“All of my organs have reached such a state of wear and are, so to speak, in such a threadbare state that I no longer allow myself to exert any of them.”⁵⁹⁹

“… recently, rereading Theocritus, I felt my pastoral soul reawaken within me, that soul of the golden age covered over by so many layers of bronze, of earth and of lead …”⁶⁰⁰

“… our heart has all the skins of the snake, the seven double folds, like impenetrable shields.”⁶⁰¹

“I have been a thieving youngster, I will be an old pirate.⁶⁰² Oh, how I would prefer to be a good literary gentleman who lives on his lands in a state of poetry!”

“There is no corruption worse than that of tender hearts and mystics.”⁶⁰³

“I am the vainest and weakest of beings; and it’s precisely the combination of my weaknesses that gives me the air of a wise man; each weakness undoes the other.”⁶⁰⁴

“Living in a vast city in a century of corruption and wild ambition, in the midst of a literature with insatiable pretensions, of abominable vices, outrageous and full of filth, I worked hard from the start to develop as far as possible, within me, the faculty of contempt.

“—then, having done this, after a certain time there’s no more need to worry about it; one has already moved on to indifference.”⁶⁰⁵

“Why do I no longer love nature, the countryside? Why do I no longer love strolling along narrow footpaths? I’m well aware that they’re exactly the same, but now there’s no longer anything behind the hedge.”⁶⁰⁶

On September 7, 1847, Sainte-Beuve wrote to François Collombet: “Chateaubriand is more silent than ever: he lives in his dreams.⁶⁰⁷ His fine mouth still smiles, there are tears in his eyes, his broad peaceful brow has all its majesty. But what is there inside and below? And is there indeed anything?”

After a failed cataract operation, Madame Récamier was by now almost blind and lived in darkness. Outside, the barricades of 1848, the abdication of Louis Philippe, the proclamation of the Republic. The visitor groped his way into the main room of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where the furniture had been arranged for years in geometrical and hierarchical patterns. The shutters and the curtains were closed. From the doorway, a blade of light stretched into the semi-darkness, but it was not enough to guide his steps, until Madame Récamier’s voice came to his aid, prompting him to move toward the large screen that concealed her armchair. Chateaubriand sat down beside her, immutably silent.

Bien-aimé

Louis XV knew from the very start that, whatever he did, he was a “roi de perdition.” And this gave him a harsh, cold intolerance that courtiers felt with trepidation, even when he was a child. His primordial sentiment, much more than boredom, was mischief: irritation at finding himself in one of those points where history was tightening its grip and leaving no room for escape. It was as though his existence had run its course before he had lived it. He felt the impossibility of being anything other than dissolute, indolent, and spiteful. And even if he’d been willing to fight it, he imagined he would be cut down, and no one would have been surprised, in the same way that he was said to have cut down the fortunes of some of his subjects, without anyone being surprised.