Chateaubriand's seven days in Athens. August 23th - 29th 1806

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.