Alphonse of Lamartine

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat of Lamartine was a Poète, writer, Historien, and Politician French born with Mâcon the October 21st 1790 and died in Paris the February 28th 1869.

Biography

Its first education was made with the paternal castle Milly, under the monitoring of Alix of Lamartine, a mother Végétarienne who “only asked him to be true and good”. After having completed its studies with the college of Belley, directed by Jesuits, he travelled, particularly in Italy (1811), until the fall of the Empire, entered, in 1814, in the bodyguards of Louis XVIII.

Reached hepatic disorders, it spends October 1816 to Aix-the-Baths, where it meets Julie Charles, in convalescence for tuberculosis. Two young people enjoy to stroll together at the edge of the Lac of Le Bourget. The next summer, Julie, too suffering, cannot join the poet, who, despaired, wrote several poems, of which the Lake , which contributes to make known it. The death of Julie also inspires to him in 1826 the Return , an epistle in worms with the glory of Xavier de Maistre.

Being bored, he devoted himself to the writing and left his service at the time of the Second Restoration, then, after a few years of a life a little décousue and scattered, he made appear in 1820, its poetic Méditations , which, of the day at the following day, devoted it large poet. Its success exceeded all its hopes and it was sold of them approximately 45.000 specimens in four years. The June 5th 1820, Lamartine marries Mary-Anne-Elisa Birch, a Protestant English young person, in Chambéry. Three years after, it makes appear: New poetic Meditations , then the Death of Socrate , Last Song of the pilgrimage of Child Harold . In 1825, it accepted the cross of the Légion of honor. In 1829, appeared the poetic Harmonies and nuns . Lamartine was elected, the November 5th same year, with the French Academy, the armchair n°7, succeeding Pierre Daru.

After a sumptuous voyage in the East, the death of his/her daughter will modify her faith. It engages in the political combat, envoy with the House of Commons by the voters of the town of Dunkirk, it was made name appointed in 1833 of Bergues, and played in the Chambre the part of a speaker poet that the generosity of its heart and the rise in the thought put at the top of the parties. It presents to it many interventions like the abolition of the capital punishment or the project concerning to the assistance. The May 2nd 1834, it earlier makes a speech famous for the colonization of the Algérie, conquered four years.

It published successively: Voyage in the East (1835), Jocelyn (1836), the Fall of an angel (1838), poetic Meditations (1839). Turning itself then on the side of the history, it composed its Girondins (1846).

A little later, it was put at the head of the revolutionary movement. Become influential and posting its opposition to the mode of Louis Philippe, it is one of the actors of the days of the Révolution of 1848 and becomes Foreign Minister of the Provisional government. Jacques Charles Dupont of the Eure, chief of the Government from February to May, delegates to him because of its great age the essence of its prerogatives. He becomes member of the Executive commission, which collectively takes up the duties of Head of the State. He was also one of the protagonists of the Abolition of slavery. The speech which he made, the February 25th 1848, against the red Drapeau, remained famous. Impotent, the May 15th, to prevent the invasion of the National Assembly, the Journées of June carried the death-blow to him. It was named with the National Assembly that in a by-election.

The coup d'etat of December and the advent of the Second Empire put an end to its political career. Involved in debt, it cannot choose the exile. Persuaded of the imperial danger, it takes refuge in the writing, publishing historical works, social novels, autobiographical works as well as poetic collections. Its principal works after 1848 are: the Confidences (1849), Genevieve (1851), the stone Mason of Saint-Point (1851), Graziella (1852), Courses familiar of literature (1856).

Ruined, it ends up accepting imperial government an equipment of a half million (1867). He died two years after, in a country cottage of Passy, that the town of Paris had placed at its disposal. In 1869, its family refused the national funeral to which it had right.

Its tomb (restored in 1988) is located on the place of the church of Saint Not (the Saone and the Loire). He is leant with the enclosing wall of the castle of Saint-Point, masonry of XIIe and XVe century, that the knight of Pratz, father of Alphonse, acquired with the state of abandonment in 1801, and that he put in the wedding presents of his son in 1820. As from May 1823, the castle of Saint Not became the family residence of the poet, during all his life. In 1829, it made set up at the bottom of the park, close to the small Romance church, a vault where his/her two children, his mother, her mother-in-law rest, his wife and itself. The last buried person was Valentine de Cessiat of Lamartine.

Work

Poetry

Théophile Gautier said that Lamartine was poetry even.

Quotations

  • Who recognizes the Revolution between our hands? (…) Instead of work and free industry, France sold to the capitalists! (1843)
  • Listen to your heart to beat and say what you feel. Jocelyn (1836)
  • God and the man, nature and art, placed or created concert the most marvellous point of view that the human glance can contemplate. In praise in Istanbul
  • Pau is seen Earth as Naples is the most beautiful sight of Sea.

Works

In history:

Others:

Source

  • New illustrated Larousse , 1898-1907 (publication in the public domain)

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