“‘I am but a bungler. In my poor life I have blackened much paper. But Gaut, Mistral, Crousillat, they who have the fire of youth, will unwind the tangled skein of our Provençal tongue.’”
CHAPTER XII
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We were a set of youthful spirits at that time in Provence, all closely banded together with the object of a literary revival for our national tongue. We went at it heart and soul.
Nearly every Sunday, sometimes at Avignon, sometimes at Maillane, in the gardens of Saint-Rémy or on the heights of Châteauneuf, we met together for our small intimate festivities, our Provençal banquets, at which the poetry was of a finer flavour than the meats, and our enthusiasm intoxicated a good deal more than the wine.
It was on these occasions that Roumanille regaled us with his “Noëls” and “Dreamers” freshly coined from the mint, and that Aubanel, still holding the faith, but tugging at the leading-strings, recited to us his “Massacre of the Innocents.” Mireille also, from time to time, appeared in newly turned-out strophes.
Every year about the Eve of Sainte-Agathe, “the poets,” as they began to call us, assembled at the Judge’s Farm, and there for three days lived the gypsy’s free unfettered life. Sainte-Agathe belongs properly to Sicily, where she is often invoked against the fires of Etna, but in spite of this she receives great devotion from the people of Arles and Maillane, the girls of the village regarding it as a coveted honour to serve as a priestess of her altar, and on the eve of her feast, before opening the dance on the green, the young couples, with their musicians, always commenced by giving a serenade to Sainte-Agathe outside the parish church. We, with the other gallants of the countryside, also went to pay our respects to the patroness of Maillane.
It is a curious thing, this homage offered to dead and gone saints, throughout the length and breadth of the land, in the north even as in the south, and continuing uninterruptedly for centuries upon centuries. What a passing and ephemeral thing in comparison is the fame and homage awarded to the poet, artist, scholar, or even warrior, remembered as they are by only a few admirers. Victor Hugo himself will never attain the fame of even the least saint on the calendar; take, for example, Saint-Gent, who for seven hundred years has seen his thousands of faithful flocking annually to his shrine in the mountains. No one more readily than Victor Hugo recognised this truth, for, asked one day by a flatterer what glory in this world could excel that which crowned the poet, he answered promptly, “That of the saint.”
Mathieu was in great request at the village dances, and we all watched him with admiration as he danced, now with Villette, now with Gango or Lali, my pretty cousins. In the meadow by the mill took place the wrestling contests, announced by the beating of tambours and presided over by old Jésette, the famous champion of former days, who, marching up and down, pitted one against the other, in strident tones enforcing the rules of the game.
One of us would ask him if he remembered how he had made the wrestler Quéquine, or some other rival, bite the dust, and once started, the old athlete would rehearse with delight his ancient victories, how he floored Bel-Arbre of Aramon, not to mention Rabasson, Creste d’Apt and, above all, Meissonier, the Hercules of Avignon, before whom no one could stand up. Ah, in those days he might truly say he had been invincible! He had gone by the name of the “Little Maillanais”—“the Flexible.”
When our poets’ réunions were at Saint-Rémy we met at the house of Roumanille’s parents, Jean-Denis and Pierrette, well-to-do market-gardeners living on their own land. On these occasions we dined in the open air under the shade of a vine-covered arbour. The best painted plates were had out in our honour, while Zine and Antoinette, the two sisters of our friend, handsome brunettes in their twenties, ministered to our wants and served us with the excellent blanquette they had themselves prepared.