UFOftNIA DIEGO D ':.: s K H~ I K S Colum&ia SSntbemtg STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY AND LITERA TURE FREDERIC MISTRAL POET AND LEADER IN PROVENCE 1 FRDRIC MISTRAL FREDERIC MISTRAL/ POET AND LEADER IN PROVENCE BY CHARLES ALFRED DOWNER ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK Nefa gorfe THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, AGENTS 66 FIFTH AVENUB 1901 All rightt rttervtd COPYRIGHT, 1901, Bi THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Nortocofi ISrrss J. 8. Cuihing ft Co. - Berwick It Smith Norwood M*. U.S.A. PREFACE THIS study of the poetry and life-work of the leader of the modern Provencal renaissance was submitted in partial fulfilment of the re- quirements for the degree of Doctor of Philoso- phy at Columbia University. My interest in Mistral was first awakened by an article from the pen of the great Romance philologist, Gas- ton Paris, which appeared in the Revue de Paris in October, 1894. The idea of writing the book came to me during a visit to Provence in 1897. Two years later I visited the south of France again, and had the pleasure of seeing Mistral in his own home. It is my pleasant duty to express here once again my gratitude for his kindly hospitality and for his sugges- tions in regard to works upon the history of the Felibrige. Not often does he who studies the works of a poet in a foreign tongue enjoy as I did the privilege of hearing the verse from the poet's own lips. It was an hour not to be vi PREFACE forgotten, and the beauty of the language has been for me since then as real as that of music finely rendered, and the force of the poet's per- sonality was impressed upon me as it scarcely could have been even from a most sympathetic and searching perusal of his works. His great influence in southern France and his great per- sonal popularity are not difficult to understand when one has seen the man. As the striking fact in the works of this Frenchman is that they are not written in French, but in Provencal, a considerable por- tion of the present essay is devoted to the language itself. But it did not appear fitting that too much space should be devoted to the purely linguistic side of the subject. There is a field here for a great deal of special study, and the results of such investigations will be embodied in special works by those who make philological studies their special province. In the first division of the present work, however, along with the life of the poet and the history of the Felibrige, a description of the language is given, which is an account at least of its distinctive features. A short chapter will be found devoted to the subject of the versifica- PREFACE vii tion of the poets who write in the new speech. This subject is not treated in Koschwitz's ad- mirable grammar of the language. The second division is devoted to the poems. The epics of Mistral, if we may venture to use the term, are, with the exception of Lamartine's Jocelyn, the most remarkable long narrative poems that have been produced in France in modern times. At least one of them would appear to be a work of the highest rank and destined to live. Among the short poems that constitute the volume called Lis Isclo d 1 Or are a number of masterpieces. This book aims to present all the essential facts in the history of this astonishing revival of a language, and to bring out the chief aspects of Mistral's life-work. In our conclusions we have not yielded to the temptation to prophesy. The conflicting tendencies of cosmopolitanism and nationalism abroad in the world to-day give rise to fascinating speculations as to the future. In the Felibrean movement we have a very interesting problem of this kind, and no one can terminate a study of the subject with- out asking himself the question, "What is going to come out of it all ? " No one can tell, and viii PREFACE so we have not ventured beyond the attempt to present the case as it actually exists. Let me here also offer an expression of grati- tude to Professor Adolphe Cohn and to Pro- fessor Henry A. Todd of Columbia University for their advice and guidance during the past six years. Their kindness and the inspiration of their example must be reckoned among those things that cannot be repaid. NEW YORK, March, 1'JOl. CONTENTS PART FIRST THE REVIVAL OF THE PROVENCAL LANGUAGE CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction. Life of Mistral ... 3 II. The Felibrige 24 III. The Modern Provencal, or, more accurately, The Language of the Felibres ... 43 IV. The Versification of the Felibres ... 75 V. Mistral's Dictionary of the Provencal Lan- guage. (Lou Tresor ddu Felibrige) . . 92 PART SECOND THE POETICAL WORKS OF MISTRAL I. The Four Longer Poems . . . . .99 1. Mireio 99 2. Calendau 127 3. Nerto 151 4. Lou Pouemo ddu Rose .... 159 II. Lis Isclo d'Or 181 III. The Tragedy, La Reino Jano . . . .212 CONTENTS PART THIRD PACK CONCLUSIONS . . 237 APPENDIX. Translation of the Psalm of Penitence 253 BIBLIOGRAPHY 259 INDEX . . , 265 PART FIRST THE KEVIVAL OP THE PROVENCAL LANGUAGE FEEDEEIC MISTEAL CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION THE present century has witnessed a remark- able literary phenomenon in the south of France, a remarkable rebirth of local patriotism. A language has been born again, so to speak, and once more, after a sleep of many hundred years, the sunny land that was the cradle of modern literature, offers us a new efflorescence of poetry, embodied in the musical tongue that never has ceased to be spoken on the soil where the Troubadours sang of love. Those who began this movement knew not whither they were tending. From small beginnings, out of a kindly desire to give the humbler folk a simple, homely literature in the language of their firesides, there grew a higher ambition. The Provencal language put forth claims to exist coequally with the French tongue on 3 4 FRfcDfcRIC MISTRAL French soil. Memories of the former glories of the southern regions of France began to stir within the hearts of the modern poets and leaders. They began to chafe under the strong political and intellectual centralization that pre- vails in France, and to seek to bring about a change. The movement has passed through numerous phases, has been frequently misin- terpreted and misunderstood, and may now, after it has attained to tangible results, be defined as an aim, on the part of its leaders, to make the south intellectually independent of Paris. It is an attempt to restore