A story that has gone down in legend

A story that has gone down in legend

In Mâcon, Alphonse de Lamartine’s death in 1869 gave rise to a great posthumous tribute. In Aix-les-Bains, it was a commemoration of the centenary of the publication of Méditations poétiques in 1920 that paved the way for the poet to become celebrated. In this collection of poems, Le Lac is a reminder of the deep impression that the stay of 1816 in Aix-les Bains left on Alphonse de Lamartine.

The desire to perpetuate the memory of this great figure arose as early as 1896, with the creation of a committee dedicated to Lamartine, but it was not until the end of the First World War that plans for monuments began to take shape around the lake of Bourget. Many were erected, expressing admiration for the writer through public statues.

Also during this period, a desire emerged to preserve the Perrier boarding house of Aix-les-Bains, a holiday destination for Alphonse de Lamartine. The foundations of the future museum dedicated to him were laid. 

Today, the museum in Aix-les-Bains that is home to the Lamartine collections is undergoing extension works. This is the reason for the planned loan to the Musée des Ursulines in Mâcon, showing the local area’s attachment to one of the prominent figures of French literature.

In the twentieth century, echoes of a monument in Mâcon resonate in Aix-les-Bains

Following a call for proposals issued by the town of Mâcon in 1873 to design a monument dedicated to Lamartine, twenty-seven candidates put their names forward. They included Jean Barnabé Amy and Emile André Boisseau, whose proposed design came in fourth place. The preliminary model in terracotta kept at the museum in Aix-les-Bains is similar to the version presented at the Musée des Ursulines in Mâcon.

This model is related to the statue that sculptor Livio Benedetti made in memory of Alphonse de Lamartine, in 1990, to celebrate the bicentenary of the poet’s birth. Erected in the town’s spa park, it expresses Aix-les-Bains’ desire to perpetuate the lasting mark left by Lamartine on the local cultural landscape.

The driving role of the ‘Comité savoyard des Amis de Lamartine’

The establishment of the first committee dedicated to Lamartine in Aix-les-Bains in 1896, at the instigation of the doctor Jean Chaboud, led to the creation of a fund to erect a sculpture in memory of the writer. It was not until the early twentieth century however that the project took shape. Marie-Rose Michaud-Lapeyre, a novelist who was particularly interested in Lamartine’s writings, played a decisive role in this. Convinced that the hill of Tresserve was the place that inspired Lamartine to write the poem Le Lac, she campaigned for the site to be preserved.

Among the members of the ‘Comité savoyard des Amis de Lamartine’ (Savoy Committee of the Friends of Lamartine) that she founded were the writers Henry Bordeaux and Henry Petiot aka Daniel-Rops, both members of the French Academy. Building on support offered by the French Academy, the committee managed to gather funding to buy “the place of inspiration” and have a monument built. The order was placed with American sculptor Florence Brevoort Kane, a relation of the wife of a municipal councillor in Aix-les-Bains. The stele was inaugurated on 10 July 1927 and the site was listed by the departmental committee in 1942.

Twenty years later, the committee remained active and was formed of nationally renowned personalities. Local political and economic actors sat alongside the president of the Senate Gaston Monnerville and members of the French Academy Henry Bordeaux and Daniel-Rops. With their support, a bronze portrait of Alphonse de Lamartine was installed on the town hall square in 1962. It is a replica of the bust made by sculptor David d’Angers in 1830, of which the museum in Aix-les-Bains has kept a plaster model. 

The sculpture of Villa Boreau in Châtillon, the first statue to represent the link between Alphonse de Lamartine and the lake of Bourget

Journalist and founder of the newspaper ‘Le Cri d’Aix-les-Bains’, François Boreau created the first roadside advertising boards at the end of the First World War and made a fortune. Taken with the writings and engagement of Lamartine, he wanted to pay tribute to the poet who brilliantly expressed his fascination with the shores of the lake of Bourget.

In order to build a monument that he would be able to contemplate from his villa, in 1925, he called on the services of his friend the sculptor Marius Vallet aka Mars-Vallett, who had also worked as a curator at the Villa des Charmettes since 1907. This major commission saw the artist produce a life-sized clay model, which required 2600 kg of earth and a metal frame weighing 600 kg. On 11 August 1925, the final work in iron and cement was transported by lorry from the studio of Les Charmettes to Bourget-du-Lac, and then by barge to Chindrieux, where it was positioned on the lakeshore in front of the client’s villa. 

An exceptional volume-album to promote Le Lac

The publication of the poem Le Lac by Léon Curmer in 1860 was a fine tribute to the work of Alphonse de Lamartine. Each of the sixteen verses was illustrated by an etching that was painstakingly executed by engraver Alexandre de Bar. 225 numbered copies were produced on rice paper. The lighting contrasts of the landscapes in particular resonate with the dramatic character of the boating accident scene told by Alphonse de Lamartine and which marked the beginning of the passionate love he felt for Julie Charles.

The time of the work’s release incidentally coincided with the year in which Savoy was annexed to France, positioning the publication as a manifesto for Aix-les-Bains to belong to the nation.  The relationship between Méditations poétiques and the identity of the local area was further emphasized through the creation of the Musée Lamartine in the early twentieth century.

“The richness of his pencil and the excellence of his chisel translated Lamartine and grasped the Alps. ” Charles Monselet, Le Papillon, 1861