A mad enthusiasm seized me for all humanitarian and liberal ideas; and my Republicanism, while it scandalised the Royalists of Maillane, who regarded me as a turncoat, delighted the Republicans, who, being in the minority, were enchanted at getting me to join them in shouting the “Marseillaise.”

And here, in Provence, as elsewhere, all this brought in its train broils and internal divisions. The Reds proclaimed their sentiments by wearing a belt and scarf of scarlet, while the Whites wore green. The former carried a buttonhole of thyme, emblem of the mountain, and the latter a sprig of the royal lily. The Republicans planted the “trees of liberty” at every corner, and by night the Royalists kicked them down. Thereupon followed riots and knife-thrusts; till before long this good people, these Provenceaux of the same race, who a month before had been living in brotherly love and good fellowship, were all ready to make mincemeat of one another for a party wrangle that led to nothing.

All students of the same year took sides and split into rival parties, neither of which ever lost an opportunity of a skirmish. Every evening we Reds, after washing down our omelettes with plenty of good wine, issued from the inn according to the correct village fashion, in shirt sleeves, with a napkin round our necks. Down the street we went to the sound of the tambour, dancing the “Carmagnole” and singing at the pitch of our voices the latest song in vogue.

We finished the evening usually by keeping high carnival, and yelling “Long live Marianne,”[6] as we waved high our red belts.

One fine day, as I appeared in the morning, none too early, after an evening of this kind, I found my father awaiting me. “Come this way, Frédéric,” he said in his most serious and impressive manner, “I wish to speak to you.”

“You are in for it this time, Frédéric,” thought I to myself; “now all the fat is in the fire!” Following him in silence, he led the way to a quiet spot at the back of the farm, where he made me sit down on the bank by his side.

“What is this they tell me?” he began. “That you, my son, have joined these young scamps who go about yelling ‘Long live Marianne’—that you dance the ‘Carmagnole,’ waving your red sash? Ah, Frédéric, you are young—know you it was with that dance and those same cries the Revolutionists set up the scaffold? Not content with having published in all the papers a song in which you pour contempt on all kings—— But what harm have they done you, may I ask, these unfortunate kings?”

I must confess I found this question somewhat difficult to answer, and my sire continued:

“Monsieur Durand-Maillane, a learned man, since he it was who presided at the famous Convention, and wise as he was learned, refused to sign the death warrant of the King, and speaking one day to his nephew Pélissier, also member of the Convention, he warned him: ‘Pélissier,’ said he, ‘thou art young and thou wilt surely see the day when the people will have to pay with many thousands of heads for this death of their King.’ A prophecy which was verified only too fully by twenty years of ruthless war.”

“But,” I protested, “this Republic desires harm to no man. They have just abolished capital punishment for political offenders. Some of the first names in France figure in the provisionary Government—the astronomer Arago, the great poet Lamartine; our ‘trees of liberty’[7] are blessed by the priests themselves. And, let me ask you, my father,” I insisted, “is it not a fact that before 1789 the aristocrats oppressed the people somewhat beyond endurance?”

“Well,” conceded my worthy sire, “I will not deny there were abuses, great abuses—I can cite you an example. One day—I must have been about fourteen years old—I was coming from Saint-Rémy with a waggon of straw trusses. The mistral blew with such force I failed to hear a voice behind calling to me to make way for a carriage to pass. The owner, who was a priest of the nobility, Monsieur de Verclos, managed at last to pass me, and as he did so gave me a lash with his whip across the face, which covered me with blood. There were some peasants pasturing close by, and their indignation was such at this action that they fell upon the man of God, in spite of his Order being at that time held sacred, and beat him without mercy. Ah, undoubtedly,” reflected my father, “there were some bad specimens among them, and the Revolution just at first attracted a good many of us. But gradually everything went wrong and as usual the good paid for the bad.”

And so with the Revolution of 1848; all at first appeared to be on good and straight lines. We Provenceaux were represented in the National Assembly by such first-class men as Berryer, Lamartine, Lamennais, Béranger, Lacordaire, Garnier-Pagès, Marie, and a poet of the people named Astouin. But the party-spirited reactionaries soon poisoned everything; the butcheries and massacres of June horrified the nation. The moderates grew cold, the extremists became venomous, and all my fair young visions of a platonic Republic were overcast with gloomy doubt. Happily light from another quarter shed its beams on my soul. Nature, revealing herself in the grand order, space and peace of the rustic life, opened her arms to me; it was the triumph of Ceres.

In the present day, when machinery has almost obliterated agriculture, the cultivation of the soil is losing more and more the noble aspect of that sacred art and of its idyllic character. Now at harvest time the plains are covered with a kind of monster spider and gigantic crab, which scratch up the ground with their claws, and cut down the grain with cutlasses, and bind the sheaves with wire; then follow other monsters snorting steam, a sort of Tarascon dragon who seizes on the fallen wheat, cuts the straw, sifts the grain, and shakes out the ears of corn. All this is done in latest American style, a dull matter of business, with never a song to make toil a gladness, amid a whirl of noise, dust, and hideous smoke, and the constant dread, if you are not constantly on the watch, that the monster will snap off one of your limbs. This is Progress, the fatal Reaper, against whom it is useless to contend, bitter result of science, that tree of knowledge whose fruit is both good and evil.

