Frédéric Mistral / Poet and Leader in Provence

by Charles Alfred Downer

When Apian's fleet comes down the river and passes the spot where the little maid seeks for gold, the men see her and invite her on board. She will go down to Beaucaire to sell her findings. Jean Roche offers himself in marriage, but she will have none of him; she loves the vision seen beneath the waves. When the Anglore spies the blond-haired Prince, she turns pale and nearly swoons. "'Tis he, 'tis he!" she cries, and she stands fascinated. William, charmed with the little maid, says to her, "I recognize thee, O Rhone flower, blooming on the water—flower of good omen that I saw in a dream." The little maid calls him Drac, identifies the flower in his hand, and lives on in this hallucination. The boatmen consider that she has lost her reason, and say she must have drunk of the fountain of Tourne. The little maid hears them, and bids them speak low, for their fate is written at the fountain of Tourne; and like a Sibyl, raising her bare arm, she describes the mysterious carvings on the rock, and the explanation given by a witch she knew. These carvings, according to Mistral's note, were dedicated to the god Mithra. The meaning given by the witch is that the day the Drac shall leave the river Rhone forever, that day the boatmen shall perish. The men do not laugh, for they have already heard of the great boats that can make their way against the current without horses. Apian breaks out into furious imprecations against the men who would ruin the thousands that depend for their living upon the river. One is struck by this introduction of a question of political economy into a poem.

During the journey to Avignon the Prince falls more and more in love with the little Anglore, whom no sort of evidence can shake out of her belief that the Prince is the Drac, for the Drac can assume any form at pleasure. Her delusion is so complete, so naïve, that the prince, romantic by nature, is entirely under the spell.

There come on board three Venetian women, who possess the secret of a treasure, twelve golden statues of the Apostles buried at Avignon. The Prince leaves the boat to help them find the place, and the little maid suffers intensely the pangs of jealousy. But he comes back to her, and takes her all about the great fair at Beaucaire. That night, however, he wanders out alone, and while calling to mind the story of Aucassin and Nicolette, he is sandbagged, but not killed. The Anglore believes he has left his human body on the ground so as to visit his caverns beneath the Rhone. William seems unhurt, and at the last dinner before they start to go up the river again, surrounded by the crew, he makes them a truly Felibrean speech:—

"Do you know, friends, to whom I feel like consecrating our last meal in Beaucaire? To the patriots of the Rhodanian shores, to the dauntless men who, in olden days, maintained themselves in the strong castle that stands before our eyes, to the dwellers along the riverbanks who defended so valiantly their customs, their free trade, and their great free Rhone. If the sons of those forefathers who fell bravely in the strife, to-day have forgotten their glory, well, so much the worse for the sons! But you, my mates, you who have preserved the call, Empire! and who, like the brave men you are, will soon go and defend the Rhone in its very life, fighting your last battle with me, a stranger, but enraptured and intoxicated with the light of your Rhone, come, raise your glasses to the cause of the vanquished!"

The love scenes between the Prince and the Anglore continue during the journey up the river. Her devotion to him is complete; she knows not whither she goes, if to perish, then let it be with him. In a moment of enthusiasm William makes a passionate declaration.

"Trust me, Anglore, since I have freely chosen thee, since thou hast brought me thy deep faith in the beautiful wonders of the fable, since thou art she who, without thought, yields to her love, as wax melts in the sun, since thou livest free of all our bonds and shams, since in thy blood, in thy pure bosom, lies the renewal of the old sap, I, on my faith as a Prince, I swear to thee that none but me, O my Rhone flower, shall have the happiness to pluck thee as a flower of love and as a wife!"

But this promise is never kept. One day the boats meet the steamer coming down the river. Apian, pale and silent, watches the magic bark whose wheels beat like great paws, and, raising great waves, come down steadily upon him.

The captain cries, "One side!" but, obstinate and angry, Apian tries to force the steamer to give way. The result is disastrous. The steamer catches in the towing cables and drags the horses into the water. The boats drift back and are hurled against a bridge. William and the Anglore are thrown into the river and are lost. All the others escape with their lives. Jean Roche is not sure but that he was the Drac after all, who, foreseeing the shipwreck, had thus followed the boats, to carry the Anglore at last down into the depths of the river. Maître Apian accepts his ruin philosophically. Addressing his men, he says: "Ah, my seven boats! my splendid draught horses! All gone, all ruined! It is the end of the business! Poor fellow-boatmen, you may well say, 'good-by to a pleasant life.' To-day the great Rhone has died, as far as we are concerned."

The idea of the poem is, then, to tell of the old life on the Rhone. To-day the river flows almost as in the days when its shores were untrod by men. Rarely is any sort of boat seen upon its swift and dangerous current. Mistral portrays the life he knew, and he has done it with great power and vividness. The fanciful tale of the Prince and the Anglore, suggested by the beliefs and superstitions of the humble folk, was introduced, doubtless, as a necessary love story. The little maid Anglore, half mad in her illusion, is none the less a very sympathetic creation, and surely quite original. This tale, however, running through the poem like a thread, is not the poem, nor does it fill proportionately a large place therein. The poem is, as its title proclaims, the Poem of the Rhone, a poem of sincere regret for the good old days when the muscular sons of Condrieu ruled the stream, the days of jollity, of the curious boating tournaments of which one is described in Calendau, when the children used to watch the boats go by with a Condrillot at the helm, and the Rhone was swarming like a mighty beehive. The poet notes in sorrow that all is dead. The river flows on, broad and silent, and no vestige of all its past activity remains, but here and there a trace of the cables that used to rub along the stones.