Nevertheless her grandmother said to her, "My child, it is not true; the sorcerer's charge is false. He of good cheer, you are more lovely than ever." One gleam of hope had come to Franconnette; she hears that Pascal has defended her everywhere, and boldly declared her to be the victim of a brutal plot. She now realised how great was his goodness, and her proud spirit was softened even to tears. The grandmother put in a good word for Marcel, but the girl turned aside. Then the old woman said, "To-morrow is Easter Day; go to Mass, pray as you never prayed before, and take the blessed bread, proving that you are numbered with His children for ever."

The girl consented, and went to the Church of Saint Peter on Easter morning. She knelt, with her chaplet of beads, among the rest, imploring Heaven's mercy. But she knelt alone in the midst of a wide circle. All the communicants avoided her. The churchwarden, Marcel's uncle, in his long-tailed coat, with a pompous step, passed her entirely by, and refused her the heavenly meal. Pascal was there and came to her help. He went forward to the churchwarden and took from the silver plate the crown piece{6} of the holy element covered with flowers, and took and presented two pieces of the holy bread to Franconnette—one for herself, the other for her grandmother.

From that moment she begins to live a new life, and to understand the magic of love. She carries home the blessed bread to the ancient dame, and retires to her chamber to give herself up, with the utmost gratefulness, to the rapturous delight of loving. "Ah," says Jasmin in his poem, "the sorrowing heart aye loveth best!"

Yet still she remembers the fatal doom of the sorcerer that she is sold for a price to the demon. All seem to believe the hideous tale, and no one takes her part save Pascal and her grandmother. She kneels before her little shrine and prays to the Holy Virgin for help and succour.

At the next fete day she repaired to the church of Notre Dame de bon Encontre,{7} where the inhabitants of half a dozen of the neighbouring villages had assembled, with priests and crucifixes, garlands and tapers, banners and angels. The latter, girls about to be confirmed, walked in procession and sang the Angelus at the appropriate hours. The report had spread abroad that Franconnette would entreat the Blessed Virgin to save her from the demon. The strangers were more kind to her than her immediate neighbours, and from many a pitying heart the prayer went up that a miracle might be wrought in favour of the beautiful maiden. She felt their sympathy, and it gave her confidence. The special suppliants passed up to the altar one by one—Anxious mothers, disappointed lovers, orphans and children. They kneel, they ask for blessings, they present their candles for the old priest to bless, and then they retire.

Now came the turn of Franconnette. Pascal was in sight and prayed for her success. She went forward in a happy frame of mind, with her taper and a bouquet of flowers. She knelt before the priest. He took the sacred image and presented it to her; but scarcely had it touched the lips of the orphan when a terrible peal of thunder rent the heavens, and a bolt of lightning struck the spire of the church, extinguishing her taper as well as the altar lights. This was a most unlucky coincidence for the terrified girl; and, cowering like a lost soul, she crept out of the church. The people were in consternation. "It was all true, she was now sold to the devil! Put her to death, that is the only way of ending our misfortunes!"

The truth is that the storm of thunder and lightning prevailed throughout the neighbourhood. It is a common thing in southern climes. The storm which broke out at Notre Dame destroyed the belfry; the church of Roquefort was demolished by a bolt of lightning, the spire of Saint Pierre was ruined. The storm was followed by a tempest of hail and rain. Agen was engulfed by the waters; her bridge was destroyed,{8} and many of the neighbouring vineyards were devastated. And all this ruin was laid at the door of poor Franconnette!

The neighbours—her worst enemies—determined to burn the daughter of the Huguenot out of her cottage. The grandmother first heard the cries of the villagers: "Fire them, let them both burn together." Franconnette rushed to the door and pleaded for mercy. "Go back," cried the crowd, "you must both roast together." They set fire to the rick outside and then proceeded to fire the thatch of the cottage. "Hold, hold!" cried a stern voice, and Pascal rushed in amongst them. "Cowards! would you murder two defenceless women? Tigers that you are, would you fire and burn them in their dwelling?"

Marcel too appeared; he had not yet given up the hope of winning Franconnette's love. He now joined Pascal in defending her and the old dame, and being a soldier of Montluc, he was a powerful man in the neighbourhood. The girl was again asked to choose between the two. At last, after refusing any marriage under present circumstances, she clung to Pascal. "I would have died alone," she said, "but since you will have it so, I resist no longer. It is our fate; we will die together." Pascal was willing to die with her, and turning to Marcel he said: "I have been more fortunate than you, but you are a brave man and you will forgive me. I have no friend, but will you act as a squire and see me to my grave?" After struggling with his feelings, Marcel at last said: "Since it is her wish, I will be your friend."

A fortnight later, the marriage between the unhappy lovers took place. Every one foreboded disaster. The wedding procession went down the green hill towards the church of Notre Dame. There was no singing, no dancing, no merriment, as was usual on such occasions. The rustics shuddered at heart over the doom of Pascal. The soldier Marcel marched at the head of the wedding-party. At the church an old woman appeared, Pascal's mother. She flung her arms about him and adjured him to fly from his false bride, for his marriage would doom him to death. She even fell at the feet of her son and said that he should pass over her body rather than be married. Pascal turned to Marcel and said: "Love overpowers me! If I die, will you take care of my mother?"

Then the gallant soldier dispelled the gloom which had overshadowed the union of the loving pair. "I can do no more," he said; "your mother has conquered me. Franconnette is good, and pure, and true. I loved the maid, Pascal, and would have shed my blood for her, but she loved you instead of me.

"Know that she is not sold to the Evil One. In my despair I hired the sorcerer to frighten you with his mischievous tale, and chance did the rest. When we both demanded her, she confessed her love for you. It was more than I could bear, and I resolved that we should both die.

"But your mother has disarmed me; she reminds me of my own. Live, Pascal, for your wife and your mother! You need have no more fear of me. It is better that I should die the death of a soldier than with a crime upon my conscience."

Thus saying, he vanished from the crowd, who burst into cheers. The happy lovers fell into each other's arms. "And now," said Jasmin, in concluding his poem, "I must lay aside my pencil. I had colours for sorrow; I have none for such happiness as theirs!"

Endnotes to Chapter IX.

{1} The whole of Jasmin's answer to M. Dumon will be found in the Appendix at the end of this volume.

{2}'Gascogne et Languedoc,' par Paul Joanne, p. 95 (edit. 1883).

{3} The dance still exists in the neighbourhood of Agen. When there a few years ago, I was drawn by the sound of a fife and a drum to the spot where a dance of this sort was going on. It was beyond the suspension bridge over the Garonne, a little to the south of Agen. A number of men and women of the working-class were assembled on the grassy sward, and were dancing, whirling, and pirouetting to their hearts' content. Sometimes the girls bounded from the circle, were followed by their sweethearts, and kissed. It reminded one of the dance so vigorously depicted by Jasmin in Franconnette.

{4} Miss Harriet Preston, of Boston, U.S., published part of a translation of Franconnette in the 'Atlantic Monthly' for February, 1876, and adds the following note: "The buscou, or busking, was a kind of bee, at which the young people assembled, bringing the thread of their late spinning, which was divided into skeins of the proper size by a broad and thin plate of steel or whalebone called a busc. The same thing, under precisely the same name, figured in the toilets of our grandmothers, and hence, probably, the Scotch use of the verb to busk, or attire."

{5} Miss Louisa Stuart Costello in 'Bearn and the Pyrenees.'

{6} A custom which then existed in certain parts of France. It was taken by the French emigrants to Canada, where it existed not long ago. The crown of the sacramental bread used to be reserved for the family of the seigneur or other communicants of distinction.

{7} A church in the suburbs of Agen, celebrated for its legends and miracles, to which numerous pilgrimages are made in the month of May.

{8} A long time ago the inhabitants of the town of Agen communicated with the other side of the Garonne by means of little boats. The first wooden bridge was commenced when Aquitaine was governed by the English, in the reign of Richard Coeur-de-lion, at the end of the twelfth century. The bridge was destroyed and repaired many times, and one of the piles on which the bridge was built is still to be seen. It is attributed to Napoleon I. that he caused the first bridge of stone to be erected, for the purpose of facilitating the passage of his troops to Spain. The work was, however, abandoned during his reign, and it was not until the Restoration that the bridge was completed. Since that time other bridges, especially the suspension bridge, have been erected, to enable the inhabitants of the towns on the Garonne to communicate freely with each other.



CHAPTER X. JASMIN AT TOULOUSE.

It had hitherto been the custom of Jasmin to dedicate his poems to one of his friends; but in the case of Franconnette he dedicated the poem to the city of Toulouse. His object in making the dedication was to express his gratitude for the banquet given to him in 1836 by the leading men of the city, at which the President had given the toast of "Jasmin, the adopted son of Toulouse."

