{3} The following was his impromptu to the savants of Toulouse, 4th
July, 1840:--

 "Oh, bon Dieu! que de gloire!  Oh, bon Dieu! que d'honneurs!
 Messieurs, ce jour pour ma Muse est bien doux;
 Mais maintenant, d'etre quitte j'ai perdu l'esperance:
     Car je viens, plus fier que jamais,
     Vous payer ma reconnaissance,
     Et je m'endette que plus!"

{4} This is the impromptu, given on the 5th July, 1840:

 "Toulouse m'a donne un beau bouquet d'honneur;
 Votre festin, amis, en est une belle fleur;
 Aussi, clans les plaisirs de cette longue fete,
     Quand je veux remercier de cela,
 Je poursuis mon esprit pour ne pas etre en reste
 Ici, l'esprit me nait et tombe de mon coeur!"

{5} 'Causeries du Lundi,' iv. 240 (edit. 1852).

{6} "La politesse du coeur," a French expression which can scarcely be
translated into English; just as "gentleman" has no precise equivalent
in French.



CHAPTER XI. JASMIN'S VISIT TO PARIS.

Jasmin had been so often advised to visit Paris and test his powers
there, that at length he determined to proceed to the capital of France.
It is true, he had been eulogized in the criticisms of Sainte-Beuve,
Leonce de Lavergne, Charles Nodier, and Charles de Mazade; but he
desired to make the personal acquaintance of some of these illustrious
persons, as well as to see his son, who was then settled in Paris. It
was therefore in some respects a visit of paternal affection as well as
literary reputation. He set out for Paris in the month of May 1842.

Jasmin was a boy in his heart and feelings, then as always. Indeed, he
never ceased to be a boy--in his manners, his gaiety, his artlessness,
and his enjoyment of new pleasures.

What a succession of wonders to him was Paris--its streets, its
boulevards, its Tuileries, its Louvre, its Arc de Triomphe--reminding
him of the Revolution and the wars of the first Napoleon.

Accompanied by his son Edouard, he spent about a week in visiting the
most striking memorials of the capital. They visited together the Place
de la Concorde, the Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame, the Madeleine, the
Champs Elysees, and most of the other sights. At the Colonne Vendome,
Jasmin raised his head, looked up, and stood erect, proud of the glories
of France. He saw all these things for the first time, but they had long
been associated with his recollections of the past.

There are "country cousins" in Paris as well as in London. They are
known by their dress, their manners, their amazement at all they see.
When Jasmin stood before the Vendome Column, he extended his hand as if
he were about to recite one of his poems. "Oh, my son," he exclaimed,
"such glories as these are truly magnificent!" The son, who was
familiar with the glories, was rather disposed to laugh. He desired, for
decorum's sake, to repress his father's exclamations. He saw the people
standing about to hear his father's words. "Come," said the young man,
"let us go to the Madeleine, and see that famous church." "Ah, Edouard,"
said Jasmin, "I can see well enough that you are not a poet; not you
indeed!"

During his visit, Jasmin wrote regularly to his wife and friends at
Agen, giving them his impressions of Paris. His letters were full of
his usual simplicity, brightness, boyishness, and enthusiasm. "What
wonderful things I have already seen," he said in one of his letters,
"and how many more have I to see to-morrow and the following days. M.
Dumon, Minister of Public Works" (Jasmin's compatriot and associate at
the Academy of Agen), "has given me letters of admission to Versailles,
Saint-Cloud, Meudon in fact, to all the public places that I have for so
long a time been burning to see and admire."

After a week's tramping about, and seeing the most attractive sights of
the capital, Jasmin bethought him of his literary friends and critics.
The first person he called upon was Sainte-Beuve, at the Mazarin
Library, of which he was director. "He received me like a brother," said
Jasmin, "and embraced me. He said the most flattering things about
my Franconnette, and considered it an improvement upon L'Aveugle.
'Continue,' he said, 'my good friend' and you will take a place in the
brightest poetry of our epoch.' In showing me over the shelves in the
Library containing the works of the old poets, which are still read and
admired, he said, 'Like them, you will never die.'"

Jasmin next called upon Charles Nodier and Jules Janin. Nodier was
delighted to see his old friend, and after a long conversation, Jasmin
said that "he left him with tears in his eyes." Janin complimented him
upon his works, especially upon his masterly use of the Gascon language.
"Go on," he said, "and write your poetry in the patois which always
appears to me so delicious. You possess the talent necessary for the
purpose; it is so genuine and rare."

The Parisian journals mentioned Jasmin's appearance in the capital; the
most distinguished critics had highly approved of his works; and before
long he became the hero of the day. The modest hotel in which he stayed
during his visit, was crowded with visitors. Peers, ministers, deputies,
journalists, members of the French Academy, came to salute the author of
the 'Papillotos.'

The proprietor of the hotel began to think that he was entertaining some
prince in disguise--that he must have come from some foreign court
to negotiate secretly some lofty questions of state. But when he was
entertained at a banquet by the barbers and hair-dressers of Paris,
the opinions of "mine host" underwent a sudden alteration. He informed
Jasmin's son that he could scarcely believe that ministers of state
would bother themselves with a country peruke-maker! The son laughed; he
told the maitre d'hotel that his bill would be paid, and that was all he
need to care for.

Jasmin was not, however, without his detractors. Even in his own
country, many who had laughed heartily and wept bitterly while listening
to his voice, feared lest they might have given vent to their emotions
against the legitimate rules of poetry. Some of the Parisian critics
were of opinion that he was immensely overrated. They attributed the
success of the Gascon poet to the liveliness of the southerners, who
were excited by the merest trifles; and they suspected that Jasmin,
instead of being a poet, was but a clever gasconader, differing only
from the rest of his class by speaking in verse instead of prose.

Now that Jasmin was in the capital, his real friends, who knew his
poetical powers, desired him to put an end to these prejudices by
reciting before a competent tribunal some of his most admired verses. He
would have had no difficulty in obtaining a reception at the Tuileries.
He had already received several kind favours from the Duke and Duchess
of Orleans while visiting Agen. The Duke had presented him with a ring
set in brilliants, and the Duchess had given him a gold pin in the shape
of a flower, with a fine pearl surrounded by diamonds, in memory of
their visit. It was this circumstance which induced him to compose his
poem 'La Bago et L'Esplingo' (La Bague et L'Epingle) which he dedicated
to the Duchess of Orleans.

But Jasmin aimed higher than the Royal family. His principal desire
was to attend the French Academy; but as the Academy did not permit
strangers to address their meetings, Jasmin was under the necessity of
adopting another method. The Salons were open.

M. Leonce de Lavergne said to him: "You are now classed among our French
poets; give us a recitation in Gascon." Jasmin explained that he
could not give his reading before the members of the Academy. "That
difficulty," said his friend, "can soon be got over: I will arrange for
a meeting at the salon of one of our most distinguished members."

It was accordingly arranged that Jasmin should give a reading at the
house of M. Augustin Thierry, one of the greatest of living historians.
The elite of Parisian society were present on the occasion, including
Ampere, Nizard, Burnouf, Ballanche, Villemain, and many distinguished
personages of literary celebrity.

A word as to Jasmin's distinguished entertainer, M. Augustin Thierry. He
had written the 'History of the Conquest of England by the Normans'--an
original work of great value, though since overshadowed by the more
minute 'History of the Norman Conquest,' by Professor Freeman. Yet
Thierry's work is still of great interest, displaying gifts of the
highest and rarest kind in felicitous combination. It shows the careful
plodding of the antiquary, the keen vision of the man of the world,
the passionate fervour of the politician, the calm dignity of the
philosophic thinker, and the grandeur of the epic poet. Thierry
succeeded in exhuming the dry bones of history, clothing them for us
anew, and presenting almost visibly the "age and body of the times" long
since passed away.

Thierry had also written his 'Narratives of the Merovingian Times,' and
revived almost a lost epoch in the early history of France. In
writing out these and other works--the results of immense labour and
research--he partly lost his eyesight. He travelled into Switzerland and
the South of France in the company of M. Fauriel. He could read no
more, and towards the end of the year the remains of his sight entirely
disappeared. He had now to read with the eyes of others, and to dictate
instead of writing. In his works he was assisted by the friendship of M.
Armand Carrel, and the affection and judgment of his loving young wife.

He proceeded with courage, and was able to complete the fundamental
basis of the two Frankish dynasties. He was about to follow his
investigations into the history of the Goths, Huns, and Vandals, and
other races which had taken part in the dismemberment of the empire.
"However extended these labours," he says,{1} "my complete blindness
could not have prevented my going through them; I was resigned as much
as a courageous man can be: I had made a friendship with darkness.
But other trials came: acute sufferings and the decline of my health
announced a nervous disease of the most serious kind. I was obliged to
confess myself conquered, and to save, if it was still time, the last
remains of my health."

The last words of Thierry's Autobiographical Preface are most touching.
"If, as I delight in thinking, the interest of science is counted in the
number of great national interests, I have given my country all that the
soldier mutilated on the field of battle gives her. Whatever may be the
fate of my labours, this example I hope will not be lost. I would wish
it to serve to combat the species of moral weakness which is the disease
of the present generation; to bring back into the straight road of life
some of those enervated souls that complain of wanting faith, that know
not what to do, and seek everywhere, without finding it, an object of
worship and admiration. Why say, with so much bitterness, that in
this world, constituted as it is, there is no air for all lungs, no
employment for all minds? Is there not opportunity for calm and serious
study? and is not that a refuge, a hope, a field within the reach of
all of us? With it, evil days are passed over without their weight being
felt; every one can make his own destiny; every one can employ his
life nobly. This is what I have done, and would do again if I had to
recommence my career: I would choose that which has brought me to
where I am. Blind, and suffering without hope, and almost without
intermission, I may give this testimony, which from me will not appear
suspicious; there is something in this world better than sensual
enjoyments, better than fortune, better than health itself: it is
devotion to science."


Endnotes for Chapter XI.

{1} Autobiographical Preface to the 'Narratives of the Merovingian
Times.'



CHAPTER XII. JASMIN'S RECITATIONS IN PARIS.

It was a solemn and anxious moment for Jasmin when he appeared before
this select party of the most distinguished literary men in Paris: he
was no doubt placed at a considerable disadvantage, for his judges did
not even know his language. He had frequently recited to audiences who
did not know Gascon; and on such occasions he used, before commencing
his recitation, to give in French a short sketch of his poem, with, an
explanation of some of the more difficult Gascon words. This was all;
his mimic talent did the rest. His gestures were noble and well-marked.
His eyes were flashing, but they became languishing when he represented
tender sentiments. Then his utterance changed entirely, often suddenly,
following the expressions of grief and joy. There were now smiles, now
tears in his voice.

