You have read, in an earlier book of these Memoirs, that I had known M. de Fontanes in 1789: it was in Berlin, last year, that I learnt the news of his death. He was born at Niort of a noble Protestant family: his father had had the misfortune to kill his brother-in-law in a duel. Young Fontanes, brought up by a brother of great merit, came to Paris. He saw Voltaire[220] die, and that great representative of the eighteenth century inspired his first verses: his poetic attempts attracted the notice of La Harpe. He undertook some work for the stage, and became intimate with a charming actress, Mademoiselle Desgarcins. Living near the Odéon, wandering around the Chartreuse he celebrated its solitude. He had made a friend destined to become mine, M. Joubert[221]. When the Revolution occurred, the poet became entangled with one of those stationary parties which always remain torn by the progressive party which pulls them forwards and the retrograde party which draws them back. The monarchists attached M. de Fontanes to the staff of the _Modérateur._ When the bad days began, he took refuge at Lyons, where he married. His wife was confined of a son: during the siege of the town, which the revolutionaries had called "Commune-Affranchie[222]," in the same way as Louis XI., when banishing the citizens, had called Arras "Ville-Franchise[223]," Madame de Fontanes was obliged to move her nursling's cradle in order to place it within shelter from the bombs. Returning to Paris after the 9 Thermidor, M. de Fontanes established the _Mémorial_[224] with M. de La Harpe and the Abbé de Vauxelles[225]. He was proscribed on the 18 Fructidor, and England became his haven of refuge. [Sidenote: The Marquis de Fontanes.] M. de Fontanes, together with Chénier, was the last writer of the classic school in the elder line: his prose and verse resemble each other and have a similar merit. His thoughts and images have a melancholy unknown to the century of Louis XIV., which knew only the austere and holy sadness of religious eloquence. That melancholy is mingled with the works of the chanter of the _Jours des Morts_, as it were the imprint of the period in which he lived: it fixes the date of his coming; it shows that he was born after Rousseau, while connected by taste with Fénelon. If the writings of M. de Fontanes were reduced to two very small volumes, one of prose, the other of verse, it would be the most graceful funeral monument that could be raised upon the tomb of the classic school[226].