A Poet in Politics: Lamartine and the Revolution of 1848
The revolutionary upheaval that brought down Louis-Philippe swept into power a famous French Romantic poet. Gordon Wright describes how Lamartine acquitted himself with courage and energy; but his fall was as swift and sudden as his rise.
All revolutions bring to the surface an extraordinary collection of leaders, much as ocean storms uproot strange specimens from the lower depths. Only once, however, has a revolutionary tempest swept into power a poet—and a romantic poet, at that. A curious aura of romanticism suffuses the whole European upheaval of 1848; but this quality is particularly apparent in the part played, during the French uprising, by Alphonse de Lamartine. Few men have risen so high, and fallen so far, quite so fast.
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