François de Chateaubriand

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Pacca, Cardinal

1756-1844. Son of Orazio Pacca, Marchese di Matrice, he was elected titular archbishop of Damietta, September 26, 1785. In 1809, Pope Pius VII excommunicated Napoleon and on July 6, the Pope and Cardinal Pacca were arrested, the former being sent to Savona, the latter, on August 6, 1809, to Fenestrelle until 1813. In that year, he was allowed to join the pope in Fontainebleau; influenced the pope to retract the agreement with Napoleon and was deported to Uzès in January 1814; freed at the fall of Napoleon in April 1814. Returned to Rome and organized a State Junta to govern in the name of the absent pope. He participated in the conclaves up to that of 1830-1831.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXX:Chap9:Sec2 His arrest in 1809.

BkXXII:Chap2:Sec1 At Fontainebleau in 1813.

BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1 A candidate for the Papacy in 1829.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 Supported as a Papal candidate by France.

Pacca, Tiberio

1786-1837. Nephew of the Cardinal, he was the second son of Giuseppe Pacca, Marquis of Matrice, and Maria Teresa Crivelli, a Milanese noblewoman. He entered the Roman prelature as referendary of the Tribunals of the Apostolic Signature of Justice and of Grace on May 18, 1809. Prisoner of state in 1809; together with his uncle the cardinal, he was deported to the fortress of Fenestrelle, in the valley of Chisone, near Pinerolo, now in the province of Turin.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

Padua, Italy

The capital of Padova province, it stands on the Bacchiglione River, 40km west of Venice and 29km southeast of Vicenza.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 BkXL:Chap7:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand was there in September 1833. Monselice is south of Padua on the way to Rovigo and Ferrara. The Castello Cataio, near Battaglia Terme, is a crenellated manor house which at that time belonged to the Duke of Modena.

BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand sight-sees in the city 20th September 1833.

BkXL:Chap6:Sec1 Lombardy-Venetia was part of the Austrian Empire in 1833.

Paestum, Italy

A city of Lucania in Italy, the site is near modern Agropoli on the Bay of Salerno, a ruin in a wilderness, with Doric temples that surpassed those of Athens. Originally called Poseidonia, the city of Neptune, it was founded by Greeks from Sybaris in the 6th c. BC. It became Paestum when it passed into the hands of the Lucanians in the 4th century. It was taken by the Romans in 273BC. In antiquity it was famous for its roses, which flowered twice a year, and its violets. Malaria eventually drove away its population.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec3 BkXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1

Its roses.

Paganini, Niccolò

1782-1840. An Italian violinist, violist, guitarist and composer, he was the first and one of the most famous violin virtuosi.

BkXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned

Paisiello, Giovanni

1740-1816. An Italian composer, he served in St. Petersburg at the Court of Catherine II from 1776 to 1784. He was also briefly Napoleon’s maître de chapelle. He composed some 100 operas, church music, keyboard concertos, string quartets, and other works. His opera The Barber of Seville (1782) was so popular that for a time it hindered the success of Rossini’s work of the same name.

BkVII:Chap6:Sec1 The famous duet Pandolfetto graziosetto.

Pajol, Pierre-Claude (Pajot), General

1772-1844. He retired from the Imperial Army after a fine career, and became an industrialist. He took command of the National Guard in July 1830 and led the popular march to Rambouillet which forced Charles X to leave France. He later took command of the 1st Division and was made a Peer in 1831.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Active on the 29th of July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap14:Sec1 A supporter of Louis-Philippe.

BkXXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Leader of the march to Rambouillet on the 3rd of August 1830.

Palais-Bourbon, Paris

Giardini began to work on the building in 1722, Lassurance continued the work, Aubert and Gabriel completed it in 1728. It was originally built for Louis XIV’s daughter, the Duchess of Bourbon, who gave her name to the palace. In 1764, it became the property of the Prince of Condé and he developed the building as it is seen today. From 1803 to 1807, Napoleon commissioned Poyet to build the façade, to complement that of the Madeleine which it faces, in the distance at the end of the Rue Royale. The portico of the façade is enhanced by an allegorical pediment sculpted by Cortot in 1842. Other allegorised bas-reliefs on the wings are the work of Rude and Pradier. The interior is rich with works of art; it is worth noting that Delacroix decorated the library here from 1838 to 1845 with the History of Civilisation, while also in this room, Houdon sculpted busts of Diderot and Voltaire. Formerly assigned to the Council of the Five Hundred, and then to the House of Deputies, today it holds the National Assembly.

BkXIV:Chap1:Sec2 Its outbuildings were used to house the new École Polytechnique from 1795-1805.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

Palais-Royal, Paris

Jacques Lemercier’s Palais-Royal began its existence on a much smaller scale as the Palais Cardinal. After Cardinal Richelieu’s death, it was occupied by Anne of Austria and her two sons, Louis XIV and Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, hence its later name, Palais Royal. It was notorious for its prostitutes. In 1780, it was greatly expanded by Victor Louis with rows of two-story houses enclosing a courtyard and arcades of shops lining the interior garden. During the Revolution, Parisians called it the Palais Egalité and under the Empire, the Palais du Tribunal. After the restoration of the Bourbon family in 1815, it became the Palais Royal once again. A mob completely wrecked the palace in 1848 but it was later restored by Napoléon III.

BkIV:Chap3:Sec2 Its environs visited by Chateaubriand in 1786.

BkV:Chap12:Sec2 Chateaubriand met Mirabeau there, on the 17th June 1790.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand visited a gambling club there in 1792.

BkXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Visited by Chateaubriand in 1800.

BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec2 Associated with the Duc d’Orléans.

Palenque, Mexico

Site of the Mayan ruins in the foothills of the Tumbalá mountains of Chiapas Mexico.

BkVIII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

Palermo, Italy

The principal city and administrative seat of the autonomous region of Sicily, Italy it is the capital of the Province of Palermo.

BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Its orange groves.

BkXXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to the Duchesse de Berry there in 1833.

Palestrina, Madame

She was a member of the Roman nobility in 1828.

BkXXIX:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Palinurus

The steersman of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid, who, lulled to sleep, was thrown into the sea and drowned.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec2 See Aeneid V:857-871.

Palissot de Montenoy, Charles

1730-1814. A French writer, he was an adversary of the philosophers and Encyclopaedists whom he ridiculed in his comedy ‘Les Philosophes’ 1760, and in ‘La Dunciade ou la Guerre des Sots’ his poem of 1764.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 Mentioned.

Palladio, Andrea

1508-1580. An Italian architect born in Padua, famous for his much-imitated classical designs, he created many villas, palaces and churches, including S Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

Palladium, The

An image of Pallas Athene, said to have fallen from the sky at Troy. The safety of Troy depended on its preservation according to an oracle. It was stolen by Ulysses and Diomede.

BkXXI:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Palm, Johann Philipp

1768-1806. A German bookseller, in 1806 published a pamphlet (possibly written by Philipp Christian Yelin in Ansbach) entitled Deutschland in seiner tiefen Erniedrigung (‘Germany in her deep humiliation’), which strongly attacked Napoleon and the behaviour of the French troops in Bavaria. Napoleon had Palm arrested and handed over to a military commission with peremptory instructions to try and execute the prisoner within twenty-four hours. Palm was denied the right of defence, and after a mock trial on the 25th of August 1806 he was shot on the following day. It was to Palm that the poet Thomas Campbell was referring when he gave his famous (and possibly apocryphal) toast to Napoleon at a literary dinner. When this caused uproar, he admitted that Napoleon was a tyrant and an enemy of their country, ‘But gentlemen! He once shot a publisher.’

BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec1 Mentioned.

Palma il Vecchio, Jacopo

1480-1528. A noted Venetian painter, he is referred to as Palma il Vecchio (Palma the Elder) to distinguish him from Palma il Giovane (Jacopo Palma II the Younger: 1544-1628), his grand-nephew.

BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 Both painters are mentioned.

BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 Palma the Elder’s work in Padua.

Palma-Cayet, Pierre Victor Cayet, Lord of La Palme, called

1525-1610. A historian of the League, and a Protestant minister, he became a Catholic priest and was Professor of Hebrew at the Navarre College in Paris. He also wrote a version of the Faust legend published in 1603.

BkXXXII:Chap15:Sec1 A quotation from his Chronologie novenaire (1606).

Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount

1784-1865. The British Statesman was Foreign Secretary 1830-1834, 1934-41 and 1846-1851. His foreign policy was markedly nationalistic. He was Liberal Prime Minister 1855-1858 and 1859-1865.

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Palmerston demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Belgium in 1832 when Louis-Philippe tried to assert French rights there.

Palucci, Admiral

He was a Field-Marshal and Naval Chief in Venice in 1833.

BkXXXIX:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Palmyra

An ancient city of Syria on the northern edge of the Syrian Desert, it lay 150 miles north-east of Damascus. According to tradition, it was founded by Solomon. In the Bible it is called Tadmur (see 1 Kings 9:18). A prosperous caravan station in the 1st century BC, Palmyra became a Roman outpost and a major city-state within the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. The Emperor Aurelian defeated its rebellious Queen Zenobia and razed the city in 232. It was subsequently taken by the Arabs and sacked by Tamburlaine.

BkXXXV:Chap25:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pamfili, see Olimpia

Pamisus, River

The Greek river, the modern Pirnatza, flows through Messenia, in the south-western Peloponnese, through the most fertile region of Greece.

BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Referred to in Les Martyrs, Book XIII, and visited by Chateaubriand on his Levant Voyage.

Pan

In mythology, the Greek god of shepherds and their flocks, he has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, like a satyr. Pan is associated with the wilds of Nature.

BkXXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

Panat, Charles Louis Etienne, Chevalier de

1762-1834. French naval officer. In the Battle of Chesapeake Bay between the first division of De Grasse’s fleet and the British squadron he took an English frigate, and afterwards commanded a company of marines in the two assaults on Yorktown, where he was severely wounded. After 1783 he was promoted captain, created knight of Saint Louis, and made a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. In 1790 he took part in the first expedition to Santo Domingo, but, disapproving the principles of the French revolution, resigned and emigrated in 1792. He returned to Paris in 1800, and held during the whole of Napoleon’s reign the office of permanent under-secretary of the navy, which he exchanged at the restoration of Louis XVIII for that of secretary-general to the board of admiralty, with the rank of rear-admiral.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him at Mrs Lindsay’s.

BkXI:Chap5:Sec1 His letter concerning readings from Le Génie.

Panckoucke, Charles-André-Joseph

1700-1753. A writer and publisher, he was the grandfather of Charles-Louis.

BkXVII:Chap2:Sec1 Madame Suard was his daughter,

Panckoucke, Charles-Louis

1780-1844. Son of Charles-Joseph Panckouke (1736-1798).

BkXIX:Chap2:Sec1 His publication of the Works of Napoleon, 1821-1822.

Pandours

Hungarian irregular foot-soldiers, taking their name originally from a Hungarian village, noted for their ferocity, and part of the Austrian Army.

BkIX:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned, at Tournai, in 1792.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec2 Mentioned.

Pangalo, Monsieur-G

He was a correspondent from Zea.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec4 His letter of 1816.

Panormita, Antonio Beccadelli

1394-1471. Called Il Panormita (‘The Palermitan’), he was an Italian poet, canon lawyer, scholar, diplomat, and chronicler. He generally wrote in Latin. He was born in Palermo.

BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 His love of Livy’s works.

Pantagruel

He appears as a character in Rabelais’ works.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 Mentioned.

Paoli, Hyacinthe (Giacinto)

1702-1768. A Corsican patriot, he was the father of Pasquale. From 1733 he was the leader of the Corsican insurrection against the Genoese. He supported Neuhof in 1736. In 1739, defeated, he sought exile in Naples.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

Paoli, Pascal (Pasquale)

1725-1807. A Corsican patriot, in 1755 he returned to Corsica from exile with his father in Naples, led a successful revolt against the Genoese, and was chosen president under a republican constitution. His capital was at Corte. In 1768, Genoa sold Corsica to France. Paoli fought brilliantly against the superior forces of the French, but in 1769 was decisively defeated and fled to England. James Boswell, who had corresponded with him and visited him in Corsica, introduced him into the circle of Samuel Johnson. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, Paoli was appointed (1791) governor of Corsica. Accused (1793) of counter-revolutionary activities and summoned to Paris, he proclaimed the independence of Corsica and solicited British aid. With the help of Admiral Hood the French were defeated (1794). The pro-French party was banished and the Corsican national assembly (consulta) declared the island a British protectorate and chose an English governor. Paoli, who favoured independence and who had hoped to be appointed viceroy, was disappointed when Pozzo di Borgo became chief of the Corsican council of state. Paoli went to England in 1795 and remained there until his death. After his departure the islanders rose against the British and in 1796 drove them out with French help.

BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Not Napoleon’s godfather, though Napoleon’s father had been of Paoli’s party.

BkXIX:Chap4:Sec1 A letter to him from Napoleon Bonaparte.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Recalled from England in 1789 at Mirabeau’s prompting.

BkXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Condemned by Napoleon for relinquishing power.

Papelotte

A farm on the field of Waterloo, it was defended by the Allies.

BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 Mentioned.

Paramé

A town near to Saint-Malo and incorporated in it in 1967.

BkI:Chap3:Sec4 Mentioned.

Parcae

The Moerae, The Three Fates were the Three Sisters, the daughters of Night: Clotho, the spinner of the thread of life, Lachesis, chance or luck, and Atropos, inescapable destiny. Clotho spins, Lachesis draws out, and Atropos shears the thread. Their unalterable decrees may be revealed to Zeus but he cannot change the outcome.

BkXIII:Chap9:Sec1 BkXIV:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Catullus describes their white robes fringed with purple in poem 64.

Pardessus, Jean-Marie

1772-1853. A lawyer and historian he resigned in 1830 from the Court of Cassation.

BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 Mentioned.

Paris

The capital of France on the River Seine, the earliest settlement was in Roman times. Its ancient name is Lutetia from the Latin word for mud, lutum. Caesar called it Lutetia Parisiorium, the mud-town of the Parisii. In the 6th century Clovis made it the capital of the Frankish Kingdom. It gained further importance and independence under the Capetians.

