CHAPTER XVI
“MIREILLE”
The following year (1856), at the time of the fête of Sainte-Agathe, patroness of Maillane, I received a visit from a well-known poet in Paris. Fate, or rather the good star of the Félibres, brought him just in the propitious hour. It was Adolphe Dumas—a fine figure of a man some fifty years old, of an æsthetic pallor, with long hair turning grey and a brown moustache like a lap-dog. His black eyes were full of fire, and he had a habit of accompanying his ringing voice with a fine waving gesture of the hand. He was tall, but lame, dragging a crippled leg as he walked. He reminded one of a cypress of Provence agitated by the wind.
“Is it you, then, Monsieur Mistral, who write verses in the Provençal?” he began to me in a joking tone as he held out his hand.
“Yes, it is I,” I replied. “At your service, Monsieur.”
“Certainly, I hope that you can serve me. The Minister for Public Instruction, Monsieur Fortoul, of Digne, has given me the commission to come and collect the popular songs of Provence, such as ‘Le Mousse de Marseille,’ ‘La Belle Margoton,’ ‘Les Noces du Papillon,’ and if you know of any, I am here to collect them.”
And talking over this matter I sang to him, as it happened, the serenade of Magali, freshly arranged for the poem of Mireille.
Adolphe Dumas started up all alert.
“But where did you find that pearl?” he cried.
“It is part,” I answered, “of a Provençal poem in twelve cantos to which I am just giving the finishing touches.”
“Oh, these good Provencaux!” he laughed. “You are always the same, determined to keep your tattered language, like the donkeys who will walk along the borders of the roads to graze upon thistles. It is in French, my dear friend, it is in the language of Paris that we must sing of our Provence to-day if we wish to be heard. Now, listen to this: