LAMARTINE, la'maiten, Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de, French poet and statesman: b. Macon, Burgundy, 21 Oct. 1790; d. 28 Feb. 1869. He came of well-to-do parents of royal ist sympathies. His father was imprisoned during the Terror. He was educated first by his mother, then, after a brief period at Lyons, by the Peres de la Foi at Berry (1805-09). He then passed two years at home, reading poetry and romance, and was in Italy from 1811 to 1813. At the Restoration he entered the Gardes du Corps. The Hundred Days of Napoleon's return he passed in Switzerland and Aix-en Savoie. Here a love affair with a girl who died soon after opened a copious poetic vein. After Waterloo he returned to France, revisited Switzerland, Savoy and Italy in 1818-19, and in 1820 published his first book, the much ad mired 'Meditations.' Soon after he left the army for the diplomatic service, was made secretary of the embassy at Naples and mar ried a congenial, wealthy and beautiful English lady, Marianne Birch. Meditations' followed in 1824, with a transfer to Florence and the Cross of the Legion of Honor from Charles X in return for a laudatory poem. In 1829 came °Les Harmonies,' with a mission to Saxe-Coburg and election to the Academy. The Revolution of 1830 terminated his diplomatic career. He entered politics, was defeated in the elections of 1832, made a journey to Pales tine, of which he told in (Voyage en Orient' (1835), was chosen deputy in his absence, and soon gained repute as a ready speaker and effective orator, becoming steadily more demo cratic in his political sympathies. (Jocelyn' (1836), 'La Chute d'un Ange' (1838), two frag ments of a would-be epic of the human soul, and 'Recueillements' (1839) contain his last signifi cant poetry. The (Histoire des Girondins' (1847) was less a history than a vaguely declamatory invitation to the revolution of February 1848, in which Lamartine had a promi nent part, being Minister of Foreign Affairs in the provisional government, a member of the Constituent Assembly by concurrent election in 10 departments, and one of its executive com mittee. His own inexperience and impatience
of routine, joined to the futility of his col leagues and the unreason of the mob, led to the conspicuous failure of his efforts to govern by speeches and reconcile the middle class to democracy. In June he yielded to Cavaignac and got but few votes when nominated for the presidency in 1849. His political day was over. He was not even elected to the Assembly. Grown poor in the public service he tried to redeem his fortunes by much writing: