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CHATEAUBRIAND, FRANCOIS RENE, VICOMTE...

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 962 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHATEAUBRIAND, See also:FRANCOIS RENE, VICOMTE DE (1768–1848) , See also:French author, youngest son of Rene Auguste de Chateaubriand, See also:comte de Combourg,2 was See also:born at St Maio on the 4th of See also:September 1768. He was a brilliant representative of the reaction against the ideas of the French Revolution, and the most conspicuous figure in French literature during the First See also:Empire. His naturally poetical temperament was fostered in childhood by picturesque influences, the mysterious reserve of his morose See also:father, the ardent piety of his See also:mother, the traditions of his See also:ancient See also:family, the legends and antiquated customs of the sequestered See also:Breton See also:district, above all, the vagueness and solemnity of the neighbouring ocean. His closest friend was his See also:sister Lucile,3 a passionate-hearted girl, divided between her devotion to him and to See also:religion. Francois received his See also:education at See also:Dol and See also:Rennes, where See also:Jean See also:Victor See also:Moreau was among his See also:fellow-students. From Rennes he proceeded to the See also:College of See also:Dinan, and passed some years in desultory study in preparation for the priesthood. He finally decided, after a See also:year's See also:holiday at the family See also:chateau of Combourg, that he had no vocation for the See also:Church, and was on the point of proceeding to try his See also:fortune in See also:India when he received (1786) a See also:commission in the See also:army. After a See also:short visit to See also:Paris he joined his See also:regiment at See also:Cambrai, and See also:early in the following year was presented at See also:court. In 1788 he received the See also:tonsure in See also:order to enter the order of the Knights of See also:Malta. In Paris (1787–1789) he made acquaintance with the Parisian men of letters. He met la Harpe, Evariste See also:Parny, " Pindare " See also:Lebrun, See also:Nicolas See also:Chamfort, See also:Pierre See also:Louis Ginguene, and others, of whom he has See also:left portraits in his See also:memoirs. Chateaubriand was not unfavourable to the Revolution in its first stages, but he was disturbed by its early excesses; moreover, his regiment was disbanded, and his family belonged to the party of reaction.

His See also:

political impartiality, he says, pleased no one. These causes and the restlessness of his spirit induced him to take See also:part in a romantic See also:scheme for the See also:discovery of the See also:North-See also:West Passage, in pursuance of which he departed for See also:America in the See also:spring of 1791. The passage was not found or even attempted, but the adventurer returned enriched with the—to him—more important discovery of his own See also:powers and vocation, conscious of his marvellous See also:faculty for the delineation of nature, and stored with the new ideas and new imagery, the derivation of the phaina from the paenula, but I should not See also:lay particular stress upon it. The question is settled by the above-mentioned miniatures." 2 For full details of the Chateaubriand family see R. Kerviler, Essai d'une bio-bibliographie de Chateaubriand et de sa famille (See also:Vannes, 1895). 3 Her Euvres were edited in 1879, with a memoir, by Anatole See also:France. derived from the virgin forests and magnificent scenery of the western See also:continent. That he actually lived among the See also:Indians, however, is shown by Bedier to be doubtful, and the same critic has exposed the untrustworthiness of the autobiographical details of his See also:American trip. His knowledge of America was mainly derived from the books of See also:Charlevoix and others. The See also:news of the See also:arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes in See also:June 1791 recalled him to France. In 1792 he married Mlle See also:Celeste See also:Buisson de Lavigne, a girl of seventeen, who brought him a small fortune. This enabled him to join the ranks of the emigrants, a course practically imposed on him by his See also:birth and his profession as a soldier.

After the failure of the See also:

duke of See also:Brunswick's invasion he contrived to reach See also:Brussels, where he was left wounded and apparently dying in the See also:street. His See also:brother succeeded in obtaining some shelter for him, and sent him to See also:Jersey. The See also:captain of the See also:boat in which he travelled left him on the See also:beach in See also:Guernsey. He was once more rescued from See also:death, this See also:time by some fishermen. After spending some time in the Channel Islands under the care of an emigrant See also:uncle, the comte de Bedee, he made his way to See also:London. In See also:England he lived obscurely for several years, gaining an intimate acquaintance with See also:English literature and a See also:practical acquaintance with poverty. His own See also:account of this See also:period has been exposed by A. le Braz, Au pays d'exil de Chateaubriand (1909), and by E. See also:Dick, Revue d'histoire litteraire de la France (1908), i. From his English See also:exile See also:dates the See also:Natchez (first printed in his (Euvres completes, 1826-1831), a See also:prose epic designed to portray the See also:life of the Red Indians. Two brilliant episodes originally designed for this See also:work, Atala and Rene, are among his most famous productions. Chateaubriand's first publication, however, was the Essai historique, politique et moral sur See also:les revolutions .. . (London, 1797), which the author subsequently retracted, but took care not to suppress.

