There was Count Joseph de Maistre,—­a royalist indeed, but who propounded great truths mixed with great paradoxes; believing all he said, seeking to restore the authority of divine revelation in a world distracted by scepticism, grand and eloquent in style, and astonishing the infidels as much as he charmed the religious.

Associated with him in friendship and in letters was the Abbe de Lamennais, a young priest of Brittany, brought up amid its wilds in silent reverence and awe, yet with the passions of a revolutionary orator, logical as Bossuet, invoking young men, not to the worship of mediaeval dogmas, but to the shrine of reason allied with faith.

Of another school was Cousin, the modern Plato, combating the materialism of the eighteenth century with mystic eloquence, and drawing around him, in his chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne, a crowd of enthusiastic young men, which reminded one of Abelard among his pupils in the infant university of Paris.  Cousin elevated the soul while he intoxicated the mind, and created a spirit of inquiry which was felt wherever philosophy was recognized as one of the most ennobling studies that can dignify the human intellect.

In history, both Guizot and Thiers had already become distinguished before they were engrossed in politics.  Augustin Thierry described, with romantic fascination, the exploits of the Normans; Michaud brought out his Crusades, Barante his Chronicles, Sismondi his Italian Republics, Michelet his lively conception of France in the Middle Ages, Capefigue the Life of Louis XIV., and Lamartine his poetical paintings of the Girondists.  All these masterpieces gave a new interest to historical studies, infusing into history life and originality,—­not as a barren collection of annals and names, in which pedantry passes for learning, and uninteresting details for accuracy and scholarship.  In that inglorious period more first-class histories were produced in France than have appeared in England during the long reign of Queen Victoria, where only three or four historians have reached the level of any one of those I have mentioned, in genius or eloquence.

Another set of men created journalism as the expression of public opinion, and as a lever to overturn an obstinate despotism built up on the superstitions and dogmas of the Middle Ages.  A few young men, almost unknown to fame, with remorseless logic and fiery eloquence overturned a throne, and established the Press as a power that proved irresistible, driving the priests of absolutism back into the shadows of eternal night, and making reason the guide and glory of mankind.  Among these were the disappointed and embittered Chateaubriand, who almost redeemed his devotion to the royal cause by those elegant essays which recalled the eloquence of his early life.  Villemain wrote for the “Moniteur,” Royer—­Collard and Guizot for the “Courier,” with all the haughtiness and disdain which marked the Doctrinaire or Constitutional school; Etienne and Pages for the “Constitutionel,” ridiculing the excesses of the ultra-royalists, the pretensions of the clergy, and the follies of the court; De Genoude for the “Gazette de France,” and Thiers for the “National.”