Berlin--Potsdam--Frederic the Great--My brother--My cousin
Moreau--My sister, the Comtesse de Farcy--Julie a worldly
woman--Dinner--Pommereul--Madame de Chastenay--Cambrai--The Navarre
Regiment--La Martinière--Death of my father--My regrets--Would my
father have appreciated me?--I return to Brittany--I stay with my
eldest sister--My brother sends for me to Paris--First inspiration of
the muse--My lonely life in Paris--I am presented at Versailles--I hunt
with the King--Adventure with my mare _Heureuse_
It is a far cry from Combourg to Berlin, from a young dreamer to an
old ambassador. In the foregoing pages I find these words: "In how
many places have I already commenced to write these Memoirs, and in
what place shall I finish them?" Nearly four years have passed between
the date at which I wrote down the facts I have just related and that
at which I resume these Memoirs. A thousand things have happened;
a second man has shown himself in me, the politician: I care very
little for him. I have defended the liberties of France, which alone
can secure the duration of the lawful Throne. With the aid of the
_Conservateur_[177], I have set M. de Villèle in power; I have seen
the Duc de Berry die, and done honor to his memory[178]. In order to
reconcile everybody, I have gone away; I have accepted the Berlin
Embassy[179].
Yesterday I was at Potsdam, an ornate barrack, now void of soldiers:
I studied the mock Julian in his mock Athens. At Sans-Souci, I was
shown the table on which a great German monarch turned the maxims of
the Encyclopædists into little French verses; the room occupied by
Voltaire, decorated with carved monkeys and parrots; the mill which he
who laid provinces waste made light of respecting; the tomb of the
horse César and of the greyhounds Diane, Amourette, Biche, Superbe, and
Pax. The royal infidel took pleasure in profaning even the religion
of the tomb by raising mausoleums to his dogs; he had marked out a
burying-place near them for himself, less from contempt of mankind than
an ostentation of annihilation.
They showed me the New Palace, already falling to pieces. In the old
palace of Potsdam, they preserve the tobacco-stains, the worn and
soiled chairs, in a word, all the traces of the renegade Prince's
uncleanliness. This place immortalizes at once the dirt of the cynic,
the impudence of the atheist, the tyranny of the despot, and the glory
of the soldier. One thing alone attracted my attention: the hands of a
clock fixed at the moment of Frederic's death; I was deceived by the
immobility of the picture: hours never stay their flight; it is not
man that stops the career of time, it is time that stops the career of
man. Besides, it matters little what part we have played in life; the
brilliancy or obscurity of our doctrines, our riches or poverty, our
joys or sorrows in no way influence the length of our days. Whether the
hands of the clock move over a golden or wooden face, whether the face
be large or small, and fill the bezel of a ring or the rose-window of a
cathedral, the hour has but one duration.
In a vault of the Protestant church, immediately below the pulpit of
the unfrocked schismatic, I saw the coffin of the crowned sophist. The
coffin is of bronze; when you strike it, it resounds. The dragoon who
slumbers in this brassy bed would not even be roused from sleep by the
noise of his fame; he will awake only to the sound of the trumpet which
shall summon him to his last battle-field, face to face with the Lord
of Hosts.
I had so great a need of a change of impressions that I found relief
in visiting the Marble House. The king who built it once spoke some
flattering words to me when, a poor officer, I passed through his army.
This king at least shared the ordinary failings of mankind: vulgar like
other men, he took refuge in pleasures. Do the two skeletons trouble
themselves today about the difference that once existed between them,
when one was Frederic the Great and the other Frederic William[180]?
Sans-Souci and the Marble House are both ruins without masters.
Upon the whole, though the immensity of the events of our own time
has lessened past events, though Rosbach, Lissa, Liegnitz, Torgau are
mere skirmishes beside the battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, the
Moskowa, Frederic suffers less than other personages by comparison with
the giant enchained at St. Helena. The King of Prussia and Voltaire
are two strangely-grouped figures who will live: the second destroyed
a society with a philosophy which assisted the first in founding a
kingdom.
The Berlin evenings are long. I occupy a house belonging to the
Duchesse de Dino[181]. My secretaries[182] leave me so soon as night
sets in. When there is no entertainment at Court for the wedding of
the Grand-Duke and Grand-Duchess Nicholas[183], I stay at home. Seated
all alone by a cheerless stove, I hear nothing save the call of the
sentry at the Brandenburg Gate and the steps on the snow of the man
who whistles the hours. How shall I spend my time? With books? I have
scarcely any. If I were to continue my Memoirs?
*
You last saw me on the road from Combourg to Rennes: I alighted in the
latter place at the house of one of my kinsmen. He informed me with
delight that a lady of his acquaintance, who was going to Paris, had a
seat to give away in her carriage, and that he undertook to persuade
this lady to take me with her. I accepted, cursing my kinsman's
civility as I did so. He settled the matter, and quickly presented me
to my traveling-companion, a sprightly, free-and-easy milliner, who
began to laugh when she saw me. The horses arrived at midnight and we
set out.
[Sidenote: My first visit to Paris.]
Behold me in a post-chaise, alone with a woman, in the middle of the
night. How was I, who had never in my life looked at a woman without
blushing, to descend from the height of my dreams to this terrifying
reality? I did not know where I was; I clung to my corner of the
carriage for fear of touching Madame Rose's gown. When she spoke to me,
I stammered without being able to reply. She had to pay the postilion,
to take everything upon herself, for I was capable of nothing. When
day broke, she looked with fresh amazement at this booby with whom she
regretted having saddled herself.
When the aspect of the landscape began to change and I ceased to
recognize the dress and accent of the Breton peasants, I fell into a
profound despondency, which increased the contempt in which Madame
Rose held me. I noticed the feeling I inspired, and I received from
this first trial of the world an impression which time has not wholly
effaced. I was born shy but not shamefaced; I had the modesty but not
the embarrassment of my years. When I suspected that I was ridiculous
because of my good side, my shyness changed into insurmountable
timidity. I was unable to speak a word: I felt that I had something to
conceal, and that this something was a virtue; I made up my mind to
self-concealment in order to wear my innocence in peace.
We sped towards Paris. As we came down from Saint-Cyr, I was struck
by the width of the roads and the evenness of the plantations. Soon
we reached Versailles: the orangery with its marble stairs amazed me.
The success of the American War had brought triumphs to Louis XIV.'s
palace; the Queen reigned there in all the splendour of youth and
beauty; the Throne, so near its fall, seemed never to have been more
solidly established. And I, an obscure passer-by, was destined to
outlive this pomp, to survive to see the woods of Trianon as deserted
as those which I was then leaving.
At last we drove into Paris. I saw a bantering look in every face:
like the Périgord squire, I thought people looked at me to make fun of
me. Madame Rose made them drive to the Hôtel de l'Europe in the Rue
du Mail, and hastened to rid herself of her simpleton. Scarce had I
stepped from the carriage when she said to the porter:
"Give this gentleman a room. Your servant," she added, with a bob
courtesy.
I never saw Madame Rose again in my life.
*
A woman preceded me up a dark and steep staircase, holding a labelled
key in her hand; a Savoyard followed with my little trunk. When we
reached the third floor, the chamber-maid opened a room; the Savoyard
put the trunk across the arms of a chair.
The chamber-maid asked: "Does monsieur require anything?"
I answered, "No."
[Sidenote: My cousin Moreau.]
