To me happened that which has perhaps happened to no other author: I read again, after a lapse of thirty years, a manuscript which I had totally forgotten. I had one danger to fear. In repassing the brush over the picture, I might wipe out the colours; a surer but less rapid hand ran the risk, while obliterating some incorrect features, of causing the liveliest touches of youth to disappear: it was necessary to preserve the independence and, so to speak, the passion of the composition; the foam must be left on the bit of the youthful courser. If in the _Natchez_ there are things which I would hazard only in trembling to-day, there are also things which I would no longer write, especially René's letter in the second volume. It is in my first manner, and reproduces all René. I do not know that the Renés who followed in my steps can have said anything more nearly approaching folly. [Sidenote: The _Natchez._] The _Natchez_ opens with an invocation to the desert and to the star of the night, the supreme divinities of my youth: "In the shade of the American forests I will sing airs of solitude such as mortal ears have not yet heard; I will relate your adversities, O Natchez, O nation of Louisiana, of whom naught save the memories remain! Should the misfortunes of an obscure dweller in the woods have less claim upon our tears than those of other men? And are the mausoleums of the kings in our temples more touching than the tomb of an Indian under his native oak? "And thou, torch of meditation, star of the night, be for me the star of Pindus! Go before my steps across the unknown regions of the New World, to reveal to me by thy light the enchanting secrets of those deserts!" My two natures lie mingled in this singular work, particularly in the primitive original. In it are found political incidents and romantic intrigues; but, across the narrative, there is heard, throughout, a voice that sings and that seems to come from an unknown region. * From 1812 to 1814, but two years are wanting to end the Empire[85], and those two years, of which we have seen something by anticipation, were employed by me in researches into French history, and in the writing of some books of these Memoirs; but I did not print anything more. My life of poetry and erudition was really closed by the publication of my three great works, the _Génie du Christianisme_, the _Martyrs_ and the _Itinéraire._ My political writings began with the Restoration; with those writings also began my active political existence. Here, therefore, ends my literary career properly so-called; carried away by the flood of years, I had omitted it; not until this year, 1839, have I recalled the bygone times of 1800 to 1814.