Alphonse de LAMARTINE. 2 autograph manuscripts signed (at the top in the 3rd person), [1840-1841], and 4 L.A.S. to Émile de Girardin, 1840-1853; 1 and 2 oblong pages in-8, and 10 pages in-8. [About November 5, 1840]. Text to be inserted in La Presse : " Mr de Lamartine writes to us to give us the assurance that the complaint he made in Le Constitutionnel about the publication of a confidential bill from him to Mr de Cassagnac is only related to the publicity given by others than us to this letter, and in no way to a newspaper from which he received so many proofs of simpathy and loyalty "... - [Around February 1, 1841]. Note explaining his position on the law on the fortifications of Paris: "M. de Lamartine, while listening to the vote on the fortifications, said aloud in the middle of a group of deputies at the foot of the tribune: I do not trust the reservations that the left makes for freedom. What is an article of law in front of twenty forts and an enclosure that can turn on a telegraph line three thousand firebombs on the constitution? When Buonaparte seized absolute power after the 18 brumaire, he called his despotism by the name of Republic. The liberals of the time declared themselves happy like those of today and freedom was lost"... He attacks Guizot, who played with a parliamentary majority determined to "save the country from an imminent conflagration" : to oppose one half of this majority to the other "as the minister did in the fortifications, to put himself at the head of the opposition to come to demolish this majority, to fight with his enemies against his friends, we do not know if it is thus that in certain governments one consolidates majorities, but we know that in France where politics has heart, it is thus that one humiliates them that one opposes them and that one dissolves them! " Macon August 19, 1840, about a political article published in the Journal de Saône-et-Loire: "You will have it 24 hours before everyone else. [...] it is attributed to me all the more legitimately as I designate myself in a thousand ways [...] I think like you about the war. It is the enemy of freedom and democracy as well as of humanity. It is curious to see that all the sincere liberals, beginning with Robespierre, have opposed it and all the dupes of the people have pushed it. [...] We France are lost, we sincere liberals, we honest people, we are lost with the world if these empiricists succeed in unleashing a war of coalition"... - He refuses to sign: "It is much better to throw away one's thought than to sew it to one's name. Only the greedy count with themselves"... Saint-Point July 22, 1853. He sends his "bad verses", and has no time to compose others. "I do not believe in war. I desire peace like you"...