"Which, sir—the baker or the poet?"
"The poet, of course."
"Then the poet cannot be seen until mid-day. At present the baker is working at the oven."
Chateaubriand accordingly retired, but returned at the time appointed, and had a long and interesting conversation with Reboul.
While at Montpellier Jasmin received two letters from Madame Lafarge, then in prison. The circumstances connected with her case were much discussed in the journals of the time. She had married at seventeen a M. Lafarge, and found after her marriage that he had deceived her as to his property. Ill-feeling arose between the unhappy pair, and eventually she was tried for poisoning her husband. She was condemned with extenuating circumstances, and imprisoned at Montpellier in 1839. She declared that she was innocent of the crime imputed to her, and Jasmin's faith in the virtue of womanhood led him to believe her. Her letters to Jasmin were touching.
"Many pens," she said, "have celebrated your genius; let mine touch your heart! Oh, yes, sir, you are good, noble, and generous! I preserve every word of yours as a dear consolation; I guard each of your promises as a holy hope. Voltaire has saved Calas. Sing for me, sir, and I will bless your memory to the day of my death. I am innocent!... For eight long years I have suffered; and I am still suffering from the stain upon my honour. I grieve for a sight of the sun, but I still love life. Sing for me."
She again wrote to Jasmin, endeavouring to excite his interest by her appreciation of his poems.
"The spirit of your work," she said, "vibrates through me in every form. What a pearl of eulogy is Maltro! What a great work is L'Abuglo! In the first of these poems you reach the sublime of love without touching a single chord of passion. What purity, and at the same time what ease and tenderness! It is not only the fever of the heart; it is life itself, its religion, its virtue. This poor innuocento does not live to love; she loves to live.... Her love diffuses itself like a perfume—like the scent of a flower.... In writing Maltro your muse becomes virgin and Christian; and to dictate L'Abuglo is a crown of flowers, violets mingled with roses, like Tibullus, Anacreon, and Horace."
And again: "Poet, be happy; sing in the language of your mother, of your infancy, of your loves, your sorrows. The Gascon songs, revived by you, can never be forgotten. Poet, be happy! The language which you love, France will learn to admire and read, and your brother-poets will learn to imitate you.... Spirit speaks to spirit; genius speaks to the heart. Sing, poet, sing! Envy jeers in vain; your Muse is French; better still, it is Christian, and the laurel at the end of your course has two crowns—one for the forehead of the poet and the other for the heart of the man. Grand actions bring glory; good deeds bring happiness."
Although Jasmin wrote an interesting letter to Madame Lafarge, he did not venture to sing or recite for her relief from prison. She died before him, in 1852.