Vachon, Mademoiselle

She was an assistant governess in the Royal Household in Prague in May 1833.

BkXXXVII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Valais, Switzerland

The Valais (also known in German as Wallis) is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the south-western part of the country, in the Pennine Alps around the valley of the Rhone from its springs to Lake Geneva. The Romans called the area Vallis Poenina (‘Upper Rhône Valley’). From 888 onwards the lands were part of the kingdom of Jurane Burgundy. King Rudolph III of Burgundy gave the lands to the Bishop of Sion in 999, making him Count of the Valais. It resisted Protestantization during the Reformation. In 1529, Valais became an associate member (Zugewandter Ort) of the Swiss Confederation. In 1628 it became technically a republic the République des Sept Dizains/Republik der Sieben Zehenden under the guidance of the prince-bishop of Sion and the bailli, until 1798 when Napoleon’s troops invaded and declared a Revolutionary République du Valais (March 16) which was swiftly incorporated (May 1) into the Helvetic Republic until 1802 when it became the independent Rhodanic Republic. In 1810 the Rhodanic Republic was annexed by Napoleonic France as the département of Simplon. Independence was restored in 1813, and in 1815 the Valais finally entered the Swiss confederation as a canton.

BkXV:Chap7:Sec2 BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Napoleon nominated Chateaubriand as Minister to the Valais on 29th November 1803, and Chateaubriand heard the news on the 28th of December the day before he left for Naples.

BkXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand returned to Paris on the 15th February 1804 and prepared to take up his post.

 

Valençay, Château de, France

The château was built in 1540 by Robert d’Estampes and most notably acquired in 1747 by the Scottish banker John Law. A wing was added in the late 18th century. In 1803 the castle was purchased by Talleyrand. In May 1808, the Spanish Princes, captured at Bayonne, were put in guarded accommodation at the château. They stayed there until March 1814, after the Spanish had signed the treaty of Valençay on December 11th 1813. The treaty gave the Spanish throne to Prince Ferdinand, despite the reserves expressed by the Cortès.

BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 The Treaty of 1813.

 

Valence, France

The town is the capital of Drôme département, in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France. Built on a succession of terraces bordering the Rhône, the town is dominated by the ancient Cathedral of Saint-Apollinaire, which was consecrated by Pope Urban II in 1095 and completed early in the 12th century.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 The French took Rome on 10th February, 1798, and proclaimed the Roman Republic on 15 February. Because Pius VI refused to submit, he was forcibly taken from Rome on the night of 20 February. At the end of March, 1799, though seriously ill, he was over the Alps to Valence, where he died. He was first buried at Valence, but the remains were transferred to St. Peter's in Rome in 1802.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 Bonaparte was stationed there at sixteen in 1785, as a second-lieutenant of artillery. There he met Caroline Colombier.

BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec1 Napoleon passed by on his way to Elba in 1814.

 

Valence, Mademoiselle de, see Celles, Comtesse de

 

Valentine

Footman at the London Embassy in 1822.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Valentinian III

419-455. He was the Emperor of Rome in the West (425–455), whose reign was marked by numerous raids by Germanic tribes. His sister was Justa Grata Honoria.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 Compared favourably with Francis I of Austria.

 

Valkyries

‘The Choosers of the Slain’ (Old Norse) were the twelve nymphs of Valhalla who mounted on swift horses charged into battle with drawn swords selecting those who would die. These they conducted to Valhall where they waited on them with mead and ale served in the skulls of the vanquished. The three most prominent were Mista, Sangrida and Hilda.

BkV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned. The youngest of the Valkyrie was Brynhild which means ‘battle-ready’. Chateaubriand confuses the Valkyries with the three Norns, of whom the youngest was Skuld, the future.

BkXIII:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Vallombrosa, Italy

A Benedictine abbey 21 miles south-east of Florence, in the Apennines, surrounded by forests of beech and firs. It was founded by Giovanni Gualberto, a Florentine noble in 1038. It was extended around 1450, reaching its current aspect at the end of the 15th century.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Valmy

The French victory over the Prussians on the 20th of September 1792, took place near Valmy, a French village about 35 miles southwest of Rheims. The day after this first victory of the French Revolutionary troops, on 21 September, in Paris, the French monarchy was abolished and the First French Republic proclaimed.

BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 The young Duc d’Orléans fought there.

BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand passes the battlefield in 1833.

 

Valois, Les

The Valois Dynasty succeeded the Capetian Dynasty as rulers of France from 1328-1589. They were descendants of Charles of Valois, the third son of King Philip III and based their claim on a reintroduction of the Salic law.

BkXXXII:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Valois, Mademoiselle de, Charlotte Aglaé d’Orléans, Duchess of Modena

1700-1761. She was the third daughter of Philippe II d’Orléans, and married Francesco Maria III d’Este, Duke of Modena (1698-1780, Duke from 1737), on 21st July 1720. She received a dowry of 1.8 million livres, half of which was provided by the King of France.

BkXXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Vallée-aux-Loups

The house, at Châtenay, Chateaubriand bought in August 1807. He was banished from Paris after publishing an article in the Mercure de France that annoyed the Emperor, and bought the property (by contract dated 22nd August 1807) for 20,000 francs with a loan raised by a mortgage on the property. (The house is now 87 Rue Chateaubriand in Châtenay-Malabry, Hautes-de–Seine. It was bought by the Département in 1987 and is open to the public.). He lived there at various times during the next ten years. The park was planted with saplings acquired from his travels in the Middle-East and North America. There he wrote Les Martyrs (1809), L'Itinéraire de Paris a Jerusalem (1811), Le Dernier Abencérage, and Moïse as well as large parts of the Mémoires.  After the publication of his Monarchie selon la Charte in 1816, Chateaubriand was sacked as a Minister and obliged to sell the property.

BkI:Chap1:Sec1 BkI:Chap2:Sec1 BkI:Chap3:Sec1 BkI:Chap5:Sec1 BkII:Chap5:Sec1 BkII:Chap7:Sec1 BkII:Chap8:Sec1 BkII:Chap9:Sec1 Chateaubriand mentions the house as the location where he is writing specific chapters of the Mémoires.

BkIII:Chap7:Sec1 The last lines written there before being forced to sell the property. The Chateaubriands do not appear to have returned there after their long summer wanderings of 1817. On returning to Paris, at the end of October, they took an apartment at 42 Rue du Bac.

BkXIV:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand planted out the gardens.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 His purchase of the house in 1807.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 His presence there in 1813.

BkXXII:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec3 Mentioned in the context of 1814.

BkXXV:Chap6:Sec1 Sold at the Chamber of Notaries of Paris, 21 July 1818. Chateaubriand, after clearing charges on the property, netted only 15000 francs from the sale.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec5 Madame Récamier rented the property in 1817, going halves with Monsieur de Montmorency.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 BkXLII:Concl:SectI

Mentioned.

 

Vancouver, George

c1758-1798. A British navigator, he served his apprenticeship under Captain Cook, and set out for a long voyage in the Pacific in 1791. He visited Australia then proceeded north-west charting the west coast of America, and circumnavigating the island in British Columbia named after him.

BkVII:Chap1:Sec1 His voyage to map the north-west coastline of America.

 

Vandamme, Dominique Joseph René, Comte

1779-1830 A French military officer, who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. He was a brutal and violent soldier, renowned for insubordination and looting. Napoleon once said to him, ‘If I had two of you, the only solution would be to have one hang the other.’ At the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793 he was a Brigadier General. He was court-martialled for looting and suspended. Reinstated, he fought at the First Battle of Stockach in 1799, but disagreement with General Jean Moreau led to his being sent to occupation duties in Holland. At the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 he led the charge that recaptured the Pratzen Heights. In the campaign of 1809, he fought in the battles of Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmuhl and Wagram, where he was wounded. In the campaign of 1813 Vandamme’s division was encircled by the Prussian General Kleist at Kulm and 13,000 men were captured, including Vandamme himself. Taken to Tsar Alexander of Russia, he was accused of looting, but is alleged to have replied, ‘I am neither a plunderer nor a brigand but in any case, my contemporaries and history will not reproach me for having soaked my hands in the blood of my father.’ (An allusion to the murder of Paul I of Russia.) In the campaign of 1815 he was in command of the 3rd Corps, under the direction of Marshal Grouchy. He urged Grouchy to join Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, but Grouchy preferred to pursue the Prussian 3rd Corps under General Johann von Thielmann, winning the Battle of Wavre, but losing the war. After the restoration of Louis XVIII, Vandamme was exiled to America, but was allowed to return in 1819.

BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 Defeated at Kulm.

 

Vaneau

d. 1830 A student of the École Polytechnique in 1830.

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

 

Vannes

The port in western France, capital of the Morbihan department on the Gulf of Morbihan, was an important Celtic settlement.

BkV:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap11:Sec1

Mentioned.

 

Vannina d’Ornato, see Sampietro

c1516-1563. Vannina was executed by her husband, Sampietro, a piece of domestic history which interested Napoleon.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Varano, Alfonso

1705-1788. He was an Italian poet.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 He was born in Ferrara.

 

Varde, Pointe de la, Brittany

The promontory lies 4km from Saint-Malo between Rothéneuf and the beach at Pont.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Varennes-en-Argonne

The city in the department of the Meuse, is on the River Aire near Verdun. The French royal family were recognised and arrested there in June 1791 during their attempted flight to Montmedy.

BkV:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand reads the news of the attempt, which reached America in late August.

 

Varna

The third largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, it is the capital of Varna Province and an important port in the eastern part of the country, located on the Black Sea coast close to Lake Varna.

BkXXIX:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec4 The Siege of Varna (July-September 29th, 1828) was an episode during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829. Varna was held by the Ottoman army.

 

Vasco da Gama

1469-1524. Portuguese navigator, he rounded the Cape of Good Hope in his fleet of three ships in 1497. He crossed to Calicut in 1498. In a punitive expedition in 1502 he asserted Portuguese rights in the Indian Ocean, bombarding Calicut and returning with booty. Some 20 years later he returned to India as Portuguese Viceroy and died there.

BkVI:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 His explorations.

BkXIV:Chap6:Sec1 An allusion to Camoëns’ Lusiades.

BkXX:Chap7:Sec1 It was Pedro Álvares Cabral (Portugal, 1467?-1520?) who, in 1500-1501, while commanding the second Portuguese expedition to India, crossing the Atlantic, discovered Brazil, though Da Gama had sailed close to South America on his wide detour over the Atlantic in 1497.

BkXXXIV:Chap1:Sec1 Bartholomew Diaz named the Cape, the Cape of Storms in 1486, but Da Gama changed it to the Cape of Good Hope when he doubled it in 1497 on his voyage to the Indies.

BkXL:Chap2:Sec2 See Tasso’s poem ‘Vasco, le cui felici…….’

 

Vatimesnil, Antoine Lefebvre de

1789-1860. Secretary-General of the Justice Ministry, he participated in Martignac’s Ministry from 1828. He was Deputy for Valenciennes 1830-1834, then a member of the Legislature under the Second Republic 1849-1851.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 Education Minister 1828.

 

Vauban, Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de, Marquis, Marshal of France

1633-1707. Commonly referred to as Vauban, he was the foremost military engineer of his age, famed for both his ability to design fortifications and to break through them. Between 1667 and 1707, he upgraded the fortifications of around 300 cities including Arras and Lille. He directed the building of 37 new fortresses, and fortified military harbours, including Toulon, Perpignan, Rochefort, Brest, Dunkirk, and Quebec.

BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 His fortification of Verdun.

BkXXIV:Chap16:Sec1 On 28 May 1808 Napoleon I honoured Vauban by arranging to have his heart placed in a monument erected under the dome of the Invalides.

BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 His fortification of Metz (1648), of which he said ‘Metz defends the State.’

