CHAPTER III

THE TEAGEDY, LA RÈINO JANO

The peculiar qualities and limitations of Mistral are possibly nowhere better evidenced than in this play. Full of charming passages, frequently eloquent, here and there very poetic, it is scarcely dramatic, and certainly not a tragedy either of the French or the Shakespearian type. The most striking lines, the most eloquent tirades, arise less from the exigences of the drama than from the constant desire of the poet to give expression to his love of Provence. The attention of the reader is diverted at every turn from the adventures of the persons in the play to the glories and the beauties of the lovely land in which our poet was born. The matter of a play is certainly contained in the subject, but the energy of the author has not been spent upon the invention of strong situations, upon the clash of wills, upon the psychology of his characters, upon the interplay of passions, but rather upon strengthening in the hearts of his Provençal hearers the love of the good Queen Joanna, whose life has some of the romance of that of Mary, Queen of Scots, and upon letting them hear from her lips and from the lips of her courtiers the praises of Provence.

Mistral enumerates eight dramatic works treating the life of his heroine. They are a tragedy in five acts and a verse by Magnon (Paris, 1656), called _Jeanne Ire, reine de Naples_; a tragedy in five acts and in verse by Laharpe, produced in 1781, entitled, _Jeanne de Naples_; an opéra-comique in three acts, the book by De Leuven and Brunswick, the music by Monpon and Bordèse, produced in 1840; an Italian tragedy, _La Regina Griovanna_, by the Marquis of Casanova, written about 1840; an Italian opera, the libretto by Ghislanzoni, who is known as the librettist of _Aïda_, the music by Petrella (Milan, 1875); a play in verse by Brunetti, called _Griovanna I di Napoli_ (Naples, 1881); a Hungarian play by Rakosi, _Johanna es Endre_, and lastly the trilogy of Walter Savage Landor, _Andrea of Hungary_, _Griovanna of Naples_, and _Fra Rupert_ (London, 1853). Mistral's play is dated May, 1890.

It may be said concerning the work of Landor, which is a poem in dramatic form rather than a play, that it offers scarcely any points of resemblance with Mistral's beyond the few essential facts in the lives of Andrea and Joanna. Both poets take for granted the innocence of the Queen. It is worth noting that Provence is but once referred to in the entire work of the English poet.

The introduction that precedes Mistral's play quotes the account of the life of the Queen from the _Dictionnaire_ of Moréri (Lyons, 1681), which we here translate.

"Giovanna, first of the name, Queen of Jerusalem, Naples, and Sicily, Duchess of Apulia and Calabria, Countess of Provence, etc., was a daughter of Charles of Sicily, Duke of Calabria, who died in 1328, before his father Robert, and of Marie of Valois, his second wife. She was only nineteen years of age when she assumed the government of her dominions after her grandfather's death in 1343. She had already been married by him to his nephew, Andrea of Hungary. This was not a happy marriage; for the inclinations of both were extremely contrary, and the prince was controlled by a Franciscan monk named Robert, and the princess by a washerwoman called Filippa Catenese. These indiscreet advisers brought matters to extremes, so that Andrea was strangled in 1345. The disinterested historians state ingenuously that Joanna was not guilty of this crime, although the others accuse her of it. She married again, on the 2d of August, 1346. Her second husband was Louis of Tarento, her cousin; and she was obliged to leave Naples to avoid the armed attack of Louis, King of Hungary, who committed acts of extreme violence in this state. Joanna, however, quieted all these things by her prudence, and after losing this second husband, on the 25th of March, 1362, she married not long afterward a third, James of Aragon, Prince of Majorca, who, however, tarried not long with her. So seeing herself a widow for the third time, she made a fourth match in 1376 with Otto of Brunswick, of the House of Saxony; and as she had no children, she adopted a relative, Charles of Duras.... This ungrateful prince revolted against Queen Joanna, his benefactress.... He captured Naples, and laid siege to the Castello Nuovo, where the Queen was. She surrendered. Charles of Duras had her taken to Muro, in the Basilicata, and had her put to death seven or eight months afterward. She was then in her fifty-eighth year.... Some authors say that he caused her to be smothered, others that she was strangled; but the more probable view is that she was beheaded, in 1382, on the 5th of May. It is said that a Provençal astrologer, doubtless a certain Anselme who lived at that time, and who is very famous in the history of Provence, being questioned as to the future husband of the young princess, replied, 'Maritabitur cum ALIO.' This word is composed of the initials of the names of her four husbands, Andrea, Louis, James, and Otto. This princess, furthermore, was exceedingly clever, fond of the sciences and of men of learning, of whom she had a great many at her court, liberal and beautiful, prudent, wise, and not lacking in piety. She it is that sold Avignon to the popes. Boccaccio, Balde, and other scholars of her time speak of her with praise."

In offering an explanation of the great popularity enjoyed by Joanna of Naples among the people of Provence, the poet does not hesitate to acknowledge that along with her beauty, her personal charm, her brilliant arrival on the gorgeous galley at the court of Clement VI, whither she came, eloquent and proud, to exculpate herself, her long reign and its vicissitudes, her generous efforts to reform abuses, must be counted also the grewsome procession of her four husbands; and this popularity, he says, is still alive, after five centuries. The poet places her among such historic figures as Caius Marius, Ossian, King Arthur, Count Raymond of Toulouse, the good King René, Anne of Brittany, Roland, the Cid, to which the popular mind has attached heroic legends, race traditions, and mysterious monuments. The people of Provence still look back upon the days of their independence when she reigned, a sort of good fairy, as the good old times of Queen Joanna. Countless castles, bridges, churches, monuments, testify to her life among this enthusiastic people. Roads and ruins, towers and aqueducts, bear her name. Proverbs exist wherein it is preserved. "For us," says Mistral, "the fair Joanna is what Mary Stuart is for the Scotch,--a mirage of retrospective love, a regret of youth, of nationality, of poetry passed away. And analogies are not lacking in the lives of the two royal, tragic enchantresses." Petrarch, speaking of her and her young husband surrounded by Hungarians, refers to them as two lambs among wolves. In a letter dated from Vancluse, August, 1346, he deplores the death of the King, but makes no allusion to the complicity of the Queen.