Toulouse was the most wealthy and prosperous city in the South of France. Among its citizens were many men of literature, art, and science. Jasmin was at first disposed to dedicate Franconnette to the city of Bordeaux, where he had been so graciously received and feted on the recitation of his Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille; but he eventually decided to dedicate the new poem to the city of Toulouse, where he had already achieved a considerable reputation.

Jasmin was received with every honour by the city which had adopted him. It was his intention to read the poem at Toulouse before its publication. If there was one of the towns or cities in which his language was understood—one which promised by the strength and depth of its roots to defy all the chances of the future—that city was Toulouse, the capital of the Langue d'Oc.

The place in which he first recited the poem was the Great Hall of the Museum. When the present author saw it about two years ago, the ground floor was full of antique tombs, statues, and monuments of the past; while the hall above it was crowded with pictures and works of art, ancient and modern.

About fifteen hundred persons assembled to listen to Jasmin in the Great Hall. "It is impossible," said the local journal,{1} "to describe the transport with which he was received." The vast gallery was filled with one of the most brilliant assemblies that had ever met in Toulouse. Jasmin occupied the centre of the platform. At his right and left hand were seated the Mayor, the members of the Municipal Council, the Military Chiefs, the members of the Academy of Jeux-Floraux,{2} and many distinguished persons in science, literature, and learning. A large space had been reserved for the accommodation of ladies, who appeared in their light summer dresses, coloured like the rainbow; and behind them stood an immense number of the citizens of Toulouse.

Jasmin had no sooner begun to recite his poem than it was clear that he had full command of his audience. Impressed by his eloquence and powers of declamation, they were riveted to their seats, dazzled and moved by turns, as the crowd of beautiful thoughts passed through their minds. The audience were so much absorbed by the poet's recitation that not a whisper was heard. He evoked by the tones and tremor of his voice their sighs, their tears, their indignation. He was by turns gay, melancholy, artless, tender, arch, courteous, and declamatory. As the drama proceeded, the audience recognised the beauty of the plot and the poet's knowledge of the human heart. He touched with grace all the cords of his lyre. His poetry evidently came direct from his heart: it was as rare as it was delicious.

The success of the recitation was complete, and when Jasmin resumed his seat he received the most enthusiastic applause. As the whole of the receipts were, as usual, handed over by Jasminto the local charities, the assembly decided by acclamation that a subscription should be raised to present to the poet, who had been adopted by the city, some testimony of their admiration for his talent, and for his having first recited to them and dedicated to Toulouse his fine poem of Franconnette.

Jasmin handed over to the municipality the manuscript of his poem in a volume beautifully bound. The Mayor, in eloquent language, accepted the work, and acknowledged the fervent thanks of the citizens of Toulouse.

As at Bordeaux, Jasmin was feted and entertained by the most distinguished people of the city. At one of the numerous banquets at which he was present, he replied to the speech of the chairman by an impromptu in honour of those who had so splendidly entertained him. But, as he had already said: "Impromptus may be good money of the heart, but they are often the worst money of the head."{3}

On the day following the entertainment, Jasmin was invited to a "grand banquet" given by the coiffeurs of Toulouse, where they presented him with "a crown of immortelles and jasmines," and to them also he recited another of his impromptus.{4}

Franconnette was shortly after published, and the poem was received with almost as much applause by the public as it had been by the citizens of Toulouse. Sainte-beuve, the prince of French critics, said of the work:—

"In all his compositions Jasmin has a natural, touching idea; it is a history, either of his invention, or taken from some local tradition. With his facility as an improvisatore, aided by the patois in which he writes,... when he puts his dramatis personae into action, he endeavours to depict their thoughts, all their simple yet lively conversation, and to clothe them in words the most artless, simple, and transparent, and in a language true, eloquent, and sober: never forget this latter characteristic of Jasmin's works."{5}

M. de Lavergne says of Franconnette, that, of all Jasmin's work, it is the one in which he aimed at being most entirely popular, and that it is at the same time the most noble and the most chastened. He might also have added the most chivalrous. "There is something essentially knightly," says Miss Preston, "in Pascal's cast of character, and it is singular that at the supreme crisis of his fate he assumes, as if unconsciously, the very phraseology of chivalry.

"Some squire (donzel) should follow me to death. It is altogether natural and becoming in the high-minded smith."

M. Charles Nodier—Jasmin's old friend—was equally complimentary in his praises of Franconnette. When a copy of the poem was sent to him, with an accompanying letter, Nodier replied:—

"I have received with lively gratitude, my dear and illustrious friend, your beautiful verses, and your charming and affectionate letter. I have read them with great pleasure and profound admiration. A Although ill in bed, I have devoured Franconnette and the other poems. I observe, with a certain pride, that you have followed my advice, and that you think in that fine language which you recite so admirably, in place of translating the patois into French, which deprives it of its fullness and fairness. I thank you a thousand times for your very flattering epistle. I am too happy to expostulate with you seriously as to the gracious things you have said to me; my name will pass to posterity in the works of my friends; the glory of having been loved by you goes for a great deal."

The time at length arrived for the presentation of the testimonial of Toulouse to Jasmin. It consisted of a branch of laurel in gold. The artist who fashioned it was charged to put his best work into the golden laurel, so that it might be a chef d'oeuvre worthy of the city which conferred it, and of being treasured in the museum of their adopted poet. The work was indeed admirably executed. The stem was rough, as in nature, though the leaves were beautifully polished. It had a ribbon delicately ornamented, with the words "Toulouse a Jasmin."

When the work was finished and placed in its case, the Mayor desired to send it to Jasmin by a trusty messenger. He selected Mademoiselle Gasc, assisted by her father, advocate and member of the municipal council, to present the tribute to Jasmin. It ought to have been a fete day for the people of Agen, when their illustrious townsman, though a barber, was about to receive so cordial an appreciation of his poetical genius from the learned city of Toulouse. It ought also to have been a fete day for Jasmin himself.

But alas! an unhappy coincidence occurred which saddened the day that ought to have been a day of triumph for the poet. His mother was dying. When Mademoiselle Gasc, accompanied by her father, the Mayor of Agen, and other friends of Jasmin, entered the shop, they were informed that he was by the bedside of his mother, who was at death's door. The physician, who was consulted as to her state, said that there might only be sufficient time for Jasmin to receive the deputation.

He accordingly came out for a few moments from his mother's bed-side. M. Gasc explained the object of the visit, and read to

Jasmin the gracious letter of the Mayor of Toulouse, concluding as follows:—

"I thank you, in the name of the city of Toulouse, for the fine poem which you have dedicated to us. This branch of laurel will remind you of the youthful and beautiful Muse which has inspired you with such charming verses."

The Mayor of Agen here introduced Mademoiselle Gasc, who, in her turn, said:—

"And I also, sir, am most happy and proud of the mission which has been entrusted to me."

Then she presented him with the casket which contained the golden laurel. Jasmin responded in the lines entitled 'Yesterday and To-day,' from which the following words may be quoted:—

"Yesterday! Thanks, Toulouse, for our old language and for my poetry. Your beautiful golden branch ennobles both. And you who offer it to me, gracious messenger—queen of song and queen of hearts—tell your city of my perfect happiness, and that I never anticipated such an honour even in my most golden dreams.

"To-day! Fascinated by the laurel which Toulouse has sent me, and which fills my heart with joy, I cannot forget, my dear young lady, the sorrow which overwhelms me—the fatal illness of my mother—which makes me fear that the most joyful day of my life will also be the most sorrowful."

Jasmin's alarms were justified. His prayers were of no avail. His mother died with her hand in his shortly after the deputation had departed. Her husband had preceded her to the tomb a few years before. He always had a firm presentiment that he should be carried in the arm-chair to the hospital, "where all the Jasmins die." But Jasmin did his best to save his father from that indignity. He had already broken the arm-chair, and the old tailor died peacefully in the arms of his son.

Some four months after the recitation of Franconnette at Toulouse, Jasmin resumed his readings in the cause of charity. In October 1840 he visited Oleron, and was received with the usual enthusiasm; and on his return to Pau, he passed the obelisk erected to Despourrins, the Burns of the Pyrenees. At Pau he recited his Franconnette to an immense audience amidst frenzies of applause. It was alleged that the people of the Pyrenean country were prosaic and indifferent to art. But M. Dugenne, in the 'Memorial des Pyrenees,' said that it only wanted such a bewitching poet as Jasmin—with his vibrating and magical voice—to rouse them and set their minds on fire.

Another writer, M. Alfred Danger, paid him a still more delicate compliment.

