His journalistic career being cut short by papal dis- approval, and himself unable to enter political life for lack of age (the peerage begins at twenty-five), Mon- taleml)ert now went abroad to travel, mainly in Ger- many, to study the preservation of Roman Catholicism as well as monuments of its history in that country. It was during one of his frequent tours of inspection of mediiBval buildings and monuments that he was in- spired with the conception of his first sustained and eminently successful effort in literature, the historj' of St. Elizabeth {HU. da SIp. Elisabeth de JJonf/rie [183G] ; transl. into English liy JIary Hackett and Mrs. J. Sad- lier, N. Y. lSo4). Tiie o])ening sentences of the intro- duction to this work are so characteristic that we quote them here : " On the lUth of November, 183.% a trav- eller arrived at Marbourg, a town in the electorate of Hesse, situated upon the ijeautiful Ijanks of the Lahn. He paused to examine the church, which was celebrat- ed at once for its pure and perfect beauty, and because it was the first in Germany where the pointed arch prevailed over the round in the great renovation of art in the 13th century. This churcli bears the name of St. Elizabeth, and it was on St. ]';iizal)oth's day that he found himself within its walls. In the church itself (which, like the country, is now devoted to the Lu- theran worshi])) there was no trace of any special so- lemnity, except that in honor of the day, and, contrary to Protestant custom, it was open, and children were
I at play in it among the tombs. The stranger roamed
I through its vast, desolate, and devastated aisles, which are still young in their elegance and airy lightness. He saw j)laced against a jjiUar the statue of a young woman in the dress of a widow, with a gentle and re- signed countenance, holding in one hand the model of
' a church, and with the other giving alms to a lame man. . . . The lady is there depicted, fairer than in all the other representations, stretched on her bed of death
I amid weeping priests and nuns ; and, lastly, bishops exhume a coffin, on which an emperor lays !iis crown.
' The traveller was told that these were events in the life of St. Elizabeth, queen of that country, who died on that daj' six hundred years ago in that very town of Marbourg, and lay buried in that very church."
j After his first visit to the church, Montalembert with great difficulty sought out a copy of a "Life of St.
I Elizabeth," of which he possessed himself as a prize ; and though he found it " the cold, lifeless composition of a Protestant," the sympathetic chord was struck, and he set about the study of her career with hourly increasing eagerness, consulting traditions, visiting ever}' place that slie had hallowed by her presence, and ransacking all the books, chronicles, and manu- scripts in which mention was made of her, or which threw light on her contemporaries or her age. He spent his days and his nights in the preparation of the work, and it need not surprise us, therefore, that the book established his fame as an author. What is really most valuable and most characteristic in the book i3 that which elucidates her age, especially the Introduc- tion (135 pages royal 8vo), in which he seeks to prove that the 18th century, in which she flourished, has been shamefully calumniated ; that it was not merely the age in which the papacy attained its culminating point of pride and power, but the age in which Chris- tian literature and art— that is to say, what he deems the best and purest literature and art — approached near- er to perfection than thej' have ever approached since or are likelj' to approach again. This clearly mani- fests that though his historic insight was fine, minute, and picturesque, he yet lacked depth of historic judg- ment, and strength and range of sympathy. Here as every where yhc^, with its complex variety of associa- tion and breadth of human interest, v.as not so attrac- tive to him as sentiment, and the curious personation with which it can invest the most obvious realities. With all its beauty and grace of outline and charm of portraiture, Montakmbert's life of St. Elizabeth does not gainsay this judgment.
On his return from Germany, IMontalembert married, in the celebrated Flemish family De Jlerodc. a sister of the now greatly renowned jMonsignore de ^Icrode, and selected for his wedding-trip an excursion into Switzerland and Italy. He then settled at Paris, and having succeeded to the peerage in 1835, he now fully entered upon his distinguished political career. Though not entitled to the right of voting until thirty, Monta- lembert was j-et entitled to a seat, and in consequence to a participation in the debates, and in these he took a lively part, distinguishing himself very rapidly as an orator of no common rank, as well as a man of princi- ple. He broke ground as a debater in September. 1835, in behalf of the liberty of the press, followed by other speeches, all of a liberal tendency. But his great aim at this time was the successful issue of the work which he had intended to bring about by the Avniir—\iz. liberty of the Church; struggling mainly in behalf of an educational system free from the state and in alli- ance witli the Church. In its behalf he dared to say anything which he felt to be tiie truth. " He could," says Sainte-Beuve, "utter with all freedom the most passionate pleadings for that liberty which was only the excess of his youth. He could develop without interruption those absolute theories which from an- other mouth would have made the Cliamlier sliiver, but which pleased them from his. He could even give