 Book 2, Part 1 of the Memoirs of Chateaubriand, Volume 5, Part 4. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nicole Lee, the Memoirs of Chateaubriand, Volume 5, Part 4, by François René de Chateaubriand, translated by Alexander Tixera de Matos. Book 2, Part 1. Paris, Reid-en-Faire, end of July, 1832. One of my old friends, Mr. Friselle, an Englishman, had just lost, at Passy, his only daughter, aged seventeen years. I had gone on the nineteenth of June to the funeral of poor Eliza, whose portrait the pretty Madame de Lisette was completing when death put the finishing touch to it. Returning to my solitude in the Reid-en-Faire, I had hardly gone to bed, full of the melancholy thoughts that arise from the association of youth, beauty and the grave, when, at four o'clock in the morning, on the twentieth of June, Baptiste, who had long been in my service, entered my room, came up to the bed and said, Sir, the courtyard is full of men who have placed themselves at all the doors, after compelling their brass to open the carriage entrance, and there are three gentlemen asking to speak to you. As he finished these words, the gentleman entered, and the chief of them very politely approaching my bed, told me that he had an order to arrest me and take me to the prefecture of police. I asked him if the son had risen, as the law demanded, and if he was the bearer of a legal warrant. He did not answer for the son. But he showed me the following judicial notice. Copy. Prefecture of police. In the king's name. We, council of state, prefect of police, in view of information, in our possession, by virtue of article 10 of the Code of Criminal Instruction. Call upon the commissary, or if he be prevented, another, to repair to the house of Monsieur Le Viconde de Chateaubriand, or elsewhere if need be. He being accused of plotting against the safety of the state, in order there to seek for and seize all papers, correspondence and writings containing provocations to crimes and offences against the public peace all liable to examination, as well as any seditious objects or arms which may be in his possession. While I perused the declaration of the great plotting against the safety of the state, of which I, poor I, was accused, the captain of the police-pice said to his subordinates, gentlemen, do your duty. The duty of this gentleman consisted in opening every cupboard, fumbling in every pocket, seizing all papers, letters and documents, reading the same where possible, and discovering all arms as appears from the warrant of foresaid. After reading over the document, addressing the worthy leader of those thieves of men and liberties, you know, sir, I said, that I do not recognize your government, and that I protest against the violence which you are doing me. But as I am not the stronger, and as I have no wish to come to blows with you, I will get up and accompany you, pray take the trouble to be seated. I dressed, and without taking anything with me, said to the venerable commissary, sir, I am at your orders. Are we going on foot? No, sir, I took care to bring you a coach. You are very good, sir. Let us start. But allow me to go to take leave of madame Nechatebriand. Will you permit me to enter my wife's room alone? Sir, I will go with you to the door and wait for you. Very well, sir. And we went down. Everywhere on my road I found centuries. A picket had been posted even on the boulevard outside a little gate which opens at the bottom of my garden. I said to the leader, those precautions were very useless. I have not the smallest wish to run away from you and escape. The gentleman had turned my papers topsy-turvy but taken nothing. My big mamalook sabre caught the attention. They whispered among themselves, and ended by leaving the weapon under heap of dusty folios in the midst of which it lay beside a yellow wood crucifix which I had brought from the holy land. This dumb show would almost have made me inclined to laugh, but I was cruelly distressed for madame Nechatebriand. Everyone who knows her knows also the affection which she bears me, her ready alarm, the quickness of her imagination, and the pitiful state of her health. This dissent of the police and my removal might do her a terrible harm. She had already heard some noise, and I found her sitting up in bed, listening quite terrified as I entered her room at so unusual an hour. Ah, dear God! she exclaimed. Are you ill? Ah, dear God! what is happening? what is happening? And she was seized with a fit of trembling. I kissed her, with difficulty kept back my tears, and said, It is nothing. They have sent for me to make a statement as a witness in a matter that has to do with a newspaper trial. It will all be over in a few hours, and I shall come back to breakfast with you. The police spy had remained standing at the open door. He saw this scene, and I set him, as I returned to place myself in his hands. You see, sir, the effect of your somewhat machetinal visit. I crossed the courtyard with my bum bailiffs, three of them got into the coach with me, the rest of the squad accompanied the Capchon foot, and we reached a yard of the prefecture police un-molested. The jailer who was to put me under lock and key was not up. They woke him by tapping at his wicket, and he went to prepare my lodging. While he was busy with this work, I walked up and down the yard with the Sir Lyoto, who was guarding me. He chatted and said to me in a friendly way, for he was very civil. Miss Hula, we can't. I have the great honour of remembering you. I have often presented arms to you when you were a minister and used to come to the kings. I used to serve in the body-guards. But what would you have one do? One has a wife and children. One must live. You are right, Miss Hula Lyoto. How much does this pay you? Ah, Miss Hula, we can't. That depends on our captures. Their perquisites are sometimes good and sometimes poor, just as in war. During my walk I saw the spies return in different disguises, like maskers on Ash Wednesday, coming down from the Corteel. They came to report on the doings of the night. Some were dressed as vendors of green stuff, as street hawkers, as charcoal sellers, as market porters, as old clothesmen, as ragmen, as organ grinders, others wore wigs, under which appeared hair of a different colour, others had false beards, whiskers, and moustaches. Others dragged their legs, like respectable invalids, and wore dazzling red ribbon at their button-holes. They disappeared into a small yard, and soon returned in other clothes, without moustaches, without beards, without whiskers, without wigs, without baskets, without wooden legs, without arms worn in a sling. All these birds of daybreak of the police flew away and vanished as the light increased. My lodging was ready, the jailer came to tell us, and Monsieur Leoteau, hat in hand, led me to the door of my honest dwelling, saying, as he left me in the hands of the jailer and his assistants, Monsieur Lévi-Conte, I am your humble servant. I trust you have the pleasure of meeting you again. The entrance door closed behind me, preceded by the jailer, who carried his keys, and went before his two men, who followed me to prevent me from turning tail. I went up a narrow staircase till I came to the second floor. A little dark passage led to a door. The turnkey opened it. I followed him into my box. He asked me if I wanted anything. I answered that I would have breakfast in an hour. He told me that there were a coffee-house and a tavern rich supply of prisoners with all that they wanted for their money. I begged my keeper to send me some tea, and if possible, some hot and cold water and towels. I gave him twenty francs in advance. He withdrew respectfully, promising to return. Left alone, I inspected my den. Its length was a little greater than its width, and its height was perhaps some seven or eight feet. The walls, stained and bare, were scribbled over with the prose and verse of my predecessors, and especially with the scrawl of a woman who said much that was insulting about the jus de milieu. A pallet with dirty sheets took up half of my cell. A plank, supported by two brackets, fastened against the wall, two feet above the pallet, a cupboard for the prisoners linen, boots and shoes. A chair and a sordid article composed the rest of the furniture. My faithful keeper brought me the towels and jugs of water that I had asked for. I besought him to take away from the bed the dirty sheets and the yellow woollen blanket to remove the pail, which was choking me, and to sweep out my den after first sprinkling it. All the works of the jus de milieu, having been carried off, I shaved. I poured the water from my jug over myself. I changed my linen. The chateaubriand had sent me a little parcel. I set out all my things on the plank over my bed as though I were in the cabin of a ship. When this was done my breakfast arrived and I took my tea on my well-washed table, which I covered with a clean napkin. Soon they came to fetch the utensils of my matitinal feast, and I was left alone, duly locked in. My cell was slited only by a grated window, which opened very high up. I placed my table under this window and climbed on the table to breathe and to enjoy the light. Through the bars of my thieves' cell I saw only a yard, or rather a dark and narrow passage, with gloomy buildings with bats fluttering around them. I heard the clanking of keys and chains, the noise of policemen and spies, the footsteps of soldiers, the movement of arms, the shouting, the laughter, the licentious songs of the prisoners, my neighbours, the yells of Benoit, condemned to death the murder of his mother and his obscene friend. I called these words uttered by Benoit between his confused exclamations of fear and repentance. Ah, my mother, my poor mother! I was seen the underside of society, the soles of humanity, the hideous machines by which this world is moved. I thanked the men of letters, those great partisans of the liberty of the press, who formerly had taken me for their leader and fought under my orders. But for them I should have left this life without knowing what prison was, and I should have missed this ordeal. I recognise in this delicate attention the genius, the goodness, the generosity, the honour, the courage of the placed penmen. But after all, what was this short trial? Tassau spent years in a dungeon, and shall I complain? No. I have not the mad pride to measure my vexation of a few hours with the prolonged sacrifices of the immortal victims whose name's history has preserved. Moreover, I was not at all unhappy. The genius of my past grandeur and of my thirty-year-old glory did not appear to me. But my muse of former days, very poor, very unknown, came all radiant to kiss me through my window. She was charmed with my lodging and quite inspired. She found me again, as she had seen me in my wretchedness in London when the first visions of Rene were wafting in my head. What were we going to compose of Mampindus and I? A song, in imitation of that poor poet loveless who, in the jails of the English Common, sang King Charles I his master? No. The voice of a prisoner would have seemed to me to be of ill omen for my little King Henry V. It is from the foot of the altar that him should be addressed to Miss Fortune. I did not therefore sing the crown fallen from an innocent brow. I contented myself with telling of another crown, but also laid on a young girl's beer. I remembered Eliza Frizzle, whom I had seen buried the day before in the cemetery at Passy. I began a few energetic verses of a Latin epitaph, but suddenly I was in doubt as to the quantity of a word. I quickly sprang from the table on which I was perch, leaning against the bars of the window, and ran to the door on which I rain blows with my fist. The neighboring dens rang out, followed by two gendarmes. He opened my wicket, and I cried as Sontu would have done. A greatest! A greatest! The jailer opened his eyes. The gendarmes