François de Chateaubriand
Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe: Index B
Index:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N OP Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Babet, see Colin
Babylon
Babylon is the Greek variant of the Akkadian Babilu, an ancient city in Mesopotamia (modern Al Hillah, Iraq). It was the ‘holy city’ of Babylonia from early times, and the seat of the Neo-Babylonian empire from 612 BC. In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as Babel, interpreted by popular etymology to mean ‘confusion’. Akkadian bāb-ilû means ‘Gate of God’, translating the Sumerian Kadingirra.
BkXII:Chap4:Sec2 The reference is to Psalm 137 ‘By the waters of Babylon.’
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec5 The abhorred city of Revelation.
BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXII:Chap 21:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap16:Sec1 The tower of Babel is referred to in Genesis XI, where the languages of the world are confused.
BkXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap2:Sec2 Alexander was in Babylon in 331BC and returned to die there in 323.
BkXXX:Chap9:Sec1 A reference to Daniel VI:16.
Bacchiochi, Elisa Napoleone, Princess of Piombino
1806-1869. In 1825, she married Philippe, Comte Camerata-Passioneï de Mazzoleni. They separated in 1832.
BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 Her daughter in Rome in 1829.
Bacchus
Dionysus the Greek god of the vine, the Roman Bacchus, was the son of Semele by Zeus-Jupiter.
BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 The Bacchantes or Maenads were the band of savage women followers who attended the god.
Bacciochi, Maria-Anna (Élisa) Bonaparte, Madame d’
1777-1820. A younger sister of Napoleon. She married Pascal-Félix Bacciochi a Corsican officer, in 1797. She was established as a member of the Imperial family of the First French Empire in 1804. In 1805, Napoleon named her Duchess of Lucca and Princess of Pimbino. Her separation from her husband was seen favorably by Napoleon who named her Grand Duchess of Tuscany in 1809. The position had been previously vacant since the abdication of Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1801 and Tuscany had been incorporated to the Kingdom of Etruria until 1807. Her husband soon rejoined her however. Elisa remained Duchess of Tuscany until 1814. Then Ferdinand III was restored to his throne. She spent the later years of her life in seclusion and died in Trieste.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 She used her influence on Chateaubriand’s behalf in 1801.
BkXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Reported on Napoleon’s satisfaction with his meeting with Chateaubriand.
BkXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Her letter introducing Chateaubriand to Murat.
BkXV:Chap7:Sec2 Continued to use her influence on Chateaubriand’s behalf in 1803/4.
BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 She reproaches Chateaubriand for resigning in 1804. She placates Napoleon.
BkXVII:Chap1:Sec1 She extends her protection to him following his resignation.
BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Duchess of Lucca from 1805.
BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 She was educated at Saint-Cyr until 1792 when the school was closed.
Bachaumont
See Chapelle.
Bacon, Sir Francis
1561-1626. English philosopher, essayist, courtier, jurist, and statesman, his writings include The Advancement of Learning (1605) and the Novum Organum (1620), in which he proposed a theory of scientific knowledge based on observation and experiment that came to be known as the inductive method. He was knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618, and created Viscount St Albans in 1621; both peerage titles becoming extinct upon his death.
BkX:Chap5:Sec2 BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bad Berneck, Bavaria
A town in the district of Bayreuth, in Bavaria, Germany it is situated on the river Weisser Main, in the Fichtelgebirge, 13 km northeast of Bayreuth.
BkXXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand there 2nd June 1833.
Baffin Bay
An arm of the Arctic Ocean bounded by Baffin Island in the west, Greenland in the east, and Ellesmere Island in the north, it connects to the Atlantic through Davis Strait, and to the Arctic through several narrow channels of Nares Strait. It is a northwestern extension of the North-Atlantic and Labrador Sea.
BkXXXV:Chap16:Sec1 It is normally filled with icebergs.
Baghdad
The capital of Iraq, on the River Tigris, built by the Caliph Mansur in the 8th century, was a centre of commerce, learning and religion until sacked by the Mongols in 1258. Part of the Ottoman Empire from 1534, and still so in Chateaubriand’s time.
BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned. A symbol of Eastern luxury.
Bagration, Pyotr Ivanovich, Prince
1765-1812. A Russian General during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He fought under Field Marshal Suvorov in the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1798–99 and at Austerlitz, Eylau, and Friedland. In 1808 he captured the Aland Islands from Sweden; in 1809 he fought against the Turks in the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–12; and in 1812 he commanded an army against Napoleon and was mortally wounded at Borodino.
Bagration, Ekaterina Pavlovna Skavronksy, Princess
1783-1857. She was the wife of Prince Bagration (married 1800). She married Lord Hobart in 1830.
BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1 Her niece, Countess Samoilova.
Baiae
The modern Baia, opposite Pozzuoli on the Bay of Pozzuoli, once the fashionable bathing place of the Romans, owed its name, in legend, to Baios, the navigator of Odysseus. The Emperors built magnificent palaces there. There was a causeway attributed to Hercules. Part now lies beneath the sea due to subsidence. It was a notoriously loose place for sexual intrigue.
BkIX:Chap8:Sec2 Caligula’s building work there.
BkXV:Chap7:Sec3 Chateaubriand visited in 1828.
BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 Countess Walewska returned to nearby Naples after a three day visit to Elba in 1815.
BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec3 Madame Récamier at Naples in 1814.
BkXXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bail, Charles-Joseph
1777-1824. An impoverished military man who published various Bonapartist tracts, some opposing Chateaubriand, who nevertheless assisted him and his wife.
BkXXIII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned indirectly.
Bailén
The Battle of Bailén (Andalucia) was a series of clashes between the Spanish regular army, operating in conjunction with guerrilla formation, under Generals Francisco Castaños and Theodor von Reding and the French commanded by General Pierre Dupont, between July 18 and July 22 1808, as a part of the Peninsular War. The Spanish victory at Bailén signalled to the armies of Europe that the French were not invincible - a fact that persuaded the Austrians to wage a new war against Napoleon.
BkXX:Chap7:Sec1 BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bailly, Jean-Sylvain
1736-1793. French astronomer and politician, his works on astronomy and on the history of science (notably the Essai sur la théorie des satellites de Jupiter) were distinguished both for scientific interest and literary elegance and earned him membership in the French Academy, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Inscriptions. He was elected (1789) from Paris to the States-General and was chosen president of the National Assembly. Mayor of Paris from 1789 to 1791, he lost favour with the popular element. He permitted the National Guard to fire on a demonstrating crowd (July 17, 1791). Bailly withdrew from Paris, but in 1793 he was seized, taken back to Paris, convicted of having contrived the July massacre, and guillotined.
BkV:Chap9:Sec1 Elected as Mayor of Paris after the fall of the Bastille in July 1789.
BkV:Chap9:Sec1 He was one of those who met and harangued the King at the Hôtel de Ville on the 17th July 1789.
BkV:Chap10:Sec1 He again harangued the King, on the 6th October 1789, at the Hôtel de Ville after the invasion of Versailles on the 5th which resulted in the mob escorting the Royal family to Paris.
Bajazet
The reference is to Racine’s play Bajazet of 1672, which concerns Bajazet the brother of Sultan Murad IV (1612-1640) whom the Sultan had executed in 1635. The play is set in the Seraglio and involves complex intrigues, suicide and murder.
BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec2 Mentioned.
Balafré, see Duc de Guise
Balagny (Balagni), Renée de Clermont d’Amboise, Madame de
d. 1595 She was the wife of Jean de Montluc (1560-1603), seigneur de Balagny, at first a zealous member of the League, who made his submission to Henri IV, and received from him the principality of Cambrai and the baton of a Marshal of France.
BkXXXVII:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.
Balashov (Balashev, Balascheff), Alexander Dmitriyevich
1770-1837. A Russian general and statesman, from 1 January 1810 he was a member of the newly established State Council. In June the same year he became the Minister of Police. In 1812, during Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia, Balashov was present in the front-line army stationed in Vilnius (Vilna). After La Grande Armée crossed the frontier on June 12, Balashov was dispatched to deliver the Emperor's letter to Napoleon. He participated in the organization of the People's Militia (Народное ополчение) and was a member of the extraordinary committee choosing the commander-in-chief of the Russian army.
BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 He met Napoleon in Vilna in June 1812.
Balbi, Anne de Caumont-La Force, Comtesse d’
1758-1842. Mistress of the Comte de Provence (Louis XVIII) before 1789, she shared the start of his exile at Coblentz then lived in England before returning to the south of France at the end of the Consulate. Returning to Paris under the Restoration she was granted a pension by Louis of 12,000 francs.
BkXXV:Chap4:Sec1 A favourite of Louis XVIII.
Ballanche, Monsieur
Father of Pierre-Simon. A printer
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Took over the printing rights to Le Génie in 1802.
Ballanche, Pierre Simon
1776-1847. A French philosopher, he was a frequenter of Mme Récamier’s salon. He was elected to the Académie française in 1842. He is regarded as the precursor of both liberal Catholicism and Romanticism. In Palingénésie (1827–32) he historically documented his belief in cyclical cultural rebirth. In addition to essays, Ballanche wrote didactic fiction, including a Christianized Antigone (1813) and L’Homme sans nom (1820).
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec1 A printer in Lyons in 1802 in his father’s business.
BkXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand met Ballanche again in Lyons in May 1803.
BkXV:Chap2:Sec1 His letter (17th September 1803) announcing Madame de Beaumont’s pending arrival in Rome.
BkXVII:Chap3:Sec1 BkXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Joined Chateaubriand on his trip to Mont-Blanc in 1805.
BkXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Travels to meet Madame de Chateaubriand in Venice in 1806.
BkXXVIII:Chap19:Sec1 His comment on Madame Récamier’s bankruptcy in 1806.
BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec2 His comment on Madame Récamier’s portrait of 1802.
BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec5 His associations with Lyons and friendship with Chateaubriand.
BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 He arrives in Dieppe in July 1830.
BkXXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned in 1831.
BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 A reference to his Essays on Social Palingenesis which was part-published but remained unfinished. Palingenesis was a term by which Ballanche referred to the successive regenerations of society, and he incorporated a progressive or evolutionary vision of Christianity in his work even as he insisted that Christianity was immutable.
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
The largest city in Maryland lies at the mouth of the Patapsco River. Established in 1729 it was named after the Barons Baltimore, one of whom George Calvert (c1580-1632) established Maryland. It contains the USA’s first Roman Catholic cathedral (1806-1821).
BkV:Chap15:Sec4 BkVI:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand sailed with a party of seminarists for there in April 1791.
BkVI:Chap6:Sec3 Chateaubriand arrived on Saturday the 9th July, 1791. The Saint-Marie seminary of Baltimore, from which the first Catholic diocese in the U. S. was founded (entrusted to Mgr John Caroll, an English Jesuit) was founded a few weeks later. It was the root of the Catholic American clergy, for half a century, and gave it a French colouring.
BkVI:Chap7:Sec1 Description of Baltimore.
BkVII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand left Baltimore for New-York.
BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.
Balue, Jean
c. 1421-1491. Correctly Cardinal La Balu, he was a French statesman, and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. A trusted adviser of the French king Louis XI, he saved Paris for the king during the revolt of the League of the Public Weal (1465). Subsequently he conspired with Charles the Bold of Burgundy against Louis and arranged the meeting of the two rulers at Péronne (1468), where Charles made Louis a prisoner. After his release Louis held Balue prisoner from 1469 to 1480, when the pope intervened. The legend that Balue was kept in an iron cage is unproved. Balue went to Rome, but in 1484 he returned temporarily to France as a papal legate.
BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bamberg
A town in Bavaria Germany, it is located in Upper Franconia on the river Regnitz, close to its confluence with the river Main. BkXXXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand passed through on the night of 1st/2nd of June 1833.
BkXLI:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand passed through again in late September 1833.
Ban and Arrière-ban
In French and Medieval English, a proclamation, whereby all that held lands of the crown, (except some privileged officers and citizens,) were summoned to meet at a certain place in order to serve the king in his wars, either personally, or by proxy. Also the vassals so summoned.
BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 Napoleon uses an ancient and monarchical term for levying troops.
BkXXV:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.
Baptiste, Nicolas Anselme
1761-1835. A famous French actor, he was one of a whole family of Baptistes who played all the parts. He was the elder son, but his father, younger brother, mother and wife all acted. Nicolas soon obtained public favour, especially in La Martellière’s Robert, chef de brigands, and as Count Almaviva in Bèaumarchais’ La Mere coupable. As he grew older his special forté lay in noble fathers. After a brilliant career of thirty-five years of uninterrupted service, he retired in 1828. But, after the revolution of 1830, when the Théâtre Français was in dire straits, the brothers Baptiste came to the rescue, reappeared on the stage and helped to restore its prosperity.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec3 Napoleon made his acquaintance.
Baptiste
He was valet de chambre and then plain valet to Chateaubriand.
BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1
BkXXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 In Prague in late September 1833.
Bar-sur-Aube, France
The town is on the River Aube east of Troyes.
BkXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Napoleon fighting there in 1814.
Barante, Césarine d’Houdetot, Baronne de
1794-1877. The wife of Claude-Ignace (married 1811).
BkXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Chateaubriand met her when she was a child of seven.
Barante, Claude-Ignace Brugière, Baron de
1745-1814. He was of a noble family of the Auvergne. Arrested March 1794 but survived the Terror. Prefect of the Aude under the Consulate, he was made prefect of Léman in 1803. He was charged with the surveillance of the ‘Coppet group’ around Madame de Staël, a task he carried out with tact, and befriended the group. He was made a Baron by Napoleon in 1810 but his laxity caused its revocation the same year, and he retired to his château to avoid compromising his son’s career.
BkXVII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.
Barante, Amable-Guillaume Prosper Brugière, Baron de
1782-1866. The son of Claude-Ignace. He had a long affair with Madame de Staël. On Napoleon’s return he held the prefecture of Nantes, which he immediately resigned. At the Second Restoration he was made Councillor of State and Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior. After becoming Director-General of Indirect Taxes, he was created in 1819 a Peer of France and was prominent among the Liberals. After the revolution of July 1830, he was appointed ambassador to Turin, and in 1835 to St Petersburg. Throughout Louis Philippe’s reign he supported the government; and after the fall of the monarchy, in February 1848, withdrew from political life and retired to his country seat in Auvergne. Shortly before his retirement he had been made grand cross of the Legion of Honour. Barante's Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois, which appeared in a series of volumes between 1824 and 1828, procured him immediate admission to the Académie Française.
BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.
Barattieri, Nicolò
fl: 1170-1190. An architect, he designed the Grand Canal and early bridges (1181) in Venice and erected the two columns (1172) from Constantinople in the Piazzetta.
BkXXXIX:Chap19:Sec1 His work on the Campanile. The first tower was completed in 1173. It was rebuilt after its collapse in 1902.
Barba, Gustave
Fl: 1820-1860. He was a French bookseller and publisher.
BkXXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned in July 1830.
Barbarini or Barberini, La
An Italian dancer, supposedly the only woman Frederick the Great ever showed an interest in (according to Voltaire and others). She was the wife of a minor court official.
BkXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Barbaroux, Charles
1767-1794. An advocate, born at Marseilles, of which he became town-clerk, he came to Paris ‘a young Spartan’ and became leader of the Girondins in the French Revolution; he represented Marseilles in the Constituent Assembly and the Convention; declared an enemy of the people, and forced to flee, he mistook an approaching company for Jacobins, drew his pistol and shot himself, but the shot miscarried; he was captured and guillotined.
BkXLII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia Aikin
1743-1825. Biographer, Children’s Writer, Dissenter, Editor, Educationalist, Essayist, Feminist, Literary Critic, Literary Historian, Poet, Prose Writer, Reformer, Teacher.
BkXII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned as a popular authoress.
Barbara of Habsburg, Archduchess
1539-1572. She married Alfonso II d’Este in December 1565.
BkXL:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Barcarola, Nina
She was an Italian singer, in Rome in 1647.
BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Barcelona, Spain
The second largest city in Spain, it is the capital of Catalonia and the province with the same name. It is located in the comarca of Barcelonès, along the Mediterranean coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs.
BkXXVII:Chap7:Sec1 In October 1821 there was an outbreak of yellow fever there. The French sent medical aid but also used it as a pretext to deploy troops along the Rousillon frontier. The Spanish liberal party denounced this cordon sanitaire.’
Barcelonnette, France
The headquarters of the Sous-Prefecture des Départements Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, is situated some 44miles east of Gap in the Ubaye valley. The small town lies in mountain country, surrounded by fruit fields and meadows. The roads to the south lead over the well-known passes of Col d’Allos, Col de la Cayolle and Col de la Bonnete; the latter, 9,196ft above sea-level, is the highest pass in the Alps.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec2 Napoleon’s arrest warrant was signed there, dated 6th August 1794.
Barclay de Tolly, Prince Michael Andreas
1761-1818 A Russian field marshal, of Scottish descent, he gained prominence in the Napoleonic Wars, became minister of war in 1810, and commanded the Russian forces against Napoleon in 1812. His policy of continuous retreat into the heart of Russia and his defeat at Smolensk (August 17–18) resulted in his being replaced by Kutuzov, but his successor, recognizing the soundness of the strategy, followed the same policy. After Kutuzov’s death (1813) he again commanded the Russian forces and distinguished himself at Leipzig and in the capture of Paris.
BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Napoleon’s comment on him in June 1812.
BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Toppled by Court intrigue.
Barèges, France
A town in the Hautes-Pyrénées, known for its mineral waters.
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1807.
Barentin, Charles-Louis-François de Paule de
1738-1819. Last Keeper of the Seals under Louis XVI. He emigrated in 1789.
BkX:Chap6:Sec2 Chateaubriand wrote to him on behalf of Hingant in 1793.
Barère (Barrère) De Vieuzac, Bertrand
1755-1841. A member of the Revolutionary National Assembly and of the Convention, he became a radical, voting for the execution of Louis XVI. He was a member of, and often the spokesman for, the Committee of Public Safety, the body that ruled France for a time during the Revolutionary Wars. When the moderates in the Convention turned against Maximilien Robespierre, one of the leaders of the committee and perpetrator of the Reign of Terror (June, 1794), Barère deserted his colleague. Nevertheless, Barère was imprisoned for his role in the Terror. Escaping from prison, he remained in hiding for several years but reappeared as a secret agent of Emperor Napoleon I. Banished (1815) after the Bourbon restoration, he returned in the reign of Louis Philippe. He left memoirs.
BkV:Chap2:Sec 2 His flippancy regarding the guillotine.
BkIX:Chap6:Sec2 BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him in 1792.
BkX:Chap8:Sec2 His role as spokesman.
BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 His arrest in 1795.
Barillon d’Amoncourt, Paul, Marquis de Branges
1630-1691. French ambassador to England from 1677 to 1688, his dispatches to Louis XIV have been useful to historians of the period, though an expected bias may be present. With the conquest of England by William of Orange, Louis XIV's most implacable enemy, Barillon was expelled from England and war soon commenced between the two kingdoms.
BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 His despatches from England.
Barnage, Monsieur
He was a lawyer of Rheims, in 1825.
BkXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 A pamphlet of his on the Coronation (unknown.)
Barrande, Joachim
1797-1833. An engineer he was Henri V’s principal teacher. He remained in Bohemia when Baron Damas ceased to be the Prince’s tutor, and won a reputation as a mineralogist.
BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 In Prague in 1833.
BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand takes his part.
BkXXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 Fallen from grace in late 1833.
Barras, Paul François Jean Nicholas, Vicomte de
1755-1829. A French revolutionary, of a noble family, he joined the Jacobins in the Revolution and was a member of the Convention. He participated in the reprisals against counter-revolutionaries in Toulon after the recapture of the city from the British (1793). Having turned against the revolutionary dictator Maximilien Robespierre, Barras was a leader of the coup against him on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794). As commander of Paris, he suppressed a royalist uprising on 13 Vendémiaire (Oct. 5, 1795) by turning the troops over to a young officer, Napoleon Bonaparte. Subsequently, Barras became (1795) a member of the Directory. He was notorious for his corruption and ostentation. During Napoleon’s coup of 18 Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), Barras consented to resign from the Directory, thus contributing to Napoleon’s success. After the coup, he lost prominence.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 One of the Representatives who ordered the siege of Toulon in 1793.
BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 A friend of Josephine de Beauharnais in 1795.
BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 Appointed Director of the Paris armed forces and the interior in 1795. He witnessed Napoleon’s marriage in 1796. He effectively gave Napoleon command in Italy as Josephine’s dowry.
BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Apparently opposed to Napoleon on the latter’s return to France from Egypt.
Barrême
A village in the Alpes de Haute Provence in the south of France, it is about 30 kilometres from Digne.
BkXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Napoleon passed through in March 1815 during his return from Elba.
.
Barrois, Colonel
Commander of the 96th Infantry Regiment (Line)
BkXVI:Chap2:Sec3 A member of the commission which tried the Duc d’Enghien in 1804.
Barrot, Camille Hyacinthe Odilon
1791-1873. French political leader. An opponent of the Bourbon restoration, he aided the July Revolution (1830), but he was disappointed in the bourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe. He became a leader of the parliamentary opposition to the July Monarchy and participated in banquets used to spread propaganda against the conservative government. He was a moderate in the February Revolution of 1848, which deposed Louis Philippe and established a republic. During the presidency of Louis Napoleon (later Emperor Napoleon III), he briefly headed (1849) the cabinet but was dismissed when Louis Napoleon replaced his legislative advisers with a personal cabinet. Under the Third Republic he was (1872–73) president of the council of state. Some of his writings were collected as Mémoires posthumes (1875–76).
BkXXIII:Chap2:Sec1 A Royalist at one time.
BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Involved in the July Revolution of 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Appointed secretary of the Municipal Commission on 29th July 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Sent by Lafayette to the Chamber of Deputies.
BkXXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Appointed as one of the three Commissioners charged with escorting Charles X to Cherbourg in 1830.
Barry, Marie-Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du
1743-1793. Last of the mistresses of Louis XV. Although she exercised little political influence at the French court, her unpopularity contributed to the decline of the prestige of the crown in the early 1770s. She was born the illegitimate daughter of lower-class parents. After a convent education, she worked as a shop assistant, under the name Jeanne Vaubernier, in a fashion house in Paris. While there she became the mistress of Jean du Barry, a Gascon nobleman who had made a fortune as a war contractor. He introduced her into Parisian high society, and her beauty captivated a succession of nobly born lovers before she attracted Louis XV’s attention in 1768. She could not qualify as official royal mistress (maîtresse en titre), a position vacant since the death of Madame de Pompadour in 1764, unless she was married to a noble. Hence, Du Barry arranged a nominal marriage between Jeanne and his brother, Guillaume du Barry; in April 1769 she joined Louis XV’s court. The Comtesse immediately joined the faction that brought about the downfall of Louis XV’s powerful minister of foreign affairs, the Duke de Choiseul, in December 1770; and she then supported the drastic judicial reforms instituted by her friend the chancellor René-Nicolas de Maupeou, in 1771. She spent much of her time on the estates that Louis had given her near Louveciennes, where she earned a reputation as a generous patron of the arts. On the death of Louis XV (May 1774) and the accession of Louis XVI, Madame du Barry was banished to a nunnery; from 1776 until the outbreak of the Revolution she lived on her estates with the Duke de Brissac. In 1792 she made several trips to London, probably to give financial aid to French émigrés. Condemned as a counter-revolutionary by the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris in December 1793, she was guillotined.
BkV:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1
Mentioned.
Barthe, Félix
1795-1863. A liberal lawyer, he was Minister of Justice 1831-1834, a Peer of France, and a Senator of the Second Republic.
BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 His advice sought in July 1830.
BkXXXV:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 Justice Minister in 1832.
Barthélemy, Auguste
1796-1867. A French poet from Marseilles he published a weekly verse satire (27th March 1831 to 31st April 1832), with his compatriot Méry, under the title Nemesis, prompted by a line of Chénier’s. It was directed at the Legitimists as well as those who profited from the new regime. The lines addressing Chateaubriand were from 6th November 1831. The 52 poems were published in 1832. Lamartine responded to them in July 1831, and the government.
BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him.