BkIV:Chap1:Sec3 BkIV:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s hotel in 1786 and 1787 in the Rue du Mail, near the modern Place des Victoires, and the Bourse.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec1 BkIV:Chap11:Sec1 BkIV:Chap12:Sec1

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 BkV:Chap1:Sec1 BkV:Chap2:Sec1 BkV:Chap4:Sec1

BkV:Chap5:Sec1 BkV:Chap6:Sec1 BkV:Chap7:Sec1 BkV:Chap8:Sec1

BkV:Chap9:Sec1 BkV:Chap10:Sec1 BkV:Chap12:Sec1 BkV:Chap13:Sec1

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 BkV:Chap15:Sec1 BkXXV:Chap1:Sec1

BkXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 This chapter written there. Chateaubriand returned to Paris from Berlin on the 26th April 1821 for the christening of the Duc de Bordeaux on the 1st May 1821 but did not resign his embassy until the 29th July, after the resignations of Villèle and Corbière.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 BkXXII:Chap13:Sec1 Its ancient Roman name in Northern Gaul was Lutetia.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Paris, Kentucky, in Bourbon County.

BkXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Mrs Lindsay lived in the hamlet of Ternes, part of Neuilly, beyond the Barrière du Roule, now Place des Ternes.

BkXIII:Chap4:Sec1 BkXIV:Chap1:Sec1 BkXIV:Chap5:Sec1 BkXV:Chap1:Sec1 This chapter and following chapters where indicated were written in Paris in 1837.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand lodged in the Hôtel d’Étampes at 372 Rue Saint Honoré, one part of which was a three storey block giving onto the Rue Saint Honore itself, and near to the Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg, the present Rue Cambon.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec1 BkXIV:Chap6:Sec1 BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 This chapter and following chapters where indicated were written in Paris in 1838.

BkXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand moved in mid-April 1804 to the present 31 Rue de Miromesnil.

BkXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 This chapter and following chapters where indicated were written in Paris in 1839. In 1621, Anne of Austria provided a residence for the Benedictines of the Deep Valley, called the Valley of Grace (Val de Grâce). On the birth of the future Louis XIV in 1637, she decided to put up a baroque-style church. This church, started by Mansart, was completed by Le Mercier, Le Muet, and Le Duc. There are many beautiful sculptures as well as some magnificent paintings. The dome and the cupola are exquisitely decorated. After the Revolution, Val de Grâce became a military hospital. The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France, situated on the left bank of the Seine. The garden was originally planted by Guy de La Brosse, Louis XIII’s physician, in 1626 as a medicinal herb garden. It was originally known as the Jardin du Roi. In 1650 it opened to the public. After a period of decline Jean-Baptiste Colbert took administrative control and Dr Guy Crescent Fagon was appointed in 1693, surrounding himself with a team of brilliant botanists, The Comte de Buffon became the curator in 1739 and he expanded the gardens greatly, adding a maze, round a tall mound built up from public waste in the 17th century, the Labyrinth, which remains today. In 1792 the Royal Menagerie was moved to the gardens from Versailles. Bernard de Jussieu planted the famous cedar of Lebanon in 1734 on the hillside facing the Seine, having obtained it from Kew Gardens in London.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec3 The University of Paris (located partly in the college of the Sorbonne), dating back to the 12th century, was suspended during the Revolution and was re-opened by Napoleon in 1806.

BkXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand stayed in a house at 194 Rue de Rivoli, on the corner of the Place des Pyramides.

BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 See the notes on the Jardin des Plantes above. The ‘tomb of the martyrs’ is Montmartre (Mons Martyrum according Parisian tradition)

BkXXII:Chap18:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap16:Sec1 The Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile surmounts the hill of Chaillot at the center of a star-shaped configuration of 12 radiating avenues. It is the climax of a vista seen the length of the Champs Elysées from the smaller Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in the Tuileries gardens, and from the Obélisque de Luxor in the place de la Concorde. In 1806, Napoleon I conceived of a triumphal arch patterned after those of ancient Rome and dedicated to the glory of his imperial armies. The structure was designed by Jean François Thérèse Chalgrin (1739-1811) and completed in 1836 during the reign of Louis Philippe. Engraved around the top of the Arch are the names of major victories won during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. The names of less important victories, as well as those of 558 generals, can be found on the inside walls. (Generals whose names are underlined died in action.) The sun shines beneath the arch at the start of May and in mid-August.

BkXXII:Chap 25:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap12:Sec1 On 5 December 1804, Napoleon presided over a ceremony on the Champ-de-Mars, in Paris, during which new colours were allocated to the regiments. When he attempted to re-establish his empire (the Cent-Jours, March-June 1815), a similar ceremony of eagle distribution was organized. The ceremony took place once again on the Champ-de-Mars, which was renamed Champ-de-Mai, to recall the May (or liberty) trees planted during the Revolution. The ceremony, was, however, postponed from May 26th to 1 June. The results of the vote on the new Constitution (there was a massive abstention) were to be declared on that day.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec1 The Elysée Palace was built between 1718 and 1722. Owned at one time by Madame de Pompadour it was gifted to Louis XV at her death. Louis XVI set aside the house as a residence for Ambassadors Extraordinary in Paris; then in 1787 he sold it to his cousin, the Duchess of Bourbon. Bought by Murat it was gifted to Napoleon. Tsar Alexander of Russia moved into it during the occupation of Paris by the Allies, and the building was then placed at the disposal of the Duke of Wellington in November 1815. In 1816, it definitively became part of the Crown estates, and Louis XVIII granted it to his nephew, the Duc de Berry. In 1820, Louis Philippe took possession of the Palace, which thereafter became the residence of foreign State guests visiting Paris, until 1848. On December 12, 1848, the National Assembly issued a decree designating the ‘Elysée National’ as the Residence of the French President. Though subsequently used otherwise it is now the residence of the Head of state and seat of the Office of President.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 The Luxembourg Palace was built (1615-1631) for Marie de Médicis, the widow of Henri IV, by Salamon de Brosse. It remained a royal palace until the Revolution. After a spell as a prison it became the seat for the Directory, Consulate, Senate and Chamber of Peers. It is now the seat of the French Senate, the Upper House.

BkXXV:Chap11:Sec1 In 1820, the Opéra was in the Rue de Richelieu on the site occupied today by the Square Louvois.

BkXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 A play on words. The Elysian Fields with their ghostly shades are also the Champs-Élysées with their tree-shades.

BkXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap8:Sec1 The Chateaubriands had lodgings at 18 Rue de l’Université from the start of 1822 to October 1824, though as Foreign Minister Chateaubriand himself stayed at the Ministry (1821-1854) at 24 Rue des Capucines.

BkXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 The Chateaubriands lodged on the first floor of the Hôtel de Beaune, 7 Rue de Regard, from October 1824 to May 1826.

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 The Rue des Prouvaires joined the Rue Saint-Honoré at the Rue Rambuteau, before the old Les Halles was built in 1860. The ‘conspirators’ met at no 12, a house owned by Larcher.

BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 The Courtille was an extension of the Faubourg du Temple in the Belleville direction. Outside the gates, it was known in the eighteenth century for its dance halls and cabarets. Later it was known for the Carnival celebrations at Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) and on the following morning of Ash Wednesday.

BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 The Dance of Death painting in the Cemetery of the Innocents dates from 1425, and was subsequently reproduced in woodcuts in 1485 by Guyot Marchand.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 The Rue d’Enfer is now the Avenue Denfert-Rochereau, named in 1879 for the Colonel who directed the resistance of Belfort in 1870.

BkXXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 Its river, the Seine, is mentioned.

BkXXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 The Treaty of Paris of 1814 restored France’s borders to those of 1792. The Treaty of 1815 following Waterloo reduced France to its 1790 borders.

BkXLI:Chap2:Sec1 The Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique was situated on Boulevard du Temple from 1764, was renamed in 1795, rebuilt in 1805. In the 1860s the theatre was rebuilt nearby, adjacent to Boulevard Sebastopol, where it still stands as the Theatre de la Musique.

BkXLII:Chap1:Sec1 On the 13th-14th April 1834 riots in support of the Lyon insurgents were viciously suppressed, including a massacre in the Rue Transnonain (north of the present Rue Beaubourg).

BkXLII:Chap3:Sec1 In 1794 part of the Convent of the Canonesses of Saint Augustine, on the Rue de Picpus, was used as a communal grave for victims of the Terror. Under the Consulate it became a private cemetery.

BkXLII:Chap4:Sec2 The monastery of Saint-Pélagie near the Jardin des Plantes was used as a prison during the Revolution. Madame Roland wrote her Memoirs there. It was later used as a debtors’ prison and for those violating the censorship laws.

Parisienne, La

This song, written by the poet and dramatist Jean-Francois Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843) in 1830, and set to music by Daniel Auber rivalled the Marseillaise in popularity.

BkXXXIV:Chap15:Sec1 Mentioned.

Parma, Italy

A medieval city of Etruscan origins in the region of Emilia-Romagna, In 1847, after Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma’s death, it passed to the Bourbons, the last of whom Charles III was stabbed in the city (in 1854) and left it to his Widow, Luisa Maria of Berry. On September 15, 1859 the dynasty was declared deposed, and with the plebiscite of 1860 the former duchy became part of the unified Kingdom of Italy.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 The Chateaubriands were there in September 1828.

Parmentier, Pierre

d.1794 Executed during the Terror.

BkX:Chap8:Sec2 His name appears on the death warrant exhibited, and he was executed with Chateaubriand’s brother.

Parnassus

The mountain, in Phocis, Greece, was sacred to Apollo and the Muses. Delphi is at its foot where the oracle of Apollo and his temple were situated. Themis held the oracle in ancient times.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec3 BkXVIII:Chap3Sec5 BkXXIII:Chap14:Sec1

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 The Castilian spring sacred to the Muses was sited on Parnassus.

Parny, Évariste-Desirée de Forges-Parny, Chevalier de

1753-1814. A Creole poet (born Ile de la Réunion), he made his way to Paris to Paris via Pondicherry, arriving in 1786. Note his works Chansons madécasses (1787) and especially his Poésies érotiques (1778), presaging Lamartine. He suffered financial difficulties.

BkII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand followed him at Rennes College.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him in Paris. A description of the man. Chateaubriand quotes from Poésies érotiques Book II, ‘La Racommodement’. He also refers to La Guerre des Dieux, a mock-heroic poem of 1799 tactless in its handling of Christianity.

BkV:Chap15:Sec1 His elegy for Charlotte de Villette.

BkIX:Chap2:Sec1 A verse adapted from Poésies érotiques celebrating Madame D’Egmont.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 An adaptation of his verse to ‘Charmante Emma’. The Duc de Duras quickly remarried.

Parquin, née Louise Cochelet, Madame

1785-1835. The wife of Denis-Charles Parquin (1786-1845) an officer friend of Prince Louis-Napoléon. She was in the service of the Queen of Holland.

BkXXXV:Chap19:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap20:Sec1 Her husband bought the Château of Wolfberg, at Ermatingen, where visitors to Queen Hortense often stayed.

Parry, Sir William Edward

1790-1855. The British explorer made three journeys in search of the North-west Passage (1819-20, 1821-23, 1824-25). In 1827 he tried to reach the pole by sledge from Spitsbergen.

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap8:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap18:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Supposedly his men entertained themselves with plays, dances and masquerades while imprisoned in the ice.

Parthenon

Built 447-432 BC, it is the temple of Athena on the Acropolis of Athens.

BkVIII:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned. Mount Cithaeron and Hymettus are mountains between Boeotia and Attica to the north of Athens.

Partouneaux, Louis, Comte

1770-1835. A Napoleonic General.

BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 At the Berezina.

Pascal, Blaise

1623-1662. French mathematician, philosopher and inventor, born in Clermont-Ferrand. His early work included the invention of the adding machine and syringe, and the co-development with Fermat of the mathematical theory of probability. Later he became a Jansenist and wrote on philosophy and theology, notably as collected in the posthumous Pensées (1670).

BkXI:Chap2:Sec2 Montlosier as a Pascal manqué.

BkXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from the Pensées: ‘Les rivières sont des chemins qui marchent, et qui portent où l'on veut aller.’

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 See Pensées, the fragment entitled Human disproportion.

BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 See Pensées, ‘Man’s greatness comes from knowing he is wretched.’

Paskevich, Ivan Federovich, General

1782-1856. Later made Count of Erivan, and Prince of Warsaw, he was a Russian field marshal who had a distinguished early army career, fighting against Turkey, and France. On the outbreak of war with Persia in 1826 he gained rapid and brilliant successes which compelled the Shah to sue for peace in February 1828. He later suppressed the Polish revolt and gave the death-blow to Polish independence. He held the rank of Field-Marshal in the Prussian and Austrian armies as well as his own.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pasquier, Étienne

1529-1615. A French jurist and man of letters, he studied under Jacques Cujas and began his legal career in 1549. Always a confirmed advocate of Gallicanism, in 1565 he pleaded a famous case for the University of Paris against the Jesuits. In 1585 he became advocate general of a division of the Parlement of Paris. Pasquier’s most notable book, Recherches de la France, a learned work on French history and literature, reflected the tendency of the humanists to write in the vernacular rather than in Latin.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec3 Chateaubriand quotes from his work.

Pasquier, Étienne-Denis, Baron then Duc

1767-1862, A French statesman, who as Counsellor of the Parlement of Paris witnessed many of the incidents that marked the growing hostility between that body and Louis XVI. During the Reign of Terror (1793) Pasquier remained in obscurity; but this did not save him from arrest, shortly before the coup d’état of Thermidor (July 1794) which overthrew Robespierre. In the reaction that ensued he regained his liberty and estates. He did not re-enter public service until the period of the Empire, when the arch-chancellor Cambacérés used his influence with Napoleon to procure for him the office of Maitre des Requêtes to the council of state. In 1809 he became baron of the French Empire, and in February 1810 counsellor of state. Napoleon in 1810 made him Prefect of Police. The chief event which ruffled the course of his life at that time was the strange conspiracy of the republican general Malet (Oct. 1812), who, giving out that Napoleon had perished in Russia, managed to surprise and capture some of the ministers and other authorities at Paris, among them Pasquier. The collapse of this bold attempt enabled him, however, speedily to regain his liberty. When Napoleon abdicated in April 1814 Pasquier continued to exercise his functions for a few days in order to preserve order, and then resigned the prefecture of police, whereupon Louis XVIII allotted to him the control of roads and bridges. He took no share in the Imperial restoration at the time of the Hundred Days (1815), and after the second entry of Louis XVIII into Paris became Minister of the Interior, but resigned office. Under the more moderate governments of succeeding years he again held various appointments, but refused to join the reactionary cabinets at the close of the reign of Charles X. After the July Revolution (1830) he became President of the Chamber of Peers a post which he held through the whole of the reign of Louis Philippe (1830-1848). In 1842 he was elected a member of the French Academy, and in the same year was created a duke. After the overthrow of Louis Philippe in February 1848, Pasquier retired from active life and set to work to compile the notes and reminiscences of his long and active career.

BkI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap5:Sec1 Writes to Chateaubriand, as Prefect of Police, in 1812.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 A friend of Chateaubriand and Madame de Beaumont.

BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Congratulated Chateaubriand on his resignation.

BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Foreign Minister in 1820-21, he congratulates Chateaubriand on his political negotiations.

BkXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him in February 1821.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIII:Chap7:Sec2 Chateaubriand writes to him, relinquishing his income as a Peer.

Pasquin

Pasquino was the name given to a battered ancient statue dug up in the course of paving the Parione district in Rome and erected on the west side of Piazza Navona in 1501. Satirical verses, lampoons, were regularly attached to it, hence Pasquin later appears as a commedia dell’arte character who mocks and satirizes others.

BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

Passy, Paris

A district of Paris (incorporated 1859) it is close to the Bois de Boulogne on the west of the city.

BkXXXII:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1

Mentioned.

Passy-Véron, Château de

The 17th Century chateau, in Burgundy (Yonne), near Villeneuve, built by the financier François Petit, was owned by Mégret de Sérilly from 1719.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 Madame de Beaumont stayed there during the Terror, and was visited by Joubert.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand passed nearby in September 1828.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand met Monsieur Portalis there.

Pasta, Guiditta

1798-1865. Born in Saronno, Italy, a soprano considered among the greatest of opera singers. She studied in Milan and further studies with Scappa were followed by a successful debut in Venice in 1819. She caused a sensation in Paris in 1821-22, where the immense range of her voice and her dramatic gifts were matched by poignancy of expression. She sang regularly in London, Paris, and St. Petersburg between 1824 and 1837. She created the roles of Amina in Bellini’s La Sonnambula and Norma (both in Milan and in 1831) and Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Milan in 1830. She died in Blevio.

BkX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned, as a contemporary voice in 1822.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1829. Martignac’s eloquence is compared by Charles X to her singing.

Pastoret, Claude-Emmanuel-Joseph-Pierre, Marquis de, Chancellor of France

1756-1840. He was Minister of Justice in 1791, before becoming the President of the Council of Five Hundred in 1796, a Senator in 1808, a Peer in 1814 and Marquis in 1817, a Minister in 1826, and Chancellor in 1829. He remained loyal to the elder branch after July 1830. His son was the poet, and senator under the Second Empire, Amadée-David.

BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1

Mentioned.

BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned as a possible member of Charles X’s Chateaubriand-led government in 1833!

Patin, Charles-Guy

1633-1693. A French doctor like his father, he fled France and settled in Padua in 1668, where he practised as a surgeon.

BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 His tomb in Padua.

Patmos

A small volcanic island in the Ægean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor, to the south of Samos and west of Miletus, the island is famous as the place of St. John’s exile: ‘I, John...was in the island, which is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus’ (Revelation 1:9); there according to legend the Beloved Disciple wrote the Apocalypse, the imagery of which was in part inspired by the scenery of the island.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec5 Mentioned.

Patroclus

Achilles’ beloved friend whose death causes him to re-enter the fight against the Trojans. See Homer’s Iliad.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 In a scene on a Greek vase.

Patterson, Elisabeth, see Elisabeth Bonaparte

Pau, France

Pau is situated 50 miles (80km) inland, above the Gave de Pau River, and is a good base from which to explore the Pyrenees and the villages of the Bearn region. The town was popular with the English in the early 19th century (at one time 20 percent of the population was from England). It has a 12th century chateau.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1807.

BkXXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand there on the evening of the 19th of August 1829, leaving the following morning for Bordeaux.

BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 The Château where Henri IV was born and raised.

Paul, Saint

d. c66AD The apostle, originally called Saul, his name according to tradition changed in honour of Sergius Paulus when he converted to Christianity (Acts XIII:6-12). He was beheaded at Rome according to legend.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec5 He preached at Athens, see Acts XVII:22

BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 See 1st Corinthians XIII:5

Paul, the Hermit

c230-342. He lived as a desert hermit in a cave for most of his 113 year life. His biography was written by Saint Jerome.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

Paul I, Emperor of Russia

1754-1801. Tsar of Russia (1796-1801). He reversed his mother Catherine the Great’s enlightened policies while his foreign policy isolated Russia. His incompetence and despotism led to his assassination.

BkXVI:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec2 Assassinated on the 23rd of March 1801.

BkXX:Chap6:Sec2 He proposed a joint invasion of India to Napoleon in 1801.

Paul von Wurtemberg, Prince

1785-1852. He married Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Hildburghausen in 1805. Their daughter Frederika-Maria-Charlotte (1807-1873) married in 1824 Grand-Duke Michael (1798-1849), a son of Paul I, and younger brother of Tars Alexander and Nicholas.

BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 In Rome in 1829.

Paul Le Simple, Saint Paul the Simple

d. c340. A farmer, who on discovering his wife’s adultery, became a desert hermit. A disciple of Saint Anthony the Abbot, he was given the title ‘The Simple’ for his simple and humble acceptance of the teachings.

BkIX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

Paula, Saint

347-404. Friend, spiritual student and supporter of Saint Jerome whom she met in 382; he later wrote her biography. A pilgrim to the Holy Lands in 385 with her daughter Eustochium, she settled in Bethlehem in 396 where she built churches, a hospice, monastery and convent, and served as its first abbess.

BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 The sack of Rome by Alaric took place in 410.

Paulus Emilius

A Roman Consul, he conquered Macedonia, defeating Perseus, King of Macedon, at Pydna in 168BC, and brought back spoils to Rome including many statues.

BkXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 See Plutarch’s Life of Paulus Emilius.

Paule, Clémence Isaure, La Belle

She was a mythical personage invented by the Compagnie des Jeux Floraux of Toulouse in 1515. She supposedly gave her worldly goods to the town on condition that an annual literary prize should be maintained. An existing sepulchre and statue was utilised (that of Bertrande Ysalguier). The literary prize was awarded to Chateaubriand on one occasion.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

Paule, Saint François de

Born in Calabria in 1416, famous for his austerities and charity, he founded the Minimes, or the Hermits of Saint François. Called to France by Louis XI, he died there in 1507.

BkIV:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

Pavia, Italy, Battle of

On February 23rd 1525, Charles V the Holy Roman Emperor, defeated Francis I King of France, taking him prisoner, his horse was wounded by Cesare Hercolani, and confining him in Spain.

BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 Occupied by Napoleon in 1796 and by Lannes June 2 1800.

Payra, Adolphe

A decommissioned officer of the Royal Guard, he was a friend of Armand Carrel.

BkXLII:Chap4:Sec2 Armand died at his house in 1836.

Pearce, Alix, Alice Perrers

d 1400. Mistress of Edward III of England, she entered the service of Edward’s queen, Philippa of Hainault, and married a courtier, Sir William de Windsor. Becoming the king’s mistress possibly as early as 1366, she wielded great influence over him. Her interference in the promotion of lawsuits in the courts led to her banishment from the royal household by the Good Parliament of 1376. She returned in 1377 and later gained, despite another sentence of banishment, some favour and much wealth at the court of Richard II.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned. See Alix of Salisbury for a source of much confusion.

Pecquet, Jean

1622-1674. Anatomist and native of Dieppe, he was doctor to Madame de Sévigné, and founder of the Académie Royale. He discovered the thoracic duct, and substantiated Harvey’s work on the circulation of the blood.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec2 Mentioned.

Pedicini, Carlo Maria, Cardinal

1769-1843. A Cardinal from 1823 he worked in the Curia.

BkXXX:Chap1:Sec2 A pro-Jesuit voter.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 Rejected as a Papal candidate by France.

Peel, Sir Robert

1788-1850. A British Statesman, he was a reforming Conservative Prime Minister from 1834-35 and 1841-46.

BkXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned in 1822 when he was Home Secretary.

Pegasus

The winged horse, created by Neptune’s union with Medusa, sprung from the head of Medusa when Perseus decapitated her. At the same time his brother Chrysaor the warrior was created. He is represented in the sky by the constellation Pegasus. The sacred fountain of Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, haunt of the Muses, sprang from under his hoof.

BkII:Chap4:Sec3 BkXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

Peggy

Maidservant in the London Embassy in 1822.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

Peking (Beijing), China

The Chinese capital is in north-eastern China.

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec3 mentioned.

Pellico, Silvio

1789-1854. An Italian author and patriot, in 1820 he incurred suspicion as a member of the Carboneria, and, having been arrested by order of the Austrians, was imprisoned in Venice. After a perfunctory trial he was condemned to death, but the penalty was commuted into one of imprisonment with hard labour, in the fortress of Spielberg in Moravia. After eight years he was released (1830). During the remainder of his life, broken by the hardship of his imprisonment, he remained aloof from politics, preferring a life of seclusion. He endeared himself to Italian readers with his prison diary, Le mie Prigioni, which rapidly became popular, and was published in translation.

Preface:Sect3. BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec2 BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 His imprisonment in Venice. An Italian edition of Le mie Prigioni published in March 1833 in Paris Chateaubriand took with him on his travels. A bilingual edition was available at the end of 1833. Pellico also wrote a successful play about Francesca da Rimini (1815), and was comforted in prison by the presence of Zanze his gaoler’s daughter.

BkXXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 He was held, 1821-1822, in the monastery of San Michele which was being used as a prison.

Peltier, or Pelletier, Jean-Gabriel

1765-1825. The French journalist born in San Domingo was educated at Nantes. He emigrated to London after the Tenth of August1792 when one of his collaborators Suleau was murdered. In London he published an émigré journal and went on to attack Napoleon. From 1807 to 1811 he negotiated for the recognition of the new black Republic of Haiti with the British Government. He returned to France in 1820.

BkX:Chap5:Sec1 Author of the Royalist pamphlet Domine Salvum fac Regem printed 13th October 1789, and founded the journal Actes des Apôtres in the same month. The journal ridiculed the members of the Constituant Assembly. His journal L’Ambigu mentioned by Chateaubriand did not appear until 1802, he did however issue his periodical the Correspondance politique from November 1793.

BkX:Chap6:Sec1 His relationship with Chateaubriand.

BkX:Chap7:Sec1 He finds Chateaubriand work.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Married to Anne Andoe, 13th July 1799.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap15:Sec3 Carries Chateaubriand off on a sightseeing tour. (Peltier at first and wrongly hoped General Bonaparte would reinstate the monarchy. He then abused Bonaparte in his English journal L’Ambigu. Napoleon demanded his extradition after the Peace of Amiens with England. He took Peltier to Court in England in February 1803 for libel, but Mackintosh obtained the moral victory for Peltier, who was not sentenced, and continued to inveigh against Napoleon. Peltier published his account The Trial of John Peltier , Cox and Baylis, 1803.)

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Chateaubriand remembers his strange character.

BkXXXIV:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Remembered.

Penfeld, River

The Penfeld River divides the two hills on the slopes of which the port of Brest is situated, and flows into the Bay of Brest. Richelieu built up the harbour and dockyards on both sides of the river. It is bridged by the Pont de Recouvrance.

BkII:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand walks its banks.

Penhoen, Auguste Theodore Hilaire, Baron Barchou de

1801-1855. A classmate of Balzac at Vendôme (and thus a character in Louis Lambert, as well as having Gobseck dedicated to him), he became an officer and writer producing a small number of mainly historical works. He served as a captain in Algeria, but resigned after the fall of Charles X. He was deputy to the Legislature for Finistère in 1849. He wrote a history of German philosophy (1836) and a history of English conquest in the Indies (1841).

BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 See his first work, Mémoires d’un officier d’état-major of 1832.

Penn, William

1644-1718. English Quaker, founder and Governor of Pennsylvania. Son of Admiral Sir William Penn (1621-1670). A non-conformist he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his writings. Here he wrote No Cross, No Crown (1669) a classic of Quaker practice. From 1682 he was involved in the establishment of the Quaker settlements in America, including Pennsylvania, named for him, for which he drew up the constitution ‘The Frame of Government’ allowing for freedom of worship.

BkVI:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkVI:Chap7:Sec1 The Eastern Appalachian State of Pennsylvania was one of the thirteen original colonies. The first settlers from Sweden were displaced by the Dutch in 1655. In 1681 Charles II granted the area to William Penn as a haven for Quakers. It became a state in 1787. The 160 kilometre journey from Baltimore to Philadelphia was covered by an Eastern-Shore Stagecoach leaving on Mondays at 4am and arriving the following afternoon. Chateaubriand travelled on the 11th July 1791 arriving in Philadelphia on Tuesday the 12th.

Pensecola

Florida’s principal deep-water port, on the Gulf of Mexico. A Spanish town until 1819.

BkVIII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

Penthièvre, Eudon or Eudes, Comte de

999-1078. Son of Geoffrey I, called Comte Bérenger de Rennes. Regent of Brittany. Died 7th January 1078.

BkI:Chap1:Sec6 Father of Thiern (Brien I) de Chateaubriand.

Percier, Charles

1764-1838. A neoclassical French architect, interior decorator and designer, who worked in such close partnership with Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, originally his friend from student days, from 1794 onwards, that it is fruitless to disentangle artistic responsibilities in their work. Together, Percier and Fontaine were inventors and major proponents of the neoclassicism recognized as Empire style.

BkXXII:Chap 25:Sec1 Co-designed the Expiatory Chapel (1816-26), Place Louis XVI, on the site of the cemetery where 3000 victims of the Revolution were buried.

Perdita

A character in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, she is the daughter of Leontes, King of Sicily.

BkXXXVII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

Père de famille, le

Work by Diderot.

Peretti, Camilla

The sister of Sixtus V, she was a patroness of the Cistercian nuns. There is a medal of 1590 representing her in the Uffizi, Florence.

BkXXX:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

Pergamum, Turkey

An ancient Greek city in Mysia, situated 16 miles from the Aegean Sea on a lofty isolated hill on the northern side of the broad valley of the Caicus (modern Bakir) River. The site is occupied by the modern town of Bergama. Pergamum existed at least from the 5th century BC, but it became important only in the Hellenistic Age (323–230 BC), when it served as the residence of the Attalid dynasty.

BkXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1806.

Pericles

c495-429BC. The Athenian statesman who presided over Athens’ Golden Age, became leader of the democratic party, in 461, according to Plutarch and dominated Athens until 430 by his outstanding oratory, leadership and honesty. His effective strategy in the Peloponnesian War was undermined by the plague of 430. He lost office and died shortly after being re-instated.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec3 His funeral oration for the Athenian dead in the opening battles of the Peloponnesian War, given in 431BC. See Thucydides, Peloponnesian War 2.34-46.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Alcibiades was his ward, see Plutarch’s Lives of Alcibiades:I and Pericles:XLVI-II.

BkXXII:Chap 22:Sec1 As a famous Athenian, charged with public affairs.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 His eloquence.

BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

Périer, Augustin

1773-1833. Brother of Casimir, he was a Deputy for Grenoble from 1827.

BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Appointed as a Commissioner on the 30th July 1830 to confer with the Peers.

Périer, Casimir Pierre

1777-1832. A French statesman, and son of a financier, he co-founded a bank in 1801 and by 1814 was a leading banker in Paris. He was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies (1817), where he opposed Charles X. After the July Revolution of 1830 Périer became Premier (1831) and quickly restored civic order in France. Active in foreign affairs, he sent an army to defend Belgium against the Dutch (1831) and ordered the occupation of Ancona to check Austrian predominance in the Papal States (1832). His authoritarian approach brought attacks from both left and right and alienated the king.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXVIII:Chap17:Sec1 Joint leader of the left-wing opposition in 1827.

BkXXXI:Chap7:Sec1 A potential Minister still in 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap4:Sec1 A focus of opposition in 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Receives a students’ delegation on the 29th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Appointed a member of the Municipal Commission on the 29th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Did not sign the proclamation of the Municipal Commission indicated.

BkXXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 His illness in 1832.

Périgeux, France

A commune of France, préfecture (capital) of the Dordogne département and the capital of the Périgord area in the Aquitaine région.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec2 Chateaubriand there 22nd July 1829.

Perlet, Adrien

1795-1850. He was a French actor in comedy. He played London (in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme at the St James’s Theatre) in 1842.

BkXXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned in 1830.

Permessus

A river in Bœotia sacred to Apollo and the Muses, which rises on Mount Helicon and flows into the Copaic lake.

BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

Péronne

The town dominates a vast area of marshes at the confluence of the two Valleys of the Somme and the Cologne. Since the roman invasion, it has been a fortified town. In the 5th century, Sainte Radegonde, Clotaire the First's wife, spent time there; in 929, Charles III died in Peronne after six years of imprisonment. Later, Philippe Auguste had the Castle built; it was the place of the famous meeting between Louis XI, King of France, and Charles Le Temeraire, the Duke of Burgundy, in 1468. During that meeting, Louis was held prisoner and believed he would have meet same fate as his ancestor; he was only freed thanks to a treaty that was humiliating for the Kingdom.

BkIX:Chap8:Sec2 Mentioned.

Perrault, Charles

1628-1703. The French author laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale. He published Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé) (1697), with the subtitle: Tales of Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye) which was enormously successful.

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec3 See Perrrault’s story Bluebeard.

Persepolis

An ancient city of Persia northeast of modern Shiraz in southwest Iran, it was the ceremonial capital of Darius I and his successors. Its ruins include the palaces of Darius and Xerxes and a citadel that contained the treasury looted by Alexander the Great.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec2 See Plutarch, Alexander: LXVII, for Alexander’s destruction of the palace in 330BC.

Persil, Jean-Charles

1785-1870. A liberal lawyer who later persecuted journalists, he was Keeper of the Seals 1834-37. Deputy for Gers in 1833 he had moved further to the political right.

BkXXXV:Chap26:Sec1 Mentioned in 1833.

Perugia, Italy

The capital city in the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the Tiber river, and the capital of the province of Perugia.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 Mentioned.

Perugino

1446-1524. An early painter in oils, of the Umbrian school, who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 The Confraternity of St Luke founded by Pforr, Overbeck (1789-1869) and Cornelius (1783-1867), occupied the Monastery of St Isidore on the Pincio from the end of 1809. They became known as the Nazarenes from their long hair. They wished to renew the tradition of the Middle Ages, like the Pre-Raphaelites, and strongly influenced German Romantic painting.

Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia

1672-1725. The Russian Tsar (1682–1725), who extended his territory around the Baltic and Caspian shores, reformed the administration of the state. He laid the foundations for new cities, especially St Petersburg as his ‘window on the West’.

BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec2 The fortified town or Kremlin around which Moscow developed dates from the 12th century and was further embellished by Ivan the Great (1462-1505). Peter the Great commissioned the Arsenal, and after Napoleon’s retreat it became a museum with cannon arrayed along its side captured from Grande Armée. The Arsenal is now the headquarters of the Kremlin Guard.

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec3 His suppression of the Strelitz conspiracy in 1698.

Peter, Saint

A fisherman of Galilee, who with his brother Andrew became one of the twelve apostles. He was named by Jesus as the rock on which the Church was to be built, and was entrusted with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (Mathew 16.19), hence his symbol of two crossed keys. He led the Christian community and was believed to have been martyred and buried in Rome.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 The Pope is regarded as his representative.

BkXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Known as the Prince of the Apostles. The Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is celebrated in Rome on the 29th June.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 Chateaubriand quotes Matthew XVII:4.

BkXX:Chap8:Sec1 Saint Peter in Chains, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, is a basilica built by Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II, to hold the supposed chains of St Peter from his second imprisonment, which she had brought from Jerusalem. Chateaubriand draws a parallel between Peter and Pius VII.

BkXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 The Pope as his representative is entrusted with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.

BkXXX:Chap2:Sec1 The initiator of the Papacy.

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec2 Saint Peter in Chains, a shrine at Waldmünchen, actually a flagellated Christ.

Petermann, Lieutenant

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec2 Present at Strasbourg during the arrest of the Duc d’Enghien.

Peter

Footman at the London Embassy in 1822.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

Pétion de Villeneuve, Jérôme

1756-1794. French revolutionary. A leader of the Jacobins, Pétion sat in the Constituent Assembly, was elected (November 1791) mayor of Paris over the marquis de Lafayette, and by inaction aided the anti-royal demonstration of June 20th, 1792. Elected to the Convention, he clashed with Robespierre and allied himself with the Girondists. Early in June his arrest was ordered but he escaped; he died probably by suicide while in hiding near Bordeaux.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec1 Became mayor of Paris in 1791.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec2 His supporters at the second Festival of the Federation in 1792.

Petit, General Jean-Martin

1772-1856. Made a Baron of Empire in 1809, he was one of Napoleon’s confidantes. He was embraced symbolically by the Emperor in the courtyard of Fontainebleau, on the day of Napoleon’s abdication, 20th April 1814. He was wounded and died. In 1842 he was part of the commission which decide the names to be inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe. He commanded the soldiers of the Invalides in 1848. He died in Paris.

BkXXII:Chap19:Sec1 At Fontainebleau.

Petit, René

He was Prosecutor Fiscal (substitute for the procureur de roi in a rural locale) at Combourg.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Signatory to Chateaubriand’s father’s death certificate.

Petitbois, Jean-Anne Pinot du

A gentleman of the neighbourhood of Combourg.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Signatory to Chateaubriand’s father’s death certificate.

Petites-Affiches, Le Journal des

The Daily Advertiser in Paris, edited by Jean-Louis Aubert called L’abbé Aubert. (1734-1814), then François-Guillaume Ducray-Duminil (1761-1819). It carried announcements, adverts, diverse articles, and lampoons of literary criticism etc.

BkXIII:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned.

Petrarch

1304-1374. Italian poet and humanist, one of the great figures of Italian literature, he spent his youth in Tuscany, Avignon and at Bologna. He returned to Avignon in 1326, may have taken lesser ecclesiastic orders, and entered the service of Cardinal Colonna, travelling widely but finding time to write numerous lyrics, sonnets, and canzoni. At Avignon, in 1327, Petrarch first saw Laura, who was to inspire his great vernacular love lyrics. In 1341 he was crowned laureate at Rome. In 1348 both Laura and Colonna died of the plague, and Petrarch devoted himself to the cause of Italian unification, pleaded for the return of the papacy to Rome, and served the Visconti of Milan. In his last years he enjoyed great fame, and even after his death and ceremonial burial at Arquà his influence continued to spread. He considered his Trionfi and the well-known lyrics of the Canzoniere less important than his Latin works, which include, besides Africa, Metrical Epistles, On Contempt for the Worldly Life, On Solitude, Eclogues, and the Letters.

BkIX:Chap8:Sec2 Chateaubriand refers to Petrarch’s Letters (I,4,7-16), the letter to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, dated 21st June, 1333.

BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 Chateaubriand quotes from Canzoniere 323:37-42, from The Epistola ad posteros, from Canzoniere 128:28-30 and 81-86, and from his letter, Seniles IX.i to Urbain V of August 1366.

BkXIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 Crowned Poet Laureate in Rome in 1341. The Vatican was a very different place than it would have appeared to the later writers mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 He moved to Venice in 1362 where Boccaccio visited him in 1363, and moved again to Padua in 1368.

BkXXXIX:Chap19:Sec1 His name for Venice, Aurea, the Golden.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 His tomb at Arqua. The quotation is from the Canzoniere, 273, lines 1-3.

Peyronnet, Pierre-Denis, Comte de

1778-1854. A magistrate, and Deputy for the Cher from 1820, he became Minister of Justice in the cabinet of December 1821. Elevated to the Peerage in 1828, he was later Minister of the Interior.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 Supports Villèle over the disbanding of the National Guard in April 1827. He is rejected by the electoral colleges.

BkXXXI:Chap7:Sec1 Joined the Cabinet under Polignac in 1830.

Pezay, Alexandre-Frédéric-Jacques Masson, Marquis de

1741-1777. Writer, physiocrat, he was the author of numerous plays, operas, erotic poetry etc. Tool of the First Minister, Maurepas, he summoned Necker to office in 1776.

BkV:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pfeilsferg, Karl von

He was a senior Austrian Customs officer in 1833.

BkXXXVI:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned, but not by name.

Pharsalus, Battle of

48BC. The decisive encounter between Julius Caesar and Pompey, near present day Fársala in Greece. Pompey’s defeat opened the way to Caesar’s dictatorship.

BkVI:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Phelippeaux, Antoine le Picard de

1768-1799. A Royalist contemporary of Bonaparte’s at the Military College at Brienne, he emigrated to England, and fought against the French at Acre in 1799. He died shortly afterwards of plague.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 His presence at Acre.

Phidias

c490-c430BC. The ancient Greek sculptor, universally regarded as the greatest of all Classical sculptors. Phidias designed the statues of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis in Athens (Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon and the Athena Promachos) and the colossal seated Statue of Zeus at Olympia. These works were apparently commissioned by Pericles in 447 BC.

BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 His work on the Parthenon frieze.

Philia (Phila in the text)

A courtesan. From the Greek philia, loving, or love between friends.

BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 See Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists XIII.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The city on the Delaware River, at its junction with the Schuylkill, was founded in 1681 by the Quaker William Penn. A centre of religious tolerance, it contains Independence Hall (1732-1759) where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and the Liberty Bell is kept. Benjamin Franklin is buried there. It is the site of the University of Pennsylvania (1779) and the Franklin Institute (1824.)

BkVI:Chap7:Sec1 Description of Philadelphia.

BkVII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand found no support there for his planned explorations.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand returned there after his four-month travels around the 20th November 1791.

BkXXIV:Chap1:Sec1 Washington’s house there.

Philipon for Philippon, Charles

1800-1862. A caricaturist and journalist, he co-founded La Caricature in November 1830. He also created Le Charivari in December 1832. He was sentenced to a total of 13 months in gaol which he served in Sainte-Pelagie and at Chaillot in Pinel’s Sanatorium, which he left in February 1833.

BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes on his behalf to Gisquet on the 22nd of June 1832.

Philip II of Macedon

382-336BC. King of Macedon (359-336) he founded the Macedonian Empire, and defeated the Greeks at Chaeronea in 338. He was assassinated, but his son Alexander the Great continued his planned campaign against Persia.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap14:Sec3 Mentioned.

Philippe Auguste, Philippe II, King of France

1165-1223. King of France 1180-1223. His reign was marked by greater control over feudal lords and an expansion of royal territories.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 He was at the taking of Acre during the Third Crusade in 1191, after which he returned to France.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 He married Isabelle of Hainault, in 1180. It was seen as a union of the king’s Capetian and her Carolingian dynasties.

Philippe II, Philip II of Spain

1527-1598. King of Spain 1556-1598, and of Portugal (1580–1598) as Philip I. In 1588 he launched the Spanish Armada in an unsuccessful attempt to invade England. He was the leader of the Counter-Reformation.

BkX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 Builder of the Escorial Palace and monastery in Madrid, as a monument to the victory of Saint-Quentin, 19th August 1557, on St Lawrence’s day, and therefore consecrated to the martyr (died 258).

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec1 Signed the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559.

BkXXX:Chap2:Sec2 His interference with the Conclave.

Philippe III, The Bold, King of France

1245-1285. King of France 1270 to 1285, the son of Saint Louis, he accompanied his father on the 8th Crusade. A weak King politically he died following the calamitous ‘Aragonese Crusade.’

BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

Philippe V, de Bourbon

1683-1746. Philippe of Anjou was king of Spain from 1700 to 1746, the first of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. He was the second son of Louis, the Grand Dauphin and Maria Anna of Bavaria.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec3 His paternal grandparents were Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain. He was born at Versailles.

Philippe VI de Valois, King of France

1283-1350. King of France 1328-1350. Count of Anjou, Maine, and Valois 1325–1328, he was the son of Charles of Valois and founded the Valois Dynasty.

BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 He was on the losing side at Crécy in 1346.

Philippe-Égalité, see Orléans

Philomela

In Greek myth the daughter of Pandion, and sister of Procne, she was raped by her sister’s husband Tereus. Pursued by Tereus she turned into a nightingale (or a swallow). See Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book VI.

BkXIII:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned. The café nightingales.

BkXXX:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned by Virgil in the 6th Eclogue.

BkXXXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Her sister Procne who became the swallow. Together Procne and Philomela took revenge on Tereus by killing his son Itys, hence the ‘bloodstained’ breast or rather throat of the swallow (more true of the Egyptian variants).

Phlegethon

The ‘River of Fire’ in Greek mythology, one of the five streams of the underworld, is mentioned in Virgil’s Aeneid, Book VI, 265, and 551.

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.

Phocion

c402-318BC. An Athenian general, he served successfully against the forces of Philip of Macedon—in Euboea (348) and at Byzantium (339), where he forced Philip to abandon his siege of that city. In Athens, Phocion was a leader of the party that urged conciliation with the Macedonians; he was opposed by Demosthenes. When the Athenians refused to comply with Alexander’s demand for the surrender of Demosthenes, Phocion led a successful embassy of conciliation to Alexander. In the turmoil following the death of Antipater (319), Phocion intrigued with Cassander. Later, when the Athenian democracy, which had been curtailed by Antipater, was restored, the democrats forced Phocion to drink hemlock; shortly after his death, however, they raised a statue in his honour. His ashes were collected by a poor woman of Megara, according to Plutarch.

BkVII:Chap5:Sec1 See Plutarch’s Life of Phocion 38.

