Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (French:[alfɔ̃smaʁilwidəpʁad(ə)lamaʁtin]; 21 October 1790 – 28 February 1869)[2] was a French author, poet, and statesman. Initially a moderate royalist, he became one of the leading critics of theJuly Monarchy ofLouis-Philippe, aligning more with the Republican Left andSocial Catholicism.
Lamartine was a leading figure in the1848 French Revolution and was instrumental in the foundation of theSecond Republic along with the preservation of the tricolor as theflag of France. During the revolutionary year of 1848 he served as Foreign Minister and frequently worked to ease tensions between the government and the working class. He was a candidate in the1848 French presidential election but lost toLouis Napoleon Bonaparte. After the election, he retired from political life.
In 1820, Lamartine published his first collection of poems,Les Méditations Poétiques, which brought him instant fame.[5] One of the notable poems in this collection was his partly autobiographical poemLe Lac ("The Lake"), which he dedicated to Julie Charles, the wife of a celebrated physician.[6] In it he describes in retrospect the fervent love shared by a couple from the point of view of the bereaved man.
He was made a Chevalier of theLegion of Honour in 1825. He worked for the French embassy in Italy from 1825 to 1828. In 1829, he was elected a member of theAcadémie française. He was elected as a member of theChamber of Deputies in 1833. In 1835 he published theVoyage en Orient, an account of the journey he had just made, in royal luxury, to the countries of the Orient, and in the course of which he had lost his only daughter. Lamartine was masterly in his use of French poetic forms but from then on he confined himself to prose. Raised a devoutCatholic, Lamartine became apantheist, writingJocelyn andLa Chute d'un ange and in 1847,Histoire des Girondins, in praise of theGirondists. In his older years Lamartine returned to the Church.[4]
Initially a monarchist, Lamartine came to embrace democratic ideals and opposed militaristic nationalism.[7] Around 1830, Lamartine's opinions shifted in the direction of liberalism.[1] His first run for Parliament was an unsuccessful attempt in 1831 as a "board and moderate royalist". When elected in 1833 to theChamber of Deputies, he was asked what side of the chamber he was going to sit on, he responded "on the ceiling".[8] Throughout his time in the Chamber, Lamartine always sat in the opposition. He quickly founded his own "Social Party" with some influence fromSaint-Simonian ideas and established himself as a prominent critic of theJuly Monarchy. Initially critical of both the Bourgeois Monarchy and the Republican agitators, Lamartine becoming more and more of a republican in the monarchy's last years.[1][9][10]
Lamartine denounced the French government's decision to back down during theOriental Crisis of 1840, forcing France's allyMuhammad Ali to surrenderCrete,Syria, andHejaz to theOttoman Empire, calling it "theWaterloo of French diplomacy"[11] A follower ofLamennais, Lamartine advocated the separation of church and state believing it allowed the church to better fulfill its divine mission.[12] By the end of the 30s the radical opposition considered Lamartine their leading spokesman against KingLouis-Phillipe andFrançois Guizot.[13]
Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins was an instant success to the point that he styled himself the "Minister of Public Opinion" and considered one of the causes of the 1848 revolution.[14]
He was briefly in charge of the government during theturbulence of 1848. He wasMinister of Foreign Affairs from 24 February 1848 to 11 May 1848. Due to his great age,Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure, Chairman of the Provisional Government, effectively delegated many of his duties to Lamartine. He was then a member of theExecutive Commission, the political body which served as France's joint Head of State.
Lamartine was instrumental in the founding of theSecond Republic, having met with republican deputies and journalists in theHôtel de Ville to agree on the makeup of its provisional government. Lamartine himself was chosen to declare theRepublic in traditional form in the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, and ensured the continuation of theTricolour as the flag of the nation.
On 25 February 1848, Lamartine said about the Tricolour Flag:
"I spoke to you as a citizen earlier, well! Now listen to me, your Foreign Minister. If you take the tricolor flag away from me, know it, you will remove from me half the external force of France! Because Europe only knows the flag of its defeats and of our victories in the flag of the Republic and of the Empire. By seeing the red flag, they will believe that they are only seeing the flag of a party! This is the flag of France, it is the flag of our victorious armies, it is the flag of our triumphs that must be raised before Europe. France and the tricolor are one same thought, one same prestige, one same terror, if necessary, for our enemies! Imagine how much blood would be necessary for you to get another flag renamed! Citizens, for me, the red flag, I will never adopt it, and I am going to tell you why I'm against it with all the strength of my patriotism. It's that the tricolor has toured the world with the Republic and the Empire, with your freedoms and your glories, and the red flag has only toured theChamp-de-Mars, dragged in the blood of the people."[15]
During his term as a politician of theSecond Republic, he led efforts that culminated in theabolition of slavery and the death penalty, as well as the enshrinement of theright to work and the short-livednational workshop programs. A political idealist who supported democracy andpacifism, his moderate stance on most issues caused many of his followers to desert him. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the1848 presidential election, receiving fewer than 19,000 votes and losing toLouis Napoléon Bonaparte. He subsequently retired from politics and dedicated himself to literature.
He published volumes on the most varied subjects (history, criticism, personal confidences, literary conversations) especially during the Empire, when, having retired to private life and having become the prey of his creditors, he condemned himself to what he calls "literary hard-labor to exist and pay his debts". Lamartine ended his life in poverty, publishing monthly installments of theCours familier de littérature to support himself. He died in Paris in 1869.
