[341] De la Restauration et de la Monarchie élective.—Author's Note.
[342] This refers to my literary and to my political career, which had been left behind: the voids have since been filled by what I have lately written in the last two years, 1838 and 1839.—Author's Note (Paris, 1839).
[343] Hyacinthe has the habit of copying, almost in spite of my wishes, the letters which I write and receive, because he maintains that he has observed that I am often attacked by persons who once wrote to me in terms of endless admiration and applied to me with requests for services. When this happens, he rummages in bundles known to him alone and, comparing the insulting article with the encomiastic epistle, says to me:
"You see, monsieur, that I acted well!"
I do not agree with him at all: I attach not the smallest belief nor the least importance to the opinion of men; I take them for what they are and esteem them for what they are worth. As far as I am concerned, I will never contrast for their benefit what they have said of me in public with what they have said to me in private; but this amuses Hyacinthe. I had kept no copy of my letters to Madame Récamier; she has had the kindness to lend them to me.—Author's Note (Paris, 1836).
[344] This letter and those which follow are exactly true to the originals:
"The letters," says Madame Lenormant, "which M. de Chateaubriand wrote to Madame Récamier during his stay in Switzerland, have been printed in the Mémoires d'Outre-tombe. We have collated them with the originals and, this time, have found them to be reproduced with scrupulous fidelity" (Souvenirs et Correspondance tirés des papiers de Madame Récamier, Vol. II.).—B.
[345] Elleviou (1772-1842) was this "singular personage," as the enclosure shows. Elleviou was a famous singer, during the Consulate and the Empire, at the Théâtre Feydeau. The Maison à vendre, words by Alexandre Duval, music by Dalayrac, was one of the pieces in which he made most success. He retired from the stage in 1813 and devoted himself to agriculture in the neighbourhood of Lyons. Elleviou was, like Chateaubriand, a Breton: he was born at Rennes, where his father was a surgeon.—B.
[346] It was easy for Madame Récamier's hand-writing to be smaller than that of Chateaubriand, who wrote in characters half-an-inch in height, and as though the alphabet contained only capital letters.—B.
[347] Jean Chauvin, Cauvin, or Caulvin (1509-1564), generally known as John Calvin, the Protestant reformer, fled from France to Geneva in 1536, was banished in 1538, returned in 1541, and lived there till the day of his death. He founded the Academy of Geneva in 1559.—T.
[348] A cousin of Benjamin Constant.—B.