Alphonse de LAMARTINE. 2 autograph manuscripts signed (at the top in 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. [Around November 5, 1840]. Text to be inserted in La Presse: "Mr de Lamartine writes to assure us that the complaint he made in Le Constitutionnel about the publication of a confidential bill from him to Mr de Cassagnac relates only to the publicity given by others to this letter, and in no way to a journal from which he has received so many proofs of simpathy and loyalty"... - [ca. February 1, 1841]. Note explaining his position on the law on the fortifications of Paris: "M. de Lamartine, listening to the vote on fortifications, said out loud to a group of deputies at the foot of the gallery: I don't trust the left's reservations about liberty. What is an article of law in the face of twenty forts and an enclosure that can turn three thousand cannonballs on the constitution on a telegraph line? When Buonaparte seized absolute power after 18 Brumaire, he called his despotism a Republic. The liberals of the time declared themselves happy like those of today, and liberty was lost"... He attacks Guizot, who played to a parliamentary majority determined to "save the country from an imminent conflagration" : pitting one half of this majority against the other "as the minister did in the fortifications, putting himself at the head of the opposition to come and demolish this majority, fighting with his enemies against his friends - we don't know if this is how majorities are consolidated in certain governments, but we do know that in France, where politics has heart, this is how they are humiliated, opposed and dissolved! "... Macon August 19, 1840, about a political article in the Journal de Saône-et-Loire: "You'll have it 24 hours before anyone else. [...] It's being attributed to me all the more legitimately as I designate myself in a thousand ways [...] I think as you do about war. It is the enemy of freedom, democracy and humanity. It is curious to see that all the sincere liberals, starting with Robespierre, have opposed it, and all the dupes of the people have pushed for 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's much better to throw away one's thoughts than to sew them to one's name. Only the avaricious count with themselves"... Saint-Point July 22, 1853. He sends off his "bad verses", and has no time to compose new ones. "I don't believe in war. I desire peace as you do"...