Frédéric Mistral | Page 3

literature in the
language of their firesides, there grew a higher ambition. The Provençal
language put forth claims to exist coequally with the French tongue on
French soil. Memories of the former glories of the southern regions of
France began to stir within the hearts of the modern poets and leaders.
They began to chafe under the strong political and intellectual
centralization that prevails in France, and to seek to bring about a
change. The movement has passed through numerous phases, has been
frequently misinterpreted and misunderstood, and may now, after it has

attained to tangible results, be defined as an aim, on the part of its
leaders, to make the south intellectually independent of Paris. It is an
attempt to restore among the people of the Rhone region a love of their
ancient customs, language, and traditions, an effort to raise a sort of
dam against the flood of modern tendencies that threaten to overwhelm
local life. These men seek to avoid that dead level of uniformity to
which the national life of France appears to them in danger of sinking.
In the earlier days, the leaders of this movement were often accused at
Paris of a spirit of political separatism; they were actually mistrusted as
secessionists, and certain it is that among them have been several
champions of the idea of decentralization. To-day there are found in
their ranks a few who advocate the federal idea in the political
organization of France. However, there seems never to have been a
time when the movement promised seriously to bring about practical
political changes; and whatever political significance it may have
to-day goes no farther than what may be contained in germ in the effort
at an intense local life.
The land of the Troubadours is now the land of the Félibres; these
modern singers do not forget, nor will they allow the people of the
south to forget, that the union of France with Provence was that of an
equal with an equal, not of a principal with a subordinate. Patriots they
are, however, ardent lovers of France, and proofs of their strong
affection for their country are not wanting. To-day, amid all their
activity and demonstrations in behalf of what they often call "_la petite
patrie_," no enemies or doubters are found to question their loyalty to
the greater fatherland.
The movement began in the revival of the Provençal language, and was
at first a very modest attempt to make it serve merely better purposes
than it had done after the eclipse that followed the Albigensian war. For
a long time the linguistic and literary aspect of all this activity was the
only one that attracted any attention in the rest of France or in Provence
itself. Not that the Provençal language had ever quite died out even as a
written language. Since the days of the Troubadours there had been a
continuous succession of writers in the various dialects of southern
France, but very few of them were men of power and talent. Among the

immediate predecessors of the Félibres must be mentioned Saboly,
whose _Noëls_, or Christmas songs, are to-day known all over the
region, and Jasmin, who, however, wrote in a different dialect. Jasmin's
fame extended far beyond the limited audience for which he wrote; his
work came to the attention of the cultured through the enthusiastic
praise of Sainte-Beuve, and he is to-day very widely known. The
English-speaking world became acquainted with him chiefly through
the translations of Longfellow. Jasmin, however, looked upon himself
as the last of a line, and when, in his later years, he heard of the
growing fame of the new poets of the Rhone country, it is said he
looked upon them with disfavor, if not jealousy. Strange to say, he was,
in the early days, unknown to those whose works, like his, have now
attained well-nigh world-wide celebrity.
The man who must justly be looked upon as the father of the present
movement was Joseph Roumanille. He was born in 1818, in the little
town of Saint-Rémy, a quaint old place, proud of some remarkable
Roman remains, situated to the south of Avignon. Roumanille was far
from foreseeing the consequences of the impulse he had given in
arousing interest in the old dialect, and, until he beheld the astonishing
successes of Mistral, strongly disapproved the ambitions of a number
of his fellow-poets to seek an audience for their productions outside of
the immediate region. He had no more ambitious aim than to raise the
patois of Saint-Rémy out of the veritable mire into which it had sunk; it
pained him to see that the speech of his fireside was never used in
writing except for trifles and obscenities. Of him is told the touching
story that one day, while reciting