An Acknowledgment

Abstract

In a study of Chateaubriand's La Maison de France (PMLA XXXVIII, No. 1, pp. 99-114), the present writer, after examining and placing in their respective parts, books, and chapters a series of excerpts from the Génie du Christianisme, declared himself baffled by the fifth excerpt, which reads: “Je remarque qu'Horace, Virgile, Tibulle, Tite-Live, moururent tous avant Auguste, qui est en cela le sort de Louis XIV; notre grand prince survécut un peu à son siécle et il se coucha le dernier dans la tombe, comme pour s'assurer qu'il ne restait rien après lui.” This passage, which looked as though it might belong to Part III, Book 4, Chapter 5 of the Génie, was not to be found either there or elsewhere in the work, and so the writer concluded that it must have been one of Chateaubriand's London notes to his manuscript of the Génie and that it had been inserted, somewhat at random, among the excerpts from that work in the Maison de France.