Whatever the case, after arriving in Baltimore on July 10, 1791, he left suddenly on December 10 and arrived at Le Havre on Jan. His account of this journey, published in 1827 as Voyage en Am érique, has aroused well-founded doubts (especially concerning his intention of discovering a Polar Sea, his unlikely itinerary, and the account of a visit to George Washington) and critics have looked into accounts of various missionaries, naturalists, and historians for its sources. After watching the first bloody days of the Revolution he left for the U.S. He passed his vacations with his sisters at Foug ères, and led a dissipated existence in Paris among men of letters and philosophers such as Évariste D ésir é de Parny, Ponce Écouchard Lebrun, S ébastien de Chamfort, and Pierre Ginguen é. Destined first to a career as a seaman, for which he studied briefly and unsuccessfully at Brest (1783), he received in 1786 a lieutenancy in the regiments of Navarre and spent several years in garrisons (Cambrai, Dieppe). He grew up first at Saint-Malo, then at his father's ch âteau of Combourg, then in various Breton schools (Dol, 1778 –80 Rennes, 1781 –82 and Dinan, 1784 –86). One of his sisters, Lucile, a woman of fine but morbid sensitivity, wielded a strong influence on his poetic imagination.

He was the last of an old Breton family -his eldest brother, who inherited the title of count of Chateaubriand, having died on the scaffold during the Revolution. His isolated tomb is on a tiny island off Saint-Malo, le Grand B é.

Francois de chateaubriand