Chapter V: Book I: 1 (2)

Finally, so as to omit nothing, I will mention the mastiffs which formed the garrison of Saint-Malo, They were descended from the famous dogs which were regimental pets under the Gauls, and which, according to Strabo, fought by their masters' side in pitched battles against the Romans. Albertus Magnus, a monk of the Dominican Order, and as serious a writer as the Greek geographer, declares that at Saint-Malo "the safety of this important place was entrusted nightly to the faithful care of certain dogs, which patrolled well and trustily." They were condemned to capital punishment for having had the misfortune inconsiderately to bite a gentleman's legs; which gave rise in our days to the song, _Bon voyage_: people will laugh at anything. The criminals were imprisoned; one of them refused to take his food from the hands of his keeper, who wept; the noble animal elected to die of hunger: dogs, like men, are punished for their fidelity. In addition to this, the Capitol was, like my own Delos, guarded by dogs, which did not bark when Scipio Africanus came to say his morning prayer.

Saint-Malo is an enclosure of walls of different periods, divided into "great" and "little" walls, which form walks, and is defended besides by a castle of which I have spoken, and which the Duchess Anne fortified with towers, bastions, and moats. Seen from the outside, the island city resembles a granite citadel.

The children's meeting-place is the strand of the open sea, between the Castle and the Fort-Royal; here I was reared, the companion of the waves and winds. One of my earliest delights was to fight with the storms, to play with the waves which retired before me or chased me across the beach. Another diversion was, with the sand on the sea-shore, to build edifices which my play-fellows called "ovens." Since that time I have often seen castles, built for eternity, that have crumbled more swiftly than my sand palaces.

My lot being irrevocably fixed, I was left to pass an idle childhood. A few notions of drawing, English, hydrography and mathematics seemed more than sufficient for the education of a little boy destined beforehand for the rough life of a sailor.

I grew up in my family without lessons. We no longer occupied the house in which I was born: my mother lived in a large house in the Place Saint-Vincent, almost facing the gate which leads to the Sillon. The ragamuffins of the town had become my dearest friends: I filled the yard and the staircases of the house with them. I resembled them in all things: I spoke their language; I had their ways and their walk; I was dressed like them, my clothes were as indecent and undone as theirs; my shirts fell to rags; I had never a pair of stockings but it was full of holes; I shuffled about in shabby shoes, down at heel, falling off my feet at every step; I often lost my hat and sometimes my coat. My face was smudged, scratched, bruised; my hands black. So strange was my appearance that my mother, in the midst of her anger, could not keep from laughing and exclaiming, "How ugly he is!"

Nevertheless I loved, and I have always loved, cleanliness and elegance. At night I tried to mend my rags. Kind Villeneuve and my Lucile assisted in repairing my clothes, to save me from scoldings and punishments; but their patching only served to make my outfit the odder. I was particularly disconsolate when I appeared in tatters among children proud of their new clothes and of their finery.

There was something about my fellow-townsmen that was foreign and suggested Spain. Families from Saint-Malo had settled at Cadiz; families from Cadiz lived at Saint-Malo. Saint-Malo's insular position, its embankment, its architecture, its houses, its tanks, and its granite walls give it a certain resemblance to Cadiz; when I saw the latter town it often reminded me of the former.

Locked up at night in their city under the same key, the Malouins formed but one family. So primitive were the habits of the place, that young women who sent to Paris for their ribbons and muslins were looked upon as worldly creatures from whom their startled acquaintances held aloof. A frailty was a thing unknown: suspicion having fallen upon a certain Comtesse d'Abbeville, the result was a ballad in singing which people crossed themselves. Nevertheless the poet, faithful, in spite of himself, to the troubadour tradition, took sides against the husband, whom he called "a barbarous monster."