But at the time of which I write, the old methods were still in use, with all the picturesque apparatus of classic times.

So soon as the corn took on a shade of apricot, throughout the Commune of Arles, a messenger went the round of the mountain villages blowing his horn and crying: “This is to give notice that the corn in Arles is ripening.”

Thereupon the mountaineers, in groups of threes and fours, with their wives and daughters, their donkeys and mules, made ready to descend to the plains for harvesting. A couple of harvesters, together with a boy or young girl to stack the sheaves, made up a solque, and the men hired themselves out in gangs of so many solques, who undertook the field by contract. At the head of the group walked the chief, making a pathway through the corn, while another, called the bailiff, organised and directed the work.

As in the days of Cincinnatus, Cato and Virgil, we reaped with the sickle, the fingers of the right hand protected by a shield of twisted reeds or rushes.

At Arles, about the time of Saint John’s Day, thousands of these harvest labourers might be seen assembled in the Place des Hommes, their scythes slung on their backs, standing and lying about while waiting to be hired.

In the mountain districts a man who had never done his harvesting in the plains of Arles found it hard, so they said, to get any girl to marry him, and it was on this custom Félix Gras founded the story of his epic poem “Les Charbonniers.”

On our own farm we hired from seven to eight of these groups every year at harvest-time. It was a fine upset throughout the house when these folk arrived. All sorts of special utensils were unearthed for the occasion, barrels made of willow wood, enormous earthenware pans, big pots and jugs for wine, a whole battery of the rough pottery made at Apt. It was a time of constant feasting and gaiety, above all when we lit the bonfires on Saint John’s Day and danced round them singing the harvest songs.

Every day at dawn the reapers ranged themselves in line, and so soon as the chief had opened out a pathway through the cornfield all glistening with morning dew, they swung their blades, and as they slowly advanced down fell the golden corn. The sheaf-binders, most of whom were young girls in the freshness of their youthful bloom, followed after, bending low over the fallen grain, laughing and jesting with a gaiety it rejoiced one’s heart to see. Then as the sun appeared bathing the sky all rosy red and sending forth a glory of golden rays, the chief, raising high in the air his scythe, would cry, “Hail to the new day,” and all the scythes would follow suit. Having thus saluted the newly risen sun, again they fell to work, the cornfield bowing down as they advanced with rhythmic harmonious movement of their bare arms. From time to time the bailiff cried out, mustering his troop for another turn. At last, after four hours’ vigorous work, the chief would give the word for all to rest. Whereupon, after washing the handles of their scythes in the nearest stream, they would sit down on the sheaves in the middle of the stubble, and take their first repast.

It was my work, with the aid of Babache, our old mule, to take round the provisions in rope baskets.

The harvesters had five meals a day, beginning with the breakfast at seven o’clock, which consisted of anchovies spread on bread steeped in oil and vinegar, together with raw onions, an invariable accompaniment. At ten o’clock they had the “big drink,” as it was called, with hard-boiled eggs and cheese; at one o’clock dinner, soup and vegetables; at four a large salad, with which were eaten crusts rubbed with garlic; and finally the supper, consisting either of pork or mutton and sometimes an omelette strongly flavoured with onion, a favourite harvesting dish. In the field they drank by turns from a barrel taken round by the chief and swung on a pole, which he balanced on the shoulder of the one drinking. For their meals in the field they had one plate between three, each one helping himself with a big wooden spoon.

When the reapers’ work was done, came the gleaners to gather the stray ears left among the stubble. Troops of these women went the rounds of the farms, sleeping at night under small tents, which served to protect them from the mosquito. A third of their gleanings, according to the usage in the country of Arles, went always to the hospital.

Such were the people, fine children of the soil, who were not only my models but my teachers in the art of poetry. It was in this company, the grand sun of Provence streaming down on me as I lay full length beneath a willow-tree, that I learnt to pipe and sing such songs as “Les Moissons” and others in “Les Iles d’Or.”

CHAPTER X

MADEMOISELLE LOUISE

In a neighbouring farmhouse, a family from the town had settled, and going to church we sometimes met the daughters. Towards the end of summer, they, with their mother, came to call, and my mother appropriately offered them curds; for we had on our farm fine herds of cattle, and milk in abundance. My mother herself superintended the dairy, making not only the curds but the cream cheeses, those small cheeses of the country of Arles, so much appreciated by Beland de la Belaudière, the Provençal poet in the time of the Valois kings:

Like the shepherdesses sung by Virgil, each day my mother, carrying on her hip the earthenware pot and skimmer, descended to the dairy and filled up the various moulds with the fine flaking curds from her pot. The cheeses made, she left them to drain upon the osiers, which I myself delighted to cut for her down by the stream.

So on this occasion we partook with these young girls of a bowl of curds. One of them, about my own age, with a face which recalled those Greek profiles sculptured on the ancient monuments in the plains of Saint-Rémy, regarded me tenderly with her great dark eyes. Her name was Louise.

We visited the peacocks, with their rainbow-hued tails outspread, the bees in their long row of sheltered hives, the bleating lambs in the fold, the well with its pent-roof supported by pillars of stone—everything, in fact, which could interest them. Louise seemed to move in a dream of delight.

When we were in the garden, while my mother chatted with hers, and gathered pears for our guests, Louise and I sat down together on the parapet of the old well.

