CHATEAUBRIAND AND HIS CAREER.

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BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.

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François Auguste, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, was born in 1768, in the midst of that epoch which produced so many great men, Napoleon, Soult, Wellington and Walter Scott. Educated at the castle of Combourg near Saint-Malo, beyond all doubt as he wandered over the arid lands and desolate shores of Armorica, young Chateaubriand felt the development in his soul of that inclination and solitude which never abandoned him even in the turmoil of business and amid the gravest political affairs. Intended originally for the church, it was subsequently purposed to devote him to the army; he began at Dol and terminated at Rennes, an arduous course of study, which though it left his intense sensitiveness and that creative imagination which are the chief characteristics of his mind unaltered, enabled him to publish serious works on critical history, at an age when persons usually possess but vague notions of life and the principles which regulate the organization of society. In 1787, for the first time, young Chateaubriand went to Paris. He was at that time a second lieutenant in the regiment of Navarre, but so as to be enabled to ride in the king’s coaches, an honor to which from his old nobility, he was entitled, the rank of captain was necessary, he obtained by a fiction, not unusual at that time, the brevet of captain of cavalry; notwithstanding this however, he continued to do duty in the regiment of foot to which he belonged. The magnificence of the court of Versailles could not at all satisfy the vague desire, which, though he did not then understand its nature, tormented his soul. Adventure was a condition of his being; his life could not be objectless, and with delight he hailed the commencement of a career. One day as he looked over a map of the New World, he was struck with the possibility of discovering a passage to the northern Pole. From that hour sleep and repose were gone. Like Columbus, he went from door to door, to solicit means to realize the idea which animated him, and was compelled to submit to the ridicule of some, and the indifference of others. This idea, which then was esteemed insoluble, but a short time after was realized. It may be, had the government of Louis XVI, paid any attention to a question which had great significance in the points of view of commerce, politics and science, that passage, now known as McKenzie’s, would have borne the name Chateaubriand. Let this however, be as it may, the young second lieutenant, by ridicule and discouragement, resolved to accomplish his gigantic project without assistance, and in the spring of 1791, set out for America, with no other baggage than a letter of introduction to Washington. Yet imbued with the ideas of the old world, Chateaubriand had imagined the President of the United States, a king, surrounded by a brilliant court, with guards and chamberlains, crowding the portals of a palace of marble and gold. How great must his surprise have been, when he knocked at the door of a modest dwelling, which, in France, would have been esteemed scarcely fit for a private gentleman, and when a female opened the door, and without parade let him into the presence of one who had created a nation and declined a crown.

Washington received him with cordiality and kindness, but terrified beyond doubt at the dangers to which he was about to expose himself, attempted to dissuade the young adventurer from his enterprise. Chateaubriand, however, would not be persuaded, and soon after hired a guide and really began his journey, fancying that he had merely to go straight to the Pole, as he had gone from Saint Malo to Paris. He reached the limit of civilization, in what was then considered a short time, and with indescribable joy found himself amid the dark and mysterious forests of the new world, where it seemed to him, no human foot had ever been planted before. He thus describes his sensations, when his soul first became replete with astonishment and amazement at the magnificence of the scene.

“I wandered from tree to tree, now turning to the right and then to the left, saying to myself, here there are no beaten paths, no restricted dwelling places; presidents, kings and oligarchies, have no power here. By way of exhibiting my freedom from all control, I committed countless wild pranks, which made the steady Dutchman, who was my guide, fancy me a fool.”