I reached Paris before the news I sent of myself: I had out-distanced my life. Insignificant as are the letters which I wrote, I go through them as one looks over inferior sketches representing the places one has visited. Those notes, dated from Modon, Athens, Zea, Constantinople, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Tunis, Granada, Madrid, and Burgos, those lines written on every manner of paper, with every manner of ink, carried by all the winds, interest me. I love unrolling even my very firmans: it is a pleasure to me to touch the vellum, to observe the elegant caligraphy, to wonder at the pomp of the style. How great a personage I must have been! And what poor devils we are, with our letters and our forty-sou passports, beside those lords of the turban! Osman Seïd, Pasha of Morea, thus addresses to whomsoever it may concern my firman for Athens: "Men of law of the townships of Misitra[716] and Argos, cadis, nadirs, and eflendis, of whom may the wisdom ever increase; you who are the honour of your peers and our great men, vaïvodes, and you through whose eyes your master sees, who replace him in each of your jurisdictions, public officers and business men, whose credit can only grow greater. "We inform you that of the nobles of France, one noble in particular from Paris, the bearer of this order, accompanied by an armed janissary and by a servant as his escort, has solicited permission and explained his intention to pass through some of the places and localities which are within your jurisdictions in order to go to Athens, which is an isthmus lying beyond and separated from your jurisdictions. "Wherefore, effendis, vaïvodes, and all others above-mentioned, when the aforesaid person shall arrive at the places subject to your jurisdiction, you shall take the greatest care that he be treated with all the particular consideration of which friendship makes a law, etc., etc "Year 1221 of the Hegira." My passport from Constantinople for Jerusalem says: "To the sublime tribunal of His Grandeur the Cadi of Kouds[717], Scherif and Most Excellent Effendi: "Most Excellent Effendi, may Your Grandeur seated on your august tribunal accept our sincere blessings and our affectionate greetings. "We inform you that a noble personage from the Court of France, named François Auguste de Chateaubriand, is at present on his way towards you to make the _holy_ pilgrimage (of the Christians)." Would we extend a like protection to the unknown traveller with the mayors and gendarmes who inspect his passport? In these firmans we can also read the revolutions of the nations: how many "permits" has it required that God should grant to the empires, before a Tartar slave could lay orders upon a vaïvode of Misistra, that is, a magistrate of Sparta; before a Mussulman could recommend a Christian to the Cadi of Kouds, that is, of Jerusalem!