umont, who was destined
to fill a great place in his life, and gave him some help in the
preparation of his work on Christianity, part of the book being written
at her house at Savigny. _Atala, ou les amours de deux sauvages dans le
desert_, used as an episode in the _Genie du christianisme_, appeared
separately in 1801 and immediately made his reputation. Exquisite style,
impassioned eloquence and glowing descriptions of nature gained
indulgence for the incongruity between the rudeness of the personages
and the refinement of the sentiments, and for the distasteful blending
of prudery with sensuousness. Alike in its merits and defects the piece
is a more emphatic and highly coloured _Paul et Virginie_; it has been
justly said that Bernardin Saint-Pierre models in marble and
Chateaubriand in bronze. Encouraged by his success the author resumed
his _Genie du christianisme, ou beautes de la religion chretienne_,
which appeared in 1802, just upon the eve of Napoleon's re-establishment
of the Catholic religion in France, for which it thus seemed almost to
have prepared the way. No coincidence could have been more opportune,
and Chateaubriand came to esteem himself the counterpart of Napoleon in
the intellectual order. In composing his work he had borne in mind the
admonition of his friend Joseph Joubert, that the public would care very
little for his erudition and very much for his eloquence. It is
consequently an inefficient production from the point of view of serious
argument. The considerations derived from natural theology are but
commonplaces rendered dazzling by the magic of style; and the parallels
between Christianity and antiquity, especially in arts and letters, are
at best ingenious sophistries. The less polemical passages, however,
where the author depicts the glories of the Catholic liturgy and its
accessories, or expounds its symbolical significance, are splendid
instances of the effect produced by the accumulation and judicious
distribution of particulars gorgeous in the mass, and treated with the
utmost refinement of detail. The work is a masterpiece of literary art,
and its influence in French literature was immense. The _Eloa_ of Alfred
de Vigny, the _Harmonies_ of Lamartine and even the _Legende des
siecles_ of Victor Hugo may be said to have been inspired by the _Genie
du christianisme_. Its immediate effect was very considerable. It
admirably subserved the statecraft of Napoleon, and Talleyrand in 1803
a