"His poetry," he said, "is not merely the poetry of illusions; it is alive, and inspires every heart. His admirable delicacy! His profound tact in every verse! What aristocratic poet could better express in a higher degree the politeness of the heart, the truest of all politeness."{6}

Jasmin did not seem to be at all elated by these eulogiums. When he had finished his recitations, he returned to Agen, sometimes on foot, sometimes in the diligence, and quietly resumed his daily work. His success as a poet never induced him to resign his more humble occupation. Although he received some returns from the sale of his poems, he felt himself more independent by relying upon the income derived from his own business.

His increasing reputation never engendered in him, as is too often the case with self-taught geniuses who suddenly rise into fame, a supercilious contempt for the ordinary transactions of life. "After all," he said, "contentment is better than riches."

Endnotes to Chapter X.

{1} Journal de Toulouse, 4th July, 1840.

{2} The Society of the Jeux-Floraux derives its origin from the ancient Troubadours. It claims to be the oldest society of the kind in Europe. It is said to have been founded in the fourteenth century by Clemence Isaure, a Toulousian lady, to commemorate the "Gay Science." A meeting of the society is held every year, when prizes are distributed to the authors of the best compositions in prose and verse. It somewhat resembles the annual meeting of the Eisteddfod, held for awarding prizes to the bards and composers of Wales.

{3} The following was his impromptu to the savants of Toulouse, 4th July, 1840:—

"Oh, bon Dieu! que de gloire! Oh, bon Dieu! que d'honneurs! Messieurs, ce jour pour ma Muse est bien doux; Mais maintenant, d'etre quitte j'ai perdu l'esperance: Car je viens, plus fier que jamais, Vous payer ma reconnaissance, Et je m'endette que plus!"

{4} This is the impromptu, given on the 5th July, 1840:

"Toulouse m'a donne un beau bouquet d'honneur; Votre festin, amis, en est une belle fleur; Aussi, clans les plaisirs de cette longue fete, Quand je veux remercier de cela, Je poursuis mon esprit pour ne pas etre en reste Ici, l'esprit me nait et tombe de mon coeur!"

{5} 'Causeries du Lundi,' iv. 240 (edit. 1852).

{6} "La politesse du coeur," a French expression which can scarcely be translated into English; just as "gentleman" has no precise equivalent in French.



CHAPTER XI. JASMIN'S VISIT TO PARIS.

Jasmin had been so often advised to visit Paris and test his powers there, that at length he determined to proceed to the capital of France. It is true, he had been eulogized in the criticisms of Sainte-Beuve, Leonce de Lavergne, Charles Nodier, and Charles de Mazade; but he desired to make the personal acquaintance of some of these illustrious persons, as well as to see his son, who was then settled in Paris. It was therefore in some respects a visit of paternal affection as well as literary reputation. He set out for Paris in the month of May 1842.

Jasmin was a boy in his heart and feelings, then as always. Indeed, he never ceased to be a boy—in his manners, his gaiety, his artlessness, and his enjoyment of new pleasures.

What a succession of wonders to him was Paris—its streets, its boulevards, its Tuileries, its Louvre, its Arc de Triomphe—reminding him of the Revolution and the wars of the first Napoleon.

Accompanied by his son Edouard, he spent about a week in visiting the most striking memorials of the capital. They visited together the Place de la Concorde, the Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame, the Madeleine, the Champs Elysees, and most of the other sights. At the Colonne Vendome, Jasmin raised his head, looked up, and stood erect, proud of the glories of France. He saw all these things for the first time, but they had long been associated with his recollections of the past.

There are "country cousins" in Paris as well as in London. They are known by their dress, their manners, their amazement at all they see. When Jasmin stood before the Vendome Column, he extended his hand as if he were about to recite one of his poems. "Oh, my son," he exclaimed, "such glories as these are truly magnificent!" The son, who was familiar with the glories, was rather disposed to laugh. He desired, for decorum's sake, to repress his father's exclamations. He saw the people standing about to hear his father's words. "Come," said the young man, "let us go to the Madeleine, and see that famous church." "Ah, Edouard," said Jasmin, "I can see well enough that you are not a poet; not you indeed!"

During his visit, Jasmin wrote regularly to his wife and friends at Agen, giving them his impressions of Paris. His letters were full of his usual simplicity, brightness, boyishness, and enthusiasm. "What wonderful things I have already seen," he said in one of his letters, "and how many more have I to see to-morrow and the following days. M. Dumon, Minister of Public Works" (Jasmin's compatriot and associate at the Academy of Agen), "has given me letters of admission to Versailles, Saint-Cloud, Meudon in fact, to all the public places that I have for so long a time been burning to see and admire."

After a week's tramping about, and seeing the most attractive sights of the capital, Jasmin bethought him of his literary friends and critics. The first person he called upon was Sainte-Beuve, at the Mazarin Library, of which he was director. "He received me like a brother," said Jasmin, "and embraced me. He said the most flattering things about my Franconnette, and considered it an improvement upon L'Aveugle. 'Continue,' he said, 'my good friend' and you will take a place in the brightest poetry of our epoch.' In showing me over the shelves in the Library containing the works of the old poets, which are still read and admired, he said, 'Like them, you will never die.'"

Jasmin next called upon Charles Nodier and Jules Janin. Nodier was delighted to see his old friend, and after a long conversation, Jasmin said that "he left him with tears in his eyes." Janin complimented him upon his works, especially upon his masterly use of the Gascon language. "Go on," he said, "and write your poetry in the patois which always appears to me so delicious. You possess the talent necessary for the purpose; it is so genuine and rare."

The Parisian journals mentioned Jasmin's appearance in the capital; the most distinguished critics had highly approved of his works; and before long he became the hero of the day. The modest hotel in which he stayed during his visit, was crowded with visitors. Peers, ministers, deputies, journalists, members of the French Academy, came to salute the author of the 'Papillotos.'

The proprietor of the hotel began to think that he was entertaining some prince in disguise—that he must have come from some foreign court to negotiate secretly some lofty questions of state. But when he was entertained at a banquet by the barbers and hair-dressers of Paris, the opinions of "mine host" underwent a sudden alteration. He informed Jasmin's son that he could scarcely believe that ministers of state would bother themselves with a country peruke-maker! The son laughed; he told the maitre d'hotel that his bill would be paid, and that was all he need to care for.

Jasmin was not, however, without his detractors. Even in his own country, many who had laughed heartily and wept bitterly while listening to his voice, feared lest they might have given vent to their emotions against the legitimate rules of poetry. Some of the Parisian critics were of opinion that he was immensely overrated. They attributed the success of the Gascon poet to the liveliness of the southerners, who were excited by the merest trifles; and they suspected that Jasmin, instead of being a poet, was but a clever gasconader, differing only from the rest of his class by speaking in verse instead of prose.

Now that Jasmin was in the capital, his real friends, who knew his poetical powers, desired him to put an end to these prejudices by reciting before a competent tribunal some of his most admired verses. He would have had no difficulty in obtaining a reception at the Tuileries. He had already received several kind favours from the Duke and Duchess of Orleans while visiting Agen. The Duke had presented him with a ring set in brilliants, and the Duchess had given him a gold pin in the shape of a flower, with a fine pearl surrounded by diamonds, in memory of their visit. It was this circumstance which induced him to compose his poem 'La Bago et L'Esplingo' (La Bague et L'Epingle) which he dedicated to the Duchess of Orleans.

But Jasmin aimed higher than the Royal family. His principal desire was to attend the French Academy; but as the Academy did not permit strangers to address their meetings, Jasmin was under the necessity of adopting another method. The Salons were open.

M. Leonce de Lavergne said to him: "You are now classed among our French poets; give us a recitation in Gascon." Jasmin explained that he could not give his reading before the members of the Academy. "That difficulty," said his friend, "can soon be got over: I will arrange for a meeting at the salon of one of our most distinguished members."

It was accordingly arranged that Jasmin should give a reading at the house of M. Augustin Thierry, one of the greatest of living historians. The elite of Parisian society were present on the occasion, including Ampere, Nizard, Burnouf, Ballanche, Villemain, and many distinguished personages of literary celebrity.

A word as to Jasmin's distinguished entertainer, M. Augustin Thierry. He had written the 'History of the Conquest of England by the Normans'—an original work of great value, though since overshadowed by the more minute 'History of the Norman Conquest,' by Professor Freeman. Yet Thierry's work is still of great interest, displaying gifts of the highest and rarest kind in felicitous combination. It shows the careful plodding of the antiquary, the keen vision of the man of the world, the passionate fervour of the politician, the calm dignity of the philosophic thinker, and the grandeur of the epic poet. Thierry succeeded in exhuming the dry bones of history, clothing them for us anew, and presenting almost visibly the "age and body of the times" long since passed away.