Barthélemy, Jean-Jacques, Abbé
1716-1795. A French writer and numismatist who while studying for the priesthood, which he intended to join, devoted much attention to oriental languages, and the study of classical antiquities, particularly in the department of numismatics. In 1744 he went to Paris with a letter of introduction to M. Gros de Boze, perpetual secretary of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres and keeper of the royal collection of medals. He became assistant to M. de Boze. In 1753, upon the death of de Boze, he succeeded to the post and remained in this position until the Revolution. In 1755 he accompanied the, French ambassador, M. de Stainville, afterwards duc de Choiseul, to Italy, where he spent three years in archaeological research. After the fall of his friend Choiseul (1770), Barthélemy followed him into exile at Chanteloup, near Amboise, where unlike the abbés de cour he was busily engaged in polishing his elaborate literary productions. In 1789, after the publication of his Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce dans le milieu du IVe siècle, he was elected a member of the French Academy. During the Revolution Barthélemy was arrested (September, 1793) as an aristocrat and confined in a prison for a few days. The Committee of Public Safety, however, were no sooner informed by the duchess of Choiseul of the arrest than they gave orders for his immediate release, and in 1793 he was nominated librarian of the Bibliothèque Nationale. He refused this post but resumed his old functions as keeper of medals, and enriched the national collection by many valuable accessions. Having been despoiled of his fortune by the Revolution, he died in poverty.
BkIX:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him in Paris in1792.
Bartholoni, Messieurs
Two brothers, they were clerks to the Comte de La Panouse. François (1796-1881) financed the creation, from 1835, of the Conservatoire of Geneva, and was involved in industrial and financial projects during the July Monarchy and the Second Empire.
BkXXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bartoli, Daniele, le Père
1635-1685. He was an Italian Jesuit.
BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Ferrara.
Bartalozzi, Francesco
1727-1815. A Florentine engraver, he studied in Rome and then Venice under Joseph Wagner. After a visit to Rome he returned to Venice and started his own business, and in 1764 left for London to be the King's Engraver, after being contracted by the Keeper of the King's Drawings and Medals. This contract ended in 1767, which is also when he began publishing colour prints, and continued to work with the Keeper of the King’s Drawings. His reputation was such that he was one of the five foreign original members of the Royal Academy in 1768. In 1802 he went to Lisbon as the Director of the National Academy at the invitation of the Prince Regent and died there in 1815.
BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec2 His engraving of Madame Récamier in 1802.
Bartram, William
1739-1823. An American naturalist, born in Philadelphia he was the son of John Bartram. He is known chiefly for his Travels (1791), in which he describes his journey (1773-77) through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida and areas to the west. His book vividly portrays the plants and wildlife of the country and lists 215 native birds, the most complete list of that time. His influence is seen in the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Chateaubriand, and other writers who found his book an unexcelled source of descriptions of the American wilderness and its inhabitants.
BkVIII:Chap2:Sec1 His travels.
Basil, Saint
c330-379. A hermit before becoming Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370, he was a leading opponent of the Arian heresy.
BkIV:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to the Letters.
Basil II, the Bulgar-Slayer
958-1025. Byzantine Emperor from 976.
BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Not Basil III as stated.
Basiliscus, Saint
St. Basiliscus of Comana was from Asia Minor (Turkish), a bishop, he was martyred by beheading in 312.
BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 Mentioned.
Basel, Switzerland
The city and canton, of northern Switzerland, it borders on France and Germany. The canton is bounded in the north by the Rhine River (which becomes navigable in the canton) and in the south by the Jura Mountains. Its inhabitants are German-speaking and Protestant. The canton has been divided since 1833 into two independent half cantons, Basel-Land generally comprising the rural districts, with its capital at Liestal, and Basel-Stadt virtually coextensive with the city of Basel.
BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap12:Sec1
Mentioned.
BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec2 Chateaubriand there in August 1832. He had previously passed through in July 1826 on his way from Lausanne to Paris.
BkXXXVI:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand arrived in Basel on the 17th of May 1833. The inn on the banks of the Rhine, the Drei Könige, the Three Kings, was first mentioned in 1681. The present building dares from 1844, when it re-opened as the French Les Trois Rois.
BkXXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand alludes to the schism in the Canton of Basel in 1833 whereby the Bourgeois opposed ‘Regeneration’ while the countryside favoured the new constitution.
Basle L’Ermite, Saint Basilus the Hermit
c555-620 A hermit and miracles worker, born in Limoges, France. He became a monk in Reims, and then entered a hermitage. He spent forty years on a hill overlooking Reims.
BkIX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.
Baslé, Jean
Gardener at Saint-Servan in 1798.
BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Signed the death certificate of Chateaubriand’s mother.
Bassano, Duc de, See Maret.
Bassompierre, François Baron de, Marshal of France
1579-1646. Under Henry IV he distinguished himself in the army and as a courtier, and after Henry’s death remained loyal to the queen, Marie de' Medici, during her regency. Subsequently he was ambassador to Spain, England, and Switzerland, and fought against the Huguenots in 1621-22 and 1627-28. Because of his opposition to Cardinal Richelieu and his alleged part in an intrigue he was imprisoned (1631) in the Bastille until after the cardinal's death (1643). During his captivity he wrote his Mémoires.
BkIV:Chap8:Sec2 BkIV:Chap8:Sec4 Chateaubriand quotes an edited extract from the Mémoires.
BkXXXVII:Chap8:Sec1 See the Memoirs. The young widow was named Anna-Esther Percherstoris, the date was 1604.
BkXXXVII:Chap14:Sec1 Quoted. See the Memoirs.
Bastide, Jules
1800-1870. He succeeded Carrel at the National in 1834, before becoming Foreign Minister under Cavaignac in 1848.
BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 At the Tuileries on 29th July 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap16:Sec1 At the Palais-Royal on the 31st of July 1830.
Bastille
On May 5, 1789, the King convened the Estates General to hear their complaints, but the assembly of the Third Estate, representing the citizens of the town, soon broke away and formed the Constituent National Assembly. On June 20, the deputies of the Third Estate took the oath of the Jeu de Paume ‘to not separate until the Constitution had been established.’ The Deputies’ opposition was echoed by public opinion. The people of Paris decided to march on the Bastille, a state prison that symbolized the absolutism and arbitrariness of the Ancien Regime. The storming of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, immediately became a symbol of historical dimensions; it was proof that power no longer resided in the King or in God, but in the people, in accordance with the theories developed by the Philosophes of the 18th century.
BkI:Chap1:Sec5. BkV:Chap10:Sec1 BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkV:Chap3:Sec1 BkV:Chap15:Sec3 Among the Bretons imprisoned in the Bastille in July 1788 and released in the September when Loménie de Brienne was dismissed, were the Comte de Trémargat, the Chevalier de Guer, and the Marquis de la Rouërie.
BkV:Chap8:Sec2 Chateaubriand witnessed the taking of the Bastille on the 14th July 1789.
BkV:Chap9:Sec1 The impact of the Bastille’s fall on the Court.
BkII:Chap7:Sec5 Washington showed his guests a key from the Bastille.
BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 The cleared site in 1814.
BkXXII:Chap18:Sec1 On November 15, 1591, during the troubles of the League, the castle was surrendered to the forces of the Duke of Mayenne. It was returned to Royal hands on March 22, 1594, when Du Bourg, who had been given command of the castle, capitulated to Marshal de Matignon.
Bathurst, Allen, 1st Lord
1684-1775. Member of Parliament for Cirencester, he was an opponent of Walpole. The earl associated with the poets and scholars of the time. He is described in Sterne’s Letters to Eliza; was the subject of a graceful reference on the part of Burke speaking in the House of Commons; and the letters which passed between him and Pope are published in Pope's Works, vol. viii. (London, 1872).
BkXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 See Letters to Eliza: March 1767.
Bathurst, Henry, 3rd Earl
1762-1834. A British statesman, he was Member of Parliament for Cirencester from 1783 until he succeeded to the earldom in 1794. Mainly as a result of his friendship with William Pitt, he was a lord of the Admiralty (1783-89), a lord of the Treasury (1789-91), and commissioner of the Board of Control for India (1793-1802). Returning to office with Pitt in May 1804, he became Master of the Mint and was President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint during the ministries of the Duke of Portland and Spencer Perceval, vacating these posts in June 1812 to become secretary for war and the colonies under the Earl of Liverpool, until Liverpool resigned in 1827 and he deserves some credit for improving the conduct of the Peninsular War. As Secretary for the Colonies, Bathurst was closely concerned with the abolition of the slave trade. He was Lord President of the council in the government of the Duke of Wellington from 1828 to 1830, favouring Roman Catholic emancipation but opposing the Reform Bill of 1832. It was he who took over as interim Foreign Secretary after Castlereagh’s suicide.
BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 He spoke in the House of Lords on 18th May 1817 opposing a motion concerning Napoleon’s complaints about condition on St Helena.
BkXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 A portrait of him.
BkXXVII:Chap9:Sec1 Temporarily Foreign Secretary after Castlereagh’s suicide.
Bathurst, Rosa
d 1824 aged 16. The ‘young Englishwoman’ mentioned was a daughter of Sir Benjamin Bathurst, (former Ambassador Extraordinary to Vienna, who vanished mysteriously at Perleberg in Prussia in November 1809, aged 26) who drowned in the Tiber in March 1824 when out riding.
BkXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.
Baude, Jean-Jacques, Baron
1792-1862. Editor of Le Temps, Prefect of Police (1830), he was a Deputy (1830-139 and 1840-1846), Counsellor of State, and Director-General of Bridges, Roads and Mines briefly in 1830.
BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1 He defended the freedom of the Press in 1830. When the Police commissioner arrived to seize the news-presses of Le Temps, he locked the doors and read the Penal Code, enshrining public freedoms, from the window to the crowd below.
BkXXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Active on the 29th of July 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Named as Commissioner for the Interior of the Municipal Commission, 29th July 1830.
BkXXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 He drafted the original proposition regarding the banishment of Charles X and his family.
Baudin (Baudain), Nicolas-Thomas, Captain
1754-1803. After a career in merchant shipping, and in the navy during the American War of Independence he captained ships taking Austrian botanists to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In October 1800 he was selected to lead an expedition to map the coast of Australia. He had two ships, Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste (Captain Hamelin), and was accompanied by nine zoologists and botanists, including Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour. He reached Australia in May 1801, and in April 1802 met Matthew Flinders, also engaged in charting the coastline, in Encounter Bay. Baudin then stopped at the British colony at Sydney for supplies. In Sydney he bought a new ship — Casurina — named after the wood it was made from. From there he sent home Le Naturaliste, which had on board all of the specimens that had been discovered by Baudin and his crew. He then headed for Tasmania, before continuing north to Timor. Baudin then sailed for home, stopping at Mauritius, where he died of tuberculosis.t-two year-old in 1800.
BkXX:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.
Baudus, Marie-Élie-Guillaume de
1786-1858. Lieutenant-Colonel, he was aide-de-camp to Soult. He was aide-de-camp to Bessières in Moscow in 1812. Put on half-pay after Waterloo he was re-appointed in 1816. He wrote his Études sur Napoleon (1841).
BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXI:Chap4:Sec2 Quoted and referenced.
Bauffremont-Courtenay, Théodore-Paul-Alexandre, Prince de
1793-1853. Aide du camp to the Duc de Berry, then the Duc de Bordeaux, he had been a Lieutenant-Colonbel of Cavalry, resigning in 1830.
BkXXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 He married Élisabeth de Montmorency in 1819.
BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 In Linz September 1833.
BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 At Bustehrad, Prague, 27th of September 1833.
Bauffremont-Courtenay, Anne-Élisabeth-Laurence de Montmorency, Princesse de
1802-1860. The wife of Théodore, and daughter of the Duc de Montmorency.
BkXXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 She agreed to accompany the Duchess de Berry to Prague if her husband might join her.
BkXXXIX:Chap20:Sec1 BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 Her arrival in Venice in September 1833.
BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 Travelling via Linz to Prague in September 1833.
BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 At Bustehrad, Prague, 27th of September 1833.
Bautzen, Battle of
The battle fought on May 21, 1813, resulted in a French victory by Napoléon over Prussia under Blücher and Russia under Wittgenstein.
BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bavaria, Maximilian I Joseph, Prince Elector, then King of
1756-1825. King of Bavaria 1895-1825, his second marriage, in 1797, was to Karoline von Baden (1776-1841).
BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bavaria, Ludwig I, King of
1786-1868. Son of Maximilian, he was King of Bavaria 1825-1848.
Bavoux, Jacques-François-Nicholas
1774-1848. Professor at the Law Faculty and a Paris Deputy, he held the Police Post for only 48 hours in July 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Appointed to the Police Department by the Municipal Commission, 29th July 1830.
Bayard, Pierre du Terrail, Chevalier de
1475-1524. The French knight and national hero, was renowned for his bravery. He has become the outstanding type of chivalry and was known as the knight sans peur et sans reproche (without fear and without reproach).
BkXI:Chap3:Sec2 BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Page to the Duke of Savoy in his youth.
BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Quoted from the Memoirs of Martin Du Bellay.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 He was present at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512. His biography composed by Le Loyal Serviteur his secretary Jacques de Mailles is dated 1527.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 BkXXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 The reference is to Bayard as reported in Le Loyal Serviteur. His mother was Hélène Alleman, of a noble family, whose brother Laurent was the Bishop of Grenoble.
Bayle, Pierre
1647-1706. The French philosopher and critic, is considered the progenitor of 18th-century rationalism, he compiled the famous Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) and championed the cause of religious tolerance.
BkXIII:Chap10:Sec2 His criticism of Spinoza’s pantheism
Bayle, Moïse
1755-c1811/13. Elected to the National Convention (1792-1795) as a deputy for the department of Bouches-du-Rhône; he served on the committees for commerce and legislation; and voted for the death sentence at the trial of Louis XVI, demanding that the king be executed within 24 hours; appointed a member of the Comité de sûreté générale (Committee of General Security) (14 Sep 1793 - 1 Sep 1794) he served as President of the National Convention (22 Oct 1793 - 6 Nov 1793). Proscribed after the assassination attempt on Napoleon (24 Dec 1800), he went into exile in Switzerland, returning in 1803 and died in obscurity.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.
Baylis, Thomas
A London printer who lodged Chateaubriand and printed the Essai. Cox and Baylis were located at 75 Great Queen Street, in Holborn, near Lincoln Inn’s Fields. Edward Cox owned the printing press used by Benjamin Franklin when he worked for Watts, which was sold to Philadelphia’s Philosophical Society in 1830. Cox and Baylis specialised in French works and the printing house was a meeting place for émigrés. They also printed Cobbett’s work, and were later printers to the Royal Asiatic Society.
BkX:Chap5:Sec1 BkX:Chap6:Sec1 Contracted to print the Essai, subject to a promise of reimbursement for poor sales.
BkX:Chap6:Sec2 Printing suspended, and Chateaubriand moves lodging.
BkX:Chap7:Sec1 Peltier suggests Chateaubriand continues writing the Essai.
BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 The Essai was printed in 1797 and appeared on the 18th of March.
Bayonne (Bayona)
A town in south-west France, at the confluence of the Rivers Adour and Nive, it is the chief port of the Basque country. (Formerly famous for it sword and knife making, the bayonet was developed there in the 17thcentury)
BkI:Chap1:Sec9 Chateaubriand’s father in transit there.
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1807.
BkXX:Chap7:Sec1 The Treaty of Bayonne of May 1808 sent the Spanish royal family into exile and brought Joseph to the throne of Spain.
Bayreuth, Bavaria
A town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main River in a valley between the Frankish Alb and the Fichtelgebirge, it is the capital of Upper Franconia.
BkXXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand there 2nd June 1833.
Bazancourt, Colonel
He was Commander of the 4th Regiment Light Infantry.
BkXVI:Chap2:Sec3 A member of the commission which tried the Duc d’Enghien in 1804.
Bazouches-la-Pérouse
A small town near Combourg.
BkIII:Chap13:Sec1 Doctor Cheftel lived there.
Beatrice
1266-1290. Bice, or Beatrice Portinari was the daughter of Folco de’ Portinari, who died in 1288. She died young in June of 1290. Dante first saw her as a child of eight, in May 1274, when he was nine years old and she was eight. His love for her inspired the Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy. In his works she personifies Divine Philosphy.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Canova regarded Madame Récamier as her embodiment.
Beattie, James
1735-1803. A Scottish poet and essayist, he was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and later became professor of moral philosophy there. His fame in his own lifetime rested on two works, Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770), an attack on Hume, and The Minstrel, or the Progress of Genius (1771–74), an autobiographical poem in Spenserian stanzas. In describing the formation of a poet’s mind, The Minstrel emphasizes the effect of nature; the poem influenced the 19th-century romantics, particularly Byron.
BkXII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned. His health worsened after losing his younger son in 1796. Both his sons died of tuberculosis.
BkXII:Chap4:Sec1 Influence of The Minstrel on Byron.
Beaufort, Seigneury and Sires of
BkI:Chap1:Sec4 BkI:Chap1:Sec8 A branch of the Chateaubriand Family. Note Briant de Chateaubriand (born about 1240), son of Geoffroy IV, married Jeanne de Beaufort (about 1257). Note also Jean de Chateaubriad (c1531) and François de Chateaubriand, both Seigneurs de Beaufort.
BkI:Chap3:Sec1 The Lordship of Beaufort passed to the Goyon family.
Beauharnais, Alexandre, Vicomte de
1760-1794. A French general, born in Martinique, he fought with the colonials in the American Revolution and, as a supporter of the French Revolution, was a commander in the French Revolutionary Wars. A moderate member of the National Assembly, he was guillotined in the Reign of Terror. His widow later became the empress Josephine.
BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 Married to Josephine in 1779.
Beauharnais, Marie-Josèphe-Rose de Tascher, Vicomtesse de
See Joséphine.
Beauharnais, Eugène de
Son of Josephine. See Prince Eugène.
Beauharnais, Hortense de
Daughter of Josephine. See Queen Hortense.
Beaujolais, Louis Charles, d’Orléans, Comte de
1799-1808. The youngest brother of Louis-Philippe.
BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec2 Madame Récamier meets him at the Opera in 1802.
Beaulieu, Jean-Pierre, General de
1725-1819. Austrian general who retired in 1796 after a series of defeats in Italy against Bonaparte.
BkXIX:Chap12:Sec1 The Italian Campaign of 1796.
Beaulieu, Geoffroy de
13th century. He was Confessor to Saint Louis of France, and wrote a life of the King.
BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron de
1732-1799. The French dramatist was the author of Le Mariage de Figaro (1778) which inspired operas by Mozart and Rossini. He undertook secret missions abroad for Louis XV and Louis XVI, supplied arms to the American revolutionaries and sponsored the first edition of Voltaire’s works.
BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 Mentioned.
BkV:Chap3:Sec1 The stir caused by the Mariage de Figaro.
BkV:Chap14:Sec1 The third part of his Figaro trilogy, La Mère coupable, or L’autre Tartuffe was first performed in June 1792.
Beaumont, Christophe de
1703-1781. Archbishop of Paris from 1746 to 1781, he opposed the Encyclopedists, with little success. His pastoral letter against Émile earned him a famous response from Rousseau in 1762.
BkXIII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.
Beaumont, Pauline-Marie-Michelle-Frédérique-Ulrique de Montmorin-Saint-Hérem, Comtesse de
1768-4th November 1803. A close friend of Chateaubriand, she had married Comte Christophe de Beaumont, nephew of the Archbishop of Paris, in 1786 but had soon separated from him and they were formally divorced in 1800. During the Terror she took refuge in Burgundy, and met Joubert who probably introduced her to Chateaubriand in March 1801.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Description and relationship.
BkXIII:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 Invited Chateaubriand to Savigny in 1801.
BkXIII:Chap9:Sec1 Monsieur Julien loaned her his box at the theatre.
BkXIV:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 She was moving towards death in the spring of 1803, which influenced Chateaubriand’s acceptance of the Rome appointment.
BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Bertin witnessed her death with Chateaubriand.
BkXV:Chap1:Sec1 Her will, dated 5th May 1802, opened the day after her death 5th December 1803. The circumstances surrounding her death.
BkXV:Chap2:Sec1 Her journey to Italy in September 1803.
BkXV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXVII:Chap3:Sec1 BkXVII:Chap3:Sec2 Her death.
BkXV:Chap5:Sec1 Her funeral. Chateaubriand slightly misquotes an epitaph from the Palatine Anthology, VII:346, on Sabinus.
BkXV:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 Letters of regret concerning her.
BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Her cypress tree in Paris.
BkXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Her former circle.
BkXVII:Chap6:Sec1 The effect of her death on Lucile.
BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 She lived in the Yonne valley in 1795.
BkXX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap9:Sec1 Her death recalled.
BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand visited her tomb which he had erected, in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, on the 4th of November 1828.
BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1
Mentioned.
Beaumont, Gustave-Auguste de, see Montmorin
Beaumont, Baron de
The Sub-Prefect of Calvi, he was the author of Observations on Corsica, 1822.
BkXIX:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
Beausset-Roquefort, correctly Bausset, Louis François Joseph, Baron de
1770-1833. Prefect of the Imperial Palace, he wrote Mémoires anecdotiques sur l’intérieur du palais et sur quelques événemens de l’empire depuis 1805, jusqu’au 1er Mai 1814 pour servir à l’histoire de Napoléon.
BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Visits Napoleon in Russia in 1812.
Beausset, for Bausset, Louis François, Cardinal de
1748-1824. The French cardinal, writer, and statesman, was born at Pondichery, where his father held an administrative position. He became Bishop of Alais, in Languedoc, in 1784. Although a prominent member of the Assembly of Notables of Languedoc in 1786 and in 1788, he was not delegated to the États Généraux of 1789. In 1791, Bausset was one of the first bishops who endorsed the ‘Exposition of Principles on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy’. He declined to take the oath and went to Switzerland. Returning to France in 1792, he was incarcerated, but set free when Robespierre fell (9 Thermidor). He then returned to Villemoison, where he began his literary career. After the Concordat of 1801 Bausset cheerfully resigned his see into the hands of Pius VII. Ill health prevented his appointment to one of the newly-formed sees, but Napoleon made him a canon of St. Denis (1806) and a member of the council of the University of France (1808). Under the Restoration, he became president of the University council and peer of the realm (1815); Member of the French Academy (1816); Cardinal (1817), and Minister of State (1821). His valuable library and manuscripts were bequeathed to St. Sulpice. He wrote Accounts of Fénelon (1808) and Bossuet (1815).
BkXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 His letter to Chateaubriand of 1811.
Beauvau, Charles-Juste, Duc de
1720-1793. Marshal of France, Member of the Academy, Minister of Louis XVI (1789).
BkIV:Chap9:Sec2 The King’s hunting ground in the forest of Saint-Germain leased by him to the King.
Beccles, England
The market town is in eastern England, in Suffolk, south-east of Norwich.
BkX:Chap7:Sec1 The parson, an antiquarian. Chateaubriand sets out to meet him, with the possibility of translation work to follow. Chateaubriand resided there for a few years.
BkX:Chap9:Sec1 BkX:Chap9:Sec2 Six miles from Bungay.
Bécherel
A medieval fortress town in Brittany.
BkI:Chap6:Sec2 Once part of the Forest of Broceliande.
BkI:Chap7:Sec3 Visible from Combourg.
Becker, correctly Beker, Nicholas-Léonard Baget, Comte de Mons
1770-1840. A Revolutionary General, Desaix’s brother-in-law, he was in 1809 the Governor of Belle-Île. In 1815, he helped organize the defence of Paris after Waterloo and took command of the troops guarding the Chamber of Peers. On 25 June 1815, the Provisional Government appointed him to command of the troops assigned to escort Napoleon to the coast. Beker accompanied Napoleon to Rochefort and Aix before returning to Paris.
BkXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Left Malmaison with Napoleon on 29th June 1815.
Bedée, Ange-Annibal de, Seigneur de la Bouëtardais
1696-1761. Maternal grandfather of Chateaubriand. Died January 1761.
BkI:Chap1:Sec11 Mentioned.
Bedée, Bénigne-Jeanne-Marie de Ravenel du Boisteilleul
1698-1795 The wife of Ange-Annibal, she was born at Rennes 16th October 1698. She was the maternal grandmother of Chateaubriand.
BkI:Chap1:Sec11 Educated at Saint-Cyr.
BkI:Chap3:Sec1 Her property around Corseul and Plancoët.
BkI:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand went to stay with her, at the age of seven.
Bedée, Apolline-Jeanne-Suzanne de
The daughter of Ange-Annibal, she was sister to Marie Ginguené. She was Chateaubriand’s mother. See Apolline Chateaubriand
Bedée, Caroline de
1762-1849 Daughter of Marie-Antoine-Bénigne de Bedée, and cousin of Chateaubriand, who corresponded with her throughout his life.
