Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny (1797-1863) was a French poet and early leader of French Romanticism. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare. He published his first poem Le Bal in 1820 and an ambitious narrative poem Éloa in 1824. He collected his recent works in January 1826 in Poèmes Antiques et Modernes. Three months later he published the first important historical novel in French, Cinq-Mars, based on the life of Louis XIII's favorite Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars, who conspired against the Cardinal de Richelieu. In his later years he spent much time preparing the posthumous collection of poems now known as Les Destinées, for which his intended title was Poèmes philosophiques. It concludes with Vigny's final message to the world, L'Esprit pur.