Lot n° 113
Estimation :
7000 - 8000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 3 900EUR
LAMARTINE Alphonse de (1790-1869).
72 L.A.S. "Alph. de Lamartine" or "Lamartine" (of which about ten unsigned), 1824-1847, to Louis AIMÉ-MARTIN; 177 pages in various sizes, mostly in-4, several addresses or envelopes; mounted on tabs on wove paper ff. bound in one vol. in-4, burgundy jansenist morocco, lining of the same with gilt fillet, spine with 5 nerves, bronze moiré silk endpapers, marbled and gilt paper counterguards, gilt edges (G Cretté successor of Marius Michel).
Important and very beautiful friendly, literary and political correspondence. [Louis AIMÉ-MARTIN (1781-1847), writer, friend of Bernardin de SaintPierre, whose widow he married, and editor of his works, was a professor, secretary-editor at the Chamber of Deputies, then librarian at the Dépôt légal and at Sainte-Geneviève; he collaborated to various newspapers and reviews. He maintained a long and fervent friendship with Lamartine, who, at his funeral, greeted him as a "brother of my heart and of my choice". We can only give a very brief overview of these very beautiful and often long letters]. December 1, 1824. Birth of a friendship: "to be liked is a lot but to be loved is much better, especially if this feeling is spontaneously expressed to you by one of the men whom one feels most disposed to love oneself: this is my history with you. From very early on I read your verses and they enchanted me; since then, the conformity of principles, opinions, political or religious feelings have confirmed the idea I had of you, that of a character on a par with his talent. This last circumstance will add, I hope, to the friendship of our spirits, a personal affection "... SaintPoint 22 Nov. 1828. "I am now in my complete solitude, happy, well, very busy and very peaceful, making some verses in the morning before the noise and the day, and during the day on horseback or on foot according to the workers or the books. Here is the ideal of a life for me: I would like it to last forever"... September 29 and October 9, 1829, on his candidacy for the Academy... Mâcon December 9, on the death of his mother: "I alone knew the ideal perfection of this mother and the abyss of her affection for me and yet all who knew her here agree in proclaiming her the most perfect being and the most impossible to find. For me my life is half empty! She was for me all the past and a lot of the future that everything promised me delicious and long with her" .... Saint-Point June 27, 1830, on the politics: "in the middle of the solitude, the woods and the meadows, the ghost which agitates the country also threatens us; the elections work and work badly in my direction. It was necessary to have a Chamber in the center right, and which could offer the King confidence, and a ministry without reaction. We are going another way, the country is irritated, the revolutionary symptoms are showing themselves as in 1819, the men of the 8th of August will take advantage of this to cry out for danger and the danger will come, if it has not already come. My heart is in despair. All this will end badly, if it does not end soon "... On the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses : " What is their fate on the pavement of Paris ? I receive a crowd of letters from strangers who thank me for them and who seem to enjoy them with love and on the other hand, I see newspapers, especially the Universel, which treat them without pity and as the drivel of an absurd Theophilanthropy and a talkative melancholy; these are their expressions. The Debates did not give any articles and I know that the articles were made by Mr. Nisard and in a probably favorable sense according to a letter where he says to me: the most beautiful verses that I have read in the French language ". Could you tell me what motive, reason or intrigue of literary coterie, prevents that the Debates do not speak about it and to ask me frankly and as a friend if it falls decidedly flat or if one finds it bad "... Milly November 16-21, about his ode "against the death penalty in political matters", charging his friend to supervise its publication, sending new verses and the new version of a stanza. The Ode is finally refused by the Debates, and judged inopportune: "I find that it is too late and that the silence would serve better the cause of the unfortunate ones that we would like to save for the honor of the country" (December 12). Macon February 21, 1831. Riots of February: "On my arrival I learned of your three days of Saturnalia: double saturnalia, those of foolishness and insanity and those of crime and vengeance. This time is pitiful or horrifying. I have been telling you for a long time, you do not know men, you see them too much in your mirror or in the illusions of a heart in love with the good and the beautiful! I was like that. Fifteen years of practice and frequentation of what is called statesmen proh pudor! have corrected me. The frequentation of the lower class by the rural relations contributed to it.
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