"I thank you for being so good as to speak to me of your labours. You will write a work which will be worthy of you and increase your reputation[669]. If you have any researches to make here, have the kindness to tell me of them: a rummage in the Vatican might furnish you with treasures. Alas, I saw but too much of that poor M. Thierry[670]! I assure you that I am haunted by his memory: so young, so full of love for his work, and to go! And, as always happens with real merit, his mind was improving and reason, with him, taking the place of system: I still hope for a miracle. I have written on his behalf; I have not even had an answer. I have been more fortunate for you, and a letter from M. de Martignac gives me to hope at last that justice, although tardy and incomplete, will be done you. I no longer live, monsieur, except for my friends; you must permit me to include yourself in the number of those who are still left to me. "I remain, monsieur, with as much sincerity as admiration, "Your most devoted servant[671], "CHATEAUBRIAND." [Sidenote: Augustin Thierry.] TO MADAME RÉCAMIER "ROME, _Saturday_, 8 _November_ 1832. "M. de La Ferronnays informs me of the surrender of Varna[672], which I knew. I believe that I once told you that the whole question seemed to me to lie in the fall of that place, and that the Grand Turk would not dream of peace until the Russians had done what they did not do in their earlier wars. Our newspapers have been wretchedly Turcophile these last times. How can they ever have been able to forget the noble cause of Greece and to fall into admiration before the barbarians who spread slavery and pestilence over the country of great men and the fairest portion of Europe? That is what we are, we French: a trifle of personal discontent makes us forget our principles and the most generous sentiments. The Turks, when beaten, will perhaps arouse some pity in me; the Turks victorious would fill me with horror. "So my friend M. de La Ferronnays remains in power. I flatter myself that my determination to follow him has got rid of the competitors for his office. But, after all, I shall have to leave this; I now long only to return to my solitude and to quit the career of politics. I thirst for independence in my last years. New generations have arisen, they will find the public liberty established for which I have fought so hard: let them then lay hold of, but let them not misuse my inheritance, and let me go to die in peace near you. "I went two days ago to walk in the grounds of the Villa Panfili: what a beautiful solitude!" "ROME, _Saturday_, 15 _November._