“I want to tell you something,” began Mademoiselle Louise. “Do you remember a little frock, a muslin frock that your mother took to you one day when you were at school at St. Michel de Frigolet?”

“Yes—to act my part in the piece called Les Enfants d’Edouard.”

“Well then—that dress, monsieur, was mine.”

“But did they not return it to you?” I asked like an imbecile.

“Oh yes,” she said, a little confused, “I only spoke of it as—one might of anything.”

Then her mother called her.

Louise gave me her hand; such a cold hand, and since the hour was late they went home.

A week later, towards sunset, Mademoiselle Louise appeared again at our door, this time accompanied only by a friend.

“Good afternoon,” said she. “We have come to buy some of those juicy pears you gave us the other day from your garden.”

My mother invited them to be seated, but Louise declined, saying it was too late, and I accompanied them to gather the pears.

Louise’s friend, Courrade by name, was from Saint-Rémy, a handsome girl, with thick brown hair encircled by her Arlesienne ribbon; charming as Louise was, she acted imprudently in bringing such a friend.

Arrived in the orchard, while I lowered the branches, Courrade, raising her pretty round arms, bare to the elbow, set to work and picked the pears. Louise, looking very pale, encouraged her, and bade her choose the most ripe. My heart was already stirred, though by which of the girls I could not say, when Louise, as if she had something to communicate, drew me to one side, and we sauntered slowly towards the group of cypresses, where, side by side, we sat down on a stone bench, I somewhat embarrassed, she regarding me with emotion.

“Frédéric,” she began, “the other day I spoke to you of a frock which at the age of eleven I lent you to wear in the play at St. Michel de Frigolet.... You have read the story of Déjanire and Hercules?”

“Yes,” I answered laughing, “and also of the tunic which the beautiful Déjanire gave to poor Hercules, and which set his blood on fire.”

“Ah!” said the young girl, “in this case it is just the reverse, for that little white muslin dress which you had touched—which you had worn—from the moment I put it on once more, I loved you. Do not be angry with me for this confession, which I know must appear strange, even mad, in your eyes. Ah, do not be angry,” she begged, weeping, “for this divine fire, conveyed to me by the fatal dress, and which from that time has never ceased to consume me, I have hidden deep within my heart, oh, Frédéric, for seven long years!”

I took her little feverish hand in mine, and would have replied by folding her in my arms; but gently she pushed me from her:

“No, Frédéric,” she said, “as yet we cannot say whether the poem of which I have sung the first stanza will ever go further.... I must now leave you. Think on what I have said, and remember that since I am one of those who cannot change, whatever your answer may be, my heart is given to you for ever.”

So saying she rose, and running up to her friend Courrade, called to her to bring the pears that they might weigh and pay for them.

We returned to the house, and having settled for the pears they left. My feelings were difficult to analyse. I found myself both charmed and disturbed by this sudden appearance of young maidens upon the scene, both of whom in a certain fashion appealed strongly to me. Long I strolled among the trees, watching the sun’s rays grow slanting and the doves fly home to roost, and in spite of a feeling of exhilaration, and even happiness, on sounding myself I perceived that I was in a rare fix.

The “Disciple of Venus” says truly, “Love will not brook command.” This heroic young maid, armed with nought but her grace and her virginity, was she not justified in thinking to come off victorious? Charming as she was, and herself charmed by her long dream of love, no wonder if she thought that in the words of Dante, “Love that has no lover pardons love,” and that a young man living as I was an isolated country life, would respond with emotion at the first cooing note. She did not realise that love, being the gift and abandonment of all one’s being, no sooner does the soul feel itself pursued with the object of capture, than it flies off like the bird to whom the charmer calls in vain.

So it was that in presence of this chain of flowers, this rose, who unfolded all her sweetness for me, I coiled up with reserve, whereas towards the other, who, in her capacity of devoted friend and confidante, seemed to avoid my approach and my glance, I felt myself irresistibly drawn. For at that age I must confess to having already formed very definite ideas on the subject of love and the beloved. One day, either in the near or the far future, I told myself, I should meet her, my fate, in that same land of Arles, a superb country maiden, wearing the Arlesian costume like a queen, galloping on her steed across the plains of the Crau, a trident in her hand; after a long and ardent wooing, one fine day my song of love would win her, and in triumph I should conduct her to our farm, where, like my mother before her, she should reign over her pastoral subjects. Already as I look back, I see that I dreamt of my “Mireille,” and this ideal of blooming beauty already conceived by me, though only in the silence and secrecy of my heart, told greatly against the chances of poor Mademoiselle Louise, who, according to the standard of my vision, was far too much of a young lady.

