Chateaubriand's tomb
The tomb of Chateaubriand , the French writer François-René de Chateaubriand , is on the island of Grand Bé, off the coast of his native Saint-Malo in Brittany . It has been classified as a Monument historique since 1954 .
The grave of Grand Bé
As requested, Chateaubriand was buried after his death in Paris on July 4, 1848 on the edge of the cliffs on the island of Grand Bé, where, as he is said to have once said, he “can always and forever look at the sea and the storm”, the rustle of which “ lulls me into my first sleep ”.
As he wrote to one of his friends, Chateaubriand had been looking for a small island for his final resting place since 1823. On the eve of his 60th birthday in 1828, he asked the Mayor of Saint-Malo to grant him "the western tip of the Grand Bey ". The city council responded with disapproval, using a number of reasons relating to the "public and private life of the writer" as an excuse. Shortly afterwards, Hippolyte de la Morvonnais , a poet from Malo, intervened and in 1831 again brought the writer's request to Mayor Louis Hovius, whom he greatly admired. The city council agreed this time and the tomb was completed in 1838, ten years before the writer's death.
The grave complex was initially fenced in by an iron grating in the neo-Gothic style. In 1944 a grenade blew up a corner of the tombstone and damaged the fence. A new, simpler fence with only three sides was erected. The side facing the sea remained open, which actually came closest to the original design. Another wish of the writer, namely that his grave should not bear an inscription, was taken into account by Raymond Cornon, the chief architect of the historical monuments.
The only exception is an anonymous plaque placed on the wall behind the grave. It bears the inscription:
“ Un grand écrivain français a voulu reposer ici pour n'y entender que le vent et la mer. Passer-by respecte sa dernière volonté. "
“A great French writer wanted to rest here to hear nothing but the wind and the sea. Passerby, respect his last wish! "
See also
Web links
- Chateaubriand's tomb on the Saint-Malo official website (French)
- Topic Topos (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ entry no. PA00090870 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French).
- ^ François-René De Chateaubriand: Mémoires d'outre-tombe, livre premier.
- ↑ Le tombeau de Chateaubriand. (No longer available online.) Official Saint-Malo website, archived from the original on August 2, 2013 ; Retrieved July 25, 2013 (French).
Coordinates: 48 ° 39 '10.7 " N , 2 ° 1' 59.4" W.