Chapter XX: Book IV: 649 (2)

My sister was buried among the poor: in what grave-yard was she laid? In what motionless wave of an ocean of dead was she swallowed up? In what house did she die, after leaving the community of the Dames de Saint-Michel? If, by making researches, if, by examining the archives of the municipalities, the registers of the parishes, I should come across my sister's name, what would that avail me[688]? Should I find the same keeper of the cemetery? Should I find the man who dug a grave that remained nameless and unlabelled? Would the rough hands that were the last to touch so pure a clay have remembered it? What nomenclator of the shades could point out to me the obliterated tomb? Might he not make a mistake as to the dust? Since Heaven has willed it so, let Lucile be for ever lost! I find in this absence of locality a distinction from the burials of my other friends. My predecessor in this world and in the next is praying to the Redeemer for me; she is praying to Him from the midst of the pauper remains among which her own lie confounded: even so does Lucile's mother and mine rest lost among the preferred of Jesus Christ. God will certainly have been able to recognise my sister; and she, who was so little attached to earth, ought to leave no trace there. She has left me, that sainted genius. Not a day has passed but I have wept for her. Lucile loved to hide herself; I have made her a solitude in my heart: she shall leave it only when I shall have ceased to live[689].

Those are the true, the only events of my real life! What mattered to me, at the moment when I was losing my sister, the thousands of soldiers falling on the battlefields, the destruction of thrones, the changes in the face of the world?

Lucile's death struck at the sources of my soul: it was my childhood in the midst of my family, the first vestiges of my existence, that were disappearing. Our life resembles those frail buildings, shored up in the sky by flying buttresses: they do not crumble at once, but become loose piecemeal; they still support some gallery or other, while already they have become separated from the chancel or vault of the edifice. Madame de Chateaubriand, still bruised by Lucile's imperious whims, saw only a deliverance for the Christian who had gone to rest in the Lord. Let us be gentle if we would be regretted; the loftiness of genius and the higher qualities are mourned only by the angels. But I cannot enter into the consolation of Madame de Chateaubriand.

*

[Sidenote: My journey to the East.]

When, returning to Paris by the Burgundy road, I caught sight of the cupola of the Val-de-Grâce and the dome of Sainte-Geneviève, which overlooks the Jardin des Plantes, my heart was broken: one more companion of my life left on the wayside! We went back to the Hôtel de Coislin, and although M. de Fontanes, M. Joubert, M. de Clausel, M. Molé came to spend the evenings with me, I was distraught by so many memories and thoughts that I was utterly exhausted. Remaining alone behind the objects that had quitted me, like a foreign mariner whose engagement has expired, and who has neither home nor country, I struck the shore with my foot; I longed to swim in a new ocean to refresh myself and cross it. Nursed on Mount Pindus, a crusader to Hierosolyma, I was impatient to go to mingle my loneliness with the ruins of Athens, my tears with those of the Magdalen.

I went to see my family[690] in Brittany, returned to Paris, and left for Trieste on the 13th of July 1806; Madame de Chateaubriand accompanied me as far as Venice, where M. Ballanche came to join her.

As my life is set forth hour by hour in the _Itinéraire_, I should have no more to say here, if I had not kept some hitherto unknown letters written or received during and after my voyage. Julien, my servant and companion, wrote his own Itinerary side by side with mine, just as passengers on a vessel keep their private logs on a journey of discovery. The little manuscript which he places at my disposal will serve as a check upon my narrative: I shall be Cook, he will be Clarke[691].

In order to bring into clearer light the different manner in which one is impressed according to one's place in the social order and in the intellectual hierarchy, I will mingle my narrative with Julien's[692]. I shall let him begin by speaking first, because he relates some days' sailing without me from Modon to Smyrna.

JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

"We went on board[693] on Friday the 1st of August; but,
the wind not being favourable to leave harbour, we waited
until daybreak the next morning. Then the harbour-pilot
came to tell us that he could bring us out. As I had never
been on the sea, I had formed an exaggerated idea of the
danger, for I saw none during two days. But, on the third, a
tempest rose; lightning, thunder and, in short, a terrible
storm attacked us and beat up the sea frightfully. Our
crew consisted of only eight sailors, a captain, a mate, a
pilot and a cook, and five passengers, including Monsieur
and myself, which made seventeen men in all. Then we all
set ourselves to help the seamen in furling the sails, in
spite of the rain with which we were soon drenched, having
taken off our coats to move more freely. This work filled my
thoughts and made me forget the danger, which, indeed, is
more terrible through the idea which one forms of it than it
is in reality. The storms followed one another during two
days, which seasoned me in my first days of sea-faring; I was
in no way inconvenienced. Monsieur was afraid lest I should
be ill at sea; when calm set in again, he said to me:

"'Now I am reassured about your health; as you have borne
these two stormy days so well, you can set your mind at rest
as to any other mischance.'

"None occurred during the remainder of our crossing to
Smyrna. On the 10th, which was a Sunday, Monsieur made them
heave-to near a Turkish town called Modon, where he landed to
go to Greece. Among the passengers who were with us were two
Milanese, who were going to Smyrna to follow their trade of
tinmen and pewter-founders. One of the two, called Joseph,
spoke the Turkish language fairly well, and Monsieur proposed
that he should go with him as servant interpreter, and
mentions him in his _Itinéraire._ He told us, on leaving us,
that the journey would only take a few days, that he would
join the vessel at an island where we were to pass in four
or five days, and that he would wait for us in that island
if he arrived there before us. As Monsieur found that man to
suit him for that short journey[694], he left me on board
to continue my voyage to Smyrna and to look after all our
luggage. He had given me a letter of recommendation to the
French Consul, in case he did not join us, which was what
happened. On the fourth day, we arrived at the appointed
island and Monsieur was not there. We passed the night and
waited for him till seven o'clock in the morning. The captain
went back on shore to leave word that he was compelled to
go on, having a fair wind and being obliged to take his
crossing into consideration. Besides, he saw a pirate who was
trying to approach us, and it was urgent that we should place
ourselves promptly on the defensive. He made the men load his
four pieces of cannon and bring on deck his muskets, pistols
and side-arms; but, as the wind favoured us, the pirate gave
us up. We arrived, on Monday the 18th, at seven o'clock in
the evening, at the port of Smyrna."

*

[Sidenote: Greece.]

After crossing Greece, and touching Zea and Chio, I found
Julien at Smyrna. To-day I see Greece in my memory as one
of those dazzling circles which one sometimes beholds on
closing one's eyes. Against that mysterious phosphorescence
are outlined ruins of a delicate and admirable architecture,
the whole rendered still more resplendent by I know not
what brightness of the Muses. When shall I see again the
thyme of Mount Hymettus, the oleanders of the banks of the
Eurotas? One of the men whom I have left with the greatest
envy on foreign shores is the Turkish custom-house officer
of the Piræus: he lived alone, the guardian of three
deserted ports, turning his gaze over bluey isles, gleaming
promontories, golden seas. There I heard nought save the
sound of the billows in the shattered tomb of Themistocles
and the murmur of distant memories; in the silence of the
ruins of Sparta, fame itself was dumb.

In the cradle of Melesigene I left my poor dragoman,
Joseph, the Milanese, at his tinman's shop, and set out for
Constantinople. I went to Pergamos, wishing first to go to
Troy, from motives of poetic piety; a fall from my horse
awaited me at the commencement of my road; not that Pegasus
stumbled, but I slept. I have recalled this accident in my
_Itinéraire_; Julien relates it also, and he makes remarks
concerning the roads and the horses to the exactness of which
I can certify.

JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

"Monsieur, who had fallen asleep on his horse, tumbled off
without waking. His horse stopped forthwith, as did mine,
which followed it. I at once alighted to know the reason, for
it was impossible for me to see it at a fathom's distance.
I saw Monsieur half asleep beside his horse, and quite
astonished to find himself on the ground; he assured me that
he had not hurt himself. His horse did not try to run away,
which would have been dangerous, for there were precipices
very near to the spot where we were."

On leaving the Soma, after passing Pergamos, I had the
dispute with my guide which I describe in the _Itinéraire._
Here is Julien's version:

JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

"We left that village very early, after renewing our canteen.
A little way from the village, I was greatly surprised to
see Monsieur angry with our guide; I asked him the reason.
Monsieur then told me that he had arranged with the guide,
at Smyrna, that he would take him to the plains of Troy on
the way, and that he was now refusing, saying that the plains
were infested with brigands. Monsieur declined to believe
a word of it, and would listen to no one. As I saw that he
was getting more and more out of temper, I made a sign to
the guide to come near the interpreter and the janissary to
explain to me what he had been told about the dangers to be
risked in the plains which Monsieur wished to visit. The
guide told the interpreter that he had been assured that one
had to be in great numbers not to be attacked; the janissary
told me the same thing. Thereupon I went to Monsieur and
told him what they had all three said, and that, besides, we
should find a little village at a day's march where there
was a sort of consul who would be able to inform us of the
truth. After this statement, Monsieur composed himself, and
we continued our road till we reached that place. He at
once went to the consul, who told him of all the dangers he
would risk if he persisted in his wish to go in such small
numbers to those plains of Troy. Thereupon Monsieur was
obliged to abandon his project, and we continued our road for
Constantinople."

[Sidenote: Constantinople.]

I arrived at Constantinople.

MY ITINERARY.

"The almost total absence of women, the dearth of wheeled
carriages, and the packs of ownerless dogs were the three
distinctive characteristics that first struck me in this
extraordinary town. As nearly every one walks in papouches,
as there is no noise of carriages and carts, as there are
no bells and scarcely any hammering trades, the silence
is continual. You see around you a voiceless crowd which
seems to wish to pass unnoticed, and which always looks as
though it were stealing away from its master's sight. You
constantly come to a bazaar or a cemetery, as though the
Turks were only there to buy, sell, or die. The cemeteries,
unwalled and placed in the middle of the streets, are
magnificent cypress-woods: the doves build their nests in the
cypress-trees and share the peace of the dead. Here and there
one discovers some ancient monuments which have no connection
with the modern men, nor with the new monuments by which they
are surrounded; it is as though they had been transported to
this eastern town by the working of a talisman. No sign of
joy, no appearance of happiness shows itself to your eyes;
what you see is not a people but a herd whom an iman drives
and a janissary slays. Amidst the prisons and the gaols rises
a seraglio, the capitol of servitude: it is there that a
sacred guardian carefully preserves the germs of pestilence
and the primitive laws of tyranny."

Julien does not soar so near the clouds[695].

MY ITINERARY.

"We were about two hundred passengers on the ship, men,
women, children and old people. As many mats lay ranged in
rows on both sides of the steerage. In this kind of republic,
each kept house as he pleased: the women looked after their
children, the men smoked or prepared their dinners, the
popes talked together. On every side was heard the sound
of mandolines, fiddles and lyres. They sang, they danced,
they laughed, they prayed. Every one was joyful. They said
to me, 'Jerusalem!' pointing to the south; and I replied,
'Jerusalem!' In short, but for the fright, we should have
been the happiest people in the world; but at the least wind
the seamen furled the sails, the pilgrims cried, '_Christos,
Kyrie eleison!_' When the storm had passed, we resumed our
boldness."

