The French writer, poet and politician Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, chevalier de Pratz, was born in Macon, Burgundy, on 21 October 1790. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France.

Lamartine's first success in poetry was the masterpiece, Les Meditations Poetiques (1820). He was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1825, and he worked for the French embassy in Italy from 1825 to 1828. In 1829, he was elected a member of the Academie francaise. He was elected a deputy in 1833. In 1835 he published the Voyage en Orient. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France. His Marie Stuart reine d'Ecosse was an important work in the history of Mary as a cultural icon. Unusually it was first published in an English translation by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1859.

Lamartine died in Paris on 28 February 1869