The withdrawal from political life and the refuge in writing

While the presidency of the new Republic and the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs started with the best prospects for Lamartine, the dissentions that strengthened among the government and especially the incapacity of the latter to control the insurrections that shook the Capital on 23 June 1848, caused the dissolution of the executive Commission.

In the elections on 13 May 1849 aiming at forming the legislative Assembly, Lamartine wasn’t elected in any « département ». His financial difficulties increased and forced him to contemplate selling his property of Milly. But it is the « coup d’état » on 2 December 1851 and the victory of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte that put a final end to his political career and stopped the incomes that he got from this activity.

In order to minimize his debts and to make the most of the time he had from now on, he started writing, using a new genre through the popular novel that Genevieve,story of a servant and The stone cutter of Saint-Point illustrate. He didn’t give up historical studies that, like TheHistory of the Restoration or theHistory of the Constituents, had the ambition to find again the success of  his previous publications.

From 1856, the wish to enjoy a steady income pushed him to start the writing and the edition of Thefamiliar literature Course, a periodical publication with educational aims but whose literary qualities are sometimes questionable.

Ten years later, overwhelmed by debts, he ended up accepting the financial aid granted by the Emperor as a life annuity. Victim of an apoplexy in 1867, he left his Paris home for the Passy chalet where he died on 28 February 1869.