BkXXII:Chap 22:Sec1 A famous Athenian, charged with public affairs.

Phryne

A wealthy Athenian courtesan (from Thespiae) of the 4th century BC, said to have been the model for Praxiteles’ Cnidian Venus, and Apelles’ painting of Venus Rising from the Waves.

BkIII:Chap11:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 See Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists XIII.

Piat, Mademoiselles

Lisette Piat, Joubert’s governess at Villeneuve, and her two sisters.

BkXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pibrac, Guy du Faur, Seigneur de

1529-1584 French jurist and poet, was born at Toulouse to an old family of the magistracy. He studied with Cujas, and afterwards at Padua. In 1548 he was admitted to the bar at Toulouse, at once took high rank. He was selected in 1562 as one of the three representatives of France at the Council of Trent. In 1565 he became attorney general to the parlement of Paris, and extended the renaissance in jurisprudence transforming French justice. In 1573 he was sent by Charles IX to accompany as chancellor his brother Henry (afterwards Henry III) to Poland, of which country Henry had been elected king. Pibrac’s fluent Latin won much applause from the Poles, but his second visit to Poland in 1575, when sent back by Henry III to try to save the Crown he had deserted, was not so successful. In 1578 he became chancellor to Marguerite of France, Queen of Navarre. Although he was fifty, her beauty and intellectual gifts led him to aspire to win her affection; but he was rejected with disdain. He was a friend of Ronsard.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 He wrote an apology for the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572. (published 1573).

Picard, Louis-Benoit

1769-1828. Comic actor, then author of comedies and vaudeville pieces, then director of the Opera (1807) and later the Théâtre de l’Odéon. His complete works comprised eleven volumes, and he died an Academician and a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Esteemed by Fontanes.

Piccolomini, Josef Silvio Max

d. 1645 Historically, Josef was the son of Prince Octavio Piccolimini (1599-1656) Duke of Amalfi who was involved in the military conspiracy which ended in Wallenstein’s murder. Max was murdered by the Swedes after the Battle of Jankau.

BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 The character Max in Schiller’s play Wallenstein.

Pichegru, Charles

1761-1804. A French general in the Revolutionary Wars, he was successful on the Rhine front (1793), he invaded (1794) the Netherlands, entered (1795) Amsterdam and captured the ice-bound Dutch fleet. In the same year, however, he secretly negotiated with the Austrians in an attempt to restore the monarchy, to which his own fortune was tied. Pichegru deliberately allowed the Austrians to retake Mannheim. Recalled by the Directory, he was relieved of his command. A deputy to the Council of Five Hundred (1797), Pichegru was elected its president by the royalist majority. He was later arrested in the coup of 18 Fructidor (1797), but he escaped to England. He returned to France in 1803 to carry out a royalist conspiracy with Georges Cadoudal. Pichegru was arrested but was found strangled in his cell before the trial.

BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Arrested on the 28th February 1804.

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec3 Mentioned at the interrogation of the Duc d’Enghien.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 His death.

BkXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 His victories paved the way for later achievements.

BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 His trial.

BkXXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

Piedmont, Italy

A region of northwestern Italy, its capital is Turin. Piedmont is surrounded on three sides by the Alps, including the Monviso, where the Po River rises, and Monte Rosa. It borders on France, Switzerland, and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna, and the Aosta Valley. The Republic of Alba was created in 1796 as a French client republic in Piedmont before the area was annexed by France in 1801. In June 1802 a new client republic, the Subalpine Republic, was established in Piedmont and in September it was also annexed. In the congress of Vienna, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was restored, and furthermore received the Republic of Genoa to strengthen it as a barrier against France. Piedmont was the springboard for Italy’s unification 1859-1861, following earlier unsuccessful wars against the Austrian Empire 1820-1821 and 1848-1849.

BkXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 On 10th March 1821 the Piedmontese garrisons of Turin and elsewhere took up arms to fight for a constitution. King Victor-Emmanuel I abdicated on the 13th of March in favour of his son Charles-Felix. The Regent appointed, Carignan (1798-1849) declared for a constitution like that of the Cortès. Austrian intervention (directed by Metternich) defeated the Piedmontese on the 21st at Novare, Charles-Felix was re-instated and reigned from 1821-1831.

BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned.

Pierre

BkI:Chap4:Sec1 Servant of Madame de Bedée.

Piet-Thardiveau, Jean-Pierre

1761-1848. A colleague of Corbière’s in the Council of Five Hundred, he subsequently took part in Royalist conspiracy. He was elected Deputy for the Sarthe in 1815, 1820 and 1828. From September 1815 his house at 8 Rue Thérèse was a meeting place for the thinkers of the Ultra party.

BkXXV:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 His house a centre for Ultra-Royalist meeting and discussion.

Piffre, Monsieur

A claimant on the French Embassy in London in 1822.

BkXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pignatelli Jr., Francesco Maria, Cardinal

1744-1815. The son of Fabrizio III Pignatelli, 8th prince of Noia, and Costanza de’ Medici, he received the red hat and the title of S. Maria del Popolo, September 12, 1794. Arrested in Rome by the French on December 10, 1809 and exiled to France after the detention of Pope Pius VII; he was one of the thirteen ‘black cardinals’ who refused to attend the wedding of Napoleon and Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria on April 12, 1810; by order of the emperor, he was relegated to Rethel with Cardinal Alessandro Mattei; he was recalled after the signature of the Concordat of Fontainebleau by the Pope on January 25, 1813.

BkXX:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pignatelli-Strongoli, Francesco, Prince

A General in the Neapolitan Army.

BkXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pillnitz, Declaration of, 1791

The Declaration of Pillnitz on August 27, 1791, was a statement issued at the Castle of Pillnitz in Saxony by Emperor Leopold II and Frederick William II of Prussia. Calling on European powers to intervene, this declaration was intended to support the emigrés, and serve as a warning to the French revolutionaries not to infringe further on the rights of Louis XVI, and allow his restoration to power. It helped begin the French Revolutionary Wars.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pilorge, Hyacinthe

1795-1861. Chateaubriand’s secretary and confidante for more than twenty-five years, he was a Breton from Fougères, whose father had been a servant to Mesdames de Marigny and de Farcy, he joined Chateaubriand in 1816. He was dismissed in 1843 after an unknown incident.

BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned in Berlin in 1821.

BkXXVII:Chap10:Sec1 Sent to Paris as messenger in August 1822.

BkXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 In Paris in 1823.

BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 In Rome in 1829.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 At Dieppe in July 1829.

BkXXXII:Chap9:Sec1 In Paris on the 30th of July 1830.

BkXXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned in May 1831.

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned in March 1832.

BkXXXVI:Chap4:Sec1 Travels to Basel with Chateaubriand in May 1833.

BkXXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 A member of the Legion of Honour, he was at Ulm with Chateaubriand in May 1833.

BkXXXVI:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec2

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec3 At the Bohemian border in May 1833.

BkXXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap18:Sec1 In Venice in September 1833.

BkXL:Chap4:Sec1 BkXL:Chap5:Sec1 Sent from Ferrara to Venice and back in September 1833.

BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 In Prague in late September 1833.

BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 Sent to Trieste with a letter for the Duchess de Berry.

BkXLII:Chap4:Sec2 In Paris in July 1836.

Pilsen

A city in western Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It is the capital of the Plzeň Region and the fourth-most-populous city in the Czech Republic. It is located about 90 km west of Prague at the confluence of four rivers (Radbuza, Mže, Úhlava, and Úslava) which form the Berounka River.

BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 Chateaubriand there May 24th 1833.

Pindar

518-438BC. The Greek poet, born in Boeotia, he was educated at Athens and lived in Sicily for a time. Only four of his seventeen books of choral lyrics survive. These contain Epinician Odes written in honour of winners at the athletic Games, noted for their exalted style and religious feeling.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec3 Mentioned.

BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand read him in the gallery at Versailles in July 1789.

BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to Pindar’s Olympian Ode I, which commences ‘Water is best of all,’

BkXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand is a ‘child’ of the Greek culture.

BkXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Possibly a reference to Olympian Ode II:54-55 ‘deepest ambition, a transcendent star, the truest light for a man.’

BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 In legend he was taught by Corinne.

Pindemonte, Giovanni

1751-1812. Poet and dramatist, he was the brother of Ippolito, a member of the Council of the Venetian Republic, and Podestà of Vicenza.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Verona.

Pindemonte, Ippolito

1753-1828. Poet and dramatist, he was the brother of Giovanni.

Preface:Sect3. Mentioned by Chateaubriand, he is assumed to be still alive in the 1833 preface.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Verona.

Pindus

A mountain in Thessaly, it was the home of the Muses.

BkXIII:Chap11:Sec2 BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pinelli, Bartolomeo

1781-1835. A painter of picturesque Roman scenes, and a notorious drunk.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pinsonnière

A student at the École Polytechnique in July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

Piraeus, Greece

Piraeus is Greece's largest port and has been a gateway to the Mediterranean since 482 BC. It lies on the innermost point of the Saronic Gulf near Athens.

BkXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1806.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec5 The scene of the opening of Plato’s Republic.

BkXXXIX:Chap8:Sec1 Admiral Francesco Morisini brought the lions to Venice in 1687, after his siege of Athens and conquest of the Peloponnese.

Piron, Alexis

1689-1773. A lawyer, he turned epigrammatist (his best work) and dramatist.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 His comedy La Métromanie (1738), is one in which the hero, Damis, suffers from an obsession with verse, and takes the name Monsieur L’Empyrée.

Pisa, Italy

The city in Tuscany, central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the Arno River, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, is the capital city of the Province of Pisa.

BkXXXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 By legend, the Campo Santo cemetery was built where Crusaders scattered soil brought from the Holy Land (1278-1283). The cemetery is enclosed by a rectangular loggia of marble with Gothic tracery. The walls were later decorated with 14th century frescoes by the Pisan painter Francesco Traini depicting the Triumph of Death.

Pisano, Niccola (Nicolo)

c1205-1278. An Italian sculptor, born in Pisa, whose work is noted for its classical Roman sculptural style, Pisano is sometimes considered to be the founder of modern sculpture. He beautified Pisa, and designed the famous basilica of St. Anthony in Padua. The church of the Frari in Venice is also attributed to him.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pitt the Younger, William, Lord Chatham

1759-1806. Second son of the Earl of Chatham, he was English Prime minister for twenty years and the leading adversary of the French Revolutionaries and Napoleon.

Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned as in power in 1793.

BkX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 Canning learnt his politics under Pitt.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec2 Cursed for his involvement of England in war.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec3 Chateaubriand heard him speak. His debts at his death amounted to some £40,000. He died at his house at Putney Heath, where he fought a famous duel with pistols on the Heath with George Tierney, the Opposition MP for Southwark. Canning and Castlereagh also fought there.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec2 He resigned on 3rd February 1801, but returned 10th May 1804 and served as Prime Minister again until his death.

BkXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 As a famous Englishman.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 A reference to his financial struggles.

Pittsburgh, USA

The city in Pennsylvania at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which here form the Ohio, was founded in 1764 around Fort Pitt named after Pitt the Elder, the site having been captured from France in 1758 during the Seven Year’s War.

BkVII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkVIII:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s text seems corrupt at this point, possibly due to a lost section of manuscript. I have translated via Pittsburg where he has said to, assuming that he did in fact sail down the Ohio as far as the confluence of the Kentucky and Ohio Rivers near modern Carrollton, Kentucky. He reached Pittsburg sometime around mid-September 1791.

Pius VI, Giovanni Angelico Braschi, Pope

1717-1799. Pope 1775-1799, he condemned the state church established during the French Revolution. Captured during the Revolutionary Wars, when France attacked the Papal States, he died a prisoner.

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 His death at Valence.

BkXXIX:Chap8:Sec1 His sanctioning of the sale of church properties.

BkXXXVII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pius VII, Gregorio Barnabé Chiaramonti, Pope

1740-1823. Pope 1800-1823. He made several unsuccessful attempts to preserve Papal privileges in the face of Napoleon’s demands. In 1804, under duress he consecrated Napoleon Emperor. In 1809 after the French conquest of Rome he was taken prisoner and forced to make extensive concessions in the Concordat of Fontainebleau 1813. After Napoleon’s fall in 1815 he gained the restoration of the Papal States.

Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.

BkXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Elected Pope at the conclave of Venice in 1800.

BkXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand had an audience with him on 1st July 1803.

BkXV:Chap2:Sec1 He enquires after Madame de Beaumont.

BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap2:Sec1 His treatment by Napoleon.

BkXX:Chap4:Sec1 Crowned Napoleon in Paris in 1804.

BkXX:Chap8:Sec1 Persecuted by Napoleon in 1809.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 His Bull of excommunication against Napoleon in 1809. The rochet is an over-tunic of fine white linen, the mozetta a short cape with a hood.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 His journey to France in 1809.

BkXXII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap5:Sec1 His detention at Fontainebleau.

BkXXII:Chap8:Sec1 He was freed on 22nd January 1814.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 Imola was his diocese. He was Bishop of Imola from 1785.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 He was born at Cesena in the Province of Forli. The Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria del Monte is nearby.

BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 His niece in a play in 1829.

BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 His death in 1823.

BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1 His remains moved to the crypt in February 1829.

BkXXX:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand in Rome in 1829 remembers him.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 He died in 1823

Pius VIII, Francesco Saverio, Pope

1761-1830. A Cardinal from 1816, Bishop of Frascati, he was the politicanti candidate for the Papacy supported by Naples, Vienna and Paris in 1823, and was ultimately Pope from 31st March 1829 - 30th November 1830.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 Chateaubriand received by him.

BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1829.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 Supported as a Papal candidate by France.

BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 He replied in Conclave to Chateaubriand’s speech. Chateaubriand celebrates his election as Pope on 31st March 1829. A description of him.

BkXXX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 His policy of moderation.

Placelière, Céleste Rapion de la, see Lavigne

Placidia, Galla

c388-450. Roman empress of the West, daughter of Theodosius I. Captured by Alaric I in the course of his Italian campaign, she was held by the Visigoths as a hostage and married (414) Alaric’s successor Ataulf. After the murder (415) of Ataulf she was at first ill-treated but was returned in 416 to her brother Honorius. In 417 she married the general Constantius; shortly before his death he was made (421) co-emperor as Constantius III. In 423 she quarrelled with Honorius and fled to the court of Theodosius II; after the death of Honorius she became regent for her son Valentinian III, whom Theodosius placed on the throne after overthrowing (425) the usurper John. She had great personal influence over her son, but she was forced to leave the government largely in the hands of Aetius.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned. Chateaubriand mentions the Basilica of St John the Baptist, he presumably means St John the Evangelist built by Placidia to which her Mausoleum is annexed. The mosaic decoration celebrates the Christian Roman Empire.

