Chateaubriand's Travels in America

University of Kentucky UKnowledge United States History History 1969 Chateaubriand's Travels in America François-René vicomte de Chateaubriand Richard Switzer University of Wisconsin - Madison Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Chateaubriand, François-René vicomte de and Switzer, Richard, "Chateaubriand's Travels in America" (1969). United States History. 84. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/84 TRAVELS IN AMERICA CHATEAUBRIAND'S TRAVELS IN AMERICA TRANSLATED BY Richard Switzer UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PRESS LEXINGTON 1969 COPYRIGHT© 1969, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PRESS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 68-55043 In memory of Professor T. C. Walker, whose appreciation of C hateaubriand was boundless This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction XI Travels in America Notice [for the 1827 Edition] 3 Introduction [to the First Edition] 5 The Voyage 10 The Eastern Cities 14 Into the Wilderness 22 Natural History 70 Manners of the Indians 81 Government among the Indians 155 The United States Today 186 The Spanish Republics 194 The End of the Trip 205 Bibliography 209 Notes 211 Index 219 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations Chateaubriand Portrait, from Complete Works. Paris: Pourrat, 1837. frontispiece Chateaubriand with the Indian Woman and Her Cow, from Memoirs. Paris: Garnier, n.d. 26 Niagara Falls, from Complete Works. Paris: Pourrat, 1837. 34. Chateaubriand Falling over the Cliff at Niagara, from Memoirs. Paris: Garnier, n.d. 36 Virgin Forest, from Complete Works. Paris: Pourrat, 1837. 60 Indian Marriage, from J. F. Bernard, Cere monies et coutumes religieux de taus les peuples du monde. Amsterdam, 1723-1743. 86 Indian Divorce, from J. F. Bernard, Cere monies et coutumes religieux de taus les peuples du monde. Amsterdam, 1723-1743. 87 Indian Hieroglyphics, from Baron de Lahon tan, Dialogues curieux entre l'auteur et un sauvage de bon sens. The Hague, 1703. 112 Indian Hunts, from Baron de Lahontan, Dia logues curieux entre !'auteur et un sau vage de bon sens. The Hague, 1703. 128 This page intentionally left blank Introduction To look upon Chateaubriand as a source for authentic informa tion about the America of 1791 would be folly. The relatively few authentic details of his own trip to be found in the relation of his Travels in America are hidden in a mass of heteroclite materials that are the end product of 30 years of reading about America in works that were often far from trustworthy; more over the exercise of the author's imagination takes us even further from reality. Why, then, should Chateaubriand be read today, at least insofar as his Travels in America are concerned? There is a double answer to this question: Chateaubriand is a reflection of the attitudes of his epoch, and, at the same time, because of his enormous literary reputation, his works have continued to be a major source of the Frenchman's impressions about America, in certain cases even to the present day. Chateaubriand is then the indication of what America was in the minds of the Europe ans of the nineteenth century. Throughout the eighteenth century there had been frequent visitors from France to America, and in harmony with the ideas of the philosophes, the Noble Savage had grown to become one of the fundamental concepts concerning the new world. The freedom from all restraints of society, the lack of contamination of man's innate good nature through the evils of the city, coincided perfectly with the other theories of the new genera tion of thinkers. But it remained for Chateaubriand, one of the great writers of fiction, to present primitive America in so vivid a way that his ideas were to influence generations to come. Frant;ois-Rene de Chateaubriand was born in 1768 in Brit tany. His early years, to judge by his many literary references to this period, were highly romantic: he painted himself as isolated in an old tower of the family castle at Combourg in eastern Brittany. The storms of his youth were a reflection not only of an uncommon temperament but also of the turbulent political and social events that dominated the end of the eight eenth century. In an earlier period of French history, Chateaubriand would have entered the army and stayed there unless drawn out of that milieu by literary aspirations. And in fact, Chateaubriand did start out in the traditional fashion of the aristocratic younger son and became an officer in the army. But just as Julien Sorel of Stendhal's The Red and the Black was to find it too late in 1830 to make a career in the army of Napoleon, Chateaubriand was to find that after 1789, being