Three whistles sounded; the chamber-maid cried, "Coming!" rushed out,
closed the door, and tumbled downstairs with the Savoyard. When I found
myself alone in my room, my heart became so strangely full that I was
nearly taking the road back to Brittany. All that I had heard tell
of Paris returned to my mind; I was embarrassed in a hundred ways. I
should have liked to go to bed, and the bed was not made; I was hungry,
and did not know how to set about dining. I was afraid of committing
a solecism: ought I to call the people of the hotel? Ought I to go
downstairs? To whom should I apply? I ventured to put my head out of
the window: I saw only a small inner yard, deep as a well, through
which people came and went who would never dream of giving a thought to
the prisoner on the third floor. I went and sat down beside the dirty
recess in which I was to sleep, reduced to examining the figures on the
paper with which its walls were hung. A distant sound of voices reached
my ears, increased, drew nigh; my door opened: in came my brother and
one of my cousins, the son of a sister of my mother's who had made
none too good a marriage. Madame Rose had after all taken pity on the
numskull, and had sent word to my brother, whose address she learnt
at Rennes, that I had arrived in Paris. My brother clasped me in his
arms. My Cousin Moreau was a big fat man, daubed all over with snuff,
who ate like an ogre, talked a great deal, was always trotting about,
puffing, choking, with his mouth half open, his tongue half out, who
knew everybody, and was equally at home in gaming-houses, antechambers,
and drawing-rooms.
"Come, chevalier," he cried, "so here you are in Paris; I am going to
take you to Madame de Chastenay's!"
Who was this woman whose name I heard uttered for the first time? This
proposal set me against my Cousin Moreau.
"The chevalier is no doubt in need of rest," said my brother; "we will
go and see Madame de Farcy, and then he shall come back to dine and
sleep."
A feeling of gladness entered my heart: the thought of my family amid
an indifferent world was as balm to me. We went out. Cousin Moreau
raised a storm about the badness of the room, and charged my host to
put me at least one floor lower. We stepped into my brother's carriage
and drove to the convent where Madame de Farcy lived.
Julie had been some time in Paris to consult the physicians. Her
charming appearance, her elegance and her wit had soon caused her to
be sought after. I have already said that she was born with a real
talent for poetry. She became a saint, after having been one of the
most attractive women of her age: the Abbé Carron wrote her life[184].
The apostles who go everywhere in search of souls feel for her the love
which one of the Fathers of the Church attributes to the Creator: "When
a soul reaches Heaven," says this Father, with the simplicity of heart
of a Primitive Christian and the directness of Greek genius, "God takes
it upon His knees and calls it His daughter."
Lucile has left a striking lament: _À la sœur que je n'ai plus._
The Abbé Carron's admiration for Julie explains and justifies Lucile's
words. The narrative of the saintly priest also shows that I said true
in the preface to the _Génie du Christianisme_, and serves as a proof
for some portions of my Memoirs.
The innocent Julie gave herself up to repentance; she consecrated the
treasures of her austerities to the redemption of her brothers; and
following the example of the illustrious African her patron saint[185],
she became a willing martyr.
The Abbé Carron, author of the _Vie des justes_, is the ecclesiastic
from my part of the country[186], the Francis of Paula of exile, whose
fame, revealed by the afflicted, pierced even through the fame of
Bonaparte. The voice of a poor proscribed priest was not stifled by
the noise of a revolution which overthrew society; he seems to have
returned expressly from foreign shores to write of my sister's virtues:
he sought among our ruins and found a forgotten victim and tomb.
When the new hagiographer describes Julie's pious cruelties, it is as
though one heard Bossuet preach his sermon on the profession of faith
of Mademoiselle de la Vallière[187]:
"Will she dare to touch that body so tender, so dear, so gently
treated? Will she not take pity on that delicate complexion? On the
contrary, it is that principally which the soul arraigns as its most
dangerous seducer; she hems herself round with safeguards; fenced in in
every direction, she can no longer breathe except heavenwards!"
*
I cannot suppress a certain confusion at reading my name in the last
lines traced by the hand of Julie's venerable biographer. What have I,
with my weaknesses, to do with such lofty perfections? Have I kept all
that my sister's letter made me promise, when I received it during my
emigration in London? Is a book sufficient for God? Is it not my life
that I ought to offer Him? And is that life, pray, true to the _Génie
du Christianisme?_ What matter that I have drawn more or less brilliant
pictures of religion, if my passions cast a shade over my faith! I have
not gone on to the end; I have not donned the hair-shirt: that tunic of
my viaticum would have drunk up and dried my sweat. Instead, a weary
traveller, I sat down by the roadside: tired or not, I shall have to
get up again in order to arrive where my sister has arrived.
[Sidenote: My sister Julie.]
There is nothing wanting to Julie's glory: the Abbé Carron has written
her life; Lucile has mourned her death.
*
When I saw Julie again in Paris, she was in all the pomp of
worldliness; she appeared covered with those flowers, adorned with
those necklaces, veiled in those scented fabrics which St. Clement
forbids the early Christian women. St. Basil wishes the middle of the
night to be for the solitary what the morning is for the others, so
that he may profit by the silence of nature. The middle of the night
was the hour at which Julie went to parties at which her verses,
recited with marvelous euphony by herself, formed the principal
attraction.
Julie was infinitely handsomer than Lucile: she had soft blue eyes
and dark hair, which she wore plaited or in large waves. Her hands
and arms, models of whiteness and shape, added, by their graceful
movements, something yet more charming to her already charming figure.
She was brilliant, lively, laughed much, but without affectation, and,
when she laughed, showed teeth like pearls. A crowd of portraits of
women of the time of Louis XIV. resembled Julie, among others those
of the three Mortemarts; but she had more elegance than Madame de
Montespan[188].
Julie received me with the affection which one finds only in a sister.
I had a sense of protection when pressed in her arms, her ribbons,
her bouquet of roses, and her laces. Nothing replaces the attachment,
delicacy and devotion of a woman; a man is forgotten by his brothers
and friends, denied by his companions: but never by his mother, his
sister, or his wife. When Harold was slain at the Battle of Hastings,
none could point him out in the crowd of the dead; they had to seek the
assistance of a young girl whom he loved. She came, and the unfortunate
Prince was recognized by Edith the swan-necked:
_Editha swaneshales, quod sonat collum cycni._
My brother took me back to my hotel; he ordered my dinner and left me.
I dined alone, and went sadly to bed. I passed my first night in Paris
regretting my moors and trembling before the dimness of my future.
At eight o'clock the next morning, my fat cousin arrived; he had
already done five or six errands:
"Well, chevalier, we are going to breakfast; we shall dine with
Pommereul, and this evening I shall take you to Madame de Chastenay's."
This seemed to me a fate, and I resigned myself. Everything happened
as my cousin had proposed. After breakfast he pretended to show me
Paris, and dragged me through the dirtiest streets in the neighbourhood
of the Palais Royal, telling me of the dangers to which a young man
was exposed. We were punctual in keeping our appointment for dinner,
at an eating-house. Everything put before us seemed bad to me. The
conversation and the dinner-guests revealed a new world to me. The talk
turned upon the Court, the financial projects, the Academy sittings,
the women and intrigues of the day, the latest piece, the success of
the actors, actresses and authors.
Several Bretons were among the guests, including the Chevalier de
Guer[189] and Pommereul[190]. The latter was a good talker, who has
since described some of Bonaparte's campaigns, and who, when I met him
again, was at the head of the Publishing Department.
Under the Empire, Pommereul achieved a sort of renown by his hatred for
the nobility[191]. And nevertheless Pommereul claimed, and with just
cause, to be of gentle birth himself. He signed his name "Pommereux,"
and spoke of his descent from the Pommereux family mentioned in the
letters of Madame de Sévigné[192].