On certain days of the year, the townsmen and the country-people met at fairs called "assemblies," which were held upon the islands and forts surrounding Saint-Malo; these were reached on foot when the sea was low, by boat when it was high. The crowd of sailors and peasants; the covered carts; the caravans of horses, donkeys and mules; the concourse of dealers; the tents lining the sea-shore; the processions of monks and brotherhoods winding with their banners and crosses amid the crowd; the rowing and sailing-boats flitting to and fro; the ships entering harbor or heaving anchor in the roads; the salutes of artillery, the pealing of the bells, all combined to fill these gatherings with noise, movement and variety.

[Sidenote: Holidays at Saint-Malo.]

I was the only witness of these holidays who did not share in the general gaiety. I had no money to buy toys and cakes. In order to avoid the scorn attached to ill-fortune, I sat far from the crowd, near those pools of water which the sea keeps up and replenishes in the hollows of the rocks. There I amused myself by watching the flight of the gulls and sea-mews, staring at the blue expanse of sky, gathering shells, listening to the refrain of the waves among the rocks. At night, at home, I was but little happier; I disliked certain dishes: I was forced to eat them. I cast beseeching glances at La France, who cleverly whipped away my plate when my father's head was turned. In the matter of the fire, the same harshness: I was not permitted to go near the chimney. It is a far cry from those severe parents to the spoil-children of to-day.

But if I had troubles unknown to modern children, I had some pleasures also of which they know nothing. The very meaning has been forgotten of those religious and domestic solemnities in which the whole country and the God of that country seemed to rejoice. Christmas, New Year's Day, Twelfth Night, Whitsuntide, Midsummer were prosperous days for me. Possibly the influence of my native rock worked upon my sentiments and studies. In the year 1015 the Malouins vowed to assist "with their hands and means" to build the steeples of the cathedral at Chartres: have I too not labored with my hands to rebuild the stricken spire of the ancient Christian basilica? "The sun," says Père Maunoir, "never shone upon canton where more constant and invariable fidelity to the true Faith was shown than in Brittany. For thirteen centuries no heresy has stained the tongue which has served as an organ for preaching Jesus Christ, and the man is as yet unborn who has seen a Breton of Brittany preach any religion other than the Catholic."

On the feast-days which I have mentioned, I was taken with my sisters to perform my stations at the various sanctuaries in the town, at St. Aaron's Chapel or the Convent of Victory; my ear was struck by the sweet voices of a hidden choir of women; the harmony of their chant mingled with the roar of the billows. When, in the winter, at the hour of Benediction, the Cathedral was filled by the multitude; when old sailors upon their knees, young women and children read their Hours with lighted tapers in their hands; when the congregation at the Benediction joined in singing the _Tantum Ergo_; when, in the intervals between the hymns, the Christmas squalls dashed against the panes of the Cathedral and shook the arches of the nave which had resounded with the manly tones of Jacques Cartier and Duguay-Trouin, I experienced an extraordinary feeling of religion. I had no need to be told by Villeneuve to fold my hands and invoke God by all the names which my mother had taught me; I saw the heavens opening, the angels offering up our incense and our prayers; I bowed my forehead: it was not yet laden with those cares which weigh upon us so terribly that we are tempted not to raise our heads after bending them at the foot of the altar.

One sailor, the function concluded, would set sail all fortified against the night, while another would return to harbour and turn his steps to the illuminated dome of the church: thus religion and danger were constantly in sight one of the other, and their features were inseparable in my thoughts. I was hardly born before I heard speak of death: in the evening, a man went from street to street with a bell, calling upon Christians to pray for a brother deceased. Scarcely a year passed but vessels went under before my eyes, and as I played upon the beach the sea rolled to my feet the corpses of foreign men who had expired far from their native land. Madame de Chateaubriand said to me, as St. Monica said to her son: _Nihil longe est a Deo._ My education had been entrusted to Providence, which spared me none of its lessons.

[Sidenote: My early love of religion.]

