The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-25 00:00:00

A11,4'.21101RS of CHATEAURRIAND. Written
by _Himself. Ports 11. and lIL
The admirable translation 'of this great master-
piece of :autobiography, now publishing from month
to moreh in " eolhuin's Standard Library," is not to
be idly classed among the productions ordinarily sub-
mitted to our criticism. We review it in an almost
reverential spirit as the last utterances, D'outre Tombs,
of a genius such as the earth deeS not acknowledge
twice in a century. Extravagant as the eulogiums
pronotieced upon these memoirs by M. Jules Janin
may have appeared before they had been submitted to
our examination, those eulogiums can scarcely be
regarded as over• coloured now that we have listened
to the voice of Chateaubriand himself, telling us the
history of his wces and vicissitudes in a strain as im-
passioned as an ode, as plaintive as an elegy, as graceful
as en idyll, and as solemn as an epic. The poetical
character of the language in which the narrative is
writen will not be matter of surprise to those who
have lingered over his " Natchez," or have drunk in
the melodies of "Attila." But the beauty of the
work as a purely rhetorical composition is of com-
parative unimportance when contrasted with the
charms of the book as the revelaticns of a long life's
sufferings. Beyond this, the chapters abound with
delineations of an epoch and of a race of beines that
have passed away together. It matters not whether
Chateaubriand is in Europe or America, in a garret
in London or in the regal saloons at Versaihes,
in the forests of Canada or amidst the soli
tudes of the . Atlantic, watching Nirabeau in
the tribune, or Byron in the theatre, sleepiug among
the Floridan savages or carousing with the Parisian
demagogues, posting from Dover to St. James's as the
French Ambassador to the Court of his Britannic
Majesty, or paddling across the vaselakes of the New
World as an adventurer in quest of the North-West
passage—there we are with the shadow of his youth
or the reminiscence of his mature years, wherever
the will of the Dead Man decrees that the soul of his
reader shall wander. The vividness of his most
casual descriptions is something absolutely marvel-
lous. A sentence of his—and we are wafted away
across fifty years, or beyond a distance of a thousand
leagues. In addition to this the narrative is crowded
with epigrammatic sentences that condense a thought
into the most portable dimensions. Thus, speaking of
the three great revolutionary periods, he says that
out Of so many reputations, actors, events, and ruins,
only three men (one belonging to each epoch) remain
—"Mirabeau to the aristocracy, Robespierre to the
democracy, and Bonaparte to despotism." Again,
speaking of the celebrated financier, M. Necker, he
observes that be was " one of those old-fashioned per-
sonages who came before the curtain to explain the
piece to the public, and disappeared when it rose."
Alluding to Louis XVI. he exclaims in words worthy
of one who had called himself a Bourbonist by birth,
a Royalist by honour, and a Republican by convic-
tion—"the respect which should be inspired by the
virtues and misfortunes of the saintly and martyred
King renders any human judgineet upon him almost
sacrilegious." As affording the imagination a ghastly
glimpse of the sanguinary drys of the Revolution, a
glimpse caught through the crevices of memory, the
following possesses a terrible fascination :
" I was standing at the window of my apartments
with my sisters• and a few countrymen, when we heard
the cry, `Shut the doors! shut the doors!' A rei..,,ged
group appeared at ono end of the street, bearing two
standards, which at thr.t distane.., we, could not well dis-
tinguish; as they Came nearer we saw that they were
two heads, with heir dishevelled and countenances nit-
tortes), borne on pikes by these forerunners of Marat—
they were the heads of MM. Fenton and Berthier.
Every one retired from the windew except myself. The
assassins stopped when they saw me, and held up the
pikes, singing, capering, and leaping up to bring the
pale heads as near me as pos,ib!o ; in one of them an
eye had fallen from its socket, and hung on the livid
cheek ; the pike was fastened into the open mouth,
whose teeth bit the iroa. Murderers,' cried I, unable.
to contain my indignt.tiOn, is it thus you understand
liberty?' If I had had a gun I. would have fired on
these wretches as I would on wolves. They replied
with howls; and beat violently on the great gate, with
the intention of breaking in and addir, my head to the
others.- My sisters were much alarmed; the cowardly
proprietors of the house overwhelmed me with re-
proaches. The murderers, who were being pursued,
had not time to break into the house, and moved off.
The eight of these heads, and of others which soon after
greeted my oyes, changed my political dispositions; a
horror o' these cannibal festivals seized me, and the
idea of quitting France for some distant land began to
gain strength in my mind."
In a different mood, Chateaubriand speaks thus sadly
and repentantly of the period when his mind was
darkened by the mists of scepticism:—
" I Lad now become an caprit fort, or to speak more
truly, an esprit liable. This change in my religious
opinions had been produced by reading hocks on pita°.
tophy. I truly believed that on one aide a religious
mind was es it were paralysed—that there were truths
which could not reach it, however superior it might be
in other ways. It, was this foolish pride which effected
the change is my mind; in a religious spirit I supposed
a Odic:jenny, en absence of faculty, which in fact exists
in a philosophic spirit; a limited intelligence imagines it
sees everything, because it keeps its eyes open; a su-
perior intelligence consents to shut its eyes, because it
sees everything within."
