We were a set of youthful spirits at that time in Provence, all closely banded together with the object of a literary revival for our national tongue. We went at it heart and soul.

Nearly every Sunday, sometimes at Avignon, sometimes at Maillane, in the gardens of Saint-RÉmy or on the heights of ChÂteauneuf, we met together for our small intimate festivities, our ProvenÇal banquets, at which the poetry was of a finer flavour than the meats, and our enthusiasm intoxicated a good deal more than the wine.

It was on these occasions that Roumanille regaled us with his “NoËls” and “Dreamers” freshly coined from the mint, and that Aubanel, still holding the faith, but tugging at the leading-strings, recited to us his “Massacre of the Innocents.” Mireille also, from time to time, appeared in newly turned-out strophes.

Every year about the Eve of Sainte-Agathe, “the poets,” as they began to call us, assembled at the Judge’s Farm, and there for three days lived the gypsy’s free unfettered life. Sainte-Agathe belongs properly to Sicily, where she is often invoked against the fires of Etna, but in spite of this she receives great devotion from the people of Arles and Maillane, the girls of the village regarding it as a coveted honour to serve as a priestess of her altar, and on the eve of her feast, before opening the dance on the green, the young couples, with their musicians, always commenced by giving a serenade to Sainte-Agathe outside the parish church. We, with the other gallants of the countryside, also went to pay our respects to the patroness of Maillane.

It is a curious thing, this homage offered to dead and gone saints, throughout the length and breadth of the land, in the north even as in the south, and continuing uninterruptedly for centuries upon centuries. What a passing and ephemeral thing in comparison is the fame and homage awarded to the poet, artist, scholar, or even warrior, remembered as they are by only a few admirers. Victor Hugo himself will never attain the fame of even the least saint on the calendar; take, for example, Saint-Gent, who for seven hundred years has seen his thousands of faithful flocking annually to his shrine in the mountains. No one more readily than Victor Hugo recognised this truth, for, asked one day by a flatterer what glory in this world could excel that which crowned the poet, he answered promptly, “That of the saint.”

Mathieu was in great request at the village dances, and we all watched him with admiration as he danced, now with Villette, now with Gango or Lali, my pretty cousins. In the meadow by the mill took place the wrestling contests, announced by the beating of tambours and presided over by old JÉsette, the famous champion of former days, who, marching up and down, pitted one against the other, in strident tones enforcing the rules of the game.

One of us would ask him if he remembered how he had made the wrestler QuÉquine, or some other rival, bite the dust, and once started, the old athlete would rehearse with delight his ancient victories, how he floored Bel-Arbre of Aramon, not to mention Rabasson, Creste d’Apt and, above all, Meissonier, the Hercules of Avignon, before whom no one could stand up. Ah, in those days he might truly say he had been invincible! He had gone by the name of the “Little Maillanais”—“the Flexible.”

When our poets’ rÉunions were at Saint-RÉmy we met at the house of Roumanille’s parents, Jean-Denis and Pierrette, well-to-do market-gardeners living on their own land. On these occasions we dined in the open air under the shade of a vine-covered arbour. The best painted plates were had out in our honour, while Zine and Antoinette, the two sisters of our friend, handsome brunettes in their twenties, ministered to our wants and served us with the excellent blanquette they had themselves prepared.

A rugged old soldier was this Jean-Denis, father of Joseph Roumanille. He had served under Bonaparte, as he somewhat disdainfully called the Emperor, had fought in the battle of Waterloo and gained the Cross, which, however, in the confusion following the defeat, he never received. When his son, in after years, gained a decoration under MacMahon, he remarked: “The son receives what the father earned.”

The following is the epitaph Roumanille inscribed on the tomb of his parents in the cemetery at Saint-RÉmy:

Our meetings in Avignon were held at Aubanel’s home in the street of Saint-Marc, which to-day is called by the name of the great FÉlibre poet. The house had formerly been a cardinal’s palace, and has since been destroyed in making a new street. Just inside the vestibule stood the great wooden press with its big screw, which for two hundred years had served for printing the parochial and educational works of all the State.

Here we would take up our abode, somewhat awed by the odour of sanctity which seemed to emanate from those episcopal walls, and even more by Jeanneton, the old cook, who eyed us with a look which said plainly: “Why, here they are again!”

