but, poor little chap, I received no answer. Of course I know the poor ’prentice verses deserved none, but—no use denying it—this disdain hurt me, and when in after life I in my turn received such offerings, remembering my own discomfort, I always felt it a duty to acknowledge them with courtesy.

About the age of fourteen, the longing for my native fields and the sound of my native tongue grew on me to such a degree that it ended by making me quite ill from home-sickness.

Like the prodigal son, I said to myself, “How much happier are the servants and shepherds of our farm, down there, who eat the good bread that my mother provides; the friends of my childhood, too, my comrades of Maillane, who live at liberty in the country, labouring, sowing, reaping, and gathering olives, beneath the blessed sun of God, than I who drudge between four walls, over translations and compositions.”

My sorrow was mixed with a strong distaste for the unreal world where I was immured, and with a constant drawing towards some vague ideal which I discerned in the blue distance of the horizon. So it fell out that one day while reading, I think, the Magazin des Familles, I came upon a description of the silent and contemplative life of the Monks of La Chartreuse at Valbonne.

Thereupon I became possessed with the idea of this conventual life, and escaping from the school one fine afternoon I set out alone, determined and desperate, on the road to Pont Saint-Esprit, which winds along the banks of the Rhône, for I knew Valbonne was somewhere in that neighbourhood.

“There,” I said to myself, “I will go and knock at the door of the convent, imploring and weeping until they consent to admit me. Then once inside I will roam all day, in bliss, among the trees of the forest—I will steep myself in thoughts of God and sanctify myself as did the good Saint-Gent.”

Then suddenly a thought arrested me:

“And thy mother,” I said to myself, “to whom, miserable boy, thou hast not even bidden farewell, and who, when she learns thou hast disappeared, will seek thee by hill and by dale, poor woman, weeping disconsolate as did the mother of Gent!”

Turning about, with a heavy heart and hesitating steps I made my way back to the farm, in order to embrace my parents once more before forsaking the world; but the nearer I drew to the paternal home, the faster my monkish ideas and proud resolution melted in the warmth of my filial love, as a ball of snow dissolves before the fire. At the door of the farm, where I arrived late, my mother cried out in astonishment at the sight of me:

“But why have you left your school before the holidays?”

And I, already ashamed of my flight, replied in a broken voice: “I am home-sick—I cannot go back to that fat old Millet, where one has only carrots to eat.”

But the next day our shepherd, Ronquet, took me back to my abhorred jail, with the promise, however, that I should be liberated at the end of the term.

CHAPTER VII

THREE EARLY FELIBRES

Shortly after my arrival, there came to the school a young professor with a fine black beard, a native of Saint-Rémy, whose name was Joseph Roumanille. As we were neighbours—Maillane and Saint-Rémy being in the same canton—and our families, both of the farming class, had known each other for years past, we were soon friends. Before long I found another bond which drew us still closer, namely, that the young professor was also interested in writing verses in the language of Provence.

On Sundays we went to Mass and vespers at the Carmelite church. Our places were behind the High Altar, in the choir-stalls, and there our young voices mingled with those of the choristers, among whom was Denis Cassan, another Provençal poet, and one of the most popular at the carousals of the students’ quarter. We saw him, however, clad in a surplice, with a foolish phlegmatic air, as he intoned the responses and psalms. The street where he lived now bears his name.

One Sunday during vespers, the idea came into my head to render in Provençal verse the penitential psalms, so in the half-opened book I began furtively to scribble down my version in pencil.

But Monsieur Roumanille, who was in charge, came behind me, and seizing the paper I was writing, read it and then showed it to the headmaster, Monsieur Dupuy. The latter, it seems, viewed the matter leniently; so after vespers, during our walk round the ramparts, Roumanille called me to him.

“So, my little Mistral, you amuse yourself by writing verses in Provençal?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

“Would you like me to repeat you some verses. Listen!” And then in his deep sympathetic voice he recited to me one after another of his own poems—“Les Deux Agneux,” “Le Petit Joseph,” “Paulon,” “Madeleine et Louisette,” a veritable outburst of April flowers and meadow blooms, heralds of the Félibrean spring time. Filled with delight, I listened, feeling that here was the dawn for which my soul had been waiting to awake to the light.