among the people of the Rhone region a love of their ancient customs, language, and traditions, an effort to raise a sort of dam against the flood of modern tendencies that threaten to over- whelm local life. These men seek to avoid that dead level of uniformity to which the national life of France appears to them in danger of sinking. In the earlier days, the leaders of this movement were often accused at Paris of a spirit of political separatism ; they were actually mistrusted as secessionists, and certain it is that among them have been several champions of the idea of decentraliza- INTRODUCTION 5 tion. To-day there are found in their ranks a few who advocate the federal idea in the politi- cal organization of France. However, there seems never to have been a time when the movement promised seriously to bring about practical political changes; and whatever po- litical significance it may have to-day goes no farther than what may be contained in germ in the effort at an intense local life. The land of the Troubadours is now the land of the Felibres ; these modern singers do not forget, nor will they allow the people of the south to forget, that the union of France with Provence was that of an equal with an equal, not of a principal with a subordinate. Patriots they are, however, ardent lovers of France, and proofs of their strong affection for their coun- try are not wanting. To-day, amid all their activity and demonstrations in behalf of what they often call " la petite patrie" no enemies or doubters are found to question their loyalty to the greater fatherland. The movement began in the revival of the Provengal language, and was at first a very modest attempt to make it serve merely better purposes than it had done after the eclipse that 6 FRfeDfcRIC MISTRAL followed the Albigensian war. For a long time the linguistic and literary aspect of all this activity was the only one that attracted any attention in the rest of France or in Provence itself. Not that the Provencal language had ever quite died out even as a written language. Since the days of the Troubadours there had been a continuous succession of writers in the various dialects of southern Fjrance, but very few of them were men of power and talent. Among the immediate predecessors of the Feli- bres must be mentioned Saboly, whose Noels, or Christmas songs, are to-day known all over the region, and Jasmin, who, however, wrote in a different dialect. Jasmin's fame extended far beyond the limited audience for which he wrote ; his work came to the attention of the cultured through the enthusiastic praise of Sainte-Beuve, and he is to-day very widely known. The Eng- lish-speaking world became acquainted with him chiefly through the translations of Long- fellow. Jasmin, however, looked upon himself as the last of a line, and when, in his later years, he heard of the growing fame of the new poets of the Rhone country, it is said he looked upon them with disfavor, if not jealousy. INTRODUCTION 7 Strange to say, he was, in the early days, un- known to those whose works, like his, have now attained well-nigh world-wide celebrity. The man who must justly be looked upon as the father of the present movement was Joseph Roumanille. He was born in 1818, in the little town of Saint-Remy, a quaint old place, proud of some remarkable Roman remains, situated to the south of Avignon. Roumanille was far from foreseeing the consequences of the im- pulse he had given in arousing interest in the old dialect, and, until he beheld the astonish I ng successes of Mistral, strongly disapproved the ambitions of a number of his fellow-poets to seek an audience for their productions outside of the immediate region. He had no more ambi- tious aim than to raise the patois of Saint-Remy out of the veritable mire into which it had sunk ; it pained him to see that the speech of his fire- side was never used in writing except for trifles and obscenities. Of him is told the touching story that one day, while reciting in his home before a company of friends some poems in French that he had written, he observed tears in his mother's eyes. She could not understand the poetry his friends so much admired. Rou- 8 FRfeDfiRIC MISTRAL manille, much moved, resolved to write no verses that his mother could not enjoy, and henceforth devoted himself ardently to the task of purify- ing and perfecting the dialect of Saint-Remy. It has been said, no less truthfully than poeti- cally, that from a mother's tear was born the new Provengal poetry, destined to so splendid a career. We of the English-speaking race are apt to wonder at this love of a local dialect. This vigorous attempt to create a first-rate literature, alongside and independent of the national litera- ture, seems strange or unnatural. We are accus- tomed to one language, spoken over immense areas, and we rejoice to see it grow and spread, more and more perfectly unified. With all their local color, in spite of their expression of provincial or colonial life, the writings of a Kipling are read and enjoyed wherever the English language has penetrated. In Italy we find patriots and writers working with utmost energy to bring into being a really national lan- guage. Nearly all the governments of Europe seek to impose the language of the capital upon the schools. Unification of language seems a most desirable thing, and, superficially consid- INTRODUCTION 9 ered, the tendency would appear to be in that direction. But the truth is that there exists all over Europe a war of tongues. The Welsh, the Basques, the Norwegians, the Bohemians, the Finns, the Hungarians, are of one mind with Daudet and Mistral, who both express the sentiment, " He who holds to his language, holds the key of his prison." So Roumanille loved and cherished the melo- dious speech of the Rhone valley. He hoped to see the langue (Toe saved from destruction, he strove against the invasion of the northern speech that threatened to overwhelm it. He wrote sweet verses and preached the gospel of the home-speech. One day he discovered a boy whom he calls " Fenfant sublime," and the pupil soon carried his dreams to a realization far beyond his fondest hopes. Not Roumanille, but Frederic Mistral has made the new Proven- gal literature what it is. In him were combined all the qualities, all the powers requisite for the task, and the task grew with time. It became more than a question of language. Mistral soon came to seek not only the creation of an independent literature, he