 

Vaublanc, Vincent-Marie Viénot, Comte de

1756-1845. One of the French politicians who agitated vociferously for the return of slavery, he was a right-wing representative for the Seine-et-Marne departement in the French Legislative Assembly. Vaublanc was on the side of the royalists, against the French Revolution. From November 15, 1791 to November 18, 1791 he served as the president of the Assembly and from September 26, 1815 to May 7, 1816, he served as the French Interior Minister. He functioned as the President of the Legislative Body from April 21, 1803 to May 7, 1803.

BkXXIII:Chap5:Sec1 In Ghent during the Hundred Days.

 

Vaucluse, France

A department of south-eastern France, formed in 1793 out of the county of Venaissin, the principality of Orange, and a part of Provence. The Rhone is joined there by the Aygues, the Sorgue (rising in Petrarch’s celebrated fountain of Vaucluse, which has given its name to the department), and the impetuous Durance. Fontaine-de-Vaucluse is a medieval village tucked away in a ‘closed valley’ at the south-western corner of the mountainous Plateau de Vaucluse, 25 km east of Avignon. Petrarch had a property there from 1337 to 1353.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 Chateaubriand visited in 1802.

 

Vaudoncourt, Frédéric François Guillaume de, Baron

1772-1845. A Napoleonic General, he fought in Italy and Russia. He supported Napoleon during the Hundred Days and went into exile thereafter, returning to France in 1825. Author of Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la guerre entre la France et la Russie en 1812 (1817).

BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 The Mémoire cited is quoted.

 

Vaudran

He was a gravedigger at Saint-Mandé in 1837.

BkXLII:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Vaudreuil, Joseph Hyacinthe François de Paule de Rigaud, Comte de

1740-1817. Soldier, Socialite, Monarchist, Patron of the Arts. Born in San Domingo, of a military line. His grandfather was Governor of Canada. He was a wealthy patron of the arts, a major influence at court and in fashionable society. His flight initiated the departure of the émigrés in 1789. He returned to Paris after the collapse of the First Empire and Louis XVIII appointed him to the Chambre des Pairs and to the Institut. He was also given the rank of Lieutenant General in the army and made Governor of the Tuileries. He was Vigée Le Brun's most important private patron and she painted numerous portraits of him and his circle. It was in large part thanks to him that Mme Le Brun's salon became fashionable, and she improvised in his honour her famous souper grec, one of the outstanding social events of the reign of Louis XVI.  Écouchard Lebrun linked them intimately in his poem entitled: ‘L'Enchanteur et la Fée’.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec3 Mentioned.

 

Vaudreuil, Madame de

Wife of Joseph.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Her fashionable soirees.

 

Vaufreland, Monsieur de

BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Vauquelin

A gentleman possessed of feudal taxation rights.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de

1715-1747. A French moralist, essayist, and miscellaneous writer, he entered the army and served for more than ten years, taking part during the War of the Polish Succession in the Italian campaign of Marshal Villars of 1733, and in the disastrous expedition to Bohemia, in support of Frederick II of Prussia’s designs on Silesia, in which the French were abandoned by their ally.

BkXXXVII:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Vauvenargues took part in Marshal Belle-Isle’s winter retreat from Prague. He suffered from frostbite, and never completely recovered.

 

Vauvert, Michel Bossinot de

1724-1809. Uncle of Chateaubriand by marriage, he was a member of the municipality of Saint-Malo from 1790. 

BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 His objections to the marriage.

 

Vauxelles, Jean Bourlet, Abbé de

He was a friend of Fontanes.

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

 

Vegetius, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

4th century. A military writer, his treatise, Epitoma rei militaris (also referred to as De Re Militari), was dedicated to the reigning emperor (possibly Theodosius the Great) and contains a series of military maxims which were the foundation of military learning, for every European commander, up to Frederick the Great.

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Velázquez, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y,

1599-1660. A Spanish painter, he was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain.

BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 He visited Rome in 1629-31 and 1649-50.

 

Velléda

A Character in Les Martyrs, ou le triomphe de la religion chrétienne (1809) by Chateaubriand: the work was written to show the triumph of Christianity over paganism. In Armorica, the Christian Eudore meets with Velleda a Druidic priestess, who ultimately kills herself.

Preface:Sect2. BkIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned by Chateaubriand.