Frédéric Mistral

“ Those same angels, if they feel for each other reciprocal affection, must know just such an emotion. We were both but twelve years old, the age of Beatrice when Dante first saw her, and it was the vision of this young budding maiden that evoked the “Paradise” of the great Florentine poet. There is an expression in our language exactly rendering this soul delight which intoxicates two young people in the first spring-time of youth, it signifies being of one accord, “nous nous agréions.” It is true we never met except in church, but the mere sight of each other filled our hearts with happiness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In connection with those traditions and wonder-tales of Provence, familiar to my childhood, I cannot do better than quote old Dame Renaude, a gossip of our village when I was a boy.
Still I can picture her seated on a log and sunning herself at her door. She is withered, shrivelled and lined, the poor old soul, like a dried fig. Brushing away the teasing flies, she drinks in the sunshine, dozes and sleeps the hours away. ”

“ Nearly every Sunday, sometimes at Avignon, sometimes at Maillane, in the gardens of Saint-Rémy or on the heights of Châteauneuf, we met together for our small intimate festivities, our Provençal banquets, at which the poetry was of a finer flavour than the meats, and our enthusiasm intoxicated a good deal more than the wine.
It was on these occasions that Roumanille regaled us with his “Noëls” and “Dreamers” freshly coined from the mint, and that Aubanel, still holding the faith, but tugging at the leading-strings, recited to us his “Massacre of the Innocents.” ”

“ In ten years’ time the Academy will, when all the world has already done so, recognise another glory to French literature. The clock of the Institute is often an hour behind the century, but I wish to be the first to discover one who may be truly called the Virgil of Provence, and who, like the shepherd of Mantua, sings to his countrymen songs worthy of Gallus and of Scipio. Many have long desired for our beautiful country of the south, Roman both in speech and religion, the poem which shall express in her own tongue the sacred beliefs and pure customs of our land. ”

“ Even then the worthy charioteer would have continued his reminiscences had it not been that, as the rays of the awakening sun lit up the wide stretches of the great plains of the Camargue lying between the delta of the two Rhônes, we arrived at the Bridge of Forks.
In our eyes, even a more beautiful sight than the rising sun (we were both about five and twenty) was the awakening maiden who, as I have mentioned already, had been packed in just behind us with her mother. Shaking off the hood of her cloak, she emerged all smiling and fresh, like a goddess of youth. ”

“ And as the cord unrolls, screams and contortions increase, arms are raised, faces upturned, every one awaits a miracle. Suddenly, from the end of the church, rushing across the nave, as though she had wings, a beautiful girl, her fair hair falling about her, flung herself towards the floating shrines, crying: “O great saints—in pity give me back the love of my betrothed.”
All rose to their feet. “It is Alarde!” exclaimed the people from Beaucaire, while the rest murmured awestruck, “It is Saint Mary Magdalen come to visit her sisters.” Every one wept with emotion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But never will they sleep again in this little room—those days are flown for ever—Julia dwells no more on earth, and my Zani is a nun.”
No spot more favourable could have been imagined wherein to cradle a glorious dream, to bring to flower the bloom of an ideal, than this château on the hillside, surrounded by the serene blue distances, enlivened by these lovely laughing maidens and a group of young men vowed to the worship of the Beautiful under the three headings of Poetry, Love, and Provence, a trinity which for them formed always a unity. ”

“ I remember one evening, when we were supping at the Chêne-Vert, a pleasant inn in the neighbourhood of Avignon, hearing music for a dance that was going on just below the terrace where we were dining. Daudet suddenly jumped down, a flying leap of some nine or ten feet, crashing through the branches of a vine trellis and landing in the midst of the dancers, who took him for a devil. ”

“ He approaches the horse, spits on the shoe, applies it to the fetlock as best he can. Alas! the salve does not stick, the blood flows, and the foot falls! Then was the proud soul of Master Eloi illuminated: and he went back into the smithy there to prostrate himself at the feet of the young apprentice. But Jesus had disappeared, and also the horse and the cavalier. Tears gushed from the eyes of Master Eloi; he recognised, poor man, that there was a master above him, and above all. Throwing aside his apron he left the forge and went out into the world to teach the word of the Lord Jesus. ”

“ Degraded, unsteady, enveloped by parasite hovels, their pure outline was being obliterated by the disfiguring leprosy. One day came reform, and, taking control, swept away the hovels and rubbish, restoring to their bygone splendour these amphitheatres of the old Romans.
Even so, barbarous jargons had defaced the idiom of Provence. Then with his following of brilliant and ardent patriots Mistral came and dispersed the degenerating patois, restoring to its former beauty the Greek purity of form belonging to the edifice of our ancestors and fitting it for present use. ”

“ Add to all these a mass of aquatic plants, such as the cats-tail, that long cottony blossom of the typha-plant; and the water-lily, its wide round leaves and white cup magnificently outspread on the water’s smooth surface; the gladiole with its clusters of pink flowers and the pale narcissus mirrored in the stream; the duckweed with its minute leaves; the ox-tongue, which flowers like a lustre; and the forget-me-not, myosotis, named in Provence “eyes of the Child Jesus.” ”

“ Like the prodigal son, I said to myself, “How much happier are the servants and shepherds of our farm, down there, who eat the good bread that{102} my mother provides; the friends of my childhood, too, my comrades of Maillane, who live at liberty in the country, labouring, sowing, reaping, and gathering olives, beneath the blessed sun of God, than I who drudge between four walls, over translations and compositions.” ”