Up to that time I had only read a few stray scraps in the Provençal, and it had always aggravated me to find that our language (Jasmin and the Marquis de Lafare alone excepted) was usually used only in derision. But here was Roumanille, with this splendid voice of his, expressing, in the tongue of the people, with dignity and simplicity, all the noblest sentiments of the heart.

Thus it came to pass that notwithstanding the difference of a dozen years between our ages, for Roumanille was born in 1818, we clasped hands, he happy to find a confidant quite prepared to understand his muse, and I, trembling with joy at entering the sanctuary of my dreams; and thus, as sons of the same God, we were united in

the bonds of friendship under so happy a star that for half a century we walked together, devoted to the same patriotic cause, without our affection or our zeal ever knowing diminution.

Roumanille had sent his first verses to a Provençal journal, Boui-Abaisso, which was published weekly at Marseilles by Joseph Désanat, and which for the bards of the day was an admirable outlet. For the language has never lacked exponents, and especially at the time of the Boui-Abaisso (1841-1846) there was a strong movement at Marseilles in favour of the dialect, which, had it done nothing but promote writing in Provençal, deserves our gratitude.

Also we must recognise that such popular poets as Désanat of Tarascon, or Bellot Chailan, Bénédit and Gelu, pre-eminently Gelu, each of whom in his way expressed the buoyant joyous spirit of southern Provence, have never, in their particular line, been surpassed. Another, Camille Reyband, a poet of Carpentras, a poet, too, of noble dimensions, in a grand epistle he addressed to Roumanille, laments the fate of the Provençal speech, neglected by idiots who, declares he, “Follow the example of the gentlemen of the towns, and leave to the wise old forefathers our unfortunate language while they render the French tongue, which they fundamentally distort into the worst of patois.”

Reyband seemed to foretell the Renaissance which was then hatching when he made this appeal to the editor of the Boui-Abaisso:

“Before we separate, my brothers, let us defend ourselves against oblivion. Together let us build up a colossal edifice, some Tower of Babel made from the bricks of Provence. At the summit, whilst singing, engrave your names, for you, my friends, are worthy to be remembered. As for me, whom a grain of praise intoxicates and overcomes, and who only sings as does the cicada, and can but contribute towards your monument a pinch of gravel and a little poor cement, I will dig for my Muse a tomb in the sand, and when, having finished your imperishable work, you look down, my brothers, from the height of your blue sky, you will no longer be able to see me.”

All these gentlemen were, however, imbued with this erroneous idea that the language of the people, good though they felt it to be, was only suitable for common or droll subjects, and hence they took no pains either to purify or to restore it.

Since the time of Louis XIV. the old traditions for the spelling of our language had become almost obsolete. The poets of the meridian had, partly through carelessness or ignorance, adopted the French spelling. And this utterly false system cut at the root of our beautiful speech. Every one began to carry out his own orthographical fancies, until it reached such a point that the various dialects of the Oc language, owing to this constant disfigurement in the writing, no longer bore any resemblance one to another.

Roumanille, when reading the manuscripts of Saboly in the library at Avignon, was struck by the good effect of our language when written in the old style employed by the ancient troubadours. He wished, young as I was, to have my help in restoring the true orthography, and in perfect accord concerning the plan of reform, we boldly started in to moult, as it were, and renew the skin of our language. Instinctively we felt that for the unknown work which awaited us in the future we should need a fine tool, a tool freshly ground. For the orthography was not all. Owing to the imitative and middle-class spirit of prejudice, which unfortunately is ever on the increase, many of the most gritty words of the Provençal tongue had been discarded as vulgar, and in their place, the poets who preceded the Félibres, even those of repute, had commonly employed, without any critical sense, corrupt forms and bastard words of uneducated French. Having thus determined, Roumanille and I, to write our verses in the language of the people, we saw it was necessary to bring out strongly the energy, freshness, and richness of expression that characterised it, and to render the pureness of speech used in districts untouched by extreme influences.

Even so the Roumanians, the poet Alexander tells us, when they wished to elevate their national tongue which the bourgeois class had lost or corrupted, went to seek it out in the villages and mountains among the primitive peasants.

