Editing Alphonse de Lamartine (section)

===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.