第16章 JASMIN AND GASCON.--FIRST VOLUME OF "PAPILLOTES."(

Of all the dialects of the Roman tongue,this patois alone preserves its purity and life.It still remains the sonorous and harmonious language of the Troubadours.The patois has the suppleness of the Italian,the sombre majesty of the Spanish,the energy and preciseness of the Latin,with the "Molle atque facetum,le dolce de,l'Ionic;which still lives among the Phoceens of Marseilles.The imagination and genius of Gascony have preserved the copious richness of the language.

M.de Lavergne,in his notice of Jasmin's works,frankly admits the local jealousy which existed between the Troubadours of Gascony and Provence.There seemed,he said,to be nothing disingenuous in the silence of the Provencals as to Jasmin's poems.They did not allow that he borrowed from them,any more than that they borrowed from him.These men of Southern France are born in the land of poetry.It breathes in their native air.

It echoes round them in its varied measures.Nay,the rhymes which are its distinguishing features,pervade their daily talk.

The seeds lie dormant in their native soil,and when trodden under foot,they burst through the ground and evolve their odour in the open air.Gascon and Provencal alike preserve the same relation to the classic romance--that lovely but short-lived eldest daughter of the Latin--the language of the Troubadours.

We have said that the Gascon dialect was gradually expiring when Jasmin undertook its revival.His success in recovering and restoring it,and presenting it in a written form,was the result of laborious investigation.He did not at first realize the perfect comprehension of the idiom,but he eventually succeeded by patient perseverance,When we read his poems,we are enabled to follow,step by step,his lexicological progress.

At first,he clung to the measures most approved in French poetry,especially to Alexandrines and Iambic tetrameters,and to their irregular association in a sort of ballad metre,which in England has been best handled by Robert Browning in his fine ballad of 'Harve;Riel.'

Jasmin's first rhymes were written upon curl papers,and then used on the heads of his lady customers.When the spirit of original poetry within him awoke,his style changed.Genius brought sweet music from his heart and mind.Imagination spiritualised his nature,lifted his soul above the cares of ordinary life,and awakened the consciousness of his affinity with what is pure and noble.Jasmin sang as a bird sings;at first in weak notes,then in louder,until at length his voice filled the skies.Near the end of his life he was styled the Saint Vincent de Paul of poetry.

Jasmin might be classed among the Uneducated Poets.

But what poet is not uneducated at the beginning of his career?

The essential education of the poet is not taught in the schools.

The lowly man,against whom the asperities of his lot have closed the doors of worldly academies,may nevertheless have some special vocation for the poetic life.Academies cannot shut him out from the odour of the violet or the song of the nightingale.

He hears the lark's song filling the heavens,as the happy bird fans the milk-white cloud with its wings.He listens to the purling of the brook,the bleating of the lamb,the song of the milkmaid,and the joyous cry of the reaper.Thus his mind is daily fed with the choicest influences of nature.He cannot but appreciate the joy,the glory,the unconscious delight of living.

"The beautiful is master of a star."This feeling of beauty is the nurse of civilisation and true refinement.Have we not our Burns,who "in glory and in joy Followed his plough along the mountain side;"Clare,the peasant boy;Bloomfield,the farmer's lad;Tannahill,the weaver;Allan Ramsay,the peruke-maker;Cooper,the shoemaker;and Critchley Prince,the factory-worker;but greater than these was Shakespeare,--though all were of humble origin.

France too has had its uneducated poets.Though the ancient song-writers of France were noble;Henry IV.author of Charmante Gabrielle;Thibault,Count of Champagne;Lusignan,Count de la Marche;Raval,Blondel,and Basselin de la Vive,whose songs were as joyous as the juice of his grapes;yet some of the best French poets of modem times have been of humble origin--Marmontel,Moliere,Rousseau,and Beranger.There were also Reboul,the baker;Hibley,the working-tailor;Gonzetta,the shoemaker;Durand,the joiner;Marchand,the lacemaker;Voileau,the sail-maker;

Magu,the weaver;Poucy,the mason;Germiny,the cooper;[5]and finally,Jasmin the barber and hair dresser,who was not the least of the Uneducated Poets.

The first poem which Jasmin composed in the Gascon dialect was written in 1822,when he was only twenty-four years old.It was entitled La fidelitat Agenoso,which he subsequently altered to Me cal Mouri (Il me fait mourir),or "Let me die."It is a languishing romantic poem,after the manner of Florian,Jasmin's first master in poetry.It was printed at Agen in a quarto form,and sold for a franc.Jasmin did not attach his name to the poem,but only his initials.

Sainte-Beuve,in his notice of the poem,says,"It is a pretty,sentimental romance,showing that Jasmin possessed the brightness and sensibility of the Troubadours.As one may say,he had not yet quitted the guitar for the flageolet;and Marot,who spoke of his flageolet,had not,in the midst of his playful spirit,those tender accents which contrasted so well with his previous compositions.And did not Henry IV.in the midst of his Gascon gaieties and sallies,compose his sweet song of Charmante Gabrielle?Jasmin indeed is the poet who is nearest the region of Henry IV."[6]Me cal Mouri was set to music by Fourgons,and obtained great popularity in the south.It was known by heart,and sung everywhere;in Agen,Toulouse,and throughout Provence.It was not until the publication of the first volume of his poems that it was known to be the work of Jasmin.