aimed at nothing less than a complete revolution, or rather a com- 10 FRfcDfeRIC MISTRAL plete rebirth, of the mental life of southern France. Provence was to save her individu- ality entire. Geographically at the central point of the lands inhabited by the so-called Latin races, she was to regain her ancient promi- nence, and cause the eyes of her sisters to turn her way once more with admiration and affec- tion. The patois of Saint -Remy has been developed and expanded into a beautiful lit- erary language. The inertia of the Provencals themselves has been overcome. There is un- doubtedly a new intellectual life in the Rhone valley, and the fame of the Felibres and their great work has gone abroad into distant lands. The purpose, then, of the present disserta- tion, will be to give an account of the language of the Felibres, and to examine critically the literary work of their acknowledged chief and guiding spirit, Frederic Mistral. The story of his life he himself has told most admirably in the preface to the first edition of IA- Isclo d 1 Or, published at Avignon in 1874. He was born in 1830, on the 8th day of Septem- ber, at Maillane. Maillane is a village, near Saint-Remy, situated in the centre of a broad INTRODUCTION 11 plain that lies at the foot of the Alpilles, the westernmost rocky heights of the Alps. Here the poet is still living, and here he has passed his life almost uninterruptedly. His father's home was a little way out of the village, and the boy was brought up at the mas, 1 amid farm- hands and shepherds. His father had married a second time at the age of fifty-five, and our poet was the only child of this second mar- riage. The story of the first meeting of his parents is thus told by the poet : "One year, on St. John's day, Maitre Fran- gois Mistral was in the midst of his wheat, which a company of harvesters were reaping. A throng of young girls, gleaning, followed the reapers and raked up the ears that fell. Maitre Frangois (Meste Frances in Provencal), my father, noticed a beautiful girl that remained behind as if she were ashamed to glean like the others. He drew near and said to her : " ' My child, whose daughter are you? What is your name ? ' 1 The word mas, which is kin with the English manse and mansion, signifies the home in the country with numerous outbuildings grouped closely about it. 12 FRfeDfcRIC MISTRAL " The young girl replied, ' I am the daughter of Etienne Poulinet, Maire of Maillane. My name is Delaide.' " ' What ! the daughter of the Maire of Maillane gleaning ! ' "'Maitre,' she replied, 'our family is large, six girls and two boys, and although our father is pretty well to do, as you know, when we ask him for money to dress with, he answers, " Girls, if you want finery, earn it ! " And that is why I came to glean.' "Six months after this meeting, which re- minds one of the ancient scene of Ruth and Boaz, Maitre Francois asked Maitre Poulinet for the hand of Delaide, and I was born of that marriage." His father's lands were extensive, and a great number of men were required to work them. The poem, Mireio, is filled with pictures of the sort of life led in the country of Maillane. Of his father he says that he towered above them all, in stature, in wisdom, and in nobleness of bearing. He was a handsome old man, digni- fied in language, firm in command, kind to the poor about him, austere with himself alone. The same may be said of the poet to-day. He INTRODUCTION 13 is a strikingly handsome man, vigorous and active, exceedingly gracious and simple in manner. His utter lack of affectation is the more remarkable, in view of the fact that he has been for years an object of adulation, and lives in constant and close contact with a popu- lation of peasants. His schooling began at the age of nine, but the boy played truant so frequently that he was sent to boarding-school in Avignon. Here he had a sad time of it, and seems especially to have felt the difference of language. Teachers and pupils alike made fun of his patois, for which he had a strong attachment, because of the charm of the songs his mother sung to him. Later he studied well, however, and became filled with a love of Virgil and Homer. In them he found pictures of life that recalled vividly the labors, the ways, and the ideas of the Maillanais. At this time, too, he attempted a translation, in Proven9al, of the first eclogue of Virgil, and confided his efforts to a school- mate, Anselme Mathieu, who became his life- long friend and one of the most active among the Felibres. It was at this school, in 1845, that he formed 14 FRDRIC MISTRAX his friendship with Roumanille, who had come there as a teacher. It is not too much to say that the revival of the Provengal language grew out of this meeting. Roumanille had already written his poems, Li Margarideto (The Daisies). "Scarcely had he shown me," says Mistral, "in their spring-time freshness, these lovely field-flowers, when a thrill ran through my being and I exclaimed, 'This is the dawn my soul awaited to awaken to the light ! ' ' Mistral had read some Provencal, but at that time the dialect was employed merely in deri- sion ; the writers used the speech itself as the chief comic element in their productions. The poems of Jasmin were as yet unknown to him. Roumanille was the first in the Rhone country to sing the poetry of the heart. Master and pupil became firm friends and worked together for years to raise the home-speech to the dignity of a literary language. At seventeen Mistral returned home, and began a poem in four cantos, that he has never published ; though portions of it are among the poems of Lis Isclo oTOr and in the notes of Mireio, This poem is called Li Meissoun (Har- vest). His family, seeing his intellectual supe- INTRODUCTION 15 riority, sent him to Aix to study law. Here he again met Mathieu, and they made up for the aridity of the Civil Code by devoting themselves to poetry in Provengal. In 1851 the young man returned to the mas, a Iicenci6 en droit, and his father said to him : " Now, my dear son, I have done my duty ; you know more than ever I learned. Choose your career; I leave you free." And the poet tells us he threw his lawyer's gown to the winds and gave himself up to the contemplation of what he so loved, the splendor of his native Provence. Through Roumanille he came to know Aubanel, Croustillat, and others. They met at Avignon, full of youthful enthusiasm, and during this period Mistral, encouraged by his friends, worked