THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF WILLIAM A. NIT2E ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE AT TWENTY-THREE From an engraving by Flameng after a sepia by Mile, de V . THE LIFJE OF LAMAJRLTIKGE BY H. REMSEN WHITEHOUSE VOLUME ONE Boston and New York HOUGHTON MlFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY H. RKMSBN WHIT*HOUSE ALL RIGHTS KESERVEU Published September igi8 College Library PQ 232 v/5< vi To His EXCELLENCY MONSIEUR J. J. JUSSERAND French Ambassador to the United States With the expression of my highest esteem and profound personal admira- tion, I respectfully dedicate this study of the life and work of one of the noblest and purest literary and politi- cal glories of France. H. R. w. 9622CQ PREFACE IN a sense, it may be claimed that Lamartine was his own biographer. The thread of his material and psy- chological existence meanders through the volumes of "Les Confidences," "Les Nouvelles Confidences," the pages of his first and second Oriental "Voyages," the " Memoires politiques," and the "History of the Revolu- tion of 1848." "Graziella" and "Raphael" are episodes in his own life, spiritualized and glossed with the romanticism in- separable from the period. Even " Jocelyn " is a portrait, albeit a shadowy one. "For those who love the man in Lamartine (and their number is great)," wrote Sainte- Beuve, "'Jocelyn' must have a biographical, or at least a very precious psychological value. . . . 'Jocelyn' is very often Lamartine midst slightly altered surround- ings, ... an almost direct revelation of one of the most divine organizations of a poet which has been vouchsafed the world, and concerning one of the noblest creatures." 1 Again, the twenty-eight large volumes of Lamartine's "Cours familier de Iitt6rature," the bread-winning venture of his declining years, teem with personal rem- iniscences, while the prefaces and the commentaries to the countless poems, essays, and histories contained in the forty volumes of his collected works bristle with the "ego" rarely, if ever, disassociated from his theme. And yet, paradoxical as it may appear, these thousands of personal "revelations" tend in reality to confuse and obscure an appreciation of the flesh and blood Lamartine. 1 Portraits contemporains, vol. i, p. 347. Also Confidences, p. 113; Cours familier de literature, vol. iv, p. 388. . . vii PREFACE Nothing was further from his mind than purposely to mislead. He was candour, almost naivete, itself. He was merely constitutionally incapable of segregating fact and fancy: what he saw and what he wanted to see be- came inextricably interwoven in his brain. As one of his biographers has put it: "Lamartine was certainly one of those men who, unconsciously and without premedita- tion, possess in the highest degree the faculty of inex- actitude." 1 The real man is more easily discerned in his very vo- luminous correspondence, which has been collected and edited, with filial piety, by his niece and adopted daughter, Madame Valentine de Lamartinede Cessiat. 2 Of inesti- mable value also is the personal testimony of his friends, his secretaries, and the perusal of his parliamentary speeches and reports, which lay bare the depths of his humanitarianism. A great man, in most senses of the qualification, an undeniably great poet and writer, a conscientious and honest statesman, Lamartine was, withal, an incor- rigible visionary, an altruist whose persistent optimism resulted in the gradual dilapidation of his private for- tune and the eclipse of his political influence. Yet never in the darkest days of political or pecuniary adversity could his honour or personal probity be im- pugned. With Shakespeare one can proclaim : "... The elements So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the World: This was a Man! " To six scholars who have devoted much time and study to Lamartine, I am under special obligations. Not only through the medium of their books, but in personal let- 1 Charles de Mazade, Lamartine, p. 107. * Correspondance de Lamartine, 1807-1852, 6 vols. (Paris, 1873.) PREFACE ters or conversations these gentlemen have rendered me inestimable service. With warmest thanks I acknowledge my debt to: M. Henri Cochin, author of Lamartine et La Flandre; to M. Jean des Cognets, whose publication of fragments of J. M. Dargaud's journal, under the title of La Vie interieure de Lamartine, has contributed so greatly to our psychological appreciation of the great French poet; to M. Pierre de Lacretelle, in whose Origines et la Jeunesse de Lamartine many interesting family documents are published for the first time; to M. Auguste Dorchain, whose learning in Lamartinian lore is surpassed by none ; to M. E. Sugier, author of the captivating study Lamar- tine, etude morale; and to the late Pierre Maurice Mas- son, professor of French Literature at the University of Fribourg, whose death in the trenches has cast a gloom over the intellectual world of France and Switzerland. Nor can I omit mention of the friendly guidance and the valuable advice I have received from my colleague, M. A. Dureault, permanent secretary of the Academic de M&con, whose learned studies, together with those of M. Leonce Lex, archivist of the Departement