In order to conform the written Provençal as much as possible to the pronunciation in general use in Provence, we decided to suppress certain letters or etymological finals fallen into disuse, such as the “s” of the plural, the “t” of the particle, the “r” of the infinitive, and the “ch” in certain words like “fach,” “dich,” “puech,” &c.

But let no one think that these innovations, though they concerned none save a small circle of patois poets, as we were then called, were introduced into general usage without a severe struggle. From Avignon to Marseilles, all those who wrote or rhymed in the language contested for their routine or their fashion, and promptly took the field against the reformers. A war of pamphlets containing envenomed articles between these opponents and we young Avignons continued to rage for many years.

At Marseilles, the exponents of trivialities, the white-beard rhymesters, the envious and the growlers assembled together of an evening behind the old bookshop of the librarian Boy, there bitterly to bewail the suppression of the “s” and sharpen their weapons against the innovators.

Roumanille the valiant, ever ready to stand in the breech, launched against the adversaries the Greek fire we were all diligently employed in preparing in the crucible of the Gai-Savoir. And because we had on our side, not only a just and good cause, but faith, enthusiasm, youth—and something else besides—it ended in our being, as I will show you later, victors on the field of battle.

But to return to the school of Monsieur Dupuy.

One afternoon we were in the courtyard, playing at “Three jumps,” when in our midst appeared a new pupil. He was tall and well made, with a Henri IV. nose, a hat cocked to one side, and an air of maturity heightened by the unlit cigar in his mouth. His hands thrust in the pockets of his short coat, he came up just as if he were one of us.

“Well, what are you after?” said he. “Would you like me to see if I can do these three jumps?”

And without more ado, light as a cat, he took a run and went three hands beyond the highest jump that had been touched. We clapped him, and demanded where he had sprung from.

“From Châteauneuf,” he answered—“the country where they grow good wine. Perhaps you have never heard of Châteauneuf, Châteauneuf-du-Pape?”

“Yes, we have. And what is your name?”

“Anselme Mathieu,” he replied.

And with these words he plunged his two hands into his pockets and brought out a store of old cigar-ends, which he offered round with a courteous and smiling air.

We, who for the most part had never dared to smoke (unless, indeed, as children the roots of the mulberry-tree), thereupon regarded with great respect this hero, who did things in so grand a manner, and was evidently accustomed to high life.

Thus it was that I first met Mathieu, the gentle author of the “Farandole.” On one occasion, I told this story to our friend Daudet, who loved Mathieu, and the idea of the old ends of cigars pleased him so much that in his romance “Jack,” he makes use of it with his little negro prince, who performs the same act of largess.

With Roumanille and Mathieu, we were thus a trio who formed the nucleus of those who a little later were to found the Félibrige. The gallant Mathieu—heaven knows how he contrived it—was never seen except at the hours of food or recreation. On account of his already grown-up air, though not more than sixteen, and certainly backward in his studies, he had been allowed a room on the top story under the pretext that he could thus work more freely, and there in his attic, the walls of which he had decorated with pictures, nude figures and plaster casts of Pradier, all day long he dreamed and smoked, made verses, and, a good part of the time, leant out of the window, watching the people below, or the sparrows carrying food to their young under the eaves. Then he would joke, rather broadly, with Mariette the chamber-maid, ogle the master’s daughter, and, when he descended from his heights, relate to us all sorts of gossip.

But on one subject he always took himself seriously, and that was his patent of nobility:

“My ancestors were marquises,” he told us gravely, “Marquises of Montredon. At the time of the Revolution, my grandfather gave up his title, and afterwards, finding himself ruined, he would not resume it since he could not keep it up properly.”

There was always something romantic and elusive in the existence of Mathieu. He would disappear at times like the cats who go to Rome.

In vain we would call him: “Mathieu!”

But no Mathieu would appear. Where was he? Up there among the tiles, and over the house-tops he would make his way to the trysts he held, so he told us, with a girl beautiful as the day.

On one occasion, while we were all watching the procession of the Fête-Dieu at Pont-Troué, Mathieu said to me:

“Frédéric, shall I show you my beloved?”

“Rather!” I replied promptly.

