niece, the Marquise de Villette[367], and on another occasion at
the Palais-Royal, with some members of the Opposition to whom
Chapelier[368] had introduced me: Chapelier went to the scaffold in the
same tumbril with my brother and M. de Malesherbes.
Mirabeau talked much, and, above all, much of himself. This lion's
whelp, himself a lion with a chimera's head, this man so positive where
facts were concerned, was all romance, all poetry, all enthusiasm in
imagination and language: one recognized the lover of Sophie[369],
exalted in sentiment, capable of sacrifice.
"I discovered her," he said, "that adorable woman.... I knew what
her soul was, that soul shaped by nature's hands in a moment of
magnificence."
Mirabeau delighted me with stories of love, with desires for
retirement, among which he interspersed barren discussions. He
interested me, moreover, in another direction: like myself, he had
been treated sternly by his father, who, like mine, had kept up the
inflexible tradition of absolute paternal authority.
My great table-companion enlarged upon foreign politics, and hardly
spoke of politics at home, although it was the latter which occupied
him; but he let fall a few words of sovereign contempt for those
men who proclaim themselves superior by reason of the indifference
which they affect for misfortunes and crimes. Mirabeau was by
nature generous, sensible to friendship, ready to forgive injuries.
Notwithstanding his immorality, he had not been able to warp his
conscience; he was only corrupt for himself: his firm and upright mind
did not treat murder as a sublime effort of the intelligence; he had no
sort of admiration for the sewer or the slaughter-house.
Nevertheless, Mirabeau was not wanting in arrogance; he was an
outrageous boaster; although he had become a cloth-merchant in order
to be elected by the Third Estate (the order of the nobility having
committed the honourable folly of rejecting him), he was in love with
his birth: "a refractory hawk," says his father, "whose nest was laid
among four towers." He did not forget that he had figured at Court,
ridden in the coaches, and hunted with the King. He insisted upon being
addressed by his title of count; he adhered to his colours, and put
his servants into livery when every one else ceased to do so. In and
out of season, he referred to "his kinsman," Admiral de Coligny. The
_Moniteur_ having spoken of him as Riquet[370]:
"Are you aware," he said angrily to the journalist, "that with your
'Riquet' you have set Europe at cross-purposes for three days?"
He repeated that impudent and well-known jest:
"In any other family, my brother the viscount would be the wit and the
worthless fellow; in my family, he is the fool and the good man."
[Illustration: H. G. Mirabeau.]
Some biographers ascribe the phrase to the viscount, comparing himself
humbly with the other members of the family.
The ground-work of Mirabeau's opinions was monarchical; he once uttered
these fine words:
"I have tried to cure the French of the superstition of monarchy and to
substitute its cult."
In a letter intended to be laid before Louis XVI. he wrote:
"I should not like to have worked only for a vast destruction." This,
nevertheless, is what happened to him: Heaven, to punish us for making
a bad use of our talents, gives us occasion to repent of our successes.
[Sidenote: Mirabeau's power.]
Mirabeau moved public opinion with two levers: on the one side, he
placed his fulcrum in the masses, of whom he had constituted himself
the defender, while despising them; on the other, although he was a
traitor to his order, he retained its sympathy through caste affinity
and common interest. This would not happen to a plebeian who should
become the champion of the privileged classes: he would be abandoned by
his own party, without winning over the aristocracy, which is naturally
ungrateful and not to be won by those not born within its ranks. The
aristocracy, moreover, is not able to make a noble without notice,
since nobility is the daughter of time.
Mirabeau created a school. Men imagined that by shaking off the moral
shackles they were turning themselves into statesmen. These imitations
produced only petty miscreants: this one who flatters himself that he
is corrupt and a robber is only debauched and a cheat; that other who
thinks himself vicious is only vile; a third who boasts of being a
criminal is merely infamous.
Too early for himself, too late for the Court, Mirabeau sold himself
to the Court, and the Court bought him. He staked his reputation for
a pension and an embassy: Cromwell was on the verge of bartering his
future for a title and the Order of the Garter. Notwithstanding his
haughtiness, Mirabeau did not rate himself high enough. Nowadays, when
the abundance of cash and places has raised the price of consciences,
there is not a street-boy but costs hundreds of thousands of francs and
the leading honours of the State to buy. The grave released Mirabeau
from his promises, and shielded him from the perils which he would
probably not have been able to conquer: his life would have shown his
weakness in good; his death left him in possession of his strength in
evil.
At the end of dinner, the discussion turned upon Mirabeau's enemies; I
found myself by his side and had not spoken a word. He looked me in
the face with his eyes of pride, vice and genius, and laying his hand
upon my shoulder, said:
"They will never forgive me my superiority!"
I still feel the pressure of that hand, as though Satan had touched me
with his fiery claw. When Mirabeau fixed his look upon a young mute,
had he a presentiment of my future condition? Did he think that he
would one day figure in my recollections? I was destined to become the
historian of great personages: they have defiled before me without my
hanging to their mantles to make them drag me with them to posterity.
Mirabeau has already undergone the metamorphosis which is wrought in
those whose memory is destined to survive: carried from the Pantheon
to the sewer, and back from the sewer to the Pantheon, he has raised
himself to the full height of that time which today forms his pedestal.
We no longer behold the real Mirabeau, but the idealized Mirabeau, the
Mirabeau as the painters depict him, in order to make him the symbol
or the myth of the period which he represents: he thus becomes both
more false and more true. From among so many reputations, so many
actors, so many events, so many ruins, there will remain but three men,
attached to each of the three great revolutionary epochs: Mirabeau
for the aristocracy, Robespierre for the democracy, Bonaparte for
the despotism; the monarchy has none: France has paid dear for three
reputations which virtue is unable to acknowledge!
*
The sittings of the National Assembly offered a spectacle of an
interest which our "Chambers" are far from approaching. One rose early
to find room in the crowded galleries. The deputies arrived eating,
talking, gesticulating; they formed groups in the various parts of
the house, according to their opinions. The orders of the day were
read; after that, the subject agreed upon was set forth, or else an
extraordinary motion. There was no question of any insipid point of
law; rarely did some scheme of destruction fail to form part of the
proceedings. The members spoke for or against; each spoke extempore as
best he could. The debates grew stormy; the galleries joined in the
discussion, applauded and cheered, hissed and hooted the speakers. The
president rang his bell, the deputies apostrophized each other from
bench to bench. Mirabeau the Younger[371] took his competitor by the
collar; Mirabeau the Elder cried:
"Silence, the 'thirty votes'!"
One day I was seated behind the royalist opposition; before me was a
Dauphiné nobleman, swarthy of visage, short of stature, who jumped upon
his seat with rage and said to his friends:
"Let us fall upon those ragamuffins, sword in hand!"
He pointed in the direction of the majority. The ladies of the markets,
who sat knitting in the galleries, heard him, rose from their seats,
and all cried at once, their stockings in their hands, and foaming at
the mouth:
"To the lantern with them!"
The Vicomte de Mirabeau, Lautrec[372], and some younger nobles proposed
to take the galleries by assault.
Soon this tumult was drowned by another: petitioners, armed with pikes,
appeared at the bar:
"The people are starving," they said: "it is time to take measures
against the aristocrats and to rise 'to the level of the situation.'"
The president assured these citizens of his respect:
"We have our eye upon the traitors," he replied, "and the Assembly will
see justice done."
[Sidenote: The National Assembly.]
Thereupon a fresh din; the deputies of the Right cried that they were
making for anarchy; the deputies of the Left replied that the people
was free to express its will, that it had the right to complain of
the abettors of despotism, seated in the very midst of the national
representatives: they spoke thus of their colleagues to that sovereign
people which was waiting for them under the street lamps.
The evening sittings surpassed the morning sittings in scandalousness:
people speak better and more boldly by candlelight. At such times the
Riding-hall became a veritable playhouse, in which was enacted one
of the greatest tragedies in the world. The leading characters still
belonged to the old order of things: their terrible substitutes, hidden
behind them, spoke little or not at all. At the end of a violent
discussion, I saw a common-looking deputy ascend the tribune, a man
with a grey and impassive face, his hair neatly dressed, decently clad
like the steward in a good house, or like a village attorney careful of
his appearance. He read a long and tedious report; he was not listened
to; I asked his name: it was Robespierre[373]. The men in leathern
shoes were ready to leave the drawing-rooms, and already the wooden
shoes were kicking at the door.
*
When, before the Revolution, I read the history of public disturbances
among various nations, I could not conceive how it was possible to live
in those times; I was surprised that Montaigne was able to write with
such spirit in a castle which he could not go round without running the
risk of being taken prisoner by bands of Leaguers or Protestants[374].
The Revolution made me understand the possibility of existence under
such conditions. Moments of crisis produce a reduplication of life
in men. In a society which is dissolving and Recomposing itself, the
struggle of two geniuses, the clash of the past and the future, the
mixture of old manners and new manners form a transient combination
which does not leave a moment for weariness. Passions and characters,
when at liberty, display themselves with an energy which they do not
possess in the well-regulated State. The breaches of the laws, the
emancipation from duties, social usages, and seemly manners, the
very dangers, all add to the interest of this disorder. The human
race making holiday perambulates the streets, having got rid of its
schoolmasters and returned for a moment to a state of nature, and does
not begin again to feel the need of social restraint until it bears the
yoke of the new tyrants engendered by license.
