I knew a Provençal physician, Dr. Vigaroux[390]; he had arrived at an age when every pleasure means the loss of a day, and he said "that he had no regret for the time thus lost; without troubling himself whether he gave the happiness which he received, he went towards the death of which he hoped to make his last delight." Nevertheless, I was a witness of his poor tears when he breathed his last; he could not hide his affliction from me; it was too late: his white hairs were not long enough to conceal and wipe away his tears. The only one to be really unhappy on leaving the earth is the unbeliever: for the man without faith, existence is terrible in this, that it carries a sense of annihilation; if one had not been born, he would not experience the horror of ceasing to be: the life of the atheist is a frightful lightning-flash, which serves but to reveal an abyss. O great and merciful God, Thou hast not cast us upon earth for unworthy troubles and a miserable happiness! Our inevitable disenchantment admonishes us that our destinies are more sublime. Whatever may have been our errors, if we have preserved a serious spirit and thought of Thee in the midst of our weaknesses, we shall, whenever Thy goodness sets us free, be carried to that region where attachments endure for ever! * It was not long before I received the punishment of my literary vanity, the most detestable of all, if not the most foolish: I had thought that I should be able to relish in _petto_ the satisfaction of being a sublime genius, not by wearing, as they do to-day, a beard and an eccentric coat, but by remaining dressed like decent people, distinguished only by superiority. Useless hope! My pride was to be chastened; the correction was administered by the political persons whom I was obliged to know: celebrity is a benefice with the cure of souls. M. de Fontanes was acquainted with Madame Bacciochi[391]; he introduced me to Bonaparte's sister, and soon after to the First Consul's brother Lucien[392]. The latter had a country-place near Senlis le Plessis, where I was coerced to go and dine; the château had once belonged to the Cardinal de Bernis[393]. Lucien had in his garden the tomb of his first wife[394], a lady half German and half Spanish, and the memory of the poet-cardinal. The nutrient nymph of a stream dug with the spade was a mule which drew water from a well: that was the commencement of all the rivers which Bonaparte was to cause to flow in his Empire. Efforts were being made to have my name struck off the lists; I was already called, and called myself aloud, Chateaubriand, forgetting that I ought to call myself Lassagne. Emigrants came to see me: among others, Messrs, de Bonald[395] and de Chênedollé[396]. Christian de Lamoignon, my companion in exile in London, took me to Madame Récamier: the curtain fell suddenly between her and me. [Sidenote: The Comtesse de Beaumont.]