thought that I was revealing the name of one of my accomplices. They were quite ready to handcuff me. I explained. I gave them money to buy the book, and they went off to ask the astonish police for a greatest. While they were turning to my commission, I clamoured up on my table again, and changing my ideas on that tripod and trophies on the death of Eliza. But when I was in the midst of my inspiration at about three o'clock, behold, tip-staffs entering my cell and bodily apprehending me on the banks of Plimesis. They took me to the examining magistrate who sat drawing out instruments in a gloomy office, opposite my prison, on the other side of the yard. The magistrate, a famous and pompous young limb of the law, put the usual questions to me as to my surname, Christian names, age and place of residence. I refused to answer or sign anything whatever, declining to recognise the political authority of a government which was able to point neither to the ancient hereditary right, nor the election of the people, since France had not been consulted and no National Congress summoned. I was taken back to my mass-trap. At six o'clock they brought me my dinner, and I continued to turn and turn over in my head the lines of my stanzas, at the same time improvising an air which I thought charming. My name N'Chateaubriand sent me a mattress, a bolster, sheets, a cotton blanket, candles and the books which I read at night. I arranged my room and still humming, il descend le secré et l'érance s'entache. I found my ballot of the young girl and the young flower finished. I began to undress. A sound of voices was heard. My door opened. I must say the prefect of police, accompanied by Monsieur Ney, appeared. I made a thousand apologies for the prolongation of my detention in custody at the police station. He informed me that my friends the duty Fitz James and the baron Edin of Yill had been arrested like myself, and that the prefect officers were so full that they did not know where to put the persons who had to be examined by the justice jury. But, he added, you shall come to me, Monsieur LeBicont, and choose in my apartment whatever suits you best. I thanked him and begged him to leave me in my hole. I was already quite charmed like a monk with his cell. Monsieur the prefect declined my entreaties and I had to forsake my nest. I saw again the rooms which I had not visited since the day when Bonaparte prefect of police had sent for me to invite me to leave Paris. Monsieur Giscay and Madame Giscay opened all their rooms for me, begging me to pick the one which I would like to sleep in. Monsieur Ney offered to give up his to me. I was confused at so much politeness. I accepted a lonely little room which looked out on the garden which was used, I think, by Madame Giscay as a dressing-room. I was allowed to have my servant with me. He slept on a mattress outside my door at the entrance of a narrow staircase leading down to Madame Giscay's large apartment. Another staircase led to the garden, but this one was forbidden me, and every evening a sentry was placed at the foot against the railing which separates the garden from the key. Madame Giscay is the kindest woman in the world and Madame Giscay is very pretty and an exceedingly good musician. I have every reason to be satisfied with the care shown me by my house. They seemed anxious to atone for the twelve hours of my first confinement. The day after my installation in Madame Giscay's dressing-room I rose quite pleased as I remembered an Akron song on the toilet of a young Greek girl. I put my head to the window. I perceived a small, very green garden and a great wall concealed behind Japan varnish. To the right, at the back of the garden, there was a small garden and a small garden in which one caught glimpses of agreeable police-clarks like beautiful nymphs amid lilac bushes. To the left, a key along the Seine, the river and a corner of Old Paris in the parish of Saint-Honoré-des-Arcs. The Saint-Mama Giscay's piano reached me with the voices of the police spies calling for head-clarks to receive their reports. How everything changes in this world! This is the trip of the French garden with its closely trimmed alms of the mansion of the first president of Paris. This old garden in 1580 occupied the site of that block of houses which stops the view to the north and west and it stretched to the bank of the Seine. It was there that after the day of the barricades the dut de guise came to visit Achille de Allet. He found the first president who was walking in his garden who was so little astonished at his coming as Dane to turn his head nor discontinue the walk which he had commenced, which having finished and being at the end of his alley he turned and in turning he saw the dut de guise who came to him. Then that grave magistrate raising his voice said to him, It is a great pity that the vialage should drive out the master. For the rest my soul is gods, my heart the kings and my bodies in the hands of the wicked. Let them do with it what they please. The Achille de Allet in that garden today is Monsieur Vidoch and the dut de guise is Coco Lacour. We have changed great men for great principles. How free we are now! How free was I especially at my window watching that good John Darm standing at sentry at the foot of my staircase and prepared to shoot me flying if I had sprouted wings. There was no nightingale in my garden but there were plenty of frisky, shameless quarrelsome sparrows which are to be found everywhere in town, in palaces, in prisons and which purchase gaily on the instrument of death as on a rose-bush to one that can fly away what matter earthly sufferings. Madame de Chateaubriand obtained permission to see me she had spent thirteen months under the terror in the Rhine prisons with my two sisters Lucille and Julie. Her imagination remaining under the impression can no longer endure the idea of a prison. My poor wife had a violent attack of hysterics on entering the prefix officers and this was an obligation the more which I owe to the juiced milieu. On the second day of my detention the examining magistrate the C.O. de Motier arrived accompanied by his clock. Monsieur Guizot had obtained the appointment as Attorney-General to the Royal Court at Rhine of one Moussier-Elo a writer and consequently an envious and irritable man in a triumphant party. Monsieur Guizot's creature, finding my name and those of Moussier Le Duc de Fitz-James and Moussier E. de Neville mixed up in the proceedings that were being conducted against M. Berrier-Adnant wrote to the Minister of Justice that if he were the master he would not fail to have us arrested and included the trial both as accomplices and as witnesses for the prosecution. Moussier de Montalibé had thought it to yield to the advice of Moussier-Elo. There was a time when Moussier de Montalibé used to come to me to ask my opinion and my ideas relating to the elections and the liberty of the press. The restoration which made Moussier de Montalibé appear was unable to make him a man of intelligence and that is no doubt why it makes him feel sick today. So Moussier de Motier the examining magistrate entered my room a morkish air was spread like a layer of honey over a contracted and violent face Je m'appelle Loyal, natif de Normandie et suis UCA Averge en dépit de l'envie. Moussier de Motier formally belonged to the congregation a great communicant a great legitimist a great partisan of the ordinances since become a furious just milieu man. I begged this animal to take a seat with all the politeness of the old order I drew up an armchair for him I put a little table a pen and ink before his clark I sat down opposite Moussier de Motier and in a mild voice he read out to me the little accusations which duly proved would have tenderly got my head cut off after which he passed to his examination I declared again that not recognizing the existing political order I had no answers to make that I should sign nothing that the official proceedings were superfluous that they might spare themselves the trouble and pass on that for the rest I should always be charmed to have the honor of receiving Moussier de Motier I saw that this manner of acting was throwing the sainted man into a fury that having once shared my opinions he thought my conduct a satire on his own with this resentment was mingled the pride of a magistrate who believed himself wounded in his functions with me I was quite unable to make him grasp the difference that exists between the social order and the political order of things I submitted I told him to the former because it belongs to natural law I obeyed the civil, military and financial laws the laws of police and a public order but I owed obedience to the political law only in so far as that law emanated from the royal authority consecrated by the ages or sprang from the sovereignty of the people I was not silly enough or false enough to believe that the people had been convoked, consulted and that the established political order was the result of a national decree if they prosecuted me for theft, murder, arson or other social crimes or misdemeanours I should reply to justice but when they instituted a political trial against me I had nothing to reply to an authority which had no legal power nothing to ask me a fortnight passed in this way Monsieur de Mortier, whose fury I had heard of a fury which he endeavoured to communicate to the judges used to approach me with a sugary air saying, won't you tell me your illustrious name in the course of one of the examinations he read me a letter from Charles X to the Duke de Fitz-James containing a phrase complementary to myself well said I said what is the meaning of that letter it is a matter of common knowledge that I have remained faithful to my old king that I have not taken the oath to Philip as for the rest I am deeply touched by my exiled sovereign's letter in the time of his prosperity he never said anything of that kind to me and this phrase repays me for all my services Madame Rekamier to whom so many prisoners have owed consolation and deliverance had herself brought to my new retreat Monsieur de Berangers came down from Passy to tell me in song under the reign of his friends what used to happen in the jails in the time of my friends he was no longer able to fling the restoration in my face my fatal friend Monsieur Berctin came to administer the ministerial sacraments to me an enthusiastic woman came hurrying from Beauvais in order to admire my glory Monsieur Villemain performed an act of courage Monsieur Dubois Monsieur Léonormeau my generous and learned young friends did not forget me the republican's lawyer Monsieur Charles Adieu never left me in the hope of a trial he magnified the affair and he would have given up all his fees for the honor of defending me Monsieur Giscay as I have told you had offered me the run of his rooms but I did not abuse his permission only one evening I went down to hear my Mazar Giscay in the piano I sat between Monsieur Giscay and his wife Monsieur Giscay scolded his daughter and maintained that she had executed her sonata less well than usual this little concert which my host offered me in the bosom of his family with myself a sole audience was exceedingly singular while the most pastoral scene was taking place in the intimacy of the home policemen were bringing me colleagues from the outside and loaded sticks and yet what peace and harmony reigned in the very heart of the police I had the good fortune to obtain from Monsieur Charles Philippon the grant of a favor exactly similar to that which I enjoyed the favor of the jail sentenced because of his talent to some months imprisonment he spent them in an asylum at Chao he was called to Paris as a witness in a lawsuit and availed himself of the opportunity not to return to his lodging but he repented of it in the place where he lay concealed he was no longer able to see in comfort a child whom he loved regretting his prison