found them (Tune mediocrite effrayante. In fact, his thoughts, his plans, his subjects of interest were those of a matured intellect, of a formed man, who feit ' cab- in'd, cribb'd, confined' within the walls of a lecture- room." Yet he quitted Sainte-Barbe in the following year (1829) with great regret, for he knew that before him lay much more of frivolous gayety than delight- ful interchange of heart and mind. Far, then, from looking forward with fervent expectations of enjoy- ment to his approaching introduction to society, he foresaw no gratification in mingling undistinguished in the crowd : " I can imagine Pitt or Fox coming out of the House of Commons, where they had struck their adversaries dumb by their eloquence, and enjoying a dinner-party. I can imagine Grattan amusing him- self, after fifty years of glory, playing hide-and-seek with children. But for an obscure and unknown in- dividual, lost in the crowd of other men, or at the best numbered only among the elegants who feel themselves obliged to wander every evening into three or four houses where they are half stifled under pretence of enjoying themselves, I see neither pleasure nor honor in it. I see only a culpable loss of time, and mortal weariness." In this mood he started to join his fa- ther, then French ambassador at Stockholm, via Bel- gium and Holland, lingering on the wa_y to see every- thing worth seeing, and duh' recording his impressions as they arose. Received at once into the gay circles of the Swedish capital, he was with difficulty induced to lay aside his stiffness and reserve ; his manner nat- urally enough gave offence to the light-hearted and hapl}' frivolous companions who were forced upon him ; he was voted a prig; and it was not till some time that his reullj' gentle and unassuming nature began to be recognised. But if Charles was formal on the surface at this time, in the consciousness of the gran- deur of his youthful aims, he was j'et sharply obser- vant, as he alwaj's was, and his journal contains "an extremely lively sketch" of the Swedish court and its surroundings. He studied also carefully the institu- tions of Sweden, as may be seen from the article he published on the subject shortly after. He besides devoted himself to the study of philosophj^, and by advice of Cousin spent much time in the reading of Kant, whom he found "terribly difficult," as he him- self tells us, and not by any means a congenial study — a fact not to be wondered at, for Montalembert's mind, with all its noble and powerful impulses, had no affinity for philosophic studies. He was throughout life impatient of sifting principles to their last results, and holding them upon his mind in pure rational ab- straction. "Metaphysics," says his biographer, "were never much to his taste, and he was wont to arrive at conviction bj' a shorter road than argument. Truths divine did not come to him sounded by the tongue of a theologian ; they came by insight, by intuition, by in- spiration ; and they went forth from him with the lightning flash of genius, in spontaneous and irresisti- ble bursts." His genius was poetic, rhetorical, but in no degree philosophical. Hence the speeches of the great Irish orators, Grattan and O'Connell, and the el- oquence of Burke, were far more attractive than even " the great Schelling," of whom he speaks at this time "as being so ill understood in France." But j'et fore- most among all his thoughts came forth the great ob- jects to which he had consecrated himself— religion and freedom. Roman Catholicism was now, and al- ways to him, religion, and this Catholicism, in order to triumph, he saw clearly, "must have lilierty as its ally and tributarj'." Everj' eflx)rt of his own, and those of his friends whom he believed fitted to take a part in this great work, he endeavored to make ser- viceable in this direction. In this spirit he wrote to his friend Rio, the future historian of Christian art, whom he numbered thus earlj' among his most de- voted associates: "Do not, I beseech 3'ou, abandon yourself to that political discouragement which Burke
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justly calls the most fatal of all maladies. Do not I ing brought in contact with him and his pupil Lacor- despair of the cause wliich you have adopted, or give daire, the three men together launched a paper, L'Ave- up sound principles, because a generation without faith nir, by which to give circulation to their opinions, and witliout soul seem to dislionor them l)j' pretended See Lacordaike ; Lamenxais. And why should attacliment." I5y a like spirit he was enthusiastically inspired for Roman Catholic Ireland, and resolved to make a journey to that country in order to fit himself properly as historian of the Green Isle ; this, however, was prevented by the sudden illness of a sister, who
died at Besancon, Oct. 29, 1829, in his arms but a few j the Church remained in bondage." Why should this hours after he had reached her. He had been passion- be so ? AVhy should the Cliureh not be free as well as ately attached to her, and this sudden removal threw the State, with right to ajipoiiit her own bishops, and him into a deep melancholic state. He was now more educate her own children as she wished.' These were than ever interested in religious subjects, and was even questions that demanded agitating, and for it L'Avenir inclined to take holy orders. But he finally forsook , came into existence. The first number of the paper