“When I leave the world, people will see three acts in my drama-like life…

I have always set myself great tasks. When I was a traveler, I aspired to discover polar life. When I was a literary hack, I tried to restore religion on its ruins. When I was a statesman, I endeavored to give the genuine representative monarchistic system to the people, with its full range of freedom. I am almost the only modern French writer whose life looks like his work. I have been a traveler, a soldier, a poet, an advertising executive. I have sung of woods in woods, painted the sea on vessels, told of arms in camps, learned about exile in exile, studied princes, politics, laws and history in courts, in businesses and in assemblies…If I have suffered enough in the land of the living to be a happy shadow in the other world, some light from the “Champs Elysées” cast on my last painting will subdue the painter’s failing. Life does not become me ; Death may become me better.

CHATEAUBRIAND