After Jasmin had completed his masterpieces, he again devoted himself to the cause of charity. Before, he had merely walked; now he soared aloft. What he accomplished will be ascertained in the following pages.
Endnotes for Chapter XV.
{1} The elder Scaliger had been banished from Verona, settled near Agen, and gave the villa its name. The tomb of the Scaliger family in Verona is one of the finest mausoleums ever erected.
{2} Journal de Toulouse, 4th July, 1840.
{3} In the preface to the poem, which was published in 1845, the editor observes:—"This little drama begins in 1798, at Laffitte, a pretty market-town on the banks of the Lot, near Clairac, and ends in 1802. When Martha became an idiot, she ran away from the town to which she belonged, and went to Agen. When seen in the streets of that town she became an object of commiseration to many, but the children pursued her, calling out, 'Martha, a soldier!' Sometimes she disappeared for two weeks at a time, and the people would then observe, 'Martha has hidden herself; she must now be very hungry!' More than once Jasmin, in his childhood, pursued Martha with the usual cry of 'A soldier.' He little thought that at a future time he should make some compensation for his sarcasms, by writing the touching poem of Martha the Innocent; but this merely revealed the goodness of his heart and his exquisite sensibility. Martha died at Agen in 1834."
{4} 'Causeries du Lundi,' iv. 241, edit. 1852.
CHAPTER XVI. THE PRIEST WITHOUT A CHURCH.
The Abbe Masson, priest of Vergt in Perigord, found the church in which he officiated so decayed and crumbling, that he was obliged to close it. It had long been in a ruinous condition. The walls were cracked, and pieces of plaster and even brick fell down upon the heads of the congregation; and for their sake as well as for his own, the Abbe Masson was obliged to discontinue the services. At length he resolved to pull down the ruined building, and erect another church in its place.
Vergt is not a town of any considerable importance. It contains the ruins of a fortress built by the English while this part of France was in their possession. At a later period a bloody battle was fought in the neighbourhood between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Indeed, the whole of the South of France was for a long period disturbed by the civil war which raged between these sections of Christians. Though both Roman Catholics and Protestants still exist at Vergt, they now live together in peace and harmony.