and not knowing how to enter it again he wrote me the following letter to ask me to arrange this matter with my host Sir, you are a prisoner and you would understand me even if you were not Chateaubriand I also am a prisoner a voluntary prisoner since the proclamation of martial law at the house of a friend a poor artist like myself I wanted to escape from the justice of the court's martial with which I was threatened by the seizure of my newspaper on the night of this month but in order to hide myself I've had to deprive myself of the kisses of a child whom I idolize an adopted daughter, five years old my happiness and my joy this privation is a torture which I could not endure any longer it is death to me I am going to give myself up and they will put me into Saint Pelagie where I shall see my poor child only rarely if they allow it at all and at fixed hours where I shall tremble for her health and where I shall die of anxiety if I do not see her every day I appeal to you, sir to you, a legitimist I, a wholehearted Republican to you, a grave and parliamentary man I, a caricaturist and a partisan of the bitterest political personalities to you, to whom I am quite unknown and who are a prisoner like myself to persuade Monsieur the prefect of police to allow me to return to the asylum to which I had been transferred I pledge my word of honour to appear before justice whenever I shall be called upon to do so and I undertake not to flee from any tribune or whatever if they will leave me with my poor child you will believe me, sir when I speak of honour and when I swear not to run away and I am persuaded that you will plead for me even though profound politicians may see in this a new poof of alliance between the legitimists and the Republicans all men whose opinions agree so well if to such a guest to such an advocate they refuse what I ask I should know that I have nothing more to hope for and I should see myself parted for nine months from my poor Emma in any case, sir whatever may be the result of your generous intervention my gratitude will be nonetheless eternal for I shall never doubt the urgent solicitations which your heart will suggest to you except, sir the expression of the sincerest admiration and believe me your most humble and most devoted servant Charles Philippon proprietor of the caricature newspaper sentenced to thirteen months' imprisonment Paris 21st June 1832 I obtained the favour which Monsieur Philippon asked he thanked me in a note which proves not the greatness of the service which was limited to having my client guarded at Chaillot by a gendarme but that secret joy of the passions which can be well understood only by those who have really felt it sir I am leaving for Chaillot with my dear child I wanted to thank you but I feel that words are too cold to express the gratitude which I feel I was right to think, sir that your heart would suggest eloquent entreaties to you I am sure that I am not deceived when I believe that it will tell you that I am not ungrateful and that it will depict to you better than I could the confusion of happiness into which your kindness has thrown me except, sir, I beg my most sincere thanks and dain to believe me the most affectionate of your servants Chaillot Philippon to this singular mark of my credit I will add this strange proof of my fame a young clerk in Monsieur Giscay's offices addressed me some very beautiful verses which were handed to me by Monsieur Giscay himself for after all, we must be fair if a government of literary men attacked me ignobley Monsieur Vieux-Main pronounced in my favour courageously and in the journal de débat itself my fat friend Bertin protested under his own signature against my arrest Mamozo Noemi which I presume must be Mamozo Giscay's Christian name used often to walk alone in the little garden with a book in her hand she would cast a stealthy glance towards my window how sweet it would have been to be released from my irons like savantes by my master's daughter while I was assuming a romantic air a handsome young messianet came to dispel my dream I saw him talking with Mamozo Giscay with that air which does not deceive us creators of silphs I tumbled down from my clouds shut my window and abandoned the idea of growing my moustaches bleached by the wind of adversity after fifteen days of non-suit restored me to liberty on the thirtieth of June to the great happiness of Madame de Chateaubriand who would have died I believe if my detention had been prolonged she came to fetch me in a coach I filled it with my little luggage as nimbly as I had formally left the ministry and I returned to the read-on fare with that inexpressible finish which misfortune gives to virtue if history were to have Mamozo Giscay down to posterity perhaps he would arrive there in a rather bad plight I want what I have just written to serve him here as a counter-poise to a hostile renown I have nothing but praise for his attentions and his obligingness doubtless if I had been condemned he would not have allowed me to escape but in short he and his family treated me with a decency a good taste a feeling for my position for what I was and for what I had been which were not displayed by a literary administration and by men of law who were the more brutal inasmuch as they were acting against the weak and had nothing to fear of all the governments that have arisen in France during the last forty years Philips is the only one that threw me into the highwayman's cell it laid its hand upon my head upon my head respected even by an incensed conqueror Napoleon raised his arm but did not strike me and why this anger I will tell you I dare to raise a protest in favour of right against might in a country in which I have asked for liberty under the empire for glory under the restoration in a country where solitary that I am I reckon not by brothers sisters children's joys pleasures but by tombstones the last political changes have separated me from the rest of my friends some have gone towards fortune and all battered with their dishonour passed by my poverty others have abandoned their homes exposed to insults the generations so greatly smitten with independence have sold themselves from those generations common in their conduct intolerable in their pride mediocre or mad in their writings I expect nothing but scorn and I return it to them they have not the wherewithal to understand me nothing of loyalty to the sworn oath love for generous institutions respect for one's own opinions contempt for success in gold the felicity of sacrifice the worship of what is weak and unhappy after the order of non-suit one duty remained to me to perform the offence with which I had been charged was connected with that for which Monsieur Berrier was awaiting trial at Nantes I was unable to explain my position to the examining magistrate because I did not recognise the competency of the tribunal to repair the harm which my silence might have done to Monsieur Berrier I wrote to Monsieur the Minister of Justice the letter which you will find below and which I made public through the medium of the newspapers Paris 3 July 1832 Monsieur le ministre de la Justice permit me to perform with reference to yourself in the interest of a man too long a duty prompted by conscience and honour Monsieur Berrier the Younger when questioned by the examining magistrate at Nantes on the 18th of last month replied that he had seen Madame la Duchesse de Berrier that he had with the respect due to her rank her courage and her misfortunes submitted to her his personal opinion and that of honourable friends on the actual situation of France and on the consequences of her Royal Highness presence in the West Monsieur Berrier developing this wide subject with his accustomed talent summed it up thus no foreign or civil war supposing it to be crowned with success can either subdue or rally opinions questioned as to the honourable friends of whom he had spoken Monsieur Berrier nobly said that grave men having manifested to him an opinion on the present circumstances agreeing with his own he had thought that he ought to strengthen his opinion with the authority of theirs but that he would not give their names without their consent I, Monsieur la ministre de la Justice and one of those men consulted by Monsieur Berrier not only did I approve of his opinion but I drew up a note in the sense of that very opinion it was to be handed to Madame la Duchesse de Berrier in the event that that princess should really be on French soil which I did not believe as this first note was not signed I wrote a second which I signed and which I still more earnestly and treated the intrepid mother of the grandson of Henry IV to leave a country which has been torn by so many discords this declaration was due for me to Monsieur Berrier the real culprit of culprit there be is I this declaration will serve I hope for the prompt deliverance of the prisoner of not it will allow the guilt to rest upon my head alone of a fact I wrote out very innocent of which harbour in the final result I accept all the consequences I have the honour to be etc Chateaubriant I don't fear Saint Michel number 84 I wrote on the 9th of last month to Monsieur le Conde de Montelibé on a matter relating to Monsieur Berrier but Monsieur the Minister of the Interior did not think it incumbent upon him even to inform me that he had received my letter as it is very important to me to know that which I have the honour to write today to Monsieur the Minister of Justice I shall be infinitely obliged to him if he will instruct his office to send me an acknowledgement of its receipt Chateaubriant the reply of Monsieur the Minister of Justice was not long incoming here it is Paris 3rd July Monsieur le Viscont as the letter which he have addressed to me contains information which may enlighten justice I am forwarding it without delay to the King's Attorney to the Nantes Court so that it may be added to the documents and the proceedings pending against Monsieur Berrier I am with respect etc but keep of the seals By this reply Monsieur Bart graciously reserved to himself the right to institute a new prosecution against me I remember the proud disdain of the great men of the Jus Melea when I allowed a glimpse to pass of the possibility of any violence exercised upon my person or my writings Good heavens, why deck myself with an imaginary danger who troubled about my opinion who thought of touching a hair of my head trusty and well-beloved friends of the stupan dauntless hearers of peace at any price you have nevertheless had your terror of the counting-house and the police your martial law in Paris your thousand press trials your military commissions to condemn the author of the con-con to death you nevertheless flung me into your jail the punishment applicable to my crime was nothing less than capital punishment with what pleasure would I yield you my head if thrown into the scales of justice it made them lean on the side of the honour the glory and the liberty of my country I was more than ever determined to resume my exile Madame Lechateau-Briand terrified at my adventure would already have wished to be very far away the only question was to seek the spot where we should pitch our tents the great difficulty was to find some money with which to live on foreign soil and pay a debt which was drawing down upon me threats of lawsuits and distress the first year of an embassy always ruined the ambassador that is what happened to me in Rome I resigned on the succession of the Polynaic Ministry and I went away adding to my ordinary afflictions sixty thousand francs of borrowed money I had applied to all the royalist purses none was open to me I was advised to ask Lechateau-Briand Lechateau-Briand advanced me ten thousand francs which I at once gave to the more pressing creditors I recovered the sum on the proceeds of my pamphlets and repaid it to him with gratitude but there still remained some thirty thousand