Provençal people

“ The nobility of Provence shared in his infatuation and eagerly joined in the undertaking. At the accession of Charles under the wise government of Raymond Berenger, and the judicious husbanding of its resources by Romeo de Villeneuve, Provence was at its acme of prosperity. Charles brought it to ruin. After the execution of Conradin, he rode roughshod over the people of Naples and Sicily. To his exactions there was no end. The great fiefs were seized and granted to Provençal or Angevin favourites; the foreign soldiers lived at free quarters, and treated the people with the utmost barbarity. ”

“ As to the difference of my conduct under the two circumstances, you, recorder, can explain it to the marshal. I shall always resist by force the iniquitous orders of tyrants, sent by a tyrant cardinal, but I shall always respect the rights and privileges of the ancient Provençal communities. The nobility is to the people what the blade is to the hilt. The communities are to us what we are to them ”

“ A crop of poets sprang up in amazing profusion in the valley of the Rhone, and all who had pretensions to learning and refinement wrote in the language of Romance until well on into the fifteenth century, when a decay{135} set in and other languages developed into more permanent and literary forms. The Provençal language, with its smooth and pleasant sounds, seemed eminently adapted to the feelings and voluptuous thoughts of a people who delighted in song, music, and the dance. ”

“ That character makes destiny is very clearly evidenced in Provençal history. This rich, eventful, romantic story is just what a people renowned for bonté d'esprit, grace, good looks, poetry, eloquence, sentiment, passion, must inevitably weave for themselves in the course of ages. From the time when paleolithic man was making rude stone implements and living in caves or holes in the earth, this country has been busily forming and developing the human body and soul, perhaps in a more clear and visible sequence of progress that can easily be traced elsewhere. ”

“ After the opening of the fourteenth century, no genuinely Provençal poetry appears in Castile, and from the middle of that century it begins to recede from Catalonia and Aragon; or rather, to be corrupted by the hardier dialect spoken there by the mass of the people. The retreat of the troubadours over the Pyrenees, from Aix to Barcelona, from Barcelona to Saragossa and Valencia, is everywhere marked by the wrecks and fragments of their peculiar poetry and cultivation. ”

“ But, strange or not, the translation has captivated the critics. The Provençal is not always understood, and that not by the common people merely, but even by those most accomplished in the language. And this is why the success of 'Mirèio,' instead of being announced to Paris by Provence, was not imposed upon but certainly recommended to Provence by the suffrages of Paris. ”

“ As the tree came down [25] everybody shouted. Instantly the children were swarming all over it. In a moment our little company burst into the flood of loud and lively talk that is inseparable in Provence from gay occasions—and that is ill held in check even at funerals and in church. They are the merriest people in the world, the Provençaux.
IV
Marius completed his work by cutting through the trunk again, making a noble cacho-fiò near five feet long—big enough to burn, according to the Provençal rule, from Christmas Eve until the evening of New Year's Day. ”

“ The 14th and 15th centuries were in no respect a prosperous period for literature in the south of France. In the 15th century people began to write French both in verse and prose; and from that time Provençal literature became a thing of the past. From the 16th century such poetry as is written in the vernacular of southern France (Auger Gaillard, La Bellaudiera, Goudelin, d’Astros, &c.) , is entirely dependent on French influence. The Connexion with ancient Provençal literature is entirely broken. ”

“ He heard once more the trip of her voice warbling a Provençal song, while the great ruin of the Roman arène came once more to his vision, with its tufting shrubs and battered arches rising grim and gaunt into the soft Southern sky; the church-bells of the town poured their sweet jangle on his ear again, the murmur of distant voices came floating down the wind, and again the pretty Provençal song fluttered on the balmy air; the coquettish turban was in his eye, the plump, soft hand of the pretty Provençal girl in his grasp, and her glossy locks touched his burning cheek. ”

“ On the day of the Assumption, there is held on the mountain in the vicinity of the chapel, what is called in the Provençal tongue, a roumaragi, which is a country feast. The people from the neighbouring parts assemble on the spot, dressed in their Sunday clothes, where they join in dancing, playing at bowls, of which the Provençaux are passionately fond, quoits, running races, and other rural sports. Every village in Provence has a similar fête on some day in the year. In case of the village being named after any saint, which is very common, as St. ”

“ The troubadours and jongleurs traveled from court to court, not only in France, but north into Germany and south into Italy, carrying with them the southern French poetry and customs. We have few examples of Provençal before the year 1100, but from that time on, for two centuries, countless songs were written, and many of the troubadours enjoyed an international reputation. The terrible Albigensian crusade brought misery and death into the sprightly circles which had gathered about the count of Toulouse and others who had treated the heretics too leniently. ”

“ In Provence it is the custom for such an exploit to be carried out by running away to a far and unknown country, being careful to confide the project to no one. The time chosen by the young Provençal for this adventure is when he has, by some fault, or the sad error of disobedience, good cause to fear that on his return home he will be welcomed rather too warmly!{46}
When, therefore, this fate looms over some unlucky fellow, he just gives school and parents the slip, and defying consequences, off he goes on his travels with a “Long live liberty!” ”

“ No sooner had the Gay Science been established in Provence, than it became the fashion in surrounding countries. The sovereigns of Europe adopted the Provençal language, and enlisted themselves among the poets, and there was soon neither baron nor knight who did not feel himself bound to add to his fame as a warrior the reputation of a gentle troubadour. Monarchs were now the professors of the art, and the only patrons were the ladies. Women, no longer beautiful ciphers, acquired complete liberty of action, and the homage paid to them amounted almost to worship. ”