Boccaccio proclaims her the special pride of Italy, so gracious, gentle, and kindly, that she seemed rather the companion than the queen of her subjects.

Our author cites likewise some of her accusers, and considers most of the current sayings against her as apocryphal. Some of these will not bear quotation in English. Mistral evidently wishes to believe her innocent, and he makes out a pretty good case. He approves the remark of Scipione Ammirato, that she contracted four successive marriages through a desire to have direct heirs. Another notices that had she been dissolute, she would have preferred the liberty of remaining a widow. The poet cites Pope Innocent VI, who gave her the golden rose, and sets great store upon the expression of Saint Catherine of Siena, who calls her "Venerabile madre in Gesù Cristo," and he concludes by saying, "We prefer to concur in the judgment of the good Giannone (1676-1748), which so well agrees with our traditions."

The first act opens with a picture that might tempt a painter of Italian scenes. The Queen and her gay court are seated on the lawn of the palace garden at Naples, overlooking the bay and islands. At the very outset we hear of the Gai Savoir, and the Queen utters the essentially Provençal sentiment that "the chief glory the world should strive for is light, for joy and love are the children of the sun, and art and literature the great torches." She calls upon Anfan of Sisteron to speak to her of her Provence, "the land of God, of song and youth, the finest jewel in her crown," and Anfan, in long and eloquent tirades, tells of Toulouse and Nice and the Isles of Gold, reviews the settling of the Greeks, the domination of the Romans, and the sojourn of the Saracens; Aix and Arles, les Baux, Toulon, are glorified again; we hear of the old liberties of these towns where men sleep, sing, and shout, and of the magnificence of the papal court at Avignon.

"Enfin, en Avignoun, i'a lou papo! grandour Poudé, magnificènci, e poumpo e resplendour, Que mestrejon la terro e fan, sènso messorgo, Boufa l'alen de Diéu i ribo de la Sorgo."

Lastly, in Avignon, there's the Pope! greatness, power, magnificence, pomp, and splendor, dominating the earth, and without exaggeration, causing the breath of God to blow upon the banks of the Sorgue.

We learn that the brilliancy and animation of the court at Avignon outshine the glories of Rome, and in language that fairly glitters with its high-sounding, highly colored words. We hear of Petrarch and Laura, and the associations of Vaucluse.

At this juncture the Prince arrives, and is struck by the resemblance of the scene to a court of love; he wonders if they are not discussing the question whether love is not drowned in the nuptial holy water font, or whether the lady inspires the lover as much with her presence as when absent. And the Queen defends her mode of life and temperament; she cannot brook the cold and gloomy ways of the north. Were we to apply the methods of Voltaire's strictures of Corneille to this play, it might be interesting to see how many _vers de comédie_ could be found in these scenes of dispute between the prince consort and his light-hearted wife.

"A l'avans! zóu! en fèsto arrouinas lou Tresor!"

Go ahead! that's right, ruin the treasury with your feasts!

and to his objections to so many flattering courtiers, the Queen replies:--

"Voulès que moun palais devèngue un mounastié?"

Do you want my palace to become a monastery?

Joanna replies nobly and eloquently to the threats of her husband to assume mastery over her by violent means, and, in spite of the anachronism (the poet makes her use and seemingly invent the term _Renascence_), her defence of the arts and science of her time is forceful and enthusiastic, and carries the reader along. That this sort of eloquence is dramatic, appears, however, rather doubtful.

The next scene interests us more directly in the characters before us. The Prince, left alone with his confidant, Fra Rupert, gives expression to his passionate love for the Queen, and pours forth the bitterness of his soul to see it unrequited. The fierce Hungarian monk denounces, rather justly, it appears to us, the license and levity of the Italian court, and incites Andrea to an appeal to the Pope, "a potentate that has no army, whose dominion extends from pole to pole, who binds and unbinds at his will, upholds, makes, or unmakes thrones as an almighty master."

But Andrea fears the Queen would never pardon him.

"E se noun ai en plen lou mèu si caresso, L'empèri universal! m'es un gourg d'amaresso!"

And if I have not fully the honey of her caresses The empire of the world is to me a gulf of bitterness.

Finally the monk and La Catanaise stand alone before us. This woman is the Queen's nurse, who loves her with a fierce sort of passion, and it is she who commits the crime that causes the play to be called a tragedy. This final scene brings out a flood of the most violent vituperation from this veritable virago, some of it exceedingly low in tone. The friar leaves with the threat to have a red-hot nail run through her hellish tongue, and La Catanaise, standing alone, gives vent to her fury in threats of murder.

The next act reveals the Hall of Honor in the Castel-Nuovo at Naples. Andrea in anger proclaims himself king, and in the presence of the Queen and the Italian courtiers gives away one after another all the offices and honors of the realm to his Hungarian followers. A conflict with drawn swords is about to ensue, when the Queen rushes between the would-be combatants, reminding them of the decree of the Pope; but Andrea in fury accuses the Queen of conduct worthy a shameless adventuress, and cites the reports that liken her to Semiramis in her orgies. The Prince of Taranto throws down his glove to the enraged Andrea, who replies by a threat to bring him to the executioner. The Prince of Taranto answers that the executioner may be the supreme law for a king,

"Mai pèr un qu'a l'ounour dins lou piés e dins l'amo, Uno escorno, cousin, se purgo emé la lamo."

But for one who has honor in his breast and his soul, An insult, cousin, is purged with the sword.

Andrea turns to his knights, and leaving the room with them points to the flag bearing the block and axe as emblems. The partisans of Joanna remain full of indignation. La Catanaise addresses them. The Sicilians, she says, waste no time in words, but have a speedier method of punishing a wrong, and she reminds them of the massacre at Palermo. The Prince of Taranto discountenances the proposed crime, for the Queen's fair name would suffer. But the fierce woman points to the flag. "Do you see that axe hanging from a thread? You are all cowards! Let me act alone." And the Prince nobly replies, "Philippine, battles are fought in the sunlight; men of our renown, men of my stamp, do not crouch down in the dark shadow of a plot." And the Catanaise again shows the flag. "Do you see the axe falling upon the block?"

