Chateaubriand's memoirs, IV, 1

Berlin, March 1821. (Revised July 1846)

It is a long way from Combourg to Berlin, from a youthful dreamer to an old minister. I find among the words preceding these: ‘In how many places have I already continued writing these Memoirs, and in what place will I finish them?’

Nearly four years have passed between the date when I wrote the facts just recounted and that on which I resume these Memoirs. A thousand things have happened; another man has appeared in me, the politician: I am not much taken with him. I have defended the freedoms of France, which alone can make the legitimate monarchy durable. With the Conservateur I have put Monsieur de Villèle in power; I have seen the Duc de Berry die and honoured his memory. In order to reconcile all parties, I have left France; I have accepted the Berlin Embassy.

Yesterday I was at Potsdam, an ornate barracks, empty now of soldiers: I studied the imitation Julian in his imitation Athens. At Sans-Souci they showed me the table at which a great German monarch turned the Encylopedists’ maxims into little French verses; Voltaire’s room, decorated with wooden apes and parrots, the mill which he who ravaged whole provinces made a point of respecting, the tombs of the horse César and the greyhounds Diane, Amourette, Biche, Superbe and Pax. The royal infidel even took pleasure in profaning the religion of the tomb by raising mausoleums to his dogs; he had marked out a burial-place for himself, less from contempt for men, than to display his belief in nothingness.

They took me to see the new palace, already decaying. In the old palace of Potsdam they preserve the tobacco stains, the worn and soiled armchairs; indeed every relic of the renegade prince’s un-cleanliness. These places at once immortalise the dirtiness of the cynic, the impudence of the atheist, the tyranny of the despot, and the glory of the soldier.

Only one thing attracted my attention: the hands of a clock frozen at the moment when Frederick expired; I was deceived by the immobility of the image: hours do not suspend their flight; it is not man that stops time, it is time that stops man. What is more, it does not matter what part we have played in life; the brilliance or obscurity of our doctrines, our wealth or poverty, our joys or sorrows make no difference to our length of days. Whether the hands of the clock circle a golden face or a wooden one, whether the face, large or small, fills the bezel of a ring, or the rose-window of a cathedral, the hour has only the one duration.

In a vault of the ProtestantChurch, immediately beneath the chair of the defrocked schismatic, I saw the tomb of the royal sophist. The tomb is of bronze; when one strikes it, it rings. The gendarme who sleeps in that bronze bed, could not even be dragged from sleep by the noise of his fame; he will not wake till the trumpet sounds, when it will call him onto his last field of battle, face to face with the God of armies.

I had such a need to alter the impression I had received, that I sought relief by visiting the Maison-de-Marbre. The king who had ordered its construction had addressed a few honourable words to me formerly, when, as a humble officer, I passed through his army. At least this king shared the ordinary weaknesses of humanity; commonplace, like them, he took refuge in his pleasures. Do those two skeletons go any way to explain today the difference that formerly existed between them, when one was Frederick the Great, and the other Frederick-William II? Sans-Souci and the Maison-de-Marbre are equally ruins without a master.

All in all, though the enormity of the events of our day diminishes those of the past, though Rosbach, Lissa, Liegnitz, Torgau etc, etc, were only skirmishes compared with the battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Moscow, Frederick suffers less than others when compared with the giant chained in St Helena. The King of Prussia and Voltaire are two of the oddest figures to be grouped together who ever lived: the latter destroyed a society with the same philosophy that allowed the former to found a kingdom.

The evenings in Berlin are long. I occupy a house belonging to Madame the Duchess of Dino. At nightfall, my secretaries leave me. When there is no entertainment at court for the marriage of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess Nicholas (now the Emperor and Empress of Russia: Note, 1832), I stay in. Sitting alone in front of a cheerless stove, I hear nothing but the shouts of the sentinel at the Brandenburg Gate, and the steps in the snow of the man who whistles the hours. How shall I spend my time? Reading? I have scarcely a book. What if I were to continue my Memoirs?

You had left me on the road from Combourg to Rennes: I alighted in the latter town at the house of one of my relations. He told me with great delight that a lady of his acquaintance, travelling to Paris, had a spare seat in her carriage, and that he would try hard to persuade this lady to take me with her. I accepted; cursing my relative’s courtesy. He settled the matter, and soon presented me to my travelling companion, a sprightly, unselfconscious milliner, who burst out laughing on seeing me. At midnight the horses arrived and we set off.

There I was in a post-chaise, alone with a woman, in the middle of the night. How was I, who had never in my life looked at a woman without blushing, to descend from the height of my dreams to this terrifying reality? I did not know where I was; I huddled in my corner of the carriage for fear of touching Madame Rose’s dress. When she spoke to me, I stammered unable to reply. She was obliged to pay the postilion, and see to everything, since I was incapable of anything. At daybreak, she looked with fresh amazement at this booby with whom she regretted being saddled.

As soon as the local scenery began to change, and I no longer recognised the clothes and accents as those of Breton peasants, I fell into a profound depression, which increased the contempt Madame Rose had for me. I became aware of the sentiment I had inspired, and I received from this first trial in the world an impression that time has not completely effaced. I was born unsociable but unashamed; I felt the modesty of my years, but no embarrassment. When I realised that this fine aspect of my nature made me ridiculous, my unsociability turned into an insurmountable shyness. I could not speak another word: I felt I had something to hide, and this something was a virtue; I made up my mind to conceal myself in order to wear my innocence in peace.

We drew nearer Paris. On the way down from Saint-Cyr, I was struck by the width of the roads and the neatness of the fields. Soon we reached Versailles: the orangery and the marble stairs amazed me. The success of the American war had garnered trophies for Louis XIV’s palace; the Queen reigned there in all the splendour of her youth and beauty; the throne, so close to its fall, seemed never to have been more stable. And I, an obscure passer-by, was destined to survive this pomp, and live to see the woods of Trianon as empty as those I had just left behind.

At last we entered Paris. I discovered a mocking expression on every face: like the gentleman from Périgord in Moliere, I thought that they were gazing at me to make fun of me. Madame Rose had me taken to the Hôtel de l’Europe in the Rue du Mail and hastened to disburden herself of her simpleton. Scarcely had I descended from the carriage, than she said to the porter: ‘Give this gentleman a room’- She added: ‘Your servant,’ making me a slight curtsy. I have never seen Madame Rose again in my life.