firm belief that he
would have accepted that Regency even in February last, if the king
had abdicated a day sooner. Lamartine never avowed himself a
Republican; but was left no alternative but to eclipse himself
forever, or become its champion.

The star of Lamartine's political destiny rose in the session of 1843,
when, utterly disgusted with the reactionary policy of Guizot, he
conceived the practical idea of uniting all the elements of
opposition, of whatever shade and color, against the government. But
he was not satisfied with this movement in the Chamber, which produced
the coalition of the Dynastic right with the Democratic left, and for
a moment completely paralyzed the administration of Guizot: he carried
his new doctrine right before the people, as the legitimate source of
the Chamber, and thus became the first political agitator of France
since the restoration, in the legitimate, legal, English sense of the
word. Finding that the press was muzzled, or subsidized and bought, he
moved his countrymen through the power of his eloquence. He appealed
from the Chamber to the sense and the virtue of the people. In
September, 1843, he first addressed the electors of Macon on the
necessity of extending the franchise, in order to admit of a greater
representation of the French people--generous, magnanimous, bold and
devoted to their country. Instead of fruitlessly endeavoring to reform
the government, he saw that the time had come for reforming the
Chamber.

In the month of October, of the same year--so rapidly did his new
political genius develop itself--he published a regular programme for
the opposition; a thing which Thiers, up to that moment, had
studiously avoided, not to break entirely with the king, and to render
himself still "possible" as a minister of the crown. Lamartine knew no
such selfish consideration, which has destroyed Thiers as a man of the
people, and declared himself entirely independent of the throne of
July. He advocated openly _the abolition of industrial feudalism, and
the foundation of a new democratic society under a constitutional
throne_.

Thus, then, had Lamartine separated himself not only from the king and
his ministers, but also from the ancient _noblesse_ and the
_bourgeoisie_, without approaching or identifying himself with the
Republican left wing of the Chamber. He stood alone, admired for his
genius, his irreproachable rectitude, his devoted patriotism, but
considered rather