[Footnote 337: Chateaubriand's pamphlet appeared on the 24th of March 1831.--B.] [Footnote 338: _Études et discours historiques sur la chute de l'Empire romain, la naissance et le progrès du Christianisme et l'invasion des Barbares; suivis d'une Analyse raisonnée de l'histoire de France_ (Paris: 4 vols. 8vo). The _Études historiques_ were published on the 4th of April 1831.--B.] [Footnote 339: The fall of the Roman Empire.--_Author's Note._] [Footnote 340: Chateaubriand left for Switzerland on the 16th of May 1831; he arrived at Geneva on the 23rd of May.--B.] [Footnote 341: _De la Restauration et de la Monarchie élective.--Author's Note._] [Footnote 342: This refers to my literary and to my political career, which had been left behind: the voids have since been filled by what I have lately written in the last two years, 1838 and 1839.--_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1839).] [Footnote 343: Hyacinthe has the habit of copying, almost in spite of my wishes, the letters which I write and receive, because he maintains that he has observed that I am often attacked by persons who once wrote to me in terms of endless admiration and applied to me with requests for services. When this happens, he rummages in bundles known to him alone and, comparing the insulting article with the encomiastic epistle, says to me: "You see, monsieur, that I acted well!" I do not agree with him at all: I attach not the smallest belief nor the least importance to the opinion of men; I take them for what they are and esteem them for what they are worth. As far as I am concerned, I will never contrast for their benefit what they have said of me in public with what they have said to me in private; but this amuses Hyacinthe. I had kept no copy of my letters to Madame Récamier; she has had the kindness to lend them to me. #/ --_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1836).] [Footnote 344: This letter and those which follow are exactly true to the originals: "The letters," says Madame Lenormant, "which M. de Chateaubriand wrote to Madame Récamier during his stay in Switzerland, have been printed in the _Mémoires d'Outre-tombe._ We have collated them with the originals and, this time, have found them to be reproduced with scrupulous fidelity" (_Souvenirs et Correspondance tirés des papiers de Madame Récamier_, Vol. II.).--B. ] [Footnote 345: Elleviou (1772-1842) was this "singular personage," as the enclosure shows. Elleviou was a famous singer, during the Consulate and the Empire, at the Théâtre Feydeau. The _Maison à vendre_, words by Alexandre Duval, music by Dalayrac, was one of the pieces in which he made most success. He retired from the stage in 1813 and devoted himself to agriculture in the neighbourhood of Lyons. Elleviou was, like Chateaubriand, a Breton: he was born at Rennes, where his father was a surgeon.--B.]