Montalembert, Charles Forbes Rene, Comte de, one of the l)rightest lights in the history of mod- ern France, noted for his attainments in ecclesiastical as well as secular learning, distinguished as states- man, orator, and writer, was born, of French extrac-
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tion, at London, March 10, 1810. He was the descend- ant of one of the oldest noble families of France. One of his ancestors played an important part in the reign of Francis I. His own father served in the army of Conde, but quitted France during the Kevolution, and, marrying a Scottish lady, entered the English service, and fought in Egypt and Spain against Napoleon, re- turning only to his native country after the restora- tion of the Bourbons in 1814. Charles was left in Britain in charge of his grandfather on his mother's side, an old gentleman who had evinced his interest in the child when yet only a one-year-old babe bj' dedi- cating to him a great work (Onental Memoirs, 42 vols. 4to), by which the name of Forbes was to live for ages to come. Mr. James Forbes watched over his young charge with the fondest affection, training and edu- cating the boy himself, until, at the age of eight, it was thought best to place him at school in Fulham. Charles remained there, however, on\j one year, for, his grandfather dying in 1819, he was sent for by his parents, who were then residing in Paris, and leading a most fashionable and gay life. This was hardly a proper sphere for a boy who had been accustomed to spend much of his time in reading and study in the well-filled library of his grandpa's retreat at Hanmore, near Harrow, or in intellectual conversations with his accomplished ancestor, for whom, if we may believe Mrs. Oliphant, Montalembert's biographer, this boy, with his early and precocious intelligence, had become a "companion." The count, his father, who had but recently returned from Stuttgard, where he had repre- sented his country as minister plenipotentiary, was too much absorbed by political movements and intrigues to give any time to Charles, and his mother was still too young and too ga.y to assume parental cares and duties, sure to interfere with the exciting stir and bus- tle of her life, to whicli she had hitherto been left free by Charles's stay with his grandpa ; hence the boj' was largely left to his instructors or to himself. That he did not waste his opportunities is apparent from his diarj', which he always kept. The life of mere amusement by which lie saw himself surrounded had no attraction for his early developed sense of duty, and he marks the irksome demands frequently by a record of a "day lost, like so many others." His principal instructor at this time was Prof. Gobert, of the College Henri IV. In 1824 abbe Nicolle, head of the College of Sainte-Barbe, was brought into contact with the precocious 3'oung student, and finalh', in 1826, induced his parents to place him under a regular course of study. It was while in this school, engaged in close mental application, that the great thought which never after ceased to animate him, which became, in fact, the motto of all his labors — " God and freedom" — first took shape. "He was seventeen," says Mrs. Oliphant, "when he wrote in his commonplace-book, ' God and liberty^these are the two principal motive- powers of my existence. To reconcile these two per- fections shall be the aim of my life.' " " We call es- pecial attention to this phenomenon," says a recent reviewer of Mrs. Oliphant's work, "for it is the best answer to the imputations so frequently levelled at his consistency. His probable liability to them even then dawned upon him: 'What shall I do.' What will become of me ? How shall I reconcile my ardent pa- triotism with religion ?' He would neither have found nor feared any difficulty of the kind, if he had meant religion in the broad sense of the term. He was clearly speculating on the difficulty of reconciling love of I country with ardent, uncompromising devotion to the Catholic Church. In August, 1828, he records a fixed determination to write a great work on the politics and philosophy of Christianity', and, with a view to its com- pletion, to waste no more time on the politics or history of his own time. Three notes of admiration in red ink are set against this entry in the original journal. He attended the debates in the Chamber of Peers, and