Joanna enters to offer the Prince her thanks for his chivalrous defence of her fair name, and dismisses the other courtiers. The ensuing brief scene between the Queen and the Prince is really very eloquent and very beautiful. The Queen recalls the fact that she was married at nine to Andrea, then only a child too; and she has never known love. The poorest of the shepherdesses on the mountains of Calabria may quench her thirst at the spring, but she, the Queen of the Sun, if to pass away the time, or to have the appearance of happiness, she loves to listen to the echo of song, to behold the joy and brilliancy of a noble fête, her very smile becomes criminal. And the Prince reminds her that she is the Provençal queen, and that in the great times of that people, if the consort were king, love was a god, and he recalls the names of all the ladies made famous by the Troubadours. Thereupon the Queen in an outburst of enthusiasm truly Felibrean invokes the God of Love, the God that slew Dido, and speaks in the spirit of the days of courtly love, "O thou God of Love, hearken unto me. If my fatal beauty is destined sooner or later to bring about my death, let this flame within me be, at least, the pyre that shall kindle the song of the poet! Let my beauty be the luminous star exalting men's hearts to lofty visions!"

The chivalrous Prince is dismissed, and Joanna is alone with, her thoughts. The little page Dragonet sings outside a plaintive song with the refrain:--

"Que regrèt! Jamai digues toun secrèt."

What regret! Never tell thy secret.

La Catanaise endeavors to excite the fears of the Queen, insinuating that the Pope may give the crown to Andrea. Joanna has no fear.

"We shall have but to appear before the country with this splendor of irresistible grace, and like the smoke borne away by the breeze, suddenly my enemies shall disappear."

We may ask whether such self-praise comes gracefully from the Queen herself, whether she might not be less conscious of her own charm. La Catanaise is again alone on the scene, threatening. "The bow is drawn, the hen setting." This last comparison, the reader will remark, would be simply impossible as the termination of an act in a serious English play. This last scene, too, is wofully weak and purposeless.

The conversation of three courtiers at the beginning of Act III apprises us of the fact that the Pope has succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between the royal pair, and that they are both to be crowned, and as a matter of precaution, the nurse Philippine, and the monk Fra Rupert are to be sent upon their several ways. The scene is next filled by the conspirators, La Catanaise directing the details of the plots. It is made clear that the Queen is utterly ignorant of these proceedings, which are after all useless; for we fail to see what valid motive these plotters have to urge them on to their contemptible deed. A brilliant banquet scene ensues, wherein Anfan of Sisteron sings a song of seven stanzas about the fairy Mélusine, and seven times Dragonet sings the refrain, "Sian de la raço di lesert" (We are of the race of the lizards). And there are enthusiastic tirades in praise of the Queen and of Provence, and all is merry. But Andrea spills salt upon the table, which evil augury seems to be taken seriously. This little episode is foolish, and unwrorthy of a tragedy. We are on the verge of an assassination. Either the gloomy forebodings and the terror of the event should be impressed upon us, or the exaggerated gayety and high spirits of the revellers should by contrast make the coming event seem more terrible; but the spilling of salt is utterly trivial. After the feast La Catanaise and her daughter proceed to their devilish work, in the room now lighted only by the pale rays of the moon, while the voice of the screech-owl is heard outside. The trap is set for the King; he is strangled just out of sight with the silken noose. The Queen is roused by her nurse. The palace is in an uproar, and the act terminates with a passionate demand for vengeance and justice on the part of Fra Rupert.

And now the Fourth Act. Here Mistral is in his element; here his love of rocky landscapes, of azure seas and golden islands, of song and festivity, finds full play. The tragedy is forgotten, the dramatic

## action completely interrupted,--never mind. We accompany the Queen on

her splendid galley all the way from Naples to Marseilles. She leaves amid the acclamations of the Neapolitans, recounts the splendors of the beautiful bay, and promises to return "like the star of night coming out of the mist, laurel in hand, on the white wings of her Provençal galley." The boat starts, the rowers sing their plaintive rhythmic songs, the Queen is enraptured by the beauty of the fleeing shores, the white sail glistens in the glorious blue above. She is lulled by the motion of the boat and the waving of the hangings of purple and gold. Midway on her journey she receives a visit from the Infante of Majorca, James of Aragon, who seems to be wandering over that part of the sea; then the astrologer Anselme predicts her marriage with _Alio_ and her death. She shall be visited with the sins of her ancestors; the blood spilled by Charles of Anjou cries for vengeance. The Queen passes through a moment of gloom. She dispels it, exclaiming: "Be it so, strike where thou wilt, O fate, I am a queen; I shall fight, if need be, until death, to uphold my cause and my womanly honor. If my wild planet is destined to sink in a sea of blood and tears, the glittering trace I shall leave on the earth will show at least that I was worthy to be thy great queen, O brilliant Provence!"

She descends into the ship, and the rowers resume their song. Later we arrive at Nice, where the Queen is received by an exultant throng. She forgets the awful predictions and is utterly filled with delight. She will visit all the cities where she is loved, her ambition is to see her flag greeted all along the Mediterranean with shouts of joy and love. She feels herself to be a Provençale. "Come, people, here I am; breathe me in, drink me in! It is sweet to me to be yours, and sweet to please you; and you may gaze in love and admiration upon me, for I am your queen!"

The journey is resumed. We pass the Isles of Gold, and the raptures are renewed. At Marseilles the Queen is received by the Consuls, and swears solemnly to respect all the rights, customs, and privileges of the land, and the Consul exacts as the last oath that she swear to see that the noble speech of Arles shall be maintained and spoken in the land of Provence. The act closes with the sentiment, "May Provence triumph in every way!"