It was remarkable that Jasmin should first recite before the blind
historian The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille. It may be that he thought it
his finest poem, within the compass of time allotted to him, and that it
might best please his audience. When he began to speak in Gascon he was
heard with interest. A laugh was, indeed, raised by a portion of his
youthful hearers, but Jasmin flashed his penetrating eye upon them; and
there was no more laughter. When he reached the tenderest part he gave
way to his emotion, and wept. Tears are as contagious as smiles; and
even the academicians, who may not have wept with Rachel, wept with
Jasmin. It was the echo of sorrow to sorrow; the words which blind
despair had evoked from the blind Margaret.

All eyes were turned to Thierry as Jasmin described the girl's
blindness. The poet omitted some of the more painful lines, which
might have occasioned sorrow to his kind entertainer. These lines, for
instance, in Gascon:

 "Jour per aoutres, toutjour! et per jou, malhurouzo,
 Toutjour ney! toutjour ney!
 Que fay negre len d'el!  Oh! que moun amo es tristo!
 Oh! que souffri, moun Diou!  Couro ben doun, Batisto!"

or, as translated by Longfellow:

 "Day for the others ever, but for me
 For ever night! for ever night!
 When he is gone, 'tis dark! my soul is sad!
 I suffer! O my God! come, make me glad."

When Jasmin omitted this verse, Thierry, who had listened with rapt
attention, interrupted him. "Poet," he said, "you have omitted a
passage; read the poem as you have written it." Jasmin paused, and then
added the omitted passage. "Can it be?" said the historian: "surely
you, who can describe so vividly the agony of those who cannot see, must
yourself have suffered blindness!" The words of Jasmin might have been
spoken by Thierry himself, who in his hours of sadness often said, "I
see nothing but darkness today."

At the end of his recital Jasmin was much applauded. Ampere, who had
followed him closely in the French translation of his poem, said:
"If Jasmin had never written verse, it would be worth going a hundred
leagues to listen to his prose." What charmed his auditors most was his
frankness. He would even ask them to listen to what he thought his best
verses. "This passage," he would say, "is very fine." Then he read it
afresh, and was applauded. He liked to be cheered. "Applaud! applaud!"
he said at the end of his reading, "the clapping of your hands will be
heard at Agen."

After the recitation an interesting conversation took place. Jasmin
was asked how it was that he first began to write poetry; for every one
likes to know the beginnings of self-culture. He thereupon entered
into a brief history of his life; how he had been born poor; how his
grandfather had died at the hospital; and how he had been brought up
by charity. He described his limited education and his admission to the
barber's shop; his reading of Florian; his determination to do something
of a similar kind; his first efforts, his progress, and eventually his
success. He said that his object was to rely upon nature and truth, and
to invest the whole with imagination and sensibility--that delicate
touch which vibrated through all the poems he had written. His auditors
were riveted by his sparkling and brilliant conversation.

This seance at M. Thierry's completed the triumph of Jasmin at Paris.
The doors of the most renowned salons were thrown open to him. The most
brilliant society in the capital listened to him and feted him. Madame
de Remusat sent him a present of a golden pen, with the words: "I admire
your beautiful poetry; I never forget you; accept this little gift as
a token of my sincere admiration." Lamartine described Jasmin, perhaps
with some exaggeration, as the truest and most original of modern poets.

Much of Jasmin's work was no doubt the result of intuition, for "the
poet is born, not made." He was not so much the poet of art as of
instinct. Yet M. Charles de Mazede said of him: "Left to himself,
without study, he carried art to perfection." His defect of literary
education perhaps helped him, by leaving him to his own natural
instincts. He himself said, with respect to the perusal of books: "I
constantly read Lafontaine, Victor Hugo, Lamartine and Beranger." It is
thus probable that he may have been influenced to a considerable extent
by his study of the works of others.

Before Jasmin left Paris he had the honour of being invited to visit the
royal family at the palace of Neuilly, a favourite residence of Louis
Philippe. The invitation was made through General de Rumigny, who came
to see the poet at his hotel for the purpose. Jasmin had already made
the acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, while at Agen a few
years before. His visit to Neuilly was made on the 24th of May, 1842. He
was graciously received by the royal family. The Duchess of Orleans
took her seat beside him. She read the verse in Gascon which had been
engraved on the pedestal of the statue at Nerac, erected to the
memory of Henry IV. The poet was surprised as well as charmed by her
condescension. "What, Madame," he exclaimed, "you speak the patois?"
"El jou tabe" (and I also), said Louis Philippe, who came and joined the
Princess and the poet. Never was Jasmin more pleased than when he heard
the words of the King at such a moment.

Jasmin was placed quite at his ease by this gracious reception. The King
and the Duchess united in desiring him to recite some of his poetry.
He at once complied with their request, and recited his Caritat
and L'Abuglo ('The Blind Girl'). After this the party engaged in
conversation. Jasmin, by no means a courtier, spoke of the past, of
Henry IV., and especially of Napoleon--"L'Ampereur," as he described
him. Jasmin had, in the first volume of his 'Papillotos,' written some
satirical pieces on the court and ministers of Louis Philippe. His
friends wished him to omit these pieces from the new edition of his
works, which was about to be published; but he would not consent to do
so. "I must give my works," he said, "just as they were composed; their
suppression would be a negation of myself, and an act of adulation
unworthy of any true-minded man." Accordingly they remained in the
'Papillotos.'

