Chapitre IX

Cardinal Fesch's complaints of Chateaubriand's conduct-Fontanes and Madame Bacciochi speak for him-"A year without Madame de Beaumont"-Chateaubriand rejoins his wife-His reasons for doing so-His nomination as French Minister to the Valais-Preparations for departure-His resignation in consequence of the execution of the Duc d'Enghien-How Napoleon received it.

IT was a question for a little while after Pauline de Beaumont's death whether Chateaubriand would accept preferment in the diplomatic service or quit it altogether. He was resolved, at any rate, not to remain in Rome. " No one could possibly be persecuted more shamefully than I have been," he wrote to Fontanes. In another letter we find the appeal: " Make haste and get me out of Rome, for 1 am dying here"; and there is also a complaint of "a rightful jaundice, the inevitable consequence of my troubles."

About the jaundice he was probably mistaken. His quick convalescence proves that his indisposition, whatever its nature, was not serious. We find him travelling, and apparently in sound health, a very few days after his statement that he is ill in bed. But he was sick at heart. He had passed through a crisis which had made havoc of his emotions; he was suffering acutely, though he was not to suffer long; and his public position was also, as we have seen, uncomfortable and insecure. It was in his mind-the

impulse seems to have been genuine while it lastedto throw up his career and retire into private life.

An opportunity presented itself. A Russian general sounded him as to his willingness to accept the post of tutor to a Russian Grand Duke. It was "a fine position," he admitted. He would be " provided for " for the remainder of his life. But he hesitated, when it came to the point, not liking the idea of " another eight years of exile"; and Fontanes discouraged the idea. He saw his way to confound the machinations of Cardinal Fesch, and advance his friend in the service of his own country by obtaining him the position of French Resident in the Republic of the Valais.

It was a chance whether he would be able to do so, for the Cardinal was a jealous, unscrupulous, and double-faced intriguer. He had changed his manner towards Chateaubriand, and was making himself agreeable. He had expressed sympathy with him in his sorrow, and was exhorting him to take as long a holiday as he liked. Joubert wrote to Chênedollé, from information received, that their common friend would leave Rome " with the friendship of the Cardinal and the esteem of all the world." But the Cardinal's dispatches and private letters to his nephew were couched in a different tone.

"Citizen First Consul ' (he wrote), "permit me to tell you something about Chateaubriand. Dissatisfied at his failure to 'run' my Embassy for me, and perceiving that I was quite able to discharge my duties without anybody's assistance, he made up his mind to be avenged. He has laid himself out to corrupt the priests whom I brought to Rome, and has put it into their heads that it is my business to provide them with benefices at the Pope's expense. I have learnt that they are complaining bitterly in consequence of his insinuations. ...

And the Cardinal went on to say that Chateaubriand was "an ill-conditioned schemer," whom it would be well to watch, and to call him " the protégé and paid retainer of Madame de Beaumont."

It was vicious, but it was overdone. Fontanes prompted Madame Bacciochi to that effect, and Madame Bacciochi prompted Napoleon. Possibly Talleyrand also spoke a word in season; and very likely the First Consul was too conscious of his uncle's limitations to need much prompting. At all events, there was no longer any question of handcuffing Chateaubriand and bringing him home in a cart. He was to return, with honour, to high office; the First Consul understanding, as he says, that he was one of those men "who are of no use except in leading rôles."

Meanwhile he had begun "a year without Madame de Beaumont," whose memory he had celebrated in his famous " Letter to M. de Fontanes on the Roman Campagna": a resplendent piece of prose, indisputably the " source " of the most eloquent chapter of Madame de Staël's Corinne, and said by Sainte-Beuve to differ from the descriptive prose of Rousseau " as Olympus differs from Geneva."

Perhaps-the criticism has been passed-he makes too gaudy a show in it of the pageant of his bleeding heart; but that was Chateaubriand's habit. His whole life, as mirrored in his writings, appears as a pageant of that painful kind, and no doubt his heart was really bleeding when he wrote, though the wound was quickly to be staunched. It was by giving literary expression to his grief that he subdued it; and having won the victory, he returned, not to Madame de Custine, but to Madame de Chateaubriand.

His motives for doing so were various; but the passionate desire for his wife's society can hardly have been included in their number. He had married without " vocation,' possessing, as he says, "none of the qualifications of a husband," and his writings show that the idea of marriage always remained repugnant to him. "Next to the misfortune of being born," he writes in the Mémoires, "I know no greater misfortune than that of becoming a parent." " To René," he says in The Natchez, "the very thought of marriage was detestable." One could cite such passages by the score.

