The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861

Few persons, when they consider the present greatness and prosperity of the French Empire, bear in mind the heterogeneous elements of which it is composed. For us, Paris is France, and the literature of the realm is comprised in the words, "Paris publications." We think not of the millions of Frenchmen to whom the language of the capital is a sealed letter,—of the Germans of Alsatia, the Flemings of the extreme North-East, the Bretons of the peninsula of Finisterre, the Basques, the Catalans of the mountains of Roussillon, and, more numerous than all these, the fourteen millions of the thirty-seven departments south of the Loire. These speak, to this day, with fewer modifications than have taken place in any other of the European languages during the same lapse of time, the very tongue in which wrote Bertran de Born and Pierre Vidal, the idiom in which Dante and Petrarca found some of their happiest inspirations, and which, we are told, Tasso envied for its poetic capabilities.

True, the Provinces of Gascony, Provence, Auvergne may be traversed by the stranger almost without his suspecting that other than the French, more or less badly spoken, is in common use. In hotels and shops he will hear nothing else.

The larger towns in direct communication with the capital, and all that is purely exterior in the people, are becoming more and more French every day. But in the family interior, far from the noise of affairs, the bustle of towns, in hamlets, among the vine-growers and tenders of the silk-worm, in the mountains and retired valleys, the home-tongue is again at ease. Simple, ingenuous, amber-like in its sunny tints, it is a reflection of that ardent poetical imagination which made the courts of the Counts of Toulouse the nurseries of modern poesy, when the rest of Europe was little else than one wrangling battle-field. Neither the exterminating crusade against the Albigenses, after which the idiom of Provence was wellnigh stigmatized as heretical, nor the civil and religious wars of the seventeenth century, nor even the dragonnades of Louis XIV., have been able to outroot it. The levelling edicts of the first French Revolution were powerless against it. The Provençal, or Langue d'Oc, if you will, the Gascon, the Auvergnat, are spoken to this day in their respective provinces, universally spoken by the people, who in many instances do not understand French at all. They must be preached to in their own dialect. They have their songs, their theatre even.

Nor must this be understood as referring only to the lower strata of society. The better classes, even, retain a fondness for their mother-tongue which years of residence in Paris will not obliterate. In their very French, they still retain the inflections, the tones of the South,—a measured cadence in the phrase, which the Parisian uniformly styles gasconner. They feel ill at ease in what they call the cold-mannered speech of the Franchiman. In the words of one of their poets, Mistral, who has proved that he was no less a master of the academic forms and rules than of the riches and power of his own Avignonais:—"Those who have not lived at the South, and especially in the midst of our rural population, can have no idea of the incompatibility, the insufficiency, the poverty of the language of the North in regard to our manners, our needs, our organization. The French language, transplanted to Provence, seems like the cast-off clothes of a Parisian dandy adapted to the robust shoulders of a harvester bronzed by the Southern sun."

The Provençal, in its two principal divisions, the Gascon and Langue d'Oc, is the current idiom south of the Loire. The South-West Provinces had, in the seventeenth century, no mean poet in Godelin; and in our own day, Jasmin has found a host of followers. The inhabitants of the South-East, however, the more immediate retainers of the language of the Troubadours, save in a few drinking-songs and Christmas carols, had forgotten the strains that once resounded beyond the limits of Provence and had first awaked the poetic emulation of Spain and Italy. The princess of song, stung by the envious spirit of persecution in the Albigensian wars, had slept for centuries, and the thick hedge of forgetfulness had grown rank about the language and its treasures. What Raynouard, Diez, Mahn, Fauriel, and others have done to bring to light again the unedited texts was little better than an autopsy. A living, breathing poet was wanting to reanimate by his touch the poesy that had slept so long. That poet was Roumanille.

