In 1800, François-Rene de Chateaubriand sailed from the cliffs of Dover to the headlands of Calais. He was 31, and had been living as a political refugee in England for most of a decade, at times in such extreme poverty he subsisted on nothing but hot water and two-penny rolls. Over the next 15 years, his life changed utterly. He published Atala, Rene, and The Genius of Christianity to acclaim and epoch-making scandal. He mapped the ruins of Carthage, served Napoleon in Rome, and then resigned in protest after the Duc d'Enghien's execution, putting his own life at risk. For these were also the years of Bonaparte's secret police, censorship, and warmongering-all of which Chateaubriand would come to oppose. Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, 1800-1815-the second volume in Alex Andriesse's new and complete translation of this epic French classic-is a chronicle of triumphs and sorrows, narrating not only the author's life during a tumultuous period in European history but the "parallel life" of Napoleon, from his birth on Corsica to his death on Saint Helena.