Chateaubriand was the first to define the "vague des passions" ("intimations of passion") that later became a commonplace of Romanticism: "One inhabits, with a full heart, an empty world" ("Génie du Christianisme"). His political thought and actions seem to offer numerous contradictions: he wanted to be the friend both of legitimist royalty and of republicans, alternately defending whichever of the two seemed more in danger: "I am a Bourbonist out of honour, a monarchist out of reason, and a republican out of taste and temperament". He was the first of a series of French men of letters (Lamartine, Victor Hugo, André Malraux, Paul Claudel) who tried to mix political and literary careers.