The kindly welcome, however, of our host’s father, official printer to his Holiness the Pope, and the joviality of his uncle, the venerable Canon, soon put us at our ease.

At Brunet’s and also Mathieu’s we sometimes held our revels, but it was at Font-SÉgugne, predestined to play an important part in our enterprise, that perhaps we most enjoyed ourselves in the charming country house belonging to the family of GiÉra. Paul, the eldest son, was a notary at Avignon, and an enthusiastic supporter of our movement. His mother, a dignified and gracious lady, two sisters, charming, joyous young girls, and a younger brother, Jules, devoted to the work of the White Penitents, made up the circle of this delightful home.

Font-SÉgugne is situated near the Camp-Cabel, facing in the distance the great Ventoux mountain, and a few miles from the Fountain of Vaucluse. It takes its name from a little spring which runs at the foot of the castle. A delicious little copse of oaks, acacias and planes protects the place from winter winds and the summer sun.

Tavan, the peasant poet of Gadagne, says of Font-SÉgugne: “It is the favourite trysting-spot of the village lovers on Sundays, for there they find a grateful shade, solitude, quiet nooks, little stone benches covered with ivy, winding paths among the trees, a lovely view, the song of birds, the rustling of leaves, the rippling of brooks! Where better than in such a spot can the solitary wander and dream of love, or the happy pair resort, and love?”

Here we came, to re-create ourselves like mountain birds—Roumanille, Mathieu, Brunet, Tavan, Crousillat, and, above all, Aubanel, under the spell of the eyes of Zani, a fair young friend of the young ladies of the house:

In his “Livre de l’Amour,” Aubanel drew the portrait of his enchantress:

“Soon I shall see her—the young maiden with her slender form clad in a soft gown of grey—with her smooth brow and her beauteous eyes, her long black hair and lovely face. Soon I shall see her, the youthful virgin, and she will say to me ‘Good evening.’ Oh Zani, come quickly!”

In after years, when his Zani had taken the veil, he writes of Font-SÉgugne, recalling the past:

“It is summer—the nights are clear. Over the copse the moon mounts and shines down on Camp-Cabel. Dost thou remember, behind the convent walls, thou with thy Spanish face, how we chased each other, running, racing like mad, among the trees, till in the dark wood thou wast afraid? And ah, how sweet it was when my arm stole round thy slender waist, and to the song of the nightingales we danced together, while thou didst mingle thy fresh young voice with the notes of the birds. Ah, sweet little friend, where are they now, those songs and joys! When tired of running, of laughing, of dancing, I remember how we sat down beneath the oak-trees to rest. My hand, a lover’s hand, played with thy long raven tresses which, loosened, fell about thee—and smiling gently as a mother on her child, thou didst not forbid me.”

On the walls of the room at the chÂteau where Zani had once slept, he wrote these lines:

“O little chamber—dear little chamber! How small to hold so many remembrances! As I cross the threshold it seems to me I hear them come—those two sweet maids Zani and Julia. But never will they sleep again in this little room—those days are flown for ever—Julia dwells no more on earth, and my Zani is a nun.”

No spot more favourable could have been imagined wherein to cradle a glorious dream, to bring to flower the bloom of an ideal, than this chÂteau on the hillside, surrounded by the serene blue distances, enlivened by these lovely laughing maidens and a group of young men vowed to the worship of the Beautiful under the three headings of Poetry, Love, and Provence, a trinity which for them formed always a unity.

It was written in the stars that one Sunday of flowers, May 21, 1854, at the full tide of spring and youth, seven poets should meet at this chÂteau of Font-SÉgugne.

Paul GiÉra, a joking spirit who signed his name backwards as “Glaup”; Roumanille, a propagandist who, without appearing to do so, unceasingly fanned the flame of the sacred fire all around him; Aubanel, converted by Roumanille to our tongue, and who, under the influence of love’s sun, was at this moment bursting into bloom with his “Pomegranate”; Mathieu, lost in visions of a reawakened Provence, and, as ever, the gallant squire of all fair damsels; Brunet with his face resembling the Christ, dreaming his utopia of a terrestrial Paradise; and the peasant Tavan, who, stretched on the grass, sang all day like the cicada; finally, FrÉdÉric, ready to send on the wings of the mistral, like the mountain shepherds to their flocks, his hailing cry to all brothers of the race, and to plant his standard on the summit of the Ventoux.