[Sidenote: The theatres.]
I cannot better depict society in 1789 and 1790 than by comparing it
with the architecture of the time of Louis XII. and François I., when
the Greek orders began to be grafted upon the Gothic style, or rather
by likening it to the collection of ruins and tombs of all ages heaped
pell-mell, after the Terror, in the cloisters of the Petits-Augustins:
only, the ruins of which I speak were alive and constantly changing.
In every corner of Paris were literary sets, political societies, and
spectacles; future celebrities wandered unrecognized in the crowd,
like the souls on the shore of Lethe, before enjoying the light. I saw
Marshal Gouvion-Saint-Cyr[375], play a part in Beaumarchais' _Mère
Coupable_[376] at the Théâtre du Marais. One went from the Club des
Feuillants to the Club des Jacobins, from the public ball-rooms and
gaming-houses to the meetings in the Palais-Royal, from the gallery
of the National Assembly to the gallery in the open air. The streets
were filled with popular deputations, cavalry pickets, infantry patrols
passing to and fro. Behind a man in a French coat, with powdered hair,
a sword, a hat carried under his arm, pumps and silk stockings, walked
a man wearing his hair short and without powder, an English frock
and an American neck-cloth. At the theatres the actors gave out the
news; the pit shouted patriotic ditties. Topical pieces drew crowds:
an Abbé appeared upon the stage; the audience cried, "Jack-priest!
Jack-priest!" and the Abbé answered:
"Gentlemen, long live the nation!"
People trooped to hear Mandini and his wife, Viganoni and
Rovedino[377], sing at the _Opera Buffa_ after hearing _Ça ira_ roared
in the streets; they went to admire Madame Dugazon[378], Madame
Saint-Aubin[379], Carline[380], little Olivier[381], Mademoiselle
Contat, Molé, Fleury, Talma at the commencement of his career, after
seeing Favras hanged.
The walks on the Boulevard du Temple and the Boulevard des Italiens,
or de Coblentz, the paths of the Tuileries Gardens were inundated with
smartly dressed women: three young daughters of Grétry's[382] shone
there, white and pink as their costumes; they soon died, all three.
"She fell asleep for ever," said Grétry, speaking of his eldest
daughter, "seated on my knees, as beautiful as in life."
A multitude of carriages ploughed across the muddy spaces in which the
sans-culottes plodded on foot, and one saw the beautiful Madame de
Buffon[383] sitting alone in a phaeton belonging to the Duc d'Orléans,
waiting at the door of some club.
All that was elegant and in good taste in aristocratic society met
at the Hôtel de La Rochefoucauld[384], at the _soirées_ of Mesdames
de Poix, d'Hénin, de Simiane, de Vaudreuil, in the few _salons_ that
remained open of the upper magisterial circle. At M. Necker's, at M.
le Comte de Montmorin's, at the houses of the different ministers
gathered (in addition to Madame de Staël, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon,
Mesdames de Beaumont[385] and de Sérilly[386]) all the new lights of
France and all the liberties of the new manners. The shoemaker knelt
to take the measure of your foot in the uniform of an officer of the
National Guard; the monk who on Friday trailed his white or black gown
along the ground appeared on Sunday in a round hat and a lay coat; the
shorn Capuchin read the paper in the public-house, and in the midst of
a circle of frivolous women, a nun appeared gravely seated: it was an
aunt or a sister turned out of her monastery. The crowd visited these
convents thrown open to the world like the travellers who, at Grenada,
wander through the deserted halls of the Alhambra, or, at Tivoli,
linger beneath the columns of the Sibyl's temple.
For the rest, many duels and love-affairs, prison attachments and
political friendships, mysterious meetings among ruins, under a
tranquil sky, amid nature's peace and poetry; silent, remote, solitary
walks, mingled with undying oaths and indefinable affections, to the
dull tumult of a fleeing world, to the distant noise of a crumbling
society, which threatened in its fall to crush the happiness set at the
foot of events. Those who had lost sight of each other for twenty-four
hours were not sure of ever meeting again. Some went the revolutionary
way; others contemplated civil war; others set out for Ohio, sending
ahead plans for country-houses to be built among the savages; others
went to join the Princes: all this cheerfully, often without a sou in
their pockets, the Royalists declaring that the thing would come to
an end one of these mornings by a decree of Parliament, the patriots,
quite as airy in their hopes, foretelling the reign of peace and
happiness together with that of liberty. People sang:
La sainte chandelle d'Arras,
Le flambeau de la Provence,
S'ils ne nous éclairent pas,
Mettent le feu dans la France;
On ne peut pas les toucher,
Mais on espère les moucher[387].
And that was how people spoke of Robespierre and Mirabeau!
"It is as little within the power of any earthly faculty," wrote
L'Éstoile[388], "to keep the French people from talking as to hide the
sun in the ground or bury it in a hole."
The Palace of the Tuileries, a great gaol filled with sentenced
prisoners, rose erect amid these festivals of destruction. The
condemned themselves made merry while waiting for the "cart," the
"shears," and the "red shirt" which had been put out to dry; and
through the windows one saw the dazzling illuminations of the Queen's
circle.
[Sidenote: The newspapers.]
Pamphlets and newspapers swarmed in thousands; the satires and poems,
the songs of the _Actes des Apôtres_[389] replied to the _Ami du
peuple_, or to the _Modérateur_[390] of the Club Monarchien, edited by
Fontanes; Mallet Du Pan[391], on the political side of the _Mercure_,
was in opposition to La Harpe and Chamfort on the literary side of the
same journal. Champcenetz[392], the Marquis de Bonnay, Rivarol[393],
Mirabeau the Younger (the Holbein of the sword, who levied on the Rhine
the legion of the Hussars of Death), Honoré Mirabeau the Elder amused
themselves by drawing caricatures at dinner and composing the _Petit
almanach des grands hommes_: Honoré would subsequently go off to move
martial law or the seizure of the property of the clergy. He spent the
night at Madame Le Jay's[394], after declaring that he would not leave
the National Assembly unless driven out at the point of the bayonet.
Égalité consulted the devil in the Montrouge stone-quarries, and
returned to the Jardin de Monceau to preside over the orgies prepared
by Laclos[395]. The future regicide proved himself worthy of his race:
he was twice prostituted; debauchery handed him over exhausted to
ambition. Lauzun[396], already worn out, supped in his pleasure-house
at the Barrière du Maine with dancers from the Opera, caressed
indifferently by Messrs. de Noailles, de Dillon[397], de Choiseul, de
Talleyrand[398] and other elegants of the time, of whom two or three
mummies still survive.
The majority of the courtiers celebrated for their immorality at the
end of the reign of Louis XV., and during the reign of Louis XVI.,
were enlisted under the tricolour banner: almost all of them had
been through the American war and had besmirched their ribbons with
the Republican colours. The Revolution employed them so long as it
remained at a middling height; they even became the first generals
of its armies. The Duc de Lauzun, the romantic lover of the Princess
Czartoriska, the woman-hunter of the high-road, the Lovelace who "had"
this one and then "had" that one, in the chaste and noble cant of the
Court; the Duc de Lauzun, becoming Duc de Biron, and commanding the
forces of the Convention in the Vendée: the pity of it! The Baron de
Besenval[399], the lying and cynical revealer of the corruption of
the upper classes, the fly on the wheel of the puerilities of the
expiring old monarchy; that ponderous baron, compromised in the affair
of the Bastille, and saved by M. Necker and Mirabeau only because he
was a Swiss: the disgrace of it! What had such men to do with such
events? When the Revolution had attained its full height, it scornfully
abandoned these frivolous apostates from the throne: it had needed
their vices, it now needed their heads; it disdained no blood, not even
that of the Du Barry[400].
*
The year 1790 brought to completion the measures outlined by the year
1789. The property of the Church, first placed in the hands of the
nation, was confiscated, the civil constitution of the clergy decreed,
the nobility abolished.
[Sidenote: The Federation of July.]
I did not attend the Federation of July 1790: a somewhat serious
illness made me keep my bed; but before that I had been much amused by
the sight of the wheel-barrows on the Champ de Mars. Madame de Staël
has written a wonderful description of that scene[401]. I shall always
regret not to have seen M. de Talleyrand say Mass, served by the Abbé
Louis[402], as I regret not to have seen him, sword at side, give
audience to the Ambassador of the Grand Turk.
Mirabeau forfeited his popularity in the year 1790; his relations with
the Court were obvious. M. Necker resigned office and withdrew into
private life, none caring to restrain him[403]. Mesdames, the King's
aunts, left for Rome with a passport from the National Assembly[404].
The Duc d'Orléans returned from England and declared himself the King's
most humble and most obedient servant. Societies of Friends of the
Constitution multiplied upon the soil and connected themselves with the
parent society, receiving its suggestions and executing its orders.