Before he left the royal party, the Duchess of Orleans presented Jasmin
with a golden pin, ornamented with pearls and diamonds; and the
King afterwards sent him, as a souvenir of his visit to the Court, a
beautiful gold watch, ornamented with diamonds. Notwithstanding the
pleasure of this visit, Jasmin, as with a prophetic eye, saw the marks
of sorrow upon the countenance of the King, who was already experiencing
the emptiness of human glory. Scarcely had Jasmin left the palace when
he wrote to his friend Madame de Virens, at Agen: "On that noble face
I could see, beneath the smile, the expression of sadness; so that from
to-day I can no longer say: 'Happy as a King.'"

Another entertainment, quite in contrast with his visit to the King, was
the banquet which Jasmin received from the barbers and hair-dressers of
Paris. He there recited the verses which he had written in their honour.
M. Boisjoslin{1} says that half the barbers of Paris are Iberiens. For
the last three centuries, in all the legends and anecdotes, the barber
is always a Gascon. The actor, the singer, often came from Provence, but
much oftener from Gascony: that is the country of la parole.

During Jasmin's month at Paris he had been unable to visit many of
the leading literary men; but he was especially anxious to see M.
Chateaubriand, the father of modern French literature. Jasmin was
fortunate in finding Chateaubriand at home, at 112 Rue du Bac. He
received Jasmin with cordiality. "I know you intimately already," said
the author of the 'Genius of Christianity;' "my friends Ampere and
Fauriel have often spoken of you. They understand you, they love and
admire you. They acknowledge your great talent,' though they have long
since bade their adieu to poetry; you know poets are very wayward," he
added, with a sly smile. "You have a happy privilege, my dear sir:
when our age turns prosy, you have but to take your lyre, in the sweet
country of the south, and resuscitate the glory of the Troubadours. They
tell me, that in one of your recent journeys you evoked enthusiastic
applause, and entered many towns carpeted with flowers. Ah, mon Dieu, we
can never do that with our prose!"

"Ah, dear sir," said Jasmin, "you have achieved much more glory than I.
Without mentioning the profound respect with which all France regards
you, posterity and the world will glorify you."

"Glory, indeed," replied Chateaubriand, with a sad smile. "What is that
but a flower that fades and dies; but speak to me of your sweet south;
it is beautiful. I think of it, as of Italy; indeed it sometimes seems
to me better than that glorious country!"

Notwithstanding his triumphant career at Paris, Jasmin often thought
of Agen, and of his friends and relations at home. "Oh, my wife, my
children, my guitar, my workshop, my papillotos, my pleasant Gravier, my
dear good friends, with what pleasure I shall again see you." That was
his frequent remark in his letters to Agen. He was not buoyed up by the
praises he had received. He remained, as usual, perfectly simple in his
thoughts, ways, and habits; and when the month had elapsed, he returned
joyfully to his daily work at Agen.

Jasmin afterwards described the recollections of his visit in his
'Voyage to Paris' (Moun Bouyatage a Paris). It was a happy piece of
poetry; full of recollections of the towns and departments through which
he journeyed, and finally of his arrival in Paris. Then the wonders of
the capital, the crowds in the streets, the soldiers, the palaces, the
statues and columns, the Tuileries where the Emperor had lived.

 "I pass, and repass, not a soul I know,
 Not one Agenais in this hurrying crowd;
 No one salutes or shakes me by the hand."

And yet, he says, what a grand world it is! how tasteful! how
fashionable! There seem to be no poor. They are all ladies and
gentlemen. Each day is a Sabbath; and under the trees the children
play about the fountains. So different from Agen! He then speaks of
his interview with Louis Philippe and the royal family, his recital
of L'Abuglo before "great ladies, great writers, lords, ministers, and
great savants;" and he concludes his poem with the words: "Paris makes
me proud, but Agen makes me happy."

The poem is full of the impressions of his mind at the time--simple,
clear, naive. It is not a connected narrative, nor a description of what
he saw, but it was full of admiration of Paris, the centre of France,
and, as Frenchmen think, of civilisation. It is the simple wonder of the
country cousin who sees Paris for the first time--the city that had so
long been associated with his recollections of the past. And perhaps he
seized its more striking points more vividly than any regular denizen of
the capital.


Endnotes for Chapter XII.

{1} 'Les Peuples de la France: Ethnographie Nationale.' (Didier.)



CHAPTER XIII. JASMIN AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS.

Jasmin's visit to Paris in 1842 made his works more extensively known,
both at home and abroad. His name was frequently mentioned in the
Parisian journals, and Frenchmen north of the Loire began to pride
themselves on their Gascon poet. His Blind Girl had been translated into
English, Spanish, and Italian. The principal English literary journal,
the Athenaeum, called attention to his works a few months after his
appearance in Paris.{1} The editor introduced the subject in the
following words:

"On the banks of the Garonne, in the picturesque and ancient town of
Agen, there exists at this moment a man of genius of the first order--a
rustic Beranger, a Victor Hugo, a Lamartine--a poet full of fire,
originality, and feeling--an actor superior to any now in France,
excepting Rachel, whom he resembles both in his powers of declamation
and his fortunes. He is not unknown--he is no mute inglorious Milton;
for the first poets, statesmen, and men of letters in France have been
to visit him. His parlour chimney-piece, behind his barber's shop, is
covered with offerings to his genius from royalty and rank. His smiling,
dark-eyed wife, exhibits to the curious the tokens of her husband's
acknowledged merit; and gold and jewels shine in the eyes of the
astonished stranger, who, having heard his name, is led to stroll
carelessly into the shop, attracted by a gorgeous blue cloth hung
outside, on which he may have read the words, Jasmin, Coiffeur."

