Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) was a French poet and politician.
Born into French provincial nobility, he travelled during his youth, and in 1820 he married an Englishwoman, Maria Birch.
He is famous for his partly autobiographical poem, "Le Lac" ("The Lake"), which describes in retrospect the fervent love shared by a couple from the point of view of the bereaved man. Lamartine was masterly in his use of French poetic forms. He was one of very few French literary figures to combine his writing with a political career. Raised within Orthodox Christianity, Lamartine became a pantheist, writing Jocelyn and La Chute dún ange. He wrote Histoire de Girondins in 1847 in praise of the Girondists.
During his term as a politician in the Second Republic of France, he led efforts the eventually led to the abolition of slavery, the death sentence, as well as the enshrinement of the right to work and the shortlived national workshop programs. A political idealist who supported democracy and pacifism, his moderate stance on most issues caused his followers to desert him.
