Chateaubriand, René, viscount

Chateaubriand, (François-Auguste-) René, viscount of

Viscount de Chateaubriand, detail of an oil painting by Girodet-Trioson; in the National Museum of …

(credit: Cliche Musees Nationaux)

(born Sept. 4, 1768, Saint-Malo, France—died July 4, 1848, Paris) French author and statesman. A cavalry officer at the start of the French Revolution, he refused to join the Royalists and instead sailed to the U.S., where he traveled with fur traders. On Louis XVI's fall he returned to join the Royalist army. Atala (1801), part of an unfinished epic, drew on his travels in the U.S. The Genius of Christianity (1802), which asserted the value of Christianity on the basis of its poetic and artistic appeal, influenced many Romantic writers and brought him briefly into favour with Napoleon. With the 1814 Restoration he became a major political figure. Other works include the novel René (1805) and his memoirs (6 vol., 1849–50), perhaps his most lasting monument. He was the preeminent French writer of his day.