Vowed as I was to the Virgin, I knew and loved my Protectress, whom I confused with my Guardian Angel: her portrait, which had cost my kind Villeneuve a half sou, was fastened with four pins over the head of my bed. I ought to have lived in the times when one said to Mary: "Sweet Lady of Heaven and Earth, Mother of Pity, Fountain of all Good, that carried Jesus Christ in thy precious womb, fair and most sweet Lady, I thank thee and entreat thee."

The first thing I knew by heart was a sailors' hymn, which began:

Je mets ma confiance,
Vierge, en votre secours;
Servez-moi de défense,
Prenez soin de mes jours;
Et quand ma dernière heure
Viendra finir mon sort,
Obtenez que je meure
De la plus sainte mort[67].

I have since heard this hymn sung in a shipwreck. To this day I can repeat these bad rhymes with as much pleasure as Homer's verses. A statue of Our Lady, adorned with a Gothic crown and clad in a robe of blue silk trimmed with a silver fringe, inspires me with more devotion than one of Raphael's Virgins.

If at least that peaceful _Stella maris_ had been able to calm my troubled life! But I was doomed to agitation even in my childhood. I was like the Arab's date-tree: scarce had my stem issued from the rock before it was stricken by the wind.

*

I have told how my premature revolt against Lucile's mistresses began my bad reputation: a play-fellow completed it.

My uncle, M. de Chateaubriand du Plessis, lived at Saint-Malo like his brother, and had, like him, four girls and two boys. Of my two cousins, Pierre and Armand, who were my first companions, Pierre became one of the Queen's pages, Armand was sent to college as being destined for the ecclesiastical state. Pierre, his service as a page ended, entered the navy and was drowned off the coast of Africa. Armand, after a long stay at college, left France in 1790, served throughout the emigration, made a score of intrepid descents in a small vessel upon the coast of Brittany, and at last, on Good Friday 1809[68], gave his life for the King on the Plaine de Grenelle, as I have already stated and as I shall repeat once more when I come to relate the catastrophe[69].

Deprived of the society of my two cousins, I made up for it by a new connection. On the second floor of the house in which we lived, resided a gentleman called Gesril, who had a son and two daughters. This son had been brought up differently from myself; a spoilt child, all he did was thought charming. His one pleasure consisted in fighting, and especially in raising quarrels in which he appointed himself referee. He played practical jokes on nursemaids taking children out walking, and nothing was talked of save his pranks, which were transformed into the blackest crimes. The father laughed at everything, and "Joson" was but the more petted for it.

[Sidenote: My friend Gesril.]

Gesril became my intimate friend, and acquired an incredible ascendency over me: I was his apt pupil, although my character was the entire opposite of his. I liked solitary games, and sought quarrels with nobody: Gesril doted on pleasures and crowds, and revealed in childish squabbles. When some ragamuffin addressed me, Gesril would ask, "Do you allow that?" Thereupon I thought my honour at stake, and struck out at the rash one's eyes; his age and height made no difference. My friend would watch the fight and applaud my courage, but did nothing to assist me. Sometimes he levied an army of all the gutter-snipes he knew, divided his recruits into two bands, and we skirmished on the sands with the aid of stones.

Another game invented by Gesril was still more dangerous. At high-tide, when there was a storm, the waves, beating at the foot of the Castle, on the side of the long beach, would leap to the level of the great towers. Twenty feet above the base of one of these towers ran a granite parapet, narrow, sloping, and slippery, leading to the ravelin which defended the moat. The trick was to seize the moment between two waves and clear the dangerous spot before the surge broke and covered the tower. You saw a mountain of water approach you, roaring as it came, which, if you delayed a minute, must either drag you with it or crush you against the wall. Not one of us refused the venture, but I have seen children turn pale before attempting it.

