Around this new prophet a circle of young and fervent souls occupied the closest place. The Society of St Vincent de Paul, newly formed, and in all the ardour of its first love, whom the preacher apostrophised as “that chivalry of youth, purity, and brotherhood,” formed the nucleus of the congregation; and, looking back upon the image of his friend triumphant amid such a surrounding, it is not wonderful that M. de Montalembert breaks sharply off with a cry of indignation over the downfall of that admirable Society, “the most beautiful work of the nineteenth century,” as he exclaims, with natural fervour, “the most pure and spontaneous fruit of Christian democracy.” “Imagine Lacordaire in his strength, and with the liberty of the press, before such an act!” says his biographer, recalling the days of ‘L’Avenir;’ “imagine the justice which he would have done with that pen which of old had stigmatised much smaller culprits by burning invectives, the echo of which still vibrated in the pulpit of Notre Dame: _Lui, ce sous-préfet!_” When he had thus reached the height of popularity, and attained the sphere of labour for which he had longed, Lacordaire stopped short in a manner which cannot fail to amaze the English reader. Here terminated the first chapter in the life of the great preacher. In the midst of his triumphant success, and of this work so congenial to his mind and satisfactory to his highest ambition, he came of his own will to a sudden pause in his career. “By one of those marvellous intuitions, of which he had more than any one else the secret, he recognised,” says M. de Montalembert, “that self-examination, labour, silence, and solitude were still necessary to him.” He paused at the height of his triumph. “I leave in the hands of my bishop this pulpit of Notre Dame, founded by him and by you, by the pastor and by the people. This double suffrage has shone for a moment on my head; suffer me to remove it, and to find myself again alone for a time with my weakness and my God.” With these words he concluded his second Lent in 1836. “After he had left the pulpit, he declined, notwithstanding the repeated entreaties of the Archbishop, to re-enter it, and departed for Rome.”