The great naturalist Cuvier, in his speech on the occasion of Lamartine's reception into the Academy in 1830, declared that men, in the profound obscurity which surrounds their reason, require a leader who can snatch them out of the black perplexity of doubt and draw them along with him into the region of light and certainty. He accused Byron of having seen nothing in the universe but a temple for the God of evil, and greeted Lamartine as the poet of hope. Thus did France, like some poor creature recovering from a dangerous illness, confuse hope with belief, comfort with dogma, vital energy with determined vindication of Papal authority--until at last the force of circumstances dispelled the mist, and forced men of letters as well as the general public to adopt definite standpoints. Even later than this, Lamartine was still the man of the period. Only four months before the outbreak of the Revolution of July, a eulogium of Daru is prescribed as the theme of his oration before the French Academy. He accomplishes the feat of pronouncing it without naming Napoleon's name; and he says frankly: "This century will be dated from our double restoration of lost blessings, the restoration of liberty by the throne and of the throne by liberty.... Let us not forget that our future is inseparably bound up with that of our kings, that it is impossible to separate the tree from its root without drying up the trunk, and that in our country it is monarchy which has borne everything, even the perfect fruit of liberty."