Editing Alphonse de Lamartine (section)

==Other interests==
[[Image:Full view of Lamartine's House - Plovdiv, Bulgaria.JPG|thumb|left|Lamartine's House in [[Plovdiv]], [[Bulgaria]]]]
Alphonse de Lamartine was also an [[Oriental studies|Orientalist]]. He used themes and materials of the [[Levant]] and the Bible to create plotlines, heroes, and landscapes that resemble an exotic Oriental world.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Peleg|first=Yaron|title=Orientalism and the Hebrew Imagination|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2018|isbn=978-1-5017-2935-5|location=Ithaca, NY|pages=15|language=en}}</ref> He also had a particular interest in [[Lebanon]] and the Middle East. He travelled to Lebanon, [[Syria]] and the [[Holy Land]] in 1832–33.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Inman|first=Nick|title=DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Jerusalem & the Holy Lands|publisher=Penguin|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7566-5053-7|location=London|pages=33|language=en}}</ref> During that trip, while he and his wife, the painter and sculptor [[Elisa de Lamartine]], were in [[Beirut]], on 6 December 1832,[https://www.geneanet.org/cartes-postales/view/157543] their only remaining child, Julia, died at ten years of age.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Flower|first=John|title=Historical Dictionary of French Literature|publisher=Scarecrow Press|year=2013|isbn=978-0-8108-7945-4|location=Lanham, MD|pages=288}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Makdisi|first=Ussama|title=The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon|publisher=University of California Press|year=2000|isbn=978-0-520-92279-2|location=Berkeley, CA|pages=22|language=en}}</ref>
[[Image:Alphonse de Lamartine.jpg|thumb|right|Lamartine in 1839]]

During his trip to Lebanon he had met prince [[Bashir 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 the [[Cedrus libani|Lebanon cedar]] forest still harbors the "Lamartine Cedar", which was inscribed with his name by Marie-Joseph de Géramb (previously known as [[Ferdinand de Géramb]]) in 1832 at the request of Lamartine's daughter, Julia. <ref>{{Cite book|last=de Géramb|first=Marie-Joseph|title=Pélerinage á Jérusalem et au Mont Sinaï|publisher=Adrien Leclere et Cie|year=1834|volume=II|pages=364}}</ref> Lamartine was so influenced by his trip that he staged his 1838 epic poem ''La 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 in  ''La chute d’un Ange'' (1838) and ''Les confidences'' (1849) would be taken up by supporters of [[vegetarianism]] in the twentieth century.