requisite he should proceed to Brest, be maintained there, pay for masters, purchase a uniform, arms, books, mathematical instruments, &c. How were all these expenses to be defrayed? The commission solicited from the Minister of the Marine was not obtained, for want of some powerful influence to recommend it. This disappointment threw the Chatelaine of Villeneuve into a fit of illness.

My father now, for the first time in his life, gave proof of something like decision of character. At that period, he was about fifteen years of age. On witnessing his mother's illness and anxiety, he approached her bedside, and said that he was resolved to be no longer a burthen to her. This story I have heard my father frequently relate. "René," said my grandmother, with tears in her eyes, "what do you propose doing? You can only till your ground " provide us with the means of support," he to depart." "You have my permission. may guide you." The weeping mother embraced her son, and that same evening my father left the maternal home. He proceeded to Dinan, where one of our relations furnished him with a letter to a resident of St. Malo. The orphan adventurer embarked as a volunteer on board an armed schooner, which set sail a few days after.

'But that will not replied; "allow me Go wheresoever God

The little Saint Maloan republic at that time nobly sustained the honour of the French flag on the sea. The schooner joined the fleet sent by Cardinal de Fleury to the assistance of Stanislas, when the Russians besieged Dantzick. My father landed, and was engaged in that memorable battle fought on the 29th of May, 1734, between fifteen hundred Frenchmen, commanded by the brave Breton de Bréhan, Count de Plélo, and forty thousand Muscovites, commanded by Munich. De Bréhan, the diplomatist, warrior, and poet, was killed in this action; and my father was wounded twice. He returned to France, and after a little time he again embarked on another expedition, during which he was shipwrecked on the coast of Spain, where he was attacked and plundered by banditti. Having succeeded in obtaining a passage in a vessel proceeding to Bayonne, he at

VOL. I.

E

length found his way once more to his maternal home. By this time, his courage and good conduct had gained him friends, through whose influence he obtained an opportunity of going to one of our colonies, where he prospered, and laid the foundation of the new fortune of his family.

My grandmother commended her son Pierre to the care of her son René. Pierre was M. de Chateaubriand du Plessis, whose son Armand was shot, by order of Bonaparte, on Good Friday, 1810. He was one of the last of the French nobles who perished in the cause of the Monarchy.* My father took upon himself the charge of providing for his brother, though he had contracted, through his long-continued sufferings, an asperity of temper, which never forsook him. The non ignara mali is not always true. Misfortune may harden as

well as soften the character.

M. de Chateaubriand was tall and thin. His nose was aquiline, his lips compressed and colourless, and his small, sunken eyes were of a blueish-grey colour. There was a peculiar expression in his eyes which I never observed in any other individual. It was like that of the lion; and when he was roused by anger, the pupil of his eye seemed as it were to start out like a ball.

One passion was predominant in my father's mind-it was family pride. His natural melancholy increased with advancing age, and his habitual silence was broken only by bursts of passion. He was niggardly, in the hope of restoring his family to its original affluence. He was haughty to the nobles of Brittany-harsh to his dependants at Combourg-taciturn, despotic and dictarorial in his home, where he inspired no feeling but fear. Had he lived till the breaking out of the revolution, or had he been a younger man, he would have played an important part, or he would have allowed himself to be massacred in his chateau. His talent was certainly of a high order; and, had he been a minister of state or a military commander, he would have been an extraordinary man. After his return from America, he began to entertain the

* This was written in 1811. (Note of 1831. Geneva.)

design of marrying. He was born on the 23rd of September, 1718, and on the 3rd of July, 1753 (being then in his thirtyfifth year), he married Apolline-Jeanne-Suzanne de Bedée. This lady, who was born on the 7th of April, 1726, was the daughter of Messire Ange-Annibal, Count de Bedée, Seigneur of la Bouëtardais. The newly-married pair settled at St. Malo, within seven or eight leagues of the spot where both were born; and they could discern, from their residence, the horizon beneath which they had each first seen the light. My maternal grandmother, Marie-Anne de Ravenel de Boisteilleul, Lady of Bedée (born at Rennes on the 16th of October, 1698), was educated at Saint-Cyr, during the latter years of Madame de Maintenon. Her education extended its influence over that of her daughters.

