le ministry,
not because he had become converted to the new dynasty, but because he
despised the _Doctrinaires_, who, by their union with the Liberals,
brought in the new Soult ministry. He was not satisfied with the
purity of motives, he also wanted proper means to attain a laudable
object. In the Oriental question, which was agitated under Soult,
Lamartine was not felt. His opposition was too vague and undefined:
instead of pointing to the interests of France, he pointed to the
duties of humanity of a great nation; he read Milton in a
counting-room, and a commercial Maclaurin asked him "what does it
prove?"

[Footnote 9: A conservative Democrat.]

[Footnote 10: He had already, in 1830, published a pamphlet, _Contre
la peine de mort au peuple du 19 Octobre, 1830_. (Against the
Punishment of Death to the People of the 19th October, 1830.)]

In 1841 his talent as an orator (he was never distinguished as a
debater) was afforded ample scope by Thiers' project to fortify the
capital. He opposed it vehemently, but without effect. In the
boisterous session of 1842 he acted the part of a moderator; but still
so far seconded the views of Thiers as to consider the left bank of
the Rhine as the proper and legitimate boundary of France against
Germany. This debate, it is well known, produced a perfect storm of
popular passions in Germany. In a few weeks the whole shores of the
Rhine were bristling with bayonets; the peasantry in the Black Forest
began to clean and polish their rusty muskets, buried since the fall
of Napoleon, and the princes perceiving that the spirit of nationality
was stronger than that of freedom, encouraged this popular declaration
against French usurpation. Nicolas Becker, a modest German, without
pretension or poetic genius, but inspired by an honest love of country
and national glory, then composed a war-song, commencing thus:

No, never shall they have it,
The free, the German Rhine;

which was soon in every man's mouth, and being set to music, became
for a short period the German Marseillaise. Lamartine answered the
German with the _Marseillaise de paix_, (the Marseillaise of peace,)
which produced a deep impression; and the fall of the Thiers' ministry
soon calmed the warlike spirit throughout Europe.

On the question of the Regency, Lamartine declared himself in favor of
the Duchess of Orleans as Regent, should Louis Philippe die during the
minority of the Count of Paris, and it is our