In Sainte-Beuve's Volupté the hero, Amaury, upon sighting the shores of the New World at the end of his voyage from France, asks this rhetorical question: “Est-il vrai qu tu contiennes, ainsi qu'on en vient de toutes parts à le murmurer, la forme materielle que doivent revêtir les sociétés humaines à leur terme de perfection?” Volupté appeared in 1835 at a time when many French people were asking themselves this very question, when travelers by the thousands were crossing the Atlantic to have a look at this new democracy, which might possibly prove to be an antidote to “le mal europeen.” It was the time, in Robert Mahieu's phrase, of the “Third Discovery of America.” The enthusiasm for liberty which fifty years earlier had sent so many young French aristocrats to fight in Washington's army had somewhat changed its character and France, plagued by internal strife and reaction, was endeavoring to discover the answer to her problems in a knowledge of the young American republic.