Chateaubriand was attached to the past and its centuries-old traditions, but he was also a liberal, open to modernity: this is one thing that sets hi… - François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand

The heart feels, the head compares
Η καρδιά αισθάνεται. Ο νους συγκρίνει
Translation by Irene Doura-Kavadia

l'infortune personnelle est une compagne un peu froide, mais exigeante ; elle vous obsède ; elle ne laisse de place à aucun autre sentiment, ne vous quitte point, s'empare de vos genoux et de votre couche.

I halt at the beginning of my travels, in Pennsylvania, in order to compare Washington and Bonaparte. I would rather not have concerned myself with them until the point where I had met Napoleon; but if I came to the edge of my grave without having reached the year 1814 in my tale, no one would then know anything of what I would have written concerning these two representatives of Providence. I remember Castelnau: like me Ambassador to England, who wrote like me a narrative of his life in London. On the last page of Book VII, he says to his son: ‘I will deal with this event in Book VIII,’ and Book VIII of Castelnau’s Memoirs does not exist: that warns me to take advantage of being alive.