L’Estoile, Pierre de

1546-1611. A Chronicler, born in Paris, he was Usher to the Chancellery of Paris. He was imprisoned in 1589.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from his Mémoires et Journal de Pierre de l’Estoile concerning the Paris of Henri III and IV and the League.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec2 Chateaubriand quotes from the Journal.

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes him.

BkXXXIV:Chap1:Sec1 See the Journal.

BkXXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 He relates this tale from June 1595.

BkXXXVII:Chap14:Sec1 See the Journal for January 1595.

BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 See the Journal.

BkXLI:Chap7:Sec1 The lady, Sainte-Beuve, an ardent Leaguer is mentioned several times in the Journal.

 

L’Hôpital, Michel de

c1505-1573. A French Statesman, he was Chancellor of France under Catherine de Medici. He favoured the Edict of Romorantin (1560) which deprived the secular courts of jurisdiction in cases involving religion, and was responsible for edicts granting liberty of conscience (1561) and restricted liberty of worship (1562). He withdrew from court during the first War of Religion (1562–63) but returned to power and in 1566 was the author of important judicial reforms. After the outbreak (1567) of the second War of Religion he was forced out of office (1568) by Charles and Henri de Guise. In his retirement he composed Latin poetry.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 He imitated Horace in Book III of his Complete Works.

 

La Balue, Cardinal, see Balue

 

La Baronnais, François-Pierre Collas (?), Monsieur de

b. c. 1726 Father of the Chevalier, a former officer he was an inhabitant of Dinard. He married Renée de Kergu.

BkIX:Chap11:Sec1 His son the Chevalier died at Thionville.

 

La Baronnais, Chevalier de

Son of Monsieur.

BkIX:Chap11:Sec1 Killed at Thionville.

 

La Beauce, France

The region in northern France, located between the Seine and Loire rivers. It now comprises the Eure-et-Loir département and parts of Loiret and Loir-et-Cher. The region shared the history of the county of Chartres, which is its only major city.

BkXXXV:Chap16:Sec1 Known for its wheatfields.

BkXXXV:Chap17:Sec1 Madame de Colbert’s house, Montboissier, there.

 

La Bédoyére, Charles Angélique François Huchet, Comte de

1786-1815. He brought over to Napoleon the 7th Regiment of the Line, during the Hundred Days, and enabled the successful march on Paris. He was named by Napoleon a general and Peer of France. Arrested on the 2nd of May 1815, he was dragged before a court martial then shot on the Plain of Grenelle, on the 19th of August.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 His speech in the Chamber of Peers in June.

 

La Belinaye, Renée, Mademoiselle de

1728-1816. Aunt of the Comtesse de Trojolif, she was born and died in Fougères. She was also the aunt of the Marquis de La Rouërie.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec3 Mentioned.

 

La Besnardière, Jean-Baptiste de Gouey, Comte de

1765-1843. A section head in the Foreign Ministry from 1795 to 1819, he collaborated closely with Talleyrand and accompanied him to the Congress of Vienna. He was given a title on his return.

BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec2 At the Congress of Vienna.

 

La Billardière, David de

The son of Monsieur Launay, he was a childhood friend of Chateaubriand.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

La Billardière, Monsieur Launay de

A tobacco bonder, he lived at Combourg.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

La Bletterie, Jean-Philippe-René, Abbé de

1696-1772. A professor of the Collège de France, he left a Life of Julian (1735) and a translation of Tacitus (1755-1768).

BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 His imitation of an epigram of Julian’s.

 

La Bouëtardais, Marie-Annibal-Joseph de Bedée, Comte de

 

La Bouillerie, François Roullet, Baron de

1764-1833. Former Deputy for the Sarthe, and a Peer of France he was Intendant General of the King’s Household.

BkXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Chateaubriand had asked him to augment the pension which Charles X had granted Thierry.

 

La Bourdonnais, François Mahé de

1699-1753. A member of the nobility of Saint-Malo, La Bourdonnais was born in the city in 1699. Lieutenant in the East Indies Company in 1718, he took part in the capture of the main islands of the Seychelles archipelago in 1725 which were called Mahé after him. In 1735 he became a very young Governor of Mauritius and the Réunion islands, where he instigated economic development. He commanded a squadron in 1741 and defeated the Marathi who was attacking Mahé. Dupleix, the Colonial Executive and Nabob of India asked for his help against the English and La Bourdonnais took Madras in 1746. He had dealings with his previous enemies, and Dupleix complained. He was recalled to France and imprisoned in the Bastille for three years. At his trial in 1751, he was acquitted and ended his life in Paris.

BkI:Chap4:Sec5 Born in Saint-Malo.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Bourdonnaye, François-Régis, Comte de

1767-1839. Fought with the Chouans in the Vendée, and was an ultra-right wing member (leader of the White Jacobins) of the Chambre introuvable from 1815. Interior Minister under Polignac in 1829, he was quickly dismissed for extremism. He lost his position as Minister of State and Charles X private advisor in the July Revolution.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 A possible Chief Minister in 1827.

BkXXXI:Chap5:Sec1 Interior Minister in 1829.

 

La Bourdonnaye-Montluc, Chevalier de, of the Order of Malta

BkI:Chap1:Sec5. He is mentioned as assisting in the granting of Chateaubriand’s application to enrol in the order of Malta.

 

La Briche, Adelaide Prévost, Madame de

1755-1844. Married Alexis La Live de La Briche, youngest son of the financier La Live de Bellegarde. Widowed at thirty, her only daughter married Mathieu Molé in 1798.

BkXIV:Chap1:Sec1 She inherited Le Marais, near Saint-Chéron, forty kilometres south-west of Paris, from her uncle before the revolution.

 

La Chalotais, Louis-René de Caradeuc de

1701-1785. A French magistrate (Advocate-General of the Breton Parlement in 1730-1752, Attorney-General in 1752) who led the Parlement (high court of justice) in a protracted legal battle against the authority of the government of King Louis XV particularly with the Duke of Pivot, who was Governor of Brittany and the King's representative, concerning the influence and fate of the Jesuit order. This led him to be seen as the head of the parliamentary opposition, and in 1765 he was imprisoned by Louis XV and later exiled. He was restored by Louis XVI in 1775. The struggle resulted in the purging and suspensions (1771–74) of the Parlements.

BkI:Chap3:Sec2 The affair involved Chateaubriand’s maternal relatives. His aunt and his cousin Moreau rashly having made false accusations were obliged to make a public retraction, and paid a heavy fine.

BkI:Chap4:Sec4 He wrote his Memoirs (published 1767) while imprisoned in the Château of Saint-Malo.

 

La Chartreuse, France

The Chartreuse mountain range is close to Grenoble. The mother-house of the Carthusian Order, La Grande-Charteuse was founded there.

BkXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Voreppe is a town between Lyons and Grenoble. Chateaubriand revisited it in July 1838 on his return from Cannes. Saint-Laurent is the oldest district of the modern city of Grenoble.

 

La Chiffone, frigate

Built for the French fleet in 1801, the 36 ton Frigate Chiffone Captain Pierre Guiyesse captured (June 1801) the British Bellona on her way to London with a rich cargo from Bengal. The Bellona and her prize crew were taken to Mauritius. In the encounter the Chiffone had her mizzen mast crippled, and while this was being repaired a vessel was seen to approach (19th August), flying the Tricolor. When close to the Chiffone the French flag was replaced by the Union Jack, this vessel being the British frigate Sybille, Captain Charles Adam. Both ships opened fire for a battle lasting 17 minutes before the French surrendered with 50 men dead. The Chiffone was repaired and re-commissioned as a British frigate and was in action off the Havre in 1805. Her total complement was 264.

 BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 On the 11th July 1801, she had arrived in the Seychelles carrying exiled Republicans.

 

La Conchée, Saint-Malo

Following plans designed by Vauban, engineer Siméon de Garangeau (1647-1741) extended the town, revamped its fortifications and built sea forts on the small islands off the city, Petit Bé, Grand Bé and Fort Royal, later renamed Fort National, La Conchée, and Cézembre.

BkI:Chap3:Sec4 Mentioned.

 

La Fare, Anne-Louis-Henri, Cardinal de

1752-1829. Archbishop of Sens from 1817, created Duke in 1822, a Cradinal from 1823. He died on the 10th of December 1829.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 He arrives at the Conclave of 1829.

 

La Fayette, Georges-Washington de Motier de

1779-1849 The son of the Marquis, after a military career he retired in 1807, then after 1815 pursued a political career. He accompanied his father to America in 1824. He was aide-de-camp to his father in 1830, and was an opposition politican under Louis-Philippe. He was Deputy for the Seine-et-Marne to the Constituent Assembly of 1848. 

BkXLII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Fayette, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Ives-Roch-Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de

1757-1834. General and Politician, he was prominent at the start of the Revolution. His early career was distinguished by military success against the British in American Revolution (1777-1779, 1780-1782). As a representative of the States-General he presented the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789. In 1792 the rising power of the radicals threatened him, and he went to Austria. He was later prominent in the July Revolution of 1830 which overthrew Charles X.

BkV:Chap9:Sec1 Appointed to lead the citizens’ militia which became the National Guard, after the fall of the Bastille in July 1789.

BkV:Chap15:Sec3 BkXXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec1 Burnt in effigy for condemning the attack on the Tuileries.

BkIX:Chap5:Sec1 His efforts during the American War of Independence.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec2 A native of the Auvergne.

BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 His noble birth.

BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 He presented Paoli to Louis XVI.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 BkXXII:Chap15:Sec3 Used the common linguistic style of the age, as a defender of freedom.

BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 In Paris in 1815 during the Hundred Days.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec1 His speech to the House of Representatives after Waterloo.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 Accused by Napoleon of conspiring against him in 1815.

BkXXVIII:Chap13:Sec1 He responds to Chateaubriand’s article.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Mooted as a member of a Provisional Government in July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap4:Sec1 His arrest ordered but not carried out on 28th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Receives a students delegation on the 29th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Proposed as President of a Republic in July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap14:Sec1 He refused the Presidency on the morning of the 31st of July 1830 and rallied to the Orléanists.

BkXXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIII:Chap6:Sec1 Louis-Philippe’s dominance over him.

BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in April 1832.

BkXLII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s description of his life and politics. He received a triumphant welcome in America in 1824 despite his failure at home in the February 1824 elections.

BkXLII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Fayette, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Madame de

1634-1693. A French writer, she married in 1651 the Chevalier de Sévigné, and thus became connected with Mme de Sévigné, who was destined to be a lifelong friend. Her first novel, La Princesse de Montpensier, was published anonymously in 1662; Zayde appeared in 1670 under the name of J. de Segrais; and in 1678 her masterpiece, La Princesse de Cleves, also under the name of Segrais.

BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 A friend of La Rochefoucauld.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 Her charming talent.

 

La Fayette, Marie-Adrienne-Françoise de Noailles, Marquise de

1759-1807. The daughter of Jean-Louis-Paul-François, Duc d’Ayen and Duc de Noailles, she lost her mother and sister to the guillotine and barely escaped execution herself (1794). After a failed attempt to have her husband (they married in 1774) released from an Austrian prison, she shared his prison cell in Olmuts (1795-97). They had four children: Henriette, Anastasie, Virginie, and George Washington.

BkXLII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Feronnays, Pierre-Louis-Auguste Ferron, Comte de

1777-1842. A soldier then diplomat, he was the Ambassador to Copenhagen in 1817, and St Petersburg in 1819. He was French Foreign Minister (4 January 1828 - 24 April 1829).

BkI:Chap4:Sec5 A native of Saint-Malo.

BkXXVII:Chap10:Sec1 A plenipotentiary with Chateaubriand at the Congress of Verona.

BkXXVIII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him in St Petersburg in 1824, and he replies.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap12:Sec1 Foreign Minister in 1828, a friend of Chateaubriand.

BkXXIX:Chap11:Sec1 Informs Chateaubriand of the surrender of Varna in September 1829. He had been obliged to take a few weeks leave due to illness, and rumours had spread of his resignation.

BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 Went to Italy due to illness in 1829.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand reports him cured of his illness in March 1829.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned as unable to fulfil a Ministerial role any longer.

BkXXXI:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXL:Chap4:Sec1 Sent to Prague by the Duchess de Berry in 1833.

BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1 In Udine in 1833. He was brother-in-law to Blacas.

 

La Flèche, corvette

Sunk by the English near the Seychelles on the 2nd September 1801, this French national corvette was commanded by Lieutenant Bonamy and armed with twenty long 8-pounders and two stern chasers. She had landed a number of banished Frenchmen in the Seychelles and was intending to sail to the Bay of Bengal to prey on British shipping. She was raised again in 1803 and was being refitted, but on being discovered by the English was abandoned and burnt.

BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 Used to transport Republican exiles to the Seychelles arriving July/August 1801.

 

La Fontaine, Jean de

1621-1695. Author of the Fables (1688-1694) sophisticated verse treatments of traditional fables from the collections of Aesop, Phaedrus and others. His many other works include his bawdy verse tales (Contes, 1664) which he supposedly repudiated after his religious conversion in 1692.

BkI:Chap5:Sec3 Chateaubriand, perhaps unconsciously, quotes the first verse of La Fontaine’s fable ‘The Acorn and the Pumpkin’ (Fables IX.4)

BkII:Chap7:Sec3 Chateaubriand quotes from ‘The Monkey and the Cat’ (Fables IX.16)

BkVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes the last line of Vieillard et les trois jeunes hommes (Fables XI.8)

BkIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from La Cigale et la Fourmi (The Cicada and the Ant, Fables I.1), with himself as the singing Cicada in the first instance and George Sand in the second.

BkX:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to Le Chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin (Fables, VII.16)

BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXII:Chap3:Sec1 His work ignored by the English in 1822.

BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 A reference to ‘Discours á M. le duc de RochefoucauldFables X:14.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec3 A reference to Fables III:4.

BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 A reference to Fables VII:9, ‘The Coach and the Fly’, where the Fly goads the horses up the hill, considers it has done all the work, and asks for payment.

BkXXVII:Chap3:Sec2 A malicious reference to ‘The Two Cockerels’, Fables VII:14, line 3)

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 A reference to La Fontaine’s, Fables VII:12

BkXXXV:Chap13:Sec1 The reference is to ‘The Cockerel and the Pearl’, Fables I:20. The Cockerel would prefer the smallest grain of seed to the pearl he turns up.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 See La Matrone d’Éphèse: 149-150

BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 See Fables XI:7 lines 11-13, Le Paysan de Danube.

BkXXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 See Fables X:1 line 52, L’Homme et la Couleuvre.

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec1 See Fables VI:18 Le Charretier Embourbé. The Carter Stuck in the Mud. Set in Quimper-Corentin in Brittany.

BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 See Fables VII:3 line 10 Le Rat qui s’est retiré du monde.

BkXXXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 See Fables VIII:9 line 7 The Rat and the Oyster.

BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 The reference is to an anecdote of Racine’s in which La Fontaine arrived at Châlons to see his wife who was at prayer and so he left without seeing her.

BkXXXIX:Chap18:Sec1 See Fables, the Fox and the Crow.

BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1autre injure des ans’ is from Philemon et Baucis: 66, the sense is ‘another victim of time’s injuries’.

 

La Force, Jacques-Nompar de Caumont, Marshal de

1558-1652. He was a marshal and peer of France.

BkXXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La France

Valet de Chambre to the Chateaubriand family.

BkI:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

La Galaisière

Minister under Louis XVI in 1789.

BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Appointed Comptroller-General in 1789.

 

La Goulette, Tunisia

A fishing port, now a quarter of Tunis. Charles Quint built a fortress there in 1537.

BkXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1807.

 

La Guiche, Philibert de, Seigneur de La Guiche et de Chaumont

d. 1607 Grand-Master of the French Artillery (1578).

BkI:Chap4:Sec4 Mentioned.

 

La Harpe, Jean-François de

1739-1803. Literary critic. Friend of Madame Récamier.

 

La Haye-Sainte

A farm on the field of Waterloo, it was defended by the Allies.

BkXXIII:Chap17:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Hire

Lahire, Ogier, Hector and Lancelot were conventional names for the jacks in a pack of cards in France in the fifteenth century.

BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Hoguette, Saint-Malo

A sand mound surmounted by a gibbet in Chateaubriand’s day.

BkI:Chap3:Sec4 Mentioned.

 

La Hontan or Lahontan, Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce, Baron de

1666-1715. French soldier and writer who explored parts of what are now Canada and the United States and who prepared valuable accounts of his travels in the New World.

BkVII:Chap10:Sec1 His description of the Canadian Indians.

 

La Laurencie, Chevalier de, of the Order of Malta

BkI:Chap1:Sec5. Mentioned as assisting in the granting of Chateaubriand’s application to enrol in the order of Malta.

 

La Luzerne, Anne-César, Comte de

1741-1791. Diplomat. French Minister to the United States 1779. Ambassador to London in 1788. Died in London in 1791.

BkII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Luzerne, César-Guillaume, Duc et Cardinal de

1738-1821. Brother of Anne-César, he was Bishop of Langres from 1770. Deputy to the States-General, he emigrated in 1791 to Venice, living there until 1800. He recovered his see, and title in 1814. Created Cardinal in 1817, he never received the red hat and title. He transferred to the Metropolitan see of Paris.

BkXXV:Chap9:Sec1 Wrote an article for the Conservateur.

 

La Luzerne, César-Henri, Comte de

1737-1799. Older brother of Anne-César. Governor-General of San-Dominguo 1786-1787. Minister of the Navy 1788-1789. Died during the Emigration.

BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Dismissed by Louis XVI in 1789.

 

La Luzerne, César-Guillaume, Vicomte then Comte de

Son of César-Henri. Brother in law of Madame de Beaumont from 1787.

BkXV:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand confuses him with his uncle Anne-César.

BkXV:Chap6:Sec1 Recipient of Chateaubriand’s description of Madame de Beaumont’s last days.

 

La Maisonfort, Marquis de

1763-1827. Former Captain of Dragoons, a printer in Brunswick during the Revolution, and a royalist. Intrigued at Naples, and Fesch ordered his arrest while he was in Rome in 1803, at which he left for Tuscany. He became a deputy during the Restoration and then a plenipotentiary Minister at Florence. He had literary pretensions.

BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Marche, Friedrich William Moritz Alexander, Comte de (Graf von der Mark, Brandenburg)

1778-1787 He was the beloved illegitimate son of Frederick-William II of Prussia and his mistress the Countess of Lichtenau (1796). His memorial urn of 1788/9 by Johann Gottfried Schadow, found in the lake, was recently restored to the ‘New Garden’ in Potsdam.

BkXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned in Mirabeau’s Secret History.

 

La Martinière, Antoine Bruzeu de

1673-1749. He published a Grand Dictionnaire géographique et critique (1726-1730) and was the nephew of Richard Simon.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

La Martinière

Officer in the Navarre Regiment.

BkIV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1

Chateaubriand encountered him at Cambrai in 1786. He describes courting on his behalf (a scene reminiscent of Cyrano only in reverse!).

BkIV:Chap10:Sec2 Chateaubriand found him again at Dieppe in 1789 (or perhaps 1787).

BkIX:Chap9:Sec1 In the émigré army in 1792.

 

La Mettrie, Julien Offray de

1709-1751. Born 25th of December, 1709. He studied natural philosophy then medicine and wrote widely on medical and philosophical matters. He moved to Paris in 1742. Whilst living in Paris he suffered a violent fever which led him to believe that disorders of the mind were due to physical malfunctions of the brain and nervous system. He had his ideas printed under the title of ‘The Natural History of the Soul’. This cost him his job and in 1746 he was forced to flee France, pursued by the priesthood. He escaped to Leyden and continued his work, taunting his critics with his writings including his now famous treatise ‘Man a Machine’. The reaction of the priesthood to this work forced him to flee once again, this time escaping to Prussia before moving to Berlin in February 1748. He died on 11 November 1751 aged 43 leaving his wife Louise Charlotte Dreano and a 5 year old daughter.

BkI:Chap4:Sec5 Born in Saint-Malo.

 

La Morandais, François-Placide Maillard de

Steward of Combourg.

BkII:Chap3:Sec2 BkII:Chap3:Sec3 Takes Chateaubriand on a trip to Saint-Malo.

 

La Motte-Picquet, Toussaint-Guillaume

1720-1791. Commander of a squadron in 1778, he took part in the battle of Ushant. He performed distinguished action during the United States War of Independence. He joined D’Estaing’s squadron in Martinique in June 1779 and took part in the battle off Grenada and the attack on Savannah. On December 18 in front of Royal Fort of Martinique, he attacked the English squadron under Admiral Hyde-Parker who tried to bar the roads. The skill of the operation and the ferocity of the action earned him a letter of congratulation from the English admiral! Commanding in 1781 a division of 6 vessels and 3 frigates, he intercepted the English convoy under Admiral Rodney and destroyed 26 ships. He was named lieutenant-general of the naval armies in January 1782. He died in Brest on June 10, 1791. BkII:Chap8:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

La Noue, François de, called Bras de Fer

1531-1591. French Protestant general in the Wars of Religion. He fought at Jarnac (1569) and Moncontour (1569). In 1570 he lost his left arm in battle and had it replaced with an iron hook, whence he became known as Bras-de-fer (iron-arm), as well as the Huguenot Bayard. He took part in the Netherlands expedition sponsored by Gaspard de Coligny. His reputation for fairness led to his being sent by King Charles IX to negotiate (1572–73) with the defenders of La Rochelle. After the failure of these negotiations he gave up his commission and assumed the leadership of the Protestant forces in Western France (1574–78). He fought for the Dutch Protestants against the Spanish, but was captured (1580) and held prisoner for five years. At this time he wrote Discours politiques et militaires (1587, tr. 1587). He fought under King Henry IV at Arques and Ivry.

BkX:Chap1:Sec1 Captured by Spain in 1580 he was handed over to the Duke of Parma, Alexander Farnese, who imprisoned him in the castle of Limbourg until 1585. He died in Brittany, mortally wounded at the siege of Lamballe.

 

La Noue, Monsieur de, see Cordellier

 

La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de

1741-1788. The French explorer and naval officer who mapped the west coast of North America in 1786, and visited Easter Island and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). He was lost at sea while searching for the Solomon Islands (after reaching Australia’s Botany Bay). His ships were wrecked, and the survivors probably killed by the inhabitants of Vanikoro.

Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.

BkII:Chap8:Sec3 Chateaubriand saw him at Brest in 1783.

BkVI:Chap2:Sec1 BkIX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXV:Chap2:Sec1 His road being the road of death.

 

La Placelière, Mademoiselle de, see Lavigne

 

La Porte, Monsieur de, see Laporte

Minister under Louis XVI in 1789.

 

Laqueuille, Marquis de

1742-1810. Resigned as Deputy to organise the émigré Compagnie des gentilhommes auvergnats.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec1 Declared a traitor in December 1791.

 

La Reveillère-Lepaux

1753-1824. A member of the Directory, he invented a new religion of Theo-philanthropy.

BkXXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Rochefoucauld, Ambroise-Polycarpe de, Duc de Doudeauville

1765-1841. An émigré, he returned to live quietly on his estate at Montmirail. Made a Peer of France in 1815, he was named Director of the Postal Services (1822), then in 1824 Minister of the King’s Household.

BkXXVIII:Chap15:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 Opposes Villèle over the disbanding of the National Guard in April 1827.

BkXXVIII:Chap21:Sec1 He and his son Sosthènes who had married Montmorency’s only daughter, lived at Montmirail.

BkXLII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de

1613-1680. A French writer, who as head of an ancient family (in his youth he bore the title prince de Marcillac) opposed Richelieu and was later active in both Frondes. Wounded and disheartened, he made his peace (1652) and retired to his estates in Angoumois. Later he settled (c.1658) in Paris where he moved in the literary circle of Mme de Sablé, which included Mme de La Fayette, whose close friendship had an important influence on him. Although his Mémoires are interesting historically, La Rochefoucauld’s place in French literature is assured by his moral maxims and reflective epigrams, which are marked by lucidity and polished brilliance. A collection was published in 1665 as Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales. The fifth edition, which appeared in his lifetime, contained 504 maxims.

BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Loved by Madame de Longueville, he was also a friend of Madame de La Fayette, and Madame de Sévigné.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 His attempt to harm the Cardinal de Retz.

 

La Rochefoucauld, Sosthènes de

1785-1864. Son of Ambroise, Duke of Doudeauville, son-in-law of Mathieu de Montmorency, he was charged with the department of the fine arts, in the ministry of Charles X’s household until the end of the Restoration. He was thus in control of the museums, royal manufactures, the Conservatory and the five royal theatres: the Opera, the François, the Odeon, the Opera-Comique, and the Italiens. He became Duc de Doudeaville.

BkXXII:Chap 23:Sec1 An avowed Royalist, he was in 1814 aide-de-camp to General Dessoles.

 

La Rochejacquelein, Henri du Vergier, Comte de

1772-1794. A French commander, he was leader of the counter-revolutionary army in the Vendée. His legendary gallantry and tactical abilities were of little avail against superior Republican armies. He was killed in battle at Nouaillé.