“Very well,” said he. “Now look, when the young choir-maidens pass, shrouded in their white tulle veils, notice they will all wear a flower pinned in the middle of their dress, but one, you will see, fair as a thread of gold, she will wear her flower at the side.... See,” he cried presently, “there she is!”

“Why, my dear fellow, she is a star!” I cried with enthusiasm. “How have you managed to make a conquest of such a lovely girl?”

“I will tell you. She is the daughter of the confectioner at the Carretterie. From time to time I went there to buy some peppermint drops or pastry-fingers—in this way I arrived at making myself known to the dear child, as the Marquis de Montredon, and one day when she was alone in the shop, I said to her: ‘Beauteous maiden, if only I could know that you are as foolish as I am, I would propose an excursion.’

“‘Where?’ she inquired.

“‘To the moon,’ I answered.

“She burst out laughing, but I continued: ‘This is how it could be done. You, my darling, would mount to the terrace which runs along the top of your house, just at any hour when you could or you would, and I, who lay my heart and my fortune at your feet, would meet you, and there beneath the sky I would cull for you the flowers of love.’

“And so it came to pass. At the top of my beloved one’s house, as in many others, there is a platform where they dry the linen. I have nothing to do but climb on the roof, and from gutter-spout to gutter-spout I go to find my fair one, who there spreads or folds the washing. Then, hand in hand, lip against lip, but always courteously as between lady and cavalier, we are in Paradise.”

And thus it was that our Anselme, future Félibre of the Kisses, studied his Breviary of Love, and passed his classes in gentle ease on the house-tops of Avignon.

At the Royal College, where we attended the history classes, there was never any question of modern politics. But Sergeant Monnier, one of our masters, an enthusiastic Republican, could not resist taking upon himself this instruction. During the recreation hour, he would walk up and down the courtyard, a history of the Revolution in his hand, working himself up as he read aloud, gesticulating, swearing, and shouting with enthusiasm.

“Now this is fine! Listen to this! Oh, they were grand men! Camille Desmoulins, Mirabeau, Bailly, Virgniaud, Danton, Saint-Just, Boisset-d’Anglas! We are worms in this day, by all the gods! besides those giants of the National Convention!”

“Oh, very grand indeed, your mock giants!” Roumanille would answer when he happened to be there. “Cut-throats, over-throwers of the Crucifix, unnatural monsters, ever devouring one another! Why, Bonaparte, when he wanted them, brought them up like pigs in the market!”

And so they would attack each other until the easy-going Mathieu appeared on the scene and made peace by causing both to join in a laugh at some absurdity of his own.

About this time Roumanille, in order to supplement his little emolument, had taken a post as reader in Sequin’s printing house, and, thanks to this position, he was able to have his first volume of verses, “Les Paquerettes,” printed there at small cost. While he corrected his proofs, he would regale us with these poems, much to our delight.

Thus one day succeeded another in these simple and familiar surroundings, till in the month of August 1847 I finished my studies, and, happy as a foal released and turned out to grass, I bade farewell to Monsieur Dupuy’s school and returned home to the farm.

But before leaving the pontifical city, I must say one word about the religious pomps and shows which, in our young day, were celebrated in high state at Avignon for a fortnight at a time. Notre Dame-de-Dom (the cathedral), and the four parishes, Saint-Agricol, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Didier, and Saint-Symphorien, rivalled each other in their splendour.

So soon as the sacristan, ringing his bell, had gone along the streets proclaiming where the Host, borne beneath the daïs, was to pass, all the town set to work sweeping, watering, strewing green boughs, and erected decorations. From the balconies of the rich were hung tapestries of embroidered silks and damasks, the poor from their windows hung out coverings of patchwork, their rugs and quilts. At the Portail-Maillanais and in the low quarters of the city, they covered the walls with white sheets and adorned the pavements with a litter of boxwood. Street altars were raised at intervals, high as pyramids, adorned with candelabrums and vases of flowers. All the people, sitting outside their houses on chairs, awaited the procession and ate little cakes.

The young men of the mercantile and artisan classes walked about, swaggering and eyeing the young girls, or throwing them roses as they sat beneath the awnings, while all along the streets the scent of incense filled the air.

