Childhood in Brittany
Sent to Dol-de-Bretagne to be educated.
Moved to Rennes to live with his family.
Presented to King Louis XVI at Versailles.
Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the French Army.
Promoted to the rank of captain.
Military Career
Introduced to Parisian literary society.
Traveled to North America, exploring the region around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.
Exile in Britain and America
Returned to France and joined the army of émigrés led by the Princes of Bourbon.
Wounded at the siege of Thionville.
Lived in exile in Jersey and then in England.
Married Céleste Buisson de La Vigne, a young widow, in a civil ceremony in London.
Begun writing his first major work, 'Essai sur les Révolutions'.
Returned to France and published 'Essai sur les Révolutions', which was a critical and commercial failure.
Hired as a secretary to his uncle, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, who was minister of the navy.
Return to Europe
Became a contributor to the Mercure de France, a literary journal.
Published 'Atala', a short novel that brought him immediate fame.
Literary Success
Published 'René', another successful novel.
Appointed as a secretary of the legation to the Roman Republic.
Named as a first secretary to the embassy in the Valais.
Elected to the French Academy.
Published 'Le Génie du christianisme', a work that contributed to the romantic reevaluation of the Middle Ages.
Traveled to Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, and Spain.
Published 'Les Martyrs', an epic prose poem.
Appointed as a secretary to the legation in the Valais.
Elected to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres.
Elected to the French Academy, replacing Marie-Joseph Chénier.
Published 'Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem', an account of his travels in the Middle East.
Diplomatic Career
Accompanied King Louis XVIII into exile in Ghent during the Hundred Days.
Named as a minister of state and a member of the privy council.
Appointed as a French ambassador to Prussia.
Appointed as a French ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Published 'De la Monarchie selon la Charte', a political treatise.
Named as a minister plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Appointed as a French ambassador to the United Kingdom for a second time.
Named as a minister of foreign affairs.
Dismissed as a minister of foreign affairs.
Appointed as a French ambassador to the United Kingdom for a third time.
Published 'Les Natchez', an epic prose poem.
Named as a minister of foreign affairs for a second time.
Dismissed as a minister of foreign affairs.
Appointed as a minister of state and a member of the privy council.
Refused to take the oath of allegiance to King Louis-Philippe and resigned all his positions.
Later Literary Works
Published 'Études historiques', a collection of historical essays.
Arrested and tried for his involvement in the legitimist uprising led by Caroline, duchesse de Berry.
Acquitted of all charges.
Published 'Mémoires, lettres et pièces diplomatiques', a collection of diplomatic papers.
Published 'Essai sur la littérature anglaise', a study of English literature.
Published 'Congrès de Vérone', an account of the Congress of Verona.
Political Retirement
Elected to the Chamber of Peers.
Published 'Vie de Rancé', a biography of the founder of the Trappist order.
Campaign for the 'pain au sel', which aimed to relieve the famine in Brittany.
Published 'Mémoires d'outre-tombe', his posthumous memoirs.
Heart placed in the Sainte-Croix chapel in Saint-Malo, according to his wishes.