He was now present at the _salons_ or drawing-room parties of the Duchess de Raigecourt, the Duchess de Broglie, Madame de Stael’s daughter, Madame de Ste. Aulaire, Madame de Montcalm, the sister of the Duke de Richelieu. At these he was introduced to persons of distinction. Madame de Sainte Aulaire, who had a divining faculty for discerning young persons who were destined to achieve a career, took a warm interest in his behalf. She invited him to read several pages of his unpublished verses, and afterward encouraged him to print them. He was then recovering from a severe illness. Booksellers, however, objected to the novelty of the style, and he was able only by obstinate perseverance to induce one to undertake the risk. Now Lamartine was harassed by a new apprehension. The book, whether it broke like an egg by falling to the ground, or proved a successful venture, was liable, although anonymous, to be a source of perplexing complications. The notion of specialties in work was current, and the fact of being an author and writer of verses, might be an obstacle to his hopes. Madame de St. Aulaire was a relative of the minister, M. Decazes. She and her husband put forth their influence with the Government in his behalf. About the same time, M. Jules Janin, then at the beginning of his career, finding a copy of the _Meditations_ at a book-store, purchased it out of curiosity. He found to his astonishment, a new style of poetry; that it admirably depicted the sentiments of the soul and passions of the heart, the joys of earth and the ecstasies of heaven, the hopes of the present and apprehensions of the future. He wrote a long review, which served to arouse the attention of the literary and book-reading public and to create a prodigious demand. Forty-five thousand copies were sold in the next four years, and its author was speedily ranked with Byron, Goethe and Chateaubriand, then the distinguished poets of the period. He had originated a new style of poetry. DAY-BREAK OF FORTUNE. Meanwhile Lamartine was sadly awaiting events at his modest quarters and fearing for the fate and effects of his little publication. As he was in bed one morning in the first month of spring, the janitor’s daughter, a girl of twelve or fourteen years, opened the door of the room. It was too early for the morning newspaper. Smiling intelligently, she threw on the bed a little billet having an enormous seal of red wax. There was upon it, Lamartine remarks, “an imprint of a coat of arms that ought to be illustrious, for it was undecipherable.” “Why do you smile so knowingly, Lucy?” he asked, as he broke the seal and tore off the envelope.