Editing François-René de Chateaubriand (section)

=== Early years and exile ===
[[File:Combourg.jpg|thumb|The [[château de Combourg]], where Chateaubriand spent his childhood]]

{{More citations needed section|date=November 2021}}Born in [[Saint-Malo]] on 4 September 1768, the last of ten children, Chateaubriand grew up at his family's castle (the [[château de Combourg]]) in [[Combourg]], Brittany. His father, René de Chateaubriand, was a [[sea captain]] turned [[ship-owner]] and [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trader]]. His mother's maiden name was Apolline de Bedée. Chateaubriand's father was a morose, uncommunicative man, and the young Chateaubriand grew up in an atmosphere of gloomy solitude, only broken by long walks in the Breton countryside and an intense friendship with his sister Lucile. His youthful solitude and wild desire produced a suicide attempt with a hunting rifle, although the weapon failed to discharge.

English agriculturist and pioneering travel writer [[Arthur Young (agriculturist)|Arthur Young]] visited Comburg in 1788 and he described the immediate environs of the "romantic" Chateau de Combourg thusly:

<blockquote>"SEPTEMBER 1st.  To Combourg, the country has a savage aspect; husbandry not much further advanced, at least in skill, than among the [[Hurons]], which appears incredible amidst inclosures; the people almost as wild as their country, and their town of Combourg one of the most brutal filthy places that can be seen; mud houses, no windows, and a pavement so broken, as to impede all passengers, but ease none - yet here is a chateau, and inhabited; who is this Mons. de Chateaubriant, the owner, that has nerves strung for a residence amidst such filth and poverty?  Below this hideous heap of wretchedness is a fine lake..."<ref>{{cite book |last=Young |first=Arthur |date=1794 |title=Travels During the Years 1787, 1788 & 1789; Undertaken More Particularly With a View of Ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France |publisher=W. Richardson, Royal Exchange, London |page=97|edition=Second }}</ref></blockquote>

Chateaubriand was educated in [[Dol-de-Bretagne|Dol]], [[Rennes]] and [[Dinan]]. For a time he could not make up his mind whether he wanted to be a naval officer or a priest, but at the age of seventeen, he decided on a military career and gained a commission as a second lieutenant in the French Army based at [[Navarre]]. Within two years, he had been promoted to the rank of [[Captain (Land)|captain]]. He visited Paris in 1788 where he made the acquaintance of [[Jean-François de La Harpe]], [[André Chénier]], [[Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes]] and other leading writers of the time. When the [[French Revolution]] broke out, Chateaubriand was initially sympathetic, but as events in Paris - and throughout the countryside (including, presumably, "wretched" "brutal" and "filthy" Combourg) - became more violent he wisely decided to journey to North America in 1791.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/dialjournallitcrit65chicrich#page/16/mode/2up Nitze, William A.] "Chateaubriand in America", The Dial, Vol. LXV, June–December 1918.</ref> He was given the idea to leave Europe by [[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes]], who also encouraged him to do some botanical studies.<ref>Tapié, V.-L. (1965) Chateaubriand. Seuil.</ref>