de Sa6ne et Loire, have been of the greatest utility to me in tracing the earlier domestic and local history of the Lamartines and their country neighbours. M. Henri de Riaz has made curious literary discoveries concerning the identity of "Lucy L ," and was in- strumental in putting me on the track which ultimately led to the elucidation of the mystery of Lamartine's "Manage a 1'anglaise," a problem which had hitherto baffled Lamartinians. The late Leon Seche, who had specialized on the lit- erary history of the Romanticists, devoted numerous studies to Lamartine and his entourage. Often some- ix PREFACE what indiscreet, it must be confessed, in his relentless probing into private life, Sech at least had the merit of absolute sincerity. Moreover, his "portraits" are flesh-and-blood presentments of the men and women of the Romantic era, and as such of deepest interest to the searcher. Across the gulf I transmit my thanks to the man who, whatever his literary shortcomings may have been, was one of the most ardent knights of the pen I ever met, and one to whom no personal sacrifice was too onerous when made in the sacred name of Literature. Madame de Canson, the daughter of Lamartine's relative and political henchman, G. de Champvans, most generously opened for me the family archives of the Chateau de Maisod, courteously placing at my dis- posal her collection of interesting private letters and papers. To other members of the Lamartine family, especially Madame de Parseval, nee de Pierreclos, of M&con, and to Monsieur and Madame de Montherot, of the Chateau de Saint-Point, I am indebted for like favours combined with charming hospitality. The Vicomte de Faria, Portuguese Consul-General at Lausanne, most kindly procured for me several por- traits of Lamartine. To my friend, Mr. William Roscoe Thayer, I extend expressions of warmest gratitude for valuable assistance and advice, and the unflagging interest he has mani- fested in the accomplishment of my task. H. R. W. CONTENTS . I. STATESMAN OR POET i II. ANCESTRY AND EARLIEST YEARS .... 8 III. CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 19 IV. THE JESUIT COLLEGE AT BELLEY .... 35 V. FIRST LOVE 46 VI. A STUDENT OF LAW AND OF BOOKS ... 58 VII. MADEMOISELLE P. ....... 65 VIII. THE JOURNEY TO ITALY 82 IX. GRAZIELLA 92 X. IN THE GARDES DU CORPS 104 XI. AN EXILE IN SWITZERLAND 120 XII. THE INFLUENCE OF BYRON 134 XIII. RAPHAEL AND JULIE 146 XIV. MADAME CHARLES 161 XV. A YEAR OF DISTRESS 190 XVI. A POET OF THE SOUL 199 XVII. BRILLIANT SUCCESS IN PARIS 209 XVIII. MEDITATIONS POETIQUES 223 XIX. MARRIAGE 236 XX. FIRST DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 244 XXI. GROWING LITERARY REPUTATION .... 258 XXII. CHILDE HAROLD CHANT DU SACRE . . . 272 XXIII. DUEL WITH COLONEL PEPE 282 XXIV. CHARG D'AFFAIRES AT FLORENCE .... 299 xi CONTENTS XXV. ADMITTED TO THE ACADEMY . . ... 316 XXVI. POLITICAL AMBITIONS AND VIEWS .... 340 XXVII. VOYAGE TO THE ORIENT 367 XXVIII. SPIRITUAL EMANCIPATION . . . . . 386 XXIX. DEPUTY FROM BERGUES 399 XXX. JOCELYN 419 XXXI. INFLUENCE IN PARLIAMENT 440 ILLUSTRATIONS ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE AT TWENTY-THREE Photogravure Frontispiece From an engraving by Flameng after a sepia by Mile, de V MADAME DE LAMARTINE, MOTHER OF THE POET . . 10 From the portrait in the Chateau de Saint-Point BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARTINE 14 LAMARTINE'S HOUSE AT MILLY 20 LAMARTINE AT TWENTY 72 From the lithograph by Graivedon LAMARTINE 100 NERNIER, HAUTE-SAVOIE 130 Where Lamartine stayed in 1815 CHATEAU DE SAINT-POINT 268 LAMARTINE AT FORTY-FIVE 458 From an unsigned crayon in the Chateau de Saint-Point THE LIFE OF LAMARTINE CHAPTER I STATESMAN OR POET LAMARTINE, whose genius as a poet is uncon tested, and must ever in the eyes of the majority constitute his chief claim to immortality, himself held this sublime gift of the gods in slight esteem. Like Goethe, who complained that, in spite of the un- doubted scientific value of his discoveries in comparative anatomy, his compatriots persistently allowed their admi- ration of the poet to overshadow due appreciation of the scientist, 1 Lamartine was deeply aggrieved that his contemporaries so constantly belittled, even ridiculed, his aspirations and achievements in the political arena. Here was the chosen field in which he ardently desired to shine : a statesman first, a poet in his moments of elegant leisure. Unquestionably he loved his art; at times pas- sionately; yet never to the exclusion of other ambitions. Early in life, even in the first intoxicating flush of literary fame, he trembled lest his poetry militate against the chances for the diplomatic appointment on which his heart was set. Later he deplored that his influence was restricted in the Chamber on account of the constant twits levelled by political antagonists who detected, or feigned to detect, the fatal taint of idealism in his treat- ment of the most prosaic problems of economics. 