Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Autograph letter, Aix-en-Savoie, July - Lot 370

Lot n° 370
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500 - 700 EUR
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Result : 659EUR
Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Autograph letter, Aix-en-Savoie, July - Lot 370
Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Autograph letter, Aix-en-Savoie, July 23, [1830, to the Marquise de Montcalm]; 4 pages, in-4. He received her letter as “a stroke of good fortune […] like fine wine after flat wines. So fear neither the frequency nor the scrawl; I can decipher your writing in the blink of an eye, just as I was able, in a single visit, to decipher and come to love your person and your character.” He is about to set out for the Saint-Bernard Pass, Chamonix, the Aosta Valley, the Italian lakes, and perhaps Turin. “Despite the uncertainty of your political situation, it will inevitably have to be resolved, and I do not see how that can happen without some degree of violence. Things have reached a point where everything will pass, so weary are we, so afraid of a revolutionary relapse; I have always said: August 8 [1829, appointment of the ultra-conservative Polignac cabinet] was a revolution in and of itself. May God grant that it does not provoke another!” After mentioning Delphine Gay, he confesses: “I am not a poet when and as I would like to be. I need a feeling that is truly strong and infinite, like love or piety or admiration for nature. I’m going to be silent for 10 or 12 years, and then you’ll have my Poem if God grants me the ability to write it as He has granted me the ability to conceive it. But—alas!—I can clearly see prose standing between the poem and me, not to mention a revolution! And my wretched health! As for inspiration, I have never felt it more strongly, but I am holding it back and saving it for my *Aeneid*.” Finally, he describes his life in Aix: “We spend our days boating on a beautiful lake, our evenings at the ball, and our mornings swimming. What a life of pleasure! […] We forget that we are ten leagues from France, ten days away from a coup d’état”…
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