Thierry had also written his 'Narratives of the Merovingian Times,' and revived almost a lost epoch in the early history of France. In writing out these and other works—the results of immense labour and research—he partly lost his eyesight. He travelled into Switzerland and the South of France in the company of M. Fauriel. He could read no more, and towards the end of the year the remains of his sight entirely disappeared. He had now to read with the eyes of others, and to dictate instead of writing. In his works he was assisted by the friendship of M. Armand Carrel, and the affection and judgment of his loving young wife.

He proceeded with courage, and was able to complete the fundamental basis of the two Frankish dynasties. He was about to follow his investigations into the history of the Goths, Huns, and Vandals, and other races which had taken part in the dismemberment of the empire. "However extended these labours," he says,{1} "my complete blindness could not have prevented my going through them; I was resigned as much as a courageous man can be: I had made a friendship with darkness. But other trials came: acute sufferings and the decline of my health announced a nervous disease of the most serious kind. I was obliged to confess myself conquered, and to save, if it was still time, the last remains of my health."

The last words of Thierry's Autobiographical Preface are most touching. "If, as I delight in thinking, the interest of science is counted in the number of great national interests, I have given my country all that the soldier mutilated on the field of battle gives her. Whatever may be the fate of my labours, this example I hope will not be lost. I would wish it to serve to combat the species of moral weakness which is the disease of the present generation; to bring back into the straight road of life some of those enervated souls that complain of wanting faith, that know not what to do, and seek everywhere, without finding it, an object of worship and admiration. Why say, with so much bitterness, that in this world, constituted as it is, there is no air for all lungs, no employment for all minds? Is there not opportunity for calm and serious study? and is not that a refuge, a hope, a field within the reach of all of us? With it, evil days are passed over without their weight being felt; every one can make his own destiny; every one can employ his life nobly. This is what I have done, and would do again if I had to recommence my career: I would choose that which has brought me to where I am. Blind, and suffering without hope, and almost without intermission, I may give this testimony, which from me will not appear suspicious; there is something in this world better than sensual enjoyments, better than fortune, better than health itself: it is devotion to science."

Endnotes for Chapter XI.

{1} Autobiographical Preface to the 'Narratives of the Merovingian Times.'



CHAPTER XII. JASMIN'S RECITATIONS IN PARIS.

It was a solemn and anxious moment for Jasmin when he appeared before this select party of the most distinguished literary men in Paris: he was no doubt placed at a considerable disadvantage, for his judges did not even know his language. He had frequently recited to audiences who did not know Gascon; and on such occasions he used, before commencing his recitation, to give in French a short sketch of his poem, with, an explanation of some of the more difficult Gascon words. This was all; his mimic talent did the rest. His gestures were noble and well-marked. His eyes were flashing, but they became languishing when he represented tender sentiments. Then his utterance changed entirely, often suddenly, following the expressions of grief and joy. There were now smiles, now tears in his voice.

It was remarkable that Jasmin should first recite before the blind historian The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille. It may be that he thought it his finest poem, within the compass of time allotted to him, and that it might best please his audience. When he began to speak in Gascon he was heard with interest. A laugh was, indeed, raised by a portion of his youthful hearers, but Jasmin flashed his penetrating eye upon them; and there was no more laughter. When he reached the tenderest part he gave way to his emotion, and wept. Tears are as contagious as smiles; and even the academicians, who may not have wept with Rachel, wept with Jasmin. It was the echo of sorrow to sorrow; the words which blind despair had evoked from the blind Margaret.

All eyes were turned to Thierry as Jasmin described the girl's blindness. The poet omitted some of the more painful lines, which might have occasioned sorrow to his kind entertainer. These lines, for instance, in Gascon:

"Jour per aoutres, toutjour! et per jou, malhurouzo, Toutjour ney! toutjour ney! Que fay negre len d'el! Oh! que moun amo es tristo! Oh! que souffri, moun Diou! Couro ben doun, Batisto!"

or, as translated by Longfellow:

"Day for the others ever, but for me For ever night! for ever night! When he is gone, 'tis dark! my soul is sad! I suffer! O my God! come, make me glad."

When Jasmin omitted this verse, Thierry, who had listened with rapt attention, interrupted him. "Poet," he said, "you have omitted a passage; read the poem as you have written it." Jasmin paused, and then added the omitted passage. "Can it be?" said the historian: "surely you, who can describe so vividly the agony of those who cannot see, must yourself have suffered blindness!" The words of Jasmin might have been spoken by Thierry himself, who in his hours of sadness often said, "I see nothing but darkness today."

At the end of his recital Jasmin was much applauded. Ampere, who had followed him closely in the French translation of his poem, said: "If Jasmin had never written verse, it would be worth going a hundred leagues to listen to his prose." What charmed his auditors most was his frankness. He would even ask them to listen to what he thought his best verses. "This passage," he would say, "is very fine." Then he read it afresh, and was applauded. He liked to be cheered. "Applaud! applaud!" he said at the end of his reading, "the clapping of your hands will be heard at Agen."

After the recitation an interesting conversation took place. Jasmin was asked how it was that he first began to write poetry; for every one likes to know the beginnings of self-culture. He thereupon entered into a brief history of his life; how he had been born poor; how his grandfather had died at the hospital; and how he had been brought up by charity. He described his limited education and his admission to the barber's shop; his reading of Florian; his determination to do something of a similar kind; his first efforts, his progress, and eventually his success. He said that his object was to rely upon nature and truth, and to invest the whole with imagination and sensibility—that delicate touch which vibrated through all the poems he had written. His auditors were riveted by his sparkling and brilliant conversation.

This seance at M. Thierry's completed the triumph of Jasmin at Paris. The doors of the most renowned salons were thrown open to him. The most brilliant society in the capital listened to him and feted him. Madame de Remusat sent him a present of a golden pen, with the words: "I admire your beautiful poetry; I never forget you; accept this little gift as a token of my sincere admiration." Lamartine described Jasmin, perhaps with some exaggeration, as the truest and most original of modern poets.

Much of Jasmin's work was no doubt the result of intuition, for "the poet is born, not made." He was not so much the poet of art as of instinct. Yet M. Charles de Mazede said of him: "Left to himself, without study, he carried art to perfection." His defect of literary education perhaps helped him, by leaving him to his own natural instincts. He himself said, with respect to the perusal of books: "I constantly read Lafontaine, Victor Hugo, Lamartine and Beranger." It is thus probable that he may have been influenced to a considerable extent by his study of the works of others.

Before Jasmin left Paris he had the honour of being invited to visit the royal family at the palace of Neuilly, a favourite residence of Louis Philippe. The invitation was made through General de Rumigny, who came to see the poet at his hotel for the purpose. Jasmin had already made the acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, while at Agen a few years before. His visit to Neuilly was made on the 24th of May, 1842. He was graciously received by the royal family. The Duchess of Orleans took her seat beside him. She read the verse in Gascon which had been engraved on the pedestal of the statue at Nerac, erected to the memory of Henry IV. The poet was surprised as well as charmed by her condescension. "What, Madame," he exclaimed, "you speak the patois?" "El jou tabe" (and I also), said Louis Philippe, who came and joined the Princess and the poet. Never was Jasmin more pleased than when he heard the words of the King at such a moment.

Jasmin was placed quite at his ease by this gracious reception. The King and the Duchess united in desiring him to recite some of his poetry. He at once complied with their request, and recited his Caritat and L'Abuglo ('The Blind Girl'). After this the party engaged in conversation. Jasmin, by no means a courtier, spoke of the past, of Henry IV., and especially of Napoleon—"L'Ampereur," as he described him. Jasmin had, in the first volume of his 'Papillotos,' written some satirical pieces on the court and ministers of Louis Philippe. His friends wished him to omit these pieces from the new edition of his works, which was about to be published; but he would not consent to do so. "I must give my works," he said, "just as they were composed; their suppression would be a negation of myself, and an act of adulation unworthy of any true-minded man." Accordingly they remained in the 'Papillotos.'

Before he left the royal party, the Duchess of Orleans presented Jasmin with a golden pin, ornamented with pearls and diamonds; and the King afterwards sent him, as a souvenir of his visit to the Court, a beautiful gold watch, ornamented with diamonds. Notwithstanding the pleasure of this visit, Jasmin, as with a prophetic eye, saw the marks of sorrow upon the countenance of the King, who was already experiencing the emptiness of human glory. Scarcely had Jasmin left the palace when he wrote to his friend Madame de Virens, at Agen: "On that noble face I could see, beneath the smile, the expression of sadness; so that from to-day I can no longer say: 'Happy as a King.'"

