Rabbe, Colonel

Commander of the 2nd Regiment Paris Municipal Guard.

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec3 A member of the commission which tried the Duc d’Enghien in 1804.

 

Rabelais, François

1483-1553. The French humanist and satirist became a Franciscan then a Benedictine monk, left the calling to study medicine, and visited Italy with his patron Cardinal Jean du Bellay (1492-1560). He expressed his humanism in coarse and inventive satire, including Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534). His attacks on superstition were condemned by theologians.

BkI:Chap1:Sec8 Mentioned.

BkIV:Chap8:Sec4 The Abbey of Thélème built by Gargantua had for its motto: Fay ce que vouldras: do as you wish. (Gargantua I, Chap. 57)

BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 BkXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from Pantagruel, Chap 6, where Pantagruel meets a Limousin who mutilates the French language.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to a celebrated incident in Le Quart-Livre (de Pantagruel: 1548-1552) LVI where the travellers hear the frozen sounds of a winter battle melting in the spring.

BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 The creator of French Literature.

BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 His visit to Rome. Chateaubriand refers to Pantagruel V:1. Jean des Entoumerres is a character from the work.

 

Racine, Jean

1639-1699. A dramatist, he received a Jansenist education at the convent of Port-Royal but began play-writing in 1664. His classic verse tragedies include Andromaque (1667), Bérénice (1670) and Phèdre (1677). He retired from the theatre in 1677 married a young pious girl and accepted a post at Louis XIV’s court. His final works Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691) were based on Old Testament subjects.

BkI:Chap1:Sec11 Read by Chateaubriand’s mother.

BkII:Chap3:Sec4 The pleasing sound of his verse.

BkII:Chap6:Sec3 Chateaubriand quotes from the Cantiques Spirituels IV. Racine recalls Exodus XVI.

BkII:Chap7:Sec3 BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 Perrin Dandin is the comical judge in Racine’s Plaideurs (Act II, scene 8), who appears at his attic skylight to summon the cats in the gutters to appear before him. He also is suddenly gripped by compassion for the guilty (Act III, scene 3, line 827)

BkV:Chap15:Sec2 BkXI:Chap2:Sec2 BkXI:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXII:Chap3:Sec1 Ignored by the English in 1822.

BkXIII:Chap9:Sec1 His characters interpreted by Talma.

BkXIII:Chap10:Sec2 His plays a fusion of Greek situation and Christian characters.

BkXV:Chap1:Sec1 Madame de Beaumont quotes from Phèdre Act I Scene III:258.

BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 His work was supported and defended by Boileau.

BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Esther and Athalie performed for the first time, at Saint Cyr, for Louis XIV.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 An allusion to his comedy Les Plaideurs (The Litigants, 1668). In the last scene between Isabelle and Dandin, Isabelle says: ‘Monsieur, can one watch wretched people suffer?....Well, it always passes an hour or two.’

BkXXIII:Chap15:Sec1 The allusion is to Phèdre V:6 (line 1506), the speech of Théramène.

BkXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 His classical style, compared with Chateaubriand’s romantic and religious style, by Napoleon. The quotation is from Iphigénie I.1, Agamemnon speaks.

BkXXV:Chap11:Sec1 The quotation is from Athalie:144, and is an allusion to the Duchesse de Berry’s then pregnancy.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Racine so translates Euripides ( Alcestis 252-253) in his preface to Iphigénie.

BkXXX:Chap8:Sec1 Athalie mentioned.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 See his play Mithridate (1673), III:1 line 797.

BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 See Athalie ActI: Scene I: 145-146.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 His grandson died in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

 

Radcliffe, Anne (Ward)

1764-1823. The English novelist, was the daughter of a successful tradesman, she married William Radcliffe, a law student who later became editor of the English Chronicle. Her best works, The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and The Italian (1797), give her a prominent place in the tradition of the Gothic romance. Her excellent use of landscape to create mood and her sense of mystery and suspense had an enormous influence on later writers, particularly Walter Scott.

