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LAMARTINE, ALPHONSE. 



LAMARTINE, ALPHONSE. 



778 



Lamarck, who, putting forth all bis zeal in their investigation, and all 

 his talents in their classification aud description, showed that they 

 are almost as complicated in structure and interesting in history, and 

 incomparably more numerous, than the beings higher in the scale of 

 creation. The ' Systeme des Auimaux sans Vertebres,' published in 

 1801, was the fruit of his profound researches, and laid the foundation 

 of his greater work, the ' Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Ver- 

 tiSbres,' published at Paris from 1815 to 1822 in 7 vols. 8vo. This is 

 the most valuable of all his labours, and ranks among the first modern 

 works on natural history. Lamarck commenced his lectures in the 

 Museum in 1794, being then fifty years old, and he continued to deliver 

 them up to 1818, when, becoming almost blind aud very infirm, he 

 was obliged to resign, and was replaced by one of his colleagues in the 

 Institute, M. Latreille. His eyes becoming affected during the compi- 

 lation of his last work, the ' Me'moires sur les Coqnilles,' published in 

 the 'Aunales des Museum,' he was assisted in the bivalves by M. 

 Valenciennes, and in the remaining classes by his eldest daughter, 

 Mademoiselle Lamarck. He died in Paris, in December 1829, at the 

 advanced age of eighty-six. 



Lamarck is chiefly known in this country by his excellent arrange- 

 ment of the Conchifcra, or Testaceous MMusca, in which department 

 he made so great a change that he left comparatively little to be done 

 by those who came after him ; but though we admire the talents, 

 judgment, industry, and extensive knowledge which this able naturalist 

 poscensed, we must regret the absurd and fanciful theories which he 

 introduced into his writings and lectures. He supposed that all 

 organised beings, from the lowest to the highest forms, were progres- 

 sively developed from similar living microscopic particles. This may 

 be called the theory of metamorphosis, according to which a formative 

 substance is held to exist, but is allowed to change its form in order 

 to be converted into a new being. He was also an advocate of the 

 doctrine of spontaneous generation ; and, according to his theory, it 

 was only necessary to suppose a soft gelatinous mass of amorphous 

 but organic matter to become traversed by surrounding fluids in order 

 to produce a permanent living movement or growth : if the man was 

 destitute of irritability, it became the type of vegetable life ; if it 

 possessed that property, animal. Afterwards he pretended that use 

 aud circumstances determined the existence of new organs, which 

 rendered the beings more or less perfect. These principles are only a 

 continuation of those which Maillet and Buffon had before promulgated. 



In his great work he adopts the same theories : he divides the animal 

 kingdom into three classes, the ' Apathiques,' the ' Sensibles,' and the 

 ' Intelligents ;' and after having followed the order of progression by 

 which nature conducts the different beings to perfection, he regards 

 intelligence solely as the expression of the will of the Supreme Beiug. 

 These theories are inconsistent even with his own words, and are 

 almost too ridiculous to be repeated. Lamarck wrote many other 

 works and papers. 



* LAMAKTINE, ALPHONSE (original name, Du PRAT), was born 

 at Macon, iu the province of Bourgogne (department of Saone-et- 

 Loire), France, on the 21st of October 1792. His father was a cavalry 

 major in the royal service ; his mother was the daughter of a lady 

 who had been undcr-governess in the family of the Duke of Orleans. 

 The infant recollections of Lamartine go back to the scenes of the 

 Heign of Terror, when his father was imprisoned as royaliat. After 

 the fall of Robespierre hia family retired into country seclusion at 

 Milley ; and here, aud subsequently at the College of the Peres de la 

 Foi at Belly, Lamartine was educated. After a short residence in 

 Ljon, and a tour in Italy, he took up his abode in Paris, where he 

 chiefly resided during the period of the empire, preparing himself by 

 stuily, efforts in ver.-e, and social amusements, for his future career. 

 Inheriting the royalist or Bourbon sympathies of his family, he entered 

 the military service of Louis XVIII. on Napoleon's fall and exile to 

 Elba ; but after the Hundred Days and the final confirmation of 

 LouU XVIII. on the throne, he quitted the army and became a 

 journalist. In 1818 he made a second tour in Italy. The year 1820 

 however wag the beginning of his fame : in that year appeared his 

 ' Meditations Poetiques.' French literature had been so long destitute 

 of anything like impassioned or sentimental poetry, except what came 

 in the form of translations from Byron, that this work was received 

 with prodigious eagerness. Within four years 45,000 copies were 

 old ; and the author was hailed as a new French poet of au order 

 different entirely from that of Beranger : Beranger being the poet of 

 the empire and revolution Lamartine of royalty and religion, and 

 n revived spiritualism, like that of De Maistre. The government of 

 LouU XVI II., blind as it was in such matters, saw the advantage of 

 promoting a man like Du Prat, and he was appointed attachd to the 

 French embassy at Florence. Here he resided, first as attache 1 , and 

 afterwards as charge d'affaires, till the eve of the revolution of 1830, 

 except during a short time when he held the secretaryship of the 

 French embassy in London. His visit to England led to his marriage 

 with an English lady of large fortune ; and about the same time a 

 wealthy uncle bequeathed him a considerable amount of property on 

 the condition that he should assume the name of Lamartine. While 

 in Florence he was wounded in a duel with General (then Colonel) 

 l'ep<', since so distinguished as an Italian patriot the quarrel arising 

 out of some remarks of Lamartine derogatory to the national character 

 of the Italians. At Florence also he composed a variety of poetical 



works, which were published successively : his ' Nouvellea Meditations," 

 published in 1823, and which were less successful than the first ; his 

 ' Mort de Socrate,' published a year or two later, and of which au 

 English translation appeared in 1829 ; his ' Dernier Chant du peleri- 

 nage d'Harold ' (' Last Canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage '), pub- 

 lished in 1827 aud translated into English (in which work the 

 expressions occurred which led to the duel with Pepe); his 'Epitres;' 

 and finally, his ' Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses.' In all these 

 works there breathed the same ardour of religious sentiment, the 

 same hatred of revolution and of the empire, and the same spirit of 

 loyalty to the Church and to the Bourbons which had distinguished 

 his first literary appearance. 



