Like the cats who continually move their young ones from place to place, at the opening of the next school year my mother took me off to Monsieur Dupuy, a native of Carpentras, who kept a school in Avignon near the Pont-TrouÉ. And here, in furtherance of my ambitions as a budding ProvenÇalist, I had indeed my “nozzle in the hay.”

Monsieur Dupuy was the brother of Charles Dupuy, a former Deputy of La DrÔme, and author of “Petit Papillons,” a delicate morsel of our modern ProvenÇal. Our Dupuy also tried his hand at ProvenÇal poetry, but he did not boast about it, and therein showed wisdom.

Shortly after my arrival, there came to the school a young professor with a fine black beard, a native of Saint-RÉmy, whose name was Joseph Roumanille. As we were neighbours—Maillane and Saint-RÉmy being in the same canton—and our families, both of the farming class, had known each other for years past, we were soon friends. Before long I found another bond which drew us still closer, namely, that the young professor was also interested in writing verses in the language of Provence.

On Sundays we went to Mass and vespers at the Carmelite church. Our places were behind the High Altar, in the choir-stalls, and there our young voices mingled with those of the choristers, among whom was Denis Cassan, another ProvenÇal poet, and one of the most popular at the carousals of the students’ quarter. We saw him, however, clad in a surplice, with a foolish phlegmatic air, as he intoned the responses and psalms. The street where he lived now bears his name.

One Sunday during vespers, the idea came into my head to render in ProvenÇal verse the penitential psalms, so in the half-opened book I began furtively to scribble down my version in pencil.

But Monsieur Roumanille, who was in charge, came behind me, and seizing the paper I was writing, read it and then showed it to the headmaster, Monsieur Dupuy. The latter, it seems, viewed the matter leniently; so after vespers, during our walk round the ramparts, Roumanille called me to him.

“So, my little Mistral, you amuse yourself by writing verses in ProvenÇal?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

“Would you like me to repeat you some verses. Listen!” And then in his deep sympathetic voice he recited to me one after another of his own poems—“Les Deux Agneux,” “Le Petit Joseph,” “Paulon,” “Madeleine et Louisette,” a veritable outburst of April flowers and meadow blooms, heralds of the FÉlibrean spring time. Filled with delight, I listened, feeling that here was the dawn for which my soul had been waiting to awake to the light.

Up to that time I had only read a few stray scraps in the ProvenÇal, and it had always aggravated me to find that our language (Jasmin and the Marquis de Lafare alone excepted) was usually used only in derision. But here was Roumanille, with this splendid voice of his, expressing, in the tongue of the people, with dignity and simplicity, all the noblest sentiments of the heart.

Thus it came to pass that notwithstanding the difference of a dozen years between our ages, for Roumanille was born in 1818, we clasped hands, he happy to find a confidant quite prepared to understand his muse, and I, trembling with joy at entering the sanctuary of my dreams; and thus, as sons of the same God, we were united in

the bonds of friendship under so happy a star that for half a century we walked together, devoted to the same patriotic cause, without our affection or our zeal ever knowing diminution.

Roumanille had sent his first verses to a ProvenÇal journal, Boui-Abaisso, which was published weekly at Marseilles by Joseph DÉsanat, and which for the bards of the day was an admirable outlet. For the language has never lacked exponents, and especially at the time of the Boui-Abaisso (1841-1846) there was a strong movement at Marseilles in favour of the dialect, which, had it done nothing but promote writing in ProvenÇal, deserves our gratitude.

Also we must recognise that such popular poets as DÉsanat of Tarascon, or Bellot Chailan, BÉnÉdit and Gelu, pre-eminently Gelu, each of whom in his way expressed the buoyant joyous spirit of southern Provence, have never, in their particular line, been surpassed. Another, Camille Reyband, a poet of Carpentras, a poet, too, of noble dimensions, in a grand epistle he addressed to Roumanille, laments the fate of the ProvenÇal speech, neglected by idiots who, declares he, “Follow the example of the gentlemen of the towns, and leave to the wise old forefathers our unfortunate language while they render the French tongue, which they fundamentally distort into the worst of patois.”

Reyband seemed to foretell the Renaissance which was then hatching when he made this appeal to the editor of the Boui-Abaisso:

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

All these gentlemen were, however, imbued with this erroneous idea that the language of the people, good though they felt it to be, was only suitable for common or droll subjects, and hence they took no pains either to purify or to restore it.

Since the time of Louis XIV. the old traditions for the spelling of our language had become almost obsolete. The poets of the meridian had, partly through carelessness or ignorance, adopted the French spelling. And this utterly false system cut at the root of our beautiful speech. Every one began to carry out his own orthographical fancies, until it reached such a point that the various dialects of the Oc language, owing to this constant disfigurement in the writing, no longer bore any resemblance one to another.