Here I am beaten by Julien.

JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

"We had to busy ourselves with our departure for Jaffa, which
took place on Thursday the 18th of September. We embarked on
board a Greek ship, where there were at least, men, women,
and children, one hundred and fifty Greeks who were going on
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which caused much disturbance on
board.

"Like the other passengers, we too had our supply of
provisions and our cooking utensils, which I had bought in
Constantinople. I had, besides, a further and fairly complete
supply which M. l'Ambassadeur had given us, consisting of
very fine biscuits, hams, sausages, saveloys, different sorts
of wine, rum, sugar, lemons, and even quinine-wine against
the fever. I was therefore furnished with a very plentiful
provision, which I husbanded and only consumed with great
economy, knowing that we had more than this one crossing to
make: everything was locked up where the passengers were not
allowed to go.

"Our crossing, which lasted only thirteen days, seemed
very long to me through all sorts of unpleasantness and
uncleanliness on board. During several days of bad weather
which we encountered, the women and children were sick,
throwing up everywhere, so much so that we were obliged to
leave our cabin and sleep on deck. There we took our meals
much more comfortably than elsewhere, as we decided to wait
until all our Greeks had finished their littering."

[Sidenote: Mount Carmel.]

I passed through the Dardanelles, touched at Rhodes, and took a pilot for the Syrian coast. We were stopped by a calm below the Asiatic continent, almost opposite the old Cape Chelidonia. We remained two days at sea without knowing where we were.

MY ITINERARY.

"The weather was so fine and the air so mild that all the
passengers spent the night on deck. I had contended for a
place on the quarter-deck with two fat caloyers, who yielded
it to me only after much grumbling. I was lying asleep there
at six o'clock in the morning on the 30th of September,
when I was aroused by a confused noise of voices: I opened
my eyes, and saw the pilgrims looking towards the prow of
the vessel. I asked what it was; they shouted '_Signor,
il Carmelo!_' Mount Carmel! The wind had risen at eight
o'clock the previous evening, and we had arrived in sight of
the Syrian coast during the night. As I was sleeping fully
dressed, I was soon on my feet, asking the whereabouts of the
sacred mountain. Everyone was eager to point it out to me;
but I perceived nothing, owing to the sun which was beginning
to rise opposite to us. That moment had about it something
religious and august: all the pilgrims, their beads in their
hands, had remained silently in the same attitude, awaiting
the apparition of the Holy Land; the chief of the popes
prayed aloud: one heard only that prayer and the sound of the
running of the vessel, which the most favourable wind was
impelling across a dazzling sea. From time to time a shout
rose from the prow, when one caught sight of Mount Carmel
again. At last I myself perceived the mountain, like a round
patch beneath the rays of the sun. I then went on my knees in
the manner of the Latins. I did not feel the peculiar trouble
which I experienced on discovering the coast of Greece: but
the sight of the cradle of the Israelites and the native land
of the Christians filled me with joy and respect. I was about
to step upon the land of prodigies, near the sources of the
most astounding poetry, in the region where, even humanly
speaking, the greatest event took place that ever changed the
face of the world. . . . . . . . . . .

"The wind dropped at noon; it rose again at four o'clock; but
through the ignorance of the pilot we went beyond our aim....
At two o'clock in the afternoon we saw Jaffa again.

"A boat left the shore with three monks. I stepped into the
launch with them; we entered the harbour through an opening
effected between the rocks, and dangerous even for a ship's
boat.

"The Arabs on the beach came out into the water to their
waists, in order to take us on their shoulders. Then there
followed a rather laughable scene: my servant was dressed in
a whitish frock-coat; white being the colour of distinction
among the Arabs, they deemed that Julien was the sheik. They
caught hold of him and carried him off in triumph, despite
his protests, while, thanks to my blue coat, I made my escape
humbly on the back of a ragged beggar."

Now let us hear Julien, the principal actor in the scene:

JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

"What surprised me greatly was to see six Arabs come to carry
me on land, while there were only two for Monsieur, which
amused him much, to see me carried like a reliquary. I do not
know whether my apparel seemed to them more brilliant than
Monsieur's: he wore a brown frock-coat and buttons of the
same; mine was whitish, with buttons of white metal which
gave off a certain gleam in the bright sunshine: this may, no
doubt, have caused the mistake.

"We went, on Wednesday the 1st of October, to the monks of
Jaffa, who belong to the Order of Cordeliers, speaking Latin
and Italian, but very little French. They received us very
well, and did all that in them lay to procure for us all we
needed."

I arrived in Jerusalem. On the advice of the Fathers of the convent, I passed quickly through the Holy City to go to the Jordan. After stopping at the monastery at Bethlehem, I set out with an Arab escort; I stopped at St. Sabas. At midnight, I found myself on the shore of the Dead Sea.

MY ITINERARY.

"When one travels in Judæa, at first the heart is seized
with a great sense of tediousness; but when, as you pass from
solitude to solitude, space stretches limitless before your
eyes, that feeling gradually wears away, and you experience
a secret terror which, far from casting down the soul, gives
courage and raises the spirit. Extraordinary views discover
on every side a land laboured by miracles: the burning sun,
the swooping eagle, the barren fig-tree, all the poetry, all
the scenes of the Scriptures are there. Every name contains
a mystery; every grotto declares the future; every summit
resounds with a prophet's accents. God Himself has spoken on
those shores: the dried-up torrents, the cleft rocks, the
half-open tombs testify to the working of wonders; the desert
appears to be still mute with terror, and it is as though
it had not ventured to break the silence since it heard the
voice of the Almighty.

