Chateaubriand's memoirs, III, 6

In the first flush of inspiration, I invited Lucile to imitate me. We spent days in mutual consultation, communicating to each other what we had done, and what we intended to do. We undertook works in common; guided by our instincts, we translated the finest and saddest passages in Job and Lucretius on life: the Taedet animam meam viae meae: my soul is weary of life, the Homo natus de muliere: man that is born of woman, the Tum porro puer, ut saevis projectus ab undis navita: then the new-born, like a seafarer abandoned to the pitiless waves, etc. Lucile’s thoughts were nothing but feelings; they emerged with difficulty from her soul; but when she succeeded in expressing them, they were incomparable. She has left behind some thirty pages in manuscript; it is impossible to read them without being profoundly moved. The elegance, the sweetness, the dreaminess, the passionate sensibility revealed in these pages offers a combination of the Greek genius and the Germanic genius.

Dawn

‘What tender brightness comes to light the East! Is it the young Aurora who half-opens her lovely eyes on the world, full of the languor of sleep! Graceful Goddess, hasten! Leave your nuptial couch, put on your crimson robe; let a soft sash bind you in its knots; let no sandals press your delicate feet; let no adornment profane your lovely hands made to gently open the doors of day. But you have already risen on the shadowy hill. Your golden hair falls in damp tresses on your rosy neck. From your mouth a pure and perfumed breath exhales. Tender deity, all Nature smiles in your presence; you alone shed tears and flowers are born.’

To the Moon

‘Chaste goddess! Goddess, so pure that no blush of shame ever mingles with your tender light, I dare to adopt you as the confidante of my feelings. I have no more reason than you to feel shame in my heart. But often the memory of the injustice and blindness of men veils my brow with cloud, as yours is veiled. Like you, the errors and miseries of this world shape my dreams. But happier than I, citizen of heaven, you always retain your serenity: the storms and tempests that stir our globe glide beneath your tranquil orb. Goddess sympathetic to my sadness set your chill repose on my heart.’

Innocence

‘Daughter of Heaven, sweet innocence, if I dared to attempt a feeble portrait of your nature, I would say that you serve as virtue in childhood, as wisdom in the springtime of life, as beauty in old age, and as happiness in misfortune; that, a stranger to our errors, you only shed pure tears, and that your smile owns nothing that is not celestial. Lovely innocence! How, with danger all around you, desire shapes all its features towards you: do you tremble, modest innocence? Do you seek to hide from the perils that menace you? No, I see you standing there, asleep, your head resting on an altar.’

My brother sometimes granted a few brief moments to the hermits of Combourg: he had the habit of bringing with him a young counsellor at the High Court of Brittany, Monsieur de Malfilâtre, a cousin of the unfortunate poet of that name. I think that Lucile, unknown to herself, had conceived a secret passion for this friend of my brother’s, and that this stifled passion lay at the root of my sister’s melancholy. She was afflicted moreover with Rousseau’s obsession, but without his pride: she believed the whole world was conspiring against her. She travelled to Paris in 1789, accompanied by that sister Julie whose death she had deplored with a tenderness tinged with the sublime. All who knew her admired her, from Monsieur de Malesherbes to Chamfort. Thrown into the Revolution’s crypts at Rennes, she was close to being re-incarcerated in the Château of Combourg, which had been turned into a gaol during the Terror. Released from prison, she married Monsieur de Caud, who left her a widow a year later. On return from my emigration, I was reunited with the friend of my childhood: I will tell you how she vanished, when it pleases God to afflict me.