At last came the procession, headed by the beadle clad all in red, and followed by a train of white-robed virgins, the confraternities, monks and priests, choirs and musicians, threading their way slowly to the beating of tambourines, and one heard as they passed the low murmur of the devout reciting their rosaries.

Then, while an impressive silence reigned everywhere, all prostrated themselves, and the officiating priest elevated the Host beneath a shower of yellow broom.

But one of the most striking things was the procession of Penitents, which began after sunset by the light of torches. And especially that of the White Penitents, wearing their cowls and cloaks, and marching past step by step, like ghosts, carrying, some of them, small tabernacles, others reliquaries or bearded busts, others burning perfumes, or an enormous eye in a triangle, or a serpent twisted round a tree—one might have imagined them to be an Indian procession of Brahmins.

These Orders dated from the time of the League and the Western Schism, and the heads and dignitaries of these confraternities were taken from the noblest families in Avignon. Aubanel, one of our great Félibres, was all his life a zealous White Penitent, and, at his death, was buried in the habit of the brotherhood.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW I TOOK MY DEGREE

My bundle under my arm, hat cocked over one ear, and a vine-stick in my hand, I then departed.

Arrived at Nîmes, I met a crowd of other students from all the neighbourhood, come up, like myself, to take their degrees. They were for the most part accompanied by their parents, fine-looking ladies and gentlemen with their pockets full of letters of introduction, one to the Prefect, another to the Grand Vicar, and another to the head examiner. These fortunate youths swaggered about with an air which said: “We are cocksure of success.”

I who knew not a soul felt myself very small fry. All my hope lay in Saint Baudile, the patron of Nîmes whose votive ribbon I had worn as a child, and to whom I now addressed a fervent petition that he would incline the hearts of the examiners towards me.

We were shut up in a big bare room of the Hôtel de Ville, and there an old professor dictated to us in nasal tones some Latin verse. He terminated with a pinch of snuff, and the announcement that we had an hour in which to render the Latin into French.

Full of zeal we set to work. With the aid of the dictionary, the task was accomplished, and at the termination of the hour our snuff-taker collected the papers and dismissed us for the day.

The students dispersed all over the town and I found myself standing there alone in the street, my small bundle under my arm and vine-stick in hand. The first thing was to find a lodging, some inn not too ruinous yet passably comfortable. As I had plenty of time on my hands, I made the tour of Nîmes about ten times, scanning the hostelries and inns with critical eye. But the hotels, with their black-coated flunkeys, who looked me up and down long before I even approached them, and the airs and graces of the fashionable folk of whom I saw passing glimpses, made me coil up into my shell.

At last a sign-board caught my eye with the inscription, “Au Petit-Saint-Jean.” Here was something familiar at last.

The name made me at once feel at home. Saint John was a special friend with us, he it was who brought good harvests, also we grew the grass of Saint John, ate the apples of Saint John, and celebrated his feast with bonfires. I entered the little inn with confidence therefore, a confidence which was amply justified.

In the courtyard were covered carts and trucks, while groups of Provençales stood there laughing and gossiping. I stepped into the dining-room and sat down at the table. The room was crowded and nearly all the seats occupied by market-gardeners. They had come in from Saint-Rémy, Château-Renard, Barbentane, for the weekly market, and were all well acquainted. Their conversation related entirely to their business:

“Well, Benezet,” said one, “how much did your mad-apples fetch to-day?”

“Bad luck; the market was glutted—I had to give them away.”

“And the leek-seed?” asked another.

“There is a fair prospect of a sale—if the rumour of war turns out true they will use it for making powder, so they say.”

“And the onions?”

“They went off at once.”

“And the pumpkins?”

“Had to give them to the pigs.”

For an hour I listened to this on all sides, eating steadily without saying a word. Then my opposite neighbour addressed me:

“And you, young man? If it is not indiscreet, may I ask if you are in the gardening line?”

“I replied modestly that I had come to Nîmes for another purpose, namely, to pass as bachelor.”

The company turned round and gazed at me with interest.

“What did he say,” they asked each other; “Bachelor? He must have said ‘battery’ hazarded one—it is a conscript, any one can see, and he wishes to get into the battery.”

I laughed and tried to explain my position and the ordeal before me when the learned professors would put me through my paces in Latin, Greek, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, philosophy, and every imaginable branch of knowledge besides. “If we do well they allow us to become lawyers, doctors, judges, even sub-prefects,” I concluded.

“And if you do badly?” inquired my audience eagerly.

“We are sent back to the asses’ bench,” I replied; “to-morrow I shall know my fate.”

“Eh, but this is one of the right sort,” they cried in chorus. “Suppose we all remain on another day to see whether he comes through all right or whether he is left in the hole. Now, what are they going to ask you to-morrow, for example?”

I told them it would be concerning all the battles that had ever been fought since the world began, Jews, Romans, Saracens; and not only the battles but the names of the generals who took part in them, the kings and queens reigning at the time, together with their children and even their bastards.

“But how then can the learned men occupy themselves with such trifles!” cried my new friends. “It is very evident they have nothing better to do. If they had to get up and hoe potatoes every morning they would not waste time over the battles of the Saracens, who are dead and gone, or the bastards of Herod. Well, what else do they ask you?”

I replied that I should be required also to know the names of all the mountains and all the rivers in the world.

Here I was interrupted by a gardener from Saint-Rémy with a big guttural voice, who inquired whether I knew where was the source of the Fountain of Vaucluse, and if it were true that seven rivers, each of them big enough to float a ship, sprang from that fountain. He had it on good authority also—could I confirm it?—that a shepherd had let fall his crook in the water at Vaucluse, and had found it again in a spring at Saint-Rémy!

I had hardly time to think of a suitable and judicious answer before another of the company posed me with the question as to why the sea was salt.

Here I considered myself on safe ground, and was beginning to reel off in airy fashion: “Because it contains sulphate of potassium, sulphate of magnesia, chloride——”

“No, no, that’s all wrong,” interrupted my questioner. “It was a fisherman who told me—he was from Martigne and should know. The sea is salt owing to the many ships carrying cargoes of salt which have been wrecked during past years.”

I discreetly gave way before this authority and hastened to enumerate other subjects on which I was about to be examined by the professors, such as the cause of thunder, lightning, frost and wind.

“Allow me to interrupt you, young man,” broke in the first speaker again. “You should be able then to tell us from whence comes the mistral, that accursed mischievous wind of our country. I have always heard that it issues from a hole in a certain great rock, and that if one could only cork up the hole, there would be an end of the mistral. Now that would be an invention worth the making!”

“The Government would oppose it,” said another; “if it were not for the mistral, Provence would be the garden of France! Nothing would hold us back—we should become too rich to please the rest.”

“Finally,” I continued, “we have to know all about the number, size, and distance of the stars—how many miles our earth is from the sun, &c.”

“That passes everything,” cried a native of Noves. “Who is going up there to measure the distance? Cannot you see, young man, that the professors are laughing at you? A pretty science indeed to measure the miles between the sun and the moon; they will be teaching you next that pigeons are suckled! Now if you would tell me at what quarter of the moon to sow celery or to cure the pig-disease, I would say, ‘Here we have a real useful science’—but all this boy prates of is pure rubbish!”

The rest of the company, however, stood up for me loyally, declaring that, however, questionable the subjects I had studied, it was certain I must have a wonderful head to have stowed away such a lot inside.

Some of the girls whispered together, with kindly glances of sympathy in my direction. “Poor little chap, how pale he is—one can see all that reading has done him no good—if he had passed his time at the tail of the plough he would have more colour in his cheeks—and what is the good after all of knowing so much!”

“Well, comrades,” cried my first friend, “I vote we see him through to the end, this lad from Maillane! If we were at a bull-fight we should wait to see who got the prize, or at least the cockade.—Let us stay over night that we may know if he passes as a bachelor, eh?”

“Good,” agreed the rest in chorus, “we will wait and see him through to the end.”