upon his greatest poem, Mireio. In 1854, on the 21st of May, the Felibrige was founded by the seven poets, Joseph Rouma- nille, Paul Giera, Theodore Aubanel, Eugene Garcin, Anselme Mathieu, Frederic Mistral, Alphonse Tavan. In 1868, Garcin published a violent attack upon the Felibres, accusing them, in the strongest language, of seeking to bring about a political separation of southern France from the rest of the country. This 16 FRDRIC MISTRAL apostasy was a cause of great grief to the others, and Garcin's name was stricken from the official list of the founders of the Felibrige, and replaced by that of Jean Brunet. Mistral, in the sixth canto of Mireio, addresses in elo- quent verse his comrades in the Provencal Pleiade, and there we still find the name of Garcin. Tii' nfin, de quau un vent de flamo Ventoulo, emporto e fouito Tamo Garcin, o fieu ardent ddu manescau d'Alen ! (And finally, thou whose soul is stirred and swept and whipped by a wind of flame, Garcin, ardent son of the smith of Alleins.) This attack upon the Felibrige was the first of the kind ever made. Many years later, Gar- cin became reconciled to his former friends and in 1897 he was vice-president of the Felibrige de Paris. The number seven and the task undertaken by these poets and literary reformers remind us instantly of the Pleiade, whose work in the sixteenth century in attempting to perfect the French language was of a very similar char- acter. It is certain, however, that the seven INTRODUCTION 17 poets who inaugurated their work at the Cha- teau of Font-Segugne, had no thought of imi- tating the Pleiade either in the choice of the number seven or in the reformation they were about to undertake. They began their propaganda by founding an annual publication called the Armana Prouven- pau, which has appeared regularly since 1855, and many of their writings were first printed in this official magazine. Of the seven, Aubanel alone besides Mistral has attained celebrity as a poet, and these two with Roumanille have been usually associated in the minds of all who have followed the movement with inter- est as its three leaders. Mistral completed Mireio in 1859. The poem was presented by Adolphe Dumas and Jean Reboul to Lamartine, who devoted to it one of the " Entretiens " of his Cours familier de litter ature. This article of Lamartine, and his personal efforts on behalf of Mistral, contrib- uted greatly to the success of the poem. Lam- artine wrote among other things : " A great epic poet is born ! A true Homeric poet in our own time ; a poet, born like the men of Deucalion, from a stone on the Crau, a primi- c is FRDRIC MISTRAL tive poet in our decadent age ; a Greek poet at Avignon ; a poet who has created a language out of a dialect, as Petrarch created Italian ; one who, out of a vulgar patois, has made a language full of imagery and harmony delight- ing the imagination and the ear. . . . We might say that, during the night, an island of the Archipelago, a floating Delos, has parted from its group of Greek or Ionian islands and come silently to join the mainland of sweet-scented Provence, bringing along one of the divine singers of the family of the Mele- sigenes." Mistral went to Paris, where for a time he was the lion of the literary world. The French Academy crowned his poem, and Gounod com- posed the opera Mireille, which was performed for the first time in 1864, in Paris. The poet did not remain long in the capital. He doubtless realized that he was not destined to join the galaxy of Parisian writers, and it is certain that if he had remained there his life and his influence would have been utterly dif- ferent. He returned home and immediately set to work upon a second epic ; in another seven years he completed Calendau, published INTRODUCTION 19 in Avignon in 1866. The success of this poem was decidedly less than that of Mirdio. During these years he published many of the shorter poems that appeared in one volume in 1875, under the title of Lis Isclo tf Or (The Golden Islands). Meanwhile the idea of the Felibrige made great progress. The language of the Felibres had now a fixed orthography and definite grammatical form. The appear- ance of a master-work had given a wonderful impulse. The exuberance of the southern tem- perament responded quickly to the call for a manifestation of patriotic enthusiasm. The Catalan poets joined their brothers beyond the Pyrenees. The Floral games were founded. The Felibrige passed westward beyond the Rhone and found adherents in all south France. The centenary of Petrarch celebrated at Avi- gnon in 1874 tended to emphasize the impor- tance and the glory of the new literature. The definite organization of the Felibrige into a great society with its hierarchy of officers took place in 1876, with Mistral as Capouli (Chief or President). In this same year also the poet married Mdlle. Marie Riviere of Dijon, and this lady, who was named first Queen of the Felibrige 20 FRDRIC MISTRAL by Albert de Quintana of Catalonia, the poet- laureate of the year 1878 at the great Floral Games held in Montpellier, has become at heart and in speech a Provengale. A third poem, Nerto, appeared in 1884, and showed the poet in a new light ; his admirers now compared him to Ariosto. This same year he made a second journey to Paris, and was again the lion of the hour. The SocietS de la Cigale, which had been founded in 1876, as a Paris branch of the Felibrige, and which later became the SociStS des FSlibres de Paris, organ- ized banquets and festivities in his honor, and celebrated the Floral Games at Sceaux to com- memorate the four hundredth anniversary of the day when Provence became united, of her own free-will, with France. Mistral was received with distinction by President Grevy and by the Count of Paris, and his numerous Parisian friends vied in bidding him welcome to the capi- tal. His new poem was crowned by the French Academy, receiving the Prix Vitet, the presen- tation address being delivered by Legouve. Four years later, Lou Tresor d6u Felibrige, a great dictionary of all the dialects of the langue , was completed, and in 1890 appeared his INTRODUCTION 21 only dramatic work, La Reino Jano (Queen Joanna). In 1897 he produced his last long poem, epic in form, Lou Pouemo d6u Rose (the Poem of the Rhone). At present he is engaged upon his Memoirs. Aside from his rare journeys to Paris, a visit to Switzerland, and another to Italy, Mistral has rarely gone beyond the borders of his beloved region. He is