But the author of the _Génie du Christianism_, _les Martyrs_, and _Bonaparte et des Bourbons_, "did not seem to have been much pleased with Lamartine, whom he treated with studied neglect, and afterward entirely forgot as minister of foreign affairs. Chateaubriand, shortly before taking the place of Mons. Decazes in London, had published his _Mémoires_, _lettres_, _et pièces authentiques touchant la vie et la mort du Duc de Berri_,"[3] and was then preparing to accompany the Duke of Montmorency, whom, in December 1822, he followed as minister of foreign affairs to the Congress of Verona. It is very possible that Chateaubriand, who was truly devoted to the elder branch of the Bourbons,[4] may at that time have discovered in Lamartine little of that political talent or devotion which could have recommended him to a diplomatic post. Chateaubriand was a man of positive convictions in politics and religion, while Lamartine, at that period, though far surpassing Chateaubriand in depth of feeling and imagination, had not yet acquired that objectiveness of thought and reflection which is indispensable to the statesman or the diplomatist.
[Footnote 3: Memoirs, Letters and Authentic Papers Touching the Life and Death of the Duke de Berry.]
[Footnote 4: 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."]