François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) is known for The Genius of Christianity and his Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, among other books. Halfway between the Ancien Régime and the  French Revolution, he is aristocratic and modern in spirit. Pompous in form, he did not hold back any subject that he did not touch with his pen (and with his life, to a large extent). As Carlos Pujol mentions in the prologue to  Reflexiones y aforismos  (Edhasa, 1997), our author was a Christian of principles and sensitivity, more than a spirit of life, noble to the core, frowned upon by those of his rank, a womanizer to the end, fickle by nature (…). Inconstant and fickle, discontented, gallant and alone (p. 18). With carefully disheveled hair, a traveler and adventurer, with a romantic streak, playing his best role: himself. A writer, not a notary, he remade himself to fit his style, perfecting himself through his writings.

Reflections and Aphorisms is a good example of Chateaubriand’s way of writing and thinking. Loose-boned, with its fair share of cynicism and disenchantment. A passionate life and equally lively writing. “After all,” he says, “one must not disdain glory; nothing is more beautiful than it, but virtue. The height of happiness would be to unite one with the other in this life (p. 70).” He was clear about this, but the numbers didn’t add up. His apology for Christianity demonstrates his great aspirations, even if he was not a model of morality. He was part—as Marc Fumaroli wittily points out in the postface to the small book  Love and Old Age (Acantilado, 2013)—of the literary community of great sinners, a middle path between the error of the Enlightenment and that of rigorism (see pp. 45-52). A man of his time, aware that he had to rise above his weaknesses and malice.

The Genius of Christianity (Ciudadela Libros, 2008) is a book that continues to be published. Original in its structure, it highlights the author’s broad culture, as it represents the Christian message in dialogue with universal culture. “Chateaubriand—in the words of Jules Lemaître ( Chateaubriand in Ten Lectures. El Cuaderno de Cabecera, 2018, Kindle edition)—was undoubtedly an unbeliever between the ages of twenty and thirty. In 1798, he was perhaps nihilistic. And then he wrote The Genius of Christianity. What had happened? There was no Pascal-style “night”; otherwise, he would have told us. He was deeply moved by the death of his mother and by what his mother had suffered for him. His conversion was determined, or hastened, by the desire to write the restorative book that everyone was waiting for.” His, of course, was not a conversion à la Saint Paul. Christian sensitivity, of course, but the thorn of the flesh accompanied him throughout his life.

I conclude with this aphorism from our ineffable author: “There are two kinds of revolutionaries: some desire Revolution and Liberty: they are the minority; others desire Revolution and Power: they are the vast majority (p. 31).” This reflection is familiar to us; just look at the international political scene in so many countries, where opportunism in pursuit of power and money abounds. There is a great desire for achievement at any price, in so many cases; on the other hand, very little desire for service and selflessness. The latter requires self-denial and magnanimity, rare virtues in the society of the spectacle. Chateaubriand had no attachment to money, and it seems he was right when he stated that “if politics is not a religion, it is nothing.”