After mentioning the golden laurels, and the gifts awarded to him by
those who acknowledged his genius, the editor proceeds to mention
his poems in the Gascon dialect--his Souvenirs his Blind Girl and his
Franconnette--and then refers to his personal appearance. "Jasmin is
handsome in person, with eyes full of intelligence, of good features,
a mobility of expression absolutely electrifying, a manly figure and an
agreeable address; but his voice is harmony itself, and its changes have
an effect seldom experienced on or off the stage. The melody attributed
to Mrs. Jordan seems to approach it nearest. Had he been an actor
instead of a poet, he would have 'won all hearts his way'... On the
whole, considering the spirit, taste, pathos, and power of this poet,
who writes in a patois hitherto confined to the lower class of people
in a remote district--considering the effect that his verses have made
among educated persons, both French and foreign, it is impossible not
to look upon him as one of the remarkable characters of his age, and to
award him, as the city of Clemence Isaure has done, the Golden Laurel,
as the first of the revived Troubadours, destined perhaps to rescue his
country from the reproach of having buried her poetry in the graves of
Alain Chartier and Charles of Orleans, four centuries ago."

It is probable that this article in the Athenaeum was written by Miss
Louisa Stuart Costello, who had had an interview with the poet, in his
house at Agen, some years before. While making her tour through Auvergne
and Languedoc in 1840,{2} she states that she picked up three charming
ballads, and was not aware that they had ever been printed. She wrote
them down merely by ear, and afterwards translated Me cal Mouri into
English (see page 57). The ballad was very popular, and was set to
music. She did not then know the name of the composer, but when she
ascertained that the poet was "one Jasmin of Agen," she resolved to go
out of her way and call upon him, when on her journey to the Pyrenees
about two years later.{3} She had already heard much about him before
she arrived, as he was regarded in Gascony as "the greatest poet in
modern times." She had no difficulty in finding his shop at the entrance
to the Promenade du Gravier, with the lines in large gold letters,
"Jasmin, Coiffeur"

Miss Costello entered, and was welcomed by a smiling dark-eyed woman,
who informed her that her husband was busy at that moment dressing a
customer's hair, but begged that she would walk into his parlour at the
back of the shop. Madame Jasmin took advantage of her husband's absence
to exhibit the memorials which he had received for his gratuitous
services on behalf of the public. There was the golden laurel from the
city of Toulouse; the golden cup from the citizens of Auch, the gold
watch with chain and seals from "Le Roi" Louis Philippe, the ring
presented by the Duke of Orleans, the pearl pin from the Duchess, the
fine service of linen presented by the citizens of Pau, with other
offerings from persons of distinction.

At last Jasmin himself appeared, having dressed his customer's hair.
Miss Costello describes his manner as well-bred and lively, and his
language as free and unembarrassed. He said, however, that he was ill,
and too hoarse to read. He spoke in a broad Gascon accent, very
rapidly and even eloquently. He told the story of his difficulties and
successes; how his grandfather had been a beggar, and all his family
very poor, but that now he was as rich as he desired to be. His son,
he said, was placed in a good position at Nantes, and he exhibited his
picture with pride. Miss Costello told him that she had seen his name
mentioned in an English Review. Jasmin said the review had been sent
to him by Lord Durham, who had paid him a visit; and then Miss Costello
spoke of Me cal Mouri, as the first poem of his that she had seen. "Oh,"
said he, "that little song is not my best composition: it was merely my
first."

His heart was now touched. He immediately forgot his hoarseness, and
proceeded to read some passages from his poems. "If I were only well,"
said he, "and you would give me the pleasure of your company for some
time, I would kill you with weeping: I would make you die with distress
for my poor Margarido, my pretty Franconnette." He then took up two
copies of his Las Papillotos, handed one to Miss Costello, where the
translation was given in French, and read from the other in Gascon.

"He began," says the lady, "in a rich soft voice, and as we advanced we
found ourselves carried away by the spell of his enthusiasm. His
eyes swam in tears; he became pale and red; he trembled; he recovered
himself; his face was now joyous, now exulting, gay, jocose; in fact, he
was twenty actors in one; he rang the changes from Rachel to Bouffe;
and he finished by relieving us of our tears, and overwhelming us with
astonishment. He would have been a treasure on the stage; for he is
still, though his youth is past, remarkably good-looking and striking;
with black, sparkling eyes of intense expression; a fine ruddy
complexion; a countenance of wondrous mobility; a good figure, and
action full of fire and grace: he has handsome hands, which he uses with
infinite effect; and on the whole he is the best actor of the kind I
ever saw. I could now quite understand what a Troubadour or jongleur he
might be; and I look upon Jasmin as a revived specimen of that extinct
race."