[Sidenote: Madame de Chastenay.]
After dinner my brother wanted to take me to the play, but my cousin
claimed me for Madame de Chastenay, and I went with him to meet my
destiny. I saw a handsome woman, no longer in her first youth, but
still capable of inspiring an attachment. She received me kindly, tried
to put me at my ease, asked me about my part of the country and my
regiment. I was awkward and embarrassed; I made signs to my cousin to
cut short the visit. But he, without looking at me, was inexhaustible
on the subject of my merits, declaring that I had written verses at my
mother's breast, and calling upon me to sing Madame de Chastenay. She
relieved me from this painful situation, begged me to forgive her for
being obliged to go out, and invited me to come back and see her the
next morning, in so gentle a voice that I involuntarily promised to
obey.
The next day I returned alone: I found her in bed in an elegantly
fitted room. She told me that she was not very well, and that she had
the bad habit of rising late. For the first time I found myself by the
bedside of a woman who was neither my mother nor my sister. She had
observed my shyness on the evening before, and so far conquered it that
I ventured to express myself with some sort of ease. She stretched
towards me a half-bared arm and the most beautiful hand in the world,
and said with a smile:
"We shall become friends."
I did not even kiss that beautiful hand; I withdrew quite confused. The
next day I left for Cambrai. Who was this Dame de Chastenay? I have no
idea: she passed like a charming shade across my life.
*
The mail-coach brought me to my quarters. One of my brothers-in-law,
the Vicomte de Chateaubourg (he had married my sister Bénigne, widow
of the Comte de Québriac[193]) had given me letters of recommendation
to some of the officers of my regiment. The Chevalier de Guénan, a man
of very good company, introduced me to a mess at which dined officers
distinguished for their talents, Messieurs Achard, des Mahis, La
Martinière. The Marquis de Mortemart[194] was colonel of the regiment;
the Comte d'Andrezel[195] major: I was placed under the special
protection of the latter. I met both of them in after years: one of
them became my colleague in the House of Peers; the other applied to me
for some services which I was happy to show him. There is a melancholy
pleasure in meeting persons whom we have known at different periods of
our life, and in contemplating the changes that have taken place in
their mode of existence and our own. Like landmarks left behind us,
they trace for us the road which we have followed in the desert of the
past.
I joined my regiment in mufti; within twenty-four hours I had assumed
the military dress, and I felt as though I had worn it always. My
uniform was blue and white, like my vowing-clothes of years before: I
marched under the same colours as a young man and as a child. I was
submitted to none of the trials which the sub-lieutenants were in the
habit of inflicting upon a newcomer; for some reason not known to me,
they did not venture to indulge in this military child's-play with me.
Before I had been a fortnight with the regiment, I was treated like an
"ancient." I learnt the manual exercise and theory with ease; I passed
my steps of corporal and sergeant to the applause of my instructors.
My room became the meeting-place of the old captains as well as of the
young sub-lieutenants; the former went over their campaigns with me,
the latter confided to me their love-affairs.
La Martinière would come to fetch me to hang about the door of a belle
of Cambrai whom he adored; this happened five or six times a day. He
was very ugly, and his face was pitted with the small-pox. He told me
of his passion while quaffing large glasses of gooseberry-syrup, which
I sometimes paid for.
[Sidenote: Regimental life.]
All would have gone wonderfully well, but for my insane rage for dress.
At that time they affected the stiffness of the Prussian uniform: a
small hat, small curls pressed tight to the head, a pig-tail tied very
fast, a closely-buttoned coat. I disliked this greatly; I submitted
to these shackles during the day, but in the evening, when I hoped
to escape the eyes of my superior officers, I put on a larger hat;
the barber lowered the curls of my hair and loosened my pig-tail;
I unbuttoned and turned back the facings of my coat. In this fond
undress, I would go a-wooing on La Martinière's behalf under the cruel
Fleming's windows. But one fine day brought me face to face with M.
d'Andrezel.
"What is this, sir?" said the terrible major. "Consider yourself under
arrest for three days."
I felt somewhat humiliated, but recognized the truth of the proverb
that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good: I was delivered from my
messmate's love-affairs.
I read _Télémaque_ beside Fénelon's tomb[196]: I was not much in the
humour for the philanthropic tale of the cow and the bishop. It amuses
me to recall the beginning of my career. When passing through Cambrai
with the King, after the Hundred Days, I looked for the house I had
lived in and the coffee-house I used to frequent, but could not find
them: all had vanished, men and monuments.
*
In the same year in which I was undergoing my military apprenticeship
at Cambrai, we heard of the death of Frederic II.[197]; I am now
ambassador to that great King's nephew[198], and am writing this
portion of my Memoirs in Berlin. Upon that piece of important public
news followed sorrowful news for me: Lucile wrote to me that my father
had been carried off by a fit of apoplexy two days after the Angevin
Fair, one of the delights of my childhood.
Among the authentic documents which I keep for consultation I find the
death-certificates of my parents. As these documents also in a special
manner mark the death of a century, I place them on record here as
constituting a page of history.
"Extract from the death-register of the parish of Combourg,
for 1786, upon which is written as follows, page 8, _verso_:
"The body of the high and mighty Messire René de
Chateaubriand, knight, Count of Combourg, Lord of Gaugres,
the Plessis-l'Épine, Boulet, Malestroit in Dol, and other
places, husband of the high and mighty Dame Appoline Jeanne
Suzanne de Bedée de La Bouëtardais, Lady Countess of
Combourg, aged about sixty-nine years, who died in his castle
of Combourg, on the sixth of September, about eight o'clock
of the evening, was interred on the eighth, in the vault of
the said lordship, situated in the crypt of our church of
Combourg, in presence of messieurs the undersigned noblemen,
officers of the jurisdiction, and other notable burgesses.
Signed in the register: Comte de Petitbois, de Monlouët, de
Chateaudassy, Delaunay, Morault, Noury de Mauny, advocate;
Hermer, procurator; Petit, advocate and procurator-fiscal;
Robion, Portal, le Donarin, de Trevelec, Rector and Dean of
Dingé; Sévin, rector."
In the "collated copy" delivered in 1812 by M. Lodin, Mayor of
Combourg, the nineteen words giving the titles "high and mighty
Messire" &c., are struck out.
"Extract from the death-register of the town of Saint-Servan,
first arrondissement of the Department of Ille-et-Vilaine,
for the Year VI. of the Republic, page 35, _recto_, upon
which is written as follows:
"On the twelfth of Prairial Year Six of the French Republic,
before me, Jacques Bourdasse, municipal officer of the
commune of Saint-Servan, elected to public office on the
fourth of Floréal last, have appeared Jean Baslé, gardener,
and Joseph Boulin, day-labourer, who have declared to me that
Appoline Jeanne Suzanne de Bedée, widow of René Auguste de
Chateaubriand, died this day, at one o'clock after noon, at
the house of Citizeness Gouyon, situated at the Ballue, in
this commune. After which declaration, of the truth of which
I have made sure, I have drawn up the present deed, which
Jean Baslé alone has signed with me, Joseph Boulin declaring
that he did not know how, after question put.
"Done at the communal house on the said day and year. Signed:
Jean Baslé and Bourdasse."
In the first extract, the old society exists: M. de Chateaubriand is
a "high and mighty lord," &c., &c.; the witnesses are "noblemen"
and "notable burgesses"; among the signatories I find the Marquis de
Monlouët, who used to stop at Combourg Castle in the winter, the Curé
Sévin, who had so much difficulty in believing me to be the author of
the _Génie du Christianisme_: faithful guests of my father even at his
last abode. But my father did riot sleep long in his shroud: he was
cast out of it when Old France was cast into the common sewer.