In this See also:

volume he appears as a mediator between royalist and revolutionary ideas, a See also:free-thinker in religion, and a philosopher imbued with the spirit of See also:Rousseau. A See also:great See also:change in his views was, however, at See also:hand, induced, according to his own statement, by a See also:letter from his sister Julie (Mme de Farcy), telling him of the grief his views had caused his mother, who had died soon after her See also:release from the Conciergerie in the same year. His brother had perished on the See also:scaffold in See also:April 1794, and both his sisters, Lucile and Julie, and his wife had been imprisoned at Rennes. Mme de Farcy did not See also:long survive her imprisonment. Chateaubriand's thoughts turned to religion, and on his return to France in 1800 the Genie du christianisme was already in an advanced See also:state. Louis de See also:Fontanes had been a fellow-exile with Chateaubriand in London, and he now introduced him to the society of Mme de See also:Stael, Mme See also:Recamier, See also:Benjamin See also:Constant, Lucien See also:Bonaparte and others. But Chateaubriand's favourite resort was the See also:salon of Pauline de See also:Beaumont, who was destined to fill a great See also:place in his life, and gave him some help in the preparation of his work on See also:Christianity, part of the See also:book being written at her See also:house at See also:Savigny. Atala, ou les amours de deux sauvages clans le See also:desert, used as an See also:episode in the Genie du christianisme, appeared separately in 18o1 and immediately made his reputation. Exquisite See also:style, impassioned eloquence and glowing descriptions of nature gained See also:indulgence for the incongruity between the rudeness of the personages and the refinement of the sentiments, and for the distasteful blending of prudery with sensuousness. Alike in its merits and defects the piece is a more emphatic and highly coloured See also:Paul et Virginie; it has been justly said that Bernardin See also:Saint-Pierre See also:models in See also:marble and Chateaubriand in See also:bronze. Encouraged by his success the author resumed his Genie du christianisme, ou beautes de la religion chretienne, which appeared in 1802, just upon the See also:eve of See also:Napoleon's re-See also:establishment of the See also:Catholic religion in France, for which it thus seemed almost to have prepared the way. No coincidence could have been more opportune, and Chateaubriand came to esteem himself the counterpart of Napoleon in the intellectual order.

In composing his work he had See also:

borne in mind the admonition of his friend See also:Joseph See also:Joubert, that the public would care very little for his erudition and very muchfor his eloquence. It is consequently an inefficient See also:production from the point of view of serious See also:argument. The considerations derived from natural See also:theology are but commonplaces rendered dazzling by the magic of style; and the See also:parallels between Christianity and antiquity, especially in arts and letters, are at best ingenious sophistries. The less polemical passages, however, where the author depicts the glories of the Catholic See also:liturgy and its accessories, or expounds its symbolical significance, are splendid instances of the effect produced by the See also:accumulation and judicious See also:distribution of particulars gorgeous in the See also:mass, and treated with the utmost refinement of detail. The work is a masterpiece of See also:literary See also:art, and its See also:influence in French literature was immense. The Eloa of See also:Alfred de See also:Vigny, the Harmonies of Lamartine and even the Legende See also:des siecles of Victor See also:Hugo may be said to have been inspired by the Genie du christianisme. Its immediate effect was very considerable. It admirably sub-served the statecraft of Napoleon, and Talleyrand in 1803 appointed the writer attache to the French See also:legation at See also:Rome, whither he was followed by Mme de Beaumont, who died there. When his insubordinate and intriguing spirit compelled his recall he was transferred as See also:envoy to the See also:canton of the See also:Valais. The See also:murder of the duke of See also:Enghien (21st of See also:March 1804) took place before he took up this See also:appointment. Chateaubriand, who was in Paris at the time, showed his courage and See also:independence by immediately resigning his See also:post. In 1807 he gave great offence to Napoleon by an See also:article in the Mercure de France (4th of See also:July), containing allusions to See also:Nero which were rightly taken to refer to the See also:emperor.

