But at the very threshold of the nineteenth century Chateaubriand
came into the field, and he seemed to banish the scientific spirit,
though what he really did was to conceal it temporarily behind the
vapours of his rhetoric. The time was propitious for him. It was
the period of reaction after the French Revolution, when what was
called religion was again in fashion, and when even atheists
supported it as a good thing for common people: of such an epoch
Chateaubriand, with his superficial information, thin sentiment,
and showy verbiage, was the foreordained prophet. His enemies were
wont to deny that he ever saw the Holy Land; whether he did or not,
he added nothing to real knowledge, but simply threw a momentary
glamour over the regions he described, and especially over the Dead
Sea. The legend of Lot's wife he carefully avoided, for he knew too
well the danger of ridicule in France.
As long as the Napoleonic and Bourbon reigns lasted, and indeed for
some time afterward, this kind of dealing with the Holy Land was
fashionable, and we have a long series of men, especially of
Frenchmen, who evidently received their impulse from Chateaubriand.
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