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THE MEMOIRS OF FRANÇOIS RENÉ

VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND

SOMETIME AMBASSADOR TO ENGLAND

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

NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY G. P PUTNAM'S
SONS AND IN LONDON BY FREEMANTLE
AND COMPANY
MDCCCCII


VOL. I

    "NOTRE SANG A TEINT
    LA BANNIÈRE DE FRANCE"

[Illustration: Le Vicomte de Chateaubriand]


CONTENTS


The Translator's Note

The Author's Preface

The Author's Preface to the First Edition


PART THE FIRST

1768-1800

BOOK I

Birth of my brothers and sisters--My own birth--Plancoët--I
am vowed--Combourg--My father's scheme of education for
me--Villeneuve--Lucile--Mesdemoiselles Couppart--I am a bad pupil--The
life led by my maternal grandmother and her sister at Plancoët--My
uncle, the Comte de Bedée, at Monchoix--I am relieved from my nurse's
vow--Holidays--Saint-Malo--Gesril--Hervine Magon--Fight with two ship's
lads

BOOK II

A note from M. Pasquier--Dieppe--Change in my education--Spring in
Brittany--An historic forest--Pelagian fields--The moon setting over
the sea--Departure for Combourg--Description of the castle--Dol
College--Mathematics and languages--An instance of memory--Holidays
at Combourg--Life at a country-seat--Feudal customs--The inhabitants
of Combourg--Second holidays at Combourg--The Conti Regiment--Camp
at Saint-Malo--An abbey--A provincial theatre--Marriage of my two
eldest sisters--Return to college--A revolution begins to take place
in my ideas--Adventure of the magpie--Third holidays at Combourg--The
quack--Return to college--Invasion of France--Games--The Abbé de
Chateaubriand--My First Communion--I leave Dol College--A mission at
Combourg--Rennes College--I meet Gesril--Moreau-Limoëlan--Marriage
of my third sister--I am sent to Brest for my naval examination--The
harbour of Brest--I once more meet Gesril--Lapeyrouse--I return to
Combourg

BOOK III

At Montboissier--Reminiscences of Combourg--Dinan College--Broussais--I
return home--Life at Combourg--Our days and evenings--My
donjon--Change from childhood to manhood--Lucile--Last lines written
at the Vallée-aux-Loups--Revelations concerning the mystery of my
life--A phantom of love--Two years of delirium--Occupations and
illusions--My autumn joys--Incantation--Temptation--Illness--I
fear and decline to enter the ecclesiastical state--A moment in my
native town--Recollection of Villeneuve and the tribulations of my
childhood--I am called back to Combourg--Last interview with my
father--I enter the service--I bid farewell to Combourg

BOOK IV

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_

BOOK V

Stay in Brittany--In garrison at Dieppe--I return to Paris with Lucile
and Julie--Delisle de Sales--Men of letters--Portraits--The Rosanbo
family--M. de Malesherbes--His predilection for Lucile--Appearance
and change of my sylph--Early political disturbances in Brittany--A
glance at the history of the monarchy--Constitution of the States
of Brittany--The holding of the States--The King's revenue in
Brittany--Private revenue of the province--Hearth-money--I am
present for the first time at a political meeting--A scene--My
mother moves to Saint-Malo--I receive the tonsure--The country
round Saint-Malo--The ghost--The sick man--The States of Brittany
in 1789--Riots--Saint-Riveul, my schoolfellow, is killed--The year
1789--Journey from Brittany to Paris--Movement on the road--Appearance
of Paris--Dismissal of M. Necker--Versailles--Delight of the Royal
Family--General insurrection--Capture of the Bastille--Effect of
the capture of the Bastille on the Court--The heads of Foullon
and Bertier--Recall of M. Necker--Sitting of the 4th of August
1789--The day's work of the 5th of October--The King is taken to
Paris--The Constituent Assembly--Mirabeau--Sittings of the National
Assembly--Robespierre--Society-Aspect of Paris--What I did amidst all
this turmoil--My solitary days--Mademoiselle Monet--I draw up with
M. de Malesherbes the plan of my journey in America--Bonaparte and
I both unknown subalterns--The Marquis de La Rouërie--I embark at
Saint-Malo--Last thoughts on leaving my native land

BOOK VI

In London as Ambassador--I cross the ocean--François
Tulloch--Christopher Columbus--Camoëns--The Azores--The isle of
Graciosa--Sports on board ship--The isle of Saint-Pierre--The shores of
Virginia--Sunset--Danger and escape--I land in America--Baltimore--The
passengers separate--Tulloch--Philadelphia--General
Washington--Comparison of Washington and Bonaparte--Journey from
Philadelphia to New York and Boston--Mackenzie--The Hudson River--Song
of the lady passenger--Mr. Swift--I set out for the Falls of Niagara
with a Dutch guide--M. Violet--My savage outfit--Hunting--Wolverine
and Canadian Fox--Musk-rat--Fishing dogs--Insects--Montcalm and
Wolfe--Encampment on the shore of the Onondaga Lake--Arabs--The Indian
woman and her cow--An Iroquois--The Onondaga chief--Velly and the
Franks--Ceremonies of hospitality--The ancient Greeks--Journey from
the Onondaga Lake to the Genesee River--Clearings--Hospitality--My
bed--The enchanted rattle-snake--Niagara Falls--The rattle-snake--I
fall to the edge of the abyss--Twelve days in a hut--Change of
manners among the savages--Birth and death--Montaigne-Song of the
adder--The little Indian girl, the original of Mila--Incidents--Old
Canada--True civilisation spread by religion--False civilisation
introduced by commerce--Traders--Agents--Hunts--Half-breeds or
Burnt-woods--Wars of the companies--The Indian languages dying
out--The old French possessions in America--Regrets--A note from Lord
François Conyngham--The Canadian lakes--A fleet of Indian canoes--The
American rivers--Legends--Muscogulges and Siminoles--Our camp--Two
Floridan beauties--Ruins on the Ohio--What the Muscogulge damsels
were--Arrest of the King at Varennes--I interrupt my journey to go back
to Europe--Dangers for the United States--Return to Europe--Shipwreck




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. I

    The Vicomte de Chateaubriand
    Chateaubriand's Birthplace
    Combourg Castle
    Louis XVI
    Malesherbes
    Marie Antoinette
    Mirabeau
    Washington




THE TRANSLATOR'S NOTE


Many years ago, M. Pierre Louÿs, who had not then achieved his
astonishing successes, and I sat talking literature in a Paris café.
The future author of _Aphrodite_ had praise for none save the moderns,
of whom he has now become a recognized type and leader. I turned to him
suddenly and asked:

"Is there any nineteenth-century French writer at all whom you others
read nowadays and approve of?"

"Yes," said Louÿs, "Chateaubriand."

"How do you mean?" said I. "The novels? _Atala?_ The essays?"

"Ah no," he answered: "but the _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_, yes.
That--that is monumental; that will live for