Miss Costello proceeded on her journey to Bearn and the Pyrenees, and on
her return northwards she again renewed her acquaintance with Jasmin
and his dark-eyed wife. "I did not expect," she says, "that I should be
recognised; but the moment I entered the little shop I was hailed as an
old friend. 'Ah' cried Jasmin, 'enfin la voila encore!' I could not but
be flattered by this recollection, but soon found that it was less on
my own account that I was thus welcomed, than because circumstances had
occurred to the poet that I might perhaps explain. He produced several
French newspapers, in which he pointed out to me an article headed
'Jasmin a Londres,' being a translation of certain notices of
himself which had appeared in a leading English literary journal the
Athenaeum.... I enjoyed his surprise, while I informed him that I knew
who was the reviewer and translator; and explained the reason for the
verses giving pleasure in an English dress, to the superior simplicity
of the English language over modern French, for which he had a great
contempt, as unfitted for lyrical composition.{4} He inquired of me
respecting Burns, to whom he had been likened, and begged me to tell him
something about Moore.

"He had a thousand things to tell me; in particular, that he had only
the day before received a letter from the Duchess of Orleans, informing
him that she had ordered a medal of her late husband to be struck, the
first of which should be sent to him. He also announced the agreeable
news of the King having granted him a pension of a thousand francs. He
smiled and wept by turns as he told all this; and declared that, much as
he was elated at the possession of a sum which made him a rich man for
life (though it was only equal to 42 sterling), the kindness of the
Duchess gratified him still more.

"He then made us sit down while he read us two new poems; both charming,
and full of grace and naivete; and one very affecting, being an address
to the King, alluding, to the death of his son.

"As he read, his wife stood by, and fearing that we did not comprehend
the language, she made a remark to that effect, to which he answered
impatiently, 'Nonsense! don't you see they are in tears?' This was
unanswerable; we were allowed to hear the poem to the end, and I
certainly never listened to anything more feelingly and energetically
delivered.

"We had much conversation, for he was anxious to detain us; and in the
course of it, he told me that he had been by some accused of vanity.
'Oh!' he exclaimed, 'what would you have? I am a child of nature, and
cannot conceal my feelings; the only difference between me and a man of
refinement is, that he knows how to conceal his vanity and exaltation at
success, while I let everybody see my emotions.'

"His wife drew me aside, and asked my opinion as to how much money
it would cost to pay Jasmin's expenses, if he undertook a journey to
England. 'However,' she added, 'I dare say he need be at no charge, for
of course your Queen has read that article in his favour, and knows
his merit. She probably will send for him, pay all the expenses of his
journey, and give him great fetes in London!" Miss Costello, knowing the
difficulty of obtaining Royal recognition of literary merit in England,
unless it appears in forma pauperis, advised the barber-poet to wait
till he was sent for--a very good advice, for then it would be never!
She concludes her recollections with this remark: "I left the happy
pair, promising to let them know the effect that the translation of
Jasmin's poetry produced in the Royal mind. Indeed, their earnest
simplicity was really entertaining."

A contributor to the Westminster Review{5} also gave a very favourable
notice of Jasmin and his poetry, which, he said, was less known in
England than it deserved to be; nor was it well known in France since
he wrote in a patois. Yet he had been well received by some of the most
illustrious men in the capital, where unaided genius, to be successful,
must be genius indeed; and there the Gascon bard had acquired for
himself a fame of which any man might well be proud.

The reviewer said that the Gascon patois was peculiarly expressive
and heart-touching, and in the South it was held in universal honour.
Jasmin, he continued, is what Burns was to the Scottish peasantry; only
he received his honours in his lifetime. The comparison with Burns,
however, was not appropriate. Burns had more pith, vigour, variety,
and passion, than Jasmin who was more of a descriptive writer. In some
respects Jasmin resembled Allan Ramsay, a barber and periwig-maker, like
himself, whose Gentle Shepherd met with as great a success as Jasmin's
Franconnette. Jasmin, however, was the greater poet of the two.

The reviewer in the Westminster, who had seen Jasmin at Agen, goes on
to speak of the honours he had received in the South and at Paris--his
recitations in the little room behind his shop--his personal
appearance, his hearty and simple manners--and yet his disdain of
the mock modesty it would be affectation to assume. The reviewer thus
concludes: "From the first prepossessing, he gains upon you every
moment; and when he is fairly launched into the recital of one of his
poems, his rich voice does full justice to the harmonious Gascon. The
animation and feeling he displays becomes contagious. Your admiration
kindles, and you become involved in his ardour. You forget the little
room in which he recites; you altogether forget the barber, and rise
with him into a superior world, an experience in a way you will never
forget, the power exercised by a true poet when pouring forth his living
thoughts in his own verses....

"Such is Jasmin--lively in imagination, warm in temperament, humorous,
playful, easily made happy, easily softened, enthusiastically fond of
his province, of its heroes, of its scenery, of its language, and of
its manners. He is every inch a Gascon, except that he has none of
that consequential self-importance, or of the love of boasting and
exaggeration, which, falsely or not, is said to characterise his
countrymen.

"Born of the people, and following a humble trade, he is proud of both
circumstances; his poems are full of allusions to his calling; and
without ever uttering a word in disparagment of other classes, he
everywhere sings the praises of his own. He stands by his order. It is
from it he draws his poetry; it is there he finds his romance.

"And this is his great charm, as it is his chief distinction. He invests
virtue, however lowly, with the dignity that belongs to it. He rewards
merit, however obscure, with its due honour. Whatever is true or
beautiful or good, finds from him an immediate sympathy. The true is
never rejected by him because it is commonplace; nor the beautiful
because it is everyday; nor the good because it is not also great. He
calls nothing unclean but vice and crime, He sees meanness in nothing
but in the sham, the affectation, and the spangles of outward show.