Another entertainment, quite in contrast with his visit to the King, was the banquet which Jasmin received from the barbers and hair-dressers of Paris. He there recited the verses which he had written in their honour. M. Boisjoslin{1} says that half the barbers of Paris are Iberiens. For the last three centuries, in all the legends and anecdotes, the barber is always a Gascon. The actor, the singer, often came from Provence, but much oftener from Gascony: that is the country of la parole.

During Jasmin's month at Paris he had been unable to visit many of the leading literary men; but he was especially anxious to see M. Chateaubriand, the father of modern French literature. Jasmin was fortunate in finding Chateaubriand at home, at 112 Rue du Bac. He received Jasmin with cordiality. "I know you intimately already," said the author of the 'Genius of Christianity;' "my friends Ampere and Fauriel have often spoken of you. They understand you, they love and admire you. They acknowledge your great talent,' though they have long since bade their adieu to poetry; you know poets are very wayward," he added, with a sly smile. "You have a happy privilege, my dear sir: when our age turns prosy, you have but to take your lyre, in the sweet country of the south, and resuscitate the glory of the Troubadours. They tell me, that in one of your recent journeys you evoked enthusiastic applause, and entered many towns carpeted with flowers. Ah, mon Dieu, we can never do that with our prose!"

"Ah, dear sir," said Jasmin, "you have achieved much more glory than I. Without mentioning the profound respect with which all France regards you, posterity and the world will glorify you."

"Glory, indeed," replied Chateaubriand, with a sad smile. "What is that but a flower that fades and dies; but speak to me of your sweet south; it is beautiful. I think of it, as of Italy; indeed it sometimes seems to me better than that glorious country!"

Notwithstanding his triumphant career at Paris, Jasmin often thought of Agen, and of his friends and relations at home. "Oh, my wife, my children, my guitar, my workshop, my papillotos, my pleasant Gravier, my dear good friends, with what pleasure I shall again see you." That was his frequent remark in his letters to Agen. He was not buoyed up by the praises he had received. He remained, as usual, perfectly simple in his thoughts, ways, and habits; and when the month had elapsed, he returned joyfully to his daily work at Agen.

Jasmin afterwards described the recollections of his visit in his 'Voyage to Paris' (Moun Bouyatage a Paris). It was a happy piece of poetry; full of recollections of the towns and departments through which he journeyed, and finally of his arrival in Paris. Then the wonders of the capital, the crowds in the streets, the soldiers, the palaces, the statues and columns, the Tuileries where the Emperor had lived.

"I pass, and repass, not a soul I know, Not one Agenais in this hurrying crowd; No one salutes or shakes me by the hand."

And yet, he says, what a grand world it is! how tasteful! how fashionable! There seem to be no poor. They are all ladies and gentlemen. Each day is a Sabbath; and under the trees the children play about the fountains. So different from Agen! He then speaks of his interview with Louis Philippe and the royal family, his recital of L'Abuglo before "great ladies, great writers, lords, ministers, and great savants;" and he concludes his poem with the words: "Paris makes me proud, but Agen makes me happy."

The poem is full of the impressions of his mind at the time—simple, clear, naive. It is not a connected narrative, nor a description of what he saw, but it was full of admiration of Paris, the centre of France, and, as Frenchmen think, of civilisation. It is the simple wonder of the country cousin who sees Paris for the first time—the city that had so long been associated with his recollections of the past. And perhaps he seized its more striking points more vividly than any regular denizen of the capital.

Endnotes for Chapter XII.

{1} 'Les Peuples de la France: Ethnographie Nationale.' (Didier.)



CHAPTER XIII. JASMIN AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS.

Jasmin's visit to Paris in 1842 made his works more extensively known, both at home and abroad. His name was frequently mentioned in the Parisian journals, and Frenchmen north of the Loire began to pride themselves on their Gascon poet. His Blind Girl had been translated into English, Spanish, and Italian. The principal English literary journal, the Athenaeum, called attention to his works a few months after his appearance in Paris.{1} The editor introduced the subject in the following words:

"On the banks of the Garonne, in the picturesque and ancient town of Agen, there exists at this moment a man of genius of the first order—a rustic Beranger, a Victor Hugo, a Lamartine—a poet full of fire, originality, and feeling—an actor superior to any now in France, excepting Rachel, whom he resembles both in his powers of declamation and his fortunes. He is not unknown—he is no mute inglorious Milton; for the first poets, statesmen, and men of letters in France have been to visit him. His parlour chimney-piece, behind his barber's shop, is covered with offerings to his genius from royalty and rank. His smiling, dark-eyed wife, exhibits to the curious the tokens of her husband's acknowledged merit; and gold and jewels shine in the eyes of the astonished stranger, who, having heard his name, is led to stroll carelessly into the shop, attracted by a gorgeous blue cloth hung outside, on which he may have read the words, Jasmin, Coiffeur."

After mentioning the golden laurels, and the gifts awarded to him by those who acknowledged his genius, the editor proceeds to mention his poems in the Gascon dialect—his Souvenirs his Blind Girl and his Franconnette—and then refers to his personal appearance. "Jasmin is handsome in person, with eyes full of intelligence, of good features, a mobility of expression absolutely electrifying, a manly figure and an agreeable address; but his voice is harmony itself, and its changes have an effect seldom experienced on or off the stage. The melody attributed to Mrs. Jordan seems to approach it nearest. Had he been an actor instead of a poet, he would have 'won all hearts his way'... On the whole, considering the spirit, taste, pathos, and power of this poet, who writes in a patois hitherto confined to the lower class of people in a remote district—considering the effect that his verses have made among educated persons, both French and foreign, it is impossible not to look upon him as one of the remarkable characters of his age, and to award him, as the city of Clemence Isaure has done, the Golden Laurel, as the first of the revived Troubadours, destined perhaps to rescue his country from the reproach of having buried her poetry in the graves of Alain Chartier and Charles of Orleans, four centuries ago."

It is probable that this article in the Athenaeum was written by Miss Louisa Stuart Costello, who had had an interview with the poet, in his house at Agen, some years before. While making her tour through Auvergne and Languedoc in 1840,{2} she states that she picked up three charming ballads, and was not aware that they had ever been printed. She wrote them down merely by ear, and afterwards translated Me cal Mouri into English (see page 57). The ballad was very popular, and was set to music. She did not then know the name of the composer, but when she ascertained that the poet was "one Jasmin of Agen," she resolved to go out of her way and call upon him, when on her journey to the Pyrenees about two years later.{3} She had already heard much about him before she arrived, as he was regarded in Gascony as "the greatest poet in modern times." She had no difficulty in finding his shop at the entrance to the Promenade du Gravier, with the lines in large gold letters, "Jasmin, Coiffeur"

Miss Costello entered, and was welcomed by a smiling dark-eyed woman, who informed her that her husband was busy at that moment dressing a customer's hair, but begged that she would walk into his parlour at the back of the shop. Madame Jasmin took advantage of her husband's absence to exhibit the memorials which he had received for his gratuitous services on behalf of the public. There was the golden laurel from the city of Toulouse; the golden cup from the citizens of Auch, the gold watch with chain and seals from "Le Roi" Louis Philippe, the ring presented by the Duke of Orleans, the pearl pin from the Duchess, the fine service of linen presented by the citizens of Pau, with other offerings from persons of distinction.

At last Jasmin himself appeared, having dressed his customer's hair. Miss Costello describes his manner as well-bred and lively, and his language as free and unembarrassed. He said, however, that he was ill, and too hoarse to read. He spoke in a broad Gascon accent, very rapidly and even eloquently. He told the story of his difficulties and successes; how his grandfather had been a beggar, and all his family very poor, but that now he was as rich as he desired to be. His son, he said, was placed in a good position at Nantes, and he exhibited his picture with pride. Miss Costello told him that she had seen his name mentioned in an English Review. Jasmin said the review had been sent to him by Lord Durham, who had paid him a visit; and then Miss Costello spoke of Me cal Mouri, as the first poem of his that she had seen. "Oh," said he, "that little song is not my best composition: it was merely my first."

His heart was now touched. He immediately forgot his hoarseness, and proceeded to read some passages from his poems. "If I were only well," said he, "and you would give me the pleasure of your company for some time, I would kill you with weeping: I would make you die with distress for my poor Margarido, my pretty Franconnette." He then took up two copies of his Las Papillotos, handed one to Miss Costello, where the translation was given in French, and read from the other in Gascon.

