Friday, September 20, 2013

Not a bad place to be buried

Spent a day around St-Malo today, including a visit to Chateaubriand's grave on the island of Grand Bé as the tide was low enough to give access. I've been thinking and writing so much about him in the context of Combourg - where he lived in formative teenage years and which remained the scene of his 'madeleine' moments, a touchstone of his identity, for the rest of his life. He was born in St-Malo, and his fame and significance managed to persuade the municipal council and the 'department of war' to whom the island belonged to agree to his request to buried in a spot where the only sound would be the wind and waves (and the piercing shrieks of lunch-hour school kids echoing across from the town beach).

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