This inclination to urge others to encounters of which he remained a spectator would lead one to think that, in after life, Gesril did not display great generosity of character; and yet, although on a smaller stage, he succeeded perhaps in surpassing the heroism of Regulus: his glory only needed Rome and Titus Livy. He became a naval officer, and he was taken prisoner in the engagement of Quiberon[70]. When the action was decided, seeing that the English continued to fire upon the Republican troops, Gesril[71] sprang into the sea, swam out to the ships, and told the English to cease fire, informing them of the disaster and of the capitulation of the Emigrants. They tried to save him by throwing a rope to him, and urged him to come on board. "I am a prisoner on parole," he cried, from the midst of the waves, and swam back to land: he was shot with Sombreuil and his companions[72].

Gesril was my first friend; both of us were misunderstood in childhood, and we became intimate through an instinct that told us what we might some day be worth.

Two adventures put an end to this first part of my story, and produced a noteworthy change in the system upon which my education was conducted. We were one Sunday on the beach, in the "fan" of the Porte Saint-Thomas and along the Sillon, where great stakes sunk into the sand protect the walls against the swell of the sea. We would generally climb to the top of these stakes to watch the first waves of the rising tide flow beneath us. We had taken our places as usual; several little girls were among us small boys. I was the furthest out at sea, having none in front of me save a pretty little thing called Hervine Magon, who was laughing with pleasure and crying with fear. Gesril was at the further end inland.

The tide rose; it was blowing; already the nurses and footmen were crying: "Come down, miss! Come down, sir!" Gesril waited for a big wave, and as it dashed between the stakes, he pushed the child seated next to him. This one fell against another, that against a third; the whole row fell flat like "friars" of cards, but each was saved by his neighbour; the only exception was the little girl at the extreme end of the row, against whom I was upset, with the result that, having no one to support her, she fell off. She was dragged away by the reflux; a thousand cries arose; all the nurses tucked up their skirts and waded into the sea, each catching hold of her brat and giving it a smack. Hervine was fished out, and declared that François had thrown her down. The nurses made a rush for me; I escaped from them, and ran and shut myself in the cellar at home, whither the army of females pursued me. Fortunately my father and mother had gone out Villeneuve valiantly defended the door, and boxed the ears of the enemy's van-guard. The real author of the mischief, Gesril, lent me his aid: climbing to his own floor, with his two sisters he threw pots of water and baked apples at my assailants from the windows. They raised the siege at nightfall; but the news spread through the town, and the nine-year-old Chevalier de Chateaubriand was reputed a monster of iniquity, a survival of those pirates whom St. Aaron had driven from his rock.

The other adventure was this: I went with Gesril to Saint-Servan, the suburb divided from Saint-Malo by the merchant harbor. In order to reach it at low water, you cross certain currents by means of low and narrow stepping-stones, which are covered when the sea rises. The footmen who escorted us had loitered some way behind. At the end of one of these bridges of stones we saw two ship's lads coming in our direction. Gesril said to me: "Are we to let those beggars pass?" and shouted to them: "Into the water, ducks!" Like true salts, refusing to take chaff, they came on; Gesril retreated; and stationing ourselves at one end of the bridge, we caught up some pebbles and threw them at the ship-boys' heads. They rushed upon us, forced us to fall back, armed themselves with pebbles in their turn, and drove us back, fighting, upon our reserves, in other words, our servants. I was not, like Horatius, hit in the eye; but a stone caught me so violently that my left ear was cut in two and hung down upon my shoulder.

[Sidenote: Our dangerous pastimes.]

I did not think of my hurt, but of my return home. When my friend came back from his excursions with a black eye and a torn coat, he was pitied, pampered, coddled, dressed up again; while I, under similar circumstances, was promptly punished. The wound I had received was dangerous, but La France was unable to persuade me to come indoors, such was my fright. I went and hid on the second floor with Gesril, who bound up my head in a napkin. This napkin set him going: it suggested a mitre to him; he turned me into a bishop and made me sing High Mass with him and his sisters until supper-time. The dignitary of the Church was at last obliged to go downstairs: my heart beat. Taken aback by my face disordered and smeared with blood, my father said not a word; my mother screamed; La France told my piteous case, and tried to excuse me; I was nevertheless rated for it. They dressed my ear, and Monsieur and Madame de Chateaubriand resolved to separate me from Gesril as soon as possible[73].

