old chateaux, having his rooms in the upper story, to superintend the garden, to shoot with the cure, to look after the horses, to play with the children, to make up a game of whist or tric-trac,—­the born servant of everyone, a domestic slave, happy in his lot, beloved, and yet neglected by all.  But in the end his fate was very different.  His elder brother, having refused to marry, said to his father:  ‘You must marry the Chevalier.’  All the feelings of the family and the prejudices of habit rose up in the heart of the old nobleman against this suggestion.  Chevaliers, according to his notions, were not intended to marry.  My father was sent back to his regiment, and his marrying was put off from year to year.”

Meantime, the idea of marriage having been put into the Chevalier’s head, he chose for himself, and happily his choice fell on a lady acceptable to his family.  His sister was canoness in an aristocratic order, whose members were permitted to receive visits from their brothers.  It was there that he wooed and won the lovely, saint-like mother of Alphonse de Lamartine.

The elder brother, as he advanced in life, kept up a truly affecting intercourse with Mademoiselle de Saint-Huruge.  She was beautiful even in old age, though her beauty was dimmed by an expression of sadness.  They met every evening in Macon, at the house of a member of the family, and each entertained till death a pure and constant friendship for the other.

No wonder that when the Revolution decreed the abolition of all rights of primogeniture, and ordered each father’s fortune to be equally divided among his children, that M. le Chevalier refused to take advantage of this new arrangement, and left his share to the elder brother, to whom he owed his domestic happiness.  In the end, all the property of the family came to the poet; the aunts and uncles—­the former of whom had been driven from their convents—­having made him their heir.

Madame de Lamartine had received part of her education from Madame de Genlis, and had associated in her childhood with Louis Philippe and Madame Adelaide.  But though the influence of Madame de Genlis was probably not in favor of piety, Madame de Lamartine was sincerely pious.  In her son’s early education she seems to have been influenced by Madame de Genlis’ admiration of Rousseau.  Alphonse ran barefoot on the hills, with the little peasant boys for company; but at home he was swayed by the discipline of love.  He published nothing till he was thirty years of age, though he wrote poetry from early youth.  His study was in the open air, under some grand old oaks on the edge of a deep ravine.  In his hands French poetry became for the first time musical and descriptive of nature.  There was deep religious feeling, too, in Lamartine’s verse, rather vague as to doctrine, but full of genuine religious sentiment.  As a Christian poet he struck a chord which vibrated in many hearts, for the early part of our century was characterized by faith and by enthusiasm.  Scepticism was latent, but was soon to assert itself in weary indifference.  “As yet, doubt sorrowed that it doubted, and could feel the beauty of faith, even when it disbelieved.”