Themes et motifs religieux dans les oeuvres de jeunesse de Chateaubriand. (French text)

The object of this study is the research and analysis of the religious themes and motifs present in Chateaubriand's (1786-1848) early works.;The works studied are chosen in the chronological order of their publication so as to give a view of the writer's religious evolution. These works are the Essay on the Revolutions (1797) and the Genius of Christianity (1802), from which he detached and published separately first Atala (1801) and then Rene (1805). The first two works are essays, while the last two (Atala and Rene) are novellas. Atala and Rene were originally part of The Natchez--an epic glorifying the Noble Savage in the American wilderness--published in 1826.;Chateaubriand has spoken about his works in his Correspondence and in his Memoirs Beyond the Grave, published posthumously. In the Memoirs he reconstructs his history and speaks about his infancy, his adolescence and his youth. He also speaks about his religious evolution. Obviously he wants to explain how having lost his faith he published the Essay where he insults his religion, and how in 1798 he returned to the faith of his childhood, the Catholic religion, and published an apology of Christianity.;There is an evolution in the religious attitude of Chateaubriand. After a pious education at home and at school, he lost his faith at the age of eighteen, when he joined the army, and became acquainted with philosophers. He wrote his Essay on the Resolutions as a non-believer, where he attacks religion. After losing his mother and sister, and noticing the martyrdom of the French Church during the Revolution, he "converted" back to Catholicism. He set immediately to undertake an apology of religion, the Genius of Christianity, where addressing himself to a refined public, he analyzes the esthetic value of religion, in the cult and ceremonies, in the architecture of churches, and also in literature.