Frédéric Mistral | Page 8

to show that the Felibrean renaissance was not a
spontaneous springing into existence. On the purely literary side,
however, it certainly bears the character of a creation; as writers, the
Provençal poets may scarcely be said to continue any preceding school
or to be closely linked with any literary past. In its inception it was a
mere attempt to write pleasing, popular verse of a better kind in the
dialect of the fireside. But the movement developed rapidly into the
ambition to endow the whole region with a real literature, to awaken a
consciousness of race in the men of the south; these aims have been
realized, and a change has come over the life of Provence and the land
of the langue d'oc in general. The author believes and adduces
evidences to show that all this could not have come about had the seed
not fallen upon a soil that was ready.
The Félibrige dates from the year 1854, but the idea that lies at the
bottom of it must be traced back to the determination of Roumanille to
write in Provençal rather than in French. He produced his Margarideto
in 1847 and the Sounjarello in 1851. In collaboration with Mistral and
Anselme Mathieu, he edited a collection of poems by living writers
under the title _Li Prouvençalo_. During these years, too, there were
meetings of Provençal writers for the purpose of discussing questions
of grammar and spelling. These meetings, including even the historic
one of May 21, 1854, were, however, really little more than friendly,
social gatherings, where a number of enthusiastic friends sang songs
and made merry. They had none of the solemnity of a conclave, or the
dignity of literary assemblies. There was no formal organization. Those
writers who were zealously interested in the rehabilitation of the
Provençal speech and connected themselves with Mistral and his
friends were the Félibres. Not until 1876 was there a Félibrige with a
formal constitution and an elaborate organization.
The word _Félibre_ was furnished by Mistral, who had come upon it in

an old hymn wherein occurs the expression that the Virgin met Jesus in
the temple among "the seven Félibres of the law." The origin and
etymology of this word have given rise to various explanations. The
Greek philabros_, lover of the beautiful; _philebraios, lover of Hebrew,
hence, among the Jews, teacher; felibris, nursling, according to
Ducange; the Irish filea_, bard, and _ber, chief, have been proposed.
Jeanroy (in Romania, XIII, p. 463) offers the etymology: Spanish
_feligres, filii Ecclesiæ_, sons of the church, parishioners. None of
these is certain.
Seven poets were present at this first meeting, and as the day happened
to be that of St. Estelle, the emblem of a seven-pointed star was
adopted. Very fond of the number seven are these Félibres; they tell
you of the seven chief churches of Avignon, its seven gates, seven
colleges, seven hospitals, seven popes who were there seventy years;
the word _Félibre_ has seven letters, so has Mistral's name, and he
spent seven years in writing each of his epics.
The task that lay before these poets was twofold: they had not only to
prune and purify their dialect and produce verses, they had also to find
readers, to create a public, to begin a propaganda. The first means
adopted was the publication of the _Armana prouvençau_, already
referred to. In 1855, five hundred copies were issued, in 1894, twelve
thousand. For four years this magazine was destined for Provence alone;
in 1860, after the appearance of _Mirèio_, it was addressed to all the
dwellers in southern France. The great success of _Mirèio_ began a
new period in the history of the Félibrige. Mistral himself and the poets
about him now took an entirely new view of their mission. The
uplifting of the people, the creation of a literature that should be
admired abroad as well as at home, the complete expression of the life
of Provence, in all its aspects, past and present, escape from the
implacable centralization that tends to destroy all initiative and
originality--such were the higher aims toward which they now bent
their efforts. The attention of Paris was turned in their direction. Jasmin
had already shown the Parisians that real poetry of a high order could
be written in a patois. Lamartine and Villemain welcomed the new
literature most cordially, and the latter declared that "France is rich

enough to have two literatures."
But the student of this history must not lose sight of the fact that the
Provençal poets are not first of all littérateurs; they are not men
devoting themselves to literature for a livelihood, or even primarily for
fame. They are patriots before they are poets. The choice of subjects
and the intense love of their native land that breathes through all