He was married, however, whether he liked the idea of marriage or not; and divorce was obviously impossible for the champion of the Catholic religion. Moreover, the conduct of Madame de Chateaubriand had been irreproachable; and she had lost the fortune which might have made her independent of her husband; and an obstacle had been removed by Madame de Beaumont's death; and there were appearances, as well as the claims of duty and sentiment, to be considered. So, though two years had passed since Chateaubriand had seen his wife, and ten since he had lived with her, the question of their reunion was raised.

Apparently it had been mooted already, on the occasion of that flying visit to Brittany, which Chateaubriand besought Chênedollé on no account to mention to Madame de Beaumont. Apparently Madame de Chateaubriand was then more anxious to return to her husband than her husband was to receive her. That is a fair inference from the protest in the letter to Fontanes, already quoted, that " the fear of having to rejoin my wife has, for the second time, driven me out of the country." It also follows from the appeal to Madame de Custine: " Promise me that you will come to Rome." Chateaubriand can hardly have wanted Madame de Chateaubriand, Madame de Beaumont, and Madame de Custine all to be at Rome with him at once. But Madame de Chateaubriand knew nothing of that; and there had been no open breach. Chateaubriand had sent her a specially bound copy of Le Génie du Christianisme; and now, in the hour of his grief for Pauline de Beaumont, he was less indisposed than formerly to listen to Fontanes' advice.

"Your counsel » ‚he writes) "about a person who is allied to me is good. I have seen the value of it, and I have long been thinking of it. Madame de Beaumont herself, on her death-bed, gave me the same advice. Only I cannot, at this moment, make up my mind to take it, and I shall be obliged if you will say nothing more to me about it."

In that mood of hesitation, he returned to France, and visited Joubert at Villeneuve. Joubert took up the argument where Fontanes had left it, and prevailed.

What aphorisms the aphorist employed one does not know; but one surmises that they bore chiefly on the advantage to rising young diplomatists of a scrupulous regard for appearances. Napoleon was beginning to like to have men about him who were respectable; the ruler who gave Madame de Genlis a pension for no other reason than her alleged respectability, and ordered Talleyrand to regularize his relations with his mistress, might well be inclined to shake his head at Chateaubriand's separation from his wife. Joubert may have pointed that out. At all events, Chateaubriand wrote from Joubert's house, inviting Madame de Chateaubriand to join him, and she agreed to do so... and then, only a few weeks afterwards, occurred the incident which was to interrupt Chateaubriand's public career, and send him back, for another ten years, into private life.

His nomination as French Minister to the Republic of the Valais had been confirmed. The Sion Town Council had written to promise him a cordial welcome, and to assure him that his appointment was " specially gratifying to a religious population." He and Madame de Chateaubriand had completed their preparations and paid their farewell calls. Napoleon had accorded him a final audience; and he had shed a final tear under the shadow of the cypress which Pauline de Beaumont had planted in the garden of her father's mansion: then, as he was walking home to his hotel in the Rue de Beaune, he heard the official announcement of the execution of the Duc d'Enghien.

«The news' (he writes) "fell upon me like a thunderclap. It altered my whole career, as it altered that of Napoleon himself. I returned to my apartment, and said to Madame de Chateaubriand: 'The Duc d'Enghien has just been shot,' and then sat down at a table and proceeded to write my resignation. Madame de Chateaubriand raised no objection ... though she was well aware of the danger that I was facing. The trial of General Moreau and Georges Cadoudal was proceeding. The lion had tasted blood. It was not the moment to irritate him.

" At this instant entered M. Clausel de Coussergues, who had also heard the sentence, and found me with my pen in my hand. He induced me, out of regard for Madame de Chateaubriand, to suppress my more passionate expressions; and then my letter was dispatched."

The letter is preserved in the Archives of the French Foreign Office, and the text of it is a little disappointing. It does not, as might have been expected, hurl indignant defiance at a Government guilty of judicial murder. It merely states, untruly, that Madame de Chateaubriand is dangerously ill, and that the Minister begs, on that account, to be excused from proceeding to Switzerland.

Perhaps it was because they had not seen the letter that Chateaubriand's friends were filled with apprehension on his behalf-that Madame Bacciochi "screamed ' and that Fontanes "nearly went mad with terror." On the other hand, the risk may have been real seeing that Napoleon could easily have ascertained, if he did not already know, that the pretext was false, and that Madame de Chateaubriand was in the best of health. But nothing happened. Talleyrand considerately held the letter back until the Emperor was in an amiable mood. Then he glanced his eye over it, said "Very well!" and let the matter slide.

So, the sacrifice having been made, the crisis passed, and Chateaubriand returned to literary and domestic life-to the society of Madame de Chateaubriand-and also of Madame de Custine.