I am not sure that it was not in this year that the Comte d'Artois[74] visited Saint-Malo: a sham fight was arranged for him in the roads. From the top of the bastion of the powder-magazine I watched the young Prince standing among the crowd on the beach: in his splendour and in my obscurity how many unknown destinies lay hidden! Thus, if my memory do not fail me, Saint-Malo has seen two Kings of France only: Charles IX. and Charles X.

*

There you have the picture of my early childhood. I do not know whether the harsh education I received be sound in principle, but it was adopted by my relations without purpose and as the natural outcome of their temperament. What is certain is that it imbued me with ideas different from those of other men; what is still more certain is that it impressed upon my sentiments a character of melancholy which arose from the habit of suffering acquired in the age of weakness, improvidence and mirth.

Is it suggested that the manner of my bringing-up might have led me to abhor the authors of my being? Not at all: the remembrance of their sternness is almost pleasant to me; I value and honour their great good qualities. When my father died, my comrades in the Navarre Regiment witnessed my regret. From my mother I derive the consolation of my life, since it was she who taught me my religion; I gathered the Christian verities that issued from her mouth, as Pierre de Langres studied at night in church, by the light of the lamp burning before the Blessed Sacrament. Would my intelligence have received a greater development had I been set earlier to my studies? I doubt it: the waves, the winds, the solitude which were my first masters were probably better suited to my native disposition; possibly I owe to those wild tutors virtues which might have remained unknown to me. The truth is that no system of education is in itself to be preferred to any other system: do children love their parents better nowadays when they say _tu_ and _toi_ to them and no longer fear them? Gesril was spoilt in the same house in which I was scolded: we have both been honest men and loving and respectful sons. This thing which you think bad brings out your child's gifts; that other which you think good would stifle those same gifts. What God does is well done: it is Providence that guides us, when it destines us to play a part upon the world's stage.

[1] This book was written at the Vallée-aux-Loups between October 1811 and June 1812.--T.

[2] Seven miles south of Paris, in the Department of Seine.--T.

[3] HORACE, _Od._ I. XI--T.

[4] Voltaire was not born on the 20th of February 1694, and he was not born at Châtenay. In 1864, M. A. Jal (_Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d'histoire_, pp. 1283, _et seq._), after searching the register of the Parish of Saint-André-des-Arcs, established the fact that Voltaire was born in Paris on Sunday, 21 November 1694.--B.

[5] The district now known as Florida was formerly divided into Eastern and Western Florida, with St. Augustine and Pensacola for their respective capitals.--T.

[6] The 4th of October is the feast of St François of Assisi--T.

[7] Chateaubriand made his entrance into Jerusalem on the 4th of October 1806.--B.

[8] Following M. Edmond Biré in his edition of 1899, I have borrowed this paragraph from the manuscript known as the _Manuscrit_ de 1826, which was in the handwriting, for the most part, of Madame Récamier, and which was published by Madame Charles Lenormant in 1874. It is certainly preferable to the paragraph in all other editions of the _Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe_, which runs as follows:

"My father's birth and the trials of his first position caused his character to become one of the gloomiest ever known. Now this character influenced my ideas because it terrified me in childhood, saddened me in youth, and determined the manner of my education."

The Comte de Marcellus (_Chateaubriand et son temps_, p. 6) remarks that this paragraph interrupts the narrative and in no way assists it.--T.

[9] Louis Moréri (1643-1680) took orders at Lyons, and in 1673 published in that town his _Dictionnaire historique et géographique_, which forms the basis of Bayle's _Dictionnaire critique_ (1697-1702).--T.

