L'amante et l'amie

François-René de Chateaubriand, Custine, Delphine de Sabran marquise de, Claire de Duras, Marie-Bénédicte Diethelm, Bernard Degout, Marc Fumaroli

Chateaubriand has always known how to exploit his feminine attachments, which is confirmed by the unpublished correspondence of this volume adjacent to the Correspondance générale. With Delphine de Custine, Madame de Stael's friend, Chateaubriand lives a stormy and passionate affair; the letters of the lover exalt desire and sensuality. With Claire de Duras, an aristocratic friendship is formed. Woman of the world, as wife of the Duke of Duras, first gentleman of Louis XVIII, she is also a woman of letters, author of three novels-news ( Ourika , Edouard and Olivier). Madame de Duras holds a salon under the Restoration and will never stop supporting the literary and political ambitions of Chateaubriand, for whom she is a sister to sublimated incest.--Gallimard.