"We descended from the brow of the mountain, in order to go
to spend the night on the shore of the Dead Sea, and next to
go up to the Jordan[696].

. . . . . . . . . .

"We broke up our camp, and made our way for an hour and a
half with excessive difficulty through a fine white dust.
We were proceeding towards a small wood of balsam-trees and
tamarinds, which I saw to my great astonishment rising from
the midst of a sterile soil. Suddenly the Bethlemites stopped
and pointed to something which I had not perceived, at the
bottom of a ravine. Without being able to say what it was, I
caught a glimpse as though of a kind of sand moving over the
immobility of the soil. I approached this singular object,
and I saw a yellow river which I had some difficulty in
distinguishing from the sand of its two banks. It was deeply
embanked, and flowed slowly in a thick stream: it was the
Jordan....

"The Bethlemites stripped and plunged into the Jordan. I did
not dare to follow their lead, because of the fever which
still troubled me."

[Sidenote: Jerusalem.]

We returned to Jerusalem; Julien was not much struck with the sacred places: like a true philosopher, he was dry[697].

I left Jerusalem, arrived at Jaffa, and took ship for Alexandria. From Alexandria I went to Cairo, and I left Julien with M. Drovetti, who had the kindness to charter an Austrian vessel for me for Tunis. Julien continued his journal at Alexandria:

"There are Jews here," he says, "who gamble in stocks, as they do wherever they are. Half a league from the city stands Pompey's Column, which is in reddish granite, mounted on a block of hewn stone."

MY ITINERARY.

"On the 23rd of November, at midday, the wind having
become favourable, I went on board the vessel. I embraced
M. Drovetti on the shore, and we made mutual promises of
friendship and remembrance: I am paying my debt to-day.

"We heaved the anchor at two o'clock. A pilot brought us
out of harbour. The wind was faint and southerly. We kept
for three days within sight of Pompey's Column, which we
discovered on the horizon. On the evening of the third day we
heard the evening gun of the port of Alexandria. This was as
it were the signal for our definite departure, for the north
wind rose and we made sail for the west.

"On the 1st of December, the wind, veering due west, stopped
our way. Gradually it fell to the south-west and turned into
a tempest which did not cease until we reached Tunis. To
occupy my time, I copied out and set in order my notes on
this voyage and my descriptions for the _Martyrs._ At night,
I walked the deck with the mate, Captain Dinelli. Nights
spent amid the waves, on a vessel beaten by the storm, are
not barren; the uncertainty of our future gives objects
their true value: the land, contemplated from the midst of a
tempestuous sea, resembles life as it presents itself to a
man about to die[698]."

We continued our voyage and anchored before the Kerkenna Isles.

MY ITINERARY.

"A gale rose, to our great delight, from the south-east, and
in five days we arrived in the waters of the island of Malta.
We came into sight of it on Christmas Eve; but, on Christmas
Day, the wind, shifting to west-north-west, drove us to the
south of Lampedusa. We remained for eighteen days off the
east coast of the Kingdom of Tunis, between life and death.
I shall never in my life forget the day of the 28th.

"We cast anchor before the Kerkenna Isles. For eight days
we lay at anchor in the Gulf of Cabes, where I saw the
commencement of the year 1807. Under how many planets and
amid what varied fortunes had I already seen the years renew
for me, years which pass so quickly or which are so long!
How far away from me were those times of my childhood in
which, with a heart beating with joy, I received the paternal
blessing and the paternal gifts! How I used to look forward
to New Year's Day! And now, on a foreign vessel, in the
middle of the sea, within sight of a barbarous land, that New
Year's Day sped for me without witnesses, without pleasures,
without the kisses of my family, without the fond wishes of
happiness which a mother shapes with such sincerity for her
sons! That day, born in the womb of the tempests, let fall on
my head nought but cares, regrets and silver hairs."

[Sidenote: The Kerkenna Isles.]

Julien is exposed to the same fate, and he rebukes me for one of those fits of impatience of which I have, fortunately, corrected myself.

JULIEN'S ITINERARY.

"We were very near the island of Malta, and we had reason
to fear that we might be seen by some English vessel, which
could have forced us to enter the harbour; but we encountered
none. Our crew was greatly exhausted, and the wind continued
to be unfavourable to us. The captain, seeing on his chart
an anchorage called Kerkenna, from which we were at no great
distance, made sail for it without telling Monsieur, who,
seeing that we were approaching that anchorage, became angry
at not having been consulted, and said to the captain that
he ought to continue his course, having been through worse
weather. But we had gone too far to resume our course, and
besides, the captain's prudence was highly approved, for
that night the wind grew much stronger and the sea very bad.
Finding that we were obliged to remain in the anchoring-place
four-and-twenty hours longer than was foreseen, Monsieur gave
the captain lively marks of his discontent, in spite of the
good reasons which the latter gave him.

"We had been a month at sea, and we only wanted seven or
eight hours to reach the port of Tunis. Suddenly the wind
became so violent that we were obliged to stand out to sea,
and we remained three weeks without being able to touch the
port. Thereupon Monsieur once more reproached the captain
with having wasted thirty-six hours at the anchorage. It was
impossible to persuade him that a greater misfortune would
have befallen us if the captain had been less foreseeing.
The misfortune which I anticipated was to see our provisions
diminishing, without knowing when we should arrive."

