. He
became a member of the Institute in 1804.--T.

[719] Adolphe Jules César Auguste Dureau de La Malle (1777-1857),
author of a number of learned works and some poems, and a considerable
authority on the geography and statistics of the nations of antiquity.
In the year in which the above letter was written he published his
_Géographie physique de la Méditerranée et de la mer Noire._ He was
admitted in 1818 to the Academy of Inscriptions, and in 1840 published
his greatest work, the _Économie politique des Romains._--T.

[720] Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta (1783-1826), was appointed to
his bishopric in 1822. He was the author of a volume of Hymns (1819),
and of a narrative of a Journey through India, published after his
death by his widow.--T.

[721] A market town in the Department of Seine-et-Oise, some twelve
miles from Paris.--T.

[722] I omit this letter and some others addressed to the author from
the East; also a letter addressed by Fénelon to Bossuet on the eve of
the former's departure for Greece.--T.

[723] Langhorne's PLUTARCH: _Life of Pompey._--T.

[724] I omit a quotation from the Anthology.--T.

[725] Charles Martel, or the Hammer, Duke of Austrasia (_circa_
691-741), reigned over France with the title of Mayor of the Palace,
and in 732 gained a complete victory over the Saracens between Tours
and Poitiers, which put an end to the Mussulman invasion, and assured
the Christianization of Europe.--T.

[726] JOB, XXXVII. 10.--T.

END OF VOL. II.





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