1 The discovery of the presence of an inter-maxillary bone in the upper jaw of man, similar to that in animals, and of the vertebrate theory of the skull. . . I . . LIFE OF LAM ARTINE Such aphorisms as "The Ideal is only Truth at a dis- tance," or "Reality is the seedling on which the Ideal is grafted," not only passed over the heads of stolid work- a-day politicians, but aroused the mistrust of a critic such as Sainte-Beuve. Controverting a somewhat harsh appreciation of Lamartine as a statesman, Eugene Ram- bert retorted: "He [Sainte-Beuve] does not sufficiently grasp what moral power and influence is exerted over the masses by the poetry of Lamartine's politics." l The Swiss critic was unquestionably correct; the marvel- lous ascendency wielded by the poet-orator over the surging revolutionary mob during the fateful days of February, 1848, is his vindication. The miracles per- formed at the H6tel de Ville can only be fully accounted for by the moral force Lamartine had exerted during the baffling years of his parliamentary career. If he talked over the heads of the unheeding legislators in the Cham- ber, his words (as he once remarked) sped out of the win- dows, and reached the eager ears of the struggling masses. In the fulness of time the harvest was ripe, and the prole- tariat prepared to garner the fruits of the seedling Real- ity on which Lamartine had so cunningly grafted the Ideal. Not that Lamartine himself ever admitted the idealism of his politics or sociology. His constant aim was to separate his political from his literary career, as he sepa- rated his public and domestic life. Although he obeyed the promptings of his Muse, he dubbed it a weakness he would fain that men forgot. To M. Bruys d'Ouilly he wrote in 1838, six years after his entrance into the politi- cal arena: "... My poet's life begins again for a few days. You know better than any one that it has never been at most more than a twelfth part of my real life. The credulous public, which does not, like Jehovah, create 1 Etudes littiraires (Lausanne, 1889), p. 314. STATESMAN OR POET man in its image, but disfigures him according to its fancy, believes that I have spent thirty years of my life polishing rhymes and contemplating the stars. I have not spent thirty months so doing, and poetry has never been more to me than a prayer; the most beautiful and most intense act of thought, but the shortest, and the one which deducts the least from the day's work." l The letter continues with an harangue on the duties of the citizen in face of the social problems of the day. The author defends himself against the insinuation that "vanity" has anything to do with his political ambitions, asserting that he has thrown himself into the vortex from a sense of duty, "like any passenger who during the storm lends a hand in the working of the ship." The testimony of his contemporaries does not, however, corroborate this disclaimer. Lamartine was credited with his fair share of vanity political and literary and even with fatuous self-adulation. Young, well-born, ex- cessively handsome, with the fire of genius in face and bearing, he was early the idol of the foremost Parisian salons. It would be asking too much of a poet, between twenty-eight and thirty, not to be amenable to flattery. "I am on the pinnacle of universal favour here," he wrote Virieu at the time he was reciting his as yet un- published verses to enthralled audiences. "Lord Byron in his best days did not create a greater furor in London. Even Villemain 2 is enthusiastic, and I was afraid of him ; but he extols me to the skies, and maintains that in the memory of man never has one heard such verses." 3 But such passages are rare, even in his outpourings to this "other self," as he loved to style his school-boy friend, Aymon de Virieu. Lamartine was sincere in his estima- tion of his poetical genius, although he never doubted 1 Letter serving as Preface to the Recueittements potliques. 1 Writer, professor, and politician, 1790-1870. Correspondence, ccxi. LIFE OF LAMARTINE his political inflatus. He knew his power, but, in litera- ture, he was not ignorant of his weaknesses. It was in no spirit of false modesty, no feigned humility, that in his later years he paralleled what he had done with what he might have achieved. He was a merciless critic of his own shortcomings and peculiarities. To Ernest Legouv6, who asked how it came about that, given an equal facility in memorizing the verses of La Fontaine and those of Lamartine, and an equal pleas- ure in reciting them, yet after six months Lamartine's verses had slipped from his mind while those of La Fon- taine still stood out firm and clear, the poet replied: "The reason is that La Fontaine wrote with a pen, one might even say with a graving-tool, while I paint with a brush. He writes, I merely colour: his outlines are sharply drawn, mine are vague. Consequently it is only natural that his should remain impressed on the mem- ory, and that mine should gradually become effaced." And when his friend insisted that no French poet had been more richly endowed than Lamartine, and pro- tested that the author of the "Lac," of "Jocelyn," of "La Chute d'un Ange," and of a hundred other master- pieces, had as much genius as the greatest among them, Lamartine smilingly acquiesced: "It may be: but I have not as much talent. Talent, my friend, is what is ac- quired by work and will. I have never worked, and I cannot correct. Whenever I have tried to rewrite my verses I have only made them worse. Just compare me as a versifier with Victor Hugo ! Why, I am a mere begin- ner, a mere school-boy beside him." l M. Legouv6 adds that if Lamartine entertained a sincere disdain for his poetical grandeur, it was because he felt himself to be a poet very superior to his works, and above all, a man very superior to the poet. 1 Ernest LegouvS, Soixante ans de souvenirs, vol. iv, p. 200. . . 