After this we started a correspondence, or rather an interchange of love on one side and friendship on the other, which lasted over a period of some three years or more—all the time I was at Aix in fact. On my side I endeavoured gallantly to humour her sentiment for myself, so that, little by little if I could, I might change it to a feeling less embarrassing for both of us. But Louise, in spite of this, grew ever more and more fixed in her infatuation, winging to me one missive after another of despairing farewell. The following was the last of these letters:

“I have loved but once, and I shall die, I vow to you, with the name of Frédéric engraven on my heart. Ah! the sleepless nights I have passed thinking of my hapless fate! And yesterday, reading over your vain attempts at consolation, the effort to keep back my weeping almost made my heart break. The doctor announced that I had fever, a nervous breakdown, and prescribed rest. How I rejoiced to think I was indeed seriously ill! I felt even happy at the thought of dying and awaiting you in that other world where your letter declares we shall surely meet.... But hear me, Frédéric, I beseech you, since it is indeed true that before long you will hear I have quitted this world, shed I beg, one tear of regret for me. Two years ago I made you a promise: it was to pray God every day to give you happiness—perfect happiness; never have I failed to offer up that prayer, and I shall never fail while life lasts. On your side, I beseech you, therefore, do not forget me, Frédéric; but when you see beneath your feet the withered yellow leaves, let them remind you of my young life withered by tears, dried up by grief, and when you pass by a brooklet, listen to its gentle murmur, and hear in that plaintive sound the echo of my love, and when some little bird brushes you with its soft wing, let that tiny messenger say to you that I am ever near you. Forget not your poor Louise, oh, Frédéric, I pray you.”

This was the final adieu sent to me by the poor young girl, sealed with her own blood and accompanied by a medallion of the Holy Virgin, covered with her kisses, and encased in a small velvet cover on which she had embroidered my initials with her chestnut hair, encircled by a wreath of ivy, and the words, “Behold in me the strand of ivy, ever my love embraces thee.”

Poor dear Louise! Not long after this she took the veil and became a nun, and in a few years died. Even now it moves me to melancholy when I think of her young life withered before its bloom by this ill-starred love. To her memory I dedicate this little record, and offer it to her Manes hovering perhaps still around me.

The town of Aix (Head of Justice was the old significance), where I betook myself to make my law studies, by reason of its honourable past as capital of Provence and parliamentary city, possessed an air of soberness and dignity somewhat in contradiction with the Provençal atmosphere. The stately air given by the shady trees of the beautiful public drive, the fountains, monuments and palaces of bygone days, together with the numerous black-robed magistrates, lawyers and professors to be seen in the streets, all contributed towards the severe and rather cold aspect which characterised this city.

In my time, however, this impression was but a surface one, and among the students there was a gaiety of race, an intimate good-fellowship, quite in keeping with the traditions left by the good King René of old.

I remember even worthy counsellors and judges of the Court who, when at home, either in town or country house, amused themselves and their friends playing the tambourine;[9] while grave and learned doctors, such as d’Astros, brother of the Cardinal of that name, delivered at the Academy lectures in the simple and joyous tongue of their native Provençal. One of the best methods this for keeping alive the national soul, and which in Aix has never lapsed. Count Portalis, for example, one of the grand jurists of the Napoleon Code, wrote a play in Provençal. Then there was Monsieur Diouloufet, famous librarian of the French Athens[10] (as Aix once called herself), who, in the reign of Louis XVIII., sang in the language of Provence his poems of “Les Magnans”; while Monsieur Mignet, the illustrious historian and academician, came every year to Aix on purpose to play bowls, the national game of his youth, his panacea for restoring and renovating all men being “to drink in the sunshine of Provence, speak the language of Provence, eat a ragoût of Provence, and every morning play a game of bowls.”

I had been in Aix a few months when, walking one afternoon near the Hot Springs, to my joy I suddenly caught sight of the profile, and quite unmistakable nose, of my friend Anselme Mathieu of Châteauneuf.

In his usual casual way he greeted me. “This water is really hot—it is not pretence my dear fellow, it positively smokes.”

“When did you arrive?” I asked him with a hearty grip of the hand. “And what good wind blew you here?”

“The night before last,” said he. “Faith, I said to myself, since Mistral is off to Aix to read for law, I had better do likewise.”

I congratulated him on the happy inspiration, and inquired whether he had taken his bachelor’s degree, without which it was useless to think of being admitted to the Law Faculty.

“Oh yes,” he laughed. “I passed out with the wooden spoon! But if they refuse me a diploma in the courts of law, no man can prevent my taking one in the courts of love! Why, only to-day,” he continued, “I made the acquaintance of a charming young laundress, a little sunburnt it is true, but with lips like a cherry, teeth like a puppy, unruly curls peeping from out her white cap, a bare throat, little turned-up nose, dimpled arms——”

“Hold, villain,” I remonstrated, “it strikes me your eyes were not idle.”

“Frédéric, you are on a wrong scent,” he answered solemnly. “Think not that I, a scion of the noble house of Montredon, irresponsible though I may be, would lose my heart to a little chit of a laundress—but, I don’t know if you share this feeling, I find it impossible to pass a pretty face without turning round to gaze at it. In short, after a little conversation with the girl, we arranged that she should

wash for me and come to fetch my things next week!”

I upbraided him for an unscrupulous scoundrel, but he interrupted me again, saying I had not yet grasped the situation, and begging me to listen to the end of his tale.

“While chatting with my little friend,” he continued, “I noticed she was rubbing away at a dainty chemise of finest linen, trimmed with lace. It excited my curiosity and admiration—I inquired to whom it belonged? ‘This chemise,’ the young girl answered, ‘belongs to one of the most beautiful ladies in Aix—a baronne of some thirty summers, married, poor thing, to an old curmudgeon who is a judge of the Courts and jealous as a Turk.’ ‘She must be bored to death,’ I cried. ‘Ah yes,’ she replied, ‘she is bored to death, poor lady. There she sits on her balcony waiting, one would say, for some gallant gentleman who shall come to the rescue.’ I inquired her name, but here she demurred, saying she was but the laundress, and had no right to mix herself up in affairs that did not concern her. Not a word more could I get out of her; but,” added Mathieu hopefully, “when she comes for my washing next week, it is a pity if I don’t make her open her lips by bestowing two or three good kisses upon them.”

