*
I exaggerated my fault: the Essai was not an impious book, but a book of doubt, of sorrow. Through the darkness of that book glides a ray of the Christian light that shone upon my cradle. It needed no great effort to return from the scepticism of the Essai to the certainty of the Génie du Christianisme.
*
When, after receiving the sad news of Madame de Chateaubriand's death, I resolved suddenly to change my course, the title of Génie du Christianisme, which I found on the spot, inspired me: I set to work; I toiled with the ardour of a son building a mausoleum to his mother. My materials were since long collected and rough-hewn by my previous studies. I knew the works of the Fathers better than they are known in our times; I had even studied them in order to oppugn them, and having entered upon that road with bad intentions, instead of leaving it as a victor, I left it vanquished.
As to history properly so-called, I had occupied myself with it specially in composing the Essai sur les Révolutions. The Camden originals which I had lately examined had made me familiar with the manners and institutions of the Middle Ages. Lastly, my terrible manuscript of the Natchez, in 2393 pages folio, contained all that I needed for the Génie du Christianisme in the way of descriptions of nature; I was able to draw largely upon that source, as I had done for the Essai.
I wrote the first part of the Génie du Christianisme. Messrs. Dulau[249], who had become the booksellers of the French emigrant clergy, undertook the publication. The first sheets of the first volume were printed. The work thus begun in London in 1799 was completed only in Paris in 1802: see the different prefaces to the Génie du Christianisme. I was devoured by a sort of fever during the whole time of writing: no one will ever know what it means to carry at the same time in one's brain, in one's blood, and in one's soul, Atala and René, and to combine with the painful child-birth of those fiery twins the labour of conception attending the other parts of the Génie du Christianisme. The memory of Charlotte penetrated and warmed all that, and to give me the finishing stroke, the first longing for fame inflamed my exalted imagination.
This longing came to me from filial affection: I wanted a great renown, so that it might rise till it reached my mother's dwelling-place, and that the angels might carry her my solemn expiation.
As one study leads to another, I could not occupy myself with my French scholia without taking note of the literature and men of the country in which I lived: I was drawn into these fresh researches. My days and nights were spent in reading, in writing, in taking lessons in Hebrew from a learned priest, the Abbé Capelan, in consulting libraries and men of attainments, in roaming about the fields with my everlasting reveries, in paying and receiving visits. If such things exist as retroactive and symptomatic effects of future events, I might have foreseen the bustle and uproar created by the book which was to make my name from the seething of my mind and the throbbing of my inner muse.
Reading aloud to others my first rough drafts helped to enlighten me. Reading aloud is an excellent form of instruction, when one does not take the necessary compliments for gospel. Provided an author be in earnest, he will soon feel, through the impression which he instinctively receives from the others, which are the weak places in his work, and especially whether that work is too long or too short, whether he keeps, does not reach, or exceeds the right dimensions.
A letter from Panat.