“ Saint-Eloi is, in Provence, the feast of the agriculturists. All over Provence on that day the village priests bless the cattle, asses, mules and horses; and the people owning the beasts partake of the “blessed bread,” that excellent “blessed bread” flavoured with aniseed and yellow with eggs, which they call tortillarde. At Maillane it was our custom on that day to deck a chariot with green boughs and harness to it forty or fifty beasts, caparisoned as in the time of the tournaments, with beards, embroidered saddle-cloths, plumes, mirrors and crescents of brass. ”

“ Factories and railways are good up to a certain point; but courage and endurance, love of wife and child, love of home and country, love of lover for sweetheart, love of beauty in man’s work and in nature, love and emulation of daring and of lofty endeavour, the homely workaday virtues and the heroic virtues—these are better still, and if they are lacking no piled-up riches, no roaring, clanging industrialism, no feverish and many-sided activity shall avail either the individual or the nation. ”

“ In her naïve way Laura told him her story. The gentleman, who was rich, suddenly touched and taken with her beauty and simplicity, made her get into his carriage, took her to a convent, had her carefully educated, and then married her. But the beautiful bride, who had a noble heart, did not forget her own relations. She sent for her little brother Adolphe to Paris, and gave him a good education, and that is how Adolphe Dumas, a poet by nature and an enthusiast, one day found himself in the midst of the literary movement of 1830. ”

“ He is friendly with all. He will chat, see you, with the smallest in the country even to the babies! That is why he has been fifty years Mayor of Gigognan, and will be to the end of his days.”
“Well, my friend,” said Lassagne to me, “It is not I, is it, that have said it! All of us like nice things, we like compliments, and we are all gratified by kind manners. Whether dealing with women, with kings, or with the people, he who would reign must please. And that is the secret of the Mayor of Gigognan.
(Almanach Provençal, 1883.) ”

“ 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! ”

“ Monsieur Millet was a big man, tall, with heavy eyebrows, a red face, little pig’s eyes, feet like an elephant’s, hideous square fingers and slovenly appearance.
A woman from the hills, fat and uncomely, cooked for us and managed the house. I never ate so many carrots before or since, carrots badly cooked in a flour sauce. In three months, my poor little body was reduced to a skeleton.
Avignon, the predestined, where one day the Gai-Savoir was to effect the renaissance, was not at that time the bright town of to-day. ”

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

“ According to time-honoured custom a village fête in Provence is the occasion for real feasting, and my friend Lassagne had not failed to prepare such a lordly feast as one might set before a king. Dressed lobster, fresh trout from the Sorgue, nothing but fine meats and choice wines, a little glass to whet the appetite at intervals, besides liqueurs of all sorts, and to wait on us at table a young girl of twenty who—I will say no more! ”

“ Drawn by the fifty mules or donkeys round the village rolled the chariot, in a cloud of dust, with the farm labourers running like mad by the side of their beasts, all in their shirt sleeves, hats at the back of their heads, a belt round the waist, and low shoes. ”

“ It was home, always home, to which every one harked back; till at last, after having destroyed{49} sufficient nests—and made sufficient holes in nether garments—being weary of pipes made from barley-straws and of whistles made of willow twigs, besides having set one’s teeth on edge with green apples and other sour fruit, suddenly the truant is seized with home-sickness, a great longing at the heart turns the feet homewards and lowers the once proud head.
Being of true Provençal stock, I also must needs make my escapade before I had been three months at school. ”

“ JEAN ROUSSIÈRE “Good morning, Mr. Frédéric. They tell me that you have need of a man on the farm.”
“Yes—from whence comest thou?”
“From Villeneuve, the country of the ‘lizards’—near to Avignon.”
“And what canst thou do?”
“A little of everything. I have been helper at the oil mills, muleteer, carrier, labourer, miller, shearer, mower if necessary, wrestler on occasions, pruner of poplars, a high-class trade, and even cleaner of sewers, which is the lowest of all!” ”

“ Just imagine that there are in France twenty million tillers of the soil, and they have not the sense to send three hundred of them to represent the land! What would they risk by trying it? It would be difficult for the peasants’ deputy to do worse than these others!”
And every one replies: “Ah! that Monsieur Lassagne! though he is joking, there is some sense in what he says.”
“But,” I said, “as to thee personally, thee Lassagne, how hast thou managed to keep thy popularity in Gigognan, and thy authority for fifty years?” ”

“ Tavan, the peasant poet of Gadagne, says of Font-Ségugne: “It is the favourite trysting-spot of the village lovers on Sundays, for there they find a grateful shade, solitude, quiet nooks, little stone benches covered with ivy, winding paths among the trees, a lovely view, the song of birds, the rustling of leaves, the rippling of brooks! ”

“ Not before, thank God, for in all that touched my inner development and the education and temperament of my young poet’s soul, I certainly learnt far more through the games and frolics of my country childhood than by the tiresome repetition of the school routine.
In our time, the dream of all youngsters who went to school was to play truant, once at least, in a thoroughly successful manner. ”

“ It was just here, says the legend, [13] that the three Saint Marys in their skiff were cast ashore in Provence after the death of Our Lord. And looking out over the wide glistening sea, that lies in the midst of such visions and memories, illuminated by the radiant sunshine, it seemed to us in truth we were on the threshold of Paradise.
Our little friend Alarde, looking rather pale after the emotions of the previous day, was one of a group of maidens chosen to bear on their shoulders the “Boat of the Saints,” and many murmurs of sympathy followed her as she passed. ”