The new poet openly proclaims himself to be a disciple of Chateaubriand and Bonald. In his _Raphael_ (chap. 1.) he tells how he came to make Bonald's acquaintance. When he was at Chambéry (in his twenty-fifth year) worshipping the beautiful young Creole celebrated in his poems under the name of Elvire, that lady asked him to write an ode to Bonald, who was a frequent and honoured visitor at her house, Lamartine informs us that all he then knew of Bonald was his name, and the halo shed around it by its owner's fame as a Christian legislator. "I imagined to myself," he says, "that I was addressing a modern Moses, who derived from the rays of a new Sinai the divine light with which he illuminated human laws." And so the ode which is to be found in the first collection of Lamartine's poems under the title _Le Génie_ was written. In it the young poet affirms-- Ainsi des sophistes célèbres Dissipant les fausses clartés, Tu tires du sein des ténèbres D'éblouissantes vérités. Par le désordre à _l'ordre_ même L'univers moral est conduit. Here, as everywhere, we come upon that meagre conception of good--order. Bonald responded by sending Lamartine a complete edition of his works. The poet read them with enthusiasm. In notes appended to his ode at a later period he denies that they made any really profound impression on him; but he is confusing his earlier with his later conviction. He writes: "I read these works with that poetical enthusiasm for the past and that emotional reverence inspired by ruins which youthful imagination so easily transforms into dogma and doctrine. For some months I tried to believe, on the authority of Chateaubriand and Bonald, in revealed governments; but in my case, as in other people's, the tendency of the day and the development of human reason dispelled these beautiful illusions, and I comprehended that God reveals nothing to man but his social inclinations, and that the various systems of government are revelations of the age, of circumstances, of the vices and virtues of humanity." It is certain that Lamartine considerably antedates this conviction of his. All the _Méditations_ are in the same tone as the ode to Bonald. The one entitled _Dieu_ is dedicated to Lamennais, the dithyramb on the subject of sacred poetry to Genoude, the translator of the Bible. Lamartine himself wrote for _Le Conservateur_, a newspaper from the first appearance of which Chateaubriand dated the pronounced European reaction; and when this paper was given up, he, along with Lamennais and Bonald, started a new one on the same lines, _Le Défenseur_, the special aim of which was to oppose constitutional government. It fell to Lamartine's lot to solicit a contribution from Joseph de Maistre. It is significant that our poet, who by this time was aged thirty, should write to the author of _Du Pape_ in such a tone as this: "Monsieur le Comte! At the time I received your book and your kind and flattering