4 . . STATESMAN OR POET Of human foibles Lamartine was certainly not devoid. Yet he possessed none of the petty passions which so often disfigure genius. There was no trace in him of literary jealousy, vindictiveness, or envy. A romantic in all but name he stood serenely aloof, belonging to no school, an adherent of no clique or coterie. Fully aware of his literary preeminence, but having taken to verse as a duck takes to water, he could discern no special personal merit in the facility with which nature had so generously en- dowed him. With statecraft it was different. The Lamartine of the study and he of the rostrum or the hustings were two dis- tinct and separate personalities. As a statesman, a legis- lator, and a social and political reformer, Lamartine entertained no doubts as to the importance of the mission an all- wise Providence had destined him to fulfil. In a conversation, during 1837, with M. de Barthlemy, Pre- fect of Macon, he remarked: "My reputation as a poet is but a slight affair; it hardly touches me. But the rep- utation to which I hold immensely, because I know that I merit it, is that of a specialist, a man of business. And I will confess to you that the functions for which I con- sider myself most apt are those required of a Minister of Finance, or of the Interior." 1 Perhaps M. de Bar- thdlemy was not an altogether impartial critic. Moreover, a few lines farther down the page, he quotes Lamartine as admitting, during a session of the Committee on Fi- nance of the Provincial Council, that he had never in his life been capable of adding up correctly a column of figures. But the anecdote one of a hundred of similar tenor - serves to demonstrate the confidence, not to say complacency, with which Lamartine accepted his ability to solve the most complex problems of social and techni- cal politics. Inevitably a temperament such as his was 1 Souvenirs d'un ancien PrSfet, p. 200. LIFE OF LAMARTINE prone to idealize the most sordid and prosaic measures affecting the public weal. Yet, as will be seen, this vivid presentation of dry and colourless subjects not infre- quently proved their salvation ; alluring and arresting an attention which might otherwise have been denied. If his own grasp of the problem was often] superficial, he over and over again, by the sheer magic of his splendid rhetoric, aroused the enthusiasm which meant success. Nor would it be correct to assume that Lamartine did not himself adequately realize the immense effectiveness of this commingling in his personality of the poet the vates, the prophet, the soothsayer, of the ancients and the politician in the r61e he aspired to play. The influ- ence of the statesman thus constituted, he rightly es- teemed far greater and more far-reaching, for good or for evil, than that of the poet who, from the seclusion of his study, gave utterance to the most sublime flights of human thought. i When Legouv, seeking to console the bitterness of pub- lic ingratitude towards the fallen idol of 1848, stated that he would sooner have written the "Meditations" than have founded the Second Republic, the poet-statesman contemptuously cried: "That proves you to be a dunce. Let us put aside my own individuality, look at the gen- eral question, and consider the immense superiority of the statesman over the poet. The one racks and exhausts his brain in marshalling and harmonizing sounds; the other is the real Word, that is, the Thought, the Word, the Act in one. He makes real what the poet only dreams ; sees all that is great and good converted into Facts, into beneficent Facts, which not only benefit the present gen- eration, but often extend to distant posterity. Do you know what it means to be a great Statesman? He is a poet in the act of transforming Words into Deeds! " l 1 Legouv, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 205. . . 6 STATESMAN OR POET Action was, in truth, the constant preoccupation of this man whom his contemporaries persisted in regarding as a dreamer, a sublime dreamer, but a dangerous idealist. A dreamer, yes : but one whose dreams were made of the stuff Voltaire and Rousseau had woven into the fabric of French thought, and which have since become uni- versal realities. A dreamer for whom the Declaration of the Rights of Man contained eternal Truths. A dreamer who dreamed with Pitt and Fox and Stevenson, as well as with "Ossian" and Byron. A dreamer to whom the teachings of History meant something more than dates and dynasties, and whose political creed went far beyond party lines and frontiers, embracing Humanity. After the first languorous intellectual waverings, the careless, sensuous indolence of his youthful wanderings; after " Werther" and " Rene" had been left behind ; even before the inevitable Weltschmerz of callow adolescence had ripened into discernment, it was