BkV:Chap15:Sec3 BkXI:Chap3:Sec2 BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Rochejacquelein, Auguste du Vergier, Comte

1783-1868. Younger brother of Henri, he served with Napoleon then fought in the Vendée on behalf of the Duchesse de Berry, for which he was condemned to death but later acquitted.

BkXXI:Chap3:Sec1 At Borodino.

BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 At Versailles on the 31st of July 1830.

 

La Rochelle

A seaport on the Atlantic Ocean, it is the capital of the Charente-Maritime département. The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge, completed in 1988. Its harbour opens into a protected strait, the Pertuis d’Antioche. A 10th century foundation it became a Huguenot stronghold reduced by Cardinal Richelieu, and later a centre of the triangular trade.

BkXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Romana, Pedro Caro y Sureda, 3rd Marquis of

1761-1811. A Spanish officer he fought in the American Revolutionary War. King Charles IV, bullied and pressured by Napoleon, agreed in 1807 to provide a division to bolster the French army in Germany. La Romana was made commander of this ‘Division of the North’ and spent 1807 and 1808 performing garrison duties in Hamburg and later Denmark under Marshal Bernadotte. When the Peninsular War broke out, La Romana made plans to repatriate his men to Spain. That 9,000 men of the 14,000-strong division were able to board British ships on August 27 and escape to Spain was chiefly due to his subterfuge and organizational skills. La Romana drove the French from Asturias. In 1809, he was appointed to the Central Junta and served until 1810. He then returned to military operations under Wellington but died suddenly on January 23, 1811 without again seeing major action.

BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

La Rouërie, see Rouërie, Marquis de La

 

La Sablière, Marguerite née Hessein, de

1640-1693. The wife of Antoine Rambouillet, Sieur de la Sablière (1624-1679), a Protestant financier entrusted with the administration of the royal estates, her salon became a meeting-place for poets, scientists, men of letters, and courtiers of Louis XIV. About 1673 Madame de la Sablière received into her house La Fontaine, whom she sponsored for twenty years.

BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Somaglia, Giulio Maria, Cardinal

1744-1830. Created a Cardinal in 1795, he was expelled from Rome by the French in 1808. He was made Dean of the Sacred College in 1820, and was a zelante in the Conclave of 1823. Named Secretary of State by Leo XII he gave up his functions in June 1828.

BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Suze, Louis-François Chamillard, Marquis de

1751-1833. He was Maréchal des Logis to Louis XVIII.

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Tour-Maubourg, Marie-Victor-Nicolas de Fay, Marquis de

1768-1850. He was made a Peer under the Restoration, Ambassador to London in 1819, and Minister of War 1819-1821. He was also Governor of the Invalides. He was wounded at Borodino, and lost a leg at Wachau.

BkXXI:Chap6:Sec1 Commanded the cavalry at Smolensk in retreat in 1812.

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 At the Invalides during the July Revolution.

BkXXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned as a supporter of the Duchess de Berry.

BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned as a possible member of Charles X’s Chateaubriand-led government in 1833!

 

La Vallière, Louise Françoise de la Blaume Le Blanc, de

1644-1710. She was the mistress of King Louis XIV of France. Maid of honour to Louis’ sister-in-law, Henrietta of England, she became the king's mistress in 1661. She bore him four children, of whom two died in infancy. In 1667, by the same government act that legitimized her daughter, she was created duchess. She was replaced in the king’s affections by Mme de Montespan. In 1674 she retired to a Carmelite convent and became celebrated for her piety.

BkIV:Chap2:Sec2 Her final vows, and Bossuet’s sermon.

BkIV:Chap9:Sec2 BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 Madame de Vintimille might have lived in her company.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

La Vauguyon, Paul-François de Quelen, Duc de

1746-1818. He was a Minister under Louis XVI.

BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Replaced Montmorin as Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1789.

 

Labat, Jean-Baptiste, Père

1663-1738. A missionary in the Antilles, he was in Italy from 1709 to 1712 and wrote an account of his travels in Spain and Italy published in 1730.

BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec2 Described.

 

Labé, Louise, or Loyse Labbé

1526-1566. A poetess, she was born into a prosperous family of rope-makers. In 1555 Euvres de Louize Labe Lionnoize was published in Lyons: it contained a prose dedicatory epistle to a local noblewoman, a prose Debat de Folie et d'Amour, 24 sonnets (the first in Italian), and three elegies; the work concluded with 24 poems by other writers, praising Labe’s ability. The book was popular enough that three other editions came out within a year (the first "revues et corrigees par la dite Dame"), and it was widely-read enough to bring both praise from beyond Lyons and criticism for being immodest and ‘unwomanly.’ Sometime after 1556, she apparently left Lyon to live in the countryside. Her husband died in the early 1560s and she died, perhaps of the plague in 1566.

BkXVII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 Quoted.

 

Laborde, Comte Alexandre-Louis-Joseph de

1773-1842. He was a scholar, writer, Deputy for the Seine and Academician.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Attaché in Spain 1801-2. His Voyage historique et pittoresque en Espagne was published in 1807.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 In the matter of the marriage of Marie Louise he was the secret agent between Napoleon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prince of Schwarzenberg.

BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Attaché to the National Guard in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap12:Sec1 Sent to meet Schwarzenberg in 1814.

BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Named as Prefect of the Seine by the Municipal Commission, 29th July 1830.

 

Laborie, Antoine-Athanase Roux de

1769-1842. A Friend of the Bertin brothers, he was a shareholder in the Journal of Debates. Employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Talleyrand’s protection, he was accused by Fouché of leaking confidential information. He had to hide to escape the police and fled France for a time.

BkXIII:Chap8:Sec1 At Savigny in 1801.

BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Became Private Secretary to the Provisional Government in 1814.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 At Ghent in 1815.

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec1 General Lamothe was his brother-in-law.

 

Laborie (Roux-Laborie fils)

He was the son of Antoine.

BkXLII:Chap4:Sec1 His duel with Carrel on 2nd February 1833.

 

Labrador, Pedro Gomez Havela, Marquis de

1775-1850. Spanish Ambassador in Rome 1828, he left a volume of memoirs Mélanges sur la vie privée et publique du marquis de Labrador, par lui-même (Paris, 1849).

BkXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Lacépède, Bernard Germain Étienne de la Ville, Comte

1756-1825. A French naturalist, he won the favour of Buffon, who secured him a position at the Jardin du Roi (later the Jardin des Plantes). His best-known works deal with the oviparous quadrupeds, reptiles, fishes, and whales; they are frequently printed with Buffon’s works, which they supplement. Lacépède was active in politics and was exiled during the Reign of Terror. After his return he gave up scientific work for a political career and held several state offices. Napoleon appointed him Grand Chancellor.

BkXXI:Chap8:Sec1 Quoted.

BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Laclos, Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de

1741-1803. His father was a government official who was ennobled but without a title. Laclos joined the army and with the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, was transferred to north-eastern France. It was while stationed there that he published his first literary piece, a poem in a periodical in 1767. In 1769 he moved to Grenoble where he stayed until being garrisoned in Besançon in 1775. During this period he was promoted and published other minor verse. In December 1776 he became a freemason. The following year saw the sole performance in Paris of his comic opera, Ernestine, adapted from the tale of the same name by the successful novelist, Mme Riccoboni. It is possible that Laclos began writing his most famous work, Les Liaisons dangereuses in 1778. He was certainly engaged on the drafting of the novel while working on the fortifications of the island of Aix in 1779. To aid the composition of his novel, he was on leave in Paris in 1780 and 1781 where he began moves to have his work published. The first edition of the novel appeared in April 1782. In 1788 he entered the service of the Duke of Orléans and accompanied his employer to London in 1790. He engaged in revolutionary activity, using the power of his pen. He resigned from the army in 1791. In the thick of political in-fighting, he was arrested and then released in the spring of 1793, only to be incarcerated again in November. He expected to be guillotined, but was set free in December 1794. After miscellaneous activities in the succeeding years, Laclos was appointed an artillery general in 1800 under Napoleon, and fulfilled various military functions before dying in Italy.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned as involved in the amusements at Monceaux.

 

Lacretelle, Charles

1766-1855. Lacretelle the younger was journalist then historian, and wrote the first great History of the Revolution (1821-26). He was proscribed after Vendémiaire, and imprisoned after Fructidor. He published an account of his tribulations.

BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 His courage.

BkXXXI:Chap4:Sec1 He writes to Chateaubriand in 1829.

 

Lacretelle, Pierre-Louis

1751-1824. A French politician and writer, he practised as a barrister in Paris; and under the Revolution was elected as deputy in the Legislative Assembly. He belonged to the moderate party known as the Feuillants, but after the 10th of August 1792 he ceased to take part in public life. In 1803 he became a member of the Institute, taking the place of Laharpe. Under the Restoration he was one of the chief editors of the Minerve française; he wrote also an essay, Sur le 18 Brumaire (1799), some Fragments politiques et litteraires (1817), and a treatise Des parlis politiques et des factions de Ca pretendue aristocratie d’aujourd-hui (1819).

BkII:Chap3:Sec2 Mentioned as a lawyer.

 

Lacroix

A student of the École Polytechnique in 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Involved in the fighting of 29th July 1830.

 

Ladvocat, Pierre-François, known as Charles

1785-1854. A well-known Paris bookseller, then publisher, with premises in the Palais-Royal (having married the proprietress in 1817), who initiated public advertising of new books on placards around Paris. He moved subsequently to a fine house on the Rue Chabanais. The son of peasants, he had a flair for marketing, and a taste for luxury. He published Hugo, Delavigne, Lamartine and other Romantics, and many translations from English and German. He was bankrupted under Louis-Philippe and died in the Charity Hospital.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand sold him the rights to his complete works, for 550,000 francs, in March 1826. Thirty volumes duly appeared between June and December 1826 (others through to 1832). With Ladvocat in financial difficulties Chateaubriand agreed to a reduction, to 350,000 francs, in February 1827. In November 1828, Ladvocat sold the rights to Pourrat and Delandine for only 10,000 francs. Chateaubriand presumably lost about 200,000 francs on the original deal.

 

Lallemand, Père Jèrôme

1593-1673. A Jesuit missionary, he died at Quebec.

BkVII:Chap8:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Laensberg, Matthieu

1600-? A Liège mathematician and astrologer under whose name an almanac of prophecies and predictions was produced from 1626.

BkXXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 The almanac.

 

Laertes

Laertes, the son of Arcesius, was the king of Ithaca and the father of Odysseus.

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lafitau or Laffiteau, Joseph-François, Le Père

1681-1746. A Jesuit missionary and writer, he entered the Society in 1696, and the general, Tamburini, yielding to his entreaties, sent him to Canada in 1711. Appointed to the mission of Sault Saint-Louis (Caughnawaga), he made a thorough study of Iroquois character and usages, as a preparation to his great work ‘Mœures des Sauvages américains comparées aux mœurs des premiers temps’: published in 1724. It was then that he discovered ginseng, a root highly prized as a panacea in China and Tartary, one ounce selling for as high as three ounces of silver. This discovery created an excitement comparable to that caused later by the finding of gold in California and Australia; but the exportation of the root, after promising immense profits to Canadian trade, rapidly decreased, owing to over-production and inferiority of quality due to hasty and artificial desiccation. Lafitau’s treatise on ginseng (1718) drew public attention to this apparent source of prosperity. In 1717, he returned to France in the interests of the mission, chiefly to obtain authorization from Court to transfer the Iroquois settlement to its present superior site. He likewise pleaded for the repression of the liquor traffic. In spite of his wish to return to Canada, where his knowledge of Indian languages and customs rendered him so valuable that Father Julien Garnier wished him to have him recalled, he was retained in France. After Charlevoix, Lafitau was the most remarkable historian and naturalist ever sent to Canada by the Society of Jesus.

BkVII:Chap10:Sec1 His description of the Canadian Indians.

 

Lafitte-Clavé

A French officer who worked with Lazare Carnot.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Lafitte, Jacques

1767-1844. A French banker and politician, he became a partner in a Perregaux banking house in 1800 and head of the firm in 1804. As governor of the Bank of France (1814–19), he raised large sums of money for the provisional government in 1814 and for Louis XVIII during the Hundred Days. He saved Paris from a financial crisis in 1818. An early partisan of a constitutional monarchy under Louis-Philippe, he did much to secure Louis-Philippe's accession to the throne, and he briefly served as premier (1830–31) in the July Monarchy.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 Joint leader of the left-wing opposition in 1827.

BkXXXII:Chap4:Sec1 His arrest ordered but not carried out on 28th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Receives a students’ delegation on the 29th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Hosts a meeting of Deputies, and is appointed a member of the Municipal Commission on the 29th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap14:Sec1 A supporter of Louis-Philippe in July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap15:Sec1 At the Hôtel de Ville on the 31st of July. He was President of the Chamber of Deputies from 3rd August.

BkXXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXV:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 He advanced Chateaubriand money in 1832.

 

Lafontaine, Auguste

1759-1832. A novelist, descended from French refugees, and pastor at Halle, he wrote dozens of family novels, which were highly detailed, and was much appreciated in France during the Restoration.

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Laforest, Antoine-René, Comte de

1756-1846. Career diplomat and protégé of Talleyrand, he participated in the Congress of Luneville, then represented France at the Diet of Ratisbonne. He was plenipotentiary minister in Berlin from 1805-1807.

BkXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXVI:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lagarde, Pierre-François-Denis de

1769-? A former functionary in the Foreign Office, and Director of Censorship, he was the Commissioner-General of Police in Venice in 1806.

BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lagorce, Colonel

He was an adjutant at the Palace of Fontainebleau in 1813.

BkXXII:Chap2:Sec1 He carried communications between Napoleon and the Pope.

 

Lagrange, Joseph-Louis

1736-1813. He was a French mathematician and astronomer, of French and Italian descent. Before the age of 20 he was professor of geometry at the royal artillery school at Turin. With his pupils he organized (1759) a society from which the Turin Academy of Sciences developed. Among his early successes were his method of solving iso-perimetrical problems, on which the calculus of variations is based in part; his researches on the nature and propagation of sound and on the vibration of strings; and his studies on the libration of the moon and on the satellites of Jupiter. On the recommendation of Euler and D’Alembert, Frederick the Great invited him (1766) to succeed Euler as director of mathematics at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. During this time he wrote his chief work, Mécanique analytique, a treatment of mechanics based solely on algebra and the calculus and containing not a single diagram or geometric explanation. This was published (1788) in Paris, where he had been called by Louis XVI in 1787. In 1793 he became president of the commission on weights and measures; he was influential in causing the adoption of the decimal base for the metric system. A professor at the École polytechnique from 1797, he developed the use in teaching of the analytic method that he so skilfully employed in his research. He wrote Théorie des fonctions analytiques (1797) and Leçons sur le calcul des fonctions (1806), both based on his lectures. Under Napoleon, Lagrange was made senator and count; he is buried in the Panthéon. His contributions to the development of mathematics also include the application of differential calculus to the theory of probabilities and notable work on the solution of equations. In astronomy he is known for his calculations of the motions of planets.

BkXIII:Chap11:Sec2 His capitulation to Napoleon.

BkXXII:Chap3:Sec1 His death in 1813.

 

Laharpe, Jean-François

1739-1803. Poet, essayist and member of the Academy, he was already famous by the start of the Revolution, and supported it until he was arrested in 1794. After Thermidor, he was a leader of the anti-Jacobin reaction.

BkIV:Chap11:Sec1 BkIV:Chap12:Sec3 BkIV:Chap12:Sec4

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkV:Chap15:Sec2 Argued with Chateaubriand over his politics.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec2 His reaction to the invasion of the Tuileries in 1792.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand sent him a copy of the Essai.

BkXI:Chap3:Sec1 He reviewed Fontanes first verse favourably.

BkXI:Chap3:Sec1 He co-founded the Mémorial journal.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from Le Triomphe de la religion chrétienne, ou le Roi martyr.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 Celebrated Madame de Vintimille and Madame de Fezensac.

BkXIV:Chap1:Sec1 Converted in prison by Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre.

BkXIV:Chap3:Sec1 His death in February 1803. He had previously published Du Fanatisme dans la langue révolutionnaire. His poem on the Revolution was Le Triomphe (Published posthumously by Migneret in 1814): Chateaubriand quotes from Book XII, chapter V. He remarried at 68, with a Mademoiselle de Hatte-Longuerue, much younger than himself, but swiftly divorced in 1797.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Buried in the Vaugirard cemetery.

BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 His pamphlets in 1795.

 

Lainé, Joseph

1767-1835. Politician and magistrate, he was a Member of the Legislature under the Empire and of the Chamber of Deputies after the Restoration, chairing the latter 1814-16. Minister of the Interior 1816-18. He was a Member of the Chamber of Peers and of the Academy.

BkXV:Chap7:Sec2 Regarded by Bonaparte as an agent of England. 

BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 Presided over the Legislature.

BkXXII:Chap 24:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 President of the Chamber of Deputies in 1814-15. His agreement with Chateaubriand in 1815.

BkXXV:Chap6:Sec1 Buys a ticket in the lottery sale of Chateaubriand’s property in 1817.

BkXXV:Chap13:Sec1 Chateaubriand wishes to see him in government and works on his behalf in 1820.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXVIII:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand recommends him to the Dauphine.

 

Lais

4th century BC. A legendary hetaera or courtesan of ancient Greece she was born probably in Corinth. Another hetaera with the same name was Lais of Hyccara. Since ancient authors often confuse them the two are inextricably linked. The philosopher Aristippus (he twice mentions her) was one of her numerous lovers.

BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lajard, Pierre-Auguste

1757-1837. Minister of War from June 1792-August 1793, he emigrated to England. Returned under the Empire and became a Marshal under the Restoration.

BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s text is in error here. Narbonne dismissed Napoleon in December 1791 when he returned to Corsica. In April 1792 Napoleon became a lieutenant colonel second-class in the National Guard at Ajaccio. In July 1792 Lajard accepted Napoleon back as a captain in the army.

BkXIX:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lalage

She was a mistress of Horace, addressed in his Odes.

BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lalande, Joseph Jérôme Lefrançais de

1732-1807. A French astronomer, who under the direction of the French Academy of Science, he went to Berlin in 1751 to make observations on the parallax of the moon for comparison with those that Nicolas Lacaille was making at the Cape of Good Hope. He was admitted to the Berlin Academy, and in 1760 he became professor of astronomy in the Collège de France, holding the post for 46 years. In 1768 he became director of the Paris Observatory. The Lalande Prize, which he established in 1802, is awarded for the outstanding achievement in astronomy each year. His works include Traité d'astronomie (1764); Histoire céleste française (1801), including a catalog of over 47,000 stars; and Bibliographie astronomique (1802).

BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec3 BkXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 His Voyage d'un français en Italie (1769) is a valuable and detailed record of his travels in 1765–1766.

 

Lally-Tolendal, Thomas-Arthur O’Mullally, Baron de

1702-1766. Last Governor of the Indies, he was condemned to death in 1766 for high treason, but pardoned in 1788.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 His trial mentioned.

 

Lally-Tolendal, Trophime-Gérard, Marquis de

1751-1830. Son of Thomas, he obtained the rehabilitation of his father’s name in 1778, his father having been condemned to death in 1766 for high treason. He emigrated in 1790, returning in 1792 to assist in vain in the King’s escape.

BkV:Chap9:Sec1 He was one of those who met and harangued the King at the Hôtel de Ville on the 17th July 1789.

BkXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Occupied the house at 31 Rue Mirosmesnil, after Chateaubriand.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 A Minister without Portfolio in Ghent during the Hundred Days. His muse was the fervently royalist wife of the physician Charles, she later inspiring Lamartine.

BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 Named a Peer at the same time as Chateaubriand in 1815, he supported a liberal government.

BkXXVIII:Chap14:Sec1 On the 16th of January 1827, the Academicians voted to present an appeal to the king regarding a proposed law on the freedom of the Press, despite Lally-Tollendal’s objections. Charles X rejected the petition out of hand.

 

Lama, Grand

The Dalai Lama is the temporal and spiritual head of the Tibetan State (in exile since 1959). Its traditional religion is a form of Mahayana Buddhism, with deities, mandalas, and gurus, introduced in the 7th Century AD, which has surviving features of Bon shamanism.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec1 His entomologists.

 

Lamarque, Jean-Maximilien, General

1770-1832. Commander during the Napoleonic Wars who later became a member of French Parliament. He was a noted military patriot and orator. As an opponent of the Ancien Régime, he is known for his active suppression of Royalist and Legitimist activity. His death was also the catalyst of a Parisian uprising in June of 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in April 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap2:Sec1 His death from cholera led to an insurrection at his funeral on the 5th of June 1832. Victor Hugo dramatised the events in the fourth part of Les Miserables.

 

Lamartine, Alphonse Louis Marie de Prat, de

1790-1869. He was a French poet, novelist, and statesman. After a trip to Italy and a brief period in the army, Lamartine began to write and achieved immediate success with his first publication, Méditations poétiques (1820). Its musicality was developed in Harmonies (1830). His religious orthodoxy becomes a kind of pantheism in Jocelyn (1836) and La Chute d’un ange (1838). In politics, his idealism led him to embrace the principles of democracy, social justice, and international peace. His Histoire des Girondins (1847), a glorification of the Girondists, was immensely popular, and after the February Revolution of 1848 Lamartine briefly headed the provisional government and was a member of the executive committee that replaced it. His moderation soon cost him the support of both the right and the left wings of the revolutionists. He competed unsuccessfully for the presidency with Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (later Napoleon III). Lamartine left politics and devoted himself entirely to writing, spending much of the remainder of his life in a hopeless effort to repay the fantastic debts he had accumulated in his youth. His later prose works include the novel Graziella (1849) and Les Confidences (1852).

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 The reference is to an intervention of his in the Chamber of Deputies on the 26th of May 1840 regarding the return of Napoleon’s remains to France. ‘Je ne suis pas de cette religion napoléonienne…

BkXXV:Chap12:Sec1 The phrase used of the infant Duc de Bordeaux derives from Lamartine’s Ode on the Birth of the Duke of Bordeaux (written in Naples 1820, published 1822).

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXXXI:Chap4:Sec1 Lamartine was elected to the Academy on the 5th of November 1829.

 

Lambach, Austria

The old market town of Lambach lies in the Alpine foreland 15 miles north of the Traunsee and 6 miles southwest of the town of Wels, on the left bank of the River Traun at the spot where, having flowed down from the Salzkammergut, it turns eastward.

BkXLI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1833.

 

Lamballe, Brittany

A commercial town in Brittany, it lies between Dinan and Saint-Brieuc.

BkI:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lamballe, Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, Princesse de

1749-92. Devoted friend and favourite of Queen Marie Antoinette of France. Extremely unpopular, she was killed by a mob during the French Revolution in the September massacres (1792), and her head was displayed on a pike under the queen's windows.

BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 Imprisoned in La Force.

 

Lambesc, Charles-Eugène-Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Brionne, Prince de

1751-1825. Colonel of the Royal-Allemand Regiment. He fought in the army of the Bourbons, and later in the service of Austria.

BkV:Chap8:Sec2 His action at the Tuileries on the 12th July 1789.

 

Lambruschini, Luigi, Monsignor

1766-1854. Archbishop of Genoa 1819, then Papal Nuncio to Paris from 1827-1831. The July Monarchy asked for his recall because of his relationship with the Ultras. He was made a Cardinal in 1831 and Secretary of State in 1836.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap6:Sec1 He was involved in intrigue in 1829.

 

Lamennais, Abbé Félicité Robert de

1782-1854. In 1816, his Essay on indifference in matters of religion achieved a remarkable success. An ultramontane and one who denounced the secular despotism of Napoleon, he dared to criticise the Charter and to advocate the restoration of absolutism to bring about the reign of God and the freedom of the peoples on earth. A virulent polemicist, he lost no opportunity to stigmatise with bitter zeal the concessions made by the royal government and the cowardice of those clergy and bishops who were Cartesians, Gallicans and supporters of the Concordat. Eventually condemned by the Pope, he renounced formal religious convictions, and effectively died an apostate.

BkI:Chap4:Sec5 A native of Saint-Malo.

BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 From a Hymn to Poland inserted in Mickiewicz’s Books of the Polish Nation.

BkXXV:Chap9:Sec1 He collaborated with Chateaubriand on the Conservateur, in 1818.

BkXLII:Chap15:Sec1 He was fined and imprisoned for a year in December  1840 for his pamphlet Le Pays et le Gouvernement. Chateaubriand quotes from his pamphlet published in Septembver 1841, and written in gaol.

 

Lameth, Alexandre Théodore Victor, Comte de

1760-1829. A French soldier and politician, he served in the American War of Independence under Rochambeau, and in 1789 was a deputy to the States-General. In the Constituent Assembly he formed with Barnave and Adrien Duport a ‘Triumvirate’, which controlled the advanced left of the Assembly. He presented a famous report on the organization of the army, but is better known for his speech on February 28, 1791, at the Jacobin Club, against Honoré Mirabeau, whose relations with the court were suspect, and who was a personal enemy. However, after the flight to Varennes, Lameth became reconciled with the court. He served in the army but was accused of treason in 1792, fled the country, and was imprisoned by the Austrians. After his release he went into business with his brother Charles at Hamburg and did not return to France until the Consulate. Under the Empire he was made prefect successively in several departments, and in 1810 was created a baron. In 1814 he attached himself to the Bourbons, and under the Restoration was appointed prefect of Somme, deputy for Seine-Inférieure and finally deputy for Seine-et-Oise, in which capacity he was a leader of the Liberal opposition. He was the author of an important History of the Constituent Assembly (1828-1829).

