[In the following essay, Redman examines the relationship between Chateaubriand and the “Louisianaise” woman referred to as Célestine in Memoirs.Redman provides biographical information for this Célestine and considers her influence on and presence in Chateaubriand's writings.]

Chateaubriand may or may not have seen Louisiana when he visited North America in 1791. Whether he did or did not, Louisiana, or the idea of Louisiana, made a deep impression upon him. His Voyage en Amérique and his Mémoires d'outre-tombe describe in detail this exotic land, and two of his best stories, Atala and René along with his prose epic Les Natchez, are laid in north Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, that vast area that used to be included in Louisiana and “les Florides.” Whether a given episode took place in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana proper concerned Chateaubriand but little. Atala, published in 1801, narrates the brief, ill-starred relationship between an Indian lad, Chactas, and an Indian chief's daughter, Atala. One obstacle the two must contend with is that their native tribes are at odds with each other. To make matters worse, Atala believes a vow her mother once made precludes eventual union with her lover. Unable to visualize a solution to her problems, the beset heroine at last swallows poison and in the process made Chateaubriand and Louisiana an instant literary sensation. The tale inspired various artistic works. Probably the best of these—certainly the best known—is Girodet's canvas, Les Funérailles d'Atala or Atala au tombeau. as it is sometimes called, first shown at the 1808 Salon and now in the Louvre. Also exhibited at the Salon in 1808 was Pierre Jérôme Lordon's Communion d'Atala.

Toward the end of the Mémoires d'outre-tombe, in a section where Chateaubriand discusses several women writers he knew, occurs a short chapter entitled “La Louisianaise.” “Une Louisianaise m'est arrivée du Méchacebé; j'ai cru voir l'ombre d'Atala …” Who was this woman? “Célestine,” Chateaubriand calls her once or twice but without assigning her a family name.¹ Nowhere in the chapter does he tell us who she was or what she was doing in France. But let us see what he does tell us about her, at least up to the point at which his recollections come to a sudden, complete halt. First of all, Célestine reminded him of his heroine Atala, and his account is sprinkled with quotations from and allusions to the novelette. To Chateaubriand Célestine was “la fille du désert,” “la vierge des dernières amours, cette vierge qu'on envoie au prisonnier de guerre pour enchanter sa tombe.” As coincidence would have it, the Louisiana girl bore a curious resemblance to the Indian princess as one sees her in Girodet and Lordon's Atala paintings, which, even to Chateaubriand, had come to be viewed as Atala's standard portraits, it would seem. Still more or less quoting his novelette, Chateaubriand continued his memoirs account. “La fille du désert est … charmante. Je lui aurais fait volontiers une couronne de mauves bleues, surtout … si elle eût chanté la patrie absente.”² Now and then, as it turned out, Célestine worked on her own memoirs and read portions to Chateaubriand. After one of these sessions Chateaubriand thanked her in a note he inserted, with an important omission, in the Mémoires d'outre-tombe. We shall need to return to this note a little later.

Fate decreed that Célestine was not to cast a spell over this new Chactas' tomb. Quite the opposite. Célestine managed to wound her friend's political sensitivities, and the cherished illusion vanished. At this point Chateaubriand's narrative becomes muddled, making his readers wonder what happened. Clearly, time has elapsed, but the author does not tell us how much. “Quelque temps après, Célestine m'écrivit qu'elle était occupée d'une toilette pour sa présentation à la cour de Philippe: je repris ma peau d'ours. Célestine s'est changée en crocodile du puits des Florides: que le ciel lui fasse paix et amour, autant que ces choses-là durent” (MOT 4: 544). What, indeed, had happened between Chateaubriand and the “Louisianaise” when this chapter, or at least its conclusion, was written in 1837 or when it was altered later? Something is missing here. One senses that details, even whole incidents, have been omitted or removed. “Quelque temps après” is bothersome as well. The reader does not know how much time slipped away between the author's initial enthusiasm and the sudden, ostensible renunciation. When Chateaubriand crossed Célestine's path, he was about sixty. How old was she? When had she come to France? What were her social, her marital status? While this is no more than an impression, it is implied that she was unmarried. And why, as though he would never see her again, should the author declare, with an air of resignation, that he hopes Heaven will grant her peace and love, insofar as such things last? From available data about Chateaubriand and his relationship with the Louisianaise, it would appear that whatever the writer omitted or deleted from his memoirs, he omitted or deleted because his pride had been hurt. In this cryptic chapter Chateaubriand was hiding several things.