Roumanille, when reading the manuscripts of Saboly in the library at Avignon, was struck by the good effect of our language when written in the old style employed by the ancient troubadours. He wished, young as I was, to have my help in restoring the true orthography, and in perfect accord concerning the plan of reform, we boldly started in to moult, as it were, and renew the skin of our language. Instinctively we felt that for the unknown work which awaited us in the future we should need a fine tool, a tool freshly ground. For the orthography was not all. Owing to the imitative and middle-class spirit of prejudice, which unfortunately is ever on the increase, many of the most gritty words of the ProvenÇal tongue had been discarded as vulgar, and in their place, the poets who preceded the FÉlibres, even those of repute, had commonly employed, without any critical sense, corrupt forms and bastard words of uneducated French. Having thus determined, Roumanille and I, to write our verses in the language of the people, we saw it was necessary to bring out strongly the energy, freshness, and richness of expression that characterised it, and to render the pureness of speech used in districts untouched by extreme influences.

Even so the Roumanians, the poet Alexander tells us, when they wished to elevate their national tongue which the bourgeois class had lost or corrupted, went to seek it out in the villages and mountains among the primitive peasants.

In order to conform the written ProvenÇal as much as possible to the pronunciation in general use in Provence, we decided to suppress certain letters or etymological finals fallen into disuse, such as the “s” of the plural, the “t” of the particle, the “r” of the infinitive, and the “ch” in certain words like “fach,” “dich,” “puech,” &c.

But let no one think that these innovations, though they concerned none save a small circle of patois poets, as we were then called, were introduced into general usage without a severe struggle. From Avignon to Marseilles, all those who wrote or rhymed in the language contested for their routine or their fashion, and promptly took the field against the reformers. A war of pamphlets containing envenomed articles between these opponents and we young Avignons continued to rage for many years.

At Marseilles, the exponents of trivialities, the white-beard rhymesters, the envious and the growlers assembled together of an evening behind the old bookshop of the librarian Boy, there bitterly to bewail the suppression of the “s” and sharpen their weapons against the innovators.

Roumanille the valiant, ever ready to stand in the breech, launched against the adversaries the Greek fire we were all diligently employed in preparing in the crucible of the Gai-Savoir. And because we had on our side, not only a just and good cause, but faith, enthusiasm, youth—and something else besides—it ended in our being, as I will show you later, victors on the field of battle.

But to return to the school of Monsieur Dupuy.

One afternoon we were in the courtyard, playing at “Three jumps,” when in our midst appeared a new pupil. He was tall and well made, with a Henri IV. nose, a hat cocked to one side, and an air of maturity heightened by the unlit cigar in his mouth. His hands thrust in the pockets of his short coat, he came up just as if he were one of us.

“Well, what are you after?” said he. “Would you like me to see if I can do these three jumps?”

And without more ado, light as a cat, he took a run and went three hands beyond the highest jump that had been touched. We clapped him, and demanded where he had sprung from.

“From ChÂteauneuf,” he answered—“the country where they grow good wine. Perhaps you have never heard of ChÂteauneuf, ChÂteauneuf-du-Pape?”

“Yes, we have. And what is your name?”

“Anselme Mathieu,” he replied.

And with these words he plunged his two hands into his pockets and brought out a store of old cigar-ends, which he offered round with a courteous and smiling air.

We, who for the most part had never dared to smoke (unless, indeed, as children the roots of the mulberry-tree), thereupon regarded with great respect this hero, who did things in so grand a manner, and was evidently accustomed to high life.

Thus it was that I first met Mathieu, the gentle author of the “Farandole.” On one occasion, I told this story to our friend Daudet, who loved Mathieu, and the idea of the old ends of cigars pleased him so much that in his romance “Jack,” he makes use of it with his little negro prince, who performs the same act of largess.

With Roumanille and Mathieu, we were thus a trio who formed the nucleus of those who a little later were to found the FÉlibrige. The gallant Mathieu—heaven knows how he contrived it—was never seen except at the hours of food or recreation. On account of his already grown-up air, though not more than sixteen, and certainly backward in his studies, he had been allowed a room on the top story under the pretext that he could thus work more freely, and there in his attic, the walls of which he had decorated with pictures, nude figures and plaster casts of Pradier, all day long he dreamed and smoked, made verses, and, a good part of the time, leant out of the window, watching the people below, or the sparrows carrying food to their young under the eaves. Then he would joke, rather broadly, with Mariette the chamber-maid, ogle the master’s daughter, and, when he descended from his heights, relate to us all sorts of gossip.

But on one subject he always took himself seriously, and that was his patent of nobility:

“My ancestors were marquises,” he told us gravely, “Marquises of Montredon. At the time of the Revolution, my grandfather gave up his title, and afterwards, finding himself ruined, he would not resume it since he could not keep it up properly.”

There was always something romantic and elusive in the existence of Mathieu. He would disappear at times like the cats who go to Rome.

In vain we would call him: “Mathieu!”

But no Mathieu would appear. Where was he? Up there among the tiles, and over the house-tops he would make his way to the trysts he held, so he told us, with a girl beautiful as the day.

On one occasion, while we were all watching the procession of the FÊte-Dieu at Pont-TrouÉ, Mathieu said to me:

“FrÉdÉric, shall I show you my beloved?”

“Rather!” I replied promptly.

