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The cafes were crowded to overflowing, but many of the shops were closed, as on holidays; and, indeed, the city did present a holiday appearance. I made my way along the quays to the Pont Neuf. There, at the bottom of a proclamation I read the name of Lamartine, and having seen the people, I experienced the desire to see my great friend.
No wonder that Lamartine was happy at Chatillon, writing his Meditations! I felt that a long residence on the shores of the Lac de Bourget would inspire me to some modest meditations of my own, and I could even have taken down a few memoranda for them, had I not feared that the Boy would laugh to see my notebook come out.
Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, and Flocon tried to lead the way to ill, but Lamartine, whose heroism passes belief and activity passes human power, won the victory over them, found himself on Sunday, and again yesterday, sustained by all Paris, and has not only conquered but CONCILIATED them, and everybody is now firmly of opinion that the Republic will be established quietly." . . . "But while there are no difficulties from the disorderly but what can easily be overcome, the want of republican and political experience, combined with vanity and self-reliance and idealism, may throw impediments in the way of what the wisest wish, VIZ., two elected chambers and a president."
A true disciple of Rousseau or Lamartine would have analyzed his grief, dividing it into as many channels as Alexander did the Oxus, till the main stream was lost, and each individual rivulet might be crossed dry-shod. Both would have shed tears perpetual and profuse.
"What!" answered Michel, "do you think they have had artists like Phidias, Michael Angelo, or Raphael?" "Yes." "Poets like Homer, Virgil, Milton, Lamartine, and Hugo?" "I am sure of it." "Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant?" "I have no doubt of it." "Savants like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, and Newton?" "I could swear it." "Clowns like Arnal, and photographers like Nadar?"
For Lamartine she had still less mercy. His morbid self consciousness and exaggerated refinement of manner, had excited her contempt. Indeed, she seems to have cherished an abundant scorn of everything approaching to exquisiteness or "æstheticism." Next day, at her request, he paid her a second visit.
Whether Liszt ever discussed these matters with Lamartine I do not know, I only heard that my old friend several times addressed him, to try and arrange a meeting with him, for which I was very anxious.
He knew his Horace and Anacreon and Heine and Lamartine and Dante in the originals, and a hundred others; he was a speaker of power and grace; and he had a clear, strong head for business. He was also a lawyer, and was junior attorney to his father's great business.
I think I shall put this letter in the post to-morrow as we got a letter to-night. "M. Lamartine has now by his eloquence conquered the whole armed crowd of citizens threatening to kill him if he did not immediately proclaim the Republic and red flag.
In the end, all the property of the family came to the poet; the aunts and uncles the former of whom had been driven from their convents having made him their heir. Madame de Lamartine had received part of her education from Madame de Genlis, and had associated in her childhood with Louis Philippe and Madame Adélaïde.
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