still living quietly in the little village of Maillane, in a simple but beautiful home, surrounded with works of art inspired by the Felibrean movement. He has survived many of his distinguished friends. Rouma- nille, Mathieu, Aubanel, Daudet, and Paul Arene have all passed away ; a new genera- tion is about him. But his activity knows no rest. The Felibrean festivities continue, the numerous publications in the Provencal tongue still have in him a constant contributor. In 1899 the Museon Arlaten (the Museum of Aries) was inaugurated, and is another proof of the constant energy and enthusiasm of the poet. He is to-day the greatest man in the south of France, universally beloved and re- vered. His life after all has been less a literary life 22 FRDRIC MISTRAL than one of direct and unceasing personal action upon the population about him. The resurrection of the language, the publication of poems, magazines, and newspapers, are only part of a programme tending to raise the people of the south to a conception of their individu- ality as a race. He has striven untiringly to communicate to them his own glowing enthusi- asm for the past glories of Provence, to fire them with his dream of a great rebirth of the Latin races, to lay the foundation of a great ideal Latin union. Wonderful is his optimism. Some of the Felibres about him are somewhat discouraged, many of them have never set their aspirations as high as he has done, and some look upon his dreams as Utopian. Whatever be the future of the movement he has founded, Mistral's life in its simple oneness, and in its astonishing success, is indeed most remarkable. Provence, the land that first gave the world a literature after the decay of the classic tongues, has awakened again under his magic touch to an active mental life. A second literature is in active being on the soil of France, a second literary language is there a reality. Whether permanent or evanescent, this glorification of INTRODUCTION 23 poetry, this ardent love of the beautiful and the ideal, is a noble and inspiring spectacle amid the turmoil and strife of this age of mate- rial progress. CHAPTER II THE FELIBRIGE THE history of the Felibrige, from its begin- ning, in 1854, down to the year 1896, has been admirably written by G. Jourdanne. 1 The work is quite exhaustive, containing, in addi- tion to the excellently written narrative, an engraving of the famous cup, portraits of all the most noted Felibres, a series of elaborately written notes that discuss or set forth many questions relating to the general theme, a very large bibliography of the subject, comprising long lists of works that have been written in the dialect or that have appeared in France and in other countries concerning the Felibres, a copy of the constitution of the society and of various statutes relating to it. It not only 1 Histoire du Felibrige, par G. Jourdanne, Librairie Bou- manille, Avignon, 1897. 24 THE FELIBRIGE 25 contains all the material that is necessary for the study of the Felibrige, but it is worthy of the highest praise for the spirit in which it is written. It is an honest attempt to explain the Felibrige, and to present fairly and fully all the problems that so remarkable a movement has created. A perusal of the book makes it evi- dent that the author believes in future political consequences, and while well aware that it is unsafe to prophesy, he has a chapter on the future of the movement. His history endeavors to show that the Feli- brean renaissance was not a spontaneous spring- ing into existence. On the purely literary side, however, it certainly bears the character of a creation; as writers, the Provencal poets may scarcely be said to continue any preceding school or to be closely linked with any literary past. In its inception it was a mere attempt to write pleasing, popular verse of a better kind in the dialect of the fireside. But the movement developed rapidly into the ambition to endow the whole region with a real literature, to awaken a consciousness of race in the men of the south; these aims have been realized, and a change has come over the life of Provence and 26 FRDRIC MISTRAL the land of the langue d'oc in general. The author believes and adduces evidences to show that all this could not have come about had the seed not fallen upon a soil that was ready. The Felibrige dates from the year 1854, but the idea that lies at the bottom of it must be traced back to the determination of Roumanille to write in Provencal rather than in French. He produced his Margarideto in 1847 and the Sounjarello in 1851. In collaboration with Mistral and Anselme Mathieu, he edited a col- lection of poems by living writers under the title Li Prouven$alo. During these years, too, there were meetings of Provencal writers for the purpose of discussing questions of grammar and spelling. These meetings, including even the historic one of May 21, 1854, were, how- ever, really little more than friendly, social gatherings, where a number of enthusiastic friends sang songs and made merry. They had none of the solemnity of a conclave, or the dignity of literary assemblies. There was no formal organization. Those writers who were zealously interested in the rehabilitation of the Provencal speech and connected themselves with Mistral and his friends were the Fell- THE FELIBRIGE 27 bres. Not until 1876 was there a Felibrige with a formal constitution and an elaborate organization. The word Ftlibre was furnished by Mistral, who had come upon it in an old hymn wherein occurs the expression that the Virgin met Jesus in the temple among "the seven Felibres of the law." The origin and etymology of this word have given rise to various explanations. The Greek philabros, lover of the beautiful; philebraios, lover of Hebrew, hence, among the Jews, teacher; felibris, nursling, according to Ducange; the Irish filea, bard, and ber, chief, have been proposed. Jeanroy (in Romania, XIII, p. 463) offers the etymology : Spanish feligres, filii Ecclesice, sons of the church, parish- ioners. None of these is certain. Seven poets were present at this first meet- ing, and as the day happened to be that of St. Estelle, the emblem of a seven-pointed star was adopted. Very fond of the number seven are these Felibres; they tell you of the seven chief churches of Avignon, its seven gates, seven colleges, seven hospitals, seven popes who were there seventy years; the word Feli- bre has seven letters, so has Mistral's name, 28 FRDRIC MISTRAL and