Francois Auguste Chateaubriand, viscount de, a French author and statesman, born at St. Malo in September, 1768, died in Paris, July 4, 1848. He sprung from a noble family which was known in Brittany as far back as the 10th century. He passed his childhood on his patrimonial estate of Combourg, and received his education at the colleges of Dole and Rennes. When he was 17 years old he received a commission as second lieutenant in the army, and was two years later promoted to a captaincy. About the same time he was presented at court, introduced to the fashionable world, and became acquainted with La Harpe, Fontanes, and other eminent writers. His first production, an idyllic poem, L'amour de la campagne, revealed nothing of the genius which he afterward manifested. The revolutionary movements which agitated Paris induced him to embark for the United States in the spring of 1791, with a view to seeking for the northwest passage. He landed at Baltimore, and repaired immediately to Philadelphia, where he delivered to President Washington a letter of introduction from the marquis de La Rouairie. The young traveller dined with the president, who in the course of conversation made allusion to the obstacles his guest was exposed to meet in his intended expedition. "But, sir," said the traveller, "it is less difficult to discover the polar passage than to create a nation, as you have done." Chateaubriand then visited New York, Boston, and Albany, and went among the Indian tribes, living with them, and exploring the country bordering on the great lakes.

He afterward travelled through Florida, and spent some time among the Natchez. These peregrinations among the savages, the strange beauties of the American continent, the immensity of its rivers, the solitude of its forests, made a powerful impression upon his imagination. Nearly a year had thus been passed when an English newspaper which he found in a log cabin informed him of the flight and arrest of Louis XVI., and he returned to France in order to place himself at the disposal of the king. Finding on his arrival at Paris that by his presence there he could not benefit the royal cause, but endangered his own life, he joined the emigrants at Coblentz. Before leaving France, however, he married Mlle. Celeste Delavigne Buisson, an excellent woman, who during her long life was his faithful but rather neglected wife. Having enlisted in a company who followed the Prussian army in their invasion of France, he was wounded while skirmishing in the vicinity of Thionville; at the same time he had a severe attack of smallpox, and was left nearly dead on the road. A charitable person took care of him, and he was carried to Jersey, where he recovered his health.

In 1793 he went to London, where he lived in an unfurnished garret, without fire, sometimes without food, happy when he was able to earn something by giving French lessons or making translations for booksellers. In 1797 he published his Essai historiqve, politique et moral sur les revolutions anciennes et modernes, considerees dans leurs rapports avec la rewlutionfranga ise; it was rather unsuccessful in England and entirely ignored in France, He was then of a skeptical and somewhat materialistic turn of mind; hut, being recalled to religious convictions by the dying appeal of his mother, he framed the plan of his Genie du Christianisme, and, encouraged by Fontanes, whom he had met in London, engaged in writing it. About this period he succeeded in reentering France under an assumed name, and supported himself by literary work, while completing the Genie du Christianisme. The episode of Atala, which was incorporated in this work, was published separately in the Mercure de France'm 1801, and excited much attention.

The Genie du Christianisme, published in 1802, was the signal of a literary and moral revolution, and greatly contributed to the revival of religious principles in France. Bonaparte, being pleased with the book, appointed the author secretary of the French legation at Rome in 1S03, and he was promoted in 180-4 to the office of charge d'affaires; but the execution of the duke d'Enghien put an end to his friendly intercourse with Napoleon, He resigned his office, and afterward assailed the emperor most bitterly. In 180G he visited Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt, and on his return retired to a small villa situated in the Vallee aux Loups, near Paris, where he composed Les martyrs, the most admired of his works, which was published in 1809. The notes of his travels were subsequently arranged to form the Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem. In 1811 he was made a member of the French academy, as the successor to Marie Joseph Chenier, but some difficulty as to his reception speech prevented his taking his seat, which he did not occupy till after the restoration. This was hailed with enthusiasm by Chateaubriand, who as early as March 30, 1814, had published a political pamphlet, De Bonaparte et des Bourbons, which was eagerly sought for and did excellent service to the king's cause.