francs to be paid over and above my old debts for I have some that have grown a beard so aged are they unfortunately that beard is a golden beard which has to be cut upon my chin once a year Missouli du Delivis on his return from a journey to Scotland had told me on behalf of Charles the Temp that that prince wished to continue to pay me my peer's pension I thought it my duty to refuse the offer the du Delivis returned to the charge when he saw me on leaving prison in the most cruel difficulties finding nothing left of my house and garden in the redome fair and harassed by a swarm of creditors I had already sold my plate the du Delivis brought me twenty thousand francs nobly saying that these were not the two years' peerage pension which the king admitted owing me and that my debts in Rome were simply a debt of the crown this sum set me free I accepted it as a temporary loan and wrote the king the following letter Sile in the midst of the calamities with which it has pleased God to hallow your life you have not forgotten those who suffer at the foot of the throne of St. Louis you day to send word to me some months ago of your generous intention to continue the peer's pension which I renounced were refusing to take the oath to the unlawful power I thought that your majesty had servants poorer than I and worthier of your bounty but the last writings which I published have cost me damages and brought prosecutions down upon me I have in vain tried to sell the little that I possess I find myself obliged to accept not the annual pension which your majesty proposed to allow me out of your royal poverty but a provisional sucker to free me from the difficulties which prevent me from reaching a refuge where I can live by my work Sile I must need to be very unhappy to make myself a burden even for a moment on a crown which I have supported with all my efforts and which I shall continue to serve for the rest of my life I am with the most profound respect etc. Chateaubriand my nephew the Count Louis de Chateaubriand on his side lent me a similar sum of 20,000 francs thus rid of material obstacles I made my preparations for my second departure but a reason based upon honor stopped me and I'm not Duchesse de Bury was on French soil what would become of her and was I not bound to remain on the spot where her dangers might summon me a note from the princess which reached me from the depths of the Vendée set me completely free I was going to write to you, M. Le Ricanche touching this provisional government which I thought it my duty to form when I did not know when nor even if I might return to France and of which I'm informed that you can centre to form part it did not exist in fact because it never met and some of the members came to an understanding only to communicate to me an opinion which I was not able to follow I do not take it in the least unkindly of them you judged in accordance with the report on my position in the country made to you by those who had reason to know better than I the effects of a fatal influence in which I was never willing to believe and I'm sure that if M. de Chateaubriand had been with me his noble and generous heart would also have refused to do so I rely therefore nonetheless on the good individual services and even the councils of the persons who form part of the provisional government and whose choice had been dictated to me by their enlightened zeal and their devotion to the legitimacy in the person of Henry V I see that it is your intention to leave France again I should regret this greatly if I could have you near me but you have weapons which strike at a distance and I hope that you will not cease to fight for Henry V believe M. Le recont in all my esteem and friendship MCR with this note my name dispensed with my services and did not yield to the advice which I had ventured to give her the note of which M. Berrier was the bearer she even seemed a little hurt by it although she admitted that a fatal influence had led her astray thus restored to my liberty and released from all engagements on this day, 7th August having nothing left to do but go away I wrote my letter to M. de Beranget who had visited me in prison to M. de Beranget Paris, 7th August, 1832 I wanted M. to go to say goodbye to you and thank you for your remembrance time failed me and I was obliged to start without having the pleasure of seeing you and embracing you I am ignorant as to my future is there a clear future for anybody today we are living not in a time of revolution but of social transformation now transformations are realized slowly and the generations which find themselves placed in the period of metamorphosis perish obscure and miserable if Europe as might well be the case has reached the age of decryption and the future of the world if Europe as might well be the case has reached the age of decryptitude it is another matter it will produce nothing and will die out in an impotent anarchy of passions morals and doctrines in that event M. you will have sung over a tomb I have fulfilled all my engagements M. I returned at the sound of your voice I have defended what I came to defend I have undergone the cholera I am returning to the mountain do not break your lie as you threaten to do I uttered one of my most glorious titles to the memory of mankind continue to make France smile and weep for it so happens by a secret known to you alone that in your popular songs the words are gay and the music plaintive I recommend myself to your friendship and your muse Chateaubriand I am to set out tomorrow Madame de Chateaubriand will meet me at Lucerne Basel 12th August 1832 many men die without losing sight of the esteeple I cannot meet with the esteeple which is to see me die in quest of a refuge in which to finish my memoirs I am taking the road anew dragging at my heels an enormous luggage of papers diplomatic correspondence confidential notes letters from ministers and kings it is history riding pillion with romans at Vassoul I saw M. Augustin Thierry living with his brother the prefect when formally in Paris he sent me his historie de la conquête des normaux I went to thank him I found a young man in a room with half-closed shutters he was almost blind he tried to rise to receive me but his legs no longer carried him and he fell into my arms he blushed when I expressed to him my sincere admiration it was then that he replied that his work was mine and that it was when reading the Battle of the Franks in the Martyrs that he had conceived a new idea of writing history when I took leave of him he then made an effort to follow me and dragged himself to the door leaning against the wall I went out quite affected by so much talent and so much misfortune at Vassoul after a long banishment appeared Charles Attemp now setting sail for the new exile which will be for him the last I passed the frontier without accident but it was a bit of a rubbish let us see if on the other side of the Alps I may not enjoy the liberty of Switzerland and the son of Italy the needs of my opinions and my years at the entrance to Vassoul I met an old Swiss, a custom house officer he made me undergo a little quarantine of a quarter of an hour my luggage was taken down into a cellar they set in movement something or other which made the same sound as a stocking frame their rows of vinaigrette fume and thus purified from the contagion of France I was released by my good Swiss I have said in the itineraire speaking of the Storks of Athens from the height of their nests which revolutions cannot reach they have seen the race of mortals change beneath them while impious generations have risen on the tombs of the religious generations the young Stork has always nourished its old father I find again at Vassoul the Stork's nest which I left there six years ago but the hospital in whose roof the Stork of Vassoul has built its nest is not the Parthenon the son of the Rhine is not the son of the Cephesus the Council is not the Areopagus Erasmus is not Pericles nevertheless the Rhine, the Black Forest Rome and Germanic Vassoul are something Louis Cartos extended France to the gates of that city and three hostile monarchs pass through it in 1813 to come to sleep in the great, defended by Napoleon in vain let us go to see Holbein's dance of death it will tell us a tale of human vanities the dance of death always presuming that it was not even then a real painting, took place in Paris in 1424 in the Cimetière de Zanussat it came to us from England the performance of this spectacle was recorded in pictures these were exhibited in the cemeteries of Dresden Lübeck Minden Dresdier, Strasbourg and Blois in France and Holbein's pencil immortalised these joys of the tomb at Basel these dances of death of the great artist have in their turn been carried away by death which does not spare its own follies there remain at Basel of Holbein's labour only six pieces sawn from the stones of the cloisters and lodged in the library of the university a coloured drawing has preserved the harmony of the work those greatest figures on a terrible background partake of the genius of Shakespeare a genius blended of comedy and tragedy the persons bear a lively expression rich and poor, old and young, men and women popes, cardinals, priests emperors, kings, queens, princes dukes, nobles, magistrates, warriors all struggle and argue with death not one accepts it with a good grace death is infinitely various but always clownish like life which is only a serious piece of buffoonery this death of the satirical painter goes one leg short like the wooden-legged beggar whom it accosts it plays a mandolin behind its backbone like the musician whom it drags away it is not always bold tufts of fair, brown or grey hair flutter on the skeleton's neck and make it more frightful by making it nearly alive in one of the cartoons death has almost hair it is almost young like a young man and it carries off a young girl who is looking at herself in a glass death has in its wallet the tricks of a crafty schoolboy with a pair of scissors it cuts the string of a dog which leads a blind man and the blind man is at two steps from an open pit elsewhere death in a short mantle accosts one of its victims with the gestures of a pascan all by may have taken the idea of this formidable gaiety in nature itself enter a reliquary all the death's head seem to grin because they uncover their teeth after what are they grinning at? had death or had life? I liked the cathedral at Basel and especially the ancient cloisters as I passed through the latter filled with funeral inscriptions I read the names of some reformers Protestantism chooses its place and takes its time badly when it sets itself in catholic monuments once he is less what it has reformed than what it has destroyed those dry pedants who thought that they would remake a primitive christianity within an old christianity which had created society for 15 centuries were unable to raise a single monument to what would that monument have responded? what connection would it have had with the manners of the day? men were not made like Luther and Calvin in the time of Luther and Calvin they were made like Leo X with the genius of Raphael or like St. Louis with the Gothic genius the few believed in nothing the many believed in everything and so Protestantism has as its temples only school rooms or as churches only the cathedrals which it has devastated it has there established its nudity Jesus Christ and his apostles no doubt did not resemble the Greeks and Romans of their age but they did not come to reform an old creed they came to establish a new religion to replace the gods by a god in August 1832 the road from Basel to Lucerne through Argao presents a series of valleys some of which resemble the valley of Argelis minus the Spanish sky of the Pyrenees at Lucerne the mountains differently grouped shelved, profiled, collared and as they withdraw one behind the other and sink away into the perspective in