CHATEAUBRIAND, FRANCOIS RENE DE, eminent French litterateur, born in St. Malo, younger son of a noble family of Brittany; travelled to N. America in 1791; returned to France on the arrest of Louis XVI., and joined the EMIGRANTS (q. v.) at Coblenz; was wounded at the siege of Thionville, and escaped to England; wrote an “Essay on Revolutions Ancient and Modern,” conceived on liberal lines; was tempted back again to France in 1800; wrote “Atala,” a story of life in the wilds of America, which was in 1802 followed by his most famous work, “Genie du Christianisme”; entered the service of Napoleon, but withdrew on the murder of the Duc d’Enghien; though not obliged to leave France, made a journey to the East, the fruit of which was his “Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem”; hailed with enthusiasm the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814; supported the Bourbon dynasty all through, though he wavered sometimes in the interest of liberty; withdrew from public life on the elevation of Louis Philippe to the throne; he was no thinker, but he was a fascinating writer, and as such exercised no small influence on the French literature of his day; he lived in a transition period, and hovered between legitimism and liberty, the revolution and reaction, and belonged to the Romantic school of literature—­was perhaps the father of it in France (1766-1848).

CHATEAUX EN ESPAGNE, castles in Spain, visionary projects.

CHATELET, MARQUISE DE, a learned Frenchwoman, born at Paris, with whom Voltaire kept up an intimate acquaintanceship (1706-1749).

CHATELLERAULT (18), a town in the dep. of Vienne, 24 m.  NE. of Poitiers; gave title to the Scottish regent, the Earl of Arran; manufactures cutlery and small-arms for the Government.

CHATHAM (59), a town in Kent, on the estuary of the Medway, a fortified naval arsenal; is connected with Rochester.

CHATHAM, WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF, a great British statesman and orator, born in Cornwall; determined opponent of Sir Robert Walpole; succeeded in driving him from power, and at length installing himself in his place; had an eye to the greatness and glory of England, summoned the English nation to look to its laurels; saw the French, the rivals of England, beaten back in the four quarters of the globe; driven at length from power himself, he still maintained a single regard for the honour of his country, and the last time his voice was heard in the Parliament of England was to protest against her degradation by an ignoble alliance with savages in the war with America; on this occasion he fell back in a faint into the arms of his friends around, and died little more than a month after; “for four years” (of his life), says Carlyle, “king of England; never again he; never again one resembling him, nor indeed can ever be.”  See SMELFUNGUS on his character and position in Carlyle’s “Frederick,” Book xxi. chap. i. (1708-1775).

CHATHAM ISLANDS, a group of islands 360 m.  E. of New Zealand, and politically connected with it; the chief industry is the rearing of cattle.