“Very well,” said he. “Now look, when the young choir-maidens pass, shrouded in their white tulle veils, notice they will all wear a flower pinned in the middle of their dress, but one, you will see, fair as a thread of gold, she will wear her flower at the side.... See,” he cried presently, “there she is!”

“Why, my dear fellow, she is a star!” I cried with enthusiasm. “How have you managed to make a conquest of such a lovely girl?”

“I will tell you. She is the daughter of the confectioner at the Carretterie. From time to time I went there to buy some peppermint drops or pastry-fingers—in this way I arrived at making myself known to the dear child, as the Marquis de Montredon, and one day when she was alone in the shop, I said to her: ‘Beauteous maiden, if only I could know that you are as foolish as I am, I would propose an excursion.’

“‘Where?’ she inquired.

“‘To the moon,’ I answered.

“She burst out laughing, but I continued: ‘This is how it could be done. You, my darling, would mount to the terrace which runs along the top of your house, just at any hour when you could or you would, and I, who lay my heart and my fortune at your feet, would meet you, and there beneath the sky I would cull for you the flowers of love.’

“And so it came to pass. At the top of my beloved one’s house, as in many others, there is a platform where they dry the linen. I have nothing to do but climb on the roof, and from gutter-spout to gutter-spout I go to find my fair one, who there spreads or folds the washing. Then, hand in hand, lip against lip, but always courteously as between lady and cavalier, we are in Paradise.”

And thus it was that our Anselme, future FÉlibre of the Kisses, studied his Breviary of Love, and passed his classes in gentle ease on the house-tops of Avignon.

At the Royal College, where we attended the history classes, there was never any question of modern politics. But Sergeant Monnier, one of our masters, an enthusiastic Republican, could not resist taking upon himself this instruction. During the recreation hour, he would walk up and down the courtyard, a history of the Revolution in his hand, working himself up as he read aloud, gesticulating, swearing, and shouting with enthusiasm.

“Now this is fine! Listen to this! Oh, they were grand men! Camille Desmoulins, Mirabeau, Bailly, Virgniaud, Danton, Saint-Just, Boisset-d’Anglas! We are worms in this day, by all the gods! besides those giants of the National Convention!”

“Oh, very grand indeed, your mock giants!” Roumanille would answer when he happened to be there. “Cut-throats, over-throwers of the Crucifix, unnatural monsters, ever devouring one another! Why, Bonaparte, when he wanted them, brought them up like pigs in the market!”

And so they would attack each other until the easy-going Mathieu appeared on the scene and made peace by causing both to join in a laugh at some absurdity of his own.

About this time Roumanille, in order to supplement his little emolument, had taken a post as reader in Sequin’s printing house, and, thanks to this position, he was able to have his first volume of verses, “Les Paquerettes,” printed there at small cost. While he corrected his proofs, he would regale us with these poems, much to our delight.

Thus one day succeeded another in these simple and familiar surroundings, till in the month of August 1847 I finished my studies, and, happy as a foal released and turned out to grass, I bade farewell to Monsieur Dupuy’s school and returned home to the farm.

But before leaving the pontifical city, I must say one word about the religious pomps and shows which, in our young day, were celebrated in high state at Avignon for a fortnight at a time. Notre Dame-de-Dom (the cathedral), and the four parishes, Saint-Agricol, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Didier, and Saint-Symphorien, rivalled each other in their splendour.

So soon as the sacristan, ringing his bell, had gone along the streets proclaiming where the Host, borne beneath the daÏs, was to pass, all the town set to work sweeping, watering, strewing green boughs, and erected decorations. From the balconies of the rich were hung tapestries of embroidered silks and damasks, the poor from their windows hung out coverings of patchwork, their rugs and quilts. At the Portail-Maillanais and in the low quarters of the city, they covered the walls with white sheets and adorned the pavements with a litter of boxwood. Street altars were raised at intervals, high as pyramids, adorned with candelabrums and vases of flowers. All the people, sitting outside their houses on chairs, awaited the procession and ate little cakes.

The young men of the mercantile and artisan classes walked about, swaggering and eyeing the young girls, or throwing them roses as they sat beneath the awnings, while all along the streets the scent of incense filled the air.

At last came the procession, headed by the beadle clad all in red, and followed by a train of white-robed virgins, the confraternities, monks and priests, choirs and musicians, threading their way slowly to the beating of tambourines, and one heard as they passed the low murmur of the devout reciting their rosaries.

Then, while an impressive silence reigned everywhere, all prostrated themselves, and the officiating priest elevated the Host beneath a shower of yellow broom.

But one of the most striking things was the procession of Penitents, which began after sunset by the light of torches. And especially that of the White Penitents, wearing their cowls and cloaks, and marching past step by step, like ghosts, carrying, some of them, small tabernacles, others reliquaries or bearded busts, others burning perfumes, or an enormous eye in a triangle, or a serpent twisted round a tree—one might have imagined them to be an Indian procession of Brahmins.

These Orders dated from the time of the League and the Western Schism, and the heads and dignitaries of these confraternities were taken from the noblest families in Avignon. Aubanel, one of our great FÉlibres, was all his life a zealous White Penitent, and, at his death, was buried in the habit of the brotherhood.