the snows bordering on the San Cotard if one suppressed the reggae and kept only the hills with the surfaces of grass and rabbit warrants which run down directly to the lake of the four cantons one would reproduce an Italian lake the arcades of the cloister of the cemetery surrounding the cathedral are like boxes from which this spectacle can be enjoyed the monuments of the cemetery have for standard small iron crosses bearing a guilt Christ in the rays of the sun these are so many points of light escaping from the tombs from space to space they are holy water fonts in which soaks a twig with which one can bless mourned ashes I won't none there in particular but I sprinkle the lustral dew upon the silent community of the Christians and, unfortunately, my brothers one epitaph said to me Hadee mihi cras tibi another fuit homo a third sistae viato abi viato and I away to-morrow in a man and a traveller I stop and a traveller I go away leaning against one of the arcades of the cloister I long contemplated the theatre of the adventures of William Tell and his companions the theatre of hell-vision Liberty so well sung and described by Schiller and Johann von Mühle my eyes sought in the vast picture for the presence of the most illustrious dead and my feet trod on the most unknown ashes when I saw the Alps again five years ago I asked myself what I had come to seek there what then shall I say to-day what shall I say to-morrow and again to-morrow woe to me who cannot grow old and who am always growing old and of book two part one book two part two of the memos of Chateaubriand volume five part four this is a Librebox recording all Librebox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org recording by Nicole Lee the memos of Chateaubriand volume five by François René de Chateaubriand translated by Alexandre Tuxerre de Matos book two part two Lucerne 15th August 1832 the Capuchins went this morning according to the custom on the feast of the assumption to bless the mountains those monks professed the religion under whose protection Swiss independence was born that independence still endures what will become of our modern liberty all accursed by the blessing of the philosophers and the hangmen it is not forty years old and it has been sold and sold again bishops and deltins at every street corner there is more liberty in the frock of a Capuchin blessing the Alps than in all the fripper of the legislators of the republic the empire the restoration and the usurpation of july a French traveller in Switzerland is touched and saddened our history for the misfortune of those regions is too closely connected with their history the blood of Helvetia has been shed for us and by us we wasted the hut of William Tell with fire and sword we engaged in our civil wars the peasant warrior who guarded the genius of Thor Walsson has fixed the memory of the 10th of August at the gate of Lucerne the Helvetian lion lies dying pierced by an arrow and covering with its drooping head and one of its paws the escutcheon of France of which we see only one of the fledgling the chapel consecrated to the victims the clump of green trees which accompanies the barra leaf sculptured in the rock filled the 10th of August who shows the monument to strangers the note from Louis says ordering the Swiss to lay down their arms the frontal presented by Madame Le Dauphine to the expiatory chapel upon which that perfect model of sorrow has embroidered the image of the immolated lamb of God by what council does Providence after the last fall of the throne of the Bourbons send me to seek a refuge near this monument at least I can look upon it without blushing I can lay my feeble but not perjured hand upon the shield of France even as the lion covers it with its mighty claws now distended in death well, a member of the Diet has proposed to destroy this monument what does Switzerland demand? liberty? she has enjoyed it for four centuries equality? she has it the republic? it is her form of government the lightning of taxes she pays hardly any what does she want then? she wants to change it is the law of beings when a people transformed by time is no longer able to remain what it has been the first symptom of its malady is a hatred of the past and of the virtues of its fathers I returned from the monument to the 10th of August by the great covered bridge a kind of wooden gallery hung over the lake 238 triangular pictures set between the rafters of the roof adorned this gallery they are popular animals in which the Swiss as he passed used to learn the story of his religion and his liberty I have seen the tame moorfowl I prefer the wild moorfowl of the pond at Combourg in the town I was struck by the sound of a choir of voices it issued from a lady chapel I entered that chapel and thought myself carried back to the days of my childhood in front of four devoutly decked altars women were reciting the rosary and the litanies with the priest it was like the evening prayer by the sea shore in my poor Brittany and I was on the shore of the lake of Lucerne thus did a man not together the two ends of my life the better to make me feel all that had been lost in the chain of my years on the lake of Lucerne 16th August 1832 noon Alps, lower your crests I am no longer worthy of you young, I should be solitary old, I am merely isolated I would certainly depict my nature again but for whom? who would care for my pictures what arms other than those of time would in reward embrace my genius with its stripped forehead who would repeat my songs what mew should I inspire with any under the vault of my years as under that of the snowy heights which surround me no ray of sun will come to warm me what a pity to drag across those heights, tired footsteps which no one would care to follow what a misfortune not to find myself free to wander anew until at the end of my life two o'clock my bark has stopped at the landing stage of a house on the right bank of the lake before entering the Bay of Urie I climbed up to the orchard of that inn and came to sit under two walnut trees which give shelter to a stable before me a little to the right on the opposite bank of the lake the village of Schwitz unfolds itself among orchards and the inclined plains of those pastures called Alps in this part it is summated by rock broken into a semi-circle the two points of which the mythen and the harken the mitre and the hook owe their names to their shapes this horned capital rests upon turfy slopes as the crown of the rude harvestian independence rests on the head of a nation of shepherds the silence around me is interrupted only by the tinkling of the bells of two heifers left in the neighbouring stable they seem to ring out to me the glory of the pastoral liberty which Schwitz has given with its name to a whole people a little canton in the neighbourhood of Naples called Italia has in the same way but with less sacred rights communicated its name to the land of the romans three o'clock we are starting we are entering the bay or lake of Ui the mountains grow taller and darker there is the grass-grown ridge of the Grütli and the three fountains at which first Arnold von Milchthal and Stalfaha swore to deliver their country there at the foot of the Aksenburg is the chapel that marks the place at which Tell jumping from Gessler's Park reached it back with his foot to the midst of the billows but did Tell and his companions ever exist might they not be only persons of the north born in the songs of the Skalds whose heroic traditions are to be found on the shores of Sweden are the Swiss today what they were at the time when they won the independence those bear paths see Colashas roll along where Tell and his companions used to bound bow in hand from peak to peak am I myself a traveller in harmony with these regions a storm comes luckily to assail me we are landing in a creek at a few paces from Tell's chapel it is always the same god that raises the winds and the same confidence in that god that reassures men as in former days when crossing the ocean the lakes of America the seas of Greece or Syria I am writing on drenched paper the roads the waves the rolling of the thunder blend better with the ancient liberty of the Alps than the voice of that effeminate and degenerate nature which my sentry has placed in my bosom despite myself Altdorf I have disembarked at Fluellen and reached Altdorf where the absence of horses will keep me one night at the foot of the Banberg here William Tell shot the apple from his son's head that separates those two fountains let us believe in spite of the fact that the same story was told by Saxo Grammaticus as quoted first by myself in my essays Sulaerio of Lysion let us have faith and religion and liberty the two great things about man glory and power are brilliant not great tomorrow from the top of the Saint-Gothard I shall greet once again that Italy which I have greeted from the summit of the Simplon and the Monsenis but of what avail is that last look cast upon the regions of the south and the dawn the pine tree of the glaciers cannot descend among the orange trees which it sees below it in the flowery valleys ten o'clock in the evening the storm is beginning again the lightning flashes twist around the rocks the echoes swell and prolong the sound of the thunder the roaring of the surgeon and the reyos welcome the bard of Amorca it is long since I found myself alone and free nothing in the room in which I am locked two beds for waking trouble who has neither loves to put to sleep nor dreams to dream those mountains that storm this night are treasures lost for me what life nevertheless I feel in the depths of my soul never when the most ardent blood flowed from my heart into my veins did I speed the language of the passions that I might do at this moment it seems to me as though I saw myself of the conborg woods issue from the flanks of the st. Gotthard has thou come to see me again o charming phantom of my youth has thou pity for me thou seest I am changed only in face ever chimerical devoured by a causeless and unfed fire I am leaving the world and I was entering it when I created thee in a moment of ecstasy and delirium this is the hour at which I invoke thee in my tower I can still open my window to let thee in if thou art not satisfied with the charms which I lavished upon thee I will make thee a hundred times more seductive my palette is not exhausted I have seen more beauties and I know how to paint better than I did come to sit upon my knees do not be afraid of my hair stroke it with thy fairy or shuddery fingers it will turn brown again under thy kisses this head which these falling hairs do not make wiser is quite as mad as it was when I gave thee being eldest daughter of my illusion sweet fruit of my mysterious loves with my first solitude come we will once more mount the clouds together we will go with the lightning to plow illumine set fire to the precipices by which I shall pass tomorrow come, carry me away as in former days but do not carry me back again look at my door it is not thou it is the guide the horses have arrived we must start of this dream all that remains is the rain, the wind and I an endless dream an eternal storm 17th August 1832 Amstek from Aldorf to here a valley between mountains close together as one sees everywhere the noisy rays in the middle at the heart in a little German student who has come from the wrong glaciers and who has said to me you've gone from Aldorf this morning you go vast he thought I was on foot like himself then seeing my charbon oh horses that's different if the student were willing to swap his young legs for my charbon and my even worse car of glory with what pleasure would I take his stick, his grey blouse and his blonde beard I should go to the wrong glaciers I should talk the language of Schiller to my mistress and I should ponder deeply on Teutonic liberty he would go his way old as time bored as one dead undeceived by experience having fast