At last I trod Carthaginian soil. I found the most generous hospitality at the hands of M. and Madame Devoise. Julien describes my host well; he also speaks of the country and the Jews:

"They pray and weep," says he.

An American man-of-war brig gave me a passage on board, and I crossed the lake of Tunis to go to the port.

"On the way," says Julien, "I asked Monsieur if he had taken the gold which he had put into the writing-table in his bed-room; he told me he had forgotten it, and I was obliged to return to Tunis."

I can never keep money in my mind.

When I arrived from Alexandria, we cast anchor opposite the ruins of the city of Hannibal[699]. I looked at them from the deck without guessing what they were. I saw a few Moorish huts, a Mussulman hermitage on the point of a prominent head-land, some sheep grazing among ruins, ruins so unapparent that I could hardly distinguish them from the ground on which they stood: that was Carthage. I visited it before embarking for Europe.

MY ITINERARY.

"From the top of Byrsa, the eye embraces the ruins of
Carthage, which are more numerous than is generally believed:
they resemble those of Sparta, having nothing in a good state
of preservation, but occupying a considerable space. I saw
them in the month of February; the fig-trees, olive-trees,
and carobs were already putting out their young leaves;
large angelicas and acanthas formed tufts of verdure among
the ruins of marble of every colour. In the distance, I
turned my gaze over the isthmus, a two-fold sea, far islands,
a smiling country-side, bluey lakes, azured mountains; I
descried forests, ships, aqueducts, Moorish villages,
Mohammedan hermitages, minarets, and the white houses of
Tunis. Millions of starlings, gathered into battalions and
resembling clouds, flew above my head. Surrounded by the
greatest and most touching memories, I thought of Dido[700],
of Sophonisba[701], of Hasdrubal's noble spouse[702]; I
viewed the vast plains in which the legions of Hannibal,
Scipio[703], and Cæsar[704] lie buried; my eyes tried to
recognise the site of the Palace of Utica. Alas, the remains
of the palace of Tiberius[705] still exist at Capri, and we
look in vain at Utica for the spot where stood Cato's[706]
house! Lastly, the terrible Vandals, the light Moors passed
in turn before my memory, which showed me, as a final
picture, St. Louis dying on the ruins of Carthage[707]."

*

[Sidenote: The ruins of Carthage.]

Julien, like myself, takes his last view of Africa at Carthage[708].

Julien briefly narrates our passage from Tunis to the Bay of Gibraltar; from Algeciras he promptly arrives at Cadiz, and from Cadiz at Granada. Careless of Blanca, he observes only that "the Alhambra and other lofty buildings stand on rocks of immense height." My own _Itinéraire_ does not give many more details on Granada; I content myself with saying:

"The Alhambra seems to me to be worthy of note, even after the temples of Greece. The valley of Granada is delightful, and much resembles that of Sparta: it is easy to conceive that the Moors regret so fine a country."

I have described the Alhambra in the _Dernier des Abencerages._[709] The Alhambra, the Generalife, the Monte-Santo are impressed upon my mind like those fantastic landscapes of which often, at peep of day, one imagines that one catches a glimpse in the first brilliant ray of the dawn. I still feel that I possess sufficient sense of nature to paint the Vega[710]; but I should not dare to attempt it, for fear of "the Archbishop of Granada[711]." During my stay in the town of the sultanas, a guitar-player, driven by an earthquake from a village through which I had just passed, had devoted himself to me. Deaf as a post, he followed me wherever I went: when I sat down on a ruin in the Palace of the Moors, he stood and sang by my side, accompanying himself on his guitar. The harmonious vagrant would not perhaps have composed the symphony of the _Creation_[712], but his dusky skin showed through his tattered cloak, and he would have had a great need to write as did Beethoven[713] to Fraülein Breuning:

"Revered Eleonora, my dearest friend, how gladly would I be the possessor of a rabbits'-wool waistcoat of your knitting."

I travelled from end to end of that Spain in which, sixteen years later, Heaven reserved to me a great part, that of aiding in stamping out anarchy in a noble nation and delivering a Bourbon: the honour of our arms was restored, and I should have saved the Legitimacy, had the Legitimacy been able to understand the conditions of its continuance.

Julien does not allow me to escape until he has brought me back to the Place Louis XV. at three o'clock in the afternoon of the 5th of June 1807. From Granada he conducts me to Aranjuez, to Madrid, to the Escurial, whence he jumps to Bayonne.

"We left Bayonne," he says, "on Tuesday the 9th of May, for
Pau, Tarbes, Barèges and Bordeaux, where we arrived on the
18th, very tired, and both with a touch of fever. We left on
the 19th and went to Angoulême and Tours, and we arrived on
the 28th at Blois, where we slept. On the 31st we continued
our journey to Orleans, and later we spent our last night at
Angerville."

*

[Sidenote: Back in France.]

I was there, at one stage from a country-seat[714] whose inhabitants my long voyage had not caused me to forget. But the gardens of Armida, where were they? Two or three times, when returning to the Pyrenees, I have caught sight of the Column of Méréville[715]; like Pompey's Column, it acquainted me with the presence of the desert: like my fortunes at sea, all has changed.

I reached Paris before the news I sent of myself: I had out-distanced my life. Insignificant as are the letters which I wrote, I go through them as one looks over inferior sketches representing the places one has visited. Those notes, dated from Modon, Athens, Zea, Constantinople, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Tunis, Granada, Madrid, and Burgos, those lines written on every manner of paper, with every manner of ink, carried by all the winds, interest me. I love unrolling even my very firmans: it is a pleasure to me to touch the vellum, to observe the elegant caligraphy, to wonder at the pomp of the style. How great a personage I must have been! And what poor devils we are, with our letters and our forty-sou passports, beside those lords of the turban!

