François-René de Chateaubriand

Fran�ois-Ren� de Chateaubriand (1768-3848) was a French author, a representative of the reaction against the ideas of the French Revolution, and the most conspicuous figure in French literature during the First Empire.

There is an air of intense introspection in the portrait that Anne-Louis Girodet painted of him in 1809, meditating on the ruins of Rome. In the still Italian air, Chateaubriand’s hair is windswept (Napoleon mischievously said the portrait looked like that of a conspirator who had come down a chimney), hinting at the storms and passions that had lashed his best-known creation. (Chateaubriand wrote Ren�, a fictional self-portrait in 1802 in London.)