[10] Bertrand d'Argentré (1519-1590), Seneschal of Rennes, and author of an _Histoire de Bretagne and Commentaires sur la coutume de Bretagne._--T.

[11] Père Lobineau of the Benedictines (1666-1727), author of the _Histoire de Bretagne_ (1707), _Histoire des Saints de la Bretagne_, and other historical works.--T.

[12] This genealogy is summarised in the _Histoire généalogique et héraldique des Pairs de France_, by M. le Chevalier de Courcelles.--_Author's Note._

The full title of the work by Pierre de Gibours, known as Père Anselme, is _Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison de France et des grands officiers de la Couronne_ (1674). Its importance is mainly due to the labours of the compilers who continued it, Du Fourni and Père Ange de Sainte-Rosalie (1726-1733).--T.

[13] Bernard Chérin (1718-1785), genealogist and historiographer of the Orders of St. Lazarus, St. Michael, and the Holy Ghost--B.

[14] 1250, when St. Louis defeated the Saracens, but was subsequently taken prisoner, with a number of his knights.--T.

[15] _Seigneurs._--T.

[16] _Sires._--T.

[17] The estate of the Guerrande is situated not in Morbihan, but in the parish of Hénan-Bihen, now one of the communes of the Canton of Matignon, Arrondissement of Dinan (Côtes-du-Nord).--B.

[18] 14 July 1789.--T.

[19] The massacre of the _gardes-du-corps_ at Versailles.--T.

[20] The second wife of Edward I. was Margaret, daughter of Philip the Bold, and grand-daughter of St. Louis, not of Louis the Fat. The reference is perhaps to Isabella of Angoulême, the affianced bride of Hugh of Lusignan, Count of the Marche, who was carried off and married by King John of England.--T.

[21] The Lord of Beaumanoir in 1351 sent his famous challenge to the English Lord of Ploërmel. Thirty Bretons and thirty Englishmen met in mortal combat at the foot of the oak midway between Ploërmel and Josselin. Eight of the English were killed, and the remainder surrendered. In the heat of the fight, Beaumanoir, parched with heat and fatigue, drank the blood flowing from his own wounds.--T.

[22] Olivier de Clisson, Constable of France, surnamed the Butcher. He succeeded Du Guesclin as Constable in 1380 and held the office until 1392. He died in his castle of Josselin, in Brittany, in 1407.--T.

[23] See this note at the end of these Memoirs.--_Authors Note._

[24] Louis Robert Hyppolite de Bréhan, Comte de Plélo (1699-1734), French Ambassador at Copenhagen, a grand-nephew of Madame de Sévigné, and author of some light poems.--T.

[25] Christopher Burchard, Count Munich (1683-1767), a native of Oldenburg and a favourite field-marshal, privy-councillor and eventually prime-minister of the Empress Anne of Russia. He was exiled on the accession of Elizabeth, and recalled by Peter III. after enduring twenty years of banishment.--T.

[26] Pierre Marie Anne de Chateaubriand, Seigneur du Plessis et du Val-Guildo (1727-1794), commanded several of his brother's merchant-ships. On the 12th of February 1760 he married Marie Jeanne Thérèse Brignon, daughter of Nicolas Jean Brignon, Seigneur de Laher, merchant, and of Marie Anne Le Tendu. He was imprisoned during the Terror and died in Saint-Malo jail, 3 Fructidor Year II. (20 August 1794).--B.

[27] 31 March.--T.

[28] MADELEINE de SCUDÉRI, _Le Grand Cyrus_, one of the longest of the old French romances, published 1650, in ten volumes 8vo.--T.