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 Speaking in the Chamber of Peers in June 1815.

 

Lameth, Charles Malo François, de

1757-1832. A French politician and soldier, he was in the retinue of the Comte d'Artois (future King Charles X), and became an officer in a cuirassier regiment. He served in the American War of Independence, and was a deputy to the Estates-General of 1789. As the Assembly began to divide into factions, Lameth, a constitutional monarchist, was identified with the Feuillants. When the French Revolution became a Republic, he emigrated. He returned to France under the Consulate, and was appointed governor of Würzburg under the First Empire. In 1814, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant General. Like his brother Alexandre, after the Bourbon Restoration, Charles joined the Bourbon camp, succeeding Alexandre as deputy in 1829. In the final years of his life, he was nonetheless a noted supporter of the July Monarchy.

BkXXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Bonnay satirised him in a poem: ‘La Prise des Annociades’ regarding surveillance of the convent of the ‘Annonciades’ at Pontoise.

 

Lamoignon, Les

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 Examples of parliamentary magistrates.

 

Lamoignon, Auguste, Marquis de

1765-1845. A Councillor in the Parlement, he crossed to England during the Revolution. Mrs Lindsay was his mistress throughout the emigration. Returning to France he lived a quiet life in the Gironde.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Joined Mrs Lindsay on her return to Paris in May 1800.

 

Lamoignon, Christian de

1567-1636. A pupil of Cujas. Member of the Parlement of Paris.

BkII:Chap3:Sec2  Mentioned. Father of Guillaume.

 

Lamoignon, Christian, Vicomte de

1770-1827. The brother of Auguste, he served in the émigré army, and was wounded at Quiberon Bay. Having emigrated to England, he returned to France under the Consulate, and became the brother-in-law of Mathieu Molé. A Peer of France from 1815, he retired to his chateau at Méry-sur-Oise, before dying in Paris in 1827.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 A friend of Chateaubriand in London in 1798.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 With Chateaubriand at Richmond in the summer of 1799.

BkXII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 A returning émigré in Paris in 1801.

BkXXII:Chap12:Sec1 He helped to settle the articles of surrender in Paris in 1814.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand says that Christian introduced him to Madame Récamier, Chateaubriand having first seen her at Madame de Staël’s. This was presumably in 1805, since he did not meet her again for twelve years.

 

Lamoignon, Guillaume de, Marquis de Basville

1617-1677. Became in 1644 master of requests in the Parlement, took an active part in the Fronde of the Parlement against Mazarin. He became first president of the Parlement in 1658. Made Marquis de Basville in 1670.The great work which he did towards preparing the codification of French laws has made him famous. A distinguished member of the Society of the Holy Sacrament, he was greatly devoted to the Catholic cause.

BkII:Chap3:Sec2 Mention of his father, Christian.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Mention of his estate at Basville in Languedoc. His circle (entertained at the Hotel Lamoignon in Paris, where Malesherbes a member of the family was born) included Boileau, Madame de Sévigny, and Bourdalue.

 

Lamothe, Gourlet de, General

1772-1836. The brother-in-law of Laborie. He took part in the Malet conspiracy. He was re-appointed as a Lieutenant-General at the First Restoration.

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec1 In Roye in 1815.

 

Lamotte, Mademoiselle

A friend of Lucile.

BkXV:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lamour de Langégu, Pétronille, see Chateaubriand

 

Lampedusa, Island

The largest of the Pelagie Islands in the Mediterranean, 205 km from Sicily and 113 km from Tunisia. Politically and administratively Lampedusa is part of Italy, but geologically it belongs to Africa since the sea between the two is no deeper than 120 meters.

BkXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lance, Monsieur de

Colonel of the Regiment de La Fère at Auxonne in 1785.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 Colonel of Bonaparte’s regiment.

 

Lancellotti, Ottavio, 1st Prince of

1789-1852. Owner of the Palazzo Lancellotti, now no 18 Via Lancelotti, in Rome. He was created Prince in 1825.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lancellotti, Giuseppina Massimo, Princess

1799-1862. She was the daughter of Prince Camillo VII Massimo of Arsoli.

BkXIV:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Landau (Landau in der Pfalz), Germany

An autonomous city in the Rhineland Palatinate, Landau was occupied by the French from 1680 to 1815, when it was one of the Décapole, the ten free cities of Alsace, and received its modern fortifications from Louis XIV’s military architect Vauban, making the little city (population in 1789 was still only approximately 5,000) one of Europe’s strongest citadels. After the Hundred Days Landau was granted to Bavaria in 1816 and became the capital of one of the thirteen Bezirksämter (counties) of the Bavarian Rheinpfalz.

BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec3 BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec2  Traded at the Congress of Vienna. Note Maximilian I divided Germany into ten ‘circles’ (Austria, Burgundy, the Lower Rhine, Bavaria, Upper Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, the Upper Rhine, Westphalia, and Lower Saxony)

 

Lander, Richard Lemon

1804-1834. An English explorer of West Africa, the son of a Truro innkeeper, he investigated the Niger Delta and the Niger River in 1830-1831, and died there in 1834.

BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Landsturm

The Landsturm was the Prussian and Austrian equivalent of the Levée en masse, or general levy of all men capable of bearing arms and not included in the other regularly organized forces, standing army or second line formations, of Continental nations. It was introduced in Prussia in 1813.

BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 The levy of 1813.

 

Langres, Pierre de

Possibly the seventeenth century inquisitor (fl. 1612).

BkI:Chap5:Sec3 His religious fervour.

 

Lanjamet, Chevalier de, of the Order of Malta

BkI:Chap1:Sec5. Mentioned as assisting in the granting of Chateaubriand’s application to enrol in the order of Malta.

 

Lanjuinais, Jean Denis, Comte

1753-1827. A French Politician and lawyer, he developed moderate, even reactionary views, becoming one of the fiercest opponents of the Mountain, though he never wavered in his support of republican principles. He refused to vote for the death of Louis XVI, alleging that the nation had no right to despatch a vanquished prisoner. He was President of the upper house during the Hundred Days. Together with G. J. B. Target, J. E. M. Portalis and others he founded under the empire an academy of legislation in Paris, himself lecturing on Roman law. Closely associated with oriental scholars, and a keen student of oriental religions, he entered the Academy of Inscriptions in 1808. After the Bourbon restoration, Lanjuinais consistently defended the principles of constitutional monarchy, but most of his time was given to religious and political subjects. Besides many contributions to periodical literature he wrote, among other works, Constitutions de la nation francaise (1819); Appreciation du projet de loi relatif aux trois concordats (1806, 6th ed. 1827), in defence of Gallicanism; and Etudes biographiques et littraires sur Antoine Arnauld, P. Nicole et Jacques Necker (1823).

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 BkXXII:Chap15:Sec3 Used the common linguistic style of the age, as a defender of freedom.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec1 President of the Chamber of Representatives in 1815.

 

Lannes, Jean, Duc de Montebello, Marshal of France

1769-1809. A Marshal of France, he fought under Napoleon in the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, supported his coup of 18th Brumaire, and distinguished himself at Montebello, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Zaragoza. Napoleon considered Lannes one of his ablest generals and named him duke of Montebello. Lannes was killed at the battle of Essling.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Went with Napoleon on the Egyptian Campaign.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 Wounded in the head at Acre in 1799.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Supported Murat at Aboukir in July 1799.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Returned to France with Napoleon in 1799.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 Lannes beat the Austrians at Montebello in the province of Pavia on 9th June 1800. He was then in action at Marengo on the 14th June.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 Died after losing a leg to a cannonball at Aspern-Essling.

 

Lannes, Napoléon-Auguste, Comte then Duc de Montebello

1801-1874. The son of Marshal Lannes, he was made a Peer in 1827, and arrived in Rome in November 1828 with Madame Salvage. He pursued a diplomatic career.

BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Attaché to the Rome Embassy in 1829.

 

Lansdowne, Henry Charles Keith Petty Fitz-Maurice, 5th Marquis

1780-1863. A British politician and Irish peer who served successively as Governor General of Canada, Viceroy of India, Secretary of State for War, and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He had the distinction of holding senior positions in both Liberal and Conservative governments.

BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand goes to an evening at his house in 1822.

 

Lante, Duchess

She was a member of the Roman nobility in 1828.

BkXXIX:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lantier, Étienne François de

1734-1826. Author of Voyages d’Antenor en Grèce et en Asie, avec des Notions sur l'Égypte, Manuscrit Grec trouvé à Herculanum (1798). Lantier’s work of fiction was a tremendous popular success, and of considerable influence. Basically it is an imitation of Barthelemy’s Anacharsis but lacks his detailed knowledge. For this reason Lantier’s work was referred to as ‘Anacharsis des Boudoirs’.

BkXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Laocoon

He was a Trojan priest who tried to warn the Trojans of the Greek threat. See Virgil’s Aeneid II.

BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 The sculpture of Laocoon and his sons, found in 1506 in Rome, and now in the Vatican is Hellenistic early 1st century.

 

Laon, France

A city and commune of France, capital of the Aisne département, the town was of strategic importance in Roman times. During the Hundred Years’ War it was attacked and taken by the Burgundians, who gave it up to the English, to be retaken by the French after the consecration of Charles VII. Under the League, Laon took the part of the Leaguers, and was taken by Henri IV. During the campaign of 1814 Napoleon tried in vain to dislodge Blücher from it in the Battle of Laon.

BkXXIII:Chap14:Sec1 Napoleon’s army assembled there during the Hundred Days.

 

Lapanouze (La Panouse), César, Comte de

1764-1836. A Paris banker he was Deputy of the Seine 1822-1827. Named a Peer in 1827, he retired to his estate (Thoiry) in the Dordogne after the July Revolution.

BkXXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 The villa was the villa Bartholoni, demolished in 1920 to make way for the Palais des Nations.

 

Laplace, Pierre-Simon, Marquis de

1749-1827. The French astronomer and mathematician, went to Paris at 18, and proved his gift for mathematical analysis to Jean le Rond d’Alembert. He was made professor of mathematics in the École militaire de Paris. He had a seat in the senate (1799) and became its vice president and (1803) chancellor. He was elected to the French Academy in 1816. He investigated the variations of the moon's motions, especially as affected by the eccentricity of the earth's orbit; the inequalities in the motions of Jupiter and Saturn; the motion of the satellites of Jupiter; the aberration in the movements of comets; and the theory of the tides. With J. L. Lagrange he established Newton’s theory of gravitation. The results of his researches were published in his famous Mécanique céleste (1799–1825). In the more popular work, Exposition du système du monde (1796), a summary of the history of astronomy is included. This work contains also a statement of the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system. His Théorie des attractions des sphéroides et de la figure des planètes (1785) introduced ‘Laplace's coefficients’ and the potential function, two means of applying analysis to physical problems. The Théorie analytique des probabilités (1812), a mathematical classic, was followed by Essai philosophique sur les probabilités (1814).

BkXIII:Chap11:Sec2 Became a supporter of Napoleon.

 

Laporte

Minister under Louis XVI.

BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Replaced La Luzerne as Minister of Marine in 1789.

 

Laporte, Marie-François-Sébastien-Christophe Delaporte, called

1760-1823. Member of the Convention. Under the Consulate retired to practise law at Lure.

BkXIX:Chap9:Sec2 After 9th Thermidor (27th July 1794) he sat in the Thermidorean Convention. Active at Lyons.

 

Lapoype (or La Poype), Jean-François Cornu, Marquis and General

1758-1851. A Revolutionary, and Imperial general, his wife was Fréron’s sister. He fought at Marengo.

BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 Involved in the siege of Toulon in 1793.

 

Larcanowitz, Prince Michael

Russian noble in 1812.

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec3 Mentioned.

 

Lares

Beneficent Roman spirits, they watched over the household, fields, public areas etc. Each house had a Lararium where the image of the Lar was kept. The Lares are usually coupled with the Penates the gods of the larder. They represented the family and moved where the family hearth moved.

BkXII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lariboisière, Jean Ambroise Baston, Comte de

1759-1812. A Napoleonic General, he was killed at Konisberg.

BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Larive, (Jean Mauduit)

1747-1827. An actor, he commenced his career in 1770, famously playing Orestes in Iphigénie in 1775. He was arrested and released in 1793, and then toured the provinces, returning to Paris but retiring in 1800 due to Talma’s dominance of the theatre. In 1804 he opened a school for speech-training. In 1806 he was employed by Joseph, King of Naples, returning to France in 1808. He retired to Montlignon (Val d'Oise) where he became mayor, dying there in 1827.

BkIV:Chap11:Sec1 Acted at the Théâtre-Français.

 

Larivière, Pierre-François Henri

1761-1838. A royalist agent in London, a collaborator of Peltier’s. He had been banished after Fructidor.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Armand was transmitting letters to him.

 

Larrey, Dominique-Jean, Baron

1766-1842. Chief Surgeon of the Grand Army, he is regarded by many as the most outstanding surgeon of the Napoleonic era and one of the founders of military surgery. When war broke out in 1792 he became assistant surgeon to the French army on the Rhine. He was the first to take first aid treatment to casualties on the battlefield with the introduction of ambulances and introduced the concept of triage in the evacuation of his patients. He saw service in Corsica and Spain before becoming professor of surgery at the medical school at Val-de-Grace. Larrey accompanied Napoleon on his expeditions to Egypt, Palestine and Syria and in 1805 was appointed Surgeon-in-Chief to the French army. He followed Napoleon to Germany, Poland and Moscow, and in 1810 he was made a Baron. At Waterloo he was shot and left for dead. He was eventually captured by the Prussians and sentenced to death. Having been recognised by the Prussian Field Marshall, Blucher, he was freed and given safe passage to Belgium having earlier saved the life of Blucher’s son.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec1 A witness to the atrocity at Jaffa, related in his account of the Expedition to the East (1803).

 

Larrey, Félix-Hippolyte, Baron

1808-1895. The son of Dominique-Jean, he was a surgeon at the Gros-Caillou hospital in Paris in 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand confuses him with his father.

 

Las Cases, Emmanuel Augustin-Dieudonné-Joseph, Comte de

1766-1842. The French historian who accompanied Napoleon into exile on St. Helena where the emperor dictated to him a part of his Memoirs. His famous Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (tr. 1823) is a primary source, although not always an accurate one, for Napoleon’s last years and his judgment of himself. The Mémorial became something of a bible to Napoleon-worshippers.

BkXVI:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand cites Chapter 11 of the Memorial (20th November 1816).

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers again to the Memorial where Las Cases derides the foolish legends of Napoleon’s birth.

BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXI:Chap5:Sec3 Las Cases quoted.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec3 BkXXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Las Cases referred to.

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 Memorial, 5th March 1816.

BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 Accompanied Napoleon to St Helena in 1815.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 Compelled to leave St Helena in December 1816, after corresponding with Lucien, he stayed in forced residence at the Cape until 10th August 1817.

 

Las Cases, Emmanuel

1800. Son of Emmanuel.

BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 Accompanied his father to St Helena.

 

Lasalle, Joseph-Henri

1759-1833. Former professor of statistics at the Collège de France, he was a member of the Paris police bureau from November 1798 to June 1799. He was on the commission in charge of émigrés after the 18th Brumaire (9th November 1799) when Bonaparte came to power. He was a collaborator on the Journal des Débats.

BkXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him at Mrs Lindsay’s house in May 1800.

 

Lasaudre for Le Fer de la Saudre, Pierre et François de

Wealthy merchants of Saint-Malo in the eighteenth century.

BkV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned. Their luxurious château, Bonaban (at La Gouesnière), the building of which started in 1776.

 

Lassagne

An assumed identity of Chateaubriand’s, that of a Swiss clockmaker from Neuchâtel.

BkXII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s pseudonym on his false passport in 1800. The principality of Neuchâtel was under Prussian jurisdiction. The passport was delivered on the 21st April by the Baron de Kloest, and gave Chateaubriand’s height as 1.62 metres.

BkXIII:Chap3:Sec2 Chateaubriand obtained a document to support his false identity at the Prussian embassy in Paris, and obtained his permit to stay on Tuesday the 13th May 1800.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand was removed from the list of émigrés who had fought against the Republic in July 1801. He was helped by Madame de Staël and Madame Bacciochi, as well as by Fouché’s attitude.

BkXIII:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s sister first sought him out under that name.

 

Latapie, Colonel

An adventurer, he contemplated abducting Napoleon from St Helena in 1817.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Latil, Jean-Baptiste-Marie, Cardinal, Comte then Duc de

1761-1839. Archbishop of Rheims from 1824, he was a Cardinal from 1826, and a moderate. He was chaplain to Charles X from 1804, and joined him in exile in England.

BkXXX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap6:Sec1

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 He arrives at the Conclave of 1829.

BkXXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 A member of the Prague ‘triumvirate’.

BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 At dinner in the Hradschin Palace.

BkXXXVIII:Chap4:Sec1 Unpopular with Henri.

BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Latinus, King

The King of Latium is a character in Virgil’s Aeneid.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Latouche, Hyacinthe-Joseph Alexandre Thabaud de, known as Henri de

1785-1851. The French poet and novelist is known for his publication of Andre Chénier (in 1819) and early encouragement of George Sand. (His family name is also spelt ‘de la Touche’ and ‘Delatouche’.) The Constitutionnel was suppressed in 1817 by the government for an obscure political allusion in an article by Latouche. He then undertook the management of the Mercure du XIXe siècle, and began a bitter warfare against the monarchy. After 1830 he edited Le Figaro, and spared neither the liberal politicians nor the romanticists who triumphed under the monarchy of July. The last twenty years of his life were spent in retirement at Aulnay.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 The reference is to his Republican liberalism and probably to his novel Fragoletta (1829).

 

Lauderdale, James Maitland, 8th Earl

1759-1839. Member of Parliament (1780) rose to the House of Lords after acceding to the Earldom of Lauderdale on the death of his father. He was renowned for his hostility and temper and adopted a radical stance, for example supporting the French Revolution and indeed trying to negotiate a peace treaty with France in the early years of the 19th C. He was created Baron Lauderdale of Thirlestane in 1806. He was also a noted economist, writing an Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (1804).

BkXII:Chap5:Sec3 Chateaubriand heard him speak.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec3 Negotiator in Paris in 1806.

 

Launay, Bernard-René Jordan, Marquis de

1740-1789. Governor, and son of a Governor, of the Bastille.

BkV:Chap8:Sec2 His death after the storming of the Bastille.

 

Launay de la Bliardière, David-Joseph-Marie

b.1766. Son of Gilles.

 

Launay de la Bliardière, Gilles-Marie de

Tobacco-bonder at Combourg.

 

Laura de Noves

1310-1348. The wife of Hugues II de Sade, and the possible identity of the lady celebrated in Petrarch’s sonnets. He first saw her in the Church of Sainte-Claire in Avignon (April 6th 1327).

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 Her reputed tomb (1348) in the Church of the Cordeliers (mostly destroyed 1806) in Avignon, supposedly opened by Maurice Scève in 1533. 

 

Laurent Giustiniani (San Lorenzo Giustiniani) Saint

1381-1456. He was the first patriarch of Venice.

BkXXXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lauriston, Marquis de, Marshal of France

1768-1828. French soldier and diplomatist, he became brigadier of artillery in 1795. Resigning in 1796 he was brought back into the service in 1800 as aide-de-camp to Napoleon with whom as a cadet Lauriston had been on friendly terms. In 1805, having risen to the rank of general of division, he took part in the war against Austria. He occupied Venice and Ragusa in 1806, was made governor-general of Venice in 1807, took part in the Erfurt negotiations of 1808, was made a count, served with the emperor in Spain in 1808-1809 and held commands under the viceroy Eugene Beauharnais in the Italian campaign and the advance to Vienna in the same year. At the battle of Wagram he commanded the guard artillery in the famous ‘artillery preparation’ which decided the battle. In 1811 he was made ambassador to Russia; in 1812 he held a command in the Grande Army and won distinction by his firmness in covering the retreat from Moscow. He commanded the V army corps at Liitzen and Bautzen and the V and XI in the autumn campaign, falling into the hands of the enemy in the disastrous retreat from Leipzig. He was held a prisoner of war until the fall of the empire, and then joined Louis XVIII, to whom he remained faithful in the Hundred Days. His reward was a seat in the house of peers and a command in the royal guard. In 1817 he was created marquis and in 1823 marshal of France. During the Spanish War he commanded the corps which besieged and took Pamplona.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 At Wagram.

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 Sent as Ambassador to St Petersburg in 1811.

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec3 Sent to Kutuzov in 1812.

 

Lausanne

A city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman), and facing Évian-les-Bains (France) and with the Jura hills to its north, it is located some 37 miles northeast of Geneva.

BkXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 The Chateaubriands there May to July 1826.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 The Chateaubriands were there 20th-24th September 1828.

BkXXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in September 1833.

 

Lautrec, Odet de Foix, Vicomte de, Marshal of France

1485-1528. Hero of the wars of Louis XII, then Francis I, in Italy, his brother Thomas appears in Chateaubriand’s tale of Le Dernier Abencérage; his sister Françoise de Foix, was the Countess of Chateaubriand loved by Francis I.

BkXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned as a flower of chivalry.

BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2  His victory at Ravenna in 1512.

 

Lautrec de Saint-Simon

A noble, the friend of Mirabeau the Younger.

BkV:Chap13:Sec1 At the National Assembly.

 

Lauzun, Armand-Louis de Gontaut-Biron, Duc de, then Duc de Biron

1747-1793. He took part in the American Revolution, with his Hussars de Lauzun, under Rochambeau. He led at Yorktown in 1781. Appointed to the States-general he embraced the Revolution. A Lieutenant-general in 1792, he ordered the armies of Ouest against those of the Vendée in 1793. Accused of treason, he was guillotined on December 31st 1793.

BkII:Chap3:Sec2 Seen by Chateaubriand at the camp at Saint-Malo.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 His power waning.

BkV:Chap15:Sec3 BkXII:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 His mansion in Montrouge.

 

Laval, Agnès de

She was the second wife of Geoffroy IV de Chateaubriand.

BkI:Chap1:Sec6 Chateaubriand claims her as the grand-daughter of the Count of Anjou and Mathilde, daughter of Henry I.

 

Laval, Duc de, see Montmorency, Anne-Pierre-Adrien de

 

Lavalette, Madame

The wife of Hyacinthe.

BkXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand staying with her in October 1812.

 

Lavalette, Hôtel de, Paris

The house at 2 Quai des Celestins, built in 1671.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Owned by Hyacinthe de Lavalette.

BkXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in October 1812.

 

Lavalette, Hyacinthe de

Ex cup-bearer in the Royal Palace.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Owner of the Hôtel where Chateaubriand lived during his visits to Paris prior to the Restoration.

BkXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand staying with him in October 1812.

 

Lavalette, Antoine-Marie Chamans, Comte de

1769-1830. Aide-de-Camp to Bonaparte, he married Emilie de Beauharnais (1781-1855) niece of Josephine in 1798. He was a Councillor of State, and Minister of Posts under Napoleon. Condemned to death after the Hundred Days, he made a daring escape from the Conciergerie, by exchanging clothes with his wife, eventually reaching Bavaria.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec3 His escape was aided by Sir Robert Wilson.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 Part of the intrigue of the escape from Elba.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 With Napoleon after the Hundred Days.

 

Lavandier, Maitre Noël Le

The local chemist at Combourg, he was apothecary-surgeon there from 1751.

BkII:Chap4:Sec3 Mentioned.

 

Lavarde

La Pointe de La Varde, a headland near Saint-Malo. The fort there was rebuilt in 1748.

BkIII:Chap14:Sec2 A childhood haunt of Chateaubriand.

 

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

1741-1801. Poet and physiognomist, he was born in Zurich. His patriotic conduct during the French occupation of Switzerland brought about his tragic death. On the taking of Zürich by the French in 1799, Lavater was shot by an infuriated grenadier; he died over a year later, after long sufferings borne with great fortitude.

BkXXXV:Chap18:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lavergne, Léonce Gilhaud de

1809-1880. Economist, Senator, and Member of the Academy of Sciences, he assisted at Madame de Recamier’s in a reading of sections of Chateaubriand’s Memoirs in 1834.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 Mentioned.

 

Lavigne, Alexis-Jacques-Buisson de

Father-in-law of Chateaubriand. Director of the Compagnie des Indes at Lorient.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Lavigne, Céleste de, see Chateaubriand, Céleste Buisson de Lavigne, Vicomtesse de

Wife of Chateaubriand.

