Lamartine, Alphonse

la-mar-ten', Alphonse (1790-1869), a French historian. He was well educated and well connected. The family fled the country at the time of the French Revolution, but returned to favor at the downfall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons. Lamartine entered the Bourbon army and later saw service as a diplomat. Toward the close of the Bourbon reign he became democratic in his thinking. During the short interval between the Bourbons and Napoleon III he was minister of war and a man of influence in national matters. Though his views were broad he had little ability as a man of affairs and soon dropped out of politics. As a youth and a young man he wrote poetry. Political pamphlets engaged his attention. In 1847 his History of the Girondists appeared. Later works were a History of the Revolution of 1848, a History of the Restoration, a History of Turkey, and a History of Russia, all written from a democratic point of view. He held aloof from Louis Napoleon, yet, falling into poverty in his old age, accepted a pension, an act for which he was criticised by his republican friends. He did not live to see the Franco Prussian War and the establishment of the French Republic.