Vous vous assisterez dans toutes vos misères, Vous serez l’un à l’autre enfants, pères, et mères: _Le fardeau de chacun sera celui de tous, La Charité sera la justice entre vous_. Votre ombre ombragera le passant, votre pain Restera sur le seuil pour quiconque aura faim: Vous laisserez toujours quelques fruits sur la branche Pour que le voyageur vers ses lèvres la penche. Et vous n’amasserez jamais que pour un temps, _Car la Terre pour vous germe chaque printemps_, Et Dieu, qui verse l’onde et fait fleurir ses rives, Sait au festin des champs le nombre des convives.[253] It is hardly necessary to record that _The Fall of an Angel_ was far from receiving, from the world of fashion, the applause of his earlier and more conventional productions. Lamartine was still in the East (we refer to an earlier period), when news of his election to the Chambre des Deputés by a Legitimist constituency brought him back to Paris. Among the prominent political leaders of the day he figured “as a progressive Conservative, strongly blending reverence for the antique with a kind of philosophical democracy. He spoke frequently on social and philanthropic questions.” In 1838 he became deputy for Macon, his native town. During the Orleanist régime he refused to hold office, professing aversion for the “vulgar utility” of the government of Guizot and the Bourgeois King, and in 1845 he openly joined the Liberal opposition. His _Histoire des Girondins_ (1847) probably contributed to the expulsion of the Orleanist dynasty in the next year.