The Mercure, of which he had become proprietor, was temporarily suppressed, and was in the next year amalgamated with the See also:

Decade. Chateaubriand states in his Memoires that his life was threatened, but it is more than possible that he exaggerated the danger. Before this, in 18o6, he made a See also:pilgrimage to See also:Jerusalem, undertaken, as he subsequently acknowledged, less in a devotional spirit than in quest of new imagery. He returned by way of See also:Tunis, See also:Carthage, See also:Cadiz and See also:Granada. At Granada he met Mme de Mouchy, and the place and the See also:meeting apparently suggested the romantic See also:tale of Le Dernier Abencerage, which, for political reasons, remained unprinted until the publication of the Euvres completes (1826-1831). The See also:journey also produced L'Itineraire de Paris d Jerusalem . . . (3 vols., 1811), a See also:record of travel distinguished by the writer's habitual picturesqueness; and inspired his prose epic,. Les Martyrs, ou le triomphe de la religion chretienne (2 vols., 1809). This work may be regarded as the argument of the Genie du christianisme thrown into an See also:objective See also:form. As in the Epicurean of See also:Thomas See also:Moore, the professed See also:design is the contrast between Paganism and Christianity, which fails of its purpose partly from the See also:absence of real insight into the See also:genius of antiquity, and partly because the See also:heathen are the most interesting characters after all. Rene had appeared in 1802 as an episode of the Genie du christianisme, and was published separately at See also:Leipzig without its author's consent in the same year.

It was perhaps Chateaubriand's most characteristic production. The connecting See also:

link in See also:European literature between Werther and Childe Harold, it paints the misery of a morbid and dissatisfied soul. The See also:representation is mainly from the life. Chateaubriand betrayed amazing egotism in describing his sister Lucile in the Amelie of the See also:story, and much is obviously descriptive of his own early surroundings. With Les Natchez his career as an imaginative writer is closed. In 1831 he published his Etudes ou discours historiques . . . (4 vols.) dealing with the fall of the See also:Roman Empire. As a politician Chateaubriand was equally formidable to his antagonists when in opposition and to his See also:friends when in See also:office. His poetical receptivity and impressionableness rendered him no doubt honestly inconsistent with himself; his vanity and ambition, too morbidly acute to be restrained by the ties of party See also:allegiance, made him dangerous and untrustworthy as a political See also:associate. He was forbidden to deliver the address he had pre-pared (181r) for his reception to the See also:Academy on M. J.

See also:

Chenier on account of the See also:bitter allusions to Napoleon contained in it. From this date until 1814 Chateaubriand lived in seclusion at the Vallee-aux-loups, an See also:estate he had bought in 1807 at Aulnay. His pamphlet De Bonaparte, des Bourbons, et de la necessite de se rallier a nos princes legitintes, published on the 31st of March 1814, the See also:day of the entrance of the See also:allies into Paris, was as opportune in the moment of its See also:appearance as the Genie du christianisme, and produced a hardly less See also:signal effect. Louis XVIII. declared that it had been See also:worth a See also:hundred thousand men to him. Chateaubriand, as See also:minister of the interior, accompanied him to See also:Ghent during the Hundred Days, and for a time associated himself with the excesses of the royalist reaction. Political bigotry, however, was not among his faults; he rapidly drifted into liberalism and opposition, and was disgraced in September 1816 for his pamphlet De la monarchic selon la charte. He had to sell his library and his house of the Vallee-aux-loups. After the fall of his opponent, the duc See also:Decazes, Chateaubriand obtained the See also:Berlin See also:embassy (1821), from which he was transferred to London (1822), and he also acted as French plenipotentiary at the See also:Congress of See also:Verona (1822). He here made himself mainly responsible for the iniquitous invasion of Spain—an expedition undertaken, as he himself admits, with the See also:idea of restoring French See also:prestige by a military See also:parade. He next received the See also:portfolio of See also:foreign affairs, which he soon lost by his See also:desertion of his colleagues on the question of a reduction of the See also:interest on the See also:national See also:debt. After another interlude of effective pamphleteering in opposition, he accepted the embassy to Rome in 1827, under the See also:Martignac See also:administration, but resigned it at See also:Prince See also:Polignac's See also:accession to office. On the downfall of the See also:elder See also:branch of the Bourbons, he made a brilliant but inevitably fruitless protest from the See also:tribune in See also:defence of the principle of See also:legitimacy.