“And when you know the name of the lady, what then?” I asked.

“What then? Why, my dear fellow, I have bread in the cupboard for three years! While you other poor devils are grinding away at your law studies, I, like the troubadours of old Provence, shall at my leisure study beneath my lady’s balcony the gentle art of the laws of love.”

And this was, in effect, precisely the task undertaken and accomplished by the Chevalier Mathieu during the three following years at Aix.

Ah, the good days we spent in excursions all over the country! Now a picnic by the Bridge of Arc, in a dell just off the dusty high road to Marseilles, or a party to Tholonet to sniff up the fine fumes of the wine of Langesse. Another time it was a students’ duel in the valley of Infernets, the pistols charged with pellets of mud; or again a merry company on the diligence to Toulon, through the lovely woods of Cuge and across the Gorge of Ollioules. The students of Aix had led much the same life since the good old days of the Popes of Avignon and the time of Queen Joan.

While we were thus amusing ourselves in the noble city of the Counts of Provence, Roumanille, more wise and staid, was publishing at Avignon, in the periodical called the Commune, admirable dialogues, full of wisdom, good sense and courage, as, for example, “Le Thym,” “Un Rouge et un Blanc,” “Les Prêtres,” work which both popularised and dignified the Provençal tongue. From this he proceeded, on the strength of the reputation won by his “Pâquerettes” and his daring pamphlets, to convoke, through the means of his journal, all Provençal singers of the day, old and young. The outcome of this rallying movement was a publication in 1852, Les Provençales, presented to the public with an introduction of ardent enthusiasm by the learned and eminent savant, Monsieur Saint-René Taillandier, then residing at Montpellier.

In this first venture appeared contributions from d’Astros and Gaut of Aix; Aubert, Bellot, Bénédit, Bourelly, and Barthélemy of Marseilles; Bondin, Cassan, Giéra of Avignon; Tarascon was represented by Gautier, and Beaucaire by Bonnet; Châteauneuf by Anselme Mathieu; Carpentras by Reybaud and Dupuy; Cavaillon by Castil-Blaze, then there was Garcin, warm-hearted son of that Marshal d’Alliens mentioned in Mireille; and Crousillat of Salon, besides a group of Languedoc poets—Moquin-Tandon, Peyrottes, Lafare-Alois; and Jasmin, who contributed one poem.

The principal contributor, however, was Roumanille, then in full flower of production, his last work, entitled “Les Crèches,” having elicited from the great Sainte-Beuve the declaration that it was worthy of Klopstock.

Théodore Aubanel, then in his twenty-second year, began to send forth his first master-strokes, “Le 9 Thermidor,” “Les Faucheurs,” “A la Toussaint.” And finally, I also, aflame with the fine ardour of patriotism, sent in my ten short pieces, among which were “Amertume,” “Le Mistral,” “Une Course de Taureaux,” and a “Bonjour à Tous,” which last notified our new start.

But to return to the gay Mathieu and his love adventure with the lady of Aix, the conclusion of which I left untold.

Whenever I came across this student in the laws of love, I inquired without fail of his progress.

His patience and perseverance, he announced to me one day, had been rewarded, and Lélette, the little laundress, at last consented to show him the house of the fair baronne. Beneath her balcony he had from that time paced to and fro, unwearyingly, until finally observed by the object of his adoration—a lady, declared Mathieu, of matchless beauty—and the sequel proved of good taste also, since the other evening, smiling charmingly upon her devoted cavalier, she had let fall from the heaven above him—a flower.

Thereupon Mathieu produced a faded carnation in proof of his tale, and gazing with tender rapture, blew a kiss skywards.

After this, several months elapsed, without my catching a sight of Mathieu. I resolved to go and look him up.

Mounting to his attic, I found my friend reclining with one foot on a chair.

Bidding me a hearty welcome, he poured forth his latest news and the history of his accident.

“Imagine, my dear fellow—I had hit upon a plan for a nocturnal visit to my divine lady. Everything was arranged—Lélette, my little laundress, lent us a hand. I entered the garden at eleven o’clock, and by the trellis of the rosetree which creeps to her window, I climbed up. You may imagine how my heart beat! For she, my sovereign lady, had promised to stretch out her dainty hand that I might press thereon my kisses. Heavens!—the shutters opened softly—and a hand, my Frédéric, a hand I quickly recognised was not that of my adored, shook down on my upturned nose—the cinders of a pipe! I waited for no more, but sliding to the ground, I fled. I leapt the garden wall, and, confound it—sprained my foot!”

He laughed, and I joined him till we nearly dislocated our jaws. I inquired if he had sent for a doctor? That office he informed me had been undertaken by the mother of Lélette—a worthy dame who kept a tavern near the Porte d’Italie. This old body, being a sorceress in her way, had steeped the sprained foot in white wine, muttering weird incantations the while, and, after bandaging the foot tightly, concluded the ceremony by making the sign of the cross three times with her great toe.