"But while it is in exalting lowly excellence that Jasmin takes especial
delight, he is not blind, as some are, to excellence in high places. All
he seeks is the sterling and the real. He recognises the sparkle of the
diamond as well as that of the dewdrop. But he will not look upon paste.

"He is thus pre-eminently the poet of nature; not, be it understood, of
inanimate nature only, but of nature also, as it exists in our thoughts,
and words, and acts of nature as it is to be found living and moving in
humanity. But we cannot paint him so well as he paints himself. We well
remember how, in his little shop at Agen, he described to us what he
believed to be characteristic of his poetry; and we find in a letter
from him to M. Leonce de Lavergne the substance of what he then said to
us:

"'I believe,' he said, 'that I have portrayed a part of the noble
sentiments which men and women may experience here below. I believe
that I have emancipated myself more than anyone has ever done from
every school, and I have placed myself in more direct communication with
nature. My poetry comes from my heart. I have taken my pictures from
around me in the most humble conditions of men; and I have done for my
native language all that I could.'"

A few years later Mr. Angus B. Reach, a well-known author, and a
contributor to Punch in its earlier days, was appointed a commissioner
by the Morning Chronicle to visit, for industrial purposes, the
districts in the South of France. His reports appeared in the Chronicle;
but in 1852, Mr. Reach published a fuller account of his journeys in a
volume entitled 'Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone.'{6}
In passing through the South of France, Mr. Reach stopped at Agen.
"One of my objects," he says, "was to pay a literary visit to a very
remarkable man--Jasmin, the peasant-poet of Provence and Languedoc--the
'Last of the Troubadours,' as, with more truth than is generally to be
found in ad captandum designations, he terms himself, and is termed by
the wide circle of his admirers; for Jasmin's songs and rural epics are
written in the patois of the people, and that patois is the still almost
unaltered Langue d'Oc--the tongue of the chivalric minstrelsy of yore.

"But Jasmin is a Troubadour in another sense than that of merely
availing himself of the tongue of the menestrels. He publishes,
certainly, conforming so far to the usages of our degenerate modern
times; but his great triumphs are his popular recitations of his poems.
Standing bravely up before an expectant assembly of perhaps a couple
of thousand persons--the hot-blooded and quick-brained children of the
South--the modern Troubadour plunges over head and ears into his
lays, evoking both himself and his applauding audiences into fits of
enthusiasm and excitement, which, whatever may be the excellence of the
poetry, an Englishman finds it difficult to conceive or account for.

"The raptures of the New Yorkers and Bostonians with Jenny Lind are
weak and cold compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At
a recitation given shortly before my visit to Auch, the ladies present
actually tore the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them
into extempore garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting
minstrel; while the editors of the local papers next morning assured
him, in floods of flattering epigrams, that humble as he was now, future
ages would acknowledge the 'divinity' of a Jasmin!

"There is a feature, however, about these recitations which is still more
extraordinary than the uncontrollable fits of popular enthusiasm which
they produce. His last entertainment before I saw him was given in one
of the Pyrenean cities, and produced 2,000 francs. Every sous of this
went to the public charities; Jasmin will not accept a stiver of
money so earned. With a species of perhaps overstrained, but certainly
exalted, chivalric feeling, he declines to appear before an audience to
exhibit for money the gifts with which nature has endowed him.

"After, perhaps, a brilliant tour through the South of France,
delighting vast audiences in every city, and flinging many thousands of
francs into every poor-box which he passes, the poet contentedly returns
to his humble occupation, and to the little shop where he earns his
daily bread by his daily toil as a barber and hair-dresser. It will
be generally admitted that the man capable of self-denial of so truly
heroic a nature as this, is no ordinary poetaster.

"One would be puzzled to find a similar instance of perfect and absolute
disinterestedness in the roll of minstrels, from Homer downwards; and,
to tell the truth, there does seem a spice of Quixotism mingled with
and tinging the pure fervour of the enthusiast. Certain it is, that
the Troubadours of yore, upon whose model Jasmin professes to found his
poetry, were by no means so scrupulous. 'Largesse' was a very prominent
word in their vocabulary; and it really seems difficult to assign any
satisfactory reason for a man refusing to live upon the exercise of the
finer gifts of his intellect, and throwing himself for his bread upon
the daily performance of mere mechanical drudgery.

"Jasmin, as may be imagined, is well known in Agen. I was speedily
directed to his abode, near the open Place of the town, and within
earshot of the rush of the Garonne; and in a few moments I found
myself pausing before the lintel of the modest shop inscribed Jasmin,
Perruquier, Coiffeur des jeunes Gens. A little brass basin dangled above
the threshold; and looking through the glass I saw the master of the
establishment shaving a fat-faced neighbour. Now I had come to see and
pay my compliments to a poet, and there did appear to me to be something
strangely awkward and irresistibly ludicrous in having to address,
to some extent, in a literary and complimentary vein, an individual
actually engaged in so excessively prosaic and unelevated a species of
performance.

"I retreated, uncertain what to do, and waited outside until the shop
was clear. Three words explained the nature of my visit, and Jasmin
received me with a species of warm courtesy, which was very peculiar and
very charming; dashing at once, with the most clattering volubility and
fiery speed of tongue, into a sort of rhapsodical discourse upon poetry
in general, and the patois of it, spoken in Languedoc, Provence, and
Gascony in particular.