Public life met with a favourable disposition in my character: I was
attracted by what happened in public, because, in the crowd, I beheld
my loneliness and had no occasion to combat my shyness. Nevertheless,
the salons, sharing as they did in the universal agitation, had become
a little less foreign to my mood, and I had made new acquaintances in
spite of myself.
The Marquise de Villette I had met casually. Her husband[405], who bore
a slandered reputation, wrote with Monsieur, the King's brother, in the
_Journal de Paris._ Madame de Villette, still charming, lost a daughter
of sixteen, more charming than her mother, upon whom the Chevalier de
Parny wrote some verses worthy of the Anthology[406].
My regiment, which was in garrison at Rouen, preserved its discipline
pretty late. It had an encounter with the mob on the subject of the
execution of the actor Bordier[407], who underwent the last sentence
pronounced by the parliamentary power; hanged one day, he would have
been a hero the next, had he lived twenty-four hours longer. But at
last the insurrection showed itself among the soldiers of the Navarre
Regiment. The Marquis de Mortemart emigrated; his officers followed
him. I had neither adopted nor rejected the new opinions; I was as
little disposed to attack as to serve them, was unwilling either to
emigrate or to continue in the military career, and I resigned my
commission.
Freed from all bonds, I had, on the one side, somewhat animated
discussions with my brother and the President de Rosanbo; on the other,
discussions no less embittered with Ginguené, La Harpe, and Chamfort.
From my early youth, my political impartiality pleased nobody. Besides,
I attached importance to the questions then raised only through general
ideas concerning the liberty and dignity of the human race; personal
politics bored me; my real life lay in higher regions.
The streets of Paris, blocked with people night and day, were no longer
suited to my lounging inclinations. To recover the desert, I took
refuge in the theatre: I ensconced myself at the back of a box and
allowed my thoughts to wander to the sound of Racine's[408] verses,
Sacchini's[409] music, or the Opera ballets. I must have had the
courage to see _Barbe-bleue_[410] and the _Sabot perdu_[411] twenty
times in succession at the Italiens, courting tedium in order to dispel
it, like an owl in a hole in a wall; while the monarchy fell, I heard
neither the cracking of the venerable vaults nor the screeching of the
vaudeville, neither Mirabeau's voice thundering in the tribune nor
Colin's singing to Babet on the stage:
Qu'il pleuve, qu'il vente ou qu'il neige,
Quand la nuit est longue, ou l'abrège[412].
Madame Ginguené sometimes sent M. Monet, the director of mines, and his
young daughter to disturb my unsociable mood: Mademoiselle Monet took
her seat in the front of the box; I sat, half pleased, half grumbling,
behind her. I do not know whether she attracted me, whether I liked
her; but I was very much afraid of her. When she was gone, I regretted
her, while rejoicing at no longer seeing her. Still, I sometimes went,
with the perspiration standing on my brow, to fetch her for a walk: I
gave her my arm, and I believe I pressed hers a little.
One idea governed me, the idea of going to the United States: a
useful object was wanting for my voyage; I proposed, as I have said
in the Memoirs and in several of my works, to discover the North-West
Passage. This plan was not out of keeping with my poetic nature. No one
troubled himself about me; I was at that time, like Bonaparte, a slim
sub-lieutenant, entirely unknown; both of us emerged from obscurity at
the same period, I to seek renown in solitude, he to seek glory among
mankind. I had not attached myself to any woman, and my sylph still
possessed my imagination. I placed before myself the bliss of realizing
my fantastic wanderings in her company in the forests of the New World.
Through the influence of a new manifestation of nature, my flower of
love, my nameless phantom of the woods of Armorica, grew into _Atala_
beneath the shady groves of Florida.
[Sidenote: The North-West passage.]
M. de Malesherbes excited me on the subject of this voyage. I went
to see him in the mornings: we sat, with our noses glued to maps;
we compared the different plans of the Arctic Circle; we calculated
the distances between Behring's Straits and the furthermost part of
Hudson's Bay; we read the different narratives of the travellers and
navigators, English, Dutch, French, Russian, Swedish, Danish; we
enquired into the roads to be followed on land to reach the shores
of the Polar Sea; we discussed the difficulties to be overcome, the
precautions to be taken against the rigours of the climate, the attacks
of wild animals, the scarcity of food. This illustrious man said to me:
"If I were younger, I would go with you, I would spare myself the sight
of all the crimes, meannesses and madnesses which I see about me.
But, at my age, a man must die where he stands. Do not fail to write
to me by every ship, to keep me informed of your progress and your
discoveries: I will commend them to the ministers. It is a great pity
that you know no botany."
After these conversations, I would peruse Tournefort[413],
Duhamel[414], Bernard de Jussieu[415], Grew[416], Jacquin,
Rousseau's[417] Dictionary, the _Flores élementaires_; I ran to the
Jardin du Roi, and before long thought myself a very Linnæus[418].
At last, in January 1791, I seriously made up my mind. The chaos
was increasing: it was sufficient to bear an "aristocratic" name
to be exposed to persecution: the more moderate and conscientious
your opinions the more were you liable to suspicion and annoyance. I
therefore resolved to strike my tents: I left my brother and my sisters
in Paris, and made for Brittany.
At Fougères I met the Marquis de La Rouërie: I asked him to give me
a letter for General Washington[419]. "Colonel Armand" (the name by
which the marquis was known in America) had distinguished himself in
the American War of Independence. He made himself famous in France
through the royalist conspiracy which made such touching victims in the
Desilles[420] family. He having died while organizing this conspiracy,
his body was disinterred and recognized, and caused the misfortune of
his hosts and of his friends. The rival of La Fayette and Lauzun, the
predecessor of La Rochejacquelein, the Marquis de La Rouërie was a
more spirited person than they: he had fought oftener than the first;
he had carried off opera-singers like the second; he would have become
the companion in arms of the third. He swept the woods in Brittany in
company with an American major[421], and with a monkey seated on his
horse's crupper. The Rennes law-students loved him for his boldness of
action and his liberty of ideas: he had been one of the twelve Breton
nobles sent to the Bastille. His figure and manners were elegant, his
appearance smart, his features charming, and he resembled the portraits
of the young lords of the League.
[Sidenote: I embark for America.]
I selected Saint-Malo as my port of embarkation, in order to embrace
my mother. I have told you in the third book of these Memoirs how I
passed through Combourg and of the sentiments that oppressed me. I
stayed two months at Saint-Malo, busying myself with preparations for
my departure, as I had done before, when I was thinking of departing
for the Indies.
I struck a bargain with a captain called Dujardin[422], who was to
carry to Baltimore the Abbé Nagault[423], superior of the seminary of
Saint-Sulpice, and several seminarists under the conduct of their head.
These travelling companions would have been more to my liking four
years earlier: from being a zealous Christian I had become "a man of
strong mind[424]," in other words a man of weak mind. This change in
my religious opinions had been brought about by reading philosophical
books. I believed in good faith that a religious mind was in part
paralyzed, that there existed truths which it was unable to comprehend,
superior though it might be in other respects. This blessed pride
imposed upon me; I inferred in the religious mind that very absence of
a faculty which exists precisely in the philosophic mind: the narrow
intelligence thinks that it sees everything because it keeps its eyes
open; the superior intelligence consents to close its eyes, because it
sees everything within. Lastly, one thing finished me: the groundless
despair which I carried at the bottom of my heart.
A letter from my brother has fixed the date of my departure in my
memory: he wrote to my mother from Paris, informing her of the death of
Mirabeau[425]. Three days after the arrival of this letter, I joined
the ship lying in the roads[426]; my luggage was already on board. The
anchor was weighed, a solemn moment with mariners. The sun was setting
when the coasting pilot left us, after putting us through the channels.
The weather was overcast, the wind slack, and the swell beat heavily
upon the rocks at a few cables' length from our vessel.
My eyes remained fixed upon Saint-Malo, where I had left my mother in
tears. I saw the steeples and domes of the churches where I had prayed
with Lucile, the walls, the ramparts, the forts, the towers, the beach
where I had spent my childhood with Gesril and my other play-fellows; I
was abandoning my distracted country at the moment when she had lost a
man who could never be replaced. I was going away in equal uncertainty
as to my country's destinies and my own: which of us was to perish,
France or I? Should I ever see France and my family again?
With nightfall came a calm which kept us lying at the mouth of the
roads; the lights of the town and the beacons were kindled: those
lights which twinkled beneath my paternal roof seemed at once to smile
to me and bid me farewell, while lighting me amid the rocks, the
darkness of the night, and the blackness of the waves.
I carried with me only my youth and my illusions: I was deserting a
world whose dust I had trod and whose stars I had counted for a world
of which the soil and the sky were both unknown to me. What was to
become of me if I attained the object of my voyage? While I roamed
upon the polar shores, the years of discord which have crushed so
many generations with so loud a noise would have fallen silently over
my head; society would have renewed its aspect in my absence. It is
probable that I should never have had the misfortune to write; my name
would have remained unknown, or would have won only a peaceful renown
of the kind which is less than glory, which is scorned by envy and left
to happiness. Who knows whether I would have recrossed the Atlantic,
whether I would not have settled down among the solitudes explored and
discovered at my peril and risk, like a conqueror in the midst of his
conquests!