Osman Seïd, Pasha of Morea, thus addresses to whomsoever it may concern my firman for Athens:

"Men of law of the townships of Misitra[716] and Argos,
cadis, nadirs, and eflendis, of whom may the wisdom ever
increase; you who are the honour of your peers and our
great men, vaïvodes, and you through whose eyes your master
sees, who replace him in each of your jurisdictions, public
officers and business men, whose credit can only grow greater.

"We inform you that of the nobles of France, one noble in
particular from Paris, the bearer of this order, accompanied
by an armed janissary and by a servant as his escort, has
solicited permission and explained his intention to pass
through some of the places and localities which are within
your jurisdictions in order to go to Athens, which is an
isthmus lying beyond and separated from your jurisdictions.

"Wherefore, effendis, vaïvodes, and all others
above-mentioned, when the aforesaid person shall arrive at
the places subject to your jurisdiction, you shall take the
greatest care that he be treated with all the particular
consideration of which friendship makes a law, etc., etc

"Year 1221 of the Hegira."

My passport from Constantinople for Jerusalem says:

"To the sublime tribunal of His Grandeur the Cadi of
Kouds[717], Scherif and Most Excellent Effendi:

"Most Excellent Effendi, may Your Grandeur seated on your
august tribunal accept our sincere blessings and our
affectionate greetings.

"We inform you that a noble personage from the Court of
France, named François Auguste de Chateaubriand, is at
present on his way towards you to make the _holy_ pilgrimage
(of the Christians)."

Would we extend a like protection to the unknown traveller with the mayors and gendarmes who inspect his passport? In these firmans we can also read the revolutions of the nations: how many "permits" has it required that God should grant to the empires, before a Tartar slave could lay orders upon a vaïvode of Misistra, that is, a magistrate of Sparta; before a Mussulman could recommend a Christian to the Cadi of Kouds, that is, of Jerusalem!

The _Itinéraire_ has entered into the elements that compose my life. When I set out in 1806, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem appeared a great undertaking. Now that the crowd has followed in my steps and that the whole world is in the diligence, the wonder of it has vanished; I have little left of my own save Tunis: people have travelled less in that direction, and it has been allowed that I pointed out the real sights of the ports of Carthage. This creditable letter proves it:

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"I have just received a plan of the ground and ruins of
Carthage, giving the exact outlines and inclinations of the
soil; it has been taken trigonometrically on a basis of
1500 meters, and rests upon barometrical observations made
with corresponding barometers. It is a work of ten years
of precision and patience; and it confirms your opinions
regarding the position of the ports of Byrsa.

"With this exact plan I have gone over all the ancient texts,
and have, I believe, determined the outer circumference and
the other portions of the Cothon, Byrsa, Megara, etc., etc.
I wish to do you the right which is your due upon so many
scores.

"If you are not afraid to see me swoop down upon your genius
with my trigonometry and my heavy erudition, I will be with
you at the first sign from yourself. If we, my father[718]
and I, follow you in literature _longissimo intervallo_,
at least we shall have tried to imitate you in the noble
independence of which you set France so fine an example.

"I have the honour to be, and I am proud of it, your frank
admirer,

"DUREAU DE LA MALLE[719]."

[Sidenote: My geographical accuracy.]

So accurate a rectification of localities would formerly have been sufficient to give me a name in geography. From this time forward, if I still had a mania for being talked about, I do not know where I could go in order to attract the attention of the public: perhaps I should resume my old plan of discovering the passage to the North Pole; perhaps I should ascend the Ganges. There I should see the long, straight, dark line of the woods which defend the approach to the Himalayas; when, after reaching the neck which joins the two principal peaks of Mount Ganghur, I descried the immeasurable amphitheatre of the eternal snows, and should ask my guides, as did Heber[720], the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta, the name of the other mountains in the East, they would reply that they marked the border of the Chinese Empire: well and good! But to return from the Pyramids is as though you returned from Montlhéry[721]. By the by, I remember that a pious antiquary, who lived near Saint-Denis in France wrote to me to ask if Pontoise did not resemble Jerusalem.

The last page of the _Itinéraire_ is as though I had written it this moment, so exactly does it reproduce my present sentiments.

"For twenty years," I said, "I have devoted myself to study
amid hazards and troubles of every kind, _diversa exsilia et
desertas quærere terras_: many of the pages of my books have
been written under canvas, in the deserts, upon the ocean; I
have often held the pen without knowing how I should for a
few instants prolong my existence.... If Heaven grant me a
repose which I have never tasted, I will try in silence to
raise a monument to my country; if Providence refuse me that
repose, I must think only of shielding my last days from the
cares which have embittered the first. I am no longer young,
I no longer have the love of fame; I know that literature,
the commerce of which is so sweet when it is secret, only
draws down storms upon us from the outside. In any case, I
have written enough if my name is to live; far too much if it
is to die."

It is possible that my _Itinéraire_ may survive as a manual for the use of Wandering Jews like myself: I have scrupulously noted the halting-places, and drawn a map of the roads. All the travellers to Jerusalem have written to congratulate me and thank me for my accuracy; I will quote one witness[722].