“ The fanatical Fra Rupert and the low, vile-tongued Catanaise are not tragic characters. The psychology throughout is decidedly upon the surface.
The author in his introduction warns us that to judge this play we must place ourselves at the point of view of the Provençals, in whom many an expression or allusion that leaves the ordinary reader or spectator untouched, will possibly awaken, as he hopes, some particular emotion. This is true of all his literature; the Provençal language, the traditions, the memories of Provence, are the web and woof of it all. ”

“ In addition to this extraordinary partiality for infidel customs, and the practical renunciation of the vow of poverty, which were calculated to arouse, especially among the vulgar, a suspicion of heterodoxy, the entire body of the Provençal clergy had become thoroughly debased and profligate. Those of high rank vied with the nobles in prodigal and ostentatious luxury. Prelates constantly abandoned the duties of their office for the fascinations of the chase and the licentious pleasures of intrigue. ”

“ More and more, as we come to mark changes and distinctions of temper in what is often in one all-embracing confusion called the middle age, that rebellion, that sinister claim for liberty of heart and thought, comes to the surface. The Albigensian movement, connected so strangely with the history of Provençal poetry, is deeply tinged with it. ”

“ This new Provençal poetry, which has created a certain sensation of late, had a very simple and touching origin. The son of a gardener of Saint-Rémy, educated in our French schools, wrote verses at the age of twenty, as one fresh from college is apt to do,—simple, unpretending verses, by no means poésie du diable, as a witty critic calls the over-hold attempts of youth, but rather poésie de famille, which was destined never to trangress the limits of the fireside. ”

“ As in every community are to be found many individuals to whom religion is a necessity, so in the Provençal cities and villages devout persons turned from the ancient and discredited hierarchy to other quarters for the inestimable consolations of forgiveness and hope. ”

“ French of the most barbaric, and Provençal of the most pliant, are mixed up in these delightfully comic dialogues exactly as they are upon the lips of the common folk. It is the most amusing, perhaps the only distinctly amusing work which the school of the felibre has ever produced, and anybody who reads French may read and have a hearty laugh over it. And I may add, from my own experience, that a very short residence in the ancient Provincia is enough to show that the local idiom is much more intelligible phonetically than it looks at first sight upon paper. ”

“ Provençal verses became models for all neighbouring countries. Frederick Barbarossa in Germany, Richard Cœur-de-Lion in Anglo-French England, Alfonso II in Aragon, Frederick II in Sicily, these royal personages went out of their way to compose in the fashionable style and rhythm of Provence. They became, in fact, troubadours. The terms needs some explanation. A troubadour is not properly a wandering minstrel carrying a guitar. That itinerant minstrel is an inferior order of person, the jongleur (in Provençal joglar) . He stands to the troubadour as the Anglo-Saxon “gleeman” to the “maker.” ”

“ Tracing their descent to the ancient Roman colonists and to the Gothic invaders of Southern Gaul, the Provençaux regarded with a mixture of contempt, of fear, and ill will, the inhabitants of the country north of the Loire, who had made far less progress than themselves, either in civil liberty, or in the arts and refinements of social life. ... Toulouse, Marseilles, Arles, Beziers, and many other of their greater cities, emulous of the Italian republics, with whom they traded and formed alliances, were themselves living under a government which was virtually republican. ”

“ I answered, “of a Provençal poem in twelve cantos to which I am just giving the finishing touches.”
“Oh, these good Provencaux!” he laughed. “You are always the same, determined to keep your tattered language, like the donkeys who will walk along the borders of the roads to graze upon thistles. It is in French, my dear friend, it is in the language of Paris that we must sing of our Provence to-day if we wish to be heard. ”

“ There is, it is true, something extravagant and bordering on stage effect, in many of the ceremonies performed, and expressions used, as recorded by the pen of M. Fransoy. An Englishman, however, is not always a fair judge of the best means of influencing the mind of a Frenchman, more particularly a south-eastern one. The Provençaux possess, both in appearance and in character, the strong characteristics of a people born under a burning sun ”

“ The Provençals are a disgraceful race; they committed every kind of crime and enormity during the Revolution, and are quite ready to begin over again: but when it is a question of fighting bravely, then they are cowards. Provence has never supplied me with a single regiment with which I could be satisfied. But to-morrow they will be as much against Louis XVIII. as to-day they appear to be against me,' etc.... ”

“ Legend, proverb, history, song, all seem to tell of a life more intense, more "vibrant," as their great poet describes the Provençals—in the troubadour country than elsewhere; unless indeed one goes still farther into the regions of the sun and falls under the kindred spell of Italy.
In England archæology seems cold and dead. In the South it conjures up visions of a teeming life; generation after generation of peoples, race after race, civilisation after civilisation. ”

“ An evil shadow hangs about it, and yet there is but little of the building touched by visible shades at this magnificent moment of a Provençal day. A shadow that no sunshine can dispel surely haunts the fortress of Les Baux. For a second, in the hot glare, fancy plays one a trick, and there seems to be floating from the summit the blood-red banner which the princes used to 316 unfurl on days of combat, when the air rang with the strange battle-cry of the house: "Au hazard Balthazar!" ”

“ The viewpoint in regard to such matters is of race and education. The Provençaux, who are born laughing, are not necessarily irreverent because even in sacred places they sometimes are frankly gay.
Assuredly, there was no lack of seemly decorum when the moment came for the administration of the Sacrament; which rite on Christmas Eve is reserved to the women, the men communing on Christmas Day. The women who were to partake—nearly all who were present—wore the Provençal costume, but of dark colour. ”