The last act brings us to the great hall of the papal palace at Avignon, where the Pope is to pronounce judgment upon the Queen. Fra Rupert, disguised as a pilgrim, harangues the throng, and two Hungarian knights are beaten in duel by Galéas of Mantua. This duel, with its alternate cries of Dau! Dau! Tè! Tè! Zóu! Zóu! is difficult to take seriously and reminds us of Tartarin. The Queen enters in conversation with Petrarch. The Hungarian knights utter bitter accusations against the Queen, who gives them in place of iron chains the golden chains about her neck, whereupon the knights gallantly declare their hearts are won forever. The doors open at the back and we see the papal court. Bertrand des Baux gives a hideous account of the torture and death of those who had a hand in the death of Andrea. The Queen makes a long speech, expressing her deep grief at the calumnies and slander that beset her. The court and people resolve themselves into a kind of opera chorus, expressing their various sentiments in song. The Queen next reviews her life with Andrea, and concludes:--

"And it seemed to me noble and worthy of a queen to melt with a glance the cold of the frost, to make the almond tree blossom with a smile, to be amiable to all, affable, generous, and lead my people with a thread of wool! Yes, all the thought of my mad youth was to be loved and to reign by the power of love. Who could have foretold that, afterward, on the day of the great disaster, all this should be made a reproach against me! that I should be accused, at the age of twenty, of instigating an awful crime!"

And she breaks down weeping. The page, the people, the pilgrim, and the astrologer again sing in a sort of operatic ensemble their various emotions. The Pope absolves the Queen, the pilgrim denounces the verdict furiously, and is put to death by Galéas of Mantua. So ends the play.

_La Rèino Jano_ is a pageant rather than a tragedy. It is full of song and sunshine, glow and glitter. The characters all talk in the exaggerated and exuberant style of Mistral, who is not dramatist enough to create independent being, living before us. The central personage is in no sense a tragic character. The fanatical Fra Rupert and the low, vile-tongued Catanaise are not tragic characters. The psychology throughout is decidedly upon the surface.

The author in his introduction warns us that to judge this play we must place ourselves at the point of view of the Provençals, in whom many an expression or allusion that leaves the ordinary reader or spectator untouched, will possibly awaken, as he hopes, some particular emotion. This is true of all his literature; the Provençal language, the traditions, the memories of Provence, are the web and woof of it all.

It is interesting to note the impression made by the language upon a Frenchman and a critic of the rank of Jules Lemaître. He says in concluding his review of this play:--

"The language is too gay, it has too much sing-song, it is too harmonious. It does not possess the rough gravity of the Spanish, and has too few of the _i_'s and _e_'s that soften the sonority of the Italian. I may venture to say it is too expressive, too full of onomatopœia. Imagine a language, in which to say, "He bursts out laughing," one must use the word _s'escacalasso_! There are too many _on_'s and _oun_'s and too much _ts_ and _dz_ in the pronunciation. So that the Provençal language, in spite of everything, keeps a certain patois vulgarity. It forces the poet, so to say, to perpetual song-making. It must be very difficult, in that language, to have an individual style, still more difficult to express abstract ideas. But it is a merry language."

The play has never yet been performed, and until a trial is made, one is inclined to think it would not be effective, except as a spectacle. It is curious that the Troubadours produced no dramatic literature whatever, and that the same lack is found in the modern revival.

Aubanel's _Lou Pan dóu Pecat_ (The Bread of Sin), written in 1863, and performed in 1878 at Montpellier, seems to have been successful, and was played at Paris at the Théâtre Libre in 1888, in the verse-translation made by Paul Arène. Aubanel wrote two other plays, _Lou Pastre_, which is lost, and _Lou Raubatòn_, a work that must be considered unfinished. Two plays, therefore, constitute the entire dramatic production in the new language.

PART THIRD

CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS

It would be idle to endeavor to determine whether Mistral is to be classed as a great poet, or whether the Félibres have produced a great literature, and nothing is defined when the statement is made that Mistral is or is not a great poet. His genius may be said to be limited geographically, for if from it were eliminated all that pertains directly to Provence, the remainder would be almost nothing. The only human nature known to the poet is the human nature of Provence, and while it is perfectly true that a human being in Provence could be typical of human nature in general, and arouse interest in all men through his humanity common to all, the fact is, that Mistral has not sought to express what is of universal interest, but has invariably chosen to present human life in its Provençal aspects and from one point of view only. A second limitation is found in the unvarying exteriority of his method of presenting human nature. Never does he probe deeply into the souls of his Provençals. Very vividly indeed does he reproduce their words and gestures; but of the deeper under-currents, the inner conflicts, the agonies of doubt and indecision, the bitterness of disappointments, the lofty aspirations toward a higher inner life or a closer communion with the universe, the moral problems that shake a human soul, not a syllable. Nor is he a poet who pours out his own soul into verse.

External nature is for him, again, nature as seen in Provence. The rocks and trees, the fields and the streams, do not awaken in him a stir of emotions because of their power to compel a mood in any responsive poetic soul, but they excite him primarily as the rocks and trees, the fields and streams of his native region. He is no mere word-painter. Rarely do his descriptions appear to exist for their own sake. They furnish a necessary, fitting, and delightful background to the action of his poems. They are too often indications of what a Provençal ought to consider admirable or wonderful, they are sometimes spoiled by the poet's excessive partiality for his own little land. His work is ever the work of a man with a mission.

There is no profound treatment of the theme of love. Each of the long poems and his play have a love story as the centre of interest, but the lovers are usually children, and their love utterly without complications. There is everywhere a lovely purity, a delightful simplicity, a straightforward naturalness that is very charming, but in this theme as in the others, Mistral is incapable of tragic depths and heights. So it is as regards the religious side of man's nature. The poet's work is filled with allusions to religion; there are countless legends concerning saints and hermits, descriptions of churches and the papal palace, there is the detailed history of the conversion of Provence to Christianity, but the deepest religious spirit is not his. Only twice in all his work do we come upon a profounder religious sense, in the second half of _Lou Prègo-Diéu_ and in _Lou Saume de la Penitènci_. There is no doubt that Mistral is a believer, but religious feeling has not a large place in his work; there are no other meditations upon death and destiny.