"Jasmin is a well-built and strongly limbed man of about fifty, with
a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, overhanging two
piercingly bright black-eyes, and features which would be heavy, were
they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of the facial
muscles, sending a never-ending series of varying expressions across
the dark, swarthy visage. Two sentences of his conversation were quite
sufficient to stamp his individuality.

"The first thing which struck me was the utter absence of all the
mock-modesty, and the pretended self-underrating, conventionally assumed
by persons expecting to be complimented upon their sayings or doings.
Jasmin seemed thoroughly to despise all such flimsy hypocrisy. 'God only
made four Frenchmen poets,' he burst out with, 'and their names are,
Corneille, Lafontaine, Beranger, and Jasmin!'

"Talking with the most impassioned vehemence, and the most redundant
energy of gesture, he went on to declaim against the influences of
civilisation upon language and manners as being fatal to all real
poetry. If the true inspiration yet existed upon earth, it burned in the
hearts and brains of men far removed from cities, salons, and the clash
and din of social influences. Your only true poets were the unlettered
peasants, who poured forth their hearts in song, not because they wished
to make poetry, but because they were joyous and true.

"Colleges, academies, schools of learning, schools of literature, and
all such institutions, Jasmin denounced as the curse and the bane of
true poetry. They had spoiled, he said, the very French language. You
could no more write poetry in French now than you could in arithmetical
figures. The language had been licked and kneaded, and tricked out, and
plumed, and dandified, and scented, and minced, and ruled square, and
chipped--(I am trying to give an idea of the strange flood of epithets
he used)--and pranked out, and polished, and muscadined--until, for
all honest purposes of true high poetry, it was mere unavailable and
contemptible jargon.

"It might do for cheating agents de change on the Bourse--for squabbling
politicians in the Chambers--for mincing dandies in the salons--for the
sarcasm of Scribe-ish comedies, or the coarse drolleries of Palais Royal
farces, but for poetry the French language was extinct. All modern
poets who used it were faiseurs de phrase--thinking about words and not
feelings. 'No, no,' my Troubadour continued, 'to write poetry, you must
get the language of a rural people--a language talked among fields,
and trees, and by rivers and mountains--a language never minced or
disfigured by academies and dictionary-makers, and journalists; you
must have a language like that which your own Burns, whom I read of in
Chateaubriand, used; or like the brave, old, mellow tongue--unchanged
for centuries--stuffed with the strangest, quaintest, richest, raciest
idioms and odd solemn words, full of shifting meanings and associations,
at once pathetic and familiar, homely and graceful--the language which
I write in, and which has never yet been defiled by calculating men of
science or jack-a-dandy litterateurs.'" The above sentences may be
taken as a specimen of the ideas with which Jasmin seemed to be actually
overflowing from every pore in his body--so rapid, vehement, and loud
was his enunciation of them. Warming more and more as he went on, he
began to sketch the outlines of his favourite pieces. Every now and
then plunging into recitation, jumping from French into patois, and
from patois into French, and sometimes spluttering them out, mixed up
pell-mell together. Hardly pausing to take breath, he rushed about the
shop as he discoursed, lugging out, from old chests and drawers, piles
of old newspapers and reviews, pointing out a passage here in which the
estimate of the writer pleased him, a passage there which showed how
perfectly the critic had mistaken the scope of his poetic philosophy,
and exclaiming, with the most perfect naivete, how mortifying it was
for men of original and profound genius to be misconceived and
misrepresented by pigmy whipper-snapper scamps of journalists.

"There was one review of his works, published in a London 'Recueil,' as
he called it, to which Jasmin referred with great pleasure. A portion of
it had been translated, he said, in the preface to a French edition of
his works; and he had most of the highly complimentary phrases by
heart. The English critic, he said, wrote in the Tintinum, and he looked
dubiously at me when I confessed that I had never heard of the organ in
question.

"'Pourtant,' he said, 'je vous le ferai voir,' and I soon perceived that
Jasmin's Tintinum was no other than the Athenaeum!

"In the little back drawing-room behind the shop, to which the poet
speedily introduced me, his sister {it must have been his wife}, a meek,
smiling woman, whose eyes never left him, following as he moved with a
beautiful expression of love and pride in his glory, received me
with simple cordiality. The walls were covered with testimonials,
presentations, and trophies, awarded by critics and distinguished
persons, literary and political, to the modern Troubadour. Not a few of
these are of a nature to make any man most legitimately proud. Jasmin
possesses gold and silver vases, laurel branches, snuff-boxes, medals
of honour, and a whole museum of similar gifts, inscribed with such
characteristic and laconiclegends as 'Au Poete, Les Jeunes filles de
Toulouse reconnaissantes!' &c.

"The number of garlands of immortelles, wreaths of ivy-jasmin (punning
upon the name), laurel, and so forth, utterly astonished me. Jasmin
preserved a perfect shrubbery of such tokens; and each symbol had,
of course, its pleasant associative remembrance. One was given by the
ladies of such a town; another was the gift of the prefect's wife of
such a department. A handsome full-length portrait had been presented
to the poet by the municipal authorities of Agen; and a letter from M.
Lamartine, framed, above the chimney-piece, avowed the writer's belief
that the Troubadour of the Garonne was the Homer of the modern world.
M. Jasmin wears the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and has several
valuable presents which were made to him by the late ex-king and
different members of the Orleans family.