of action he dreamed, action he craved. CHAPTER II ANCESTRY AND EARLIEST YEARS AT the close of the eighteenth century the Lamartines afforded a typical example of that provincial petite noblesse to whose homely but sterling virtues and sound patriotism France owes so much. Of humble origin the head of the family was, in the middle of the seven- teenth century, a tanner at Cluny the Alamartines, as they were then styled, gradually rose in the social scale, acquiring landed estates and patents of nobility. Yet as late as 1825 the orthography of the name was ill- defined; the poet signing indifferently "Delamartine," "de la Martine," and "de Lamartine." J The manage- ment of their scattered rural holdings necessitated long and frequent sojourns among their vintners and peas- ants; but the winter months were passed in the substan- tial and patriarchal residence in Macon. Although the Revolution wrought havoc here, as elsewhere, in the ranks of the aristocracy, once the Reign of Terror was over, a small, highly cultivated social nucleus re-formed, and the dawn of the nineteenth century found the La- martines again firmly established as leaders and arbiters in the community. The poet has himself described, with charming candour, the position held by his forebears. "A family without great lustre, but without stain; placed by Providence in one of those intermediary ranks of society, allied to the nobility by virtue of its name, and to the people by rea- son of modicity of fortune and simplicity of life. A fam- 1 Cf. Pierre de Lacretelle, Les Origines et la Jeunesse de Lamartine (Paris, 1911), p. 6. 8 . ANCESTRY AND EARLIEST YEARS ily dwelling chiefly on their estates, among the peasants whose customs they shared, and whose daily toil was not unsimilar to that of their lowly neighbours." l Following in the footsteps of his ancestors, the father of the poet, a younger son, served in the armies of his king from his sixteenth year. Yet, loyal as was his devo- tion to the Bourbons, the philosophical doctrines of the Encyclopedistes had not left him uninfluenced. With his brothers he belonged to that party of the young nobility which recognized the necessity of social and political reform. They were passionate partisans of a constitu- tional government, of a national representative body, of the fusion of the orders of the State into a homogeneous nation, subjected to the same laws and bearing the same fiscal burdens. Mirabeau, Lafayette, La Rochefoucauld, and others of their kind were the apostles of their creed. Lafayette had gone to school with theAbb6 de Lamartine, the poet's uncle. Later they met in Paris, and for years maintained an active correspondence. 2 A real friend- ship united them, an attachment founded on a com- munity of political and social ideals. Holding such opinions, it was evident that the La- martine family could not be hostile to the spirit of the great social upheaval of '89. It was only when the movement, escaping the control of its leaders, became the tool of demagogues, and degenerated into lawless- ness, spoliation, and crime, that they withdrew their sympathy. Ancestral tradition discountenanced the marriage of younger sons in the Lamartine family. Yet, his elder brother being an invalid, and the second a priest, the ban was of necessity removed, and his relatives sought 1 Confidences, p. 22; cf. also Les Origines et la Jeunesse de Lamartine, PP- 3-33- 1 Cf. Memoires inedits, p. 12. Pierre de Lacretelle (op. tit., p. 83) contro- verts this assertion. LIFE OF IAMARTINE for the "Chevalier de Prat," 1 as Pierre de Lamartine was styled in order to distinguish him from his brother, an alliance calculated to add lustre to the family name and fortune. The Chevalier, at this period a man between thirty-seven and thirty-eight years of age, preferred taking matters into his own hands; and, setting aside material considerations, to obey the dictates of his heart alone. One of his sisters had joined the inmates of the convent of Saint Martin de Salles, situated between Lyons and Macon. Salles was one of those hybrid religious insti- tutions peculiar to the times, where aristocratic families were wont to relegate such of their daughters as felt no decided vocation for the cloistered life of a nun, yet whose dowries were not sufficiently conspicuous to at- tract advantageous matrimonial alliances. Life within the walls of such so-called convents was far from austere. A modicum of religious practices alternated with visits from friends, and the friends of friends, of both sexes, and not infrequent incursions into frankly worldly circles. As the inmates for the most part dwelt in de- tached houses, clustering round the chapel of the Noble Order, and were subjected to none of the strict obliga- tions usually associated with monastic life, liberty may be said to have reigned supreme a liberty which, if we credit the "chroniques scandaleuses " of the times, oc- casionally degenerated into license. It was at Salles, under the roof of his sister, that the Chevalier, then holding the brevet rank of major, met Alix Des Roys, and fell desperately in love. But although from the social standpoint the girl's position was un- assailable, her family was but scantily endowed with