"He began," says the lady, "in a rich soft voice, and as we advanced we found ourselves carried away by the spell of his enthusiasm. His eyes swam in tears; he became pale and red; he trembled; he recovered himself; his face was now joyous, now exulting, gay, jocose; in fact, he was twenty actors in one; he rang the changes from Rachel to Bouffe; and he finished by relieving us of our tears, and overwhelming us with astonishment. He would have been a treasure on the stage; for he is still, though his youth is past, remarkably good-looking and striking; with black, sparkling eyes of intense expression; a fine ruddy complexion; a countenance of wondrous mobility; a good figure, and action full of fire and grace: he has handsome hands, which he uses with infinite effect; and on the whole he is the best actor of the kind I ever saw. I could now quite understand what a Troubadour or jongleur he might be; and I look upon Jasmin as a revived specimen of that extinct race."

Miss Costello proceeded on her journey to Bearn and the Pyrenees, and on her return northwards she again renewed her acquaintance with Jasmin and his dark-eyed wife. "I did not expect," she says, "that I should be recognised; but the moment I entered the little shop I was hailed as an old friend. 'Ah' cried Jasmin, 'enfin la voila encore!' I could not but be flattered by this recollection, but soon found that it was less on my own account that I was thus welcomed, than because circumstances had occurred to the poet that I might perhaps explain. He produced several French newspapers, in which he pointed out to me an article headed 'Jasmin a Londres,' being a translation of certain notices of himself which had appeared in a leading English literary journal the Athenaeum.... I enjoyed his surprise, while I informed him that I knew who was the reviewer and translator; and explained the reason for the verses giving pleasure in an English dress, to the superior simplicity of the English language over modern French, for which he had a great contempt, as unfitted for lyrical composition.{4} He inquired of me respecting Burns, to whom he had been likened, and begged me to tell him something about Moore.

"He had a thousand things to tell me; in particular, that he had only the day before received a letter from the Duchess of Orleans, informing him that she had ordered a medal of her late husband to be struck, the first of which should be sent to him. He also announced the agreeable news of the King having granted him a pension of a thousand francs. He smiled and wept by turns as he told all this; and declared that, much as he was elated at the possession of a sum which made him a rich man for life (though it was only equal to 42 sterling), the kindness of the Duchess gratified him still more.

"He then made us sit down while he read us two new poems; both charming, and full of grace and naivete; and one very affecting, being an address to the King, alluding, to the death of his son.

"As he read, his wife stood by, and fearing that we did not comprehend the language, she made a remark to that effect, to which he answered impatiently, 'Nonsense! don't you see they are in tears?' This was unanswerable; we were allowed to hear the poem to the end, and I certainly never listened to anything more feelingly and energetically delivered.

"We had much conversation, for he was anxious to detain us; and in the course of it, he told me that he had been by some accused of vanity. 'Oh!' he exclaimed, 'what would you have? I am a child of nature, and cannot conceal my feelings; the only difference between me and a man of refinement is, that he knows how to conceal his vanity and exaltation at success, while I let everybody see my emotions.'

"His wife drew me aside, and asked my opinion as to how much money it would cost to pay Jasmin's expenses, if he undertook a journey to England. 'However,' she added, 'I dare say he need be at no charge, for of course your Queen has read that article in his favour, and knows his merit. She probably will send for him, pay all the expenses of his journey, and give him great fetes in London!" Miss Costello, knowing the difficulty of obtaining Royal recognition of literary merit in England, unless it appears in forma pauperis, advised the barber-poet to wait till he was sent for—a very good advice, for then it would be never! She concludes her recollections with this remark: "I left the happy pair, promising to let them know the effect that the translation of Jasmin's poetry produced in the Royal mind. Indeed, their earnest simplicity was really entertaining."

A contributor to the Westminster Review{5} also gave a very favourable notice of Jasmin and his poetry, which, he said, was less known in England than it deserved to be; nor was it well known in France since he wrote in a patois. Yet he had been well received by some of the most illustrious men in the capital, where unaided genius, to be successful, must be genius indeed; and there the Gascon bard had acquired for himself a fame of which any man might well be proud.

The reviewer said that the Gascon patois was peculiarly expressive and heart-touching, and in the South it was held in universal honour. Jasmin, he continued, is what Burns was to the Scottish peasantry; only he received his honours in his lifetime. The comparison with Burns, however, was not appropriate. Burns had more pith, vigour, variety, and passion, than Jasmin who was more of a descriptive writer. In some respects Jasmin resembled Allan Ramsay, a barber and periwig-maker, like himself, whose Gentle Shepherd met with as great a success as Jasmin's Franconnette. Jasmin, however, was the greater poet of the two.

The reviewer in the Westminster, who had seen Jasmin at Agen, goes on to speak of the honours he had received in the South and at Paris—his recitations in the little room behind his shop—his personal appearance, his hearty and simple manners—and yet his disdain of the mock modesty it would be affectation to assume. The reviewer thus concludes: "From the first prepossessing, he gains upon you every moment; and when he is fairly launched into the recital of one of his poems, his rich voice does full justice to the harmonious Gascon. The animation and feeling he displays becomes contagious. Your admiration kindles, and you become involved in his ardour. You forget the little room in which he recites; you altogether forget the barber, and rise with him into a superior world, an experience in a way you will never forget, the power exercised by a true poet when pouring forth his living thoughts in his own verses....

"Such is Jasmin—lively in imagination, warm in temperament, humorous, playful, easily made happy, easily softened, enthusiastically fond of his province, of its heroes, of its scenery, of its language, and of its manners. He is every inch a Gascon, except that he has none of that consequential self-importance, or of the love of boasting and exaggeration, which, falsely or not, is said to characterise his countrymen.

"Born of the people, and following a humble trade, he is proud of both circumstances; his poems are full of allusions to his calling; and without ever uttering a word in disparagment of other classes, he everywhere sings the praises of his own. He stands by his order. It is from it he draws his poetry; it is there he finds his romance.

"And this is his great charm, as it is his chief distinction. He invests virtue, however lowly, with the dignity that belongs to it. He rewards merit, however obscure, with its due honour. Whatever is true or beautiful or good, finds from him an immediate sympathy. The true is never rejected by him because it is commonplace; nor the beautiful because it is everyday; nor the good because it is not also great. He calls nothing unclean but vice and crime, He sees meanness in nothing but in the sham, the affectation, and the spangles of outward show.

"But while it is in exalting lowly excellence that Jasmin takes especial delight, he is not blind, as some are, to excellence in high places. All he seeks is the sterling and the real. He recognises the sparkle of the diamond as well as that of the dewdrop. But he will not look upon paste.

"He is thus pre-eminently the poet of nature; not, be it understood, of inanimate nature only, but of nature also, as it exists in our thoughts, and words, and acts of nature as it is to be found living and moving in humanity. But we cannot paint him so well as he paints himself. We well remember how, in his little shop at Agen, he described to us what he believed to be characteristic of his poetry; and we find in a letter from him to M. Leonce de Lavergne the substance of what he then said to us:

"'I believe,' he said, 'that I have portrayed a part of the noble sentiments which men and women may experience here below. I believe that I have emancipated myself more than anyone has ever done from every school, and I have placed myself in more direct communication with nature. My poetry comes from my heart. I have taken my pictures from around me in the most humble conditions of men; and I have done for my native language all that I could.'"

A few years later Mr. Angus B. Reach, a well-known author, and a contributor to Punch in its earlier days, was appointed a commissioner by the Morning Chronicle to visit, for industrial purposes, the districts in the South of France. His reports appeared in the Chronicle; but in 1852, Mr. Reach published a fuller account of his journeys in a volume entitled 'Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone.'{6} In passing through the South of France, Mr. Reach stopped at Agen. "One of my objects," he says, "was to pay a literary visit to a very remarkable man—Jasmin, the peasant-poet of Provence and Languedoc—the 'Last of the Troubadours,' as, with more truth than is generally to be found in ad captandum designations, he terms himself, and is termed by the wide circle of his admirers; for Jasmin's songs and rural epics are written in the patois of the people, and that patois is the still almost unaltered Langue d'Oc—the tongue of the chivalric minstrelsy of yore.

"But Jasmin is a Troubadour in another sense than that of merely availing himself of the tongue of the menestrels. He publishes, certainly, conforming so far to the usages of our degenerate modern times; but his great triumphs are his popular recitations of his poems. Standing bravely up before an expectant assembly of perhaps a couple of thousand persons—the hot-blooded and quick-brained children of the South—the modern Troubadour plunges over head and ears into his lays, evoking both himself and his applauding audiences into fits of enthusiasm and excitement, which, whatever may be the excellence of the poetry, an Englishman finds it difficult to conceive or account for.