Plaine=Marais

The group in the Convention, the Plain, occupied the middle ground between the Girondins and Jacobins.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

Plaisance=Piacenza

Piacenza lies on the right bank of the river Po, at a crucial crossroads in the south-west area of the Po Valley. The dukedom fell at intervals under the power of the Austrians, the French, and Napoleon, and was governed by Maria Luigia of Austria between 1816 and 1847.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec1 Napoleon headquartered there 9th May 1796.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

Plancenoit (Planchenois)

A village near the Waterloo battlefield. It is the source of the Lasne river.

BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 Mentioned.

Plancoët

A village (now a town) between Dinan, Saint-Malo, and Lamballe, 11 kilometres north-west of Dinan, and half way between Saint-Malo to its north-east and Lamballe to its south-west, by the River Arguenon.

BkI:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand put out to nurse there. His maternal grandmother lived at what is now number 43 Rue de l’Abbaye. Chateaubriand confuses the Benedictines of the Saint-Maur Priory with the Abbey church of the Dominicans in the same street.

BkI:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand returned to stay with his grandmother, at the age of seven.

BkI:Chap4:Sec2 BkXI:Chap6:Sec1 The château of Monchoix nearby, his uncle’s estate. The ceremony Chateaubriand describes in fact took place on the 8th September 1775, a little after his seventh birthday. The church of Notre-Dame de Nazareth in Plancoët was actually built in 1650 by the Dominicans and is not ‘gothic’, the ‘elms’ too are dubious. Chateaubriand constructs a Neo-Gothic scene for his own purposes.

BkII:Chap10:Sec2 Chateaubriand visits his uncle in 1783-4.

BkXVII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap18:Sec1 Recalled.

Planta, Joseph

1787-1847. Former secretary to Canning, he was then an associate of Castlereagh.

BkXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand meets him in London in 1822.

Platov (Platoff), Matvei, General (Hetman)

1751-1818. As leader of the Don Cossacks, Platov was highly effective during the French retreat from Moscow and defeated General Sébastiani at Inkovo. The Cossack Hetman also took part at Leipzig and joined the Allied occupation force of Paris.

BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 The death of his son.

Plato

?427-?347BC. The greatest of the Greek philosophers, he was a follower of Socrates, who presented his ideas through dramatic dialogues, in the most celebrated of which (The Republic) the interlocutors advocate a utopian society ruled by philosophers trained in Platonic metaphysics. He taught and wrote for much of his life at the Academy, which he founded near Athens in 386.

BkX:Chap8:Sec2 Phaedo concerns the last days of Socrates, Timaeus the nature of the physical world.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 An Idealist philosopher.

BkXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 The imaginary scene of Plato teaching appears in Barthélemy’s Voyage du jeune Anarchasis, and was the subject of a popular print.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 The style of his Socratic dialogues.

BkXLII:Chap9:Sec1 Pursuit of the Arts is frowned on in the Republic as a distraction.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

c254-184BC. A Roman writer of comedies born in Umbria, his plays, adapted from those of Greek New Comedy, were popular and vigorous representations of middle-class and lower-class life. Written with a mastery of idiomatic spoken Latin and governed by a genius for situation and coarse humour, twenty one plays survive, more or less complete.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec4 It is claimed he lost his savings and was ultimately reduced to turning the hand-mill for a baker.

Plauzonne, Louis-Auguste Marchand de, General

1774-1812. A Napoleonic General.

BkXXI:Chap3:Sec1 Killed at Borodino.

Pleinneselve, Artus Denys de Macquerel, Colonel de

1785-1830. Lieutenant in the Imperial Guard 1810, and a Battalion Commander in 1813, he entered the Royal Guard in 1815. He was Colonel of the 64th in 1823, and of the 3rd Regiment of the Royal Guard in 1828.

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 He was shot at point-blank range in the July Revolution in 1830 by a young boy whose life he tried to save. He died on the 29th at the hospital of Gros-Caillou.

Plélo, Louis-Robert-Hippolyte Bréhan, Comte de

1699-1734. French diplomat killed in the siege of Danzig.

Plessis, College

The famous College in Paris.

BkII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

Plessis-Bertrand

The ruined 13th century Du Guesclin châteaux of Plessis-Bertrand is at Saint-Coulomb in the Ille-et-Vilaine Département of Brittany.

BkI:Chap1:Sec6 Mentioned as a property ceded to the Chateaubriand family.

Plessix-Parscau, Anne Buisson de Lavigne, Comtesse du

1772-1813. Sister of Céleste de Chateaubriand, she was the wife of Hervé.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec1 Recipient on loan of the scrip of her sister’s Church securities. She had emigrated in 1791.

Plessix-Parscau, Hervé-Louis-Joseph-Marie, Comte du

1762-1831. A Naval Officer, he married Anne Buisson de Lavigne in May 1789. He emigrated in 1791, returned to France in 1814 after the death of his wife in 1813, and re-married. He was made a Knight of Saint-Louis in 1823 and a Commodore in 1827.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

Plethon (Pletho), Georgius Gemistos

c1355-1452. A Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and scholar, he was one of the leading pioneers of the revival of learning in Western Europe. Byzantine scholarship became more fully available to the West after 1438, when Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus attended the Council of Ferrara, later known as the Council of Florence to discuss a union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Accompanying John VIII were Plethon, and his student Bessarion, as well as George Scholarios.

BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus

23-79AD. Roman scholar whose Natural History was a major source of scientific knowledge until the seventeenth century. His encyclopaedic work included astrology, geography, agriculture, medicine, zoology and botany. He included folklore and superstition. The 37 volumes were completed in 77AD.

BkI:Chap6:Sec2 Chateaubriand mistranslates from Natural History IV.32. ‘Gallia habet…peninsulam spectatiorem excurrentem in Oceanum’:‘Gaul contains a remarkable peninsula jutting into the ocean.’

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 See Natural History X for the bird which greeted the Roman people each day.

BkXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 His description of the Roman countryside.

BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 See the Natural History XVI:5-6 for the Hercynian Forestan ancient and dense forest that stretched eastward from the Rhine River. The ancient sources are equivocal about how far east. All agree that the Black Forest formed the western side of the Hercynian. Pliny places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum in Pannonia (present-day Hungary) and Dacia (Book IV:25). He also gives us some insight into its composition. It contains gigantic oaks, he says (Book XVI:2). He is also subject to the mythological aura exuding from the gloomy forest. He makes mention of unusual birds, which have feathers that ‘shine like fires at night’. Medieval bestiaries named these birds the Ercinee.

Pliny the Younger, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus

c61-113AD. Roman writer, nephew and adopted son of Pliny the Elder. He was consul in 100AD, and a prominent legal orator, His ten volumes of letters form an intimate history of his times.

BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 A reference to Letters VIII:24.

Plotinus

205-270. The Egyptian-born Roman philosopher founded Neo-Platonism. His writings are collected in The Enneads.

BkXIII:Chap10:Sec2 He had the respect of the Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonica and attempted to interest the Emperor Gallienus in rebuilding an abandoned settlement in Campania known as the City of Philosophers, where the inhabitants would live under the constitution set out in Plato’s Laws. The support of an Imperial subsidy did not come to pass, and the settlement never happened.

Plouër, Comtesse de, see Contades

Plutarch

c46-c120AD. Greek biographer and essayist, he was a citizen of Athens and Rome, a priest of Delphi, and director of a school in his native Chaeronea in central Greece. His Parallel Lives are biographies of twenty-three pairs of Greek and Roman statesmen and soldiers. The Moralia contains essays on ethics, science and literature. His works had a major influence in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, for example on Shakespeare’s Roman plays (via Thomas North’s translation of 1579).

BkXVIII:Chap4Sec1 For Pompey see the Life of Pompey CXI.

BkXVIII:Chap8:Sec2 Plutarch (Table Talks) refers to an epigram from the Palatine Anthology IX:122.

BkXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned with regard to an anecdote about Alexander of whom he wrote a Life.

BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 See the Life of Pompey CV.

BkXLII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pluto

The ruler of the underworld in Roman mythology, the son of Saturn, brother of Jupiter (Zeus) and Neptune (Poseidon), and husband of Proserpine (Persephone). The Greek Hades or Dis. Confused by the Romans with Plutus.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

Plutus

The God of riches in Greek mythology, he was confused by the Romans with Pluto.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

Plymouth, England

The city is located at the mouths of the rivers Plym and Tamar, at the head of Plymouth Sound. The city has a rich maritime past and was once one of the two most important Royal Navy bases in the United Kingdom. In 1403, the town was briefly occupied and burnt by the French, especially the Bretons. Indeed, the town was often the target of enemies across the channel, especially during the Hundred Years’ War. It was from Plymouth that the Pilgrims sailed to the New World in 1620 aboard the Mayflower before landing at and founding the ‘Plymouth Colony’. Plymouth was where the defeated Napolean was brought aboard HMS Bellerophon before his exile to Saint Helena in 1815.

BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 Napoleon there on board Bellerephon in 1815.

Po, River

The Po flows 405 miles eastward across northern Italy, from Monviso (in the Cottian Alps) to the Adriatic Sea near Venice. Its Latin name was the Eridanus.

BkXXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXL:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

Podenas, Adélaïde de Nadaillac, Marquise de

1785-1858. She married Henri de Podenas (1785-1854), a cavalry colonel, in 1813. Gregory XVI made him Prince of Cantalupo in 1842.

BkXL:Chap3:Sec1 In Ferrara in September 1833.

Poitiers, France

Capital city of the Vienne département in west-central France.

BkI:Chap1:Sec5 The Chapter of the Grand Priory of Aquitaine, a priory of the Knights of St John was installed there.

BkXXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned in Vidal’s poem cited.

Poitiers, Battle of

The town is in west central France, the capital of the Vienne department. It was the site of the battle of 1356 in which the English under the Black Prince defeated the French. It has a university founded in 1432.

BkXXIII:Chap16:Sec1 A French defeat, compared to Waterloo

Poix, Madame de, see Noailles

Polastron, Marie-Louise d’Esparbès de Lussan, Comtesse de

1764-1804. She married Denis de Polastron, half-brother to Madame de Polignac, and became a favourite of Charles X when he was Comte d’Artois. She died of tuberculosis and the event led him to a more profound religiosity.

BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

Polignac, Armand-Jules-Marie-Héraclius, Duc de

1771-1847. Son of Yolande and half-brother of Jules with whom he was imprisoned, he joined the ultra-royalist party.

BkXXII:Chap 23:Sec1 An avowed Royalist.

Polignac, Auguste-Jules-Armand-Marie, Prince de

1780-1847. The younger son of Marie-Antoinette’s favourite, he was the half-brother of Armand, and a French statesman. Belonging to one of the oldest families of France, he emigrated with them during the French Revolution, to Russia then England, where he flourished under the future Charles X ‘paternal’ protection. Under Napoleon I he was imprisoned (1804–14) for his part in the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal. In 1815, Louis XVIII named him a peer of France. He served as ambassador to England from 1823 to 1829. A champion and leader of the ultra-royalists in the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, Polignac was strongly clerical, even refusing to take the oath to the constitutional Charter on religious grounds. He became minister of foreign affairs and premier in August, 1829, and by his reactionary measures precipitated the July Revolution of 1830. In March 1830, a majority of the chamber of deputies demanded the dismissal of the Polignac ministry. Instead, the chamber was dissolved, and when the new elections again resulted in a liberal majority, Polignac issued (July 26, 1830) the July Ordinances, which dissolved the new chamber even before it met, established a new electoral law, and ended the freedom of the press. The July Revolution broke out immediately. Polignac was arrested and condemned by the chamber of peers to life imprisonment. Amnestied in 1836, he was banished and went to England. He returned in 1845. He wrote Considérations politiques (1832), Études historiques, politiques et morales (1845), and Réponse à mes adversaires (1845).

BkXXII:Chap 23:Sec1 An avowed Royalist.

BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 He writes to Chateaubriand.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 He had been nominated by Chateaubriand as Ambassador to London, despite Villèle’s advice.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1829.

BkXXXI:Chap2:Sec1 A possible chief Minister in 1829. The Moniteur announced the new Ministry on 9th of August, Chateaubriand received the news on the 15th or 16th, and left Cauterets early on the 19th.

BkXXXI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand arrived in Paris on the 29th of August and went to see Polignac on the 30th.

BkXXXI:Chap5:Sec1 His first Cabinet.

BkXXXI:Chap7:Sec1 Charles X support for him in the opening March Session of 1830.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 The decrees were prepared by Peyronnet, then adopted by his colleagues on the 24th of July 1830. The strategy appears to have been a long-term one of Charles X, adopted by Polignac.

BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1 He persuades the King to put Paris under martial law on the 28th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 Polignac was in the Foreign Ministry during the morning of the 28th of July.

BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 He parts from Charles X at Trianon, 31st of July 1830.

BkXXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 His trial for treason in December 1830.

BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXL:Chap7:Sec1

Mentioned.

Polignac, Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, Princesse de

c1749-1793. A favourite of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, her husband, Jules, Comte de Polignac, was created Duke and acquired a huge fortune through her favour with the queen. Fearing the hatred of the revolutionaries, she emigrated in 1789 and died in Vienna.

BkV:Chap9:Sec1 She fled Paris in July 1789.

Pollio, Asinius

76/75BC-AD5. A Roman orator, poet and historian his contemporary history, though lost, provided much of the material for Appian and Plutarch. Pollio moved in the literary circle of Catullus and in the civil war between Caesar and Pompey sided with Caesar, was present at the battle of Pharsalus (48), and commanded against Sextus Pompeius in Spain, where he was at the time of Caesar's assassination. He subsequently threw in his lot with Mark Antony. In the division of the provinces, Gaul fell to Antony, who entrusted Pollio with the administration of Gallia Transpadana (the part of Cisalpine Gaul between the Po and the Alps). In superintending the distribution of the Mantuan territory amongst the veterans, he used his influence to save from confiscation the property of the poet Virgil. In 40 he helped to arrange the peace of Brundisium by which Octavian (Augustus) and Antony were for a time reconciled. In the same year Pollio entered upon his consulship, which had been promised him in 43. It was at this time that Virgil addressed the famous fourth Eclogue to him. The following year Pollio conducted a successful campaign against the Parthini, an Illyrian people who adhered to Marcus Junius Brutus, and celebrated a triumph on October 25. The eighth Eclogue of Virgil was addressed to Pollio while engaged in this campaign. From the spoils of the war he constructed the first public library at Rome, in the Atrium Libertatis, also erected by him (Pliny, Nat. hist. xxxv. 10), which he adorned with statues of famous heroes.

BkXXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Doubted the accuracy of Caesar’s Commentaries.

Pollux

The son of King Tyndareus of Sparta, and Leda, he was one of the twin Dioscuri, the brother of Castor.

BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 Noted for his horsemanship.

Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of

1699-1782. A Portuguese statesman, he was Prime Minister to Joseph I of Portugal from 1750 to 1777. Pombal is notable for his swift and competent leadership in the aftermath of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. In addition he implemented sweeping economic policies to regulate commercial activity.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pommereul, François-René-Jean, Baron de

1745-1823. Born in Fougères, he served as a General in Italy under Napoleon. Director of Censorship under the Empire (1810-1814). Under ban from 1815-1819 he ended his life at the Château de Marigny which he bought in 1810 and restored.

BkIV:Chap3:Sec2 Chateaubriand dined with him in Paris in 1786.

BkXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand sought his help in 1812.

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 His Campaign of General Bonaparte in Italy, 1797.

Pommereul, Monsieur

He was the son of the Baron.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec1 The Pommereul family subsequently owned the château of Marigny.

Pomona

The Roman goddess of fruit and fruit-trees (Latin: pomum).

BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pompadour, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de

1721-1764. Mistress of Louis XV, she exerted considerable political influence from 1745 until her death. She influenced the negotiations of an Austrian Alliance against Prussia and was blamed for French defeats in the subsequent Seven Years War. She was a notable patroness of artists and scholars.

BkXVII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 A patroness of Voltaire. Through her influence Voltaire was made royal historiographer, a gentleman of the king's bedchamber, and a member of the French Academy.

Pompeii

An ancient city of southern Italy southeast of Naples, it was founded in the sixth or early fifth century BC, was a Roman colony by 80BC, and became a prosperous port and resort with many noted villas, temples, theatres, and baths. Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The well-preserved ruins were rediscovered in 1748 and have been extensively excavated.

BkXV:Chap7:Sec3 Chateaubriand visited in January 1804.

Pompey, Gnaeus Pompeius, the Great

106-48BC. Roman general and statesman, he was granted powers to destroy marauding pirates and then wage war in Asia, he returned to Rome a hero. In 60 he joined Caesar and Crassus in the first Triumvirate. He married Caesar’s daughter Julia (d.54) in 59, but in 50 he supported the Senate’s demand for Caesar to resign his armies. In the ensuing Civil war he was defeated at Pharsalus in 48 and fled to Egypt where he was murdered.

BkXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap14:Sec2 Pompey’s Pillar at Alexandria, also called Diocletian’s Column, is an approximately 25m high red Aswan granite column, originally from the temple of the Serapis. Pompey fled to Egypt where he was murdered and medieval travellers later considered he had been buried here. In fact, the pillar was raised in honour of Diocletian at the end of the 4th century who captured Alexandria after a siege. The Arabs called it ‘Amoud el-Sawari’, Column of the Horsemen. The Pillar is the tallest ancient monument in Alexandria.

BkXVIII:Chap4Sec1 BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec3 BkXXIV:Chap16:Sec1

Pompey’s death scene is from Plutarch’s Life of Pompey CXI. The female Pompey, Pompeia, is a reference to the Palatine Anthology, VII, funerary epigram 185, attributed to Antipater of Thessalonia.

BkXXV:Chap8:Sec1 His conflict with Caesar in the Civil Wars.

BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 His wife Cornelia’s words about him.

BkXXXIV:Chap8:Sec1 The courtesan Flora and her descriptions of her time with Pompey are mentioned in Plutarch, Pompey III.

Pompey, Sextus

d.35 BC. The second son of Pompey the Great, he was conquered in the sea battles, off Sicily, between Mylae and Naulochus, by Agrippa, Augustus’ admiral, in 36BC.

BkII:Chap8:Sec2 Mentioned.

Ponary

Paneriai (Polish: Ponary, German: Ponaren) is now a suburb of Vilnius, situated about 10 kilometres away from the city centre. The town is located on low forested hills, on the Vilnius-Warsaw road. Paneriai was the site of a mass killing of as many as 100,000 people (mostly Jews and Poles) from Vilnius and nearby towns and villages during World War II.

BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 The retreating French lost much of the Imperial treasure there and were attacked by Cossacks in December 1812.

Poncelet, Louis

The nominal leader of the Rue des Prouvaires conspiracy in 1832, he escaped the death penalty in his trial of July 1832.

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pondicherry

A territory in south-east India on the Coromandel Coast, it was founded by the French in 1674 (François Martin was the first Governor), it was their chief settlement in India. Lost to the Dutch in 1693 it was regained in 1699. It changed hands between the British and French regularly until 1816 when the French gained permanent control. It was handed back to the Indian government in 1954.

BkI:Chap4:Sec4 Saint-Malo traded there.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 Monsieur Potelet’s tall tales of there.

BkIII:Chap13:Sec1 A number of Bretons took service in India after the siege and loss of Pondicherry (1760-1761) by Lally Tollendal to the British. Some of these mercenaries made massive fortunes.

BkXXIII:Chap8:Sec1 An example of French influence.

Poniatowski, Prince Joseph (Józef) Antoni, Marshal of France

1762-1813. Polish general and marshal of France, he was the nephew of Stanislaus II of Poland. He fought (1792) the Russians in the campaign preceding the second Polish partition and in the insurrection led (1794) by Thaddeus Kosciusko. He became minister of war of the grand duchy of Warsaw set up by Napoleon I and in 1809 led the Polish troops in Napoleon’s campaign against Austria. He again commanded under Napoleon in the Russian campaign of 1812. In the battle of Leipzig he covered the withdrawal of the French troops; then, cut off from aid, he plunged his mount into the Weisse Elster River and was drowned.

BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 His troops occupied Smolensk.

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec2 At the entry to Moscow in 1812.

BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 His death at Leipzig.

Pons de Verdun, Philippe-Laurent (Robert)

1759-1844. Deputy from the Meuse to the National Convention, he was a minor poet, author of Les Loisirs ou Contes et Poésies diverses. He was also advocate-general at the Court de Cassation under Napoleon.

BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 Instigator of a massacre at Verdun.

Pontarlier, France

A commune of northeastern France, one of the two sous-préfectures of the Doubs département it is located in the Franche-Comté région. Pontarlier was famous for the production of absinthe until its ban in 1915. The distilleries switched over to producing pastis. With the ban partially lifted they are once again producing absinthe.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand on his way there in September 1833. The Château du Joux occupies a commanding position at the entrance to the Cluse de Pontarlier.

Pontcarré, Monsieur de

He was the under-secretary in the Embassy at St Petersburg in 1824.

BkXXVIII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pontécoulant, Louis Gustave Le Doulcet, Comte de

1764-1853. A French politician, he first joined the army in 1778. A moderate, he was returned to the Convention for Calvados in 1792, and became a commissary with the Army of the North. He voted for the imprisonment of Louis XVI during the war and his banishment after the peace. He then attached himself to the party of the Gironde, and in August 1793 was outlawed. He had refused to defend his compatriot Charlotte Corday, who wrote him a letter of reproach on her way to the scaffold. President of the Convention in July 1795, he was for some months a member of the council of public safety. He was subsequently elected to the council of five hundred, but was suspected of royalist leanings, and had to spend some time in retirement before the establishment of the consulate. Becoming senator in 1805, and count of the empire in 1808, he organized the national guard in Franche-Comté in 1811, and the defence of the north-eastern frontier in 1813. At the first restoration Louis XVIII made him a peer of France, and although he received a similar honour from Napoleon during the Hundred Days, he sat in the upper house under the Second Restoration. He died in Paris on the 3rd of April 1853, leaving memoirs and correspondence from which were extracted four volumes (1861 1865) of Souvenirs historiques et parlementaires 1764-1848.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 Accused by Napoleon of conspiring against him in 1815. He opposed the recognition of Napoleon’s son as Emperor.

Pontois, Monsieur

He was Archivist to the Grand Priory of Aquitaine (Priory of the Knights Hospitallers).

BkI:Chap1:Sec5. Mentioned.

Pontoise, France

A town 32 kilometres from Paris in the Ile-de-France, on the River Oise near its confluence with the Seine.

BkVII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXVIII:Chap3Sec3 Mentioned.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand was there in July 1830.

Pope, Alexander

1688-1744. English writer best remembered for his satirical mock-epic poems The Rape of the Lock (1712) and The Dunciad (1728).

BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 He moved to Twickenham in 1719 where he built a Palladian Villa, demolished in 1808.

Poppaea Sabina

c30-65. The second wife of the Roman Emperor Nero, ambitious and ruthless, Poppaea was initially his favourite mistress. Her influence became so great that he divorced (and later executed) his first wife Octavia in order to marry her in 62 AD. Suetonius claims Nero caused her death. Poppaea enjoyed having daily milk baths believing ‘therein lurked a magic which would dispel all diseases and blights from her beauty’.

BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

Poquelin, see Molière

Porcher, Abbé, see Portier

Porphyry

c232-c304. A Neoplatonist philosopher, he was born Malchus (‘king’) in either Tyre or Batanaea in Syria, but his teacher in Athens, Cassius Longinus, gave him the name Porphyrius (clad in purple), a jesting allusion to the colour of the imperial robes. Under Longinus he studied grammar and rhetoric. In 262 he went to Rome, attracted by the reputation of Plotinus, and for six years devoted himself to the study of Neoplatonism. Having injured his health by overwork, he went to live in Sicily for five years. On his return to Rome, he lectured on philosophy and endeavoured to render the obscure doctrines of Plotinus (who had died in the meantime) intelligible to the ordinary understanding. His most distinguished pupil was Iamblichus, who differed with Porphyry on the issue of theurgy.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Porphyry was, like Pythagoras, known as an advocate of vegetarianism on spiritual or ethical grounds. He wrote the De Abstinentia (On Abstinence) and also a De Non Necandis ad Epulandum Animantibus (roughly On the Impropriety of Killing Living Beings for Food) in support of abstinence from animal flesh, and is cited with approval in vegetarian literature up to the present day. Chateaubriand quotes here a prayer from De Abstinentia IV.

Port-Royal

A former Cistercian nunnery originally situated south-west of Paris; also called Port Royal des Champs. It became a centre of Jansenism in the 17th Century under Abbess Angélique Arnauld (1591-1661) sister of Antoine Arnauld. After persecution the nuns were dispersed in 1709.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec2 Mentioned.

Portal

A gentleman of the neighbourhood of Combourg.

BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Signatory to Chateaubriand’s father’s death certificate.

Portalis, Joseph-Marie, Comte

1778-1858. A French diplomat and statesman, he was the son of the jurist Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis whose secretary he became. He entered the diplomatic service, and was under-secretary of state for the Ministry of Justice, First President of the Court of Cassation, Foreign Minister in 1829, and in 1851 a member of the Senate.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 Justice Minister in Martignac’s Ministry.

BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1

BkXXX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2

BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 Foreign Minister in 1829. Chateaubriand sends him despatches.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXI:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned in 1829.

Porte, The

Used to refer to the government of the Ottoman Empire, in particular in the context of diplomacy, Ottoman Porte, Sublime Porte, and High Porte are similar terms for the Ottoman Turkish Bab-i Ali. The Sublime Porte was the name of the open court of the sultan, led by the Grand Vizier. It got its name after the gate to the headquarters to the Grand Vizier in Topkapi Palace, where the sultan held the greeting ceremony for foreign ambassadors.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 BkXX:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 A rising of Christians in the Peloponnese and of the Rumanian principalities in March 1821 and the brutal reaction of the Porte caused tension between Russia and Turkey. In February 1822 a threat of war was averted and the Sultan withdrew from the Rumanian principalities.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 By the London Treaty of 6th July 1827, Russia, Britain and France united to urge Turkey to negotiate with the Greek insurgency. London and Paris were trying to avoid a Russo-Turkish War. Divan is a term for an Oriental Council of State, especially the Turkish Privy Council.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec2 BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec3 Chateaubriand states his foreign policy with regard to the Porte clearly.

Portier, Abbé Joseph-François

1739-1791. Principal of Dol College, he was the Canon of the cathedral and a native of Combourg.

BkI:Chap7:Sec3 He arrives at Combourg to conduct Chateaubriand to the school. Chateaubriand’s manuscript calls him Porcher perhaps confusing him with François Porcher, a professor of philosophy.

BkII:Chap1:Sec2 His lecture, and its results.

BkII:Chap6:Sec3 Died at the start of the Revolution. Chateaubriand’s tribute to him.

Portland Place, London

A street in the City of Westminster, London.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec1 BkX:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Location of the French Embassy in London in 1822.

Porto-Ferrajo (Portoferraio)

It is the main town and port of Elba.

BkXX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 Napoleon landed there in 1814. It acted as the capital of his miniature empire.

Potelet, Jean-Baptiste

A retired sea-captain, an officer of the India Company, he was living at Combourg.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 His stories of Pondicherry.

Pothin, Saint

d. 177. First bishop of Lyons (Lugdunum). Martyred .

BkXVII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

Potocki, Count Ignace

1738-1794. Exiled from Poland in 1772 he eventually settled at Monte-Luco in 1782, where he cultivated his garden, returning to Poland in 1792 to take holy orders.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 Mentioned.

Potsdam

The city in East Germany on the River Havel, it was the residence of Prussian kings and German emperors.

BkIV:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s visit in 1821 (31st March to 2nd April).

BkXVI:Chap9:Sec1 The effect of the Duc d’Enghien’s murder there.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec1 Shortly before (late October-early November 1805) the Battle of Austerlitz, Frederick William III received the Russian Emperor Alexander I. During a meeting in Potsdam at midnight by the grave of Frederick the Great, he solemnly promised his guest his support, if Napoleon rejected Prussia’s mediation.

BkXX:Chap6:Sec1 Napoleon stopped at Potsdam on October 24th 1806 on his way to Berlin. In one of the abandoned rooms of the castle, built in 1745 and designed by Frederick himself, the sword and sword belt which the Prussian monarch had worn during the Seven Years War and his Ribbon of the Black Eagle were discovered after they had been abandoned in the panic which followed the defeats of Jena and Auerstädt.

BkXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1821.

Poullain, Louis, called Saint-Louis

Manservant ( valet de chambre) to Chateaubriand’s brother.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec2 Travelled with Chateaubriand and his brother in 1792.

BkIX:Chap7:Sec1 A sleep-walker who was thrown out of the carriage. His testimony caused Chateaubriand’s brother and sister-in-law to be sent to the scaffold.

Pouqueville, François

1770-1838. He was a historian and friend of Chateaubriand. He accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt. He was consul to the Pasha of Janina and in 1815-1817 a consular agent at Patras. He published a number of history and travel books on Greece and the Morea.

