His hero, Eudore, sailing up the Gulf of Megara, with Ægina in front of him, Piræus on the right and Corinth on the left, sees all these towns, which once were so flourishing, lying in ruins. A Greek fellow-passenger is moved to tears by the remembrance of his country's ancient glory, and we are told in touching words how the individual feels as if his individual griefs disappeared when he is brought face to face with the great, overwhelming calamities which crush whole nations. Then Eudore says: "Such an idea seemed to be beyond my youthful grasp, and nevertheless I understood it, whilst the other young men who were on board did not. What caused this difference between us? Our religions. They were pagans, I was a Christian." Chateaubriand plainly desires to impress upon us that such an appreciation of natural surroundings and the lessons taught by them is a special possession of the Christian, of which the pagan, as pagan, is destitute. But his position is considerably weakened by our knowledge that the utterance referred to by Eudore is nothing more nor less than a translation from a famous letter written by Sulpicius to Cicero,[5] that the sentiments in question are actually the sentiments of a pagan. We can hardly be expected to accept this as a proof of the pagan's want of poetic feeling. But the trait is typical. Throughout all Chateaubriand's writings dogmatic religion is constantly proclaimed to be in possession of certain supernatural beauties and qualities of which nature, as nature, is devoid; and yet everything in that religion which is of poetical or moral value is simply an expression of human nature. As Feuerbach puts it: "Every theory of God is, in its essence, a theory of human nature." Passing this half audacious, half conventional work, _Les Martyrs_, once again in review, we cannot deny that the part of it which directly treats of the supernatural world of Christianity is a failure. Indeed, Chateaubriand himself openly confesses as much in his _Memoirs_. The parts which have any real value are the purely human parts, one of which we shall presently criticise. It was inevitable that the doubt and indifference of the century concerning the supernatural world should set its mark on the work of an author whose own religious enthusiasm was as much a matter of deliberate intention and determination as Chateaubriand's. Chateaubriand was not a conscious hypocrite, but he deceived himself. Proof of the manner in which he himself was affected by the reading of his _Martyrs_ is to be found in that refined and charming autobiographical work, which all agree in accepting as reliable--_Les Enchantements de Prudence_, by Madame de Saman, otherwise Madame Allart de Méritens, the last woman whom Chateaubriand loved, and who loved him in return.