And this _âme du Midi, spirit of Provence_, the genius of his race that he has striven to express, what is it? How shall it be defined or formulated? Alphonse Daudet, who knew it, and loved it, whose Parisian life and world-wide success did not destroy in him the love of his native Provence, who loved the very food of the Midi above all others, and jumped up in joy when a southern intonation struck his ear, and who was continually beset with longings to return to the beloved region, has well defined it. He was the friend of Mistral and followed the poet's efforts and achievements with deep and affectionate interest. It is not difficult to see that the satire in the "Tartarin" series is not unkind, nor is it untrue. Daudet approved of the Félibrige movement, though what he himself wrote in Provençal is insignificant. He believed that the national literature could be best vivified by those who most loved their homes, that the best originality could thus be attained. He has said:[17]--

"The imagination of the southerners differs from that of the northerners in that it does not mingle the different elements and forms in literature, and remains lucid in its outbreaks. In our most complex natures you never encounter the entanglement of directions, relations, and figures that characterizes a Carlyle, a Browning, or a Poe. For this reason the man of the north always finds fault with the man of the south for his lack of depth and darkness.

"If we consider the most violent of human passions, love, we see that the southerner makes it the great affair of his life, but does not allow himself to become disorganized. He likes the talk that goes with it, its lightness, its change. He hates the slavery of it. It furnishes a pretext for serenades, fine speeches, light scoffing, caresses. He finds it difficult to comprehend the joining together of love and death, which lies in the northern nature, and casts a shade of melancholy upon these brief delights."

Daudet notes the ease with which the southerner is carried away and duped by the mirage of his own fancy, his semi-sincerity in excitement and enthusiasm. He admired the natural eloquence of his Provençals. He found a justification for their exaggerations.

"Is it right to accuse a man of lying, who is intoxicated with his own eloquence, who, without evil intent, or love of deceit, or any instinct of scheming or false trading, seeks to embellish his own life, and other people's, with stories he knows to be illusions, but which he wishes were true? Is Don Quixote a liar? Are all the poets deceivers who aim to free us from realities, to go soaring off into space? After all, among southerners, there is no deception. Each one, within himself, restores things to their proper proportions."

Daudet had Mistral's love of the sunshine. He needed it to inspire him. He believed it explained the southern nature.

Concerning the absence of metaphysics in the race he says:--

"These reasonings may culminate in a state of mind such as we see extolled in Buddhism, a colorless state, joyless and painless, across which the fleeting splendors of thought pass like stars. Well, the man of the south cares naught for that sort of paradise. The vein of real sensation is freely, perpetually open, open to life. The side that pertains to abstraction, to logic, is lost in mist."

We have referred to the power of story-telling among the Provençals and their responsiveness as listeners. Daudet mentions the contrast to be observed between an audience of southerners and the stolid, self-contained attitude of a crowd in the north.

The evil side of the southern temperament, the faults that accompany these traits, are plainly stated by the great novelist. Enthusiasm turns to hypocrisy, or brag; the love of what glitters, to a passion for luxury at any cost; sociability, the desire to please, become weakness and fulsome flattery. The orator beats his breast, his voice is hoarse, choked with emotion, his tears flow conveniently, he appeals to patriotism and the noblest sentiments. There is a legend, according to Daudet, which says that when Mirabeau cried out, "We will not leave unless driven out at the point of the bayonet," a voice off at one side corrected the utterance, murmuring sarcastically, "And if the bayonets come, we make tracks!"

The southerner, when he converses, is roused to animation readily. His eye flashes, his words are uttered with strong intonations, the impressiveness of a quiet, earnest, self-contained manner is unknown to him.

Daudet is a novelist and a humorist. Mistral is a poet; hence, although he professes to aim at a full expression of the "soul of his Provence," there are many aspects of the Provençal nature that he has not touched upon. He has omitted all the traits that lend themselves to satirical treatment, and, although he is in many ways a remarkable realist, he has very little dramatic power, and seems to lack the gift of searching analysis of individual character. It is hardly fair to reckon it as a shortcoming in the poet and apostle of Provence that he presents only what is most beautiful in the life about him. The novelist offers us a faithful and vivid image of the men of his own day. The poet glorifies the past, clings to tradition, and exhorts his countrymen to return to it.

Essentially and above all else a conservative, Mistral has the gravest doubts about so-called modern progress. Undoubtedly honest in desiring the well-being of his fellow Provençals, he believes that this can be preserved or attained only by a following of tradition. There must be no breaking with the past. Daudet, late in life, adhered to this doctrine. His son quotes him as saying:--

"I am following, with gladness, the results of the impulse Mistral has given. Return to tradition! that is our salvation in the present going to pieces. I have always felt this instinctively. It came to me clearly only a few years ago. It is a bad thing to become wholly loosened from the soil, to forget the village church spire. Curiously enough poetry attaches only to objects that have come down to us, that have had long use. What is called _progress_, a vague and very doubtful term, rouses the lower parts of our intelligence. The higher parts vibrate the better for what has moved and inspired a long series of imaginative minds, inheriting each from a predecessor, strengthened by the sight of the same landscapes, by the same perfumes, by the touch of the same furniture, polished by wear. Very ancient impressions sink into the depth of that obscure memory which we may call the _race-memory_, out of which is woven the mass of individual memories."

Mistral is truly the poet of the Midi. One can best see how superior he is as an artist in words by comparing him with the foremost of his fellow-poets. He is a master of language. He has the eloquence, the enthusiasm, the optimism of his race. His poetic earnestness saves his tendency to exaggerate. His style, in all its superiority, is a southern style, full of interjections, full of long, sonorous words. His thought, his expressions, are ever lucid. His art is almost wholly objective. His work has extraordinary unity, and therefore does not escape the monotony that was unavoidable when the poet voluntarily limited himself to a single purpose in life, and to treatment of the themes thereunto pertaining. Believers in material progress, those who look for great changes in political and social conditions, will turn from Mistral with indifference. His contentment with present things, and his love of the past, are likely to irritate them. Those who seek in a poet consolation in the personal trials of life, a new message concerning human destiny, a new note in the everlasting themes that the great poets have sung, will be disappointed.

A word must be said of him as a writer of French. In the earlier years he felt the weight of the Academy. He did not feel that French would allow full freedom. He was scrupulous and timid. He soon shook off this timidity and became a really remarkable wielder of the French tongue. His translations of his own works have doubtless reached a far wider public than the works themselves, and are certainly characterized by great boldness, clearness, and an astonishingly large vocabulary.

