Chateaubriand was born in Brittany, of a noble but not illustrious family, in 1769, entered the army in 1786, and during the Reign of Terror emigrated to America.  He returned to France in 1799, after the 18th Brumaire, and became a contributor to the “Mercure de France.”  In 1802 he published the “Genie du Christianisme,” which made him enthusiastically admired as a literary man,—­the only man of the time who could compete with the fame of Madame de Stael.  This book astonished a country that had been led astray by an infidel philosophy, and converted it back to Christianity, not by force of arguments, but by an appeal to the heart and the imagination.  The clergy, the aristocracy, women, and youth were alike enchanted.  The author was sent to Rome by Napoleon as secretary of his embassy; but on the murder of the Due d’Enghien (1804), Chateaubriand left the imperial service, and lived in retirement, travelling to the Holy Land and throughout the Orient and Southern Europe, and writing his books of travels.  He took no interest in political affairs until the time of the Restoration, when he again appeared.  A brilliant and effective pamphlet, “De Bonaparte et des Bourbons,” published by him in 1814, was said by Louis XVIII. to be worth an army of a hundred thousand men to the cause of the Bourbons; and upon their re-establishment Chateaubriand was immediately in high favor, and was made a member of the Chamber of Peers.

The Chamber of Peers was substituted for the Senate of Napoleon, and was elected by the king.  It had cognizance of the crime of high treason, and of all attempts against the safety of the State.  It was composed of the most distinguished nobles, the bishops, and marshals of France, presided over by the chancellor.  To this chamber the ministers were admitted, as well as to the Chamber of Deputies, the members of which were elected by about one hundred thousand voters out of thirty millions of people.  They were all men of property, and as aristocratic as the peers themselves.  They began their sessions by granting prodigal compensations, indemnities, and endowments to the crown and to the princes.  They appropriated thirty-three millions of francs annually for the maintenance of the king, besides voting thirty millions more for the payment of his debts; they passed a law restoring to the former proprietors the lands alienated to the State, and still unsold.  They brought to punishment the generals who had deserted to Napoleon during the one hundred days of his renewed reign; they manifested the most intense hostility to the regime which he had established.  Indeed, all classes joined in the chorus against the fallen Emperor, and attributed to him alone the misfortunes of France.  Vengeance, not now directed against Royalists but against Republicans, was the universal cry; the people demanded the heads of those who had been their idols.  Everything like admiration for Napoleon seemed to have passed away forever.  The violence of the Royalists for speedy vengeance