Alphonse de lamartine biography definition

LAMARTINE, ALPHONSE (–), a major literary and political figure in France.

Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine was born in MÂcon, the only son of aristocratic, landowning parents, on 21 October After attending a Jesuit college at Belley in Savoy, Lamartine led a rather aimless existence, because the royalist traditions of his family prevented him from serving Napoleonic France.

He did, however, make a prolonged visit to Italy (July –April ), during which he had a love affair that later became a source of poetic inspiration.

The fall of Napoleon's empire interrupted Lamartine's idle and dissipated life.

In July he was commissioned into the royal bodyguard and helped to escort Louis XVIII (r. –) out of France in March After the second abdication (22 June ) of Napoleon I (r. –/15), Lamartine resigned his army commission. Unsuccessful in his attempts to become a subprefect, he wrote poetry, had affairs with married women, and gained an entry into aristocratic and