[29] The full text runs as follows:--

"François René de Chateaubriand, son of the high and mighty René de Chateaubriand, Knight, Comte de Combourg, and of the high and mighty dame, Apolline Jeanne Suzanne de Bedée, Dame de Chateaubriand, his wife, born 4 September 1768, baptized on the following day by us, Messire Pierre Henri Nouail, grand-chanter and canon of the cathedral church, official and grand-vicar of Monseigneur the Bishop of Saint-Malo. Godfather, the high and mighty Jean-Baptiste de Chateaubriand his brother, and godmother, the high and mighty dame, Françoise Marie Gertrude de Contades, Dame and Comtesse de Plouër, who sign with the father. Signed: Jean-Baptiste de Chateaubriand, Brignon de Chateaubriand, Contades de Plouër, de Chateaubriand, Nouail, vicar-general."--B.

[30] Twenty days before my birth, on the 15th of August 1768, was born, in another island, at the other extremity of France, the man who abolished the old society, Bonaparte.--_Author's Note._

[31] In the _Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem._--T.

[32] _Atala_, the _Génie du Christianisme_, the _Martyrs_ and the _Itinéraire_ are all signed François Auguste de Chateaubriand. The author's object in suppressing the name of René on the title-pages of his early works was to avoid a false interpretation on the part of those who might have been tempted to identify him with the immortal episode in his works which has René for its title.--B.

[33] Now Rue de Chateaubriand.--T.

[34] The Hôtel de France et de Chateaubriand.--T.

[35] Louis George Érasme Marquis de Contades (1704-1795), for some time Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, a marshal of France, and Governor of Alsace from 1763 to 1788.--T.

[36] "It was so spelt long after Froissart's time, following the ancient form, "Comburnium." The final "g" was first added between 1660 and 1680."--B.

[37] Emmanuel Félicité de Durfort, Duc de Duras (1715-1789), a peer and marshal of France. First Lord of the Bedchamber, and a member of the French Academy. He married in 1736 Louise Françoise Maclovie Céleste de Coëtloquen, who died 7 January 1802.--B.

[38] Jean Georges Charles Frédéric Emmanuel Marquis du Hallay-Coëtquen (1799-1867). He was a captain in the 1st Mounted Grenadiers of the Royal Guard under the Restoration, and a Lord of the Bedchamber. The reference to his valor applies to his reputation as a judge in points of honor and a referee in matters of the duel. His brother, the Comte du Hallay-Coëtquen, served as a page to Louis XVIII. in 1814, and was subsequently a guard to Monsieur and a lieutenant in the 4th Mounted Chasseurs.--B.

[39] Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759), the distinguished geometrician and French Academician, and President of the Berlin Academy. Maupertuis was a native of Saint-Malo.--T.

[40] Nicholas Charles Joseph Trublet (1697-1770), Archdeacon and Canon of Saint-Malo, his native city. He was a writer of little merit, although elected a member of the French Academy in 1761, and was the hero of Voltaire's satire, _Le Pauvre Diable._--T.

[41] See the _Itinéraire_ for this anecdote.--T.

[42] Louis René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais (1701-1785) was Attorney-General to the Parliament of Brittany. He was accused of instigating the opposition of the States and Parliament of Brittany to certain financial edicts affecting the Breton liberties. After a long confinement in the Citadel of Saint-Malo (1765), he was exiled to Saintes and was not permitted to return to Rennes until ten years later, on the accession of Louis XVI., when he resumed his functions. The affair created a great and prolonged local commotion.--T.

[43] Lucile was four, not two years, older than her brother. She was born on the 7th of August 1764.--B.

[44]

"To you, my mind, I wish to remark,
You have many faults which I cannot keep dark."--T.

[45] 'Aχὼρ, scurf.-_Author's Note._

[46]

"A sparrow-hawk loved a warbler fair.
And, it is said, was loved by her."--T.

[47]

"Is the fable obscure, Trémigon?
Derry down!"--T.

[48] Their correct name was Loisel de La Villedeneu.--B.

[49] Marie Antoine Bénigne de Bedée, Comte de La Bouëtardais (1727-1807), younger brother to Madame de Chateaubriand.--B.

[50] The Château de Monchoix is in the parish of Pluduno, now one of the communes of the Canton of Plancoët, Arrondissement of Dinan, and is inhabited by M. du Boishamon, the Comte de Bedée's great-grandson.--B.

[51] Marie Angélique Fortunée Cécile Ginguené (1729-1823), daughter of Écuyer François Ginguené and of Dame Thérèse Françoise Jean. She married the Comte de Bedée on the 23rd of November 1756.--B.

[52] 1339-1442.--T.

[53] I omit eleven lines of quotation and their translation.--T.

[54] VIR., Æn. I. 184.--T.

[55] St. Aaron the Hermit is honoured on the 22nd of June.--T.

[56] At the battle of Vouillé, where Clovis killed Alaric II., King of the Visigoths, with his own hand.--T.

[57] George Anson, Lord Anson (1697-1762). He received his promotion and peerage after defeating La Jonguère in 1747.--T.

[58] Jacques Cartier (1494-_circa_ 1554), discovered the St. Lawrence in 1534-35, following this up by exploring the greater part of Canada.--T.

[59] The Falkland Islands.--T.

[60] René Duguay-Trouin (1673-1736), the hero of a number of brilliant naval expeditions, of which the most famous is the capture of Rio de Janeiro in 1711.--T.

[61] Robert Surcouf (1773-1827), the celebrated corsair, said to have been descended on the mother's side from Duguay-Trouin.--T.

[62] Bertrand François Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1699-1753), Governor-General of the Isle of France (Mauritius) and Bourbon from 1734 to 1743, when he went to India, defeating the English in Madras in 1746.--T.

[63] Offroy de La Mettrie (1709-1752), the author of a number of works of perverted philosophy. Frederic II. appointed him his reader and composed a eulogy upon his death, which occurred from indigestion.--T.

[64] The Abbé Félicité Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854), a religious and royalist writer until the Revolution of 1830, which converted him to demagogy and irreligion. His later works were condemned by the Holy See, and he was buried, by his own desire, without funeral rites.--T.

[65] François Joseph Victor Broussais (1772-1832), a distinguished physician and adversary of the spiritualistic sects.--T.

[66] Pierre Louis Auguste Ferron, Comte de La Ferronnays (1772-1842), occupied a number of prominent diplomatic posts under the Restoration. He was one of the most honest Frenchmen of his time.--T.

[67]

"To thee, O Mother-Maid,
My song of hope I raise;
Be thou my constant aid,
Watch over all my ways;
And when Death's hour is nigh,
When life's long toil shall cease,
Pray, Mother, that I die
In holiness and peace."--T.

[68] This should be 1810: _vide supra._--T.

[69] He left a son, Frédéric, for whom I first obtained a post in the Guards of Monsieur, and who afterwards joined a regiment of Cuirassiers. He married, at Nancy, Mademoiselle de Gastaldi, by whom he has had two sons, and retired from the service. Armand's elder sister, my cousin, has for many years been a superior of the Trappist nuns.--_Authors Note_ (Geneva, 1831).

[70] 21 July 1795.--T.

[71] Joseph François Anne Gesril du Papeu (1767-1795) fought in the American War of Independence as a lad of fourteen.--B.

[72] 27 August 1795. The Republicans denied the capitulation. But M. Biré gives a list of nine names which all bear witness to the fact that Sombreuil and his men laid down their arms only after capitulating.--T.

[73] I have already spoken of Gesril in my other works. One of his sisters, Angélique Gesril de La Trochardais wrote to ask me to obtain leave for her husband and her sister's husband to add the name of Gesril to their surnames: I failed in my negotiation.--_Author's Note_ (Geneva, 1831).

[74] Charles Philippe, Comte d'Artois (1757-1836), afterwards King Charles X. His visit to Saint-Malo took place on the 11th of May 1777, and lasted three days.--T.