Francois Rene Vicomte de Chateaubriand was a politician and pioneer of the French Romantic Movement. He was born in 1768 at St Malo and died in 1848. After serving in the navy and the army he went to America in 1791 and travelled extensively with the Indians. The news of the flight of Louis XVI and his arrest at Varennes brought him back to France.
Shortly after he quitted France and joined with other emigrants the Prussian army on the Rhine. After being wounded at the siege of Thionville and suffering many miseries, he made his way to London, where, friendless and penniless, he was just able to earn a subsistence by giving lessons in French and doing translations. Here he published in 1797 his Essai Historique, which met with but small success. At this time the death of his mother and the accounts of her last moments transmitted to him by his sister helped to effect a certain change in the religious opinions of Chateaubriand, and from a not very profound sceptic he became a not very profound believer.
In 1800 he returned to France, and in the following year published his romance of Atala, the scene of which is laid in America, and the year after his celebrated work, Le Genie du Christianisme, which is a kind of brilliant picture of Christianity in an aesthetic and romantic aspect. Style, power of description, and eloquence are the merits of the book rather than any depth of thought; but it carried the author's reputation far and wide, and contributed much to the religious reaction of the time.
After a short career as diplomatist under Napoleon Chateaubriand made a tour in the East from 1806 to 1807, visiting Greece, Asia Minor, and the Holy Land. As the fruit of his travels he published Les Martyrs in 1809 and Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem in 1811. He hailed the restoration of Louis XVIII. with enthusiasm, was appointed ambassador to Berlin, and then to London, but in 1824 quarrelled with the premier, M. deVillele, and was summarily dismissed.
On the revolution of 1830 he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, forfeiting thus a pension of 12,000 francs. At this time his writings were chiefly political, and mostly appeared as newspaper articles, pamphlets, etc. In his later years he wrote several works, but none of the value of his earlier productions. Research Francois Chateaubriand
Henry Van Dyke was an American divine and diplomat. He was born in 1852 at Germantown, Pennsylvaina and died in 1933. He was educated at the universities of Princeton and Berlin where he studied for the ministry. He was pastor of the United Congregational Church of Newport, from
1878 to 1882, and from 1882 to 1900 of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York. From 1900 until 1913 he was professor of English Literature at Princeton. In 1913 he was appointed US minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, resigning in February 1917. A prolific author, his works number about 40, of which the best known are: The Reality of Religion, 1884; The Story of the Psalms, 1887; The Christ Child in Art, 1894; The Gospel for an Age of Doubt, 1896 ; Le Genie de 1'Amerique, 1909. He also published many volumes of poetry. Research Henry Van Dyke
The Genie (USAF designation AIR-2A) was an American unguided air-to-air rocket armed with a nuclear warhead that started development in 1955 by McDonnell Douglas, and was first fired in an air-to-air test in 1957. Genie had a range of 9.6 km and a flight speed of Mach 3. Research Genie
The Radioplane XQ-4 is an American supersonic target drone designed in response to an a USAF requirement to serve as a high-speed target for Terrier and Genie missiles as well as Talos, Sidewinder, Sparrow III, Falcon, Nike-Hercules and Hawk missiles. The Radioplane XQ-4 is powered by a Westinghouse JB1 turbojet providing a top speed in excess of Mach 2 and a flying time of up to 60 minutes. Research Radioplane XQ-4
Abbreviations
Research Francois Chateaubriand
