Milly and Saint-Point, places of living and roots

The properties of the Lamartine family, the House of Milly or the Saint-Point Château, find a particular echo in the poet’s writings. Isolation appeared as early as 1820 in the Poetic Meditations, Milly or themotherland, in the Poetic and religious Harmonies that all mention the setting and nostalgia of childhood.

At the Saint-Point Château that he received as a wedding gift in 1820, he started renovations in the fashionable neogothic style. He decorated this residence with his wife’s help, herself a painter and sculptor. It became a place of socializing where he loved welcoming his friends like Charles Nodier or Victor Hugo who stayed there in 1824.

At that time, he appeared in the painting of Henri Decaisne as “a gentleman farmer” next to this two greyhounds and to his writings in a very romantic posture, a faithful description of himself : “ you will find me in the heart of the Charolais mountains in an old romantic castle but where I don’t lead a medieval lifestyle”. It is more like a pastoral one : “I plough, I raise foals and I sing from time to time” .

The Poetic Meditations published in 1820 received a warm welcome from the public and marked a decisive step that gave him the status of writer. They illustrate perfectly well the original approach of their author who associates autobiography and poetry : his passion for Julie Charles whom he met in 1816 in Aix-les-Bains and her death one year later prompted him to start the writing of the collection of poems.

Thanks to his friend Aymon de Virieu, he spent time in Parisian salons and obtained the support of influential women like the Marchioness of Raigecourt or the Countess of Saint-Aulaire that allowed him to meet literary and political celebrities.