He early showed a vocation for poetry, but the outbreak of the French Revolution temporarily diverted his energy.

[1] Emigrating in 1791, he fought two campaigns in the army of Condé, and eventually found his way to Hamburg, where he met Antoine de Rivarol, of whose brilliant conversation he has left an account.

[1] On his return to Paris in 1799 he met Chateaubriand and his sister Lucile (Mme de Caud), to whom he became deeply attached.

He published his Genie de l'Homme in 1807, and in 1820 his Etudes poétiques, which had the misfortune to appear shortly after the Meditations of Lamartine, so that their originality was unrecognized.

[1] The works of Chênedollé were edited in 1864 by Sainte-Beuve, who drew portraits of him in his Chateaubriand et son groupe and in an article contributed to the Revue des deux mondes (June 1849).