The principles of natural right as set forth by the greatest publicists, developed by such a man as M. de Malesherbes, and supported by numerous historical examples, struck me without convincing me; I yielded in reality only to the impulse of my age, to the point of honour. I will add some more recent examples to those of M. de Malesherbes: during the Spanish War of 1823, the French Republican Party went to serve under the banner of the Cortès, and did not scruple to bear arms against its own country; in 1830 and 1831, the Poles and the constitutional Italians invoked the assistance of France, and the Portuguese of the "Charter" invaded their country with the aid of foreign money and foreign soldiers. We have two standards of weight and measurement: we approve in the case of one idea, one system, one interest, one man of that which we condemn in the case of another idea, another system, another interest, another man.
These conversations between myself and the illustrious defender of the King took place at my sister-in-law's; she had just given birth to a second son, to whom M. de Malesherbes stood god-father and gave his name, Christian. I was present at the baptism of this child, which was to see its father and mother only at an age at which life leaves no memory and appears at a distance like an ill-remembered dream. The preparations for my departure lagged. They had thought that they were making me contract a rich marriage: it appeared that my wife's fortune was invested in Church securities; the nation undertook to pay them after its own fashion. Not only that, but Madame de Chateaubriand had, with the consent of her trustees, lent the scrip of a large portion of these securities to her sister, the Comtesse du Plessix-Parscau, who had emigrated. Money was still wanting, therefore; it became necessary to borrow.
A notary procured ten thousand francs for us: I was taking them home to the Cul-de-sac Férou, in assignats, when, in the Rue de Richelieu, I met one of my old messmates in the Navarre Regiment, the Comte Achard. He was a great gambler; he proposed that we should go to the rooms of M——, where we could talk; the devil urged me: I went upstairs, I played, I lost all, except fifteen hundred francs, with which, full of remorse and humiliation, I climbed into the first coach that passed. I had never played before: play produced in me a sort of painful intoxication; if the passion had attacked me, it would have turned my brain. With half-disordered wits, I stepped out of the coach at Saint-Sulpice, and left my pocket-book behind, containing the remnant of my treasure. I ran home and said that I had left the ten thousand francs in a hackney-coach.
I went out again, turned down the Rue Dauphine, crossed the Pont-Neuf, feeling half inclined to throw myself into the water; I went to the Place du Palais-Royal, where I had taken the ill-omened vehicle. I questioned the Savoyards who watered the screws, and described my conveyance; they told me a number at random. The police commissary of the district informed me that that number belonged to a job-master living at the top of the Faubourg Saint-Denis. I went to the man's house; I remained all night in the stable, waiting for the hackney-coaches to return: a large number arrived in succession which were not mine; at last, at two o'clock in the morning, I saw my chariot drive in. I had hardly time to recognise my two white steeds, when the poor beasts, utterly worn out, dropped down upon the straw, stiff, their stomachs distended, their legs stretched out, as though dead.
The coachman remembered driving me. After me, he had taken up a citizen, whom he had set down at the Jacobins; after the citizen, a lady, whom he had taken to the Rue de Cléry, number 13; after that lady, a gentleman, whom he had put down at the Recollects in the Rue Saint-Martin. I promised the driver a gratuity, and, the moment daylight had come, set out on the discovery of my fifteen hundred francs, as I had gone in search of the North-West Passage. It seemed clear to me that the citizen of the Jacobins had confiscated them by right of his sovereignty. The young person of the Rue de Cléry averred that she had seen nothing in the coach. I reached the third station without any hope; the coachman gave a tolerably good description of the gentleman he had driven. The porter exclaimed:
"It's the Père So-and-so!"
He led me through the passages and the deserted apartments to a Recollect who had remained behind alone to make an inventory of the furniture of his convent. Seated on a heap of rubbish, in a dusty frock-coat, the monk listened to my story:
"Are you," he asked, "the Chevalier de Chateaubriand?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Here is your pocket-book," said he. "I would have brought it when I had finished: I found your address inside."