After my presentation to Louis XVI., my brother proposed to increase my portion as a younger son by endowing me with some of those benefices known as _bénéfices simples._ There was but one practical means of doing this, since I was a layman and a soldier, and that was to have me received into the Order of Malta. My brother sent my proofs to Malta, and soon after, he presented a petition, in my name, to the Chapter of the Grand Priory of Aquitaine, held at Poitiers, with a view to the appointing of a commission to declare urgency. M. Pontois was at the time archivist, vice-chancellor and genealogist of the Order of Malta at the Priory. The president of the Chapter was Louis Joseph des Escotais, _bailli_, Grand Prior of Aquitaine, having with him the Bailli de Freslon, the Chevalier de La Laurencie, the Chevalier de Murat, the Chevalier de Lanjamet, the Chevalier de La Bourdonnaye-Montluc and the Chevalier du Bouëtiez. The petition was allowed at the sittings of the 9th, 10th, and 11th of September 1789. It is stated, in the terms of admission of the "Memorial," that I deserved the favour which I solicited "by more than one title," and that "considerations of the greatest weight" made me worthy of the satisfaction which I claimed. And all this took place after the fall of the Bastille[18], on the eve of the scenes of the 6th of October 1789[19], and of the removal of the Royal Family to Paris. And at its sitting of the 7th of August in this same year 1789, the National Assembly had abolished titles of nobility! How could the knights, the examiners of my proofs, find that I deserved "by more than one title the favour which I solicited" and so forth, I, who was nothing more than a petty sub-lieutenant of Foot, unknown, without credit, interest or fortune? My brother's eldest son (I add this in 1831 to my original text, written in 1811), the Comte Louis de Chateaubriand, married Mademoiselle d'Orglandes, by whom he had five daughters and one son, the latter called Geoffroy. Christian, Louis' younger brother, the great-grandson and godson of M. de Malesherbes, to whom he bore a striking resemblance, served with distinction in Spain in 1823 as a captain of the Dragoons of the Guard. He became a Jesuit in Rome. The Jesuits supply the place of solitude in proportion as the latter vanishes from the earth. Christian died recently at Chieri, near Turin: old and ailing as I am, I should have preceded him; but his virtues summoned him to Heaven before me, who have yet many faults to deplore. In the division of the family patrimony, Christian had received as his share the property of Malesherbes, and Louis the estate of Combourg. Christian did not look upon an equal division as just, and on retiring from the world, determined to disburden himself of a property which did not belong to him and restore it to his elder brother.