BkI:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkXI:Chap6:Sec1 A description of her.
Bedée, Claude-Marie-Jeanne de
1765-1815. Daughter of Marie-Antoine-Bénigne de Bedée, and cousin of Chateaubriand.
BkI:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bedée, Flore de, Dame de Blossac
1766-1851. Daughter of Marie-Antoine-Bénigne de Bedée, and cousin of Chateaubriand, who corresponded with her throughout his life.
BkI:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bedée, Marie-Angélique-Fortunée-Cecile-Renée Ginguené de Lévenière, Madame de
1729-1823 Wife of Marie-Antoine-Bénigne de Bedée, and aunt of Chateaubriand. Married 17th November 1756.
BkI:Chap4:Sec2 BkX:Chap3:Sec3 BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bedée, Marie-Annibal-Joseph de, Comte de La Bouëtardais
1758-1809. Son of Marie-Antoine-Bénigne de Bedée, and cousin of Chateaubriand. He was a councillor of the Parlement de Bretagne, and a colleague there of Jean-Baptiste de Chateaubriand, and later a companion in London, as an émigré, of Chateaubriand himself.
BkI:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkX:Chap4:Sec1 BkX:Chap6:Sec2 BkXXVII:Chap3:Sec1
BkXXXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand shared lodgings with him in London in May 1793. He died in poverty, in London, but not till 1809.
BkX:Chap7:Sec1 Dragged off to dine with Peltier et al.
BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Married Agathe Gilart in London 25th March 1799.
Bedée, Marie-Antoine-Bénigne, Comte de
1727-1807 Son of Ange-Annibal, he was maternal uncle of Chateaubriand, emigrant, in Jersey, 1792-1804.
BkI:Chap3:Sec1 He built the Chateau of Monchoix at Plancoët, and settled there after the death of his father in January 1761. His mother and her sister Suzanne-Émilie lodged in what is now part of the village at 43 Rue de l’Abbaye (the house is extant).
BkI:Chap4:Sec2 Description of his establishment.
BkII:Chap10:Sec2 Chateaubriand visits him in 1783-4.
BkV:Chap7:Sec1 Present at the Brittany States in December 1788.
BkIX:Chap1:Sec1 With Chateaubriand’s mother at Saint-Malo in January 1792.
BkIX:Chap2:Sec1 Emigrated to Jersey in July 1792.
BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 Chateaubriand decided to try and join him in Jersey.
BkX:Chap3:Sec1 BkX:Chap3:Sec3 Chateaubriand joins him in Jersey in November 1792.
BkX:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand lodges in London with his son, Marie-Annibal.
BkX:Chap6:Sec2 He passes Chateaubriand a gift of money from his family.
BkX:Chap8:Sec1 He informs Chateaubriand of his relatives’ suffering during the Terror.
BkXI:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s farewell to his uncle.
Bedford, John Russell, 6th Duke of
1766-1839. Duke of Bedford (1802-1839), like most of the Russells, he was a Whig in politics, and served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the Whig government of 1806–1807. He became, as did many of his party, strong followers of Bonapartism, opposed the Peninsular War believing that it neither could nor should be won. He funded, along with his son, many anti-war publications.
BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 He fought a duel in Kensington Gardens with the Duke of Buckingham on the 2nd of May 1822. Neither was injured.
Beethoven, Ludvig van
1770-1827. The great German composer, born in Bonn. He studied with Haydn in Vienna, and settled there in 1792. About 600 of his works survive, including symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas and concertos.
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to a letter of 2nd November 1793 to Éléonore de Breuning.
Beguinage
A House of Beguines. The Beguines are members of a Netherlands lay sisterhood not bound by vows, founded by Lambert Bègue in 1180.
BkXXIII:Chap7:Sec1 The Old Great Beguinage of St. Elisabeth in Ghent was founded in 1234, thanks to a yearly interest donated by Countess Johanna of Constantinople. It grew into a ‘Beguine city’ with a church, a chapel, a communal house, an infirmary, eighteen ‘convents’ or houses, and 103 houses. There is still one street left with a couple of buildings, and the Church, dedicated to St. Elisabeth of Hungary (the oldest part of this church is from the 13th century). The Small Beguinage was founded a year after the Great one, in 1235, and it is situated in the ‘Lange Violettenstraat’, the ‘long street of violets’. Because it was built next to the hayfields of the abbey ‘Nonnenbos’ (forest of the nuns), it was called Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-ter-Hooie. Most of the buildings, still standing, were built between 1600 and 1700.
Beker, see Becker
Bekir
A Mameluke.
BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Executed after the fall of Jaffa in 1799.
Belfort
The town is in a strategic position in north-eastern France, on the Savoureuse, in the Belfort Gap.
BkXLII:Chap3:Sec1 The scene of the republican Belfort Conspiracy in the military in December 1821/January 1822 (in which Carrel was involved) and of further Carbonari insurrections in 1822.
Belgiojoso, Maria Christina Trivulzio, Princess
1808-1871. A Princess by marriage (1824) she left Milan in December 1828, and reached Rome via Genoa in the spring of 1829. She moved to Paris in 1831. A protégée of Lafayette and a friend of Thierry, she became a celebrated queen in exile of the Italian Risorgimento.
BkXXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXXV:Chap15:Sec1 The owner of the delightful villa which Chateaubriand had viewed but found too expensive.
Bellart, Nicholas-François
1761-1826. An advocate in Paris from 1785 to 1815, he was Deputy for the Seine 1815 to 1820, and also from 1815 to 1826 Public Prosecutor to the Royal Court. An Ultra-Royalist he was involved in the trial of Ney.
BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Belle Poule
The 26-gun frigate Belle-Poule (1765), famous for her duel against the English frigate HMS Arethusa on June 17, 1778, which initiated the French intervention in the American War of Independence. She was captured by the British in 1780.
BkIX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXIV:Chap16:Sec1 A third Belle Poule (1828-1888), commanded by the Prince de Joinville, was used in 1840 to transport the remains of Napoleon from St. Helena. She had 60 cannon and was 54m long with a width of 15m.
Bellerephon
The first HMS Bellerophon of the Royal Navy was a 74-gun ship of the line launched 6 October 1786 on the River Medway near Chatham. She was built at the shipyard of Edward Greaves. The vessel was named for the Greek warrior who rode the winged horse Pegasus and slew the Chimera. She fought at the battle of The Glorious First of June the Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Trafalgar (with future Arctic explorer John Franklin as a midshipman), becoming one of the most famous British ships of the Napoleonic Wars. Having difficulty pronouncing the ship’s classical name, her crew affectionately called her the Billy Ruffian. She achieved further fame on July 16, 1815 when Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland (later Rear Admiral Sir Frederick Maitland) and was transported to Torbay where the ship anchored off Brixham on July 24. There Maitland received orders from Admiral Lord Keith. He was ‘...most positively ordered to prevent every person whatever from coming on board the ship you command, except the officers and men who compose her crew’. In response to his orders, Captain Maitland refused to allow the usual visits of the boats full of traders with supplies of fresh food. John Michelmore, aboard one of the boats hoping to sell bread, saw a sailor in one of the lower gun-ports who signalled to them and then set adrift a small bottle containing a message that Bonaparte was aboard. He and the baker rowed ashore and the news quickly spread. While Maitland still kept boats from actually coming alongside, there were no further attempts to conceal the Emperor’s presence. After two days, Bellerophon received orders to proceed to Plymouth harbour where Lord Keith was anchored aboard his flagship HMS Ville de Paris. Napoleon remained on board Bellerophon and the ship was still kept isolated from the throngs of curious sightseers by two guardships anchored close at hand. On August 4, Lord Keith ordered Bellerophon to go to sea and await the arrival of HMS Northumberland which had been designated to take Napoleon into exile on St Helena. On August 7, Napoleon left the Bellerophon where he had spent over three weeks without ever landing in England and boarded Northumberland which then sailed for St Helena. Bellerophon continued in use as a prison ship. She was renamed Captivity in 1824, and sold 12 January 1836.
BkXXIV:Chap3:Sec1 Napoleon sends a letter to the Prince Regent via her.
BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 Napoleon conveyed to her by the Épervier.
Belleville
A hill-top traditionally working-class district it is situated in north-east Paris.
BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Fighting there in 1814.
BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 The earliest roller coasters descended from Russian winter sled rides held on specially constructed hills of ice, especially around St Petersburg. By the late 1700s entrepreneurs elsewhere began copying the idea, using wheeled cars built on tracks. Les Montagnes Russes à Belleville constructed and operated a gravity track in Paris from 1812. The first loop track was probably also built in Paris from an English design in 1846. A number of languages (Danish, French, Portuguese, Spanish) use the equivalent of ‘Russian mountains’ to refer to them.
Bellevue, France
The Château de Bellevue near Sèvres was the home of Madame de Pompadour.
BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
Belliard et de l’Empire, Augustin-Daniel, Comte de
1769-1832. A French general, he fought in Italy in 1796 and 1797. On the Egyptian expedition, he fought in the Battle of the Pyramids, became governor of Upper Egypt, and advanced with his troops into Nubia. He also pushed back the enemy cavalry at the battle of Heliopolis, and played a major role in the taking of Bulal and Cairo. In 1805, he fought against Austria, Prussia and Russia under Joachim Murat, and eventually was awarded the position of governor of Madrid. During the Russian campaign in 1812, he fought at Dresden, Leipzig and Hanau, again under Murat. He was severely wounded in the battle of Craonne. Louis XVIII awarded him the title Peer of France. After the Return of Napoleon from Elba, he became commander of the Mosel forces. After Waterloo, he surrendered to Louis XVIII, had his title taken away, was imprisoned for a month, but then released and reinstated as a Peer in 1819.
BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 At Smolensk in 1812.
Bellini, Giovanni
c1430-1516. He was a noted Venetian Renaissance painter.
BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bellinzona
The capital city of the Ticino canton in Switzerland, it is famous for its three castles (Castelgrande, Montebello, and Sasso Corbaro).
BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bellocq, Louis
Secretary to the Rome Embassy in 1829, a career diplomat, he had been posted to Madrid at the start of the Restoration. He was sent to Rome in the spring of 1828.
BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXX:Chap10:Sec1 Chargé d’Affaires in May 1829.
Belloy, Henriette Picault, Vicomtesse de
1769-1838. Born in San Domingo, she took refuge in England at the start of the Revolution. After living with Malouët, she married him in 1810. It is suggested she may have had a close relationship with Chateaubriand in London.
BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand met her at Mrs Lindsay’s.
Bellune, see Victor
Belsunce (or Belzunce), Viscomte Henri de
1765-1789 Major in the Bourbon Infantry, assassinated by the crowd at Caen on the 12th August 1789. His body was torn apart and a woman is supposed to have eaten his heart.
BkIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.
Belzunce (or Belsunce), Henri-François-Xavier de Belsunce de Castelmoron
1671-1755. Bishop of Marseilles from 1709, he was a hero of the plague of 1720-1721.
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec3 His connection with Marseilles.
BkXXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 Quotation from a letter of 3rd September 1720.
Bembo, Pietro, Cardinal
1470-1547. An Italian scholar, he was secretary to Pope Leo X from 1513-1521, and was made Cardinal in 1539. His most important work was Prose della vulgar lingua (1525). Rime (1530) is a collection of his Italian poetry.
BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Venice.
BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 His tomb in Padua.
In Zamora province, it marks the crossing point of routes from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela and from France to Pontevedra, Tui and Vigo.
BkXX:Chap8:Sec1 The Battle of Benavente was fought on the 29th of December 1808. Henry Paget covering Sir John Moore’s retreat to Corunna, drove the French back over the Cea river.
Bénévent (Benevento), Prince de, see Talleyrand
Benedict XIV, Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, Pope
1675-1758. Pope (1740–58), he was the successor to Clement XII. He patronized learning and welcomed scholars and artists to his court.
BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 The nickname for the 2 carlini coin he issued in 1747 was the papetto or little pope.
BkXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.
Benedict Labre, Benoît-Joseph Labre, Saint
1745-1783. French mendicant and Roman Catholic saint. At the age of sixteen, he attempted to join the Trappists, Carthusians, and Cistercians, but each order rejected him as unsuitable for communal life. He therefore settled on a life of poverty and pilgrimage. He travelled to most of the major shrines of Europe, and begged for his food while giving away any alms offered to him. In the last years of his life, he lived in Rome and made only a yearly pilgrimage to Loreto. He died of his malnutrition on April 16, during Holy Week, in 1783. A cult grew up around him very soon after his death, and he was made Venerable by Pius IX in 1859, with canonization by Leo XIII in 1881.
BkIX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Benedictines
Benedictines are members of the Roman Catholic Order of Saint Benedict of Nursia (c480-550) the father of Western Monasticism. His monastic rule involved government by an elected abbot, residence in one place, obedience, prayers (The Divine Office), common ownership, and a life of work, prayer and study. The first foundation was at Monte Cassino.
BkXIII:Chap11:Sec1 Noted scholars and educators.
Bennigsen, Levin August Gottlieb Theophil (Leonty Leontyevich), Count von
1745-1826. A Russian general, he took part in the conspiracy to assassinate Tsar Paul I, but his role in the actual killing remains a matter of conjecture. Tsar Alexander I made him governor-general of Lithuania in 1801, and in 1802 a general of cavalry. He encountered Napoleon at Eylau, but six months later met with the crushing defeat of Friedland the direct consequence of which was the treaty of Tilsit. He was present at Borodino. After the death of Kutuzov he was placed at the head of an army. Bennigsen led one of the columns which made the decisive attack on the last day of the battle of Leipzig in 1813. After the general peace he held a command from 1825 to 1818, when he retired from active service and settled on his Hanoverian estate of Bantein near Hildesheim.
BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Napoleon’s comment on him in June 1812.
BkXXI:Chap4:Sec3 His meeting with Murat.
Benjamin
The gardener at the Vallée-aux-Loups.
BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.
Benoît, Théodore-Frédéric
1809?-1832. A murderer, condemned to death after a lengthy trial on the 15th of June 1832 for killing his mother and lover in July 1831.
BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
Benoni, Giuseppe
1618-1684. An architect who worked mainly on hydraulic planning and engineering in Venice. He also designed the Villa Manin (1650-1660) in Passariano, the home of the last Doge of Venice ousted by Napoleon.
BkXXXIX:Chap19:Sec1 His work on the Dogana di Mare or marine customs house in Venice. He renovated the old 1525 building 1675-1677.
Benson, Robert
1797-1844. An English lawyer who travelled to Corsica in 1823 with a commission of investigation into the discharge of Pasquale Paoli’s will.
BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 His Sketches of Corsica (1825). Chateaubriand probably came across the extract in Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon (1827) which quotes Benson.
Bentivolgio, Cornelio, Cardinal
1668-1732. He was Nuncio to Paris where he opposed the Jansenists, and also an author.
BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Ferrara.
Bentivolgio, Ercole
1506-1573. He was an Italian author.
BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Bologna.
Bentivolgio, Guido, Cardinal
1579-1641. He was an Inquistor-General who signed Galileo’s condemntation, and an author, of the famous Bolognese family that had been expelled from Bologna in 1506.
BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Ferrara.
Benvenuti, Antonio, Cardinal
1765-1838. Cardinal from 1826, he carried out the administrative functions of the Curia. He was Cardinal-Legate at Bologna in 1831.
BkXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXX:Chap1:Sec2 A possible contender for the Papacy in 1829.
BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 Supported as a Papal candidate by France.
Benvenuto Cellini
1500-1571. An Italian sculptor, metalsmith, and author, his remarkable autobiography (written 1558–62) is one of the most important documents of the Italian 16th cent. Banished from Florence after fighting a duel, in 1519 he went to Rome. Under the patronage of Pope Clement VII he became known as the most skilful worker in metals of his day. Imprisoned on false charges, he worked at the court of Francis I at Paris after his release. He returned to Florence (1545), remaining until his death. The famous gold and enamel saltcellar (Saliera) of Francis I (Vienna Mus., stolen 2003) and the gold medallion of Leda and the Swan (Vienna Mus.) are perhaps the best examples of those remaining. His sculptures include the renowned Perseus with the Head of Medusa (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence).
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 Francis I was his friend and patron.
BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 See the Memoirs.
Benzoni, Marina Querini, Contessa
d. after 1833 and before 1841. Her famous salon in Venice was attended by Byron, Stendhal and others.
BkXXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 Chateaubriand attends her salon in Venice in 1833. The barcarolle La Biondina in gondoletta (The blonde girl in the little gondola), by Cavaliere Giovanni Battista Peruchini (1784-1870), was used in variations and pieces by Lizt, Beethoven and many other composers, and often sung by Italian prima donna’s as the ad lib lesson scene aria in Rossini’s Barber of Seville.
Béquet (or Becquet), Etienne
1796-1838. A Journalist on the Journal des Débats, a relative worked for the National.
BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Béranger, Pierre-Jean
1780-1857 French lyric poet. He was a protégé of Lucien Bonaparte and a friend of some of the most eminent men of his day. His first collection of songs, published in 1815, was immediately popular. He fitted his verse to popular melodies, and he used his poems largely to express republican and Bonapartist ideas, for which he was twice imprisoned. He published editions of his songs, Chansons, in 1815 and 1833.
BkXII:Chap4:Sec2 BkXXVIII:Chap17:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 His song in tribute to Chateaubriand.
BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 His song of 1829, The Old Lance-Corporal, Le Vieux Caporal, an anti-monarchist lyric.
BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 Quoted regarding his admiration for Bonaparte.
BkXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 His pro-Bonaparte song Les Souvenirs du Peuple. The Grandmother appears in the refrain.
BkXXVIII:Chap17:Sec1 Reference to a verse of his of September 1831: À Monsieur de Chateaubriand’. See Book XXXIV:10
BkXXXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Dined with Chateaubriand in Paris on the 13th of September 1831. Chateaubriand left for Paris on the 2nd and returned on the 14th. The Café de Paris was on the Boulevard des Italiens.
BkXXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 He was introduced to Chateaubriand by Hortense Allart in early 1830. His songs naming Lisette, the archetypal Parisian grisette, were extremely popular.
BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1 Visits Chateaubriand under house arrest in 1832.
BkXXXV:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him in August 1832.
BkXXXV:Chap17:Sec1 He writes to Chateaubriand at Lucerne in August 1832.
BkXXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand adapts verse 2 of his song La Vivandière of 1816, with the name Javotte replacing the original Catin.
BkXXXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 A reference to his song Le Roi d’Yvetot (1823).
BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bérard, Auguste-Simon-Louis
1783-1859. A banker, Deputy for the Seine from 1827. He became Director General of Roads, Bridges and Mines, then a State Councillor. He published his Souvenirs of the Revolution of 1830, in 1834.
BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Active on the 30th of July 1830.
Bérard, Pierre-Clément
1798-1886? He served the Legitimist cause, and was arrested for publishing a series of pamphlets under the title Cancans in 1831. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in January 1832, left for Belgium from which he was expelled, visited Prague in 1833, and finally took a job in a bank in Rome in 1834 where he remained until 1839. He was still living in Nantes in 1886.
BkXXXV:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.
Beraun (Beroun)
A town located in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Despite its small size, it is an administrative center akin to a ‘county seat’. It lies on the road that connects Prague with Pilsen and with Bavaria, Germany. It is approximately 40 km from the center of Prague
BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in May 1833.
Bérée, Priory of
BkI:Chap1:Sec3 Mentioned by Chateaubriand.
Bérenger V, Raymond, Count of Provence
1209-1245. Of his famous daughters, Margaret married Louis IX of France, Eleanor married Henry III of England, Sancha married Richard of Cornwall, and Beatrice married Charles of Anjou, bringing Provence as her dowry, after her father’s death.
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec3 Connected with Marseilles.
Berenton, Baranton
A mythical fountain in the Forest of Broceliande.
BkI:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned by Wace.
Berezina (Beresina), River
A river in Belarus and a tributary of the Dnieper River. The Battle of Berezina took place November 26-29, 1812 between the French army of Napoleon, retreating after his invasion of Russia and crossing the Berezina (near Barysau, now in Belarus), and the Russian army under Kutuzov. The battle ended with a partial victory for the Russians. The French suffered heavy losses. Since then ‘Berezina’ has been used in French as a synonym for catastrophe.
BkXXI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
Berg, Grand-Duc de, see Murat
Bergerac, France
A market town and a sous-préfecture of the Dordogne département in France. The region is often called the ‘Gateway to the Périgord’.
BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec2 Chateaubriand was there in July 1829. Bergerac has no connection with Cyrano, who was born in Paris and whose name of Bergerac derived from a holding near Chevreuse.
Bergerac, Savinien de Cyrano de
1619-1655. A French dramatist and duellist born in Paris, he is now best remembered for the many works of fiction which have been woven around his life story, most notably the play by Edmond Rostand which bears his name. In those fictional works he is featured with an overly large nose.
BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec2 The quotation is from his tragedy The Death of Agrippina (1654), a profession of atheism made by Sejanus before conspiring against Tiberius.
Berlin
The capital city and a Land of Germany, in the north-east of the country on the River Spree, it was founded in the 13th century and was an important strategic and commercial centre and a member of the Hanseatic League. It was the capital of the Hohenzollern Electors from the 15th century and became the capital of Prussia in the 18th century and of the German Empire in 1871.
BkIV:Chap1:Sec1 BkIV:Chap2:Sec1 BkIV:Chap3:Sec1 BkIV:Chap4:Sec1 BkIV:Chap6:Sec1 BkIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkIV:Chap8:Sec1 BkIV:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand wrote this chapter there. He was nominated as envoy to Prussia 28th November 1820. He occupied his post in Berlin from 11th January to 19th April 1821 and resigned on the 29th July.
BkXVI:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand did not take up his post in Berlin until 1821, but may have read the correspondence prior to that date in 1820.
BkXVI:Chap9:Sec1 Madame de Stael there in 1804. She stayed in an apartment on the bank of the River Spree.
BkXX:Chap6:Sec1 The Berlin Decree was a decree of Napoleon of November 21, 1806, declaring Britain in a state of blockade, and vessels trading with it liable to capture.
BkXXII:Chap3:Sec1 Cossacks entered the city on 20th February 1813, but left doing little damage.
BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 Bernadotte defeated Ney at Dennewitz near Berlin on 6th September 1813.
BkXXII:Chap13:Sec1 Plundered by Napoleon.
BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 Chateaubriand is promised the Berlin embassy in 1820.
BkXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec1
Chateaubriand arrived in Berlin to take up his Ambassadorship on Thursday the 11th of January 1821 at eight in the morning. Unter den Linden (Under the Lindens) – named for its linden or lime trees line the grassed pedestrian mall between the two carriageways is one of Berlin’s best-known streets. A boulevard of linden trees was planted from 1647 extending from the electoral palace to the gates of the city by Friedrich Wilhelm, ‘The Great Elector’, who wanted to ride from his castle to his hunting park the Tiergarten with more appropriately Baroque splendour. This stretch became the best known and grandest street in Berlin. Das Morgenblatt, the ‘Morning Paper for the Educated Class’ ran from 1807 to 1865. Johann Friedrich Cotta came up with the idea for this periodical which appeared up to six times a week and the design of which was modelled on that of a newspaper. It was a tremendous success and employed all the talents of the period.
BkXXVI:Chap3:Sec1 The Botanical Gardens mentioned (since moved to Steglitz) were in the Schoeneberg district. Chateaubriand visited them in February 1821.
BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap9:Sec1 The Charlottenburg Palace is the largest in Berlin. The original, central part was constructed between 1695 and 1699. It was intended as the summer home for Sophie Charlotte, Elector Frederick III’s wife. The park behind Schloss Charlottenburg was originally laid out in French Baroque style. In the 18th and 19th century, the park was converted into a landscape garden. The Queen of Prussia, Louise, is buried beneath a marble tomb (1811-14) by Rauch (1777-1857) in the Mausoleum at Charlottenburg.
BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand left Berlin on the 19th of April, 1821, to attend the baptism of the Duke of Bordeaux. He never returned to Prussia.
BkXXVII:Chap3:Sec2 Lord Clanwilliam was the British Ambassador in Berlin from 1823-1827.
