The reactionist Ministry under M. de Polignac was formed in the autumn of that year. It was the final separation of the men of the former century from the men of the time. A portfolio was offered to Lamartine but declined. He was attached to the dynasty, but he had the prescience of its overthrow. “I had seen it coming from afar,” says he. “Nine months before the fatal day, the fall of the new monarchy had been written for me in the names of the men whom it had commissioned to carry it on.” He was sent on a special mission to Prince Leopold, then Duke of Saxe-Cobourg, and afterward King of Greece;[5] and had received the appointment of ambassador to that country when the Revolution of July overthrew the dynasty. The ministry of Louis-Philippe then offered him his choice of the embassies to Vienna and London. The King visited him to solicit his acceptance, but he was inexorable. The title of Louis-Philippe was legally defective; he was not the next heir to the throne, and he had not been placed on it by the choice of the people of France. For these reasons it was important to him that the supporters of Charles X. should accept places under him and thus strengthen his pretensions. But says Lamartine: “One should not take part gratuitously in a fault which he did not himself commit.” M. de St. Aulaire was at that time Minister at Vienna, but greatly desired to be transferred to England. He also waited upon Lamartine, anxious to find out which place he was going to accept. Lamartine quickly assured him. “If,” said he, “I had the ambition to be ambassador to London, I would instantly sacrifice it without hesitation, in remembrance of the good offices which you did to me at the time of my entrance into the great world. But you can go to London without any indebtedness to me, except good will.” The same year Lamartine was elected one of the “Immortals,” in the French Academy. The same year he visited England. He there made the acquaintance of Talleyrand. The old statesman received him cordially, and in one interview predicted his career. Lamartine, he remarked, was reserving himself for something more sound and grand than the substituting of an uncle for a nephew upon a throne that had no stable foundation. “You will succeed in it,” he added. “Nature has made you a poet; poetry will make you an orator; tact and thinking will make you a statesman. I know men somewhat; I am eighty years old. I see farther than the objects in sight. You are to have a grand part to perform in the events which will succeed to the present state of affairs. I have witnessed the intrigues of Courts; you will see the movements of the people deceptive in other ways. Let verses go; you know that I adore yours. They are not for the age in which you are now living. Improve yourself in the grand eloquence of Athens and Rome. France will yet have scenes like those of Rome and Athens in her public places.”