Note 8 — BOOK I[1]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Following M. Edmond Biré in his edition of 1899, I have borrowed this paragraph from the manuscript known as the Manuscrit de 1826, which was in the handwriting, for the most part, of Madame Récamier, and which was published by Madame Charles Lenormant in 1874. It is certainly preferable to the paragraph in all other editions of the Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe, which runs as follows:
"My father's birth and the trials of his first position caused his character to become one of the gloomiest ever known. Now this character influenced my ideas because it terrified me in childhood, saddened me in youth, and determined the manner of my education."
The Comte de Marcellus (Chateaubriand et son temps, p. 6) remarks that this paragraph interrupts the narrative and in no way assists it.—T.