Christian had an ardent and jealous affection for Louis, his worthy brother: when Louis married, Christian left for Italy; he knew the Duc de Rohan-Chabot there and met Madame Récamier: like his uncle, he has come back to live in Rome, he in a cloister, I in a palace. He entered religion to restore to his brother a fortune of which he did not consider himself the possessor under the new laws: and so Malesherbes and Combourg now both belong to Louis. [Sidenote: Christian de Chateaubriand.] After our unexpected meeting at the foot of the Coliseum, Christian, accompanied by a Jesuit brother, came to see me at the Embassy; his bearing was sad, his aspect serious: in the old days he was always laughing. I asked him if he was happy; he answered: "I suffered long; now my sacrifice is made and I feel contented." Christian inherited the iron character of his paternal grand-father, M. de Chateaubriand, my father, and the moral virtues of his maternal great-grandfather, M. de Malesherbes. His sentiments are locked up within himself, although he shows them, without considering the prejudices of the crowd, when his duties are concerned: as a dragoon in the Guards, he would alight from his horse to go to the Communion Table; his messmates did not laugh at him, for his valour and his kindliness were their admiration. After he left the service, it was discovered that he used secretly to assist a considerable number of officers and soldiers; he still has pensioners in the Paris garrets, and Louis discharges his brother's debts. One day, in France, I asked Christian if he would ever marry: "If I were to marry," he replied, "I should take one of my little cousins, the poorest." Christian spends his nights in prayer; he gives himself up to austerities at which his superiors are alarmed: a sore which formed in one of his legs came from his persistence in remaining on his knees for hours on end; never did innocence indulge in so much repentance. Christian is not a man of this century: he reminds me of those dukes and counts of the Court of Charlemagne who, after warring against the Saracens, founded convents on the desert sites of Gellone or Madavalle and became monks there. I look upon him as a saint: I would willingly invoke him. I am persuaded that his good works, added to those of my mother and my sister Julie, would obtain grace for me before the Sovereign Judge. I, too, have a leaning for the cloister; but, were my hour to come, I would go and ask for a solitude of the Portioncula, under the protection of my Patron Saint, called Francis because he spoke French. I want to trail my sandals alone; for nothing in the world would induce me to have two heads in my frock.