Note 4 — DE LAMARTINE,
Reading edition
He followed them in 1815 into exile; and in 1830, after the Revolution of July, spoke with fervor in defence of the rights of the Duke of Bordeaux. Chateaubriand refused to pledge the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, and left in consequence the Chamber of Peers, and a salary of 12,000 francs. From this period he devoted himself entirely to the service of the unfortunate duchess and her son. Against the exclusion of the elder branch of Bourbons he wrote "De la nouvelle proposition relative au banissement de Charles X. et de sa famille." (On the New Proposition in regard to the Banishment of Charles X. and his Family,) and "De la restoration et de la monarchie elective." (On the Restoration and on the Elective Monarchy,) and several other pamphlets, which, after the apprehension of the duchess in France, caused his own imprisonment.
Chateaubriand, in fact, was a political writer as well as a poet. His "Genius of Christianity", published in 1802, reconciled Napoleon with the clergy, and his work, "Bonaparte and the Bourbons," was by Louis XVIII. himself pronounced "equal to an army."