Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Autograph letter, Saint-Point, August - Lot 367

Lot n° 367
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500 - 700 EUR
Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Autograph letter, Saint-Point, August - Lot 367
Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Autograph letter, Saint-Point, August 29, 1829, to the Marquise de Montcalm; 4 pages, in-4. Following the appointment of the Polignac cabinet. “Like everyone else, I am stunned by the political upheaval that has just taken place, and I am at a loss for words.” This may keep him in seclusion for quite some time yet: “There are two men within us: one who is content with what makes him happy, and the other who would like more and who blushes at the thought of seeing the years slip away without having put his abilities to use in something great and useful for his country. The first is the wiser, and he is also the one who predominates in me. The second, however, still raises his voice from time to time in my heart. He is the one who longs for Paris or London.” The marquise’s salon must be “thrown off balance” by the event, which will die down in the provinces where “the masses are decidedly passive and disinterested […] The moral world has become entirely material”… He plans to spend a week in Mâcon “with the departmental council and the local dignitaries,” then will remain at his estates, though he is tempted to come to Paris to speak with the marquise: “But who can say if I will resist the temptation? I have a wife, a child, and a mother-in-law whom I can neither take with me nor leave behind. I am ruined by two years of travel. Perhaps I will be wise enough to spend two years here putting my somewhat dilapidated affairs back in order.” He does not know what will be decided regarding his diplomatic post: “My dream would be to accompany Mr. de La Ferronnays—whom I esteem and love above all other politicians—to London, should he be called there.” He “needs a change of scenery, both mentally and physically […] It is an illness of the soul and the body that makes us write poetry and carries us away in our imagination, since we cannot do so in reality”…
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