Discover the 7 days of Chateaubriand’s journey in
Athens and Attica – a part of his famous book Itinéraire
de Paris à Jérusalem et de Jérusalem à Paris published
in 1811 in Paris.
Chateaubriand, maybe one of the most important
persons in the Neoclassical Revival of Europe and
Romanticism, decided to travel from Paris to Jerusalem,
in a period that Napoleonic Wars were happening in
Europe.
Having in his suitcases a reference letter from
Talleyrand, he arrived in Ottoman Greece in August 10 th
1806, and in Athens the morning of 23 rd . He first goes to
the French consul, the famous Fauvel. Together they
discover all antiquities of the city, most of them that are in
Athens today.
Chateaubriand is inspired by his journey and the
Muslim atmosphere of Athens, contrary to the ideal image
he carried in his mind from Solon’s Athens of 6 th century
BC. He is awed by the ruins and memories of the past that
this city carries. Of course, Athens is only a stop in his
journey to the Middle East, so he has to hurry to take the
boat that will take him to the coasts of Anatolia with other
pilgrims. He makes a short stop at Cape Sounio in August
29 th , where records his thoughts on ancient Greek, Roman
and modern Greek history, giving us the context that
Greeks suffered under Ottoman rule. He believed that
modern Greeks could never gain their freedom. History
proved him wrong, and Chateaubriand lived enough to see
it, since he died in 1848.aa
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