“So here I am,” said Mathieu, “waiting till Providence sees fit to heal me ... and reading meanwhile the ‘Pâquerettes’ of our friend Roumanille. The time does not hang heavy, for little Lélette brings me my simple fare twice a day, and in default of ortolans I am thankful for sparrows.”

Whether Mathieu, well named, as he afterwards was, the “Félibre of the Kisses,” drew on his gorgeous imagination for the whole of this romantic episode, I cannot pretend to say; enough that I repeat it as he told it to me.

CHAPTER XI

THE RETURN TO THE FARM

“Hearty thanks, my father,” I answered.

And then and there—at that time I was one and twenty—with my foot on the threshold of the paternal home, and my eyes looking towards the Alpilles, I formed the resolution, first, to raise and revivify in Provence the sentiment of race that I saw being annihilated by the false and unnatural education of all the schools; secondly, to promote that resurrection by the restoration of the native and historic language of the country, against which the schools waged war to the death; and lastly, to make that language popular by illuminating it with the divine flame of poetry.

All these ideas hummed vaguely in my soul. This eddying and surging of the Provençal sap filled my being, and, free from all conventional literary influences, strong in the independence which gave me wings, and assured that nothing could now deter me, the sight of the labourers one evening, singing as they followed the plough in the furrow, inspired me with the opening song of Mireille.

This poem, the child of love, was peaceably and leisurely brought to birth under the influence of the warm golden sunshine and the breath of the wide sweeping winds of Provence. At the same time I took over the charge of the farm, under the direction of my father, who, at eighty years of age, had become blind. It was a life well suited to me, and this was all I cared for—to be happy in my home and with certain chosen friends. We were indifferent to Paris in those days of innocence. My highest ambition was that Arles, which rose ever on my horizon as did Mantua on that of Virgil, should one day recognise my poetry as her own.

Thus, thinking only of the country people of the Crau and the Camargue, I could truly say in Mireille:

“We sing but for you, shepherds and people of the farms.”

I had no definite plan in commencing Mireille, except the broad lines of a love-story between two beautiful children of Provence, both with the temperament of their country though of different ranks in life, and to let the ball roll in the unpremeditated way that happens in real life, apparently at the pleasure of the winds.

Mireille, the happy name which breathes its own poetry, was destined to be that of my heroine, for I had heard it in our home from my cradle, though nowhere else.

When old Nanon, my maternal grandmother, wished to compliment one of her daughters she would say:

“That is Mireille, the beautiful Mireille of my heart!”

And my mother in fun would say sometimes of a young girl:

“There, do you see her? That is the Mireille of my heart.”

But when I questioned concerning Mireille, no one could tell me anything; hers was a lost history of which nothing remained but the name of the heroine, and a gleam of beauty lost in a mist of love. It was enough, however, to bring good fortune to a poem, which perhaps—who can tell?—was the reconstruction of a true romance, revealed through the intuition granted to the poet.

The Judge’s Farm was at this time the best of all soils for the growth of idyllic poetry. Was not this epic of Provence, with its background of blue and its frame of the Alpilles, living and singing around me? Did I not see Mireille passing, not only in my dreams of a young man, but also in actual person? Now in the sweet village maidens who came to gather mulberry leaves for the silk-worms, now in the charming white-coifed haymakers, gleaners and reapers who came and went through the corn, the hay, the olives and the vines.

And the actors of my drama, my labourers, harvesters, cowherds and shepherds, did they not gladden my eyes from early morn till eve? Could one possibly find a grander prototype for my Master Ramon than the patriarch François Mistral, he whom all the world, even my mother, called “The Master”? My dear father! Sometimes, when the work was pressing and help was needed, either for the hay or to draw water from the well, he would call out, “Where is Frédéric?” Perhaps at that moment I had crept away under a sheltering willow in pursuit of some flying rhyme, and my poor mother would answer:

“He is writing.”

And at once the stern voice of the good man would soften as he said:

“Then do not disturb him.”

For, having himself read nothing but the Scriptures and “Don Quixote,” writing in his eyes appeared a sort of religious exercise.

This respect of the unlettered for the mystery of the pen is very well shown in the opening of one of our popular legends:

Another person who, without knowing it, influenced my epic muse was our old cousin Tourette, from the village of Mouriès; a sort of colossus, strong of limb but lame, with great leather gaiters over his boots; he was known in all that part as “The Major,” having, in 1815, served as drum-major in the National Guards, under the command of the Duc d’Angoulême, he who wished to arrest Napoleon on his return from the Isle of Elba. “The Major” had, in his youth, dissipated his fortune by gambling, and in his old age, reduced to poverty, he came, every winter, to pass some time with us at the farm. On his departure, my father always saw that he took with him some bushels of corn. During the summer time he travelled over the Crau and the Camargue, now helping the shepherds to shear the sheep, now the mowers of the marshes to bind the rushes, or the salters to collect and heap up the salt. Certainly no one could equal him in knowledge of the country of Arles and its work. He knew the names of every farm, and every pasture, of the head shepherds, and of each stud of horses or of wild bulls. And he talked of it all with an eloquence, a picturesqueness, a richness of Provençal expression which it was a pleasure to hear. Describing, for instance, the Comte de Mailly as very rich in house property, he would say: “He possesses seven acres of roofing.”

