LAMARTINE (Alphonse de). - Lot 190

LAMARTINE (Alphonse de). Méditation poétiques. Paris, Au Dépôt de la librairie grecque-latine-allemande, 1820 [De l'Imprimerie de P. Didot l'aîné]. In-8, shagreened basane, smooth ornate spine, red title page, red speckled edges (contemporary binding). First edition. Copy in contemporary binding, once owned by Mathieu de Montmorency, Lamartine's patron, with his engraved armorial bookplate. Mathieu de Montmorency, a peer of France and close to the royal family, had bought Chateaubriand's house at Vallée-aux-Loups. Lamartine, who met him in 1819 at the Château de La Roche-Guyon, La Rochefoucauld's illustrious home, wrote of him: "I too was often visited by Mathieu de Montmorency, enthusiastic about my verses, forgetting the distance of rank and name and bridging it with the condescension of friendship. He took a keen interest in me; he promised my friends that if, as expected at the time, he were to become Minister of Foreign Affairs, the first act he would sign would be my appointment as chargé d'affaires at some court in Spain, Germany or Italy. He retained his predilection for me until his death, and bequeathed me the proof in his will (Lamartine par lui-même, 1892, p. 91). Some spotting, small wetness in inner margin of signatures. Minor crack to one spine.