In the mortuary extract of my mother, the earth revolves upon another
axis: a new world, a new era; even the computation of the years and the
names of the months are changed. Madame de Chateaubriand is nothing
more than a poor woman who departs this life at the residence of
"Citizeness" Gouyon; a gardener and a day-labourer, who does not know
how to sign his name, alone testify to my mother's death: of friends
and relations there are none; no funeral state; sole by-stander, the
Revolution[199].
*
[Sidenote: Death of my father.]
I mourned the death of M. de Chateaubriand: it showed him to me better
than he was; I remembered neither his harshness nor his failings. I
seemed to see him as he walked in the evenings in the hall at Combourg;
I was moved by the thought of these family scenes. If my father's
affection for me was affected by his natural severity, it was none
the less deep at heart. The ferocious Marshal de Montluc[200], who,
disfigured by a terrible cut in the nose, was obliged to conceal the
horrible nature of his glory beneath a strip of rag, this man of blood
reproaches himself for his harshness towards a son whom he has lost:
"This poor lad," he said, "has seen nothing of me save
a frowning face and full of scorn; he has died in this
belief, that I neither knew how to love him nor to esteem
him to his deserts. For whom did I keep it to discover the
singular affection which I bore him in my soul? Was it not
he who should have had all the pleasure of it and all the
obligation? I have constrained and tortured myself to keep
on this vain mask, and in thus doing have lost the pleasure
of his converse, and his will in all things, which he
cannot have borne to me other than very coldly, having never
received from me aught save rudeness, nor been treated save
in tyrannous fashion."
My "will was not borne very coldly" towards my father, and I do not
doubt that, in spite of his "tyrannous fashion," he loved me tenderly:
he would, I am sure, have regretted me had Providence called me before
him. But would he, had we remained on earth together, have set store
by the fame that has sprung from my life? A literary reputation would
have wounded his nobility; he would have seen nothing but degeneration
in his son's gifts; even the Berlin Embassy, conquered by the pen,
not the sword, would have indifferently satisfied him. His Breton
blood, besides, made him a political malcontent, a great opponent
of taxation and a violent enemy of the Court. He read the _Gazette
de Leyde_, the _Journal de Francfort_, the _Mercure de France_, and
the _Histoire philosophique des deux Indes_, the declamatory style
of which delighted him. He called the Abbé Raynal[201] "a master
man." In diplomacy, he was an anti-Mussulman; he declared that forty
thousand "Russian rascals" would march over the Janissaries' stomachs
and take Constantinople. Hater of the Turks though he were, my father
nevertheless bore a grudge in his heart against the "Russian rascals,"
because of his encounter at Dantzic.
I share M. de Chateaubriand's opinions as regards literary and other
reputations, but for different reasons. I do not know of a fame in
history that tempts me: had I to stoop to pick up at my feet and to
my advantage the greatest glory in the world, I would not take the
trouble. If I had formed my own clay, perhaps I would have created
myself a woman, for love of them; or if I had made myself a man,
I would in the first place have granted myself beauty; next, as a
safeguard against weariness, my stubborn enemy, it would have suited me
fairly well to be a consummate but unknown artist, using my talent only
for the benefit of my solitude. In life, weighed by its light weight,
measured by its short measure, relieved of all its cheating, there are
but two things true: religion with intelligence, love with youth; that
is to say, the future and the present: the rest is not worth while.
With my father's death ended the first act of my life; the paternal
home became empty; I pitied it, as though it were capable of feeling
desertion and solitude. Thenceforth I was independent and master of my
fortune: this liberty frightened me. What should I do with it? To whom
give it? I mistrusted my strength: I retreated before myself.
*
I obtained a furlough. M. d'Andrezel, promoted to Lieutenant-colonel
of the Picardy Regiment, was leaving Paris: I served as his courier.
I passed through Paris, where I refused to stop for a quarter of an
hour; I set eyes upon the moors of my Brittany with more joy than that
with which a Neapolitan, banished to our climes, would gaze again
upon the shores of Portici, the champaign of Sorrento. My family came
together; we settled the division of the property; when that was done,
we dispersed, as birds fly away from the paternal nest. My brother, who
had come from Paris, returned there; my mother established herself at
Saint-Malo; Lucile accompanied Julie; I spent a part of my time with
Mesdames de Marigny, de Chateaubourg and de Farcy. Marigny[202], my
eldest sister's country-seat, is pleasantly situated, three leagues
from Fougères, between two lakes, and amidst woods, rocks and meadows.
I stayed there peacefully for some months; a letter from Paris came to
disturb my repose.
[Sidenote: Ambitious projects.]
At the moment of entering the service and marrying Mademoiselle de
Rosanbo, my brother had not yet quitted the long robe; for this reason
he was unable to obtain the privilege of riding in the King's coaches.
His eager ambition suggested to him to make me enjoy Court honors in
order to prepare the way for his own rise. Our proofs of nobility had
been made out for Lucile when she was received into the Chapter of the
Argentière, so that everything was ready; the Marshal de Duras was to
be my sponsor. My brother wrote to me that I was on the high-road to
fortune; that already I was to obtain the rank of a cavalry captain,
an honorary and courtesy rank; that it would be easy to secure my
admission to the Order of Malta, by means of which I should enjoy fat
benefices.
This letter came upon me like a thunder-bolt: to return to Paris, to
be presented at Court, I who almost swooned away when I met three or
four strangers in a drawing-room! To imbue me with ambition, who only
dreamt of living forgotten! My first impulse was to reply to my brother
that it was his duty, as the eldest, to keep up his name; that, as for
me, a plain Breton younger son, I would not give up the service, as
there was a chance of war; but that, though the King might have need of
a soldier in his army, he had no need of a poor gentleman at his Court.
I hastened to read this romantic reply to Madame de Marigny, who
uttered loud cries; she sent for Madame de Farcy, who laughed at me;
Lucile would have supported me, but she dared not contend with her
sisters. They tore my letter from me, and, weak as always where I
myself am concerned, I informed my brother that I was ready to go.
I did go; I went to be presented at the first Court in Europe, to make
the most brilliant start in life; and I looked like a man who is being
dragged to the galleys or expecting a sentence of death.
*
I entered Paris by the same road which I had taken the first time; I
went to the same hotel, in the Rue du Mail: I knew no other. I was
taken to a room next door to my old one, but a little larger and
overlooking the street.
My brother, whether because he felt embarrassed by my manners, or
because he took pity upon my shyness, did not take me with him into
the world, and introduced me to nobody. He lived in the Rue des
Fossés-Montmartre; I went to him at three o'clock every day for dinner;
we then parted and did not see one another till the next day. My fat
Cousin Moreau was no longer in Paris. I walked twice or thrice past
Madame de Chastenay's house, without venturing to ask the porter if she
was still there.
Autumn set in. I rose at six; went to the riding-school; breakfasted.
Luckily at that time I had a passion for Greek; I translated the
_Odyssey_ and the _Cyropædia_ until two o'clock, interspersing my
labours with the study of history. At two o'clock I dressed and went to
my brother; he asked me what I had done, what I had seen; I replied,
"Nothing." He shrugged his shoulders and turned his back upon me. One
day there was a noise outside; my brother ran to the window and called
to me: I refused to leave the arm-chair in which I lay stretched at
the back of the room. My poor brother prophesied to me that I should
die unknown, useless to myself or my family. At four o'clock I went
home and sat down at my window. Two young girls of fifteen or sixteen
used to come at that hour to sketch at the window of a house opposite,
on the other side of the street. They had noticed my punctuality, as I
had theirs. From time to time they raised their heads to look at their
neighbor; I was infinitely grateful to them for this mark of attention:
they formed my only society in Paris.