Bernadotte, Jean-Baptiste-Jules, King of Sweden
1763-1844. He became King of Sweden and Norway (1818–44), after serving as a French Revolutionary general. He rose from the ranks, during the Italian campaign (1796–97), was French ambassador at Vienna (1798), and was Minister of War (1799). He played a prominent part in the victory of Austerlitz in 1805. Napoleon made him a Marshal of the Empire (1804) and Prince of Ponte Corvo (1806). However, his relations with the emperor were cool. While commanding in N Germany he negotiated with the Swedes, who were impressed by his generous conduct. In 1809, Gustavus IV of Sweden abdicated and was succeeded by his aged and childless uncle, Charles XIII. In need of both a suitable successor to Charles and an alliance with Napoleon, Sweden turned to Bernadotte. After receiving the support of Napoleon and joining the Lutheran Church the marshal accepted. He was elected crown prince by the Riksdag and adopted (1810) by Charles XIII as Charles John. The infirmity of the old king and the dissensions in the council of state put the reins of government in the hands of the crown prince. He favoured the acquisition of Norway from Denmark rather than the re-conquest of Finland from Russia, and thus he threw in his lot with Russia and England against Napoleon and Denmark. His Swedish contingent played an important part in the defeat of Napoleon at the battle of Leipzig (1813), and in 1814, having marched his army into Denmark, he forced the Danes to cede Norway in the Treaty of Kiel. Norway, was united with Sweden under a single king. The Congress of Vienna confirmed the union but restored the town of Ponte Corvo to the Pope. Bernadotte succeeded to the throne in 1818 as Charles XIV. He maintained peace throughout his reign, which was marked by internal improvements, notably the completion of the Göta Canal and a reform of the school system. However, his increasing opposition to the liberals made him unpopular by the end of his reign. The founder of the present Swedish dynasty, he was succeeded by his son, Oscar I.
BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXX:Chap11:Sec1 King of Sweden from 1818.
BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 French Ambassador in Vienna in 1798. He had to quit his post owing to the disturbances cause by his hoisting the tricolour over the Embassy.
BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Apparently opposed to Napoleon on the latter’s return to France from Egypt in 1799.
BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 Saw Moreau in Stockholm. After the defeats of Lützen and Bautzen it was the Swedish Crown Prince as he then was who put fresh heart into the allies; and at the conference of Trachenberg drew up the general plan for the campaign which began after the expiration of the Truce of Plaswitz. Charles John, as commander-in-chief of the northern army, successfully defended the approaches to Berlin against Oudinot in August and against Ney in September at the Battles of Grossbeeren and Dennewitz; but after Leipzig he went his own way, determined at all hazards to cripple Denmark and secure Norway.
BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 He defeated Ney at Dennewitz near Berlin on 6th September 1813.
BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 The defection of the Saxons and Wurtembergers to him at Leipzig in 1813 decided the outcome of the battle.
BkXXII:Chap 24:Sec1 Chateaubriand is offered the Swedish embassy in 1814.
BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec2 Chateaubriand pokes fun at his pretensions.
BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 Described by Constant.
BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bernard, of Clairvaux, Saint
1090-1153. French monastic reformer and political figure. Widely known for his piety and mysticism, he was instrumental in the condemnation of Peter Abelard and in rallying support for the Second Crusade.
BkXIII:Chap10:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkXVII:Chap5:Sec1 His condemnation of Abelard at the Council at Sens in 1140.
Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Jacques-Henri
1737-1814. A French naturalist and author, he was a friend of Rousseau, by whom he was strongly influenced. His chief work, Les Études de la nature (1784-88), sought to prove the existence of God from the wonders of nature; it is rich in descriptive passages, and added specific colour terms and plant names to the French language. A section of this was the sentimental prose idyll Paul et Virginie (1788), which attained an immense vogue and influenced the French romanticists.
BkIX:Chap2:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkX:Chap3:Sec2 The reference is obscure.
BkXII:Chap4:Sec2 Les Études de la nature influenced Chateaubriand.
BkXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 A reference to Paul et Virginie set in Mauritius (Indian Ocean).
Bern, Switzerland
The Swiss capital on the River Aare, it joined the Swiss Confederation in 1353 and became the capital in 1848.
BkXXXV:Chap20:Sec1 The dissensions of 1832 were part of the constitutional reform movement known as the Regeneration.
Bernetti, Tommaso, Cardinal
1779-1852. Governor of Rome 1820-1826, Cardinal 1826, he was Secretary of State for the Roman Curia from June 1828
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 He allowed the local authorities to lodge the Chateaubriands in the Apostolic Palace.
BkXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand meets him in Rome in October 1828.
BkXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 A description of the man.
BkXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Chateaubriand discusses him with the Pope.
BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 Discusses the Pope’s health with Chateaubriand.
BkXXX:Chap1:Sec2 An anti-Jesuit voter.
BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1
Mentioned.
BkXL:Chap3:Sec1 Quoted in 1833.
Bernis, François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, Cardinal de
1715-1794. A French statesman and Cardinal, he became known as one of the most expert epigrammatists at Louis XV’s court, and by his verses won the friendship of Madame de Pompadour, the royal mistress. In 1751 he was appointed to the French embassy at Venice. He took an important part in the delicate negotiations between France and Austria which preceded the Seven Years War. He became secretary for foreign affairs on June 27, 1757, but owing to his attempts to counteract the spendthrift policy of the Marquise de Pompadour fell into disgrace and in 1758 was banished to Soissons by Louis XV. The previous November he had been created cardinal by Clement XIII. Later recalled he became Archbishop of Albi in 1764, then Ambassador in Rome in 1769 until dismissed by the Revolution.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Once owned Plessis-Chamant, near Senlis.
BkXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bernstorff, Count Christian Günther von
1769-1835. A Danish and Prussian statesman and diplomat, he followed Metternich’s European policy.
BkXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Minister for Foreign Affairs in Prussia in 1821.
BkXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand informs him of his resignation in July 1821.
BkXXVIII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned in 1824.
BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 He died in 1835.
Berry, Charles-Ferdinand, Duc de
1777-1820. The younger son of Charles, Comte d’Artois (later Charles X of France), he served in the Prince de Condé’s army against the French Revolutionary forces, joined the Russian Army, and was an émigré in London for thirteen years. His assassination by a saddler, Louis-Pierre Louvel, during the reign of Louis XVIII — an attempt to extinguish the Bourbon line—gave the ultra-royalists the opportunity to turn Louis XVIII against the liberals. Berry’s posthumous son was Henri, Comte de Chambord.
BkIV:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap19:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 His assassination mentioned.
BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to his Mémoires of the Duc du Berry’s life, published in May 1820. (Part I, Book II.8)
BkX:Chap3:Sec2 BkXXV:Chap11:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from his Mémoires, letters et pièces authentiques touchant la vie et la mort de S. A. R. Monseigneur le duc de Berry (Part I, Book III.6 et al). It was published by Le Normant in 1820.
BkXIII:Chap3:Sec1 His burial at Saint Denis in 1820.
BkXVI:Chap2:Sec1 In London when the Duc d’Enghien was abducted.
Present at the exhumation of the Duc d’Enghien, 26th March 1816.
BkXVI:Chap5:Sec1 His mortuary chapel.
BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 During his exile he bore the tile Comte de Chambord.
BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand suggested he leave for Lille in 1815.
BkXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 The Comte d’Artois and the Duc de Berry his son were involved in a fiasco near Béthune (at Gorgues and Estaires), where having been bogged down in the mud after heavy rain their military convoy abandoned its equipment in panic after false news of an imminent attack. A large portion of the King’s treasury was never recovered.
BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec2 It was suggested he marry a sister of Alexander I.
BkXXIII:Chap15:Sec1 In Ghent during the Hundred Days.
BkXXIII:Chap16:Sec1 His courier brings news to Ghent.
BkXXV:Chap4:Sec1 His apology to the King for disturbing him, in dying.
BkXXV:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 His death indirectly led to Decazes’ fall.
BkXXV:Chap9:Sec1 His death was a pretext for the return of censorship.
BkXXV:Chap11:Sec1 Chateaubriand hears of his assassination in 1820.
BkXXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 The anniversary of his death was marked by a service on the 14th of February 1831 at Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois in Paris. It degenerated into a riot, apparently fabricated to suggest a Legitimist plot. A few months later the old church was demolished to make way for a road.
BkXLII:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand favoured the proposed marriage (mooted in 1815) of the Duke with grand-Duchess Anne, the daughter of Paul I and sister of Alexander, as a means of reclaiming the Rhineland through a Franco-Russian alliance.
Berry, Louise, see d’Artois
Berry, Marie-Caroline de Bourbon, Duchesse de
1798-1870. Wife of Charles-Ferdinand, she was the daughter-in-law of Charles X. Of the Bourbons of Naples, she was imprisoned 1832-33 after trying to stir up the Vendée against Louis-Philippe. She married, 1833, Count Hector de Lucchesi-Palli. She was championed by Chateaubriand.
BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Her trips to Dieppe in the last years of the Restoration helped to promote the fashion for sea-bathing.
BkXXIII:Chap13:Sec1 The ladies dancing attendance on her under the Restoration.
BkXXV:Chap12:Sec1 The presentation of a cradle to her by the women of the Bordeaux Market.
BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 Insulted on the way to the review of the National Guard on 29th April 1827 on the Champ-de-Mars.
BkXXVIII:Chap17:Sec1 An allusion to Chateaubriand’s support for her.
BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Her delight in the July 1830 decrees.
BkXXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 The mother of Henri V.
BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 The widow.
BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 In Italy in 1831 she laid plans for an insurrection which would allow her to exercise the Regency which she believed hers by right on behalf of her son Henri V. Here secret government of 7th February 1832 involved Marshal Victor Duc de Bellune, Chancellor Pastoret, the Marquis de Latour-Marbourg, etc, with Berryer as Secretary General.
BkXXXIV:Chap15:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 Her donation of 12000 francs to help the cholera victims in Paris in 1832. Chateaubriand’s pamphlet appeared on the 14th of April, printed by Le Normant.
BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap8:Sec1 Her activites in the Vendée in 1832.
BkXXXV:Chap10:Sec1 She writes to Chateaubriand from Venice in August 1832.
BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 She was arrested in hiding at Nantes on the 8th of November 1832, and escorted to the Fortress of Blaye.
BkXXXV:Chap25:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s Memoir is dated 24th December 1832, and was published on the 29th. Thirty thousand copies were sold before it was seized on the 9th January 1833.
BkXXXV:Chap25:Sec1 At her arrest she had been hiding behind a fireplace in which the police lit a fire to smoke her out. She resisted for some time before surrendering, hence Chateaubriand’s comparison to the torments of St Lawrence who was grilled alive.
BkXXXV:Chap26:Sec1 The Duchess was obliged to sign, in February 1833, a declaration of a secret Italian marriage, as she was visibly pregnant.
BkXXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Her letter to Chateaubriand of the 7th of May 1833.
BkXXXVI:Chap3:Sec1 She gave birth on the 10th May 1833, apparently respecting the protocol of doing so in public, but with prison officers as witnesses!
BkXXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Her hopeless cause.
BkXXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand carries her letters to Prague in May 1833.
BkXXXVII:Chap9:Sec1 Blacas was Ambassador to Naples in 1816.
BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand delivers her letters to Carlsbad.
BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to her on his return from Prague in June 1833.
BkXXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 In Naples in August 1833.
BkXXXIX:Chap20:Sec1 Chateaubriand receives news of her.
BkXL:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand meets her in Ferrara, on the 18th of September 1833.
BkXL:Chap7:Sec1 In Padua 20th September 1833.
BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to her in Trieste from Prague.
Berryer, Pierre-Antoine
1790-1868. A French lawyer and Royalist politician, he defended the freedom of the press during the reigns of King Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III. He was one of the few Legitimist deputies to be re-elected (for the Haute-Loire) in 1831.
BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 He was scheduled to be at Vannes to defend a Commandant Guillemot on the 12th of June 1832. He met Bourmont at Nantes on the 22nd of May and the Duchesse the following evening, and delayed the insurrection, which was subsequently reassigned to the night of the 3rd of June. Meanwhile Chateaubriand, who had been persuaded to join the council (‘the little committee,’) wrote a second letter on the 1st of June which was seized by the police.
BkXXXV:Chap6:Sec1 His trial in Nantes.
BkXXXV:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes on his behalf. Berryer refused to recognise a military tribunal. By order of the Court of Cassation of the 30th June, jurisdiction in civil cases passed to the ordinary courts. Berryer was acquitted at the Loire-et-Cher assizes on the 16th October 1832.
BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 At Geneva 12th November 1832.
BkXXXV:Chap26:Sec1 Pleads in court in March 1833.
Berstheim, Battle of
In 1789 the émigré army achieved an ephemeral success under Condé on the Lower Rhine.
BkXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.
Berstoecher (or Berstecher)
A tutor to the Custine family, from Alsace. See the Marquise de Custine.
BkXIV:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Writes to Chateaubriand.
Bertazzoli, Francesco, Cardinal
1754-1830. A Cardinal from 1823, he was a zelante and friend of Cappellari who was his heir.
BkXXX:Chap1:Sec2 A pro-Jesuit voter.
Berthelin
A student at the École Polytechnique in July 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Berthier, Louis-Alexandre, Marshal of France
1753-1815. Marshal of France, he served in the American Revolution and in the French Revolutionary Wars, distinguishing himself under Napoleon in Italy, where he served as chief of staff. He was twice minister of war and from 1805 was chief of staff of the Grande Armée. The emperor made him prince of Neuchâtel and Wagram and arranged his marriage with a Bavarian princess. Berthier accommodated himself to the return of the Bourbons in 1814. Torn by divided allegiance when Napoleon returned from Elba, he withdrew to Bavaria, where he died in obscure circumstances.
BkXIX:Chap12:Sec2 Napoleon’s early opinion of him.
BkXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Went with Napoleon on the Egyptian Campaign.
BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Returned to France with Napoleon in 1799.
BkXX:Chap11:Sec1 Napoleon gave him the Château of Grosbois in Val-de-Marne in 1805, following the sentencing of General Moreau who had bought it from Barras.
BkXXI:Chap5:Sec1 At Gorodnia during the retreat.
BkXXI:Chap8:Sec1 Accompanied Napoleon during the retreat.
BkXXII:Chap 21:Sec1 Rallied to Louis XVIII at Compiègne in 1814.
BkXXII:Chap 23:Sec1 His allegiance transferred to the Bourbons.
BkXXVIII:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Prince of Neuchâtel from 31st March 1806, his administration created a route over La Tourne in the Val-de-Travers which Chateaubriand compares ironically to the Simplon project. The manner of his death was uncertain; according to some accounts he was assassinated by members of a secret society, others say that, maddened by the sight of Russian troops marching to invade France, he threw himself from the window, at Bamberg, and was killed.
Berthois, Auguste-Marie, Baron de
1787-1870. A Napoleonic officer of engineers, he was named a Colonel by the Restoration in 1831, a Marshal in 1838, and was Inspector General of Engineers. He sat in the Chamber of Deputies 1832-1848.
BkXXXII:Chap13:Sec1 At Neuilly on the 30th of July 1830, as aide de camp to Louis-Philippe.
Berthollet, Claude-Louis, Comte
1748-1822. A French chemist, his contributions include the analysis of ammonia and prussic acid and the discovery of the bleaching properties of chlorine. He collaborated with Antoine Lavoisier in his researches and in reforming chemical nomenclature and supported him in his theory of combustion. His greatest contribution was in his Essai de statique chimique (1803), in which he presented his speculations on chemical affinity and his discovery of the reversibility of reactions. He went to Egypt with Napoleon for the Egyptian campaign.
BkXIII:Chap11:Sec2 Became a supporter of Napoleon.
BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Returned to France with Napoleon in 1799.
Bertier de Sauvigny, Louis-Benigne-François
1737-89. Intendant of Paris, he was killed with his father-in-law Foullon, on the 22nd July 1779.
BkV:Chap9:Sec1 Killed by a crowd along with his father-in-law. His head was carried on a pike through the streets.
Bertier de Sauvigny, Ferdinand de
1772-1867. Son of Louis, in 1810 he founded the secret society of the Chevaliers de la Foi, aimed at producing with the Congregation a Catholic Restoration. He formed a royalist resistance during the Hundred Days, and was made Prefect of Calvados in 1815, then Grenoble in 1816, but resigned in opposition to Decazes. He was an Ultra Deputy for the Seine 1824-1827, supported Polignac, and was Minister for Waterways and Forests.
BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Royalist advocate in July 1830.
Bertin, Louis-François
1766-1841. A journalist, called Le Gros Bertin to distinguish him from his brother he was the proprietor of the Journal des Débats. He was implicated in the Roux de Laborie conspiracy and imprisoned in the Temple (Feb-Nov 1801) then exiled to Italy.
BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s friendship with him.
BkXV:Chap2:Sec1 Escorted Madame de Beaumont to Florence in 1803.
BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Advised Chateaubriand regarding Les Martyrs.
BkXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand found him at Tournai in 1815.
BkXXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 He supports Chateaubriand in the Journal in June 1824.
BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 He writes to Chateaubriand in Rome in March 1829.
BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1 He visits Chateaubriand under house arrest in 1832.
BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 Charles X asks after the Bertin brothers in 1833.
Bertin De Vaux, Louis-François
1771-1842. Journalist and co-proprietor of the Journal des Débats, he was the younger brother of Bertin. From 1815 to 1817 he was Secretary-general of the Police Department. He was Deputy for Seine-et-Oise in 1820 and a Councillor of State in 1824. He soon resigned but was re-elected in November 1827.
BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Gave Chateaubriand literary advice.
BkXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 In Tournai in March 1815.
BkXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bertrand, Captain
The Captain of the first demi-brigade of veterans in Paris in 1809, he was appointed as judge-advocate of the military commission investigating Armand’s case.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bertrand, Henri-Gratien, Comte
1773-1844 French military engineer and general, friend of Napoleon I and his companion in exile, first at Elba (1814–15), then at St. Helena (1815–21). His diary is considered invaluable for its frank account of Napoleon’s character and life in exile. It was decoded, annotated, and published by P. Fleuriot de Langle as Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène, 1816–21. After Napoleon's death in 1821, Bertrand returned to France, where a death sentence that had been passed on him in absentia (1817) was annulled. In 1840, with the Prince de Joinville, he escorted Napoleon’s body from St. Helena to France for its final burial.
BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec2 With Napoleon on his journey to Elba in 1814.
BkXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Left Malmaison with Napoleon on 29th June 1815.
BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 Accompanied Napoleon to St Helena in 1815.
BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1832.
Bertrand, Francis Elizabeth (Fanny) Dillon, Madame
d. 1836. Wife of Comte Bertrand (1808).
BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 Accompanied Napoleon to St Helena in 1815 with her husband.
Besenval de Bronstatt (or Bezenval), Pierre Victor Baron de
1722-1794. French soldier. He was the son of Jean Victor Besenval, colonel of the regiment of Swiss guards in the pay of France, who was charged in 1707 by Louis XIV with a mission to Sweden, to reconcile Charles XII with the Tsar Peter the Great, and to unite them in alliance with France against England. Pierre Victor served at first as aide-de-camp to Marshal Broglie during the campaign of 1748 in Bohemia, then as aide-de-camp to the duke of Orléans during the Seven Years War. He then became commander of the Swiss Guards. When the Revolution began Besenval remained firmly attached to the court, and was given command of the troops which the king had concentrated on Paris in July 1789, a deployment which led to the taking of the Bastille. Besenval showed incompetence in the crisis, and attempted to flee. He was arrested, tried by the tribunal of the Châtelet, but acquitted. He then fell into obscurity and died in Paris in 1794. He is principally known as the author of the Mémoires which were published in 1805-1807, in which are reported many scandalous tales, true or false, of the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The authenticity of these memoirs is not absolutely established.
BkV:Chap14:Sec1 His unworthiness.
Bessarion, Basilius (John) Cardinal
c1403-1472. Born at Trebizond, educated at Constantinople, he went in 1423 to the Peloponnese to hear Gemistus Pletho expound the philosophy of Plato. On being tonsured monk, he adopted the name of an old Egyptian anchorite Bessarion, whose story he has related. In 1437, he was made metropolitan of Nicaea by the Byantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, whom he accompanied to Italy. Pope Eugene IV made him a Cardinal in 1439. He was a teacher, scholar, churchman, diplomat and patron.
BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bessières, Jean-Baptiste, Marshal, Duc d’Istrie
1766-1813. A Napoleonic Marshal, in the Egyptian Campaign, he took part in the battles of Acre and Aboukir. His performance at Marengo in 1800 saw him a general of brigade and by 1802 he was leading a division. In 1804, he became a Marshal and led the Imperial Guard cavalry at Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau and Friedland. Sent to Spain he won the battle of Medina del Rio Seco, fought at Somosierra and chased Sir John Moore’s army to Corunna. In 1809, his cavalry performed very well at Aspern-Essling and Wagram and, in Russia, he saved Bonaparte from Cossacks during the disastrous retreat in 1812. His last battle was at Weissenfels, in 1813, where he died instantly after being hit in the chest by a cannonball.
BkXXI:Chap4:Sec2 De Baudus his aide-de-camp in 1812.
BkXXI:Chap5:Sec1 At Gorodnia during the retreat.
BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 At Smorgoni in December 1812.
BkXXI:Chap8:Sec1 Commanded the cavalry during the retreat.
Bethlehem
The town is on the West Bank of the Jordan near Jerusalem. It is traditionally the birthplace of Jesus.
BkXXX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bethulia, Israel
A city of ancient Palestine, apparently located somewhere north-east of Samaria, c.10 miles from that city. It was the scene of the principal events of the Book of Judith. It has been variously identified, by some even with Jerusalem, but the data points to a site on the heights west of Jenîn (Engannim), between the plains of Esdrelon and Dothan, where Haraiq, Kh. Sheikh Shibel, and el-Bârid lie close together.
BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 Mentioned. Chateaubriand’s derivation of Scafet as a name for it is uncertain.
Béthune
A city and commune of northern France, sous-préfecture of the Pas-de-Calais département, it is located in the former province of Artois.
BkXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 The Comte d’Artois and the Duc de Berry his son were involved in a fiasco near Béthune (at Gorgues and Estaires), where having been bogged down in the mud after heavy rain their military convoy abandoned its equipment etc in panic after false news of an imminent attack. A large portion of the King’s treasury was never recovered.
Bettio (or Betio), Abbé Pietro
d.1846. He was Head Librarian at the Marciana Library (facing the Doge’s Palace) in Venice from 1819-1846.
BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand visits him on the 11th of September 1833.
BkXXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Keeper of the Ducal Palace.
Beugnot, Jacques Claude, Comte
1761-1835. A French politician, in 1814 he was a member of the provisional government as Minister of the Interior, and rallied to the House of Bourbon. Louis XVIII named him director-general of police and afterwards Naval Minister. He followed Louis to Ghent during the Hundred Days, became one of his confidants, and contributed to draw up Louis’ Charter. After the full Bourbon Restoration, lacking the support of the Ultra-royalists, he was given the title of Minister of State without portfolio, which was equivalent to a retirement. Elected deputy, he attached himself to the moderate party, and defended the liberty of the press. In 1830, he was made a Peer of France by Charles X, and confirmed by Louis-Philippe after the July Revolution, becoming director-general of manufactures and commerce.
BkXXII:Chap 24:Sec1 His appointment as Minister of the Interior in 1814.
BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 In Ghent during the Hundred Days.
BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec2 Opposed to Fouché becoming a Minister at the second Restoration.
Bevilacqua, Bonifazio Aldobrandini, Cardinal
1571-1601. He was created a Cardinal in 1599.
BkXL:Chap2:Sec4 His association with Tasso.
Bex, Switzerland
Pronounced bay, it is a small town 9km south of Aigle, noted for its salt mining. The Valais nearby is the Swiss portion of the Rhône valley, and Switzerland’s third largest canton.
BkXIV:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 The Marquise de Custine died there in 1826.
BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in September 1833.
Béziers
A city in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, it is where hostilities in the Albigensian Crusades began in 1209, with the sack of the town, and the slaughter of 20,000 townspeople.
Preface:Sect3. Chateaubriand recounts a legend of the incident.
BkXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Pius VII passed through on his way back to Italy in 1814.
Bezout, Étienne
1730-1783. Author of Cours de mathèmatiques, a standard mathematics text in the schools. He was a dreaded examiner for the competitive entrance examinations for the Marine Guard at Brest.
BkII:Chap1:Sec1 The text used at Dol College, to teach Chateaubriand.
Bidasoa, River
A river in the Basque country of northern Spain it rises near Errazu in the province of Navarre and flows through that territory for much of its 66 km length. Its last 10 km form part of the border between France and Spain before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Biscay) between Hendaye, France and Hondarribia, Spain.
BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 Wellington crossed the river at dawn on October 7th 1813 and entered France.