The girls who were engaged for the olive gathering at Mouriès would hire him to tell them stories in the evenings. They gave him, I think, each one, a halfpenny for the evening. He kept them in fits of laughter, for he knew all the stories, more or less humorous, that from one to another were transmitted among the people, such as “Jean de la Vache,” “Jean de la Mule,” “Jean de l’Ours,” “Le Doreur,” &c.

Directly the snow began to fall we knew “The Major” would soon make his appearance. And he never failed.

“Good-day, cousin.”

“Cousin, good-day.”

And there he was. His hand shaken and his stick deposited, unobtrusively he took up his accustomed seat in his corner, and, while eating a good slice of bread and butter and cheese, he would give us the news.

Cousin Tourette being, like most dreamers, a bit of an idler, had all his life dreamt of a remunerative post where there would be very little work.

“I should like,” he told us, “the situation of reckoner of cod-fish. At Marseilles, for instance, in one of those big shops where they unload, a man can, while seated, earn, so I am told, by counting the fish in dozens, his twelve hundred francs a year!”

Poor old Major! He died, like many another, without having realised his cod-fish dream.

I can never forget either, among those who helped me to make the poetry of Mireille, the woodcutter Siboul, a fine fellow from Montfrin, in a suit of velvet, who came every year towards the end of the autumn with his great billhook to trim our undergrowth of willow. While he worked away busily, what shrewd observations he would make to me about the Rhône, its currents, eddies, lagoons and bays, the soil and the islands! Also about the animals that frequented the dikes, the otters that lodged in the hollow trees, the beavers who work as deftly as woodcutters, the birds who suspend their nests from the white poplars, besides endless stories of the osier-cutters and basket-makers of Vallabrèque and that district.

My chief instructor, however, in the botany of Provence was our neighbour Xavier, a peasant herbalist, who told me the Provençal names and virtues of all the simples and herbs of Saint-Jean and of Saint-Roch. And thus I collected such a good store of botanical knowledge that, without wishing to speak slightingly of the learned professors of our schools, either high or low, I believe those gentlemen would have found it difficult to pass the examination I could, for instance, on the subject of thistles.

Suddenly, like a bomb, during this quiet, growing time of my Mireille, burst the news of the Revolution of December 2, 1851.

I had never been one of those fanatics to whom the Republic meant religion, country, justice—everything; and the Jacobites, by their intolerance, their mania for levelling, their hardness, brutality and materialism, had disgusted and wounded me more than once, and now the action of the Government in uprooting the very law to which they had sworn fidelity, filled me with indignation, and dissipated once and for all any illusions about those future federations which I had once hoped would be the outcome of a Republic of France.

Some of my colleagues from the Law School placed themselves at the head of the insurgent bands who were raised in Le Var in the name of the Constitution; but the greater number, in Provence as elsewhere, some disgusted by the turbulence of the opposing party, others dazzled by the brilliance of the first Empire, applauded the change of Government. Who could have foretold that the new Empire would tumble to pieces as it did, in a terrible war and national wreck?

So it came to pass that I abandoned, once and for all, inflammatory politics, even as one casts off a burden on the road in order to walk more lightly, and from henceforth I gave myself up entirely to my country and my art—my Provence, from whom I had never received aught but pure joy.

One evening, about this time, withdrawn in contemplation, roaming in quest of my rhymes,—for I have always found my verses by the highways and byways—I met an old man tending his sheep. It was the worthy Jean, a character well known to me. The sky was covered with stars, the screech-owl hooted, and the following dialogue took place:

“You have wandered far, Mister Frédéric,” began the shepherd.

“I am taking a little air, Master Jean,” I answered.

“You are going for a turn among the stars?”

“Master Jean, you have said it. I am so heartily sick, disillusioned and disheartened with the things of earth, that I wish to-night to ascend and lose myself in the kingdom of the stars.”

“Well, I myself,” said he, “make an excursion there nearly every night, and I assure you the journey is one of the most beautiful.”

“But how does one manage to find one’s way in that unfathomable depth of light?”

“If you would like to follow me, sir, while the sheep eat, I will guide you gently and show you all.”

“Worthy Jean, I take you at your word,” I readily agreed.

“Now, let us mount by that road which shows all white from north to south: it is the road of Saint-Jacques. It goes from France straight over to Spain. When the Emperor Charlemagne made war with the Saracens, the great Saint-Jacques of Galice marked it out before him to show him the way.”

“It is what the pagans called the Milky Way,” I observed.

“Possibly,” he replied with indifference. “I tell you what I have always heard. Now, do you see that fine chariot with its four wheels which dazzles all the north? That is the Chariot of the Souls. The three stars which precede it are the three beasts of the team, and the small star which is near the third is named the Charioteer.”

“They are what the books call the Great Bear.”

“As you please—but look, look, all around are falling stars—they are the poor souls who have just entered Paradise. Make the sign of the Cross, Mister Frédéric.”

“Beautiful angels, may God be with you!”

“But see,” he went on, “a fine star shining there, not far from the chariot. It is the drover of the skies.”

“Which in astronomy they call Arcturus.”

“That is of no importance. Now look over there in the north at the star which scarcely scintillates: that is the seaman’s star, otherwise called the Tramontane. She is nearly always visible, and serves as a signal to sailors, they think themselves lost if they lose the Tramontane.”

“Also called the Polar Star,” said I; “it is found in the Little Bear, and as the north wind comes from there, the sailors of Provence, like those of Italy, say they are going to the Bear when they go against that wind.”