Let us turn our attention now to the Louisianaise herself and see what can be learned about her.³

Her maiden name was Célestine Allain. Like Chateaubriand, she was of old Breton stock. Her grandfather, François Allain, was a French soldier who in the eighteenth century had been stationed in Louisiana and had elected to remain there when the colony was ceded to Spain in 1762. Célestine's father, Valérien Allain, owned a plantation in West Baton Rouge, and it was there that she was born on 16 October 1804. On 19 November she was baptized. There were other children as well. Her brother Valérien Jr., born in 1799, studied in France. Fond of books, the parents named the two younger girls after Richardson and Voltaire heroines. With these girls, Clarisse and Alzire, Célestine grew up on their father's plantation. Célestine had not turned nine when her mother died. On 3 January 1813 she and Clarisse enrolled at the already famous Ursuline Academy in New Orleans, where Alzire joined them three years later.⁴ Célestine and Clarisse left the convent in 1816, shortly afterwards. Several years went by. By this time, in addition to the plantation, the family was maintaining a home in New Orleans at 61 St. Peter Street. Eventually, to patch up a quarrel between her father and an uncle, it was decided that Célestine should marry her cousin Jean Ursin Soniat, or Soniat Du Fossat.⁵ Ursin's people were prominent, and two New Orleans streets are still called Soniat and Du Fossat. It was no love match, though, and no one appears to have troubled to ask Célestine what her own inclinations were. Thus it was that on 28 June 1823 she walked to the altar at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. Her dowry was ＄34,000. Soon she and Ursin were ensconced in domestic life, dividing their time between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.⁶ Almost from the outset the household had its problems. Early on, Célestine lost a child, and her health declined. When this happened, she was advised to take a trip to France. An odd cure, perhaps. Actually, many Louisianians went to France in the nineteenth century. While in most cases this was to continue or complete their studies or simply for pleasure, no doubt some went for health reasons as well. It should be borne in mind, too, that Valérien Allain, Jr., spent a decade in France at about the time his sister decided to take a “cure” there, which could help explain her decision to go. In any case, there being no deep attachment to her husband to restrain her, Célestine Soniat, with her slave Anna Léandre, embarked. It was assumed that, when her health was better, she would be back. Except for visits, however, she never returned.

On 18 April 1825 Clarisse Allain married George Eustis, a Massachusetts native who had settled in Louisiana, where he entered state politics and became Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Several Eustis children will be mentioned in the course of our narrative. One, Célestine Eustis, would much later be an important socialite in Washington and in Aiken, South Carolina.⁷ Born in Paris in 1836, she was a constant visitor to France. Years later, in the 4 February 1912 issue of Courrier des Etats-Unis, she published an article called “Les Créoles de la Louisiane et leurs esclaves,” largely concerned with her aunt, Célestine Soniat Du Fossat. Indispensable though it is, Mlle Eustis' article almost disappears in the hundreds of bits and pieces that make it possible to put the Louisianaise's story together.

Mlle Eustis described her aunt “Grande Titine” as short, pretty, vivacious. Wit and charm she had in abundance, and she dressed with exquisite taste. As we have seen, Chateaubriand paid close attention to her clothes and where she intended to wear them. And, of course, she was rich. On arriving in Paris she took an apartment. “Elle prit un joli appartement dans le quartier de la Madelaine,” wrote Mlle Eustis, “rue de la Ferme des Mathurins. Dans la même maison habitait alors la belle Mme Récamier.”⁸ But her new surroundings did not seem to renew her health, or at least not at first. On 29 June 1827 she wrote to a Louisiana relative that she was still not happy in Paris, that her recovery was taking longer than she had anticipated, and that she was thinking of returning to Louisiana for a visit.⁹ And return she did, but it was only a visit. Then, back in Paris, she underwent a metamorphosis, or so it seemed. Gone in her mind was the problem of her ill-chosen husband, whom she had now come to think of as a rather good friend but no more. Gone, too, apparently, was her delicate health. Suddenly, almost, she was a true Parisian, as mondaine as any woman who had been born and reared in the French capital. She had a piano, took walks and drives, received and paid calls. Most of all she danced. At the Tuileries Palace she skipped and leaped in the same quadrilles as the princes and princesses. Toward the beginning of 1836, at a time when Franco-American relations were not at their best,¹⁰ she gave a spectacular costume ball that was commented on in the press. As hostess, she was dressed as Hebe. For her, she wrote a cousin, Paris was a paradise, and it seemed to be trying to thank her for being beautiful and charming. Decidedly, the city had become home.