His earlier work is clearly inspired by his love of Greek literature, and those qualities in Latin literature wherein the Greek genius shines through, possibly also by some mysterious affinity with the Greek spirit resulting from climate or atavism. This never entirely left him. When later he writes of Provence in the Middle Age, of the days of the Troubadours, his manner does not change; his work offers no analogies here with the French Romantic school.

No poet, it would seem, was ever so in love with his own language; no artist ever so loved the mere material he was using. Mistral loves the words he uses, he loves their sound, he loves to hear them from the lips of those about him; he loves the intonations and the cadences of his verse; his love is for the speech itself aside from any meaning it conveys. A beautiful instrument it is indeed. Possibly nothing is more peculiarly striking about him than this extreme enthusiasm for his golden speech, his _lengo d'or_.

To him must be conceded the merit of originality, great originality. In seeking the source of many of his conceptions, one is led to the conclusion, and his own testimony bears it out, that they are the creations of his own fancy. If there is much prosaic realism in the _Poem of the Rhone_, the Prince and the Anglore are purely the children of Mistral's almost naïve imagination, and Calendau and Esterello are attached to the real world of history by the slenderest bonds. When we seek for resemblances between his conceptions and those of other poets, we can undoubtedly find them. Mireille now and then reminds of Daphnis and Chloe, of Hermann and Dorothea, of Evangeline, but the differences are far more in evidence than the resemblances. Esterello is in an attitude toward Calendau not without analogy to that of Beatrice toward Dante, but it would be impossible to find at any point the slightest imitation of Dante. Some readers have been reminded of Faust in reading _Nerto_, but beyond the scheme of the Devil to secure a woman's soul, there is little similarity. Nothing could be more utterly without philosophy than _Nerto_. Mistral has drawn his inspirations from within himself; he has not worked over the poems and legends of former poets, or sought much of his subject-matter in the productions of former ages. He has not suffered from the deep reflection, the pondering, and the doubt that destroy originality.

If Mistral had written his poems in French, he would certainly have stood apart from the general line of French poets. It would have been impossible to attach him to any of the so-called "schools" of poetry that have followed one another during this century in France. He is as unlike the Romantics as he is unlike the Parnassians. M. Brunetière would find no difficulty in applying to his work the general epithet of "social" that so well characterizes French literature considered in its main current, for Mistral always sings to his fellow-men to move them, to persuade them, to stir their hearts. Almost all of his poems in the lyrical form show him as the spokesman of his fellows or as the leader urging them to action. He is therefore not of the school of "Art for Art's sake," but his art is consecrated to the cause he represents.

His thought is ever pure and high; his lessons are lessons of love, of noble aims, of energy and enthusiasm. He is full of love for the best in the past, love of his native soil, love of his native landscapes, love of the men about him, love of his country. He is a poet of the "Gai Saber," joyous and healthy, he has never felt a trace of the bitterness, the disenchantment, the gloom and the pain of a Byron or a Leopardi. He is eminently representative of the race he seeks to glorify in its own eyes and in the world's, himself a type of that race at its very best, with all its exuberance and energy, with its need of outward manifestation, life and movement. An important place must be assigned to him among those who have bodied forth their poetic conceptions in the various euphonious forms of speech descended from the ancient speech of Rome.

In Provence, and far beyond its borders, he is known and loved. His

## activity has not ceased. His voice is still heard, clear, strong,

hopeful, inspiring. _Mireille_ is sung in the ruined Roman theatre at Aries, museums are founded to preserve Provençal art and antiquities, the Felibrean feasts continue with unabated enthusiasm. Mistral's life is a successful life; he has revived a language, created a literature, inspired a people. So potent is art to-day in the old land of the Troubadours. All the charm and beauty of that sunny land, all that is enchanting in its past, all the best, in the ideal sense, that may be hoped for in its future, is expressed in his musical, limpid, lovely verse. Such a poet and such a leader of men is rare in the annals of literature. Such complete oneness of purpose and of achievement is rare among men.

[Footnote 17: See _Revue de Paris_, 15 avril, 1898.]

APPENDIX

We offer here a literal prose translation of the _Psalm of Penitence_.

THE PSALM OF PENITENCE

I

Lord, at last thy wrath hurleth its thunderbolts upon our foreheads, and in the night our vessel strikes its prow against the rocks.

Lord, thou cuttest us down with the sword of the barbarian like fine wheat, and not one of the cravens that we shielded comes to our defence.

Lord, thou twistest us like a willow wand, thou breakest down to-day all our pride; there is none to envy us, who but yesterday were so proud.

Lord, our land goeth to ruin in war and strife; and if thou withhold thy mercy, great and small will devour one another.

Lord, thou art terrible, thou strikest us upon the back; in awful turmoil thou breakest our power, compelling us to confess past evil.

II

Lord, we had strayed away from the austerity of the old laws and ways. Virtues, domestic customs, we had destroyed and demolished.

Lord, giving an evil example, and denying thee like the heathen, we had one day closed up thy temples and mocked thy Holy Christ.

Lord, leaving behind us thy sacraments and commandments, we had brutally lost belief in all but self-interest and progress!

Lord, in the waste heavens we have clouded thy light with our smoke, and to-day the sons mock the nakedness and purity of their fathers.

Lord, we have blown upon thy Bible with the breath of false knowledge; and holding ourselves up like the poplar trees, we wretched beings have declared ourselves gods.

Lord, we have left the furrow, we have trampled all respect under foot; and with the heavy wine that intoxicates us we defile the innocent.

III

Lord, we are thy prodigal children, but we are thy Christians of old; let thy justice chastise us, but give us not over unto death.

Lord, in the name of so many brave men, who went forth fearless, valiant, docile, grave, and then fell in battle;

Lord, in the name of so many mothers, who are about to pray to God for their sons, and who next year, alas! and the year thereafter, shall see them no more;

Lord, in the name of so many women who have at their bosoms a little child, and who, poor creatures, moisten the earth and the sheets of their beds with tears;

Lord, in the name of the poor, in the name of the strong, in the name of the dead who shall die for their country, their duty, and their faith;

Lord, for so many defeats, so many tears and woes, for so many towns ravaged, for so much brave, holy blood;

Lord, for so many adversities, for so much mourning throughout our France, for so many insults upon our heads;

IV

Lord, disarm thy justice. Cast down thine eye upon us, and heed the cries of the bruised and wounded!

