Of aristocratic descent, and educated at the college of the “Fathers of the Faith” (Pères de la Foi), Du Prat--such was the name of his family--imbibed in his youth principles very different from those of his great literary contemporary Michelet. Happily, Nature seems to have endowed his mother with a rare refinement and humaneness of feeling; and from her example and instruction he derived, apparently, the germs of those loftier ideas which, in maturer age, characterise a great part of his writings. While the first Napoléon was still emperor, he entered the army, from which he soon retired to employ his leisure in the more congenial amusement of travel. In 1820 he first came before the world as the author of _Méditations Poétiques_, of which, within four years, 45,000 copies were sold, and the new poet was eagerly welcomed by the party of Reaction, who thought to find in him a future successor to the brilliant author of the _Génie du Christianisme_, the literary hope of their party, and the champion of the Church and royalty--the political counterbalance to Béranger, the poet of the Revolution--for Hugo had not yet raised the standard of revolt. Yet this remarkable volume with the greatest difficulty found its way into print. “A young man, [writes one of his biographers] his health scarcely re-established from a cruel malady, his face pale with suffering and covered with a veil of sadness, through which could be read the recent loss of an adored being, went about from publisher to publisher, carrying a small packet of verses dyed with tears. Everywhere the poetry and the poet were politely bowed out. At length, a bookseller, better advised, or seduced by the infinite grace of the young poet, decided to accept the manuscript so often rejected.” It was published without a name and without recommendation. The melancholy beauty of the style, and the melody of the rhythm, could not fail to attract sympathy from readers of taste and feeling, even from those opposed to his political prejudices--“A rhythm of a celestial melody, verse supple, cadenced, and sonorous, which softly vibrates as an Æolian harp sighing in the evening breeze.” Its political, rather than its poetical, recommendations, we may presume, gained for the writer from the Government of Louis XVIII. a diplomatic post at Florence, which he held until the dynastic revolution of 1830. For some short time he acted as secretary to the French Embassy in London, and during his stay in England he made the acquaintance of a rich Englishwoman, whom he afterwards married at Florence. A legacy of valuable property from an uncle, upon the condition of his assuming the name of Lamartine, still further enriched him.