"The raptures of the New Yorkers and Bostonians with Jenny Lind are weak and cold compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At a recitation given shortly before my visit to Auch, the ladies present actually tore the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them into extempore garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting minstrel; while the editors of the local papers next morning assured him, in floods of flattering epigrams, that humble as he was now, future ages would acknowledge the 'divinity' of a Jasmin!

"There is a feature, however, about these recitations which is still more extraordinary than the uncontrollable fits of popular enthusiasm which they produce. His last entertainment before I saw him was given in one of the Pyrenean cities, and produced 2,000 francs. Every sous of this went to the public charities; Jasmin will not accept a stiver of money so earned. With a species of perhaps overstrained, but certainly exalted, chivalric feeling, he declines to appear before an audience to exhibit for money the gifts with which nature has endowed him.

"After, perhaps, a brilliant tour through the South of France, delighting vast audiences in every city, and flinging many thousands of francs into every poor-box which he passes, the poet contentedly returns to his humble occupation, and to the little shop where he earns his daily bread by his daily toil as a barber and hair-dresser. It will be generally admitted that the man capable of self-denial of so truly heroic a nature as this, is no ordinary poetaster.

"One would be puzzled to find a similar instance of perfect and absolute disinterestedness in the roll of minstrels, from Homer downwards; and, to tell the truth, there does seem a spice of Quixotism mingled with and tinging the pure fervour of the enthusiast. Certain it is, that the Troubadours of yore, upon whose model Jasmin professes to found his poetry, were by no means so scrupulous. 'Largesse' was a very prominent word in their vocabulary; and it really seems difficult to assign any satisfactory reason for a man refusing to live upon the exercise of the finer gifts of his intellect, and throwing himself for his bread upon the daily performance of mere mechanical drudgery.

"Jasmin, as may be imagined, is well known in Agen. I was speedily directed to his abode, near the open Place of the town, and within earshot of the rush of the Garonne; and in a few moments I found myself pausing before the lintel of the modest shop inscribed Jasmin, Perruquier, Coiffeur des jeunes Gens. A little brass basin dangled above the threshold; and looking through the glass I saw the master of the establishment shaving a fat-faced neighbour. Now I had come to see and pay my compliments to a poet, and there did appear to me to be something strangely awkward and irresistibly ludicrous in having to address, to some extent, in a literary and complimentary vein, an individual actually engaged in so excessively prosaic and unelevated a species of performance.

"I retreated, uncertain what to do, and waited outside until the shop was clear. Three words explained the nature of my visit, and Jasmin received me with a species of warm courtesy, which was very peculiar and very charming; dashing at once, with the most clattering volubility and fiery speed of tongue, into a sort of rhapsodical discourse upon poetry in general, and the patois of it, spoken in Languedoc, Provence, and Gascony in particular.

"Jasmin is a well-built and strongly limbed man of about fifty, with a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, overhanging two piercingly bright black-eyes, and features which would be heavy, were they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of the facial muscles, sending a never-ending series of varying expressions across the dark, swarthy visage. Two sentences of his conversation were quite sufficient to stamp his individuality.

"The first thing which struck me was the utter absence of all the mock-modesty, and the pretended self-underrating, conventionally assumed by persons expecting to be complimented upon their sayings or doings. Jasmin seemed thoroughly to despise all such flimsy hypocrisy. 'God only made four Frenchmen poets,' he burst out with, 'and their names are, Corneille, Lafontaine, Beranger, and Jasmin!'

"Talking with the most impassioned vehemence, and the most redundant energy of gesture, he went on to declaim against the influences of civilisation upon language and manners as being fatal to all real poetry. If the true inspiration yet existed upon earth, it burned in the hearts and brains of men far removed from cities, salons, and the clash and din of social influences. Your only true poets were the unlettered peasants, who poured forth their hearts in song, not because they wished to make poetry, but because they were joyous and true.

"Colleges, academies, schools of learning, schools of literature, and all such institutions, Jasmin denounced as the curse and the bane of true poetry. They had spoiled, he said, the very French language. You could no more write poetry in French now than you could in arithmetical figures. The language had been licked and kneaded, and tricked out, and plumed, and dandified, and scented, and minced, and ruled square, and chipped—(I am trying to give an idea of the strange flood of epithets he used)—and pranked out, and polished, and muscadined—until, for all honest purposes of true high poetry, it was mere unavailable and contemptible jargon.

"It might do for cheating agents de change on the Bourse—for squabbling politicians in the Chambers—for mincing dandies in the salons—for the sarcasm of Scribe-ish comedies, or the coarse drolleries of Palais Royal farces, but for poetry the French language was extinct. All modern poets who used it were faiseurs de phrase—thinking about words and not feelings. 'No, no,' my Troubadour continued, 'to write poetry, you must get the language of a rural people—a language talked among fields, and trees, and by rivers and mountains—a language never minced or disfigured by academies and dictionary-makers, and journalists; you must have a language like that which your own Burns, whom I read of in Chateaubriand, used; or like the brave, old, mellow tongue—unchanged for centuries—stuffed with the strangest, quaintest, richest, raciest idioms and odd solemn words, full of shifting meanings and associations, at once pathetic and familiar, homely and graceful—the language which I write in, and which has never yet been defiled by calculating men of science or jack-a-dandy litterateurs.'" The above sentences may be taken as a specimen of the ideas with which Jasmin seemed to be actually overflowing from every pore in his body—so rapid, vehement, and loud was his enunciation of them. Warming more and more as he went on, he began to sketch the outlines of his favourite pieces. Every now and then plunging into recitation, jumping from French into patois, and from patois into French, and sometimes spluttering them out, mixed up pell-mell together. Hardly pausing to take breath, he rushed about the shop as he discoursed, lugging out, from old chests and drawers, piles of old newspapers and reviews, pointing out a passage here in which the estimate of the writer pleased him, a passage there which showed how perfectly the critic had mistaken the scope of his poetic philosophy, and exclaiming, with the most perfect naivete, how mortifying it was for men of original and profound genius to be misconceived and misrepresented by pigmy whipper-snapper scamps of journalists.

"There was one review of his works, published in a London 'Recueil,' as he called it, to which Jasmin referred with great pleasure. A portion of it had been translated, he said, in the preface to a French edition of his works; and he had most of the highly complimentary phrases by heart. The English critic, he said, wrote in the Tintinum, and he looked dubiously at me when I confessed that I had never heard of the organ in question.

"'Pourtant,' he said, 'je vous le ferai voir,' and I soon perceived that Jasmin's Tintinum was no other than the Athenaeum!

"In the little back drawing-room behind the shop, to which the poet speedily introduced me, his sister {it must have been his wife}, a meek, smiling woman, whose eyes never left him, following as he moved with a beautiful expression of love and pride in his glory, received me with simple cordiality. The walls were covered with testimonials, presentations, and trophies, awarded by critics and distinguished persons, literary and political, to the modern Troubadour. Not a few of these are of a nature to make any man most legitimately proud. Jasmin possesses gold and silver vases, laurel branches, snuff-boxes, medals of honour, and a whole museum of similar gifts, inscribed with such characteristic and laconiclegends as 'Au Poete, Les Jeunes filles de Toulouse reconnaissantes!' &c.

"The number of garlands of immortelles, wreaths of ivy-jasmin (punning upon the name), laurel, and so forth, utterly astonished me. Jasmin preserved a perfect shrubbery of such tokens; and each symbol had, of course, its pleasant associative remembrance. One was given by the ladies of such a town; another was the gift of the prefect's wife of such a department. A handsome full-length portrait had been presented to the poet by the municipal authorities of Agen; and a letter from M. Lamartine, framed, above the chimney-piece, avowed the writer's belief that the Troubadour of the Garonne was the Homer of the modern world. M. Jasmin wears the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and has several valuable presents which were made to him by the late ex-king and different members of the Orleans family.

"I have been somewhat minute in giving an account of my interview with M. Jasmin, because he is really the popular poet—the peasant poet of the South of France—the Burns of Limousin, Provence, and Languedoc. His songs are in the mouths of all who sing in the fields and by the cottage firesides. Their subjects are always rural, naive, and full of rustic pathos and rustic drollery. To use his words to me, he sings what the hearts of the people say, and he can no more help it than can the birds in the trees. Translations into French of his main poems have appeared; and compositions more full of natural and thoroughly unsophisticated pathos and humour it would be difficult to find.