*

I see before me, of the sites of Syria, Egypt and Carthage, only the spots in harmony with my solitary nature; these pleased me independently of antiquity, art or history. The Pyramids struck me not so much on account of their size, as of the desert against which they were set; Diocletian's Column did not catch my eye as did the segments of the sea along the sands of Lybia. At the Pelusian mouth of the Nile, I should not have wished fora monument to remind me of the scene thus depicted by Plutarch:

"The enfranchised slave, casting his eyes over the shore,
spied the old remains of a fishing-boat, which, though not
large, would make a sufficient pile for a poor naked body
that was not quite entire. While he was collecting the pieces
of plank, and putting them together, an old Roman, who had
made some of his first campaigns under Pompey, came up, and
said to Philip:

"Who are you that are preparing the funeral of Pompey the
Great?'

"Philip answered:

"'I am his freedman.'

"'But you shall not,' said the old Roman, 'have this honour
entirely to yourself. As a work of piety offers itself, let
me have a share in it; that I may not absolutely repent my
having passed so many years in a foreign country; but, to
compensate many misfortunes, may have the consolation of
doing some of the last honours to the greatest general Rome
ever produced[723].'"

Cæsar's rival no longer has a tomb near Lybia, and a young Lybian slave-girl has received burial at the hands of a Pompey not far from the Rome whence the great Pompey was banished. From these freaks of fortune one conceives how the Christians used to go and hide themselves in the Thebaïde[724].

The winds have scattered the personages of Europe, Asia, Africa, amid whom I appeared and of whom I have told you: one fell from the Acropolis at Athens, another from the shore of Chios, another flung himself from Mount Sion, yet another will never emerge from the waves of the Nile or the tanks of Carthage. The places themselves have changed: in the same way, as in America, cities have sprung up where I saw forests, an empire is being formed on those sands of Egypt where my eyes encountered only "horizons bare and rounded like the boss of a shield," as the Arab poems say, "and wolves so thin that their jaws are like a cleft stick." Greece has recovered the liberty which I wished her when travelling across her under the guard of a janissary. But does she enjoy her national liberty, or has she merely changed her yoke?

[Sidenote: The future of the East.]

In some measure I am the last visitor of the Turkish Empire under its old customs. The revolutions which have everywhere immediately preceded, or followed upon, my footsteps have spread over Greece, Syria, Egypt. Is a new East about to be formed? What will it bring forth? Shall we receive our just punishment for having taught the modern art of warfare to nations whose social state is based upon slavery and polygamy? Have we carried civilization beyond our boundaries, or have we brought barbarism within the circle of Christianity? What will result from the new interests, the new political relations, the creation of the Powers which may spring up in the Levant? No one can tell. I do not allow myself to be dazzled by steam-boats and railways, by the sale of the produce of manufactures, and by the fortunes of a few French, English, German, Italian soldiers enrolled in a pasha's service: all that is not civilization. Perhaps we shall behold the return, through the aid of the disciplined troops of future Ibrahims, of the perils which threatened Europe at the time of Charles the Hammer[725], and from which we were saved by the generous Poland. I pity the travellers who shall succeed me: the harem will no longer hide its secrets from them; they will not have seen the old sun of the East and the turban of Mahomet. The little Bedouin called out to me in French, when I passed into the mountains of Judæa:

"Forward, march!"

The order was given, and the East marched.

*

[Sidenote: _MEMENTO MORI._]

What became of Ulysses' companion, Julien? He asked, when handing me his manuscript, to be made _concierge_ of my house in the Rue d'Enfer: this place was occupied by an old porter and his family, whom I could not send away. The wrath of Heaven having made Julien headstrong and a drunkard, I supported him for a long time; at last we were obliged to part. I gave him a small sum, and granted him a little pension on my privy purse, a somewhat light one, but always copiously filled with excellent notes mortgaged on my castles in Spain. I obtained Julien's admission, at his wish, to the Old Men's asylum: there he finished the last great journey. I shall soon go to occupy his empty bed, even as, in the camp of Etnir-Capi, I slept on a mat from which a plague-stricken Mussulman had just been removed. My vocation is positively for the almshouse, in which the old society lies. It pretends to live, but is none the less at death's door. When it has expired, it will decompose in order to be reproduced under new forms, but it must first succumb; the first necessity for peoples, as for man, is to die:

"When God bloweth, there cometh frost," says Job[726].

[649] This book was written in Paris in 1839, and revised in December 1846.--T.

[650] Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566) was the daughter of Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint-Vallier, and married in 1512 Louis de Brézé, Comte de Maulevrier, who died in 1531. Some years later she became mistress to Henry II., then Duc d'Orléans, who shortly after his accession created her Duchesse de Valentinois. She retained her empire over the King and her power in France until Henry's death, which occurred in 1559.--T.

[651] Hervé Louis François Joseph Bonaventure Clérel, Comte de Tocqueville (1772-1856) was made a peer of France and a prefect under the Restoration. He was married to Mademoiselle de Rosanbo, a grand-daughter of Malesherbes.--T.

[652] Anne Nicole Marquise de Senozan (1718-1794), _née_ de Lamoignon de Blancménil, sister to Malesherbes and wife of the Président de Senozan. She mounted the scaffold on the 10th of May 1794, on the same day as Madame Élisabeth, at the age of seventy-six, and her estate passed later into the possession of her grand-nephew, the Comte de Tocqueville.--B.

[653] The Château de Verneuil in the Department of Seine-et-Oise.--B.