[Sidenote: We set sail.]
But no, I was to return to my native land, there to undergo altered
miseries, to become something quite different from what I had been! The
sea in whose lap I was born was about to become the cradle of my second
life; she bore me upon my first voyage as though in the bosom of my
foster-mother, in the arms of the confidant of my first tears and my
first pleasures.
The ebb-tide, in the absence of the wind, carried us out to sea;
the lights of the shore grew smaller and smaller, and disappeared.
Exhausted with my reflections, with vague regrets, with even vaguer
hopes, I went below to my cabin: I lay down to rest, rocked in my
hammock to the sound of the billows which caressed the side of the
vessel. The wind rose; the unfurled sails, which hung flapping about
the masts, filled out, and when, next morning, I went up on deck, the
land of France was out of sight.
Here toy destinies changed: "Again to sea!" as Byron sings.
[218] This book was written in Paris between June and December 1821,
and revised in December 1846.--T.
[219] The _Moniteur_ of Sunday 29 April 1821 contains the following,
under the heading, Paris, 28 April: "M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand,
French Minister Plenipotentiary in Berlin, arrived in Paris on the day
before yesterday." The Duc de Bordeaux was christened at Notre-Dame on
the 1st of May 1821.--B.
[220] Villèle left the Cabinet on the 27th of July 1821; Chateaubriand
resigned his ambassadorship on the 31st of July.--B.
[221] Marigny has greatly changed since my sister occupied it. It has
been sold and now belongs to Messieurs de Pommereul, who nave rebuilt
it and much improved it.--_Author's Note._
[222] Antoine Auguste Bruzen de Lamartinière (1662-1746), compiler of
the _Dictionnaire géographique, historique et critique._ He was born
and spent his youth at Dieppe, and was the nephew of Richard Simon
(_vide infra_).--T.
[223] Richard Simon (1638-1712), an early Rationalist, author of a
number of works on the Old and New Testaments, which were promptly
condemned by the Holy See.--T.
[224] Jean Pecquet (1610-1674), discoverer of the chyle reservoir or
_réservoir de Pecquet._--T.
[225] See Madame de Sévigné's letters of 22 December 1664, January
1665, 19 November 1670, and 11 July 1672.--B.
[226] The district of Caux, in Upper Normandy, which includes Dieppe,
is noted for the beauty of its women and the singularity of their
head-dresses.--T.
[227] Renée Élisabeth de La Belinaye (1728-1816), eldest daughter
of Armand Magdelon Comte de La Belinaye, and sister of Thérèse de
La Belinaye who married Anne Joseph Jacques Tuffin de La Rouërie,
and was the mother of the Marquis Armand de La Rouërie, the famous
conspirator.--B.
[228] Jean Baptiste Isoard (1743-1816), known as Delisle de Sales, and
nicknamed Diderot's Ape. Nevertheless, and although certain of his
philosophical treatises were indicted and burned, he fought against
Atheism and Materialism. His works ran into scores of volumes and made
no mark whatever.--T.
[229] Or "villas," as we should say nowadays.--T.
[230] Claude Marie Louis Emmanuel Carbon de Flins des Oliviers
(1757-1806) edited the _Journal de la Ville et des Provinces, ou le
Modérateur_ with Fontanes, and produced, not without success, a number
of comedies in verse.--B.
[231] Jean Baptiste Britard (1721-1791), known as Brizard, a well-known
player of heavy fathers and kings. He retired on the 1st of April
1786.--B.
[232] François Joseph Talma (1763-1826) made his first appearance
in 1787, and is regarded as the greatest actor of his day. Napoleon
Bonaparte admitted him to his intimacy, and twice paid his debts. He
had been educated in England, knew English perfectly, and played in
London on more than one occasion.--T.
[233] Jean Mauduit de Larive (1749-1827) held the stage at the Français
until eclipsed by Talma, when he retired and opened a school of
declamation. He accompanied Joseph Bonaparte to Naples as reader in
1806, and built the hamlet of Larive on his property at Montlignon,
near Montmorency.--T.
[234] Joseph Abraham Bénard (1750-1822), known as Fleury, a very
popular light-comedy actor.--T.
[235] François René Molet (1734-1802), known as Molé, another player
of light-comedy parts, principally those then known as fats and
_petits-maîtres_: fops and dandies. He was an active member of the
Comédie Française for forty-two years, from 1760 to the day of his
death.--T.
[236] Henri Gourgaud (1714-1809), known as Dugazon, played comic
men-servants' parts. He was the brother of Madame Vestris, the tragic
actress.--T.
[237] Jean Baptiste Fouchard de Grandménil (1737-1816) gave up the
bar for the stage. He excelled in _rôles à manteaux_ or mysterious
strangers' parts. He was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, and
professor at the Conservatoire.--T.
[238] Mademoiselle Contat (1760-1813), a very perfect and versatile
actress, who created the part of Suzanne in Beaumarchais' _Mariage de
Figaro_ in 1784. She married M. de Parny, nephew to the poet.--T.
[239] Mademoiselle Saint-Val the younger. Her elder sister had left the
Comédie Française in 1779.--B.
[240] Jeanne Adélaïde Gérardine Olivier (1765-1787), a native of
London. A very charming actress; she was scarcely nineteen when she
created the part of Chérubin in the _Mariage de Figaro_, achieving a
success almost equal to that of Mademoiselle Contat as Suzanne.--B.
[241] Anne Françoise Hippolyte Boutet (1779-1847), known as
Mademoiselle Mars, one of the most famous of French comic actresses.
She made her first appearance at the Théâtre Montansier when thirteen
years of age, in 1792, and did not definitely leave the stage until
1841, when she was sixty-two. She created over one hundred parts at the
Théâtre Français alone, which she joined in 1798.--T.
[242] Jacques Marie Boutet (1745-1811), known as Monvel, an exceedingly
intelligent actor. He commenced by playing Mold's parts at the Comédie
Française, and in later life made a successful heavy father at the
Théâtre de la République. He also wrote a number of successful comedies
and comic operas, and under the Empire became a professor at the
Conservatoire and a Member of the Institute.--T.
Monvel was the father of Mademoiselle Mars by a provincial actress
called Marguerite Salvetat, who acted under the name of Madame Mars,
whence the daughter took her stage-name.--B.
[243] Now the Théâtre du Palais-Royal.--B.
[244] Parny was born in the Île Bourbon.--T.
[245] I here omit some lines quoted from Parny.--T.
[246] Jacques Necker (1732-1804), Controller-General from 1776 to 1781,
1788 to 1789, and 1789 to 1790.--T.
[247] Ginguené was accredited as Ambassador of the French Republic at
Turin in the early part of 1798. By affectation of simplicity, and
also doubtless from economy, he caused his wife to be dispensed from
appearing at the audiences in Court dress. He did not lose an hour
before dispatching a special courier to carry the great piece of news
to the Foreign Minister: the Citizeness Ambassadress had appeared
in a _pet-en-l'air!_ Within a very few days, Talleyrand had signed
Ginguené's recall.--B.
A _pet-en-l'air_ is a very vulgar term for a short morning gown.--T.
[248] The _Décade philosophique_, founded 10 Floréal Year II. (29 April
1794). Ginguené was its editor-in-chief. In 1804, after the Empire had
been established, it changed its title to that of _Revue philosophique,
littéraire et politique._ It ceased to appear in 1807.--B.
[249] Ponce Denis Escouchard Le Brun (1729-1807), nicknamed the French
Pindar, a versatile poet and epigrammatist, who sang by turns, and with
equal fervor, the Monarchy, the Republic, and the Empire. Ginguené
edited and published his Collected Works in 1811.--T.
[250] For an account of this "classical supper," see the Recollections
of Madame Vigée-Lebrun. Le Brun recited imitations of Anacreon, crowned
with Pindar's laurels.--B.
[251] It is true that Le Brun wrote trenchant versus against Bonaparte,
but he kept them to himself, and took care to publish those in which he
extolled him. Bonaparte awarded him a pension of 6000 francs.--B.
[252] Chamfort was his adopted name. He never knew his real name nor
that of his father.--T.
[253] Jacques Delille (1738-1813) translated the _Georgics_, the
_Æneid_, and _Paradise Lost_ into French verse. He had a facile talent
for versification, and was admitted to the French Academy in 1774. He
appears to have been in orders, and undoubtedly for some time held the
abbey of Saint-Séverin, but he never followed an ecclesiastical career,
and he married after the Revolution.--T.
[254] Claude Carloman de Rulhière (1735-1791) was elected to the
Academy in 1787. He commenced life as aide-de-camp to the Marshal
de Richelieu in Guyenne. He then became secretary to the Baron de
Breteuil, whom he accompanied on his embassy to Russia in 1760. In
1765, having meantime enjoyed a pension of 6000 francs for that
purpose, he completed his _Histoire de la révolution de Russie en
1762._ This work, however, could not be published during the lifetime
of Catherine II., and it eventually saw the light in 1797, six years
after the death of the author. He published some poetry, in addition to
the above and other historical works.--T.