“Now turn your head,” said the shepherd, “you will see the Chicken-coop twinkling, or, if you like it better, the Brood of Chickens.”

“Which the learned have named the Pleiades, and the Gascon, the Dog’s Cart.”

“That’s so,” he allowed. “A little lower shine the Signalmen, specially appointed to mark the hours for the shepherds. Some call them the ‘Three Kings,’ others the ‘Three Bells.’”

“Just so, it is Orion and his Belt.”

“Very well,” conceded my friend, “now still lower, always towards the meridian, shines Jean de Milan.”

“Sirius, if I mistake not.”

“Jean de Milan is the torch of the stars,” he continued. “Jean de Milan had been invited one day, with the Signalmen and the Young Chicken, so they say, to a wedding, the wedding of the beautiful Maguelone, of whom we will speak again. The Young Chicken set out, it appears, early, and took the high road. The Signalmen, having taken a lower cut, at last arrived there also. Jean de Milan slept on, and when he rose took a short cut, and to stop them, threw his stick flying in the air—which caused them to be called ever since, by some people, the Stick of Jean de Milan.”

“And that one, far away, which is just showing its nose above the mountain?” I inquired.

“That is the Cripple,” he replied. “He also was asked to the wedding, but as he limps, poor devil, he goes but slowly. Also, he gets up late and goes to bed early.”

“And that one going down, over there, in the west, and shining like a bride?” I asked.

“Ah, that is our own—the Shepherds’ Star, the Star of the Morning, which lights us at dawn when we unfold the sheep, and at sundown when we drive them in. That is she, the Queen of stars, the beautiful star, Maguelone, the lovely Maguelone, pursued unceasingly by Pierre de Provence, with whom, every seven years, takes place her marriage.”

“The conjunction, I believe, of Venus and Jupiter, or occasionally of Saturn.”

“According to taste,” replied my guide—“but, hist, Labrit! Oh, the rascally dog, the scoundrel! Whilst we talk, the sheep have scattered. Hist, bring them back! I must go myself. Good evening, Mister Frédéric, take care you do not lose yourself.”

“Good-night, friend Jean.”

Let us, also, return, like the shepherd, to our sheep.

About this time, in a publication called Les Provençales, to which many Provençal writers, old and young, contributed, I and other of the younger poets engaged in a correspondence on the subject of the language and of our productions. The result of these discussions, which became extremely animated, was the idea of a Conference of Provençal poets. And under the directorship of Roumanille and of Gaut, both of whom had been contributors to the journal Lou Boui-Abaisse, the first meeting was held on August 29, 1852, at Arles, in a room in the ancient archbishop’s palace, under the presidency of Doctor d’Astros, oldest member of the Bards. Here we all met and made acquaintance, Aubanel, Aubert, Bourelly, Cassan, Crousillat, Désanet, Garcin, Gaut, Gelu, Mathieu, Roumanille, myself and others. Thanks to the good Carpentrassian, Bonaventure Laurent, our portraits had the honour of being in L’Illustration (September 18, 1852).

Roumanille, when inviting Monsieur Moquin-Tandon, professor of the Faculty of Science at Toulouse, and a gifted poet in his tongue of Montpellier, had begged him to bring Jasmin to Arles. But the author of “Marthe la folle,” the illustrious poet of Gascony, answered the invitation of Moquin-Tandon: “Since you are going to Arles, tell them they may gather together in forties and in hundreds, but they will never make the noise that I have made quite alone!”

“That is Jasmin from head to foot!” Roumanille said to me. “That reply reproduces him much more faithfully than does the bronze statue raised at Agen in his honour.”

In short, the hairdresser of Agen, in spite of his genius, was always somewhat surly with those who, like himself, wished to sing in our tongue. Roumanille, since we are on the subject, some years previously, had sent him his “Pâquerettes,” dedicating to him “Madeleine,” one of the best poems of the collection. Jasmin did not even deign to thank him. But in 1848, when the Gascon passed through Avignon, on the occasion of his assisting at a concert given by the harpist, Mademoiselle Roaldes, Roumanille and several others went to offer their respects afterwards to the poet, who had made tears flow as he recited his “Souvenirs.”

“Who are you then?” asked Jasmin of the poet of Saint-Rémy.

“One of your admirers, Joseph Roumanille.”

“Roumanille!—I remember that name. But I thought it belonged to a dead author.”

“Monsieur, as you see,” answered the author of the ‘Pâquerettes,’ who never allowed any one to tread on his toes, “I am young enough, if it please God, some day to write your epitaph.”

One who was much more gracious to our Congress at Arles was the good Reboul, who wrote to us thus: “May God bless you. May your fights be feasts, your rivals, friends! He who created the skies made those of our country so wide and so blue that there is room for all stars.”

Jules Canonge of Nîmes also wrote to us: “My friends, if you have to battle one day for your cause, remember it was at Arles that you held your first meeting, and that your torch was lit in the proud and noble city which has for arms and for motto, ‘The sword and the wrath of the lion.’”

The Congress at Arles had succeeded too well not to be renewed. The following year, on August 21, 1853, at the suggestion of Gaut, the jovial poet of Aix, an assembly was held at that city. This “Festival of the Bards,” was twice as large as that held at Arles. It was on this occasion that Brizeux, the grand bard of Brittany, addressed to us his greetings and his wishes: