LA MARMORA, ALFONSO FERRERO Italian general and statesman, was born at Turin on Nov. 18, 1804. He entered the Sardinian army in 1823, and distinguished himself at the siege of Peschiera. He liberated Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, from the Milan revolutionaries on Aug. 5, 1848, and in October was promoted general and appointed minister of war. After suppressing the revolt of Genoa in 1849, he again became minister of war. Having reconstructed the Piedmontese army, he took part in the war of 1859 against Austria; and in July of that year succeeded Cavour in the premiership. In 186o he was sent to Berlin and St. Petersburg to arrange for the recog nition of the kingdom of Italy, and subsequently he held the offices of governor of Milan and royal lieutenant at Naples, until, in September 1864, he succeeded Minghetti as premier. He modi fied the scope of the September Convention by a note in which he claimed for Italy full freedom of action in respect of Rome, a document of which Visconti-Venosta afterwards took advantage when justifying the Italian occupation of Rome in 1870.
In April 1866 La Marmora concluded an alliance with Prussia against Austria, and, on the outbreak of war in June, took com mand of an army corps, but was defeated at Custozza on June 23. Accused of treason by his fellow-countrymen, and of duplicity by the Prussians, he eventually published in defence of his tactics (1873) a series of documents entitled Un po' pia di lace sugli eventi dell' anno 1866. Meanwhile he had been sent to Paris in 1867 to oppose the French expedition to Rome, and in 1870, after the occupation of Rome by the Italians, had been ap pointed lieutenant-royal of the new capital. He died at Florence on Jan. 5, 1878.
See G. Massari, Il generale Alfonso La Marmora (Milan, 188o). LAMARTINE, ALPHONSE DE French poet, statesman, and man of letters, was born at Macon on Oct. 21, 1790. He was the eldest of six children, the only son, and was brought up mainly in the country, from which the inspiration of his graceful and meditative verse is chiefly derived. At 20 he went to Italy for the sake of his health, and there fell in love with Graziella of his verse. His family was noble, and Lamartine entered the Garde du Corps at the Bourbon restoration, taking refuge during the Hundred Days in Switzerland and at Aix. His
first book, Meditations, poetiques et religieuses, appeared in 1820, followed in 1823 by Nouvelles Meditations. This philosophic, harmonious verse won the public by its freshness and grace. Then, in 1830, came Harmonies, described by its author as an intimate and involuntary revelation of his every-day impressions, pages from his inner life. The poems of Harmonies were, in fact, less lyrical and more reflective. Chute d'un ange and Jocelyn ap peared in 1837, and his last volume of poetry, Recueillements, in 1839. Jocelyn has been compared with Hermann and Dorothea. In it he describes his old friend and tutor, the abbe Dumont. The common things of every-day life are described in simple language, but the whole is seen with a poet's eyes.
Lamartine was a precursor of the Romantic revival. He availed himself of the reviving interest in legitimism and Catholicism as represented by Bonald and Joseph de Maistre, of the nature worship of Rousseau and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the sentimen talism of Madame de Stael, of the mediaevalism of Chateaubriand and Scott, of the maladie du siecle of Chateaubriand and Byron. Perhaps if his matter be closely analysed it will be found that he added little of his own. But if the parts of the mixture were like other things, the mixture was not. It seemed, indeed, to the immediate generation so original that tradition has it that the Meditations were refused by a publisher because they were in none of the accepted styles. They appeared when Lamartine was nearly 3o years old. The best of them, and the best thing that Lamartine ever did, is the Lac, describing his return to the little mountain tarn of le Bourget after the death of his mistress, with whom he had visited it in other days. The verse is exquisitely harmonious, the sentiments conventional but refined and delicate, the imagery well chosen and gracefully expressed. As a prose writer Lamartine was very fertile. His characteristics in his prose fiction and descriptive verse are not very different from those of his poetry. He is always and everywhere sentimental, though very frequently, as in his shorter tales (The Stone Mason of Saint-Point, Graziella, etc.), he is graceful as well. His poetic reputation has suffered many changes, but it remains greater in his own country than abroad.