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:Chap15:Sec1 In Paris during the cholera epidemic of 1832.

Pourceaugnac, Monsieur de

He was a character in the play (1669) of the same name by Molière.

BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pourtalès, Comte Louis de

1773-1848. Acting Governor of Neuchâtel 1830-31, he was the son of a millionaire.

BkXXVIII:Chap4:Sec1 His gardens in 1824.

Poussin, Nicholas

1594-1665. A French painter, he was a leader of pictorial classicism in the Baroque period. Except for two years as court painter to Louis XIII, he spent his entire career in Rome. His paintings of scenes from the Bible and from Greco-Roman antiquity influenced generations of French painters,

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 He had a house on Monte Pincio.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 Poussin used details of Vene del Tempio for his paintings.

BkXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 His landscapes.

BkXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1

BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXL:Chap2:Sec4 Madame Récamier encouraged Chateaubriand to have a monument to Poussin erected in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina where Poussin was interred, which was finished in 1831.

Poznan (Posen), Poland

The 19th century Prussian province of Posen was called Wielkopolska until 1793, literally ‘Greater Poland’. This region was the historical centre of origin of the Polish Nation in the 10th century and has always been one of the richest and most developed provinces of Poland. Its main city of the same name in west-central Poland is located on the Warta River. BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 Napoleon there 31st May 1812. He announces his intention of establishing a General Confederation of the Polish nation.

BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 Murat there at the end of 1812.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec2 Prussia gained Poznan in 1793.

Pozzo di Borgo, Charles-André (Carlo Andrea)

1764-1842. A Corsican politician he allied himself with Pasquale Paoli against the Jacobins on Corsica and supported the British occupation of the island in 1794. He became head of the British-backed civil government, superseding Paoli. After the French re-conquest of Corsica (1796), Pozzo di Borgo left the island. He entered the Russian diplomatic service in 1804. An irreconcilable enemy of the Bonapartes (largely because of the role they had played in Corsican events), he helped to promote the Russo-Austrian alliance of 1805 against Napoleon I. The treaty of Tilsit (1807) between Czar Alexander I and Napoleon (1807) caused him to retire from the Russian service. Alexander recalled him in 1812, when hostilities with France reopened. In 1814, after Napoleon’s first abdication, he was appointed Russian ambassador in Paris. Strongly sympathetic to the restored Bourbon regime, he strove to lighten the burdens laid on it by the allies. His pro-French attitude eventually caused his transfer to London, where he served (1835–39) as ambassador.

BkXIX:Chap9:Sec2 His testimony regarding Napoleon.

BkXXII:Chap9:Sec1 His claim to have persuaded Alexander to advance on Paris in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 His derisory statement about Napoleon.

BkXXIII:Chap15:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 He was one of four Allied Commissioners at Waterloo.

BkXXIII:Chap19:Sec1 Writes to Louis XVIII telling him to return quickly from Ghent. At Monsieur de Talleyrand’s.

BkXXVII:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand likens him to Castlereagh.

BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Russian Ambassador at the Tuileries in 1830. His influence had declined at Charles X’s accession, he considering the king to be a reactionary. The Order of the Holy Ghost was marked by a blue sash.

Pozzolo, Italy

The Battle of Pozzolo on the Mincio River took place on December 25 1800 and resulted in the hard-fought victory of French under General Brune against Austrians under General Bellegarde.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

Pradt, Abbé Dominique G. F. de Rion de Prolhiac Dufour or de Fourt de

1759-1837. A French clergyman and ambassador, in 1804 he became a secretary of Napoleon, in 1805 Bishop of Poitiers, in 1808 archbishop of Malines. In 1812 he was awarded the position of French ambassador in Warsaw, preparing the Concordat of 1813. He published an account of his Embassy (1815).

BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 Ambassador to Warsaw 1812-1813.

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 Sent to negotiate with the Polish Diet in 1811. He nicknamed Napoleon Jupiter-Scapin after the character in Molière’s play Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671).

BkXXII:Chap17:Sec1 His Récit historique sur la restauration de la royauté en France le 31 mars 1814. (1815).

BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec1 His account of the Polish Embassy distressed Napoleon.

BkXXII:Chap 23:Sec1 Chateaubriand accuses him of corruption.

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic, in the western part of the country, on the Vltava (Moldau) River. Known since the 9th century, it was a leading cultural and commercial centre by the 14th century and came under Hapsburg rule in 1526. Prague was the capital of Czechoslovakia from the country’s formation in 1918 until its dissolution in 1993. The Hradschin (Hradčany Castle) is the former Imperial and Royal Residence which dominates the city (together with the St Vitus Cathedral complex).

BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Charles X and Chateaubriand there.

BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 Moreau met with Alexander I there in 1813.

BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Duc de Guiche there.

BkXXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap3:Sec1 In her letter of the 9th of May 1833 the Duchess de Berry asked Chateaubriand to travel there.

BkXXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand on his way there in May 1833.

BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXL:Chap4:Sec1

Chateaubriand arrived there 24th May 1833. Charles X was occupying the second floor of the Hradschin Palace where he stayed until May 1836.

BkXXXVII:Chap7:Sec1 In the Battle of Prague of 6th May 1757, Frederick II defeated the Austrians in a bloody encounter.

BkXXXVII:Chap10:Sec1 A description of the city.

BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand left on Thursday the 30th of May 1833 for Carlsbad.

BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 Buštěhrad (German: Buschtiehrad), Chateaubriand’s Butschirad, is a chateau in the town of Bustehrad 25 kilometres from the centre of Prague, adapted in the Baroque style. Chateaubriand re-entered Prague on the afternoon of 26th September 1833. He visited Bustehrad that evening.

BkXLI:Chap7:Sec1 Schlau which I have failed to identify may be the German Schlan, the Czech Slàny, which is 25 kilometres north-west of Prague, and on the old Prague to Carlsbad road.

Praxiteles

Mid-4th Century BC. The Athenian sculptor was renowned for his handling of marble. Most of his works have perished, but some, such as the Aphrodite of Cnidos, are known from Roman copies. (Note his statue of Hermes from Olympia)

BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 The works mentioned are not by Praxiteles. Hobhouse mentions them in his travel diary.

BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Canova as the Italian Praxiteles.

Pressburg

Bratislava (until 1919, Pressburg in German and English) is the capital of Slovakia and the country's largest city.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec2 The 4th Peace of Pressburg was signed in the Primate’s Palace on the 26th of December 1805 ending the hostilities after France’s defeat of Austria in the War of the Third Coalition. It resulted in Austrian territorial losses and the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire.

Pressigny, see Cortois de Pressigny

Priam

The King of Troy at the time of the Trojan War, the son of Laomedon, husband of Hecuba by whom he had many children.

BkXXIV:Chap8:Sec1 The father of Hector.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec4 See Homer’s Iliad XXIV.

Primatice, Francesco Primaticcio, Le

1504-1570. Italian painter, he was influenced by Correggio and by Michelangelo. He was an assistant to Giulio Romano on the frescoes of the Palazzo del Tè in Mantua. In 1532, Francis I invited Primaticcio to participate in the decoration of the château at Fontainebleau. Working with Il Rosso on the fresco and stucco ornamentation, he became director of the whole project in 1540. Only a few of Primaticcio’s works at Fontainebleau survive. The most important scenes from the Odyssey in the Gallery of Ulysses have been destroyed. Many drawings for the project still exist (Louvre; École des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Chantilly; and Vienna). He remained in the royal service under four successive monarchs, painting decorations for royal châteaux and other buildings, designing tomb monuments of Francis I and Henry II, and executing other architectural works. Primaticcio did much to extend the influence of Italian art in France.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 Francis I was his friend and patron.

Prince, Black, see Edward, Prince of Wales

Princeteau, Madame

The sister of Decazes.

BkXXV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

Probus, Marcus Aurelius

276-282. The Roman Emperor was assassinated by his soldiers.

BkXI:Chap3:Sec2 The Chant de Probus appears in Chateaubriand’s Les Martyrs Book VI.

Procida

An island located between Cape Miseno (Misenum) and the island of Ischia at the northern end of the Bay of Naples.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec3 Mentioned.

Prometheus

The son of Iapetus, and one of the Titans. He tricked the gods into eating bones instead of meat, and stole the sacred fire from Zeus and the gods. Prometheus concealed from Zeus the prophecy that one of Zeus’s sons would overthrow him. In punishment, Zeus commanded that Prometheus be chained for eternity in the Caucasus. There, an eagle (or, according to other sources, a vulture) would eat his liver, and each day the liver would be renewed. Heracles finally killed the bird.

BkXVI:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 Napoleon compared to him.

Propertius, Sextus

c50-c16BC. The Roman poet born in Assissi, went to Rome and wrote love elegies to his mistress Hostia whom he called Cynthia. Four books survive.

BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec2 The quotation is from Elegies I:2

Proserpine, Proserpina, Persephone

The Queen of the Underworld and wife of Pluto (Dis) in Greek and Roman mythology, she was raped by Pluto on the plains of Enna in Sicily, she was doomed to wed him, and to spend half the year in the underworld and half on earth. She therefore personifies the seasonal change, and as Demeter’s daughter, the Maiden, the harvest and its antithesis. In the myth of Psyche she is also the goddess of sleep.

BkXVIII:Chap4Sec1 Her funereal torches.

Proteus

The sea-god who can alter his form.

BkVI:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

Provence, Comte de, see Louis XVIII

Prunelle, Clément François-Gabriel Victor, Doctor

1777-1853. A Politician, Deputy for the Isère and Mayor of Lyons (1830), he was subsequently Mayor of Vichy (1833) where he superintended the spa waters, and where he died. Medically trained, he was the principal doctor at Austerlitz. He became a professor and librarian at Montepellier, but in 1819 left under a political cloud to practice medicine at Lyons. See Daumier’s drawing of ‘Mr Prune’ of 1833, and his bust in clay of 1832 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris) .

BkXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 He saw Madame de Chateaubriand professionally in Lyons in the summer of 1826.

Pruth (or Prut), River

953 kilometres long, the river originating in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine flows southeast to join the Danube near Reni. Peter the Great met disastrous defeat there against the Turks led by Charles XII of Sweden, in 1711, a defeat which was followed by a Peace treaty whereby the Ottomans regained Asov.

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec4 Mentioned.

Psyche

The tale of Eros and Psyche first appeared as a digression in Lucius Apuleius’ novel, The Golden Ass, written in the second century. It was later taken as an allegory of love and the soul.

BkXXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

Ptolemy, Claudius Ptolemaeus

c90-c168AD. A Greek-speaking mathematician, geographer, astronomer, and astrologer he lived in the Hellenistic culture of Roman Egypt. He wrote the Almagest on astronomy, the Geography, and the Tetrabiblos on astrology, as well as works on music and optics.

BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

Ptolemy I, Soter

323-283BC. A Macedonian general, who became the ruler of Egypt and founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, in 305 BC he took the title of King.

BkXXVII:Chap3:Sec2 Mentioned.

Ptolemy II, Philadelphus

c308-246BC. King of ancient Egypt (285–246), of the Macedonian dynasty, the son of Ptolemy I and Berenice, he continued his father’s efforts to make Alexandria the cultural centre of the Greek world. He completed the Pharos (Lighthouse) and encouraged the translation of the Pentateuch, the Greek Septuagint. Finances were reformed, and the Persian canal was restored from the Nile to the Red Sea. He warred against Syria until he married his daughter Berenice to the Syrian Antiochus II. Ptolemy repudiated his wife Arsinoë to marry his sister, also named Arsinoë. Manetho, the Egyptian historian, compiled his history.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec3 He restored King Darius’ Suez canal c 250BC.

Publiciste, Le

Originally the name of Marat’s newspaper L’ami du Peuple, it was revived as such by Jacques Roux after Marat’s assassination.

BkXIII:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s letter advertising Atala published there 1st April 1801.

Publilius Syrus (Publius Syrus)

1st century BC. A Latin writer of maxims, he was a native of Syria and was brought as a slave to Italy. All that remains of his works is a collection of Sentences (Sententiae), a series of moral maxims in iambic and trochaic verse.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 An aphorism of his. ‘Fortune is like glass, as it shines it breaks’.

Puffendorf, Samuel, Baron von

1632-1694. The eminent German jurist wrote several works on jurisprudence, one of which, banned in Austria, was burned there by the hangman, but his fame rests on his ‘De Jure Naturæ et Gentium’; he was successively in the service of Charles X of Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec4 Mentioned.

Pultava

The town in the Ukraine was the scene of the battle where the invading Charles XII of Sweden was defeated by the Russians in 1709.

BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXI:Chap4:Sec4 BkXXI:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.

Purgatorio

The Second Canticle of Dante’s Divina Commedia.

Pygmalion

A Cyprian, he fashioned an ivory statue of a beautiful girl that he brought to life, calling her Galatea. Cf. Ovid’s Metamorphoses Bk X:243-297 (See the sequence of four paintings by Burne-Jones, ‘Pygmalion and the Image’, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, England, titled: The Heart Desires, The Hand Refrains, The Godhead Fires, The Soul Attains: See also Rameau’s operatic work ‘Pygmalion’)

BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pylades

He was the nephew of Agamemnon. Orestes was placed in the care of his father Strophius after Agamemenon’s murder, and they became proverbial friends. Pylades later married Orestes’ sister, Electra.

BkXXV:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pyramids, Battle of

The Battle of the Pyramids was fought on July 21, 1798 between the French army in Egypt under Napoleon and local Mamluk forces. It was the battle where he initiated one of his significant contributions to tactics, the massed divisional square.

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

Pythagoras

c580-c500BC. The Greek philosopher and mathematician was born at Samos and migrated in about 530BC to Crotone in Southern Italy where he founded a religious society which governed Crotone until its suppression c450BC. Its members followed an ascetic regime of dietary taboos, self-examination, and study aimed at purifying the soul and releasing it from the wheel of rebirths. He probably discovered the theorem named after him, and the arithmetic ratios governing the musical intervals.

BkVI:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to myths about Pythagoras’ voyages to Egypt and Babylon etc.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec4 BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec1 His concept of life as a memory of previous lives. He was once a courtesan, Alcea, according to Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights IV:11.14

BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 The Fates (the Parcae) were the daughters of Necessity, but Pythagoras called three the perfect number.

Pytheas

fl. late 4th century BC. A native of the Greek colony of Massilia (modern Marseilles), he explored the Atlantic coasts of Spain and France, circumnavigated Britain, and sailed to Thule (perhaps the Shetlands or Iceland) and to the Baltic. His account of his voyage, now lost, is referred to by Strabo and Pliny the Elder.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec3 Mentioned.