[Sidenote: My life in Paris.]
When night drew near, I went to the play. I took pleasure in the
desert of the crowd, though it always cost me a little effort to
take my ticket at the door and mix with other men. I corrected the
ideas which I had formed at the Saint-Malo theatre. I saw Madame
Saint-Huberti[203] as Armida; I felt that there had been something
lacking in the sorceress of my creating. When I did not imprison
myself in the Opera-house or at the Français, I wandered from street
to street or along the quays until ten or eleven in the evening. To
this day I cannot see the row of street-lamps from the Place Louis
XV. to the Barrière des Bons-Hommes, without remembering the agonies
which I endured when I followed that road to go to Versailles for my
presentation.
On returning home, I spent a portion of the night with my head bowed
over my fire, which told me nothing: I had not, like the Persians,
an imagination rich enough to persuade me that the flame resembled
the anemone, the cinders the pomegranate. I listened to the carriages
coming, going, crossing each other; their distant rolling imitated the
murmur of the sea upon the shores of my Brittany or of the wind in
the Combourg woods. These worldly sounds which reminded me of those
of solitude aroused my regrets; I conjured up my old trouble, or
else my imagination would invent the story of the persons whom those
chariots were bearing away: I saw radiant drawing-rooms, balls, loves,
conquests. Soon, relapsing into myself, I saw myself as I was, alone
in an inn, seeing the world through the window and hearing it by the
echoes of my fireside.
Rousseau considers that he owes it to his sincerity, and to the
instruction of mankind, to confess the covert pleasures of his life;
he even supposes that he is being seriously questioned and asked for
an account of his sins with the _donne pericolante_ of Venice. Had
I prostituted myself to the courtesans of Paris, I should not have
thought myself obliged to inform posterity of the fact; but I was too
shy on the one hand, too much exalted on the other, to allow myself to
be seduced by women of the town. When I passed through groups of these
unfortunates falling upon the passers-by in order to drag them up to
their rooms, like the Saint-Cloud cabmen trying to induce travellers to
enter their flies, I was seized with horror and disgust. The pleasures
of adventure would have suited me only in the days of old.
In the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries,
our imperfect civilization, our superstitious beliefs, our strange and
half-barbarous customs mingled romance with everything: characters
were strongly marked, imagination was powerful, existence mysterious
and concealed. At night, around the high walls of the graveyards and
convents, beneath the deserted ramparts of the town, along the chains
and ditches of the market-places, on the skirts of enclosures in
narrow, lampless streets, where robbers and murderers lay in ambush,
where meetings took place sometimes by torchlight, sometimes in the
thick of darkness, it was at the risk of his head that one sought the
trysting-place granted by some Héloïse. To abandon himself to disorder,
one had really to love; to violate public morals, one had to make great
sacrifices. Not only was it a matter of confronting fortuitous dangers
and defying the sword of the law, but one was obliged to overcome the
empire of regular habits, the authority of the family, the tyranny
of domestic customs, the opposition of conscience, the terrors and
duties of the Christian. All these obstacles doubled the energy of the
passions.
In 1788, I would not have followed a starving wretch who would have
dragged me to the den where she lived under police supervision; but it
is probable that, in 1606, I should have seen the end of an adventure
of the kind which Bassompierre[204] has told so well.
*
"Five or six months ago," says the marshal, "each time that I passed
over the Petit Pont"--for in those days the Pont Neuf was not built--"a
pretty woman, a sempstress at the sign of the Two Angels, made me
deep courtesies and followed me with her eyes as far as she could; and
as I had heeded her action, I also looked at her and greeted her with
greater care.
"It happened that when I arrived from Fontainebleau in Paris, passing
over the Petit Pont, so soon as she saw me coming, she put herself at
the door of her shop, and said, as I passed:
"'Sir, I am your servant.'
"I returned her greeting, and turning round from time to time, I saw
that she followed me with her eyes as far as she could."
Bassompierre obtained an assignation.
[Sidenote: Bassompierre's adventure.]
"I found," he says, "a very beautiful woman, twenty years of age, who
had her head dressed for the night, wearing naught but a very fine
shift and a short petticoat of green stuff, and slippers on her feet,
with a wrapper around her. She pleased me mightily. I asked her if I
could not see her once again.
"'If you wish to see me again,' she replied, 'it shall be at the
house of one of my aunts, who lives in the Rue Bourg-l'Abbé, near
the Markets, next to the Rue aux Ours, the third door on the side of
the Rue Saint-Martin; I will await you there from ten o'clock till
midnight, and later yet; I will leave the door open. At the entrance,
there is a little passage through which you will go quickly, for the
door of my aunt's room opens on it, and you will find a stair which
will bring you to the second floor.'
"I came at ten o'clock and found the door she had indicated, and a
great light, not only on the second floor, but on the third and the
first too; but the door was closed. I knocked to show that I had come;
but I heard a man's voice ask who I was. I returned to the Rue aux
Ours, and having returned for the second time, finding the door opened,
I climbed to the second floor, where I found that the light was the
straw of the bed which they were burning, and two naked bodies lying
upon the table in the room. Thereupon I retired greatly amazed, and in
going out I met some crows"--buriers of the dead--"who asked me what I
sought; and I, to make them turn aside, took sword in hand and passed
out, returning to my lodging, somewhat moved by this unlooked-for
sight[205]."
*
I in my turn went on a voyage of discovery, with the address given, two
hundred and forty years before, by Bassompierre. I crossed the Petit
Pont, passed the Markets, and followed the Rue Saint-Denis as far as
the Rue aux Ours, on the right; the first street on the left, ending in
the Rue aux Ours, is the Rue Bourg-l'Abbé. Its inscription, smoky as
though through time and a fire, gave me good hope. I found the "third
little door on the side of the Rue Saint-Martin," so faithful are the
historian's directions. There, unfortunately, the two centuries and a
half, which at first I thought had lingered in the street, disappear.
The frontage of the house is modern; no light issued from the first,
nor from the second, nor from the third floor. From the attic-windows,
beneath the roof, hung a garland of nasturtiums and sweet peas; on the
ground-floor, a hairdresser's shop displayed a variety of towers of
hair behind the window-panes.
In great discomfiture, I entered this museum of the Eponines: since the
Roman Conquest, the Gallic women have always sold their yellow tresses
to foreheads less richly decked; my Breton countrywomen still let
themselves be shorn on certain fair-days, and barter the natural veil
of their heads for an Indian kerchief. Addressing a barber, who was
drawing a wig over an iron comb:
"Sir," said I, "do you happen to have purchased the hair of a young
sempstress who used to live at the sign of the Two Angels, near the
Petit Pont?"
He stood dumfoundered, unable to say either yes or no. I asked a
thousand pardons, and made my way out through a labyrinth of toupees.
I wandered next from door to door: no sempstress, twenty years of age,
making me "deep courtesies;" no frank, disinterested, passionate young
woman, "her head dressed for the night, wearing naught but a very fine
shift, a short petticoat of green stuff, and slippers on her feet, with
a wrapper around her." A grumbling old crone, ready to join her teeth
in the tomb, was near to beating me with her crutch: perhaps it was the
aunt of the assignation!