Lord, if the rebellious cities, through their luxury and folly, have overturned the scale-pan of thy balance, resisting and denying thee;

Lord, before the breath of the Alps, that praiseth God winter and summer, all the trees of the fields, obedient, bow together;

Lord, France and Provence have sinned only through forgetfulness; do thou forgive us our offences, for we repent of the evil of former days.

Lord, we desire to become men, thou canst set us free. We are Gallo-Romans, and of noble race, and we walk upright in our land.

Lord, we are not the cause of the evil, send down upon us a ray of peace. Lord, help our cause, and we shall live again and love thee.

THE PRESENT CAPOULIÉ OF THE FÉLIBRIGE.

M. Pierre Devoluy, of the town of Die, was elected at Arles, in April, 1901. The Consistory was presided over by Mistral.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following list contains the most important works that have been published concerning Mistral and the Félibrige. Numerous articles have appeared in nearly all the languages of Europe in various magazines. Of these only such are mentioned as seem worthy of special notice.

WORKS CONCERNING THE FÉLIBRIGE IN GENERAL

_America_

JANVIER, THOMAS A., Numerous articles in the Century Magazine, New York, 1893, and following years.

_An Embassy to Provence_. New York, 1893.

PRESTON, HARRIETT, _Mistral's Calendau_. The Atlantic Monthly, New York, 1874.

_Aubanel's Miòugrano entreduberto_. The Atlantic Monthly, New York, 1874.

_England_

CRAIG, DUNCAN, _Miéjour Provençal Legend, Life, Language, and Literature_. London.

_The Handbook of the Modern Provençal Language_.

CROMBIE, J.W., _The Poets and Peoples of Foreign Lands: Frédéric Mistral_. Elliot, London, 1890.

HARTOG, CECIL, _Poets of Provence_. London Contemporary Review, 1894.

_France_

BOISSIN, FIRMIN, _Le Midi littéraire contemporain_. Douladoure, Toulouse, 1887.

DE BOUCHAUD, _Roumanille et le Félibrige_. Mougin, Lyons, 1896.

BRUN, C., _L'Evolution félibréenne_. Paquet, Lyons, 1896.

DONNADIEU, F., _Les Précurseurs des Félibres_. Quantin, Paris, 1888.

HENNION, C., _Les Fleurs félibresques_. Paris, 1893.

JOURDANNE, G., _Histoire du Félibrige_. Roumanille, Avignon, 1897.

LINTILHAC, E., _Les Félibres à travers leur monde et leur poésie_. Lemerre, Paris, 1895.

_Précis de la littérature française_. Paris, 1890.

LEGRÉ, L., _Le Poète Théodore Aubanel_. Paris, 1894.

MARGON, A. DE, _Les Précurseurs des Félibres_. Béziers, 1891.

MARIÉTON, PAUL, _La Terre provençale_. Lemerre, Paris, 1894.

Article _Félibrige_ in the _Grande Encyclopédie_.

Article _Mistral_ in the _Grande Encyclopédie_.

MICHEL, S., _La Petite Patrie_. Roumanille, Avignon, 1894.

NOULET, B., _Essai sur l'histoire littéraire des patois du midi de la France, aux VIIIe siécle_. Montpellier, 1877.

PARIS, GASTON, _Penseurs et poètes_. Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1896.

RESTORI, _Histoire de la littérature provençale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours_. Montpellier, 1895. (Translated from the Italian.)

ROQUE-FERRIER, A., _Mélanges de critique littéraire et de philologie_. Montpellier, 1892.

SAINT-RENÉ-TAILLANDIER, V., _Etudes littéraires_. Plon et Cie, Paris, 1881.

TAVERNIER, E., _La Renaissance provençale et Roumanille_. Gervais, Paris, 1884.

_Le mouvement littéraire provençal et Lis Isclo d'Or de Frédéric Mistral_. Aix, 1876.

DE TERRIS, J., _Roumanille et la littérature provençale_. Blond, Paris, 1894.

DE VINAC, M., _Les Félibres_. Richaud, Gap, 1882.

_Germany_

BÖHMER, E., _Die provenzalische Dichtung der Gegenwart_. Heilbronn, 1870.

KOSCHWITZ, E., _Ueber die provenzalischen Feliber und ihre Vorgänger_. Berlin, 1894.

_Grammaire historique de la langue des Félibres_. Greifswald and Paris, 1894.

A study of Bertuch's translation of Nerto in the _Litteraturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie_. 1892.

A study of Provençal phonetics with a translation of the _Cant dóu Soulèu. Sonderabdruck aus der Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Litteratur_. Berlin, 1893.

SCHNEIDER, B., _Bemerkungen zur litterarischen Bewegung auf neuprovenzalischem Sprachgebiete_. Berlin, 1887.

WELTER, N., _Frederi Mistral, der Dichter der Provence_. Marburg, 1899.[18]

_Italy_

LICER, MARIA, _I Felibri_, in the _Roma letteraria_. June, 1893.

PORTAL, E., _Appunti letterari: Sulla poesia provenzale_. Pedone, Palermo, 1890.

_La Letteratura provenzale moderna_. Reber, Palermo, 1893.

_Scritti vari di letteratura classica provenzale moderna_. Reber, Palermo, 1895.

RESTORI, A., _Letteratura provenzale_. Hoepli, Milan, 1892.

ZUCCARO, L., _Un avvenimento letterario; Mistral tragico in the Scena illustrata_. Florence, 1891.

_Il Felibrigio, rinascimento delle lettere provenzali, Concordia_. Novara, 1892.

_Spain_

TUBINO, _Historia del renacimiento literario contemporaneo en Cataluña, Baleares y Valencia_. Madrid, 1881.

MISTRAL'S WORKS

Mirèio. 1859.

Calendau. Avignon, 1867. Paris, Lemerre, 1887.

Lis Isclo d'Or. 1876.

Nerto. Hachette, Paris, 1884.

Lou Tresor dóu Fébrige. Aix, 1886.

La Rèino Jano. Lemerre, Paris, 1890.