 

Lavigne, Céleste Rapion de la Placelière, Madame Buisson de

Wife of Alexis. Mother-in-law of Chateaubriand.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Lavigne, François-André Buisson de

Son of Jacques. Uncle by marriage of Chateaubriand.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Lavigne, Jacques-Pierre-Guillaume Buisson de

1713-1793. Ship’s captain for the Compagnie des Indes. Decorated for actions against the English in the Seven Years’ War, then named Commander of the port of Lorient for the King, and ennobled by Louis XVI. He retired to Saint-Malo, his birthplace, where he lived with his grand-daughter Céleste in a house facing the port of Dinan, now 10 Rue d’Orléans, which Madame de Chateaubriand sold in 1804.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 Chateaubriand’s wife’s grandfather.

 

Lavillatte, Joseph Bouyonnet de

1780-1858. A Royalist he was imprisoned at Vincennes until 1810 following the Pichegru conspiracy. He was a grenadier officer in the Royal Guard after the Restoration and later became the Duc de Bordeaux’s First Valet of the Chamber. He retired to his native Auvergne at the end of 1833.

BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 In Prague in May 1833.

BkXXXVII:Chap6:Sec1 Described.

BkXLI:Chap5:Sec1 Waiting to leave Prague.

 

Laville de Villastellone, Comte Gaëtan Joseph Prosper César de

1775-1848. He was from Piedmont, an Italian (naturalised Frenchman) Napoleonic General, aide-de-camp to Bessieres at Aspern-Essling who also fought at Wagram. He was later Secretary General to the Minister of War during the Hundred Days.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lavinia

The daughter of King Latinus is a character in Virgil’s Aeneid.

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Law, John

1671-1729. The Scottish economist believed money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself, and that national wealth depended on trade. He is said to have been responsible for the wide-spread adoption of paper money or bills. He became Controller General of Finances in France and set up the Royal Bank. In August 1717, he bought the Mississippi Company, to help the French colony in Louisiana. Law’s pioneering note-issuing bank was at first extremely successful but later collapsed causing an economic crisis in France and across Europe. The speculation ‘bubble’ based on over-valued Lousiana land burst in 1720 when opponents of the financier attempted en masse to convert their notes into coin. By the end of 1720 Philippe II dismissed Law, who then fled from France.

BkXXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 Law subsequently moved between London and Venice where he contracted pneumonia and died a poor man in 1729.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 A protégé of the Duc d’Orléans.

 

Laya, Jean-Louis

1761-1833. Academician and former playwright, known for his Amis des lois (1793) who taught literature.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Armand was transmitting royalist letters to him.

 

Laibach (Lyublyana)

The Congress of Laibach was a conference of the allied sovereigns or their representatives, held as part of the so-called Concert of Europe, which was the decided attempt of the Great Powers to settle international problems through discussion and collective weight rather than on the battlefield. The Congress was held in Ljubljana (Laibach is the German name of the city), in what is now Slovenia but was then a part of Austrian Empire, from January 26 until May 12, 1821.

BkXXVII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lazarus

The brother of Mary of Bethany, who was raised from the dead, see John XI.

BkXV:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned. Chateaubriand quotes John XI:44

 

Lazarini, Alessandro

Not identified. (Gregorio Lazzarini 1655-1730 was a noted Venetian Painter).

BkXXXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Le Borgne, Guy

He was a seventeenth century genealogist.

BkI:Chap1:Sec3 A source of information regarding Chateaubriand’s family.

 

Le Chapelier, se Chapelier

 

Le Corvaisier, Julien

Tax-collector at Combourg.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Le Douarin de Trevelac

A gentleman of the neighbourhood of Combourg.

BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Signatory to Chateaubriand’s father’s death certificate.

 

Le Gobien, Charles, Le Père

1671-1708. French Jesuit and founder (in 1702) of the famous collection of ‘Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangéres par quelques missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jésus’ one of the most important sources of information for the history of the Catholic missions. The first eight series were by Pére le Gobien, the latter ones by Fathers Du Halde, Patouillet, Geoffroy, and Maréchal. The collection was printed in thirty-six volumes (Paris, 1703-76).

BkVII:Chap10:Sec1 His description of the Canadian Indians.

 

Le Gobbien

A school friend of Chateaubriand’s at Dol College.

BkII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Le Havre

The port in northern France in the Seine-Maritime department, is on the English Channel, at the mouth of the Seine.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec1 The first battalion of Chateaubriand’s regiment was stationed there.

BkVIII:Chap7:Sec1Chateaubriand set out for Le Havre when returning from America, on 10th December 1791. He landed on the 2nd January 1792.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s mother cleared his debts allowing him to leave Le Havre.

BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Madame de Longueville took ship from there in 1650.

BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Suggested as a refuge for Louis XVIII in 1815, and by Chateaubriand for the later Charles X.

BkXXIV:Chap16:Sec1 Napoleon’s remains landed there in 1840.

 

Le Lavandier, see Lavandier

 

Le Motha, for Lemotheux, Captain Armand

1795-1830. He was a Captain of Carabineers in July 1830 in Paris.

BkXXXII:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lemoyne, Lemoine Saint-Paul

1789-1873. A French sculptor, he settled in Rome in 1825, and worked in the style of Canova. He carried out a number of neo-classical funerary works.

BkXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 His work on the Poussin monument in 1829.

 

Lenormant Fils

Lenormant, the younger, was Chateaubriand’s publisher in Paris. (He and his father at various times had premises at 17 and 42 Rue des Prêtres Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, and at 8 Rue de Seine near the Pont des Arts). La Maison Lenormant and then Lenormant Fils edited and published all Chateaubriand’s works from Les Martyrs in 1809 to the Mémoire sur la captivité de Mme la duchesse de Berry in 1832.

BkXXIII:Chap6:Sec1 He reprinted Chateaubriand’s report as a pamphlet: Rapport sur l’état de la France, in Paris in 1815.

BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 He printed La Monarchie selon la Charte in 1816.

BkXXV:Chap9:Sec1 He printed the Conservateur from the 8th of October 1818 to the 30th of March 1820. It had a stable circulation of about six thousand copies.

BkXXXII:Chap9:Sec1 His premises mentioned at 8 Rue de la Seine, 30th July 1830. They lay on the route from the Palais Royal to the Luxembourg (via the Rue de Rivoli, the Rue de l’Amiral de Coligny, the Quai du Louvre, the Pont des Arts, the Quai Malaquais, the Rue de Seine, and the Rue de Tournon).

 

Le Plessis, see Chateaubriand

 

Le Plessis-l’Épine

A village in Brittany, it was part of the titled estates of Chateaubriand’s father.

BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Le Sage, Alain-René

1668-1747. A French novelist and dramatist, his masterpiece, Gil Blas de Santillane (1715–35), is a rambling story in the style of Spanish picaresque romances, though unlike them in conception. It was a major influence in the development of the realistic novel. Smollett drew heavily on it, especially in Roderick Random. Of Le Sage’s lesser novels, Le Diable boiteux (1707) is an adaptation of a Spanish novel, and Le Bachelier de Salamanque (1736, tr. 1737) is an imitation of Gil Blas. Le Sage made his living by writing light pieces for the theatres of Paris; his best dramatic work is Turcaret (1709), a comedy of character, which bitterly satirizes tax farmers and the world of finance in general.

BkX:Chap5:Sec1 BkX:Chap7:Sec1 Gil Blas mentioned.

 

Le Sillon

The ‘Furrow’, a causeway connecting Saint-Malo to the mainland, 650feet long and originally 46 feet wide, but now three times that width.

BkI:Chap3:Sec4 Mentioned.

 

Le Sueur

1617-1655. He was the son of Cathelin Le Sueur, a turner and sculptor in wood, who placed his son with Vouet, in whose studio he rapidly distinguished himself. Admitted at an early age into the guild of master-painters, he left them to take part in establishing the academy of painting and sculpture, and was one of the first twelve professors of that body.

BkXVII:Chap5:Sec1 His famous series of the ‘Life of St Bruno,’ was executed in the cloister of La Grande-Chartreux. These last have a more personal character than anything else which Le Sueur produced, and much of their original beauty survives in spite of injuries and restorations and removal from the wall to canvas.

 

Lear, King

A mythical British King (Leir). The protagonist in Shakespeare’s tragedy of that name.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec3 His madness.

 

Lebeschu, Mathilde

She was the Duchesse de Berry’s maidservant who had pretended to be the Duchess when the Carlo-Alberto, carrying the Duchess, was boarded and searched in April 1832 in the port of La Ciotat, near Marseille. Those captured on board were tried at Montbrison between February 25th and March 9th 1833. Various of those acquitted joined Marie de Berry at Ferrara.

BkXL:Chap4:Sec1 In Ferrara, in September 1833.

 

Lebon, Guislain-François-Joseph

1765-1795. A defrocked priest, and a member of the National Convention and the Committee of General Security, he is best remembered for his activities of 1793-1794, when he was representative on mission to the departments of the Pas-de-Calais and the Nord, where he organized the agencies of revolutionary government under the Law of 14 Frimaire (4 December 1793), and applied its principles with energy and zeal. During the Thermidorian Reaction, he was imprisoned for several months, tried for terrorism, and guillotined at Amiens on 16 October 1795.

BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Tried in 1795.

BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 A revolutionary priest.

 

Lebrun, Marie-Louise-Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Madame

1755-1842. French portrait painter; pupil of her father, Louis Vigée, she was influenced by Greuze. Summoned to Versailles in 1779 to paint Marie Antoinette, she embarked upon a long and successful career. She became painter and friend to the queen; two of her best-known portraits are of Marie Antoinette—one holding a rose and the other with her two children (Versailles). At the outbreak of the Revolution, she escaped to Italy and in the following years visited Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Dresden, and London, finding acclaim and prominent sitters everywhere. Her representations show great elegance and facility of execution. Well known are her portraits of Mme de Staël, C. J. Vernet, and two of herself and her daughter (Louvre). She is also highly esteemed for her work in pastel.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Her portrait of Madame de Beaumont.  This may be the portrait of 1788 (in private collection, Paris). There was an earlier portrait of 1776, when Lebrun also painted Pauline’s mother.

 

Lebrun, Ponce-Denis Écouchard

1729-1807. Called Lebrun-Pindare. French poet, noted for his odes and epigrams. Past sixty, he paid poetic court to Lucile, with Julie’s agreement in 1789/90.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec3 Supported by his friend Ginguené who later (1811) edited his complete works.

BkXIII:Chap10:Sec1 An epigram of his against Laharpe’s attempts to diminish Corneille’s fame.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 Used the common linguistic style of the age.

BkXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 A quotation from his Ode ‘To Monsieur Buffon, on his detractors’, the third line altered by Chateaubriand.

 

Lech, River

From its source in the Alps to the point where it flows into the Danube, the River Lech flows through three states, Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Bavaria.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec1 Napoleon addressed the Army on the bridge over the Lech on the 12th October 1805.

 

Leczinska, Marie-Catherine-Sophie-Felicité, Queen of France

1703-1768. The Daughter of Stanislas Leczinski (King of Poland as Stanislas I, 1704), she was the wife of Louis XV.

BkXVII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Leda

The daughter of Thestius and wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus, she had twin sons Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux), the Tyndaridae, following her rape by Zeus in the form of a swan.

BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 A statue of the rape.

BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Chateaubriand attributes a Leda to Canova.

 

Ledoux

A French military man, he is mentioned in 1798.

BkXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Ledru, Charles

A Republican lawyer.

BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap26:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Leena (Leaena = ‘Lioness’)

6th century BC. The concubine of Aristogeiton who was a conspirator with his friend Harmodius against the tyrants Hippias and Hipparchus; despite torture, she did not betray her lover, and the Athenians erected a statue of a tongueless lion to commemorate her name and courageous silence.

BkXLII:Chap7:Sec1 See AthenaeusDeipnosophists XIII, where he makes her Harmodius’ mistress.

 

Lefebvre, see Dantzig, Duc de

 

Lefebvre-Desnouettes, Charles, Comte

1773-1822. A French cavalry general, at Marengo he won promotion, and at Austerlitz was made colonel, serving also in the Prussian campaigns of 1806-1807. In 1808 he was made general of brigade and created a count of the Empire. Sent with the army into Spain, towards the end of 1808, he was taken prisoner in the action at Benavente. For over two years he remained a prisoner in England, living on parole at Cheltenham. In 1811 he escaped, and in the invasion of Russia in 1812 was again at the head of his cavalry. In 1813 and 1814 his men distinguished themselves in most of the great battles, especially La Rothire and Montmirail. He joined Napoleon in the Hundred Days and was wounded at Waterloo. For his part in these events he was condemned to death, but he escaped to the United States, and spent the next few years farming in Louisiana. His frequent appeals to Louis XVIII eventually obtained his permission to return, but the Albion, the vessel on which he was returning to France, went down off the coast of Ireland with all on board on the 22nd of May 1822.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 Involved in the pro-Bonaparte conspiracy in 1815.

