François-René de Chateaubriand

Who was François-René de Chateaubriand?

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature. Descended from an old aristocratic family from Brittany, Chateaubriand was a royalist by political disposition and in an age when a significant part of the intelligentsia was turning against the Church, authored the Génie du christianisme in defence of the Catholic faith. It is his autobiography Mémoires d'outre-tombe, however, that is nowadays generally considered his most accomplished work.