I mourned the death of M. de Chateaubriand: it showed him to me better than he was; I remembered neither his harshness nor his failings. I seemed to see him as he walked in the evenings in the hall at Combourg; I was moved by the thought of these family scenes. If my father's affection for me was affected by his natural severity, it was none the less deep at heart. The ferocious Marshal de Montluc[200], who, disfigured by a terrible cut in the nose, was obliged to conceal the horrible nature of his glory beneath a strip of rag, this man of blood reproaches himself for his harshness towards a son whom he has lost:

"This poor lad," he said, "has seen nothing of me save a frowning face and full of scorn; he has died in this belief, that I neither knew how to love him nor to esteem him to his deserts. For whom did I keep it to discover the singular affection which I bore him in my soul? Was it not he who should have had all the pleasure of it and all the obligation? I have constrained and tortured myself to keep on this vain mask, and in thus doing have lost the pleasure of his converse, and his will in all things, which he cannot have borne to me other than very coldly, having never received from me aught save rudeness, nor been treated save in tyrannous fashion."

My "will was not borne very coldly" towards my father, and I do not doubt that, in spite of his "tyrannous fashion," he loved me tenderly: he would, I am sure, have regretted me had Providence called me before him. But would he, had we remained on earth together, have set store by the fame that has sprung from my life? A literary reputation would have wounded his nobility; he would have seen nothing but degeneration in his son's gifts; even the Berlin Embassy, conquered by the pen, not the sword, would have indifferently satisfied him. His Breton blood, besides, made him a political malcontent, a great opponent of taxation and a violent enemy of the Court. He read the Gazette de Leyde, the Journal de Francfort, the Mercure de France, and the Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, the declamatory style of which delighted him. He called the Abbé Raynal[201] "a master man." In diplomacy, he was an anti-Mussulman; he declared that forty thousand "Russian rascals" would march over the Janissaries' stomachs and take Constantinople. Hater of the Turks though he were, my father nevertheless bore a grudge in his heart against the "Russian rascals," because of his encounter at Dantzic.

I share M. de Chateaubriand's opinions as regards literary and other reputations, but for different reasons. I do not know of a fame in history that tempts me: had I to stoop to pick up at my feet and to my advantage the greatest glory in the world, I would not take the trouble. If I had formed my own clay, perhaps I would have created myself a woman, for love of them; or if I had made myself a man, I would in the first place have granted myself beauty; next, as a safeguard against weariness, my stubborn enemy, it would have suited me fairly well to be a consummate but unknown artist, using my talent only for the benefit of my solitude. In life, weighed by its light weight, measured by its short measure, relieved of all its cheating, there are but two things true: religion with intelligence, love with youth; that is to say, the future and the present: the rest is not worth while.

With my father's death ended the first act of my life; the paternal home became empty; I pitied it, as though it were capable of feeling desertion and solitude. Thenceforth I was independent and master of my fortune: this liberty frightened me. What should I do with it? To whom give it? I mistrusted my strength: I retreated before myself.

*

I obtained a furlough. M. d'Andrezel, promoted to Lieutenant-colonel of the Picardy Regiment, was leaving Paris: I served as his courier. I passed through Paris, where I refused to stop for a quarter of an hour; I set eyes upon the moors of my Brittany with more joy than that with which a Neapolitan, banished to our climes, would gaze again upon the shores of Portici, the champaign of Sorrento. My family came together; we settled the division of the property; when that was done, we dispersed, as birds fly away from the paternal nest. My brother, who had come from Paris, returned there; my mother established herself at Saint-Malo; Lucile accompanied Julie; I spent a part of my time with Mesdames de Marigny, de Chateaubourg and de Farcy. Marigny[202], my eldest sister's country-seat, is pleasantly situated, three leagues from Fougères, between two lakes, and amidst woods, rocks and meadows. I stayed there peacefully for some months; a letter from Paris came to disturb my repose.

Ambitious projects.

At the moment of entering the service and marrying Mademoiselle de Rosanbo, my brother had not yet quitted the long robe; for this reason he was unable to obtain the privilege of riding in the King's coaches. His eager ambition suggested to him to make me enjoy Court honors in order to prepare the way for his own rise. Our proofs of nobility had been made out for Lucile when she was received into the Chapter of the Argentière, so that everything was ready; the Marshal de Duras was to be my sponsor. My brother wrote to me that I was on the high-road to fortune; that already I was to obtain the rank of a cavalry captain, an honorary and courtesy rank; that it would be easy to secure my admission to the Order of Malta, by means of which I should enjoy fat benefices.