"My days have been an uninterrupted succession of visions. Hell and heaven continually have opened under my feet, or over my head, without my having had time to sound their depths, or withstand their dazzling. I have met once, and once only, on the shores of the two worlds, the man of the last age, and the man of the new--Washington and Napoleon--I conversed a few moments with each--both sent me back to solitude--the first by a kind wish, the second by an execrable crime. "I remarked that, in moving through the crowd, Buonaparte cast on me looks more steady and penetrating than he had done before he addressed me. I followed him with my eyes. 'Who is that great man who cares not For conflagrations?'"[6]--(Vol. iv. 118-121.) This passage conveys a just idea of Chateaubriand's Memoirs: his elevation of mind, his ardent imagination, his deplorable vanity. In justice to so eminent a man, however, we transcribe a passage in which the nobleness of his character appears in its true lustre, untarnished by the weaknesses which so often disfigure the character of men of genius. We allude to his courageous throwing down the gauntlet to Napoleon, on occasion of the murder of the Duke d'Enghien:-- "Two days before the fatal 20th March, I dressed myself, before taking leave of Buonaparte, on my way to the Valais, to which I had received a diplomatic mission; I had not seen him since the time when he had spoken to me at the Tuileries. The gallery where the reception was going on was full; he was accompanied by Murat and his aide-de-camp. When he approached me, I was struck with an alteration in his countenance: his cheeks were fallen in, of a livid hue; his eyes stern; his colour pale; his air sombre and terrible. The attraction which had formerly drawn me towards him was at an end; instead of awaiting, I fled his approach. He cast a look towards me, as if he sought to recognise me, moved a few steps towards me, turned, and disappeared. Returned to the Hôtel de France, I said to several of my friends, 'Something strange, which I do not know, must have happened: Buonaparte could not have changed to such a degree unless he had been ill.' Two days after, at eleven in the forenoon, I heard a man cry in the streets--'Sentence of the military commission convoked at Vincennes, which has condemned to the pain of DEATH Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, born 2d August 1772 at Chantilly.' That cry fell on me like a clap of thunder: it changed my life as it changed that of Napoleon. I returned home, and said to Madame de Chateaubriand--'The Duke d'Enghien has just been shot.' I sat down to a table and began to write my resignation--Madame de Chateaubriand made no opposition: she had a great deal of courage. She was fully aware of my danger: the trial of Moreau