In 1829 M. de Lamartine returned to France. He was nominated by 

 Charles X. to be his minister plenipotentiary in the newly-established 

 kingdom of Greece ; but before he could proceed on his mission the 

 revolution of July 1830 occurred, and the Orleans dynasty came to 

 the throne in the person of Louis-Philippe. The new government 

 offered to continue M. de Lamartine iu his post of plenipotentiary iu 

 Greece, but he declined the offer. The revolution however, brought 

 about as it had been by the folly of the restored Bourbons, produced 

 a profound impression on his fervid spirit; and the year 1830 begins 

 a new era .in the life of M. de Lamartine. With the exception of 

 'Jocelyn,' published in 1836, 'Li Chute d'un Ange," published iu 

 183S, aud a few minor songs aud the like collected in 1S39 under the 

 title of ' Receueillements Poetiques,' his poetical period ceases in 1830; 

 his life having been since spent mainly in political activity and in prose 

 composition. " I wish," he said, at this turning-point of his career, 

 " to enter the ranks of the people to think, speak, act, struggle with 

 them,;" in other words, he was no longer a mere Bourbonist or Legiti- 

 mist he was a man of generous aspirations and religious ideas, identi- 

 fying himself with the French people, and desirous of seeing how far 

 these aspirations and ideas could be carried out in politics. One of 

 his first efforts in his new vocation was a pamphlet against the punish- 

 ment of death, on which question he has always battled strongly. He 

 attempted also to obtain a seat in the Chamber of Deputies under the 

 government of Louis-Philippe, but failed. The leisure thus thrown 

 upon his hand he determined to employ iu a tour iu the east. Setting 

 sail in May 1832, he spent sixteen mouths in travelling through the 

 Oriental lands, suffering during this time a heavy calamity in the 

 death of a beloved daughter at Beyrout. He had travelled over 

 various parts of the Holy Land, and was at Jerusalem, when the news 

 that he had been elected to the Chamber of Deputies by the Legitimist 

 constituency of Bergues drew him back to France. He ascended the 

 tribune for the first time on the 4th of January 1834, aud from that 

 day his success as au orator was admitted. He figured among the 

 political leaders of the day as a ( progressive conservative ' a man 

 strangely blending a reverence for the antique with a kiud of philo- 

 sophic democracy. He spoke frequently on social aud philanthropic 

 questions. In 1833 he became deputy for Macon. At one time it 

 appeared as if he might have held a portfolio as minister under 

 Guizot; but gradually he let it ba kuowu that the " vulgar utility," 

 as he called it, of the government of Louis-Philippe was not to his 

 mind; and in the year 1845 he openly joined the liberal opposition. 

 Meanwhile he was putting forth various remarkable writings in prose 

 (in addition to the above-named in verse), revealing his views of history 

 and of passing affairs. Thus, in 1834, on the occasion of a republi- 

 cation iu a collective form, in four volumes, of all his poems written 

 up to that time, he prefixed a prose dissertation, ' Des Destinies de la 

 Poesie;' iu 1835 there appeared, as three additional volumes of his 

 works, his famous 'Souvenirs, Impressions, Pensees, et Puysages, pen- 

 dant un Voyage en Orient,' of which work there are well-known English 

 translations ; and (not to mention numerous articles aud tracts on 

 passing questions, published either separately or iu journals) iu 1840 

 was published a collection of papers entitled 'Vues, Discours, et 

 Articles sur la question d'Orient.' But the great work of M. do 

 Lamartine during the latter part of the reign of Louis-Philippe was 

 his ' Histoire des Girondins,' portions of which had been published 

 from time to time in journals, but which appeared complete iu 8 vols, 

 in 1847. This work (which has since passed through several editions, 

 and of which English translations exist) is believed to have had a vast 

 effect in disgusting the French with the rule of Louis-Philippe and 

 his minister Quizot, and in preparing the outburst of the revolution 

 of 1848. 



When this revolution occurred M. de Lamartine was the man of the 

 moment. During the agitation of the Reform banquets his courage 

 animated the Liberals ; and in the actual turmoil of tho February 

 insurrection he exerted his eloquence in a most memorable manner, 

 both in preventing any compromise between the revolutiou and the 

 Orleans family, and also, on the. other hand, in arresting the progress 

 of the revolution itself to its extreme issues. At the risk of his life 

 he withstood the demand of tho insurgents aud their leaders that the 

 red flag should be substituted for the tricolour as the emblem of the 

 new republic. Elected a member of the Provisional Government, he 

 became Foreign Minister of the republic, and in this capacity he 

 exerted himself also to avoid that uuiversal war of revolutionary 

 propagandise! and interference with other countries which the more 

 extreme revolutionists desired. He explained his views in a printed 

 manifesto entitled ' Manifesto h 1'Europe : Circulaire du Ministre des 



