Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, Knight of ; 21 October 1790 – 28 February 1869, was a French author, poet, & statesman who was instrumental in a foundation of the Second Republic in addition to the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France.
Alphonse de Lamartine was also an Orientalist. He used themes and materials of the Levant and the Bible to make-up plotlines, heroes, and landscapes that resemble an exotic Oriental world. He also had a specific interest in Lebanon and the Middle East. He travelled to Lebanon, Syria and the Holy Land in 1832–33. During that trip, while he and his wife, the painter and sculptor Elisa de Lamartine, were in Beirut, on 7 December 1832, their only remaining child, Julia, died at ten years of age. It was, however, considered a journey of recovery and immersion in specific Christian icons, symbols, and terrain with his theory that the region could bring about the rebirth of a new Christianity and spirituality that could save Europe from destruction.
During his trip to Lebanon he had met prince Bashir Shihab II and prince Simon Karam, who were enthusiasts of poetry. A valley in Lebanon is still called the Valley of Lamartine as a commemoration of that visit, and the Lebanon cedar forest still harbors the "Lamartine Cedar", which is said to be the cedar under which Lamartine had sat 200 years ago. Lamartine was so influenced by his trip that he staged his 1838 epic poem La Chute d'un ange The Fall of an Angel in Lebanon.
Raised by his mother to respect animal life, he found the eating of meat repugnant, saying 'One does not do one heart for Man and one for animals. One has a heart or one does not'. His writings in La chute d’un Ange 1838 and Les confidences 1849 would be taken up by supporters of vegetarianism in the twentieth century.