What a fine story, that story of Bassompierre's! One of the reasons
for which he was so resolutely loved has to be understood. At that
time, the French were divided into two classes, one dominant, the other
semi-servile. The sempstress clasped Bassompierre in her arms like a
demi-god who had descended to the bosom of a slave: he gave her the
illusion of glory, and Frenchwomen alone among women are capable of
intoxicating themselves with that illusion. But who will reveal to us
the unknown causes of the catastrophe? Was the body which lay upon the
table by the side of another body that of the pretty wench of the Two
Angels? Whose was the other body? Was it the husband, or the man whose
voice Bassompierre had heard? Had the plague (for the plague was raging
in Paris) or jealousy reached the Rue Bourg-l'Abbé before love? The
imagination can easily find matter for its exercises in such a subject
as this. Mingle with the poet's inventions the chorus of the populace,
the approaching grave-diggers, the "crows," and Bassompierre's sword,
and a magnificent melodrama springs from the adventure.
You will also admire the chastity and reserve of my youthful life
in Paris: in that capital I was free to give way to all my whims,
as in the Abbey of Thélème, where each acted according to his wish.
Nevertheless, I did not abuse my independence: I had no commerce except
with a courtesan two hundred and sixty years of age, who had formerly
been smitten with a marshal of France, the rival of the Bearnese[206]
for the affections of Mademoiselle de Montmorency, and the lover of
Mademoiselle d'Entragues, sister to the Marquise de Verneuil[207], who
speaks so ill of Henry IV. Louis XVI., whom I was about to see, had no
suspicion of my secret relations with his family.
*
[Sidenote: Versailles.]
The fatal day arrived; I had to set out for Versailles, more dead
than alive. My brother took me there the day before my presentation,
and carried me to the Maréchal de Duras, a worthy man with a mind
so commonplace that it reflected a certain homeliness over his fine
manners; nevertheless, the good marshal frightened me terribly.
The next morning I went alone to the palace. He has seen nothing who
has not seen the pomp of Versailles, even after the disbanding of
the old Royal Household: Louis XIV. still lingered there. All went
well so long as I had only to pass through the guard-room: military
display has always pleased and never awed me. But when I entered the
Œil-de-bœuf and found myself among the courtiers, my distress
commenced. I was scrutinized; I heard them ask who I was. One must
remember the former prestige of royalty to realize the importance
of a presentation in those days. A mysterious destiny clung to the
_débutant_; he was spared the contemptuous air of protection which,
coupled with extreme politeness, composed the inimitable manners of
the grandee. Who was to tell that that _débutant_ would not become
the master's favourite? In him was respected the future familiarity
with which he might be honoured. Nowadays we rush to the palace with
even greater eagerness than before, and, strangely enough, with no
illusions: a courtier reduced to living on truths is very near to dying
of hunger.
When the King's levee was announced, the persons not presented
withdrew; I felt an impulse of vanity: I was not proud of remaining,
but I should have felt humiliated at leaving. The door of the King's
bed-chamber opened; I saw the King, according to custom, complete
his toilet, in other words take his hat from the hand of the first
lord-in-waiting. The King came towards me on his way to Mass; I bowed;
the Marshal de Duras mentioned my name:
"Sire, the Chevalier de Chateaubriand."
The King looked at me, returned my bow, hesitated, appeared to wish
to address me. I should have replied boldly: my shyness had vanished.
To speak to the general of the army, to the head of the State, seemed
quite simple to me, though I could not account for what I felt The
King's embarrassment was greater than mine; he could think of nothing
to say to me, and passed on. The vanity of human destinies: this
sovereign whom I saw for the first time, this powerful monarch was
Louis XVI., but six years removed from the scaffold! And the new
courtier at whom he scarcely looked, charged with separating dead bones
from dead bones, after having been presented, upon proof of nobility,
to the majesty of the son of St. Louis, was one day to be presented to
his dust upon proof of fidelity! A two-fold tribute of respect to the
two-fold royalty of the sceptre and the palm. Louis XVI. might have
answered his judges as Christ answered the Jews: "Many good works I
have showed you ... for which of those works do you stone me[208]?"
We hurried to the gallery to find ourselves in the way of the Queen on
her return from the chapel. She soon appeared in sight, environed with
a glittering and numerous retinue; she made us a stately courtesy; she
seemed enraptured with life. And those beautiful hands, which at that
time carried with such great grace the sceptre of so many kings, were
destined, before being bound by the executioner, to mend the rags of
the widow, a prisoner at the Conciergerie!
My brother had obtained a sacrifice of me, but it was beyond his power
to make me go through with it. He vainly entreated me to stay at
Versailles in order to assist at the Queen's cards at night:
"You will be presented to the Queen," he said, "and the King will speak
to you."
He could have given me no stronger reason for taking to flight. I
hastened to go and hide my glory in my hotel, happy to escape from
Court, but seeing still before me the terrible day of the coaches, of
the 19th of February 1787.
[Sidenote: Hunt with the King.]
The Duc de Coigny[209] sent to inform me that I was to hunt with the
King in the forest of Saint-Germain. I set out in the early morning
towards my punishment, in the uniform of a _débutant_, a grey coat,
red waistcoat and breeches, lace tops, Hessian boots, a hunting-knife
in my belt, a small, gold-laced French hat. There were four of us
_débutants_ at the Palace of Versailles, myself, the two Messieurs de
Saint-Marsault, and the Comte d'Hautefeuille[210]. The Duc de Coigny
gave us our instructions: he warned us not to interrupt the hunt, as
the King flew into a passion if any one passed between him and the
quarry. The Duc de Coigny bore a name fatal to the Queen[211]. The meet
was at Val, in the forest of Saint-Germain, a domain leased by the
Crown from the Maréchal de Beauvau[212]. The custom was for the horses
of the first hunt in which the newly-presented men took part to be
supplied from the royal stables[213].
The drums beat the salute: a voice gave the order to present arms.
They cried, "The King!" The King left the house and entered his coach:
we rode in the coaches following. It was a long cry from this hunting
expedition with the King of France to my hunting expeditions on the
moors of Brittany; and further still to my hunting expeditions with the
savages of America: my life was to be filled with these contrasts.
We reached the rallying-point, where a number of saddle-horses, held
in hand under the trees, showed signs of impatience. The coaches drawn
up in the forest with the keepers; the groups of men and women; the
packs held back with difficulty by the huntsmen; the baying of the
hounds, the neighing of the horses, the sound of the horns composed a
very animated scene. The hunting-parties of our kings recalled both the
old and the new customs of the monarchy, the rude pastimes of Clodion,
Chilperic, and Dagobert and the gallantries of François I., Henry IV.,
and Louis XIV.
I was too full of my reading not to behold on every hand Comtesses de
Chateaubriand[214], Duchesses d'Étampes[215], Gabrielles d'Estrées,
La Vallières, and Montespans. My imagination seized upon the historic
aspect of this hunting-party, and I felt at my ease: besides, I was in
a forest, and therefore at home.
On alighting from the coaches, I handed my ticket to the huntsmen. A
mare called L'_Heureuse_ had been provided for me, a fast animal, but
hard-mouthed, skittish, and full of tricks; a tolerable likeness of my
fortune, which has constantly set back its ears. The King mounted and
rode off; the members of the hunt followed, taking different roads. I
stayed behind, struggling with L'_Heureuse_, who refused to let her new
master get astride of her; I ended, however, in leaping upon her back:
the hunt was already far ahead.
[Illustration: Louis XVI.]
