Paris, June 1821
IF MY INCLINATIONS and those of my sisters had launched me into Parisian literary society, our position forced us to frequent another circle. The family of my brother’s wife was naturally at the center of this circle.
President Le Pelletier de Rosambo, who later died with such courage, was, when I arrived in Paris, a model of frivolity. In those days, everything was deranged in minds and in morals: it was a symptom of the revolution to come. Magistrates were ashamed to wear their robes and mocked the solemnity of their fathers. The Lamoignons, Molés, Séguiers, and d’Aguessaus wanted to fight, not deliberate. The presidents’ wives, ceasing to be venerable mothers, left their dark mansions in search of radiant adventures. The priest in his pulpit steered clear of the name of Jesus Christ and spoke only of the “Christian Legislator.” Ministers fell one after another. Power was slipping through everyone’s fingers. The height of fashion was to be American in town, English at Court, and Prussian in the army: to be anything, in other words, except French. What people did and said was no more than a succession of inconsistencies. They pretended to care about priests, but they wanted nothing to do with religion. No one could be an officer if he wasn’t a gentleman, but it was good form to rail against the nobility. Equality was introduced into the parlors, and flogging was introduced into the camps.
M. de Malesherbes had three daughters: Mesdames de Rosambo d’Aulnay, and de Montboissier. He was most affectionate toward Madame de Rosambo because her opinions most resembled his. Chairman de Rosambo also had three daughters: Mesdames de Chateaubriand, d’Aulnay, and de Tocqueville, and a son, whose brilliant mind is crowned with Christian perfection. M. de Malesherbes took pleasure in the company of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Many a time, in the early days of the Revolution, I saw him come into Madame de Rosambo’s house heated from politics, throw off his wig, lie down on the carpet in my sister-in-law’s room, and start yelling and romping with the rowdy children. He would have been a man of rather vulgar manners had he not possessed a certain brusqueness that saved him from seeming common. At the first phrase that came from his lips, one sensed that he was both a man of old family and a superb magistrate. His natural virtues were a bit tainted by affectation, however, as a result of the philosophy that he had mingled with them. He was full of knowledge, probity, and courage; but he was hot-headed and passionate to the point that one day, in speaking to me of Condorcet, he said, “That man was my friend once, but today I would have no scruples about killing him like a dog.” The tides of the Revolution swept over him, and his death brought him glory. The great man’s merits would have remained forever hidden had bad luck not revealed them to the world. A Venetian noble once lost his life, retrieving his title deeds from a crumbling palace.
M. de Malesherbes’s frankness freed me from all constraint. He found me not uneducated, and this was our first point of connection: we discussed botany and geography, two of his favorite subjects of conversation. It was in the course of talking with him that I conceived the idea of traveling to North America in search of the ocean first seen by Hearne and later by Mackenzie.* We understood each other’s politics as well. The fundamentally generous sentiments of our first troubles appealed to my independent character, and the natural antipathy I felt for the Court only strengthened these leanings: I sided with M. de Malesherbes and Madame de Rosambo and against my brother, whom we nicknamed “the rabid Chateaubriand.” The Revolution would have caught me up in its flow if it had not started with crimes. When I saw the first head carried at the end of a pike, I recoiled. In my eyes, murder will never be an object of admiration or an argument for freedom; I know of nothing more servile, more despicable, more cowardly, more narrow-minded than a terrorist. Right here in France, have I not met this whole race of Brutus hired out by Caesar and his police? The levelers, regenerators, and cutthroats were transformed into footmen, spies, sycophants, and, still less naturally, into dukes, counts, and barons! How medieval!
Finally, what made me so fond of the distinguished old man was his predilection for my sister. In spite of the Comtesse Lucile’s shyness, he and I succeeded, with the help of a splash of champagne, in making her play a part in a little show put on for M. de Malesherbes’s birthday. Lucile was so moving in this role that the good and great man’s head was turned. He insisted even more strongly than my brother that she should be transferred from the Chapter of L’Argentière to Remiremont, where the rigorous and difficult proof of Sixteen Quarterings was required. Philosopher though he was, M. de Malesherbes held the principles of birth in high regard.
This picture of men and the world at the time I first appeared in society must be understood to occupy the space of about two years, from the closing of the first Assembly of Notables on May 25, 1787, to the opening of the Estates-General on May 5, 1789. During these two years, my sisters and I did not always stay in Paris or even in the vicinity of Paris. In the next book, I shall regress and take my readers back to Brittany.
All the while I was still half mad with my illusions. I missed my woods, but now past epochs, rather than distant places, had opened my eyes to another kind of solitude. In the old Paris, in the neighborhoods of Saint-Germain des-Prés, in the cloisters of monasteries, in the vaults of Saint-Denis, in Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame, in all the narrow streets of the city, and at Héloïse’s dark door, I saw my enchantress again. But, under the Gothic arches and among the tombs, there was something deathlike about her. She seemed pale and looked at me with sad eyes; she was no more than the shade or manes[17] of the dream I had loved.
*In recent years navigated by Captain Franklin and Captain Parry. (Geneva, 1831)