"Jasmin writes from a teeming brain and a beaming heart; and there is a warmth and a glow, and a strong, happy, triumphant march of song about his poems, which carry you away in the perusal as they carried away the author in the writing. I speak, of course, from the French translations, and I can well conceive that they give but a comparatively faint transcript of the pith and power of the original. The patois in which these poems are written is the common peasant language of the South-west of France. It varies in some slight degree in different districts, but not more than the broad Scotch of Forfarshire differs from that of Ayrshire. As for the dialect itself, it seems in the main to be a species of cross between old French and Spanish—holding, however, I am assured, rather to the latter tongue than to the former, and constituting a bold, copious, and vigorous speech, very rich in its colouring, full of quaint words and expressive phrases, and especially strong in all that relates to the language of the passions and affections.

"I hardly know how long my interview with Jasmin might have lasted, for he seemed by no means likely to tire of talking, and his talk was too good and too curious not to be listened to with interest; but the sister {or wife} who had left us for a moment, coming back with the intelligence that there was quite a gathering of customers in the shop, I hastily took my leave, the poet squeezing my hand like a vice, and immediately thereafter dashing into all that appertains to curling-irons, scissors, razors, and lather, with just as much apparent energy and enthusiasm as he had flung into his rhapsodical discourse on poetry and language!"

It is scarcely necessary to apologise for the length of this extract, because no author that we know of—not even any French author—has given so vivid a description of the man as he lived, moved, and talked, as Mr. Reach; and we believe the reader will thank us for quoting from an almost entirely forgotten book, the above graphic description of the Gascon Poet.

Endnotes for Chapter XIII.

{1} The Athenaeum, 5th November, 1842. 'The Curl-papers of Jasmin, the Barber of Agen.' ('Las Papillotos de Jasmin, Coiffeur.')

{2} 'A Pilgrimage to Auvergne, from Picardy to Velay.' 1842.

{3} 'Bearn and the Pyrenees.' 1844.

{4} "There are no poets in France now", he said to Miss Costello. "There cannot be. The language does not admit of it. Where is the fire, the spirit, the expression, the tenderness, the force, of the Gascon? French is but the ladder to reach the first floor of the Gascon; how can you get up to a height except by means of a ladder?"

{5} Westminster Review for October, 1849.

{6} Published by David Bogue, Fleet Street. 1852. Mr. Reach was very particular about the pronunciation of his name. Being a native of Inverness, the last vowel was guttural. One day, dining with Douglas Jerrold, who insisted on addressing him as Mr. Reek or Reech, "No," said the other; "my name is neither Reek nor Reech,but Reach," "Very well," said Jerrold, "Mr. Reach will you have a Peach?"



CHAPTER XIV. JASMIN'S TOURS OF PHILANTHROPY.

The poet had no sooner returned from his visit to Paris than he was besieged with appeals to proceed to the relief of the poor in the South of France. Indeed, for more than thirty years he devoted a considerable part of his time to works of charity and benevolence. He visited successively cities and towns so far remote from each other, as Bayonne and Marseilles, Bagneres and Lyons. He placed his talents at the service of the public from motives of sheer benevolence, for the large collections which were made at his recitations were not of the slightest personal advantage to himself.

The first place he visited on this occasion was Carcassonne, south-east of Toulouse,—a town of considerable importance, and containing a large number of poor people. M. Dugue, prefect of the Aude, wrote to Jasmin: "The crying needs of this winter have called forth a desire to help the poor; but the means are sadly wanting. Our thoughts are necessarily directed to you. Will you come and help us?" Jasmin at once complied. He was entertained by the prefect.

After several successful recitations, a considerable sum of money was collected for the relief of the poor of Carcassonne. To perpetuate the recollection of Jasmin's noble work, and to popularise the genius of the poet, the Prefect of the Aude arranged that Jasmin's poems should be distributed amongst all the schools of his department, and for this purpose a portion of the surplus funds was placed at the disposal of the Council-general.

Bordeaux next appealed to the poet. He had a strong love for Bordeaux. It was the place where he had first recited his Blind Girl, where he had first attracted public attention, and where he was always admired and always feted. The Orphan Institution of the city was in difficulties; its funds were quite exhausted; and who should be invited to come to their help but their old friend Jasmin? He was again enthusiastically received. The Franklin Rooms were crowded, and money flowed quickly into the orphans' treasury. Among the poems he recited was the following:—

THE SHEPHERD AND THE GASCON POET.{1}

Aux Bordelais, au jour de ma grande Seance au Casino.

In a far land, I know not where, Ere viol's sigh; or organ's swell, Had made the sons of song aware That music! is a potent spell: A shepherd to a city came, Play'd on his pipe, and rose to fame. He sang of fields, and at each close, Applause from ready hands arose.

The simple swain was hail'd and crown'd, In mansions where the great reside, And cheering smiles and praise he found, And in his heart rose honest pride. All seem'd with joy and rapture gleaming, He trembled lest he was but dreaming.

But, modest still, his soul was moved; Yet of his hamlet was his thought— Of friends at home, and her he loved, When back his laurel branch he brought. And pleasure beaming in his eyes, Enjoyed their welcome and surprise. 'Twas thus with me when Bordeaux deigned To listen to my rustic song: Whose music praise and honour gain'd More than to rural strains belong.

Delighted, charm'd, I scarcely knew Whence sprung this life so fresh and new, And to my heart I whispered low, When to my fields returned again, "Is not the Gascon Poet now As happy as the shepherd swain?"

The minstrel never can forget, The spot where first success he met; But he, the shepherd who, of yore, Has charm'd so many a list'ing ear, Came back, and was beloved no more. He found all changed and cold and drear A skilful hand had touch'd the flute; His pipe and he were scorn'd—were mute.

But I, once more I dared appear, And found old friends so true and dear. The mem'ry of my ancient lays Lived in their hearts, awoke their praise. Oh! they did more. I was their guest; Again was welcomed and caress't, And, twined with their melodious tongue, Again my rustic carol rung; And my old language proudly found Her words had list'ners pressing round. Thus, though condemn'd the shepherd's skill, The Gascon Poet triumph'd still.

At the end of the recital a pretty little orphan girl came forward and presented Jasmin with a laurel adorned with a ruby, with these words in golden letters,

"To Jasmin, with the orphans' gratitude." Jasmin finally descended from the rostrum and mixed with the audience, who pressed round him and embraced him. The result was the collection of more than a thousand francs for the orphans' fund.

No matter what the institution was, or where it was situated, if it was in difficulties, and Jasmin was appealed to, provided it commended itself to his judgment, he went far and near to give his help. A priest at a remote place in Perigord had for some time endeavoured to found an agricultural colony for the benefit of the labourers, and at last wrote to Jasmin for assistance. The work had been patronised by most of the wealthy people of the province; but the colony did not prosper. There remained no one to help them but the noble barber of Agen. Without appealing any more to the rich for further aid, the priest applied to Jasmin through a mutual friend, one of the promoters of the undertaking, who explained to him the nature of the enterprise. The following was Jasmin's answer:—

"MY DEAR SIR,—I have already heard of the Pious Work of the curate of Vedey, and shall be most happy to give him my services for one or two evenings, though I regret that I must necessarily defer my visit until after the month of February next. In May I have promised to go twice to the help of the Albigenses, in aid of their hospital and the poor of Alba. I start to-morrow for Cahors, to help in a work equally benevolent, begun long ago. I am engaged for the month of August for Foix and Bagneres de Luchon, in behalf of a church and an agricultural society. All my spare time, you will observe, is occupied; and though I may be tired out by my journeys, I will endeavour to rally my forces and do all that I can for you. Tell the curate of Vedey, therefore, that as his labour has been of long continuance, my Muse will be happy to help his philanthropic work during one or two evenings at Perigueux, in the month of March next.

"Yours faithfully,

"J. JASMIN."

In due time Jasmin fulfilled his promise, and a considerable sum was collected in aid of the agricultural colony, which, to his great joy, was eventually established and prospered. On another and a very different occasion the Society of Arts and Literature appealed to him. Their object was to establish a fund for the assistance of the poorer members of their craft—something like the Royal Literary Fund of London. The letter addressed to him was signed by Baron Taylor, Ingres, Ambroise Thomas, Auber, Meyerbeer, Adolphe Adam, Jules Simon, Zimmermann, Halevy, and others. It seemed extraordinary that men of such distinction in art and literature should appeal to a man of such humble condition, living at so remote a place as Agen.

"We ask your help," they said, "for our work, which has only been begun, and is waiting for assistance. We desire to have the encouragement and powerful support of men of heart and intelligence. Do not be surprised, sir, that we address this demand to you. We have not yet appealed to the part of France in which you live; but we repose our hopes in your admirable talent, inspired as it is with Christian charity, which has already given birth to many benefactions, for the help of churches, schools, and charitable institutions, and has spread amongst your compatriots the idea of relieving the poor and necessitous." Incited by these illustrious men, Jasmin at once took the field, and by his exertions did much towards the foundation of the proposed institution.