Le Château de la Ballue

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The château de Combourg,
one of the cradles of Romantism

The pretty lakeside village of Combourg is dominated by the thick-walled, four-tower boyhood home of Romantic writer Viscount René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848). By turns traveller, politician, writer and poet, Chateaubriand, a key figure of French literature, was a leading light of Romanticism and of the return-to-nature movement ; his novel “René”, about a tragic love affair between a French soldier and a Native American maiden, was an international sensation in the mid-19th century. The castle, dating back to the 13th and 15th centuries, and the grounds, with ponds, woods, and cattle-strewn meadowland inspire deep melancholy, most perceptible in his masterpiece, “Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe”. “In the woods at Combourg, I became what I am; I first started to feel the first strike of this spleen that I have dragged all my life, of this sadness that made my torment and my felicity». His tomb, facing the ocean on the islet of the Grand-Bé, at Saint-Malo, tells all the greatness of this illustrious man. Nearby : - The Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel - Crossing of the Mont-Saint-Michel bay with a guide - Studio of a contemporary engraver or a craftmaker - The mediaval town of Dinan - The harbour of fishermen of Cancale and the oyster museum - The fortified harbour of Saint-Malo - A typical "malouinière" of the 18ème century - Fougères : a medieval town - The Emeraude Coast and Fort La Latte - Dinard, an elegant resort