September 1961
Although he is continually quoted, I must confess that I have not before read any of Chateaubriand’s works, and coming fresh to these memoirs is certainly a remarkable experience.
A Breton nobleman, born in 1768, he lived through the most turbulent period of France’s history, witnessed and played parts in the royalist/republican seesaw, and died at the age of eighty in 1848. The political conflicts which are the scenes of his extraordinarily varied life do seem to reflect upon the complex divisions of his nature. His writing was widely acclaimed in his day: he was a soldier, ambassador, poet, explorer and historian, to mention a few of his attributes; he also adored women, with whom he clearly enjoyed general success.
By turns a sceptic and a passionate Christian; a philosopher and a man of action; a courtier and a recluse; a liberal and a fanatical believer in tradition; possessed of both courage and timidity in unusual degrees; struck alternately by bolts of pride and humility; a man of ideals and ideas; innocent, worldly, morose and charming; a gifted amateur and the most polished professional; whose life is compounded of integrity and expediency, of gestures and withdrawals, it is astonishing how much he presents of himself - some of it, at least, one feels, unconsciously. His most conscious writing - the rather gothic reflections upon mortality, which were one of the most tiresome literary fashions of early nineteenth century Europe and usually took the form of gigantic metaphysical clichés overgrown with sentiment - is easily the least interesting aspect of this work; but his account of his childhood, particularly the two years he spent in the vast and gloomy family château with his enervating and eccentric family - that sense of frantic isolation set in interminable wastes of boredom - is marvellously good, and his description of his favourite sister, Lucile ‘endowed with beauty, genius, and misfortune’ and incarcerated in futility by her sex, her breeding and the age would have kindled any Brontë heart.
There is also much fascinating material about Napoleon about whom he was characteristically divided, but his account of the Emperor in Russia, and the summing-up after St. Helena - of his nature and career, is both brilliant and measured writing, filled with the most pertinent observations upon military strategy and politics. He has also an extraordinary knack for being there at dramatic moments: it was he who had to identify the bones of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, and there is a very good account of his hearing the battle of Waterloo from a quiet Belgian village. His life abounds with historic occasion: he is aware of this, and yet, experienced though he clearly is about men and affairs, there are confounding little touches of naiveté - as well as passages of disingenuous evasion. On the whole, he seems to have had an emotional feeling about defeat: he is nearly always on whichever side is losing, which is endearing, if not always reasonable. I am not qualified to criticise Mr. Baldick’s discrimination about selection: can only say humbly that this reads clearly and well, but it does seem to be a good translation - it has the flavour and rhythms of its language at that time, and is altogether very well worth reading.