BkXII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned, as a popular authoress.

 

Radet, Etienne, General

1762-1825 General of the Gendarmerie: Provost of the Grand Army 1813.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap8:Sec1 On the night of July 5-6 1809, General Radet entered the Quirinal and arrested Pope Pius VII.

 

Radicofani, Italy

For centuries, one of the most important strongholds in Italy, beside the Via Cassia, it controlled the border between Latium, Umbria and Tuscany.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec2 Pius VII passed through on his journey to France.

 

Radzivill, Frederica-Dorothea-Louise of Prussia, Princess

1770-1836. Niece of Frederick II and sister of Prince Augustus, she married (1760) a Polish aristocrat, Anton Radzivill (d.1833)

BkXXVI:Chap6:Sec1 In Berlin in 1821.

 

Raguse, Duc de, see Marmont

 

Raimond de Saint-Gilles, Comte de Toulouse, see Raymond VI

 

Rainneville, Alphonse-Valentin, Vicomte de

1798-1864. He was Secretary-General of the Finance Ministry, and a colleague of Villèle in 1823.

BkXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Rambaut

Commanded the Grenadiers assault at Acre in May 1799, and was killed.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 Killed at Acre.

 

Rambouillet, France

A commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, located 30 miles southwest of the centre of Paris. The old fortified Château de Rambouillet (14th century foundations) was acquired by Louis XVI in 1783 as a private residence; it is now the official summer residence of French presidents. In 1784 Louis XVI had a wing built as a meeting place for the government (the palace was subsequently rebuilt and occupied as the Palais du Roi de Rome by Napoleon Bonaparte’s son). Charles X went into exile from there in 1830, François I died there in 1547, Louis XIV gave it to his son, the Comte de Toulouse.

BkXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Napoleon stopped there in 1815. The farm there created by Louis XVI had the first flock of merino sheep in France.

BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Charles X hunting there on the 26th July 1830.

BkXXXIII:Chap2:Sec1 Charles X leaves Trianon for Rambouillet on the evening of the 31st of July 1830.

BkXXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 BkXLI:Chap6:Sec1 Charles X issued notice of his and the Dauphin’s abdication from there.

BkXXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap4:Sec1

A procession left Paris to force his departure from France.

 

Ramillies

The Battle of Ramillies, 23 May 1706, was a major battle in the War of the Spanish Succession. The Duke of Marlborough, leading British, Dutch, and German troops, defeated a French army led by the Duc de Villeroi at Ramillies-Offus, near Namur, on the bank of the river Mehaigne.

BkXXIV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Rancé, Armand Jean le Bouthillier de,

1626-1700. A French religious reformer, he was the founder of the Trappists. Of a noble family, he was well-educated and lived at court as a worldly priest. In 1664 he retired to the Cistercian abbey at La Trappe (in Normandy eighty-four miles from Paris), where he was already abbot in commendam (i.e. he received its revenues, but performed no duties). There, as regular abbot, he established a discipline stricter than the primitive Benedictine rule. In a few years La Trappe was famous, and its reform spread; out of the movement came the Trappists.

BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 His hair-shirt, an attribute.

 

Ranelagh Gardens, London

Ranelagh gardens adjoining the Pensioners hospital became popular as a place to escape the city and take in the cleaner air of Chelsea. Balls, concerts, dinners and gossip were shared here almost daily. It quickly exceeded Vauxhall in popularity, but its popularity waned until the season of 1804 when the fashionable set abandoned it entirely.

BkXII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Raphael, Rafaello Sanzio

1483-1520. The Italian Renaissance painter and architect, he trained under Perugino in Perugia, before moving to Florence in 1504. Influenced by Leonardo and Michelangelo he painted numerous Madonnas, and portraits. He decorated the Vatican with important frescoes, and succeeded Bramante in 1514 as architect of Saint Peter’s Rome.