 

Lefranc

A Republican exiled to the Seychelles in 1801.

BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 He escaped and reached St Helena.

 

Legendre, Louis

1752-1797. A Paris butcher, known as Legendre de Paris, he was President of the National Convention (October 1794). Though uneducated, he was a great natural leader. Legendre played important parts in the taking of the Bastille, the massacre of the Champs-du-Mars and the August 10th overthrow of the monarchy. As a delegate to the National Assembly, he voted for the death of the King. He survived the Terror by turning against Danton but became an important reactionary after 9th Thermidor. He forced the closing of the Jacobin Clubs and prosecuted Carrier.

BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Leghorn, Livorno

Leghorn (Italian Livorno), in Tuscany, is the capital of the smallest of the provinces of Italy. The city is situated on marshy ground, and is in consequence intersected by many canals hence it has been called ‘Little Venice’. A larger canal puts it in communication with Pisa. It has two ports, the old, or Medici, port, and the new port constructed in 1854.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 Desaix held there.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 Napoleon concluded a commercial treaty between Elba and Leghorn.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm

1646-1716 The German philosopher and mathematician, he invented differential and integral calculus independently of Newton, and proposed an optimistic metaphysical theory that included the notion that we live in ‘the best of all possible worlds.’

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Suggested an Egyptian colony to Louis XIV.

BkXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 His work for religious unification.

 

Leipzig

A city of east-central Germany south-southwest of Berlin, it was originally a Slavic settlement called Lipsk, and developed by the early Middle Ages into a major commercial and cultural centre. The battle of Leipzig, October 16–19, 1813, also called the Battle of the Nations, was a decisive victory of the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian forces over Napoleon I. On October 16 the Prussians under General Blücher defeated the French under Auguste de Marmont at Möckern, near Leipzig. A peace offer by the vastly outnumbered French army was rejected on the following day while the Allies closed in. On October 18th the French were driven to the gates of Leipzig, and most of their Saxon and Württemberg auxiliaries (but not the king of Saxony himself) passed over to the enemy camp. Leipzig was stormed on October 19, and Napoleon’s forces began their flight across Germany and beyond the Rhine. It is estimated that 120,000 men (on both sides) were killed or wounded in the battle.

BkXX:Chap6:Sec1 Taken by Davout in October 1806.

BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 The Battle of the Nations or the Battle of Leipzig of 16th-19th October 1813. the largest conflict in Europe before World War I, with over 500,000 troops involved. It was also the most decisive defeat suffered by Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Lelièvre

A royalist informant, he identified Armand de Chateaubriand in 1809.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Léman, Lake

The area around Lake Leman (Lake Geneva) dominated by the Alps to the north. The lake is on the Rhone, lying partly in Switzerland and partly in France. Geneva, Lausanne and Montreux are on the Swiss shore. Evian is on the south shore.

BkXVII:Chap3:Sec1 Barante its Prefect in 1805.

 

Lemercier, Louis-Jean Népomucène

1771-1840. A Poet and dramatist, he was a late proponent of classical tragedy over Romanticism, and the originator of French historical comedy.  An accident caused him lifelong partial paralysis. He made a precocious literary debut, his first tragedy, Méléagre, being produced at the Comédie-Française before he was 16. His Tartuffe révolutionnaire (1795) created a succès de scandale and was quickly suppressed because of its bold political allusions. The orthodox tragedy Agamemnon (1794) was probably his most celebrated play. He had no sympathy with the Romantics, and in the Académie Française, to which he was elected in 1810, he consistently opposed them, refusing to vote for Victor Hugo’s election. He also wrote a number of philosophical epic poems. His reputation as a writer declined long before his death.

BkXIII:Chap11:Sec2 An exemplar of the new nineteenth century literary style.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec2 BkXXII:Chap15:Sec3 Used the common linguistic style of the age, as a defender of freedom.

 

Lemière, for Lemierre, Antoine-Marin

1733-1793. A Poet and dramatist, Lemierre revived his earlier play Guillaume Tell in 1786 with enormous success. After the Revolution he professed great remorse for the production of a play inculcating revolutionary principles. He published La Peinture (1769), based on a Latin poem by the abbé de Marsy, and a poem in six cantos. Les Fastes, ou les usages de lannie (779), an unsatisfactory imitation of Ovid’s Fasti.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lemière, for Lemierre, Auguste-Jacques

Nephew of Antoine. Translator of Gray.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXIII:Chap3:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Lemoine (Le Moine), Jean-Baptiste

1751-1829. He managed the Chateaubriand’s finances from 1814 and was a faithful table companion of the couple.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lemoine, Pierre, Le Père

1602-1671. A Jesuit poet of Langres (Haute-Marne), he was the author of an epic poem on Saint Louis and of the work ‘La dévotion aisée’.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec3 Chateaubriand misquotes from his Saint Louis (1653).

 

Lemontey, Pierre-Édouard

1762-1826. He published a study of the Plague in Marseilles and Provence in the years 1720 and 1721, which was published in 1821. He was a friend of Madame Récamier in Lyons.

BkXXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from his work.

 

Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Nicolas, Abbé

1674-1755. He was a French historian.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 His error in taking the name Cataio to be that of Cathay (China).

 

Lenoir-Laroche, Jean-Jacques, Comte

1749-1825. Born in Grenoble, lawyer, journalist (editor of Le Moniteur from 1795-98), he was Minister of Police in 1797. Senator of the Empire, he was a senior Freemason and Martinist. He became a Peer of France under the Restoration.

BkXIV:Chap1:Sec2 Saint-Martin died at his house La Colinière, at Aulnay.

 

Lenormant, Charles

1802-1859. A French archaeologist, he travelled in Egypt, and the Morea. In 1836 he was appinted Curator of printed books in the Royal Library, and in 1839 was elected member of the Academy. In 1840 he was made Curator of the Cabinet of Medals. After a further mission to Greece, he studied Christian civilisation and became a devout Catholic. In 1848 he was named Director of the commission of historical monuments, and in 1849 an almost unanimous vote of the members of the Academy appointed him to the chair of archaeology in the Collège de France. From that time he devoted himself entirely to the teaching of Egyptian archaeology.

BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned indirectly.

BkXXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 He had sailed the Mediterranean a few years earlier.

BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1 He visits Chateaubriand under house arrest in 1832.

 

Lenormant, Marie-Josephine (Amélie) Syvoct, Madame

1804-1894. The wife (1826) of Charles, and niece and ward of Madame Récamier from 1811, she inherited Madame Récamier’s papers and was the first edit of her Mémoires de ma vie.

BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 Her husband had travelled with Champollion to Egypt (August 1828-January 1829) and returned to France in February 1829, but was preparing to leave for the Morea. She intended to join him, and Madame Récamier had considered going with her.

 

Lens, Belgium, Battle of

August 20th 1648. a French victory under Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, the Great Condé, against the Spanish army under Archduke Leopold in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). It was the last major battle of the war. Lens in Flanders was at that time a fortified city. The battle was won by superior French cavalry.

BkXVI:Chap9:Sec1 BkXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Leo III, Pope and Saint

d.816. Pope 795-816. After his election he was opposed by a Roman faction and forced to flee to Charlemagne who supported his return to Rome. There in 1800 he crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the West.

BkIX:Chap8:Sec2 Consecrated the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle.

 

Leo IV, Saint and Pope

d.855. Pope from 847 to 855, he was unanimously chosen to succeed Sergius II. When he was elected, on April 10, 847, he was cardinal of Santi Quattro Coronati, and had been subdeacon of Gregory IV and archpriest under his predecessor. His pontificate was chiefly distinguished by his efforts to repair the damage done by the Saracens during the reign of his predecessor to various churches of the city, especially those of St Peter and St Paul.

BkXXX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Leo X, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, Pope

1475-1521. The second son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, he was Pope from 1513. He is known primarily for his failure to stem the Protestant Reformation, which began during his reign. He was a patron of Michelangelo.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 Michelangelo’s request, of 1519, reads: ‘I Michelangelo, sculptor, address the same request to Your Holiness, offering to make  a tomb for the divine poet worthy of him, in a location in the city which would do him honour.’ Giovanni was present at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512 where he was taken prisoner temporarily.

BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 Raphael’s proposal to him for clearing the Roman Forum.

BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Leo XII, Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiore Girolamo Nicola della Genga, Pope

1760-1829. Pope 1823-29. He was generally reactionary and repressive. His election had been opposed by France

BkXV:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Prayed at Madame de Beaumont’s tomb.

BkXV:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 Chateaubriand received by him.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 He was of a family from Genga in Ancona province. He was born in Genga, Ancona, or Spoleto. He was crowned Pope on the 5th October 1823.

BkXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap15:Sec1

Chateaubriand has an audience with him in October 1828, and on the 2nd of January 1829. There had been a dispute over new laws limiting the rights of Bishops which Charles X and the Pope had amicably resolved, the French bishops then submitting to the new laws.

BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1 He was taken ill on the 5th of February 1829, after a private audience with Bernetti and died on the 10th.

BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1 His election in 1823 had been a compromise.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand inherited his cat.

BkXXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXVII:Chap7:Sec1 The Pope’s 1833 Jubilee celebrated the eighteen hundredth anniversary of the death of Christ, and in Prgaue as in other cities a traverse of the churches or stations of the Cross was prescribed.

 

Leoben, Austria

A city in Styria, in central Austria, it is located on the Mur river.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec2 BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 The armistice preliminary to the Treaty of Campo Formio, the Peace of Leoben, was signed there in 1797.

BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 The Bourbon royal family leaving Prague for Leoben in September 1833.

 

Leonardo da Vinci

1452-1519. Italian painter, engineer, musician, and scientist, he was the most versatile genius of the Renaissance. As a painter Leonardo is best known for The Last Supper (c. 1495) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503).

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 Francis I was his friend and patron.

BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 Napoleon shipped artworks back to France.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Leonardo settled in France, at Clos Luce near Amboise, at the invitation of Francis I, in 1516, and died there in 1519.

BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 The choir frescoes of the Life of Mary in Sant’Onorio referred to are by Peruzzi not Leonardo.

BkXXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Drawings by him in the Accademia in Venice.

 

Leonidas I, King of Sparta

d.480BC. Leonidas was the hero of the Battle of Thermopylae in which he held the pass against the Persians.

BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 Chateaubriand was in Sparta in 1806.

 

Leonora

She was a singer whom Milton heard at Cardinal Barberini’s house in Rome (On his Italian Tour 1638-1639). See Milton’s Latin verses ‘Ad Leonoram Romae canentem’. She also sang (‘una virtuosa, qui avait la voix belle’) at the French Court see the Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.

BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Leonora (Eleonora) d’Este

1537-1581. The sister of Alfonso II d’Este reputedly loved by Tasso.

BkXXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 BkXL:Chap2:Sec1 BkXL:Chap2:Sec3

BkXL:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Léonore, see Montaigne

 

Leopold II, Emperor of Germany

1747-1792. Father of Francis II of Germany, as Holy Roman Emperor he was also King of Hungary and Bohemia.

BkIX:Chap2:Sec1 His death on March 1st 1792.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec1 His successor Francis II was not elected as Emperor until 17th July 1792.

 

Léotaud

A police guard in 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Lepanto

The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a galley fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of the Papacy (under Pope Pius V), Spain Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Knights of Malta and others, defeated a force of Ottoman galleys. The 5-hour battle was fought at the northern edge of the Gulf of Patras, off western Greece. The League’s forces were ably commanded by Don John (Don Juan) of Austria, the illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V and halfbrother of King Philip II of Spain.

BkXXXIX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap10:Sec1

Mentioned.

 

Lepelletier

BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 A member of the Republican Municipal Commission in July 1830.

 

Leprince, Abbé Réne-Jacques-Joseph

d.1782. Master at Dol College. The last curé of Saint-Samson de la Roque, appointed l5 December 1781.

BkII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s teacher at Dol.

BkII:Chap4:Sec3 He was dying of consumption (September 1779).

BkII:Chap6:Sec3 Appointed to the living near Rouen, where he died.

 

Lérin Isles

The Mediterranean islands lie off Cannes. The largest is Ile Sainte-Marguerite, with a classic coastal fortress designed by Vauban, where the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask and Marshal Bazaine were imprisoned. On Saint-Honorat, the abbey, founded early in the 5th century by Honoratus following the collapse of Roman power in the north of Gaul is one of the oldest in France. The abbey adapted the Benedictine rules early-on, and had many illustrious Bishops and Saints. Honoratus himself was Bishop of Arles for the last two years of his life (429-430). The abbey was destroyed in 730 by the Saracens.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap17:Sec1 Mentioned.