The Morning herald., 1875-10-02
cHATEApBRIAsD. w
n p "
Recollecaionsofx Historicsl
Character.

- - i. -
The Pld town Of, St. Male-the quain
! tahread pdrt 6f M su1codts ind 4Dasoa.
TFeaiRs-eelebrated this week the memo
ry of one ofits sons who, il, his day, WELD
, ed literary sceptre for which many hand'
have since competed. but which has nevel
since become the possession Of any claim
ant. The middle Of the eighteenth cen
tury was hardly more truly the age Of Vol.
taire than was the commencement of the
nineteenth the age of Chateaubriand. We
in England, have so completely outlived
any impressions of Chateaubriand's genius
that it is with something between smile
and yawn that the most Of us glance over
the perfervid eulogies with which the
principal actors in the scene ofSunday Last
felt themselves bound to salute the illus
trious dead and besides, Protestant Eng
land had least of all the countries of the
world been brought within the influence Of
the author ofthe Genie du Christianisme.
Even in France there has reigned pow
erful reaction from the modes of thought
and style which were the force and the
originality of the gifted Breton, and where
there has not been reaction there has been
divergence. 90.
| The school Of Louis Veuillot can still,
perhaps must still, exhibit decent vener-.
alton for the enthusiastic apologist Of
Catholicism, but at bottom the fierce zeal
Of the absolutist ultramontane must cher
ish profound contempt for the writer
who could commit himself to many of the
constitutional views of the "Monarchie
scion Ia Charte," and whose liberal back
sliding went so far as to cause him to de.
clare that if entire liberty of the press had
existed in France previous to the revolu-
tion, Louis XVI. would not have perished
on the scaflold. There are pages in the
"Etudes Historiques" which wsuld send a
shudder through the souls of many a mod
ern ecclesiastical camarilla, and when, for
instance, Chatcaubriand recalls, with hard
ly yelled reproaches against the latter day
Papacy, the days when Rome Illuminated
its thunders against the encroachment Of
princes in the name of the natural rights
people, who does not feel that ultra roval-
ist though he often was, the Breton noble
had caught in some things tle inspirations
ofthe democratic revolution?
In one respect, and whatever may hap
pen. the influence of Chateaubriand in his
native country will never diminish. He
was in himselfa literary era, and there is
no French writer of eminence since his
lime who does not bear the traces of the
Impulse which he communicated, and in
Iced, originated. With much in him of
bernardin de st. Pierre and Jean JACQUES
Rousseau, and in spite of rhetoric scn,i-
mentality and egotism, there was in his
'ery exasgerations strength and genius,
IN incarnation, as it were, of the highest
pirit of his age, the power of which over
lis generation and his SUCCESSORS can only
'e measured when we have compared the
NEST descriptions Of such writer as Geo.
'and with the scenes portrayed in Creme"
Atala," the "Natchez" the MARTYRS"
ne "ltinerarie," and the "Memoires
|Outre-tombe." a critic so difficult to
lease as sainte-B -Beuve, and whose nice ia. a
ent for belittling is nowhere more charac-
erlstlcally exercised than in the course of
is lectures on Chateaubriand in 1S4S, has
ct penned lines in recognition of his un. =
uestlonably supremacy which might salts ',
the exigencies Of the most devoted ad.
'irer. "Fifteen years, said Tacitus, is ?
arge space in human life-Quindecim an {
o', grande n'artalis evi spatium. : I"
Veil, there is man who has had the pri- "
ilege of continuing and persisting let us .
ather say, to reign during the three peri = :.
ds, the thrice fifteen years which we have -
'aversed. Under the Consulate and the "
'mplre he shines from the first day, from
ne first morning, like a meteor. Under q
he Restoration he is at his zenith he fila =
/. Under the last regime-the July mon :,
rchy-he holds himself aloof, and only at u
intervals comes forth from his tent he has =
lore, ifyou please, but an honorary reign,
specially in recent times; but admiration u
nd respect have not been Withdrawn from
i'm for single day. There is
ere literary destiny, and more than a 0
terary one-a destiny truly historical and S
x. In this CONGO ono q
hot l.