[255] The Comtesse d'Egmont was the daughter of the Maréchal de
Richelieu, and it was she who urged Rulhière to adopt a literary
career.--B.
[256] Charles Palissot de Montenoy (1730-1814), author of a number of
more or less polemical comedies, poems, and historical works.--T.
[257] Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799), author of
the _Barbier de Séville_, the _Folle Journée, ou le Manage do Figaro,
Tarare_, &c.--T.
[258] Jean François Marmontel (1723-1799), author of the _Contes
moraux_ and a large number of miscellaneous and voluminous works.--T.
[259] Marie Joseph de Chénier (1764-1811), the poet, brother of André
de Chénier. Chateaubriand succeeded to his chair at the Institute.--T.
[260] Urquhart and Motteux' RABELAIS, Book II. chap. 6: _How Pantagruel
met with a Limosin, who affected to speak in learned phrase._--T.
[261] Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585), the leading French poet of his
day, but also noted for a pedantic affectation of erudition and a
barbarous neologism which made Boileau say of him:
Que sa muse en français parla grec et latin.
("That his muse, speaking French, talked in Latin and Greek").--T.
[262] Chateaubriand wrote this page in June 1821; Fontanes had died on
the 17th of March previous.--B.
[263] Rosanbo was guillotined on 1 Floréal Year II. (20 April 1794).--B.
[264] These are the four leading magisterial or parliamentary families
of France under the Old Order. The Lamoignons produced Guillaume de
Lamoignon (1617-1677), First President of the Parliament of Paris
(1658-1677), himself the son of a chief justice; his sons Chrétien
François de Lamoignon, a chief justice (1690) and Nicolas Lamoignon
de Baville (1648-1724), Counsellor to the Parliament (1670), Master
of Requests (1675), and lastly, Intendant of Languedoc; Guillaume de
Lamoignon, Seigneur de Malesherbes, Chancellor of France (1750-1768),
son of Chrétien François; his son, Chrétien Guillaume de Malesherbes
(1721-1794), the famous minister and counsel for Louis XVI. at
the King's trial; and Chrétien François Lamoignon (_d._ 1789),
Chief Justice of the Parliament of Paris (1758) and Chancellor in
1787, great-grandson of the first Guillaume de Lamoignon. His son,
Christian de Lamoignon, was created a peer of France, and died in
1827; in him the family of Lamoignon became extinct. The Molés held
chief-justiceships from 1602 to the Revolution. The more remarkable
members of the family were Édouard Molé (1558-1641), its founder, son
of a counsellor to the Parliament, himself successively a counsellor,
Procurator-General, and Chief Justice of the Parliament of Paris
(1602); Matthieu Molé (1584-1656), his son, counsellor (1606),
Procurator-General (1614), Chief Justice (1641) and Keeper of the
Seals (1650); and more recently Matthieu Louis Molé (1781-1855), son
of the President Molé de Champlatreux, Minister of Justice under
Bonaparte (1813), who created him a count of the Empire, Minister
of Marine (1815-1818) under the Restoration, when he became a peer
of France, Foreign Minister (1830-1836), and Premier (1836-1839)
under Louis Philippe. In 1840 he was elected a member of the French
Academy. Of the Séguiers, Pierre Séguier (1504-1580) was an advocate,
Advocate-General, and Chief Justice; his son, Antoine Séguier
(1552-1626), was a counsellor to the Parliament, Advocate-General,
and Ambassador of Henry IV. at Venice; Pierre Séguier (1588-1672),
grandson of the first Pierre, was Intendant of Guyenne, Keeper of the
Seals (1633), and Chancellor (1635); Antoine Louis Séguier (1726-1791)
was Advocate-General to the Grand Council and subsequently to the
Parliament (1755-1790) and a member of the French Academy (1757); and
his son, Matthieu Séguier (_d._ 1848), was for many years a chief
justice. Henri François d'Aguesseau (1688-1751) was the son of an
intendant of Limousin, and was Chancellor of France from 1717 to 1718,
1720 to 1722, and 1737 to 1750.--T.
[265] _Cf. inter alia_, the character of the Présidente de Tourvel in
Choderlos de Laclos' _Liaisons dangereuses._--T.
[266] This must be a slip of the pen. Malesherbes had only two
daughters: Marie Thérèse, born 1756, who married, in 1769,
Louis Le Peletier, Seigneur de Rosanbo, and Françoise Pauline,
born 1758, who married, in 1775, Charles Philippe Simon de
Montboissier-Beaufort-Canillac, commanding the Orléans Regiment of
Dragoons.--B.
[267] The President de Rosanbo's three daughters married the Comte de
Chateaubriand, the author's brother, the Comte Lepelletier d'Aulnay,
and the Comte de Tocqueville. The last was made a lord of the
Bed-chamber and a peer of France by Charles X., and was the father of
Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the _Démocratie en Amérique._--B.
[268] Louis Le Peletier, Vicomte de Rosanbo (1777-1858) was created a
peer of France on the same day as Chateaubriand, 17 August 1815, and
together with the latter, retired from the Upper House in August 1830,
refusing to take the oath to the usurper.--B.
[269] Navigated in recent years by Captain Franklin and Captain
Parry.--(_Author's Note_ Geneva, 1831).
[270] René Nicolas Maupeou (1714-1792) succeeded his father in 1768 as
Chancellor of France. In 1771 he banished the Parliament of Paris and
installed in its stead the King's Privy Council, which was derisively
nicknamed the "Maupeou Parliament" by the public, and which continued
in power until the death of Louis XV. in 1774, when the Parliament was
restored and Maupeou banished in his turn.--T.
[271] Of the royal edicts.--T.
[272] Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802), Controller-General of
Finance (1783-1787).--T.
[273] Armand Marc Comte de Montmorin-Saint-Hérem (1746-1792), Minister
of Foreign Affairs under Necker, and killed in the massacres of
September.--T.
[274] Étienne Charles de Loménie, Comte de Brienne (1727-1794),
successively Bishop of Condom, Archbishop of Toulouse, Archbishop of
Sens, and a cardinal. In 1787 he was appointed Controller-General, and
soon after became Prime Minister. He was arrested in 1793 and died in
prison in 1794.--T.
[275] Anne of Brittany (1476-1514), daughter and heiress of Duke
François II., was first married by proxy to the Emperor Maximilian I.
The marriage was not consummated, and in 1491 Anne married King Charles
VIII. of France. Charles died in 1498, and in 1499 his widow married
his cousin and successor, Louis XII.--T.
[276] Charles of Blois, son of Margaret, sister of Philip VI., married
in 1337 Joan of Penthièvre, daughter of Guy, and niece of John III.,
Duke of Brittany, on the understanding that he was to succeed to the
latter's estates. Upon the death of John in 1341, a war broke out
between Charles and the Count of Montfort (_vide infra_) which lasted
until 1364, when Charles was slain at the Battle of Auray.--T.
[277] John Count of Montfort, brother of John III. Duke of Brittany,
assumed the title of John IV. He died in 1345, and was succeeded by his
son John V., who eventually entered into possession of the Duchy.--T.
[278] Letter to Madame de Grignan, 5 August 1671.--T.
[279] M. de Sévigné, her son.--_Author's Note._
[280] A play upon words: a _roué_ is a rake and also one broken on the
wheel.--T.
[281] Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac(1755-1841), President of the
Convention during the trial of Louis XVI., and member of the Committee
of Public Safety (1793-1795).--T.
[282] A Suisse, or porter.--T.
[283] This duel took place _circa_ 1735 between Jean François de
Kératry, a younger son from Cornouaille, not Morbihan, and the Marquis,
not Comte, de Sabran.--B.
[284] A large proportion of Breton names commence with Ker: one says a
"Ker" of Brittany as who should say a "Tre, Pol, or Pen" of Cornwall or
a "Thwaite" of Westmoreland.--T.
[285] St. Corentin was the first titular Bishop of Cornouaille (or
Quimper), which see was created by King Gallon, or Grallon, Mur, or the
Great, not "three centuries before Christ," but towards the close of
the fifth century A.D.--B.
[286] Giuseppe Balsamo (1743-1795), known as Alessandro Conte di
Cagliostro, the conjurer, and one of the leading spirits in the affair
of the Necklace.--T.
[287] Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), the discoverer of animal
magnetism.--T.
[288] Louis Anne Pierre Geslin, Comte (not Marquis) de Trémargat (_b._
1749), a naval officer and knight of St. Louis.--B.
[289] Henri Charles Comte de Thiard-Bissy (1726-1794), a
lieutenant-general and principal equerry to the Duc d'Orléans. In
February 1787 he succeeded M. de Montmorin in his post of King's
Commandant in Brittany. He was guillotined on the 26th of July 1794.--B.
