Frédéric Mistral | Page 4

so splendid a career.
We of the English-speaking race are apt to wonder at this love of a local dialect. This vigorous attempt to create a first-rate literature, alongside and independent of the national literature, seems strange or unnatural. We are accustomed to one language, spoken over immense areas, and we rejoice to see it grow and spread, more and more perfectly unified. With all their local color, in spite of their expression of provincial or colonial life, the writings of a Kipling are read and enjoyed wherever the English language has penetrated. In Italy we find patriots and writers working with utmost energy to bring into being a really national language. Nearly all the governments of Europe seek to impose the language of the capital upon the schools. Unification of language seems a most desirable thing, and, superficially considered, the tendency would appear to be in that direction. But the truth is that there exists all over Europe a war of tongues. The Welsh, the Basques, the Norwegians, the Bohemians, the Finns, the Hungarians, are of one mind with Daudet and Mistral, who both express the sentiment, "He who holds to his language, holds the key of his prison."
So Roumanille loved and cherished the melodious speech of the Rhone valley. He hoped to see the langue d'oc saved from destruction, he strove against the invasion of the northern speech that threatened to overwhelm it. He wrote sweet verses and preached the gospel of the home-speech. One day he discovered a boy whom he calls "l'enfant sublime," and the pupil soon carried his dreams to a realization far beyond his fondest hopes. Not Roumanille, but Frédéric Mistral has made the new Proven?al literature what it is. In him were combined all the qualities, all the powers requisite for the task, and the task grew with time. It became more than a question of language. Mistral soon came to seek not only the creation of an independent literature, he aimed at nothing less than a complete revolution, or rather a complete rebirth, of the mental life of southern France. Provence was to save her individuality entire. Geographically at the central point of the lands inhabited by the so-called Latin races, she was to regain her ancient prominence, and cause the eyes of her sisters to turn her way once more with admiration and affection. The patois of Saint-Rémy has been developed and expanded into a beautiful literary language. The inertia of the Proven?als themselves has been overcome. There is undoubtedly a new intellectual life in the Rhone valley, and the fame of the Félibres and their great work has gone abroad into distant lands.
The purpose, then, of the present dissertation, will be to give an account of the language of the Félibres, and to examine critically the literary work of their acknowledged chief and guiding spirit, Frédéric Mistral.
The story of his life he himself has told most admirably in the preface to the first edition of Lis Isclo d'Or, published at Avignon in 1874. He was born in 1830, on the 8th day of September, at Maillane. Maillane is a village, near Saint-Rémy, situated in the centre of a broad plain that lies at the foot of the Alpilles, the westernmost rocky heights of the Alps. Here the poet is still living, and here he has passed his life almost uninterruptedly. His father's home was a little way out of the village, and the boy was brought up at the mas,[1] amid farm-hands and shepherds. His father had married a second time at the age of fifty-five, and our poet was the only child of this second marriage.
The story of the first meeting of his parents is thus told by the poet:--
"One year, on St. John's day, Ma?tre Fran?ois Mistral was in the midst of his wheat, which a company of harvesters were reaping. A throng of young girls, gleaning, followed the reapers and raked up the ears that fell. Ma?tre Fran?ois (Mèste Francés in Proven?al), my father, noticed a beautiful girl that remained behind as if she were ashamed to glean like the others. He drew near and said to her:--
"'My child, whose daughter are you? What is your name?'
"The young girl replied, 'I am the daughter of Etienne Poulinet, Maire of Maillane. My name is Déla?de.'
"'What! the daughter of the Maire of Maillane gleaning!'
"'Ma?tre,' she replied, 'our family is large, six girls and two boys, and although our father is pretty well to do, as you know, when we ask him for money to dress with, he answers, "Girls, if you want finery, earn it!" And that is why I came to glean.'
"Six months after this meeting, which reminds one of the ancient scene of Ruth and Boaz, Ma?tre Fran?ois asked Ma?tre Poulinet for the hand of Déla?de, and I