he spent seven years in writing each of his epics. The task that lay before these poets was twofold : they had not only to prune and purify their dialect and produce verses, they had also to find readers, to create a public, to begin a propaganda. The first means adopted was the publication of the Armana prouvenpau, already referred to. In 1855, five hundred copies were issued, in 1894, twelve thousand. For four years this magazine was destined for Provence alone ; in 1860, after the appearance of Mireio, it was addressed to all the dwell- ers in southern France. The great success of Mireio began a new period in the history of the Felibrige. Mistral himself and the poets about him now took an entirely new view of their mission. The uplifting of the people, the crea- tion of a literature that should be admired abroad as well as at home, the complete ex- pression of the life of Provence, in all its aspects, past and present, escape from the im- placable centralization that tends to destroy all initiative and originality such were the higher aims toward which they now bent their efforts. The attention of Paris was turned in THE FELIBRIGE 29 their direction. Jasmin had already shown the Parisians that real poetry of a high order could be written in a patois. Lamartine and Ville- main welcomed the new literature most cor- dially, and the latter declared that " France is rich enough to have two literatures." But the student of this history must not lose sight of the fact that the Provengal poets are not first of all litterateurs ; they are not men devoting themselves to literature for a liveli- hood, or even primarily for fame. They are patriots before they are poets. The choice of subjects and the intense love of their native land that breathes through all their writings, are ample proof of this. They meet to sing songs and to speak ; it is always of Provence that they sing and speak. Almost all of them are men who ply some trade, hardly one lives by his pen alone. This fact gives a very spe- cial character to their whole production. The Felibrean movement is more than an astonish- ing literary phenomenon. The idea from this time on acquired more and more adherents. Scores of writers ap- peared, and volumes whose titles filled many pages swelled the output of Provencal verse. 30 FRfcDfeRIC MISTRAL These new aims were due to the success of Mireio ; but it must not be forgotten that Mis- tral himself, in that poem and in the shorter poems of the same period, gave distinct expres- sion to the new order of ideas, so that we are constantly led back to him, in all our study of the matter, as the creator, the continuer, and the ever present inspirer of the Felibrige. Whatever it is, it is through him primarily. Roumanille must be classed as one of those precursors who are unconscious of what they do. To him the Felibres owe two things: first of all, the idea of writing in the dialect works of literary merit ; and, secondly, the dis- covery of Frederic Mistral. Among these new ideas, one that dominates henceforth in the story of the Felibrige, is the idea of race. Mistral is well aware that there is no Latin race, in the sense of blood relation- ship, of physical descent ; he knows that the so-called Latin race has, for the base of its unity, a common history, a common tradition, a com- mon religion, a common language. But he believes that there is a race mri- dionale that has been developed into a kind of unity out of the various elements that com- THE FELIBRIGE 31 pose it, through their being mingled together, and accumulating during many centuries com- mon memories, ideas, customs, and interests. So Mistral has devoted himself to promoting knowledge of its history, traditions, language, and religion. As the Felibrige grew, and as Mistral felt his power as a poet grow, he sought a larger public ; he turned naturally to the peoples most closely related to his own, and Italy and Spain were embraced in his sym- pathies. The Felibrige spread beyond the limits of France first into Spain. Victor Balaguer, ex- iled from his native country, was received with open arms by the Provencals. William Bona- parte-Wyse, an Irishman and a grand-nephew of the first Napoleon, while on a journey through Provence, had become converted to the Felibrean doctrines, and became an active spirit among these poets and orators. He organized a festival in honor of Balaguer, and when, later, the Catalan poet was permitted to return home, the Catalans sent the famous cup to their friends in Provence. For the Felibres this cup is an emblem of the idea of a Latin federation, and as it passes from hand to hand and from lip to lip at the Felibrean 32 FREDERIC MISTRAL banquets, the scene is not unlike that wherein the Holy Graal passes about among the Knights of the Round Table. 1 Celebrations of this kind have become a regular institution in southern France. Since the day in 1862 when the town of Apt received the Felibres officially, organizing Floral Games, in which prizes were offered for the best poems in Provencal, the people have become accus- tomed to the sight of these triumphal entries of the poets into their cities. Reports of these brilliant festivities have gone abroad into all lands. If the love of noise and show that char- acterizes the southern temperament has caused these reunions to be somewhat unfavorably criticised as theatrical, on the other hand the enthusiasm has been genuine, and the results 1 The stem of the cup has the form of a palm tree, under which two female figures, representing Catalonia and Pro- vence, stand in a graceful embrace. Below the figures are engraved the two following inscriptions : Morta la diuhen qu'es, Ah ! se me sabien entendre ! Mes jo la crech viva. Ah ! se me voulien segui ! (V. Balaguer.) (F. Mistral.) (They say she is dead, (Ah, if they could understand but I believe she me ! Ah, if they would follow lives.) me !) THE FELIBRIGE 33 real and lasting. The FSlilrges, so they are called, have not all taken place in France. In 1868, Mistral, Roumieux, Bonaparte-Wyse, and Paul Meyer went to Barcelona, where they were received with great pomp and ceremony. Men eminent in literary and philological circles in Paris have often accepted invitations to these festivities. In 1876, a Felibrean club, " La Cigale," was founded in the capital ; its first president was Henri de Bornier, author of La Fille de Roland. Professors and students of literature and philology in France and in other countries began to interest