Méditations poétiques

The tenth meditation remains one of the great masterpieces of Romantic poetry: “Le Lac” (its full title is “Le Lac de B***,” for Bourget) was inspired by Lamartine’s love affair in 1816–1817 with Julie Charles, a married woman suffering from an incurable illness who died in 1817. She appears under the name Elvire in his work. The poem was partly written on site, on the hill of Tresserve overlooking the lake, a few kilometers from Aix-les-Bains.

Ô temps, suspends ton vol ! et vous, heures propices,
Suspendez votre cours !
Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices
Des plus beaux de nos jours !

“In March 1820, a small volume of twenty-four poems sounded the fanfare of Romantic poetry. Its author, a nearly unknown thirty-year-old Burgundian, handsome, ardent and ambitious, aspired to a public career […]. Les Méditations poétiques appeared in 1820 without the author’s name. Soon identified, he exulted: ‘They are meeting with unheard-of, universal success.’ Their influence would be considerable” (En Français dans le texte).

The collection was printed in only 500 copies, with a foreword signed E[ugène] G[enoude]. A second edition appeared as early as April 10, this time under the author’s name.

A very fine copy, bound over the original wrappers by Duru et Chambolle, with the wrappers preserved. Hippolyte Duru worked from 1843 to 1863, but his name is chiefly associated with the partnership he formed from 1861 with René Victor Chambolle. Together, for the years 1862 and 1863, they signed their bindings with the tool “Duru et Chambolle,” sometimes specifying, as here, the year the binding was executed. An engraved portrait of Lamartine has been added at the front, along with an autograph letter signed, dated November 4, 1862.

From the libraries of Garnier (autograph letter addressed and mounted at front), Noilly (1886, no. 852 in the catalogue, and traces of a removed but visible bookplate) and Arpels (bookplate).