At some point Célestine Soniat and Chateaubriand met. Just how this came about is not clear. Valérien Allain, Jr., knew a number of writers, and perhaps he introduced them. Of course, if Célestine lived in the same building with Mme Récamier, whom Chateaubriand visited almost every day, an encounter, sooner or later, would have had to take place. Chateaubriand's attachment to Mme Récamier, deep as it was, never precluded enthusiasms or even tender adventures with numerous other ladles. One way or another, he encountered Mme Soniat, and soon he was under the exotic Creole's spell. “La fille du désert est … charmante,” we have seen him declaring. Falling in love was a habit he had, and, inevitably, he let it happen again. In time, no doubt, he hoped to seduce his new idol. Between the two, in a short while, little pet names came to be used. If to her new admirer Célestine became “la fille du désert,” Chateaubriand was “le vieux sachem” or “le vieux sauvage.”

“Célestine m'a écrit plusieurs lettres,” Chateaubriand states but mentions only one that he wrote. He wrote several, and most tender they were. To her Baton Rouge cousin Joséphine Favrot, who died at about this time, Célestine admitted in 1836 that she had received from him “plusieurs lettres très flatteuses.” She kept them, or some of them.¹¹ In one, dated 5 February 1833, we learn that she had been depressed, and, gently, Chateaubriand chided her for it.

Pourquoi Célestine est-elle triste? Jeune et belle, qu'a-t-elle à regretter? La patrie? Quand on est heureuse, la patrie est dans le bonheur,¹² et toute terre est bonne pour mourir.

Si je n'étois souffrant j'irois voir à l'instant la fille du désert, lui demander la suite de son histoire et l'encourager.

Voici venir le temps des fleurs qui la consoleront.

Bientôt j'irai mettre à ses pieds mes hommages.

Chateaubriand

When he dashed this note off Chateaubriand was waiting to be tried for having written his sensational political pamphlet, Mémoire sur la captivité de madame la duchesse de Berry. The government's case against him was both weak and ridiculous, and, knowing he would be acquitted, he could afford to banter, as he did in this note.

As the note suggests, Mme Soniat had decided to write her memoirs and was reading portions of them to Chateaubriand. “Elle m'a montré des fragments de mémoires qu'elle a composés dans les savanes de l'Alabama,” he observed, although probably what she wrote had been penned in Paris. Perhaps she never finished getting her recollections down on paper. In any event, the memoirs thus far have never come to light.

Like many another writer before and since, Chateaubriand occasionally tried his hand at genres for which he had limited talent. One was the theater. Much earlier than the period we are concerned with, he had written his play Moïse but had never allowed it to be staged. Finally, in 1834, it was performed at the Théâtre de Versailles and the Odéon. To say merely that it failed would be charitable. Quite naturally, Chateaubriand was disappointed, but he was resilient and his disappointment did not make him lose interest in his American friend. Again Mme Soniat invited him to listen to a selection from her memoirs, and he accepted in a note dated 22 December 1834.

                                                                                                    Paris, 22 décembre 1834.

Je suis à vos ordres, Madame; ce que vous avez bien voulu me faire connoître de vos inspirations me donne un vif désir d'entendre le reste. Le fleuve que j'ai chanté m'envoie sa muse, je l'en remercie; et si je pouvois encore rêver la fille du désert, aujourd'hui je la peindrois mieux.