worldly goods. During her childhood Alix Des Roys had 1 Pierre de Lacretelle, op. cit., p. 89. In his Coulisses du Passi (p. 366) Paul Foucher relates an anecdote descriptive of Lamartine's annoyance when the prefix Prat was added to his name. . . IO MADAME DE LAMARTINE Mother of the poet ANCESTRY AND EARLIEST YEARS breathed, it is true, the atmosphere of a court of peculiar brilliance. Both her parents held positions in the house- hold of the Duke and Duchess d'Orleans; the husband as comptroller of finance, the wife as assistant governess, under Madame de Genlis, of the children of the first prince of the blood. Born in 1770, at Lyons, Alix's child- hood had been spent partly under the care of her grand- mother, who resided in that town, and partly with her parents, whose duties kept them either at the Palais Royal or the Chateau de Saint-Cloud. Among her playfellows when in Paris or Saint-Cloud was Louis- Philippe, whom one revolution made an orphan and drove into exile (1793); another crowned King of the French (1830); and a third again condemned to final banishment (1848). The political and literary celebri- ties of the day were welcomed at the Court of "Philippe Iigalite," and the youthful Alix was afforded many op- portunities, not only of seeing them, but of hearing them discourse. Voltaire's last appearance in Paris remained indelibly imprinted on her mind. Of d'Alembert, Laclos, the naturalist Buffon, Gibbon, Grimm, Necker, and many others she had caught fleeting glimpses when they paid their respects to her mother. With Jean Jacques Rousseau Madame Des Roys had been in active corre- spondence. Alix, although very pious and unquestion- ingly faithful to the inflexible dogma of Catholicism, preserved a tender admiration for the great philosopher. "Doubtlessly," writes her son, "because Rousseau pos- sessed more than genius: he had soul. She could not fol- low the religion of his genius: but she comprehended and shared the religion of his heart." l But the jealousies and friction inseparable from Court life would seem to have weighed heavily upon Madame Des Roys. Madame de Genlis apparently could not 1 Confidences, pp. 28-30; also Le Manuscrit de ma mere, p. 34. . . II . . LIFE OF LAMARTINE forgive the attention bestowed upon her subordinate: "C'est une guerre h6reditaire de famille famille," wrote Madame de Lamartine in her journal. "Madame de Genlis and my mother formed two hostile camps in the Palais Royal." l This enmity blazed forth afresh when the literary triumphs of young Alphonse first echoed through Parisian society, and was the cause of frequent sorrow to the gentle mother of the poet. Lack of fortune would appear to have been the only serious obstacle to the marriage the Chevalier so ar- dently desired, and which, these considerations apart, the family also approved. Writing in her journal, many years later (October 6, 1801), Madame de Lamartine re- calls an episode which greatly contributed to the attain- ment of her happiness. Returning from Paris to Salles in 1789, an accident to her carriage necessitated a prolonged halt at Macon. "We saw in this town all my husband's family, who paid us many attentions. The Chevalier de Lamartine was then with his regiment. We passed the whole day at his family's residence. It seems I pleased his father, his mother, and his brothers and sisters; this caused a resumption of the negotiations for a marriage between the Chevalier and myself, of which there had been question for a long time, and which a thousand obstacles continually postponed." Three years would seem to have been the length of this period of probation : "... trois ans d'incertitude devant Dieu!" 2 Finally, all difficulties having been surmounted, the marriage of " Pierre de la Martine " and ' ' Alexis Francoise Desroys" was celebrated at Lyons, on January 7, 1790.' 1 Manuscrit de ma mere, p. 274; cf. also Memoires inedits de Madame la comtesse de Genlis, vol. m, pp. 483-85; vol. iv,p.29; also Pierre de Lacretelle, op. cit., pp. 52-54- 1 Manuscrit de ma mere, pp. 117 and 297. Some biographers give March 6, 1790, as the date of the marriage. The error arose through a too-confident acceptance of the dates affixed to . . 12 ANCESTRY AND EARLIEST YEARS The first year of their married life was spent at Macon, under the roof of the patriarchal family residence. Here, on October 21, 1790, their first and only son, Alphonse- Marie-Louis, was born. The house, which now bears a tablet commemorating this event, situated in the rue des Ursulines, No. 18, is connected by buildings and gardens with the larger dwelling in the parallel rue Bau- deron de Sennec6, forming in reality an annex. Hence probably the confusion which arose among his earlier biographers as to the site of his birthplace. Nor was this the only difficulty confronting those who twenty, or even ten, years ago undertook a task which access to public and family documents has since rendered less hazardous. Lamartine himself constantly led his biogra- phers into error. Like many a man of vivid imagination the poet resented the tyranny of figures. Mathematics he frankly abhorred; while he petulantly anathema- tized the exact sciences as "the chains which fetter human Thought." l As an autobiographer he either ig- nored dates and environment, or adapted them to the artistic requirements of the occasion. If we lent faith to his personal testimony alone, as given in his poems and reminiscences, we should have to accept Milly, Macon, and even Saint- Point as his " birthplaces." z According to the caprice of his imagination he vividly describes the pastoral surroundings of his birth at Milly, or minutely details the topography of his grandfather's house in Macon. Although the State registration of births in France the entries in the "Journal" of Madame de Lamartine, edited by the poet, which bristles with chronological inaccuracies. January 7 is the date affixed to the certificate of marriage preserved in the Municipal Archives at Lyons. 