sixty that the season of his youth arrived. On the brink of the grave this austere thinker, who, to a certainty, has never smiled, is suddenly seized with laughter, the loud laughter of Callot, Montaigne, Le Sage, and sometimes also of Voltaire. His Muse, issuing from some unknown Fountain of Youth, just now a goddess in purple robe, re-appears to us as a young damsel crowned with corn-flowers. She was Juno; she is now plain Lydia, or Camilla, or any other nymph that comes first.

The past work of Chateaubriand, a grand and harmonious whole, appears to me like a marble palace in the midst of a forest. All about it is enchantment and magnificence. Mysterious voices resound within, intoxicating perfumes fill the air without. Every window opens upon a scene of rich foliage, upon an extensive park, adorned with statues, upon a hill which bends beneath the vines. 'Tis a very beautiful palace, only it is inclosed and imprisoned with iron railing; sentinels defend the approach to it all round at the distance of above half a league; and in order to get to it, you must have at least seven or eight quarters of nobility.

The posthumous work of Chateaubriand's, that is to say, his Memoirs, presents, indeed, if you must have it, the aspect of a palace, but not of marble; it is of plain stone. The cold splendour of Grecian architecture has given place to the original expansion of the fantasies of Gothic art. A tract of the forest has been felled, and on that side the eye penetrates into the swarming labyrinth of the streets of the city. The rebellious gates stand open, the guards have received different orders; and citizens, peasants, populace, women, those who are gentlemen and those who are but men, the man of science and the scholar, everybody, in short, enter freely. Lazarus himself is seated on the uppermost step of the porch.

The Martyrs may be compared to the gardens of the Tuileries, open to gentlemen of the bedchamber only; the Memoirs to the same garden, open to all without distinction. Are the gardens of the Tuileries less beautiful since the wearers of blouses have been admitted into them?

As it is impossible for me to foresee the moment of my death,—and as, at my age, the days accorded to man are but days of grace, or rather days of suffering,-I wish to enter upon some explanations.

On the 4th of next September, I shall have attained my seventy-eighth year. It is full time that I should prepare to leave a world which is leaving me, and from which I shall depart without regret.

The Memoirs, which this introduction will precede, are arranged in divisions corresponding with the natural divisions in the career of my life.

That sad necessity, which has always pressed heavily upon me, has forced me to sell my Memoirs. No one can form an idea of what I have suffered in being thus compelled, as it were, to mortgage my grave; but this last sacrifice was demanded by promises I had made, and it was due to the integrity of my character. A feeling, perhaps, partaking of weakness, caused me to regard these Memoirs as confidants, from which I was reluctant to part. My intention was to have bequeathed them to Madame de Chateaubriand. I wished it to be left to her choice either to publish, or to suppress them; their suppression would now be most in accordance with my own wishes.

Deeply do I regret that, before my departure from the world, I have not been able to meet with some one sufficiently rich and trustworthy to purchase the shares of the Society; and

not like that society, compelled to submit the work to the press as soon as my death-knell shall ring. Of the shareholders, some are my personal friends; others are kind individuals, who have endeavoured to be serviceable to me. The shares may possibly have been sold; or they may have been transferred to third parties of whom I have no knowledge, and with whom family interests must be paramount to every other consideration. It follows, therefore, that my life, in proportion as it may be prolonged, must operate as a disappointment, perhaps as an actual injury to those persons. In short, if these Memoirs were now my own property, I would either forbid their being printed, or I would retard their publication for the space of fifty years.

These Memoirs have been written at different dates, and in different countries, and I have consequently deemed it necessary to insert, at certain points, a few preliminary observations (avant propos) for the purpose of explaining the scenes by which I was surrounded, and the feelings which occupied me at the moment when the thread of my narrative was resumed. The varied circumstances of my life are, as it were, blended with each other:-in my moments of prosperity, I have spoken of the days of my misery; and in my days of tribulation, I have retraced my intervals of happiness. The scenes of my youth intermingling with those of my old age ;— the gravity of my years of experience, casting a shade over my years of levity;-the rays of my sun, from its dawning to its setting, crossing each other and mingling together, produce a sort of confusion, or I may perhaps say, a sort of undefinable unity. My cradle partakes of my tomb, and my tomb of my cradle ;-my suffering becomes pleasure, and my pleasure pain ;-and, after having read over my Memoirs, it appeared to me impossible to determine whether they were written in life's prime, or in hoary age.

I know not whether this jumble, the disorder of which I cannot now rectify, will please or displease. It is the result of the varying vicissitudes of my fate. The tempest has sometimes left me with no other writing-table than the plank saved from my shipwreck.

I have been urged to publish some portions of these Memoirs during my life;-I preferred speaking from the depth of the grave. My narrative will then be told by a voice, which ought to be somewhat sacred, since it resounds from the sepulchre. If, in this world, I have suffered enough to insure hereafter my entrance among the shades of the. blessed, a ray from Elysium will throw its protecting light over the pictures I have here sketched. The world has used me roughly in life;-after death, it may treat me more gently.

These Memoirs have been the favourite object of my thoughts. St. Bonaventure obtained from Heaven permission to continue his after death. I do not hope for such a boon; yet I would fain revisit the world, phantom-like, and invisibly correct the proofs. But it matters not; for, when my ears are closed by the hand of Eternity, I shall be deaf to all that may be said of me.

If one portion of my work has been more pleasing to me than another, it is that which refers to my youth-the most obscure corner of my life. It was there my task to reveal a world known only to myself. In wandering back to that by-gone time, and the society that has vanished with it, I find only recollections and silence. Of the persons I then knew, do any now survive?

On the 25th of August, 1828, the inhabitants of St. Malo addressed me, through the medium of their Mayor, on the subject of a floating-basin, for which a plan was then in contemplation. In returning an answer to their application, I proposed an exchange of kind offices. I requested they would grant me a few feet of ground for my grave on the Grand-Be. * Some obstacles, originating with the corps of military engineers, prevented immediate compliance with this request. At length, on the 27th of Oct., 1831, I received from the Mayor, M. Hovius, a letter which contained the following :-"The resting-place you wish for on the sea-shore, within a few steps of the spot where you were born, will be

* An islet in the roadstead of St. Malo.

prepared by the piety of the inhabitants of St. Malo. But a sad thought intrudes itself amidst the performance of this duty. May the monument continue long unoccupied; though honour and glory survive that which is transient on the earth!" With gratitude I quote these lines of M. Hovius, in which there is but one word too much-the word glory.

I shall, therefore, rest on the margin of the sea ;—that sea which I so dearly love. If I die out of France, I desire that my remains may not be conveyed to my native country until the expiration of fifty years after their first interment ;—that I may be spared a sacrilegious autopsy; that my nerveless brain and throbless heart may not be examined to search the mystery of my being. Death does not reveal the secrets of life. To me there is something revolting in the idea of a corpse on a journey. Blanched bones are light, and easily carried. They will be less weary on that last journey than when I have been dragging them hither and thither, laden with the burthen of my cares.