Chateaubriand

This note, mentioned earlier, is the one Chateaubriand said he wrote Mme Soniat after listening to one of her readings. Minus the date and minus the first six words, it was included in Chateaubriand's memoirs. In part at least, those memoirs were written to make certain the public, present and future, saw the writer as he wished to be seen and remembered, and now and then letters included in them were emended with this intent in mind. Such was the case here, when Chateaubriand omitted madame. Ever discreet, in his memoirs and elsewhere, about his amorous involvements, Chateaubriand did not intend to let his readers know that his correspondent, whom he was now in love with, was a married woman, but the note's corrected version, printed above, makes it more than obvious that he was well aware of the fact himself.

There were other letters, too, it would appear, but these have vanished. From one, which she seems not to have wanted to reproduce in its entirety, Célestine Eustis quoted an exclamation written in a moment of passion. “Oh! Célestine, si je vous eusse connue plus tôt, mon Atala eût été plus belle.” Clearly smitten, Chateaubriand momentarily forgot that his correspondent had not been born when the novel was written.

It would be enlightening, of course, to know what Célestine Soniat thought about Chateaubriand. Fortunately, she summarized her reactions in the long letter to Joséphine Favrot alluded to earlier. For a man nearly seventy when that letter was written, Chateaubriand must have been in an excellent state of preservation, since Mme Soniat was a decade off in guessing his age. She described him to her cousin as a man of sixty, short, tending to paunchiness. He was lively and full of imagination, and his facial expression radiated deep intellect. “Il est très galant, très flatteur, peut-être un peu trop pour son âge,” she added. Fond of women, he still tried to attract them. He had, she concluded, the heart of a young man.¹³

But what, eventually, put an end to the involvement?

When, in 1837, Chateaubriand devoted a chapter to the Louisianaise in his autobiography, there can be no doubt that either the adventure, such as it was, was already over or that the chapter at some time or other underwent serious revision. Just what happened is hard to determine. As printed, Chateaubriand's account has a certain, perhaps unintentional, wit about it, but it remains impenetrable. The author allows it to be assumed that the break had been over a matter of clothes. To attend a ball at Louis Philippe's court, Célestine had a gown made, as we have seen, and told Chateaubriand she was busy getting it ready. Irritated, Chateaubriand put back on a “bearskin” that must have contrasted vividly with the attire his new Atala wore when she danced at the palace of a king Chateaubriand despised. For her erstwhile admirer, “Atala” immediately lost her charms. Chateaubriand even went so far as to compare her to an alligator. Referring once more to Atala, he reproached her for having “vu la fumée des fêtes de l'étranger,” an allusion to his heroine's fleeing her father's tribe with her lover, an outsider. In Célestine Soniat's case he had in mind the balls she so adored and which she attended at the Tuileries. Chateaubriand's political commitments made him detest the palace's current occupant, who had been placed on the throne by the July Revolution. To Chateaubriand Louis Philippe was a usurper, an “étranger.” Going to balls at his palace was something that Chateaubriand could not, or would not, forgive. For Mme Soniat to attend them was natural enough, however. Outlawed and wandering from country to country during the Revolution of 1789, the new king had once received in Louisiana a welcome he never forgot, and when he came to the throne Louisianians were always much in evidence at his court.

From Mme Soniat's viewpoint, the gown must have been a pretext, a means to get rid of Chateaubriand. But Mme Soniat used a woman's delicate tact to soothe the author's wounded pride. Assuming he would wish to discuss the matter at all, Chateaubriand could mention the gown, permitting readers to think that it had been he rather than she who terminated the relationship. Her letter to Joséphine Favrot makes it clear that Mme Soniat relished Chateaubriand's interest in her, and probably she admired and really liked the famous writer. Nevertheless, a time must have come when she realized that she had to put an end to the importunate attentions of an elderly gentleman who, decidedly, was becoming too assiduous. With his political activities as public as they were, she could not have been unaware of what Chateaubriand was doing at that very moment to help the banished Bourbons regain their throne. He had been put on trial shortly before. In desperation, no doubt, Célestine mentioned her presentation at Louis Philippe's court, knowing quite well what the effect would be. By doing what she did, however, she gave Chateaubriand an opportunity to withdraw honorably rather than be dismissed. He took the opportunity and withdrew, sadly wishing her “peace and love.” Love for someone else, he must have presumed.