1 Introduction to Jocelyn. 1 Cf. Pierre de Lacretelle, op. tit., p. 114; Confidences, p. 24; Manuscrit de ma mere, p. 42. Lamartine implies the date of his birth was 1792: Cours familier de liUcrature, vol. I, p. 8; vol. in, pp. 161, 194, 199; vol. IV, pp. 444,449- . . I 3 . . LIFE OF IAMARTINE only dates from the Law of September 2, 1792, a cer- tificate of baptism, in the handwriting of the parish priest, M. Focard, is preserved in the archives of the town of Macon. 1 This certificate of baptism partakes also of the nature of one of birth, since it mentions that the child was born on the preceding day. The document does not, it is true, specifically record that the birth took place in the parish of Saint- Pierre, which takes its name from the church wherein the ceremony was performed. But it is highly improbable that had the child been born at Milly, his parents would have been willing to incur the risks attending a seven-mile drive over rough country lanes, when the village church stood facing the entrance to their dwelling. , M. Lonce Lex, Archivist of the Department of Saone et Loire, as lately as 1907, believed that the tiny house in the rue des Ursulines at M&con, which since 1890 has been officially recognized as the poet's birthplace, had been erroneously so labelled by the city fathers. 2 His objections would seem to have been founded on a para- graph of Lamartine's introduction to his mother's jour- nal. "At the rear of my grandfather's mansion," writes the poet, "which extended from one street to the other, there was a small house, low and dark, which communi- cated with the great house by a gloomy passage and by means of little courtyards, narrow and damp as wells. This house served to lodge old servants who had been retired from my grandfather's service, but who still re- ceived small pensions. . . ." 8 It indeed seemed hardly credible that the Chevalier, the only married son, should have been relegated with his bride to an abode habitually 1 A copy of this document, containing insignificant variations, made probably for some legal requirement, and issued by the vicar (M. De La Font), can be consulted in the Clerk's office of the Court of First Instance of the District. 1 Lamartine, p. 5. Manuscrit de ma mire, p. 45. . . 14 . . BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARTINE ANCESTRY AND EARLIEST YEARS reserved for domestic pensioners. Nevertheless an ex- amination of the original manuscript of Madame de Lamartine's journal l proves beyond cavil that Alphonse was born in the "little house." Valuable as the testi- mony of the journal is, the published version cannot be implicitly relied upon. Whole pages of the original man- uscript are either securely glued together, or effaced, thus intentionally obliterating its records. This deface- ment dates, in the opinion of the family, from the time when Lamartine, about 1858, edited the journal for publication. His reasons for so doing can, however, only be surmised, as, by his own special wish, the volume was withheld from the public until after his death. Neverthe- less, as early as 1836, mention is made by Lamartine of the discovery of the journal, and it is probable that he used it in his compilation of the "Confidences" and other personal reminiscences. 2 Be this as it may, the original manuscript specifically mentions No. 18 rue des Ursulines as the poet's birthplace; thus disposing for all time of the "legends" of Milly, Saint- Point, or the "mansion" of his grandfather in the rue Bauderon de Sennece; for although the "little house" may, by cour- tesy, be styled an annex of the latter, the same roof cer- tainly did not cover both. In his "Confidences" Lamartine asserts that no mem- ber of his family was guilty of the prevailing folly which impelled so many of the aristocracy to follow their princes into exile. " It required great moral courage," he writes, "and great force of character to resist this epi- demic of madness, which borrowed the name of honour. 1 Consisting of twelve little copy-books, extending from 1800 to 1829, each entry carefully dated, in the possession of Madame Amedee de Parse- val, of Macon, who graciously allowed the author to consult the precious document, in 1911. 1 Cf. Correspondancc, vol. in, p. 395. Lamartine erroneously mentions the journal as consisting of but eight little volumes, from his mother's first youth till her death, 1829. There are in reality twelve volumes. . . I 5 . . LIFE OF LAMARTINE My father had this courage: he refused to emigrate. But when the officers of the army were required to take an oath against which his conscience, as a servant of the King, revolted, he handed in his resignation." 