BkI:Chap4:Sec8 His archetypal Madonnas.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXL:Chap2:Sec2 The Farnesina villa in Rome, Italy, built (1508-11) by Peruzzi for the banker Agostino Chigi at the foot of the Janiculum on the right bank of the Tiber is one of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance architecture, famous for its frescoes by Raphael and his pupils. It was long the residence of the Farnese family.

BkXIII:Chap9:Sec1 The limited use of chiaroscuro (light and shade effects) in his art.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 His Holy Family of 1518, commissioned by Leo X and given to Claude wife of Francis I (not all by Raphael’s own hand, but from his workshop). His work on the Vatican.

BkXVII:Chap3:Sec2 BkXIX:Chap12:Sec2 BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap13:Sec1 The Transfiguration is Raphael’s last masterpiece, commissioned in 1517, an enormous altarpiece that was unfinished at his death and was completed by his assistant Giulio Romano. It is a complex work that inaugurated the Mannerist movement and tends toward the Baroque. It now hangs in the Vatican Museum having been moved there from San Pietro in Montorio in 1809, and replaced by a copy of Guido Reni’s Crucifixion of St Peter, made by Vincenzo Camuccini.

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

BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 Raphael paintings at the Escorial Palace (e.g. The Madonna della Tenda, c1514).

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap7:Sec1 His association with the Villa Borghese in Rome.

BkXXII:Chap3:Sec1 Paintings of his looted, restored in Paris, now in Madrid.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 His St Cecilia with Saints (or in Ecstasy) c1513-1516, was ceded to France by the Treaty of Tolentino but returned to Bologna in 1815 where it has remained.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 His Madonna of Foligno of 1511-1512, was formerly in the Church of St Anna in the Monastery of the Contesse at Foligno, passed by the Treaty of Tolentino to France, and was returned from Paris to reach the Vatican Pinacoteca in 1816.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec2 His work on the Villa Farnesina (Via del Lungaro, Rome), owned by the Farnese family, including his 1512 fresco masterpiece the Triumph of Galatea.

BkXXX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap15:Sec1

BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 His proposal for clearing the Roman Forum.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 The Sistine Madonna in Dresden. Rouen had a late copy.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Raphael’s Loggia (a thirteen-arch gallery, 65 metres long and 4 wide) in the Vatican contains scenes from the Old and New Testaments, begun by Bramante and finished by Raphael.

BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 The distraught Virgin appears in Raphael’s painting (Rome 1516-17, partly by the School of Raphael) Christ Falls on the Way to Calvary, created for the Convent of Santa Maria dello Spasimo in Palermo, Sicily but moved to Madrid. Taken to Paris in 1813 it was returned to Spain in 1822. It is now in the Prado, in Madrid.

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

BkXL:Chap2:Sec2 Raphael was born in Urbino which is on a hill between  the Metauro and Foglia Rivers.

BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 His paintings in Dresden, in particular the Sistine Madonna of 1513/1514.

 

Rapp, Jean, General

1771-1821. A French general, born at Colmar; he served under Napoleon with distinction, and held Danzig for a whole year against a powerful Russian army. He was kept prisoner by the Russians after the surrender, then returned to France. He submitted to Louis XVIII after Waterloo.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 In Vienna in 1809.

 

Rastadt, Congress of

Rastatt, is a city in Baden-Württemberg, south-west Germany, on the Murg River, near the French border; sometimes spelled Rastadt. First mentioned in 1247, Rastatt was destroyed (1689) by the French, but was soon rebuilt and served (1705–71) as the residence of the margraves of Baden-Baden. The Treaty of Rastatt (March 1714) complemented the treaties signed at Utrecht and Baden in 1713–14 together they ended the War of the Spanish Succession. As a result of the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797), a congress of the states of the Holy Roman Empire (attended by France) was held (1797–99) at Rastatt in order to determine compensation for the member states that had lost territory near the Rhine River to France during the French Revolutionary Wars; the congress was prematurely adjourned after the resumption of hostilities against France. Noteworthy city buildings include a baroque palace (17th–18th cent.) and several 18th-century churches.

BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 The Congress of 1797-99.

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 As the three French representatives were leaving the town in April 1799 they were waylaid, and two of them were assassinated by some Hungarian soldiers. The reason for this outrage remains shrouded in mystery.

 

Ratisbon (Regensburg), Germany

A city in south-east Germany, in Bavaria, it lies at the confluence of the Danube and the Regen. It has a Gothic cathedral (1275-1524). Originally a Celtic settlement it became a Carolingian capital and medieval trading centre. Imperial diets were held there from 1663 until 1806.

BkXXIII:Chap8:Sec1 An example of French influence.

BkXLI:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Raulx

A game-keeper, attached to Chateaubriand, he was killed by a poacher.

BkII:Chap2:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Rauzan, Claire-Henriette-Philippine-Benjamine de Duras, Duchesse de

1799-1863. Claire or Clara, the younger daughter of the Duchesse de Duras, She married Henri Comte de Chastellux in 1819.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 In Ghent in 1815.

 

Ravenna, Italy

A city of northeast Italy near the Adriatic Sea northeast of Florence, it was an important naval station in Roman times, an Ostrogoth capital in the fifth and sixth centuries and the centre of Byzantine power in Italy from the late sixth century until c. 750, when it was conquered by the Lombards. Ravenna became part of the papal dominions in 784, was the subject of local power struggles from the 12th century, was Venetian from 1441-1509, and was included in the kingdom of Italy in 1861.

BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 The battle of April 11th 1512, during the War of the League of Cambrai, in which the Vicomte de Lautrec defeated a Spanish Army fighting for the Papacy. The column commemorating the battle was erected in 1557 on the right bank of the Montone River, south-west of the city.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 The Chateaubriands were there in October 1828. The churches of San Vitale and Sant’ Apollinaire in Classe are in the Byzantine style.

BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 Byron and Madame Guiccioli were together in Ravenna 1819-1823.

 

Ravaillac, François

1578-1610. A schoolteacher and religious extremist, he stabbed Henri IV to death on the Rue de la Ferronnerie in Paris (now south of the Forum des Halles) while his carriage was stopped by traffic, on Friday the 14th of May 1610.

BkXXXVII:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Ravier, Colonel

Commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment (Line)

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec3 A member of the commission which tried the Duc d’Enghien in 1804.

 

Raymond VI, Comte de Toulouse

1156-1222. Count of Toulouse (1194-1222). His tolerant attitude toward the Albigenses resulted in his repeated excommunication, although he temporarily made peace with the church in 1209. Attacked (1211) by Simon de Montfort, he received the support of his brother-in-law Peter II of Aragón. In 1213 he and Peter were defeated at Muret, and Raymond went into exile in England. Although obliged to grant Toulouse and Montauban to Montfort and Provence to his own son, he returned (1217) and fought with his son against Montfort and Montfort’s son. By the time of his death, Raymond had recaptured almost all of his territory for his son.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 BkXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Excommunicated by Innocent III for supporting the Albigenses. His remains were said to have been left in an open coffin to be eaten by the rats.

 

Raynal, Abbé Guillaume-Thomas-François

1713–96, French historian and philosopher. Raynal was a priest, but he was dismissed from his parish in Paris; he then turned to writing and sought the society and collaboration of the Philosophes. Two historical works, one on the Netherlands (1747) and one on the English Parliament (1748), established his career. His most important work, completed with the assistance of Denis Diderot, was a six-volume history of the European colonies in the Indies and Americas (1770). It was condemned by the Parlement of Paris (1781) for impiety and its dangerous ideas on the rights of the people to revolt and to give or withhold consent to taxation. Nevertheless, the History was extremely popular, going through 30 editions between 1772 and 1789; the radical tone becoming more pronounced in later editions. Placed on the Index of the Roman Catholic Church in 1774, Raynal's book was burned and he was forced into exile in 1781. Allowed to return to France, but not Paris, in 1784; his Parisian banishment was rescinded in 1790. Elected to the States General in 1789, he refused to serve and later advocated a constitutional monarchy.

BkIV:Chap6:Sec1 His Histoire philosophique des deux Indes (1780) which strongly condemned European colonialism for destroying cultures and peoples was read by Chateaubriand’s father who admired the author.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 The young Napoleon wrote to him.

 

Rayneval, Comte de

1778-1836. A career diplomat he was Under-Secretary of State, 1820-21, having succeeded Chateaubriand as Ambassador in Berlin. He was also at various times Ambassador to Vienna, Rome and Madrid.

BkXXVIII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him in Berlin in 1824.

 

Raynouard, François Juste Marie

1761-1836. French littérateur and philologist, born in Provence, he was of the Girondist party at the time of the Revolution, and imprisoned. He wrote poems and tragedies, but eventually gave himself up to the study of the language and literature of Provence.

BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 A Member of the Legislative commission in 1813.

 

Réal, Pierre-Francois, Comte

1757-1834. Public Accuser to the Revolutionary Tribunal, Councillor of State and Comte under Napoleon, he ran the ‘hautes polices’ till 1815. Exiled after Napoleon’s fall, he subsequently located himself at Cape Vincent, Jefferson County, New York, with other exiles, possibly with an intention of rescuing Napoleon from St Helena.

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec1 BkXVI:Chap6:Sec1 Involved in the abduction of the Duc d’Enghien.

BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 His Essai sur les Journées de Vendémiaire which expresses Barras’ views.

 

Reboul, Jean

1796-1864. Poet of Nîmes. Disciple of Lamartine. Published verse in the royalist press after the Restoration. Published Poésies in 1836 and Poésies nouvelles in 1846.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec4 Chateaubriand was in Nîmes on 24th July 1838.

 

Récamier, Jacques

1751-1830. The husband of Madame Récamier he was a wealthy banker. He was Regent of the Bank of France from 1802 to October 1806 when he was bankrupted.

BkXXVIII:Chap19:Sec1 His bankruptcy.

 

Récamier, Jeanne-Françoise-Julie-Adélaïde Bernard (Juliette), Madame

1777-1849. A French society hostess, she was married, from 1792-1830, to a wealthy Parisian banker. Her salon was attended by influential statesmen and politicians opposed to Napoleon. Madame de Staël was a close friend, and at the end of his life Chateaubriand.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 Her presence in London in the spring of 1802.

BkX:Chap9:Sec2 BkXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 Her friendship with Chateaubriand alluded to.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand attended her salon in 1801.

BkXXII:Chap 24:Sec1 Her return to France after the Empire.

BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Her influence over Benjamin Constant.

BkXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 She refused to divorce and marry Prince Augustus of Prussia in 1808.

BkXXVI:Chap3:Sec1 Her portrait painted on glass.

BkXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Her letter to Chateaubriand from Naples of 29th October 1824.

BkXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 In Lausanne with Madame de Staël.

BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 Chateaubriand returns to 1800 to pick up the thread of her story.

BkXXVIII:Chap20:Sec1 Madame de Staël’s letters to her.

BkXXVIII:Chap21:Sec1 Madame Récamier joined Madame de Staël in exile at Coppet in August 1811, and was herself exiled in the September.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand excised his Book on Madame Récamier from the 1847-1848 revision of the Memoirs, influenced by the opinions of his circle, and Madame Récamier herself, placing some of the material into the last four chapters of Book XXVIII. Chapter I here presents further extracts from the Book, extracts which the translator feels it would be wrong to omit, in giving a complete picture of Chateaubriand’s sentiments.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec2 Her trip to London in 1802-3 with her mother, Madame Bernard, the ambitious wife of a Receiver of Taxes.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec3 In Naples in 1814 with Caroline Murat.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec4 Chateaubriand meets her again in 1817.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec5 BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 She co-rented the Vallée-aux-Loups in 1817. She had an apartment from 1819 in the Abbaye-aux-Bois, at 16 Rues des Sèvres, a Bernadine convent transformed into a retreat after the Revolution (see the 1824 lithograph by François-Louis Dejuinne, 1786-1844, in the Louvre, which matches Chateaubriand’s description). The ruined Abbaye was demolished in 1908 during alterations to the Boulevard Raspail.

BkXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s letter to her of 11th October 1828 from Rome.

BkXXIX:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap1:Sec1

BkXXX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1

BkXXX:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap10:Sec1 Letters to her from Rome, December 1828 to May 1829.

BkXXX:Chap14:Sec1 Christian de Chateaubriand met her in Rome in 1813.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand meets her in Dieppe in July 1830, and then writes to her later from Paris.

BkXXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand at her residence in August 1830.

BkXXXIV:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to her in May/June 1831. He explains in a note not translated here, that she leant him the copies of these letters in order for him to reproduce them.

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Lafayette a visitor in 1831/2.

BkXXXV:Chap7:Sec1 Visits Chateaubriand under house arrest in 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap18:Sec1 In Constance in late August 1832, and meets Chateaubriand there.

BkXXXV:Chap19:Sec1 At the Château of Wolberg near Arenenberg in  August 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap20:Sec1 A guest at Arenenberg on the 29th of August 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap21:Sec1 She visits Madame de Staël’s grave.

BkXXXV:Chap22:Sec1 Chateaubriand walks with her by the Rhône at Geneva. The location is the Saint-Jean Cliffs on the right bank of the river at the foot of the Sous-Terre Bridge, the walk leads from the garden of the ruined Benedictine Priory of Saint-Jean to the Pont de la Jonction. On the 24th of October the eve of her departure she wrote to her nephew Paul David, expressing her sadness at leaving, having tried to convince Chateaubriand to spend the winter in Paris.

BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 She had been exiled to Châlons in 1811.

BkXXXIX:Chap15:Sec1 The model for Canova’s busts of Beatrice.

 

Récollets

A Franciscan monastery, of the time of Henri IV, in the Faubourg Saint-Martin, it was disused in 1790. In 1802 it became a hospice, later a military hospital.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned. Père Jean Morel, future curé of Saint-Leu, was living on the second floor of the monastery until August 1792, when it became completely deserted.

 

Recouvrance, Quai de, Brest

The heart of the Old Quarter of Brest.

BkII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Regensburg

Also known as Ratisbon, the city in Bavaria, south-east Germany, is located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate.

BkXXXVI:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand there 20th May 1833. The Alte Kapelle, the Old Chapel, has a Rococo interior in white and gold.

BkXXXVI:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Reggio, Duc de, see Oudinot

 

Regnaud or Regnault de Saint-Jean-D’Angely, Comtesse (Laure Gesnon de Bonneuil)

1775-1857. The wife of the French statesman Michel Louis Etienne Regnaud de Saint Jean d’Angely (1762-1819), who was Councillor of State under the Consulate, Secretary of State to the Imperial family in 1810, and Minister of State under Napoleon in 1814. Lebrun painted her in 1805.

BkXVIII:Chap8:Sec2 Her intervention on Chateaubriand’s behalf.

 

Régnier, Mathurin

1573-1613. A French poet, he wrote 16 vigorous, realistic, and often licentious verse satires in the manner of Latin authors, first published as a whole in 1613. Régnier displayed remarkable independence and acuteness in literary criticism, and the famous passage (Satire IX, À Monsieur Rapin) in which he satirizes Malherbe contains the best denunciation of the merely correct theory of poetry that has ever been written.

BkXVII:Chap3:Sec2 Chateaubriand refers to Satire X, line 18.

BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 See Satire XIII: line 31.

 

Régnier-Desmarais, François Séraphin

1632-1713. He was a poet and grammarian.

BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from Poésies françaises (1716).

