Note 211 — Chapter IV · DIDEROT AND THE FRENCH TRANSITION.

I have not thought it necessary to notice Chateaubriand’s literary judgments in the Essai sur les Révolutions at the beginning, or in the Mémoires d’Outre Tombe at the end of his career. The first, interesting as it is, is too crude (v. inf., Bk. viii. Ch. ii.), the second too much spoilt by “cooking of spleen,” and both too personal and egotistic.