an officer in a royalist regiment was not the sure road to success and glory that it had been before. Chateaubriand was therefore searching for another route to follow. Adventuresome in spirit, he seems to have hit upon the idea of trying to discover the Northwest Passage. Such a proj ect may seem extravagant today, but in 1791 the call of the unknown was great enough to launch many a young man on a voyage of discovery. Later critics have at times doubted this reason behind the trip to America and have suggested that Chateaubriand may have thought it up afterwards, so as to give a greater aura of importance to his trip. Recent documen tation, however, has shown that Chateaubriand did announce this intention in public before undertaking the trip. He left, then, in the spring of 1791. It seems to have been a rather hasty departure, because he crossed the sea on the Saint-Pierre, which was not a passenger ship at all but a cod fishing vessel that had been chartered specially for a group of seminarians being taken to Baltimore. The duration of Chateaubriand's actual trip and its probable extent have fascinated critics and historians for over 150 years. If we are to take Chateaubriand at his word (always a danger ous thing to do with an author who often lived more in his imagination than in reality), it was an enormous trip through all the parts of America east of the Mississippi. The stay ended abruptly, according to Chateaubriand: he claims that upon reading in a newspaper of the arrest of Louis XVI as he was fleeing the country, he resolved immediately to return to France, rejoin his regiment, and take up arms in defense of the Xll king. He joined the Army of the Princes and was wounded in battle. Later he emigrated to England, where he lived a penni less exile until conditions permitted a return to France. The revolutionary days brought many tragedies of a per sonal nature to Chateaubriand, including the execution of members of his close family, so there is no wonder that the republican regime became distasteful to him. Many times he was to praise the American republic in contrasting it with the French, emphasizing in particular the true freedom without violence in the former and the repression of the Reign of Ter ror in the latter. Napoleon, too, was an anathema to Chateaubriand. Here the author's personal convictions concerning government came into play. Chateaubriand, indeed, always seemed a bit amazed when speaking of American democracy, considering it a kind of fluke which should not work but does. At the end of his Travels in America he expressed his ideas on the South Ameri can republics, where in his view democracy was impossible. The main prerequisite for stable government according to Cha teaubriand was a legitimate monarch. In this view he was obviously in harmony with a great deal of the thinking of his times: only an unquestioned and hereditary monarchy can ef fect the transition from one executive to another without chaos. This then was the basis on which he opposed Napoleon, together with the lack of liberty, as he saw it, under the Em peror. For Chateaubriand even as a legitimist did not believe in any restrictions of the individual's freedom. The restorations of the monarchy in 1814 and 1815 represented exactly what he sought in government: a legitimate monarch ruling under a constitution (the Charte, promulgated by Louis XVI before taking the throne in 1814) which guaranteed individual liberty. When this new liberalism took a step backward under Charles X, Chateaubriand was opposed to the reactionary movement. He dissociated himself from the government en tirely in 1830 when the principle of legitimacy was overthrown by the July Revolution and Louis-Philippe. This fierce defense of the legitimist idea often caused Chateaubriand considerable Xlll difficulty, as when he was nominated as ambassador to Sweden. The Swedish king, it will be remembered, was Bernadotte, Napoleon's marshal, who had been invited to accept the Swed ish crown. The king was unwilling to have as ambassador to his court so staunch a defender of the idea of legitimate mon archy, since he did not himself embody that principle. Cha teaubriand's nomination was never confirmed. Under the French Restoration, Chateaubriand held several important posts: ambassador to England (1821-1822), French delegate to the Congress of Vienna (1822), and French Foreign Minister (1822-1824). He also served in Germany and Italy. It was, however, in the domain of literature that Chateau briand created his most durable reputation for himself. Al though a few of his literary efforts antedate the nineteenth century, it is really in 1801 that his fame begins.

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