After three years I was brought back to Saint-Malo. Already seven years had elapsed since my father had recovered the domain of Combourg. He wished to gain possession of the estates where his ancestors had lived and died; and unable to treat for the purchase of the manor of Beaufort, which had passed to the Goyon family, or for the barony of Chateaubriand, which had fallen into the hands of the House of Condé, he turned his attention to Combourg, which is spelt "Combour"[36] in Froissart, and which has been held by various branches of my family through their inter-marriages with the Coëtquens. Combourg served as a defense to Brittany in the Norman and English marches: it was built in 1016 by Junken, Bishop of Dol; the great tower dates to 1100. The Marshal de Duras[37], who held Combourg by right of his wife, Maclovie de Coëtquen, whose mother was a Chateaubriand, came to terms with my father. The Marquis du Hallay[38], an officer in the Mounted Grenadiers of the Royal Guards, perhaps too well known for his valor, is the last of the Coëtquen Chateaubriands: M. du Hallay has a brother. The same Maréchal de Duras, in his quality as our ally, subsequently presented my brother and myself to Louis XVI. I was intended for the Royal Navy: a distaste for Court life was natural to any Breton, and particularly to my father. This feeling was strengthened in him by the aristocratic character of our States. When I was brought home to Saint-Malo, my father was at Combourg, my brother at Saint-Brieuc College; my four sisters were living with my mother. All the latter's affections were centered upon her eldest son: not that she did not love her other children, but she showed a blind preference for the young Comte de Combourg. True, I had, as a boy, as the youngest-born, as the "chevalier," as I was called, certain privileges not shared by my sisters; but, upon the upshot, I was left to the care of the servants. Moreover, my mother, full of intelligence and virtue, was largely taken up with social claims and religious duties. The Comtesse de Plouër, my godmother, was her intimate friend; she also saw Maupertuis'[39] family and the Abbé Trublet's[40]. She loved politics, excitement, society: for people talked politics at Saint-Malo like the monks in the Cedron hollow[41]; and she threw herself with ardor into the La Chalotais[42] affair. She would bring home with her a cross humour, an absent-mindedness, a spirit of parsimony, which at first prevented one from recognising her admirable qualities. She was methodical, and showed no method in the management of her children; generous, and appeared avaricious; gentle, yet ever scolding: my father was the terror of the servants, my mother their scourge.