This was his first step in politics; and " this new life of his," Sainte-Beuve says, " may be divided into three parts: 1, from March 30, 1814, to June 0, 1824, the period of pure royalism; 2, from June 6, 1824, when he was dismissed from the cabinet, to the end of the restoration, the period of liberal opinion, in flagrant opposition with the foregoing; 3, the period of mixed royalism and republicanism subsequent to the revolution of 1830, when Chateaubriand, for conscience sake, said to the duchess of Berry, 'Your son is my king,' while at the same time befriending Carrel and Beranger, and preparing himself beforehand for the coming republic." On the first return of the Bourbons, Chateaubriand was appointed ambassador to Sweden; but before he had departed for his post, Napoleon reappeared in France, and Chateaubriand followed Louis XVIII. to Ghent, became a member of his cabinet, presented him with his Rapport sur l'etat de la France, and was on the second restoration appointed minister of state and peer of France; but having assailed, in the pamphlet De la monarchic selon la charte, the celebrated decree by which the chambre introuvaole was dissolved, he forfeited the royal favor and lost his office.

He now joined the ultra-royalist opposition, and became one of the principal editors of the Conser-vatear, the most powerful organ of that party. In 1820 he was reconciled with the court on occasion of the assassination of the duke of Berry, and wrote his Memoires of that prince. In the same year he was appointed minister to Berlin, and in 1822 ambassador to London. He was one of the plenipotentiaries at the congress of Verona, where he was instrumental in bringing about the French expedition to Spain. On his return to France he was appointed minister of foreign affairs, but being unable to agree with the prime minister, M. de Villele, he was summarily dismissed, June 6, 1824. This time,.instead of returning to his old associates, he joined the liberal opposition, He now proved himself the most ardent supporter of the freedom of the press, and eloquently advocated the independence of Greece, by which he acquired great popularity. On the fall of Villele in 1828 he was made ambassador to Rome, but resigned on the formation of the Polignac cabinet. After the revolution of 1830 he manifested the most chivalric devotion to the duke of Bordeaux, notwithstanding his grievances against the family and his attachment to the principles of liberty.

He was at that time, as he said himself, " a Bourbonist from the point of honor, a royalist by reason, a republican by taste and disposition." He now ceased to take any active part in politics, and even abandoned his seat in the chamber of peers, but occasionally published bitter pamphlets against the new government, in which he defended the rights of the fallen dynasty. In 1833 judicial proceedings were instituted against him on account of his Memoire sur la captivite de la duchcsse de Berry; but he was acquitted by the jury. He also repeatedly visited the exiled Bourbons at Prague. These occasional bursts of political passion interfered but little with his literary pursuits. As early as 1831 he had published his Etudes, ou discours historiques, which were but an introduction to a history of France on a plan of vast proportions; unhappily, age and pecuniary embarrassments prevented his finishing the work. He completed, however, some lighter but more profitable performances; his Essai sur la litterature anglaise, followed by a literal translation of Milton's "Paradise Lost," commanded general attention, while his Congres de Verone was eagerly read by the students of political history.

From 1834 he devoted most of his time to completing an autobiography, which he called Memoires d'outre-tombe (12 vols., 1849-'50; new illustrated ed., 8 vols., 1856, and 6 vols., 1861; German translation, 2d ed., Jena, 1852). This work ho sold in advance in 1836, and afterward lived on the annuity which was secured to him by the proceeds. His life was spent in retirement, the drawing room of his friend Mme. Recamier being almost the only place he visited. There he could be seen every evening among the elite of the literary world, receiving the homage to which he was entitled by his character, genius, and renown. A profound melancholy, however, invaded his latter years, He who had so often foretold the coming of the republic in France, witnessed its accession in 1848, but he died amid the desolation brought over the capital by the bloody struggle of June. Most of his works have been translated into the English, German, and other languages. The complete and separate editions are numerous. The best of the former is by Sainte-Beuve (12 vols., 1859-'61), with a review of his literary labors.

Part of a new and complete illustrated edition, to consist of 14 volumes, has appeared since 1864. Marin's Histoire de la vie et des outrages de M. de Chateaubriand appeared in 1833, and M. Villemain's Chateaubriand, sa vie, ses ecrits, son influence sur son temps, etc, in 1858, in 2 vols.