Nobel prize winnerFrédéric Mistral's fame was in part due to the praise of Alphonse de Lamartine in the fortieth edition of his periodicalCours familier de littérature, following the publication of Mistral's long poemMirèio. Mistral is the most revered writer in modernOccitan literature.
Lamartine is considered to be the first Frenchromantic poet (thoughCharles-Julien Lioult de Chênedollé was working on similar innovations at the same time), and was acknowledged byPaul Verlaine and theSymbolists as an important influence.Leo Tolstoy also admired Lamartine, who was the subject of some discourses in his notebooks.[16]
Alphonse de Lamartine was also anOrientalist. He used themes and materials of theLevant and the Bible to create plotlines, heroes, and landscapes that resemble an exotic Oriental world.[17] He also had a particular interest inLebanon and the Middle East. He travelled to Lebanon,Syria and theHoly Land in 1832–33.[18] During that trip, while he and his wife, the painter and sculptorElisa de Lamartine, were inBeirut, on 6 December 1832,[1] their only remaining child, Julia, died at ten years of age.[19] It was, however, considered a journey of recovery and immersion in specific Christian icons, symbols, and terrain with his view that the region could bring about the rebirth of a new Christianity and spirituality that could save Europe from destruction.[20]
Lamartine in 1839
During his trip to Lebanon he had met princeBashir Shihab II and prince Simon Karam, who were enthusiasts of poetry. A valley in Lebanon is still called the Valley of Lamartine as a commemoration of that visit, and theLebanon cedar forest still harbors the "Lamartine Cedar", which was inscribed with his name by Marie-Joseph de Géramb (previously known asFerdinand de Géramb) in 1832 at the request of Lamartine's daughter, Julia.[21] Lamartine was so influenced by his trip that he staged his 1838 epic poemLa Chute d'un ange (The Fall of an Angel) in Lebanon.
Raised by his mother to respect animal life, he found the eating of meat repugnant, saying 'One does not have one heart for Man and one for animals. One has a heart or one does not'. His writings inLa chute d'un Ange (1838) andLes confidences (1849) would be taken up by supporters ofvegetarianism in the twentieth century.
Thanks to the increase of general reason, to the light of philosophy, to the inspiration of Christianity, to the progress of the idea of justice, of charity, and of fraternity, in laws, manners, and religion, society in America, in Europe, and in France, especially since the Revolution, has broken down all these barriers, all these denominations of caste, all these injurious distinctions among men. Society is composed only of various conditions, professions, functions, and ways of life, among those who form what we call a Nation; of proprietors of the soil, and proprietors of houses; of investments, of handicrafts, of merchants, of manufacturers, of formers; of day-laborers becoming farmers, manufacturers, merchants, or possessors of houses or capital, in their turn; of the rich, of those in easy circumstances, of the poor, of workmen with their hands, workmen with their minds; of day-laborers, of those in need, of a small number of men enjoying considerable acquired or inherited wealth, of others of a smaller fortune painfully increased and improved, of others with property only sufficient for their needs; there are some, finally, without any personal possession but their hands, and gleaning for themselves and for their families, in the workshop, or the field, and at the threshold of the homes of others on the earth, the asylum, the wages, the bread, the instruction, the tools, the daily pay, all those means of existence which they have neither inherited, saved, nor acquired. These last are what have been improperly calledthe People.
—Atheism Among the People, by Alphonse de Lamartine (1850), pp. 19–20[22]
Alphonse de Lamartine as quoted in "A Priest" by Robert Nash (1943) on Catholic priests:
"There is a man in every parish, having no family, but belonging to a family is worldwide; who is called in as a witness and adviser in all the important affairs of human life. No one comes into the world or goes out of it without his ministrations. He takes the child from its mother's arms, and parts with him only at the grave. He blesses and consecrates the cradle, the bridal chamber, the bed of death, and the bier. He is one whom innocent children instinctively venerate and reverence, and to whom men of venerable age come to seek for wisdom, and call him father; at whose feet men fall down and lay bare the innermost thoughts of their souls, and weep their most sacred tears. He is one whose mission is to console the afflicted, and soften the pains of body and soul; to whose door come alike the rich and the poor. He belongs to no social class, because he belongs equally to all. He is one, in fine, who knows all, has a right to speak unreservedly, and whose speech, inspired from on high, falls on the minds and hearts of all with the authority of one who is divinely sent, and with the constraining power of one who has an unclouded faith."[23]
^Frank, Joseph (2010).Between Religion and Rationality: Essays in Russian Literature and Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 69.ISBN978-1-4008-3653-6.
^Peleg, Yaron (2018).Orientalism and the Hebrew Imagination. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 15.ISBN978-1-5017-2935-5.
^Inman, Nick (2007).DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Jerusalem & the Holy Lands. London: Penguin. p. 33.ISBN978-0-7566-5053-7.
^Flower, John (2013).Historical Dictionary of French Literature. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. p. 288.ISBN978-0-8108-7945-4.
^Makdisi, Ussama (2000).The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 22.ISBN978-0-520-92279-2.
^de Géramb, Marie-Joseph (1834).Pélerinage á Jérusalem et au Mont Sinaï. Vol. II. Adrien Leclere et Cie. p. 364.
^Lamartine, Alphonse de, 1790–1869.Atheism among the people. Retrieved21 April 2016 – via Internet Archive.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Rev. Robert Nash."A Priest"(PDF). Catholicpamplets.net. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 27 April 2016. Retrieved21 April 2016.
