Editing Alphonse de Lamartine (section)

==Political career==

===July Monarchy===
[[File:Alphonse de Lamartine.PNG|thumb|left|Lamartine by [[François Gérard]], 1830]]
Initially a monarchist, Lamartine came to embrace democratic ideals and opposed militaristic nationalism.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mauriac|first=François|title=Francois Mauriac on Race, War, Politics and Religion|publisher=CUA Press|year=2015|isbn=978-0-8132-2789-4|location=Washington, D.C.|pages=258}}</ref> Around 1830, Lamartine's opinions shifted in the direction of liberalism.<ref name="Jenson" /> His first run for Parliament was an unsuccessful attempt in 1831 as a "board and moderate royalist". When elected in 1833 to the [[Chamber of Deputies (France)|Chamber of Deputies]], he was asked what side of the chamber he was going to sit on, he responded "on the ceiling".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schapiro |first=J. Salwayn |date=1919 |title=Lamartine|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/2142031. |journal= Political Science Quarterly |volume=34 |issue=4 |page=633|doi=10.2307/2142031 |jstor=2142031 }}</ref> Throughout his time in the Chamber, Lamartine always sat in the opposition. He quickly founded his own "Social Party" with some influence from [[Saint-Simonian]] ideas and established himself as a prominent critic of the [[July 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.<ref name="Jenson" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Halsted |first1=J.B. |title=Alphonse de Lamartine: History of the Revolution of 1848 |date=1969 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |pages=271–284}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Schapiro |first=J. Salwayn |date=1919 |title=Lamartine|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/2142031. |journal= Political Science Quarterly |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=636–637|doi=10.2307/2142031 |jstor=2142031 }}</ref>

Lamartine denounced the French government's decision to back down during the [[Oriental Crisis of 1840]], forcing France's ally [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali]] to surrender [[Crete]], [[Syria (region)|Syria]], and [[Hejaz]] to the [[Ottoman Empire]], calling it "the [[battle of Waterloo|Waterloo]] of French diplomacy"<ref>{{cite book |title=Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean|last=Mansel |first=Philip |year=2010 |publisher=Hachette UK|isbn=9781848544628| pages=86–87}}</ref> A follower of [[Lamennais]], Lamartine advocated the separation of church and state believing it allowed the church to better fulfill its diving mission.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schapiro |first=J. Salwayn |date=1919 |title=Lamartine|url=https://academic.oup.com/psq/article-abstract/34/4/632/7247295?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false |journal= Political Science Quarterly |volume=34 |issue=4 |page=636|doi=10.2307/2142031 |jstor=2142031 }}</ref> By the end of the 30s the radical opposition considered Lamartine their leading spokesman against King [[Louis-Phillipe]] and [[François Guizot]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schapiro |first=J. Salwayn |date=1919 |title=Lamartine|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/2142031. |journal= Political Science Quarterly |volume=34 |issue=4 |page=637|doi=10.2307/2142031 |jstor=2142031 }}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schapiro |first=J. Salwayn |date=1919 |title=Lamartine|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/2142031. |journal= Political Science Quarterly |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=637–638|doi=10.2307/2142031 |jstor=2142031 }}</ref>

===Second Republic===

He was briefly in charge of the government during the [[The Revolutions of 1848 in France|turbulence of 1848]]. He was [[Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)|Minister 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 the [[French Executive Commission (1848)|Executive Commission]], the political body which served as France's joint Head of State.

Lamartine was instrumental in the founding of the [[Second French Republic|Second Republic]], having met with republican deputies and journalists in the [[Hôtel de Ville, Paris|Hôtel de Ville]] to agree on the makeup of its provisional government. Lamartine himself was chosen to declare the [[French Second Republic|Republic]] in traditional form in the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, and ensured the continuation of the [[Flag of France|Tricolour]] as the flag of the nation.

On 25 February 1848, Lamartine said about the Tricolour Flag:
{{blockquote|"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 the [[Champ-de-Mars]], dragged in the blood of the people."<ref>{{cite book | last=de Lamartine | first=A. | title=Trois mois au pouvoir | publisher=Michel Levy | year=1848 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2KuOc63LUC | language=fr| page=66}}</ref>}}

During his term as a politician of the [[Second French Republic|Second Republic]], he led efforts that culminated in the [[Abolitionism in France|abolition of slavery]] and the death penalty, as well as the enshrinement of the [[right to work]] and the short-lived national workshop programs. A political idealist who supported democracy and [[pacifism]], his moderate stance on most issues caused many of his followers to desert him. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the [[1848 French presidential election|1848 presidential election]], receiving fewer than 19,000 votes and losing to [[Napoleon III|Louis Napoléon Bonaparte]]. He subsequently retired from politics and dedicated himself to literature.

===Final years and legacy===
[[Image:Lamartine photography cropped.jpg|200px|left|thumb|Alphonse de Lamartine photographed in 1865]]
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 the ''Cours familier de littérature'' to support himself. He died in Paris in 1869.

Nobel prize winner [[Frédéric Mistral]]'s fame was in part due to the praise of Alphonse de Lamartine in the fortieth edition of his periodical ''Cours familier de littérature'', following the publication of Mistral's long poem ''[[Mirèio]]''. Mistral is the most revered writer in modern [[Occitan literature]].

Lamartine is considered to be the first French [[Romantic poetry|romantic]] poet (though [[Charles-Julien Lioult de Chênedollé]] was working on similar innovations at the same time), and was acknowledged by [[Paul Verlaine]] and the [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolists]] as an important influence. [[Leo Tolstoy]] also admired Lamartine, who was the subject of some discourses in his notebooks.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Frank|first=Joseph|title=Between Religion and Rationality: Essays in Russian Literature and Culture|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-1-4008-3653-6|location=Princeton, NJ|pages=69|language=en}}</ref>