At this point or earlier, one may conclude, Célestine Soniat ceased to be a part of Chateaubriand's life, except in the author's memories. Yet her later life is not without interest in itself. Just as Emile Gérard-Gailly did (Le Grand Amour de Flaubert, L'Unique Passion de Flaubert) in the case of Elisa Schlésinger, whom Flaubert loved at a discreet distance, let us see what can be done to reconstruct Mme Soniat's life after the doomed friendship with Chateaubriand came to an end.

If, as Chateaubriand expected her to do, Mme Soniat found “peace and love” with someone else, that person was certainly not her husband. Ursin Soniat never really accepted his wife's decision to live abroad, alone. He went to France to see her and tried, with no success, to persuade her to come home. A legal document in St. Martinville, Louisiana, dated 18 May 1830, describes her as being from West Baton Rouge Parish. In another document, this one dated 22 May 1839, many years after she left, Ursin still referred to her as being “temporairement à Paris.” He eventually relented somewhat and was even entrusted with her power of attorney from 1840 until his death. As has been pointed out, Mme Soniat did return to Louisiana now and again, but always as a visitor. Ships' passenger lists and various other documents place her in Louisiana in 1828, 1830,¹⁴ 1839,¹⁵ 1847, and 1859 to 1861. Probably she was there in 1833 and 1840 as well.¹⁶ Alzire and her husband, Valentin Du Broca, separated in 1846. No one could have predicted at the time that the separation would be short-lived, as it turned out to be. Célestine and Ursin Soniat meanwhile adopted Alzire's daughter Célestine, whom Mme Soniat took back to France in July 1847 and reared in Paris. On 12 January 1858 Ursin shot himself in bed but claimed it was an accident. A gun he was cleaning went off, he said. While initially he appears to have recovered more or less, his health then took a turn for the worse and deteriorated. On 11 September, at death's door, he made a new will¹⁷ and died at his plantation two days later. He was buried in New Orleans on 15 September. To visit relatives and to settle his estate, Célestine returned once more to America. She arrived in Baton Rouge on the riverboat John Raine on 9 October 1859, bringing her niece with her. On the way she had stopped at Niagara Falls, which had impressed Chateaubriand years earlier. From June to late October 1860 she was in the North, where Clarisse Eustis owned property. On 3 January 1861, with secession talk in the air, she was in New Orleans. On 5 April she went to Baton Rouge to spend several weeks, then sailed for France at the end of the month, as the first shots were being fired in the War of Secession. Célestine Du Broca remained in Louisiana.

Actually, there was little need for Célestine Soniat to return to the United States, even for visits. Paris had become her home, and in the French capital she had formed a wide and close circle of friends that included not only Chateaubriand but Lamartine and possibly Mérimée. Nor had she been alone when she arrived. With her had come her maid, Anna Léandre. From time to time Valérien Allain, Sr. and Jr., came to see her. It was while on a visit that Valérien Sr. died on 20 August 1844, the year Chateaubriand's Vie de Rancé appeared. Several cousins came to France, married there, and settled down.¹⁸ “Toto” Davis, who owned the Théâtre d'Orléans, also called when he was in town. Clarisse Eustis, widowed like her sister in 1858, in time moved to France, dying at Pau in 1876. Célestine Du Broca lived with her aunt from 1847 to 1859. Returning with Mme Soniat to Louisiana in 1859, she married H. M. Favrot in West Baton Rouge on 12 August 1862, several months after New Orleans had fallen to Union forces. Now and again Célestine Eustis and other relatives came to visit. This was more than ever true during the War of Secession, when those who could had to seek a haven from the horrors of invasion and occupation. A nephew, George Eustis, Jr., was one of the numerous relatives in Paris at this time, having arrived in the midst of the international incident that followed the seizure of the Confederate emissaries Mason and Slidell aboard a British vessel. As John Slidell's secretary, Eustis had shared his ambassador's imprisonment. When Great Britain compelled the United States to release the Southern commissioners, Eustis proceeded to France, settling there with his wife, the beautiful Louise Corcoran.¹⁹ He remained there until his death in 1872. Remembering his native state and also to honor his wife, who died in 1867, he named his house at Cannes Villa Louisiana. Mérimée's correspondence reveals that, in the 1860s, the writer was on excellent terms with George Jr., Louise, and Célestine Eustis, and perhaps with Clarisse Eustis as well. Célestine Soniat had died when, much later, still another Eustis nephew arrived in Paris. This was James B. Eustis, United States ambassador to France from 1893 to 1897. Some of Ursin's relatives were also in France, including a brother who had gone there to live. There was in addition an adolescent who had been packed off to school there to prevent his running away and joining the South's armies.

In Louisiana Mme Soniat's business affairs were handled by H. M. Favrot and Charles T. Soniat. In addition to what she owned in Baton Rouge and elsewhere, there were several houses in New Orleans. One was on Rampart St., another on Iberville St. at about where La Louisiane Restaurant stands today, and still another at 55 Ursulines St. In France she continued to make Paris her home, except for occasional vacations. In 1850, for example, she went to Vichy for the summer. The belle saison of 1856 she spent at Montmorency, where her uncle Sosthène Allain visited her. Her stylish apartment near the Madeleine she eventually relinquished and was living, on 7 October 1881, at 54, rue de Rome, an address quite as enviable as the other had been and where she had Mallarmé as a neighbor. When death overtook her on 4 October 1882, it was at still another apartment, this one at 5, rue de Thann, near the Parc Monceau. When she died, she had been ill for four months. “Quatre mois de souffrances horribles,” according to Célestine Du Broca's diary. Far from Louisiana and having survived most of her friends and relatives in France, it comes as no surprise that her funeral procession was followed by “bien peu d'amis.” “Toute terre est bonne pour mourir,” Chateaubriand had written her. He had preceded her to the grave in 1848. Lamartine had died in 1869, Mérimée the year following.

Anna Léandre, who had once been her slave, survived her and was one of her heiresses. Upon Mme Soniat's death, Anna moved to a convent, where she lived as a boarder for the rest of her life. Like George Eustis, Jr., she would not hear of returning to the United States. “J'aime trop mon boulevard,” she used to answer when people tried to coax her back to America. On 22 May 1881, nominated by Mme Soniat, she had been awarded a medal by the Société Nationale d'Encouragement au Bien, a tribute to her attachment, devotion, and service, the commendation declared. She lived until 8 January 1887 and, in keeping with a clause in Mme Soniat's will, chose to be buried beside her mistress in the historic Père Lachaise Cemetery.

That Célestine Soniat never completed her memoirs, as far as can be determined, and that what she did write has disappeared is a loss. Beyond a doubt, her story would have been fascinating. She had known important people, observed momentous events at close hand. She had seen many a political establishment come and go, having lived in Paris during the Restoration, the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire, the Third Republic, the Commune. From the windows of her apartment, trembling, she and one of her nieces had watched Lamartine brave a threatening mob during the tense, hectic Journées de Juin in 1848.²⁰ In literature, which interested her so much, she had witnessed the rise, and sometimes the fall, of Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Parnassianism, and Symbolism. In short, it had been a full life, and it would have made an exciting narrative. As has been pointed out, Chateaubriand considered Mme Soniat an author, one whose work he must have assumed would in due time be published. She might have proved to be a very good writer. On her mother's side she was descended from Charles Perrault, whose Contes de ma mère l'oye have entertained children for centuries.²¹

Notes

1. The table of contents of Part Four, Book Eleven, in an early manuscript version of the Mémoires d'outre-tombe adds her last name. In the final version, the one that the public was to see, the last name disappeared. Whether this omission was an accident on the part of Chateaubriand or a copyist or whether the author had decided to keep Célestine Soniat's last name a secret one can only guess.

