ds and antiquated customs of the sequestered
Breton district, above all, the vagueness and solemnity of the
neighbouring ocean. His closest friend was his sister Lucile,[2] a
passionate-hearted girl, divided between her devotion to him and to
religion. Francois received his education at Dol and Rennes, where Jean
Victor Moreau was among his fellow-students. From Rennes he proceeded to
the College of Dinan, and passed some years in desultory study in
preparation for the priesthood. He finally decided, after a year's
holiday at the family chateau of Combourg, that he had no vocation for
the Church, and was on the point of proceeding to try his fortune in
India when he received (1786) a commission in the army. After a short
visit to Paris he joined his regiment at Cambrai, and early in the
following year was presented at court. In 1788 he received the tonsure
in order to enter the order of the Knights of Malta. In Paris
(1787-1789) he made acquaintance with the Parisian men of letters. He
met la Harpe, Evariste Parny, "Pindare" Lebrun, Nicolas Chamfort, Pierre
Louis Ginguene, and others, of whom he has left portraits in his
memoirs.

Chateaubriand was not unfavourable to the Revolution in its first
stages, but he was disturbed by its early excesses; moreover, his
regiment was disbanded, and his family belonged to the party of
reaction. His political impartiality, he says, pleased no one. These
causes and the restlessness of his spirit induced him to take part in a
romantic scheme for the discovery of the North-West Passage, in
pursuance of which he departed for America in the spring of 1791. The
passage was not found or even attempted, but the adventurer returned
enriched with the--to him--more important discovery of his own powers
and vocation, conscious of his marvellous faculty for the delineation of
nature, and stored with the new ideas and new imagery, derived from
the virgin forests and magnificent scenery of the western continent.
That he actually lived among the Indians, however, is shown by Bedier to
be doubtful, and the same critic has exposed the untrustworthiness of
the autobiographical details of his American trip. His knowledge of
America was mainly derived from the books of Charlevoix and others.

The news of the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes in June 1791 recalled
him to France. In 1792 he married Mlle Celeste Buisson de Lavigne, a
girl of seventeen, who brought him a small fortune. This enabled him to