Note 33 — BOOK V[1]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
A contemporary, M. Auguis, thus describes the cavalier manner in which Chateaubriand paid his visits (he quotes from the unpublished Diary of Ferdinand Denis, author of Scènes de la nature sous les tropiques and of André le voyageur):
"When Chateaubriand went to pay his French-Academy visits, he called upon his future colleagues on horseback. To the famous and powerful he paid a complete visit; to the small fry he sent in his card, without alighting from his mettlesome steed. When they came to discuss the election, M. —— voted for the horse of his new colleague, saying that, in all conscience, it was the former alone that had paid him a visit."—B.