2. Mémoires d'outre-tombe, ed. Maurice Levaillant, 4 (Paris: Flammarion, 1949) 544.

3. For their kindness in putting various sorts of material at my disposal, I should like to thank Sr. Columba, Archivist, Ursuline Academy, New Orleans; the late Mrs. Frederic R. Swigart, née Allain; the late Miss Lucille Soniat; Mr. Thomas B. Favrot; Mrs. Roland Daigre; Mr. William Cullison III; Mr. Gulllermo Nañez Falcón; Mr. Edward Voorhies; Mrs. William Thompson Smith, who made one of Chateaubriand's letters to Célestine Soniat available to me; the late Mrs. Raymond (Jane) Schoonmaker and her daughter, Mrs. T. D. (Gail) Ruddock, and son, Mr. Jan Schoonmaker; the mairies of the VIII^e and XVII^earrondissements in Paris; and the administration of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Additional information was culled from the National Archives; the Catholic Life Center in Baton Rouge; the St. Louis Cathedral Archives in New Orleans; the Favrot Papers, Tulane University Library; ships' passenger lists; New Orleans City Directories; and various parish courthouses throughout south Louisiana, especially in St. Martinville and West Baton Rouge. Célestine Du Broca Favrot's papers and some of her aunt's came into the possession of Mme Favrot's daughter Corinne, later Mrs. Henry Hart. When Mrs. Hart died in 1976, the papers went to Mrs. Schoonmaker. Upon Mrs. Schoonmaker's death in 1977, they became the property of Mr. Jan Schoonmaker. Mr. Schoonmaker has donated some material to the Favrot Collection in the Tulane University Library but, as of this writing, has retained the bulk of the documents.

4. 5 February 1816.

5. Born 21 October 1797.

6. The 1832 New Orleans City Directory shows that Ursin Soniat Du Fossat lived at 345 Royal St. 1828 and 1830 documents in St. Martinville show M. and Mme Soniat residing in both East and West Baton Rouge, which indicates that they owned property, including residential property, in both parishes. The documents do not reveal that by this time Mme Soniat was actually residing in France.

7. See Kay Lawrence, Heroes, Horses and High Society. Aiken from 1540 (Columbia, South Carolina: King Press, 1971) 14-18. On the Eustises see also Warner Eustis, The Eustis Families in the United States from 1657 to 1968 (Newton, Massachusetts: Privately Printed, 1968) 2 vols. Suppl. 1972.

8. Italics mine. Except for short intervals elsewhere, Mme Récamier lived at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, 16, rue de Sèvres, from autumn 1819 until her death thirty years later. Was Célestine Soniat's apartment really at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where the Augustinian Nuns rented living quarters to select ladies? If it was, then meeting Chateaubriand, who visited Mme Récamier there almost daily, would have been inevitable. But Mme Maurice Amour, Secretary General of the Société Chateaubriand, is dubious about Mme Soniat's having lived at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. In a letter to the author dated 4 August 1981 she states, “De 1808 à 1818, Mme Récamier a habité 32, rue Basse du Rempart, et d'octobre 1818 à octobre 1819, 31, rue d'Anjou St-Honoré, deux demeures, aujourd'hui disparues, qui se trouvaient bien dans le quartier de la Madeleine. Mais, à partir de l'automne 1819, elle résidera désormais (sauf quelques séjours brefs ici et là) à l'Abbaye-aux-Bois. Elle a vendu, dès le mois de mai 1819, le petit hôtel de la rue d'Anjou qu'elle avait acheté sur l'héritage de sa mère. Il ne peut donc pas être question, en 1827, d'un immeuble du quartier de la Madeleine ‘où habitait Mme Récamier’. Mais je présume qu'il serait possible, par exemple, de comprendre ‘un immeuble où avait auparavant habité Mme Récamier’.

   “En effet, la rue de la Ferme des Mathurins, ouverte au XVIIIe siècle à un emplacement aujourd'hui occupé par les Grands Magasins du Printemps, côté rue du Havre, fut prolongée, mais seulement en 1823, jusqu'à la rue Basse du Rempart (disparue dans le boulevard de la Madeleine et le boulevard des Capucines). Amputée par l'ouverture du boulevard Haussmann sous le Second Empire, cette rue devint rue Vignon en 1881.

   “Il n'est donc pas tout a fait impossible que Célestine Soniat, en 1827, ait pris un joli appartement rue de la Ferme des Mathurins, dans la partie qui avait été prolongée en 1823 et qui aboutissait rue Basse du Rempart. Ce pouvait être un immeuble qui faisait le coin Ferme des Mathurins-Basse du Rempart et qu'aurait habité Mme Récamier côté rue Basse du Rempart mais certainement pas côté Ferme des Mathurins, puisque cette partie de la rue n'a été ouverte qu'en 1823.