At dinner, the conversation turned that evening, as so often before, on the best means of rescuing our language from the decadence into which it had fallen since those ruling classes, faithless to the honour of Provence, had relegated the language to the position of a mere dialect. And, in view of the fact that at the last two Congresses, both at Arles and at Aix, every attempt on the part of the young school of Avignon patriots to rehabilitate the ProvenÇal tongue had been badly received and dismissed, the seven at Font-SÉgugne determined to band together and take the enterprise in hand.

“And now,” said Glaup, “as we are forming a new body we must have a new name. The old one of “minstrel” will not do, as every rhymer, even he who has nothing to rhyme about, adopts it. That of troubadour is no better, for, appropriated to designate the poets of a certain period, it has been tarnished by abuse. We must find something new.”

Then I took up the speech:

“My friends,” said I, “in an old country legend I believe we shall find the predestined name.” And I proceeded: “His Reverence Saint-Anselme, reading and writing one day from the Holy Scriptures, was lifted up into the highest heaven. Seated near the Infant Christ he beheld the Holy Virgin. Having saluted the aged saint, the Blessed Virgin continued her discourse to her Infant Son, relating how she came to suffer for His sake seven bitter wounds.” Here I omitted the recital of the wounds until I came to the following passage: “The fourth wound that I suffered for Thee, O my precious Son, it was when I lost Thee, and seeking three days and three nights found Thee not until I entered the Temple, where Thou wast disputing with the scribes of the Law, with the seven ‘FÉlibres’ of the Law.”

“The seven FÉlibres of the Law—but here we are!” cried they all in chorus: “FÉlibre is the name.”

Then Glaup, filling up the seven glasses with a bottle of ChÂteauneuf which had been just seven years in the cellar, proposed the health of the FÉlibres. “And since we have begun baptizing,” he continued, “let us adopt all the vocabulary which can be legitimately derived from our new name. I suggest, therefore, that every branch of FÉlibres numbering not less than seven members shall be called a ‘FÉlibrerie,’ in memory, gentlemen, of the Pleiades of Avignon.”

“And I,” said Roumanille, “beg to propose the pretty verb ‘fÉlibriser,’ signifying to meet together as we are now doing.”

“I wish to add,” said Mathieu, “the term ‘fÉlibrÉe’ to signify a festivity of ProvenÇal poets.”

“And I,” struck in Tavan, “give the adjective ‘fÉlibrÉen’ to all things descriptive of our movement.”

“And to the ladies who shall sing in the tongue of Provence I dedicate the name of ‘FÉlibresse,’” said Aubanel.

Upon which Brunet added promptly:

“And the children of all FÉlibres I baptize ‘FÉlibrillons.’”

“And let me conclude,” I cried, “with this national word, ‘FÉlibrige,’ which shall designate our work and association.”

Then Glaup took up the speech again:

“But this is not all, my friends—behold us, ‘the wise ones of the Law’—but how about the Law? Who is going to make it?”

“I am,” I answered unhesitatingly, “even if I have to give twenty years of my life to it; I will undertake to show that our speech is a language, not a dialect, and I will reconstruct the laws on which it was once formed.”

How strange it seems to look back on that scene—like some fairy-tale, and yet it was from that day of light-hearted festivity, of youthful ideals and enthusiasms, that sprang the gigantic task completed in the “Treasury of the FÉlibres,”[11]

a dictionary of the ProvenÇal tongue, including every variety of derivation and idiom, a work to which I devoted twenty years of my life.

In the ProvenÇal Almanac for 1855, Paul GiÉra writes:

“When the Law is completed which is being now prepared by one of our number, and which will clearly set forth the why and wherefore of everything, all opponents will be finally silenced.”

It was on this memorable occasion at Font-SÉgugne that we also decided on a small annual publication which should be a connecting-link between all FÉlibres, the standard-bearer of our ideas, and a means of communicating them to the people.

Having settled all these points, we suddenly bethought us that this same May 21 was no other than the Feast of the Star (Saint-Estelle), and even as the Magi, recognising the mystic influx of some high conjunction, we saluted the Star so opportunely presiding over the cradle of our redemption.

That same year, 1855, appeared the first number of the ProvenÇal Almanac, numbering 112 pages. And conspicuous among the contributions was our “Song of the FÉlibres,” which set forth the programme of our popular Renaissance.