Alphonse de Lamartine, who had interrupted his…

Alphonse de Lamartine, who had interrupted his literary endeavors to become more active as a politician after 1839, believes that the social question, which he himself calls “the question of the proletariat”, is the principal issue of his time.

He deplores the inhumanity of the worker's plight; he denounces the trusts and their dominant influence on governmental politics, directing against them two discourses, one in 1838, another in 1846.

He holds that a working-class revolution is inevitable and does not hesitate to hasten the hour, promising the authorities, in July 1847, a “revolution of scorn”.

In the same year, he publishes his Histoire des Girondins, a history of the right, or moderate, Girondin Party during and after the French Revolution, which earns him immense popularity with the left-wing parties.