[507] Pierre Marin Victor Richard de Laprade (1812-1885) had published Parfums de Madeleine (1839), the Colère de Jésus (1840), Psyché, (1841) and Odes et poèmes (1844) before the date of Chateaubriand's death. None of his poems were of great value; but he was elected to the French Academy in 1858. He sat as a silent member (of the Right) of the National Assembly from 1871 to 1873.—T.
[508] Madame Mohl was the wife of Julius von Mohl (1800-1876), the German-French Orientalist, who had been appointed Professor of Persian to the Collège de France in 1845.—T.
We read in Vol. II., p. 564, of the Souvenirs et correspondance de Madame Récamier:
"An amiable, witty and kind-hearted Englishwoman, Madame Mohl, lived on the floor above, in the same house and on the same stair-case as M. de Chateaubriand."—B.
[509] Madame Lenormant: Souvenirs et correspondance tirés des papiers de Madame Récamier, Vol. II., p. 543.—B.
[510] Cf. Victor de Laprade's article, Académie de Lyon. Concours pour l'éloge de Madame Récamier, in the Revue de Lyon for 1849, Vol. I., p. 65.—B.
[511] Chataubriand et son temps, p. 290.—B.
[512] Souvenirs et correspondance de Madame Récamier, Vol. II., p. 554.—B.
[513] Madame Récamier died on the 11th of May 1849, in the seventy-third year of her age.—T.
[514] "It was in the midst of the Days of June that the death occurred of a man who, perhaps, of all men of our day best preserved the spirit of the old races: M. de Chateaubriand, with whom I was connected by so many family ties and childish recollections. He had long since fallen into a sort of speechless stupor, which made one sometimes believe that his intelligence was extinguished. Nevertheless, while in this condition, he heard a rumour of the Revolution of February and desired to be told what was happening. They informed him that Louis-Philippe's Government had been overthrown. He said, 'Well done!' and nothing more. Four months later, the din of the Days of June reached his ears, and again he asked what that noise was. They answered that people were fighting in Paris, and that it was the sound of cannon. Thereupon he made vain efforts to rise, saying, 'I want to go to it,' and was then silent, this time for ever; for he died the next day." (Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 230).—T.