Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/449

Rh CHATEAUBRIAND 437 this work, Atala and Rene, have acquired universal renown ; but the work as a whole, to say nothing of the unreality of its pictures of savage life, belongs to that unfortunate compromise between the forms of prose and poetry in a manner imposed upon the French language by the penury of its poetic diction, but incapable of the perfection of either poetry or prose. Chateaubriand s first publication, however, was the Essay on Revolutions (1707). la this remarkable work, which the author subsequently retracted, but took care not to suppress, he appears as a mediator between royalist and revolutionary ideas, a free thinker in religion, and in philosophy imbued with the spirit of Rousseau. A great change in his views was, however, at hand, induced, as he would have as believe, by the deatli of his mother in the same year. It is certain that upon his restoration to his country three years subse quently, the Genius of Christianity was already in an advanced state. Before publishing it, however, lie determined to make an essay with an episode of his romance. Atala, or The Loves of Two Savages, appeared in 1801, and immediately raised the author to the summit of literary distinction. Exquisite style, impassioned eloquence, and glowing descriptions of nature, gained indulgence for the incongruity between the rudeness of the personages and the refinement of the sentiments, and for the distasteful blending of prudery with sensuousness ; the latter was indeed conformable to the example of the author s models and predecessors. Alike in its merits and defects, the piece is a more emphatic and highly -coloured &quot; Paul and Virginia ;&quot; it has been justly said that Bernardin Saint Pierre models in marble and Chateaubriand in bronze. Encouraged by his success, the author resumed his Genius of Christianity, which appeared in the following year, just upon the eve of Napoleon s re-establishment of the Catholic religion, for which it thus almost seemed to have prepared the way. No coincidence could have been mora opportune, and Chateaubriand might almost be pardoned lor esteeming himself the counterpart of Napoleon in the intellectual order, as he certainly did. In composing his work he had borne in mind the admonition of his friend Joubsrt, that the public would care very little for his erudition and very much for his eloquence. It is consequently an inefficient production from the point of view of serious argument. The considerations derived from natural theology are but commonplaces rendered dazzling by the magic of style; and the parallels between Christianity and antiquity, especially in arts and letters, are at best ingenious sophis tries. The less polemical passages, however, where the author depicts the glories of the Catholic liturgy and its accessories, or expounds its symbolical significance, are r-plendid instances of the effect produced by the accumula tion and judicious distribution of particulars gorgeous in the mass, and individually treated with the utmost refine ment of detail Taken altogether, the work is a master piece of literary art, and its immediate effect was very considerable. It admirably subserved the statecraft of Napoleon, who appointed the writer attach^ at Rome, and when his insubordinate and intriguing spirit compelled his recall, transferred him as envoy to the canton of the Valais. The murder of the duke of Enghien took place during his absence on this mission. Chateaubriand, to his honour, immediately resigned his post, and subsequently manifested great courage in his indirect censures of Napoleon in a journal of which he had become proprietor, and which was ultimately suppressed. Ere this he had departed on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, undertaken, as he subsequently acknowledged, less in a devotional spirit than in quest of new imagery, and in deference to the wishes of a lady friend. The journey produced (1811) a record of travel distinguished by his habitual picturesqueness, n.nd also inspired his prose epic of The Martyrs, published two years previously. This work may be regarded as the argument of the Genius of Christianity thrown into an objective form. Moore s Epicurean, and the more ambitious passages of Bulwer s earlier romances, may convey an adequate notion of it to the merely English reader. As in the Epicurean, the professed design is the contrast between Paganism and Christianity, which fails of its purpose partly from the absence of real insight into the genius of antiquity, and partly because the heathen are the most interesting characters after all. Two years previously had appeared Rene, another detached episode of The Natchez, and perhaps Chateaubriand s most characteristic production. The connecting links in European literature between Wer- iher and Childe Harold, it paints with wonderful mastery the misery of a morbid and dissatisfied soul, the type of a character blighted by over-sensitiveness on the one hand, and an egotism thinly disguised by poetical sentiment on the other. The representation is mainly from the life, and Chateaubriand must certainly be acquitted of the unreality and affectation which so frequently characterize similar delineations of the poetic temperament. Rene s morbid de spondency is but the too faithful protrait of the desolation begotten in his own mind by the unnatural alliance between opulence of imagination and poverty of heart. His sister Lucile is the Amelie of the story. The Natchez, of which Rene was to have formed an episode, was not published until 1826, at which time also appeared the beautiful tale of The Last of the Abencerrages, written about 1809, and, as the author asserts, withheld from publication on account of the Peninsular War. With this composition Chateau briand s career as an imaginative writer is closed ; and we have henceforth chiefly to consider him as a politician. His character in this point of view may be comprised in a sentence ; he was equally formidable to his antagonists when in opposition and to his friends when in office. His poetical receptivity and impressionableness rendered him honestly inconsistent with himself, while his vanity and ambition, too morbidly acute to be restrained by the ties of party allegiance, made him dangerous and untrustworthy as a political associate. His pamphlet, Bonaparte and the Bourbons, published in 1814, while the fate of Napoleon yet trembled in the balance, was as opportune in the moment of its appearance as the Genius of Christianity, and produced a hardly less signal effect. Louis XYII1. declared that it had been worth a hundred thousand men to him. Chateaubriand was called to his councils, accompanied him to Ghent during the Hundred Days, and for a time asso ciated himself with the excesses of the royalist reaction. Political bigotry, however, was not among his faults ; he gradually drifted into liberalism and opposition, and upon a change of ministry, obtained the London embassy, from which he was transferred to represent his country at the Congress of Verona. He here made himself mainly responsible for the iniquitous invasion of Spain, an expedition undertaken, as he himself admits, with the puerile idea of restoring French prestige by a military parade. He next received the portfolio of foreign affairs, which he soon lost by his desertion of his colleagues on the question of a reduction of the interest on the national debt. After another interlude of effective pamphleteering in opposition, he accepted the embassy to Rome under the Martignac administration, resignsd it at Prince Polignac .s accession to office, and on the downfall of the elder branch of the Bourbons, made one last extremely brilliant but inevitably fruitless protest from the tribune in defence of the principle of legitimacy. During the first half of Louis Philippe s reign he was still active with his pen, and was regarded as the most efficient champion of the exiled dynasty, but as yean; increased upon him, and the prospect