 

Regulus

Marcus Attilus Regulus, d.c251BC. A Roman general in the First Punic War, in 256 he defeated the Carthaginian Navy, invaded Africa, and overwhelmed the Carthaginians. Rejecting his peace terms, in 255 the Carthaginians utterly defeated him. He was captured and sent to Rome to negotiate peace. Urging continued war he returned to certain death in Carthage.

BkI:Chap5:Sec1 Gesril compared to him in heroism.

 

Reichstadt, Duc de, see Napoleon II

 

Reiffenberg, Frédéric Baron de

1795–1850. Historian and poet; professor at Leuven and Liège: first Keeper of Belgium’s Royal Library.

BkII:Chap3:Sec2 BkXVIII:Chap3Sec4 Chateaubriand quotes (a late addition to his text) from a medieval chronicle published at Brussels in 1836, and refers again to the quotation in Book XVIII.

 

Reims, see Rheims

 

Reinhard, Charles-Frederick

1761-1837. A colleague of Talleyrand’s, he was made a Peer under the July Monarchy.

BkXLII:Chap8:Sec1 The funeral eulogy was delivered on the 3rd of March 1838. Talleyrand died in May 1838.

 

Rembrandt

1606-1669. The Dutch painter whose works are unmatched in their portrayal of subtle human emotion. His masterpieces include historical and religious scenes, group portraits, such as The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632) and The Night Watch (1642), and a series of self-portraits. His profound humanism is always apparent.

BkXIII:Chap9:Sec1 The masterly use of chiaroscuro (light and shade effects) in his art.

 

Remiremont, Chapter of

Remiremont is a town in the Vosges region of north-east France. The ancient monastery there became a Chapter of canonesses drawn from the daughters of the nobility. The Dukes of Lorraine were Counts of Remiremont from the fifteenth century. The Chapter was terminated during the Revolution, in December 1790.

BkI:Chap1:Sec3 BkXIII:Chap8:Sec1 Lucile was admitted as a Canoness in 1783 to L’Argentière but was destined for Remiremont.

BkII:Chap10:Sec1 However despite acquiring the title of Countess (22nd March 1783) Lucile failed to gain entrance to this exclusive foundation.

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 Its requirement to prove sixteen quarterings in the line of nobility.

 

Rémusat, Jean-Pierre-Abel

1788-1832. A political Ultra, he was a professor at the Collège de France, founder of the Asiatic society, and a sinologist of repute.

BkXXXI:Chap4:Sec1 He wrote against Chateaubriand in 1829.

 

Rémusat, Claire-Élisabeth-Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes, Comtesse de

1780-1821. She was the wife of Antoine-Laurent de Rémusat, First Chamberlain to Napoleon.

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec2 Played chess with Napoleon on the eve of the Duc d’Enghien’s execution (20th March, 1804, he was executed on the 21st).

BkXVI:Chap6:Sec1 Had Josephine’s promise to take an interest in the Duc d’Enghien’s fate. Her Memoirs were published in 1880.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Chateaubriand asked her to intervene with the Empress regarding Armand’s fate.

 

Renart, Le Roman de

The Old French tale of Le Roman de Renart was written by Perrout de Saint Cloude around 1175, in which Reynard the fox (Goupil-Renart) signifying the Church goes to the Court of Leo the Lion to answer charges brought by Isengrim the Wolf (Ysengrin-le-Loup) signifying the Feudal Baron.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand suggests Quecq is in dispute with the church over the property.

 

Renaud, see Rinaldo

 

René

A Character and Work of Chateaubriand René is a personification of Chateaubriand himself, who appears in Atala and its Romantic sequel René (1802), where he tells the story of René’s youth, and of his sister Amélie who alarmed by too deep a love for her brother enters a convent. Amélie is based on the English girl Charlotte Ives whom Chateaubriand met during his exile in London.

Preface:Sect2. BkX:Chap11:Sec1 BkXI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXII:Chap4:Sec1