The following morning, with my heart in my mouth, I returned to the Hôtel de Ville, together with the other candidates, many of whom I noticed wore a far less confident air than the day before. In a big hall, seated before a long table piled with papers and books, were five great and learned professors come expressly from Montpellier arrayed in their ermine-bordered capes and black caps. They were members of the Faculty of Letters, and among them, curiously enough, was Monsieur Saint-René Taillandier, who, a few years later, was to become the warm supporter of the Félibre movement. But at this time we were, of course, strangers to each other, and nothing would have more surprised the illustrious professor than had he known that the country lad who stood stammering before him was one day to be numbered among his best friends.

I was wild with joy—I had passed! I went off down into the town as though borne along by angels. It was broiling hot, and I remember I was thirsty. As I passed the cafés, swinging my little vine-stick high in the air, I panted at the sight of the glasses of foaming beer, but I was such a novice in the ways of the world that I had never yet set foot inside a café, and I dared not go in.

So I continued my triumphal march round the town, wearing an air of such radiant happiness and satisfaction that the very passers-by nudged one another and observed: “He has evidently got his degree—that one!”

When at last I came upon a drinking-fountain and quenched my thirst in the fresh cool water, I would not have changed places with the ‘King of Paris.’

But the finest thing of all was on my return to the “Petit-Saint-Jean,” where my friends the gardeners awaited me impatiently. On seeing me, glowing with joy enough to disperse a fog, they shouted: “He has passed!”

Men, women, girls, came rushing out, and there followed a grand handshaking and embracing all round. One would have said manna had fallen from heaven.

Then my friend from Saint-Rémy took up the speech. His eyes were wet with emotion.

“Maillanais!” he addressed me, “we are all pleased with you. You have shown these little professor gentlemen that not only ants, but men, can be born of the soil. Come, children, let us all have a turn at the farandole.”

Then taking hands, there in the courtyard of the inn, we all farandoled with a will. After that we dined with equal heartiness, eating, drinking and singing, till the time came to start for home.

It is fifty-eight years ago. But I never visit Nîmes and see in the distance the sign of the “Petit-Saint-Jean” without that scene of my youth coming back to me fresh as yesterday, and a warm feeling arises in my heart for those dear people who first made me experience the good fellowship of my kind and the joys of popularity.

CHAPTER IX

DAME RIQUELLE AND THE REPUBLIC OF 1848

At the entrance of the village, in a small vine-clad cottage, there dwelt at this time a worthy old body named Riquelle. She wore the Arlesian dress of bygone days, her large white coife surmounted by a broad-brimmed black felt hat, while a white band, passing under the chin, framed her cheeks. By her distaff and the produce of her small plot of ground she supported herself, but one saw from the care she took of her person, as well as by her speech, that she had known better days.

My first recollection of Riquelle dated back to when, at about seven years old, I was in the habit of passing her door on my way to school. Seated on the little bench at her threshold, her fingers busy knitting, she would call to me:

“Have you not some fine tomatoes on your farm, my little lad? Bring me one next time you come along.”

Time after time she asked me this, and I, boy-like, invariably forgot all about it, till one day I mentioned to my father that old Riquelle never saw me without asking for tomatoes.

“The accursed old dame,” growled my father angrily; “tell her they are not ripe, do you hear, neither have they ripened for many a long year.”

The next time I saw Riquelle I gave her this message, and she dropped the subject.

Many years later, the day after the Proclamation of the Revolution of 1848, coming to the village to inquire the latest news, the first person I saw was Dame Riquelle standing there in her doorway, all alert and animated, with a great topaz ring blazing on her finger.

“Hé, but the tomatoes have ripened this year,” she cried out to me. “They are going to plant the ‘trees of liberty,’[5] and we shall all eat of those good apples of Paradise.... Oh, Sainte-Marianne, I never thought to live to see it again! Frédéric, my boy, become a Republican.”

I remarked on the fine ring she wore.

“Ha, yes, it is a fine ring,” she rejoined. “Fancy—I have not worn it since the day Bonaparte quitted this country for the island of Elba! A friend gave me this ring in the days—ah, what days those were—when we all danced the ‘Carmagnole.’”

So saying she raised her skirt, and, making a step or two of the old dance, entered her cottage chuckling softly at the recollection of those bygone days.

But when I recounted the incident to my father his recollections were of a graver kind.

