LAMARTINE Alphonse de (1790-1869). - Lot 125

Lot 125
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250 - 300 EUR
LAMARTINE Alphonse de (1790-1869). - Lot 125
LAMARTINE Alphonse de (1790-1869). 2 L.A.S. "Lamartine", October 16 and 27, 1829, to Abel VILLEMAIN; 3 and 4 pages in-8 (some small cracks). Lamartine prepares his election to the Académie française (he will be elected on November 5, 1829). At the château de Montculot, 16 October. "I cannot thank you enough for the almost personal interest you want to take in my nomination to the Académie. [] there is more than a vain poetic esteem in your feelings for me. Be sure that I pay you in the same coin, and that there is more than admiration in my feelings towards you. [] I feel that I should be in Paris, to help at least my friends in what concerns myself. I feel it, I say it, I am ashamed of it and I cannot take it upon myself to go. Self-esteem is stronger than propriety, I think of the day after an unfortunate election, of the condolences of my friends, of the ill-veiled laughter of my adversaries, of the sorrow of my father and my mother, of the ridiculousness of going twice with assurance to seek and report a disapointment. [] But I pray at least on the mountain ". He is told that CHATEAUBRIAND will not vote for him, and that CUVIER will vote for the Duke of Bassano October 27. "I believe that if I am not admitted your four letters will console me. My descendants will say in the future: look he was not received among the elite of the men of his time but M. Villemain judged their judgment and found him worthy of being his colleague as well as his friend. So don't worry too much about my election, if I fail I am comforted in advance. But if I went to Paris to solicit myself, to see the official and negative figures again, to hear my disapproval pronounced face to face, I would be humiliated and distressed. [I would rather wait here for the blow than go so far to seek it. I will say my shame only to the trees of my woods, they will not reproach me, they will not say to me: if you had done, if you had said, if you had wanted? and I will spend my winter in peace between a tragedy that I am sketching and a harmony that I am completing. [...] Sadness and boredom are my two muses. Who knows them better than I do? The soul withdraws into itself and its tortures are what we call genius"... Attached is a L.A.S., château de Montculot, October 20, 1829, to a duke (3 p. in-4, small cracks in the folds), on his candidacy for the Academy, opposite M. de Ségur. Plus copy of a letter (May 28, 1848).
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