FRANCOIS AUGUSTE, VICOMTE DE, was born at St Malo, Brittany, in 1769. After studying at Dol and Rennes, he entered the army as a sub-lieutenant in 1786, and on the establishment of the Reign of Terror emigrated to America, where he remained till 1792. He returned to serve in the army of Condé; but having been wounded at the siege of Thionville, retired to Eng- land, where he published his Essay on Revolutions. A visit to the United States at this period made him acquainted with the phases of Indian life which are delineated in some of his tales. After the 18th Brumaire 1799 he returned to France, and became a contributor to the Mercure. His reputation as a writer was established in 1802 by the publication of the Génie du Christianisme; and in the following year he entered the diplomatic service of the First Consul, by whom he was sent as secretary to the French embassy at Rome. From Rome he went in an official capacity to Switzerland; but on the execution of the Duke d'Enghien he resigned his appointments and lived in retirement till the restora- tion. A part of the interval, however, was spent abroad in visiting the Holy Land. At Ghent he officiated as foreign minister to Louis XVIII., and in 1815 was elected a mem- ber of the Chamber of Peers. Under the Villèle adminis- tration he was sent as ambassador to London, and afterwards to the Congress of Verona, where he organized the French invasion of Spain, a measure which, when minister of foreign affairs, he had afterwards the principal responsi- bility of executing. In 1824 he was dismissed from office, and employed his pen in vigorously denouncing his former colleagues. Four years later, when his friends were for a short time restored to power, Chateaubriand was sent as ambassador to Rome, but again resigned on the formation of the Polignac ministry. On the outbreak of the revolu- tion in 1830 he went to Paris, and delivered an oration in favour of the Duke of Bordeaux. This was his last appear- ance personally in public. The rest of his life was spent in strict seclusion; but the keen political pamphlets which occa- sionally issued from his retreat wielded so great an influence over the minds of his countrymen that the government of Louis Philippe found it necessary to lay him under a brief arrest. He died in July 1848, after witnessing the second revolution of that year which ushered in the republic. His Mémoires were published after his death, and contain much curious information illustrative of the eventful times in which he lived, but are greatly marred by the tone of supercilious vanity which prevails throughout the whole. His collected works were published at Paris in 1826.