The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England, Volume 2 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe, volume 2Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
History
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England, Volume 2 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe, volume 2
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848
Napoleon Bonaparte
The Comte de Rivarol
Frederic William II
Peltier, editor of the _Actes des Apôtres_
William Pitt
Edmund Burke
George III
The Duc D'Enghien
THE MEMOIRS OF CHATEAUBRIAND
VOLUME II
BOOK VII[1]
I go to see my mother--Saint-Malo--Progress of the Revolution--My
marriage--Paris--Old acquaintances and new--The Abbé
Barthélemy--Saint-Ange--The theatres--Changes in Paris--The
Club des Cordeliers--Marat--Danton--Camille Desmoulins--Fabre
d'Églantine--M. de Malesherbes' opinion on the emigration--I play
and lose--Adventure of the hackney-coach--Madame Roland--Barère at
the Hermitage--Second Federation of the 14th of July--Preparations
for the emigration--I emigrate with my brother--Adventure of
Saint-Louis--We cross the frontier--Brussels--Dinner at the Baron
de Breteuil's--Rivarol--Departure for the army of the Princes--The
journey--I meet the Prussian army--I arrive at Trèves--The Army of the
Princes--A Roman amphitheatre--_Atala_--The shirts of Henry IV.--A
soldier's life--Last appearance of old military France--Commencement of
the siege of Thionville--The Chevalier de La Baronnais--Continuation
of the siege--A contrast--Saints in the woods--Battle of Bouvines--A
patrol--An unexpected encounter--Effects of a cannon-ball and a
shell--Market in camp--Night amid piled arms--The Dutch dog--A
recollection of the _Martyrs_--The nature of my company--With the
outposts--Eudora--Ulysses--Passage of the Moselle--A fight--Libba, the
deaf and dumb girl--Assault of Thionville--The siege is raised--We
enter Verdun--The Prussian evil--The retreat--Smallpox--The
Ardennes--The Prince de Ligne's baggage-wagons--The women of Namur--I
meet my brother at Brussels--Our last farewell--Ostend--I take
passage for Jersey--I land at Guernsey--The pilot's wife--Jersey--My
uncle de Bedée and his family--Description of the island--The Duc de
Berry--Lost friends and relations--The misfortune of growing old--I go
to England--Last meeting with Gesril.
I wrote to my brother in Paris giving him particulars of my crossing,
telling him the reasons for my return, and asking him to lend me the
money wherewith to pay my passage. My brother answered that he had
forwarded my letter to my mother. Madame de Chateaubriand did not keep
me waiting: she enabled me to clear my debt and to leave the Havre.
She told me that Lucile was with her, also my uncle de Bedée and his
family. This intelligence persuaded me to go to Saint-Malo, so that I
might consult my uncle on the question of my proposed emigration.
Revolutions are like rivers: they grow wider in their course; I found
that which I had left in France enormously swollen and overflowing its
banks: I had left it with Mirabeau under the "Constituent," I found it
with Danton[2] under the "Legislative[3]" Assembly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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