Son éloquence à ces rois fit l'aumône: Prodigue fée, en ses enchantements Plus elle voit de rouille à leur vieux trône, Plus elle y sème et fleurs et diamants. Mais de nos droits il gardait la mémoire. Les insensés dirent: Le ciel est beau. Chassons cet homme, et soufflons sur sa gloire, Comme au grand jour on éteint un flambeau. Victor Hugo addressed a eulogistic and consolatory ode to him (livre iii. ode 2) containing such sentiments as: Was a court the place for you? and: What can be more beautiful than a laurel scathed by lightning? Chateaubriand's defection was a fatal blow to the monarchy by the grace of God. As long as the illusions of the restoration lasted, the poets of France were _Immanuelistic_ and saw a guardian angel beside every cradle and every bier. With Chateaubriand's illusions vanished the illusions of all the rest, and the Immanuelistic school was succeeded by one to which Southey gave the name of _Satanic_, a name which it accepted--a school with a keen eye for all that is evil and terrible, a gloomy view of life, and a tendency to rebellion. But while the minds of Frenchmen were still occupied with this unexpected and momentous event, there occurred a more momentous event, which stirred the whole world, namely, Byron's death in Greece. The news of Byron's death raised the enthusiasm for the first war of liberation that had been fought since the Revolution to fever heat. A new ideal was conceived by the human mind. With Napoleon the glory of energy had passed away, and the heroes of action had for a time disappeared from the earth. Human enthusiasm was, as has been said, in the plight of a pedestal from which the statue has been removed. Byron took possession of the vacant place with his fantastically magnificent heroes. Napoleon had supplanted Werther, René, and Faust; Byron's Promethean and despairing heroes supplanted Napoleon. Byron was in marvellous accord with the spirit and the cravings of the age. Orthodox dogmas had in the early years of the century overcome revolutionary and free-thinking principles; now orthodoxy was in its turn undermined and obsolete. There was at this moment no future for either thorough-going unbelief or thorough-going piety. There remained doubt, as doubt--_poetic_ Radicalism, the thousand painful and agitating questions concerning the goal and the worth of human life. These were the questions which Byron asked. But he did not ask indifferently. It was the spirit of rebellion which asked with his voice, and which through his voice made of the young generation in all lands one cosmopolitan society. They united their voices with his in the cry: .... Revolution Alone can save the world from hell's pollution.