themselves in the Felibres, and the Felibrige to-day counts among its members men of science as well as men of letters. In 1874 one of the most remarkable of the celebrations, due to the initiative of M. de Berluc-Perussis, was held at Vaucluse to celebrate the fifth centenary of the death of Petrarch. At this Felibree the Italians first became affiliated to the idea, and the Italian ambassador, Nigra, the president of the Accade- mia della Crusca, Signor Conti, and Professor Minich, from the University of Padua, were the delegates. The Institute of France was repre- 34 FRDftRIC MISTRAL sented for the first time. This celebration was highly important and significant, and the scenes of Petrarch's inspirations and the memories of the founder of the Renaissance must have awak- ened responsive echoes in the hearts of the poets who aimed at a second rebirth of poetry and learning in the same region. The following year the SociStS des langues romanes at Montpellier offered prizes for philo- logical as well as purely literary works, and for the first time other dialects than the Provengal proper were admitted in the competitions. The Languedocian, the Gascon, the Limousin, the Bearnais, and the Catalan dialects were thus included. The members of the jury were men of the greatest note, Gaston Paris, Michel Breal, Mila y Fontanals, being of their number. Finally, in 1876, on the 21st of May, the statutes of the Felibrige were adopted. From them we quote the following : "The Felibrige is established to bring to- gether and encourage all those who, by their works, preserve the language of the land of oc, as well as the men of science and the artists who study and work in the interest of this country." THE FELIBRIGE 36 "Political and religious discussions are for- bidden in the Felibrean meetings." The organization is interesting. The Feli- bres are divided into Majoraux and Mainteneurs. The former are limited to fifty in number, and form the Consistory, which elects its own mem- bers; new members are received on the feast of St. Estelle. The Consistory is presided over by a Capou- lie, who wears as the emblem of his office a seven-pointed golden star, the other Majoraux, a golden grasshopper. The other Felibres are unlimited in number. Any seven Felibres dwelling in the same place may ask the Maintenance to form them into a school. The schools administer their own affairs. Every seven years the Floral Games are held, at which prizes are distributed; every year, on the feast of St. Estelle, a general meeting of the Felibrige takes place. Each Maintenance must meet once a year. At the Floral Games he who is crowned poet- laureate chooses the Queen, and she crowns him with a wreath of olive leaves. To-day there are three Maintenances within 36 FR^DfeRIC MISTRAL the limits of French soil, Provence, Languedoc, Aquitaine. Among other facts that should doubtless be reported here is, the list of Capoulies. They have been Mistral (1876-1888), Roumanille (1888-1891), and Felix Gras; the Queens have been Madame Mistral, Mile. Therese Rouma- nille, Mile. Marie Girard, and the Comtesse Marie-Therese de Chevigne, who is descended upon her mother's side from Laura de Sade, generally believed to be Petrarch's Laura. Since the organization went into effect the Felibrige has expanded in many ways, its influ- ence has continually grown, new questions have arisen. Among these last have been burning questions of religion and politics, for although discussions of them are banished from Felibrean meetings, opinions of the most various kind exist among the Felibres, have found expres- sion, and have well-nigh resulted in difficulties. Until 1876 these questions slept. Mistral is a Catholic, but has managed to hold more or less aloof from political matters. Aubanel was a zealous Catholic, and had the title by inheritance of Printer to his Holiness. Roumanille was a Catholic, and an ardent Royalist. When the THE FELIBRIGE 37 Felibrige came to extend its limits over into Languedoc, the poet Auguste Foures and his fellows proclaimed a different doctrine, and called up memories of the past with a different view. They affirmed their adherence to the Renaissance meridionale, and claimed equal rights for the Languedocian dialect. They asserted, however, that the true tradition was republican, and protested vigorously against the clerical and monarchical parties, which, in their opinion, had always been for Languedoc a cause of disaster, servitude, and misery. The memory of the terrible crusade in the thirteenth century inspired fiery poems among them. Hatred of Simon de Montfort and of the in- vaders who followed him, free-thought, and federalism found vigorous expression in all their productions. In Provence, too, there have been opinions differing widely from those of the original founders, and the third Capoulie, Felix Gras, was a Protestant. Of him M. Jour- danne writes : "Finally, in 1891, after the death of Rou- manille, the highest office in the Felibrige was taken by a man who could rally about him the two elements that we have seen manifested, 38 FR&DF.RIC MISTRAL sufficiently Republican to satisfy the most ardent in the extreme Left, sufficiently steady not to alarm the Royalists, a great enough poet to deserve without any dispute the first place in an assembly of poets." He, like Mistral, wrote epics in twelve cantos. His first work, Li Carbounit, has on its title- page three remarkable lines : " I love my village more than thy village, I love my Provence more than thy province, I love France more than all." Possibly no other three lines could express as well the whole spirit of the Felibrige. Our subject being Mistral and not Felix Gras, a passing mention must suffice. One of his remarkable works is called Toloza, and recounts the crusade of the Albigenses, and his novel, The Reds of the Midi, first published in New York in the English translation of Mrs. Thomas A. Janvier, is probably the most remarkable prose work that has been written in Provencal. 