At first I mastered L'_Heureuse_ fairly well; compelled to shorten
her stride, she put down her neck, shook her bit, which was white with
foam, and bounded along sideways; but when she drew near the scene of
action, it became impossible to hold her. She bore down her head, drove
my hand down upon the saddlebow, dashed at full gallop into a group of
hunters, clearing everything in her course, and only stopped when she
struck against the horse of a woman whom she nearly knocked over, amid
the roars of laughter of some and the screams of terror of others. I
have made useless efforts today to remember the name of the woman who
received my excuses so politely. There was nothing else talked of than
the _débutant's_ "adventure."
[Sidenote: Louis XVI.]
I had not come to the end of my trials. About half-an-hour after my
discomfiture, I was riding through a long opening in a deserted part
of the wood; at the end stood a summer-house: I at once began to think
of the palaces scattered through the Crown forests, in memory of the
origin of the long-haired kings and their mysterious pleasures. A shot
was heard; L'_Heureuse_ turned short, scoured the thicket with lowered
head, and carried me to the exact spot where the roebuck had just been
killed: the King appeared.
I then remembered, but too late, the Duc de Coigny's injunctions: the
accursed _Heureuse_ had done all I leapt to the ground, pushing my mare
back with one hand, holding my hat low in the other. The King looked
and saw only a _débutant_ who had come in at the death before himself;
he felt a need to speak; instead of flying into a passion, he said, in
a good-natured voice and with a broad laugh:
"He did not hold out long."
That is the only word I ever had from Louis XVI. People came up
from every side; they were astonished to find me "talking" with the
King. The _débutant_ Chateaubriand created a sensation with his two
"adventures;" but, as has ever happened to him since, he did not know
how to turn either his good or his bad fortune to account.
The King hunted three other buck. As the _débutants_ were only allowed
to hunt the first animal, I returned to Val with my companions to await
the return of the hunt. The King came back to Val; he was in spirits
and discussed the accidents of the chase. We drove back to Versailles.
A fresh disappointment for my brother: instead of going to dress in
order to be present at the unbooting, the moment of triumph and favour,
I flung myself into my carriage and drove home to Paris, rejoicing at
being delivered of my honors and my troubles. I told my brother that
I was determined to return to Brittany. Satisfied with having made
his name known, and hoping one day to bring to maturity, by means of
his own presentation, what had proved abortive in mine, he placed no
obstacle in the way of the departure of so eccentric a spirit[216].
Such was my first experience of the Town and the Court Society appeared
even more hateful in my eyes than I had imagined it; but, though it
frightened, it did not discourage me; I felt, in a confused fashion,
that I was superior to what I had seen. I took an invincible dislike
to the Court; this dislike, or rather this contempt, which I have been
unable to conceal, will either prevent me from succeeding or will cause
me to fall from the summit of my career.
For the rest, if I judged the world without knowing it, the world, in
its turn, knew nothing of me. None, at my first entrance, guessed what
I might be good for, and when I came back to Paris, they guessed it no
more. Since attaining my sad celebrity, I have been told by numbers
of people, "How we should have noticed you, if we had met you in your
youth!" This obliging contention is only the illusion attaching to
an established reputation. Outwardly men resemble each other; it is
in vain for Rousseau to tell us that he had a pair of small, quite
charming eyes; it is none the less certain, witness his portraits, that
he had the appearance of a schoolmaster or a cross-grained shoemaker.
To have done with the Court, I will add that after revisiting Brittany
and coming back to Paris to live with my younger sisters, Lucile and
Julie, I plunged more deeply than ever into my habits of solitude. You
ask what became of the story of my presentation. It remained where it
was.
"Then you did not hunt with the King again?"
"No more than with the Emperor of China."
"And you never went back to Versailles?"
"I twice went as far as Sèvres; my heart failed me, and I returned to
Paris."
"So you made nothing of your position?"
"Nothing at all."
"What did you do then?"
"I was bored."
"So you felt no ambition?"
[Sidenote: I print my first poem.]
"Yes, indeed: by means of intrigue and trouble, I attained the glory of
printing in the _Almanack des Muses_ an idyll the appearance of which
almost killed me with hope and fear[217]. I would have given all the
King's coaches to have written the ballad, _Ô ma tendre musette!_ or,
_De mon berger volage._"
Good for everything where others, good for nothing where I myself am
concerned: there you have me.
[176] This book was written in Berlin in March and April 1821 and
revised in July 1846.--T.
[177] The _Conservateur_ was founded by Chateaubriand in October 1818,
with the motto, _Le Roi, la Charte et les Honnêtes Gens._ Some of
Chateaubriand's most perfect work is to be found in this collection,
and the other writers included the Abbé de Lamennais, the Vicomte de
Bonald, Fiévée, Berryer the Younger, Eugène Genoude, the Vicomte de
Castelbajac, the Marquis d'Herbouville, M. Agier, the Cardinal de La
Luzerne, the Duc de FitzJames, &c. The _Conservateur_ ceased to appear
in March 1820 in consequence of the revival of the censorship.--B.
[178] _Cf._ the _Mémoires sur la vie et la mort de Monseigneur le Duc
de Berry_ (April 1820).--T.
[179] Chateaubriand was appointed, by an Order in Council of 28
November 1820, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the
Court of Prussia.--B.
[180] Frederic William II. (1744-1797), the nephew and successor of
Frederic the Great--T.
[181] Dorothea Princess of Courlande (1795-1862) married in 1810 the
Comte Edmond de Périgord, nephew to Talleyrand, who abandoned to him
his title of Duc de Dino. The duke subsequently came into the title of
Duc de Talleyrand-Périgord, by which the duchess was known at the time
of her death.--B.
[182] The Comte Roger de Caux and the Chevalier de Cussy.--B.
[183] Now Emperor and Empress of Russia.--_Authors Note_ (Paris, 1832).
Nicholas I. (1796-1855) married Charlotte, daughter of King Frederick
William III. of Prussia. He ascended the Russian throne in 1825, on
the death of his eldest brother, the Tsar Alexander I., and by virtue
of the renunciation, for himself and his heirs, of the Grand-Duke
Constantine.--T.
[184] I have inserted the life of my sister Julie in the supplement to
these Memoirs.--_Author's Note._ This life, extracted from the Abbé
Carron's _Vie des justes_, I omit. It will be found in the last series
of the _Vie des justes_, entitled, _Dans les plus hauts rangs de la
société._ The Abbé Guy Toussaint Julien Carron (1760-1820) was the
founder of the Institut Royal de Marie-Thérèse, established under the
patronage of the Duchesse d'Anjoulême for the daughters of families
which had lost their fortune in the Revolution, in addition to a number
of charitable institutions founded during the Emigration at Somers
Town, to which Chateaubriand refers _infra._-T.
[185] St. Julia, Virgin and Martyr (22 May), was born at Carthage, and
died for the Faith in Corsica, _circa_ 439.--T.
[186] The Abbé Carron was born at Rennes.--T.
[187] Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière (1644-1710),
the unselfish mistress of Louis XIV. After twice seeking refuge in a
convent, she definitely withdrew to the Carmelites in the Faubourg
Saint-Jacques in 1674, and took the veil in 1675, from which date
to that of her death she submitted herself to exercises of the most
austere piety.--T.
[188] The Marquise de Montespan (1641-1707), mistress to Louis XIV.
and successor to Mademoiselle de La Vallière, was one of the three
daughters of Gabriel de Rochechouart, Duc de Mortemart; her sisters
were the Marquise de Thianges and the Abbesse de Fontevrault.--T.
[189] Julien Hyacinthe de Marnière, Chevalier de Guer (1748-1816), born
at Rennes, an active member of the Royalist party.--B.
[190] François René Jean, Baron de Pommereul (1745-1823), born at
Fougères, became a general of division in 1796 and director-general of
the State press and publishing department in 1811. The work to which
Chateaubriand alludes is Pommereul's _Campagnes du général Bonaparte en
Italie pendant les années IV, et V. de la République Française._--B.
[191] I omit a remark of Pommereul's, applied to the nobles who
accepted the post of Chamberlain at the Imperial Court, which is too
indelicate for translation.--T.
[192] Of 4, 11, and 18 December 1675.--B.
[193] Bénigne Jeanne de Chateaubriand, Comtesse de Québriac, married
as her second husband, in 1786, Paul François de la Celle, Vicomte de
Chateaubourg, a captain in the Condé Regiment, and a knight of St.
Louis.--B.
[194] Victurnien Bonaventure Victor de Rochechouart, Marquis de
Mortemart (1753-1823), served in the army of Condé under the
Emigration, and was created a peer of France and lieutenant-general at
the Restoration.--B.
[195] Christophe François Thérèse Picon, Comte d'Andrezel (1746-1821),
also emigrated and fought in the Princes' Army. On the return of the
Bourbons he exercised the functions of sub-prefect of Saint-Dié from
1815 till the year of his death.--B.
[196] François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon (1651-1715), author of
the _Aventures de Télémaque_ was Archbishop of Cambrai and is buried in
the cathedral.--T.
[197] Frederic II., or the Great (1712-1786), King of Prussia, died on
the 17th of August, twenty days before the Comte de Chateaubriand, as
mentioned above.--T.
[198] Frederic William III. (1770-1840), son of Frederick William
II., and grand-nephew of Frederick the Great, succeeded his father in
1797.--T.
[199] My nephew, Breton fashion, Frédéric de Chateaubriand, son
of my cousin Armand, has purchased the Ballue, where my mother
died.--_Author's Note._
[200] Marshal Blaise de Montluc (_circa_ 1502-1577), a valiant
captain of François I., Henry II. and François II. Under Charles IX.
he defeated the Huguenots in several encounters, and set himself to
extirpate heresy by means of wholesale executions, which earned for him
the nickname of the Royalist Butcher. He received his marshal's baton
at the hands of Henry III.--T.
[201] Guillaume Thomas François Raynal (1713-1796), editor of the
_Mercure_ and author of, among other works, the _Histoire philosophique
des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les Deux-Indes_
(1770). This work is full of political and anti-religious declamations,
and was placed upon the Index in consequence. He published in 1780 a
new and still bolder edition, which was condemned in 1781.--T.
[202] The Château de Marigny exists in the commune of
Saint-Germain-en-Coglès, canton of Saint-Brice-en-Coglès,
Arrondissement of Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine). Balzac laid the scene of
his _Chouans_ in the neighbourhood of Fougères, and wrote his novel
at Marigny, where he was staying as the guest of General the Baron
de Pommereul. The Comtesse de Marigny died 18 July 1860, in her one
hundred and first year.--B.
[203] Antoinette Cécile Clavel (_circa_ 1756-1812), first singer at
the Opera. Her features were not beautiful but exceedingly expressive;
she excelled in Gluck's operas. She was first married to an adventurer
called Saint-Huberti, and later to the Comte d'Entragues, whom she had
followed into the Emigration. They were both assassinated at their
cottage on the Terrace, Barnes, by an Italian servant who had been
dismissed the day before.--T.
[204] François Maréchal Baron de Bassompierre (1579-1646), figured
at the Court of Henry IV., and in the wars of Henry IV. and Louis
XIII. The latter monarch created him a marshal, and employed him upon
various embassies. He succeeded, however, in incurring the displeasure
of Richelieu, who imprisoned him in the Bastille in 1631, where he
remained until the Cardinal's death in 1643. It was there that he wrote
his famous Memoirs.--T.
[205] _Mémoires du maréchal de Bassompierre, contenant l'histoire de
sa vie et ce qui s'est fait de plus remarquable à la cour de France
jusqu'en_ 1640, I. 305.--B.
[206] Henry IV. (1553-1610), King of France and Navarre, born at Pau in
the Province of Béarn.--T.
[207] Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil
(1583-1633), daughter of François d'Entragues, Governor of Orléans,
and of Marie Touchet, mistress of Charles IX. She became Henry IV.'s
mistress after the death of Gabrielle d'Estrées, and bitterly resented
his marriage to Marie de Médicis, the more so as the King had given
her a written promise of marriage, which was torn up by the Duc de
Sully.--T.
[208] JOHN, X. 33.--T.
[209] Marie Henry François Franquetot, Duc de Coigny (1737-1821), the
King's First Equerry. Under the Restoration, he was created a peer of
France in 1814, appointed Governor of the Invalides in 1816, and a
marshal of France in the same year.--B.
[210] I have met M. le Comte d'Hautefeuille again; he is engaged in
translating selections from Byron; Madame la Comtesse d'Hautefeuille is
the gifted author of the _Âme exilée_, &c.--_Author's Note._
Charles Louis Félicité Texier, Comte d'Hautefeuille (1770-1865), after
fighting in the Princes' Army, took service in Sweden, in the Royal
Guards, and did not return to France till 1811. He married, in 1823,
Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire, daughter of one of the bravest officers
in the Vendean Army. The Comtesse d'Hautefeuille published a number of
noteworthy works under the pseudonym of "Anna-Marie."--B.
[211] The Duc de Coigny was accused by the detractors of Marie
Antoinette of having been in her good graces in the early years of the
reign of Louis XVI.--T.
[212] Charles Juste Maréchal Duc de Beauvau (1720-1793), member of the
French and Della Cruscan Academies.--T.
[213] The following appears in the _Gazette de France_ of Tuesday 27
February 1787:
"The Comte Charles d'Hautefeuille, the Baron de Saint-Marsault,
the Baron de Saint-Marsault Chatelaillon and the Chevalier de
Chateaubriand, who had previously had the honor of being presented to
the King, had, on the 19th, that of riding in His Majesty's carriages
and following him in the hunt."--_Author's Note._
[214] Françoise Comtesse de Chateaubriand (1475-1537), daughter of Jean
de Foix, Vicomte de Narbonne, and sister of the Vicomte de Lautrec
and the Maréchal de Foix. She inspired a passion in François I., but
after a year was supplanted by the Duchesse d'Étampes (_vide infra_),
and remained the victim of the jealousy of her husband, who has been
accused of hastening her death.--T.
[215] Anne de Pisseleu, Duchesse d'Étampes (_circa_ 1508-_circa_ 1576),
first known as Mademoiselle d'Heilly, maid-of-honour to the Comtesse
d'Angoulême, mother of François I. She became the King's mistress
at the age of eighteen; he married her to a certain Jean de Brosse,
and gave her the county of Étampes, first raising it to a duchy. She
practically governed France for two-and-twenty years, until the King's
death in 1547, when she retired into obscurity and solaced her solitude
by embracing the Reformation.--T.
[216] The _Mémorial historique de la Noblesse_ has printed a hitherto
unpublished document, annotated in the King's hand, taken from
the Archives of the Kingdom, register M 813 and portfolio M 814;
it contains the "Entrances." My own name and my brother's appear
in it: this shows that my memory has not been at fruit as regards
dates.--_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1840).
[217] This idyll appears in the _Almanack des Muses_ for 1790, p.
205, under the title: L'_Amour de la campagne_ and the signature: "By
the Chevalier de C<sup>***</sup>." Chateaubriand included it in his
Complete Works.--B.