Editing François-René de Chateaubriand (section)

=== Journey to America ===
[[File:François-René de Chateaubriand by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy Trioson.jpg|left|thumb|190px|Young Chateaubriand, by [[Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson|Anne-Louis Girodet]] (c. 1790)]]
In ''Voyage en Amérique'', published in 1826, Chateaubriand writes that he arrived in Philadelphia on 10 July 1791. He visited [[New York City|New York]], [[Boston]] and [[Lexington, Massachusetts|Lexington]], before leaving by boat on the [[Hudson River]] to reach [[Albany, New York|Albany]].<ref name="Chateaubriand_1826">Chateaubriand, F-R. (1826) Voyage en Amérique</ref> He then followed the [[Mohawk Trail]] up the [[Niagara Falls]] where he broke his arm and spent a month in recovery in the company of a Native American tribe. Chateaubriand then describes Native American tribes' customs, as well as zoological, political and economic consideration. He then says that a raid along the [[Ohio River]], the [[Mississippi River]], [[Louisiana]] and [[Florida]] took him back to [[Philadelphia]], where he embarked on the ''Molly'' in November to go back to France.<ref name="Chateaubriand_1826"/>

This experience provided the setting for his exotic novels ''[[Les Natchez]]'' (written between 1793 and 1799 but published only in 1826), ''[[Atala (novella)|Atala]]'' (1801) and ''[[René (novella)|René]]'' (1802). His vivid, captivating descriptions of nature in the sparsely settled American [[Deep South]] were written in a style that was very innovative for the time and spearheaded what later became the Romantic movement in France. As early as 1916,<ref>Lebègue, R. (1965) Le problème du voyage de Chateaubriand en Amérique. Journal des Savants, 1,1 from http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jds_0021-8103_1965_num_1_1_1104</ref> some scholars have cast doubt on Chateaubriand's claims that he was granted an interview with [[George Washington]] and that he actually lived for a time with the Native Americans he wrote about. Critics{{who|date=August 2024}} have questioned the veracity of entire sections of Chateaubriand's claimed travels, notably his passage through the [[Mississippi Valley]], Louisiana and Florida.