"Extract from the civil register of the Commune of Saint-Malo for the year 1768.
"François René de Chateaubriand, son of René de Chateaubriand and of Pauline Jeanne Suzanne de Bedée, his wife, born 4 September 1768, baptized on the following day by us Pierre Henri Nouail, grand-vicar of the Bishop of Saint-Malo. Godfather, Jean-Baptiste de Chateaubriand, his brother, and godmother, Françoise-Gertrude de Contades, who sign with the father. Thus signed on the register: Contades de Plouër, Jean-Baptiste de Chateaubriand, Brignon de Chateaubriand, de Chateaubriand, and Nouail, vicar-general[30]."
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It will be observed that I have made a mistake in my Works: I say that I was born on the 4th of October[31] and not on the 4th of September; my Christian names are François René and not François Auguste[32].
The house in which my parents were then living at Saint-Malo stands in a dark and narrow street called the Rue des Juifs[33]: it has now been turned into an inn[34]. The room in which my mother was confined overlooks a bare portion of the city wall, and from the windows one can contemplate an endless expanse of sea, which breaks upon the rocks. My god-father, as appears from my baptismal certificate, was my brother, and my godmother the Comtesse de Plouër, daughter of the Marshal de Contades[35]. I was almost dead when I first saw the light. The roaring of the waves, upheaved by a squall which heralded the autumnal equinox, deadened my cries: I have often been told these details; their sadness has never been erased from my memory. A day seldom passes on which, reflecting on what I have been, I do not see again in thought the rock upon which I was born, the room in which my mother inflicted life upon me, the tempest whose sound first lulled me to sleep, the unfortunate brother who gave me a name which I have nearly always dragged through misfortune. Heaven seemed to unite these several circumstances in order to lay within my cradle a symbol of my destiny.
Chateaubriand's birth place at St. Malo.