1 This is not strictly true, as far as the whole family is concerned, although in the case of his father the accusation was not maintained. It is probable that the Chevalier resigned his commission early in 1791; but the sojourn in Swit- zerland during the summer of that year was not re- garded as a flight, nor was the soldier held to have left France in consequence of his disapproval of the political situation. There is indeed ground for the be- lief that Reyssie is correct in ascribing the journey as undertaken on account of the delicate health of the child. 2 At the same time there is no documentary evidence except that given by the poet himself in his fantastic account of the episode, written after the lapse of over half a century. "My father and mother had established themselves for several months at Lausanne during the second year of their marriage. They dwelt in one of those charming houses built on the terraced slopes which fall away from the hill of Montbenon to the lake shore. Gibbon lived in the one contiguous to ours. The two gardens adjoined, separated only by a jasmine hedge. My mother, who was beginning to wean me, guided my first steps along the gravelled paths beneath the hedge. Gibbon, writing or reading in a bower in a corner of his own garden, watched these games and listened admir- ingly to the voices of the young Frenchwoman and her in- fant. Peeping over the hedge, he recognized my mother, whom he had seen before her marriage in my grand- 1 Confidences, p. 36; cf. Archives departementales, xr, 4. Reyssie, in his Jeunesse de Lamartine, p. 26, mentions one member of the family as having emigrated temporarily. * Jeunesse de Lamartine, p. 19; Pierre de Lacretelle, op. /., p. 84. . 16 ANCESTRY AND EARLIEST YEARS mother's salon in Paris, at the Palais Royal, and at Saint- Cloud. My mother also recognized him instantly, both by reason of his exceptional ugliness and the proverbial bonhomie of his appearance. Henceforward, all through a long summer, the two households formed but one. My father, my mother, Gibbon, and a few mutual friends were as a single family. Either with a view to pleasing the charming mother through her son, or because of the natural fondness of studious and solitary men for chil- dren, the great historian spent the evening hour playing with me. His knees, my mother told me, became my cradle." l Neither in his "Autobiography" nor in his published correspondence does Gibbon make mention of these neigh- bours with whom he became so intimate. The loquacious Maria Josepha Holroyd, who with her parents, Lord and Lady Sheffield, spent the summer of 1791 (July 23 to the first week in October) at "LaGrotte" as Gibbon's guests, is equally reticent. "There is a very pleasant set of French here," she writes, "but we live entirely with the Severys and Mr. Gibbon's set, which is certainly not equally pleasant." 2 And a little later she launches the following shaft: "... Mr. Gibbon dislikes the French very much, which is nothing but Swiss prejudice, of which he has imbibed a large quantity." Lord Sheffield, in a note inserted in Gibbon's "Auto- biography," which he edited, also declares that when visiting the historian at Lausanne he was astonished to find him "apparently without relish for French so- ciety." "During the stay I made with him," continues his lifelong friend, "he renewed his intercourse with the principal French who were at Lausanne; of whom there happened to be a considerable number, distinguished 1 Cours familier de literature, vol. n, p. 234. 1 The Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, p. 63. . . ,7 . . LIFE OF LAMARTINE for rank and talents; many indeed respectable in both." l We have no valid reason, however, for completely dis- carding Lamartine's pretty anecdote, in spite of his tra- ditional reputation for inexactitude. It is nevertheless perplexing that Miss Holroyd, who was an inveterate gossip, and who must perforce have been closely asso- ciated with the Lamartines, should so completely ignore them. With the end of the summer came also that of the idyl. Gibbon "shed tears on replacing his little play- fellow for the last time in his mother's arms," 2 and the friends parted to go their several ways and meet again no more. 1 Autobiography of Edward Gibbon, p. 263. Lord Sheffield appends a list of the principal French then residing in Lausanne, among whom the La- martines do not appear. 8 Cours familier de literature, vol. n, p. 235. CHAPTER III CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS THE social upheaval in France had now attained pro- portions undreamt of in its incipient stages. The Tenth of August was at hand. Major Lamartine, although no longer bound by his military oath, did not hesitate to place his sword at the service of his king. Leaving wife and child he hastened to the defence of the Tuileries. Wounded during the massacre of the Swiss Guard, he was captured and imprisoned at Vaugirard, but, thanks to the connivance of the gardener of a relative, he escaped and made good his return to the neighbourhood of M