around his neck like a bell a fame by which he would be more reared after a quarter of an hour than by the din of the rares the exchange will not take place good bargains are not for my use my scholar is going he said to me taking off and putting back it on cap with a little nod of the head per me one more shadow vanished the scholar does not know my name he will have met me and will never know it I am delighted with this idea I yearn for obscurity with more eagerness than formerly I long for light the latter worries me either as making my miseries visible or showing me objects which I can no longer enjoy I am in a hurry to pass the torch to my neighbour three little boys are drawing the crossbow William Tell and Gessler are everywhere free peoples retain the remembrance of the foundations of their independence ask a poor little boy in France if he has ever thrown the hatchet in memory of King Hlodwig or Hlodwig or Clovis the nuisance got our road on leaving Amsteg goes to and fro in his zigzag for two leagues now joining the rares now quitting it when the fish of the torrent grows wider on the perpendicular release of the landscape slopes flat or tufted with beach clumps peaks shooting into the sky domes topped with ice summits bold or retaining a few stripes of snow like locks of white hair in the valley bridges posts made of blackened planks walnut trees and fruit trees which gain in luxury of branches and leaves what they lose in succulents or fruits the alpine nature forces those trees to become wild again the sap breaks through in spite of the grafting a vigorous character bursts the bonds of civilisation a little higher on the right margin of the rares the scene changes the stream flows with cascades and a pebbly rut under a double and triple avenue of pines this is like the valley upon Despain a cotaret on the skirts of the mountain the large trees grow on the sharp edges of the rock holding fast by their roots a shock of the tempests the road in a few potato patches alone bear witness to man's presence in this spot he must eat and he must walk that sums up his history the herds consigned to the pasture lands in the loftier regions do not appear in sight birds none eagles no question of them the great eagle fell into the ocean when crossing to St Helena there is no flight so high or so strong but falters in the immensity of the skies the royal eaglet has just died other eaglets of July 1830 were announced to us apparently they have come down from their eerie to nestle with the feather-legged pigeons they will never carry a shamois in their talons weakened by the domestic light their blinking glance will never contemplate from the summit of the St. Gautard the free and dazzling sun of Francis Glory after crossing the Fafn Spring Bridge on the path of the village of Wasson one again takes the right bank of the Reos at high the extremity cascades gleam white among the sods spread like green tapestries on the traveller's passage through a defile one perceives the Rhine's Glacier which joins the Furka Glaciers at last one makes one's way into the valley of Sholonen where the first descent to the St. Gautard commences this valley is a notch two thousand feet in depth cut out of a solid block of granite the faces of the block form gigantic overhanging walls the mountains no longer present ought save their flanks and their ardent and ridden crisps the Reos thunders down its vertical bid lined with stones the ruin of a tower bears witness to a former time even as nature here points to unremembered ages supported in the air by walls along the granite masses the road and immobile torrent winds parallel to the mobile torrent of the Reos here and there stonework vaults form a shelter for the traveller against the avalanche one turns for yet a few more paces in a sort of tortuous gallery and suddenly at one of the volutes of the shell finds oneself face to face with the devil's bridge this bridge today intersects the arch of the new bridge which is higher built behind it and overlooks it the old bridge thus debased resembles anything but a short two-storied aqueduct the new bridge when one comes from Switzerland conceals the cascade at the back to enjoy the rainbows and the leaping of the cascade one must stand upon the bridge but when one has seen the faults of Niagara no waterfall remains my memory is constantly contrasting my journeys with my journeys mountains with mountains rivers with rivers forests with forests destroys my life the same thing happens to me with respect to societies and men the modern roads which the Simplon has taught us to make and which the Simplon effaces have not the picturesque effect of the old roads the latter, bolder and more natural avoided no difficulty they scarcely deviated from the course of the torrents they rose and descended with the ground surmounted the rocks plunged into the precipices passed under the avalanches taking nothing away from the pleasure of the imagination and the joy of danger the old St. Gotthard road, for instance was adventurous in quite a different way from the present road the Devil's Bridge deserved its reputation when, on approaching it, one saw the cascade of the rears above and when it marked out an obscure arch or rather a narrow path through the gleaming spray of the fall then, at the end of the bridge the road ascended perpendicularly to reach the chapel of which we still see the ruin at least the inhabitants of Uri have had the pious thought of building another chapel at the cascade lastly, it was not men like ourselves who crossed the Alps in former days it was hordes of barbarians or Roman legions caravans of merchants, knights, condottieri, freebooters, pilgrims, prelates, monks strange adventures were related who built the Devil's Bridge? who flung the Devil's Rock into the Vasantal? here and there rose castle keeps crosses, oratories, monasteries hermitages preserving the memory of an invasion a meeting, a miracle, or a misfortune each mountain tribe kept its language its dress, its manners, its customs it is true one did not find in a desert an excellent inn one drank no champagne there one read no newspapers but, if there were more robbers on the St. Gotthard there were less cheats in society what a fine thing is civilisation I leave that pearl to the handsome first lapidary so are often his soldiers were the last travellers in this defile at the end of which they met Messena after passing out from the Devil's Bridge and the Urna-Loch tunnel were reaches to us or entire closed by riddance like the stone benches of an arena the rares flows peacefully in the midst of the verger, the contrast is striking it is thus that society seems tranquil after and before revolutions men and empire slumber two steps from the abyss into which they are about to fall at the village of hospital commences the second ascent leading to the summit of the St. Gotthard which is overrun by masses of granite those voluminous, swollen broken masses festoon at their tops with a few garlands of snow resemble the fixed and frothy waves of an ocean of stone upon which man has left the undulation of his road the pier du mont adieu entre mille gosseux le rin tranquille et fiers du progresse de ces eaux appuyer du main et sur le sonne urne penchant donner au boue flatter de sonne ordre naissant very fine lines but inspired by the marble rivers of Versailles the rind does not spring from a bed of reeds it rises from a bed of whole frost its urn or rather its urns are of ice its origin is congenerous with those peoples of the north of which it became the adopted stream and the marshal girdle the rind, born of the St. Gotthard in the Grissons it sheds its water into the sea of Holland, Norway and England the rind, also a child of the St. Gotthard bears its tribute to the Neptune of Spain, Italy and Greece sterile snows form the reservoirs of the fecundity of the ancient world and the modern world two pools on the St. Gotthard table land give birth one to the Ticino the other to the Reyes the source of the Reyes is lower than the source of the Ticino so that by digging a canal of a few hundred paces one would throw the Ticino into the Reyes if one were to repeat this work in the case of the principal tributaries of those streams one would produce strange metamorphoses in the regions at the foot of the Alps a mountaineer can afford himself the pleasure of suppressing a river or fertilizing or sterilizing a country there is something to take down the pride of power it is a marvellous thing to see the Reyes and the Ticino bid each other in eternal farewell and take the opposite ways down the two sides of the St. Gotthard their cradles touch, their destinies are separate they go to seek different lands and different sons but their mothers always united do not cease from the height of solitude to feed their disunited children there was formerly on the St. Gotthard a hospice served by capuchins now one sees only the ruins of it there remains a religion but a cross of worm-eaten wood with its Christ God remains when men withdraw on the St. Gotthard upland a desert in mid-sky one world ends and another commences the German names are replaced by Italian names I take leave of my companion the Reyes which had brought me as I went up from the Lake of Lucerne to go down to the Lake of Lugano with my new guide the Ticino the St. Gotthard is hewn perpendicularly on the Italian side the road which plunges into the Val Tremola does credit to the engineer obliged to trace it in the narrowest gorge seen from above this road is like a ribbon folded and folded again seen from below the wall supporting the embankments give the impression of the works of a fortress or resemble those dykes which are built one above the other to resist the invasion of the waters sometimes also the double row of milestones planted regularly on both sides of the road suggests a column of soldiers descending the Alps once more to invade unhappy Italy Saturday 18th August 1832 Lugano during the night I passed Irollo, Bellinzone and the Val Limentina I did not see the ground I only heard the torrents in the sky the stars rose among the cupolas and needles of the mountains the moon was not at first above the horizon but her dawn spread before her by degrees like those glories with which the 14th century painters used to surround the head of the Virgin she appeared at last scooped out and reduced to a quarter of her disc on the denticulated top of the firca the tips of her crescent were like wings and would have said of a white dove escaping from its nest in the rocks by her light and feeble and rendered more mysterious the hollowed out luminary revealed to my eyes the Lago Maggiore at the end of the Val Limentina twice I had seen that lake once when proceeding to the Congress of Verona and again when going on my embassy to Rome I then contemplated it in the sun on the highway of prosperity now I caught a glimpse of it at night from the opposite bank on the road of misfortune between my journeys separated by only a few years a monarchy 14 centuries old had passed away it is not that I bear those political revolutions the smallest grudge by restoring me to liberty they have restored me to my own nature I have still pith enough to reproduce the first fruit of my dreams far enough to renew my connection with the imaginary creature of my desires the time in the world which I have traversed have been for me but a double solitude in which I have kept myself such as heaven made me why should I complain of the swiftness of the days since I lived in one hour as much as those who spend years in living Lugano is a little town of Italian aspect Portico's as at Bologna people keeping house in the streets as at Naples Renaissance architecture roofs without cornices long and narrow windows bare or adorned with a pediment and pierced up to the architrave the town leans against a vine-grown hillside commanded by two superposed mountain plains one covered with pastures the