The Minnesingers have found heirs and continuators in the modern writers of Germany. Side by side with the increasing tendency to unity in all national literature is working the force of races confounded under one political banner, to assert their existence as such. Congresses have shaped new kingdoms; but they have not reached or removed the limits of nationalities that have each their expression in song, whether in Moldavia or among the Czechs of Bohemia. The regeneration of local idioms, which is fast working its way from the Bosphorus to the Atlantic, was first undertaken in Provence, at the instigation of Roumanille. The son of a gardener of St. Remy, he was first struck with the insufficiency of French literature for his immediate countrymen, when, on his return from college, seeking to recite some of his earlier poems in the language of Racine to his aged mother, she failed to understand them. For her he translated, and found that his own Provençal was richer, more copious and melodious than the French itself, and, if less finical and restrained by grammatical forms, more pliant for the poet, and better answering the exigencies of primitive, spontaneous expression of feeling. From that moment his efforts were unceasingly directed towards the reintegration of his mother-tongue, which had so long played but the part of a Cinderella among the Romanic nations.

His poems, collected in 1847, under the title of "Margarideto," (Daisies,) were hailed by his countrymen with their habitual national enthusiasm. Nor did he remain inactive during the Revolution of 1848, addressing the people in home-phrase in several small volumes of prose. In 1852, he sent forth a call to his brother-writers, the felibre, who had joined with him in his efforts. The result was the publication of "Li Prouvençalo," a charming selection from those modern Troubadours who in all ranks of society sing, because sing they must, in bright and sunny Provence, and who in very deed find poetry

"In the forge's dust and ashes, in the tissues of the loom."

The call of Roumanille was the signal for a revival. Since that time, he himself, now a publisher in Avignon, has steadily watched and fostered the movement. The new literature has rapidly gone beyond its home-limits. Within the present year, Paris has republished several of the most noted works.

The volume which has called forth these remarks, "Lis Oubreto," comprises the poems of M. Roumanille,—"Li Margarideto," "Li Nouvè," "Li Sounjarello," "La Part de Dieu," "Li Flour de Sauvi." They are characterized by an elevation in the thoughts and a religious purity of sentiment, qualities which, it has been urged, and justly too, were lacking in many of the former productions in various dialects of France. We call the poetry of Roumanille elevated, yet it always addresses itself to the people of Provence, and borrows its images from the many-colored life of those to whom it speaks; religious, but simple and ingenuous, with a tinge of mysticism,—not the mysticism that seeks the good in dreamy inaction, as in some of the Spanish authors, nor has it the obscure tinge of the transcendental English school. The religion of Roumanille is active, not dogmatic; he incites to do, rather than discuss or dream the good. There is a health, a vigor, an earnestness, in this spontaneous poesy of an idiom which six centuries ago was the language of courts, and now sings the song of toil. Side by side with the over-cultured language of the Parisian, it seems so free and frank! Where the one is hampered for fear of sinning, the other, buoyant and elastic, treads freely and fears not to be too ingenuous.

Roumanille's poems have not been translated; it is hardly likely they ever will be,—at least, the greater number. They were not made for Paris. They are not at ease in a French garb,—nor, for that matter, in any other than their own diaphanous, sun-tinted, vowelly Provençal, unless they could find their expression in some folk-speech, as the Germans say, that could utter things of daily life without euphuistic windings, without fear of ridicule for things of home expressed in home-words.

As characterizing the nature and tendency of the new poetry, we subjoin a translation of "Li Crecho," (The Infant Asylums,) of which M. Sainte-Beuve, of the French Academy, one whose judgment as literary critic could be little biased in favor of the naïve graces of the original, said,—"The piece is worthy of the ancient Troubadours. The angel of the asylums and of little children in his celestial sadness could not be disavowed by the angels of Klopstock, nor by that of Alfred de Vigny."

"Li Crecho" was recited by the author at the inauguration of the Infant Asylum of Avignon, the 20th of November, 1851, and forms part of the sheaf of poems entitled "Li Flour de Sauvi."

I

"Among the choirs of Seraphim, whom God has created to sing eternally, transported with love, 'Glory, glory to the Father!'—among the joys of Paradise, one oftentimes, far from the happy singers, went thoughtful away.

"And his snow-white forehead inclined towards our world, as droops a flower that has no moisture in summer. Day by day he grew more dreamy. If sadness, when in God's glory, could torment the heart, I should say that this fair angel was pining with sorrow.

"Of what did he dream thus, and in secret? Why was he not of the feast?

Why, alone among angels, as one that had sinned, did he bow the head?"