“I also saw the Republic,” he said, “and it is to be hoped the atrocious things which took place then will never be repeated. They killed the King Louis XVI., and the beautiful Queen, his wife, besides princesses, priests, and numberless good people of all sorts. Then foreign kings combined and made war upon France. In order to defend the Republic, there was a general conscription. All were called out, the lame, the blind, the halt—not a man but had to enlist. I remember how we met a regiment of Allobrogians on their way to Toulon. One of them seized my young brother, and placing his naked sword across the boy’s neck—he was but twelve years old—commanded him to cry out ‘Long live the Republic,’ or he would finish him off. The boy did as he was told, but the fright killed him. The nobles and the good priests, all were suspected, and those who could emigrate did so, in order to escape the guillotine. The Abbé Riousset, disguised as a shepherd, made his way to Piedmont with the flocks of Monsieur de Lubières. We managed to save Monsieur Victorin Cartier, whose lands we farmed. For three months we hid him in a cave we dug out under the wine-casks, and whenever the municipal officers or the police of the district came down upon us to count the lambs we had in the fold, and the loaves of bread in the pans, in accordance with the law, my poor mother would hasten to fry a big omelette at the stove.

“When once they had eaten and drunk their fill, they would forget, or pretend to do so, to take further perquisites, and off they would go, carrying great branches of laurel with which to greet the victorious armies of the Republic. The châteaux were pillaged, the very dove-cotes demolished, the bells melted down, and the crosses broken. In the churches they piled up great mounds of earth on which they planted pine-trees, oaks and junipers. The church at Maillane was turned into a club, and if you refused to go to their meetings you were at once denounced and notified as ‘suspect.’ Our priest, who happened unfortunately to be a coward and a traitor, announced one day from the pulpit that all he had hitherto preached was a lie. He roused such indignation that, had not every man lived in fear of his neighbour, they would have stoned him. It was this same priest who another time wound up his discourse with the injunction that any one who knew of or aided in hiding a ‘suspect,’ would be held guilty of mortal sin unless he denounced such a one at once to the Commune. Finally, they ended by abolishing all observance of Sundays and feast-days, and instead, every tenth day, in great pomp they adored the Goddess of Reason—and would you know who was the goddess at Maillane? Why, none other than the old dame Riquelle!”

We all exclaimed in surprise.

“Riquelle,” continued my father, “was at that time eighteen years old. A handsome, well-grown girl, one of the most admired in all the country. I was about the same age. Her father was Mayor of Maillane and by trade a shoemaker—he made me a pair of shoes I remember wearing when I joined the army. Well, imagine it—I saw this same Riquelle in the garments, or rather the lack of garments, of a heathen goddess, a red cap on her head, seated on the altar of the church.”

All this my father recounted at supper one evening about the year 1848.

Some eleven years after, I, finding myself in Paris just after the publication of Mireille, was dining at the house of the hospitable banker Milland, he who delighted to assemble every week at his board a gathering of artists, savants, and men of letters. We were about fifty, and I had the honour of sitting on one side of our charming hostess, while Méry was on the other. Towards the end of dinner an old man very simply attired addressed me in Provençal from the further end of the table, inquiring if I came from Maillane. It was the father of my host, and I rose and sat down beside him.

“Do you happen to know the daughter of the once famous Mayor of Maillane, Jacques Riquelle?” he inquired.

“Riquelle the goddess? Aye, indeed,” I answered; “we are right good friends.”

“Well, fifty years ago,” said the old man, “when I went to Maillane to sell horses and mules——”

“You gave her a topaz ring!” I cried with a sudden inspiration.

The old fellow shook his sides with laughter and answered, delighted: “What, she told you about that? Ah, my dear sir——”

But at this moment we were interrupted by the banker, who, in accordance with his custom, after every meal came to pay his respects to his worthy father, whereupon the latter, placing his hands patriarchal fashion on his son’s head, bestowed on him his benediction.

But to return to my own story. In spite of the views held by my family, this outburst of liberty and enterprise, which breaks down the old fences when a revolution is rife, had found me already aflame and eager to follow the onrush. At the first proclamation signed with the illustrious name of Lamartine my muse awoke and burst forth into fiery song, which the local papers of Arles and Avignon hastened to publish: