"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.