Immortalisé par Victor Hugo dans Les Misérables, le général Lamarque est surtout connu pour ses funérailles qui ont dégénérées en juin 1832, en une insurrection républicaine réprimée par le pouvoir orléaniste. Pourtant, sa vie ne saurait se résumer à cette image d’Épinal : grâce à des archives souvent inédites ou peu exploitées, le travail de l'historien a permis de dissocier le mythe, qui s'est construit autour du personnage, de la réalité historique pour dresser un portrait inédit de ce Landais engagé dans les affaires de son temps. Issu de la bourgeoisie de robe, il adhère rapidement aux idées d'une Révolution qui lui donne les moyens d'être un acteur des événements : garde national,Jacobin, officier dans un bataillon de volontaires. Instruit et cultivé, il est également pourvu d'un grand courage physique. Sans jamais appartenir aux premiers cercles du pouvoir, il est proche des membres de la famille Bonaparte qui assurent son ascension.Sa carrière militaire sous l'Empire n'est toutefois que de second ordre et c'est à la périphérie de l'Europe qu'il se distingue dans la contre-guérilla. Déçu par la Restauration, il rallie Napoléon lors des Cent-Jours qui l'envoie en Vendée. Cette affectation le compromet durablement aux yeux du pouvoir royaliste qui ne voit plus en lui qu'un général bonapartiste. Exilé, il ne revient en France qu'en 1818 et embrasse une carrière littéraire tout en cherchant à garder son rang dans la société. Au contact de l'opposition libérale, il renoue avec la politique au quotidien. Sa reconversion en politique n'est pourtant pas une évidence. Ce n'est qu'en 1828 qu'il devient député et ce n'est que sous la monarchie de Juillet qu'il devient un héros populaire. / Immortalized by Victor Hugo in « Les Misérables », General Lamarque is mainly known for his funerals in June 1832, which turned into a republican insurrection,suppressed by Orléanist power. However, his life could not be summarized by this stereotyped image : thanks to unexploited or less exploited archives, the historian’swork permitted to dissociate the myth shaped around his character from historical reality, to get an original portrait of this character from the Landes. Coming originally from the bourgeoisie of the robe, he soon stuck to Revolution ideas which gave him the means to be an actor of events : National Guard, Jacobin, officer in a Volunteers Battalion. Educated and cultured, he also came complete with his physical courage. He never was a part of first circles of power, he was close to the House of Bonaparte which provided his rise. His military career under the Empire is yet only second-rate. It is atthe Europe's periphery he stands out in Guerrilla warfare. Disappointed by theRestoration, he rallied to Napoleon during The Hundred Days, who sent him to theVendée. This posting sustainably compromised him to the eyes of royalist power whichonly saw him as a Bonapartist general. Exiled, he only came back to France in 1818 and decided for a literary career as well as he tried to keep his position in society. Through contact with the liberal opposition, he joined politic in everyday life. This change of career was not obvious though. He only became a Member of Parliament in 1828. Hewas only recognized as a popular hero under July Monarchy.

This thesis proposes a theory of literature's human relevance in literary terms, developing hints in the critical practice of twentieth century literary critic F.R. Leavis. It examines how literary texts can be humanly relevant in a manner that depends on their literary merit, and does so in three stages, interrogating: the way literary texts operate; the role literary language plays in thinking; and the interaction of literature and morality. The thesis has two, related, aims: to reconceptualise literature's relation to human living, and to offer a recharacterisation of Leavis's literary criticism, with the investigation of aspects of Leavis's practice forming part of the more fundamental enquiry regarding the nature of literature's human significance. In the first stage, the thesis argues that Leavis's critical practice in his works of the 1930s (his first major decade of critical output) provides fruitful ways for conceptualising the interaction between form and meaning in literature, with important consequences for present-day understandings of how literature functions and how it matters. It focuses on an untheorised (by him or others) achievement in Leavis's criticism, the introduction of the term 'attitude' into literary analysis and judgement, and argues that the term enables a different mode of attention to the question of how literature relates to the human world. The second stage first interrogates the role that language in general plays in understanding, constructing a hypothesis from arguments by philosophers R.G. Collingwood and Charles Taylor, and then turns to literary language, arguing that it enables a mode of relating to experience not otherwise possible, and forms a process of thinking, for reader and writer alike. The final stage focuses on arguments in aesthetics against literature's cognitive value, and in moral philosophy for its empathic and moral value. Building on earlier arguments about the operation of literary language and language's relation to thought, the thesis claims that literary language is humanly meaningful in a way that is both cognitively and morally significant. Throughout, the thesis argues for the inescapable link between well-written literature and the morally resonant, such that good literature forms what Taylor calls 'moral sources'. The crucial query is how literature functions, which will help us better to answer why it is humanly important. This thesis engages with literary criticism, philosophical aesthetics and moral philosophy, as well as offering close readings of literature itself.