There is an awkward discrepancy between this utterance and the words quoted above: "I went in quest of imagery--that was all." And in Chateaubriand's _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_ we find a confession of yet another object in his quest of pictures, which throws a curious light upon the feelings and motives of the would-be pilgrim. He hoped by his efforts after fame, by his studies and his travels, to win the favour of a lady with whom he was in love. Taken in itself this is most natural. Chateaubriand was an ardent lover and frantically ambitious. It is not surprising that he should have said to himself: Fame, greater, more deserved, that I may deserve her better, that I may show her my ardent desire to render myself worthy of her favour! The lady herself appears to have been ambitious for him, and to have allowed him to view the possession of herself as a possible, far-off reward of new efforts. Though we may acknowledge that there is something medieval and chivalrous in such a relationship as this, an extraordinary confusion of ideas is none the less proved in the man who talks of a crusade and a pilgrimage. And yet Chateaubriand was no priestly casuist; he was a haughty, self-important, cynical aristocrat, who defiantly attached the colours of the church to his helmet and wore them not only at every joust but at every rendezvous. In his _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_ he writes: "But have I in my _Itinéraire_ really told everything about that voyage on which I embarked from the port of Desdemona and Othello? Was it in the spirit of repentance that I sought the sepulchre of Christ? _One single thought_ consumed me; I counted the moments with impatience. Standing on the deck of my ship, with my eyes fixed on the evening star, I prayed for a fair wind to carry me swiftly onwards, for fame--in order that I might be loved. I hoped to win fame in Sparta, at Mount Zion, at Memphis, at Carthage, and to carry it with me to the Alhambra. Would another remember me with as great steadfastness as mine under my probation?... If I secretly enjoy a moment's happiness, it is disturbed by memories of those days of seduction, of enchantment, of madness."