Atala

      Francois Rene, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, born on September 4,
     1768, at St. Malo, Brittany, was as distinguished for his
     extraordinary and romantic career as for the versatility of
     his genius.  At the height of the Revolution (1791) he left for
     America with the intention of discovering the North-West
     passage, but in two years returned to fight on the royalist
     side, and was wounded at the siege of Thionville.  Emigrating
     to England, he remained in London for eight years, supporting
     himself with difficulty by translating and teaching and
     writing.  Returning to France, Chateaubriand was appointed by
     Napoleon secretary to the embassy in Rome, but the execution
     of the Duke d’Enghien so repelled him that he resigned and set
     out on a long Oriental journey.  Living in privacy till the
     fall of Napoleon, he then returned to his native land, and
     from 1822 to 1824 was ambassador to the British Court.  His
     whole political career was eccentric and uncertain, and he
     himself declared that he was by heredity and honour a
     Bourbonist, by conviction a Monarchist, but by temperament a
     Republican.  He died on July 4, 1848.  “Atala,” which appeared
     in 1801, formed the first part of a prose epic, “The Natchez,”
     on the wild and picturesque life of the Red Indians, the idea
     for which Chateaubriand had conceived while wandering about
     America.  It at once raised its author to the highest position
     in the French literary world of the age of Napoleon.  In 1802,
     Chateaubriand published a work of still greater importance—­at
     least, from a social point of view—­“The Genius of
     Christianity”—­which magnificent and gorgeous piece of
     rhetoric produced a profound change in the general attitude of
     Frenchmen in regard to religion, undid to some extent the
     destructive work of Voltaire, and was instrumental in inducing
     Napoleon to come to terms with the Pope.  But it is on “Atala”
     that Chateaubriand’s title to be one of the greatest masters
     of French prose literature depends.

I.—­The Song of Death

“It is surely a singular fate,” said the old, blind Red Indian chief to the young Frenchman, “which has brought us together from the ends of the earth.  I see in you a civilised man, who, for some strange reason, wishes to become a savage.  You see in me a savage, who, also for some strange reason, has tried to become a civilised man.  Though we have entered on life from two opposite points, here we are, sitting side by side.  And I, a childless man, have sworn to be a father to you, and you, a fatherless boy, have sworn to be a son to me.”

Chactas, the chief of the Natchez, and Rene, the Frenchman, whom he had adopted into his tribe, were sitting at the prow of a pirogue, which, with its sail of sewn skins outstretched to the night wind, was gliding down the moonlit waters of the Ohio, amid the magnificent desert of Kentucky.  Behind them was a fleet of pirogues, which Rene was piloting on a hunting foray.  Seeing that all the Indians were sleeping, Chactas went on talking to his adopted son.