[654] Alexis Charles Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was appointed an assistant judge, and in 1831 was sent to America, in company with Gustave de Beaumont, to study the penal system on that continent. On his return he published a treatise on this subject, and in 1835 appeared his great work on American Democracy, which secured his election to the Academy of Moral Science in 1839 and to the French Academy in 1841. Two years earlier he had been sent to the Chamber as deputy for the Arrondissement of Valognes, in Normandy, in which his father's property of Tocqueville was situated, and this seat he retained until his withdrawal from political life in 1851. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Presidency of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte from June to October 1849.--T.

[655] Michel Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau (1760-1793), a renegade representative of the Paris nobility, which sent him to the States-General in 1789. In 1792 he became a member of the Convention, where he voted in favour of the death of Louis XVI.; and on the 20th of January 1793, the day before the execution of the King, he was assassinated in a restaurant by an old Bodyguard called Paris. His body was conveyed to the Pantheon in state, and the Convention adopted his daughter, then eight years old.--T.

[656] The Château du Ménil is in the commune of Fontenay-Saint-Père, canton of Limay, Arrondissement of Mantes, Department of Seine-et-Oise. It is now the property of M. le Marquis de Rosanbo.--B.

[657] The Château de Mézy is in the canton of Meulan, Department of Seine-et-Oise.--B.

[658] The Château de Méréville is in Beauce. It had formerly belonged to a celebrated Court banker, Jean Joseph de La Borde, guillotined in 1794, who had turned it into a dwelling of finished splendour. The park, laid out by Robert, the landscape-painter, was a marvel. One of La Borde's daughters had married the Comte de Noailles, later Duc de Mouchy.--B.

[659] Blanca is the heroine of the _Aventures du dernier Abencerage._--T.

[660] Marie Anne Louise Adélaïde Marquise de Coislin (1732-1817), _née_ de Mailly, of the Rubempré and Nesle branch, was the daughter of Louis de Mailly, Comte de Rubempré and cousin to the four Mesdemoiselles de Mailly, daughters of the Marquis de Nesle--the Comtesse de Mailly, the Comtesse de Vintimille, the Duchesse de Lauraguais, and the Marquise de La Tournelle, afterwards Duchesse de Châteauroux--who successively became mistresses to Louis XV. She married first, in 1750, Charles Georges René de Cambout, Marquis de Coislin, who died in 1771, leaving no children living. More than twenty years later, in 1793, the Marquise de Coislin, then over sixty, married one of her cousins, twelve years younger than herself, Louis Marie Duc de Mailly, who died and left her a widow for the second time in 1795. There is reason to believe that this marriage was never legally consecrated, as the Duchesse de Mailly continued to be called Marquise de Coislin.--B.

[661] Now the Place de la Concorde. The house stands at the corner of the Rue Royale, facing the Ministry of Marine, formerly the Crown Wardrobe.--T.

[662] This title is the appanage of the Marquisate of Nesle.--T.

[663] Killed at the Battle of Courtrai in 1302.--T.

[664] Claude Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), the father of Carle and grandfather of Horace Vernet. Louis XV. commissioned him to paint the principal French ports. The majority of his sea-pieces are now at the Louvre.--T.

[665] Marie Anne de Mailly (1719-1744) married the Marquis de La Tournelle in 1734. He left her a widow at the age of twenty-three, and she became mistress, in succession to her sisters Mesdames de Vintimille and de Mailly, to Louis XV., who created her Duchesse de Châteauroux. She obtained the support of the Duc de Richelieu, and was for a time all-powerful at Court, accompanying Louis at the head of his armies in Flanders and Alsace. In 1744, when the King fell ill, she was sent back to Paris in disgrace, but was restored to favour on his recovery, and was on the point of becoming Superintendent of the Dauphiness' Household, when she died a sudden death, attributed by some to poison.--T.

[666] Louise Julie Comtesse de Mailly (1710-1751), the first of the Nesle family to become the mistress of Louis XV. She amended her life when deserted in favour of one of her sisters, and was doubtless the most estimable and sympathetic of the four.--T.

[667] A reference to an epigram in the Anthology.--B.

[668] Queen Marie Leczinska (1703-1768), daughter of Stanislaus Leczinski, ex-King of Poland, and married to Louis XV. in 1725.--T.

[669] Madame Suard (1750-1830), _née_ Panckoucke, sister of Panckoucke, the printer, founder of the _Moniteur universel_, and herself the author of several agreeable works. Her salon was a favourite meeting-place of the Encyclopædists under Louis XVI.--B.

[670] Jean Baptiste Antoine Suard (1734-1817) took part in the editing of an English newspaper printed in Paris, became a member of the Academy in 1772, and obtained a censorship in 1774. At the Revolution, he became a moderate member of the new party. In 1803 he was appointed perpetual secretary to the Institute. His works consist mainly of translations from the English: Cook's _Voyages_, Robertson's _History of America_, etc.--T.

[671] Pierre Michel Hennin (1728-1807) was Secretary of Embassy in Poland in 1759, Resident at Warsaw in 1763, Resident at Geneva in 1765, and in 1779 became First Clerk at the Foreign Office, a post in which he did eminent service until 1792, when he was dismissed by General Dumouriez. He was obliged to sell his collections, and took to "scribbling fat novels" for a livelihood, working at learning languages and at his writing until his death, on the 5th of July 1807, at the age of nearly eighty.--B.

[672] Claude Antoine de Bésiade, Duc d'Avaray (1740-1829), brother to the Comte d'Avaray, Louis XVIII.'s companion in exile and chief agent. D'Avaray was imprisoned during the Terror, recovered his liberty on the 9 Thermidor, and emigrated, returning to France in 1814. Louis XVIII. raised him to the peerage in 1815, created him a duke in 1817, and made him his First Chamberlain in 1820.--B.