other with forests the lake lies at its feet on the topmost summit of a mountain to the east of Lugano exists a hamlet whose women tall and fair skin have the reputation of the Circassians the eve of my arrival was the festival of that hamlet people had gone on a pilgrimage to beauty that tribe is doubtless some remains were race of northern barbarians preserved unmixed above the populations of the plain I have been taken to the different houses that had been mentioned to me as likely to suit me I found one of them charming but the rent was much too high to see the lake better I took a boat one of my two boatmen spoke a Franco-Italian jargon interladed with English he told me the names of the mountains and of the villages on the mountains the San Salvador from the summit of which one discovers the Dome of Milan Cathedral Castagnola with its olive trees of which the visitors put little twigs in their buttonholes Gandria the boundary of the canton of Ticino on the lake the San Giorgio crowned with its hermitage each of those places had its history Austria who takes all and gives nothing retains at the foot of Monte Caprino a village enclosed in the Ticino territory facing this again on the other side at the foot of the San Salvador she possesses a sort of promontory on which stands a chapel but she has graciously lent this promontory to the Luganesi to execute their criminals upon and erect their galleys some day she will use this high jurisdiction exercised by her permission upon her territory as a proof of her caesareanity over Lugano nowadays the condemned are no longer subjected to the penalty of the rope their heads are chopped off Paris has applied the instrument Vienna the scene of execution presence worthy of two great monarchies these images were pursuing me when on the azure water to the breath of the breeze centered by the arm of the pines they came to pass the boats of a brotherhood which flung bouquets of flowers into the lake to the sound of horns and oboes the swallows sported around my sail among those travellers shall I not recognise those which I met one evening as I wandered along the ancient Tiber Road and by the house of Horace the Lydia of the Pert was not then with those swallows of the plain of Tiber but I knew that at that very moment another young woman was furtively taking a rose laid in the abandoned garden of a villa of Raphael's century seeking nought but a flower on the ruins of Rome the mountains which surround the lake of Lugano scarce joining their basis except on the level of the lake resemble islands separated by narrow channels they reminded me of the grace, the form and the verger of the archipelago of the Azores was I then going to consummate the exile of my last days under those smiling porticoes where the princess de Belle Giorgiosso allowed a few days to slip by of the exile of her youth was I then to finish my memoirs at the entrance to that classic and historic land where Virgil and Tassos sang where so many revolutions have been accomplished was I to recall my Briton destiny at the site of those Astonia Mountains if their curtain were to be raised it would lay bare to me the plains of Lombardy beyond that Rome beyond that Naples, Sicily, Greece, Syria, Egypt, Carthage distant shores which I have measured I who do not possess the extent of ground which I press under the soles of my feet but yet to die here, to end here is it not what I want, what I am looking for? I cannot tell Lucerne, 20th, 21st and 22nd August 1832 I left Lugano without sleeping there every cross the St. Gotard I have seen again what I had seen I found nothing to correct in my sketch at Altdorf everything was changed since 24 hours ago no more storm, no more apparition in my lonely Rome I came to spend the night in the inn at Fluellen having twice covered the road the ends of which come out upon two lakes and I held by two nations joined by the same political bond and separate in every other respect I crossed the lake of Lucerne it had lost a portion of its merit in my eyes it is to the lake of Lugano where the ruins of Roma to the ruins of Athens the fields of Sicily to the gardens of Amida for the rest it is vain for me to exert myself to attain the alpine exaltation of the mountain authors I waste my pains physically that virgin and barmy air which is supposed to revive my strength rarify my blood, clear my tired head give me an insatiable hunger a dreamless sleep produces none of those effects for me I breathe no better my blood circulates no faster my head is no less heavy under the sky of the Alps than in Paris I have as much appetite in the Champs-Élysées as on the Mont-en-Ville I sleep as well in the Rissan Dominique as on the Mont Saint-Gottard and if I have dreams in the delicious plain the fault lies with the sleep morally, in vain do I scale the rocks my mind becomes no loftier for it my soul no purer I carry with me the cares of earth and the weight of human turpitudes the calm of the sub-lunary region of a marmot is not communicated to my awakened senses poor wretched I am across the mist that roll at my feet I always perceive the full-blown face of the world a thousand fathoms, climbed into space change nothing in my view of the sky God appears no greater to me from the top of a mountain than from the bottom of a valley if, to become a robust man, a saint a tiring genius it were merely a question of searing over the clouds why do so many sick men, miscreants and fools not take the trouble to clamble the simplon they must be very obstinately bent upon their infirmities the landscape is created only by the sun it is the light that makes the landscape a Carthaginian shore a heath on the edge of Sorrento a border of dried canes in the Roman campania are more magnificent when lit up by the rays of the setting sun or the dawn than all the alps on this side of the Gauls those holes which they call valleys where one sees nothing at full noon day those high, thick screens dubbed mountains those soiled torrents which bellow with the cows on their banks those violet-colored faces, those goitreous necks those drop-sicle bellies a plague upon them if the mountains of our climes can justify the panagyrics of the admirers it is only when they are wrapped in the night of which they thicken the chaos the effect of their angles, their protuberances, their sweeping lines their immense projected shadows is heightened by moonlight the stars carve and engrave them on the sky in pyramids, cones, obelisks in an architecture of alabaster now casting over them a gauzy veil and harmonising them with uncertain tints faintly washed with blue now sculpturing them one by one and separating them by lines of great precision every valley, every reeduct with its lakes, its rocks, its forests comes a temple of silence and solitude in winter the mountains offer us the image of the polar zones in autumn, under a rainy sky in their different shades of darkness there resemble grey, black, peach lithographs the tempers also suit them as do the vapours half mist, half clouds which roll at their feet or hang suspended at their flanks but are the mountains not favourable to meditations, to independence, to poetry? do fine deep solitudes mingled with sea receive nothing from the soul, add nothing to its delights does a sublime nature not rend us more susceptible to passion and does passion not make us better understand a sublime nature is an intimate love not increased by the vague love of all the beauties of the senses and the intelligence which surround it even as similar principles attract and blend with one another does not the feeling of the infinite entering through a vast spectacle into a limited feeling grow and spread to the boundaries at which commences an eternity of life I admit all this but let us well understand one another it is not the mountains that exist such as we think that we see them then it is the mountains as the passions, the talents and the muses have drawn their lines coloured their skies, their snows, their peaks their declivities, their iris' cascades their soft atmosphere, their light and tender shadows the landscape is on Claude Lorraine's palette not on the Campo Bacchino make me to love and you shall see that a solitary apple tree where the beaten flung quickadwise amid the wheat fields of the boats the flower of an arrowhead in a marsh a little water-course in a road a scrap of moss, a fern, a tuft of maiden hair fern on the side of a rock a moist, smoky sky a tom-titch in a vicarage garden a swallow flying low on a rainy day under the touch of a barn or along a cloister even a bat taking the place of the swallow around a country steeple fluttering on its gauzy wings in the last gloaming of the twilight all these little things attached to a few memories will become enchanted by the mystery of my happiness or the sadness of my regrets on the upshot it is the youth of life it is the persons that make fine sights the ice-flowers of Baffin's Bay can be smiling with company after one's heart the banks of the Ohio and the Ganges mournful in the absence of old affection the poet has said la patrie e olie ulam e enchante it is the same with beauty here is too much about mountains I love them as great solitudes I love them as the frame, the border and the distance of a fine picture I love them as the rampart and refuge of liberty I love them as adding something infinite to the passions of the soul equitably and reasonably that is all the good to be said of them if I'm not to settle down on the other side of the Alps my journey across the St. Gotthard will remain a disconnected fact an optical view in the midst of the pictures of my memoirs I will put out the lamp and Lugano will relapse into darkness scarce arrived at Lucerne I quickly hastened once more to the cathedral the Hofkirche built on the site of a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors this primitive chapel served also as a beacon for during the night it was seen lighted up in a supernatural manner it was Irish missionaries that preached the gospel in the ominous desert country of Lucerne they brought it the liberty to which their unhappy motherland has not enjoyed when I returned to the cathedral a man was digging a grave in the church they were finishing his service around a beer and a young woman was having a child's cap blessed at an altar she placed it with a visible expression of joy in a basket which she carried on her arm and went away laden with her treasure the next day I found the grave in the cemetery closed up a vessel of holy water placed on the fresh earth and some fennel seeds sprinkled for the little birds already they were alone beside that corpse of a knight I took some walks in the neighbourhood of Lucerne in magnificent pine woods the bees whose hives are placed above the farm doors under the shelter of the overhanging roofs lived with the peasants I saw the famous Clara Wendell go to mass behind her companions in captivity in her prison dress she is very common I found in her the look of all those brutes in France who are present at so many murders without for that reason being more distinguished than a fierce beast in spite of all that the theory of crime and the admiration of slaughter would attribute to them a simple foot soldier armed with a carbine here takes the convicts to perform their day's work and brings them back to the prison this evening I prolonged my walk along the reverse to a chapel built on the road one goes up to it by a little Italian portico from this portico I saw a priest praying alone on his knees inside the oratory while on the top of the mountains I saw the last gleams of the setting sun on returning to Lucerne I heard women saying the rosary in the cottages the voices of children made the responses to the maternal adoration I stopped I listened through the twining vines to those words addressed to God from within a hut the comely and graceful young girl who waits on me at the golden eagle also most regularly