When breakfast was over, and they had conversed for some time upon French affairs, Chateaubriand rose and said with great simplicity, "Now let us go and feed my ducks."
At these words Dumas looked with surprise at his host, and after hesitating an instant essayed to reach a solution of the mystery.
"The waiter informed me yesterday," he said, "that you had gone out for that purpose. May I ask if you propose in your retirement to become a farmer?"
In reply to this question Chateaubriand said in his tranquil voice, "Why not? A man whose life has been, like mine, driven by caprice, adventure, revolutions and exile toward the four quarters of the world, would be happy, I think, to possess, not a chalet in these mountains—I do not like the Alps—but a country-place in Normandy or Brittany. Really, I think that this is the resource of my old age."
"Permit me to doubt it," returned Dumas. "You remember Charles V. at Yuste. You do not belong to the class of emperors who abdicate or kings who are dethroned, but to those princes who die under a canopy, and who are buried, like Charlemagne, their feet in their bucklers, swords at their sides, crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands."
"Take care!" replied Chateaubriand. "It is long since I have been flattered, and it may overcome me. Come and feed my ducks."
The impressible visitor declares that he felt disposed to fall upon his knees before this grand and simple human being, but refrained. They went to the middle of a bridge thrown across an arm of the lake, and Chateaubriand drew from his pocket a piece of bread which he had placed there after breakfast. This he began to throw into the lake, when a dozen ducks darted forth from a sort of isle formed of reeds, and hastened to dispute the repast prepared for them by the hand which had written René, The Genius of Christianity and The Martyrs. Whilst thus engaged, Chateaubriand leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, his lips contracted by a smile, but his eyes grave and sad. Gradually his movements became mechanical, his face assumed an expression of profound melancholy, the shadow of his thoughts passed across his large forehead like clouds of heaven; and there were among them recollections of his country, his family and his tender friendships, more sorrowful than all others. He moved, sighed, and, recalling the presence of his visitor, turned round.
"If you regret Paris," said Dumas, "why not return? Nothing exiles you—all recalls you."
"What could I do?" said Chateaubriand. "I was at Cauterets when the revolution of July took place. I returned to Paris. I saw one throne in blood, and another in the mud—lawyers making a constitution—a king shaking hands with rag-pickers: that was mortally sad; above all, when a man is filled as I am with the great traditions of the monarchy."
"I thought you recognized popular sovereignty?"