   “Je ne pense pas qu'il faille comprendre que Célestine Soniat ait logé à l'Abbaye-aux-Bois. Cela se serait su par Mme Récamier et son entourage.

   “Je crois que les détails donnés par la nièce sur un appartement dans le quartier de la Madeleine, rue de la Ferme des Mathurins, sont assez précis pour être acceptés, mais qu'il y a eu, dans son esprit, confusion de date et de lieu à propos de la résidence de Mme Récamier dans ce même immeuble …”

   Mme Amour is probably correct in all of this. The only serious objection to her reasoning here has to do with the fact that, had Mme Soniat lived in the same building, Mme Récamier and her friends would have found out about it. Mme Récamier's knowing about it would not, of course, have prevented the Louisianaise from taking an apartment in the building, especially if, as was probably the case, she had already done so before meeting Chateaubriand. It could well be that Chateaubriand met the vivacious Creole only after she moved in and, indeed, because she had done so.

9. Letter in the Jan Schoonmaker Collection.

10. The United States was demanding reparations for American vessels France had seized from 1806 to 1812, during Napoleon's Continental System. While an accord had been reached in 1831, it had never been implemented because the Chambre des Députés had failed to vote the funds making it possible to do so. Franco-American diplomatic relations were suspended during 1835 and both nations took hostile stances. Matters were particularly tense in December 1835 and January 1836. Ultimately the stalemate was broken in 1836, with France agreeing to pay a lump sum of nearly 25,000,000 francs. As Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1823 and 1824, Chateaubriand had attempted to cope with the problem, but, like his predecessors, had put the matter off. See MOT 3: 205.

11. Several of Chateaubriand's letters are included in Célestine Eustis' article mentioned above.

12. Even in his correspondence Chateaubriand sometimes had his “sources.” This sentence appears to be a recollection of an unfinished epic, part of which appeared in 1811. See J. B. Barjaud, Charlemagne, Canto IX, in Odes nationales … (Paris: C.-F. Patris, 1811) 41.

    La patrie est aux lieux où le bonheur se trouve,

    the poet has someone tell Charlemagne. Having recently become a military officer, Barjaud was mortally wounded in 1813, and his epic was never completed.

13. Célestine Soniat's letter, now lost, to her cousin Joséphine Favrot used to be in the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans. I have examined a translation made under the Work Projects Administration. As pointed out above, one of Chateaubriand's letters to Mme Soniat, somewhat altered, is in the MOT. Mrs. William Thompson Smith put the original at my disposal (see n. 3).

14. In 1828 she was godmother to a niece, Françoise Alzire Du Broca, baptized at St. Joseph's Church in Baton Rouge on 28 December. On 11 January 1830 she signed a legal document in New Orleans.

15. On 20 August 1839 she was godmother to Herminie Clothilde Thomas, baptized at St. Joseph's on that date.

16. The Salem, sailing from Le Havre, reached New Orleans on 3 June 1833. Its passenger list reveals that, with his three brothers, a Mr. Soniat and his wife were aboard. On 12 May 1840 Célestine Soniat sold some property in Louisiana, but whether she was present when the sale took place is not absolutely clear. She probably was, especially since she had been in Louisiana as recently as the previous summer (see n. 15).

17. He had already made one on 2 October 1856.

18. Two such cousins were Amélie and Julie Hopkins. Amélie married Gustave Braccini and went to live at Oisime. Julie married Baron Joachim Marie Jean Jacques Alexandre Jules Ambert, the well-known author, political figure, and general. For a time around 1840 Ambert lived in New Orleans, connected with the newspaper L'Abeille. Back in France, when the July Monarchy fell in February 1848, he helped the Duchesse d'Orléans escape from Paris. Braccini, also a soldier, wrote on social and political issues.

19. Daughter of W. W. Corcoran, the banker, philanthropist, and art collector. Sympathetic to the Southern cause, Corcoran lived in France from 1862 until the end of the war.

20. See Harry Redman, Jr., “A Little-Known Letter of Lamartine,” Romance Notes, 8 (1967) 1-2.

21. Célestine Soniat's maternal grandfather was Martin Duralde, who had married a Marie Josèphe Perrault, originally from Quebec. Among her ancestors Mlle Perrault could include with pride the author of the famous fairy tales.