During the first See also:

half of Louis Philippe's reign he was still politically active with his See also:pen, and published a Memoire sur la captivite de madame la duchesse de See also:Berry (1833) and other See also:pamphlets in which he made himself the See also:champion of the exiled See also:dynasty; but as years increased upon him, and the prospect of his again performing a conspicuous part diminished, he re-lapsed into an attitude of See also:complete discouragement. His Congas de Verone (1838), See also:Vie de See also:Rance (1844), and his See also:translation of See also:Milton, Le Paradis perdu de Milton (1836), belong to the writings of these later days. He died on the 4th of July 1848, wholly exhausted and thoroughly discontented with himself and the See also:world, but affectionately tended by his old friend Madame Recamier, herself deprived of sight. For the last fifteen years of his life he had been engaged on his Memoires, and his See also:chief See also:distraction had been his daily visit to Madame Recamier, at whose house he met the European celebrities. He was buried in the See also:Grand Be, an islet in the See also:bay of St Malo. Shortly after his death his memory was revived, and at the same time exposed to much adverse See also:criticism, by the publication, with sundry mutilations as has been suspected, of his celebrated Memoires d'outre-tombe (12 vols., 1849–1850). These memoirs undoubtedly reveal his vanity, his egotism, the frequent hollowness of his professed convictions, and his incapacity for sincere See also:attachment, except, perhaps, in the See also:case of Madame Recamier. Though the book must be read with the greatest caution, especially in regard to persons with whom Chateaubriand came into collision, it is perhaps now the most read of all his See also:works. Chateaubriand ranks rather as a great rhetorician than as a great poet. Something of affectation or unreality commonly interferes with the enjoyment of his finest works. The Genie du christianisme is a brilliant piece of See also:special See also:pleading; Atala is marred by its unfaithfulness to the truth of uncivilized human nature, Rene by the perversion of sentiment which solicits sympathy for a contemptible See also:character. Chateaubriand is chiefly significant as marking the transition from the old classical to the See also:modern romantic school.

The fertility of ideas, vehemence of expression and luxury of natural description, which he shares with the romanticists, are controlled by a discipline learnt in the school of their predecessors. His See also:

palette, always brilliant, is never See also:gaudy; he is not merely a painter but an artist. He is also a See also:master of epigrammatic and incisive sayings. Perhaps, however, the most truly characteristic feature of his genius is the See also:peculiar magical See also:touch which See also:Matthew See also:Arnold indicated as anote of See also:Celtic extraction, which reveals some occult quality in a See also:familiar See also:object, or tinges it, one knows not how, with " the See also:light that never was on See also:sea or See also:land." This incommunicable See also:gift supplies an See also:element of sincerity to Chateaubriand's writings which goes far to redeem the artificial effect of his calculated sophistry and set declamation. It is also fortunate for his fame that so large a part of his writings should directly or indirectly refer to himself, for on this theme he always writes well. Egotism was his master-See also:passion, and beyond his intrepidity and the loftiness of his intellectual See also:carriage his character presents little to admire. He is a signal instance of the compatibility of genuine poetic emotion, of sympathy with the grander aspects both of See also:man and nature, and of munificence in pecuniary matters, with absorption in self and See also:general sterility of See also:heart. Chateaubriand (6 vols., 1902), by A. Teixeira de Mattos, based on the admirable edition (4 vols., 1899–1901) of Edmond See also:Bit-6. This work should be supplemented by the Souvenirs et correspondences tires des papiers de M1Lo Recamier (2 vols., 1859, ed. Mme Ch. See also:Lenormant).

See also Comte de See also:

Marcellus, Chateaubriand et son temps (1859); the same editor's Souvenirs diplomatiques; correspondance intime de Chateaubriand (1858) ; C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Chateaubriand et son groupe litteraire sous l'empire (2 vols., 1861, new and revised ed., 3 vols., 1872) ; other articles by Sainte-Beuve, who was in this case a somewhat prejudiced critic, in the Portraits contemporains, vols. i. and H..; Causeries du lundi, vols. i., ii. and x.; Nouveaux Lundis, vol. iii.; Premiers Lundis, vol. iii. ; A. See also:Vinet, Etudes sur la litt. frangaise au XIXe siecle (1849) ; M. de See also:Lescure, Chateaubriand (1892), in the Grands ecrivains See also:francais; Emile See also:Faguet, Etudes litteraires sur le XIXe siecle (1887) ; and Essai d'une bio-bibliographie de Chateaubriand et de sa famille (Vannes, 1896), by Rene Kerviler. Joseph Bedier, in Etudes critiques (1903), deals with the American writings. Some See also:correspondence with Sainte-Beuve was edited by Louis Thomas in 1904, and some letters to Mme de Stael appeared in the Revue des deux mondes (Oct. 1903).

End of Article: CHATEAUBRIAND, FRANCOIS RENE, VICOMTE DE (1768–1848)

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