says she's unjealous as she draws the curtains of the windows in my room when I come in I give her a few flowers which I have gathered she says to me gently patting her breast with her hand pardon me I answer for you there our conversation ends Lucerne 26th August 1832 Madame de Chateaubriand has not yet arrived I shall take a trip to Constance I made you my eyes here I had already seen him at David's while he was being modelled by the great sculptor Madame de Colbert with her daughter Madame de Bronca is also passing through Lucerne it wasn't Madame de Colbert's in both that nearly twenty years ago I wrote in these memoirs the story of my youth at Combourg the places seemed to travel with me they are as mobile as fleeting as my life the mail post brings me a very fine letter from Monsieur de Berangers in reply to that which I wrote to him on leaving Paris this letter has already been printed as a note with a letter from Monsieur Carrel in the Congress de Veyron Geneva, September 1832 going from Lucerne to Constance one passes through Zurich a winter tour nothing pleased me at Zurich except the memory of Lavater and Gesna the trees of an esplanade overlooking the lakes the course of the limat and old cro and an old elm further this to old Zurich's historic past with due deference even to the battle of Zurich Napoleon and his captains passing from victory to victory brought the Russians to Paris Winter Tour is a new and industrial little market town or rather one long clean street Constance has an air of belonging to nobody it is open to all the world I entered it on the 27th of August without seeing a custom house officer or a soldier I asked for my passport Madame Rikami had arrived three days earlier to pay a visit to the Queen of Holland I was waiting for Madame de Chateaubriand who was coming to join me at Lucerne I proposed to weigh whether it would not be preferable to settle first in Swabia remaining free to go down into Italy later in the decayed town of Constance the inn was very gay they were making preparations for a wedding the day after my arrival we wanted to escape the rejoicings of our hosts we took a boat on the lake and crossing the sheet of water from which the Rhine flows to become a river we reached a strand of a park setting foot on land we passed through a hedge of willows on the other side of which we found a sanded walk winding among thickets of shrubs groups of trees and grassy lawns a summer house stood in the middle of the gardens and an elegant villa lent against a forest of old trees I noticed on the grass some meadow saffron always melancholy for me because of the reminiscences of my various and numerous autumns we strolled at random and then sat down on a bench at the edge of the water from the summer house in the grove rose harmonies of harp and horn which ceased when charmed and surprised we began to listen it was a scene from a fairy tale the harmonies did not recommence I read to Madame Rikami my description of the sangotard she asked me to write something on her tablets already half filled with details of the death of Jojo Rousseau below these last words of the author of the Eloise wife opened the window that I may see the sun again I wrote these words in pencil what I wanted on the lake of Lucerne I have found on the lake of Constance the charm and intelligence of beauty I do not want to die like Rousseau I want to see the sun for long if I am to end my life near you let my days expire at your feet like those waves whose murmur you love 28th August 1832 the blue of the lake kept watch behind the foliage on the southern horizon gathered the summits of the grissons alps a breeze passing to and fro across the villas harmonized with the rise and fall of the villas we saw no one we did not know where we were as we returned to Constance we saw Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Léa and her son Leroy Napoleon they came up to Madame Recamier I had not known the Queen of Holland under the Empire I knew that she had shown herself generous at the time of my resignation on the death of the Duke Dongien and when I tried to save my cousin Amor under the restoration when Ambassador in Rome I had had only relations of politeness with Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Léa unable to go to her myself I had left the secretaries and attachés free to pay their court to her and I had invited Cardinal Fisch to a diplomatic dinner of Cardinals since the last fall of the restoration chance had made me exchange a few letters with Queen Hortense and Prince Louis these letters are a rather singular monument of faded granges here they are Madame de Saint-Léa after reading the last letter Monsieur de Chateaubriand Aaron and Berg 15th October 1831 Monsieur de Chateaubriand has too much genius not to have understood the whole extent of the Emperor Napoleon's but his so brilliant imagination required more than admiration memories of youth and illustrious fortune attracted his heart he devoted his person and talent to them and like the poetry lens everything the sentiment which animates him he clothe what he loved with the features which were to kindle his enthusiasm ingratitude did not discourage him for his fortune was always there to draw it to him nevertheless his wit, his reason his truly French sentiments make him the antagonist of his party in spite of himself he loves of the olden times only honour which makes men faithful and religion which makes men good the glory of his country the glory of his country which makes it strength liberty of conscience and opinion which gives a noble impulse to the faculties of men the aristocracy of merit which opens up a career to every intelligence these constitute his domain more than any others he is therefore a liberal a Napoleonist and even a republican rather than a royalist and therefore new France its new lights to initiate him whereas he will never be understood by those whom he has set so near to the divinity in his heart and if there be now naught left for him but to sing unhappiness where at the most interesting high misfortunes have become so common in this age of ours that his brilliant imagination without any real object of motive will die out for want of nutriment sufficiently lofty to inspire his fine talent after reading a note signed Hortense Monsieur de Chateaubriand is exceedingly flattered and in the highest degree grateful for the sentiments of goodwill so gracefully expressed in the first part of the note in the second there lurks the seductiveness of a woman and a queen which might carry with it a self-love less sophisticated than Monsieur de Chateaubriand's there are certainly today plenty of occasions of infidelity among such high and numerous misfortunes but at the age to which Monsieur de Chateaubriand has attained reverses which reckon but few years would scorn his homage needs therefore must he remain attached to his old unhappiness however much he might be tempted by younger adversities Chateaubriand Paris, 6th November, 1831 Prince Louis Napoleon to the Viconte de Chateaubriand Aurenberg, 4th May, 1832 Monsieur de Viconte de Chateaubriand Aurenberg, 4th May, 1832 Monsieur de Viconte I have just read your last pamphlet how happy the bovens are to be supported by a genius such as yours you raise accords with the same arms that have served you laid low you find words that send a thrill through every French heart all that his national finds an echo in your soul thus when you speak of the great man who rendered France illustrious during 20 years the loftiness of the subject inspires you your genius embraces it entirely and then your mind naturally pouring itself out surrounds the greatest glory with the greatest thoughts I too Monsieur de Viconte grow enthusiastic on behalf of all that contributes to the honour of my country that is why giving vent to my impulse I venture to express to you the sympathy which I feel for one who displays so much patriotism and so much love of liberty but permit me to tell you you are the only formidable defender of the old monarchy you would make it national if one could believe that it would think as you do and so to give it any worth it is not enough to declare yourself on its side but rather to prove that it is on yours however Monsieur de Viconte if we differ in opinions at least we are agreed in the wishes which we form for France's happiness pre-accept etc etc Louis Napoléon Bonaparte the Viconte de Chateaubriand to the Conte de Saint-Léa Prince Louis Napoléon Paris 19th May 1832 Monsieur Le Conte it is never easy to reply to praises but when he who awards them with as much which as propriety is moreover in a social condition to which peerless memories are attached then the difficulty is doubled at least Monsieur we meet in a common sympathy you with your youth as I with my old days desire the honour of France it needed no more for either of us to die of confusion or laughter than to see the juiced milieu blockaded in ancona by the soldiers of the Pope Monsieur where is your uncle to others in yourself I should say where is the guardian of kings and the master of Europe in defending the cause of the legitimacy I entertain no illusions but I think that every man who cares for public esteem must remain faithful to his oaths Lord Falkland a friend of liberty and an enemy of the court got himself killed at Newbury in the army of Charles I you shall live Monsieur Le Conte to see your country free and happy you are passing through ruins among which I shall remain because I myself form part of those ruins I had for a moment entertained the flattering hope of laying the tribute of my respect this summer Duchesse de Saint-Léa fortune accustomed to baffle my plans has deceived me once again I should have been happy to thank you by word of mouth for your obliging letter we should have spoken of a great glory and of France's future two things Monsieur Le Conte which touch you nearly Chateaubriand have the Bourbons ever written letters to me similar to those which I have just produced did they ever entertain the idea that I rose above this verse of fire pamphleteering politician when as a little boy I used to wonder the companion of the herdsman over the heaths of Combourg could I believe that a time would come at which I should walk between the two highest powers on earth powers now overthrown giving my arm on one side to the family of Saint Louis on the other to that of Napoleon hostile magnificences which are like lean in the misfortune which brings them together on the feeble and faithful man the man scorned by the legitimacy Madame Rikami went to fix herself at Wolfsburg a country house occupied by Monsieur Paca near Arenenburg where Madame La Duchesse de Saint Louis was living I stayed two days at Constance I saw all that there was to see the market containing the public granary christened the hall of the council the so-called statue of Huss the square in which Jerome of Prague and John Huss were they say burnt in fine all the ordinary abominations of history and society the Rhine issuing from the lake announces itself very much like a king nevertheless it was not able to defend Constance which was if I'm not mistaken sacked by a tiller besieged by the Hungarians the Swedes and twice taken by the French Constance is a Saint-Germain of Germany the old people of the old society have retired to it when I knocked at a door to look for a room somewhere under Chateaubriand I came upon some Canonesse a girl past her minority there's some prints of an ancient house an elector on half pay which went very well with the abandoned steeples and the deserted convents of the city Condé's army fought gloriously under the walls of Constance and seems have left its ambulance there I had the misfortune to meet a veteran emigrant he did me the honour to have known me in former times he had more days than hers his words were endless he was unable to contain himself and allowed his years to run and I've put two part two