LAMARTINE, Alphonse-Marie-Louis de. -
Poet, writer, and French politician, b. at Mâcon on 10 Oct. 1790, d. in Paris on 28 Feb. 1869. He completed his studies at the College of the Fathers of the Faith (formerly Jesuits) in Belley and in his youth sojourned in Italy and Switzerland. In 1820 he married an English Protestant, M. E. Birch. Entering the diplomatic career, he was attached to the legation in Naples (1821), then secretary of the embassy in London, and finally chargé d’affaires at the court of Tuscany. After the accession of Louis Philippe to the throne, he entered political life, drawing closer to the liberals, whereas in the early years of the Restoration he had been conservative. In 1832 he traveled with his family to the Orient, where he lost his daughter Julie. The following year he was elected deputy for the constituency of Bergues, and from that moment his political fortunes began, due above all to the skill of his speeches, which became famous. He was part of the provisional government of 1848 as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in this role he always maintained a line of prudence and respect for the democratic institutions of other countries. On 23 Apr. 1848 he was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly, but in June of the same year he was forced to cede power to General E. Cavaignac, and in the December elections for the presidency of the Republic he was defeated by Prince Louis Bonaparte, the future Napoleon III. In 1851, after the coup d’état, he retired into private life.
Among his numerous works in verse and prose, the following deserve mention: *Méditations poétiques* (1820), the short poem *La mort de Socrate* (1823); *Dernier chant du pèlerinage d’Harald* (1825), inspired by the death of Byron at Missolungi; *Harmonies poétiques et religieuses* (1830); *Souvenirs, impressions, pensées et paysages pendant un voyage en Orient* (1835; placed on the Index, decree of 22 Sept. 1836); two episodes of a cyclic epic that L. never completed: *Jocelyn, journal trouvé chez un curé de village* (1836; placed on the Index, decree of 22 Sept. 1836) and *La chute d’un ange* (1838; placed on the Index, decree of 27 Aug. 1838); *Histoire des Girondins* (1847), a work lacking any scruples regarding historical truth. After withdrawing from politics, he wrote, among other works: *Confidences* (1849), *Raphaël* (1849), *Graziella* (1852), *Histoire de la Restauration* (1852), *Cours familier de littérature* (1856–69).
Even if the impetus of his inspiration lacks the careful oversight that might have spared him rhetorical redundancy, Lamartine’s poetry possesses a charm that time has not diminished. His verse has a musicality unmatched in the work of any other of the great French Romantics. Yet at the same time, this lyrical facility gives rise to superficial interpretations of things, in which Lamartine achieves gravity, never depth; the voice of the universe that he makes resound in his poetry has an emotional accent, not one of passion. His novels, idyllic representations of people and environments much distorted, among which in Italy *Graziella* is especially well known—set in a Neapolitan setting—possess the merit of effective stylistic elegance and fresh descriptive power.
L. and the question of the proletariat. — Although his political fortunes were short-lived, Lamartine was without doubt a great political figure. In the provisional government of 1848 he represented the moderate element. He even risked unpopularity, so long as legality was respected. Among the first, he intuited the enormous importance of the proletarian question and foresaw the danger arising from a failure to resolve this problem: in this he was a precursor. He advocated the necessity of legalizing charity, philanthropic works, and state assistance, but more to bar the way to socialism than to combat the injustice of the inhuman conditions of workers. His was a conservative republic, in which there was no talk of revising fortunes or redistributing goods.
Lamartine must be considered in all his greatness and courage, and also in his baseness. On the surface, his political life is a succession of inconsistencies; in reality, he merely executed a highly skillful game that at the opportune moment was to bring him to power. His uncertainties, his changes of allegiance, are the continuity of an intent to win the trust of the masses so as to be able to hold them in check, to stir them up, and thereby prevent the subversion of order and the advent of socialism.
Matilde Mazzolani
L. AND THE CHURCH. — As has been noted, three works by Lamartine were placed on the Index: *Jocelyn*, *La chute d’un ange*, and *Souvenirs et impressions*. *Jocelyn* is the love story of a priest who falls desperately in love with Laurence; when blind fate separates them, he cannot endure it, and he dies bending over her corpse. It seems that at least the basis of the plot is true and that Lamartine knew the priest of whom he speaks. But the poem also proclaims the consecration to God of natural love, to which one cannot escape, and carries Platonic love to the point of exasperation; this was the Romantic thesis in vogue at the time (cf., e.g., *Paul et Virginie* by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre). In *La chute d’un ange*, besides the legend of the angel Cedar, who falls in love with a daughter of the Cainites, Daidha, and is therefore condemned to regain eternity, lost as punishment for his step, through misery and suffering, Lamartine sets out an entire design of purifying metempsychosis and education based on the presuppositions of J.-J. Rousseau. The *Souvenirs et impressions...*, then, clearly show how for Lamartine, who at the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem had not rediscovered the faith he had lost, and who, upon returning to France, had increasingly yielded to the spirit of the age, religion is reduced to a mere sentiment, to a tempering of the soul, which produces a quietistic adaptation, a volitional inertia in the face of events; truth is defined not as a conviction but as a mere state of mind, which varies with changing circumstances and the reactions of feeling. These defects are not redeemed by the charm of his style or by so many expressions, even those exact according to Christianity, but which bloom solely from a flare of sentiment that always ignores Revelation, the profound truths of faith, and the moral duties that stand above all sensitivity.