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PKEFACE

Chateaubriand (1768-1848).

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, was Ijorn at Saint-Malo (Brittany), in 1768. His father wished hiui to become a sailor; his mother, to enter the Church. But he preferred military life and at seventeen, was appointed second lieutenant in the régiment of Navarre.

In 1791, after being an eye-witness of the opening scènes of the Révolution, he embarked for the United States where he remained eight months. On hearing by chance of the arrest of King Louis XVI., he hastened home and joined the army of the ' émigrés \

Seriously wounded before Thionville, he went to England where, for several years, he led a life of privations. There he published (1797) his Essai sur les Révolutions. In 1800, he returned to France and the following year, appeared Atàla, soon followed by René. Thèse two novels are épisodes taken from Le Génie du Christianisme which was published in 1802 and established his literary famé.