Hear him again singing of the glories of a ship—a
vessel isolated in mid-ocean :
" The ship alone forms an object of iaterest; sensible
to the slightest movement of the helm, a winged steed,
she obeys the hand of the pilot, as a horse yields to the
hand of the rider. The beauty of the masts and cordage,
the activity of the sailors in climbing the shrouds and
handing the rails, the different aspects under which the
ship presents herself, sometimes heeling under the
power of a contrary gale from the south, and sometimes
running all sail set, before a northerly breeze—combine
to form of this almost intelligent machine, one of the
greatest triumphs of human ingenuity. One while the
surge with its foam breaks and dashes against the hull
—at another, the peaceful waves yield a ready and easy
passage to the prow. The flags, streamers, and sails
complete the beauty of this
palace of Neptune; the lower
sails, in all their extent, aro bulged out like vast cylin-
ders; the upper ones messed in the middle by the bunt-
line, resemble the bosom of a Siren. Driven on by a
powerful wind, with her keel she furrows the field of the
sea, as with a ploughshare."
After telling us of his interview with Washington, be
says—" There is a virtue in the glance of a great
mdn!" One More quotation we must be permitted to
make : it is a comparison by Chateaubriand of
NAPOLEON AND WASHINGTON.
"Washington does not, like Bonaparte, belong to that
race who outstrip the standard of human meaFurement.
Nothing amazing is numbed to his person; he is not
placed on a vast theatre of action; is not engaged in ter-
rible combat with the most elcilful generals and the most
powerful monarchs of his time ; does not haste full speed
from Memphis to Vienna, from Cadiz to Moscow; he
stands his ground with a hardful of citizens in a country
adorned with no peculiar celebrity, within the narrow
circle of their domestic hearths. He fights no battles
which revive the triumphs of Arbela and i'harsalia; he
overturns no thrones to build up others with their ruins;
he doss not say to the Icings at his gate—
Qu'ils se lent trop attendro, et qu'Attila s'ennuie.'
" An air of silence envelopes Washington's actions;
he acts slowly; as if feeling that the liberty of the future
is in hands, and fearful ef compromising it. This hero
of a new race manages and directs, not his own destinies,
but those of his country; be does not allow himself to
toy with what is not his own; but from this profound
humility what brilliancy now bursts forth! Traverse
the woods where Washington's sword flashed to the
light; what will you find? Graves ?—No I a world I
Washington has left the United States as a trophy on
his battlefield.
"Bonaparte has no trait in common with this grave,
calm American; he combats noisily on en old theatre of
action, in an old country; he thinks only of building up
his own fame, takes charge only of his own destiny. He
seems to know that his mission will be short; that the
torrent which falls from such a height will quickly be
exhausted ; he hastens to enjoy end abuse his power, like
a quickly fleeting youth. Like Homer's gods, he longs
to reach the extremity of the world in four steps. He
appears on every shore; hastily inscribes his name on
the records of every nation, and throes crowns to his
family and: his soldiers; be is in baste in everything, in
his monuments, his laws, and his victories. Leaning
over the world, with one hand he overturns kings, with
the other crushes the giant revolution; but in overcom-
ing anarchy he stifles liberty, and finally loses his own
on his last field of battle.
• " Each is rewarded according to his deeds; Washing•
ton raises a nation to independence; a magistrate in the
repose of domestic life; he falls asleep beneath his own
roof, amidst the regrets of his fellow-countrymen, and
the veneration of nationP.
" Bonaparte robs a nation of its independence; a fallen.
emperor, he is cast forth into exile, where the terror of
nations still looks upon him as insufficiently imprisencd,
even under the guard of ocean. He expires; the news,
published at the
gate of the palace before which the-con-
queror caused so many deaths to be proclaimed, neither
arrests nor astonishes the passer-by ; what had the citi-
zens to regret?
" Washington's republic still exists; Bonaparte's em-
pire has fallen to the ground. Washington and Bona-
parte were both nursed in the lap of democracy ; both
born of liberty, the one was faithful to her, the other
betrayed her.
" Washington was the representative of the wants,
ideas, intelligence, and opinions of his times • he se-
conded, instead of opposing, the movements of the public
mind;
nd;
he
willed
es v'cahlealtdit ;
v'l'ir'Tc heistheit coherence to will, the thing
to which herence and perpe-
tuity of his work. This man; not striitir.g because in
his just proportions, mingled his existence with that of
"his-country ; his fame is the patrimony of civilizition ;
had it;
e mat ,: rial in
power li c
to sanctuaries
enrichthe
his renown stands like one ofinthhois:r,
public
whence flows a fertilising, inexhaustible stream.
coLßoonnarmrtaeinhl
his hands the
most intelligent, the bravest, and most brilliant nation
on. earth. What would not now be his rank in the esti-
mation and reverence of men, had he added magnani-
mity to the heroic qualities he possessed ! if, Washing-
ton and Bonaparte in one, he had named liberty the uni-
versal legatee of his fame!
" Bat this giant did Lot link his destinies with those
,)f his contemporaries; -hie genius belonged to El moderns
ego, his ambition to an ancient one ; ho saw not that
the miracles of his life outshone the value of a diadem,