... You think, without doubt, of Bouvard and Pécuchet taking notes to write the life of the Duc d'Angoulême. So do I.
Now let us return to La Roche-Guyon.
Montalembert, Marchangy, Berryer, Dupan-loup, Hugo, Lamartine, were there the guests of the Abbé-Duc de Rohan.
How Hugo made the acquaintance of the Due de Rohan and visited him at La Roche-Guyon; how, terrified by the princely formality which reigned as well in the chapel of the château as in the dining room, he fled after two days; finally how the Duc de Rohan gave Lamennais to Hugo as a confessor, may be read in Volume II of Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de sa vie. We must not neglect to consult also the severe but exact work of M. Biré.
Lamartine wrote one of his most admirable Meditations at La Roche-Guyon:
Here comes to die the world's last echoing sound;
Sailors whose star has set, ashore! here is the port:
Here, the soul steeps itself in peace the most profound,
And this peace is not death.
In the note which he left as a sequel to this poem, Lamartine relates that, in 1819, the Due de Rohan was introduced to him by Duc Mathieu de Montmorency. "We became close friends without his ever making me feel, and without my ever allowing myself to forget, by that natural tact which is the etiquette of nature, the distance which he indeed wished to bridge, but which nevertheless existed between two names which poesy alone could bring together for an instant." This is exquisite, with an affectation of respect which borders on impertinence.