II

"Lo! he has just knelt at the feet of God. What will he say? What will he do? To see and hear him, his brethren interrupt their song of praise."

III

"'When Jesus, thy child, wept,—when he shivered with cold in the manger of Bethlehem,—it was my smile that consoled him, my wings that sheltered him, with my warm breath did I comfort him.

"'And since then, O God, when a child weeps, in my pitying heart his voice resounds. Therefore forever now am I sick at heart,—therefore, O Lord, am I ever thoughtful.

"'On earth, O God, I have something to do. Let me descend there. There are so many babes, poor milk-lambs, who, shivering with cold, weep and wail far from the breasts, far from the kisses of their mothers! In warm rooms will I shelter them,—will cover and tend them,—will nurse and caress them,—will lull them to rest. Instead of one mother, they shall each have twenty that shall give them suck and soothe them to sleep.'"

IV

"And with heart and hand did the angels applaud,—a tremor of joy shot through the stars of heaven,—and, unfolding his pinions, with the rapidity of lightning the angel descended. The road-side smiled with flowers, as he passed,—and mothers trembled for joy; for infant-asylums arose wherever the child-angel trod."

One of the first to respond to the call of Roumanille for the composition of the selection "Li Prouvençalo" was Th. Aubanel, also of Avignon. The "Segaire" (Mowers) and "Lou 9 Thermidor" made it plain, that, of the thirty names, that of the young printer would soon take a prominent place among the revivers of Southern letters. And now, eight years later, the promise of M. René Taillandier, in his introduction to the selection, has become reality.

"La Miougrano Entreduberto" (The Opened Pomegranate) is printed with an accompanying French translation. Mistral, the brother-poet and friend of the author, thus announces the poems:—

"The pomegranate is of its nature wilder than other trees. It loves to grow in pebbly elevations (clapeirolo) in the full sun-rays, far from man and nearer to God. There alone, in the scorching summer-beams, it expands in secret its blood-red flowers. Love and the sun fecundate its bloom. In the crimson chalices thousands of coral-grains germ spontaneously, like a thousand fair sisters all under the same roof.

"The swollen pomegranate holds imprisoned as long as it can the roseate seeds, the thousand blushing sisters. But the birds of the moor speak to the solitary tree, saying,—'What wilt thou do with the seeds? Even now comes the autumn, even now comes the winter, that chases us beyond the hills, beyond the seas…..And shall it be said, O wild pomegranate, that we have left Provence without seeing thy beautiful coral-grains, without having a glimpse of thy thousand virgin daughters?'

"Then, to satisfy the envious birdlings of the moor, the pomegranate slowly half-opens its fruit; the thousand vermeil seeds glitter in the sun; the thousand timorous sisters with rosy cheeks peep through the arched window: and the roguish birds come in flocks and feast at ease on the beautiful coral-grains; the roguish lovers devour with kisses the fair blushing sisters.

"Aubanel—and you will say as I do, when you have read his book—is a wild pomegranate-tree. The Provençal public, whom his first poems had pleased so much, was beginning to say,—'But what is our Aubanel doing, that we no longer hear him sing?'"

Then follows an exposition of the hopeless passion of the poet,—how he took for motto,

"Quau canto,
Soun mau encanto."

Hence the three books of poems now before us,—"The Book of Love," "Twilight," and "The Book of Death." "The Book of Love," "a thing excessively rare," as we are told in the Preface, "but this one written in good faith," opens with a couplet that is a key to the whole volume:—

"I am sick at heart,
And will not be cured."

We subjoin a literal translation of the eleventh song, line for line:—

De-la-man-d'eilà de la mar,
Dins mis ouro de pantaiage,
Souvènti-fes iéu fau un viage,
Iéu fau souvènt un viage amar,
De-la-man-d'eilà, de la mar."
etc., etc.

"Far away, beyond the seas,
In my hours of reverie,
Oftentimes I make a voyage,
I often make a bitter voyage,
Far away, beyond the seas.

"Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles,
With the ships I glide away,
Whose long masts pierce the sky;
Towards my loved one do I go,
Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles.

"With the great white clouds sailing on,
Driven by the wind, their master-shepherd,
The great clouds which before the stars
Pass onwards like white flocks,
With the clouds I go sailing on.