Biel, Lake
Lake Biel (French: Lac de Bienne) is a lake in the west of Switzerland. Together with Lake Murten and Lake Neuchâtel, it is one of the three large lakes in the Jura region of Switzerland.
BkXXVIII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
Biercourt, Monsieur de
Possibly one of the Biercourts of Montreuil.
BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned as authorising funds to Napoleon.
Bignon, Louis Pierre Edouard, Baron
1771-1841. French diplomatist and historian, he was ambassador in Warsaw 1810-1812. During the Hundred Days he once more entered Napoleon’s service, and, after Waterloo, as minister of foreign affairs under the executive commission, it was he who signed the convention of the 3rd of July 1815, by which Paris was handed over to the allies. Bignon did not re-enter public life until 1817, when he was elected to the chamber of deputies, in which he sat until 1830. Elected deputy in 1831 and member of the chamber of peers in 1839, he withdrew for the most part from politics, to, devote himself to his great work, the Histoire de France sous Napoleon (1829–1838, and, 1847–1850).
BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 Ambassador to Warsaw 1812-1813.
Bilbao, Spain
Capital of Vizcaya province, Northern Spain, in the Basque Country, on both banks of the Nervión River, near the Bay of Biscay, it has been a leading Spanish port and commercial centre since the 19th century. It was founded c.1300 on the site of an ancient settlement, and flourished because of a wool export trade in the 15th and 16th centuries. In the 19th century, it was besieged by the Carlists three times.
BkXIX:Chap16:Sec3 Defended by General Sir Robert Wilson during the Spanish War.
Billaud-Varenne, Jacques (Jean)-Nicolas Billaud
1756-1819. A French revolutionary. A violent antimonarchist in the Convention, the revolutionary national assembly, he and Jean Marie Collot d’Herbois were the two members of the ultra-revolutionary Hebértists faction to sit on the Committee of Public Safety. A consummate politician, he survived the execution of Hébert, successfully intrigued against Danton, and helped bring about the downfall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor. He was deported to French Guiana for his role in the Reign of Terror. He refused an amnesty offered by Napoleon. Ultimately he went to Haiti, where he died.
BkIX:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 His arrest in 1795.
Billing, Baron Adolphe
1801-1852. A diplomat.
BkVI:Chap1:Sec1 Diplomatic attaché to the French Embassy in London in 1822.
Biorn Asbrandsson
A character in the Icelandic Eyrbyggja Saga. Later speculation connected his travels with the Norse discovery of America
BkXIV:Chap6:Sec1 His mythical (?) voyage to America. Vinland was the name given to part of North America by the Icelandic Norseman Leif Eiríksson, about year 1000. Later archeological evidence of Norse settlement in North America was found in L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada.
Biron, Charles de Gontaut, Duc de
1562-1602. He fought for the Royal party against the League. He was an Admiral and Marshal of France. After fulfilling diplomatic missions for Henry IV in England and Switzerland (1600), he was accused and convicted of high treason and was beheaded in the Bastille on the 31st of July 1602.
BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 Ambassador to Elizabeth I of England in 1600.
Biron, Duc de, see Lauzun
Bischofsheim
Bischofsheim an der Rhön is a town in the district Rhön-Grabfeld, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated in the Rhön Mountains, 29 km southeast of Fulda.
BkXXXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand there 2nd of June 1833.
Blacas d’Aulps, Pierre-Louis Jean Casimir, Prince d’Aulps
1770-1839. French statesman and diplomat, he was a convinced Royalist, and companion of Louis XVIII in exile. He was Minister of the King’s Household and then Grand-Master of the Wardrobe (1815). He was later ambassador to Naples, and Rome. In 1830 he followed Charles X into exile, and died in Vienna.
BkXXII:Chap 24:Sec1 Minister of the King’s Household in 1814.
BkXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand sends a message to him at Lille in March 1815. However he was already in Ghent with the King.
BkXXIII:Chap15:Sec1 Chateaubriand consoles him.
BkXXIII:Chap19:Sec1 At Mons during the return from Ghent in 1815.
BkXXV:Chap4:Sec1 A favourite of Louis XVIII.
BkXXVIII:Chap15:Sec1 First Gentleman of the King’s Chamber from 1823 succeeding the Duc de Richelieu.
BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him. Blacas was Ambassador to Naples from 1824.
BkXXX:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap10:Sec1
BkXXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 He writes to Chateaubriand at Waldmünchen in 1833.
BkXXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 In Prague with the exiled Court in 1833.
BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 A member of the Prague ‘triumvirate’.
BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 He conducts Chateaubriand to the King on the 25th of May 1833. He has the King’s ear.
BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 At dinner in the Hradschin Palace on the 25th of May 1833.
BkXXXVII:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand visits him. He was an amateaur artist with a fine collection of medals and cameos.
BkXXXVIII:Chap4:Sec1 Henri’s dislike of him.
BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 He announces a Council, to include Chateaubriand.
BkXL:Chap7:Sec1 Blamed for preventing the Duchesse de Berry from travelling to Prague in September 1833.
BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1 La Ferronays was his brother-in-law.
BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 In Prague in September 1833.
BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 At Bustehrad, Prague, 26th and 27th of September 1833.
Black Prince, see Edward, Prince of Wales
Blair, Hugh
1718-1800. Professor of Literature at Edinburgh, published his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres (1783) which influenced Chateaubriand’s generation. His Critical Dissertation on Ossian (1763) was cited in the Essai.
BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
Blanc, Louis
1811-1882. The French writer, historian and socialist politician was born in Spain. His phrase (from The Organization of Work, 1840), ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’, is often wrongly attributed to others.
BkXXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned in 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap15:Sec1 A quotation from his Histoire de dix ans (1841). See Louis Alexandre Peron’s painting of the scene, shown at the Salon in 1834, and now in the Carnavalet (Transfert nocturne des victims de la revolution de Juillet 1830).
Blanca
A character in Les Aventures du dernier Abencérage (written in 1810) by Chateaubriand, Aben-Hamet, the last of his Moorish tribe, falls in love, in Granada, with the devout Christian girl, Blanca, an impossible liaison since they are fated to be eternally separated by their faith.
Preface:Sect2. BkIII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXVII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1
Mentioned.
BkVII:Chap8:Sec1 BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Her story set in Granada.
Blanche of Castille
c1188-1252. The daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile, she married Louis VIII of France in 1200. She was Queen of France 1223-1226, and Regent for her son Louis IX during his minority, 1226-1236 and during his Crusade, 1248-1252.
BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Quoted.
BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Blaye, France
A town on the right bank of the Gironde estuary, 35m north of Bordeaux, founded by the Romans (as Blavia). Vauban built a citadel within the ruins of the Gothic château, containing the tomb of Caribert. Tradition claims that Roland is buried in the basilica.
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 Chateaubriand visited in 1802.
BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap3:Sec1
BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1
BkXXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 The Duchesse de Berry was held there after her arrest on 8th November 1832.
Blenheim Palace, England
The Baroque palace built between 1705 and 1725 at Woodstock near Oxford, designed by Vanbrugh. It was a gift from Queen Anne to the Duke of Marlborough as a monument to his French victories. The gardens were laid out by Capability Brown.
BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 The Battle of Blenheim in 1704 was a comprehensive defeat by Marlborough and Prince Eugène over Louis XIV’s troops. The battle (referred to in some countries as the Battle of Höchstädt) in the War of the Spanish Succession was fought on 13 August 1704. The village of Blindheim (Blenheim in English) lies on the Danube, 10 miles southwest of Donauwörth in Bavaria, southern Germany.
Blitersdorff, Sergeant
BkXVI:Chap2:Sec2 Present at Strasbourg during the arrest of the Duc d’Enghien.
Blois
The city of Blois is situated in the region of Centre, and is the capital of the department of the Loir et Cher. At the end of the 14th century, the county of Blois was sold to Prince Louis of Orleans, son of King Charles V. He lived in the castle for 25 years attracting a small court of scholars and poets. His grandson, Louis XII became king of France in 1498 and decided to move to Blois: in this way the small town became a royal town and the capital of the Kingdom. Under Louis XII and Francis I the town of Blois grew considerably. But after the disaster of Pavia in 1525, Francis I never returned to Blois and his successors only paid short visits to the town.
BkIX:Chap4:Sec2 BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap3:Sec1 The Duc De Guise murdered there.
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1807.
BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 The Regency withdrew there in 1814.
BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 The Dance of Death painting there, and later variants e.g. the woodcuts in the library there.
Blois, Charles de
d1364. Duke of Brittany, from 1341 to his death. Charles was the son of Count Guy I of Chatillon and Blois, by Margaret of Valois, a sister of king Philip VI of France. He was an accomplished military leader, who inspired loyalty by his religious fervour. In 1337 he married Joanna of Dreux, heiress and niece of Duke John III. Together, Charles and Joanna fought the House of Montfort in the Breton War of Succession (1341-1364), with the support of the crown of France. Despite his piety, Charles did not hesitate in ordering the massacre of 2000 civilians after the siege of Quimper. After initial successes, he was taken prisoner by the English in 1346. He was released nine years afterwards against a ransom of about half a million ecús, and resumed the war against the Montforts. He died at the battle of Auray which determined the end of the war and the victory of the Montforts. He was canonized as saint for his devoutness to religion, but the process was made null by Pope Gregory IX by request of Duke John V of Brittany.
BkV:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Blondel de Nesle
Either Jean I of Nesle (c. 1155-1202), Lord of Nesle from 1180, who took part in the Third Crusade, or his son Jean II of Nesle (d. 1241), who took part in the Fourth Crusade, either or both being French trouvères. By 1260, Blondel’s name had become attached to a legend in the highly fictionalised Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims. This claimed that after Richard I of England was arrested and held for ransom in 1192, he was found by the minstrel Blondel, whom he saw from his window, and to whom he sang a verse of a song they both knew.
BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand portrays himself in the role.
Blossac, Les
They were cousins of Chateaubriand. Madame de Blossac (1766-1851), was born Flore de Bedée.
BkXVII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned by Lucile.
Blücher, Gebhard Leberecht von
1742-1819. Prussian field marshal, an outstanding military opponent of Napoleon I, he was an officer in the army of King Frederick II from 1760. He incurred royal displeasure when, believing himself passed over for promotion, he abruptly resigned in the early 1770s. He returned to service only in 1787 after Frederick’s death. He fought well in the disastrous campaign of 1806 against the French and surrendered with honour near Lübeck. He subsequently helped Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst recreate the Prussian opposition to Napoleon. He was a leader in the War of Liberation (1813–14). He won brilliant victories at Wahlstatt and Möckern and played a part in the defeat of the French at Leipzig. Crossing the Rhine, he led his army to Paris. In the Waterloo campaign of 1815, he was defeated at Ligny but arrived at the battle of Waterloo in time to make it a victory. In 1814 he was made prince of Wahlstatt.
BkXX:Chap6:Sec1 Defeated and captured at Lübeck, November 6th 1806.
BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 In 1813 Blücher became commander-in-chief of the Army of Silesia, with Gneisenau and Muffling as his principal staff officers, and 40,000 Prussians and 50,000 Russians under his command.
BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 At Waterloo.
BkXXIV:Chap1:Sec1 His drunkenness and desire to see Napoleon hanged.
BkXXVII:Chap3:Sec2 His popularity in England after Waterloo.
Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
Part of the Appalachian Mountain range which runs from Canada to Alabama.
BkVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand crossed the range somewhere east of Knoxville, possibly near Tellico Block House, which may be Chateaubriand’s Chillicoth. (Place of council in Shawnee, Tellico being the Cherokee equivalent, frequently found as a place-name). He was then 650 miles or about three weeks journey on horseback from Philadelphia.
Boccaccio, Giovanni
1313-1375. The Italian writer and poet, his Filostrato was used by Chaucer for Troilus and Criseyde, and his Teseida for the Knight’s Tale. Between 1348 and 1353 he composed the Decameron, a collection of a hundred stories told by young people escaping the plague in Florence in 1348. He met Petrarch in 1350, lectured on Dante’s Divine Comedy and founded the first chair of Greek in Western Europe in Florence.
BkXXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 See the prologue to Decameron for the plague of 1348 in Florence.
Boetius, Anicius Manlius Severinus
480?-524. A Roman scholar, Christian philosopher, and statesman, he became consul in 510 and subsequently chief minister to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric. Accused of treason and condemned to death, he wrote his Neoplatonic The Consolation of Philosophy while in prison awaiting execution. The work was extremely popular and influential throughout the Middle Ages. He is also known for his translations of works of Greek logic and mathematics, including those of Porphyry and Aristotle. His translations and commentaries were among the basic texts of medieval Scholasticism.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 Put to death at Pavia on Theodoric’s orders.
Boguet, Nicolas-Didier the Younger (Didino)
The son of Nicolas, his mother dying when he three years old he was brought up by his father. He became a painter also and continued to live in Italy.
BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boguet, Nicolas-Didier the Elder
1755-1839 Painter of historical scenes, resident at Rome from 1783.
BkXV:Chap2:Sec1 Called to see Madame de Beaumont in 1803.
BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand meets him again in 1828.
Boigne, née Louise-Eléonore-Charlotte-Adélaïde d’Osmond, Comtesse de
1781-1866. A Memoir writer, she was Lady-in-waiting to Madame Adélaide and a friend of Madame Rècamier. At the Restoration, having separated from her husband, she accompanied her father who became Ambassador to London (1816-1818), and enhanced his Embassy.
BkXI:Chap2:Sec4 Emigrated to London.
BkXXXII:Chap4:Sec1 Her involvement in the events of July 1830.
Boileau(-Despréaux), Nicolas
1636-1711. Poet and critic, his Satires were published in 1666. He was friends with Molière, Racine and other leading writers. L’Art poétique of 1674 was seen as a definitive guide to classical literary principles, and had great influence in France and England. He also wrote a mock epic, Le Lutrin (1674) and translated Longinus’ On the Sublime.
BkI:Chap3:Sec3 Chateaubriand’s writing exercise: the opening two lines of Boileau’s Ninth Satire, conforming to good Seventeenth Century usage.
BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 Attacked the Classicising of the French language.
BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Associated with Guillaume de Lamoignon.
BkXI:Chap2:Sec2 His Satires III lines 71-73 cite a hazy wine from the Auvergne.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 The reference is to his Art poétique:III.20
BkXIII:Chap9:Sec1 A reference to his Épitres VII (1701: Epistles, after Horace)
BkXVI:Chap11:Sec1 A reference to Epitres VII: À Monsieur Racine.
BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 A parody of the line from the Seven Against Thebes cited by the Pseudo-Longinus in his treatise On the Sublime (earliest surviving manuscript 10th century), and translated by Boileau as ‘Tous, la main dans le sang, jurent de se venger.’
BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 His support for and defence of Racine’s work. A reference also to Art poétique, II:172
BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Addison presented his Latin poems to him, see Johnson’s Life of Addison.
BkXXXV:Chap14:Sec1 The quotation is from Épitres IV ‘To the King on his passage of the Rhine.’
BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 See Épitres VI:12, regarding the trees by the Seine.
BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 A modified version of lines from Homer in his translation of Longinus’ On the Sublime (VII). See Iliad XX:61-63.
Boisbrûlés (Burntwoods)
A French name given to the descendants of the fur traders and native peoples in W Canada, because of their dark complexion. The boisbrûlés, or brûlés, were in the early 19th century an important social group in the west and were particularly notable in the Red River Settlement and in Riel’s Rebellion. In the later 19th century they were absorbed into the general population.
BkVII:Chap10:Sec1 Described.
BkVIII:Chap3:Sec1 BkVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boisé-Lucas, Delauney, the elder
Host to Armand de Chateaubriand at Saint-Cast in 1809.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boisé-Lucas, the younger
Son of Delauney. Implicated in the Armand de Chateaubriand case in 1809.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Compromised by Armand’s arrest. He was reprieved and his sentence commuted.
Boisgarein, Magon de
A rich trader of Saint-Malo.
BkII:Chap3:Sec2 His daughter married the Prince of Carignan.
Boisgelin, Louis-Bruno, Comte de
1734-1794. Marshal, and ‘Baron of the Brittany States’.
BkV:Chap7:Sec1 President of the nobility at the States fixed for the 29th December 1788.
Boishue, Jean-Baptiste-Rene de Guéhéneuc, Comte de
Father of Louis-Pierre.
BkV:Chap7:Sec1 Tried to defend his son during fighting in Rennes.
BkIX:Chap10:Sec1 Present in the Army of Princes in 1792.
Boishue, Louis-Pierre de Guéhéneuc de
Son of Jean-Baptiste.
BkV:Chap7:Sec1 Killed on the streets of Rennes on 27th January 1789.
Boisrobert, Abbé François le Métel de
1592-1662. A French poet, trained as a lawyer, he took orders in 1630 and was made a Canon of Rouen. He suggested the idea of the Academy to Richelieu.
BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.
Boisonnade de Fontarabie, Jean-François
1774-1857. Critic for the Journal des Débats, and a Hellenist of repute. He became professor of Greek Literature at the Sorbonne in 1813, then took the Chair of Greek at the Collège de France in 1828.
BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Advised Chateaubriand regarding Les Martyrs.
Boissy, Comte de
1798-1866. Worked with Chateaubriand in London and Verona in 1822, became a Peer under Louis-Philippe, then a Senator of the Second Empire. Tersea Gamba, Contessa Guiccioli, Byron’s mistress, married him in 1851, her second marriage.
BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boissy d’Anglas. François-Antoine, Comte de
1756-1826. A member and President of the Convention, noted for his firmness and coolness during the frenzy of the Revolution: one day the Parisian mob burst in upon the Convention, shot dead a young deputy, Féraud, ‘sweeping the members of it before them to the upper-bench ...covered, the president sat unyielding, like a rock amongst the waves; they menaced him, levelled muskets at him, he did not yield; they held up Féraud’s bloody head to him; with a grave, stern air he bowed to it, and did not yield’. He became a senator and commander of the Legion of Honour under Napoleon; and was made a peer by Louis XVIII.
BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 His coolness on 1st Prairial (20th May 1795).
Boisteilleul, Hyacinthe-Eugène-Pierre de Ravenel du
1784-1867 Son of Jean-Baptiste. Cousin and nephew by marriage of Chateaubriand. Pupil at the Polytechnique in 1803 and 1805, officer in the Grand Army, decorated at Smolensk in 1812, captain in 1813, retired from the service in 1814, in order to marry.
BkII:Chap8:Sec1 Married Zoé de Farcy de Montvallon, Chateaubriand’s niece of whom he was himself a distant cousin, on 16th November 1814.
Boisteilleul, Jean-Baptiste, Comte Ravenel de
1738-1815. Uncle of Chateaubriand. Vice-Admiral. The nephew of the Dames de Plancoët, and the cousin germane of Madame de Chateaubriand. Married 1780, retired from the service 1785.
BkII:Chap8:Sec1 BkII:Chap8:Sec3 Acted as Chateaubriand’s mentor at Brest in 1783.
Boisteilleul, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph-Eugène de Ravenel du
Son of Jean-Baptiste. Cousin of Chateaubriand
Boisteilleul, Pauline-Zoe-Marie de Farcy de Montavallon, Madame de Ravenel du
1784-1814. Wife of Hyacinthe, daughter of Julie de Farcy, niece of Chateaubriand.
Boisteilleul, Suzanne-Émilie de Ravenel du
1704-1794 Sister of Bénigne-Marie du Bedée, she was the great-aunt of Chateaubriand.
BkI:Chap3:Sec1 Lived with Chateaubriand’s grandmother at what is now 43 Rue de l’Abbaye, Plancoët.
BkI:Chap4:Sec1 Description of their life there.
BkI:Chap4:Sec2 Present at the Ascension Day mass.
BkXI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned. A reference to The Sparrow-hawk song of BkI:Chap4:Sec1.
Bojardo (Boiardo), Matteo Maria
1430-1494. He was an Italian Renaissance poet. He is remembered for his poem of chivalry and romance L’Orlando inammorato.
BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born at Reggio.
Boleyn, Anne
c1507-1536. The second wife (from 1533) of Henry VIII, her only child became Elizabeth I. She was accused of treason, and adultery, and executed. BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 Legend has it that Henry waited on the mound in Pembroke Lodge Gardens in Richmond Park for sight of a signal rocket from the Tower indicating her execution.
Bolingbroke, Henry St-John, 1st Viscount
1678-1851. An English statesman, he entered parliament in 1701, and in 1704 became secretary of war. He afterwards became secretary of state for foreign affairs, and negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht. In 1712, a favourite of Queen Anne, he was raised to the peerage. On the accession of George I, in 1714, he was impeached of high treason when he fled the country, and became secretary of state to the first pretender. He was attainted, and his estate seized; but in 1723 he was permitted to return. His estates were restored, but he was not allowed to sit in parliament. He wrote against the ministry, and his productions were admired for their eloquence and vigor. He again withdrew to France in 1735, but returned to England on the death of his father.
BkXXVIII:Chap20:Sec1 His comments on exile.
BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bolivar, Simon
1783-1830. A South-American soldier and statesman, he was known as the Liberator. The son of a wealthy Venezuelan Creole family, he returned to Latin America in 1807 after travel in Europe. He liberated New Granada from Spain in 1819, renaming it Colombia. He became President, and liberated Venezuela and Quito (Ecuador) in 1821. Latin America was finally freed from Spain by campaigns in Peru, and Upper Peru took the name Bolivia in his honour. He died without creating the united Andean Republic of his dreams.
Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.
BkXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Bolivar had recognised Leo XII in a speech in Bogota on the 28th of October 1827, and in a letter to the Pope of the 7th of November.
Bologna, Italy
The city in northern Italy is the capital of Emilia-Romagna. It dates from Etruscan times and became a free city in the Middle Ages. Charles V was crowned here in 1530. The university was founded in 1088.
BkXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Pius VII passed through in 1814.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 The Chateaubriands were there in September 1828.
BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 The Italian Legazione was a major administrative division of the Papal States ruled by a Cardinal legate during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the mid-19th century, on the eve of Italian unification, there were four such legations: Bologna (including Ferrara and Romagna), Urbino (covering the Marche), Perugia (covering Umbria), and Velletri (covering southern Lazio).
Bolsena, Lake
Bolsena is a crater lake of central Italy, of volcanic origin. The lake lies within the northern part of the province of Viterbo called Alto Lazio (‘Upper Latium’) or Tuscia. It is bordered mostly by the Roman consular road the Via Cassia.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 Amalasuntha was exiled to the island of Martana in the lake.
Bolton, William Orde-Powlett, 2nd Baron
1782-1850. He was the 2nd Baron Bolton of Bolton Castle, Yorkshire.
BkX:Chap4:Sec1 Present at the Literary Fund annual meeting in 1822.
Bolzona, for Bolzano?
Bolzano is a city in the Trentino-South Tyrol region of Italy. It is the capital of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. The ancient Runkelstein castle is sited there, with its superb medieval frescoes.
BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 The Comte de Bolzona mentioned.
Bombay, India
The capital of Maharashtra and the main sea port on the western coast. Ceded to the Portuguese in 1534, it passed to Charles II of England in 1661, and to the British East India Company in 1668.
BkX:Chap11:Sec1 A destination for young men wishing for a colonial career. Samuel and William Sutton both became army officers.
Bon, Cape
Cap Bon also Watan el-kibli, is a peninsula in north-eastern Tunisia.
BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bon, Louis-André, General
1758-1799. A Napoleonic general, prominent in Italy and Egypt, he was mortally wounded at Acre, May 1799.
BkXIX:Chap16:Sec1 Present at the execution of prisoners at Jaffa in 1799.
BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 Killed at Acre.
Bon, Madame
Present at the exhumation of the Duc d’Enghien, 26th March 1816.
BkXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de
1754-1840. A French philosopher and politician: disliking the Revolution, he emigrated in 1791, joined the Army of the Princes, and soon afterwards settled at Heidelberg. There he wrote his first important work, the highly conservative Theorie du pouvoir politique et religieux (1796), which was condemned by the Directory. Returning to France he found himself an object of suspicion, and was obliged to live in retirement. In 1806 he was associated with Chateaubriand in the conduct of the Mercure de France, and two years later was appointed councillor of the Imperial University which he had often attacked. After the Restoration he was a member of the council of public instruction, and from 1815 to 1822 sat in the chamber as deputy. His speeches were on the extreme conservative side; he even advocated a literary censorship. In 1822 he was made minister of state, and presided over the censorship commission. In the following year he was made a peer, a dignity which he lost through refusing to take the oath in 1830. From 1816 he had been a member of the Academy. He took no part in public affairs after 1830, but retired to his seat at Le Monna, where he died. Bonald was one of the leading writers of the theocratic or traditionalist school. His writings are mainly on social and political philosophy, and are based ultimately on one great principle, the divine origin of language.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 A returning émigré in 1801. A friend of Chateaubriand and Madame de Beaumont.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 The man described.
BkXIII:Chap11:Sec2 An exemplar of the new nineteenth century literary style.
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s article on his La Législation primitive, appeared in Le Mercure 20th November 1802 and 8th January 1803.
BkXXV:Chap9:Sec1 He collaborated with Chateaubriand on the Conservateur, in 1818.
Bonaparte (Buonaparte) Family
Various genealogies for the family known to Chateaubriand are given.
BkXIX:Chap2:Sec1 The genealogy of the family.
Bonaparte, Caroline see Murat
Bonaparte, Charles-Marie, Carlo-Maria Buonaparte
1746-1785. Napoleon’s father. A Corsican noble and lawyer.
BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonaparte, Charles-Louis-Napoléon, Napoleon III
1808-1873. President of France from 1849 to 1852, he was then Emperor of the French under the name Napoléon III from 1852 to 1870. The youngest son of Louis Bonaparte.
Bonaparte, Napoléon-Louis-Charles
1802-1807. The eldest son of Louis Bonaparte.
Bonaparte, Elisa, see Madame Bacciochi
Bonaparte, Elisabeth, née Patterson
1785-1879. Known as ‘Betsy’, she was the daughter of a Baltimore merchant, William, born in Ireland, who had emigrated to North America prior to the American Revolutionary War. A Catholic, he was the wealthiest man in Maryland after Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. She married Jérôme Bonaparte in Baltimore 1803, but was later deserted by him. Napoleon ordered his brother back to France and had the marriage annulled. Jerome returned to France with Betsy but she was denied landing in continental Europe. She gave birth to a son in 1805, in London. Jerome gave in to his brother, returned to the French Navy and married the German princess Catharina of Württemberg. Betsy returned to Baltimore with her son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte and lived with her father. After Waterloo she returned to Europe where she was well received and much admired for her beauty and wit. In 1815, by special Act of the Legislature of Maryland, she secured a divorce. Her last years were spent in Baltimore in the management of her estate, the value of which she increased to one and a half million dollars.
BkXX:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonaparte, Hortense, née Beauharnais
1783-1837 Napoleon’s step-daughter, and Queen of Holland (1806–10), she was the daughter of Alexandre and Josephine de Beauharnais, and wife of Louis Bonaparte. She was the mother of Napoleon III and, by her lover the Comte de Flahaut, of the Duc de Morny. She was made Duchesse de Saint Leu by Louis XVIII.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXIII:Chap13:Sec1 Napoleon’s comment on her in 1815.
Bonaparte, Jérôme
1784-1860, King of Westphalia, then Comte de Montfort. Napoleon’s youngest brother, he spent the period from 1793-99 at school in Juilly. Napoleon then placed him in the Consular Guard, but transferred him to the Navy in 1800. He then served in the West Indies until 1803. Before leaving for France, he married Elizabeth Patterson in Baltimore, though Napoleon refused to recognise the marriage. Jérôme continued to serve in the Navy until 1806, when Napoleon made him a general of division, and gave him the command of a corps of Bavarians and Würtembergers. He campaigned with them in Silesia. After the treaty of Tilsit, Jérôme was placed on the throne of the new kingdom of Westphalia, with the daughter of the King of Württemberg as his queen. In 1812 he took part in the campaign in Russia at the head of a Westphalian corps. He was forced to leave his kingdom in 1813, and lived in Switzerland, then Trieste. During the Hundred Days, he commanded a division and took part in the battle of Waterloo. After the final fall of his brother, he spent thirty years in exile. When he returned to France he became governor of Les Invalides, and in 1850 became a Marshal of France. He is buried in the Invalides.
BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap8:Sec1 King of Westphalia from 1807.
BkXX:Chap6:Sec2 Recognised as King of Westphalia by Russia after Tilsit.
BkXX:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Bonaparte’s disapproval and annulment of his marriage.
BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Passed through Blois on his way to Switzerland in 1814.
BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 He assaulted and took the farm of La Haye-Saint at Waterloo
BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 In Rome in 1828.
BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 In Rome in 1829. He took the title Jérôme de Montfort in exile.
Bonaparte, Joseph
1768-1844, King of Naples (1806), King of Spain (1808-13). Napoleon’s brother, and the eldest of the children of Carlo and Letizia to survive infancy. Having gained some note as French minister to Parma and Rome, he became (1797) a member of the Council of Five Hundred for Corsica. Joseph later negotiated a treaty (1800) with the United States and represented France in the peace negotiations at Lunéville (1801) and Amiens (1802). When Napoleon became emperor, Joseph bitterly protested being left out of the line of succession. In 1806 Napoleon made him king of Naples, which Joseph administered very inefficiently, and in 1808 he was made king of Spain instead. Thoroughly unsuccessful in defending his throne during the Peninsular War, he reluctantly abdicated in 1813. From 1815 to 1841 he lived mainly in the United States at Bordentown, N. J. He died in Italy. Napoleon I was born a year after Joseph, in 1769.
BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 King of Spain from 1808.
BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Married Mademoiselle Clary in 1794.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 At Antibes with Napoleon and Lucien in 1794.
BkXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Correspondence with Napoleon in 1798.
BkXX:Chap5:Sec3 Made King of Naples and the Two Sicilies in March 1806.
BkXX:Chap6:Sec2 Recognised as King of Naples by Russia after Tilsit.
BkXX:Chap7:Sec1 BkXX:Chap11:Sec1 He became King of Spain, 6th June 1808. The Spanish people nicknamed him Pepe Botella (‘Joe Bottle’) pointing to an alleged tendency to drunkenness. His supporters were called josefinos.
BkXX:Chap11:Sec1 Bernadotte married his wife’s sister.
BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1
Commandant of Paris in 1814. He had returned to France after Vittoria.
BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Passed through Blois on his way to Switzerland in 1814.
BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 Plotting Napoleon’s return in the Canton of Vaud in 1815.
BkXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Embarked for the United States in 1815.
BkXL:Chap2:Sec4 His project for a monument to Tasso at Sorrento.
Bonaparte, Maria-Laetitia (Letizia) Romolino, called Madame Mère
c1750-1836. Napoleon Bonaparte’s mother, she married Carlo-Maria Bonaparte in 1764. After Napoleon’s downfall she retired to Rome.
BkXIX:Chap4:Sec1 She was given the name Madame Mère at Napoleon’s court.
BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Fled Corsica for Marseille in 1793.
BkXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Given sanctuary in Rome by Pius VII in 1814.
BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Passed through Blois on her way to Rome in 1814.
BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 She visited her son on Elba.
BkXXIII:Chap13:Sec1 In Paris during the Hundred Days.
BkXXV:Chap5:Sec1 Decazes was her secretary at one time.
Bonaparte, Louis, King of Holland
1778-1846. Very close to his brother Napoleon during his early successes, Louis served with his brother in Italy and Egypt, fighting at Caldiero, Arcola and Rivoli. In 1805, he was given command of the French troops in Holland and within a year was crowned king of that nation. He fought the British during the Walcheren expedition and took a real interest in his adopted country's welfare. This brought about a split with Napoleon over the Continental System of trade and he gave up his crown in 1810. Louis then travelled Europe before retiring to Italy. He had one marriage, an arranged and unhappy one with Napoleon’s step-daughter Hortense Beauharnais.
BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXX:Chap5:Sec3 King of Holland from 1806.
BkXX:Chap6:Sec2 Recognised as King of Holland by Russia after Tilsit.
BkXX:Chap11:Sec1 Napoleon took back the kingdom in 1810.
Bonaparte, Lucien, Prince de Canino
1775-1840. A brother of Napoleon, he first became prominent as President of the Council of Five Hundred. He took an important part in the coup of 18th Brumaire (1799); The Directory was overthrown, and Napoleon became First Consul. However, Lucien was critical of his brother’s policies and married a commoner against Napoleon's wishes. He went to live in Italy under the protection of Pope Pius VII, who made him prince of Canino. When Napoleon made the pope a prisoner, Lucien attempted to flee (1810) to the United States but was captured at sea by the British and interned in England. He returned to Italy in 1814 and became reconciled with Napoleon, who was then in Elba. Lucien returned to France during the Hundred Days, and after Waterloo he tried to secure the throne for Napoleon II. He died in exile in Italy.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand was introduced to him in 1801, though Lucien did not return from his posting as Ambassador to Madrid until the end of that year.
BkXIII:Chap10:Sec1 He read the proofs of Le Génie in early 1802 and reported in favour of the work.
BkXIV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 A dinner given for his brother, Napoleon, after the Concordat of 1801-2 (which reaffirmed the Catholic Church as France’s major religion) which was ratified by the Legislative Body July 16th 1802. Chateaubriand saw Napoleon there.
BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 Copied his brother’s manuscript history.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 The Memoirs (1816, second edition 1836.) are of doubtful authenticity.
BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 His role on the 18th/19th Brumaire.
BkXXIII:Chap12:Sec1 Suggested as Interior Minister in 1815.
BkXXIII:Chap13:Sec1 In Paris during the Hundred Days.
BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 Supported the abdication, and the recognition of Napoleon’s son on the 22nd June 1815.
BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 Las Cases corresponded with him from St Helena.
Bonaparte, Marie-Julie Clary, Madame Joseph
1771-1845. The daughter of François Clary (1725-1794) a rich silk merchant of Marseilles, she married Joseph Bonaparte, in 1794. Her sister Désirée married Bernadotte.
BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Her marriage.
BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand issued her with a passport in 1823.
Bonaparte, Christine Boyer, Madame Lucien
1773-1800. She was the illiterate daughter of Lucien Bonaparte’s landlord daughter, and married Lucien in 1794.
BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Her tomb in Lucien’s garden at Plessis-Chamant.
Bonaparte, Napoléon, see Napoléon I
Bonaparte, Napoléon-Louis
1804-1831. The second son of Louis Bonaparte, he died of measles at Forli.
BkXIX:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 His translation of his ancestor’s Sac de Rome, écrit en 1527 by Jaques Bonaparte, témoin oculaire, was printed in Florence in 1830.
Bonaparte, Pauline, see Borghèse
Bonaparte et des Bourbons, De
A work by Chateaubriand, published in 1814. A brilliant and effective pamphlet, it was said by Louis XVIII to be worth an army of a hundred thousand men to the Bourbon cause; and upon their re-establishment Chateaubriand was immediately in favour, and was made a member of the Chamber of Peers.
BkII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap10:Sec1 He was writing it in December 1813. Note that the Allies entered Paris in March 1814. Napoleon abdicated in the April and was exiled to Elba.
BkXXII:Chap15:Sec1 It was advertised in the Journal des Débats of the 4th April 1814, and available the following day.
BkXXII:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1
BkXXVIII:Chap17:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonchamp, Charles-Melchior Arthur, Marquis de
1760-1793. French general, born in Anjou, served in the American war; became one of the chiefs of the Vendéan army; fell at the battle of Cholet, and when dying, relented over the blood already shed; reputedly ordered the release of 5000 prisoners which his party, in their revenge, was about to massacre.
BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXI:Chap3:Sec2 BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonchamp, Marquise de
Widow of the Marquis. Her death sentence annulled.
BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bondy, Pierre-Marie Taillepied, Comte de
1766-1847. A former Chamberlain of Napoleon’s, he was Prefect of the Rhône in 1810, then of the Seine in 1815. He was a Liberal Deputy under the restoration, returning to the Prefecture in 1830. He was named a Peer in 1832.
BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him on 16th April 1832.
Bondy, Madame de
The wife of Pierre-Marie, in 1830?
BkXXXII:Chap13:Sec1 Brings news to Louis-Philippe at Neilly on the 27th of July 1830.
Boniface VIII, Pope
1235-1303. Pope (1294–1303). An Italian (b. Anagni) Benedetto Caetani, he was successor to St. Celestine V. Boniface’s contest with Philip IV of France was the principal feature of his career. In 1303 Philip sent Nogaret to Italy, proclaiming his intention of deposing the pope. Nogaret found the pope at Anagni and harassed him; the pope stood firm and according to tradition was slapped by Nogaret’s companion, Sciarra Colonna. The outraged people of Anagni thereupon drove out the attackers; Boniface was rescued and escorted to Rome. He died within a month. He is the Pope at the time of Dante’s vision in the Divine Comedy (April 1300).
BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXX:Chap9:Sec1 Chateabriand compares Pius VII’s fate to that of Boniface.
Bonington, Richard Parkes
1802-1828. An English Romantic landscape painter, his family moved to Paris in 1818, and his works were exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1822. He was a significant influence on the Romantic School. He died of tuberculosis in London.
BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 His views of Venice (he was there in 1826) were exhibited at the Paris Salons of 1827 and 1828.
Bonivard (Bonnivard), François
1496-1570. A Swiss patriot and historian, his life was the inspiration for Byron’s 1816 poem The Prisoner of Chillon. Bonivard opposed Charles III, Duke of Savoy in his efforts to control Geneva; the duke captured Bonivard and imprisoned him at Grolée from 1519 to 1521. In 1530, after further political activism, the duke imprisoned him again, this time underground in the Castle of Chillon. Bonivard was released by the Bernese when they conquered Vaud in 1536.
BkXXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonnay, Charles-François, Marquis de
1750-1825. He represented the nobility of the Nivernais in the States-general then emigrated in 1792. A colleague of Chateaubriand in the Chamber of Peers after the Restoration, he was his predecessor at the Berlin Embassy (1816-1820). He was a friend of the Duc de Richelieu and approved his measures against the Ultras.
BkV:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXV:Chap7:Sec2 Wrote letters attacking Chateaubriand, left in the archives.
BkXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand succeeds him in Berlin in 1821.
Bonnet, Monsieur
A Frenchman who died in America c. 1822.
BkXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonnevie, Abbé Pierre-Étienne de
1761-1849. Returned from eastern Prussia at the start of the Consulate and was appointed in January 1803 as canon and chief curate of Lyons. He accompanied Cardinal Fesch to Rome where he remained until April 1804. A faithful friend of Chateaubriand.
BkXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXV:Chap4:Sec1 Called to Madame de Beaumont’s deathbed.
BkXVII:Chap4:Sec1 In Lyons in August 1805.
Bonnier, Ange Elisabeth Louis Antoine
1749-1799. A French diplomatist, he was a member of the Convention, where he voted with the majority. During the Directory he was charged with diplomatic missions, first to Lille and then to the congress of Rastadt in October 1797. On the 28th of April 1799 the plenipotentiaries on leaving Rastadt were assailed at the gates of the town by Hungarian hussars, probably charged to secure their papers. Bonnier and one of his colleagues Claude Roberjot, were killed. The other, Jean Debry, was wounded.
BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bono, Bartholomeo
BkXXXIX:Chap19:Sec1 His work on the Procuratie Vecchie in Venice.
Bonpart
Governor of the Île Sainte-Marguerite according to Chateaubriand’s retelling of a legend concerning Buonaparte.
BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bonstetten, Charles-Victor de
1745-1832. A traveller, and acquaintance of the Coppet group, he was in Rome in 1774, and returned in 1802-1803. Chateabriand met him in 1831 in Geneva where he lived, a few months before his death.
BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 His Voyage sur la scène des six derniers livres de l’Enéide, published in Geneva at the end of 1804.
Bordeaux, France
The city in south-west France, was the Roman Burdigala. Capital of the Gironde on the River Garonne. A major Atlantic seaport, it became the capital of Aquitania (later Aquitaine) but declined after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It flourished again under English rule (1154-1453), became a centre of the Fronde in the 17th century, and of the Girondins during the Revolution.
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 Chateaubriand was there in 1802. The Gallo-Roman Tutelary Temple was pulled down in 1674. The Chateau de Trompette fort stood on what is now the Place des Quinconces.
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1807.
Bordeaux, Henri de France, Duc de: See also Henry V
1820-1883. Posthumus son of the Duc de Berry, he was the grandson of Charles X.
BkIV:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 His christening on 1st May 1821.
BkXXVIII:Chap11:Sec1 The Duc de Montmorency appointed as his tutor in 1826.
BkXXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned in 1830.
Bordesoulle, Étienne Tardif, Comte de
1771-1837. A Brigadier General in 1807, he became Inspector General of Cavalry under Louis XVIII in 1814. He was loyal to the King during the Hundred Days. In 1823 he contributed to the blockade of Cadiz and then the taking of Trocadéro. A Peer of France he was commader of the Royal Guard in 1830. He later rallied to the July Regime.
BkXXXIII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bordier
A strolling actor from Paris, he was famous for his role as Harlequin. He was a revolutionary, hanged with Jourdain, a lawyer from Lisieux, for causing a riot at Rouen in August 1789.
BkV:Chap15:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bordone, Paris
1495-1570. A Venetian painter, he was a pupil of Titian, and his work is sometimes mistaken for that of Titian.
BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boreas
The North Wind in Greek mythology.
BkXXX:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Borghèse, Pauline Bonaparte, Princess
1780-1825. Napoleon’s favourite sister, known as Marie-Paulette. A woman of great beauty, she was the subject of considerable scandal. She accompanied her husband, General Leclerc, on the expedition to Haiti. After Leclerc’s death Napoleon arranged her marriage (August 1803) to Camillo Borghèse, a member of the Roman nobility. They soon separated, however. Pauline, made Princess of Guastalla in 1806, fell into temporary disfavour with her brother because of her hostility to Empress Marie Louise, yet when Napoleon’s fortune turned, Pauline showed herself more loyal than his other sisters and brothers.
BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec2 In Rome in November 1803.
BkXV:Chap5:Sec1 Lent her family hearse for Madame de Beaumont’s funeral.
BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Fréron wished to marry her, but was disappointed. Junot was also enamoured of her.
BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 She visited her brother, Napoleon, on Elba.
BkXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 She held a ball to conceal Napoleon’s departure from Elba on the night of the 25th-26th February 1815.
BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 She wished to join Napoleon on St Helena. She died in Florence.
BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec2 She died near Florence on the 9th of June 1825.
Borgo San Donnino, Italy
A town and episcopal see of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Parma, 14 miles or so north-west of Parma. Pop. (1901). It occupies the site of the ancient Fidentia, on the Via Aemilia
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 The Chateaubriands were there in September 1828.
Borisov (Barysaw), Russia
A town in Belarus, it is on the Berezina River at its confluence with the Skha.
BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 The loss of the bridgehead there. Chichagov was positioned in the town.
Borromeo, Carlo (Saint Charles)
1538-1584. Archbishop of Milan, he was born and spent his early years in the Castle of Arona.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 His tomb is in the crypt of Milan Cathedral.
BkXXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 His charity during the plague in Milan of 1575.
Borodino, The Battle of the Moskva
On September 7, 1812, or August 26 in the Julian calendar then used in Russia, Borodino also called the Battle of the Moskva, was the largest and bloodiest single-day battle of the Napoleonic Wars, involving more than a quarter of a million soldiers. It was fought by the French Grande Armée under Napoleon and the Russian army of Alexander I near the village of Borodino, west of the town of Mozhaysk. The battle ended with inconclusive tactical results for both armies, and only strategic considerations forced the Russians to withdraw.
BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Description of the battle.
BkXXI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 Latour-Maubourg wounded there.
BkXXII:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 The carnage on the battlefield.
BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Napoleon the victor, as opposed to Alexander the defeated.
BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 A source of major French losses.
Borowsk, Russia
A town 106km north of Kaluga it is 80km southwest of Moscow.
BkXXI:Chap5:Sec1 Napoleon’s army passed it in retreat 22nd October 1812 and returned to it on the 26th.
Bosphorus
The strait, separating Europe and Asia, connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. Istanbul (Constantinople) is at its southern end.
BkVIII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXI:Chap4:Sec2 BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec4 Mentioned.
Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne
1627-1704. A French prelate, he was one of the greatest orators in French history. At an early age he was made a canon at Metz; he became bishop of Condom and was (1670-81) tutor to the dauphin (father of Louis XV), for whom he wrote his great Discourse on Universal History (1681, tr. 1778, 1821), Politics Derived from Holy Writ (1709), and Treatise of the Knowledge of God and One's Self (1722). In 1681 he became bishop of Meaux. Unrivalled for his eloquence, he is celebrated for his Funeral Orations (1689), particularly those on Henrietta of England, on her daughter, and on Condé, which are masterpieces of their kind. He was also a great moralist, a magnificent stylist, and a powerful controversialist, brilliantly attacking Fénelon and the quietists, the Jesuits, and the Protestants.
BkIV:Chap2:Sec2 Chateaubriand refers to his Sermons de Virtue of which the most celebrated is that for the profession of Madame de La Vallière, preached in 1674.
BkIV:Chap10:Sec2 He was opposed by Le Père Simon.
BkV:Chap6:Sec1 His genius.
BkVII:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes a version of Bossuet’s celebrated funeral oration for the Prince de Condé.
BkXIV:Chap2:Sec3 Imitated Cicero’s oratorical manner.
BkXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Another reference to his Oraison funèbre de Louis de Bourbon (Funeral Oration for the Great Condé), his last, given on the 10th March 1687 in Notre-Dame. The italicised phrases are quotations from it.
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec5 A letter from Fénelon perhaps addressed to Bossuet.
BkXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 Bausset’s Histoire de Bossuet of 1814.
BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 The Gallicans were French Roman Catholics following Bossuet and claiming partial autonomy (the opposite of ultramontanes)
BkXIX:Chap17:Sec1 A quotation from the Universal History III:3
BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 A reference to his Easter sermon preached at Meaux 22nd April 1685.
BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 A modification of lines from Bossuet’s Funeral Oration for Henrietta of England.
BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXVIII:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXXIII:Chap9:Sec1
Mentioned.
BkXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 His work on religious unification.
BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 The reference is to his Funeral Oration for Queen Marie-Thérèse, of 1st September 1683. The French had bombarded Algiers on the 28th of October 1681.
BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1 A slight misquotation from the Funeral Oration for the Prince de Condé.
BkXXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 Quoted.
BkXXXVII:Chap14:Sec1 A reference to the Funeral Oration for the Prince de Condé.
BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 A re-working of a passage from his ‘Sermon de mauvais riche’ 5th March 1662.
Boston, Massachusetts
The capital of Massachusetts on Massachusetts Bay, it was founded in 1630 by English Puritans, and prospered as the main colony of the Massachusetts Bay Company. It became a centre of opposition to the British prior to the American Revolution, in 1774. It was a leading force in the anti-slavery movement during the 1830’s.
BkVI:Chap7:Sec1 BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkVII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand travelled the 340 kilometres from New York to visit the battlefield at Lexington nearby.
Botany Bay, New South Wales
An inlet of the Tasman Sea in south-east Australia, it was the site of Captain Cook’s first landing in 1770. A convict settlement planned there in 1788 was moved to Port Jackson five miles north. The Bay is now surrounded by the suburbs of Sydney.
BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boucher
After the assassination of Guise by Henri III, Boucher, curé of Saint-Benoît, popularized an opinion of the Sorbonne in his book ‘De justa Henriei Tertii abdicatione’, in which be maintained that Henry III, ‘as a perjurer, assassin, murderer, a sacrilegious person, patron of heresy, simoniac, magician, impious and damnable’, could be deposed by the Church; that, as ‘a perfidious waster of the public treasure, a tyrant and enemy of his country’, he could be deposed by the people. One of the most important writers on Leaguer political thought in France in the 16th century, the central issue in his work was that of royal succession. Boucher became so influential in the Catholic League, as a preacher and author of polemical works, that he was called ‘the one-eyed king’ of Paris. Borrowing from Huguenot works, he asserted that both the Church and the People had a right and an obligation to depose Henry III as a tyrant. The People’s right was based on common law, in which it was clear that the people are superior to the monarchy, which they created, and they elect each new king. Thus, they can depose a king who is harming their interests. The Pope, as the supreme authority in religion, also has the power to depose a king and order the election of a new dynasty. He added a new conclusion after Henry III’s assassination, praising Jacques Clément as the new David killing Goliath, and proclaimed that the Estates must meet quickly to elect a Catholic king.
BkXXXII:Chap15:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bouëtiez, Chevalier du
BkI:Chap1:Sec5. He is mentioned as assisting in the granting of Chateaubriand’s application to enrol in the order of Malta.
Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de
1729-1811. French Sailor, Soldier, Statesman and Mathematician, he founded the first settlement in the Iles Malouines (Falkland Islands); led a voyage around the world in the 1760s; he fought in the American War of Independence; wrote mathematical treatises and was elected to scientific academies, and survived a duel and the French Revolution to become a friend of Napoleon, and grow roses. After his death in 1811 he had islands, mountains and plants named after him.
Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.
Bouillé, Marie-Louise Carrère, Marquise de
c1780-1869. A Creole from Martinique, she married Comte Francois-Marie-Michel de Bouilleé (1779-1853), Marshal, Governor of Martinique and Peer under the Restoration. She had followed the Duchesse de Berry to England.
BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 In Prague in 1833.
Bouillon, Godefroy de
1061?-1100. A Crusader, Duke of Lower Lorraine, he fought for the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV against Pope Gregory VII and against Rudolf of Swabia and was rewarded (c.1082) with the duchy of Lower Lorraine, which he claimed through his mother. With his brothers Eustace and Baldwin, he was among those who set out (1096) for Jerusalem on the First Crusade. On the way to Constantinople, he allowed his army to pillage the countryside, but after his arrival he made peace (Jan., 1097) with the Byzantine emperor, Alexius I. He played a minor role at Nicaea and Antioch, but achieved prominence in the siege of Jerusalem (1099) and was elected ruler of the city after its capture. Having refused the title of king on religious grounds, he was designated defender of the Holy Sepulchre. He won the battle of Ascalon (1099) and brought several Syrian towns under tribute. Godfrey was distinguished for his piety and simplicity. As the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem, he became the central figure of various legends, and his deeds were glorified in the Chansons de Geste. His brother, Baldwin I, succeeded him as ruler of Jerusalem and took the title of king.
BkXIX:Chap15:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bouillon, Philipe d’Auvergne, Prince de
1754-1816. Rear-Admiral of the Blue in the English Navy (1804), a native of Jersey, he had been adopted by the last Duke (whose cousin he was and who only had a handicapped son) in 1789. In 1814-1815, before the decrees of the Vienna Congress were known he made an attempt to revive the ancient Duchy (in the Ardennes). The people recognised him and Louis XVIII was in agreement but the Congress assigned Bouillon to the Netherlands.
BkX:Chap3:Sec3 Protector of the French refugees in Jersey in 1793, at which time he held the rank of captain in the English Navy (from 1784).
Boulet
A village in Brittany, part of the titled estates of Chateaubriand’s father.
BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boulin
Day labourer at Saint-Servan in 1798.
BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Attested to the death of Chateaubriand’s mother. Unable to write so could not sign the death register.
Boulogne, France
A city of northern France on the English Channel north-northwest of Amiens, of Celtic origin, it is the leading fishing port of France.
BkXX:Chap5:Sec1 Napoleon’s ambitious scheme to invade England was devised in July 1803. It involved not only the French Army and Navy but also the construction of a special invasion flotilla. These vessels would transport men, horses, ammunition and artillery across the English Channel. Despite its difficult tides and lack of facilities, Boulogne was chosen as the key departure port. By the end of 1804, over 150,000 men were stationed at the camp there and some 2000 vessels were assembled ready for invasion. There were a series of magnificent ceremonies designed to boost morale, including presentations of the Legion of Honour.
BkXXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 A major military camp in 1830.
Boulogne (Boullogne), Étienne-François de
1747-1825. Journalist and Chaplain to Napoleon and Bishop of Troyes from 1808 and Baron of the Empire, 1809 he was made a Peer and Comte from 1822. He was one of the foremost religious orators of his day.
BkXIII:Chap10:Sec1 His reaction to Le Génie.
Bounelet, Monsieur
Present at the exhumation of the Duc d’Enghien, 26th March 1816.
BkXVI:Chap5:Sec1 One of the original grave-diggers.
Bourbons, Les
The Bourbon dynasty originated in Bourbonnais, now Allier, central France. It acquired Ducal status in 1272 when Agnès Bourbon married the sixth son of Louis IX. The first Bourbon King was Henry IV (1589-1610), and the house continued to rule until the Revolution (1792) They were restored after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 but again expelled in 1830 in favour of a cadet branch which ruled until the 1848 Revolution. Louis XIV’s grandson became Philip V of Spain (1700) and the Bourbons ruled there until the abdication of Alfonso XIII in 1931. His grandson Juan Carlos was restored to the throne in 1975. Bourbons ruled Sicily and Naples between 1743 and 1860.
BkI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand is being ironic regarding Bourbon hopes of return to the throne, since this was written after 1818.
BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Bourbon County, Kentucky.
BkXXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bourbon, Charles III de Bourbon-Montpensier, 8th Duke and Constable de
1490-1527. Constable of France who became estranged from and subsequently opposed François I. He was killed while heading the assault on Rome.
BkXIX:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap2:Sec2 BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bourbon, Louis Henri, Duc de
1692-1740. He was First Minister of Louis XV from 1723 to 1726.
BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 mentioned.
Bourbon, Louis-Henri-Joseph, Last Duc de
1756-1830. Father of the Duc d’Enghien, on his own father’s death in 1818 he inherited but did not assume the Condé title. As he had no heirs, he left the residue of the Condé inheritance (after splendid bequests to his mistress) to Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale. Within a few months he was found hanging from a window fastening in his bedroom at Saint-Leu Taverney, the magnificent estate that he had bought six years earlier.
BkII:Chap5:Sec1 The post of tutor to him.
BkIX:Chap14:Sec1 Leading the French corps with Clairfayt in 1792.
BkXI:Chap3:Sec3 BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him in London in 1798. Chantilly is the town and castle (later rebuilt) north of Paris on the site owned by the Great Condé, and inherited by Louis.
BkXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Warned his son on June 16 1803 of his possible arrest.
BkXVI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 His wish for silence regarding his son’s execution.
BkXVI:Chap11:Sec1 His will left Chantilly and the bulk of his fortune to the Duc d’Aumale, Louis-Philippe’s fifth son. The rest went to his mistress the Baronne de Feuchères.
BkXXIII:Chap2:Sec1 Swears allegiance to the Charter in March 1815. Chateaubriand suggested he might leave for the Vendée.
BkXXV:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand discussed his marriage prospects with the King.
Bourbon, Charles-Louis de, Duke of Lucca, then of Parma
1799-1883. After Napoleon’s fall in 1815 the House of Bourbon was not restored to the Duchy of Parma, but the duchy was given to Marie Louise, Napoleon’s wife. Charles Louis was compensated with the smaller Duchy of Lucca. Maria Louisa died in 1847 and was succeeded by Charles Louis as Charles II of Parma. Lucca was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. On 19 April 1848 Duke Charles II abdicated his Duchy, during the uprisings of that year. For the rest of his long life (he survived his son), he lived in France as the Count of Villafranca.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bourdaloue, Louis
1632-1704. He joined the Society of Jesus at 16 and taught successively rhetoric, philosophy, and moral theology. He began to preach in his 33rd year and was so successful that he was invited to appear before the court no less than 10 times and preached in Paris for 34 consecutive years. His contemporaries placed him even above Bossuet and he was called ‘The Preacher of Kings and the King of Preachers.’ The characteristics of his eloquence were, religious logic, keen psychological analysis, and fearless apostolic severity.
BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Associated with Guillaume de Lamoignon.
Bourdasse, Jacques
He was a Municipal Officer of Saint-Servan in 1798.
BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Signed the death certificate of Chateaubriand’s mother.
Bourdic-Viot, Marie-Anne-Henriette Payan de l’Estang, Madame de
1744-1802. A French poetess, born in Dresden, and three times married, she wrote an Ode to Silence (1787), which Chateaubriand greatly admired.
BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bourdon de la Crosnière, Jean-Joseph Léonard
1754-1807. A Member of the National Convention, he was arrested and pardoned and spent the rest of his life in business and public administration.
BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bourges
In central France, it is the préfecture (capital) of the département of Cher, and was also the capital of the former province of Berry.
BkXXX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bourgouët
A forest at Combourg on the Chateaubriand estate.
BkII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bourmont, Louis-August-Victor de Ghaisnes, Comte de
1773-1846. Marshal of France, after an eventful military career he was Minister of War in 1829. He was commanding the expedition against Algiers when the July Revolution broke out in 1830 upon which Bourmont refused allegiance to Louis Philippe on his accession, and was dismissed from service. In 1832 Marshal Bourmont took part in the rising of the duchesse de Berry and on its failure fled to Portugal. He commanded the army of Dom Miguel during the Liberal Wars and after the victory of the constitutional party he retired to Rome. At the amnesty of 1840 he returned to France, where he died.
BkXXXI:Chap5:Sec1 Joined the Cabinet in 1829. His four sons were officers, and Amédée, a lieutenant in Algeria was mortally wounded at Sidi-Brahim in July 1830. Another son died in Portugal serving Dom Miguel.
BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Leader of the Algerian Expedition. Polignac acted in his absence at the War Ministry.
BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 His involvement in the Duchesse de Berry’s uprising in 1832.
Bournonville (Beurnonville), Pierre de Ruel, Marquis de
1752-1821. Minister of war in February 1793, he denounced his old commander, Dumouriez, to the Convention, and was one of the four deputies sent to watch him. Given over by him to the Austrians on April 3, 1793, Beurnonville was not exchanged until November 1795. He entered the service again, commanded the armies of the Sambre-et-Meuse and of the North, and was appointed inspector of infantry of the army of England in 1798. In 1800 he was sent as ambassador to Berlin, in 1802 to Madrid. Napoleon made him a senator and count of the empire. In 1814 he was a Member of the provisional government organized after the abdication of Napoleon. He followed Louis XVIII to Ghent, and after the second restoration was made a Marquis and Marshal of France.
BkXXII:Chap17:Sec1 A Member of the Provisional Government in 1814.
Bourqueney, François-Adolphe, Comte de
1799-1869 A Diplomat.
BkVI:Chap1:Sec1 Third secretary at the London Embassy.
Bourrienne, Louis-Antoine Fauvelet de,
1769-1834. A French political figure, he was a friend of, and for a time (1797–1802) private secretary to, Napoleon, who made him a Councillor of State. Bourrienne later supported the Bourbon restoration and was elected to the chamber of deputies, where he was a spokesman for the ultra-royalist followers of King Charles X. His memoirs (10 vol., 1829–31) are vivid but untrustworthy.
BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentions Chateaubriand’s visit in March 1804 to the Tuileries but dates it incorrectly in his Memoirs.
BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1
BkXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap16:Sec3
His Memoirs referred to.
BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned as an early friend of Napoleon.
BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 With Napoleon he witnessed the march to the Tuileries of 20th June 1792, when the king allowed the mob admittance.
BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 His brother, Fauvelet de Bourrienne, who kept a furniture shop.
BkXIX:Chap7:Sec1 The pamphlet was written in Beaucaire in 1793 where Napoleon went to rest after his regiment took part in the disturbing attack on Avignon. Two men from Marseilles appear in it, but only one speaks.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec3 Bourrienne was with Napoleon in Paris in May 1795.
Bourrienne, Madame de
The wife of Fauvelet de Bourrienne.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 Her additions to her husband’s memoirs.
Bourse
The Paris stock-exchange. Napoleon ordered its creation. It is situated between the Palais Royal and the Grands Boulevards in the commercial centre of Paris. He enlisted the architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart (1739-1813) who was known for his designs of private homes, a theatre and the Hôtel de Condé. The Bourse was the final work of Brongniart begun in 1807 and completed in 1825. Although he created all of the designs, he died in 1813 and another architect, Labarre succeeded him in the project.
BkVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boutin, Monsieur
Financier, Treasurer of the Navy.
BkIX:Chap6:Sec2 He created the Folie-Boutin, the original Tivoli Gardens in 1771.
Bouvines
The city of Bouvines is between Lille and Tournai, in the 13th century in the County of Flanders and now part of France. The Battle of Bouvines, July 27, 1214, was the first great international conflict of alliances among national forces in Europe. In the alliances, which were orchestrated by Pope Innocent III, Philip Augustus of France defeated Otto IV of Germany and count Ferrand of Flanders so decisively that Otto was deposed and replaced by Frederick II Hohenstaufen. Ferrand was captured and imprisoned. Philip was himself able to take undisputed control of the territories of Anjou, Brittany, Maine, Normandy, and the Touraine, which he had recently seized from Otto’s kinsman and ally John of England.
BkIX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.
Boyer, Pierre-François-Joseph, Adjutant General
1772-1851. He served with the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees, then with that of Italy, where he was made chief of staff of La Harpe’s division. Commanded an attack column at Dego (14 April 1796). He became chief of staff of Augereau’s division on 18 January 1797, and was promoted general of brigade. He took part in the expedition to Egypt and into Syria. After his return to France he was sent to S. Domingo (in October 1801). While sailing back to France in 1803, he was captured by the English. He was allowed back to France on parole, and in 1809 became Kellermann’s chief of staff. He then served in Spain and Portugal, commanding a brigade, then a division of dragoons, as a replacement for Montbrun. He took part in the battles of Salamanca (22 July 1812) and Vitoria (June 1813), and became vice chief of staff to Soult. He fought at the Bidassoa, and was then recalled to France by Napoleon, seeing action at Laon and Arcis-sur-Aube. He commanded the military department of Mont Blanc during the Hundred Days. He was proscribed on the Second Restoration. Between 1824 and 1834 he held commands in North Africa. He passed to the reserve in 1839, and finally retired in 1848.
BkXIX:Chap14:Sec2 Present at the taking of Rosetta in 1798.
Boyer, Christine, see Madame Lucien Bonaparte
Brabant
During the French occupation of the Southern Netherlands in 1795 the old Hapsburg duchy of Brabant was dissolved. The territory was reorganised in the départements of Deux-Nèthes (present province of Antwerp) and Dyle (the later province of Brabant). Brabant was a province of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1815 until 1830 and a Province of Belgium from 1830.
BkXXXVII:Chap12:Sec1 Gold coins from there.
Brackenridge, Henry Marie
1786-1871. An American writer, born in Pittsburgh, he was the son of the poet Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1806, he moved to St. Louis, where he was a lawyer and journalist. Among his writings are Views of Louisiana (1814), part of which was one of the sources of Washington Irving's Astoria, and a pamphlet South America (1817), which puts forth a policy similar to the Monroe Doctrine. Sent to South America to study political conditions, he recounted his experiences in Voyage to South America (1819). His Recollections of Persons and Places in the West (1834) is a valuable historical source.
BkVIII:Chap5:Sec3 His History of the late war between the United States and Great Britain (1816, reprinted 1817)
Bragadino, Marco Antonio
d. 1571 The Christian commander of forces at Famagusta who fell to the Islamic Ottoman Turks in August 1571, was reputedly flayed.
BkXXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Braganza, House of
The royal house ruled Portugal from 1640 to 1910, and Brazil from 1822 to 1889. It took its name from the castle of Braganza or Bragança. The line was descended from Alfonso, the natural son of John I of Portugal, who became the duke of Braganza in 1442.
BkXX:Chap7:Sec1 Jean II in the text denotes Don Maria Jose Luis de Braganza (1769-1826) second son of Peter III, who exercised the regency in his mother’s name. He decided on the 24th of November 1807 to take refuge in Brazil. Proclaimed King as John VI, in March 1816, he did not return to Lisbon until 1821.
Bramante, Donato
1444-1514. An Italian architect, he introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St. Peter’s Basilica.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 He designed the tall marbles screen around the Chiesa della Case in Loreto.
Brancas, Charlotte de Colbert, Madame de
The daughter of Madame de Colbert, she married Antoine-Bufile Comte de Brancas (d. 1842) in 1824.
BkXXXV:Chap17:Sec1 In Lucerne in August 1832 with her mother.
Bréhan, Louis Robert Hippolyte de, Comte de Plélo
1699-1734. A military commander, Chateaubriand describes him as ‘diplomat, warrior, poet’. He married Louise Françoise de la Villière (1707-1737) in 1722. Their sole child, Louise-Félicite de Plélo, born in 1726, married the Duc d’Aiguillon, and lived to the age of 70.
BkI:Chap1:Sec9 Leader of the French at Danzig in 1734, he was killed in the battle.
Brennus
4th century BC. The legendary Gaulish chieftain overran Italy and captured Rome c390BC. He occupied the city but failed to take the Capitol from Marcus Manlius Capitolinus. According to legend, when the tribute that the Romans had agreed to pay was being weighed, a Roman complained, whereupon Brennus threw his sword on the scale, crying: ‘Vae victis! Woe to the vanquished!’
BkXXXV:Chap25:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brescia, Italy
A city in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy, between the Mella and the Naviglio,
BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in September 1833.
Brest
The major port and naval base in north-west France, located in a dramatic landscape at the end of a natural bay, at the west end of the Britanny peninsula. The military harbor was fortified by Vauban.
BkI:Chap1:Sec9 BkII:Chap7:Sec1 BkII:Chap10:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkII:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s arrival there in January 1783. The Naval examinations took place in April and August.
BkII:Chap8:Sec2 BkXLII:Chap11:Sec1 Arrival of the French squadron in 1783 (April or June).
BkIII:Chap1:Sec1 BkIII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand left Brest in 1784.
BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 The Comte de Plessix-Parscau was commander of the naval cadet corps there.
BkIX:Chap9:Sec1 Naval officers from there in the émigré army in 1792.
BkX:Chap3:Sec3 Chateaubriand last saw Gesril there prior to their meeting again off Jersey.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Armand de Goyon sent there by Armand de Chateaubriand to report on its defences.
BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 Troops of the Army against England stationed there.
Breteuil, Louis-Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de
1730-1807. Minister of State under Louis XVI, he fought in the Seven Years War, then in 1758 left the army and joined the French Foreign Ministry. He was quickly appointed French ambassador to Cologne, where he proved to have excellent diplomatic skills. Between 1760 and 1783, Breteuil was ambassador to Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Naples and Austria. After he returned to France, he was appointed Minister of the King's Household. He was a liberal and humanitarian minister, who moderated the censorship laws. His time as Household Minister corresponded with the infamous Affair of the Necklace. His loyalty to Marie Antoinette earned him her gratitude and trust. On July 24, 1788, Breteuil resigned, exhausted by the struggle for power on the King’s Council. As France became increasingly unstable, he retired to his chateau at Dangu. He was appointed Prime Minister on July 12, 1789 after Necker was dismissed. In retaliation, the Bastille was stormed on the 14th. After the fall of the Royal Family he spent his time working for the Royalist cause in exile. He was allowed to return to France in the 1800s by Napoleon, having made his peace with the Napoleonic government. He tried to urge other royalists to join him, but he was largely unsuccessful.
BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Replaced Necker in July 1789.
BkIX:Chap8:Sec1 An early émigré he effectively ran the emigrant nobility but gave way to the Comte de Provence (later Louis XVIII) in 1792. The Baronne de Montmorency, nee Gouyon-Matignon, was his grand-daughter.
Bretteville-sur-Ay
A town on the Normandy coast about a dozen kilometres south of Port-Bail.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Armand landed there in 1809.
Breuning, or Bruning, Eleonore von,
1771-1841. A friend of the young Beethoven in Bonn, which Beethoven left in 1792. She married Franz Wegeler in 1802, and subsequently moved to Koblentz.
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Beethoven’s letter to her of 2nd November 1793.
Briareus
The hundred-handed Giant in Greek mythology.
BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec3 Mentioned.
Brien, or Briand, or Brient
BkI:Chap1:Sec3 The original family name of Chateaubriand, and of the founders of the barony. Probably assumed by Thiern (Tihern) as Brient I.
BkI:Chap1:Sec6 Brien, the younger son of the ninth Baron, married Jeanne, daughter of Alphonse, King of Aragon. Another? Brien received the property of Plessis-Bertrand from the Du Guesclin family.
Brien, Jean
A sailor who assisted Armand de Chateaubriand in 1809.
BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brienne-le-Château, France
The small town is located in the Aube, east of Troyes on the Aube River, and has an 18th century château.
BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXX:Chap13:Sec1
BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Napoleon spent five years at the military college there from 1779-1784.
BkXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Napoleon fought Blücher and Schwarzenberg there on 1st February 1814. Arguably it was a French defeat, since Napoleon could not afford the losses.
BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 Napoleon remembered Sir James Hall, father of Basil, from his days at Brienne.
Brienne, Henriette Bouthillier Madame de
The daughter of the Comte de Chavigny, she married Henri-Louis de Loménie, Comte de Brienne, son of the Secretary of State, in 1656. She was a friend of the Princess de Condé.
BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brig
A city in the canton of Valais, it lies at an ancient European crossroads where the Simplon Pass crosses the high Alps into Italy.
BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 The Jesuits were attempting to continue their treaching at the College in Brig after the re-establishment of the Order in 1814.
Brinvilliers, Marie Madeleine d’Aubray, Marquise de
c1630-1676. She conspired with her lover, Godin de Sainte-Croix, an army captain, to poison her father and two brothers in order to secure the family fortune and to end interference in her adulterous relationship. Her husband escaped the same fate by his complaisance. An investigation was made, and the marquise fled abroad, but in 1676 she was arrested at Liège. The affair greatly worked on the popular imagination, and there were rumours that she had tried out her poisons on hospital patients. She was beheaded and then burned.
BkXIII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Briot, Pierre-Joseph
1771-1827. Jacobin, Deputy to the Council of the Five Hundred, Commissioner to Elba (autumn 1801-spring 1802). He left Porto-Ferrajo in January 1804 to continue his administrative career in the Kingdom of Naples, where he was involved with the founding of the Carbonari. A friend of the Comtesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, at whose house he met Chateaubriand. It was his successor Lelièvre who provided Bertin with a passport in August 1802.
BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.
Briqueville, Armand François Bon Claude, Comte de
1785-1844. Deputy for La Manche (Valognes) from 1827, and former cavalry Colonel in the Grand Army who fought in many major battles, he increased the severity of a proposition to banish the elder branch of the Bourbons, on its second reading. His father had fought for the Bourbons in Normandy but considered them an ungrateful race, and his son espoused the Republic.
BkXXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap25:Sec1
Chateaubriand’s pamphlet opposed the proposition. Briqueville responded.
Brissac, Charles II, Comte then Duc de Cossé
d. 1621. Charles II de Cossé-Brissac, Marshal of France and governor of Angiers. A member of the League as early as 1585, he conceived the idea of making France a republic after the model of ancient Rome. He laid his views before the chief Leaguers but none of them approved his plan. He delivered up Paris, of which he was governor, to Henry IV in 1594, for which he received the Marshal’s baton. He died in 1621, at the siege of Saint Jean d’Angely.
BkXXII:Chap18:Sec1 Named Governor of Paris by the Duc de Mayenne he gave up the town to the King in 1594.
Brisson, Barnabé, President
1531-1591. Barnabé Brisson was a renowned jurist and philologist. He was appointed president of the Parliament of Paris in 1588. In 1591, he was hanged by the Seize (the Sixteen), a group of insurgents who captured Paris in a bizarre coup. The Seize was a political group that had pretensions of ruling the country; they were advocates for the lower classes and the restoration of the general council of the League, had some power within the League and the government in Paris and had even been instrumental in having Brisson appointed to his parlement post in the first place, three years earlier. Over time, they felt their demands were being generally ignored by various sectors of the government. Extremists in their ranks gradually stepped up the intensity of their actions, and in November 1591 they seized Brisson and two other conseillers and publicly hanged all three of them. Many of the Sixteen were soon executed or arrested.
BkIX:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.
Brissot de Warville, Jacques-Pierre
1754-1793. French revolutionary and journalist. He began his career by writing numerous pamphlets and books. His Théorie des lois criminelles (1781) was a plea for penal reform. He was imprisoned briefly in the Bastille for writing a seditious pamphlet. Brissot visited the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, and the United States. He was interested in humanitarian schemes and founded the abolitionist Société des Amis des Noirs. After his return to France in 1789 he began to edit the Patriote français, which later became an organ of the Girondists (at first called Brissotins). Brissot, feeling that war would spread the principles of the French Revolution, did much to foment it with his diatribes against Europe's monarchs. In the Legislative Assembly his great influence on the conduct of foreign affairs contributed to the French declaration of war on Austria in 1792. After the fall of the monarchy, a power struggle between two groups ensued, and the Girondists were defeated. The Jacobin victory over the Girondists resulted in his execution. He left memoirs.
BkIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bristol, England
A port and city on the west coast on the Avon. It developed rapidly in the 17th and 18th centuries, trading with the Americas, and prospered greatly from the slave trade.