[290] The twelve gentlemen sent to the Bastille, 15 July 1788, were
the Marquis de La Rouërie, the Comte de La Fruglaye, the Marquis de
La Bourdonnaye de Montluc, the Comte de Trémargat, the Marquis de
Corné, the Comte Godet de Châtillon, the Vicomte de Champion de Cicé,
the Marquis Alexis de Bedée, the Chevalier de Guer, the Marquis du
Bois de La Feronnière, the Comte Hay des Nétumières, and the Comte
de Becdelièvre-Penhouët. Their captivity was anything but harsh, and
lasted under two months, from 15 July to 12 September 1788.--B.
[291] Gabriel Comte Cortois de Pressigny (1745-1823). He emigrated in
1791; on the Restoration he was sent as a special envoy to the Holy
See. In 1816 he was created a peer of France, and in 1817 appointed
Archbishop of Besançon.--B.
[292]
"Along the avenue
The devil went so fast
That he was lost to view
Before an hour had passed."--T.
[293]
"The beautiful maid became a duck,
Became a duck, became a duck,
And through a lattice off she flew
To a pond where duck-weed grew."--T.
[294] Pierre and François Guillaume de La Saudre. The Château de
Bonnaban is still one of the finest seats in the neighbourhood of
Saint-Malo. It is now the property of the Comte de Kergariou.--B.
[295] The Briantais, at Saint-Servan, on the banks of the Rance, was
at that time the property of the Picot de Prémesnil family, and now
belongs to M. Lachambre, a late member of the Chamber of Deputies.--B.
[296] The Bosq and the Montmarin faced each other on opposite banks of
the Rance: the former at Saint-Servan, the latter at Pleurtuit. Both
belonged to the opulent family of Magon.--B.
[297] The Balue, at Saint-Servan, also belonged to the Magons.--B.
[298] The Colombier, at Paramé, was the property, in 1788, of the Eon
de Carissan family.--B.
[299] The Château de Lascardais was the principal residence of M. and
Madame de Chateaubourg. It is in the commune of Mézières, canton of
Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, Arrondissement of Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine)
and is now occupied by Madame la Vicomtesse de Breil de Pontbriand, the
Comtesse de Chateaubourg's grand-daughter.--B.
[300] Le Plessis-Pillet is in the commune of Dourdain, canton of
Liffré, Arrondissement of Fougères.--B.
[301] Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier is twelve miles S.E. of Fougères. The
tower is a very tall one. The battle referred to is that in which
La Trémoille defeated the Bretons and the revolted Duc d'Orléans
(afterwards Louis XII.) in 1488.--T.
[302] Robert Lambert Livorel (not Livoret) entered the Company of Jesus
in 1753, at the age of eighteen. He was a coadjutor brother at Rennes
College at the time of the suppression of the Company in 1762.--B.
[303] Louis Bruno Comte de Boisgelin (1734-1794), Knight of St. Louis
and of the Holy Ghost, and holder of several Court and military
appointments. He was guillotined on the 7th of July 1794; his wife, a
sister of the Chevalier de Boufflers, ascended the scaffold on the same
day.--B.
[304] François Bareau de Girac (1736-1820).--B.
[305] The name of Keralieu does not figure upon the lists of the States
of 1788-1789, nor is it to be found in the Breton peerages. Doubtless
the name should read Kersalaün. A duel did, in fact, take place between
M. de Kersalaün and a young citizen of Rennes, Joseph Marie Jacques
Blin. Jean Joseph Comte de Kersalaün was the eldest son of the Marquis
de Kersalaün, the senior member of the Parliament. He was forty-five,
and therefore much "older" than his adversary, who was only twenty-four
years of age.--B.
[306] Captain René François Joseph de Montbourcher (1759-1835). His
name was pronounced Montboucher, as Chateaubriand spells it.--B.
[307] Louis Pierre de Guehenneuc de Boishue (1767-1789) eldest son of
Jean Baptiste René de Guehenneuc, Comte de Boishue. He was therefore
only twenty-one years of age when he was killed, on the 27th of January
1789, in the streets of Rennes, at the same time as young Saint-Riveul
(on whom see note _ante_).--B.
[308] The sacking of the house of Reveillon, the paper manufacturer of
the Rue Saint-Antoine, took place 28 April 1789.--T.
[309] 4 May 1789.--T.
[310] 20 June 1789.--T.
[311] 30 June 1789.--T.
[312] Camille Desmoulins (1760-1794) delivered his famous harangue, at
the conclusion of which he distributed leaves from the trees overhead
to the rioters as a rallying-token, in the Palais-Royal on the 12th of
July 1789. He was guillotined 5 April 1794--T.
[313] 30 June 1789.--B.
[314] Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau (1749-1791),
represented the Third Estate of the town of Aix in the National
Assembly.--T.
[315] Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil (_b._ 1733) was
head of the Royal Household and Governor of Paris when placed at the
head of this short-lived ministry.--T.
[316] Victor François Maréchal Duc de Broglie (1718-1804) became
Minister of War. He was a distinguished soldier, and had been created
a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1759 by the Emperor of Germany in
recognition of his services in the war against Prussia. The title is
still borne by the heads of both branches of the Broglie family.--T.
[317] Arnaud de La Porte (1737-1792), Intendant-General of the Navy. In
1790 he was appointed Intendant of the Civil List, and distinguished
himself by his fidelity and firmness in the King's cause, notably at
the time of the arrest at Varennes. He perished on the scaffold in
1792.--T.
[318] Joseph François Foullon (1715-1789) was appointed
Controller-General of Finance on the 12th of July and hanged from a
lantern in the Rue de la Verrerie on the 22nd, thus becoming one of the
first victims of the Revolution.--T.
[319] Armand Marc Comte de Montmorin-Saint-Hérem (_d._ 1792) was
Minister of Foreign Affairs in Necker's cabinet. In 1791 he received
the portfolio of the Interior. He perished in the massacres of
September 1792.--T.
[320] César Guillaume de la Luzerne (1738-1821), Bishop of Langres,
created a cardinal in 1817.--T.
[321] François Emmanuel Guignard, Comte de Saint-Priest (1735-1821),
Minister of the Interior, created a Peer of France in 1815.--T.
[322] Louis Jules Mancini-Mazarini, Duc de Nivernais (1716-1798).--T.
[323] Charles Henri Sanson (_b._ 1739), appointed public executioner in
1778 by Louis XVI., who died by his hand fifteen years later.--B.
[324] Antoine Simon (_d._ 1794), cobbler and member of the Paris
Commune, appointed tutor to Louis XVII., 1 July 1793, guillotined 28
July 1794.--B.
[325] Marie Thérèse of France (1778-1851), daughter of Louis XVI.,
married in 1799 her cousin the Duc d'Angoulême, second son of the Comte
d'Artois, later Charles X.--T.
[326] "Of my birth I have the splendour."--T.
[327] Louis Duc de Normandie (1785-1795), second son of Louis XVI.,
became Dauphin on the death of his elder brother, and was recognised
as King of France by the emigrants and the foreign Powers after the
execution of his father. He died a wretched death in the Temple, 8 June
1795.--T.
[328] Louis Philippe Joseph, fifth Duc d'Orléans (1747-1793), nicknamed
Philippe Égalité, voted for the King's death, and was himself
guillotined, 6 November 1793.--T.
[329] In a speech made on the 9th of January 1816, preparatory to the
general mourning ordered for the 21st, the anniversary of the execution
of Louis XVT.--B.
[330] Charles Eugène of Lorraine, Duc d'Elbeuf, Prince de Lambesc
(1754-1825), a kinsman of Marie Antoinette, whom he accompanied to
France, becoming colonel of the regiment known as Royal-Allemand. After
his trial and acquittal for charging the people at the Tuileries, he
emigrated and took service in the Austrian army, rising to the rank
of Lieutenant-Field-Marshal in 1796. He continued to live in Vienna
after the Restoration, and died there, childless, in 1825, one of the
branches of the House of Lorraine dying out with him.--T.
[331] Bernard René Jourdan, Marquis de Launey (1740-1789),
Captain-Governor of the Bastille.--B.
[332] Jacques de Flesselles (1721-1789), provost of the merchants of
Paris.--T.
[333] An unsavoury eminence, between the Faubourg Saint-Martin and the
Faubourg du Temple, on which stood a number of gibbets, erected early
in the fourteenth century.--T.
[334] After a lapse of fifty-two years, fifteen bastilles are being
built in order to oppress the liberty in whose name the first Bastille
was destroyed.--_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1841).
[335] Marie Paul Joseph Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de La Fayette
(1757-1834) had taken a leading part in the assistance rendered by the
French to the American Revolution. He was outlawed in 1792, fled, was
captured by the Austrians, and imprisoned, for his complicity in the
French Revolution, in the citadel of Olmütz, until 1797. This foreign
captivity doubtless saved him from the native guillotine. He took
no part in public affairs until the Restoration, when he sat in the
Chamber of Deputies as a member of the opposition. In 1830, after the
Orleanist usurpation he for the second time received the command of the
National Guard.--T.
[336] Jean Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793) was a member of the
French Academy and of the Academy of Science, and keeper of the
picture-gallery at Versailles. He became the first president of the
National Assembly, having presided at the occasion of the Oath of the
Tennis Court, and was the first Mayor of Paris. His popularity left him
in 1791, after his endeavour to suppress the riotous meetings in the
Champ-de-Mars; he resigned the mayoralty and quitted Paris. In 1793,
he was recognised at Melun, brought back to Paris, and guillotined (11
November).--T.
