The fault of the Martyrs has to do with the wonderful "directness" which, owing to what remained of my classical prejudices, I had unadvisedly employed. Startled at my own innovations, I thought it impossible to dispense with a "Heaven" and a "Hell." Yet the good and bad angels sufficed to carry on the action, without delivering it to worn-out machinery. If the Battle of the Franks, Velléda, Jérôme, Augustin, Eudore, Cymodocée; if all these, and the descriptions of Naples and Greece, are unable to obtain pardon for the Martyrs, Hell and Heaven will not save it.
One of the passages which most pleased M. de Fontanes was the following:
"Cymodocée sat down at the window of the prison and, resting her head, adorned with the martyr's veil, on her hand, sighed forth these harmonious words:
"'Cleave the calm and dazzling sea, O swift vessels of Ausonia; release the sail, O slaves of Neptune, to the amorous breath of the winds, and bend over the agile oars. Bring me back to the care of my husband and my father, on the happy shores of the Pamisus! Fly, O birds of Lybia, whose supple necks so gracefully bend, fly to the summit of Ithomus and say that the daughter of Homer shall see again the laurels of Messenia! When shall I see once more my bed of ivory, the light of day so dear to mortals, the meadows studded with flowers which a clear water bathes, which modesty adorns with her breath[19]!'"
The Génie du Christianisme will remain my great work, because it produced, or decided, a revolution and commenced the new era of the literary age. The case is different with the Martyrs: it came after the revolution had been worked, and was only a superabundant proof of my doctrines; my style was no longer a new thing, and, except in the episode of Velléda and the picture of the manners of the Franks, my poem even feels the influence of the places which it has frequented: in it the classical dominates the romantic.
Lastly, the circumstances no longer existed which contributed to the success of the Génie du Christianisme; the Government, far from being favourable to me, had become hostile. The Martyrs meant to me a redoubling of persecution: the frequent allusions in the portrait of Galerius[20] and in the picture of the Court of Diocletian could not fail to arouse the attention of the imperial police, the more so inasmuch as the English translator, who had no reason to observe any circumspection, and who cared not at all whether he compromised me or not, had called attention to the allusions in his preface.
The publication of the Martyrs was coincident with a fatal occurrence. This did not disarm the aristarchs, thanks to the ardour with which we are animated for the powers that be; they felt that a literary criticism which tended to diminish the interest attached to my name might be agreeable to Bonaparte. The latter, like the millionaire bankers who give splendid banquets and charge their customers postage, did not disdain small profits.
*
Armand de Chateaubriand, whom you have seen as the companion of my childhood, who appeared before you again in the Princes' Army with the deaf and dumb Libba, had remained in England. He married in Jersey[21], and was charged with the correspondence of the Princes. Setting sail on the 25th of September 1808, he was landed, at eleven o'clock in the same evening, on the coast of Brittany, near Saint-Cast. The boat's crew consisted of eleven men; two only were Frenchmen: Roussel and Quintal.
Armand de Chateaubriand.
Armand proceeded to the house of M. Delaunay-Boisé-Lucas the Elder, who lived in the village of Saint-Gast, where the English had once been driven back to their ships: his host advised him to go back[22]; but the boat had already taken its homeward course to Jersey. Armand, having come to an arrangement with M. Boisé-Lucas' son, handed him the despatches with which he had been entrusted by M. Henry-Larivière[23], the Princes' agent.