BkVI:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brizard, (Jean-Baptiste Britart)
1721-1791. Actor. He retired at the same time as Préville, in 1786.
BkIV:Chap11:Sec1 Acted at the Théâtre-Français.
Broceliande, Brécheliant
The mythical ancient forest in Brittany in which the Grail legends were set figures in medieval romance. The Forest of Paimpont is a surviving forested area which has become associated with the legend.
BkI:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned.
Broglie, Albertine de Staël von Holstein, Duchesse de
Wife of Victor, 3rd Duc de Broglie, from 1816.
Broglie, General Charles-Louis-Victor, Prince de
1756-1794. Eldest son of Victor-François, Duc de Broglie, Prince de Broglie he attained the rank of maréchal de camp in the army. He adopted revolutionary opinions, served with La Fayette and Rochambeau in the American Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, and sat in the Constituent Assembly, constantly voting on the Liberal side. He served as chief of the staff to the Republican army on the Rhine, but during the Terror he was denounced, arrested, and guillotined in Paris on June 27, 1794.
BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 Desaix was his aide-de-camp.
Broglie, Achille-Léonce-Victor-Charles, 3rd Duc de
1785-1870. Son of General Victor de Broglie, he was a statesman and diplomat. He was 3rd Duke from 1804. A moderate he sought to reconcile the Revolution and the Restoration, and was identified with the Liberal party in 1829. He later held a number of high offices, was twice Prime Minister in 1830 and 1835-6, and was French Ambassador to London in 1847. The 1848 Revolution was a great disappointment to him.
BkXXXI:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.
BkXXXII:Chap4:Sec1 At a meeting of the monarchist party on 28th July 1830.
BkXXXII:Chap10:Sec1 In the Chamber of Peers on the 30th of July.
BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Thought to be opposed to freedom of the Press.
BkXL:Chap3:Sec1 His request to the Pope concerning Marie de Berry.
BkXL:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Broglie, Victor-François, 2nd Duc de, Marshal of France
1718-1804. A distinguished soldier in the Seven Year’s War, he was defeated at Willinghausen with Soubise and disgraced in 1761. He was Governor of Trois-Évêchés then Alsace in the 1770’s. After 1789, he retired to Luxembourg, and then became involved in counter-revolutionary activities, commanding the army of Condé and a member of the council of the Count of Provence. In 1797 he went to Russia, then retired to Riga in 1798, and finally to Münster, where he died having refused to return to France.
BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Appointed Minister of War in 1789 but resigned a few days later.
Brollo
He was the gaoler during Silvio Pellico’s detention in Venice.
BkXXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brollo, Antonia
She was the wife of Brollo the gaoler.
BkXXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand finds her in Venice in 1833.
Brollo, Angelo
He was a son of Brollo the gaoler.
BkXXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brollo, Antonio
He was a son of Brollo the gaoler.
BkXXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brosses, Charles, Comte de
1709-1777. A French magistrate and scholar, he was one of the most noteworthy French writers of the 18th century. He was the president of the parliament of Dijon (from 1741) and a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of Paris (from 1746), and of the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres of Dijon (from 1761). He was a close friend of de Buffon and a personal enemy of Voltaire, who barred his entry to the Académie française in 1770. Because he opposed the absolute power of the king, he was exiled twice, in 1744 and 1771. During his life, he wrote numerous academic papers on topics concerning ancient history, philology and linguistics, which were used by Diderot and D’Alembert in the Encyclopédie (1751-1765).
BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec2 BkXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 He was in Italy in 1739-1740 and his Lettres familières were published in 1799. He disputed the Lordship of Tourney with Voltaire in 1759.
BkXXX:Chap2:Sec2 Quoted.
BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brosses, René de
An émigré officer, the son of Charles, and Prefect of the Rhône in 1829.
BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 Alluded to.
BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned by name.
Brougham, Henry Peter, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
1778-1868. British statesman, born in Edinburgh: as a young lawyer in Scotland he helped to found (1802) the Edinburgh Review and contributed many articles to it. He went to London, was called (1808) to the English bar, and entered (1810) Parliament as a Whig. Brougham took up the fight against the slave trade and opposed the restrictions on trade with the Continent. In 1820 he won popular renown as chief attorney to Queen Caroline (see Caroline of Brunswick, and in the next decade he became a liberal leader in the House of Commons. He not only proposed educational reforms in Parliament, but also was one of the founders of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1825) and of the Univ. of London (1828). As Lord Chancellor (1830–34) he effected many legal reforms to speed procedure and established the central criminal court. In later years he spent much of his time in Cannes, which he established as a popular resort. Designer of the four horse carriage named after him.
BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.
Broussais, François Joseph Victor
1772-1838. A soldier, a sailor, and for many years a surgeon in the army, he pursued medical studies at Saint-Malo and at the maritime hospital of Brest and became a surgeon aboard corsair ships. In 1831, he was appointed Professor of the University of Medicine in Paris and developed a medical theory on diseases based on inflammatory reactions. In his opinion, cancers belonged to the general framework of disorders favoured by irritation and needed to be treated by performing bleeding and applying leeches. Under his influence in the 1830's, France imported dozens of millions of leeches each year. The prestige of Broussais prevented a false and useless system from being stopped earlier. He himself died from cancer at the age of 66.
BkI:Chap4:Sec5 A native of Saint-Malo.
BkII:Chap10:Sec2 Studied at Dinan College with Chateaubriand. He was then twelve years old.
Brown, Charles Brockden
1771-1810. American novelist and editor, b. Philadelphia, considered the first professional American novelist. After the publication of Alcuin: A Dialogue (1798), he wrote such novels as Edgar Huntly (1799), Arthur Mervyn (2 vol., 1799–1800), and Ormond (1799), in which he presented arguments for social reform. Wieland (1798) was by far his most popular work and foreshadowed the psychological novel. To support himself after 1800 he became a merchant but also edited successively three periodicals, wrote political pamphlets, and projected a compendium on geography.
BkVIII:Chap5:Sec3 Wieland, or The Transformation, An American Tale (1798).
Bruges, Belgium
The town in north-west Belgium was the capital of Flanders in the 12th Century and the centre of the Hanseatic League in the 13th and 14th. It is linked by canal to major European ports. The traditional industry is lace.
BkXXIII:Chap7:Sec1 The Order of the Golden Fleece was established in Bruges by the Duke of Burgundy Philippe le Bon, on his marriage to Isabella of Portugal, on the 10th of January 1430. The Cathedral of St Bavo contains Van Ecyk’s marvellous Adoration of the Lamb.
Brummel, George Bryan
1778-1840. Better known as ‘Beau Brummell’, he was an arbiter of fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent. After offending the Prince, he lost favour, and died penniless and insane from syphilis in Caen in 1840.
BkXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 An anecdote concerning him and George IV.
Brune, Guiilaume Marie-Anne Brune, Count
1763-1815. A Jacobin and a friend of Danton, as general of brigade he took part in the fighting of the 13th Vendémiaire. In 1796 he fought under Bonaparte in Italy. In 1798 he commanded the French army occupying Switzerland, and in 1799 was in command of the French troops in the Netherlands. His defence of Amsterdam against the Anglo-Russian expedition under the Duke of York was exemplary. He rendered further good service in Vendée and Italy, and was made a Marshal by Napoleon in 1804. In 1807 Brune held command in North Germany, but was not afterwards employed during the First Empire. He was recalled to active service during the Hundred Days, and as commander of the army of the Var defended the south of France against the Austrians. He was murdered by royalists during the White Terror at Avignon.
BkXXII:Chap 21:Sec1 Rallied to Louis XVIII at Compiègne in 1814.
Bruno, Saint
c1032-1101. German founder of the Carthusian order, he was educated at Cologne and Rheims. He built a monastery near Grenoble which became the mother house of the order. Called to Italy by Urban II, he founded La Torre in Calabria where he died.
BkIX:Chap8:Sec2 Mentioned.
BkXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Le Sueur illustrated his life in a series of paintings, which until the Revolution, decorated the little cloister of the Paris Chartreuse. They are today in the Louvre.
BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 His silence, an attribute.
Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany
The city is located in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz mountains, at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser.
BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brunswick, Caroline Amélie of, see Princess of Wales
Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of
1735-1806. Duke of Brunswick (1780–1806), Prussian field marshal. He had great success in the Seven Years War (1756–63) and was commander in chief (1792–94) of the Austro-Prussian armies in the French Revolutionary Wars. Although he sympathized with some of the goals of the Revolution, he led the German army in its ill-fated march into France in 1792 and issued a manifesto threatening severe reprisals against the revolutionaries. Defeated at Valmy (1792), in 1793 he routed the French at Kaiserslautern and Pirmasens. He again commanded the Prussian armies in 1806 and was defeated by the French marshal Davout at Auerstadt. He was blinded in the battle and died soon after. His son was William Frederick, duke of Brunswick.
BkIX:Chap8:Sec3 At Trèves in 1792.
BkXX:Chap6:Sec1 His death after Auerstadt.
Brunswick-Bevern, Princess Elizabeth-Christina of
1715-1797. The wife (1733) of Frederick the Great. He separated from her shortly after the marriage.
BkXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.
Brunswick, William-Frederick, Duke of
1771-1815. The son of Charles-William. On the death (1806) of his father, his duchy was seized by Napoleon and added to the kingdom of Westphalia. He attempted to liberate it from French control in 1809, when Austria reopened war against France. Frederick William formed a free corps, the ‘Black Brunswickers,’ and in a dashing foray advanced through Germany and captured Brunswick. He soon was driven out but succeeded in fleeing with his troops to England. Returning in 1813, he took possession of Brunswick but was killed at Quatre Bras in the Waterloo campaign.
BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 His death.
Brussels
The capital of Belgium, on the River Senne, it was settled by the French in the 7th century, and developed into a centre of the wool industry in the 13th. It became the capital of the Spanish Netherlands in the 15th and later of the Austrian Southern Netherlands. In 1830 it became the capital of the new kingdom of Belgium.
BkIX:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand arrives there in 1792. It was the headquarters of the émigré opposition.
BkX:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand heads for there in September 1792, after being wounded and falling ill with smallpox.
BkX:Chap3:Sec1 Republican troops threatened Brussels after their victory at Jemmapes on the 6th November 1792. They entered the city on the 15th.
BkXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand arrives there in March 1815, fleeing Paris during the Hundred Days.
BkXXIII:Chap15:Sec1 Monsieur leaves Ghent for Brussels as Napoleon’s army approaches.
BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 The Battle of Waterloo fought nearby.
Brutus, Lucius Junius
The legendary founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first Consuls in 509 BC. He led a patriotic uprising against the Etruscan despot, Lucius Tarquinius.
BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 A classical pseudonym adopted by Lucien Bonaparte.
BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 Admired by the Revolution.
BkXXXII:Chap12:Sec1 Ancestor of Marcus Junius.
BkXXXV:Chap27:Sec1 Brutus’ two sons, Titus and Tiberius, were drawn into a royalist conspiracy to re-instate Tarquin, and their father condemned them to death. See David’s painting The Lictors returning the Bodies of his Sons to Brutus (1789, Louvre)
Brutus, Marcus Junius
c85-42BC. Marcus Junius Brutus, co-leader of the conspiracy to assassinate Julius Caesar, and a writer on philosophy and rhetoric. He supported Pompey during the civil war, was pardoned and made governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 46, but later joined the conspiracy. He committed suicide after defeat by Antony and Octavian at Phillippi.
BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned as a type of the traitor.
BkXIII:Chap5:Sec1 A reference to Fouché and those like him.
BkXXXII:Chap12:Sec1 Descendant of Lucius.
BkXXXVII:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bryant, William Cullen
1794-1878. An American poet and newspaper editor, born in Cummington, Massachusetts, in his early poems such as “Thanatopsis,” “To a Waterfowl,” “Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood,” and “The Yellow Violet,” all written before he was 21, he celebrated the majesty of nature in a style that was influenced by the English Romantics but also reflected a personal simplicity and dignity. Admitted to the bar in 1815 after a year at Williams and private study, Bryant practiced law in Great Barrington, Mass., until 1825, when he went to New York City. By that time he was already known as a poet and critic. He became associate editor of the New York Evening Post in 1826, and from 1829 to his death he was part owner and editor in chief. An industrious and forthright editor of a highly literate paper, he was a defender of human rights and an advocate of free trade, abolition of slavery, and other reforms. He also holds an important place in literature as the earliest American theorist of poetry. In his Lectures on Poetry (delivered 1825; published 1884) and other critical essays he stressed the values of simplicity, original imagination, and morality. His blank verse translation of the Iliad appeared in 1870, that of the Odyssey in 1872.
BkVIII:Chap5:Sec3 Title of a poem by him.
Buckingham and Chandos, Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 1st Duke of
1776-1839. He was MP for Buckinghamshire 1797–1813. He inserted ‘Brydges-Chandos’ into his name by Royal Warrant in 1799. In 1806, he was made a Privy Counsellor, and in 1820, a Knight of the Garter. He was created Duke of Buckingham and Chandos in February 1822, his wife being the only daughter of the 3rd Duke of Chandos; he was in the same patent created Earl Temple of Stowe, with special remainder, which thus survived the extinction of the Dukedom in 1889.
BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 He fought a duel in Kensington Gardens with the Duke of Bedford on the 2nd of May 1822. Neither was injured.
Buffon, George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de
1707-1788 A French naturalist and author, from 1739 the keeper of the Jardin du Roi (later the Jardin des Plantes) in Paris. He made it a centre of research during the Enlightenment. He devoted his life to his monumental Histoire naturelle (44 vol., 1749–1804), a popular and brilliantly written compendium of data on natural history interspersed with Buffon’s own speculations and theories. Of this work, the volumes Histoire naturelle des animaux and Époques de la nature are of special interest. His famous Discours sur le style was delivered (1753) on his reception into the French Academy. He also contributed to the mathematics of probability.
BkIV:Chap11:Sec1 His bust, and its inscription.
BkXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Quoted.
BkXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Creator of a new literary style.
BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 The African Crested Crane, Balearica pavonina, of non-Saharan Africa, is Buffon’s ‘Oiseau Royal’, with its golden crown of fine feathers and elegant plumage. He described it in his Natural History (it was also described in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert, article 11:443) and there was a fine specimen in the Versailles’ menagerie for many years. For men the hairstyle ‘à l’oiseau royal’ popular during the reign of Louis XVI, seems to have involved a tall curled and powdered wig. By 1788 men were wearing their own hair tied at the back, sometimes powdered and cut to look like a wig, while the powdered wig was completely out of fashion by 1794. Long hair was unfashionable after 1800, and the wig was finally abandoned to women’s fashion. Chateaubriand is therefore looking back to portraits from a by-gone age.
Buffon, Marguerite-Françoise de Bouvier de Cépoy, Comtesse de
1767-1808 Daughter-in-law of George.
BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned, as the mistress of the Duc d’Orleans.
Bugeaud, Thomas Robert, Marquis de la Piconnerie, Duc d’Isly
1784-1849. A distinguished Napoleonic officer, he became a Marshal of France (1843) and Governor-General of Algeria (1840). His conduct as gaoler of the Duchesse de Berry led to a duel between Bugeaud and the deputy Dulong in which the latter was killed (1834).
BkXL:Chap4:Sec1 BkXL:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bulaq ad Dakrur (Bulak), Egypt
A town on the east bank of the Nile opposite Giza and the Pyramids, now a district of Cairo. There is also an island Gezira Bulaq nearby in the Nile itself. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities was founded at Bulaq in 1863.
BkXXIII:Chap16:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bullion, Claude de
1560-1640. Keeper of the Seals and Superintendent of Finances under Louis XIII; Cardinal Richelieu annually rewarded his intelligent and disinterested administration by a bonus of 100,000 livres.
BkII:Chap3:Sec2 Mentioned.
Bülow, Friedrich-Wilhelm von,
1755-1816 A Prussian general in the Napoleonic Wars. After his victories (1813) over the French at Gross Beeren and at Dennewitz he was created count of Dennewitz. In 1815 he played a conspicuous part in the Waterloo campaign.
BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 At Waterloo.
Bungay, England
A market town in Suffolk, it lies six miles from Beccles, on a loop of the River Waveney.
BkX:Chap9:Sec1 BkX:Chap11:Sec1 Home of the Reverend John Clement Ives.
BkX:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand tempted to return there.
Bunsen, Christian Karl Josias, Baron von
1791-1860. A Prussian diplomat and scholar, he studied theology at the University of Göttingen. He was a friend of King Frederick William IV and urged him to accept liberal ideas. Bunsen was minister to the Papal court at Rome (1824–38) and Ambassador to Bern (1839–41) and to London (1842–54), but he was recalled from London because he supported alliance with the Western powers in the Crimean War. A scholar of note, Bunsen wrote on religion, language, literature, history, and law.
BkXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap13:Sec1 Chateaubriand negotiated with him for the Caffarelli Palace on the Capitoline.
Buonarroti, see Michelangelo
Burgesh, see Lord Westmoreland
Burghers, Lord
A pseudonym of Napoleon, he adopted it on his journey to Elba.
BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec2 Mentioned.
Burgos, Spain
A city of northernwestern Spain, at the edge of the central plateau. It is a 9th century city, with a famous cathedral (begun 1221), and has been at the centre of many wars (Moorish, Napoleonic, Carlist etc).
BkXVIII:Chap3Sec2 A letter dated from there.
Burke, Edmund
1729-1797. The British political philosopher and politician, he was a supporter of aristocratic government and opposed to democracy, he condemned the French Revolution (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790).
Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.
BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 His influence on Anglo-French relations.
BkXII:Chap2:Sec1 His reactionary politics.
BkXII:Chap5:Sec3 He split with Fox in 1792 and retired from parliament in 1794, a short while after the death of his son Richard (b 1757). His school for émigré children was founded in Penn in 1796.
BkXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 As a famous Englishman.
BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.
Burkheim
A city in Baden-Württemberg, it received its city charter in 1300 and was at the time a possession of the Lords of Üsenberg.
BkXXXVI:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1833.
Burney (or Burnet), Frances (Fanny), Madame D’Arblay
1752-1840. A British writer, she became Madam D’Arblay, marrying an exiled nobleman from France, and subsequently lived in Paris (1802-1812). Her Diaries and other works give a vivid picture of the inner life at Court, and include a meeting with Chateaubriand in 1814 at Ghent. Her novels include Evelina (1778), Cecilia (1782), and Camilla (1796).
BkXII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned as a popular authoress.
Burns, Robert
1759-1797. Scottish poet considered the major poetic voice of his nation. His lyrics, written in dialect and infused with humour, celebrated love, patriotism, and the rustic life.
BkXII:Chap3:Sec1 An early Romantic.
Burschenschaft
An association of students in support of German liberation and unity; formed in 1813. After joint student demonstrations at the Wartburg Festival in October 1817 and the assassination of August von Kotzebue (a German writer who served the Russian tsar) by the nationalistic Burschenschafter Karl Sand in March 1819, the alarmed German governments passed the Carlsbad Decrees which in part provided for the official suppression of the Burschenschaften. Thereafter, the clubs went underground until 1848, when they actively participated in the German Revolution.
BkXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bussi, Giovanna Battista, Cardinal
1755-1844. A Cardinal from 1824, and Archbishop of Benevento.
BkXXX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.
Bute, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of
1713-1792. A Scottish nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1762–1763) under George III. Later Bute retired to his estate in Hampshire, from where he continued his pursuit of botany and became a major literary and artistic patron.
BkXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.
Buttafuoco, Matteo
1731-1806. He acted as Deputy for the Corsican nobility in the National Assembly. He had been sent by Paoli to treat as plenipotentiary with France, was won over by Choiseul, declared against the national cause, and appeared in the island as colonel of Louis XV’s Corsican regiment. Napoleon in a famous early letter berated him for his treachery.
BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 His request to Rousseau in 1764 to draft a constitution for Corsica, a project on which Rousseau carried out preliminary work.
BkXIX:Chap7:Sec1 The letter quoted was written in January 1791.
BkXXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Bonaparte’s pamphlets written to him.
Buturlin, Dimitrii Petrovitch
1763-1829. Russian soldier, military historian, politician, librarian of the Imperial Russian Library, he was one of the most outstanding book collectors of 19th century Russia. He formed an important library unfortunately destroyed during the burning of Moscow in 1812. BkXXI:Chap4:Sec1 His History of the Russian Campaign referenced.
Byron, Annabella Milbanke, Lady
1792-1860. She married Lord Byron in 1815, and had a daughter Ada by him, prior to separating from him permanently.
Byron, George Gordon, Lord Byron, Sixth Baron
1788-1824 Poet, author of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812), Don Juan (started 1818) etc. One of the most famous European poets of his day, he inherited his great-uncle’s title. A supporter of Greek Independence, he died, of fever at Missolonghi in Greece, pursuing its goal.
Preface:Sect3. BkIV:Chap9:Sec2 Mentioned by Chateaubriand.
BkV:Chap15:Sec4 Chateaubriand quotes Childe Harold, III.2.
BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 Byron’s notorious love-life, particularly in Venice.
BkX:Chap10:Sec1 An exemplar of the love-poet.
BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 His lameness (a club foot). His debt to Shakespeare.
BkXII:Chap2:Sec1 The leading poet.
BkXII:Chap4:Sec1 A major digression on Byron and his works. Byron’s early childhood was spent in Aberdeen. He inherited Newstead Abbey near Mansfield at age 10 in 1798. Byron did not in fact attend Harrow School until 1801 while in the French text Chateaubriand incorrectly states that his time there overlapped with his own exile in London. Chateaubriand quotes from Byron’s Hours of Idleness (1807) ‘When I roved, a young Highlander’….and an edited version of Lines written beneath an elm in the Churchyard of Harrow. Byron was in Venice 1816-1819, Chateaubriand earlier in 1806, then later in 1833 and 1839.
BkXII:Chap4:Sec2 Chateaubriand refers to Childe Harold Canto I:VII, and Canto IV
BkXIII:Chap3:Sec2 His supposed literary debt to Chateaubriand.
BkXXII:Chap15:Sec3 BkXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 The quotation is from Hours of Idleness, Occasional Pieces X, Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte.
BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec3 His lack of understanding of Napoleon’s character.
BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 Revolted by Napoleon’s attacks on the English.
BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 He briefly took his seat in the House of Lords, where he too expressed liberal views.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 He was in Ravenna in 1819-1820 with Tersea Guiccioli. Chateaubriand dubs him Childe Harold, the name of Byron’s own hero. Byron’s Prophecy of Dante, 1820, condemns the Papal Power in Rome and the foreign presence in Lombardy, and exhorts the Italians to unify their country.
BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 See Childe Harold Canto IV:66-68
BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec3 Byron was in Rome in 1817. The quotation is from Childe Harold IV:79 etc. Niobe was the wife of Amphion, king of Thebes who rejected Latona and boasted of her children. Her seven sons were killed by Apollo and Diana, the children of Latona (Leto), and her husband commited suicide. Still unrepentant, her daughters were also killed, and she was turned to stone and set on top of a mountain in her native country of Lydia where she weeps eternally.
BkXXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap21:Sec1
Byron lived in the Villa Diodati at Cologny in 1816, Shelley and his entourage also staying nearby. A trip on the lake with Shelley to the Fortress of Chillon lead to his writing of a poem about Bonivard, titled the Prisoner of Chillon.
BkXXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 A traveller who wrote poetry about his travels.
BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 See Childe Harold Canto IV:XIV:3. Byron was in Venice from 1816-1820.
BkXXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 His reputation as a womanizer.
BkXXXIX:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 For Margherita Cogni, and the passages quoted, see Byron’s somewhat more risqué Letter to John Murray dated August 1st, 1819, from Ravenna. For Byron on Rubens, and the arts in general, see his letter to John Murray of April 14th 1817 from Venice, effectively quoted here.
BkXXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 ‘Glory and Greece’….the lines are from On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year, written at Missolonghi on Januray 22nd 1824, except that Chateaubriand alters the me of the first line quoted to us, indicating his own wish to die in Italy.
BkXXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 Isabella Albrizzi’s account of him.
BkXXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 He met Teresa Guiccioli at Contessa Benzoni’s.
BkXXXIX:Chap20:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 His horses stabled on the Lido in Venice.
BkXXXIX:Chap21:Sec1 See Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV:80-83.
BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 For Arqua see Childe-Harold Canto IV:30-33.
Byron, John
1723-1786. Commodore Byron was the grandfather of the poet. He explored Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the Falklands between 1764 and 1766.
BkXXXIX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.