1 Only the future can tell whether the Provencal will pass through a prose cycle after its poetic cycle, in the manner of all literatures. To 1 In 1899, Felix Gras published a novel called The White Terror. His death occurred early in 1901. THE FELIBRIGE 39 many serious thinkers the attempt to create a complete literature seems of very doubtful success. The problems, then, which confront the Feli- bres are numerous. Can they, with any assur- ance of permanence, maintain two literary languages in the same region? It is scarcely necessary to state, of course, that no one dreams of supplanting the French language anywhere on French soil. What attitude shall they assume toward the " patoisants," that is, those who insist on using the local dialect, and refuse to conform to the usage of the Felibres ? Is it not useless, after all, to hope for a more perfect unification of the dialects of the langue 00, and, if unification is the aim, does not logical rea- soning lead to the conclusion that the French language already exists, perfectly unified, and absolutely necessary? In the matter of poli- tics, the most serious questions may arise if the desires of some find more general favor. Shall the Felibres aim at local self-government, at a confederation something like that of the Swiss cantons ? Shall they advocate the idea of inde- pendent universities ? As a matter of fact, none of these problems 40 FRDRIC MISTRAL are solved, and they will only be solved by the natural march of events. The attitude of the leaders toward all these differing views has be- come one of easy toleration. If the language of the Felibres tends already to dominate the other dialects, if its influence is already plainly felt far beyond Provence itself, this is due to the sheer superiority of their literary work. If their literature had the conventional character of that of the Troubadours, if it were addressed exclusively to a certain elite, then their lan- guage might have been adopted by the poets of other regions, just as in the days of the Trou- badours the masters of the art of " trobar " preferred to use the Limousin dialect. But the popular character of the movement has pre- vented this. It has preached the love of the village, and each locality, as fast as the Feli- brean idea gained ground, has shown greater affection for its own dialect. Mistral's work has often been compared to Dante's. But Dante did not impose his lan- guage upon Italy by the sole superiority of his great poem. All sorts of events, political and social, contributed to the result, and there is little reason to expect the same future for the THE FELIBRIGE 4i work of Mistral. This comparison is made from the linguistic point of view; it is not likely that any one will compare the two as poets. At most, it may be said that if Dante gave expression to the whole spirit of his age, Mistral has given complete expression to the spirit of his little patrie. Should the trend of events lead to a further unification of the dia- lects of southern France, there is no doubt that the Felibrean dialect has by far the greatest chance of success. The people of Provence owe a great debt to the Felibres, who have endowed them with a literature that comes closer to their sympathies than the classic literature of France can ever come ; they have been raised in their own esteem, and there has been undoubtedly a great awakening in their mental life. The Felibrige has given expression to all that is noblest and best in the race, and has invariably led onward and upward. Its mission has been one that commands respect and admiration, and the Feli- bres to-day are in a position to point with pride to the great work accomplished among their people. Arsene Darmesteter has well said : " A nation needs poetry ; it lives not by 42 FRlSDlSRIC MISTRAL bread alone, but in the ideal as well. Religious beliefs are weakening ; and if the sense of poetic ideals dies along with the religious sentiment, there will remain nothing among the lower classes but material and brutal instincts. " Whether the Felibres were conscious of this danger, or met this popular need instinctively, I cannot say. At any rate, their work is a good one and a wholesome one. There still circulates, down to the lowest stratum of the people, a stream of poetry, often obscure, until now looked upon with disdain by all except scholars. I mean folklore, beliefs, traditions, legends, and popular tales. Before this source of poetry could disappear completely, the Feli- bres had the happy idea of taking it up, giving it a new literary form, thus giving back to the people, clothed in the brilliant colors of poetry, the creation of the people themselves." And again : " As for this general renovation of popular poetry, I would give it no other name than that of the Felibrige. To the Feli- bres is due the honor of the movement ; it is their ardor and their faith that have developed and strengthened it." CHAPTER III THE MODERN PROVENgAL LANGUAGE THE language of the Felibres is based upon the dialect spoken in the plain of Maillane, in and about the town of Saint-Remy. This dia- lect is one of the numerous divisions of the langue cToc, which Mistral claims is spoken by nearly twelve millions of people. The literary history of these patois has been written by B. Noulet, and shows that at the close of the ter- rible struggles of the Albigenses the language seemed dead. In 1324 seven poets attempted to found at Toulouse the competitions of the G-ai Savoir, and so to revive the ancient poetry and the ancient language. Their attempt failed. There was literary production of varying degree of merit throughout two or three centuries ; but until the time of Jasmin no writer attracted any attention beyond his immediate vicinity; and it is significant that the Felibres them- selves were long in ignorance of Jasmin. It is 43 44 FRDRIC MISTRAL then not difficult to demonstrate that the Feli- brige revival bears more the character of a creation than of an evolution. It is not at all an evolution of the literature of the Trouba- dours ; it is in no way like it. The language of the Felibres is not even the descendant of the special dialect that dominated as a literary language in the days of the Troubadours; for it was the speech of Limousin that formed the basis of that language, and only two of the greater poets among the Troubadours, Raimond de Vaqueiras and Fouquet de Marseille, were natives of Provence proper. The dialect of Saint-Remy is simply one of countless ramifications of the dialects descended from the Latin. Mistral and his associates have made their literary language out of this dialect as they found it, and not out of the language of the Troubadours. They have regularized the spelling, and have deliberately eliminated as far as possible words and forms that appeared to them to be due to French influence, substituting older and more genuine forms forms that ap- peared more in accord with the genius of the langue