This literary career, as you have been free to convince yourselves, was no less disturbed than my career as a traveller and a soldier; there were also labours, encounters, and blood in the arena; all was not Muses and Castalian spring. My political career was even stormier. Perhaps some remains may mark the spot where stood my gardens of Academus. The _Génie du Christianisme_ commences the religious revolution against the philosophism of the eighteenth century. I was at the same time preparing the revolution which threatens our language, for there can be no renewal of ideas without an accompanying renewal of style. Will there be other forms of art, at present unknown, when I am gone? Will it be possible to start from our studies of to-day in order to make progress, as we ourselves have taken a step forward by starting from past studies? Are there limits which one could not overstep, because one would then run against the nature of things? Do not those limits lie in the division of the modern languages, in the decay of those same languages, in human vanity such as modern society has made it? Languages do not follow the movement of civilization until they are on the point of attaining the period of their perfection; having reached this zenith, they remain stationary for a moment, and then descend, without being able to ascend again. [Sidenote: Youth and age.] Now, the story which I am finishing joins the first books of my political life, written previously at different dates. I feel a little more courage on returning to the finished portions of my edifice. When I resumed my work, I trembled lest the old son of Cœlus should see the golden trowel of the builder of Troy turn into a trowel of lead. And yet it seems to me that my memory, when bidden to pour me out my recollections, has not failed me too greatly. Have you felt the ice of winter to a great extent in my narrative? Do you find an enormous difference between the extinct ashes which I have striven to revive and the living persons whom I have shown you in telling you of my early youth? My years are my secretaries: when one of them comes to die, he passes the pen to his younger brother, and I continue to dictate. As they are of one family, they write very nearly the same hand. [1] This book was written in Paris in 1839, and revised in June 1847.--T. [2] Chateaubriand bought it from M. de Fontanes for 20,000 francs.--B. [3] Chateaubriand bought the Vallée-aux-Loups in August 1807, for the sum of 30,000 francs.--B. [4] Madame de Lavalette was the widow of the Marquis de Béville.--B. [5] _Manger_, to eat; also, to run through, to squander.--T. [6] The Infirmary, situated at No. 86, Rue d'Enfer (now 92, Rue Denfert-Rochereau), was founded by M. and Madame de Chateaubriand at a considerable cost. Madame de Chateaubriand was buried beneath the altar of the chapel.--B.