My mother was gifted with much intelligence, and she possessed an extraordinary share of imaginative talent. Her mind had been formed by reading Fénélon, Racine and Madame de Sevigné; and her memory was stored with anecdotes of the court of Louis XIV. She knew all Cyrus by heart. Apolline de Bedée had large features, and was of a dark complexion. She was small in figure, and by no means handsome. Nevertheless the elegance of her manners and the amiability of her disposition formed a pleasing contrast to the sternness and gloom of my father's character. She loved society as much as he loved solitude. She was as susceptible and animated as he was cold and imperturbable. All her tastes were at variance with those of her husband. The opposition she experienced wrought a change in her disposition; and, from being lively and gay, she became serious and melancholy. Obliged to hold her tongue when she wished to speak, she recompensed herself for the privation by manifesting, a sort of parade of grief, broken by sighs, which alone interrupted the mute melancholy of my father. In piety, my mother was an angel.

Vallée-aux-Loups, December 31, 1811.

BIRTH OF MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS MY ENTRANCE INTO THE

WORLD.

AT St. Malo, my mother gave birth to her first son, who died in infancy. He was named Geoffroy, which has been the name of almost all the heirs of our family. This son was followed by another and by two daughters, who lived only a few months.

All these four children died of effusion of blood on the brain. At length my mother gave birth to a third son, named Jean-Baptiste, who became the grandson-in-law of M. de Malesherbes. After Jean-Baptiste, four daughters were born. They were named Marie-Anne, Benigue, Julie and Lucile, and all were endowed with rare beauty. The two eldest alone survived the storms of the revolution. I was the youngest of these ten children. It is probable that my four sisters owed their existence to my father's desire to ensure the transmission of his name by the advent of a second son. I retarded the fulfilment of his wishes: I must have had an aversion to life.

The subjoined is an extract from the register of my baptism :

"Copied from the civil register of the Commune of St. Malo, for the year 1768.

François René de Chateaubriand, son of René de Chateaubriand and of Pauline-Jeanne-Suzanne de Bedée, his wife; born the 4th of September, 1768, and baptized the day following by us, Pierre Henry Nouail, Grand Vicar of the Bishop of St. Malo. His godfather was Jean Baptiste de Chateaubriand (his brother), and his godmother was Françoise Gertrude de Contades, both of whom, as well as his own father, signed the register. The signatures are Contades de Plouër, Jean Bap

tiste de Chateaubriand, Brignon de Chateaubriand, de Chateaubriand et Nouail, Vicar-General."

It will be seen that I fell into an error, when in several of my works, I stated that I was born on the 14th of October, instead of the 4th of September: I have also made a mistake in my Christian names, which are François René, not François Auguste.*

The house in which my parents then resided, was situated in a narrow and gloomy street of St. Malo, called the Jew's Street: it is now turned into an inn. The room in which my mother was confined, overlooked a solitary part of the town wall, and from the windows the sea was seen stretching as far as the eye could reach, with the waves breaking on rocks. My godfather, as my baptismal register shows, was my brother, and my godmother was the Countess de Plouër, daughter of Marshal de Contades. On first entering the world, I showed but little signs of life; and the vague howlings of a tempest announcing the autumnal equinox, prevented my cries being heard. The details of my birth were often related to me, and their impression has never been effaced from my memory. A day seldom elapses on which, looking back to the past, I do not see in imagination the rock on which I was born, and the chamber wherein my mother inflicted life upon me: the storm which rocked my first slumber, again resounds in my ears, and I behold once more the ill-fated brother who gave me a name which I have incessantly drawn into misfortune! It seemed as though Heaven had combined together these different circumstances in order to make my cradle the image of my destiny.

* On the 15th of August, 1768, just twenty days before my birth, Bonaparte, the destroyer of old French society, was born in another island, situated beyond the opposite shore of France.