[337] Yolande Martine Gabrielle, Duchesse de Polignac (1749-1793),
_née_ de Polastron, wife of the Comte Jules, later Duc de Polignac,
governess of the Children of France, and favourite of Marie Antoinette.
She was the mother of the Prince de Polignac who became minister to
Charles X.--T.
[338] Louis Antoine, Duc d'Angoulême (1775-1844), and Charles
Ferdinand, Duc de Berry (1778-1820).--T.
[339] Louis Joseph Prince de Condé (1736-1818), his son Louis Henri
Joseph Duc de Bourbon (1756-1830), and his grandson Louis Antoine Henri
Duc d'Enghien (1772-1804).--T.
[340] The King's aunts, daughters of Louis XV.: Madame Adélaïde
(1732-1800) and Madame Victoire (1733-1799). They emigrated in 1791.--T.
[341] Madame Élisabeth (1764-1794), the King's sister, guillotined 10
May 1794.--T.
[342] Louis Stanislas Xavier Comte de Provence (1755-1824); succeeded
to the Crown in 1795 as Louis XVIII. "Monsieur" is the title of the
eldest brother of the King of France.--T.
[343] Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry (1750-1819), chairman of
the electors of Paris. He was arrested after the 10th of August 1792,
but succeeded in making good his escape.--B.
[344] Trophine Gérard Marquis de Lally-Tolendal (1751-1830), delegate
of the nobles of Paris to the States-General. He too escaped from the
Abbaye after his arrest in August, and took refuge in England, whence
he wrote to the Convention in order to obtain the honour (eventually
awarded to Malesherbes) of defending Louis XVI. He was created a peer
of France under the Restoration, and made a member of the French
Academy; in 1817 he received his marquisate, the original title of the
family being Comte de Lally and Baron Tollendal in Ireland.--T.
[345] Jean Paul Marat (1744-1793), the famous demagogue of the
Terror.--T.
[346] Louis Bénigne François Bertier de Sauvigny (1742-1789), Intendant
of Paris, and son-in-law to Foullon. He was hanged from a lantern after
being made to kiss the head of his father-in-law, who had just met with
the same fate.--T.
[347] Taboureau des Réaux, Intendant of Valenciennes, was
Controller-General from October 1776 to June 1777.--B.
[348] Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de L'Aulne (1727-1781),
Controller-General from 1774 to 1776.--T.
[349] Alexandre Frédéric Jacques Masson, Marquis de Pezay (1741-1777),
commenced life as an officer of Musketeers, and made his name known
by means of some trivial drawing-room verse and of his inferior prose
translations of Tibullus, Catullus, and Propertius. He was charged
with the duty of instructing Louis XVI., then Dauphin, in elementary
tactics, managed to insinuate himself into the Prince's intimacy, and
eventually succeeded in bringing about the fall of Terray and the rise
of Necker.--T.
[350] The _Compte rendu au Roi_ was a sort of specimen budget published
by Necker in 1780, from which public opinion was for the first time
enabled to form an opinion of the working of the administration of the
public revenues, till then kept secret. The _Compte rendu_ caused a
prodigious sensation.--B.
[351] Antoine Leonard Thomas (1732-1785), a member of the French
Academy, and a man of letters noted for rhetoric and over-emphasis of
style. Chateaubriand's allusion is to the excessive optimism of the
_Compte rendu_, which showed a very large surplus.--T.
[352] Anne Louise Germaine Baronne de Staël-Holstein (1766-1817), the
most famous of women-writers. She married the Baron de Staël-Holstein,
Swedish Ambassador to France, in 1786. He died in 1802, and eight years
later she was married for the second time, but secretly, to a young
officer, M. de Rocca. In 1815 she obtained two million francs from
Louis XVIII., by way of a restitution of moneys due to her father.--T.
[353] Louis Marie Vicomte de Noailles (1756-1804), second son of
Philippe de Noailles, Marshal Duc de Mouchy, and brother-in-law of La
Fayette. He took part in the French expedition to the United States,
and pronounced himself in favour of the Revolution in 1789. He sat
in the States-General as deputy for the nobility of the bailiwick of
Nemours.--T.
[354] Armand Désiré de Wignerod-Duplessis-Richelieu, Duc d'Aiguillon
(1731-1800), representative of the nobility of the seneschalty of Agen
in the States-General, and son of the Duc d'Aiguillon, Prime Minister
to Louis XV.--T.
[355] Matthieu Jean Félicité Vicomte, later Duc de Montmorency-Laval
(1767-1826), had also imbibed his revolutionary opinions in the
American Campaign. He abandoned them, however, at the Restoration,
under which he became a peer of France, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
a member of the French Academy, and a duke. In January 1826 he was
appointed governor to the Duc de Bordeaux, but died a few weeks
later.--T.
[356] In the Opera-house, 1 October 1789.--T.
[357] When Louis XVI. entered the hall, M. de Canecaude, commissary
of the King's Military Household, ordered the band-master to play
Grétry's "_Où peut-on être mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?_" "Where is
greater happiness found than in one's family circle?" The band-master
replied that he had not the music, and played, "_Ô Richard! ô mon Roi,
l'univers t'abandonne_:" "O Richard, O my King, the world is forsaking
thee," from Richard Cœur-de-Lion by the same composer.--B.
[358] Vice-Admiral Charles Hector Comte d'Estaing (1729-1794) was a
member of both forces, and had seen much service both on sea and land.
He embraced the side of the Revolution, and was at this time Commandant
of the National Guard. He was guillotined 28 April 1794.--T.
[359] Marat's paper was first published 12 September 1789, with the
title the _Publiciste parisien._ With the sixth issue, that is, on 17
September 1789, the title was changed to the _Ami du peuple, ou le
Publiciste parisien._--B.
[360] The paper money of the French Republic, "assigned" upon the
spoils of the clergy, &c.--T.
[361] Thomas Mahi, Marquis de Favras (1744-1790), was accused of
conspiring to assassinate La Fayette, Necker, and Bailly, and
to carry off Louis XVI. in order to place him at the head of an
anti-revolutionary army. He was condemned to be hanged, and executed 19
February 1790--T.
[362] The so-called cahiers or note-books consisted of the official
instructions of the electors to the deputies to the States-General.--T.
[363] The original name of the Riquettis de Mirabeau was Arrighetti.--T.
[364] Victor Riquetti, Marquis de Mirabeau (1715-1789). He joined
the economists, advocated liberty, and called himself the Friend of
Men, after the title of his principal work, the _Ami des hommes_:
nevertheless he proved himself the tyrant of his family, a bad husband,
and a bad father. He died on the eve of the capture of the Bastille, 13
July 1789.--T.
[365] Jean Antoine Joseph Charles Elzéar de Riquetti (1717-1794). He
adopted the title of _bailli_ in 1763, on becoming a grand-cross of the
Order of Malta, and was thenceforth known as the Bailli de Mirabeau.--B.
[366] Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755), author of the
famous Memoirs.--T.
[367] Reine Philiberte Marquise de Villette (_d._ 1822), _née_ Roupt
de Varicourt, was adopted by Voltaire at the instance of his niece,
Mme. Denis. She called him uncle; he called her "_Belle et bonne_,"
and married her in 1777 to the Marquis de Villette (_vide infra_, p.
178).--T.
[368] Isaac René Guy Le Chapelier (1754-1794), one of the most capable
members of the Constituent Assembly, and a founder of the Club Breton,
later the Club des Jacobins. He was guillotined 22 April 1794.--T.
[369] Sophie Marquise de Monnier (1760-1789), _née_ Ruffei. For eloping
with her, Mirabeau was imprisoned for nearly four years, 1777-1780,
at Vincennes by _lettre-de-cachet_ obtained at his father's instance.
His letters to Sophie from Vincennes, written in a style of exalted
sentiment, were published in 1792 in 4 vols. 8vo. The lady herself was
locked up in a convent until the death of her husband, a man very much
her senior. She eventually committed suicide because of the infidelity
of one of her lovers.--T.
[370] Riquetti, not Riquet, instead of Mirabeau. It was in the account
of the sitting in which titles of nobility were abolished that the
journalist, in conformity with that abolition, dropped Mirabeau's
territorial title, and wrote of him by his patronymic of Riquetti.--B.
[371] André Boniface Louis Riquetti, Vicomte de Mirabeau (1754-1792),
the Comte de Mirabeau's younger brother, nicknamed Mirabeau-Tonneau,
because of his stoutness, to distinguish him from his brother,
Mirabeau-Tonnerre.--T.
[372] M. de Lautrec de Saint-Simon was not a member of the Constituent
Assembly, but acted as one of Mirabeau-Tonneau's seconds in his duel
with the Duc de Liancourt.--B.
[373] Maximilien Marie Isidore Robespierre (1759-1794), the leader of
the Terror.--T.