Lou Pouèmo dóu Rose. Lemerre, Paris, 1897.

TRANSLATIONS OF MISTRAL'S WORKS

H. GRANT, _An English Version of F. Mistral's Mirèio from the Original Provençal_. London.

HARRIETT PRESTON, _Mistral's Mirèio. A Provençal Poem Translated_. Roberts Bros., Boston, 1872. Second edition, 1891.

A. BERTUCH, _Der Trommler von Arcole_. Deutsche Dichtung, Dresden, 1890.

_Nerto_. Trübner, Strassburg, 1890.

_Mirèio_. Trübner, Strassburg, 1892.

_Espouscado_. Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Litteratur, XV2, p. 267.

HENNION, _Mireille_. Traduction en vers français.

E. RIGAUD, _Mireille_. Metrical translation into French, with the original form of stanza.

JAROSLAV VRCHLICHKY. Translation of several poems of Mistral into Bohemian, under the title, _Z básni Mistralovych_, in the Review, _Kvety_. Prague, 1886.

_Hostem u Basniku_. Prague, 1891. Contains seven poems by Aubanel and thirteen by Mistral.

DOM SIGISMOND BOUSKA, _Le Tambour d'Arcole_, in the Review, _Lumir_. Prague, 1893.

Cantos IV and V of _Mirèio_, in the Review, _Vlast_. Prague, 1894.

PELAY BOIZ, _Mirèio_, in Catalan.

ROCA Y ROCA, _Calendau_. Lo Gay Saber, Barcelona, 1868.

C. BARALLAT Y FALGUERA, _Mireya, poema provenzal de Frederico Mistral puesto en prosa española_.

MARIA LICER, _L'Angelo_ (Canto VI of _Nerto_). Italian. Iride, Casal, 1889.

A. NAUM, _Traduceri_. Jassy, 1891. (Translation into Rumanian of

## Canto IV of _Mirèio_, _The Song of Magali_, and _The Drummer

of Arcole_.)

T. CANNIZZARO, _La Venere d'Arli_, in _Vita Intima_. Milan, 1891.

[Footnote 18: The present work was completed in manuscript before the reception of Welter's book.]

INDEX

Aasen, Ivan, 94. Alexandrine verse, 78, 89. Alpilles, 11. Amiradou, 76, 196. Arène, Paul, 21, 234. Ariosto, 20, 151. Armana prouvençau, 17, 28. Aubanel, Théodore, 15, 17, 21, 36, 88, 233. Aucassin and Nicolette, 170.

Balageur, Victor, 31, 32. Bello d'Avoust, 184. Berluc-Pérussis, 33. Boileau, 102. Bonaparte-Wyse, 31, 33. Bornier, Henri de, 33. Bréal, Michel, 34, 72. Brunet, Jean, 16. Brunetière, 79, 249. Byron, 250.

Calendau, 18, 79, 127. Capoulié, 19, 35, 36. Catalans, 31. Cigale. Société de la, 20, 33. Countess, the, 199. Cup, 31, 32, 190.

Dante, 40, 73, 130, 133, 160, 248. Darmesteter, 41. Daudet, 9, 21, 69, 152, 240 _seq._ Dictionary of the Provençal language, 20, 92. Drac, 165 _seq._ Drummer of Arcole, 78, 204.

Espouscado, 194. Evangeline, 122.

Faust, 248. Félibre, 5, 27. Félibrige, 24 _seq._ Félibrige de Paris, 16, 20, 33. Félibrige, foundation of, 15. Félibrige organized, 19, 34. Fin dón Meissounié, 186. Floral games, 20, 32, 35. Font-Ségugne, 17. Fourès Auguste, 37.

Garcin, Eugène, 15. Giéra, Paul, 15. Goethe, 123. Gounod, 18. Gras, Félix, 36, 37, 38. Grévy, 20.

Homer, 13, 123. Hugo, Victor, 79, 138, 181, 203.

Isclo d'Or, 19, 181.

Janvier, Mrs. Thomas A., 38. Jasmin, 6, 14, 29, 43, 73, 193. Jeanroy, 27. Jourdanne, 24, 37.

Koschwitz, 49.

Lamartine, 17, 29, 103, 130, 181, 182, 183, 204. Landor, Walter Savage, 213, 214. Latin race, 30, 191, 193. Legouvé, 20. Lemaître, Jules, 232. Leopardi, 250. Lintilhac, Eugène, 72. Littré, 94. Longfellow, 6.

Maillane, 10, 12. Marot, 81. Mary, Queen of Scots, 213, 217. Mas, 11. Mathieu, Anselme, 13, 16, 21, 26. Meissoun, 14. Meyer, Paul, 33. Mila y Fontanals, 34. Mirabeau, 131, 243. Mirèio, 12, 17, 28, 79, 99. Mistral's marriage, 19. Mistral's Memoirs, 21. Mont-Ventoux, 148. Museum of Arles, 21. Musset, 181.

Napoleon, 164. Nerto, 20, 151. Noulet, 43.

Paris, Gaston, 34, 69,115. Petrarch, 18, 19, 33, 34, 36, 73, 148, 220. Poem of the Rhone, 21, 76, 89, 159. Political separatism, 15. Prègo-Diéu 84, 204, 205 _seq._, 239. Provençal language, 43, 191 _seq._ Psalm of Penitence, 84, 182, 200 _seq._, 239, 253.

Queens of the Félibrige, 36.

Rèino Jano, 21, 89, 212. Rock of Sisyphus, 193, 208. Ronsard, 211. Roumanille, 7, 9, 14, 15, 17, 21, 26, 30, 36, 70.

Saboly, 6. Sainte-Beuve, 6. Saint-Rémy, 7, 10. Simon de Montfort, 37. Songs, 189. Sonnets of Mistral, 86.

Tartarin, 69, 230, 240. Tavan, Alphonse, 15, Translation, 87, 89, 178, 247. Tresor dón Felibrige, 20, 92. Troubadours, 40, 44, 87, 112, 132, 147, 225, 251.

Versification, 75. Villemain, 29. Virgil, 13. Voltaire, 221.

End of Project Gutenberg's Frédéric Mistral, by Charles Alfred Downer