[374] The Château de Montaigne stood on a hill near the village of
Saint-Michel, five leagues from Bergerac, in Guyenne. Montaigne was
on one occasion captured by marauders and likely to be shot. His
good-humour won not only his release but the restoration of the
property of which he had been robbed (_Cf._ MONTAIGNE, Booke III. chap.
12: _Of Physiognomy_).--T.
[375] Laurent Marshal Marquis Gouvion-Saint-Cyr (1764-1830), later a
distinguished officer in the armies of the Republic and the Empire. He
would appear to have achieved no great success as either an amateur or
professional actor.--T.
[376] L'_Autre Tartufe, ou, la Mère Coupable_, a prose drama in five
acts, produced 6 June 1792.--B.
[377] The four leading and accomplished singers in the Italian _Opera
Buffa_ company which first played in the Salle des Machines at the
Tuileries and later, when the Royal Family came to occupy the palace,
at the Théâtre de Monsieur, renamed Théâtre de la Rue Feydeau.--B.
[378] Louise Rosalie Lefèvre (1755-1821), wife of the actor Dugazon,
a brilliant performer of amoureuses or leading ladies at the Théâtre
Italien, later Opéra Comique, in the Rue Favart.--T.
[379] Jeanne Charlotte Dame d'Herbey (1764-1850), _née_ Schrœder, known
as Madame Saint-Aubin, a player of _ingénues'_ parts at the Opéra
Comique.--B.
[380] Marie Gabrielle Malagrida (1763-1818), known as Carline, and
married to Nivelon, the dancer at the Opera. She played _soubrettes_
charmingly at the Théâtre Italien, but her acting was better than her
singing: she had a very small voice.--B.
[381] Chateaubriand is mistaken here. He is writing of the theatres in
1789 and 1790, whereas Mademoiselle Olivier died in 1787.--B.
[382] André Ernest Modeste Gréry (1741-1813), the famous composer.--T.
[383] Marguerite Françoise Comtesse de Buffon (1767-1808), _née_ de
Bouvier de Cépoy, and wife of Georges Louis Marie Leclerc, Comte de
Buffon, son of the great writer. She was the mistress of Philippe
Égalité, to whom she bore a son who was killed when fighting in the
English army in the Peninsula. The Comte de Buffon was guillotined
10 July 1794. In 1798 his widow married M. Renouard de Bussières, a
Strasburg banker.--B.
[384] The town-house of Louis Alexandre Duc de La Rochefoucauld
(1735-1792).--T.
[385] Pauline Marie Michelle Frédérique Ulrique Comtesse de Beaumont
(1768-1803), _née_ de Montmorin-Saint-Hérem, wife of the Comte
Christophe François de Beaumont.--B.
[386] Anne Louise Dame de Shrilly, _née_ Thomas, wife of Antoine Jean
François de Megret de Sérilly. Her husband and brother-in-law were
guillotined in 1794. Her own death-sentence was commuted owing to the
fact that she was pregnant In 1795 she married François de Pange, who
died in September 1796.--B.
[387]
"Arras' candle so sacred and bright,
The torch that from far Provence came,
Although they afford us no light,
Are setting our fair France aflame;
We cannot touch them, no doubt.
But hope to snuff both of them out."
Robespierre was deputy for Arras, Mirabeau for Aix, the old capital of
Provence.--T.
[388] Pierre de L'Éstoile (1540-1611) Grand-Crier to the French
Chancery, and author of a valuable diary of the times of Henry III. and
Henry IV.--T.
[389] The _Actes des Apôtres_ was published from November 1789
to October 1791; 311 numbers were issued in all. Its principal
contributors were Peltier, Rivarol, Champcenetz, Mirabeau the younger,
the Marquis de Bonnay, François Suleau, Montlosier, Bergasse, &c.--B.
[390] The _Journal de la Ville et des Provinces, ou, le Modérateur_,
edited by M. de Fontanes, first appeared 1 October 1789.--B.
[391] Jacques Mallet-Dupan (1749-1800), political editor of the
_Mercure de France._ He left France in 1792, returned first to his
native city, Geneva, and then settled in London, where he founded the
Mercure britannique (1799).--T.
[392] The Chevalier de Champcenetz (1759-1794), one of the wittiest
Royalist partisans under the Revolution; arrested and murdered in
1794.--T.
[393] Antoine Comte de Rivarol (1753-1801), a brilliant and caustic
wit.--T.
[394] The wife of Le Jay the bookseller, Mirabeau's publisher.--B.
[395] Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803), author
of _Les Liaisons dangereuses_, editor of the _Journal des amis de la
Constitution_, and secretary to the Duc d'Orléans. He served as an
artillery-general in the Army of Italy.--T.
[396] Armand Louis de Gontaut-Biron, Duc de Lauzun (1747-1793), son of
the Duc de Biron, to whose title he succeeded in 1788. He fought on
the American side in the War of Independence, and served as a general
in the republican armies until his arrest and execution, 31 December
1793.--T.
[397] The two brothers Arthur Comte de Dillon and Theobald de Dillon,
both fought in the republican campaigns. Arthur was executed in 1794,
Theobald killed in 1792 by his soldiers, who believed that he was
betraying them.--T.
[398] Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838), Bishop
of Autun, created Prince de Bénévent by Bonaparte m 1806, Duc de
Talleyrand and Duc de Dino by Louis XVIII. in 1817.--T.
[399] Pierre Victor Baron de Besenval (1722-1791), whose Memoirs were
published in 1805-1807 by the Vicomte de Ségur, but were disowned by
the baron's family.--T.
[400] Jeanne Vaubernier, Comtesse Du Barry (1744-1794), the last
mistress of Louis XV., was guillotined 30 June 1794, having ventured
to return to France from England in order to rescue her personal
belongings.--T.
[401] _Considérations sur les principaux événements de la Revolution
française, II. 16: De la Federation du 14 juillet 1790._--B.
[402] Joseph Dominique Baron Louis (1755-1837). He had taken minor
orders and served as deacon at Talleyrand's Mass in the Champ de Mars.
He was several times Minister of Finance under the Restoration and
under Louis-Philippe.--T.
[403] 4 September 1790.--B.
[404] 20 February 1791.--B.
[405] Charles Michel Marquis de Villette (1736-1793). At the trial
of Louis XVI., he voted for imprisonment and for banishment at the
conclusion of the war.--B.
[406] I omit a poetical quotation from Parny.--T.
[407] Bordier was a comedian well known in Paris for his performances
of the character of Harlequin. He and Jourdain, an advocate from
Lisieux, placed themselves at the head of a riot on the night of 3
August 1789 and were eventually taken and hanged.--B.
[408] Jean Racine (1639-1699), the greatest of the French tragic
poets.--T.
[409] Antoine Marie Gaspard Sacchini (1735-1786), the "Racine of
music," composer of a number of brilliant operas. His merits were never
fully appreciated, owing to the disputes between the adherents of Gluck
and Piccini, which absorbed public attention at the time.--T.
[410] A comedy in three acts, interspersed with songs; words by Michel
Jean Sedaine (1719-1797).--B.
[411] A comic opera in one act, words and the greater part of the music
by Jean Cazotte (1720-1792).--B.
[412]
"Fall rain, or fell snow, or blow wind,
To shorten long nights we've a mind."--T.
[413] Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708), author of an early
classification of botanical _genera_ and species.--T.
[414] Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700-1782), Inspector-General of
the Navy, and an eminent agricultural and arboricultural expert.--T.
[415] Bernard de Jussieu (1699-1777), the most learned member of a
family comprising no less than four distinguished botanists.--T.
[416] Nehemiah Grew (_circa_ 1628-1711), author of the _Anatomy of
Plants_, and an early Fellow of the Royal Society (1673).--T.
[417] Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): the work referred to is his
_Dictionnaire botanique._--T.
[418] Charles Linnæus (1707-1778), the great Swedish botanist.--T.
[419] George Washington (1732-1799), first President of the United
States (1789-1793 and 1793-1797).--T.
[420] Angélique Françoise Dame de La Fonchais (1769-1793), sister to
André Desilles, the hero of Nancy, was guillotined 13 June 1793, the
same time as her brother-in-law, Michel Julien Picot de Limoëlan,
displaying admirable courage on the scaffold.--B.
[421] Major Chafner, _vide supra_, p. 66.--B.
[422] Captain Dujardin Pinte-de-Vin of the brig _Saint-Pierre_, bound
for the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miguelon, whence she was to make
for Baltimore.--B.
[423] François Charles Nagot (_d._ 1816), not Nagault, was the
superior, not of the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, but of the community
of Robertines in Paris, one of the annexes of the seminary of
Saint-Sulpice. He left for Baltimore in order to become the superior of
a Sulpician seminary in that city, accompanied by three young priests
of the Company. The Abbé Nagot arrived at Baltimore in July 1791, and
in the September following established St Mary's Seminary, the first
and best-known seminary in the United States. In 1822 Pope Pius VII.
erected St Mary's College into a Catholic university.--B.
[424] _Esprit fort_, a free-thinker or latitudinarian.--T.
[425] 2 April 1791.--T.
[426] 8 April 1791.--B.